Gateway

A public request need not land on the host that keeps the Lich's durable body. A Gateway Host is an optional, separate deployment trust role that carries hostile ingress while the Core host retains data and application authority. It is neither a Composition nor an Extension Domain: Veil still owns TLS and route admission, optional Tether supplies private reachability, and the selected deployment profile closes the physical hosts and flows.

A same-host Veil is not a Gateway Host. The extra role exists only when the operator deliberately spends another machine to separate the exposed surface. Gateway is Designed; State of Work owns the delivery boundary.

Boundary

The public road is exact:

client -> admitted listener -> Veil -> authenticated exact backend -> Ward and application

Every route closes host, port, path, method, protocol, limits, backend identity, and authentication precondition. The Gateway occupies a separately enforced network zone. Policy controlled outside that host—a router/firewall, L3-switch ACL, or cloud-network rule—plus the receiving Core firewall allows only the public listener and exact backend flow. A local Gateway firewall is defense in depth, not proof of that boundary. IPv4 and IPv6 obey the same policy, and host administration uses a separately governed infrastructure route and credential unavailable to the public or backend workload. Forwarded bytes remain hostile: possession or compromise of the Gateway cannot mint caller identity, a Sigil, consent, or effect authority behind the route.

Home

Home places the Gateway on operator-controlled iron, such as a Raspberry Pi, inside a dedicated DMZ/VLAN or another physically separate routed segment. An external router/firewall or L3-switch ACL forwards only the admitted public listener to Home and permits that zone to reach only the named Core address and port; the Core accepts that port only from Home. All other Home-to-LAN paths and non-required egress are denied outside the Gateway itself, and management is admitted separately. A VLAN without inter-zone enforcement, or a Raspberry Pi with an unrestricted LAN or alternative route, does not satisfy Home.

Home keeps edge custody local and adds no rented control plane. It shares the household's power, uplink, public-address exposure, and upstream denial-of-service limit. Tether is unnecessary when an exact directly routed private segment already connects Home to Core. The backend still authenticates the Gateway independently of network location; the selected profile also closes any required transport encryption.

Remote

Remote places the same role on rented or otherwise off-site iron, such as a VPS. Public DNS and listeners terminate there. The Core exposes no public application port; an exact Tether route may carry authenticated backend traffic from Remote to the one admitted Core listener without giving Remote a default route into the home network.

Remote moves scans and link-level abuse away from the household and can supply stable public reachability. It adds a provider account, remote control plane, tunnel custody, and another rebuild and revocation boundary. It does not become a standalone Vessel, replica, administrator, or application authority merely because it is off-site.

Selection and recovery

Home and Remote are reference topology names, not free configuration switches. An exact deployment profile either omits the separate Gateway role or binds one placement together with its per-host manifest, Veil routes, optional Tether generation, service Principals, credentials, firewall boundary, management path, and recovery contract. gateway=true, rpi, vps, or an arbitrary proxy target cannot assemble a partial edge.

Suspected Gateway compromise closes the public route, revokes its certificates, backend credential, optional Tether peer, and deployment generation, quarantines bounded evidence, and rebuilds the host from admitted inputs. Core credentials and data remain unchanged only when boundary evidence proves they never crossed.

Security owns the trust zone · Containers owns the host manifests · Proxy owns Veil