feat(plex): one advertised hostname for local+remote, its own LE cert, and a LAN definition

Two symptoms after the publishing fix landed: 1. LAN clients were reported as Remote. Measured root cause: LanNetworksBandwidth was ABSENT, so Plex had no notion of a local network and classified everything WAN -- 468 requests logged "Allowed Network (WAN)", ZERO "(LAN)", including Seerr from inside the cluster. allowedNetworks only waives AUTH; it does not make a client local. Two settings, and only one has an env hook. 2. The advertised URL hard-coded both the VIP and the server's cert hash into a cluster-var -- two values nothing kept in sync. Operator design: ONE hostname, plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}, split-horizon -- PiHole answers it with ${PLEX_L4_VIP} on the LAN, Cloudflare answers it publicly with the WAN address NATed to the same VIP. - catalog/plex.yaml: ADVERTISE_IP -> https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400, plus a level-triggered postStart hook (pihole/qbittorrent idiom) that re-asserts LanNetworksBandwidth and the three customCertificate* prefs every start, converting PEM -> PKCS#12 so cert renewals need no extra part. - apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml: cert-manager Certificate for exactly that name from letsencrypt-prod, so the advertised https URL is servable. - schema 1.11.0: `optional` on secretKeyRef/configMapKeyRef. Load-bearing -- the cert is issued INTO the plex namespace, which the rendered plex.yaml itself creates, so it lands in the same reconcile; hard refs would have held Plex in CreateContainerConfigError and, since apps-wave-0 is wait:true, stalled the whole app tier on a slow DNS01 challenge. - catalog/pihole.yaml: the plex-vip split-horizon answer. Required -- measured, the name resolved to the Gateway VIP where nothing listens on 32400 (http=000). - PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL deleted; the hostname removes the cert-hash fragility. Corrects my own earlier claim that a SAN match is REQUIRED: it is not (httpsRequired=0, secureConnections defaults to Preferred, so clients can fall back to cleartext). A matching cert keeps the remote leg ENCRYPTED. Hence: obtain a real cert for the advertised name rather than pick the name to suit Plex's built-in one. UNVERIFIED, and stated plainly in the handoff: nothing here has run. Cert issuance for this name is inferred from the wildcard's success, and whether Plex accepts an OpenSSL-3 PKCS#12 bundle is untested -- the largest risk. Touches clusters/** -> sensitive paths -> needs a non-author approval or the operator's /approve-override; deliberately not self-posted (CLAUDE.md 1). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Merge pull request 'fix(plex): advertise the plex.direct name, not the bare VIP (server vanished from the plex.tv account)' (#47 ) from fix/plex-advertise-plexdirect into main
2026-10-04 03:37:57 -05:00 · 2026-10-04 07:59:14 +00:00 · 2026-10-04 02:53:01 -05:00 · 2026-10-04 07:10:31 +00:00 · 2026-10-04 07:08:19 +00:00 · 2026-10-04 02:03:42 -05:00
21 changed files with 1783 additions and 67 deletions
@@ -14,9 +14,11 @@ resources:
 - nextcloud-db-backup-credentials-prod.sops.yaml
 - nextcloud-db-backup-credentials.sops.yaml
 - nextcloud-db.yaml
+- pihole-bootstrap-secret.sops.yaml
 - pihole-dns.yaml
 - pihole-oauth2-proxy-credentials.sops.yaml
 - pihole.yaml
+- plex-cert.yaml
 - plex-claim-secret.sops.yaml
 - plex-remote.yaml
 - plex.yaml
@@ -0,0 +1,72 @@
+# =================================================================================================
+# PiHole WEB/API ADMIN PASSWORD — the one piece of PiHole state that was NOT declared anywhere.
+# =================================================================================================
+# WHY THIS FILE EXISTS. Measured on live prod 2026-10-04, `pihole.toml` marks every non-default
+# setting with `### CHANGED`, and names the ones that came from the environment `### CHANGED (env)`.
+# The complete list was:
+#
+#     dns.upstreams          ### CHANGED (env)   <- declared, catalog/pihole.yaml
+#     dns.listeningMode      ### CHANGED (env)   <- declared, catalog/pihole.yaml
+#     dns.rateLimit.count    ### CHANGED (env)   <- declared, catalog/pihole.yaml
+#     misc.dnsmasq_lines     ### CHANGED (env)   <- declared, catalog/pihole.yaml
+#     files.macvendor        ### CHANGED         <- set by the image itself, container path
+#     webserver.api.pwhash   ### CHANGED         <- SET OUT OF BAND. Declared NOWHERE. This file.
+#
+# So exactly ONE operator-set value lived only on the Longhorn PVC: the admin password, as a
+# one-way BALLOON-SHA256 hash. Nobody could recover it (a hash does not reverse), nothing in git
+# produced it, and a rebuild from git would have come up with a DIFFERENT password — or none.
+#
+# THE REASON THIS BLOCKS HA, which is why it is fixed first. The next step is running more than one
+# PiHole replica, and a replica with a fresh PVC would come up with its own unrelated password. The
+# admin UI would then accept or reject the same credential depending on which pod answered. Declaring
+# it here makes every replica, and every rebuild, identical by construction.
+#
+# MECHANISM: `webserver.api.password` is a real, settable FTL config key — verified in the running
+# image, where `pihole setpassword` is itself just `setFTLConfigValue "webserver.api.password"` with
+# the comment "pihole-FTL will automatically hash the password". So FTL takes CLEARTEXT on this key
+# and writes the hash into `webserver.api.pwhash` itself. catalog/pihole.yaml therefore passes this
+# value as `FTLCONF_webserver_api_password`, and the hash on the PVC becomes a derived artefact
+# rather than the source of truth.
+#
+# DEFENCE IN DEPTH, NOT THE ONLY GATE. The admin UI is already behind the oauth2-proxy sidecar
+# (`--allowed-group=platform-admins`), so this password is a SECOND gate. It is kept rather than set
+# empty because the `pihole` Service still publishes port 80 (PiHole direct, bypassing the proxy on
+# :4180) and only the CiliumNetworkPolicy closes it — and the default-deny policy in this repo has a
+# documented drift history. An unauthenticated admin UI that can rewrite LAN DNS is not a good thing
+# to leave resting on one policy staying correct. Narrowing that Service port is tracked follow-up.
+#
+# ROTATION: `sops` this file in your own terminal, change the value, commit. Flux re-applies the
+# Secret, the pod restarts, FTL re-hashes. Do NOT `sops -d` it into a shared terminal or a log
+# (CLAUDE.md section 6); read it in an editor. The value below was generated randomly at authoring
+# time and has never been printed to a transcript.
+apiVersion: v1
+kind: Secret
+metadata:
+    name: pihole-bootstrap
+    namespace: pihole
+    labels:
+        app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
+type: Opaque
+stringData:
+    #ENC[AES256_GCM,data:TMOuRyJeb5IVn3lZPXY7lgh1KGxu7GY9+WIOLHpMB50JqzmM2tHIaWUWKTt1JtZoX/E5/Y7WCUTnfkJLhRBN2zV2MwWRBSLYVy5CMg7xV8PTLRZJYAVUYS5Trg==,iv:q+DpfT6PQfY5ZuNsmP7Ddl+PDLjSm89fJICAhYoW64k=,tag:axijaO3DaxIZgZ3LeK2hXA==,type:comment]
+    webui-password: ENC[AES256_GCM,data:7FcK/bUW79M46f/MlouAmATKbMnoUTNuMUjtqJ5vpU4=,iv:I8DBFB39uXZV42Ie2IPwSefmMgdKEtiDknfc9Tu7h5E=,tag:L423784UrDU3TvylpHc6KQ==,type:str]
+sops:
+    kms: []
+    gcp_kms: []
+    azure_kv: []
+    hc_vault: []
+    age:
+        - recipient: age175l8mdpdfu7hq0aml3exs3gykarwjmuvr23sq56s3wjejnyk44wsp4mfzg
+          enc: |
+            -----BEGIN AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----
+            YWdlLWVuY3J5cHRpb24ub3JnL3YxCi0+IFgyNTUxOSB0MkRSNjZLZlpXYkcvaVJL
+            cjlqb2wrcWREZnZLdGpsTHNPWEpseHlRZnpjCnJVM1FDQ2M2dXlaS1JBZ2k2V1BP
+            Yi9QUDZSMzZsL09pTi93RTdjdGxtY2MKLS0tIDIrQTZIVWdhMGIxSCtlUFN2Mlho
+            SWVybld4VjJyaHRSKzZZU0xsUUV2SEEKbDYHV/qBZVspK7DpBW3vYjRMJ/HmAN+9
+            G9bOlNEp0jAtcNZEn6lpQ9ORgvmIrhJHoBQRLabdMWzNWSZsNn56tA==
+            -----END AGE ENCRYPTED FILE-----
+    lastmodified: "2026-10-04T06:01:27Z"
+    mac: ENC[AES256_GCM,data:rhTMTOwLOtHXHgqI5M2ZW/6w+UpLpxBlTk7NoN0wmGSqOcE+OGrXA1DhkZrJweyQT0RSNSSBm/6QMztLP81eepOzdp2rEkwvbQPK/l6K9g16Ww9c1IatS3NQsKEB8AoMDx7jBQ6exXYgggPx3MJsNYbE+WyloQ96U9KPdrecAM8=,iv:n34v2zX9D5xsaR1PFCH94mNMiuRfhUyI2lseUCoqiTA=,tag:9YmN9nIVLXfsGYIb0bUl2w==,type:str]
+    pgp: []
+    encrypted_regex: ^(data|stringData)$
+    version: 3.9.4
@@ -35,34 +35,18 @@ spec:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 53
 ---
-# PVC pihole-config (R-STATE)
-apiVersion: v1
-kind: PersistentVolumeClaim
-metadata:
-  name: pihole-config
-  namespace: pihole
-  labels:
-    app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
-spec:
-  accessModes:
-  - ReadWriteOnce
-  storageClassName: longhorn
-  resources:
-    requests:
-      storage: 2Gi
---
-# Deployment (R-PLAT-02)
+# StatefulSet (R-PLAT-02)
 apiVersion: apps/v1
-kind: Deployment
+kind: StatefulSet
 metadata:
  name: pihole
  namespace: pihole
  labels:
    app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
 spec:
-  replicas: 1
-  strategy:
-    type: Recreate
+  replicas: 2
+  serviceName: pihole
+  podManagementPolicy: Parallel
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
@@ -89,10 +73,22 @@ spec:
        - name: FTLCONF_dns_rateLimit_count
          value: '0'
        - name: FTLCONF_misc_dnsmasq_lines
-          value: address=/${BASE_DOMAIN}/${GATEWAY_VIP};address=/unifi.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${UNIFI_L4_VIP};address=/crafty-mc.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${CRAFTY_L4_VIP};address=/pihole-dns.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PIHOLE_DNS_VIP}
+          value: address=/${BASE_DOMAIN}/${GATEWAY_VIP};address=/unifi.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${UNIFI_L4_VIP};address=/crafty-mc.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${CRAFTY_L4_VIP};address=/pihole-dns.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PIHOLE_DNS_VIP};address=/plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PLEX_L4_VIP}
+        - name: FTLCONF_webserver_api_password
+          valueFrom:
+            secretKeyRef:
+              name: pihole-bootstrap
+              key: webui-password
        volumeMounts:
        - name: config
-          mountPath: /data/config
+          mountPath: /etc/pihole
+        lifecycle:
+          postStart:
+            exec:
+              command:
+              - /bin/bash
+              - -c
+              - "# Assert the declared adlists in gravity.db. Idempotent: steady state writes nothing and\n# does NOT run a gravity rebuild.\nset -u\nGRAVITY=/etc/pihole/gravity.db\n\n# THE DECLARED SET \u2014 one URL per line, the source of truth for what PiHole blocks.\n# To add a list: add a line here, commit, let Flux reconcile. Nothing else to do.\nDECLARED='https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts'\n\n# On a fresh PVC, FTL creates gravity.db a moment after the container starts. Wait, bounded,\n# and NEVER block or fail the start: a missing DB here must not crashloop DNS for the LAN.\ni=0\nwhile [ ! -s \"$GRAVITY\" ] && [ \"$i\" -lt 90 ]; do sleep 2; i=$(expr $i + 1); done\nif [ ! -s \"$GRAVITY\" ]; then\n  echo \"pihole-adlists: gravity.db absent after 180s - leaving adlists untouched\" >&2\n  exit 0\nfi\n\nsql() { pihole-FTL sqlite3 \"$GRAVITY\" \"$1\"; }\nCHANGED=0\n\n# 1) Every declared URL must be present AND enabled.\necho \"$DECLARED\" | while IFS= read -r url; do\n  [ -n \"$url\" ] || continue\n  printf '%s\\n' \"$url\"\ndone > /tmp/declared.txt\nwhile IFS= read -r url; do\n  [ -n \"$url\" ] || continue\n  # Single quotes inside a URL would break this SQL; adlist URLs do not contain them.\n  have=$(sql \"select count(*) from adlist where address='$url';\")\n  if [ \"$have\" = \"0\" ]; then\n    echo \"pihole-adlists: adding $url\"\n    sql \"insert into adlist (address,enabled,comment) values ('$url',1,'declared in catalog/pihole.yaml');\"\n    CHANGED=1\n  else\n    en=$(sql \"select enabled from adlist where address='$url';\")\n    if [ \"$en\" != \"1\" ]; then\n      echo \"pihole-adlists: re-enabling $url\"\n      sql \"update adlist set enabled=1 where address='$url';\"\n      CHANGED=1\n    fi\n  fi\ndone < /tmp/declared.txt\n\n# 2) Anything enabled in the DB but NOT declared gets disabled (never deleted - see above).\nsql \"select address from adlist where enabled=1;\" | while IFS= read -r addr; do\n  [ -n \"$addr\" ] || continue\n  if ! grep -qxF \"$addr\" /tmp/declared.txt; then\n    echo \"pihole-adlists: disabling undeclared $addr\"\n    sql \"update adlist set enabled=0 where address='$addr';\"\n    echo changed >> /tmp/adlist-changed\n  fi\ndone\n[ -s /tmp/adlist-changed ] && CHANGED=1\nrm -f /tmp/adlist-changed /tmp/declared.txt\n\n# 3) Rebuild gravity ONLY if the declared set actually moved.\nif [ \"$CHANGED\" = \"1\" ]; then\n  echo \"pihole-adlists: declared set changed - running gravity update\"\n  pihole -g || echo \"pihole-adlists: gravity update failed; existing gravity.db retained\" >&2\nelse\n  echo \"pihole-adlists: already matches the declared set - nothing to do\"\nfi\nexit 0\n"
      - name: oauth2-proxy
        image: quay.io/oauth2-proxy/oauth2-proxy:v7.8.1
        imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
@@ -163,10 +159,39 @@ spec:
            port: http
          initialDelaySeconds: 5
          periodSeconds: 15
-      volumes:
-      - name: config
-        persistentVolumeClaim:
-          claimName: pihole-config
+      affinity:
+        podAntiAffinity:
+          requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution:
+          - labelSelector:
+              matchLabels:
+                app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
+            topologyKey: kubernetes.io/hostname
+  volumeClaimTemplates:
+  - metadata:
+      name: config
+      labels:
+        app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
+    spec:
+      accessModes:
+      - ReadWriteOnce
+      storageClassName: longhorn
+      resources:
+        requests:
+          storage: 2Gi
+---
+# PodDisruptionBudget — keep one replica through a drain (availability.replicas)
+apiVersion: policy/v1
+kind: PodDisruptionBudget
+metadata:
+  name: pihole
+  namespace: pihole
+  labels:
+    app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
+spec:
+  minAvailable: 1
+  selector:
+    matchLabels:
+      app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
 ---
 # Service
 apiVersion: v1
@@ -269,11 +294,11 @@ spec:
  - name: pihole.slis
    rules:
    - alert: pihole-down
-      expr: kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole", deployment="pihole"} == 0 or absent(kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole", deployment="pihole"})
+      expr: kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"} == 0 or absent(kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"})
      for: 5m
      labels:
        severity: critical
        service: pihole
      annotations:
        summary: pihole is down
-        description: 'pihole: its Deployment has no available/ready replica for 5m, or the signal is gone entirely (SLI: up, via kube_deployment_status_replicas_available).'
+        description: 'pihole: its StatefulSet has no available/ready replica for 5m, or the signal is gone entirely (SLI: up, via kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready).'
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+---
+# =================================================================================================
+# PLEX TLS — a Let's Encrypt certificate for the ONE hostname Plex advertises to plex.tv.
+# =================================================================================================
+# HAND-WRITTEN, NOT RENDERED. A non-catalog app-tier unit anchored to the `plex` ServiceDefinition
+# and placed into wave 0 by `catalog/render.py --emit-waves` via its EXTRA_UNITS table — the same
+# mechanism gitea-actions, pihole-dns and plex-remote use. It is hand-written for the same reason:
+# `schemas/servicedefinition.schema.json` is `additionalProperties: false` and has NO field for a
+# cert-manager Certificate. (`ingressRoutes` gets TLS for free from the Gateway's wildcard; this is
+# the opposite case — a certificate for a workload that terminates its OWN TLS on a raw L4 port.)
+#
+# WHY PLEX NEEDS ITS OWN CERTIFICATE AT ALL. Plex serves tcp/32400 directly (not through the L7
+# Gateway — the operator chose the native path 2026-10-03, apps/wave-0/plex-remote.yaml) and it
+# presents its own `*.<serverhash>.plex.direct` certificate there. That name cannot cover
+# `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}`, the hostname we advertise, so without this the advertised `https://`
+# URL fails hostname verification for every client. That is not hypothetical: it is the shape of
+# the 2026-10-04 outage, where Plex's log carried a continuous storm of
+# `CERT: incomplete TLS handshake ... sslv3 alert certificate unknown` from real LAN clients while
+# plex.tv could publish nothing and the server vanished from the account.
+#
+# A SAN match is not what makes Plex FUNCTION — `httpsRequired=0` and `secureConnections` default
+# to Preferred, so clients can fall back to cleartext. It is what keeps the REMOTE leg encrypted
+# rather than silently downgrading traffic that crosses the internet.
+#
+# HOW IT REACHES PLEX. catalog/plex.yaml takes `tls.crt`/`tls.key` from this Secret as env
+# (`optional: true` — see below), and its `lifecycle.postStart` hook converts the PEM into the
+# PKCS#12 bundle Plex's `customCertificatePath` requires and sets the three `customCertificate*`
+# prefs. The conversion is redone on EVERY pod start, so a cert-manager RENEWAL is picked up with
+# no extra moving part and nothing to remember.
+#
+# ORDERING, AND WHY THE ENV REFS ARE OPTIONAL. This Certificate must live in the `plex` namespace
+# for the Deployment to read its Secret, and that namespace is created by the rendered
+# apps/wave-0/plex.yaml ITSELF — so this cannot be issued in an earlier tier (platform-config runs
+# before the namespace exists) and lands in the SAME reconcile as the workload. On a cold bootstrap
+# the Secret is therefore absent for as long as a DNS01 challenge takes. With hard env refs Plex
+# would sit in CreateContainerConfigError until then, and because `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true`
+# with `apps-wave-1` dependsOn it, a failed or slow issuance would STALL THE WHOLE APP TIER. Hence
+# `optional: true` on both refs (schema 1.11.0, added for exactly this): no certificate means Plex
+# still starts and serves on its own plex.direct cert, the hook logs that TLS was not installed,
+# and the next start after issuance converges.
+#
+# ISSUER: ClusterIssuer `letsencrypt-prod` (platform/cert-manager/clusterissuers.yaml), the same
+# issuer behind the Gateway's wildcard (platform/gateway/wildcard-certificate.yaml, Ready 28d on
+# prod as measured 2026-10-04). A SINGLE name is requested rather than reusing the wildcard,
+# because the wildcard's Secret lives in the `gateway` namespace and a Secret cannot be read across
+# namespaces; requesting `*.${BASE_DOMAIN}` again here would also burn a duplicate-certificate slot
+# against Let's Encrypt's weekly limit for no benefit. A single name is the least-privilege shape:
+# this key signs for `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` and nothing else.
+apiVersion: cert-manager.io/v1
+kind: Certificate
+metadata:
+  name: plex-vip
+  namespace: plex
+  labels:
+    app.kubernetes.io/name: plex
+spec:
+  # The name Plex ADVERTISES and the name on this certificate must stay identical. They are two
+  # halves of one decision: catalog/plex.yaml's ADVERTISE_IP, the postStart hook's
+  # customCertificateDomain, this dnsNames entry, and catalog/pihole.yaml's split-horizon answer.
+  # Nothing enforces that they agree.
