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jakman85andClaude Opus 5 e82dab5df5 revert(vpn-ingress): withdraw the L2 lease-collision fix — a node CAN reach a VIP it announces
gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m52s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped
PR #69 claimed a node cannot reach a LoadBalancer VIP whose Cilium L2 announcement
lease it holds, and excluded the VPN ingress node from announcing on that basis.
The claim makes a sharp prediction; today's power-cycle put ALL EIGHT
cilium-l2announce-* leases on k3s-prod-1, and the prediction failed.

Measured 2026-10-17 from the wireguard pod's host netns on each node: the holder
reaches 192.168.2.20/.22/.23/.24 normally (curl 200 in 18ms on .20) while its
ip neigh for every one of them sits at FAILED. The asserted cause is present
without the asserted effect, which falsifies it. .21 (unifi) fails from all three
nodes and is a separate pre-existing fault.

It is inert because no path resolves a VIP by ARP: cilium-dbg reports
KubeProxyReplacement on [eno1, wg0] and programs 192.168.2.20:443 =>
127.0.0.1:13606, so VIPs are DNAT'd in BPF before any neighbour lookup, on the
forwarded path as well as the host one.

Both probes behind the original diagnosis were bad. `ip neigh` FAILED is
permanent and harmless, and a ping artefact. `curl --interface wg0` — the control
used to rule out a host-netns artefact — fails on all three nodes, including ones
whose ARP resolves, so it discriminates nothing. The deeper error: a MASQUERADEd
client is FORWARDED while every pod-runnable probe is socket-originated. Sharing
a netns is not sharing a hook.

Reverted the policy nodeSelector, the Ansible node label, both alerts, their
promtool tests and the kube-state-metrics allowlist entry. Kept documentation
only: the measurements, which probes lie, and the fact that the forwarded path
remains unmeasured without a connected client.

Also recorded, for the reported "LAN and cluster work, internet does not":
new-peer.sh has emitted a FULL tunnel (0.0.0.0/0) by default since f92707f, so
there is no full-tunnel option to add and no code change is made. The server side
is capable — ip_forward=1, the 10.90.0.0/24 MASQUERADE present with an empty
CILIUM_POST_nat ahead of it, FORWARD accepts, default route intact, nodes reach
1.1.1.1. A full tunnel egresses the HOUSE WAN, not PIA: the egress policy selects
pods by egress-class=vpn, this pod is labelled internet, and tun0 exists on
k3s-prod-3 only. Root cause NOT found; no client has connected since the
power-cycle (0 forwarded packets, no handshake), so it is not reproducible here.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-17 23:58:40 -05:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 4656b07178 fix(vpn-ingress): the VPN ingress node must announce no L2 VIPs, or clients route nothing
A node cannot reach a LoadBalancer VIP whose Cilium L2 announcement lease it
holds itself: the announcer does not answer its own ARP request, so on the
lease holder the neighbour entry settles at FAILED and packets to that VIP die
before leaving the node. Measured on prod 2026-10-08, symmetric across 3 nodes
x 5 VIPs -- each node reached every VIP EXCEPT the ones it alone announced.

platform/vpn-ingress is uniquely exposed: it runs WireGuard on hostNetwork and
MASQUERADEs remote clients to the node's own address, so a VPN client takes
the node's LAN path and inherits its ARP failures. The router's udp/51820
forward pointed at k3s-prod-1, which held the shared Gateway lease, so all 16
Gateway hostnames were dead over the VPN -- while PiHole DNS kept answering
(its VIP has two Services and k3s-prod-2 held the other lease). The tunnel
handshook, names resolved, every app hung, and nothing reported it.

  on k3s-prod-1:  ip neigh show 192.168.2.20 -> FAILED      (its own VIP)
  on prod-2/3:    ip neigh show 192.168.2.20 -> lladdr ...  (prod-1), 443 OK

Mark the node and exclude it from announcing:

* node_baseline labels the forwarded node (node_baseline_vpn_ingress_node,
  k3s-prod-1 on prod) homelab.keithjackson.dev/vpn-ingress=true, and removes
  the label from any node that no longer matches so moving it MOVES the label.
* l2-announcement-policy.yaml excludes that label, so the node ARP-resolves
  every VIP. Fixes all VIPs for VPN clients, not just the one that collided.
  Cost: announcement candidacy drops from 3 nodes to 2.
* VpnIngressNodeAnnouncesL2VIP joins kube_lease_owner against kube_node_labels
  (label added to the kube-state-metrics allowlist), with
  VpnIngressNodeLabelMissing as its watchdog -- NotIn on an absent key matches,
  so a missing label would silently re-arm the whole failure AND leave the
  critical alert inert. Four promtool cases, including that inertness.

A node LABEL rather than a cluster-vars knob because the alert must read it
too, and extract_rules.py rightly refuses a ${...} placeholder in an alert
expr -- the rule unit-tested would not be the rule deployed. One source of
truth, and it touches no sensitive path.

Runbook/docs: step 3 of vpn-remote-access.md said "pick any node" and
"failover is this one line". Both false; the first caused this.

