Commit Graph
17 Commits
Author SHA1 Message Date
jakman85 0a733294ff docs(prod): node 1's DIMMs are not a matched pair
gate / gate (push) Has been cancelled
gate / conformance (push) Has been cancelled
Surfaced by the new node_health DIMM reporting, unrelated to the memattr bug and NOT a fault:
DIMM1 is a Micron 8ATF2G64HZ-3G2E1 (DDR4-3200), DIMM3 a Micron 16ATF2G64HZ-2G6E1 (DDR4-2667).
Both 16 GB so capacity is right, but different rank organisation and rated speed mean the pair
runs at the slower 2667.

Recorded in §0 where the symmetry decision gets made, because §2 requires the three nodes to end
up with identical layouts and the previous '2x16 GB Micron' note hid the mismatch.

Serves: R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 22:31:26 -05:00
jakman85 47f02c6e06 docs(prod): second independent confirmation + no cmdline workaround exists
A second research pass reached the same root cause by a different route and pinned the
arithmetic. Recording it because convergence from two independent lines is what turns this from
a good hypothesis into a settled diagnosis.

MECHANISM TO THE BYTE:
- the garbage 'version' node 2 read was 1463964749 = 0x5742544D = ASCII 'MTBW'. The kernel is
  reading unrelated data. HP publishes the MEMATTR pointer into memory /sys/firmware/memmap calls
  plain System RAM, so the pre-Linux boot chain overwrites it.
- tbl_size is a SIGNED int; num_entries * desc_size wraps mod 2^32 and goes NEGATIVE when bit 31
  lands. memblock_reserve sign-extends it and memblock_cap_size clamps to PHYS_ADDR_MAX - base,
  so EVERYTHING above 0xbeeb0018 is reserved.
- memblock_free_all then hands the allocator nothing above that line while present_pages (from
  memblock.memory) is untouched -> present 3340288 / managed 0.
- 'Failed to map EFI Memory Attributes table' is emitted LATER by efi_memattr_apply_permissions();
  it is positive PROOF the reservation already happened, a consequence rather than the cause.

CLEANEST A/B TELL, one dmesg line: NODE_DATA(0) on prod-2 ends at 0xbeeb0000 — pgdat forced
immediately BELOW the reservation — while on prod-1 it ends at 0x82f800000, the top of RAM.
Identical 0x2a980 allocation, opposite placement.

THERE IS NO KERNEL CMDLINE WORKAROUND. efi_memattr_init() is called from
efi_config_parse_tables(), and x86's efi_init() calls efi_config_init() BEFORE the
efi_runtime_disabled() bail-out — so noefi / efi=noruntime / efi=novamap do NOT prevent the
reservation. A fixed kernel is the only real fix.

EFI_MEMORY_SP / soft-reserved was the strongest competing theory and is EXCLUDED BY MEASUREMENT:
/sys/firmware/memmap/10/type reads 'System RAM'. Soft-reserved would print as 'Soft Reserved' and
is never memblock_add()ed, which would have left present at ~0 rather than 3340288.

Also records that the hardening landed exactly one release late for Debian 13 (bug present since
2016; 8fbe4c49c0cc first in v6.13; follow-up 5d0faa8e8369) and that a Debian BTS report against
src:linux is warranted — 6.12 is Debian 13's kernel for the release lifetime.

Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 22:16:22 -05:00
jakman85 49d82491dd docs(prod): node 2 memory SOLVED — Linux 6.12 EFI memattr bug, NOT a hardware fault
I framed this as an OPEN HARDWARE FAULT and blamed, in order: the DIMM, BIOS memory remapping,
and stale Fast Boot memory-training data. ALL THREE WERE WRONG. The hardware is fine.

ROOT CAUSE: HP's R21 firmware publishes a CORRUPT EFI Memory Attributes Table, and Linux 6.12
fails to validate it before reserving memory from its contents. drivers/firmware/efi/memattr.c
never validates num_entries or desc_size:

    if (tbl->version > 2) { pr_warn(...); goto unmap; }
    tbl_size = sizeof(*tbl) + tbl->num_entries * tbl->desc_size;
    memblock_reserve(efi_mem_attr_table, tbl_size);

Garbage version > 2 -> kernel bails, memory intact. Garbage version <= 2 -> kernel multiplies two
garbage fields and reserves GIGABYTES from the table address to the top of RAM.

THE EVIDENCE THAT SETTLES IT: the same machine — same DIMM, same BIOS, same kernel, same cmdline —
booted with the FULL 15.9 GiB two boots earlier, with a byte-identical BIOS-e820 map. Boot -2:
15,917,744K available, 615,208K reserved, 'Unexpected EFI Memory Attributes table version
1463964749'. Boots -1/0: 2.6 GiB, 13.9 GiB reserved, 'Failed to map ... @ 0xbeeb0018'. No hardware
fault is intermittent in that shape or fixed by a reboot. MemTotal = DMA(3840) + DMA32(684481)
pages = 2,753,284 kB exactly, Normal contributing zero.

