Sovereign mesh

The sovereign mesh is the WireGuard overlay that connects every PointSav Private Network (PPN) fleet node, running over a dedicated wg0 interface. Two distinct, real mechanisms operate on top of it: a zero-broker JSON-payload broadcast (system-udp, port 8090) and a signed binary command channel (app-network-admin, port 9206) that carries the F8 Terminal's operator-issued commands. Each node communicates directly with its authorised peers; no central message broker sits on the path.

Hub-and-spoke topology

The mesh uses a hub-and-spoke arrangement. The cloud relay node sits at the centre and relays packets between spoke nodes that may not have a direct path to each other. os-infrastructure runs identically in all three roles — the operator chooses where their compute lives, and the same WireGuard mesh spans any combination.

WireGuard's encryption secures traffic between nodes, but it does not by itself address the leased and cloud profiles' trust gap: whoever owns the physical hardware can still access it directly. Closing that gap is intended to be seL4 microkernel isolation at the hardware layer — planned, not yet running on bare metal today.

The 10.8.0.0/24 subnet is the intended PPN address range. All mesh traffic is encapsulated inside WireGuard before leaving a node; the underlying transport — public internet, private LAN, or GCP internal network — is irrelevant to the mesh layer. A 10.42.0.0/16 addressing scheme is the ratified future target, with migration ("Part A") in progress; no deployed node uses it yet.

WireGuard overlay

Each node brings up a wg0 WireGuard interface as part of its boot sequence. WireGuard provides:

• Key agreement — Noise Protocol IK handshake, WireGuard's own default; each node's long-term keypair is generated and stored at first mesh join, manually today on the control-plane node, or via the designed (not yet built) Genesis Protocol for bare-metal edge nodes
• Encryption and integrity — ChaCha20-Poly1305 per packet; no plaintext mesh traffic ever leaves a node
• Peer reachability — the cloud relay is the only statically-addressed peer; on-premises and leased nodes resolve each other through the relay until a direct routed path becomes available

WireGuard configuration for each node is held in the deployment instance directory (local-only, gitignored). Keypairs are never stored in any repository.

Command protocol

Authority commands use a 16-byte binary packet format delivered over UDP on port 9206: a 2-byte op code (ping, isolate, pong), a 2-byte target-node selector, a 4-byte timestamp, and 8 reserved bytes. This is a distinct, smaller mesh from the JSON broadcast described above — app-network-admin owns it, not system-udp.

The command flow from operator to target node is:

Operator intent (plain language)
      ↓
F8 Terminal  —  app-network-admin  HTTP :8085  (/translate)
      ↓
Doorman :9080/v1/translate — returns a pending proposal
      ↓
Operator approval  —  app-network-admin HTTP :8085  (/authorize)
      ↓
16-byte binary command
      ↓
UDP unicast  →  wg0  →  WireGuard tunnel
      ↓
Target node  —  UDP port 9206

Translating an intent and authorising it are two separate calls — a command is never sent purely on the strength of the Doorman's proposal. See Diode standard for the broader authority hierarchy this two-step gate sits inside.

Node roles in the mesh

os-infrastructure — edge anchor

The bare-metal os-infrastructure node is a mesh peer, not a mesh controller. It listens for signed binary commands addressed to it and executes them; it does not initiate commands. The node's onboard NIC carries mesh traffic via the wg0 interface once the Genesis Protocol join sequence completes.

app-network-admin — control plane

app-network-admin owns command authority for the mesh — not os-network-admin, which today is a static placeholder page with no service behind it. The F8 Terminal, a plain-language command surface on HTTP port 8085, accepts operator intent, forwards it to the Doorman for translation, and — once the operator explicitly authorises the resulting proposal — broadcasts the signed 16-byte command to one or more mesh peers on port 9206.

Cloud relay — hub

The GCP cloud relay node relays WireGuard-encapsulated packets between spoke nodes. It does not interpret mesh commands; it is a transport layer only. The relay's fixed public IP and static WireGuard configuration make it the anchor point that allows on-premises and leased nodes to find each other without DNS or DHCP dependency.

The gap this design targets

The hub-and-spoke topology above is designed to exploit a structural gap in conventional cloud offerings, not merely to work around it:

An operator running an on-premises node, a cloud relay for public reachability, and app-network-admin on an administrative workstation is intended to end up with a fleet that is not locked to any single hyperscaler. The WORM discipline that governs PointSav data persistence applies to each node regardless of which trust profile it runs under.

Genesis Protocol integration

A bare-metal node is designed to join the mesh through the Genesis Protocol rather than manual WireGuard provisioning: mDNS discovery of a pairing server, a UDP handshake carrying a short code, a CPace password-authenticated key exchange, an administrator-approved claim ceremony, and finally mesh-configuration handoff. The network driver work this sequence depends on hasn't landed yet — every step exists as designed code, not as running behavior. Manual wg genkey provisioning is the current runtime path for every node in the mesh today.

Relationship to the Diode Standard

The Diode standard describes a one-way command flow — authority commands travel from app-network-admin to nodes, never the reverse — as a stated design rule for the platform. Only authority commands use the 16-byte binary format on port 9206; telemetry and sync traffic use WireGuard-encapsulated TCP or UDP on other ports. No single named component checks or enforces this directionality as a conformance-tested invariant; it holds because nothing in the mesh implements a reverse path, not because a dedicated adapter blocks one.

See also

• os-infrastructure — PPN node operating system — the compute-substrate OS itself: current deployment state, Genesis Protocol sequence
• OS network admin — the placeholder wiki entry for this node role; the real F8 Terminal service is the app-network-admin crate, not yet documented under its own name
• Diode standard — authority hierarchy and traffic category definitions
• Machine-based authorization — Noise Protocol keypair management and pairing types
• PPN command protocol — the dedicated wire-format deep dive: design constraints, packet layout, dispatch sequence