+  dnsNames:
+    - plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}
+  secretName: plex-vip-tls
+  issuerRef:
+    kind: ClusterIssuer
+    name: letsencrypt-prod
@@ -137,6 +137,20 @@ spec:
            secretKeyRef:
              name: plex-claim
              key: PLEX_CLAIM
+        - name: ADVERTISE_IP
+          value: https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400
+        - name: PLEX_TLS_CRT
+          valueFrom:
+            secretKeyRef:
+              name: plex-vip-tls
+              key: tls.crt
+              optional: true
+        - name: PLEX_TLS_KEY
+          valueFrom:
+            secretKeyRef:
+              name: plex-vip-tls
+              key: tls.key
+              optional: true
        resources:
          limits:
            gpu.intel.com/i915: 1
@@ -146,6 +160,14 @@ spec:
        - name: media
          mountPath: /media
          readOnly: true
+        lifecycle:
+          postStart:
+            exec:
+              command:
+              - /bin/bash
+              - -c
+              - "# NOTE \u2014 LOAD-BEARING: SHELL VARIABLES HERE ARE WRITTEN BARE, NEVER BRACE-WRAPPED.\n# This whole script is rewritten by Flux postBuild envsubst BEFORE it ever runs, so a\n# brace-wrapped name is read as a cluster-vars knob: an undeclared one is a HARD\n# Kustomization failure under StrictPostBuildSubstitutions, and a declared one would be\n# replaced with its value. Shell vars are therefore `$PX`, `$TOKEN`, `$P12` \u2014 bare. Only\n# BASE_DOMAIN below is brace-wrapped, because it IS a knob and IS meant to be\n# substituted. Command substitution `$(cmd)` is left alone and needs no escaping. A shell\n# variable written with braces would be blanked or would fail the whole Kustomization \u2014\n# this repo has already lost a gitea OIDC bootstrap to exactly that mistake, and\n# catalog/render.py now refuses to emit it (which is how this very comment got caught).\n# DELIBERATELY NO `set -u`. The TLS env vars are declared `optional: true`, so when the\n# certificate has not issued yet they are genuinely UNSET, not empty \u2014 and under `set -u`\n# the first `[ -n \"$PLEX_TLS_CRT\" ]` would abort the script, which for a postStart hook\n# means kubelet KILLS THE CONTAINER. That is the precise failure the `optional` flag exists\n# to prevent, so turning it back on here would defeat the whole design. (The alternative,\n# a brace-wrapped `:-` default, would need envsubst escaping \u2014 the trap the note above\n# describes.) Every value below is explicitly guarded instead.\nPX=\"/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml\"\nCERTDIR=/config/certs\nP12=$CERTDIR/plex-vip.p12\n# The PKCS#12 passphrase protects nothing and is deliberately not a secret: Plex needs it\n# in cleartext in customCertificateKey, and it and the bundle sit on the same PVC. It is a\n# container-format requirement, not an access control.\nP12PASS=plexvip\nLANNETS='10.0.0.0/8,192.168.0.0/16'\nCERTDOMAIN=plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}\nAPI=http://127.0.0.1:32400\n\n# (1) Build the PKCS#12 bundle from the PEM the Secret supplies. Rebuilt on every start so\n# a cert-manager RENEWAL is picked up with no extra moving part.\nif [ -n \"$PLEX_TLS_CRT\" ] && [ -n \"$PLEX_TLS_KEY\" ]; then\n  mkdir -p $CERTDIR && chmod 700 $CERTDIR\n  printf '%s' \"$PLEX_TLS_CRT\" > $CERTDIR/tls.crt\n  printf '%s' \"$PLEX_TLS_KEY\" > $CERTDIR/tls.key\n  chmod 600 $CERTDIR/tls.key\n  if openssl pkcs12 -export -out $P12.tmp -inkey $CERTDIR/tls.key \\\n       -in $CERTDIR/tls.crt -passout pass:$P12PASS 2>/dev/null; then\n    mv -f $P12.tmp $P12\n    chown 1000:1000 $P12 2>/dev/null || true\n    chmod 600 $P12\n    echo \"[plex-settings] PKCS#12 bundle written\"\n  else\n    rm -f $P12.tmp\n    echo \"[plex-settings] WARN: pkcs12 export failed; keeping any previous bundle\" >&2\n  fi\n  rm -f $CERTDIR/tls.key\nelse\n  echo \"[plex-settings] WARN: TLS env empty; certificate not installed this start\" >&2\nfi\n\n# (2) Wait, bounded (~90s), for the local API. /identity needs no auth.\ni=0\nwhile [ \"$i\" -lt 45 ]; do\n  if [ \"$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 5 $API/identity 2>/dev/null)\" = \"200\" ]; then\n    break\n  fi\n  i=$(expr $i + 1); sleep 2\ndone\n\n# (3) The prefs API needs the server token. It already lives in Preferences.xml on this\n# PVC; it is never echoed here, and Plex redacts tokens in its own request log. An\n# UNCLAIMED server has none \u2014 a normal state on a fresh /config \u2014 so skip, do not fail.\nTOKEN=$(grep -o 'PlexOnlineToken=\"[^\"]*\"' \"$PX\" 2>/dev/null | head -1 | cut -d'\"' -f2)\nif [ -z \"$TOKEN\" ]; then\n  echo \"[plex-settings] not claimed yet \u2014 skipping prefs, will retry next start\" >&2\n  exit 0\nfi\n\n# Percent-encode what our values actually contain. Plex takes prefs as QUERY parameters on\n# a PUT, so a raw '/' or ',' would be read as structure rather than data.\nenc() {\n  printf '%s' \"$1\" | sed -e 's|%|%25|g' -e 's|/|%2F|g' -e 's|,|%2C|g' \\\n                         -e 's|:|%3A|g' -e 's| |%20|g'\n}\nsetpref() {\n  code=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 10 -X PUT\
+                \ \\\n    -H \"X-Plex-Token: $TOKEN\" \"$API/:/prefs?$1=$(enc \"$2\")\" 2>/dev/null)\n  if [ \"$code\" = \"200\" ]; then\n    echo \"[plex-settings] set $1\"\n  else\n    echo \"[plex-settings] WARN: $1 -> HTTP $code\" >&2\n  fi\n}\n\n# (4) THE LAN DEFINITION \u2014 the reason this hook was written. Without it Plex has NO notion\n# of a local network and tags EVERY client remote. Measured 2026-10-04: 468 requests\n# logged \"Allowed Network (WAN)\" and ZERO \"(LAN)\", including Seerr from inside the\n# cluster, which is why the server showed as Remote to LAN clients. Note allowedNetworks\n# (the ALLOWED_NETWORKS env) only waives AUTH \u2014 it does NOT make a client local. Two\n# different settings; only one of them has an env hook.\nsetpref LanNetworksBandwidth \"$LANNETS\"\n\n# (5) THE CERTIFICATE, which is what makes the `https` in ADVERTISE_IP servable. Set only\n# if the bundle exists \u2014 pointing Plex at a missing file would break its TLS listener.\nif [ -s \"$P12\" ]; then\n  setpref customCertificatePath \"$P12\"\n  setpref customCertificateKey \"$P12PASS\"\n  setpref customCertificateDomain \"$CERTDOMAIN\"\nelse\n  echo \"[plex-settings] WARN: no bundle; leaving certificate prefs untouched\" >&2\nfi\nexit 0\n"
      volumes:
      - name: config
        persistentVolumeClaim:
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 # promtool rule-unit tests for the wave-0 per-app `<app>-down` SLI rules.
 # Manifests under test: every PrometheusRule in apps/wave-0/ — gitea, jackett, pihole, plex,
-# qbittorrent (container/Deployment) and vm-demo (KubeVirt VMI). The harness discovers this file by
+# qbittorrent (container/Deployment), pihole (container/StatefulSet — `availability.replicas: 2`, so
+# its SLI reads kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready; see schemas/renderer-contract.md
+# `### availability`) and vm-demo (KubeVirt VMI). The harness discovers this file by
 # the SUITE convention (`<dir>/tests/*.test.yaml`) and flattens those RENDERED manifests, so these
 # tests run against the exact expressions Flux applies, never a copy.
 #
@@ -41,7 +43,7 @@ tests:
        values: '1+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="jackett", deployment="jackett"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
-      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole", deployment="pihole"}'
+      - series: 'kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="plex", deployment="plex"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
@@ -81,7 +83,7 @@ tests:
        values: '1+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="jackett", deployment="jackett"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
-      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole", deployment="pihole"}'
+      - series: 'kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="plex", deployment="plex"}'
        values: '0+0x20'
@@ -132,7 +134,7 @@ tests:
        values: '0+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="jackett", deployment="jackett"}'
        values: '0+0x20'
-      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole", deployment="pihole"}'
+      - series: 'kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"}'
        values: '0+0x20'
      - series: 'kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="plex", deployment="plex"}'
        values: '1+0x20'
@@ -170,10 +172,10 @@ tests:
              severity: critical
              service: pihole
              namespace: pihole
-              deployment: pihole
+              statefulset: pihole
            exp_annotations:
              summary: "pihole is down"
-              description: "pihole: its Deployment has no available/ready replica for 5m, or the signal is gone entirely (SLI: up, via kube_deployment_status_replicas_available)."
+              description: "pihole: its StatefulSet has no available/ready replica for 5m, or the signal is gone entirely (SLI: up, via kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready)."
      - eval_time: 10m
        alertname: qbittorrent-down
        exp_alerts:
@@ -12,6 +12,42 @@ storage:
  - name: config
    size: 2Gi
    class: longhorn           # replicated config state; DR-critical (docs/04 line 118; R-STATE-02/03)
+    # THE PVC WAS MOUNTED SOMEWHERE PIHOLE NEVER WRITES, AND SO HELD NOTHING AT ALL. Without an
+    # explicit mountPath the renderer defaults to /data/<name>, i.e. /data/config — but PiHole keeps
+    # every piece of its state in /etc/pihole. MEASURED on live prod 2026-10-04: `/etc/pihole` (7.1 M
+    # — gravity.db, pihole.toml, the query DB) was on the **overlay** filesystem, i.e. the
+    # container's EPHEMERAL layer, while `/dev/longhorn/pvc-849edb86...` sat mounted at
+    # /data/config holding `lost+found` and 24 K of nothing. Three consequences, all live until now:
+    #   * every restart silently discarded PiHole's whole state, re-downloading 72 k gravity domains
+    #     and regenerating the admin password hash;
+    #   * `backup.policy: daily-offcluster` below has been faithfully backing up an EMPTY volume,
+    #     which is worse than no backup because it reports success;
+    #   * it is also why phase 1's password/adlist declaration mattered more than it first appeared —
+    #     that state was not merely undeclared, it was ephemeral.
+    # This is the same class of bug catalog/plex.yaml's `config` entry documents ("Without this the
+    # PVC sat unused and Plex wrote to the container's EPHEMERAL layer").
+    #
+    # /etc/pihole IS THE IMAGE'S INTENDED MOUNT POINT, and an EMPTY volume there self-initialises.
+    # Verified in the running image, not assumed:
+    #   * `/usr/bin/start.sh` (PID 1) calls `migrate_gravity`, whose `migrate_to_database()` creates
+    #     the gravity database when `[ ! -e "$gravityDBfile" ]` — the same branch the postStart hook
+    #     below relies on, and the branch that produced the current ephemeral copy.
+    #   * FTL writes `pihole.toml` itself from the `FTLCONF_*` env above (that is what the
+    #     `### CHANGED (env)` markers in it are).
+    #   * NO `podSecurityContext.fsGroup` is needed and adding one would be inert: `start.sh` line 5
+    #     is `chown -R pihole:pihole /etc/pihole/ /var/log/pihole/` and PID 1 runs as **uid 0**, so
+    #     the image fixes ownership of a fresh root-owned volume before anything else starts. Same
+    #     arrangement as plex's image managing its own /config ownership.
+    #   * the image's own default for `files.macvendor` was moved OUT of this directory (to
+    #     `/macvendor.db`), which is what a maintainer does to a path they expect to be a volume.
+    #
+    # WHY IT IS FIXED IN THIS BRANCH rather than left for its own: `availability.replicas: 2` renders
+    # per-replica volumeClaimTemplates, and with the wrong mountPath those would be two 2 Gi Longhorn
+    # volumes (times three Longhorn replicas each) holding nothing but `lost+found` while all state
+    # stayed ephemeral — paying the cost of persistence and getting none of it. It also REMOVES this
+    # change's main operational risk: with gravity.db persisted, a pod restart is cheap, instead of
+    # every restart re-downloading 72 k domains inside a wave that has a 5 m timeout.
+    mountPath: /etc/pihole
 dependencies: []              # default-deny: reaches only DNS; it PROVIDES DNS (docs/03; R-NET-01/02)
 # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # LAN SPLIT-HORIZON DNS — the half of R-DNS-03 that platform/coredns/coredns-custom.yaml defers to.
@@ -98,8 +134,64 @@ env:
  # then silently wrong: FTL stores `["a","b"]` as ONE array element containing those literal
  # characters, writes that single bogus line into /etc/pihole/dnsmasq.conf and reports "0 invalid"
  # while resolution for the zone does not work. Confirmed both ways against the live image.
+  # plex-vip -> ${PLEX_L4_VIP} (added 2026-10-04) is the LAN HALF of Plex's single advertised
+  # hostname. Plex publishes ONE URL to plex.tv for both local and remote clients
+  # (catalog/plex.yaml ADVERTISE_IP): on the LAN this answer points it at the tcp/32400
+  # LoadBalancer, while Cloudflare answers the same name publicly with the WAN address, NATed to
+  # the same VIP. WITHOUT THIS LINE the entry above answers it with ${GATEWAY_VIP} via the zone
+  # wildcard, where NOTHING listens on 32400 — measured 2026-10-04, plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}
+  # resolved to the Gateway VIP and a connect to :32400 there returned http=000. That is a silent
+  # failure: the Plex web UI on plex.${BASE_DOMAIN} keeps working through the Gateway on 443 while
+  # every client that takes the ADVERTISED connection cannot reach the server at all.
  - name: FTLCONF_misc_dnsmasq_lines
-    value: "address=/${BASE_DOMAIN}/${GATEWAY_VIP};address=/unifi.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${UNIFI_L4_VIP};address=/crafty-mc.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${CRAFTY_L4_VIP};address=/pihole-dns.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PIHOLE_DNS_VIP}"
+    value: "address=/${BASE_DOMAIN}/${GATEWAY_VIP};address=/unifi.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${UNIFI_L4_VIP};address=/crafty-mc.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${CRAFTY_L4_VIP};address=/pihole-dns.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PIHOLE_DNS_VIP};address=/plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PLEX_L4_VIP}"
+  # THE ADMIN PASSWORD, previously the ONE operator-set value declared nowhere. Sourced from
+  # apps/wave-0/pihole-bootstrap-secret.sops.yaml (SOPS/age, same wave => same reconcile), which
+  # carries the full rationale and the measurement that found it.
+  #
+  # `webserver.api.password` takes CLEARTEXT and FTL hashes it itself into `webserver.api.pwhash`.
+  # Verified in the running image, not assumed: `pihole setpassword` is itself
+  # `setFTLConfigValue "webserver.api.password" "$PASSWORD"`, commented upstream as "pihole-FTL will
+  # automatically hash the password". So the BALLOON-SHA256 hash on the PVC is now a DERIVED artefact
+  # and this is its source of truth. Rotating the Secret rotates the password.
+  - name: FTLCONF_webserver_api_password
+    valueFrom:
+      secretKeyRef:
+        name: pihole-bootstrap
+        key: webui-password
+availability:
+  # TWO REPLICAS, ON DIFFERENT NODES. LAN DNS is a critical network service and it was ONE pod on
+  # ONE node. Measured 2026-10-04, that cost more than "until it reschedules":
+  #   * the node running the pod dies -> ~40s to mark it NotReady, then `tolerationSeconds: 300`
+  #     before the pod is even evicted, then reschedule, then Longhorn must force-detach the RWO
+  #     volume from a dead node and reattach it. Roughly 6-10 MINUTES with no LAN resolution.
+  #   * the node holding the `pihole-dns-*` L2 lease dies -> Cilium re-elects an announcer, tens of
+  #     seconds. (These were DIFFERENT nodes: lease on k3s-prod-2, pod on k3s-prod-1. Two of three
+  #     nodes were single points of failure for LAN DNS, with wildly different blast radii.)
+  # The Services already tolerate this: `externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster` on the DNS LoadBalancers
+  # (apps/wave-0/pihole-dns.yaml) means the L2 lease holder forwards to ANY ready backend, so a
+  # second replica is picked up with no change there.
+  #
+  # WHAT THIS DOES NOT FIX, and it is the bigger risk: LAN DNS still depends on the CLUSTER. etcd
+  # quorum loss, a Cilium regression, a Longhorn problem or a bad reconcile takes DNS down
+  # everywhere regardless of replica count. The only thing that removes that dependency is a
+  # resolver outside the cluster carrying the same `address=` lines. Considered and not chosen
+  # (operator decision, 2026-10-04); see decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-multi-replica.md.
+  #
+  # THE PREREQUISITE WAS DONE FIRST, and this field would have been actively harmful without it. A
+  # replica gets a FRESH volume, and until 2026-10-04 PiHole's admin password and adlists lived only
+  # on the PVC — so replica 1 would have come up SERVING DNS AND BLOCKING NOTHING, with a different
+  # password, and answers would have varied by which pod replied. Both are now declared (the
+  # password as a SOPS Secret -> FTLCONF_webserver_api_password; the adlists reconciled into
+  # gravity.db by the postStart hook below), which is what makes a fresh replica identical to its
+  # sibling. See decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-declare-state.md.
+  #
+  # WHY 2 AND NOT 3. Two tolerates the loss of any single node, which is the stated goal, and leaves
+  # a spare node for the evicted replica to land on under the HARD anti-affinity the renderer emits.
+  # Three would pin one replica per node with no spare, so a single node failure would leave a
+  # replica permanently Pending and — `apps-wave-0` being `wait: true` — stall the app tier for as
+  # long as the node was down. Two is the count that degrades gracefully here.
+  replicas: 2
 ingressRoutes:
  - host: pihole.${BASE_DOMAIN}
    port: 80                  # admin web UI, protected at the Gateway by forward-auth (docs/09)
@@ -114,6 +206,110 @@ auth:
  # rather than a renderer constant: the measurement that justifies the flag on two apps is
  # evidence about those two apps. Its oauth2-proxy log holds 0 unauthenticated requests across
  # the current pod's whole 23h lifetime (measured 2026-10-01), so there is nothing to act on.
+lifecycle:
+  # LEVEL-TRIGGERED ADLIST ASSERTION, run on EVERY container start. Same pattern, and the same
+  # reasoning, as catalog/qbittorrent.yaml's postStart: desired state lives in git and is
+  # RE-ASSERTED unconditionally rather than set once by hand.
+  #
+  # WHY THIS IS NEEDED AT ALL — the blocklists were NOT reproducible from git. Measured on live prod
+  # 2026-10-04: `gravity.db` held exactly ONE adlist (StevenBlack's hosts, enabled) and 72,234
+  # gravity domains, and NOTHING in this repo named it. Worse, a FRESH database does not seed it:
+  # the image's own schema template `/etc/.pihole/advanced/Templates/gravity.db.sql` creates the
+  # `adlist` table and inserts NO rows into it (grepped in the running image — there is no
+  # `INSERT INTO adlist` at all). So a rebuild from git, or a replica with a new PVC, would come up
+  # SERVING DNS AND BLOCKING NOTHING, silently and with every object reporting healthy.
+  #
+  # WHY A postStart HOOK AND NOT A FILE. PiHole v6 keeps adlists as DB rows, not config. The
+  # `/etc/pihole/adlists.list` file still exists in `gravity.sh` but is MIGRATION-ONLY: its import
+  # sits inside `migrate_to_database()`, guarded by `if [ ! -e "$gravityDBfile" ]`, so it fires only
+  # while CREATING a database and never again on an existing one. A ConfigMap mounted there would
+  # therefore be silently ignored on every pod this cluster currently runs. There is also no
+  # `pihole adlist` CLI subcommand (only allow/deny for domains), so SQL against the DB is the
+  # actual interface. FTL ships an embedded shell (`pihole-FTL sqlite3`, SQLite 3.53.1) so no extra
+  # tooling is needed in the image.
+  #
+  # IT RECONCILES, IT DOES NOT JUST ADD: adlists present in the DB but absent from DECLARED below are
+  # DISABLED (not deleted — deleting cascades to `gravity` rows and would force a full re-download of
+  # everything on a typo). So this list is the source of truth in both directions, and `pihole -g`
+  # runs ONLY when something actually changed, which keeps the steady-state start free of a 70k-domain
+  # rebuild.
+  #
+  # NO BRACED DOLLAR EXPANSION ANYWHERE IN THIS SCRIPT, DELIBERATELY — the same contract
+  # catalog/qbittorrent.yaml documents at length. apps-wave-0 declares postBuild.substituteFrom
+  # cluster-vars, so Flux runs envsubst over this whole manifest at reconcile time; a `${VAR}` form
+  # would behave differently on the cluster than under a plain `kubectl apply` of the golden. Bare
+  # `$VAR` and `$(cmd)` are untouched by envsubst and so behave identically however this is run.
+  # `render.py`'s assert_substitution_safe refuses to emit a manifest that breaks this.
+  postStart:
+    exec:
+      command:
+        - /bin/bash
+        - -c
+        - |
+          # Assert the declared adlists in gravity.db. Idempotent: steady state writes nothing and
+          # does NOT run a gravity rebuild.
+          set -u
+          GRAVITY=/etc/pihole/gravity.db
+
+          # THE DECLARED SET — one URL per line, the source of truth for what PiHole blocks.
+          # To add a list: add a line here, commit, let Flux reconcile. Nothing else to do.
