Glossary
Airdress
Section titled “Airdress”The platform and product name. Provides anycast relay tunnels and authoritative DNS so users can expose local services to the internet. Always written with a capital A in prose.
airdress name
Section titled “airdress name”A claimed identifier in the form myname.a.airdr.es that routes internet
traffic to an operator. 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 If a PoP becomes unhealthy, its route is withdrawn and traffic shifts to the next-nearest PoP.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.
Provides in-memory caching with real-time invalidation, DNSSEC online
signing, and response rate limiting. DNS PoPs serve at the anycast VIP
(ns1.airdress.co / ns2.airdress.co).
See: anycast
enrollment
Section titled “enrollment”The process of pairing a user’s device with an operator instance. Typically performed using a bootstrap token or QR code during initial setup.
federation
Section titled “federation”Operator-to-operator message relay that enables cross-operator communication. Messages are relayed through the anycast infrastructure with Ed25519 identity verification to ensure authenticity.
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
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 binary that runs on the user’s device or server. It
establishes WireGuard tunnels to relay PoPs, manages DNS records, runs a
reverse proxy for incoming traffic, and hosts mini-apps and plugins. The
operator listens on 127.0.0.1:8080 by default.
plugin
Section titled “plugin”An application package that runs within the operator’s app runtime. Plugins support three backend modes: subprocess, container, or microvm. Distributed through the plugin registry at plugins.airdress.co.
The edge proxy service that terminates incoming client connections (HTTPS, TCP, UDP) and forwards them through encrypted WireGuard tunnels to the appropriate operator.
relay PoP
Section titled “relay PoP”A Point of Presence running the relay service. Each PoP is an immutable
VM that announces the anycast prefix via BGP. Relay PoPs serve at the
VIP relay.airdress.co. A health-check timer automatically withdraws
the BGP route if the relay process fails.
Virtual IP address. The anycast IP that clients connect to. Both the relay and DNS VIPs are announced from every active PoP via BGP. See the IP ranges for current prefixes.
WireGuard
Section titled “WireGuard”A modern VPN protocol used for the encrypted tunnel between the operator and relay PoPs. Provides authenticated encryption with low overhead and fast handshakes.
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