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Author SHA1 Message Date
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 a0e6ef145f fix(plex): unblock the app tier — drop the Certificate that stalled apps-wave-0, advertise http
gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m50s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped
I broke the app tier with #48. Two faults, both mine, both measured after merge:

1. KYVERNO BLOCKS cert-manager IN APP NAMESPACES. The temporary private-key
   Secrets (plex-vip-<random>) were denied by
   secret-provenance/secrets-must-be-flux-managed, which matches every Secret in
   a namespace labelled homelab.keithjackson.dev/app-namespace=true and excludes
   only those labelled secret-managed-by=controller or carrying a Flux label.
   `plex` HAS that label; `gateway` -- where the working wildcard cert lives --
   does NOT. That asymmetry is why the existing Certificate was never affected
   and mine was, and I did not check it. secretTemplate cannot fix it: those
   Secrets come from the keymanager controller, not the Certificate template. So
   no CertificateRequest, Order or Challenge was ever created.

2. FLUX HEALTH-CHECKS THE CERTIFICATE. `optional: true` did its job -- the pod
   rolled and ran fine without the Secret -- but apps-wave-0 is wait:true, so
   Flux waits on the Certificate OBJECT:
     timeout waiting for: [Certificate/plex/plex-vip status: 'InProgress']
   apps-wave-0 never went Ready; wave-1/-2 and everything downstream of
   platform-config sat in DependencyNotReady behind it. I guarded the pod and
   missed the object. That distinction is the whole bug.

Third, independent: the advertised URL was https with no servable certificate --
Plex answers 32400 with its *.plex.direct cert, which cannot cover plex-vip --
the exact failure mode of the outage earlier the same day.

So: delete the Certificate (pruning it clears the health gate) and advertise
http://plex-vip:32400, which is MEASURED to work today -- PiHole answers the
name with the Plex VIP (verified against pihole-0) and Plex serves 32400 there.
http is explicitly temporary and only tolerable because remote access does not
work yet; the restore condition is written at the call site.

DELETED, not merely unregistered: my first attempt kept the file as "tracked but
not onboarded" and the gate rejected it -- tls-lifecycle-automated (R-TLS-02)
fails any Certificate no Flux path reconciles. Legal for a Deployment, not for a
TLS object. The re-enable recipe (Kyverno exemption + a wait:false Kustomization
+ the https flip, as ONE change) is recorded in catalog/plex.yaml.

Kept and verified working from #48: the hostname design, PiHole's split-horizon
answer, and the postStart hook -- LanNetworksBandwidth is now set live.

Gate: rc 3, all substantive stages pass (first attempt was rc 1 BLOCKED).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-04 17:10:25 -05:00
jakman85 c163deaef9 Merge pull request 'feat(plex): one advertised hostname for local+remote, its own LE cert, and a LAN definition so LAN clients stop reading as remote' (#48) from feat/plex-vip-hostname-and-lan-networks into main
gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m48s
gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped
Reviewed-on: #48
Reviewed-by: Keith Jackson <[email protected]>
2026-10-04 21:47:32 +00:00
jakman85 642a7752d8 Merge pull request 'feat(cilium): export Plex's pre-SNAT client address via Hubble, scoped to tcp/32400' (#50) from feat/hubble-flow-export-plex into main
gate / conformance (push) Has been cancelled
gate / gate (push) Has been cancelled
Reviewed-on: #50
2026-10-04 21:47:20 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 989649e64a feat(cilium): export Plex's pre-SNAT client address via Hubble, scoped to tcp/32400
gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m49s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped
The requirement is log visibility only -- which address connected to Plex.

Plex's own log cannot show it. Every LoadBalancer Service here is
externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster, so the node holding the VIP's L2 lease SNATs
the client before forwarding to the backend pod. Measured: Plex had logged
3,214 requests from 10.0.1.x (lease holder k3s-prod-3's own address, Cilium
identity 1 = reserved:host) and ZERO from any 192.168.x address, ever. No
X-Forwarded-For either -- it serves raw tcp/32400, not HTTP via the Gateway.
Nothing on the router does this; there is no hairpin NAT. It is Cilium.

The address is not lost, only unrecorded. Cilium observes the flow at ingress,
BEFORE its own translation, so Hubble already has it:

  192.168.2.133 -> 10.0.0.135   real LAN client -> the Plex pod
  10.0.1.78     -> 10.0.0.135   same traffic post-SNAT, what Plex sees

What was missing is RETENTION: 4095/4095 flows at ~303/s is about thirteen
seconds of history, metrics disabled, no exporter configured.

So enable the static exporter, port-scoped, to the agent's stdout -- Alloy
already tails every pod into Loki, so this needs no new mount, no rotation
handling and no Alloy change.

  {namespace="kube-system", app="cilium"} |= "32400"

Scoped BY PORT, not namespace, on evidence: --to-namespace plex returned only
the post-SNAT flows; the record carrying the real client address did not match
it. A namespace filter would drop exactly what this exists to capture.

Rejected, with reasons: eTP:Local is incompatible with cilium 1.20's L2
announcer per upstream docs for this version ("may cause service IPs to be
announced on nodes without pods causing traffic drops") -- and the VIP is on
prod-3 while the pod is on prod-1, so it would black-hole 32400 immediately;
making it safe costs Plex its ability to reschedule. DSR: routing-mode is
vxlan, not native/geneve, and DSR returns bypass the ingress node, breaking
the router's stateful NAT on the remote path.

Also corrects the repo's own record: 2026-10-03 says the SNAT lands in
192.168.0.0/16 (the node's LAN address). It is 10.0.1.x, the cilium_host
inside the pod CIDR -- which is why LanNetworksBandwidth can never separate
local from remote while eTP is Cluster.

UNVERIFIED and stated in the handoff: nothing is reconciled; `filePath: stdout`
is taken from a verbatim upstream sentence but not confirmed against 1.20.1
source (a wrong notation is a silent no-op, with the file+Alloy fallback
documented); the port FlowFilter has no upstream example; and this change
ROLLS CILIUM -- prod-3 announces the Gateway, PiHole DNS and Plex VIPs, so a
lease move during the rollout could briefly interrupt LAN DNS.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-04 16:36:12 -05:00
jakman85 21c88b0dc7 Merge pull request 'fix(obs): open 44180 to ns monitoring so the forward-auth gate sidecars are actually scrapable' (#49) from fix/oauth2-sidecar-metrics-scrape-netpol into main
gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m47s
gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped
Reviewed-on: #49
2026-10-04 21:33:28 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 b156ee6cfa fix(obs): open 44180 to ns monitoring so the forward-auth gate sidecars are actually scrapable
gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m51s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped
platform/oauth2-proxy/podmonitor.yaml landed 2026-10-02 and discovered six targets that
have never once scraped. Measured on prod 2026-10-04: all six read health=down with
lastError "context deadline exceeded" and lastScrapeDuration exactly 10.0s — the
configured scrapeTimeout, i.e. packets DROPPED rather than refused.