BOTH PROD NODES ARE AFFECTED. k3s-prod-1 prints 'Unexpected EFI Memory Attributes table version
1030' — also garbage, but >2, so the kernel bails and it keeps its 32 GiB BY LUCK, NOT IMMUNITY.
It is one unlucky boot from the identical fault. Dev nodes publish no memattr table at all
(Proxmox OVMF) and are unaffected.

FIX: kernel >= 6.13 — upstream 8fbe4c49c0cc 'efi/memattr: Ignore table if the size is clearly
bogus', whose commit message describes this verbatim. Verified absent from v6.12 and from current
linux-6.12.y. On Debian 13: linux-image-amd64 from trixie-backports.

DO NOT buy RAM, move the DIMM, RMA the board, or run memtest expecting failures. Rebooting,
disabling Fast Boot, clearing CMOS and unplugging USB are all the same lottery — they move where
the table lands and may LOOK like fixes.

Records every killed hypothesis with its disproof so none of them get re-run.

Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 22:14:14 -05:00
jakman85 5ea9c93f58 docs(prod): BIOS password answer + CORRECT the 0x4 'auth failure' reading
Operator asked for the default BIOS password. ANSWER: there is none, and no factory default
exists to look up. HP business desktops ship with no Setup and no Power-On password; the
is_enabled=0 we measured IS the factory state. Recovery for a forgotten password is the PSWD
jumper — and 'stringent security' must NOT be enabled, since HP documents that it removes the
physical bypass and turns a 5-minute fix into a signed per-serial HP service case.

CORRECTION, and the kernel driver misled me: I recorded that the firmware refused our write for
lack of BIOS-admin authentication. Wrong. hp-bioscfg passes the return of HP's WMI SetBIOSSetting
through hp_wmi_error_and_message(), which is THE ERROR TABLE FOR A DIFFERENT INTERFACE (the
"SECU" commands under HP_WMI_BIOS_GUID). Per HP's Client Management Interface white paper,
SetBIOSSetting 4 = 'Failed' (generic) and 6 = 'Access Denied'. We got 4, not 6 — and the driver
has a separate BIOS_ADMIN_NOT_SET = 0x38 -> -EPERM for the no-password case, which we also did
not get. 'Invalid command type' is the driver looking 4 up in the wrong table: a genuine upstream
bug worth reporting to platform-driver-x86.

Most likely real cause (inferred, testable): with an empty password the driver emits an UNTAGGED
empty UTF-16 string, while every HP-documented caller passes Password="<utf-16/>" even when
blank — the driver only prepends that prefix for a non-empty string. Setting a password may fix
writes, but by flipping onto the tagged code path, NOT because 0x4 meant unauthorised.

Also verified from source: hp-bioscfg CANNOT set a password. current_password and new_password
both funnel into store_password_instance(), which only strscpy's into driver RAM; new_password is
write-only into a buffer nothing ever reads.

Count corrected: 241 attributes exposed, 239 with a current_value, 215 non-empty. I had quoted
215 as the total; it was the non-empty subset.

Recommendation recorded: land read-only drift detection now (zero risk, no new credential, and it
already caught real drift); treat a Setup password as a deliberate experiment on node 3 only;
hp-repsetup as fallback but it needs Secure Boot off or a self-signed module; skip Sure Admin/BCU
at this scale.

Serves: R-ENV-03, R-SEC-01. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 22:10:07 -05:00
jakman85 3a88abb958 docs(prod): iGPU ruled out as the cause; CORRECT my last_pfn misreading
Operator asked whether node 2's missing memory could be reserved for integrated graphics.
TESTED, and no: /proc/iomem shows 'c8800000-cc7fffff : Graphics Stolen Memory' = EXACTLY 64 MiB,
matching the BIOS Video Memory Size=64 MB setting, and it sits BELOW the 4 GiB line. The UHD 630
(i915 bound) takes precisely what it is configured to take. It cannot account for 13.3 GiB and is
not even in the affected address range.

CORRECTION to my own analysis, prompted by checking that hypothesis properly: I cited the
'last_pfn revised DOWN from 0x42f800 to 0xc3c10' line as evidence of a memory cap. That was a
MISREADING. x86 boot prints last_pfn twice — first max_pfn from the full e820, then max_low_pfn,
the end of RAM below 4 GiB. The e820 low usable region ends at 0xc3c0ffff, so the next PFN is
exactly 0xc3c10, which is the second value observed. It matches to the byte and is normal on any
machine with more than 4 GiB. I presented a routine boot message as a smoking gun, and the
'memory remapping above 4 GB not being applied' signature claim rested partly on it.

The real anomaly is narrower than first stated: the Normal zone is 'present' but 'managed 0',
13.3 GiB is reserved, and nothing in the boot log explains by what. Ruled out so far: DIMM health,
firmware inventory, memory-remap settings (none exist on this platform), MTRR trim, iomem
registration, and now integrated graphics. Leading remaining hypothesis is stale memory-training
data cached by Fast Boot — testable with one F10 toggle.

Serves: R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 21:54:12 -05:00
jakman85 9f7052ab2b docs(prod): fill in node-2 inventory; drop stale investigate bullets
Records node 2's as-found hardware alongside node 1 and removes two bullets that my earlier
edit left duplicated/obsolete (the BIOS comparison is done; clear-CMOS was listed twice).

