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]>
Prod inventory scaffolding for the three bare-metal nodes, and the become posture the
operator ruled for production.
BECOME: prod does NOT get dev's NOPASSWD sudo. Prod keeps a real sudo boundary and
supplies the password to Ansible as 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
(~/.config/home-k3s/ansible-vault-pass), so plays still run unattended with no plaintext
secret in git. Committed here: README.md + vault.yml.example only — the operator creates
the encrypted vault (`ansible-vault create`), as with every other vaulted group.
PACKAGES BELONG IN THE ROLE (operator ruling): smartmontools is now declared in
node_baseline_packages, not hand-installed on a node. Drive health tooling is a
permanent part of a bare-metal node's baseline — dev nodes are VMs and never needed it.
Same click-ops-never principle as the rest of the repo.
ADDRESSING: nodes .10/.11/.12, reached DIRECTLY on the LAN (no pfSense NAT hop, unlike
dev's 192.168.2.102:225x mapping), so ansible_host is the real node IP. kube-vip
control-plane VIP is 192.168.2.9 — deliberately BELOW the nodes and OUTSIDE the Cilium
LB pool (.20-.30) so kube-vip and LB-IPAM can never contend for an address. The ingress
Gateway VIP (.20) and the LB pool are Flux/cluster-vars concerns and deliberately do
not appear in Ansible.
BLOCKED-BY-DESIGN: node_baseline_longhorn_device / node_baseline_etcd_device are present
but set to an obviously invalid /dev/BLOCKED-... path pending the operator's disk-layout
decision (node 1 is a single SATA SSD; the role's /dev/vdb,/dev/vdc defaults are virtio
names that do not exist on bare metal). Leaving them unset would silently fall back to
those equally-nonexistent defaults — a confusing failure that looks like a wiring bug.
This fails just as hard and says exactly why.
KNOWN FOLLOW-UP: roles/k3s_server and every node-host playbook hardcode the literal
group names k3s_primary/k3s_secondary/k3s_servers, so the k3s_prod_* groups are not
selected by them as-is. Harmless now (nothing can accidentally run against prod) but the
"same roles, unchanged" reuse R-ENV-02 promises needs the target group parameterized
before §6 of PROD-PROVISIONING.md can execute. Documented in hosts.ini and both READMEs.
Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-03, R-SEC-01. Task: T-7.1. Gate: MERGE GATE: PASS.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
A node rebuild (tofu -replace / fresh OS) wipes host-level config Flux/Helm don't manage.
site.yml omits kube-vip.yml and vpn.egress.gateway.yml, so a re-provision missed the node-host
OpenVPN on k3s-dev-3 and dropped all egress-class=vpn pod traffic. Document the node-host layers
that must be re-run after any re-provision, and correct the stale author-only banner (these plays
are live).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
jakman85andClaude Opus 5