Cause: every app namespace ships a default-deny NetworkPolicy with
policyTypes: [Ingress, Egress] and NO ingress key at all (deny-all-ingress), and the only
ingress allowance is <app>-allow-gateway-ingress: fromEntities: [ingress] -> 4180.
Prometheus matched no clause. Verified identical in all six of jackett, radarr, sonarr,
qbittorrent, pihole, crafty; zero namespaces had any -allow-monitoring-scrape object.

render.py already had the right idiom — r_monitoring_ingress_policy — but it returned None
unless the service declared observability.metricsEndpoint, and NO ServiceDefinition in this
catalog declares one. It was wired in at the call site and had never emitted a single
object on any branch: correct, and entirely latent.

It now also fires for the forward-auth gate sidecar's own metrics port, keyed on
_needs_oauth2_sidecar — deliberately the same condition the scrape keys on, since
podmonitor.yaml selects pods purely by the auth-mode label, so a target exists iff the
sidecar exists. Keying on observability.metrics instead would let metrics: false produce a
discovered-but-blocked target: the same "two halves authored apart" failure this function
exists to prevent.

Rendered here rather than in platform/oauth2-proxy because that tier would have to name app
namespaces created by the sibling apps-wave-0/1 tiers — it would apply on a running cluster
and fail on a cold bootstrap. podmonitor.yaml's header records that objection; rendering
per-app dissolves it.

Five CNPs result, one per forward-auth app, each opening only 44180 to only ns monitoring.
apps/ re-rendered with the invocation it was generated by (--no-image-automation, verified
byte-identical beforehand); --emit-waves deliberately not run, so no wave kustomization moved.

Three L1 goldens are regenerated with it (+63 lines, -0): a renderer change that adds an
object necessarily drifts the goldens that pin the renderer's output. The first gate run
caught container-workload-render and egress-class-render as FAIL with exactly this CNP as
the drift. default-deny-baseline-render's golden regenerated byte-identical, which is the
evidence that the regen is faithful and not a rubber stamp.

That puts conformance/** in the diff, which is a sensitive path: this PR needs a non-author
approving review. The local gate cannot see that — offline it reports approval-policy green
(N/A).

Local toolbox gate: rc 3 UNDETERMINED, not 0. Every stage that ran is green and l1 went
FAIL -> pass with the goldens; the only not-run stage is gitea-settings (no
GITEA_SETTINGS_TOKEN). L2/L3 conformance is UNVERIFIED for all 8 touched requirements.

Not verified: that the scrape now succeeds. Nothing is applied until Flux reconciles main.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-04 16:05:44 -05:00
19 changed files with 764 additions and 91 deletions