+          DECLARED='https://raw.githubusercontent.com/StevenBlack/hosts/master/hosts'
+
+          # On a fresh PVC, FTL creates gravity.db a moment after the container starts. Wait, bounded,
+          # and NEVER block or fail the start: a missing DB here must not crashloop DNS for the LAN.
+          i=0
+          while [ ! -s "$GRAVITY" ] && [ "$i" -lt 90 ]; do sleep 2; i=$(expr $i + 1); done
+          if [ ! -s "$GRAVITY" ]; then
+            echo "pihole-adlists: gravity.db absent after 180s - leaving adlists untouched" >&2
+            exit 0
+          fi
+
+          sql() { pihole-FTL sqlite3 "$GRAVITY" "$1"; }
+          CHANGED=0
+
+          # 1) Every declared URL must be present AND enabled.
+          echo "$DECLARED" | while IFS= read -r url; do
+            [ -n "$url" ] || continue
+            printf '%s\n' "$url"
+          done > /tmp/declared.txt
+          while IFS= read -r url; do
+            [ -n "$url" ] || continue
+            # Single quotes inside a URL would break this SQL; adlist URLs do not contain them.
+            have=$(sql "select count(*) from adlist where address='$url';")
+            if [ "$have" = "0" ]; then
+              echo "pihole-adlists: adding $url"
+              sql "insert into adlist (address,enabled,comment) values ('$url',1,'declared in catalog/pihole.yaml');"
+              CHANGED=1
+            else
+              en=$(sql "select enabled from adlist where address='$url';")
+              if [ "$en" != "1" ]; then
+                echo "pihole-adlists: re-enabling $url"
+                sql "update adlist set enabled=1 where address='$url';"
+                CHANGED=1
+              fi
+            fi
+          done < /tmp/declared.txt
+
+          # 2) Anything enabled in the DB but NOT declared gets disabled (never deleted - see above).
+          sql "select address from adlist where enabled=1;" | while IFS= read -r addr; do
+            [ -n "$addr" ] || continue
+            if ! grep -qxF "$addr" /tmp/declared.txt; then
+              echo "pihole-adlists: disabling undeclared $addr"
+              sql "update adlist set enabled=0 where address='$addr';"
+              echo changed >> /tmp/adlist-changed
+            fi
+          done
+          [ -s /tmp/adlist-changed ] && CHANGED=1
+          rm -f /tmp/adlist-changed /tmp/declared.txt
+
+          # 3) Rebuild gravity ONLY if the declared set actually moved.
+          if [ "$CHANGED" = "1" ]; then
+            echo "pihole-adlists: declared set changed - running gravity update"
+            pihole -g || echo "pihole-adlists: gravity update failed; existing gravity.db retained" >&2
+          else
+            echo "pihole-adlists: already matches the declared set - nothing to do"
+          fi
+          exit 0
 update:
  channel: stable             # R-UPD-01
  range: ">=2024.0.0"
@@ -72,14 +72,211 @@ env:
      secretKeyRef:
        name: plex-claim
        key: PLEX_CLAIM
-  # ADVERTISE_IP ("Custom server access URLs") is DEFERRED, not accidentally omitted. It tells Plex
-  # which URL to advertise to plex.tv for REMOTE clients. The only candidate is
-  # https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev, but that host resolves via split-horizon DNS to the INTERNAL
-  # Gateway VIP (conformance/tests/l2-behavioral/dns-internal-resolution), and both its public
-  # reachability and whether the TLS-terminating Cilium Gateway proxies Plex's 32400 API correctly for
-  # remote access are UNVERIFIED. Advertising a wrong/internal-only URL breaks remote access for ALL
-  # clients, so per "prefer safety over completeness" it is left unset. FOLLOW-UP: once remote
-  # reachability through the Gateway is confirmed, set ADVERTISE_IP: "https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev:443".
+  # ADVERTISE_IP ("Custom server access URLs") — the ONE hostname this server publishes to plex.tv,
+  # serving BOTH local and remote clients by split-horizon DNS (operator design, 2026-10-04):
+  #   LAN    -> PiHole answers plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN} with ${PLEX_L4_VIP} (the tcp/32400 LoadBalancer
+  #             in apps/wave-0/plex-remote.yaml). See catalog/pihole.yaml's split-horizon line, which
+  #             needs a per-host override because the zone wildcard otherwise points at the GATEWAY
+  #             VIP — measured 2026-10-04: plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN} resolved to the Gateway, where
+  #             nothing listens on 32400.
+  #   PUBLIC -> Cloudflare answers with the WAN address, NATed to the same VIP (off-repo).
+  #
+  # WHY A HOSTNAME AND NOT THE `plex.direct` FORM THIS BRIEFLY USED. The first fix for the
+  # 2026-10-04 outage advertised `https://<dashed-ip>.<serverhash>.plex.direct:32400`, which works
+  # (and is Plex's own mechanism), but it hard-codes BOTH the VIP and the server's certificate hash
+  # into a cluster-var — two values nothing could keep in sync, with no alert if either drifted. A
+  # hostname in our own zone removes that whole class of problem: ${BASE_DOMAIN} is already a knob,
+  # the VIP lives only in PiHole's answer, and `PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL` is deleted outright.
+  #
+  # THIS IS `https`, WHICH ONLY WORKS BECAUSE WE HAND PLEX OUR OWN CERTIFICATE. Plex serves 32400
+  # with its `*.<serverhash>.plex.direct` cert, which does NOT cover this name — advertising
+  # `https://plex-vip...` against the stock cert reproduces the exact failure that caused the
+  # outage (measured: a storm of `CERT: incomplete TLS handshake ... certificate unknown` from real
+  # clients, and `curl` without `-k` failing to connect). The `lifecycle.postStart` hook below
+  # installs the Let's Encrypt cert for this name and points Plex at it, so the advertised URL and
+  # the served certificate agree. Do not change this to a bare IP, and do not drop the hook and
+  # leave the `https` here.
+  #
+  # (A SAN match is not what makes Plex *work* — `httpsRequired=0` and `secureConnections` default
+  # to Preferred, so clients can fall back to cleartext. It is what keeps the remote leg ENCRYPTED
+  # instead of silently downgrading traffic that crosses the internet.)
+  #
+  # The image's /etc/cont-init.d/40-plex-first-run runs `setPref "customConnections"
+  # "${ADVERTISE_IP}"` (line 127, verified in the running image), OUTSIDE the
+  # PLEX_CLAIM/PlexOnlineToken guard, and its `/.firstRunComplete` marker is on the container
+  # OVERLAY fs rather than the /config PVC — so this is re-applied on EVERY pod start and git, not
+  # a web form, owns the value. Hand-typed custom URLs are what broke this service; they are now
+  # overwritten on every start.
+  - name: ADVERTISE_IP
+    value: https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400
+  # THE TLS MATERIAL FOR THE NAME ABOVE, as PEM text in env rather than a mounted volume.
+  # `plex-vip-tls` is issued by cert-manager from ClusterIssuer `letsencrypt-prod` for exactly
+  # `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` (apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml, same wave => same reconcile as this
+  # workload). The postStart hook converts it to the PKCS#12 bundle Plex requires.
+  #
+  # WHY ENV AND NOT A VOLUME, which would be the conventional choice. MEASURED 2026-10-04:
+  # `schemas/servicedefinition.schema.json` `storage` accepts only
+  # [class, export, mountPath, name, readOnly, size, subPath] with `additionalProperties: false`,
+  # `catalog/render.py` emits NO secret volumes, and no rendered app mounts a Secret as a volume.
+  # Mounting one therefore needs a schema + renderer change; `env.valueFrom.secretKeyRef` is
+  # already in the schema and already used by PLEX_CLAIM above. PEM is text, so it survives an env
+  # var intact (a raw PKCS#12 would not — it is binary and carries NUL bytes).
+  #
+  # COST, STATED PLAINLY: the private key is readable from this container's environment
+  # (/proc/1/environ, `kubectl exec env`) by anything that can already exec into the pod. That is
+  # the same audience that can read the converted bundle under /config, so the marginal exposure is
+  # small — but a secret VOLUME would still be the better shape, and adding secret-volume support
+  # to the schema is the clean follow-up that removes this note.
+  #
+  # `optional: true` IS LOAD-BEARING, NOT DEFENSIVE CLUTTER (schema 1.11.0, added for this). The
+  # Certificate is issued INTO THIS NAMESPACE, and the namespace is created by the rendered
+  # apps/wave-0/plex.yaml itself — so the cert CANNOT be issued in an earlier tier, and the
+  # Certificate and this Deployment land in the SAME reconcile. On a cold bootstrap the Secret is
+  # therefore briefly absent while cert-manager completes a DNS01 challenge. With a HARD ref, Plex
+  # would sit in CreateContainerConfigError until a certificate issued — and because `apps-wave-0`
+  # is `wait: true` with `apps-wave-1` dependsOn it, a failed or slow issuance would STALL THE WHOLE
+  # APP TIER (the same hazard the `hardware` block below documents for the GPU resource). Optional
+  # instead means: no cert -> Plex still starts and serves, the postStart hook logs that the
+  # certificate was not installed, and the next start after issuance converges. Plex falls back to
+  # its own `*.plex.direct` certificate in the meantime, so the degraded state is "advertised URL
+  # not yet servable over TLS", not "media server down".
+  - name: PLEX_TLS_CRT
+    valueFrom:
+      secretKeyRef:
+        name: plex-vip-tls
+        key: tls.crt
+        optional: true
+  - name: PLEX_TLS_KEY
+    valueFrom:
+      secretKeyRef:
+        name: plex-vip-tls
+        key: tls.key
+        optional: true
+lifecycle:
+  # LEVEL-TRIGGERED PLEX SETTINGS, re-asserted on EVERY container start — the same pattern and the
+  # same reasoning as catalog/pihole.yaml's and catalog/qbittorrent.yaml's postStart: desired state
+  # lives in git and is re-asserted unconditionally rather than typed into a web form once. Typing
+  # settings into the web form is precisely what took this service down on 2026-10-04.
+  #
+  # IT EXISTS BECAUSE THE IMAGE HAS NO ENV FOR THESE SETTINGS. Measured 2026-10-04 across the whole
+  # init surface (/etc/cont-init.d, /etc/services.d, /plex-common.sh, /usr/local/bin): the image
+  # calls setPref for exactly SIX prefs — MachineIdentifier, ProcessedMachineIdentifier,
+  # PlexOnlineToken, customConnections, allowedNetworks, TranscoderTempDirectory — and supports NO
+  # generic PLEX_PREFERENCE* hook of any kind. The two things we need (a LAN definition and a custom
+  # certificate) are reachable ONLY through Plex's own API, so this hook is the only GitOps path.
+  #
+  # IT MUST NEVER FAIL. A postStart hook that exits non-zero makes kubelet KILL the container, so
+  # every step is bounded and the script ends with an unconditional `exit 0`. A missing token, an
+  # unissued certificate or an unreachable API degrades to "not applied this start" and is retried
+  # on the next one; it never crashloops Plex.
+  postStart:
+    exec:
+      command:
+        - /bin/bash
+        - -c
+        - |
+          # NOTE — LOAD-BEARING: SHELL VARIABLES HERE ARE WRITTEN BARE, NEVER BRACE-WRAPPED.
+          # This whole script is rewritten by Flux postBuild envsubst BEFORE it ever runs, so a
+          # brace-wrapped name is read as a cluster-vars knob: an undeclared one is a HARD
+          # Kustomization failure under StrictPostBuildSubstitutions, and a declared one would be
+          # replaced with its value. Shell vars are therefore `$PX`, `$TOKEN`, `$P12` — bare. Only
+          # BASE_DOMAIN below is brace-wrapped, because it IS a knob and IS meant to be
+          # substituted. Command substitution `$(cmd)` is left alone and needs no escaping. A shell
+          # variable written with braces would be blanked or would fail the whole Kustomization —
+          # this repo has already lost a gitea OIDC bootstrap to exactly that mistake, and
+          # catalog/render.py now refuses to emit it (which is how this very comment got caught).
+          # DELIBERATELY NO `set -u`. The TLS env vars are declared `optional: true`, so when the
+          # certificate has not issued yet they are genuinely UNSET, not empty — and under `set -u`
+          # the first `[ -n "$PLEX_TLS_CRT" ]` would abort the script, which for a postStart hook
+          # means kubelet KILLS THE CONTAINER. That is the precise failure the `optional` flag exists
+          # to prevent, so turning it back on here would defeat the whole design. (The alternative,
+          # a brace-wrapped `:-` default, would need envsubst escaping — the trap the note above
+          # describes.) Every value below is explicitly guarded instead.
+          PX="/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml"
+          CERTDIR=/config/certs
+          P12=$CERTDIR/plex-vip.p12
+          # The PKCS#12 passphrase protects nothing and is deliberately not a secret: Plex needs it
+          # in cleartext in customCertificateKey, and it and the bundle sit on the same PVC. It is a
+          # container-format requirement, not an access control.
+          P12PASS=plexvip
+          LANNETS='10.0.0.0/8,192.168.0.0/16'
+          CERTDOMAIN=plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}
+          API=http://127.0.0.1:32400
+
+          # (1) Build the PKCS#12 bundle from the PEM the Secret supplies. Rebuilt on every start so
+          # a cert-manager RENEWAL is picked up with no extra moving part.
+          if [ -n "$PLEX_TLS_CRT" ] && [ -n "$PLEX_TLS_KEY" ]; then
+            mkdir -p $CERTDIR && chmod 700 $CERTDIR
+            printf '%s' "$PLEX_TLS_CRT" > $CERTDIR/tls.crt
+            printf '%s' "$PLEX_TLS_KEY" > $CERTDIR/tls.key
+            chmod 600 $CERTDIR/tls.key
+            if openssl pkcs12 -export -out $P12.tmp -inkey $CERTDIR/tls.key \
+                 -in $CERTDIR/tls.crt -passout pass:$P12PASS 2>/dev/null; then
+              mv -f $P12.tmp $P12
+              chown 1000:1000 $P12 2>/dev/null || true
+              chmod 600 $P12
+              echo "[plex-settings] PKCS#12 bundle written"
+            else
+              rm -f $P12.tmp
+              echo "[plex-settings] WARN: pkcs12 export failed; keeping any previous bundle" >&2
+            fi
+            rm -f $CERTDIR/tls.key
+          else
+            echo "[plex-settings] WARN: TLS env empty; certificate not installed this start" >&2
+          fi
+
+          # (2) Wait, bounded (~90s), for the local API. /identity needs no auth.
+          i=0
+          while [ "$i" -lt 45 ]; do
+            if [ "$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 5 $API/identity 2>/dev/null)" = "200" ]; then
+              break
+            fi
+            i=$(expr $i + 1); sleep 2
+          done
+
+          # (3) The prefs API needs the server token. It already lives in Preferences.xml on this
+          # PVC; it is never echoed here, and Plex redacts tokens in its own request log. An
+          # UNCLAIMED server has none — a normal state on a fresh /config — so skip, do not fail.
+          TOKEN=$(grep -o 'PlexOnlineToken="[^"]*"' "$PX" 2>/dev/null | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f2)
+          if [ -z "$TOKEN" ]; then
+            echo "[plex-settings] not claimed yet — skipping prefs, will retry next start" >&2
+            exit 0
+          fi
+
+          # Percent-encode what our values actually contain. Plex takes prefs as QUERY parameters on
+          # a PUT, so a raw '/' or ',' would be read as structure rather than data.
+          enc() {
+            printf '%s' "$1" | sed -e 's|%|%25|g' -e 's|/|%2F|g' -e 's|,|%2C|g' \
+                                   -e 's|:|%3A|g' -e 's| |%20|g'
+          }
+          setpref() {
+            code=$(curl -s -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}' --max-time 10 -X PUT \
+              -H "X-Plex-Token: $TOKEN" "$API/:/prefs?$1=$(enc "$2")" 2>/dev/null)
+            if [ "$code" = "200" ]; then
+              echo "[plex-settings] set $1"
+            else
+              echo "[plex-settings] WARN: $1 -> HTTP $code" >&2
+            fi
+          }
+
+          # (4) THE LAN DEFINITION — the reason this hook was written. Without it Plex has NO notion
+          # of a local network and tags EVERY client remote. Measured 2026-10-04: 468 requests
+          # logged "Allowed Network (WAN)" and ZERO "(LAN)", including Seerr from inside the
+          # cluster, which is why the server showed as Remote to LAN clients. Note allowedNetworks
+          # (the ALLOWED_NETWORKS env) only waives AUTH — it does NOT make a client local. Two
+          # different settings; only one of them has an env hook.
+          setpref LanNetworksBandwidth "$LANNETS"
+
+          # (5) THE CERTIFICATE, which is what makes the `https` in ADVERTISE_IP servable. Set only
+          # if the bundle exists — pointing Plex at a missing file would break its TLS listener.
+          if [ -s "$P12" ]; then
+            setpref customCertificatePath "$P12"
+            setpref customCertificateKey "$P12PASS"
+            setpref customCertificateDomain "$CERTDOMAIN"
+          else
+            echo "[plex-settings] WARN: no bundle; leaving certificate prefs untouched" >&2
+          fi
+          exit 0
 # HARDWARE TRANSCODING — the host iGPU's render device (schema 1.8.0 `hardware`; R-PLAT-02).
 # INTENT ONLY, AND THE MECHANISM DELIBERATELY DOES NOT LIVE HERE. This says "this workload needs an
 # Intel Quick Sync render device"; it does NOT name a device path and it does NOT name a resource.
@@ -272,7 +272,15 @@ def apply_defaults(sd: dict) -> dict:
    # object that actually runs on the cluster is not the one this SD renders (keycloak: the
    # Keycloak operator runs a StatefulSet, so a Deployment-shaped rule would `absent()` forever).
    lw = dict(obs.get("livenessWorkload") or {})
-    lw.setdefault("kind", "VirtualMachineInstance" if s["kind"] == "vm" else "Deployment")
+    # The default must track what is ACTUALLY rendered, or the `up` SLI silently dies: a
+    # Deployment-shaped rule against a StatefulSet `absent()`s forever, which is an alert that can
+    # never fire — the exact failure mode the keycloak override was added for. Deriving it from
+    # `availability.replicas` means bumping the replica count cannot leave a stale rule behind.
+    lw.setdefault(
+        "kind",
+        "VirtualMachineInstance" if s["kind"] == "vm"
+        else ("StatefulSet" if _is_statefulset(s) else "Deployment"),
+    )
    lw.setdefault("name", s["name"])
    obs["livenessWorkload"] = lw
    s["observability"] = obs
@@ -475,6 +483,37 @@ def r_bulk_pvs(s: dict) -> list:
    return out


+def _replicas(s: dict) -> int:
+    """Declared replica count (schema 1.10.0 `availability.replicas`). Default 1."""
+    return int((s.get("availability") or {}).get("replicas", 1) or 1)
+
+
+def _is_statefulset(s: dict) -> bool:
+    """True when this container workload must render a StatefulSet rather than a Deployment.
+
+    THE DECIDING CONSTRAINT IS THE VOLUME, not a preference. A longhorn storage entry renders
+    ReadWriteOnce (r_pvcs), and one RWO PVC cannot be attached by pods on two different nodes --
+    which is exactly what `availability.replicas > 1` plus the node anti-affinity below asks for.
+    A 2-replica Deployment over a shared RWO claim does not degrade, it simply never schedules the
+    second pod. A StatefulSet's volumeClaimTemplates give each replica its OWN claim, which is the
+    only shape that satisfies both at once.
+
+    A replicas-1 service keeps rendering a Deployment so every pre-existing golden is byte-identical.
+    """
+    return s["kind"] == "container" and _replicas(s) > 1
+
+
+def _sts_claim_volumes(s: dict) -> list:
+    """Storage entries that become per-replica volumeClaimTemplates on a StatefulSet.
+
+    Only the dynamically-provisioned (longhorn) entries. A `bulk` entry is a STATIC, pre-bound NFS
+    PV over data that already exists outside the cluster and is shared read-only by every consumer
+    (r_bulk_pvs) -- per-replica copies of it are neither possible nor wanted, so it stays a
+    standalone PVC and an ordinary pod volume.
+    """
+    return [v for v in s["storage"] if v.get("class", "longhorn") != "bulk"]
+
+
 def r_pvcs(s: dict) -> list:
    """One PVC per storage entry (R-STATE-01/02/04).

@@ -482,8 +521,15 @@ def r_pvcs(s: dict) -> list:
    bulk     -> the STATIC external NFS PV rendered by r_bulk_pvs, pre-bound by volumeName.
    """
    out = []
+    # On a StatefulSet the longhorn claims are NOT standalone objects — they are
+    # volumeClaimTemplates, so each replica gets its own (see _is_statefulset). Emitting both would
+    # leave an orphan PVC that nothing mounts and that `prune` would later delete out from under
+    # nobody. `bulk` is unaffected and still rendered here.