Makes the hardware ASYMMETRY explicit in the table rather than buried in prose: node 1 is a
~2011 Micron C400 SATA SSD at 69% life with 15 grown bad blocks and 187 erase failures; node 2
is a Samsung PM9A1 NVMe at 96% life, PASSED. Same chassis, same BIOS, same CPU, same partition
layout — very different storage. §2 requires an identical disk layout across all three nodes
because Longhorn replica placement assumes symmetry, so this belongs in the inventory where the
disk decision will be made.

Serves: R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 21:45:37 -05:00
jakman85 3c8f809aaf docs(prod): CORRECTION — BIOS attributes are read-only in practice, not writable
I recorded that the hp-bioscfg attributes were 'writable from the OS' because current_value
has mode rw and no BIOS passwords are set. That was WRONG, and the firmware said so when the
write was actually attempted:

  hp_bioscfg: Returned error 0x4, "Invalid command type"   (surfaces as printf: I/O error)

HP requires BIOS-admin authentication for programmatic changes and neither credential is
provisioned on these nodes — Setup Password is_enabled=0 (role bios-admin), SPM
key_mechanism=not provisioned. Secure Boot is also enabled. File mode is not authority; the
firmware is.

What survives the correction, and it is the useful half: READS WORK. Diffing 215 attributes
between node 1 and node 2 is exactly how the drift in §0b was found — nobody spots
'After Power Loss=Power Off' by eye. So the §1 firmware checklist IS machine-CHECKABLE today
with reads alone, and node_health should assert it.

What does NOT survive: machine-ENFORCEABLE. Converging BIOS settings automatically would
require provisioning a BIOS Setup Password on every node — a stored credential that can rewrite
firmware. That is a real security decision and the operator's call, not something to default to.

Consequence for the node-2 memory fault: setting Fast Boot=Disable and After Power Loss=Power On
must be done in F10 on the box. Updated §0b and §1 accordingly.

Serves: R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 21:45:15 -05:00
jakman85 11b21f7347 docs(prod): BIOS settings compared programmatically via hp-bioscfg
Both nodes load the hp-bioscfg driver, exposing 215 BIOS attributes read/write at
/sys/class/firmware-attributes/. No BIOS passwords are set, so they are writable FROM THE OS.

RULED OUT as the cause of node 2's 2.6 GiB limit: firmware inventory is correct (BIOS itself
reports Memory Size=16384 MB); no memory-remap/above-4G attribute exists on this platform at
all; MTRRs are effectively identical with no trim warning; /proc/iomem registers the full
100000000-42f7fffff as System RAM and 127 memory blocks report online.

REAL DIFFERENCES FOUND (node1 works / node2 broken):
  After Power Loss          Power On  / Power Off   <- VIOLATES this document's own §1
  Fast Boot                 Disable   / Enable      <- leading hypothesis
  Legacy Boot Options       Disable   / Enable
  TPM Activation Policy     F1 to Boot / Allow user to reject
  MS+Windows UEFI CA 2023   Enable    / Disable

Leading hypothesis: HP Fast Boot reuses CACHED MEMORY-TRAINING DATA rather than retraining each
boot. A DIMM fitted while Fast Boot was on is a plausible route to memory being present,
inventoried, handed to the kernel — and then reserved. It is also the only memory-relevant
setting differing from the working node. NOT TESTED: changing it is a firmware write plus a
reboot and needs operator sanction.

BROADER FINDING for T-7.1: the §1 firmware checklist is now MACHINE-CHECKABLE rather than an
eyeball-at-F10 exercise, and machine-ENFORCEABLE too. That is precisely how node 2 came to have
After Power Loss=Power Off while node 1 has Power On — nobody could see the drift. Follow-up
recorded: extend node_health to assert the firmware checklist, add a role to converge it.

Raw BIOS dumps deliberately NOT committed — they carry serials, UUIDs and MAC addresses, same
reason node-health artifacts are gitignored. Only the findings are recorded.

Serves: R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.
2026-09-01 21:04:12 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 cb69a53825 feat(prod): enable node 2 + HARDWARE FAULT — it addresses 2.6 GiB of its 16 GB
k3s-prod-2 (192.168.2.11) came online 2026-09-01. Enabled in the inventory, baseline package
floor installed, first health run completed. Vaulted become works on it unchanged.

*** OPEN FAULT: the node can only address ~2.6 GiB of a healthy, correctly-installed 16 GB
DIMM. *** Recorded in PROD-PROVISIONING §0b.

  dmidecode        16 GB Samsung M471A2K43DB1-CTD in DIMM1 @ 2667 MT/s (DIMM3 empty)
  BIOS e820        reports ~16 GiB usable, incl. 0x100000000-0x42f7fffff
  kernel           Memory: 2568544K/16546088K available (13958980K RESERVED)
  last_pfn         revised DOWN 0x42f800 (~16.7 GiB) -> 0xc3c10 (~3.06 GiB) in early boot
  zones            Normal present 3340288 pages (~12.7 GiB) but MANAGED 0
  MemTotal         2,753,284 kB = 2.6 GiB

The DIMM is NOT the problem: it is present, correctly identified, and at rated speed. The
kernel sees all 16 GB and then reserves 13.3 GiB. Everything below ~3 GiB usable, everything
above 4 GiB present-but-unmanaged — the signature of memory remapping above 4 GB not being
applied, not of failing memory. Node 1 is the control: identical chassis, identical BIOS R21
Ver. 02.26.00, identical CPU, and it addresses its full 31 GiB. Per-machine state, not a
firmware-version defect.

