Amethyst RealmRead
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The Amethyst Realm

Every box, container, radio and page in the house wears a gem name. Once named, never renamed. Here is the whole court, from the fiber at the gate to the birdhouse in the yard.

On this page

The wide worldtwo roads in

THE KING’S ROADXGS-PON fiber · Calix ONT “Sunstone” THE SKY RAVENStarlink · failover WAN THE BANNERMANa neighbor on a 60 GHz beam, sworn by contract

The gateone router, sixteen cores

GARNETMikroTik CCR2116-12G-4S+ · routing, firewall, WireGuard, DNS, containers CITRINEPi-hole, day watch LAPISnginx, the Atlas SELENITEnginx, the public front door ZIRCONBedrockConnect MOONSTONETailscale subnet router

The wireson Garnet’s ports

AMETHYSTthe Keep · the server RUBYthe gaming rig · local LLM OBSIDIANOrange Pi · Pi-hole, night watch ONYXKVM over IP OPALWi-Fi 7 access point AGATE2.5G switch, 10G uplink THE CROSSROADSPoE switch THE BEACONfar-hall access point AZURITELoRa mesh gateway SAPPHIRE2U build, planned

The airWi-Fi and 915 MHz LoRa

LARIMARthe Meshtastic mesh, private key TURQUOISEa node inside a birdhouse AMBERa solar node TRACKERScard-sized nodes for the road JASPERthe Rover · the yard machine with RTK GPS AMETHYST-PIRaspberry Pi 5, the squire, Jasper’s brain, Wi-Fi only DIGICATa 3D cat on two ESP32-P4 panels

Amethyst, the Keep one small box carries the whole court

Minisforum N5 Pro · Ryzen AI 9, 12 cores · Radeon 890M · 64 GB · 10 GbE · Windows with Docker Desktop, WSL2 VM capped at 24 GB · boot on a WD Black SN770 · Steam on a Lexar NM790 4 TB · the Vault: Storage Spaces pool of 2×24 TB WD Ultrastar DC HC580 + 2×14 TB IronWolf Pro, mirrored twice over (25.5 TiB Vault + 9.1 TiB Annex) · USB backup tier of 22 TB + 8 TB · a 7-inch panel on the rack shows a live console of all of it

PLEXthe Great Library of film and series
RADARR · SONARRprocurers of films and series
SABNZBDthe docks; queue shown on the rack panel
IMMICHfamily photos, with ML, Postgres, Redis
EMERALDMinecraft, Paper + Geyser + Floodgate, creative
BERYLMinecraft, the legacy survival world “Heirstone”
MC-BACKUP ×2nightly world carriages to the Vault, 14 kept
IOLITEOpen WebUI, chat front for the local LLM
TIGEREYESearXNG, private search the oracle can use
WHISPERspeech to text for the house voice
OPENWAKEWORDwake word for the house voice
SPIRIT HALLHome Assistant VM, Mosquitto, ESPHome, Meshtastic
REGISTRYprivate Docker registry with TLS proxy
CYD ART WORKERpaints the small ESP32 displays
THE ARMORYthe Steam library, updated in a night window
THE CONSOLEPowerShell HTTP listener feeding the rack panel
THE VAULTStorage Spaces mirrors on Ultrastar and IronWolf iron; nightly tiers to USB; biweekly OS image

Garnet, the gate roads in and out

MikroTik CCR2116-12G-4S+ · 16 cores · 16 GB · fiber on SFP+, Starlink on copper as failover

FIREWALLdst-nat only for the public halls, per-source flood caps
THE TOPAZ ROADWireGuard; a travel router per friend stretches the home LAN so a console feels at home
MOONSTONETailscale subnet router, in a container
THE BEAMMikroTik Cube 60Pro pair, 27.6 m eave to eave, the neighbor’s own lane and VLAN
HAIRPINSpublic names work from the couch too
NETWATCHrouter-side probes write status scrolls for the Atlas

Garnet’s halls containers on the router itself

RouterOS containers on a USB stick, each with its own veth on the LAN bridge

CITRINEPi-hole, the day watch; Obsidian is the night
LAPISnginx: the Atlas map and the Watch
SELENITEnginx: the public Gatehouse, HTTPS, and a sealed Throne Room
ZIRCONBedrockConnect: consoles press a featured server, land on the house list
MOONSTONETailscale
THE LEDGEROokla runs on the router, logs speed against the ISP’s promise