UNAPPLIED and unproven end to end; the Ansible tasks have never run. See the
handoff entry's third section.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-17 23:42:25 -05:00
jakman85 1a0b20857a Merge pull request 'fix(oauth2-proxy): gate startup on Keycloak discovery, or a cold boot CrashLoops the proxy' (#70) from fix/oauth2-proxy-oidc-startup-race into main
gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m52s
gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped
Reviewed-on: #70
2026-10-18 04:14:52 +00:00
jakman85andClaude Opus 5 c150327a30 fix(oauth2-proxy): gate startup on Keycloak discovery, or a cold boot CrashLoops the proxy
gate / gate (pull_request) Successful in 1m53s
gate / conformance (pull_request) Has been skipped
Exposed by the 2026-10-17 whole-cluster shutdown. oauth2-proxy performs OIDC
discovery ONCE at startup and exits 1 if it fails. On a cold boot Keycloak is
not serving yet, the shared Gateway answers 503, and the proxy dies:

  [provider.go:55] Performing OIDC Discovery...
  [main.go:73] ERROR: Failed to initialise OAuth2 Proxy: ... failed to discover
               OIDC configuration: unexpected status "503": no healthy upstream

It then sits in exponential CrashLoopBackOff long after Keycloak is healthy --
one replica was still down minutes later and only a manual pod delete cleared
it. There is no retry flag, a readinessProbe cannot help (the container is
already dead), and CrashLoopBackOff backoff is not tunable per-pod.

Add an extraInitContainers gate (wait-for-idp) that polls the discovery doc
until it answers. A pod in Init accrues no CrashLoopBackOff backoff and retries
promptly. BOUNDED and FAILS OPEN: after ~5m it starts the proxy anyway, so the
worst case is exactly today's behaviour and never something new.

extraInitContainers is the chart's OWN hook for this -- its commented example is
literally `- name: wait-for-idp` -- and the key was CONFIRMED against the pinned
chart (helm show values, 10.7.1) rather than assumed, because a wrong Helm values
key is silently ignored. No new base image: the chart already runs an alpine init
container for its built-in waitForRedis gate; pinned to 3.22 (verified upstream)
rather than the chart's `latest`.

Rejected: Flux postRenderers (no precedent in this tree, and the chart has a
hook); --skip-oidc-discovery (removes the fetch entirely, but needs four
hardcoded endpoints and I could not verify lazy-JWKS offline -- this component
gates SSO for seven apps, so the additive option wins).

Shell vars are written BARE with no braced form: platform declares
postBuild.substituteFrom, and envsubst would blank a braced shell variable and
silently break the loop. Same convention as the gitea/nextcloud OIDC hooks.

