Meshtastic

Ruby gem for interfacing with Meshtastic nodes / network.

Setting Expectations

This gem was created to support alt-comm capabilities w/in a security research framework known as PWN. Contributors of this effort cannot guarantee full functionality or support for all Meshtastic features.

Objectives

  • Consume the latest Meshtastic Protobof Specs and auto-generate Ruby protobuf modules for Meshtastic using the protoc command: Complete
  • Integrate auto-generated Ruby protobuf modules into a working Ruby gem: Complete
  • Scale out Meshtastic Ruby Modules for their respective protobufs within the meshtastic gem (e.g. Meshtastic::MQTTPB is auto-generated based on latest Meshtastic protobuf specs and extended via Meshtastic::MQTT for more MQTT interaction as desired): Ongoing Effort

Installation

Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:

$ bundle add meshtastic

If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:

$ gem install meshtastic

Usage

At the moment the only module available is Meshtastic::MQTT. To view MQTT messages, and include only messages containing _APP and LongFast strings, use the following code:

require 'meshtastic'
Meshtastic::MQTT.help
mqtt_obj = Meshastic::MQTT.connect
Meshtastic::MQTT.subscribe(
  mqtt_obj: mqtt_obj,
  include: '_APP, LongFast'
)

This code will dump the contents of every message:

require 'meshtastic'
mqtt_obj = Meshastic::MQTT.connect
Meshtastic::MQTT.subscribe(
  mqtt_obj: mqtt_obj,
  region: 'US',
  channel_topic: '2/e/LongFast/#',
  psks: { LongFast: 'AQ==' }
) do |message|
  puts message.inspect
end

Sending a message over MQTT:

require 'meshtastic'
mqtt_obj = Meshastic::MQTT.connect
client_id = "!#{mqtt_obj.client_id}"
Meshtastic::MQTT.send_text(
  mqtt_obj: mqtt_obj,
  from: client_id,
  to: '!ffffffff',
  topic: "msh/US/2/e/LongFast/#{client_id}",
  channel: 93,
  text: 'Hello, World!',
  psks: { LongFast: 'AQ==' }
)

One of the "gotchas" when sending messages is ensuring you're sending over the proper integer for the channel parameter. The best way to determine the proper channel value is by sending a test message from within the meshtastic app and then viewing the MQTT message similar to the following:

require 'meshtastic'
mqtt_obj = Meshastic::MQTT.connect
Meshtastic::MQTT.subscribe(
  mqtt_obj: mqtt_obj,
  region: 'US',
  channel_topic: '2/e/LongFast/#',
  psks: { LongFast: 'AQ==' },
  include: '!YOUR_CLIENT_ID'
) do |message|
  puts message.inspect
end

You should see something like this:

{packet: {from: 4080917205, to: 4294967295, channel: 93, id: 1198634591, rx_time: 1738614021, rx_snr: 0.0, hop_limit: 3, want_ack: false, priority: :HIGH, rx_rssi: 0, delayed: :NO_DELAY, via_mqtt: false, hop_start: 3, public_key: "", pki_encrypted: false, next_hop: 0, relay_node: 0, tx_after: 0, decoded: {portnum: :TEXT_MESSAGE_APP, payload: "WHAT IS MY channel VALUE?", want_response: false, dest: 0, source: 0, request_id: 0, reply_id: 0, emoji: 0, bitfield: 0}, encrypted: :decrypted, topic: "msh/US/2/e/LongFast/!f33ddad5", node_id_from: "!f33ddad5", node_id_to: "!ffffffff", rx_time_utc: "2025-01-01 07:00:00 UTC"}, channel_id: "LongFast", gateway_id: "!f33ddad5"}

Note where is says channel: 93. This is the channel value required to send messages in this particular example.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/0dayinc/meshtastic. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the Meshtastic project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.