WARNING RECORDED: do NOT assume the incoming 32 GB fixes this. If the fault is the slot, the
board or a BIOS setting rather than the DIMM, 32 GB presents identically and the money is
wasted. Verify MemTotal after any RAM change.

ALSO FOUND — the prod nodes are NOT hardware-symmetric:
  node 1  Micron C400 512GB SATA SSD (~2011) — 69% life, 15 grown bad blocks, 187 erase
          failures, 32 unexpected power losses
  node 2  Samsung PM9A1 512GB NVMe        — 96% life, 2142 power-on hours, 34 unexpected
          power losses, overall-health PASSED
Same chassis, same BIOS, same CPU, same partition layout — very different storage. §2 requires
an identical disk layout across all three nodes because Longhorn replica placement assumes
symmetry, so this asymmetry is now a live input to the disk decision rather than a footnote.
Node 2's NVMe is the drive node 1 should have had.

Node 2 otherwise: 0 FAIL / 3 WARN / 12 PASS / 2 SKIP. Same three WARNs as node 1 (swap still
active pending full baseline, single IPv4 resolver, and the NVMe's 34 unexpected power losses),
plus the same unknowable-ECC SKIP.

Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-03, R-OBS-04. Task: T-7.1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-01 20:56:58 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 6b4da27f84 feat(prod): SOPS decryption (same age key as dev) + GitOps source on main
gate / gate (push) Has been cancelled
gate / conformance (push) Has been cancelled
Operator decisions, 2026-09-01:
  1. Prod uses the SAME SOPS age key as dev.
  2. Prod tracks the SAME BRANCH as dev (`main`). Dev is a temporary instance and will be
     decommissioned once prod is deemed stable.

SOPS: eight `decryption: {provider: sops, secretRef: sops-age}` patches mirroring dev
exactly — platform, apps-wave-0/1/2, oauth2-proxy, headlamp, crafty, velero. The sops-age
Secret is still created OUT OF BAND on prod (bootstrap/sops/install-age-key.sh); the
overlay references it by name only, never inlines key material.

RECORDED CONSEQUENCE of the shared branch: once prod is live, EVERY MERGE TO main
RECONCILES BOTH CLUSTERS. There is no promotion step and no soak window — dev and prod
move together. That is a deliberate consequence of dev being temporary, not an oversight,
but it removes the "prove it on dev first" safety net that the last few days have leaned
on heavily. Worth revisiting if dev outlives its expected life.

*** BOOTSTRAP BLOCKER recorded, NOT papered over *** — the source URL cannot work on a
cold prod cluster, for two independent reasons found while wiring this:

1. SELF-HOSTING CIRCULARITY. Gitea runs ON THE DEV CLUSTER — the one slated for
   decommission. Prod syncing from it means prod's source of truth lives inside the
   cluster being retired. Gitea must move to prod (or off-cluster) BEFORE dev is torn
   down. This makes Gitea migration the FIRST task of the decommission plan, not the last.

2. SPLIT-HORIZON DNS SENDS IT TO THE WRONG PLACE. platform/coredns/coredns-custom.yaml
   answers the ENTIRE home.keithjackson.dev zone with ${GATEWAY_VIP} via a template
   plugin. On prod that is 192.168.2.20 — PROD's own gateway, where no Gitea listens. Prod
   Flux would resolve gitea.home.keithjackson.dev to itself and never reach a repository.
   This is the same split-horizon mechanism that makes dev work, inverted against us.

Bring-up therefore needs a TEMPORARY source (the bootstrap host-Gitea, or an off-cluster
mirror) with a cutover to the in-cluster URL once Gitea actually runs on prod — precisely
the sequence docs/05 describes for dev's own Phase-6 cutover. The branch is settled and
correct; only the host is blocked. Documented at the patch site and in
PROD-PROVISIONING.md §7.

Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.

Serves: R-SEC-01, R-GITOPS-01, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-01 16:27:32 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 666a60776a fix(flux): close the substitution race — platform dependsOn root + strict substitution (P0/P1)
P0 — clusters/base/platform.yaml gains `dependsOn: [flux-system]`. This is the actual fix
for the incident, not the feature gate. Verified against kustomize-controller v1.4.0
`kustomization_controller.go :: checkDependencies` (our version): dependsOn is REVISION-
gated, not merely Ready-gated — when the dependency shares a GitRepository, the dependent
cannot reconcile revision N until the dependency has APPLIED revision N. Applying revision
N is exactly what writes a newly-added cluster-vars knob.

