Yggdrasil nodes are ordinary userspace routers that intentionally forward traffic for any peer that is reachable over the overlay.
When a local node learns a route to an “Internet‑on‑ramp” (a peer that has a public IPv6 address or a NAT‑traversing tunnel), it adds that path to its routing table and advertises it to its other neighbors. Because every peer can act as a router, traffic from a device that has only a local peer‑to‑peer link can be carried through any other node that has a route to the wider Internet, even though that node is not on the same LAN.
In the traditional Internet, routers are owned and operated by ISPs or autonomous systems that enforce policies such as “do not forward traffic for non‑customer addresses” and NAT/firewall rules that block arbitrary inbound forwarding. Ordinary end‑devices are not allowed to advertise themselves as routers for other users, so a local host cannot automatically use a neighbor’s Internet connection unless explicit forwarding (e.g., NAT, proxy, VPN) is configured.
Yggdrasil’s design therefore differs in two key ways:
Overlay routing is decentralized. Each node maintains a small routing table of reachable peers and, by default, will forward packets on behalf of any other node in the overlay <citation src=“3”></citation>.
No ISP‑imposed forwarding policies. Because the overlay runs over arbitrary transports (TCP/TLS, QUIC, etc.) and all nodes are peers, there is no external authority that blocks or filters traffic‑forwarding decisions, allowing local peers to act as on‑ramps to the wider Internet.
Consequently, a device on a local Yggdrasil LAN can reach the public Internet through any neighboring node that has an external path, while the conventional Internet prevents this kind of unrestricted peer‑to‑peer routing.
https://github.com/yggdrasil-network/yggstack . this is a rootless implementation which runs on any mobile(ipv6) android phone (via termux).
its best to not think of it as an immediate, full, replacement for the the entire internet
commentary on the yggdrasil overlay network:
Yggdrasil nodes are ordinary userspace routers that intentionally forward traffic for any peer that is reachable over the overlay.
When a local node learns a route to an “Internet‑on‑ramp” (a peer that has a public IPv6 address or a NAT‑traversing tunnel), it adds that path to its routing table and advertises it to its other neighbors. Because every peer can act as a router, traffic from a device that has only a local peer‑to‑peer link can be carried through any other node that has a route to the wider Internet, even though that node is not on the same LAN.
In the traditional Internet, routers are owned and operated by ISPs or autonomous systems that enforce policies such as “do not forward traffic for non‑customer addresses” and NAT/firewall rules that block arbitrary inbound forwarding. Ordinary end‑devices are not allowed to advertise themselves as routers for other users, so a local host cannot automatically use a neighbor’s Internet connection unless explicit forwarding (e.g., NAT, proxy, VPN) is configured.
Yggdrasil’s design therefore differs in two key ways:
Consequently, a device on a local Yggdrasil LAN can reach the public Internet through any neighboring node that has an external path, while the conventional Internet prevents this kind of unrestricted peer‑to‑peer routing.
https://github.com/yggdrasil-network/yggstack . this is a rootless implementation which runs on any mobile(ipv6) android phone (via termux).
its best to not think of it as an immediate, full, replacement for the the entire internet