Tribes Server Protocol

The Tribes Server Protocol is how Tribes clients and servers communicate with one another to keep information private and secure. Below is a timeline diagram of how the protocol works.

Protocol Explained

Step 0: A Tribes client generates the PGP public/private keypair. This is how you will be known throughout the network. PGP is a very strong encryption scheme and has been battled-tested for over 30 years. You can read more about it works, but the gist of it is this: you can share your public key, but keep your private key private. If someone gets your private key, then for all intents and purposes, they are “you” on the Tribes network.

Step 1: The Tribes client will send your public key to the Tribes server that you want to connect with. Tribes servers can either be in open or closed status. Open status means that the Tribes server will accept anyone connecting. These servers do not come with a chat option because chats are ONLY reserved for members.

Step 2: Server sends the openness status back to the client. Once the servers send back the openness status, client has a decision to make. If the server is open, then the client can make a request to the server to get all available server commands (3a). If the server is not open, then the client will need send the public key signature to make sure that key is a member of the server.

Step 3: Once, the server has established that the public key signature is a member of the server, the client can make a request to see all of the server commands (3a).

Step 4: Tribes servers have a limited set of server commands — /welcome, which displays the welcome message; /topics, which displays the posted topics on the server; and /chat, which displays the chat. Each time a client wants to issue a command to the server, the client MUST send the public key.