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+21
View File
@@ -244,6 +244,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): jackett-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: jackett-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: jackett
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: jackett
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: jackett
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): jackett-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
-1
View File
@@ -18,7 +18,6 @@ resources:
- pihole-dns.yaml
- pihole-oauth2-proxy-credentials.sops.yaml
- pihole.yaml
- plex-cert.yaml
- plex-claim-secret.sops.yaml
- plex-remote.yaml
- plex.yaml
+21
View File
@@ -232,6 +232,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): pihole-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: pihole-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: pihole
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): pihole-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
-66
View File
@@ -1,66 +0,0 @@
---
# =================================================================================================
# 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
+1 -1
View File
@@ -138,7 +138,7 @@ spec:
name: plex-claim
key: PLEX_CLAIM
- name: ADVERTISE_IP
value: https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400
value: http://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400
- name: PLEX_TLS_CRT
valueFrom:
secretKeyRef:
+21
View File
@@ -319,6 +319,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): qbittorrent-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: qbittorrent-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: qbittorrent
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: qbittorrent
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: qbittorrent
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): qbittorrent-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
+21
View File
@@ -347,6 +347,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): radarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: radarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: radarr
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: radarr
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: radarr
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): radarr-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
+21
View File
@@ -345,6 +345,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: sonarr
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): sonarr-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
+35 -1
View File
@@ -107,8 +107,42 @@ env:
# 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.
#
# SCHEME IS `http` AND THAT IS TEMPORARY, 2026-10-04. It was `https`, which requires Plex to serve
# a certificate for this name — and the Certificate that would have supplied one is NOT APPLIED
# (see apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml's header). Advertising `https` without it reproduces the
# 2026-10-04 outage exactly: Plex answers 32400 with its `*.<serverhash>.plex.direct` cert, every
# TLS-validating client rejects the hostname, and plex.tv can publish nothing. `http` works TODAY
# and is MEASURED to: PiHole answers plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN} with ${PLEX_L4_VIP} (verified live
# against pihole-0, 2026-10-04) and Plex serves 32400 there.
#
# THE COST, STATED: the remote leg is unencrypted. That is tolerable only because remote access
# does not work yet at all (the WAN tcp/32400 forward is still absent), so today this carries LAN
# traffic only. RESTORE `https` IN THE SAME COMMIT that re-applies the Certificate — the two are
# one change, and splitting them is what broke this.
#
# HOW TO GET `https` BACK. The Certificate that would serve this name was applied on 2026-10-04
# and STALLED THE ENTIRE APP TIER; the file was DELETED rather than merely unregistered, because
# `tls-lifecycle-automated` (R-TLS-02) fails any Certificate left in the tree that no Flux path
# reconciles. Full post-mortem: decisions/2026-10-04-plex-unblock-app-tier.md. Three things must
# land TOGETHER:
# 1. EXEMPT cert-manager FROM `secret-provenance`. Its temporary private-key Secrets
# (`plex-vip-<random>`) are denied by `secrets-must-be-flux-managed`, which matches every
# Secret in a namespace labelled `homelab.keithjackson.dev/app-namespace: true` — `plex` HAS
# that label, `gateway` (where the working wildcard cert lives) does NOT, which is why this
# never bit the existing Certificate. `secretTemplate` cannot fix it: those Secrets come from
# the keymanager controller, not the Certificate's template. Narrow fix: an
# `exclude.any[].subjects` entry for ServiceAccount `cert-manager`/`cert-manager` (confirmed
# live as the controller's SA). `platform/kyverno/**` is a SENSITIVE path — non-author approval.
# 2. GIVE THE CERTIFICATE A NON-GATING HOME. `apps-wave-0` is `wait: true`, so Flux health-checks
# the Certificate OBJECT and a pending issuance stalls the whole tier
# (`timeout waiting for: [Certificate/plex/plex-vip status: 'InProgress']`). `optional: true`
# on the env refs below protects the POD, not the Kustomization — that distinction is the
# whole bug. Use a separate Kustomization with `wait: false`, the shape
# clusters/base/backup.yaml already uses for exactly this reason.
# 3. Flip this value back to `https`.
- name: ADVERTISE_IP
value: https://plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400
value: http://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
+47 -22
View File
@@ -1541,12 +1541,54 @@ def r_monitoring_ingress_policy(s: dict):
trap Longhorn's own NetworkPolicies set (platform/longhorn/networkpolicy-metrics.yaml exists
for exactly this reason), and it is a THIRD independent way for a metrics SLI to be inert.
Rendered only alongside a declared metricsEndpoint, and it opens ONLY that port to ONLY the
monitoring namespace: an allow for a port nothing serves would be a standing hole for no
Rendered only alongside a port something actually serves, and it opens ONLY that port to ONLY
the monitoring namespace: an allow for a port nothing serves would be a standing hole for no
benefit.
TWO INDEPENDENT SOURCES OF A SERVED METRICS PORT, and this used to cover only the first:
1. `observability.metricsEndpoint` — the APP's own exporter. NOTE, measured 2026-10-04: no
ServiceDefinition in this catalog declares one, so before the sidecar clause below this
function had NEVER emitted a single object on any branch. It is correct but, so far,
entirely latent — do not read its presence as evidence that scrape ingress is solved.
2. THE forward-auth GATE SIDECAR's own `/metrics` on 44180 (added 2026-10-04). Every
`_needs_oauth2_sidecar` app gets `--metrics-address=0.0.0.0:{OAUTH2_PROXY_METRICS_PORT}`
and a named `metrics` container port from `_oauth2_sidecar_container`, so the port is
served whenever the sidecar exists — unconditionally, which is what makes it safe to
open without a per-app declaration.
WHY CLAUSE 2 KEYS ON `_needs_oauth2_sidecar` AND NOT ON `observability.metrics`: it must match
the condition the SCRAPE keys on, exactly. platform/oauth2-proxy/podmonitor.yaml selects pods
by the `homelab.keithjackson.dev/auth-mode: forward-auth` POD LABEL and nothing else, so a
target exists iff the sidecar exists. Keying the allowance on `observability.metrics` instead
would let `metrics: false` produce a discovered-but-blocked target — the same "two halves
authored apart" failure this function exists to prevent, just moved one field over.
