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]>
Operator ask: implement the roles needed to check prod node hardware health, and run
them to find out our state. This is that role; the run's findings are below.
roles/node_health is a read-only sibling to cluster_verify (cluster health vs hardware
health), styled after node_baseline. One unprivileged collector script does the work in
a single SSH round trip — reading /sys/class/dmi, thermal + hwmon, EDAC, cpufreq +
thermal_throttle, /proc/pressure, /sys/block incl. SCSI ioerr/iotmo counters, lsblk,
lscpu, mounts + statvfs, per-NIC stats, resolv.conf.
THE DESIGN POINT: an unreadable field is emitted as null WITH A RECORDED REASON, never
as zero. The summary ends with a "NOT READ (and why) — these are UNKNOWNS, not passes"
section. A fake zero on a reallocated-sector count is exactly the kind of false green
this project refuses. 22 checks report PASS/WARN/FAIL/SKIP/INFO; every SKIP says why.
Report-only by default; thresholds live in defaults/main.yml.
Portable across bare metal AND VMs — validated against k3s-prod-1 (bare metal, no root)
and k3s-dev-1 (VM, root). VM-absent things (SMART on virtio, coretemp, EDAC) skip
cleanly, and iSCSI/Longhorn volumes are split out of the physical-disk set so a live
replica is never mistaken for a spare device.
playbooks/node-health.yml takes its target group as a variable (-e node_health_hosts=
k3s_prod), deliberately unlike the other playbooks that hardcode k3s_servers — see the
group-name gap already flagged in hosts.ini.
Two become facts found the hard way and documented in the role: a group_vars
`ansible_become: true` OUTRANKS `become: false` as a play/task keyword, so unprivileged
tasks must override the variable; and `failed_when: false` does NOT catch "Missing sudo
password" — only `ignore_errors` does.
FIRST RUN, k3s-prod-1, 2026-08-31: 0 FAIL · 3 WARN · 12 PASS · 3 SKIP · 4 INFO.
Box is healthy, cool and unstressed: i7-9700T 8C/8T, VT-x + /dev/kvm (KubeVirt OK), zero
throttle events, hottest sensor 33C, PSI 0.00 across the board, 31.1 GiB RAM, eno1 up at
1000 Mb/s, BIOS R21 02.26.00, no reboot pending.
DRIVE HEALTH IS STILL UNKNOWN — the headline. SMART did not run, blocked TWICE over: no
vaulted ansible_become_password for prod, AND smartmontools is not on the node at all
(node_baseline has never run there). Power-on hours, wear, reallocated/pending sectors
and drive temperature all remain unmeasured on a ~2011 consumer SSD.
WARNs: kernel ioerr_cnt=6 on sda (read cautiously — four freshly attached iSCSI disks on
dev each showed a flat 7, suggesting a fixed per-device discovery cost, not media
trouble; attribution needs dmesg/root); 0.95 GiB swap still active (node_baseline does
the swapoff); one IPv4 resolver only (the other two upstreams are IPv6 Google), which
refines rather than resolves the DNS-SPOF finding.
ESCALATION — ECC status is UNKNOWABLE on this hardware: /sys/devices/system/edac/mc
exists but no controller is bound. Non-ECC consumer RAM. Silent memory corruption on a
prod node would be undetectable. Recorded as a SKIP with reason, not a pass.
Serves: R-ENV-01, R-ENV-03, R-OBS-04. Task: T-7.1.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
MinIO's open-source edition is de-prioritised (console removed, commercial
pivot), so swap the off-cluster S3 backup target on the Proxmox host to
versitygw v1.7.0 (github.com/versity/versitygw) — a maintained Go S3 gateway
serving a POSIX filesystem as S3.
Rename role minio_backup_target -> s3_backup_target and playbook backup-minio
-> backup-s3. The role now:
- decommissions any pre-existing MinIO (service/binary/env/mc-client/user/
object-layout), KEEPING the ZFS dataset Storage/k3s-backups and its mount
- installs the pinned, checksummed versitygw binary (fetched+extracted on the
controller, host has no internet), a dedicated versitygw system user, and a
Type=simple hardened systemd unit running the posix backend rooted at
/mnt/Storage/k3s-backups/data, bound to 192.168.1.9:9000 (same endpoint),
plain HTTP / path-style
- ensures the dataset has xattr=sa (versitygw stores object metadata in xattrs)
- pre-creates the velero + cnpg buckets (bucket == top-level subdir)
Credentials are REUSED: versitygw's ROOT key is set to the same scoped
access_key/secret the cluster already uses, so endpoint + key + secret + bucket
names are byte-identical to the old MinIO target. The GitOps SOPS secret
(platform/backup/minio-credentials.sops.yaml) and all cluster-side Velero/CNPG
config need ZERO change. The vaulted group_vars now expose
s3_backup_target_access_key/_secret_key (same values, MinIO root creds retired).
Verified live on the Proxmox host: versitygw active+enabled on 192.168.1.9:9000,
MinIO fully removed, dataset intact; SigV4 ListBuckets with the reused key
returns velero+cnpg; a throwaway in-cluster pod reaches http://192.168.1.9:9000
(versitygw S3 response). Re-run is idempotent (no host changes).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Stand up a single-node/single-drive MinIO S3 endpoint on the Proxmox host as the
off-cluster backup target for Velero (R-STATE-03) and CloudNativePG (R-IDP-05).
Ansible (author + executed):
- roles/minio_backup_target + playbooks/backup-minio.yml — idempotent, additive only:
ZFS dataset Storage/k3s-backups (zstd, quota=100G, /mnt/Storage/k3s-backups, no
sharenfs); minio system user; pinned+checksummed MinIO/mc binaries (fetched on the
controller since the host has no WAN, copied to host); hardened systemd unit bound to
the host's cluster-reachable LAN IP (auto-discovered) on :9000; velero + cnpg buckets;
a non-root access key scoped by IAM policy to only those two buckets.