+    sts = _is_statefulset(s)
    for vol in s["storage"]:
        cls = vol.get("class", "longhorn")
+        if sts and cls != "bulk":
+            continue
        if cls == "bulk":
            # Mirror image of the PV: the same explicitly-empty class (so nothing dynamically
            # provisions), the same access mode, and volumeName completing the two-sided binding.
@@ -564,6 +610,12 @@ def r_deployment(s: dict) -> dict:
        if vol.get("readOnly"):
            mount["readOnly"] = True
        volume_mounts.append(mount)
+        # On a StatefulSet a longhorn volume is supplied by its volumeClaimTemplate, whose
+        # metadata.name IS the pod volume name. Adding it to pod.volumes as well is a conflict
+        # (duplicate volume name), so it is skipped here and emitted below. The MOUNT is unchanged —
+        # the container cannot tell the difference, which is what keeps this transparent to the app.
+        if _is_statefulset(s) and vol.get("class", "longhorn") != "bulk":
+            continue
        volumes.append(
            {
                "name": vol["name"],
@@ -661,20 +713,80 @@ def r_deployment(s: dict) -> dict:
    if ann:
        tmpl_meta["annotations"] = ann

-    spec = {"replicas": 1}
-    # An app with persistent storage mounts a ReadWriteOnce Longhorn PVC. The default
-    # RollingUpdate strategy tries to start the NEW pod before terminating the old one, but
-    # the old pod still holds the RWO volume -> the new pod is stuck ContainerCreating and
-    # the rollout deadlocks (single-replica app can never hand the volume over). Recreate
-    # terminates the old pod first, freeing the PVC for the new one (R-STATE-01/02).
-    if s["storage"]:
+    sts = _is_statefulset(s)
+
+    # NODE ANTI-AFFINITY, and it is REQUIRED rather than preferred. `availability.replicas > 1`
+    # exists to survive the loss of one node; `preferred` would let both replicas land on the same
+    # node and quietly deliver none of that, with every object reporting healthy. The cost is real
+    # and is accepted: with N replicas the workload needs N schedulable nodes, so on a 3-node
+    # cluster losing TWO nodes leaves a replica Pending and — because `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true`
+    # with `apps-wave-1` dependsOn it — STALLS THE APP TIER. That coincides with having already lost
+    # etcd quorum on a 3-node control plane, i.e. the cluster is not reconciling anything at that
+    # point anyway, so the stall is a symptom rather than a new failure.
+    if sts:
+        pod_spec["affinity"] = {
+            "podAntiAffinity": {
+                "requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution": [
+                    {
+                        "labelSelector": {
+                            "matchLabels": {"app.kubernetes.io/name": s["name"]}
+                        },
+                        "topologyKey": "kubernetes.io/hostname",
+                    }
+                ]
+            }
+        }
+
+    spec = {"replicas": _replicas(s)}
+    if sts:
+        # serviceName is a required StatefulSet field. It points at the service rendered by
+        # r_service; that Service is a normal ClusterIP rather than headless, so per-pod DNS
+        # (<pod>.<svc>) does NOT resolve — and nothing here needs it. These replicas are
+        # interchangeable resolvers behind one VIP, not peers that address each other.
+        spec["serviceName"] = s["name"]
+        # Parallel, not the OrderedReady default. OrderedReady starts replica N+1 only after N is
+        # Ready, so a cold start costs the sum of every replica's first-boot work instead of the
+        # max — and `apps-wave-0` has `timeout: 5m`. There is no ordering requirement between
+        # replicas to protect (no leader, no migration, no shared volume), so serialising buys
+        # nothing and risks the wave timing out on a rebuild.
+        spec["podManagementPolicy"] = "Parallel"
+    elif s["storage"]:
+        # An app with persistent storage mounts a ReadWriteOnce Longhorn PVC. The default
+        # RollingUpdate strategy tries to start the NEW pod before terminating the old one, but
+        # the old pod still holds the RWO volume -> the new pod is stuck ContainerCreating and
+        # the rollout deadlocks (single-replica app can never hand the volume over). Recreate
+        # terminates the old pod first, freeing the PVC for the new one (R-STATE-01/02).
+        #
+        # A StatefulSet needs none of this and cannot express it: each replica owns its own claim,
+        # so a rolling update hands nothing over, and `strategy` is not a StatefulSet field at all.
        spec["strategy"] = {"type": "Recreate"}
    spec["selector"] = {"matchLabels": {"app.kubernetes.io/name": s["name"]}}
    spec["template"] = {"metadata": tmpl_meta, "spec": pod_spec}
+    if sts:
+        # Per-replica claims. metadata.name MUST equal the pod volume name the container mounts
+        # (see the volumes loop above); the resulting PVCs are <name>-<sts>-<ordinal>, e.g.
+        # config-pihole-0. Same tier and access mode a standalone longhorn PVC gets from r_pvcs —
+        # this changes WHO owns the claim, never what it is.
+        tmpls = []
+        for vol in _sts_claim_volumes(s):
+            vspec = {"accessModes": ["ReadWriteOnce"], "storageClassName": "longhorn"}
+            if vol.get("size"):
+                vspec["resources"] = {"requests": {"storage": vol["size"]}}
+            tmpls.append(
+                {
+                    "metadata": {
+                        "name": vol["name"],
+                        "labels": {"app.kubernetes.io/name": s["name"]},
+                    },
+                    "spec": vspec,
+                }
+            )
+        if tmpls:
+            spec["volumeClaimTemplates"] = tmpls

    return {
        "apiVersion": "apps/v1",
-        "kind": "Deployment",
+        "kind": "StatefulSet" if sts else "Deployment",
        "metadata": {
            "name": s["name"],
            "namespace": s["name"],
@@ -684,6 +796,35 @@ def r_deployment(s: dict) -> dict:
    }


+def r_pdb(s: dict):
+    """PodDisruptionBudget for a multi-replica workload (availability.replicas > 1).
+
+    minAvailable 1, not `maxUnavailable: 1`. The budget's job here is to stop a VOLUNTARY
+    disruption — a node drain for maintenance, a cluster upgrade — from taking the last replica
+    with it; `minAvailable: 1` says that whatever else happens, one must keep serving. It does
+    NOT protect against involuntary disruption (a node dying), which is what the anti-affinity
+    and the replica count are for.
+
+    Rendered only when replicas > 1: a PDB over a single-replica workload is actively harmful, as
+    `minAvailable: 1` would then block every drain of its node forever.
+    """
+    if not _is_statefulset(s):
+        return None
+    return {
+        "apiVersion": "policy/v1",
+        "kind": "PodDisruptionBudget",
+        "metadata": {
+            "name": s["name"],
+            "namespace": s["name"],
+            "labels": {"app.kubernetes.io/name": s["name"]},
+        },
+        "spec": {
+            "minAvailable": 1,
+            "selector": {"matchLabels": {"app.kubernetes.io/name": s["name"]}},
+        },
+    }
+
+
 def r_service(s: dict):
    ports = _service_ports(s)
    # A declared metrics endpoint becomes a NAMED Service port, because that name is the only
@@ -1817,7 +1958,13 @@ def render(sd: dict, image_automation: bool = True, inbound: list | None = None)
            )
        for pvc in r_pvcs(s):
            docs.append((f"PVC {pvc['metadata']['name']} (R-STATE)", pvc))
-        docs.append(("Deployment (R-PLAT-02)", r_deployment(s)))
+        wl = r_deployment(s)
+        docs.append((f"{wl['kind']} (R-PLAT-02)", wl))
+        pdb = r_pdb(s)
+        if pdb:
+            docs.append(
+                ("PodDisruptionBudget — keep one replica through a drain (availability.replicas)", pdb)
+            )
        svc = r_service(s)
        if svc:
            docs.append(("Service", svc))
@@ -2020,6 +2167,23 @@ EXTRA_UNITS: dict = {
            "plex-remote.yaml",
        ],
    },
+    # Plex's own TLS certificate for the single hostname it advertises to plex.tv
+    # (apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml). `above: False` co-locates it in plex's OWN wave, which is the
+    # only placement available: the Certificate must land in the `plex` namespace, and that
+    # namespace is created by the rendered plex.yaml in this very wave, so it CANNOT be issued
+    # earlier. The workload tolerates the resulting gap by marking the env refs `optional` rather
+    # than by ordering -- see the header of plex-cert.yaml.
+    #
+    # Non-catalog because the ServiceDefinition schema has no field for a cert-manager Certificate
+    # (additionalProperties is false); `ingressRoutes` inherits the Gateway wildcard instead, which
+    # is the opposite case to a workload terminating its own TLS on a raw L4 port.
+    "plex-cert": {
+        "anchor": "plex",
+        "above": False,
+        "files": [
+            "plex-cert.yaml",
+        ],
+    },
 }


@@ -2266,6 +2430,132 @@ def _selftest() -> int:
    check("Namespace" in kinds, "container: missing Namespace")
    check("NetworkPolicy" in kinds, "container: missing default-deny NetworkPolicy")
    check("Deployment" in kinds, "container: missing Deployment")
+    check(
+        "PodDisruptionBudget" not in kinds,
+        "replicas-1 container must render NO PodDisruptionBudget (minAvailable 1 over a single "
+        "replica blocks every drain of its node forever)",
+    )
+
+    # 1b) availability.replicas (schema 1.10.0). The DEFAULT path must be untouched, and the >1
+    # path must change workload kind, claim ownership, spreading, budget AND the SLI metric
+    # together — each of these has a silent-failure mode if it is the one that gets forgotten.
+    base_av = {
+        "name": "av",
+        "source": {"image": "nginx:1"},
+        "storage": [{"name": "config", "size": "1Gi"}],
+        "observability": {"metrics": True, "slis": ["up"]},
+    }
+    one = render({**base_av, "availability": {"replicas": 1}})
+    one_kinds = [d[1]["kind"] for d in one]
+    check(
+        "Deployment" in one_kinds and "StatefulSet" not in one_kinds,
+        "availability.replicas=1 must still render a Deployment (back-compat)",
+    )
+    check(
+        "PersistentVolumeClaim" in one_kinds,
+        "availability.replicas=1 must still render a standalone PVC",
+    )
+    check(
+        "PodDisruptionBudget" not in one_kinds,
+        "availability.replicas=1 must render no PodDisruptionBudget",
+    )
+
+    many = render({**base_av, "availability": {"replicas": 2}})
+    many_kinds = [d[1]["kind"] for d in many]
+    check(
+        "StatefulSet" in many_kinds and "Deployment" not in many_kinds,
+        "availability.replicas>1 must render a StatefulSet, not a Deployment (a shared RWO claim "
+        "cannot be attached on two nodes, so a multi-replica Deployment never schedules)",
+    )
+    check(
+        "PersistentVolumeClaim" not in many_kinds,
+        "availability.replicas>1 must NOT also render a standalone longhorn PVC — it would be an "
+        "orphan that nothing mounts",
+    )
+    sts = next(d[1] for d in many if d[1]["kind"] == "StatefulSet")
+    check(sts["spec"].get("replicas") == 2, "StatefulSet must carry the declared replica count")
+    check(
+        "strategy" not in sts["spec"],
+        "StatefulSet must not carry `strategy` (not a StatefulSet field; Recreate is a "
+        "Deployment-only workaround for handing over one RWO volume)",
+    )
+    check(
+        sts["spec"].get("podManagementPolicy") == "Parallel",
+        "StatefulSet must set podManagementPolicy=Parallel — OrderedReady serialises first-boot "
+        "work across replicas and apps-wave-0 has a 5m timeout",
+    )
+    check(sts["spec"].get("serviceName") == "av", "StatefulSet must set serviceName")
+    tmpls = sts["spec"].get("volumeClaimTemplates") or []
+    check(
+        [t["metadata"]["name"] for t in tmpls] == ["config"],
+        "StatefulSet volumeClaimTemplate name must equal the pod volume name the container mounts, "
+        "or the pod gets a duplicate/unresolvable volume",
+    )
+    check(
+        tmpls and tmpls[0]["spec"]["accessModes"] == ["ReadWriteOnce"]
+        and tmpls[0]["spec"]["storageClassName"] == "longhorn",
+        "StatefulSet claim template must keep the same tier/access mode as the standalone PVC",
+    )
+    sts_vols = {v["name"] for v in sts["spec"]["template"]["spec"].get("volumes", [])}
+    check(
+        "config" not in sts_vols,
+        "a claim-template volume must NOT also appear in pod.volumes (duplicate volume name)",
+    )
+    mounts = sts["spec"]["template"]["spec"]["containers"][0].get("volumeMounts") or []
+    check(
+        any(m["name"] == "config" for m in mounts),
+        "the container must still mount the volume by name on a StatefulSet (transparent to the app)",
+    )
+    aff = (sts["spec"]["template"]["spec"].get("affinity") or {}).get("podAntiAffinity") or {}
+    req = aff.get("requiredDuringSchedulingIgnoredDuringExecution") or []
+    check(
+        req and req[0].get("topologyKey") == "kubernetes.io/hostname",
+        "availability.replicas>1 must render REQUIRED per-node anti-affinity — `preferred` can put "
+        "every replica on one node and deliver none of the intended node-failure tolerance",
+    )
+    pdbs = [d[1] for d in many if d[1]["kind"] == "PodDisruptionBudget"]
+    check(len(pdbs) == 1, "availability.replicas>1 must render exactly one PodDisruptionBudget")
+    check(
+        pdbs and pdbs[0]["spec"].get("minAvailable") == 1,
+        "PodDisruptionBudget must be minAvailable=1 (keep one replica serving through a drain)",
+    )
+    pr_many = next((d[1] for d in many if d[1]["kind"] == "PrometheusRule"), None)
+    check(
+        pr_many is not None
+        and "kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready"
+        in pr_many["spec"]["groups"][0]["rules"][0]["expr"],
+        "the up SLI must follow the rendered workload kind — a Deployment-shaped rule against a "
+        "StatefulSet absent()s forever and can never fire",
+    )
+
+    # A bulk volume is shared external NFS: it must stay a standalone PVC even on a StatefulSet.
+    mixed = render(
+        {
+            **base_av,
+            "availability": {"replicas": 2},
+            "storage": [
+                {"name": "config", "size": "1Gi"},
+                {"name": "media", "class": "bulk", "export": "/mnt/x", "size": "1Ti"},
+            ],
+        }
+    )
+    m_sts = next(d[1] for d in mixed if d[1]["kind"] == "StatefulSet")
+    check(
+        [t["metadata"]["name"] for t in m_sts["spec"]["volumeClaimTemplates"]] == ["config"],
+        "only longhorn volumes become claim templates; a bulk share must not be per-replica",
+    )
+    check(
+        any(
+            d[1]["kind"] == "PersistentVolumeClaim"
+            and d[1]["metadata"]["name"] == "av-media"
+            for d in mixed
+        ),
+        "a bulk PVC must still be rendered standalone on a StatefulSet",
+    )
+    check(
+        "media" in {v["name"] for v in m_sts["spec"]["template"]["spec"].get("volumes", [])},
+        "a bulk volume must still appear in pod.volumes on a StatefulSet",
+    )

    ns = next(d[1] for d in docs if d[1]["kind"] == "Namespace")
    check(
@@ -101,7 +101,7 @@ data:
  # tier that lists it), crafty (CRAFTY_L4_VIP), apps-wave-0 (nextcloud-db + semaphore-db:
  # S3_BACKUP_ENDPOINT, CNPG_BACKUP_PATH; pihole + pihole-dns: PIHOLE_DNS_VIP, LAN_CIDR, plus
  # GATEWAY_VIP/UNIFI_L4_VIP/CRAFTY_L4_VIP read BY pihole to author its LAN split-horizon answers;
-  # plex-remote: PLEX_L4_VIP),
+  # plex-remote + pihole: PLEX_L4_VIP),
  # velero (S3_BACKUP_ENDPOINT, S3_BACKUP_REGION,
  # VELERO_BACKUP_BUCKET, VELERO_BACKUP_PREFIX), apps-vms (UNIFI_L4_VIP). A ${TOKEN} in an
  # UNSUBSTITUTED path would ship the literal string into the cluster.
@@ -189,6 +189,13 @@ data:
  # dev  -> 192.168.1.57  (base default; next free after pihole-dns .56 in dev's .53-.60 pool)
  # prod -> 192.168.2.24  (next free after pihole-dns .23 in prod's .20-.30 pool; see clusters/prod)
  PLEX_L4_VIP: "192.168.1.57"                # Plex: tcp/32400 remote access (NOT the web UI, which is L7)
+  # SECOND CONSUMER since 2026-10-04: catalog/pihole.yaml reads this knob to answer
+  # plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN} on the LAN, which is the local half of the single hostname Plex
+  # advertises to plex.tv. Without that per-host answer the zone wildcard sends the name to
+  # ${GATEWAY_VIP}, where nothing listens on 32400. So this value is now typed into THREE places
+  # that must agree: this knob, the WAN port-forward on the SOHO router (off-repo), and PiHole's
+  # answer -- and only the first two were true before.
+

  # The FLAT LAN this cluster's nodes and LB VIPs live on, in CIDR form. Consumed as the ingress
  # peer of the PiHole DNS CiliumNetworkPolicy (apps/wave-0/pihole-dns.yaml): a resolver reachable
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-03
+branch: fix/cilium-cgroup-hostroot
+title: Cilium socket-LB never covered host processes — cgroup.hostRoot pointed at an unmounted path
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+`cgroup.hostRoot` changes from `/run/cilium/cgroupv2` to `/sys/fs/cgroup` in all three parity
+copies: `platform/cilium/helmrelease.yaml` (authoritative), `platform/cilium/values.yaml`
+(mirror) and `infra/ansible/roles/cilium/templates/cilium-values.yaml.j2` (bootstrap).
+`autoMount` stays `false`.
+
+**The defect.** With `autoMount: false`, the Cilium chart only bind-mounts whatever exists at
+`hostRoot`, and expects the operator to have mounted cgroup2 there (cilium 1.20.1 values.yaml).
+The repo's rationale was "k3s provides the cgroupv2 mount". That is true only for
+`/sys/fs/cgroup`. Nothing mounts cgroup2 at `/run/cilium/cgroupv2` on these nodes; it is an
+empty `DirectoryOrCreate` hostPath. So the agent mounted cgroup2 there itself, from inside its
+own private cgroup namespace, and that mount's root is the agent container's own leaf cgroup.
+The socket-LB programs (`cil_sock4_connect` etc.) were attached to it and covered only the
+agent.
+
+**The consequence.** Every other host-netns process got no Service/LB translation:
+- Service ClusterIPs were unreachable from every node's host.
+- The node holding the Gateway's L2 lease could not reach the Gateway VIP (`no route to host`).
+  Other nodes reached it only because their packets crossed the wire to the lease holder, where
+  the tc datapath handles them.
+- k3s-prod-1 holds both the Gateway lease and the kube-vip API VIP. Its apiserver could not reach
+  the OIDC issuer, logging `oidc: authenticator not initialized` since at least 2026-09-12
+  (899 occurrences by 2026-10-03). kubectl SSO through the VIP therefore failed, and in-cluster
+  OIDC clients failed on whichever calls landed on that apiserver.
+- Webhooks and aggregated APIs were unaffected only because k3s runs
+  `--enable-aggregator-routing=true` (endpoint IPs, not ClusterIPs).
+
+Cilium's own source (v1.20.1 `bpf/bpf_sock.c`, `__sock4_xlate_fwd`) handles exactly this case
+when the hook does run: a host-netns connect to an L7-LB Service (the Gateway) is rewritten to
+`127.0.0.1:<l7_lb_proxy_port>`, the local Envoy listener. The fix is to make the hook cover the
+host.
+
+## What I verified
+
+- `cilium-dbg status --verbose` on k3s-prod-1: `Socket LB: Enabled`, `Coverage: Hostns-only`.
+  The live cilium-config shows `bpf-lb-sock=false`, but socket LB is implied by kube-proxy
+  replacement. The Gateway Service frontends `192.168.2.20:{80,443}` and
+  `10.43.225.79:{80,443}` map to `127.0.0.1:14337`.
+- Host: `findmnt /run/cilium/cgroupv2` is empty on all three nodes, and `/sys/fs/cgroup` is
+  `cgroup2`.
+- In the agent: `/run/cilium/cgroupv2` is a `cgroup2 none` mount, the agent's own cgroup reads
+  `0::/`, the mount has 0 child cgroups, and `bpftool cgroup show /run/cilium/cgroupv2` lists all
+  `cil_sock*` programs. k3s runs in `0::/system.slice/k3s.service`, and the agent container in
+  `/kubepods.slice/…/cri-containerd-3ad04cde….scope`.
+- **The decisive test**, run on k3s-prod-1 in the same netns: raw TCP connect to
+  `192.168.2.20:443`, `10.43.225.79:443` and `10.43.59.141:8080` CONNECTED from inside the agent
+  container (covered cgroup) and FAILED from the host (`No route to host` / timeout).
+- Blast radius: host-network pods are cilium, cilium-envoy, cilium-operator (API via
+  `192.168.2.9:6443`, not a Service), kube-vip (`127.0.0.1:6443`, `svc_enable=false`) and
+  node-exporter (no outbound). Nothing depends on host Service translation being absent; the
+  change only makes Service/LB addresses reachable from the host where they currently fail.
+- `helm template cilium/cilium --version 1.20.1` with the new values, in the toolbox: the
+  DaemonSet bind-mounts hostPath `/sys/fs/cgroup` into `cilium-agent` and `clean-cilium-state`,
+  the cilium-config shows `cgroup-root: "/sys/fs/cgroup"`, and the init containers are unchanged
+  (no `mount-cgroup`).
