fix(auth): five oauth2-proxy sidecars shared one cookie and evicted each other
gate / gate (pull_request) Failing after 1m43s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped

Every oauth2-proxy on this platform is an independent instance with its OWN
cookie-secret. Measured on prod 2026-09-30: seven `*-oauth2-proxy` Secrets, seven
DISTINCT cookie-secret values (compared in-cluster, never printed). So no instance
can DECRYPT another's cookie -- it can only OVERWRITE it.

All of them were emitting oauth2-proxy's DEFAULT names (`_oauth2_proxy`,
`_oauth2_proxy_csrf`) scoped to `.${BASE_DOMAIN}`, so the browser kept ONE cookie
pair for SIX live instances (jackett, pihole, qbittorrent, radarr, sonarr, and the
shared forward-auth proxy). Whichever authenticated last clobbered the rest; the
loser logged `No valid authentication in request`, bounced to Keycloak, and -- the
SSO session still being live -- was redirected straight back and clobbered it again.
The symptom is "I signed into Keycloak but I'm still not signed in", which sends you
hunting in Keycloak, where nothing is wrong. Crafty was fixed on its own side on
2026-09-29 (#22); this is that fix generalized to the pattern.

THE DEFECT WAS NOT IN THE MANIFESTS. apps/wave-*/{jackett,pihole,qbittorrent,radarr,
sonarr}.yaml are GENERATED goldens; one function emits all five. So the fix is in
catalog/render.py::_oauth2_sidecar_container(), and both flags are now DERIVED from
the ServiceDefinition rather than defaulted:

    --cookie-name=_oauth2_proxy_{s['name']}     unique by construction
    --cookie-domain={host}                      the app's own host, not the zone

A per-service table was rejected for the reason twelve ServiceMonitors once acquired
one identical wrong port name in a single edit: it would leave the NEXT app onboarded
defaulting straight back into the collision. --whitelist-domain stays zone-wide; it
governs post-login REDIRECT targets, not cookie scope.

Host-scoping is defence in depth and is asserted deliberately: a zone-wide cookie is
transmitted by the browser to every host in the zone, so each app's session token was
being sent to every sibling -- and it is what would make a FUTURE name collision
platform-wide instead of contained.

New gate check (whole-repo scope, so it runs on EVERY gate invocation, not only when
a touched path happens to attribute an identity requirement):

    conformance/tests/l0-static/oauth2-proxy-cookie-names-distinct/

It resolves each instance's EFFECTIVE cookie name -- declared, or oauth2-proxy's
built-in default when omitted, because an omitted flag is not an absence but a CLAIM
on a name, and reading it as an absence is exactly why this survived five reviews.
Then: no two collide; none is another's name + `_csrf` (oauth2-proxy derives the CSRF
cookie that way); the default has exactly ONE owner, registered with its reason in a
shrink-only register -- the SHARED proxy, which MUST keep `_oauth2_proxy` because
renaming it signs every other gated surface out at once; every other instance is
host-scoped; render.py derives rather than lists; and the SHIPPED renderer is proven
end-to-end on two synthetic ServiceDefinitions, so the check stays falsifiable once
the tree is clean.

Tested in both directions: rc 0 on this tree (39 assertions, 7 instances), rc 1 with
26 failures against the pre-fix tree, plus one targeted mutation per assertion class
(duplicate name, CSRF derivation, zone-wide domain, unregistered default heir, stale
register entry) -- each fired, and nothing else did.

Also regenerates the three L1 rendering goldens, which are expected-output fixtures
of the same renderer.