UNAPPLIED; the init container has never run, and the race was not re-created to
prove the fix. Check the init container's log on first apply. See the handoff.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-17 22:47:30 -05:00
jakman85 9a41a8e1e5 Merge pull request 'Expand plex volume' (#68) from plex/volume-expamsion into main
gate / gate (push) Successful in 1m53s
gate / conformance (push) Has been skipped
Reviewed-on: #68
2026-10-10 16:13:46 +00:00
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@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
---
date: 2026-10-17
branch: fix/oauth2-proxy-oidc-startup-race
title: "oauth2-proxy dies on a cold start because OIDC discovery runs once, before Keycloak serves"
---
## What changed
Exposed by the 2026-10-17 whole-cluster shutdown for the UPS move. oauth2-proxy performs OIDC
discovery **once, at startup**, and `os.Exit(1)`s if it fails. On a cold boot Keycloak is not
serving yet, so the shared Gateway answers 503 and the proxy dies:
```
[provider.go:55] Performing OIDC Discovery...
[main.go:73] ERROR: Failed to initialise OAuth2 Proxy: error initialising provider: ...
failed to discover OIDC configuration: unexpected status "503": no healthy upstream
```
It then sits in **exponential CrashLoopBackOff long after Keycloak is healthy** — one of the two
replicas was still down minutes later and only a manual `kubectl delete pod` cleared it. There is no
retry flag; the process does not survive a cold start. A readinessProbe cannot help (the container
is already dead), and CrashLoopBackOff backoff is not tunable per-pod.
`platform/oauth2-proxy/helmrelease.yaml` gains an `extraInitContainers` gate (`wait-for-idp`) that
polls Keycloak's discovery doc until it answers, then lets the proxy start. A pod in `Init` does not
accrue CrashLoopBackOff backoff and retries promptly, which is the point.
**Bounded, and fails open.** After ~5 minutes it gives up and starts the proxy anyway, so the worst
case is exactly today's behaviour and never something new. An unbounded wait would trade a CrashLoop
for a pod wedged in `Init` forever, which is not an improvement.
## Why this shape and not the alternatives
* **`extraInitContainers` is the chart's own documented hook for precisely this.** Its commented
example in `values.yaml` is literally `- name: wait-for-idp`. The key was **confirmed against the
pinned chart** (`helm show values oauth2-proxy/oauth2-proxy --version 10.7.1` → `extraInitContainers: []`
at line 428), not assumed — a wrong Helm values key is silently ignored, which is the
"reviewed, merged, apparently done, still broken" shape this repo keeps getting bitten by.
* **No new base image.** The chart already runs an `alpine` init container for its built-in
`initContainers.waitForRedis` gate, so alpine is a base this chart uses regardless. Pinned to
`3.22` (verified to exist upstream) rather than the chart's own `latest`.
* **Flux `postRenderers` rejected:** it would work independently of the chart schema, but nothing in
this tree uses postRenderers, so it would introduce a mechanism with no precedent for a problem
the chart already has a hook for.
* **`--skip-oidc-discovery` rejected:** it removes the startup fetch entirely, which is arguably
more elegant, but it means hardcoding four Keycloak endpoints and I could not verify offline that
oauth2-proxy then fetches JWKS lazily rather than at startup. oauth2-proxy gates SSO for PiHole,
the \*arr apps, qBittorrent, Homepage, Prometheus, Alertmanager and Hubble — a wrong guess locks
the operator out of all of them, so the reversible, additive option wins.
The `$$`-free convention matters here: shell variables are written bare (`$i`, `$url`, `$(( ))`)
with **no braced form anywhere**, because `platform` declares `postBuild.substituteFrom cluster-vars`
and envsubst consumes braced expansions — a braced shell variable renders to the empty string and
silently breaks the loop. `${BASE_DOMAIN}` is braced on purpose. Same hazard and same convention as
the gitea and nextcloud OIDC bootstrap hooks, and `ci: flux-postbuild-substitution` enforces it.
## What I verified
* **The failure is measured, not theorised.** The log above is from the live pod
(`oauth2-proxy-5d6c74876b-bzb2p`, `lastState.terminated: {reason: Error, exitCode: 1}`), captured
with `--previous` after the cold boot. The surviving replica's log shows the same startup
succeeding once Keycloak was up, which is what identifies this as a race rather than a config
fault.
* **Deleting the pod is a sufficient workaround** — done on prod 2026-10-17, the replacement came up
clean and both replicas have been healthy since.
* **The chart key is real**, at the pinned version range: `helm search repo` resolves
`>=10.0.0 <11.0.0` to chart `10.7.1` (app `7.15.5`), whose values carry `extraInitContainers: []`,
`extraContainers: []` and the built-in `initContainers.waitForRedis` (which uses `alpine`).
* **`docker.io/library/alpine:3.22` exists** — confirmed against the registry tag list rather than
assumed from memory.
* The edited HelmRelease parses as YAML.
## What I did NOT verify
* **UNAPPLIED. The init container has never run.** I did not reconcile the HelmRelease, so I have not
seen `wait-for-idp` execute, exit 0, or gate the proxy. Applying it rolls both oauth2-proxy
replicas, which is a mutating action (CLAUDE.md §5) — and it rolls the component that gates SSO for
seven apps, so **do it when you can watch it**, not unattended.
* **I did not re-create the cold-start race to prove the fix.** That needs Keycloak down while
oauth2-proxy starts; the honest test is the next whole-cluster boot. Until then this is reasoned
from the measured failure, not demonstrated against it.
* **busybox `wget`'s TLS behaviour here is assumed, not tested.** The claim is that alpine's
`ca-certificates-bundle` lets it validate the Gateway's LE-prod certificate, so a genuine TLS
failure exits non-zero rather than passing falsely. If that is wrong in either direction the gate
degrades safely — a never-succeeding probe just burns the 5-minute budget and then starts the proxy