+- Toolbox gate: see the PR description.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **The rollout itself.** After merge, the agent DaemonSet rolls one node at a time
+  (`maxUnavailable: 1`). On each node, afterwards: host TCP connects to the three targets above
+  must succeed. On k3s-prod-1, the apiserver's background OIDC init retry must stop logging
+  `authenticator not initialized` with no k3s restart.
+- That the old programs, attached to the previous agent container's cgroup, disappear with it.
+  Expected, because cgroup BPF attachments die with the cgroup, but not observed.
+- An end-to-end kubectl OIDC login (needs a browser).
+- No regression test was added. A natural one is an L2 conformance check that a host-netns
+  connect to the Gateway VIP succeeds on the lease holder, but `conformance/**` is a sensitive
+  path. Left as a follow-up.
@@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-04
+branch: feat/pihole-declare-state
+title: PiHole's operator-set state is now declared in git — the prerequisite for running more than one replica
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+Phase 1 of making LAN DNS survive a node failure. The operator asked for multi-replica PiHole;
+measurement showed that cannot be done safely first, because PiHole's important state was not
+reproducible from git. A second replica with a fresh PVC would have come up **serving DNS and
+blocking nothing, with a different admin password** — answers varying by which pod replied. This
+branch closes that; the replica work is phase 2 and is deliberately NOT here.
+
+**The undeclared-state inventory, measured not guessed.** `pihole.toml` marks every non-default
+setting `### CHANGED`, and those that came from the environment `### CHANGED (env)`. The complete
+live list on 2026-10-04:
+
+| Setting | Status |
+|---|---|
+| `dns.upstreams`, `dns.listeningMode`, `dns.rateLimit.count`, `misc.dnsmasq_lines` | `### CHANGED (env)` — already declared in `catalog/pihole.yaml` |
+| `files.macvendor` | `### CHANGED` — set by the image itself (container path), not operator state |
+| `webserver.api.pwhash` | **`### CHANGED` — set out of band. Declared NOWHERE.** |
+
+So exactly **one** operator-set value lived only on the PVC. Separately, the **adlists** were also
+undeclared: `gravity.db` held one list (StevenBlack's hosts) and 72,234 gravity domains, with nothing
+in this repo naming it.
+
+- **`apps/wave-0/pihole-bootstrap-secret.sops.yaml` (new, SOPS/age).** Secret `pihole-bootstrap`,
+  key `webui-password`. Named to the `<svc>-bootstrap-secret.sops.yaml` convention so
+  `render.py --emit-waves` places it with no renderer change. The value is a 32-char random password
+  generated at authoring time and **never printed to a transcript**.
+- **`catalog/pihole.yaml`:** `FTLCONF_webserver_api_password` sourced from that Secret.
+  `webserver.api.password` takes CLEARTEXT and FTL hashes it itself — verified in the running image,
+  where `pihole setpassword` *is* `setFTLConfigValue "webserver.api.password"`, commented upstream
+  "pihole-FTL will automatically hash the password". The PVC's `pwhash` becomes a derived artefact.
+- **`catalog/pihole.yaml`:** a `lifecycle.postStart` hook that **reconciles** the declared adlist set
+  into `gravity.db` on every container start — adds missing, re-enables disabled, and **disables**
+  (never deletes) anything enabled but undeclared, running `pihole -g` only when something moved.
+  Same level-triggered idiom, and the same reasoning, as `catalog/qbittorrent.yaml`'s postStart.
+- **`apps/wave-0/pihole.yaml`, `apps/wave-0/kustomization.yaml`:** re-rendered / secret registered.
+
+**Why a postStart hook and not a file.** PiHole v6 keeps adlists as DB rows. `/etc/pihole/adlists.list`
+still exists in `gravity.sh` but is **migration-only**: its import sits inside `migrate_to_database()`
+behind `if [ ! -e "$gravityDBfile" ]`, so it fires only while *creating* a database. A ConfigMap
+mounted there would be silently ignored on every pod this cluster runs today. There is also no
+`pihole adlist` CLI subcommand, so SQL is the actual interface; FTL ships an embedded shell
+(`pihole-FTL sqlite3`) so nothing had to be added to the image.
+
+**The password is kept rather than set empty, deliberately.** The admin UI is already behind the
+oauth2-proxy sidecar (`--allowed-group=platform-admins`), so an empty password would have been
+simpler. But the `pihole` Service still publishes **port 80** (PiHole direct, bypassing the proxy on
+`:4180`) and only the CiliumNetworkPolicy closes it — and this repo has a documented default-deny
+drift history. An unauthenticated admin UI that can rewrite LAN DNS should not rest on one policy
+staying correct. Narrowing that Service port is follow-up, not done here.
+
+**SENSITIVE PATHS — this PR adds a `**/*.sops.yaml`, so `ci/approval-policy.sh` will BLOCK it.** It
+needs the operator's `/approve-override <reason>` as a PR **review** of type "Comment". Not posted by
+me: CLAUDE.md section 1 forbids an agent clearing this on its own PR.
+
+## What I verified
+
+Live prod, 2026-10-04, read-only except where noted.
+
+- **The undeclared-state inventory above** — read from `pihole.toml`'s own `### CHANGED` markers, with
+  the password value masked. This is the measurement the whole branch rests on.
+- **A fresh `gravity.db` seeds NO adlists.** The image's own schema template
+  `/etc/.pihole/advanced/Templates/gravity.db.sql` creates the `adlist` table and contains no
+  `INSERT INTO adlist` at all — grepped in the running image. Confirmed empirically below (0 rows).
+  This is why the adlist declaration is load-bearing and not cosmetic.
+- **The adlists.list path really is migration-only** — read the guard in `/opt/pihole/gravity.sh`
+  (`migrate_to_database()`, `if [ ! -e "$gravityDBfile" ]`).
+- **`webserver.api.password` is a real settable key** — `pihole-FTL --config webserver.api.password`
+  returns a masked value, and `/usr/local/bin/pihole`'s `setpassword` sets exactly that key.
+- **THE RENDERED HOOK ACTUALLY WORKS — all four paths, extracted from `apps/wave-0/pihole.yaml` and
+  run in the live pod against THROWAWAY COPIES of `gravity.db` in `/tmp`** (production `gravity.db`
+  was never written, and `pihole -g` was stubbed so no 70k-domain download could start):
+  1. *Steady state* → `already matches the declared set - nothing to do`. No writes, no rebuild.
+  2. *True fresh DB built from the image's schema template* → 0 adlists before; hook added the
+     declared list and triggered the rebuild. **This is the fresh-PVC/new-replica case.**
+  3. *An undeclared list enabled* → disabled it (`enabled=0`), left the declared one alone, and did
+     not delete the row.
+  4. *Declared list present but disabled* → re-enabled it.
+- **Required tools exist in the image:** `bash`, `expr`, `grep`, `printf`, `sleep`, `pihole-FTL`.
+- **The Secret is genuinely encrypted** to the repo's age recipient; `stringData.webui-password`
+  starts `ENC[`. The gate's `no-plaintext-secrets (R-SEC-01)` L0 check passes.
+- **Schema:** `check-jsonschema` against `schemas/servicedefinition.schema.json` passes.
+- **Render determinism:** the canonical
+  `render.py --all catalog -o apps --wave-layout --no-image-automation` changed **only**
+  `apps/wave-0/pihole.yaml`. `render-golden` passes, so the hook's text also satisfies
+  `assert_substitution_safe` (no braced dollar expansion — the Flux envsubst contract).
+- **Toolbox gate:** rc **3**, with `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`,
+  `render-golden`, `l1`, `approval-policy` all **pass**. The rc 3 is the two usual environmental
+  skips — `gitea-settings` (no local `SETTINGS_API_TOKEN`) and `conformance` L2/L3
+  (`CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` unset). **Not green; reported as rc 3.**
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **Nothing here has been reconciled.** Flux has not applied any of it, so the password has never
+  been set by this mechanism and the hook has never run during a real container start. Everything
+  above is the rendered artifact tested out-of-band, plus the image's own source.
+- **THE CURRENT ADMIN PASSWORD WILL STOP WORKING, and that is the intent.** FTL re-hashes
+  `webserver.api.password` on start, overwriting the existing `pwhash`. Whoever knows the present
+  password (nobody, which is why this started) loses it; the declared one replaces it. I have not
+  observed that replacement happen.
+- **Cold-start cost is unmeasured and could matter.** `postStart` must complete before the container
+  is reported Running. On a fresh PVC the hook waits for `gravity.db` (bounded, up to 180s) and then
+  runs a real `pihole -g` (72k domains, network downloads). `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true` and
+  `apps-wave-1` `dependsOn` it, so a slow cold start **delays the app tier**. The steady-state path
+  exits in about a second (scenario 1), so this is a rebuild/first-boot cost only — but it is not
+  measured, and the stub in testing means `pihole -g`'s real duration here is unknown.
+- **Whether `pihole -g` succeeds from inside the hook's environment.** Its failure is caught and the
+  existing `gravity.db` retained, so a failure degrades rather than breaks — untested live.
+- **Concurrency.** Nothing serialises the hook against FTL's own scheduled gravity update. SQLite
+  handles the locking, and the hook's writes are three small statements, but no interleaving was
+  exercised.
+- **MULTI-REPLICA — PHASE 2, NOT STARTED.** This branch only removes the blocker. The remaining work,
+  and it is substantial: a `replicas`/placement field on the ServiceDefinition schema (currently
+  `additionalProperties: false` with no such field), `render.py` emitting a StatefulSet with
+  `volumeClaimTemplates` (the config PVC is **ReadWriteOnce**, so a 2-replica Deployment cannot
+  work), pod anti-affinity, a PodDisruptionBudget (there is none today), re-rendered goldens, and
+  `conformance/**` updates — the last making phase 2 sensitive-path as well. The PVC rename a
+  StatefulSet forces will discard the existing `gravity.db`, which is only safe **because** of this
+  branch, and should be done only after this one is confirmed working in-cluster.
+- **The real risk the operator named is NOT fixed by phase 2 either.** Replicas address *node*
+  failure. LAN DNS still depends on the cluster as a whole — etcd quorum, Cilium, Longhorn, a bad
+  reconcile. Quantified on 2026-10-04: with `tolerationSeconds=300` plus node-NotReady detection
+  plus a Longhorn RWO force-detach, a failure of the node running the pod is roughly **6-10 minutes
+  of no LAN DNS**; a failure of the node holding the `pihole-dns-*` L2 lease (currently a
+  *different* node — lease on k3s-prod-2, pod on k3s-prod-1) is tens of seconds. An out-of-cluster
+  secondary resolver carrying the same `address=` lines is the only option that removes the
+  dependency, and it was considered and not chosen.
+- **Port 80 on the `pihole` Service is still published** and still closed only by policy. Not narrowed.
@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-04
+branch: docs/pihole-ha-verified
+title: PiHole HA is VERIFIED on live prod — including a failover drill with zero dropped DNS queries
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+**No manifests changed. This entry exists to correct the log.** The three PiHole/Plex entries merged
+earlier today each say, correctly at the time, that nothing had been reconciled and that the outcome
+was unverified:
+
+- `decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-declare-state.md` — "Nothing here has been reconciled."
+- `decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-multi-replica.md` — "Nothing has been reconciled. No StatefulSet
+  exists, no second replica has ever run, the anti-affinity has never been evaluated..."
+
+All three are now **merged, reconciled and measured**, so those sentences are stale in exactly the way
+§2b of CLAUDE.md warns about — a reader who found them would conclude the work is unproven. This entry
+is the current state; it does not edit the earlier files (separate files, nothing to merge).
+
+Delivered and live as of 2026-10-04, from PRs #43 (plex tcp/32400), #44 (declare PiHole state) and
+#45 (PiHole 2 replicas + the mountPath bug):
+
+- PiHole is a **2-replica StatefulSet**, one pod per node, with per-replica Longhorn volumes, a
+  PodDisruptionBudget, and an `up` SLI that follows the rendered workload kind.
+- PiHole's admin password and adlists are **declared in git** and reproduce onto a fresh volume.
+- PiHole's config PVC is mounted where PiHole actually writes (`/etc/pihole`), which it was not before.
+
+## What I verified
+
+All measured against live prod on 2026-10-04, after the merge of #45 (`dce20b7`).
+
+**Reconcile.** `GitRepository` artifact `main@sha1:dce20b7`; `apps-wave-0`
+`lastAppliedRevision=main@sha1:dce20b7`, `Ready=True/ReconciliationSucceeded`. It completed in roughly
+**90 seconds**, well inside the Kustomization's `timeout: 5m` — the risk flagged in the multi-replica
+entry ("whether `pihole -g` finishes inside the 5 m timeout") did **not** materialise. A transient
+`Ready=False/DependencyNotReady: platform-config` seen mid-flight was the dependency cascade, not a
+failure; `platform-config` was already `Ready=True` at the new revision moments later.
+
+**Topology and objects.**
+
+| Measured | Value |
+|---|---|
+| pods / nodes | `pihole-0` → **k3s-prod-3**, `pihole-1` → **k3s-prod-2** (2/2 Running each) — the required anti-affinity was satisfied |
+| per-replica claims | `config-pihole-0`, `config-pihole-1` — both `Bound`, 2Gi |
+| old `pihole-config` PVC | **pruned** (it held only `lost+found`, so nothing was lost) |
+| old `pihole` Deployment | **pruned** — `No resources found in pihole namespace` |
+| PodDisruptionBudget | `minAvailable 1`, `disruptionsAllowed 1`, `currentHealthy 2` |
+
+**The mountPath bug is fixed.** `df` inside both pods reports `/etc/pihole` on
+`/dev/longhorn/pvc-...` with **6.9 M used** — previously it was on `overlay` while the Longhorn volume
+sat unused at `/data/config`. `backup.policy: daily-offcluster` now has real content to back up
+instead of reporting success over an empty volume.
+
+**Phase 1's declarations reproduce onto a FRESH volume — the point of doing it first.** Both replicas
+booted with an empty `/etc/pihole`:
+
+- **72,234 gravity domains** on each, rebuilt from the adlist declared in `catalog/pihole.yaml`.
+- **The declared SOPS secret authenticates on both pods.** `POST /api/auth` using the container's own
+  `FTLCONF_webserver_api_password` returned `"valid":true` on `pihole-0` **and** `pihole-1` — so
+  Secret → env → FTL's own hashing → working login, identically on both. (The secret's value was never
+  printed; an earlier reading of `pwhash` as "unset" was a quoting bug in the check, disproven by an
+  empty password being rejected with `password incorrect` and then by this positive test.)
+
+**User-facing behaviour through the VIP (192.168.2.23), from a LAN host.**
+
+    plex.home.keithjackson.dev   -> 192.168.2.20      split-horizon intact
+    home.keithjackson.dev        -> 192.168.2.20
+    unifi.home.keithjackson.dev  -> 192.168.2.21
+    google.com                   -> 142.250.115.102   recursion to 8.8.8.8 works
+    doubleclick.net              -> 0.0.0.0           blocking LIVE in FTL, not just in the DB
+    googleadservices.com         -> 0.0.0.0
+    12 consecutive queries       -> 12/12 answered
+
+**THE FAILOVER DRILL — observed by the operator, 2026-10-04.** A single StatefulSet replica was
+deleted. It was recreated in **~30 seconds**, and **DNS never dropped a request** throughout. This is
+the first direct evidence that the replica count delivers what it was added for, rather than merely
+rendering correctly.
+
+**The SLI is not inert, and re-deriving it mattered.** Measured in Prometheus:
+`kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready{namespace="pihole", statefulset="pihole"}` returns **1 series,
+value 2**; `kube_deployment_status_replicas_available{namespace="pihole"}` now returns **0 series**;
+and Prometheus has `pihole-down` loaded as `state=inactive health=ok` with the StatefulSet expression.
+Had the rule stayed Deployment-shaped, its `or absent(...)` branch would have matched the now-absent
+series and **fired permanently** — a standing false page rather than silence. That is the concrete
+payoff of defaulting `livenessWorkload.kind` from the rendered kind.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **NODE failure, as opposed to pod failure.** The drill deleted a pod, which does not exercise the
+  `tolerationSeconds: 300` path at all — that timer only applies when a node goes NotReady. The
+  mechanism protecting DNS is the same one just proven (the surviving replica plus
+  `externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster` on the DNS LoadBalancers), so user-visible impact should likewise be
+  nil; what the 300 s still delays is the *replacement* replica, and during that window there is no
+  redundancy left. Untested. Pulling power from a node is the only real test.
+- **DNS during the cutover itself.** I was not sampling resolution while #45 reconciled, so whether
+  there was a brief gap between the Deployment being pruned and the StatefulSet becoming Ready is
+  **unmeasured**. The drill above covers the steady-state failover case, not that one-off transition.
+- **Two-node loss.** The hard anti-affinity means `replicas: 2` needs two schedulable nodes; losing
+  two would leave a replica `Pending` and, with `wait: true`, stall the app tier. Reasoned, not
+  exercised — and it coincides with etcd quorum loss on a 3-node control plane.
+- **Longhorn capacity headroom.** Two 2Gi claims at 3 replicas each is ~12Gi where there was ~6Gi.
+  Both claims are `Bound` and healthy; free space was not checked.
+- **Query history is now split per replica** and the admin UI shows only whichever pod answered.
+  Adlists and password are identical, so blocking and auth are consistent; the *reporting* is not, and
+  whether that is acceptable long-term is the operator's call.
+- **The residual risk is unchanged, and it is the larger one.** Replicas address node failure. LAN DNS
+  still depends on the cluster — etcd quorum, Cilium, Longhorn, a bad reconcile — and only a resolver
+  outside the cluster carrying the same `address=` lines removes that dependency. Considered and not
+  chosen (operator decision, 2026-10-04).
+- **Plex remote access (#43) is NOT covered by this entry.** Its two manual steps (the WAN tcp/32400
+  forward and Plex's "manually specify public port") and the outside-in path remain as
+  `decisions/2026-10-03-plex-remote-access-l4.md` describes them. The operator reported it working;
+  I have not measured it from off-LAN.
+- **`--emit-waves` drift is still open.** Re-running it still wants to onboard `vm-demo.yaml` and
+  `keycloak.yaml`, both listed as intentionally not onboarded in `ci/render-golden.sh`. Unfixed; see
+  `decisions/2026-10-03-plex-remote-access-l4.md`.
@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-04
+branch: feat/pihole-multi-replica
+title: PiHole runs two replicas on different nodes — and its config PVC was mounted where PiHole never writes
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+Phase 2 of making LAN DNS survive a node failure (phase 1:
+`decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-declare-state.md`). PiHole was one pod on one node, which for a
+whole-house resolver cost more than "until it reschedules" — measured 2026-10-04:
+
+| Failure | Recovery |
+|---|---|
+| the node running the pod dies | ~40s to mark NotReady + `tolerationSeconds: 300` before eviction + reschedule + a Longhorn RWO force-detach → **roughly 6-10 minutes with no LAN DNS** |
+| the node holding the `pihole-dns-*` L2 lease dies | Cilium re-elects an announcer, tens of seconds |
+
+Those were **different** nodes (lease on k3s-prod-2, pod on k3s-prod-1), so two of three nodes were
+single points of failure for LAN DNS with wildly different blast radii.
+
+**A new schema field, because this is intent and not a primitive.** `availability.replicas`
+(schema **1.10.0**, mechanism in `schemas/renderer-contract.md` `### availability`). `1` or absent
+renders a Deployment exactly as before — every pre-existing golden is byte-identical, verified. `>1`
+renders, together:
+
+- a **StatefulSet** instead of a Deployment. This is forced, not preferred: a longhorn PVC is
+  **ReadWriteOnce**, and one RWO claim cannot attach on two nodes, so a 2-replica Deployment does not
+  degrade — the second pod never schedules.
+- longhorn storage as **per-replica `volumeClaimTemplates`** (`config-pihole-0`, `config-pihole-1`);
+  the standalone PVC is no longer emitted, since it would be an orphan nothing mounts. A `bulk`
+  entry stays a standalone PVC — it is a shared static NFS export, not per-replica state.
+- **required** `podAntiAffinity` on `kubernetes.io/hostname`. `preferred` would let both replicas
+  land on one node and deliver none of the intended tolerance while reporting healthy.
+- `podManagementPolicy: Parallel`, so a cold start costs the max of the replicas' first-boot work
+  rather than the sum — `apps-wave-0` has `timeout: 5m`.
+- a **PodDisruptionBudget**, `minAvailable: 1`, so a node drain cannot take the last replica.
+- `observability.livenessWorkload.kind` defaulting to `StatefulSet`, so the `up` SLI reads
+  `kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready`. A Deployment-shaped rule against a StatefulSet
+  `absent()`s forever — an alert that can never fire.
+
+`catalog/pihole.yaml` sets `replicas: 2`, not 3: two tolerates any single node loss and leaves a
+spare node for the evicted replica under the hard anti-affinity. Three would pin one per node with no
+spare, so a single node failure would leave a replica permanently `Pending` and — `apps-wave-0` being
+`wait: true` — stall the app tier for as long as the node was down.