UNVERIFIED: no browser round-trip. The collision has still never been REPRODUCED in a
browser -- doing so needs two gated apps visited in one session -- so this is reasoned
from measured configuration and from the mechanism, not from a failure anyone watched.
Nothing was applied; merging rolls five Deployments and invalidates every existing
session on them once. See decisions/2026-09-30-oauth2-proxy-cookie-collision-fleet.md.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
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jakman85andClaude Opus 5 committed 2026-09-30 10:55:06 -05:00
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---
date: 2026-09-30
branch: fix/oauth2-proxy-cookie-collision-fleet
title: The cookie collision was never Crafty's — it was the renderer's, and it shipped to five apps
---
## What changed
Follow-up #3 of `decisions/2026-09-29-crafty-oauth2-proxy-signin.md`: *"Any further per-app
reverse-proxy sidecar needs a unique `--cookie-name` too. The collision is a property of the
pattern, not of Crafty."*
It is a property of the pattern, and this branch found where the pattern actually lives.
**The defect was not in the four manifests it was reported in.** `apps/wave-0/pihole.yaml`,
`apps/wave-0/qbittorrent.yaml`, `apps/wave-1/radarr.yaml`, `apps/wave-1/sonarr.yaml` — and
`apps/wave-0/jackett.yaml` — are **generated goldens**. One function emits all five sidecars:
`catalog/render.py::_oauth2_sidecar_container()`, which hardcoded `--cookie-domain=.{ZONE}` and
emitted no `--cookie-name` at all. Hand-editing a golden is not a fix twice over: `ci/render-golden.sh`
FAILS on the drift (provoked, not assumed — see below), and the next re-render silently reverts it.
So the fix is in the generator, and both flags are now **derived** from the ServiceDefinition:
--cookie-name=_oauth2_proxy_{s['name']} unique per service, by construction
--cookie-domain={host} the app's own route host, not the zone
`--whitelist-domain` deliberately stays zone-wide — it governs permitted post-login *redirect*
targets, not cookie scope. `catalog/render.py --selftest` gained four assertions, including one
that renders a **second** synthetic forward-auth service and requires the two cookie names to
differ, so a future refactor to a constant fails in the renderer's own test.
Re-rendering with the canonical command regenerated **five** goldens, not four. Jackett is the
fifth, and this is the one thing in this branch the PM brief did not anticipate — see
"the jackett collision" below.
**The new gate check** is `conformance/tests/l0-static/oauth2-proxy-cookie-names-distinct/`,
declaring `conformance.home.k3s/scope: whole-repo` so `ci/l0.sh`'s `--include-scope` union runs it
on **every** gate invocation. No bespoke `ci/l0.sh` stage was added — `whole-repo-invariants-wired`
fails the gate if anyone adds one, and the scope annotation is the supported mechanism.
It inventories every oauth2-proxy instance the repo authors (containers at any depth, plus the
shared proxy's HelmRelease values) and resolves each one's **effective** cookie name — its declared
name, **or oauth2-proxy's built-in `_oauth2_proxy` when it declares none**. That single modelling
decision is the whole check: an omitted flag is not an absence, it is a *claim on a name*, and
treating it as an absence is precisely why five reviewers read these manifests and saw nothing.
Then: (1) no two effective names collide; (2) no name is another's name + `_csrf`, because that is
how oauth2-proxy derives the CSRF cookie and two such session names look distinct while their CSRF
cookies collide; (3) the default name has exactly one owner, and it is the one registered in
`SHARED_DEFAULT_COOKIE_OWNER`; (4) every non-registered instance is host-scoped; (5)
`catalog/render.py` derives rather than lists; (6) the **shipped** renderer is proven end-to-end on
two synthetic ServiceDefinitions run as a subprocess.
**On the shared proxy — "distinct" or "explicitly declared"?** The brief asked me to decide, and
the answer is *neither, quite*. The shared forward-auth proxy at `platform/oauth2-proxy/` **must
keep** `_oauth2_proxy`: it is the single session every forward-auth-gated surface without its own
sidecar rides on, so renaming it signs all of them out at once. Requiring *every* instance to
declare a name would therefore need an exemption, and an exemption is a hole: delete the shared
proxy and whichever app next omitted the flag would silently inherit the default with the rule
still satisfied. So the assertion is plain **distinctness over effective names**, with the default
treated as a name like any other — held by **exactly one owner, named in a shrink-only register