anyway — but the fast path would be silently dead and this would be doing nothing. **Check the
init container's log on first apply**: it should print "Keycloak discovery reachable" within
seconds on a warm cluster, not the give-up message.
* **Whether a pod can reach the Gateway hostname at all from this namespace is inherited, not
re-proven.** The main container does exactly this fetch today and succeeds, so the path is known
good — but note the standing trap that an arbitrary pod gets 403 from every Gateway hostname
(`decisions/2026-10-04-plex-advertise-plexdirect.md`); oauth2-proxy is exempt only because
Keycloak's ingress policy admits it. An init container in the same pod inherits that identity, so
this should hold — unverified.
* **60 attempts x 5s is not tuned.** It is "comfortably longer than Keycloak's observed cold start",
not a measured bound.
* **No runtime conformance.** `vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` is unset, so CI proves the L0/L1 offline
subset only.
* I did not re-measure branch protection or runner state (CLAUDE.md §2b).
@@ -0,0 +1,198 @@
---
date: 2026-10-17
branch: fix/vpn-ingress-l2-lease-collision
title: "WITHDRAWN: a node CAN reach a VIP it announces. My L2-lease diagnosis was wrong"
---
## What changed
**This branch previously proposed a fix. That fix has been reverted in full. The diagnosis behind it
was wrong.** What is left is documentation of what was actually measured, so the wrong conclusion is
not re-derived — it is very easy to re-derive from `ip neigh` alone.
### The claim, and how it died
The earlier version of this entry claimed: *a node cannot reach a LoadBalancer VIP whose Cilium L2
announcement lease it holds itself* — the announcer does not answer its own ARP request, the
neighbour entry settles at `FAILED`, and packets to that VIP die before leaving the node. Because
`platform/vpn-ingress` runs WireGuard on `hostNetwork` and MASQUERADEs remote clients to the node's
own address, a VPN client was said to inherit that. The fix labelled the forwarded node and excluded
that label from announcing, with two alerts and four promtool tests behind it.
The claim makes a sharp prediction. After today's UPS power-cycle **all eight** `cilium-l2announce-*`
leases are held by `k3s-prod-1` (gateway, pihole tcp+udp, crafty tcp+udp, unifi tcp+udp, plex) —
the extreme case. The prediction was therefore that `k3s-prod-1` should reach **none** of the five
VIPs and the other two nodes should reach **all**.
**The prediction failed.** Measured from the host netns of the `wireguard` pod on each node:
| | `k3s-prod-1` (holds all 8) | `k3s-prod-2` / `-3` (hold none) |
|---|---|---|
| `ip neigh show 192.168.2.20` | `FAILED`, no lladdr | `lladdr bc:e9:2f:7e:c4:a6 REACHABLE` |
| `curl -k https://192.168.2.20/` | **`200` in 18 ms** | `200` in 13–40 ms |
| `nc -z 192.168.2.20 443` | **OK** | OK |
| `192.168.2.22:25565`, `.23:53`, `.24:32400` | **all OK / `200`** | all OK / `200` |
| `192.168.2.21:8443` | FAIL | **FAIL** (both) |
The asserted **cause is still present** today — `FAILED` on the holder, for all five VIPs — while the
asserted **effect is absent**. That is sufficient to falsify the causal claim without having to
explain anything else. The ARP asymmetry is real and reproducible; it is also **inert**.
### Why it is inert
No traffic path resolves a LoadBalancer VIP by ARP:
* `cilium-dbg status --verbose` reports `KubeProxyReplacement: True [eno1 …, wg0 10.90.0.1]` and
`Masquerading: BPF [eno1, wg0]` (Cilium v1.20.1, TCX attach, tunnel/vxlan). Cilium's LB datapath
is attached to **`wg0` as well as `eno1`**, so a remote client's packet arriving on `wg0` for a VIP
is DNAT'd **in BPF, before any route or neighbour lookup for the VIP**.
* `cilium-dbg service list` programs `192.168.2.20:443 => 127.0.0.1:13606` — the shared Gateway's
backend is a **node-local** Envoy socket, so every node serves that VIP without a LAN packet.
* Host-originated traffic is socket-LB'd (`Socket LB: Enabled`, `bpf-lb-sock-hostns-only: true`),
which is why `curl` succeeds on the holder. Discriminator: a real service port connects while a
bogus one (`nc -z 192.168.2.20 9999`) fails, identically on all three nodes — service-aware DNAT,
not wire traffic.
### The two probes that misled me
Both were cited as evidence in the previous version of this entry.
* **`ip neigh` on its own.** `FAILED` on the holder is permanent and harmless, and is also a probing
artefact: VIPs answer no ICMP, so a `ping` leaves a failed entry whether or not anything is wrong.
* **`curl --interface wg0`.** The previous entry used this as the control that ruled out a
host-netns artefact. It is not a control: it fails (`rc=28`) from **all three** nodes, including
the two whose ARP for the VIP resolves perfectly. It is uncorrelated with lease holding, so it
discriminates nothing.
**The deeper error:** a MASQUERADEd client's packets are **forwarded** (netfilter `FORWARD`, then
routing); everything runnable from the pod is **socket-originated**. Different hooks. A host-netns
probe cannot measure the forwarded path in either direction — it reports success where the forwarded
path might fail, and `--interface wg0` reports failure where it does not. Sharing a netns is not
sharing a hook, and that is the assumption the original diagnosis rested on.
### Files
Reverted to `origin/main`: `platform-config/cilium/l2-announcement-policy.yaml`,
`infra/ansible/roles/node_baseline/{defaults,tasks}/main.yml`,
`infra/ansible/inventory/group_vars/k3s_prod/vars.yml`, `platform/monitoring/alerts.yaml`,
`platform/monitoring/kube-prometheus-stack.yaml`, `runbooks/kustomization.yaml`. Deleted:
`platform/monitoring/tests/vpn-ingress-l2.test.yaml`, `runbooks/vpn-ingress-l2-collision.md`.
Kept, rewritten from scratch:
* **`platform/vpn-ingress/README.md`** — two measured sections: the L2 table above with why it is
inert and which probes lie, and the internet-egress facts below.
* **`runbooks/vpn-remote-access.md`** — a triage section for the reported symptom ("LAN and cluster
work, internet does not") that works outwards from the client profile, and a short section saying
the L2 lease is a dead end, with the unifi `.21` note.