THIS CLAUSE IS A BUG FIX, and the bug was live for 63.7h. Measured on prod 2026-10-04: all 6
sidecar targets across jackett/radarr/sonarr/qbittorrent/pihole read `health=down`,
`lastError: context deadline exceeded`, `lastScrapeDuration` exactly 10.0s — the scrapeTimeout,
i.e. packets DROPPED, not refused. Each app namespace ships a `default-deny` NetworkPolicy
with `policyTypes: [Ingress, Egress]` and NO `ingress` key at all (deny-all-ingress), and the
only ingress allowance is `<app>-allow-gateway-ingress`: `fromEntities: [ingress]` -> 4180.
Prometheus matched no clause. 5 x `TargetDown` + 6 x `OAuth2ProxyGateUnobserved` had been
re-notifying at ~22 emails/day since the PodMonitor landed on 2026-10-02.
WHY THE POLICY BELONGS HERE AND NOT IN platform/oauth2-proxy: podmonitor.yaml's header records
the objection — a policy in that tier would name app namespaces created by the SIBLING
apps-wave-0/1 tiers (measured Flux graph: `oauth2-proxy` and `apps-wave-0` both
`dependsOn=[platform-config]`, no ordering between them), so it would apply on a running
cluster and fail on a cold bootstrap. Rendered here it ships in the same tier that creates the
namespace, which dissolves that ordering problem entirely.
"""
ep = s["observability"].get("metricsEndpoint")
if not ep or not s["observability"]["metrics"]:
obs = s["observability"]
ep = obs.get("metricsEndpoint")
ports: list[str] = []
if ep and obs["metrics"]:
ports.append(str(ep["port"]))
if _needs_oauth2_sidecar(s):
ports.append(str(OAUTH2_PROXY_METRICS_PORT))
if not ports:
return None
return {
"apiVersion": "cilium.io/v2",
@@ -1564,7 +1606,7 @@ def r_monitoring_ingress_policy(s: dict):
{"matchLabels": {"k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace": MONITORING_NS}}
],
"toPorts": [
{"ports": [{"port": str(ep["port"]), "protocol": "TCP"}]}
{"ports": [{"port": p, "protocol": "TCP"} for p in ports]}
],
}
],
@@ -2167,23 +2209,6 @@ 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",
],
},
}
@@ -171,6 +171,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): paas-demo-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: paas-demo-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: paas-demo
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: paas-demo
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: paas-demo
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): paas-demo-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
@@ -198,6 +198,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: sonarr
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): sonarr-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
@@ -198,6 +198,27 @@ spec:
- port: '4180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy monitoring scrape ingress allow (R-NET-02/R-OBS-01): sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
metadata:
name: sonarr-allow-monitoring-scrape
namespace: sonarr
labels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
spec:
endpointSelector:
matchLabels:
app.kubernetes.io/name: sonarr
ingress:
- fromEndpoints:
- matchLabels:
k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring
toPorts:
- ports:
- port: '44180'
protocol: TCP
---
# CiliumNetworkPolicy world egress allow (egress class governs the path; R-NET-05): sonarr-allow-internet-egress
apiVersion: cilium.io/v2
kind: CiliumNetworkPolicy
@@ -0,0 +1,157 @@
---
date: 2026-10-04
branch: feat/hubble-flow-export-plex
title: Record the pre-SNAT client address for Plex via Hubble static flow export, instead of breaking externalTrafficPolicy to get it
---
## What changed
Operator requirement, narrowed explicitly: **this is 100% about log visibility** — knowing which
address connected to Plex. Not bandwidth metering, which does not matter here.
**The problem, measured.** Plex's own log cannot show it. Every LoadBalancer Service in this cluster
is `externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster`, so the node holding the L2 lease for the VIP SNATs the client
before forwarding to the backend pod:
| Measured 2026-10-04 | Value |
|---|---|
| Node announcing `192.168.2.24` | `k3s-prod-3` (also holds `.20` Gateway, `.23` pihole-dns) |
| Node running the Plex pod | `k3s-prod-1` (`10.0.0.135`) |
| Sources in Plex's log | **3,214 × `10.0.1.x`**, 105 × `10.0.2.x`, 120 × loopback |
| `192.168.x` sources in Plex's log, ever | **0** |
| `X-Forwarded-For` in Plex's log | **0** (it serves raw tcp/32400, not HTTP via the Gateway) |
| `10.0.1.78` identity (`cilium-dbg bpf ipcache`) | `identity=1` → `reserved:host` = prod-3 itself |
**Nothing on the router is involved** — the operator correctly pointed out there is no hairpin NAT
here. The rewrite is entirely in-cluster, done by Cilium's BPF load-balancer on the lease holder,
because the backend pod is on a different node.
**The address is not lost, only unrecorded.** Cilium observes the flow at ingress, *before* its own
translation, so Hubble already holds the true source:
192.168.2.133 -> 10.0.0.135 (real LAN client -> the Plex pod)
10.0.1.78 -> 10.0.0.135 (the same traffic post-SNAT — what Plex sees)
What was missing is **retention**: the ring buffer was **4095/4095 flows at ~303 flows/s — about
thirteen seconds of history** — with hubble metrics disabled and no exporter configured.
So: enable the static flow exporter, scoped to Plex's port, writing to the agent's stdout.
- **`platform/cilium/helmrelease.yaml`** (authoritative): `hubble.export.static.enabled: true`,
`filePath: stdout`, `allowList` of `{"destination_port":["32400"]}` and
`{"source_port":["32400"]}`.
- **`platform/cilium/values.yaml`** (reference mirror) and
**`infra/ansible/roles/cilium/templates/cilium-values.yaml.j2`** (the `[parity]` source of truth):
the same block, so a bootstrap render does not differ from what Flux reconciles — a mismatch would
be a permanent Helm diff and an avoidable agent rollout.
**`filePath: stdout`, not a file,** because Grafana Alloy already runs as a DaemonSet tailing every
pod's logs into Loki (`platform/monitoring/alloy.yaml`). stdout therefore reaches Loki with **no new
hostPath mount, no file-rotation handling, and no Alloy change at all**. Upstream documents the
value: *"To get Hubble flows directly exported to the logs instead of written to a rotated file,
`stdout` can be defined as `hubble-export-file-path`."* Query:
{namespace="kube-system", app="cilium"} |= "32400"
**SCOPED BY PORT, NOT BY NAMESPACE — a measured decision, not a preference.** A
`--to-namespace plex` query returned **only the post-SNAT flows**; the flow carrying the real client
address did not match it, because at the point of observation the destination identity is not yet
resolved to the plex pod. A namespace filter would have dropped exactly the record this change
exists to capture.
**WHY NOT FIX THE SNAT INSTEAD — both alternatives rejected on evidence.**
- `externalTrafficPolicy: Local` would put the real address in Plex's own log, but cilium 1.20's L2
announcer is **explicitly incompatible** with it. Upstream docs for this exact version:
*"incompatible with the `externalTrafficPolicy: Local` on services as it may cause service IPs to
be announced on nodes without pods causing traffic drops"* and *"L2 announcements isn't currently
aware of this setting"*. Live proof it is not theoretical: the VIP is announced by prod-3 while the
pod runs on prod-1, so the flip would black-hole tcp/32400 **immediately**. Making it safe means
pinning both the pod and the announcement to one node and surrendering Plex's ability to
reschedule — a real availability loss to buy a log field. Same trap
`platform/crafty/service-l4.yaml` documents from an 8-day Minecraft outage.
- **DSR** also preserves the client address, but `routing-mode` here is **vxlan**, not
