meshmap

A tool for scanning and mapping meshcore radio networks. It discovers nearby nodes, logs in to each reachable repeater to enumerate its neighbours, and builds a graph of the network — including GPS coordinates where available.

Install

Requires Python 3.12+ and uv.

# Install uv (if not already installed)
curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

# Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/mangelajo/meshmap
cd meshmap
uv sync

The meshmap command is then available via uv run meshmap.

Usage

All commands require -p to specify the serial port of your connected device.

meshmap -p PORT [OPTIONS] COMMAND

Global options (apply to all commands):

Commands

explore — map the network graph

The main command. Discovers 0-hop repeaters, then recursively logs in to each one to fetch its neighbour list, building a full network graph. Saves to a JSON file after each node so it can be paused and resumed.

# First scan
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 explore

# Resume a previous scan, open live visualisation in browser
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 explore --resume --serve

# Re-visit already-explored nodes to refresh SNR data
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 explore --resume --refresh

# Retry nodes that failed on the last run
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 explore --resume --retry

# Limit exploration to 3 hops, save to a custom file
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 explore --depth 3 -o my-network.json

# Full run with live packet sniffing and web visualisation
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 --sniff --sniff-key mykey.txt explore --serve --resume

The web visualisation (--serve) is available at http://localhost:8080 and auto-refreshes every 3 seconds while the scan runs.

discover-repeaters — list nearby repeaters

uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 discover-repeaters

get-neighbours — inspect a single repeater

Log in to one repeater and print its neighbour list.

uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 get-neighbours

sniff — decode RF packets

Listen and decode raw RF traffic for a given duration.

uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 sniff 30
uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 sniff 60 --key mykey.txt

contacts — list known contacts

uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 contacts

scan — quick 0-hop node scan

uv run meshmap -p /dev/ttyUSB0 scan

Graph file format

The graph is saved as JSON and can be loaded by external tools:

{
  "version": 1,
  "last_updated": "2026-02-17T12:00:00+00:00",
  "nodes": {
    "<pubkey>": {
      "public_key": "...", "name": "My Repeater",
      "node_type": "repeater", "lat": 40.4, "lon": -3.7,
      "depth": 1, "last_visited": "...", "visit_failed": false
    }
  },
  "edges": [
    { "node_a": "...", "node_b": "...", "snr_a_hears_b": 12.5, "snr_b_hears_a": 9.0, "last_seen": "..." }
  ]
}