**Nothing in `platform/vpn-ingress` or `infra/vpn-ingress` changed behaviourally. No code fix is
proposed by this branch any more.**
### The internet-routing report: no server-side fix was needed, and none was made
The brief's prior was that `new-peer.sh` renders a split tunnel and that the operator wants a full
one, to be added as a documented option. **That prior does not match the tree.** `new-peer.sh` has
emitted `AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0` **by default since the component's first commit** (`f92707f`,
2026-10-05, confirmed with `git log -S`); `--split` is the opt-in, and
`runbooks/vpn-remote-access.md:252-253` already documents both forms. So there is no full-tunnel
feature to add, and adding a `WG_FULL_TUNNEL` knob would be a second switch for a default that
already exists. **I deliberately shipped no code change here** — writing one would have meant
inventing a fix for a symptom I could not reproduce (see below).
The server side was measured end to end and is capable and correct, so the cause is in the client
profile or the client. The triage section names the two candidates that fit the symptom exactly —
a `--split` profile, and the IPv4-only `AllowedIPs` letting a dual-stack client prefer AAAA and
leak public traffic outside the tunnel — each with a one-line test that settles it.
## What I verified
Measured live against prod, `kubectl --context k3s-prod --request-timeout=15s`, read-only, on
2026-10-17:
* **The lease distribution.** All eight `cilium-l2announce-*` leases held by `k3s-prod-1`
(`.spec.holderIdentity`). The brief's observation reproduced; it had not moved again.
* **The falsification, in full**, as tabulated above: 3 nodes x 5 VIPs, `ip neigh` + `nc -z` + a
real `curl` for each. The holder reaches four of five VIPs; `.21` fails from everywhere.
* **The socket-LB discriminator.** Real service port OK, bogus port FAIL, identically on all three
nodes — so the successes are service-aware DNAT, not wire delivery.
* **`curl --interface wg0` fails on all three nodes**, including non-announcing ones with
`REACHABLE` neighbour entries. This is the measurement that destroys the original control.
* **The datapath facts** quoted above from `cilium-dbg status --verbose` and
`cilium-dbg service list` on `cilium-55jv8` (`k3s-prod-1`), plus `cilium-config`:
`kube-proxy-replacement=true`, `enable-l2-announcements=true`, `enable-bpf-masquerade=true`,
`routing-mode=tunnel`, `devices=` (empty, auto-detected). Cilium `v1.20.1` on all three.
* **The VIP is not a local address and routes on-link.** `ip route get 192.168.2.20` →
`dev eno1 src 192.168.2.10` on the holder; nothing in `table local`; `ip -4 addr` shows no VIP.
So the 200 is not loopback delivery by the host stack — it is BPF.
* **The internet path, server side, on all three nodes:** `/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward` = `1`
(read, never written); `iptables -t nat -S POSTROUTING` carries
`-s 10.90.0.0/24 ! -o wg0 -j MASQUERADE`; the preceding `CILIUM_POST_nat` chain is **empty with 0
packets**, so it cannot short-circuit that rule; `FORWARD -i wg0` and `-o wg0` ACCEPT both
present; `default via 192.168.2.1 dev eno1 onlink` intact; `ip route get 1.1.1.1` resolves via it;
`curl http://1.1.1.1/` returns `301` from each node.
* **The PIA / egress-gateway answer.** `platform/vpn-egress/egress-steering.yaml` selects by
`podSelector` on `egress-class: vpn`; `platform/vpn-ingress/daemonset.yaml:130` labels this pod
`egress-class: internet`; `tun0` exists on **`k3s-prod-3` only** (`10.150.192.3/18`), absent on
`-1` and `-2`. So a full tunnel egresses the **house WAN**, and a client's apparent address is the
home WAN IP, not PIA's.
* **PiHole resolves public names** — `nslookup google.com 192.168.2.23` from the pod returned
`142.250.113.138`.
* **No client is connected, and none has been since the power-cycle.** `wg show wg0` lists the one
enrolled peer (`10.90.0.2/32`) with **no endpoint and no handshake** on all three nodes, and both
`FORWARD -i wg0` and the `MASQUERADE` rule read **0 packets / 0 bytes** on all three. The
`wireguard` pods restarted 153 min ago (2 restarts, 11d old), which reset the counters.
* **The full-tunnel default's age**, from `git log -S` on `new-peer.sh`: introduced in `f92707f`
(2026-10-05) and never changed.
* **The branch rebased cleanly** onto `origin/main` (`1a0b208`, PR #70 merged) with no conflicts.
## What I did NOT verify
* **THE FORWARDED PATH IS STILL UNMEASURED, in both directions.** No client is connected, so I could
not test what a real remote client does, and — as established above — **no probe runnable from the
pod can substitute for it**. Specifically I did **not** prove that a forwarded client packet to a
VIP is DNAT'd by Cilium's `wg0` program. That inference rests on `cilium-dbg` listing `wg0` as a
LB device plus the node-local Gateway backend, not on an observed client packet. **It is the one
remaining way the withdrawn diagnosis could be partly right** — if `wg0` BPF were somehow not in
the forwarded path, forwarded traffic would need ARP and would die on the holder. I judge this
unlikely but it is unproven. *To close it: connect a client, then from the node whose `wg show`
shows the peer endpoint, watch `FORWARD -i wg0` and the `MASQUERADE` counters move while the
client loads a cluster app — and repeat it on a node that holds leases and one that does not.*
* **WHICH NODE THE ROUTER FORWARDS `udp/51820` TO IS UNDETERMINABLE RIGHT NOW**, for the same
reason. **I need a client connected** to learn it; the router is unreadable from the cluster.
* **I cannot reproduce or explain the 2026-10-08 measurements.** That entry recorded `nc -z` TCP
failures correlated with lease holding across 15 node x VIP pairs. Today the same test passes.
My leading hypothesis is **stale or incorrectly-programmed BPF LB state on `k3s-prod-1`**,
rebuilt by today's full power-cycle — which would make the lease correlation coincidental. A
competing hypothesis is that Cilium had not auto-detected `wg0` then (`devices` is empty, and
`wg0` is created by this DaemonSet after Cilium starts). **Both are unproven, and neither is
