# Quadlet unit: frank-large (rootless, boot-persistent). # # Install path on dankclaw: ~/.config/containers/systemd/frank-large.container # Unit name: frank-large.service (container name: frank-large) # # The large inference service, since 2026-09-11 the halogen-flash-server # runtime serving peonist-ai/halogen-qwen3.8-flash-next (Qwen3.8-Flash-Next, # w4b .hgn checkpoint + quality overlay sidecar). It replaced the llama.cpp / # kingjones30-ROCmFPX STRIX deployment because the engine is ~4x faster on # prefill (the dominant cost of any real prompt) on this exact SKU. # # SHAPE. The image runs both halves in one container: the engine on container # loopback (:8730, UNAUTHENTICATED — never publish it) and the OpenAI # front-end on :8731, published here as host 7770 so the fleet's clients, # services.json probe and docs keep the port they have always used. Same for # HALOGEN_MODEL_ID=frank-large: it is the id at /v1/models, in /health and in # every response, so no client had to be renamed. Halogen never rejects a # request for naming a different model, it just serves it. # # DEVICES. gfx1151 through the amdgpu/KFD stack: /dev/kfd plus the DRM render # node. Both are 0666 on this host, so the rootless user namespace can open # them (id dank is also in render/video). seccomp=unconfined and --ipc=host are # the image's documented requirements; memlock must be unlimited. # # DO NOT name an environment variable TEMP, HOST or GPU_MAX_HEAP_SIZE: the HIP # runtime reads bare TEMP for its JIT cache path (2026-08-13 incident). # # MEMORY. Weights are pinned (HALOGEN_FLASH_PIN_TRUNK default 1) — that is the # configuration the published decode numbers were measured with, and `free`, # MemAvailable and every monitor built on them will overstate free memory by # the size of the model (~68 GiB) because the kernel counts the locked weights # as reclaimable page cache. Halogen prints the corrected figure at startup. # The pinned trunk means this container holds most of the host; a co-tenant # that then takes the remainder can stall both for minutes at full CPU with no # disk activity and no output. That is documented behaviour, not a crash, and # the escape hatch is HALOGEN_FLASH_PIN_TRUNK=0 (at several times the decode # cost). Sizing chosen 2026-09-11 for a SHARED 121 GiB host: KV pool 262,144 # positions (~7.2 GiB) + the baked 32,768-token prefill arena (16.7 GiB) sits # well inside the device budget once the ~68 GiB of weights and the ~5 GiB of # co-tenant containers are accounted for. HALOGEN_KV_POOL_FIT stays on as the # safety net: if the machine refuses, the engine lowers the pool itself and # prints what it chose. # # WEIGHTS. HALOGEN_DOWNLOAD fetches the whole weights repo on FIRST START ONLY # (the entrypoint checks whether the checkpoint is absent) into the bind mount # below, which must therefore be read-WRITE. huggingface_hub resumes partial # files natively, and the quadlet runs the container with --replace --rm, so a # restart mid-fetch continues rather than starting over. Roughly 127 GB: the # 115.55 GiB checkpoint, the 2.31 GiB quality overlay, the 0.84 GiB vision # tower and the tokenizer. The repo is public and ungated, so no token is # needed; later starts open no outbound connections at all. # # VISION. HALOGEN_VISION_TOWER=1 finds the sidecar beside the checkpoint. This # is the fleet's only image input since the FLM NPU endpoint was retired on # 2026-09-11; audio input has no replacement. # # CLIENT CONTRACT (see serverAppConfigs-docs/LLM/halogen-flash-server.md). # There are no server-side sampler defaults: a request that sends no # temperature decodes GREEDY. The per-request budget defaults to 8,192 tokens # and REASONING COUNTS AGAINST IT, so a budget that runs out mid-thought # returns finish_reason "length" with empty content and the partial reasoning # in reasoning_content. The cap is 65,536; above it a request is a 400, never a # silent truncation. # # IMAGE. The unit runs the localhost/-aliased tag: this host's podman quadlet # path cannot resolve registry-prefixed refs from local storage at create # time. deploy-remote.sh pulls the ghcr.io ref and re-tags it before the # restart. Pull=never keeps boots off the registry. [Unit] Description=frank-large — halogen-flash-server, Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (w4b) on gfx1151 After=network-online.target [Container] ContainerName=frank-large Image=localhost/peonist-ai/halogen-flash-server:0.5.8 # Published port stays 7770: Hermes, open-webui, the harness and the homepage # probe all point here. 8730 (the engine) is deliberately not published. PublishPort=7770:8731 AddDevice=/dev/kfd AddDevice=/dev/dri # Read-write: the first start downloads into it. Contains only weights. Volume=/home/dank/models/halogen:/models # Fetch the weights on first start only (absent checkpoint gates it). Environment=HALOGEN_DOWNLOAD=peonist-ai/halogen-qwen3.8-flash-next # Fleet identity: the id at /v1/models, /health and every response body. Environment=HALOGEN_MODEL_ID=frank-large # Native context of the model. Matches what both clients declare. Environment=HALOGEN_CTX=262144 # Conservative pool for a shared host: one full-length conversation, or four # at 65k. Raising it to 524288 doubles the resident conversations for ~7 GiB # more device memory — do that only after reading the startup ledger. Environment=HALOGEN_KV_POOL_POSITIONS=262144 Environment=HALOGEN_KV_SLOTS=4 # RAM left for the n-gram table the engine reads through the page cache. # Above the vendor's 20 because a dozen containers share this host; too low # and long prompts crawl with the disk busy. Environment=HALOGEN_HOST_RESERVE_GIB=24 # Image input (the sidecar ships inside the weights repo). Environment=HALOGEN_VISION_TOWER=1 # Verbose engine logging: the vendor's first-line evidence for load, # allocation and admission questions. Shipping it on means an incident report # already has the full startup account instead of needing a restart-into-debug. # HALOGEN_DMALLOC_LOG is deliberately NOT set — it logs every allocation # over 64 MB, which is steady-state noise here; raise it only for a live # OOM hunt. Environment=HALOGEN_VERBOSE=1 # Required by the image: the engine maps the checkpoint and registers it with # the GPU in place, which needs host IPC and an unconfined seccomp profile. PodmanArgs=--ipc=host --security-opt seccomp=unconfined Ulimit=memlock=-1:-1 # The image ships its own HEALTHCHECK; this pins it. /health asks the ENGINE # for a PONG before answering, so 200 means "ready to serve", not "process # alive". During the first-start download it stays unhealthy by design. HealthCmd=halogen-healthcheck api HealthInterval=30s HealthTimeout=10s HealthRetries=3 HealthStartPeriod=300s Pull=never [Service] # The first start reads ~68 GiB off disk and pins it before serving. TimeoutStartSec=900 Restart=on-failure RestartSec=10 [Install] WantedBy=default.target