Graph verified mechanically, not by eye: built clusters/dev and clusters/prod and walked
the resulting objects. `platform` was the ONLY Kustomization without a dependsOn, and all
11 substituting Kustomizations chain transitively through it (platform-config -> platform;
the waves, apps-vms, oauth2-proxy, headlamp, homepage, crafty, velero -> platform-config).
The "not chaining through platform" set is EMPTY, so this one edge protects the whole
graph. DFS over the full edge set after the edit: no cycles. The root (clusters/dev/
sync.yaml) runs wait: false, which is what makes the edge deadlock-free — it reaches Ready
on apply success without health-gating its children.

Accepted trade-off, documented in-file: the root becomes a gate. A malformed manifest
anywhere under clusters/<env> — including clusters/base — now stalls platform and
everything downstream, where today it would not. Fail-closed, per doctrine.

P1 — StrictPostBuildSubstitutions. MY PREMISE WAS WRONG about where this belongs and it
matters: this repo deliberately does NOT use `flux bootstrap` (see bootstrap/flux/README).
There is no gotk-components.yaml in git, and the live kustomize-controller Deployment
carries NO Flux ownership labels — it was installed imperatively by `flux install` from
bootstrap.sh and is not in Flux's inventory. `flux-system` self-manages the CR graph, NOT
the controllers. Nothing under clusters/** can reach a controller flag.

So it uses Flux's documented mechanism for hand-installed clusters: a new
bootstrap/flux/components/kustomization.yaml wrapping `gotk-components.yaml` with a
JSON-6902 patch appending --feature-gates=StrictPostBuildSubstitutions=true to
kustomize-controller. JSON-6902 `add /args/-` deliberately, NOT strategic merge — a
container's args is atomic and a merge patch would replace all five install-generated
args. bootstrap.sh step 1 now renders (`flux install --export` into a temp dir, apply the
patch, ASSERT the gate string is present so a future Flux bump that breaks the patch
target fails loudly) then applies. FLUX_INSTALL_PLAIN=1 is a loud escape hatch. Nothing is
vendored, so components can never drift from the pinned FLUX_VERSION.

Rejected: vendoring gotk-components.yaml under the root's path (the root's prune: true
would put Flux's own controllers and CRDs in a prune inventory), and shipping a partial
Deployment as a Flux-managed resource (a future prune would delete kustomize-controller).

ROLLOUT ORDER MATTERS. P0 arrives automatically on the next reconcile. P1 does NOT arrive
on a git push — the controller Deployment is outside Flux's inventory, so an operator must
re-run bootstrap.sh step 1, which restarts kustomize-controller (~10-20s; Flux is
level-triggered so an interrupted reconcile is simply retried). P0 must be reconciled
BEFORE P1 is rolled out: with the gate on but the ordering edge absent, the same race
turns a transient empty render into a transient hard Kustomization failure.

ALSO FIXES A PHASE-7 BLOCKER THIS CHANGE WOULD OTHERWISE HAVE CREATED. clusters/prod had
no root Kustomization — dev/sync.yaml even carried the note "a prod overlay needs its own
sync.yaml -> ./clusters/prod". With the new dependsOn, a prod bootstrap would have left
platform blocked forever on a flux-system Kustomization that does not exist, and nothing
downstream would ever reconcile. clusters/prod/sync.yaml is now authored, mirroring dev.

Two further prod-overlay gaps found and DOCUMENTED, not guessed (PROD-PROVISIONING §7):
prod has no SOPS `decryption` patch (every encrypted Secret would fail to decrypt — needs
the prod age-key decision, a security choice not a copy), and no GitRepository source URL
patch (needs a decision on whether prod tracks the same branch as dev, which would make a
dev-facing merge reconcile prod).

Substitution gate re-run: check OK, 102 assertions, 0 hazards. Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.

Serves: R-ENV-02, R-GITOPS-01, R-PLAT-01, R-ENV-03.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-01 01:45:04 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 ff0533106b feat(prod): operator decisions — node DNS, service VIPs, become vault, collections path
gate / gate (push) Has been cancelled
gate / conformance (push) Has been cancelled
1. PROD NODE DNS = 8.8.8.8 + 1.1.1.1 (operator, 2026-09-01). Two INDEPENDENT public
   upstreams, so the single-upstream SPOF that broke containerd pulls and CoreDNS
   forwarding on dev cannot recur. Prod deliberately differs from dev, which is
   PiHole-first because dev needs the local jackson.lan zone.

   SCOPE CORRECTED IN THE COMMENTS. Three resolvers answer *.home.keithjackson.dev and
   only one is configured here:
     pods  -> CoreDNS -> platform/coredns/coredns-custom.yaml, whose `template` plugin
              answers the WHOLE zone with ${GATEWAY_VIP}. Self-contained in-cluster;
              PiHole is NOT in this path. Prod is already correct (.20).
     LAN   -> PiHole. Not a cluster concern.
     nodes -> THIS FILE.
   The one thing public node DNS breaks: the k3s API SERVER is a node process carrying
   oidc-issuer-url=https://keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev/realms/homelab and reaches the
   issuer through the NODE resolver, so prod would get the PUBLIC record instead of the
   prod Gateway VIP — breaking kubectl OIDC SSO. Dev avoids this only because its node
   resolver IS PiHole. Not blocking (prod has no cluster or Keycloak yet); options are
   recorded in PROD-PROVISIONING.md §4 for the operator to pick.