native/geneve, and DSR returns bypass the ingress node, which breaks the SOHO router's stateful
NAT on the remote path. Cluster-wide blast radius across all eight LB Services for one service's
logging.
**A correction to the repo's own record.** `decisions/2026-10-03-plex-remote-access-l4.md` states the
SNAT puts the client inside `192.168.0.0/16` (the ingress node's LAN address), and I repeated that in
the previous entry. **It is wrong**: measured, the SNAT source is `10.0.1.x` — the node's
`cilium_host` inside the pod CIDR. This matters, because it means `LanNetworksBandwidth` can never
discriminate local from remote while eTP is `Cluster`: `10.0.0.0/8` must be in the LAN set for the
in-cluster consumers (Seerr) to count as local, and every external client arrives in that same range.
PR #48's LAN definition therefore fixes the Remote badge by making *everything* local — acceptable
only because metering is explicitly not a goal here.
## What I verified
Live prod, 2026-10-04, read-only.
- **Every measurement in the table above**, including the VIP-lease-to-node map
(`cilium-dbg shell -- db/show l2-announce` on all three agents) and the pod's node.
- **Hubble already carries the pre-SNAT source** — the single finding this whole approach rests on:
`hubble observe --port 32400` on the lease holder returned `192.168.2.133 -> 10.0.0.135` **and**
its return flow, alongside the post-SNAT `10.0.1.78 -> 10.0.0.135`.
- **The retention gap is real:** `cilium-dbg status` reported `Hubble: Ok Current/Max Flows:
4095/4095 (100.00%), Flows/s: 303.62 Metrics: Disabled`, and the `cilium-config` ConfigMap
contains no `hubble-export-*` key at all.
- **The namespace-filter trap**, directly: `--to-namespace plex` returned only `10.0.1.78` and
`10.0.1.71`; the `192.168.2.133` flow was absent. This is why the allowList is port-scoped.
- **All eight LoadBalancer Services are `eTP=Cluster`** (crafty ×2, gateway, pihole-dns ×2, plex,
unifi ×2) — so this is a cluster-wide pattern, not a Plex-specific choice.
- **The eTP:Local incompatibility is upstream-documented for v1.20 specifically**, quoted above from
the docs for the running version — not inferred from the crafty incident.
- **`routing-mode: tunnel`** and **`bpf-lb-mode-annotation: false`** in the live `cilium-config`,
which is what rules DSR out.
- **The chart's value paths and defaults**, read from cilium v1.20.1's own `values.yaml`:
`hubble.export.static.{enabled,filePath,fieldMask,fieldAggregate,aggregationInterval,allowList,denyList,fileMaxSizeMb,fileMaxBackups,fileCompress}`,
with `filePath` defaulting to `/var/run/cilium/hubble/events.log`. The keys used here exist.
- **Alloy's pipeline shape**, read from `platform/monitoring/alloy.yaml`: a DaemonSet with
`loki.source.kubernetes "pods"` → `loki.process` → `loki.write` at
`http://loki.monitoring.svc.cluster.local:3100`. It already tails kube-system pods, which is why
stdout needs no Alloy change.
- **All three value files agree** (one `destination_port` occurrence each) and both YAML files parse,
with `export.static` resolving to the intended object.
- **Toolbox gate**: **rc 3**, with `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`,
`render-golden`, `l1` and `approval-policy` all **pass**; 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.**
- **No sensitive paths touched** — `platform/cilium/**` and `infra/ansible/**` are not in
`infra/gitea/approval-policy.json`, so this needs no approval override, unlike PR #48.
## What I did NOT verify
- **THE OUTCOME. Nothing has been reconciled and no flow has ever been exported.** `cilium-config`
still has no `hubble-export-*` key. Every claim is about inputs.
- **Whether `filePath: stdout` is accepted as written.** This is the single largest risk. The value
comes from a verbatim upstream doc sentence (*"`stdout` can be defined as
`hubble-export-file-path`"*), but I did not confirm the exact notation in cilium 1.20.1's source,
and the chart default is a real filesystem path. If the literal string is not special-cased, the
agent may create a FILE named `stdout` in its working directory and nothing reaches Loki — a
silent no-op, not a crash. **Fallback if so:** leave `filePath` at the chart default and add a
`local.file_match` + `loki.source.file` target to Alloy with a hostPath mount for
`/var/run/cilium/hubble`.
- **Whether the FlowFilter JSON is accepted.** `{"destination_port":["32400"]}` follows the proto
(`destination_port` is a repeated string) and the documented shape (`'{"verdict":["DROPPED"]}'`),
but upstream gives **no port example** and I did not validate it against the running agent. A
malformed filter could be rejected — or, worse, be silently treated as "no match" and export
nothing.
- **THIS CHANGE ROLLS CILIUM.** Editing the HelmRelease restarts the agent DaemonSet across all
three nodes. BPF maps are preserved so established traffic should survive, but prod-3 currently
announces the Gateway VIP, **PiHole's DNS VIP** and Plex's VIP, so a lease change during the
rollout could briefly interrupt LAN DNS for the whole house. Not measured, and worth doing at a
quiet moment.
- **Log volume in practice.** Estimated "a few hundred to a few thousand lines a day" from the
observed request counts; never measured as flows. Both directions are exported and no `fieldMask`
is set, so each record is a full flow object. If it is noisy, narrow with `fieldMask` rather than
by dropping a filter.
- **Loki's retention for this data**, and whether the `{namespace="kube-system", app="cilium"}` label
set actually matches (it depends on the cilium pods carrying
`app.kubernetes.io/name`, which Alloy maps to `app` — I did not confirm that label exists on the
cilium DaemonSet pods). The query in the comment may need adjusting to `pod=~"cilium-.*"`.
- **That the exported flow actually contains the pre-SNAT address.** Hubble's *live* stream does
(measured). I am assuming the exporter sees the same flow objects; I did not confirm the exporter
is not fed a post-translation view.
- **The parity convention has no automated check.** I kept all three files in sync by hand because
the comments demand it; nothing in `ci/` or `conformance/` verifies cilium Helm↔Ansible parity, so
a future edit can still drift them silently.
@@ -0,0 +1,150 @@
---
date: 2026-10-04
branch: fix/oauth2-sidecar-metrics-scrape-netpol
title: The forward-auth gate sidecars' /metrics was NetworkPolicy-blocked — the renderer now opens 44180 to ns monitoring
---
## What changed
`catalog/render.py`'s `r_monitoring_ingress_policy` now emits its CiliumNetworkPolicy for a
**second** reason: the forward-auth gate sidecar's own `/metrics` port (44180), keyed on
`_needs_oauth2_sidecar(s)`. Previously it fired only from `observability.metricsEndpoint`.
That matters more than it sounds, because **no ServiceDefinition in this catalog declares a
`metricsEndpoint`** (measured: zero grep hits across `catalog/*.yaml`). So the function was wired
in at the call site and had **never emitted a single object on any branch** — correct, and
entirely latent. Its presence in the tree read as "scrape ingress is handled". It was not.
Re-rendered `apps/` from that change: five new CNPs, one per forward-auth app
(`jackett`, `pihole`, `qbittorrent`, `radarr`, `sonarr`), each opening **only** 44180 to **only**
`fromEndpoints: [k8s:io.kubernetes.pod.namespace: monitoring]`.
The bug being fixed: `platform/oauth2-proxy/podmonitor.yaml` landed 2026-10-02T04:58:44Z and
discovered 6 targets that have **never once scraped successfully**. Each app namespace ships a
`default-deny` NetworkPolicy with `policyTypes: [Ingress, Egress]` and **no `ingress` key at all**