needed for the falsification** — the asserted cause is present today without its effect. I did not
retro-measure anything, and I did not read Cilium's source or issue tracker.
* **The operator's report cannot be a description of "right now."** No client has connected since
the power-cycle (0 forwarded packets, no handshake on any node), so "clients can reach cluster
services and the LAN but not the internet" must describe a session before the power-cycle or one
that has since dropped. **I did not establish when it was observed, or with which profile.**
* **THE INTERNET ROOT CAUSE IS NOT DIAGNOSED.** I proved the server side is *capable*; I did **not**
find the fault, and I shipped no fix for it. The two candidates in the triage section (a
`--split` profile; IPv6 preference leaking outside an IPv4-only `AllowedIPs`) are **reasoned, not
measured**. *What I need:* the `AllowedIPs` line from the client's own profile — that one line
decides split vs full and halves the search — and a connected client for step 2.
* **Whether `--split` was in fact used for the enrolled peer.** The profile holds a private key and
lives only on the operator's machine and the device; it is not in the repo, and I did not look for
it. Server-side `AllowedIPs` is a `/32` source filter and says nothing about the client's routing.
* **Whether `MTU = 1420` holds on a full-tunnel WAN path.** Not measured, and not measurable without
a client. It is the standard 1500 − 60; a client behind PPPoE or CGNAT with a smaller path MTU
would see large transfers hang while small requests succeed. The runbook's existing MTU note
(drop to 1280) already covers the remedy.
* **Adding `::/0` to `AllowedIPs` is untested advice.** The triage section offers it to blackhole
IPv6 rather than leak it, and states that the tunnel has no IPv6 egress. I did not try it on a
client, and I do not know how each WireGuard client behaves when handed an IPv6 route on an
interface with no IPv6 address.
* **`192.168.2.21:8443` (unifi) fails from all three nodes**, as it did on 2026-10-08 — a separate,
pre-existing fault. Not investigated, not addressed, and now recorded in the runbook as such.
* **No runtime conformance.** `vars.CLUSTER_AVAILABLE` is still unset, so the gate proves the L0/L1
offline subset only. Nothing above is covered by a test that runs in CI.
* **Nothing was applied, and nothing needs to be.** The branch is now documentation-only, so there
is no Flux reconcile, Ansible run or `kubectl` step to perform after merge. I ran no mutating
`kubectl`, `flux` or Ansible, and did not run `new-peer.sh` (it mints key material).
* I did not re-measure branch protection, runner state, or any other platform claim (CLAUDE.md §2b).
+69
View File
@@ -63,6 +63,75 @@ spec:
# gets oauth2-proxy's HTML sign-in page (HTTP 403) instead of an immediate redirect (docs/15 UX).
skip-provider-button: "true"
scope: "openid email profile"
# ── Cold-start gate: do not start the proxy until Keycloak's discovery doc answers ──────────
# MEASURED on prod 2026-10-17, during the UPS move: oauth2-proxy performs OIDC discovery ONCE at
# startup and EXITS 1 if it fails. On a whole-cluster cold boot Keycloak is not serving yet, so
# the Gateway answers 503 and the proxy dies:
#
# [provider.go:55] Performing OIDC Discovery...
# [main.go:73] ERROR: Failed to initialise OAuth2 Proxy: ... failed to discover OIDC
# configuration: unexpected status "503": no healthy upstream
#
# It then sits in exponential CrashLoopBackOff long after Keycloak is healthy -- one replica was
# still down minutes later and only a manual pod delete cleared it. There is no retry flag; the
# process simply does not survive a cold start. A readinessProbe cannot help (the container is
# already dead), and CrashLoopBackOff backoff is not tunable per-pod.
#
# `extraInitContainers` is the chart's OWN documented hook for this -- its commented example in
# values.yaml is literally `- name: wait-for-idp` -- and the chart already uses an alpine init
# container for its built-in waitForRedis gate, so this adds no new base image to the platform.
# A pod in Init does not accrue CrashLoopBackOff backoff and retries promptly, which is the whole
# point.
#
# BOUNDED, AND FAILS OPEN. After ~5 minutes it gives up and starts the proxy anyway: the worst
# case is then exactly today's behaviour, never something new. An unbounded wait would trade a
# CrashLoop for a pod wedged in Init forever, which is not an improvement.
#
# SHELL VARIABLES ARE WRITTEN BARE ($i, $url, $(( ))), WITH NO BRACED FORM ANYWHERE. This file is
# rendered through Flux envsubst (platform declares postBuild.substituteFrom cluster-vars), which
# CONSUMES braced expansions -- so a braced shell variable renders to the empty string and
# silently breaks the loop. BASE_DOMAIN below is braced ON PURPOSE: it is a real cluster-vars
# knob and must be substituted. Same hazard, and the same convention, as the gitea and nextcloud
# OIDC bootstrap hooks. (ci: flux-postbuild-substitution enforces it.)
extraInitContainers:
- name: wait-for-idp
image: docker.io/library/alpine:3.22
imagePullPolicy: IfNotPresent
command: ["/bin/sh", "-c"]
args:
- |
set -u
url=https://keycloak.${BASE_DOMAIN}/realms/homelab/.well-known/openid-configuration
i=0
while [ "$i" -lt 60 ]; do
# busybox wget validates against alpine's ca-certificates-bundle, so a real TLS
# failure is a non-zero exit here rather than a false pass.
if wget -q -O /dev/null --timeout=5 "$url" 2>/dev/null; then
echo "[wait-for-idp] Keycloak discovery reachable; starting oauth2-proxy"
exit 0
fi
i=$(( i + 1 ))
sleep 5
done
echo "[wait-for-idp] discovery still unreachable after ~5m; starting anyway so this" >&2
echo "[wait-for-idp] gate can never be worse than the un-gated behaviour it replaces" >&2
exit 0
securityContext:
allowPrivilegeEscalation: false
runAsNonRoot: true
runAsUser: 65534
runAsGroup: 65534
readOnlyRootFilesystem: true
capabilities:
drop:
- ALL
resources:
requests:
cpu: 10m
memory: 16Mi
limits:
memory: 32Mi
# Metrics for the ServiceMonitor (../oauth2-proxy servicemonitor in platform-config).
metrics:
enabled: true
+80