2. SERVICE VIPs DECIDED: UNIFI_L4_VIP 192.168.2.21, CRAFTY_L4_VIP 192.168.2.22 — the
   first two addresses after GATEWAY_VIP (.20), mirroring dev's .53/.54/.55 ordering
   within the .20-.30 pool. S3_BACKUP_ENDPOINT stays TBD-PROD-* : no prod backup target
   exists, and dev's versitygw is across the pfSense boundary on the dev host, so it is
   not DR for prod.

3. PROD BECOME VAULT committed, ansible-vault encrypted, matching the hypervisor and
   proxmox_hosts pattern. Verified working: `ansible k3s_prod -m command -a 'id -un'
   --become` returns root. The L0 no-plaintext-secrets check asserts every ansible
   vault.yml starts with $ANSIBLE_VAULT, so this stays honest by gate.

4. TOOLCHAIN GAP FIXED: the devcontainer image does NOT ship the Galaxy collections, so
   EVERY ansible play died at parse time on community.general.modprobe. ansible.cfg now
   sets collections_path = collections, and the collections are installed there from the
   existing collections/requirements.yml (gitignored — pinned by requirements, fetched at
   setup, vendored bytes are not source).

5. DRIVE HEALTH MEASURED and recorded in §2 with the raw attribute table so the numbers
   are auditable. Verdict: usable, but not for production etcd/Longhorn state — 31% of
   rated life consumed, 15 grown bad blocks, 187 erase failures, and 32 unexpected power
   losses on a consumer drive with NO power-loss protection, in a single failure domain.
   etcd is the worst possible tenant: it fsyncs constantly and unclean power loss without
   PLP is exactly how a member corrupts.

6. NON-ECC RAM: RISK ACCEPTED by the operator, recorded as a CLOSED decision, not an open
   item — do not re-litigate. Rationale: 3-node k3s homelab, not enterprise; corruption on
   one node is outweighed by the other two and causes node ejection. That holds for the
   dominant mode (etcd raft CRC + quorum; Longhorn 3 replicas + hard anti-affinity +
   rebuild). Recorded residual: corruption introduced UPSTREAM of replication replicates
   faithfully to all three replicas, so quorum sees no disagreement — low probability, and
   the only mitigation is different hardware. Follow-up noted: Longhorn's
   snapshotDataIntegrity is left at the chart default rather than set explicitly, and it
   is the mechanism that operationalises the operator's own argument.

Serves: R-DNS-01, R-DNS-03, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03, R-SEC-01. Task: T-7.1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-01 00:40:29 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 c1f24e4a6d fix(dns): resilient node resolvers — mechanism-detecting, per-environment (R-DNS-01/03)
Re-authors the fix stranded on origin/fix/node-dns-resilient-upstream (7a34590). That
commit was NOT landed: it wrote a netplan drop-in and ran `netplan apply`, but netplan
does not exist on these nodes any more (Debian 13 trixie generic cloud image; not in
node_baseline_packages). Landing it would have failed the handler with command-not-found
and BROKEN node-baseline.yml on every node — worse than not landing it. Its dev-LAN
literals also sat in role defaults, which prod inherits, pointing prod nodes at a PiHole
on a network they cannot reach.

The underlying problem is real and verified: a SINGLE upstream resolver is a hard SPOF.
PiHole answers jackson.lan instantly but its external recursion flaps — 0/25 for public
names (registry-1.docker.io, quay.io, ghcr.io) while gitea.jackson.lan resolved 5/5 —
breaking containerd image pulls and CoreDNS `forward . /etc/resolv.conf`.

MECHANISM DETECTION (new `dns` tag in node_baseline). Five read-only probes feed one
set_fact yielding three outcomes, because the two environments no longer share a resolver
stack (dev-1 is behind resolved's 127.0.0.53 stub; prod-1 has a direct resolv.conf and no
cloud-init at all):
  * systemd-resolved — resolved running AND owning /etc/resolv.conf (proven by the
    symlink pointing into /run/systemd/resolve/, or by every nameserver being a resolved
    loopback). Writes resolved.conf.d/99-k3s-dns.conf with an ordered DNS=, Domains=, and
    FallbackDNS= EXPLICITLY EMPTIED so systemd's compiled-in public resolvers can never
    silently bypass the local zone and ad-blocking.
  * resolv-conf-file — plain directly-managed file (prod's shape). Ordered nameserver
    lines + options timeout:2 attempts:2, backup: true. Deliberately NO `rotate`, which
    would destroy PiHole-first ordering.
  * contended — resolvconf/openresolv present or NetworkManager active. Writes NOTHING
    and fails loudly: a change that silently gets reverted is worse than no change.
Resolved-running-but-not-owning-resolv.conf correctly falls through to the file branch.
Ordering is the policy that keeps the local zone working — the second server is only
consulted after the first fails, so a gateway NXDOMAIN can never beat PiHole to a
jackson.lan answer.

SEAMS. Dev values in role defaults ([192.168.1.18, 192.168.1.1], search jackson.lan);
prod values in inventory/group_vars/k3s_prod/vars.yml. NOT cluster-vars — that ConfigMap
is consumed by Flux postBuild for platform/ and apps/, and no Ansible code reads it.

