Glossary
agent device
Section titled “agent device”A machine approved by a person as an agent of their airdress, holding its
own keys, through the airdress-agent binary. It can write to the agent
bus and hold agent chat conversations. See Agents.
Airdress
Section titled “Airdress”The platform and product name: one permanent address for your agents, devices and services, wherever they run. Written with a capital A in prose. In lower case, “an airdress” is one such address and everything behind it.
airdress name
Section titled “airdress name”A claimed identifier in the form myname.a.airdr.es that routes internet
traffic to an airdress. Each name is globally unique and permanently bound
once claimed — names are never reclaimable, even after deletion.
See: hub
anycast
Section titled “anycast”A routing technique where the same IP address is announced from multiple geographic locations. Traffic is delivered to the nearest announcing node, providing low-latency access and automatic failover.
Border Gateway Protocol. The routing protocol used by relay and DNS PoPs to announce the anycast prefix to the internet. If a PoP becomes unhealthy, its route is withdrawn and traffic shifts to the next-nearest PoP.
DNS PoP
Section titled “DNS PoP”A Point of Presence running authoritative DNS for the *.a.airdr.es zone.
Record changes reach every DNS PoP within seconds. DNS PoPs serve at the
anycast VIP 185.43.32.1 (ns1.airdr.es and ns2.airdr.es).
See: anycast
enrollment
Section titled “enrollment”The process of admitting a device to an airdress, by a pairing code or QR shown by the CLI or an app, or by a phone approving a request. See Devices, machines and homes.
federation
Section titled “federation”Communication between two airdresses’ operators, each verifying the other’s signed identity.
Fully Qualified Domain Name. A complete domain name that specifies a host’s
exact position in the DNS hierarchy, ending with a trailing dot. Example:
myname.a.airdr.es.
The Airdress account portal at account.airdress.co. Manages user accounts, airdress name claims, billing, and permissions.
See: airdress name
machine
Section titled “machine”A computer approved to act on an airdress with its own key, such as a shell host, a CI runner or a Home Assistant. Admitted by a person comparing the fingerprint or confirmation code the machine printed.
See: shell host
mini-app
Section titled “mini-app”A ZIP-bundled static web application served by the operator under a subdomain. Mini-apps are distributed through the mini-app registry at miniapps.airdress.co.
Messaging Layer Security, defined in RFC 9420. A protocol for end-to-end encrypted group messaging used by Airdress for chat functionality. Provides forward secrecy and post-compromise security.
See: federation
operator
Section titled “operator”The airdress-operator server that an airdress runs on. It holds the
airdress’s certificate and terminates TLS, serves its API, and runs its
functions, plugins, shells and chat.
See: relay
plugin
Section titled “plugin”A signed release that runs on an airdress: a form, a map, a small app on its own subdomain. Distributed through the plugin registry at plugins.airdress.co. See Plugins.
The edge service that accepts IPv4 connections for airdress names on ports
443 and 80 and passes them through to the right airdress without
decrypting them: by TLS server name (SNI) on 443, by Host header on 80.
See: relay PoP
relay PoP
Section titled “relay PoP”A Point of Presence running the relay. Relay PoPs in Frankfurt, Amsterdam,
Newark and Los Angeles announce 23.163.148.0/24 and serve at the VIP
23.163.148.11 (relay.airdress.co). A PoP that fails its health check
withdraws its route.
shell host
Section titled “shell host”A Linux machine running airdress shell host, approved as a machine of
your airdress, on which your devices open terminals by profile. See
Shells.
Virtual IP address. The anycast IP that clients connect to: 23.163.148.11
for the relay and 185.43.32.1 for DNS, each announced from every active
PoP via BGP. See the
IP ranges for current prefixes.
zone cut
Section titled “zone cut”The DNS delegation point where a.airdr.es is delegated from the parent
zone to the Airdress DNS PoPs. All airdress names exist below this
delegation as subdomains of a.airdr.es.
See: DNS PoP, airdress name