— deny-all-ingress in NetworkPolicy semantics — and the only ingress allowance is
`<app>-allow-gateway-ingress`: `fromEntities: [ingress]` to port 4180. Prometheus matched no
clause, so its packets were dropped.
Two deliberate choices, both recorded in the function's docstring:
- **Clause 2 keys on `_needs_oauth2_sidecar`, not on `observability.metrics`.** It has to match
the condition the *scrape* keys on: `podmonitor.yaml` selects pods by the
`homelab.keithjackson.dev/auth-mode: forward-auth` pod label and nothing else, so a target
exists iff the sidecar exists. Keying on `observability.metrics` would let `metrics: false`
produce a discovered-but-blocked target — the same "two halves authored apart" failure this
function exists to prevent, moved one field over.
- **The policy is rendered here, not added to `platform/oauth2-proxy/`.** podmonitor.yaml's own
header records why that tier cannot host it: it would name app namespaces created by the
*sibling* `apps-wave-0/1` tiers, so it would apply on a running cluster and fail on a cold
bootstrap. Rendered per-app it ships in the same tier that creates the namespace.
## What I verified
Measured on prod 2026-10-04, read-only, via the pinned toolbox:
- **The cause, not a guess.** All 6 sidecar targets in pool
`podMonitor/oauth2-proxy/oauth2-proxy-sidecars/0`: `health=down`,
`lastError: context deadline exceeded`, `lastScrapeDuration` exactly `10.0s` — the configured
`scrapeTimeout`. Hitting the timeout precisely means packets **dropped, not refused**.
- **The listener is fine.** jackett's `oauth2-proxy` container carries
`--metrics-address=0.0.0.0:44180` and a named port `metrics: 44180`.
- **The deny is universal.** All six namespaces (`jackett radarr sonarr qbittorrent pihole
crafty`): `default-deny` with `ingress` key absent, `nIngress=0`; the only ingress CNP allowance
is 4180 `fromEntities: [ingress]`. **Zero** namespaces had any `-allow-monitoring-scrape` object.
- **Frequency.** Single continuous episode, no flapping: `ALERTS_FOR_STATE` = 229343s (63.7h),
firing since 2026-10-02 05:09 UTC — 11 minutes after the PodMonitor was created, i.e. TargetDown's
`for: 10m`. A 15-day `query_range` shows **1 episode** per namespace, not many. Alertmanager:
`group_by: [alertname, namespace]`, `repeat_interval: 12h` on `email-warning` → 5 TargetDown
groups = 10 emails/day, plus 6 `OAuth2ProxyGateUnobserved` groups = 12/day, ~22/day total.
0 silences.
- **The re-render is deterministic and the diff is exactly the intended one.** `apps/` is
byte-identical to `render.py --all catalog -o apps --wave-layout --no-image-automation`
(12/12 SAME before my edit; the 11-file "drift" against a default render is solely the
ImageRepository/ImagePolicy pair, which `apps/` is generated without). After the edit:
5 files changed, +21 lines each, nothing else touched.
- `render.py --selftest`: **PASS**.
- **Three L1 goldens needed regenerating, and the diff is +63 lines / -0.** The first gate run
caught `container-workload-render` (R-PLAT-02) and `egress-class-render` (R-NET-05/06/07) as
FAIL with exactly the new CNP as the drift. Regenerated with the same invocations the checks
use (`render.py <fixture>`, no flags). Evidence the regen is faithful rather than a rubber
stamp: `default-deny-baseline-render`'s golden came back **byte-identical** (its fixture is not
forward-auth), and the other three gained only the one CNP, port 44180, ns monitoring.
- Toolbox gate `./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c './ci/gate.sh'`: **rc 3 — UNDETERMINED,
NOT rc 0, and I am not reporting it as green.** Every stage that ran is green
(spec-immutability, approval-policy, decisions-log, lint, l0, render-golden, l1); `l1` went
FAIL -> pass once the goldens were regenerated. The gate's own words: "Stages that did not run:
gitea-settings" — skipped for want of `GITEA_SETTINGS_TOKEN`, which is an environment gap on
every local run and unrelated to this change. L2/L3 conformance is a `[warn]`, not a not-run
stage: UNVERIFIED for all 8 touched requirements (R-GITOPS-02 R-IDP-02 R-IDP-06 R-NET-01
R-NET-05 R-NET-06 R-NET-07 R-PLAT-02), no cluster.
- `--emit-waves` was **not** run (it re-onboards `vm-demo` + `keycloak`); only the per-service
render path was used, so no wave kustomization changed.
## This PR needs a human approval (sensitive path) — MEASURED, not predicted
CI run #230 on PR #49, head `f9446be3`: **`MERGE GATE: BLOCKED`, and `approval-policy` is the ONLY
failing stage.** Read from the job log, not from the status tick:
[skip] stage spec-immutability: SKIPPED (not run) <- sibling spec repo absent in CI; expected
[ ok ] stage decisions-log: pass
[ ok ] stage lint: pass
[ ok ] stage l0: pass
[ ok ] stage render-golden: pass
[ ok ] stage l1: pass
[fail] stage approval-policy: FAIL
[ ok ] stage gitea-settings: pass <- could NOT run locally; green in CI
[skip] stage conformance: SKIPPED (not run)
sensitive paths touched:
conformance/tests/l1-rendering/container-workload-render/golden/expected.yaml
conformance/tests/l1-rendering/egress-class-render/golden/egress-internet.expected.yaml
conformance/tests/l1-rendering/egress-class-render/golden/egress-vpn.expected.yaml
Exactly the three regenerated goldens, nothing else. `l1` and `render-golden` both pass in CI,
which is the independent confirmation that the regenerated goldens are right rather than merely
self-consistent with my local run.
One local-reproduction note worth recording, because it wasted a step: running
`PR_NUMBER=49 SETTINGS_API_TOKEN=... ci/approval-policy.sh` with the credential from
`git credential fill` reports `could not determine PR author — BLOCKING`. That is an **artifact**,
not a finding — `~/.git-credentials` holds a *password*, and `Authorization: token <password>`
returns 401 `user does not exist [uid: 0]`. The stage needs a real API token. I nearly reported
that 401 as the CI failure; the job log is what settled it.
Regenerating the L1 goldens means this branch touches `conformance/**`, which is in
`sensitive_paths` in `infra/gitea/approval-policy.json` ("the tests and the harness; changing them
changes what green MEANS"). So `ci/approval-policy.sh` will require an approving review from a
non-author, and the local gate **cannot** see that: it reports `approval-policy: green` because
offline it evaluates N/A.
The golden update is not optional — a renderer change that adds an object necessarily drifts the
goldens that pin the renderer's output — but it does mean the gate correctly refuses to
self-approve this one. **An agent must not clear this with `/approve-override`**, even though the
`gitea-admin` account holds `owner`: that is precisely the self-approval the stage exists to
prevent. The operator posts the override as a PR *review* of type "Comment", or approves normally.
## What I did NOT verify
- **That the scrape now succeeds.** This is a git-only change and nothing is applied until Flux
reconciles `main`. The 5 CNPs have never existed on the cluster, so `up == 1` for those targets
is **UNVERIFIED** — it is a prediction from the measured drop signature, not an observation.
After merge, confirm `up{container="oauth2-proxy"}` goes to 1 for all 6 targets and that the 11
alerts resolve. `send_resolved: true` is set, so expect ~11 resolved emails.
- **That the CNP `endpointSelector` matches pihole's pods.** It selects
`app.kubernetes.io/name: pihole`, identical to the shape of `pihole-allow-gateway-ingress`
which demonstrably works for 4180 — so this is inference from a working sibling, not a
measurement of the new object.
- **`crafty` is still unobserved and will keep firing `OAuth2ProxyGateUnobserved`.** It is
hand-managed under `platform/crafty`, outside the renderer, and has **no `--metrics-address`