PROD'S SECOND UPSTREAM IS AN OPEN OPERATOR DECISION and is left as a loud
BLOCKED-pending-second-upstream placeholder, the same precedent as the node_baseline disk
devices, with a dns-tagged assert that stops the play before any file is written. A
public resolver was NOT invented as a default: it would bypass the local zone, which is a
decision, not a default. PROD-PROVISIONING.md §4 was rewritten (the old bullet pointed at
the now-dropped branch) to state the choice, including that prod routing to the dev
PiHole is unverified across the pfSense boundary.

tofu: servers = [var.dns_server, var.network_gateway] — the one hunk of the old branch
worth taking as-is. Dev-only by nature.

ALSO FIXES A FALSE WARN THIS WOULD OTHERWISE CREATE: node_health_collect.py parsed
/etc/resolv.conf only, so on dev it read the 127.0.0.53 stub and would report a permanent
single-upstream WARN even after a correct fix. It now asks resolvectl for the real
upstreams when it sees the stub — and if that fails, nameservers is NULL with the reason
recorded, never the stub and never a guess. assess.yml turns null into SKIP, not WARN and
not PASS. The honesty discipline is preserved exactly.

Verified with NO play run against any node: syntax-check + yamllint + tofu fmt clean;
--tags packages still selects ONLY the apt task (the prod package-floor escape hatch
bypasses DNS entirely); --list-hosts unchanged; -c local simulation driving the REAL
detection expression and REAL file bodies extracted from the role by script (so the test
cannot drift) passes all 5 scenarios — dev stub -> systemd-resolved, prod shape ->
resolv-conf-file, NetworkManager and resolvconf -> contended; dev defaults pass the
assert byte-identically while prod overrides fail it by name; collector unit-tested
against 8 resolver shapes.

Serves: R-DNS-01, R-DNS-03, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-09-01 00:11:49 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 e623d27e2d feat(ansible): parameterise target groups so prod reuses the roles unchanged (R-ENV-02)
roles/k3s_server, roles/cilium and every node-host playbook hardcoded the dev group
names k3s_primary/k3s_secondary/k3s_servers, so the prod inventory groups could not be
selected at all. That broke the R-ENV-02 promise that prod reuses the SAME roles, and
blocked PROD-PROVISIONING.md §6 outright.

TWO KNOBS, deliberately separate — Ansible templates a play's `hosts:` BEFORE any host
context exists, so group_vars is unreadable there, while roles run WITH host context:
  * which hosts a play RUNS ON — k3s_hosts, k3s_primary_hosts/k3s_secondary_hosts
    (k3s.yml's split), vpn_egress_gateway_hosts; each `| default(<dev group>)`, set by -e
    only. Follows node-health.yml's established `<name>_hosts | default(dev)` pattern.
  * which group a ROLE means by "my primary"/"my servers" — k3s_primary_group,
    k3s_servers_group in group_vars/all.yml (dev), overridden in group_vars/k3s_prod.
    Follows the k3s_api_host convention already in this repo. No per-run flag.

DEV IS UNCHANGED — the key evidence. --list-hosts/--list-tasks/--syntax-check captured
for all 9 playbooks at HEAD and after: sorted host lists IDENTICAL for all 9, same
primary/secondary split, same 6-play site.yml. (Raw --list-hosts PRINT ORDER varies run
to run; proven to be Ansible's own set ordering by running UNMODIFIED HEAD cilium.yml
four times -> 3,1,2 / 1,3,2 / 1,2,3 / 1,2,3. Hence sorted comparison.) --list-tasks
differs in exactly two files, only by added TAGS annotations and one new assert; no task
reordered, renamed or removed. Var resolution verified per environment with -c local:
dev -> k3s_primary/192.168.1.50/sans .50,.49,127.0.0.1,.51,.52; prod ->
k3s_prod_primary/192.168.2.10/vip .9/sans .10,.9,127.0.0.1,.11,.12.

BREAKS THE SMARTMONTOOLS CIRCULAR DEPENDENCY. node_baseline tasks are now tagged
packages/system/disks, so the package install can run alone:
  ansible-playbook playbooks/node-baseline.yml -e k3s_hosts=k3s_prod --tags packages
Skipping is the guard — no disks-tagged task is selected, so the
BLOCKED-pending-disk-decision paths are never templated, let alone passed to mkfs.
Belt-and-braces, a new disks-tagged assert fires first in a FULL run and names §2
explicitly instead of failing obscurely at mkfs. `tags: never` was deliberately NOT used
(it would change the default run).

FOOTGUN FOUND AND FIXED: roles/cilium, cluster_verify and flux_bootstrap all hardcoded
.cache/dev.kubeconfig — the exact file infra/devcontainer/dev.sh exports as $KUBECONFIG.
Once prod became targetable, a prod cilium/verify run would have SILENTLY OVERWRITTEN it,
leaving the operator's kubectl quietly answering from PROD. Now cluster_kubeconfig_name
(dev.kubeconfig -> prod.kubeconfig). Dev path byte-identical.