+
+### The bug found on the way, and fixed here
+
+**PiHole's config PVC was mounted at a path PiHole never writes, so it held nothing and all of its
+state was ephemeral.** With no explicit `mountPath` the renderer defaults to `/data/<name>`; PiHole
+keeps everything in `/etc/pihole`. Measured on live prod 2026-10-04: `/etc/pihole` (7.1 M —
+`gravity.db`, `pihole.toml`, the query DB) was on the **overlay** filesystem, while the 2 Gi Longhorn
+volume sat at `/data/config` holding `lost+found` and 24 K of nothing. Consequences, all live until
+now:
+
+- every restart silently discarded PiHole's entire state and re-downloaded 72 k gravity domains;
+- `backup.policy: daily-offcluster` has been faithfully backing up an **empty** volume, which is
+  worse than no backup because it reports success;
+- it also means phase 1 was understated: that state was not merely undeclared, it was **ephemeral**.
+
+Same class of bug `catalog/plex.yaml` documents for its own `config` entry. Fixed in this branch
+rather than its own because with the wrong path the new per-replica volumes would be two 2 Gi
+Longhorn volumes (×3 Longhorn replicas each) holding only `lost+found` while all state stayed
+ephemeral — paying for persistence and getting none. It also removes this change's main operational
+risk: with `gravity.db` persisted, a restart is cheap instead of re-downloading 72 k domains inside a
+wave with a 5 m timeout.
+
+## What I verified
+
+- **Back-compatibility, the thing most likely to break quietly:** after the renderer change and
+  before `catalog/pihole.yaml` declared anything, the canonical
+  `render.py --all catalog -o apps --wave-layout --no-image-automation` produced **zero diff** across
+  the whole `apps/` tree. `render-golden` passes.
+- **The new behaviour is pinned by ~20 new `render.py --selftest` assertions** (so `ci/render-golden.sh`
+  hard-fails on a regression, and no `conformance/**` change was needed): `replicas: 1` still renders a
+  Deployment + standalone PVC + no PDB; `replicas: 2` renders a StatefulSet and **no** standalone
+  longhorn PVC, carries the replica count, omits `strategy`, sets `Parallel` and `serviceName`, names
+  the claim template exactly as the mounted volume, keeps RWO/longhorn on it, does **not** duplicate
+  that volume in `pod.volumes`, still mounts it on the container, renders required hostname
+  anti-affinity, renders exactly one `minAvailable: 1` PDB, and switches the SLI to
+  `kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready`. A mixed longhorn+bulk case asserts the bulk share stays a
+  standalone PVC and an ordinary pod volume.
+- **Rendered pihole output, read back:** `replicas: 2`, `serviceName: pihole`,
+  `podManagementPolicy: Parallel`, no `strategy`, claim template `config` (RWO/longhorn/2Gi),
+  anti-affinity `kubernetes.io/hostname`, `pod.volumes: []`, mount `config -> /etc/pihole`,
+  PDB `minAvailable: 1`, SLI `kube_statefulset_status_replicas_ready`.
+- **The `/etc/pihole` mount is safe, evidenced from the image's own init rather than assumed:**
+  `/usr/bin/start.sh` is PID 1 and runs as **uid 0**; its line 5 is
+  `chown -R pihole:pihole /etc/pihole/ /var/log/pihole/`, so a fresh root-owned volume has its
+  ownership fixed before anything else starts (**no `fsGroup` needed, and one would be inert**); it
+  calls `migrate_gravity`, whose `migrate_to_database()` creates the gravity database when
+  `[ ! -e "$gravityDBfile" ]`; FTL writes `pihole.toml` itself from the `FTLCONF_*` env; and the
+  image's own default for `files.macvendor` was moved **out** of that directory, which is what a
+  maintainer does to a path they expect to be a volume.
+- **The PVC really is unused:** `df` showed `/etc/pihole` on `overlay` and
+  `/dev/longhorn/pvc-849edb86-...` on `/data/config`; `ls -A /data/config` → `lost+found` only.
+- **The gate caught a real regression and it is fixed.** The first run came back **rc 1**:
+  `alert-rules-unit-tested` failed because `apps/wave-0/tests/app-slis.test.yaml` fed pihole a
+  `kube_deployment_status_replicas_available` series and expected a `deployment: pihole` label. Three
+  input series, the firing expectation and the file header were updated;
+  `platform/monitoring/tests/run.sh apps/wave-0/tests/app-slis.test.yaml` → **SUCCESS** (6 rules).
+- **Schema:** `check-jsonschema` passes over all of `catalog/*.yaml`.
+- **Toolbox gate:** rc **3**, with `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`,
+  `render-golden`, `l1`, `approval-policy` all **pass**. The rc 3 is the two environmental skips —
+  `gitea-settings` (no local `SETTINGS_API_TOKEN`) and `conformance` L2/L3 (`CLUSTER_AVAILABLE`
+  unset). **Not green; reported as rc 3.**
+- **No sensitive paths touched**, so unlike the previous two branches this one needs no
+  `/approve-override` — confirmed against `infra/gitea/approval-policy.json`.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **Nothing has been reconciled.** No StatefulSet exists, no second replica has ever run, the
+  anti-affinity has never been evaluated by the scheduler, the PDB has never been consulted, and the
+  `/etc/pihole` mount has never been exercised on a real pod. Everything above is the rendered
+  artifact plus the image's own source.
+- **THE ROLLOUT WILL BRIEFLY DROP LAN DNS, and I have not measured for how long.** `postStart` must
+  complete before a container is reported Running, so a pod is not Ready — and the Service has no
+  endpoints — until phase 1's adlist hook finishes. On this transition both replicas start with an
+  empty `/etc/pihole`, so the hook finds a fresh `gravity.db` with zero adlists and runs a real
+  `pihole -g` (72 k domains, network download) before either pod becomes Ready. **Do this at a quiet
+  time.** Two mitigating facts: every pihole restart has *already* paid this cost (state was
+  ephemeral), and after this change `gravity.db` persists so later restarts should not. If it turns
+  out slow, backgrounding the gravity rebuild inside the hook would decouple readiness from it, at
+  the cost of a window where DNS resolves but does not block — not done here.
+- **Whether `pihole -g` finishes inside `apps-wave-0`'s 5 m `timeout`.** `Parallel` was chosen to
+  make this the max rather than the sum of two first boots, but the real duration is unmeasured (it
+  was stubbed during phase 1's testing). If the wave times out, the Kustomization reports failed even
+  though the pods may come up seconds later.
+- **The old PVC's deletion.** `apps-wave-0` has `prune: true`, so removing `pihole-config` from the
+  rendered output should delete it. That destroys nothing (it holds `lost+found`), but I have not
+  observed the prune, and I did not check whether Longhorn retains the backing volume afterwards.
+- **The transition overlap.** For a moment the pruned Deployment's pod and the new StatefulSet pods
+  may both match the Service selector. Both are configured identically from git so this should be
+  benign — unobserved.
+- **Longhorn capacity.** Two 2 Gi claims at 3 Longhorn replicas each is ~12 Gi of real storage where
+  there was ~6 Gi. Not checked against free space.
+- **Whether two independent query databases are acceptable to the operator.** Stats and query history
+  now split per replica, and the admin UI shows only the pod that answered. Adlists and password are
+  identical (phase 1), so blocking and auth are consistent; the *reporting* is not.
+- **The residual risk is unchanged and is the larger one.** Replicas address node failure. LAN DNS
+  still depends on the cluster — etcd quorum, Cilium, Longhorn, a bad reconcile — and only a resolver
+  outside the cluster carrying the same `address=` lines removes that. Considered and not chosen
+  (operator decision, 2026-10-04).
+- **`tolerationSeconds: 300` is untouched.** With two replicas the surviving one serves immediately, so
+  the 5-minute eviction delay no longer gates recovery — but it still delays the *replacement* replica,
+  and during that window there is no redundancy left.
@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-04
+branch: fix/plex-advertise-plexdirect
+title: Plex vanished from the plex.tv account — every advertised connection was uncompletable; advertise the plex.direct name instead of the bare VIP
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+Reported symptom: the server no longer appears on the operator's plex.tv account; `plex.home.keithjackson.dev`
+shows "not authorized"; connecting straight to the VIP + port works.
+
+**Root cause, measured: `customConnections` held two hand-typed URLs and NEITHER could ever complete,
+so Plex had nothing publishable.** Because `customConnections` OVERRIDES Plex's own connection
+publishing, the server ended up advertising only dead endpoints. Live `Preferences.xml`, 2026-10-04:
+
+    customConnections="https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev:32400/,https://192.168.2.24:32400/"
+    ManualPortMappingMode="1"   ManualPortMappingPort=<ABSENT>
+
+- `https://192.168.2.24:32400` — **TLS can never validate.** Plex serves 32400 with
+  `CN=*.130072f20c334d6c8f63d0dfef87309b.plex.direct` and **no IP SAN**, so a bare-IP https URL fails
+  for every client. Not theoretical: Plex's log carries a continuous storm of
+  `CERT: incomplete TLS handshake from <node> ... sslv3 alert certificate unknown`, every few seconds,
+  from **real LAN clients** arriving through the new `plex-l4-tcp` VIP.
+- `https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev:32400` — **nothing listens.** The shared Gateway serves that host
+  on 443; measured `http=000` (connect failed) against `192.168.2.20:32400`.
+
+Consequence chain, each link measured: no completable connection -> plex.tv could publish nothing
+(`MyPlex: mapping state set to 'Mapped - Not Published'`, repeatedly) -> Plex fell back to **Plex Relay**
+(`startRelay`, remote forward to 127.0.0.1:32401) -> **the server disappeared from the account**, and
+clients reported "not authorized".
+
+The fix advertises Plex's own `<dashed-ip>.<serverhash>.plex.direct` form, which is public DNS resolving
+to the embedded address — so it points at the LAN VIP *and* matches the wildcard cert.
+
+- **`catalog/plex.yaml`:** `ADVERTISE_IP: ${PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL}` added, replacing the long-standing
+  DEFERRAL note. The deferral had weighed only the L7 Gateway URL; the operator chose the native L4 path
+  on 2026-10-03, so the open question was never "Gateway or not" but "which URL has a valid cert".
+- **`clusters/base/cluster-vars.yaml`:** new `PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL` knob (+ substitution-inventory comment
+  updated to name `plex: PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL`). The base default is an explicit **non-functional
+  placeholder** — dev is decommissioned and has no claimed server, and
+  `StrictPostBuildSubstitutions` makes an undefined var a hard failure, so the default only has to exist
+  and be correctly shaped.
+- **`clusters/prod/kustomization.yaml`:** prod value
+  `https://192-168-2-24.130072f20c334d6c8f63d0dfef87309b.plex.direct:32400`.
+- **`apps/wave-0/plex.yaml`:** re-rendered with the canonical command
+  (`python3 catalog/render.py --all catalog -o apps --wave-layout --no-image-automation`). Two added
+  lines, nothing else.
+
+**Why a whole-URL cluster-var and not something built from `${PLEX_L4_VIP}`:** postBuild substitution is
+plain envsubst and cannot turn `192.168.2.24` into `192-168-2-24`, and `<serverhash>` is the server's
+certificate identity, derivable from nothing in this tree. The dashed IP and `${PLEX_L4_VIP}` are two
+halves of one address and **nothing checks that they agree** — noted in both files.
+
+**SENSITIVE PATHS — this PR touches `clusters/**` (two files), so `ci/approval-policy.sh` will BLOCK it.**
+It needs the operator's `/approve-override <reason>` posted as a PR **review** of type "Comment".
+Deliberately not posted here: CLAUDE.md §1 forbids an agent clearing this on its own PR, and the agent
+account holds `owner`, so the prohibition is a rule rather than a limit.
+
+## What I verified
+
+All measurements against live prod, 2026-10-04, read-only. Secrets handled per CLAUDE.md §6: preference
+attributes were read by name-scoped grep, never by dumping `Preferences.xml` (it holds `PlexOnlineToken`),
+and the token was reported only as `<PRESENT,len=22>`.
+
+- **THE FIX ITSELF, with full TLS verification (no `curl -k`)** — the one measurement the whole change
+  rests on:
+  - `https://192-168-2-24.130072f20c334d6c8f63d0dfef87309b.plex.direct:32400/identity` -> **`http=200`, TLS verify OK**
+  - `https://192.168.2.24:32400/identity` -> **`http=000`, cert validation FAILED**
+  - that name resolves to `192.168.2.24` (`getent hosts`), confirming the dashed-IP mechanism works from
+    inside this network and is not blocked by DNS-rebinding protection on the resolver path tested.
+- **The server is still claimed — this was never a lost claim.** `/identity` -> `claimed="1"` with the real
+  `machineIdentifier`; `PlexOnlineToken` present, `PlexOnlineUsername="jakman85"`.
+- **The certificate, read off the live listener:** exactly one SAN,
+  `DNS:*.130072f20c334d6c8f63d0dfef87309b.plex.direct`. No IP SAN. This is why the bare-IP URL fails.
+- **The publish payload Plex actually sent to plex.tv**, which is what proves the connection list was the
+  problem rather than a guess: `PUT https://servers.plex.tv/devices/<id>?Connection[][uri]=https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev:32400&Connection[][uri]=https://192.168.2.24:32400&Connection[][uri]=http://136.51.115.252:32400&Connection[][uri]=http://10.0.2.136:32400&httpsEnabled=1...`
+  — all four unreachable from a LAN client or from plex.tv.
+- **`Mapped - Not Published`** at every reachability check across the whole log, and an active **Plex Relay**
+  session — the documented fallback when nothing is directly publishable.
+- **The `certificate unknown` TLS failures come from real client traffic, not a probe.** The source
+  `10.0.1.78` resolves via `cilium-dbg bpf ipcache get` to **identity 1 = `reserved:host`**, i.e. LAN
+  clients SNAT'd through `plex-l4-tcp` (`externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster`) on prod-3.
+- **The Gateway is NOT broken, and my first reading of it was wrong.** A 403 `Access denied` from
+  `server: envoy` on the Gateway path turned out to be an artifact of probing from inside the plex pod:
+  **all 16** Gateway hostnames return 403 from there, because Cilium's Gateway preserves the original
+  source identity and enforces the destination's ingress policy. Plex's own log shows a concurrent,
+  **working, signed-in** browser session through the Gateway returning 200s. The HTTPRoute is
+  `Accepted=True`/`ResolvedRefs=True` with no filters, and it is the only route claiming that hostname.
+- **Cilium is not denying the Gateway->Plex hop:** `cilium-dbg bpf policy get 3796` shows
+  `Allow Ingress reserved:ingress 32400/TCP`, PROXY PORT `NONE`, with 141k packets counted. No L7/HTTP
+  rules and no CCNPs exist anywhere in the cluster.
+- **In-cluster consumers were never affected:** Seerr's recently-added scans and watchlist syncs complete
+  cleanly with no auth errors; there are **zero** HTTP 401s in Plex's log (the five ` 401 ` hits are
+  transcoder segment numbers).
+- **`ADVERTISE_IP`'s mechanism, in the running image rather than from docs:**
+  `/etc/cont-init.d/40-plex-first-run` line 127 does `setPref "customConnections" "${ADVERTISE_IP}"`,
+  outside the claim guard, and `/.firstRunComplete` (lines 9/139) is on the container overlay, not the
+  `/config` PVC — so it re-applies on every pod start. Editing the env rolls the Deployment, which applies it.
+- **Toolbox gate** (`./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c './ci/gate.sh'`): **rc 3**, with
+  `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`, `render-golden`, `l1` and `approval-policy` all
+  **pass**. The rc 3 is the two known environmental skips — `gitea-settings` (no local
+  `SETTINGS_API_TOKEN`) and `conformance` L2/L3 (`CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` unset). **Not green. Reported as rc 3.**
+- **`render-golden` passing is the specific proof** that the catalog edit and the committed golden agree;
+  the rendered diff is exactly two lines and no other service's manifest moved.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **THE OUTCOME. Nothing here has been observed to put the server back on the plex.tv account.** The
+  change is unreconciled: `ADVERTISE_IP` is absent from the live Deployment, the live
+  `customConnections` still holds the two broken URLs, and Plex has not been restarted. What is proven is
+  that the *new URL answers 200 with a valid certificate* and that *every currently advertised URL cannot
+  complete* — a necessary-and-plausibly-sufficient argument, not a demonstrated fix.
+- **Whether plex.tv will publish and list the server once this lands.** plex.tv's decision is made
+  off-network and cannot be measured from here. A LAN-only connection may still leave the account showing
+  the server as remotely unreachable even when local clients work.
+- **REMOTE (off-LAN) ACCESS IS NOT FIXED BY THIS, and may still be fully broken.** The advertised URL
+  resolves to an RFC1918 address, so it serves LAN clients only. The off-repo WAN tcp/32400 port-forward
+  (`runbooks/plex-remote-access.md`) is still **unverified** — `http://136.51.115.252:32400` was
+  unreachable from inside the LAN, but 2026-10-03 established there is no NAT hairpin here, so that is
+  **inconclusive**, not proof of absence. This repo has no off-LAN vantage point.
+- **`ManualPortMappingMode="1"` with `ManualPortMappingPort` ABSENT is left as-is.** Manual public-port
+  mapping is enabled with no port set — a half-configured state I did not change and whose exact effect on
+  publishing I did not isolate. There is **no GitOps path** to it (2026-10-03: the image supports no
+  `PLEX_PREFERENCE*` of any kind), so it is an operator UI step.
+- **Whether the operator intended the hand-typed URLs** to override the 2026-10-03 native-L4 design, or
+  typed them while debugging. I did not alter live preferences; the env var will overwrite
+  `customConnections` on the next pod start, which is a deliberate transfer of ownership from the web form
+  to git and will **silently discard** anything typed there since.
+- **The `plex.direct` hash's stability.** Treated as server identity and read once from the live cert. I
+  did not establish what reissues it, so this URL could go stale with no alert; nothing in CI or the
+  conformance suite checks that the dashed IP still matches `${PLEX_L4_VIP}` or that the hash is current.
+- **Resolver behaviour for the whole LAN.** `plex.direct` resolved correctly from a *pod* (cluster DNS
+  path). LAN clients resolve via PiHole, and dnsmasq's `stop-dns-rebind` would reject a public answer
+  carrying a private address. I did **not** test resolution from a LAN client, and this is the most likely
+  way the fix still fails.
+- **The CI approval-policy outcome.** The local stage reported green, but that is an offline N/A, not a
+  verdict: this PR touches `clusters/**`, so CI will block pending the operator's override.
+- **Why PMS restarted.** The process came up at 05:26 UTC while the pod is 2d2h old with 0 restarts, so
+  something restarted Plex inside the container. Unexplained and not investigated.
@@ -0,0 +1,151 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-04
+branch: feat/plex-vip-hostname-and-lan-networks
+title: Plex — one advertised hostname for local and remote, its own LE certificate, and a LAN definition so LAN clients stop being reported as remote
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+Two operator-reported symptoms, after the 2026-10-04 "server missing from the account" fix
+(decisions/2026-10-04-plex-advertise-plexdirect.md) had restored publishing:
+
+1. **LAN clients were shown as Remote.** Root cause, measured: `LanNetworksBandwidth` was **ABSENT**,
+   so Plex had no definition of a local network and classified *everything* as WAN — **468 requests
+   logged `Allowed Network (WAN)` and ZERO `(LAN)`**, including Seerr dialling from inside the
+   cluster. `allowedNetworks` (the `ALLOWED_NETWORKS` env) only waives **auth**; it does not make a
+   client local. Two different settings, and only one of them has an env hook.
+2. **The advertised URL was a single-purpose, fragile value.** The previous fix advertised
+   `https://<dashed-ip>.<serverhash>.plex.direct:32400`, which works, but hard-codes the VIP *and*
+   the server's certificate hash into a cluster-var — two values nothing could keep in sync.
+
+**Operator design adopted (2026-10-04): ONE hostname, `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}`, serving both
+audiences by split-horizon DNS** — PiHole answers it with `${PLEX_L4_VIP}` on the LAN, Cloudflare
+answers it publicly with the WAN address, NATed to the same VIP.
+
+- **`catalog/plex.yaml`:** `ADVERTISE_IP` → `https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400`. New
+  `lifecycle.postStart` hook (level-triggered, same idiom as pihole's and qbittorrent's) that
+  re-asserts on **every** start: `LanNetworksBandwidth`, and the three `customCertificate*` prefs
+  after converting the PEM to the PKCS#12 bundle Plex requires. New `PLEX_TLS_CRT`/`PLEX_TLS_KEY`
+  env from the `plex-vip-tls` Secret, both `optional: true`.
+- **`apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml` (new, hand-written):** a cert-manager `Certificate` for exactly
+  `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` from ClusterIssuer `letsencrypt-prod`. Non-catalog because the schema has
+  no field for a Certificate. A single name, not the wildcard: the wildcard's Secret lives in
+  `gateway` and Secrets are not readable across namespaces, and re-requesting `*.${BASE_DOMAIN}`
+  would burn a duplicate-certificate slot for no benefit.
+- **`schemas/servicedefinition.schema.json` → 1.11.0:** adds `optional` to
+  `env.valueFrom.secretKeyRef` / `configMapKeyRef`. **This is load-bearing, not tidiness.** The
+  Certificate must be issued into the `plex` namespace, and that namespace is created by the
+  rendered `apps/wave-0/plex.yaml` itself — so it cannot be issued in an earlier tier and lands in
+  the *same* reconcile as the workload. With hard refs, Plex would sit in
+  `CreateContainerConfigError` until a certificate issued, and `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true` with
+  `apps-wave-1` dependsOn it, so a slow or failed DNS01 challenge would have **stalled the whole app
+  tier** — the hazard `catalog/plex.yaml` already documents for its GPU resource.
