#The Hispagatos Reticulum Relay Chat HQ
#About RRC
Reticulum Relay Chat (RRC) is a live, IRC-style chat system built on top of Reticulum. You connect to a "hub" (server), join rooms, talk, and once you disconnect the conversation carries on without you — no history, no syncing, no central server keeping your messages forever.
Hispagatos HQ runs its own RRC hub (rrcd), so we now have a fully end-to-end encrypted (e2ee) IRC-style chat room running over a mesh network, not over the usual Internet protocols.
#Prerequisites
- Have NomadNet installed and configured. If you don't have it yet, follow the Reticulum and NomadNet guide on this wiki first, before continuing with these steps.
- Connectivity to Hispagatos HQ (via a TCP interface, as explained in the guide above, or any other Reticulum interface that reaches the network).
#1. Go to the Channels tab
From the main NomadNet interface, go to the Channels tab in the top menu (next to Conversations, Network, Log, Interfaces, Config, Guide, Quit).
Note: Channels is where RRC lives — it's a separate tab from Conversations, which is for LXMF messaging (direct and delayed). RRC is live chat, not messaging.
#2. Add a new Hub (Ctrl-N)
If this is the first time you're using Channels, you'll see "No hubs yet. Press Ctrl-N to add one." The shortcut bar at the bottom already shows everything you'll need for this guide:
[C-n] New Hub [C-a] Add Room [C-r] Connect [C-w] Disconnect [C-t] Auto-reconnect [C-e] Edit Hub [C-x] Remove
Press Ctrl-N to open the "New Hub" dialog.
#3. Set the Hispagatos Hub address
In the "New Hub" dialog, fill in:
- Hub address:
8d83c9001040d0cda43296caf920ea8f— this is the destination hash of the Hispagatos HQ hub, not an LXMF identity hash. With this you don't need to figure out or type anything else: NomadNet resolves the rest on its own. - Display name:
Hispagatos HQ
Select < Add > to save it.
#4. The Hub appears in your list
After adding it, "Hispagatos HQ" (or whatever name you gave it) appears in the left panel of Channels. It's not connected yet — the right panel still says "Select or add a hub to begin".
With the hub selected, press Ctrl-R to connect.
#5. Connect and configure the automatic options
Right after connecting, the hub info panel shows AutoRcn: On already, but AutoList: Off and AutoWho: Off — those two are off by default and don't have their own quick key, they can only be changed from the Edit Hub dialog (Ctrl-E to edit), unlike AutoRcn which has its own quick toggle (Ctrl-T to toggle).
Press Ctrl-E to open "Edit Hub" and check all three boxes:
- [X] Auto-reconnect on disconnect — if the link drops, NomadNet reconnects on its own.
- [X] Auto-fetch room list on connect — on connect, automatically requests the hub's public room list (equivalent to sending
/listyourself). - [X] Auto-fetch members on room join — on joining a room, automatically requests the member list (equivalent to
/who).
Select < Save >.
#6. See the room list and join
This doesn't show up in the screenshots above because it happens right after saving, but it's the most important step: with Auto-fetch room list on connect enabled, the next time you connect (or reconnect) to the hub, the hub info panel will show an "Available rooms:" section with all registered public rooms, each with its topic if it has one.
To join a room, just select/click on it — you don't need to type /join by hand. Once you're in, the room shows up under "Joined rooms:" in that same panel, and you can get back into the conversation by clicking on it.
If you want to join a room that isn't in the public list (private, or password-protected with +k), use Ctrl-A ("Add Room") to type the name by hand, plus the key if the room requires one.
Note: If the server's hub identity ever changes, or you reinstall NomadNet, the hub hash (
d83c9001040d0cda43296caf920ea8f) doesn't change — it's Hispagatos HQ's identity, not yours.
Enjoy! A fully end-to-end encrypted IRC-style chat, running over a mesh network and not over the usual Internet protocols.