tri-pi

tri-pi is a Raspberry Pi appliance for running a Triangles (TRI) relay node over Tor.

Each Pi acts as a full network node, strengthening the Triangles network by:

• Relaying transactions across the network
• Relaying blocks to help other nodes sync
• Accepting incoming connections via Tor hidden service
• Operating entirely over Tor for privacy and decentralization

It is a separate project from the Triangles source tree. The daemon itself lives in a sibling checkout such as ../triangles, while tri-pi owns:

• Pi provisioning
• Tor hidden service setup
• systemd units
• health/status APIs
• a lightweight local dashboard
• cross-build and QEMU-based test helpers

Repository Layout

tri-pi/
├── backend/      # Local API and status collector
├── build/        # Cross-build and QEMU helper scripts
├── config/       # triangles.conf and backend env templates
├── docs/         # Architecture and workflow notes
├── frontend/     # Local status dashboard
├── image/        # Pi image customization placeholders
├── services/     # systemd unit files
├── setup/        # Provisioning scripts run on the Pi
└── tor/          # torrc templates and Tor helper material

Relationship To triangles

tri-pi does not vendor or modify the daemon source by default. It expects a separate checkout:

e:/repos/
├── triangles/
└── tri-pi/

That keeps the concerns clean:

• triangles: wallet/node source, native builds, protocol changes
• tri-pi: appliance packaging, deployment, monitoring, Tor, Pi UX

Current Scope

This scaffold includes:

• a minimal Python backend that exposes node status
• a static dashboard that polls the backend
• Pi install/build script placeholders
• systemd unit templates
• Tor and daemon config templates

It does not yet include:

• a production-ready installer
• real RPC authentication management
• image generation
• CI workflows
• automatic wallet unlock

Quick Start

Run the local backend:

python backend/app.py

Then open:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/

By default the backend serves the frontend from frontend/ and reports placeholder node data until a real trianglesd RPC endpoint is configured.

Next Steps

1. Wire backend/app.py to the real Triangles RPC surface.
2. Flesh out setup/install.sh for Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm.
3. Add QEMU-based integration tests under build/.
4. Add release packaging for prebuilt ARM artifacts.