The Rationale Behind Pulsar - JS-Produksiyon/pulsar GitHub Wiki

Why We Wrote Pulsar

The Nebula mesh network is in our opinion one of the best open-source overlay network solutions currently available. The crew at Slack did a wonderful job creating quick and well-documented software to implement a robust and speedy overlay network for IT departments. The one major lack Nebula has, however, is a graphical user interface for the non-technical crowd. This project aims to mitigate that.

Our own company requires just such a solution, since several of our people who must connect to the mesh network are not tech savvy enough to use the command line. Thus, we rapidly developed this little application using Python 3.11 and PyQT 6.7. It works by wrapping itself around the compiled Nebula binaries and giving the user a nice, big button to click to log on and off, as well as an icon that can reside in the Windows System Tray or on the MacOS menu bar. It also can add entries to the computer's hosts file, making it possible for the user to access the various resources using easily understandable FQDNs rather than cryptic IP addresses.

We are primarily a Windows-shop, but have enough MacOS users in the C-Suite that the MacOS option is also necessary. Thus, we aimed Pulsar at the latest versions of Windows and MacOS, making it a cross-platform solution for anyone who needs a less-technical approach to mesh networking.

Why Is the App Called “Pulsar”?

The Nebula mesh network tool is named after the heavenly luminous gases that contain many stars. A mesh network is rather amorphous and contains many nodes as well. This application makes it possible for one node to connect to the network, much like one star exists in the nebula. And because it puts out a pulse to connect, the image of the pulsar, a magnetized neutron star that pulses at a certain frequency, seemed an apt image. Thus you use Pulsar to connect to the Nebula.

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Last Updated: 2024-05-13