KNOWN, DOCUMENTED, NOT FIXED HERE: flux-bootstrap.yml retargets but roles/flux_bootstrap
shells out to bootstrap/flux/bootstrap.sh with a hardcoded --path=clusters/dev — a
bootstrap/ subtree change, not a target-group change (§6, cross-referenced to §7).
vpn.egress.gateway.yml is parameterised but prod has no egress group yet and would need
its own vaulted PIA credentials. --check against prod is still impossible until the prod
vault exists — even the packages-only run needs it.

Nothing was run against the dev cluster: --list-hosts/--list-tasks/--syntax-check, plus
debug/assert with -c local, only.

Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03. Task: T-7.1.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-08-31 23:53:36 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 a1fb31a7ef docs(prod): record the decided prod address plan; packages-in-role correction
PROD-PROVISIONING.md §4 now carries the full operator-decided address table (nodes
.10/.11/.12, control-plane VIP .9, ingress Gateway VIP .20, Cilium LB pool .20-.30) with
the two invariants that make it safe: the control-plane VIP sits outside the LB pool so
kube-vip and LB-IPAM cannot contend, and GATEWAY_VIP is the FIRST address of the pool
because the shared Gateway pins nothing and LB-IPAM hands it the first free address.

§5 no longer tells the operator to hand-install smartmontools — package installation is
the node_baseline role's job (operator ruling). §0 gains the node 2/3 addresses.

Task: T-7.1. Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-08-31 22:44:10 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 e3c44368c8 docs(prod): correct sudo posture to vaulted become; record status-surface ruling
Two operator corrections:

1. PROD DOES NOT GET NOPASSWD SUDO. My initial checklist recommended mirroring dev's
   passwordless sudo onto prod — rejected, correctly. Dev's NOPASSWD is a convenience
   that must not propagate to production. Prod instead keeps a real sudo boundary and
   drives Ansible `become` with an ansible-vault-encrypted `ansible_become_password` in
   inventory/group_vars/k3s_prod/vault.yml, mirroring the EXISTING hypervisor and
   proxmox_hosts groups. The decrypting passphrase stays outside the repo at
   ~/.config/home-k3s/ansible-vault-pass (ansible.cfg :: vault_password_file), so plays
   still run unattended with no plaintext secret in git.

2. THE TASK BOARD IS NOT THE STATUS SURFACE — THE REPOSITORY IS. Operator ruling closes
   the escalation raised in the previous commit. Requirement/spec status is to be DERIVED
   from repo state (what is authored, reconciled, and covered by a green requirement-tagged
   test), not from a hand-maintained board. The spec board is left as a historical seed;
   no agent edits it and no SPEC_PIN churn is spent on it. ci/spec-immutability.sh keeps
   its full strictness — no path exception was added, since weakening an R-TEST-06 gate
   for a bookkeeping file would be a defect, not a fix. A repo-derived spec status report
   becomes the artifact of record alongside the coverage report and this log.

Serves: R-ENV-03 (prod provisioning posture), R-SEC-01 (no plaintext secrets), R-TEST-06.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-08-31 22:29:39 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 574088dfeb docs(prod): open Phase 7 (prep only) + T-7.1 bare-metal provisioning checklist
The operator added the first production node (k3s-prod-1, 192.168.2.10 — HP EliteDesk
800 G5 Mini, i7-9700T/31GiB, Debian 13, VT-x + /dev/kvm) and opened roadmap Phase 7 for
PREP WORK ONLY: no k3s install until the R-ENV-02 blockers close and the gate is green.

Records the Phase-7 entry-gate position honestly: the operator has declared hardware
ready, but "Phases 1-6 proven in dev/test" is NOT met (37/51 conformance; R-ENV-01/02/03
themselves uncovered). Proceeding is an explicit, accepted risk — not an oversight.

Adds infra/PROD-PROVISIONING.md (T-7.1, design-only): firmware/BIOS, disk layout, OS,
network, access, Ansible reuse, repo blockers, build sequence, Phase-7 exit criteria.

Key findings recorded in DECISIONS-LOG:
- R-ENV-02 is violated in the base — dev LAN addresses hardcoded into base manifests
  (cilium k8sServiceHost, the Cilium LB pool, crafty/UniFi LB IPs, 3 S3 backup
  endpoints). Prod is on 192.168.2.x, so prod would build WRONG today.
- clusters/prod never sets GATEWAY_VIP -> would inherit the base default 10.73.0.240,
  an address on the RETIRED libvirt network.
- No NOPASSWD sudo on the prod node -> all Ansible fails at its first become.
- node_baseline device defaults are virtio (/dev/vdb,vdc) and absent on bare metal.
- ESCALATION: agents/task-board.md is structurally unmaintainable — AGENTS.md designates
  it the one agent-editable surface, but ci/spec-immutability.sh fails the gate on ANY
  spec-repo dirt with no path exception. Explains the all-todo board after six phases.
  NOT worked around: exempting it would weaken an R-TEST-06 gate. Operator decision.

Operator decisions: Phase 7 open (prep only); wait for all 3 nodes before cluster-init;
check drive health before choosing the single-SSD disk layout.

Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-02, R-ENV-03, R-PLAT-01/03. Task: T-7.1.
Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-08-31 22:17:51 -05:00