Architecture, functionality and supported services of the meinGPT Outpost
The Outpost stores and processes your data within your own infrastructure; what leaves it for search and answer generation is only what the release level set per folder allows — text excerpts by default, plus the original file if you enable that. This page describes the mechanism behind that — what an Outpost is and what you manage in meinGPT is in the Outpost overview.
Your Outpost connects to meinGPT through the Bridge — an outbound, encrypted connection that the Outpost itself opens to meinGPT. Because the connection is established from the inside out, you don't need to open any inbound firewall ports, provide a public IP address, or expose a reverse proxy. Your Outpost stays entirely inside your own network.
There is no discovery. The only thing the Outpost is told is the address of your meinGPT instance. Everything else the two sides negotiate between themselves.
#
Who
What
1
Person at the machine
enters the meinGPT address in the Outpost. https:// is allowed anywhere, http:// only on localhost
2
Device
generates an Ed25519 key pair locally. The private half goes into the operating system's key store and never leaves the machine
3
Device → platform
registers the public key along with installation ID, hostname, operating system and version. The platform creates a session bound to exactly that key and answers with two codes: one the device keeps, and an eight-character one for the screen
4
Device
polls every five seconds — and signs every poll. Until approval the answer is “not authorised yet”
5
Admin in meinGPT
compares the fingerprint phrase shown against the one on the device's screen, gives it a name and approves the device. If two admins approve the same code at once, exactly one wins; the other is told
6
Device → platform
the next signed poll activates the key — in one transaction: every previously active key of this Outpost is revoked, the new one is created, the session is consumed. Back comes the configuration: organisation, Outpost ID, endpoint, platform public key, bridge address
The code alone is not enough — the fingerprint phrase is the check
The code only identifies the session; it would be just as valid for a
different machine that happened to pair at the same moment. Only comparing
the fingerprint phrase tells the admin they are really approving this
device.
Approval alone activates nothing
Only the signed poll does. A machine that cannot sign is not the machine that
asked — the code on the screen is a session handle, not a secret. Someone who
reads it off the screen but does not hold the private key gets the same answer
as someone holding nothing.
From then on no reusable secret is on the wire: every call in both directions carries its own signature. Details in Security.
The most common case is not one: if the machine merely loses its connection — network gone, machine switched off — it keeps its key and comes back on its own. There is nothing to do.
If the key is gone — reinstall, new disk, factory reset — the same sequence runs again: new key pair, new code, approval for the same Outpost. Step 6 replaces the old key with the new one.
Shares survive a re-pairing
Folders, adopted collections and permissions hang off the Outpost, not off
the key. Pairing again only swaps the machine's identity; none of it has to be
set up a second time. The old device is refused afterwards — without being told
why.