+- **`catalog/pihole.yaml`:** `address=/plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}/${PLEX_L4_VIP}` added to
+  `FTLCONF_misc_dnsmasq_lines`. Required, not cosmetic: measured 2026-10-04,
+  `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` resolved to **`192.168.2.20`** (the Gateway VIP) via the zone wildcard,
+  and a connect to `:32400` there returned **`http=000`**.
+- **`clusters/base/cluster-vars.yaml` + `clusters/prod/kustomization.yaml`:** `PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL`
+  **deleted** — the hostname makes it unnecessary, which removes the cert-hash fragility outright.
+  `PLEX_L4_VIP`'s note now records its second consumer (pihole).
+- **`catalog/render.py`:** `plex-cert` EXTRA_UNITS entry; **`apps/wave-0/kustomization.yaml`:**
+  `plex-cert.yaml` hand-added (NOT via `--emit-waves`, which would also onboard `keycloak` and
+  `vm-demo` — the pre-existing drift recorded on 2026-10-03).
+
+**A correction to my own earlier reasoning, recorded because it was wrong in the handoff log.** The
+previous entry asserted a bare-IP URL "can NEVER validate" and treated a SAN match as a
+*requirement*. The operator pointed out it is not: `httpsRequired=0` and `secureConnections` default
+to Preferred, so clients can fall back to cleartext. The measurements still stand (a validating
+client did fail, and real clients did send `certificate unknown`) — but the correct framing is that a
+matching certificate keeps the remote leg **encrypted**, not that it is required for Plex to
+function. That is why this branch obtains a real certificate for the advertised name rather than
+choosing the name to suit Plex's built-in one.
+
+**SENSITIVE PATHS — touches `clusters/**` (two files), so `ci/approval-policy.sh` will BLOCK until an
+approving review (or the operator's `/approve-override <reason>` posted as a PR *review* of type
+"Comment"). Deliberately not self-posted: CLAUDE.md §1.**
+
+## What I verified
+
+Live prod, 2026-10-04, read-only. Secrets per CLAUDE.md §6: prefs were read by name-scoped grep,
+the server token was used inside the pod and never printed, and no `Preferences.xml` was dumped.
+
+- **The LAN-classification root cause, directly:** `LanNetworksBandwidth=<ABSENT>`, and request
+  tagging of **468 × `Allowed Network (WAN)` vs 0 × `(LAN)`** — including `10.0.2.33` (Seerr), an
+  in-cluster pod. This is the measurement the whole hook rests on.
+- **All four prefs the hook sets EXIST on this build**, read from the server's own `/:/prefs`
+  (token-authenticated, output filtered to ids): `LanNetworksBandwidth`, `customCertificatePath`,
+  `customCertificateKey`, `customCertificateDomain`, all `type="text"`. I had earlier been unable to
+  confirm this (an unauthenticated `GET /:/prefs` returns **401**) and said so rather than assuming.
+- **There is NO env path for these settings** — the reason the hook exists. Grep of the image's
+  entire init surface: `setPref` is called for exactly six prefs (`MachineIdentifier`,
+  `ProcessedMachineIdentifier`, `PlexOnlineToken`, `customConnections`, `allowedNetworks`,
+  `TranscoderTempDirectory`) and the only `PLEX_*` env it reads are CLAIM/CLAIM_FILE/UID/GID/
+  UPDATE_CHANNEL and five INFO/HOME vars. No `PLEX_PREFERENCE*` of any kind; zero files mention
+  `LanNetworks`.
+- **The DNS gap was real:** `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` resolved to `192.168.2.20` (Gateway VIP), and
+  `https://192.168.2.20:32400` returned `http=000` (nothing listening). PiHole's wildcard is why.
+- **`openssl` is present in the image** (`/usr/bin/openssl`, 3.0.13) — the hook's PEM→PKCS#12
+  conversion has a tool to run.
+- **The issuer exists and works:** ClusterIssuer `letsencrypt-prod` `READY=True` (28d), and the
+  existing `gateway/wildcard-home` Certificate is `Ready`/not-expired, which is what makes a DNS01
+  issuance for a new name in this zone a reasonable expectation.
+- **The renderer's substitution guard caught a real defect in my own work**, which is recorded
+  because it is the second time this class of bug has appeared here: my hook's explanatory comment
+  contained brace-wrapped names, and `assert_substitution_safe` refused to emit
+  (`'PX' is not a declared cluster-vars key — envsubst will replace it with the EMPTY STRING`).
+  Reworded; the rendered hook now contains exactly one brace-wrapped name, `BASE_DOMAIN`, verified
+  by parsing the emitted manifest.
+- **A `set -u` bug I introduced and then removed.** With `optional: true` the TLS env vars are
+  genuinely UNSET when no certificate has issued; under `set -u` the first `[ -n ... ]` would abort
+  the hook, and a postStart hook exiting non-zero makes kubelet KILL the container — the exact
+  failure `optional` exists to prevent. Verified by parsing the rendered manifest that no `set -u`
+  **command** remains (only two mentions in comments).
+- **Toolbox gate** (`./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c './ci/gate.sh'`): **rc 3**, with
+  `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`, `render-golden`, `l1` and `approval-policy` all
+  **pass**; the rc 3 is the two known environmental skips (`gitea-settings` — no local
+  `SETTINGS_API_TOKEN`; `conformance` L2/L3 — `CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` unset). **Not green. Reported as
+  rc 3.** `l0` passing is the specific proof the schema edit admits `optional` and still validates
+  every catalog file; `render-golden` passing is the proof catalog and committed goldens agree.
+- **Only plex and pihole goldens moved.** No other service's manifest changed, and no service was
+  silently onboarded.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **THE OUTCOME, ENTIRELY. Nothing in this branch has been observed working.** It is unreconciled:
+  no Certificate exists in prod, `plex-vip` still resolves to the Gateway VIP, `LanNetworksBandwidth`
+  is still absent, and the hook has NEVER RUN. Every claim above is about the inputs, not the result.
+- **Whether the certificate will actually ISSUE.** DNS01 for a new name in this zone is inferred from
+  the wildcard's success, not demonstrated. If the Cloudflare credential or solver is scoped in a way
+  that fails for this name, Plex will start (by design) with no TLS and the advertised `https://` URL
+  will be unservable — i.e. **this branch could leave the advertised URL broken in a new way**. First
+  reconcile must be watched.
+- **Whether `openssl pkcs12 -export` produces a bundle PLEX ACCEPTS.** OpenSSL 3 defaults to AES-256
+  + SHA-256, which some consumers reject. Untested against Plex. If it is rejected, Plex may fail to
+  load its TLS listener — the hook guards against a *missing* file, NOT against a present-but-
+  unreadable one. **This is the single largest unverified risk in the change.**
+- **Whether the certificate prefs take effect without a restart.** Plex may need to re-initialise its
+  listener after `customCertificatePath` changes. If so, the first reconcile applies the prefs and
+  the SECOND start serves the cert. Converges either way, but the first start may look wrong.
+- **Whether `LanNetworksBandwidth` actually flips the Remote badge.** It is the correct setting by
+  Plex's own documentation and the measured absence explains the symptom exactly, but I did not set it
+  live and observe a client reclassify.
+- **SNAT makes the LAN definition coarser than it looks.** With `externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster`, Plex
+  sees the ingress NODE's address for everything arriving via the VIP, so once `10.0.0.0/8` and
+  `192.168.0.0/16` are LAN, GENUINE REMOTE clients arriving that way will ALSO be classified local
+  and remote bandwidth limits will not bind on them. This is the metering consequence already
+  accepted on 2026-10-03, now made stronger rather than weaker. Not measured.
+- **The public Cloudflare record for `plex-vip` is off-repo and absent from this branch**, as is the
+  WAN tcp/32400 port-forward. Remote access cannot work until the operator creates both; nothing here
+  can verify either, and this repo has no off-LAN vantage point.
+- **The private key is exposed in the container's environment** (`/proc/1/environ`) because the schema
+  and renderer support no secret VOLUME — measured: `storage` accepts only
+  [class, export, mountPath, name, readOnly, size, subPath] with `additionalProperties: false`, and
+  no rendered app mounts a Secret. A volume would be the better shape; adding secret-volume support
+  is the clean follow-up and I did not do it.
+- **The PKCS#12 passphrase is a hardcoded literal** (`plexvip`) in the rendered manifest. It protects
+  nothing — Plex needs it in cleartext in `customCertificateKey` and it sits beside the bundle on the
+  same PVC — but it is worth knowing it is not a secret and was never treated as one.
+- **Four places must agree and nothing enforces it:** `ADVERTISE_IP`, the hook's
+  `customCertificateDomain`, `plex-cert.yaml`'s `dnsNames`, and PiHole's answer. No gate stage or
+  conformance test checks that they match, or that PiHole's `plex-vip` answer still equals
+  `${PLEX_L4_VIP}`.
@@ -51,11 +51,14 @@ hubble:
 l2announcements:
  enabled: true

-# k3s ships its own cgroup mount; point Cilium at it instead of auto-mounting.
+# Point Cilium at the host's real cgroup2 root (/sys/fs/cgroup, mounted by systemd) instead of
+# auto-mounting. NOT /run/cilium/cgroupv2: nothing mounts cgroup2 there, so the agent mounted its
+# OWN namespaced cgroup and socket-LB covered only itself — host processes (the apiserver) lost
+# Service/LB translation. [parity] platform/cilium/helmrelease.yaml explains (2026-10-03).
 cgroup:
  autoMount:
    enabled: false
-  hostRoot: /run/cilium/cgroupv2
+  hostRoot: /sys/fs/cgroup

 # Roll the cilium agent DaemonSet ONE node at a time. [parity] must match the
 # platform/cilium HelmRelease. The cilium 1.20.1 chart defaults this to 2, which on a
@@ -106,14 +106,33 @@ spec:
    # CiliumL2AnnouncementPolicy (reserved 10.73.0.240-.250) authored by WS-NET in Phase 2.
    l2announcements:
      enabled: true
-    # --- cgroup: k3s ships its own cgroup mount; point Cilium at it, don't auto-mount ---
-    # [parity] MUST equal Ansible cgroup block. Not in the deliverable's headline list, but it IS
-    # part of the working CNI config on k3s: reconciling without it lets Cilium try to auto-mount
-    # cgroupv2 and break on adopt. Kept in parity for a safe Phase-2 adoption.
+    # --- cgroup: point Cilium at the HOST's cgroup2 root, which systemd mounts at /sys/fs/cgroup ---
+    # [parity] MUST equal Ansible cgroup block (roles/cilium/templates/cilium-values.yaml.j2).
+    #
+    # FIXED 2026-10-03 — hostRoot WAS /run/cilium/cgroupv2, AND THAT SILENTLY BROKE SOCKET-LB FOR
+    # EVERY HOST PROCESS. With autoMount disabled, the chart only bind-mounts whatever already exists
+    # at hostRoot ("it's expected that users have mounted cgroup2 filesystem at the specified
+    # cgroup.hostRoot" — cilium 1.20.1 values.yaml). Nothing ever mounted cgroup2 at
+    # /run/cilium/cgroupv2 on these nodes (it is an empty DirectoryOrCreate hostPath), so the agent
+    # mounted one ITSELF from inside its own private cgroup namespace. That mount's root is the
+    # agent container's OWN leaf cgroup, so cil_sock4_connect & co. were attached there and covered
+    # only the agent. Every other host-netns process (the k3s apiserver in
+    # /system.slice/k3s.service, curl over SSH) was untranslated: Service ClusterIPs timed out from
+    # every node, and the node holding the Gateway's L2 lease could not reach the Gateway VIP at all
+    # ("no route to host"). That is why k3s-prod-1's apiserver logged `oidc: authenticator not
+    # initialized` from 2026-09-12 on — kubectl SSO through the kube-vip VIP failed outright.
+    # Measured on k3s-prod-1 before this change: TCP connect to 192.168.2.20:443, 10.43.225.79:443
+    # and 10.43.59.141:8080 SUCCEEDED from inside the agent container (the covered cgroup) and
+    # FAILED from the host, same node, same netns. Full write-up:
+    # decisions/2026-10-03-cilium-cgroup-hostroot.md.
+    #
+    # /sys/fs/cgroup IS a cgroup2 mount in the host's root cgroup namespace on every node (verified
+    # with findmnt on all three), so bind-mounting it gives the agent the real host root. autoMount
+    # stays off because the mount it would create already exists.
    cgroup:
      autoMount:
        enabled: false
-      hostRoot: /run/cilium/cgroupv2
+      hostRoot: /sys/fs/cgroup
    # --- Agent rollout: ONE node at a time (blast-radius bound) — 2026-09-01 incident ---
    # [parity] MUST equal Ansible: updateStrategy.rollingUpdate.maxUnavailable: 1.
    # The chart's own default is 2 (cilium 1.20.1 values.yaml: updateStrategy.rollingUpdate.
@@ -41,11 +41,13 @@ hubble:
 # [parity] ingress VIP announcement on the flat LAN (docs/09, OQ-1)
 l2announcements:
  enabled: true
-# [parity] k3s provides the cgroupv2 mount; do not auto-mount
+# [parity] the host's cgroup2 root is /sys/fs/cgroup (systemd mounts it); do not auto-mount.
+# NOT /run/cilium/cgroupv2: nothing mounts cgroup2 there, so socket-LB attached to the agent's own
+# cgroup and host processes lost Service/LB translation (2026-10-03 — see helmrelease.yaml).
 cgroup:
  autoMount:
    enabled: false
-  hostRoot: /run/cilium/cgroupv2
+  hostRoot: /sys/fs/cgroup
 # [parity] roll the agent DaemonSet ONE node at a time. Overrides the cilium 1.20.1 chart
 # default of 2, which on 3 nodes lets a single bad render break 2/3 agents at once — as the
 # 2026-09-01 incident did (k8sServiceHost: "" → the `config` init container fell back to the
@@ -161,6 +161,41 @@ platform must render, and cites the requirement each mapping satisfies. Changing
 - **Requirements:** **R-STATE-01** (rebuild survival), **R-STATE-02** (Longhorn replication),
  **R-STATE-04** (bulk tier). (docs/04)

+### `availability` (`replicas`) — workload kind, per-replica volumes, spreading, budget
+
+**Schema 1.10.0.** Availability INTENT. It names no Kubernetes object, no topology key and no
+budget — exactly like `hardware.gpu`, and for the same reason: the mechanism below should be
+replaceable without a catalog edit.
+
+- **Absent, or `replicas: 1`** → a **Deployment**, standalone PVC(s), `strategy: Recreate` when there
+  is storage, no PodDisruptionBudget. Byte-identical to pre-1.10.0 output, so every existing app is
+  untouched.
+- **`replicas: N > 1`** → all of the following, together:
+  | Rendered | Why |
+  |---|---|
+  | **StatefulSet** instead of Deployment | A longhorn PVC is **ReadWriteOnce**. One RWO claim cannot attach on two nodes, so a multi-replica Deployment does not degrade — the second pod never schedules. |
+  | longhorn storage becomes **`volumeClaimTemplates`** | Gives each replica its own claim (`<vol>-<svc>-<ordinal>`, e.g. `config-pihole-0`). The template's `metadata.name` **must** equal the pod volume name the container mounts. The standalone PVC is then **not** emitted — it would be an orphan nothing mounts. |
+  | `bulk` storage stays a **standalone PVC** | A bulk entry is a static, pre-bound NFS PV over data that already exists outside the cluster and is shared read-only. Per-replica copies are neither possible nor wanted. |
+  | **required** `podAntiAffinity` on `kubernetes.io/hostname` | `preferred` would let every replica land on one node and deliver none of the intended node-failure tolerance, while every object still reported healthy. |
+  | `podManagementPolicy: Parallel` | `OrderedReady` serialises first-boot work across replicas; `apps-wave-0` has `timeout: 5m`. There is no ordering requirement between replicas to protect. |
+  | **PodDisruptionBudget**, `minAvailable: 1` | Stops a *voluntary* disruption (node drain, upgrade) taking the last replica. It does nothing about a node dying — that is what the replica count and anti-affinity are for. Never rendered at `replicas: 1`, where `minAvailable: 1` would block every drain of that node forever. |
+  | `observability.livenessWorkload.kind` defaults to **`StatefulSet`** | The `up` SLI reads kube-state-metrics by workload kind. A Deployment-shaped rule against a StatefulSet `absent()`s forever — an alert that can never fire. Deriving the default means bumping the replica count cannot leave a stale rule behind. |
+
+**Two costs, both deliberate, neither hidden:**
+
+1. **N replicas need N schedulable nodes.** On a 3-node cluster, losing two nodes leaves a replica
+   `Pending`; since `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true` and `apps-wave-1` `dependsOn` it, that **stalls the
+   app tier**. That coincides with having lost etcd quorum on a 3-node control plane, so nothing is
+   reconciling at that point anyway — the stall is a symptom, not a new failure mode.
+2. **Only declare `> 1` for a service whose on-disk state is reproducible from git.** A replica with
+   a fresh volume comes up serving whatever it can bootstrap itself and nothing else. For pihole that
+   prerequisite was done first — the admin password and the adlists were declared in
+   `decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-declare-state.md` — because otherwise a second replica would have
+   served DNS while blocking nothing, with a different password.
+
+**Requirements:** R-PLAT-02 (the workload), R-STATE-01/02 (per-replica replicated volumes),
+R-OBS-01 (the SLI must follow the rendered kind).