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@@ -186,6 +186,86 @@ right way; one was a defect in my own manifest.
| Is the image's **iptables** backend compatible with the host's? | **Yes — both nft.** The image ships `iptables v1.8.13 (nf_tables)` via `xtables-nft-multi`, and Debian 13 is nf_tables. This was the documented worst fear (rules silently landing in a table the kernel does not consult); it is closed. |
| Can the pod set **`net.ipv4.ip_forward`**? | **No, and it must not try.** `/proc/sys` is mounted **read-only** under `hostNetwork` (`proc /proc/sys proc ro,…`), because those are the host's globals; `sysctl -w` fails with EPERM whatever the capabilities. A failed `PostUp` is fatal to `wg-quick`, so this one line took the whole tunnel down. The node already has it set to `1`; the init container now **verifies** rather than writes. |
## Measured on prod, 2026-10-17 — L2 announcement does NOT affect what a client can reach
A change was proposed (PR #69) on the belief that **a node cannot reach a LoadBalancer VIP whose
Cilium L2 announcement lease it holds**, and that the VPN node therefore had to be excluded from
announcing. **That belief is wrong, and the change was withdrawn.** The half of it that is true is
real but inert, and the distinction matters enough to record, because the wrong version is very
easy to re-derive from `ip neigh` alone.
Measured with all **eight** `cilium-l2announce-*` leases held by `k3s-prod-1` — the extreme case,
after the UPS power-cycle — from the host netns of the `wireguard` pod on each node:
| | `k3s-prod-1` (holds all 8) | `k3s-prod-2` / `-3` (hold none) |
|---|---|---|
| `ip neigh show 192.168.2.20` | `FAILED` (no lladdr) | `lladdr bc:e9:2f:7e:c4:a6 REACHABLE` |
| `curl -k https://192.168.2.20/` | **`200`, 18 ms** | `200`, 13–40 ms |
| `nc -z 192.168.2.20 443` | **OK** | OK |
| plex `192.168.2.24:32400` | **`200`** | `200` |
So the announcer really does **not** answer its own ARP request — that part of the observation is
reproducible. It changes nothing, because **no traffic path resolves a LoadBalancer VIP by ARP**:
* `cilium-dbg status --verbose` reports `KubeProxyReplacement: True [eno1 …, wg0 10.90.0.1]` and
`Masquerading: BPF [eno1, wg0]`. Cilium's LB datapath is attached to **`wg0` as well as `eno1`**,
so a remote client's packet arriving on `wg0` for a VIP is DNAT'd to a backend **in BPF, before
any route or neighbour lookup for the VIP happens**.
* `cilium-dbg service list` on `k3s-prod-1` programs `192.168.2.20:443 => 127.0.0.1:13606` — the
shared Gateway's backend is a **node-local** Envoy socket. Every node can serve that VIP without
a packet crossing the LAN at all.
* Host-originated traffic is socket-LB'd (`Socket LB: Enabled`, `bpf-lb-sock-hostns-only: true`),
which is why `curl` succeeds on the lease holder despite `FAILED`. The discriminator: a **real**
service port connects, a **bogus** one (`nc -z 192.168.2.20 9999`) fails, on all three nodes —
that is service-aware DNAT, not wire traffic.
**Two tests that look like proof and are not.** Both were used to support the withdrawn diagnosis:
* **`ip neigh` on its own.** `FAILED` on the holder is permanent and harmless. It is also an
artefact of probing: VIPs answer no ICMP, so a `ping` leaves a failed entry behind whether or not
anything is wrong.
* **`curl --interface wg0`.** This fails (`rc=28`, timeout) from **all three** nodes, including the
two whose ARP for the VIP resolves perfectly. It is not correlated with lease holding, so it
discriminates nothing — and it is not the client path either (see below).
**Why neither probe can see the client path.** A MASQUERADEd remote client's packets are
**forwarded** — netfilter `FORWARD`, then routing — whereas everything runnable from the pod is
**socket-originated**. The two traverse different hooks, so a host-netns probe cannot measure the
forwarded path in either direction: it reports success where the forwarded path might fail, and
`--interface wg0` reports failure where it does not. **The forwarded path can only be measured with
a client actually connected**, by watching the `FORWARD -i wg0` and `POSTROUTING … MASQUERADE`
counters move.
## Measured on prod, 2026-10-17 — where a full tunnel's internet traffic actually egresses
`new-peer.sh` has emitted a **full tunnel** (`AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0`) **by default since the
component's first commit**; `--split` is the opt-in for LAN-only. There is no full-tunnel feature
to add. The server side was checked end to end and is **capable and correct** — if a full-tunnel
client cannot reach the internet, nothing in the list below is the reason:
| checked | result on all three nodes |
|---|---|
| `net.ipv4.ip_forward` (read from `/proc/sys`, never written) | `1` |
| `iptables -t nat -S POSTROUTING` | carries `-s 10.90.0.0/24 ! -o wg0 -j MASQUERADE` — NATs to **any** outbound interface, so internet NAT needs no change |
| `CILIUM_POST_nat`, which precedes it in the chain | **empty, 0 packets** — it cannot short-circuit the MASQUERADE |
| `iptables -L FORWARD` | `-i wg0` and `-o wg0` ACCEPT both present |
| default route | `default via 192.168.2.1 dev eno1 onlink`, intact |
| node's own internet reachability | `http://1.1.1.1/` returns `301` |
**A full tunnel egresses the HOUSE WAN, not PIA.** This was the trap worth checking, and it is
closed: `platform/vpn-egress/egress-steering.yaml`'s `CiliumEgressGatewayPolicy` selects by
`podSelector` on `egress-class: vpn`, and this DaemonSet is deliberately labelled
`egress-class: internet`, so it is not selected. Forwarded `wg0` traffic is not pod-identity
traffic at all, and `tun0` exists on **`k3s-prod-3` only** (`10.150.192.3/18`) — the egress-gateway
node. A remote client's apparent public address is therefore the **home WAN IP**, which is the
intended behaviour and the thing to state when enrolling a device.
**Not measurable without a connected client.** At the time of writing `wg show wg0` listed the one
enrolled peer with **no endpoint and no handshake** on every node, and both the `FORWARD -i wg0` and
the `MASQUERADE` counters read **0 packets** — so no client traffic had been forwarded since the