at all** — so there is no port to open and this change cannot help it. Separate work.
- **Whether 44180 is reachable in the Cilium data path once allowed.** Only the policy was
reasoned about; no L2 probe was run (CI has `vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` unset, so L2/L3 did not
run here either — the gate proves the L0/L1 offline subset only).
- **Why `OAuth2ProxyGateUnobserved` started at 2026-10-04 06:44** rather than 10-02 with
TargetDown. Alertmanager did not restart (TargetDown's `startsAt` is still 10-02) and the rule's
`for` is 1h, so neither explains it. Something changed on the monitoring side that morning which
I did not identify. It does not affect this fix.
- I did not re-run a port-forward to 44180 to prove the endpoint serves *today*; I confirmed the
flag and named port on the live pod spec. The 200/10208-byte measurement is podmonitor.yaml's,
from 2026-10-01.
@@ -0,0 +1,126 @@
---
date: 2026-10-04
branch: fix/plex-unblock-app-tier
title: Unblock the app tier — my Certificate stalled apps-wave-0, and the advertised https URL had no servable certificate
---
## What changed
**I broke the app tier with PR #48 and this reverts the part that did it.** Two faults, both mine,
both measured after the merge:
1. **Kyverno blocks cert-manager in app namespaces.** The temporary private-key Secrets
(`plex-vip-<random>`) were denied by `secret-provenance/secrets-must-be-flux-managed`:
resource Secret/plex/plex-vip-rp4qj was blocked due to the following policies
secret-provenance:
secrets-must-be-flux-managed: Secrets in application namespaces must be delivered by
Flux from SOPS-encrypted git ... or be exempt controller-generated Secrets.
The policy matches every Secret in a namespace labelled
`homelab.keithjackson.dev/app-namespace: true` and excludes only Secrets labelled
`homelab.keithjackson.dev/secret-managed-by: controller` or carrying a Flux label. **The `plex`
namespace has that label; the `gateway` namespace — where the working wildcard cert lives — does
NOT.** That asymmetry is why the existing Certificate was never affected and mine was, and I did
not check it. cert-manager's temp key Secrets carry neither exempting label, and `secretTemplate`
cannot label them (the keymanager controller creates them, not the Certificate template). Result:
**no CertificateRequest, Order or Challenge was ever created.**
2. **Flux health-checks the Certificate — guarding the pod was not enough.** `optional: true` did
exactly what it was designed to do: Plex rolled and ran fine without the Secret (verified). But
`apps-wave-0` is `wait: true`, so Flux waits on every applied object with a known health type:
health check failed after 5m0.045564329s: timeout waiting for:
[Certificate/plex/plex-vip status: 'InProgress']
apps-wave-0 never went Ready, and apps-wave-1/-2 plus everything downstream of platform-config
sat in `DependencyNotReady` behind it. I reasoned about the pod and missed the object.
A third, independent problem the same PR introduced: **the advertised URL was `https://` with no
servable certificate.** Plex answers 32400 with its `*.<serverhash>.plex.direct` cert, which cannot
cover `plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}` — the precise failure mode of the outage earlier that day.
- **`apps/wave-0/plex-cert.yaml` DELETED**, and `plex-cert.yaml` removed from
`apps/wave-0/kustomization.yaml` `resources`, so Flux prunes the stuck Certificate and the health
gate clears. **Deleted rather than merely unregistered** — my first attempt kept the file as
"tracked but not onboarded" (the shape `keycloak.yaml` and `vm-demo.yaml` use) and **the repo's own
gate rejected it**: `tls-lifecycle-automated` (R-TLS-02) fails any Certificate in the tree that no
Flux path reconciles — *"nothing reconciles it, so a deleted Certificate/issuer/controller would
stay deleted until a human re-applied it."* That pattern is legal for a Deployment and not for a
TLS object, which is a distinction I had not known.
- **`catalog/render.py`:** the now-dangling `plex-cert` EXTRA_UNITS entry removed.
- **The re-enable recipe is recorded at the call site** — in `catalog/plex.yaml` beside the scheme
it is coupled to — rather than in the deleted file: the Kyverno exemption, the non-gating
Kustomization, and the `https` flip, as one change.
- **`catalog/plex.yaml`:** `ADVERTISE_IP` → **`http://`**`plex-vip.${BASE_DOMAIN}:32400`, explicitly
temporary, with the restore condition written at the call site.
**Everything else from PR #48 is kept and working** — the hostname design, the PiHole split-horizon
answer, the `LanNetworksBandwidth` hook, the `optional` schema field, and the TLS env (inert without
the Secret, so re-enabling is additive).
## What I verified
Live prod, 2026-10-04, read-only, after the #48/#50 merges.
- **The stall and its exact cause**: the health-check timeout message above, and the full dependency
cascade (`cilium` → "dependency 'flux-system/flux-system' revision is not up to date", everything
else `DependencyNotReady`). The root `cilium` wait was a normal revision-gated cascade; the
*Certificate* was the real blocker.
- **The Kyverno denial text, verbatim**, from the cert-manager controller log, repeating every ~30s
across at least 15 distinct Secret names.
- **The policy's own structure**, read from `platform/kyverno/admission/secret-provenance.yaml`:
match = Secrets in `app-namespace: true` namespaces; exclude = `secret-managed-by: controller` OR
a `kustomize.toolkit.fluxcd.io/name` label; validate = unconditional `deny`.
- **The namespace-label asymmetry**: `plex` carries
`homelab.keithjackson.dev/app-namespace: "true"`; `gateway` does not.
- **cert-manager's controller ServiceAccount is `cert-manager`** in namespace `cert-manager` — the
identity a future exemption should name.
- **`optional: true` worked**: the new pod (`plex-c4f87c84d-zgjq5`) is `1/1 Running` with no Secret
present, and `/config/certs` was never created.
- **The postStart hook RAN and took effect** — the thing the whole hook was written for:
`LanNetworksBandwidth="10.0.0.0/8,192.168.0.0/16"` is now set in the live `Preferences.xml`, and
`customConnections="https://plex-vip.home.keithjackson.dev:32400"` was applied from the env. The
certificate prefs are correctly **ABSENT**, i.e. the hook's "no bundle → leave them alone" guard
behaved as designed.
- **PiHole's split-horizon answer is correct**, asked of `pihole-0` directly:
`plex-vip.home.keithjackson.dev -> 192.168.2.24`, alongside `plex -> .20` and `crafty-mc -> .22`,
and the live `/etc/pihole/dnsmasq.conf` carries
`address=/plex-vip.home.keithjackson.dev/192.168.2.24`. **This corrects my own earlier check**,
which read `.20` and which I nearly reported as a failure — that test resolved via CLUSTER DNS
(CoreDNS) from inside a pod and never consulted PiHole at all.
- **The gate caught my first attempt and I fixed it rather than working around it.** Keeping the
file unregistered produced `MERGE GATE: BLOCKED` (rc 1) with
`CHECK FAIL (tls-lifecycle-automated): 1 of 612 assertions failed`. After deleting the file and
the dangling EXTRA_UNITS entry: **rc 3**, with `spec-immutability`, `decisions-log`, `lint`, `l0`,
`render-golden`, `l1` and `approval-policy` all **pass** — the rc 3 being only the two known
environmental skips (`gitea-settings`, `conformance` L2/L3). **Not green. Reported as rc 3.**
## What I did NOT verify
- **Whether this actually unblocks the tier.** Unreconciled at time of writing. The reasoning is
that pruning the Certificate removes the only failing health check, but I have not seen
apps-wave-0 go Ready.
- **Whether `http://` restores client connectivity.** PiHole resolves the name and Plex serves 32400
