We will be using neither TTN nor Chirpstack. Instead, the MQTT broker and data aggregation function will be performed by our Linux-based controller, which is on the same LAN as the Conduit gateway. Therefore, it would seem logical to consider our controller as the Network Server. However, as the MultiTech documentation and your questions indicate, using the Packet Forwarder function within the Conduit seems to be more geared toward using a remote network server. I am not clear whether our desired network topology is realizable without significant changes to the Conduit software.