The court the other machines

RUBYRyzen 7 9800X3D, RTX 4080 Super, 5 GbE; Ollama serves a 20B model to the realm; Apollo streams games to the couch
OBSIDIANOrange Pi 4 Pro: Pi-hole night watch, plus a cranky Telegram bot that wastes scammers’ time
ONYXGL.iNet Comet Pro KVM: HDMI eye and USB hand on the Keep, with a rescue image
OPALASUS ROG GT-BE98 Pro in AP mode, Wi-Fi 7, 10G uplink
AGATEMikroTik CRS310 switch: eight 2.5G ports and two SFP+, on a 10G DAC to Garnet
THE BEACONUbiquiti AP on PoE from the Crossroads
THE CROSSROADSNetgear GS308EP PoE switch
JASPERthe Rover: an autonomous yard machine steered by RTK GPS from its own base station, the Pi riding on it
AMETHYST-PIRaspberry Pi 5 on the air, never wired, by decree; it serves Jasper and nothing else
DIGICATsoftware-rendered 3D house cat on 7″ and 5″ ESP32-P4 panels, reporting to Home Assistant

The air Larimar, the mesh

Meshtastic on 915 MHz LoRa, one private channel key, MQTT uplink into Home Assistant

AZURITEElecrow ThinkNode-M7 on Ethernet: the gate between air and wire
TURQUOISEa node built into a birdhouse, battery only
AMBERa solar node on the property
TRACKERST1000-E cards and a Wio pocket node for the road
LARIMAR WATCHa live map page: who the gate hears, how strong, how many hops

Worlds two Minecraft servers, one seat of power

EMERALDValley of the Ancients: Paper, Geyser, Floodgate; creative; Java from anywhere, Bedrock from inside
BERYLHeirstone: the survival world meant to be handed down; same engine; PVP off
THE GATEwhitelist only, a quarter-hourly watchman that forces it back on, bans for scanners
THE CHARTERa public page with live status pills and a whitelist request form that pings the King’s phone
UPDATE WATCHdaily check; the worlds move to a new version only when Paper and Geyser both agree

The pages a static realm on nginx, one script builds them all

THE GATEHOUSEwhat a guest sees
THE THRONE ROOMsealed: LAN plus a password cookie; every tile probes its hall live
THE ATLASthe kingdom gem by gem, up or down, with lore per node
THE HERALDthe house newspaper
THE CINEMA GUIDEhow invited friends stream from Plex
THE SPEED LEDGERrouter-measured speed history, public, as evidence
ALEXANDRITEthe oracle: chat over the local LLM, with private search when it decides to look
TOURMALINEEnglish and Spanish translator, speaks aloud
MORGANITEend-to-end encrypted letters; the server holds only ciphertext
AMMOLITEthe household quest game, a creature that grows with chores
THE COURT’S DRESSone choice re-themes every page, screen and voice
THE BANNERMAN’S CONTRACTthe neighbor’s sharing agreement, signable
THE REALM’S LEDGERwhat the house draws from the world, day by day
RESCUEwhat to do when the Keep dies, printed for the drawer
THE EASY SHEETBedrock join steps, one screen at a time

The watchmen scheduled tasks that keep the peace

GATEWATCHevery 15 min: both whitelists forced on
PLEXGUARDpauses Steam downloads while anyone is watching
ARMORY NIGHTLYlifts the Steam cap at night, restores it at dawn, stamps every game high priority
LARIMAR WATCHMQTT listener decrypts the mesh and redraws the map each minute
BEAM WATCHkeeps an eye on the neighbor’s link
SPEED LEDGERhourly Ookla run on the router, skipped when the house is busy
VAULT TIERSnightly robocopy mirrors of the irreplaceable
SYSTEM IMAGEbiweekly image of the Keep’s OS drive
REALM CERTLet’s Encrypt renewals through the front door
KIOSK WATCHrelights the rack panel if the console ever dies
MEDIA DROPfiles dropped on the share get filed
PERIDOTan AI Hand of the King that builds and watches all of the above, and writes the incident report when it breaks something

No wiring diagram, no addresses, no names. The gems are the map.

22named devices
22containers
2WAN roads
4mesh radios
16pages
106TB of raw disk