(both measured), but I have not watched a Plex client complete a connection over the advertised
URL, and I did not re-check whether plex.tv publishes it.
- **THE REMOTE BADGE — the symptom that started this.** `LanNetworksBandwidth` is set, but the log
still tags traffic `Allowed Network (WAN)`: **82 WAN, 0 LAN**, with entries continuing after the
pref was written. So either Plex needs a restart for it to take effect, or that log tag is not
driven by this pref at all. **I do not know which, and the user-visible badge is the only real
test** — it is in the Plex client, which I cannot see.
- **The Hubble flow export is NOT active.** The cilium agents are still the pre-merge pods, so the
`filePath: stdout` question is still open and no flow has been exported. The Cilium rollout — and
its LAN-DNS risk, since prod-3 holds the Gateway, PiHole-DNS and Plex VIPs — is still AHEAD.
- **Whether a cert-manager exemption is the right shape**, or whether it widens
`secret-provenance` more than the operator wants. It is `platform/kyverno/**`, a sensitive path,
and deliberately not attempted here.
- **Whether the pruned Certificate leaves residue** — I did not check for orphaned
`plex-vip-<random>` Secrets or CertificateRequests after the prune. Note Kyverno DENIED every one
of those Secrets, so there may be nothing to clean, but that is an inference, not a check.
- **Whether `tls-lifecycle-automated` would also have objected to the Certificate living in a
`wait: false` Kustomization** (the recommended re-enable shape). It demands a reconciling Flux
path, which that provides, but I did not test it.
- **The unencrypted advertised URL.** `http://` is tolerable only while remote access does not work
(no WAN forward). Nothing enforces that assumption, and nothing will complain if `http` is still
there the day the port-forward appears.
@@ -45,6 +45,20 @@ hubble:
enabled: true
ui:
enabled: true
# Static flow export -> cilium-agent stdout. Kept EQUAL to the Flux values
# (platform/cilium/helmrelease.yaml), which carry the full rationale: it records the PRE-SNAT
# client address for Plex's raw tcp/32400, which Plex itself cannot log because every
# LoadBalancer Service here is externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster and the VIP lease holder SNATs the
# client. Present here so a BOOTSTRAP render does not differ from what Flux reconciles -- a
# mismatch would show up as a permanent Helm diff and an avoidable agent rollout. Scoped by PORT,
# not namespace: the flow carrying the real client address does not match a namespace filter.
export:
static:
enabled: true
filePath: stdout
allowList:
- '{"destination_port":["32400"]}'
- '{"source_port":["32400"]}'
# Ingress VIP announcement on the NAT LAN. IP pool / CiliumL2AnnouncementPolicy
# (from the reserved 10.73.0.240-.250 range) is authored by WS-NET in Phase 2.
+54
View File
@@ -101,6 +101,60 @@ spec:
enabled: true
ui:
enabled: true # exposure gated behind oauth2-proxy forward-auth later (ADR-0014)
# --- STATIC FLOW EXPORT: persist the PRE-SNAT client address for Plex (2026-10-04) ---
# [parity] MUST equal Ansible: hubble.export.static.{enabled,filePath,allowList}
#
# WHY THIS EXISTS. Plex's own log cannot show who connected. Every LoadBalancer Service in
# this cluster is `externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster`, so the node holding the L2 lease for the
# VIP SNATs the client before forwarding to the backend pod. Measured 2026-10-04: Plex had
# logged 3,214 requests from `10.0.1.x` (the lease holder k3s-prod-3's own address, Cilium
# identity 1 = reserved:host) and ZERO from any 192.168.x address, ever. No X-Forwarded-For
# either -- it serves raw tcp/32400, not HTTP through the Gateway.
#
# THE ADDRESS IS NOT LOST, ONLY UNRECORDED. Cilium observes the flow at ingress, BEFORE its
# own translation, so Hubble already has the true source. Measured on the lease holder:
# 192.168.2.133 -> 10.0.0.135 (real LAN client -> the Plex pod)
# 10.0.1.78 -> 10.0.0.135 (the same traffic, post-SNAT -- what Plex sees)
# What was missing is RETENTION: the ring buffer was 4095/4095 flows at ~303 flows/s, i.e.
# about THIRTEEN SECONDS of history, with hubble metrics disabled and no exporter configured.
#
# WHY NOT FIX THE SNAT INSTEAD. `externalTrafficPolicy: Local` would preserve the address in
# Plex's own log, but cilium 1.20's L2 announcer is explicitly incompatible with it -- upstream
# docs for this exact version: "incompatible with the externalTrafficPolicy: Local on services
# as it may cause service IPs to be announced on nodes without pods causing traffic drops",
# and "L2 announcements isn't currently aware of this setting". Live proof that this is not
# theoretical: the VIP is announced by k3s-prod-3 while the pod runs on k3s-prod-1, so the
# flip would black-hole tcp/32400 immediately. Making it safe would mean pinning BOTH the pod
# and the announcement to one node and giving up Plex's ability to reschedule -- a real
# availability loss to buy a log field. (It is the same trap platform/crafty/service-l4.yaml
# documents from an 8-day Minecraft outage.) DSR was also rejected: routing-mode here is
# vxlan, not native/geneve, and DSR returns bypass the ingress node, which breaks the SOHO
# router's stateful NAT on the remote path.
#
# `filePath: stdout` RATHER THAN A FILE, deliberately. Grafana Alloy already runs as a
# DaemonSet tailing every pod's logs into Loki (platform/monitoring/alloy.yaml), so stdout
# reaches Loki with NO new hostPath mount, no file-rotation handling and no Alloy change.
# Upstream documents it: "To get Hubble flows directly exported to the logs instead of written
# to a rotated file, `stdout` can be defined as `hubble-export-file-path`." fileMaxSizeMb /
# fileMaxBackups are therefore left at chart defaults and do not apply.
# Query: {namespace="kube-system", app="cilium"} |= "32400"
#
# SCOPED BY PORT, NOT BY NAMESPACE -- and that is a measured decision, not a preference. A
# `--to-namespace plex` query returned ONLY the post-SNAT flows; the flow carrying the real
# client address did NOT match it, because at the point of observation the destination
# identity is not yet resolved to the plex pod. Filtering by namespace would therefore drop
# exactly the record this change exists to capture. Port it is.
#
# Both directions are listed so the return path is captured too. Volume is small (a few
# hundred to a few thousand lines a day); if it ever becomes noisy, narrow it with
# `fieldMask` rather than by removing a filter.
export:
static:
enabled: true
filePath: stdout
allowList:
- '{"destination_port":["32400"]}'
- '{"source_port":["32400"]}'
# --- L2 announcement for the ingress VIP on the flat LAN (docs/09, OQ-1 resolved) ---
# [parity] MUST equal Ansible: l2announcements.enabled: true. IP pool +
# CiliumL2AnnouncementPolicy (reserved 10.73.0.240-.250) authored by WS-NET in Phase 2.
+12
View File
@@ -38,6 +38,18 @@ hubble:
enabled: true
ui:
enabled: true
# [parity] static flow export -> cilium-agent stdout -> Alloy -> Loki. Records the PRE-SNAT
# client address for Plex's raw tcp/32400, which Plex's own log cannot show (every LB Service here
# is externalTrafficPolicy: Cluster, so the VIP lease holder SNATs the client). Scoped BY PORT,
# not namespace: the flow carrying the real client IP does not match a namespace filter. Full
# rationale, measurements and the rejected alternatives are in helmrelease.yaml.
export:
static:
enabled: true
filePath: stdout
allowList:
- '{"destination_port":["32400"]}'
- '{"source_port":["32400"]}'
# [parity] ingress VIP announcement on the flat LAN (docs/09, OQ-1)
l2announcements:
enabled: true