- inventory: new [proxmox_hosts] group ([email protected].2.102); overrides the cluster-wide
ansible_user. Does not disturb existing k3s node entries.
- group_vars/proxmox_hosts/vault.yml (ansible-vault): root + scoped MinIO creds.
GitOps hand-off:
- platform/backup/minio-credentials.sops.yaml (+ .example) — SOPS/age-encrypted endpoint +
scoped key/secret for the Velero/CNPG wiring (WS-STORAGE/WS-SEC). Not yet wired into a
kustomization (left for the consuming agents).
Verified live: dataset props correct; minio active+enabled bound to 192.168.1.9:9000;
S3 endpoint http://192.168.1.9:9000/minio/health/ready returns 200 from an in-cluster pod;
buckets velero+cnpg present; scoped key created+policy attached; re-run is idempotent.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Add an HA control-plane API VIP for the k3s cluster with kube-vip, and add
the VIP + all node IPs to the kube-apiserver serving-cert SANs so TLS via the
VIP validates. Prepares the stable failover endpoint the operator fronts with
a pfSense port-forward to 192.168.1.49:6443.
roles/kube_vip + playbooks/kube-vip.yml:
- Templates a single manifest (RBAC + DaemonSet kube-vip-ds) into each server's
k3s auto-deploy dir (/var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/manifests) so it is
reproducible and independent of Flux; k3s auto-applies it.
- Control-plane ONLY (cp_enable=true, svc_enable=false): Cilium keeps ownership
of Service LoadBalancing (L2 pool .53-.60) — no ARP conflict.
- Runs on control-plane nodes (nodeSelector node-role.kubernetes.io/control-plane),
hostNetwork, NET_ADMIN/NET_RAW, image pinned ghcr.io/kube-vip/kube-vip:v0.8.9.
- vip_interface auto-detected per node (the iface holding 192.168.1.5x = eth0).
- Leader election (plndr-cp-lock) with 15/10/2s lease timings.
- This cluster runs without kube-proxy (Cilium replacement), so a hostNetwork
pod cannot reach the kubernetes ClusterIP; kube-vip is pointed at the
node-local apiserver (KUBERNETES_SERVICE_HOST=127.0.0.1:6443) so leader
election works.
roles/k3s_server tls-san:
- New k3s_tls_sans (VIP + all three node IPs + 127.0.0.1, deduped); install
args now emit one --tls-san per entry.
- Persist the SAN list to /etc/rancher/k3s/config.yaml (read by a running k3s)
and Restart k3s handler so an existing cluster regenerates its serving cert.
- k3s.yml secondaries run serial:1 so a SAN change rolls one node at a time,
keeping etcd quorum (kube-vip keeps the API reachable during each restart).
Verified live: DS 3/3 ready, VIP answers on 192.168.1.49:6443, all 3 certs and
an s_client against the VIP carry 192.168.1.49 + .50/.51/.52 + 127.0.0.1, all
nodes Ready throughout the rolling restart.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Author the vpn_egress_gateway role + playbook that stands up the NODE-level
PIA OpenVPN tunnel on egress-gateway node(s) — the host half of ADR-0015. The
CiliumEgressGatewayPolicy steering vpn-class pods is separate GitOps against the
same contract (group vpn_egress_gateway, node label
homelab.keithjackson.dev/egress-gateway=true, host iface tun0).
Honors all four ADR-0015 invariants:
- Split-tunnel (inv 1&2): OpenVPN route-noexec + pull-filter ignore
redirect-gateway => installs no routes; policy routing in a dedicated table
(51820) with `ip rule from <tun0-addr>` steers ONLY Cilium-SNAT'd vpn-class
traffic. Node default route stays on the WAN, tunnel up or down.
- Scoped nftables kill-switch (inv 3&4): own inet table, policy accept, drops
only tunnel-sourced (@vpn_egress_gateway_src set) packets not leaving tun0 =>
vpn-class fails closed (blackhole), node/internet-class fail open (WAN),
never matched.
PIA creds + the proven sweden-aes-128-cbc-udp-ip .ovpn come from Ansible vault
(host-side per ADR-0015/docs-07); vault keys documented, no secret values
committed. ansible-lint (production) + yamllint clean. Not deployed: green
conformance is gated on the live tunnel (operator host creds) — see role README.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <[email protected]>
Where the sudo password goes, codified:
- inventory: new [hypervisor] group (localhost, connection=local).
- host-prereqs.yml targets 'hypervisor'; become password from vaulted
group_vars/hypervisor/vault.yml (ansible_become_password) — user creates it
encrypted (safe to commit); README documents the exact commands.
- ansible.cfg vault_password_file = ~/.config/home-k3s/ansible-vault-pass
(passphrase kept OUTSIDE the repo, never committed).
- ci/yamllint.yaml ignores **/vault.yml (vault blob isn't parseable YAML).
Nodes keep NOPASSWD sudo (group_vars/all) — vault scoped to the host only.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Per operator: the firewalld rule (VM->host:3000 for the Flux<-Gitea source) must be
IaC, not a manual command (R-ENV-01, R-PLAT-04).
- infra/ansible/playbooks/host-prereqs.yml: idempotent firewalld open on the libvirt
zone (localhost play, become; no extra collection).
- bootstrap/gitea/bootstrap-gitea.sh: now fully automates admin + public repo + push
(was manual instructions) — idempotent; creds stay 0600 on host, never committed.
Applying host-prereqs still needs host sudo (I lack non-interactive sudo); with
passwordless become a destroy/rebuild is fully unattended.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <[email protected]>
jakman85andClaude Opus 5