with its reason**. The shared proxy needs no exemption from the rule; it is simply the registered
holder of that one name. A stale register entry FAILS (the exemption would outlive its object) and
an unregistered holder FAILS (no silent heirs). Both were provoked and are quoted below.
**On host-scoped `--cookie-domain` — overreach, or not?** Asserted, and here is the argument both
ways. *Against:* distinct names alone close the eviction bug completely — two differently-named
cookies do not overwrite each other however wide their domains are — so this assertion fixes
nothing (1) has not already fixed, and a check that fails a legitimate configuration is a check
someone eventually disables. *For, and this wins:* a zone-wide cookie is **transmitted by the
browser to every host in the zone**. qBittorrent's session token was being sent to pihole, radarr,
sonarr and every other name under the zone, including hosts behind no proxy at all — a
session-credential disclosure across trust boundaries that nothing needs. And it is what makes a
*future* name collision catastrophic rather than contained: with host-scoped cookies, two
instances that accidentally share a name cannot see each other's cookie at all. Defence in depth
on the exact axis that already failed once. The escape hatch is the same register, by name and
with a reason, rather than a loosened rule.
### The jackett collision — read this
`apps/wave-0/jackett.yaml` carries the identical defect and was assigned to **Mira Vance** on
`fix/jackett-oauth2-proxy-session`, with an instruction to me not to touch it. **That separation is
not achievable**, and I did not discover this by reasoning about it — I provoked it. With the
renderer fixed and jackett's golden left at its `main` content, `./ci/render-golden.sh` exits **1**:
[fail] GOLDEN DRIFT: apps/wave-0/jackett.yaml does not match the canonical render:
- - --cookie-domain=.${BASE_DOMAIN}
+ - --cookie-name=_oauth2_proxy_jackett
+ - --cookie-domain=jackett.${BASE_DOMAIN}
[fail] render==golden check FAILED
Jackett's golden is an *output* of the file that contains the defect. There are exactly three
options and two of them are worse: hand-edit four goldens and leave the generator broken (fails
`render-golden`, and reverts on the next render); add a per-service carve-out to the renderer so
jackett alone keeps defaulting (ships the exact "list, don't derive" anti-pattern this check
exists to forbid, and leaves jackett broken *by design*); or fix the generator and regenerate all
five. I took the third. Jackett's golden here is **machine output of a one-line generator change**,
not an independent edit of Mira's file, and it is byte-identical to what her branch must produce.
**Consequence for the PM:** `fix/jackett-oauth2-proxy-session` has no work left in it. As of this
writing that branch has **zero commits ahead of `main`** and is not pushed, so nothing is lost —
but if Mira has since hand-edited `apps/wave-0/jackett.yaml`, her branch will fail `render-golden`
on its own terms and should be closed rather than rebased.
## What I verified
- **The premise, in-cluster, rather than inherited from the handoff** (CLAUDE.md §2b). Read-only,
`kubectl --context k3s-prod`, through the pinned toolbox.
- **Seven** `*-oauth2-proxy` Secrets carry a `cookie-secret`: crafty, jackett, pihole,
qbittorrent, radarr, sonarr, and the shared `oauth2-proxy-credentials`. **All seven values are
DISTINCT.** Compared without printing anything: each value was hashed **in-cluster-side script,
never echoed**, and only the first 8 hex characters of each `sha256` were emitted — enough to
say same-or-different, recovering nothing. Secret *key names* were listed; no `.data` or
`.stringData` was printed (CLAUDE.md §6). **So no instance can decrypt another's cookie — it can
only overwrite it. The premise holds.**
- **The default cookie names really were in use.** Of 8 live oauth2-proxy containers, **6 declare
no `--cookie-name` at all** — jackett, pihole, qbittorrent, radarr, sonarr, and both replicas of
the shared proxy — so all six emit `_oauth2_proxy` / `_oauth2_proxy_csrf`. All six also carry
`--cookie-domain=.home.keithjackson.dev`. **One cookie pair, six independent instances.**
- Crafty's live pod (`crafty-647c7d8cc5-5spv9`) already carries
`--cookie-name=_oauth2_proxy_crafty` and `--cookie-domain=crafty.home.keithjackson.dev`, so
PR #22 is merged and reconciled. It is the only compliant per-app instance on the cluster.
- **The four target files are generated, not authored.** Rendering `catalog/` with the canonical
command into a temp dir and diffing against `apps/` reported all 10 onboarded goldens