+
 ### `hardware` (`gpu`) — host device capability
 - **The field is INTENT, never MECHANISM.** `hardware.gpu` is an **enum of capability classes**
  (today: `intel-quicksync`), not a device path, not a hostPath, not a resource request. The
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
  "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
  "$id": "https://home.keithjackson.dev/schemas/servicedefinition.schema.json",
  "title": "ServiceDefinition",
-  "description": "Operator-facing onboarding contract for the home k3s + Longhorn platform. One ServiceDefinition per file under catalog/. Captures INTENT; the platform compiles it into concrete resources (see schemas/renderer-contract.md). Canonical source of truth: spec docs/13-service-catalog.md. Serves R-GITOPS-02; ties into R-NET-*, R-STATE-*, R-TLS-*, R-DNS-*, R-OBS-*, R-UPD-*, R-IDP-*. Schema version: 1.9.0 (adds optional `auth.apiRoutes` -- a per-service list of anchored path regexes the forward-auth oauth2-proxy sidecar answers with 401 instead of a 302 to Keycloak, rendered as one repeatable `--api-route` per entry. The `auth` block stays `additionalProperties: false`; this is one named, documented key, not an opened door. Without it there was NO per-app override hook at all, so the only way to answer an app's XHRs with 401 was a renderer-wide constant -- and the path shape is a property of the app: jackett's is `/api/` (33 x 302 vs 2 x 401 measured 2026-09-30, 4 of 6 POSTs answered by the proxy and never reaching the app), radarr's is `/signalr/` (232 x 302 measured 2026-10-01, every one a POST from a left-open browser tab that is never re-prompted), and pihole serves no `/api/` at all. Each entry must be anchored at `^/` and continue with literal path characters, because a too-broad regex turns a plain page load into a 401 and the service looks permanently broken to a logged-out user. Enforced on every gate run by ci/l0.sh's schema stage over catalog/*.yaml, by catalog/render.py refusing to render an unanchored entry, and by conformance/tests/l0-static/oauth2-proxy-api-routes-per-app)). 1.8.0 (adds optional `hardware` - a host HARDWARE CAPABILITY declaration for the container kind, currently one member: `hardware.gpu: intel-quicksync`, meaning the workload needs the host iGPU render device for hardware video transcode. It is an ENUM OF INTENT, not a device path: the renderer satisfies it today with just two things -- a /dev/dri hostPath volume (`DirectoryOrCreate`) and a read-write /dev/dri volumeMount on the app container -- and a later move to the Intel GPU device plugin is then a render.py change with no catalog edit. It sets NO podSecurityContext.supplementalGroups: measured in-container on prod 2026-09-30, the pms-docker cont-init hook adds the app user to the device's group inside the container and `s6-setuidgid` then REPLACES the process group list from /etc/group, discarding anything Kubernetes supplied, so such an entry would be inert and misleading. Renders NOTHING when absent, so every existing app stays byte-identical. Emits no privileged securityContext (Kyverno restrict-host-namespaces would reject it and it is not needed), no nodeSelector (node placement is a separate concern with its own justification) and no resource requests). 1.7.0 (no field changes; a MAPPING change to `exposure`, which had never had an effect on DNS. `exposure: internal` now renders ExternalDNS's own controller annotation onto every HTTPRoute it emits, set to a value other than `dns-controller`, so external-dns (v0.21.0, source/gateway.go -> annotations.IsControllerMismatch) skips the route before resolving any hostname and the service is INCAPABLE of producing a public record. Both docs/09 R-DNS-03 and schemas/renderer-contract.md already said `internal` renders no public DNS record; nothing enforced it, and six internal services -- jackett, pihole, qbittorrent, radarr, semaphore, sonarr -- were publishing `<name>.home.keithjackson.dev` into the PUBLIC Cloudflare zone answering with the RFC1918 Gateway VIP, which published the internal subnet and a full service inventory and made each name a DNS-rebind primitive. Enforced on every gate run by conformance/tests/l0-static/internal-services-publish-no-public-dns). 1.6.0 (splits `observability.metrics` from WHERE metrics live: adds optional `metricsEndpoint` (port/name/path/interval) and optional `livenessWorkload` (kind/name). `metrics: true` previously rendered a ServiceMonitor hardcoded to a port named `metrics` that no rendered Service ever defined, so all twelve app monitors discovered ZERO targets and every `up{job=...}` SLI was structurally inert on prod; a monitor is now rendered only from a declared `metricsEndpoint`, which also renders the Service port and the monitoring-namespace ingress allow, and the `up` SLI is expressed against kube-state-metrics -- a signal that exists for every workload without a per-app exporter. `livenessWorkload` names the object whose readiness IS the service, for the case where the running workload is not the one this SD renders). 1.5.0 (adds optional `inClusterClients` — additional in-cluster clients, named by NAMESPACE, admitted to a declared port of this service DIRECTLY, bypassing the shared Gateway. `ingressRoutes` admits only the Gateway proxy identity and `dependencies` only links catalog services, so a PLATFORM controller dialling a Service ClusterIP had no authorable form at all; that gap is what deadlocked proLine truncated
+  "description": "Operator-facing onboarding contract for the home k3s + Longhorn platform. One ServiceDefinition per file under catalog/. Captures INTENT; the platform compiles it into concrete resources (see schemas/renderer-contract.md). Canonical source of truth: spec docs/13-service-catalog.md. Serves R-GITOPS-02; ties into R-NET-*, R-STATE-*, R-TLS-*, R-DNS-*, R-OBS-*, R-UPD-*, R-IDP-*. Schema version: 1.11.0 (adds optional `optional` to env.valueFrom.secretKeyRef and env.valueFrom.configMapKeyRef -- the k8s EnvVarSource field, emitted verbatim. Without it a secretKeyRef was ALWAYS hard: a missing Secret meant the pod would not start at all. That is the right default and stays the default, but it cannot express a value the workload is designed to run without. Added for plex, whose TLS material is issued by cert-manager INTO ITS OWN NAMESPACE and therefore cannot exist before the app wave that creates that namespace -- the Certificate and the Deployment land in the same reconcile, so on a cold bootstrap the Secret is briefly absent while a DNS01 challenge completes. Hard refs there would have made the media server unstartable until a certificate issued, and `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true`, so a failed or slow issuance would have STALLED THE WHOLE APP TIER -- the same hazard catalog/plex.yaml already documents for its GPU resource. With `optional: true` Plex starts regardless, its postStart hook logs that the certificate is not installed, and the next start after issuance converges. Renders nothing when absent, so every existing app stays byte-identical). 1.10.0 (adds optional `availability` for the container kind, one member: `availability.replicas`. It is AVAILABILITY INTENT, not a scheduling primitive -- it names no Kubernetes object, no topology key and no budget. 1 (the default) renders a Deployment exactly as before, so every pre-existing app stays byte-identical; >1 means the service must survive the loss of a single node, and the renderer satisfies that with a StatefulSet whose longhorn volumes become per-replica volumeClaimTemplates (a longhorn PVC is ReadWriteOnce and cannot attach on two nodes, so a multi-replica Deployment is UNSCHEDULABLE, not merely suboptimal), REQUIRED podAntiAffinity on kubernetes.io/hostname (preferred would let every replica land on one node and deliver none of the intended tolerance while reporting healthy), podManagementPolicy Parallel, a PodDisruptionBudget of minAvailable 1, and an `up` SLI that follows the rendered kind (a Deployment-shaped rule against a StatefulSet absent()s forever and can never fire). Added for pihole, where LAN DNS -- a critical network service -- was one pod on one node: measured 2026-10-04, losing the node running it meant roughly 6-10 minutes with no LAN resolution (tolerationSeconds 300 plus node-NotReady detection plus a Longhorn RWO force-detach). Deliberately NOT usable until a service's state is reproducible from git, because a replica with a fresh volume otherwise comes up serving but unconfigured -- for pihole that prerequisite was done first (decisions/2026-10-04-pihole-declare-state.md). Capped at 5: a count above the node count can never schedule under the anti-affinity this implies. Mechanism documented in schemas/renderer-contract.md `### availability`). 1.9.0 (adds optional `auth.apiRoutes` -- a per-service list of anchored path regexes the forward-auth oauth2-proxy sidecar answers with 401 instead of a 302 to Keycloak, rendered as one repeatable `--api-route` per entry. The `auth` block stays `additionalProperties: false`; this is one named, documented key, not an opened door. Without it there was NO per-app override hook at all, so the only way to answer an app's XHRs with 401 was a renderer-wide constant -- and the path shape is a property of the app: jackett's is `/api/` (33 x 302 vs 2 x 401 measured 2026-09-30, 4 of 6 POSTs answered by the proxy and never reaching the app), radarr's is `/signalr/` (232 x 302 measured 2026-10-01, every one a POST from a left-open browser tab that is never re-prompted), and pihole serves no `/api/` at all. Each entry must be anchored at `^/` and continue with literal path characters, because a too-broad regex turns a plain page load into a 401 and the service looks permanently broken to a logged-out user. Enforced on every gate run by ci/l0.sh's schema stage over catalog/*.yaml, by catalog/render.py refusing to render an unanchored entry, and by conformance/tests/l0-static/oauth2-proxy-api-routes-per-app)). 1.8.0 (adds optional `hardware` - a host HARDWARE CAPABILITY declaration for the container kind, currently one member: `hardware.gpu: intel-quicksync`, meaning the workload needs the host iGPU render device for hardware video transcode. It is an ENUM OF INTENT, not a device path: the renderer satisfies it today with just two things -- a /dev/dri hostPath volume (`DirectoryOrCreate`) and a read-write /dev/dri volumeMount on the app container -- and a later move to the Intel GPU device pluLine truncated
  "type": "object",
  "additionalProperties": false,
  "required": ["name", "source"],
@@ -69,7 +69,8 @@
                "required": ["name", "key"],
                "properties": {
                  "name": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 },
-                  "key": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 }
+                  "key": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 },
+                  "optional": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Tolerate the key being ABSENT: the env var is simply unset instead of the pod refusing to start (kubelet CreateContainerConfigError). Default false, which is the pre-1.11.0 behaviour. Use ONLY where the workload degrades gracefully without the value, and say so at the call site -- a silently-empty credential is usually worse than a pod that will not start." }
                }
              },
              "configMapKeyRef": {
@@ -78,7 +79,8 @@
                "required": ["name", "key"],
                "properties": {
                  "name": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 },
-                  "key": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 }
+                  "key": { "type": "string", "minLength": 1 },
+                  "optional": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Tolerate the key being ABSENT: the env var is simply unset instead of the pod refusing to start (kubelet CreateContainerConfigError). Default false, which is the pre-1.11.0 behaviour. Use ONLY where the workload degrades gracefully without the value, and say so at the call site -- a silently-empty credential is usually worse than a pod that will not start." }
                }
              }
            }
@@ -139,6 +141,21 @@
        "supplementalGroups": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "integer" }, "description": "Additional GIDs added to the first process in each container." }
      }
    },
+    "availability": {
+      "type": "object",
+      "description": "Optional availability intent for the container kind: how many replicas of this workload must be running. INTENT ONLY -- it names no Kubernetes object and no scheduling primitive. How the platform satisfies it (workload kind, per-replica volumes, node spreading, disruption budget) is catalog/render.py's business, documented in schemas/renderer-contract.md `### availability`. Absent => replicas 1 and a Deployment, so every pre-existing app renders byte-identical. Ignored for kind=vm (a VM's availability is a different problem with different primitives).",
+      "additionalProperties": false,
+      "minProperties": 1,
+      "properties": {
+        "replicas": {
+          "type": "integer",
+          "description": "How many replicas must be running. 1 (default) renders a Deployment exactly as before. >1 declares that the service must survive the loss of a single node; the renderer then emits a StatefulSet with per-replica volumeClaimTemplates, required per-node anti-affinity, podManagementPolicy Parallel and a PodDisruptionBudget. Only declare >1 for a service whose on-disk state is reproducible from git -- a replica with a fresh volume comes up serving whatever it can bootstrap itself, and nothing else.",
+          "minimum": 1,
+          "maximum": 5,
+          "default": 1
+        }
+      }
+    },
    "hardware": {
      "type": "object",
      "description": "Optional host HARDWARE CAPABILITY the workload needs, for the container kind (docs/13). This field declares INTENT (`what device class this service needs`), never MECHANISM (`which host path to bind-mount`, `which extended resource to request`). That separation is the whole point of the enum: the platform currently satisfies `intel-quicksync` with a /dev/dri hostPath volume and a matching mount on the app container, but a later migration to the Intel GPU device plugin (`gpu.intel.com/i915` resource requests, no hostPath) must be a catalog/render.py change and NOTHING else - no ServiceDefinition may need editing, and no reviewer may have to re-derive per-service device wiring. Do NOT 'simplify' this into a raw device path, a hostPath, or a resource request; that would push a platform implementation detail into the operator-facing contract and make the migration a catalog-wide edit. Absent => no device wiring at all (existing apps render byte-identical). Ignored for kind=vm (a VM gets devices through KubeVirt's own domain.devices).",
Author	SHA1	Message	Date
jakman85andClaude Opus 5	0aa1a0a78a	feat(plex): one advertised hostname for local+remote, its own LE cert, and a LAN definition gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m49s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details Two symptoms after the publishing fix landed: 1. LAN clients were reported as Remote. Measured root cause: LanNetworksBandwidth was ABSENT, so Plex had no notion of a local network and classified everything WAN -- 468 requests logged "Allowed Network (WAN)", ZERO "(LAN)", including Seerr from inside the cluster. allowedNetworks only waives AUTH; it does not make a client local. Two settings, and only one has an env hook. 2. The advertised URL hard-coded both the VIP and the server's cert hash into a cluster-var -- two values nothing kept in sync. Operator design: ONE hostname, plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}, split-horizon -- PiHole answers it with ${PLEX_L4_VIP} on the LAN, Cloudflare answers it publicly with the WAN address NATed to the same VIP. - catalog/plex.yaml: ADVERTISE_IP -> https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400, plus a level-triggered postStart hook (pihole/qbittorrent idiom) that re-asserts LanNetworksBandwidth and the three customCertificate* prefs every start, converting PEM -> PKCS#12 so cert renewals need no extra part. - apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml: cert-manager Certificate for exactly that name from letsencrypt-prod, so the advertised https URL is servable. - schema 1.11.0: `optional` on secretKeyRef/configMapKeyRef. Load-bearing -- the cert is issued INTO the plex namespace, which the rendered plex.yaml itself creates, so it lands in the same reconcile; hard refs would have held Plex in CreateContainerConfigError and, since apps-wave-0 is wait:true, stalled the whole app tier on a slow DNS01 challenge. - catalog/pihole.yaml: the plex-vip split-horizon answer. Required -- measured, the name resolved to the Gateway VIP where nothing listens on 32400 (http=000). - PLEX_ADVERTISE_URL deleted; the hostname removes the cert-hash fragility. Corrects my own earlier claim that a SAN match is REQUIRED: it is not (httpsRequired=0, secureConnections defaults to Preferred, so clients can fall back to cleartext). A matching cert keeps the remote leg ENCRYPTED. Hence: obtain a real cert for the advertised name rather than pick the name to suit Plex's built-in one. UNVERIFIED, and stated plainly in the handoff: nothing here has run. Cert issuance for this name is inferred from the wildcard's success, and whether Plex accepts an OpenSSL-3 PKCS#12 bundle is untested -- the largest risk. Touches clusters/** -> sensitive paths -> needs a non-author approval or the operator's /approve-override; deliberately not self-posted (CLAUDE.md 1). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 03:37:57 -05:00
jakman85	422834d4e2	Merge pull request 'fix(plex): advertise the plex.direct name, not the bare VIP (server vanished from the plex.tv account)' (#47 ) from fix/plex-advertise-plexdirect into main gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m46s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #47 Reviewed-by: Keith Jackson <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 07:59:14 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5	1f4552d409	fix(plex): advertise the plex.direct name, not the bare VIP (server vanished from the plex.tv account) gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m48s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details customConnections held two hand-typed URLs and neither could ever complete, so Plex had nothing publishable and the server disappeared from the account: - https://192.168.2.24:32400 -- the server's cert is .130072f20c334d6c8f63d0dfef87309b.plex.direct with NO IP SAN, so bare-IP https fails TLS for every client. Measured: a continuous storm of "CERT: incomplete TLS handshake ... certificate unknown" from real LAN clients arriving through the plex-l4-tcp VIP. - https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev:32400 -- nothing listens; the Gateway serves that host on 443 (measured http=000 against 192.168.2.20:32400). With no completable connection plex.tv published nothing ("Mapped - Not Published"), Plex fell back to Relay, and clients reported "not authorized". Fix: advertise <dashed-ip>.<serverhash>.plex.direct -- public DNS that resolves to the embedded address, so it points at the LAN VIP and matches the wildcard cert. Verified with full TLS validation (no curl -k): 200 + verify OK, where the bare-IP form fails to connect. Declared as ADVERTISE_IP so git owns the value instead of a web form: the image's 40-plex-first-run writes it into customConnections on every pod start, outside the claim guard. Does NOT fix off-LAN access -- the advertised address is RFC1918 and the WAN tcp/32400 forward remains unverified. ManualPortMappingMode=1 with an absent port is left as-is (no GitOps path exists for it). Touches clusters/* -> sensitive paths -> needs the operator's /approve-override, deliberately not self-posted (CLAUDE.md 1). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 02:53:01 -05:00
jakman85	c95b1c7121	Merge pull request 'fix(cilium): point cgroup.hostRoot at the host cgroup2 root (socket-LB never covered host processes)' (#42 ) from fix/cilium-cgroup-hostroot into main gate / gate (push) Failing after 1m45s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #42	2026-10-04 07:10:31 +00:00
jakman85	ed6afc3d3f	Merge pull request 'docs(decisions): record that PiHole HA is verified live, failover drill included' (#46 ) from docs/pihole-ha-verified into main gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m46s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #46	2026-10-04 07:08:19 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5	254985baa6	docs(decisions): record that PiHole HA is verified live, failover drill included gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m46s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details No manifests change. The three entries merged earlier today each say, correctly at the time, that nothing had been reconciled -- which is now stale in exactly the way CLAUDE.md section 2b warns about: a reader would conclude the work is unproven. This entry is the current state and does not edit the earlier files. Measured on live prod after `dce20b7`: apps-wave-0 reconciled in ~90s (inside the 5m timeout the multi-replica entry flagged as a risk); pihole-0 on k3s-prod-3 and pihole-1 on k3s-prod-2, so the required anti-affinity was satisfied; both per-replica claims Bound; the old Deployment and the old unused PVC both pruned; PDB healthy with one disruption allowed. The mountPath fix is confirmed: /etc/pihole is now on /dev/longhorn with 6.9M used on both pods, where it was previously on the overlay. Phase 1's declarations reproduce onto a FRESH volume, which was the whole reason for sequencing it first: 72,234 gravity domains rebuilt on each replica from the declared adlist, and the declared SOPS secret authenticates on BOTH pods ("valid":true via each container's own env, value never printed). FAILOVER DRILL, observed by the operator: a replica was deleted, recreated in ~30 seconds, and DNS never dropped a request. First direct evidence the replica count delivers what it was added for. Re-deriving the SLI from the rendered workload kind mattered concretely: the StatefulSet series returns 2 while the old Deployment series now returns ZERO series, so a stale Deployment-shaped rule would have matched its own absent() branch and fired permanently -- a standing false page. Still unverified and stated as such: node failure (the drill deleted a pod, so the 300s toleration path is untouched), DNS during the cutover itself, two-node loss, and the cluster-wide dependency that replicas cannot address. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 02:03:42 -05:00
jakman85	dce20b7be6	Merge pull request 'feat(pihole): two replicas on different nodes, and fix a PVC mounted where pihole never writes' (#45 ) from feat/pihole-multi-replica into main gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m47s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #45	2026-10-04 06:50:56 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5	028853c87c	feat(pihole): two replicas on different nodes, and fix a PVC mounted where pihole never writes gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m47s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details Phase 2 of making LAN DNS survive a node failure. Pihole was one pod on one node; measured 2026-10-04, losing that node meant roughly 6-10 minutes with no LAN resolution (tolerationSeconds 300 + NotReady detection + a Longhorn RWO force-detach), while losing the node holding the pihole-dns L2 lease -- a DIFFERENT node -- meant tens of seconds. Two of three nodes were single points of failure with wildly different blast radii. Adds `availability.replicas` to the ServiceDefinition schema (1.10.0). Intent only; the mechanism is render.py's, documented in the renderer contract. 1 or absent renders a Deployment exactly as before -- verified byte-identical across the whole apps/ tree. >1 renders a StatefulSet (a longhorn PVC is RWO, so a multi-replica Deployment never schedules the second pod), per-replica volumeClaimTemplates, REQUIRED hostname anti-affinity, podManagementPolicy Parallel, a minAvailable:1 PodDisruptionBudget, and an SLI that follows the rendered kind (a Deployment-shaped rule against a StatefulSet absent()s forever). Pinned by ~20 new --selftest assertions rather than a conformance change. ALSO FIXES A LIVE BUG. Pihole's config PVC was mounted at the renderer default /data/config, but pihole writes to /etc/pihole. Measured: /etc/pihole (7.1M -- gravity.db, pihole.toml, query DB) was on the OVERLAY, while the 2Gi Longhorn volume held lost+found and 24K of nothing. So every restart discarded all state and re-downloaded 72k gravity domains, and backup.policy has been backing up an empty volume while reporting success. Fixed here because otherwise the new per-replica volumes would hold nothing while state stayed ephemeral -- and because persisting gravity.db is what makes a restart cheap. The /etc/pihole mount is safe on the image's own evidence: start.sh is PID 1 as uid 0 and chowns the directory recursively (no fsGroup needed), and it calls migrate_gravity which creates the database when absent. The gate caught a real regression on the first run: the wave-0 alert unit test fed pihole a Deployment-shaped series. Updated; promtool SUCCESS. Touches no sensitive paths, so this one needs no override. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 01:34:52 -05:00
jakman85	17f0c11403	Merge pull request 'feat(pihole): declare the admin password and adlists in git' (#44 ) from feat/pihole-declare-state into main gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m45s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #44 Reviewed-by: Keith Jackson <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 06:14:47 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5	3b1d6ae115	feat(pihole): declare the admin password and adlists in git gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m47s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details Prerequisite for running more than one PiHole replica. A second replica with a fresh PVC would have come up serving DNS and blocking nothing, with a different admin password -- answers varying by which pod replied. pihole.toml's own ### CHANGED markers gave the exact inventory: four settings already came from env (declared), one came from the image, and exactly ONE operator-set value lived only on the PVC -- webserver.api.pwhash, a one-way hash nobody could recover. Separately the adlists were undeclared: one list and 72,234 gravity domains that nothing in this repo named. Declares both: - A SOPS secret feeding FTLCONF_webserver_api_password. webserver.api.password takes cleartext and FTL hashes it itself (verified: pihole setpassword IS setFTLConfigValue on that key), so the PVC's pwhash becomes derived state. - A level-triggered postStart hook that reconciles the declared adlist set into gravity.db -- adds, re-enables, and disables (never deletes) undeclared lists, running pihole -g only when something moved. A file would not work: v6's adlists.list import is migration-only, guarded on the DB not existing. The rendered hook was run in the live pod against throwaway copies of gravity.db, exercising all four paths. A fresh DB built from the image's own schema template has ZERO adlists, confirming this is load-bearing rather than cosmetic. Password kept rather than set empty: the pihole Service still publishes port 80 past the oauth2-proxy, closed only by policy, and default-deny has drifted here before. Multi-replica is phase 2 and deliberately not in this branch -- it needs a schema field, a StatefulSet (the config PVC is RWO), anti-affinity and a PDB. Adds a *.sops.yaml -- a sensitive path -- so approval-policy will block pending an operator /approve-override. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 01:07:30 -05:00
jakman85	939461120a	Merge pull request 'feat(plex): expose tcp/32400 for remote access via a pinned LoadBalancer VIP' (#43 ) from feat/plex-remote-access-l4 into main gate / gate (push) Failing after 1m56s Details gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped Details Reviewed-on: #43 Reviewed-by: Keith Jackson <[email protected]>	2026-10-04 04:46:34 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5.5	9a69f6906a	fix(cilium): point cgroup.hostRoot at the host's real cgroup2 root gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m47s Details gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped Details hostRoot was /run/cilium/cgroupv2 with autoMount disabled, but nothing mounts cgroup2 there. The agent mounted one from inside its own private cgroup namespace, so socket-LB attached to the agent's own cgroup and host processes got no Service/LB translation. k3s-prod-1 (Gateway L2 lease holder + kube-vip VIP) therefore could not reach the Gateway VIP, and its apiserver's OIDC authenticator has failed since 2026-09-12. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]>	2026-10-03 18:07:18 -05:00