power-cycle, and which node the router forwards `udp/51820` to was **undeterminable**. Only the
forwarded node shows a peer with an `endpoint` and a recent `latest handshake`.
## Prerequisites outside this directory
1. **The `wireguard` kernel module on every node.** Added to `node_baseline_kernel_modules`
+78
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@@ -273,6 +273,84 @@ bytes of WireGuard encapsulation); drop the client to `1280` and re-test.
by design. Work inwards: `wg show` on the node holding the forward will show *zero* received bytes
if the router is not delivering the packets, and a `handshake` with no completed session if it is.
## Triage — "the client reaches the LAN and cluster apps, but not the internet"
Reported 2026-10-17. Work **outwards from the client profile**, because that is where this symptom
almost always lives, and because the server side has been measured and is not the cause.
**1. Read `AllowedIPs` in the client's own `[Peer]` stanza. This one line settles it.**
| the profile says | meaning |
|---|---|
| `0.0.0.0/0` | **full tunnel** — the default. Internet *should* be carried. Go to step 2. |
| `192.168.2.0/24, 10.90.0.0/24` | **split tunnel** — `--split` was passed, or the profile predates the script. Internet never enters the tunnel **by design**; it uses the device's own uplink, and if that is broken the VPN cannot fix it. Re-render without `--split` to change it. |
`new-peer.sh` emits a full tunnel **by default** and has since the component's first commit —
`--split` is the opt-in. There is no server-side switch for this: **it is a property of the client
profile only**, so an already-issued profile keeps whatever it was rendered with until it is
re-rendered and re-imported on the device. The two forms differ by one flag:
```bash
./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c './infra/vpn-ingress/new-peer.sh <name> <octet>' # full tunnel
./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c './infra/vpn-ingress/new-peer.sh <name> <octet> --split' # LAN only
```
Re-rendering mints a **new keypair**, so it also needs the new `[Peer]` stanza PR'd into
`peers.conf` and the old one deleted. Changing an existing device in place, without new keys, is
editing `AllowedIPs` in the profile **on the device** — the server does not care.
**2. If it is a full tunnel, prove the client traffic is reaching the node at all.** Have the
client connected, then watch the two counters that only forwarded traffic moves:
```bash
./infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
'kubectl --context k3s-prod -n vpn-ingress exec ds/wireguard -- sh -c "
wg show wg0 endpoints; iptables -L FORWARD -n -v | head -5;
iptables -t nat -L POSTROUTING -n -v | head -5"'
```
* Only the **forwarded node** shows a peer with an `endpoint`; that is the only way to learn which
node the router's `udp/51820` forward points at (the router is unreadable from the cluster).
* `FORWARD -i wg0` at **0 packets** on every node means nothing is arriving — the problem is
upstream of the cluster (router forward, client, or carrier), not here.
* `FORWARD -i wg0` moving while `POSTROUTING … MASQUERADE` stays at **0** is the one server-side
failure this symptom could have: un-SNATed `10.90.0.x` packets reach the router and die there,
which breaks internet while node-local cluster VIPs still work. It has not been observed.
**3. Suspect DNS and address family before suspecting routing.** Both fit this symptom exactly:
* **IPv6.** `AllowedIPs = 0.0.0.0/0` carries **IPv4 only** (see Known limitations). A dual-stack
client resolving a public name gets an AAAA, prefers IPv6, and sends it **outside** the tunnel —
so LAN and cluster names (IPv4/RFC1918) work while public sites hang. Test by forcing IPv4:
`curl -4 https://example.com` from the client. If `-4` works and plain `curl` hangs, this is it,
and the fix is on the client (disable IPv6 on the tunnel, or add `::/0` to `AllowedIPs` so it is
blackholed rather than leaked — note the tunnel has **no** IPv6 egress, so that blackholes it).
* **PiHole.** The profile sets `DNS = 192.168.2.23`. It does resolve public names — verified
2026-10-17, `google.com` answered from inside the cluster — but it is also an ad-blocker, so a
blocked name is indistinguishable from "no internet" on one site. Test a name you know is not on
a blocklist, and compare against `curl https://1.1.1.1/` by **IP**, which needs no DNS at all.
**4. What is NOT the cause.** Measured 2026-10-17, all three nodes: `ip_forward=1`; the
`-s 10.90.0.0/24 ! -o wg0 -j MASQUERADE` rule present, with the preceding `CILIUM_POST_nat` chain
**empty** so it cannot short-circuit it; `FORWARD -i/-o wg0` ACCEPT present; the default route
`via 192.168.2.1 dev eno1` intact; and the nodes themselves reaching `1.1.1.1`. Also **not** the
PIA egress gateway: it selects pods by `egress-class: vpn`, this DaemonSet is labelled
`egress-class: internet`, and `tun0` exists on `k3s-prod-3` only — so a full tunnel egresses the
**house WAN** and the client's apparent address is the **home WAN IP** (check 4 in step 6).
## Triage — which L2 announcement lease a node holds does NOT matter
Do not spend time here. It was investigated at length (PR #69, withdrawn) on the belief that a node
could not reach a VIP it announced. Measured 2026-10-17 with **all eight** leases on `k3s-prod-1`:
that node reached `192.168.2.20`, `.22`, `.23` and `.24` normally. The lease holder's `ip neigh`
for its own VIP does sit at `FAILED` **permanently and harmlessly** — Cilium DNATs LoadBalancer
VIPs in BPF on both `eno1` and `wg0` before any neighbour lookup, and the shared Gateway's backend
is a node-local socket. Full measurements and the two misleading probes
(`ip neigh`, `curl --interface wg0`) are in `platform/vpn-ingress/README.md`.
`192.168.2.21` (unifi) fails from **all three** nodes, including ones whose ARP resolves. That is a
separate, pre-existing fault in that service and has nothing to do with the VPN.
## Revoking a device
Delete its `[Peer]` stanza from `peers.conf`, PR, merge. Nothing else — the key stops working on the