ARI - A RINA Implementation is a Rust implementation of the Recursive Internetwork Architecture (RINA).

The acronym 'ARI' is intentionally chosen to reflect both an expanded 'A RINA Implementation' and imply the similarities between networking and ant colonies where the Japanese word for ant, 蟻 or mostly written as アリ, is pronounced as 'ari'.

Note: This is an early-stage research prototype. The implementation is incomplete and most likely contains bugs. Use at your own risk. You may want to take a look at the Architectural Decision Records (ADRs), using the MADR template, in the docs/decisions directory to understand the design rationale behind various implementation choices.

cargo run

cargo run -- --config config/bootstrap.toml
# or
cargo run -- --mode bootstrap --name ipcp-a --dif-name test-dif --address 1001 --bind 0.0.0.0:7000

cargo run -- --config config/member.toml
# or
cargo run -- --mode member --name ipcp-b --dif-name test-dif --bind 0.0.0.0:7001 --bootstrap-peers 127.0.0.1:7000

The current documentation is scattered and will be consolidated over time. For now, please refer to the following files.

• RUNNING.md - Quick start and operational guide
• CONFIG-EXAMPLES.md - Comprehensive configuration examples
• CONFIG-SUMMARY.md - Implementation details

• ✅ Resource Information Base (RIB) with async operations
• ✅ Common Distributed Application Protocol (CDAP)
• ✅ Error and Flow Control Protocol (EFCP) with flow creation
• ✅ Relaying and Multiplexing Task (RMT) with forwarding
• ✅ UDP/IP Shim Layer with bidirectional communication
• ✅ Directory Service
• ✅ Flow Allocator with basic flow API
• ✅ Enrollment Manager with configurable timeouts
• ✅ Pluggable Policies (Routing, QoS, Scheduling)
• ✅ Actor-based concurrent components
• ✅ Multi-IPCP configuration system
• ✅ Static routing with hybrid learning
• ✅ End-to-end data transfer (Phase 2)
• ✅ Dynamic address assignment (Phase 3)
• ✅ Typed error system with thiserror (Phase 4)
• ✅ Connection monitoring and re-enrollment (Phase 5)
• ✅ RIB state persistence with disk snapshots (Phase 6)
• ✅ CDAP incremental synchronization with change log (Phase 6)
• ✅ Inter-IPCP flow allocation with N-1 layer abstraction (Phase 7a)
• ✅ Shim trait abstraction for multi-underlay support (Phase 7a)

• ⚠️ Multi-underlay support (TCP, QUIC implementations)
• ⚠️ Peer discovery and automatic neighbor detection

The enrollment protocol is fully implemented ✅ with async network communication, dynamic address assignment, and automatic re-enrollment:

• Fully Async: tokio-based async/await throughout the enrollment flow
• Timeout & Retry: Configurable timeout per attempt with exponential backoff
• Binary Protocol: Efficient bincode serialization for CDAP messages over PDUs
• Dynamic Address Assignment: Bootstrap allocates addresses from configurable pool (Phase 3)
• Address Mapping: Dynamic RINA ↔ socket address translation with auto-registration
• RIB Synchronization: Full RIB snapshot transfer during enrollment
• Bidirectional: Handles both member-initiated requests and bootstrap responses
• Typed Errors: Structured error handling with thiserror (Phase 4)
• Connection Monitoring: Heartbeat-based health tracking (Phase 5)
• Automatic Re-enrollment: Recovers from temporary network failures (Phase 5)

1. Member IPCP: Initiates enrollment by sending CDAP CREATE message via UDP PDU
2. Bootstrap IPCP: Receives request, allocates address from pool, sends response with RIB snapshot
3. Member IPCP: Receives assigned address, synchronizes RIB, stores DIF name
4. Retry Logic: Automatically retries with backoff if enrollment fails
5. Dynamic Routing: Bootstrap creates route to member, member syncs routes from bootstrap
6. Connection Monitoring: Background task monitors heartbeat and triggers re-enrollment if needed

• Security: Authentication, encryption, and certificate validation
• Multi-underlay Support: TCP, QUIC, and other transport protocols via Shim trait
• Peer Discovery: Automatic neighbor detection and dynamic peer management
• Multi-peer Bootstrap: Peer selection, failover, and dynamic discovery

Copyright © 2026-present ARI Contributors

This project is licensed under the European Union Public Licence, Version 1.2 (the "EUPL").

You may not use the software except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at: Official EUPL 1.2 Text.

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

Note on Source Files: Individual source files will typically contain copyright information and SPDX-License-Identifiers indicating their specific terms. For files where comments are not supported (e.g., .json files), the terms of the EUPL 1.2 apply as stated above.