byte-identical before any change. Hand-editing one is drift by definition.
- **`render-golden` FAILS if jackett is excluded** — provoked (output quoted above), rc **1**.
Restoring the regenerated golden returns it to `all 10 onboarded service golden(s) reproduce`,
rc **0**.
- **`catalog/render.py --selftest`: PASS**, including the new two-service distinctness assertion.
- **The check is selected by the whole-repo union.** `conformance/run.sh --layer l0 --requirements
r-nosuchreq-99 --include-scope whole-repo --print-selection` lists
`tests/l0-static/oauth2-proxy-cookie-names-distinct` among 20 tests — i.e. it runs even when the
touched-requirement filter matches nothing, which is the blind spot it was scoped for.
- **The check was tested in BOTH directions**, against throwaway trees outside the repo, never by
mutating the branch:
- **Compliant tree (this branch): rc 0, 39 assertions, 7 instances audited.**
- **Pre-fix tree** (`git archive HEAD` + this test dropped in): **rc 1, 26 failures**, naming all
five violators, the 6-way `_oauth2_proxy` collision, the zone-wide domains, the renderer
emitting no `--cookie-name`, and both synthetic fixtures rendering `None`.
- **Targeted mutations on a compliant copy**, one assertion class each, all fired and nothing
else did: duplicate name (sonarr←radarr) → 1 failure; CSRF derivation
(`_oauth2_proxy_sonarr_csrf` as a session name) → fired; zone-wide `--cookie-domain` on pihole
→ 2 failures; crafty's `--cookie-name` deleted → unregistered-default-heir + 2-way collision;
shared proxy renamed → **stale register entry** failure.
- A **false positive was found and fixed** by this testing: `platform/oauth2-proxy/forward-auth-cec.yaml`
contains `serviceName: oauth2-proxy/oauth2-proxy:80` — an Envoy `namespace/service:port`
reference, not an image — which the first inventory scan counted as an unaudited instance. The
scan is now anchored on `image:`, and the near-miss is documented in the check.
- **Gate:** toolbox `./ci/gate.sh` — exit code and stage list in the next section, because it is
not a pass and that belongs there.
## What I did NOT verify
- **Gate rc 3 (UNDETERMINED), not 0.** Green stages: `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`, `render-golden`,
`l1`, `approval-policy`. **Skipped:** `spec-immutability` (the sibling spec repo is not mounted —
the one tolerated skip), `gitea-settings` (no `SETTINGS_API_TOKEN`), and **L2/L3 conformance**
(`CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` unset). Nothing FAILED; nothing runtime was certified either. **rc 3 is
UNDETERMINED, never green**, and this branch must not be described as green on the strength of it.
- **No browser round-trip. The sign-in fix is UNVERIFIED end-to-end.** Identical to the gap the
2026-09-29 entry recorded and did not close: the collision has still **never been reproduced in a
browser**, because reproducing it needs two gated apps visited in one session. Everything here is
reasoned from measured configuration — distinct secrets, default names, shared domain — and from
the mechanism, not from a failure anyone watched. It is a latent-bug fix.
- **Nothing was applied.** No `kubectl apply/edit/patch`, no `flux reconcile`. Cluster access was
read-only throughout. The running pods are still the pre-fix spec. **Merging is what deploys**,
and it will roll five Deployments; every user's existing session on those five apps is
invalidated by the cookie rename and they will re-authenticate once. Radarr/sonarr/qbittorrent
use `strategy: Recreate` on RWO volumes, so there is a brief gap per app. Pick the moment.
- **The live flags are not re-measured by the check.** git is not the cluster. I measured the live
pods by hand, once; nothing in the gate re-reads them, so hand-applied drift would be invisible
to it. A live-state assertion is L2 and is not written.
- **The cookie-secrets' distinctness is not gated either.** It was measured out of band and is
asserted nowhere. If they were ever made identical the collision would become harmless — but
sharing one session-encryption key across trust zones is a worse idea than the bug it would mask,
so the check does not offer it as an alternative and does not look for it.
- **The shared proxy's own configuration is unchanged and untested by me.** I did not touch
`platform/oauth2-proxy/**` (owned by another agent this cycle); the check only reads it.
- **Nothing about group authorization, CSRF behaviour, or session contents.** Names and domains only.
- **`vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` is still unset in CI**, so the PR's green tick — if it goes green —
proves the L0/L1 offline subset and nothing about runtime.