decisions/2026-10-03-node-keycloak-hosts-pin.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+---
+date: 2026-10-03
+branch: fix/node-keycloak-hosts-pin
+title: Pin the OIDC issuer to the Gateway VIP on prod nodes — the WAN answer does not hairpin
+---
+
+## What changed
+
+Follow-up to PR #40 (`decisions/2026-10-03-public-dns-wan-target.md`). Public DNS for
+`*.home.keithjackson.dev` now CNAMEs to the WAN IP. The prod nodes resolve through public DNS,
+and the router does not hairpin, so the kube-apiserver could no longer reach its OIDC issuer
+`keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev`.
+
+- `roles/node_baseline`: a new `node_baseline_hosts_pins` list (default `[]`) and one
+  `blockinfile` task (tags `dns`, `hosts`). It writes the pins into `/etc/hosts` as a single
+  marked block. An empty list removes the block.
+- `group_vars/k3s_prod/vars.yml`: pins `keycloak.{{ k3s_base_domain }}` → `192.168.2.20`, which
+  must stay equal to `GATEWAY_VIP` (parity comment added). It also replaces the stale "no
+  /etc/hosts pin is needed" paragraph with the measured reason the pin is now required.
+
+Dev is unaffected (empty default).
+
+## What I verified
+
+- After PR #40 reconciled (`platform` lastAppliedRevision `576e1ab`, Healthy=True), on
+  k3s-prod-2 and k3s-prod-3: `getent hosts keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev` →
+  `136.51.115.252 wan.home.keithjackson.dev`. `curl https://keycloak…/realms/homelab/.well-known/openid-configuration`
+  → exit 60, `ssl_verify_result=18` (the router's self-signed cert, not the Gateway).
+- `journalctl -u k3s` (last 20 min) showed no OIDC/JWKS errors yet. The apiserver still holds
+  the keys it cached before the flip, so the failure is latent until a k3s restart or key rotation.
+- Neither node has cloud-init (`/etc/cloud` absent), so nothing rewrites `/etc/hosts` at boot.
+- `--check --diff --tags hosts --limit k3s-prod-2,k3s-prod-3`: each node gets exactly the
+  three-line marked block `192.168.2.20	keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev`.
+- Outside-in, PR #40 works: check-host.net probes from 3 external nodes got `200 OK` from
+  `https://plex.home.keithjackson.dev/identity` at `136.51.115.252`.
+
+## What I did NOT verify
+
+- **k3s-prod-1**: Ansible cannot reach it. SSH host key verification fails (`known_hosts:94`,
+  ED25519 `SHA256:zgUS8OeWznzCX9hlN7XdZ8iLNkU1G2loXjtJFfEUYpE`), which is consistent with
+  the 2026-09-11 SSD replacement and reinstall. The operator must confirm the fingerprint
+  before the pin can be applied there.
+- The playbook has not been applied for real. It is an operator run after merge:
+  `ansible-playbook playbooks/node-baseline.yml -e k3s_hosts=k3s_prod --tags hosts`.
+- An end-to-end kubectl OIDC login after the pin (needs a browser).

infra/ansible/inventory/group_vars/k3s_prod/vars.yml

@@ -306,19 +306,27 @@ node_baseline_dns_servers:
   # k3s_base_domain, below). It reaches the issuer through the NODE resolver, i.e. through
   # these PUBLIC upstreams — not through CoreDNS's split-horizon answer.
   #
-  # THIS USED TO BE BROKEN, AND THE 2026-09-04 SUBDOMAIN SPLIT FIXED IT. While prod was
-  # authored to serve dev's hostnames, a prod node resolving keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev
-  # publicly got DEV's Gateway VIP (192.168.1.53) — the wrong cluster, on the wrong LAN, so
-  # kubectl OIDC SSO on prod could not work at all. Now prod's issuer is
-  # keycloak.prod.home.keithjackson.dev, and the public record for that name is published by
-  # PROD's own external-dns pointing at PROD's Gateway VIP (192.168.2.20). The public answer
-  # and the split-horizon answer therefore AGREE, and no /etc/hosts pin is needed.
+  # THE PUBLIC ANSWER IS NOW THE WAN, SO THE ISSUER IS PINNED (2026-10-03). Since
+  # platform/gateway/gateway.yaml set an external-dns `target`, every public name is a CNAME
+  # to wan.home.keithjackson.dev = the home WAN IP. The SOHO router does NOT hairpin: from the
+  # LAN, WAN:443 answers with the router's own self-signed placeholder cert (measured from
+  # k3s-prod-2/-3 2026-10-03: `curl` exit 60, ssl_verify_result=18). The apiserver would then
+  # be unable to fetch its issuer's discovery/JWKS, so kubectl OIDC SSO would fail on the
+  # next k3s restart or Keycloak key rotation. node_baseline_hosts_pins (below) pins the
+  # issuer host to the Gateway VIP in /etc/hosts, which glibc consults before these
+  # resolvers. (History: before the 2026-09-04 subdomain split the public answer was DEV's
+  # VIP; after it, the public answer was prod's own VIP and no pin was needed.)
   #
-  # STILL TO VERIFY on prod bring-up (PROD-PROVISIONING.md §10): this holds only once prod's
-  # external-dns has actually published the record. Until then the issuer does not resolve
-  # from the nodes and kubectl SSO fails — the cert-based admin kubeconfig is the break-glass
-  # path, and it always works. Ordering, not a design gap.
+  # The cert-based admin kubeconfig never depends on any of this. It is the break-glass path.
 node_baseline_dns_search: []
+# /etc/hosts pins: node-process names that must reach the in-cluster Gateway directly rather
+# than via the public (WAN, non-hairpinned) answer. See "THE PUBLIC ANSWER IS NOW THE WAN" above.
+# [parity] the IP MUST equal GATEWAY_VIP in clusters/prod/kustomization.yaml (192.168.2.20),
+# and the name MUST follow k3s_oidc_issuer_url's host (roles/k3s_server/defaults/main.yml).
+node_baseline_hosts_pins:
+  - ip: "192.168.2.20"
+    names:
+      - "keycloak.{{ k3s_base_domain }}"
 
 # --- platform hostname suffix, ANSIBLE SIDE (R-ENV-02, R-DNS-01) --------------------
 # PROD SERVES ITS OWN SUBDOMAIN. [parity] MUST equal BASE_DOMAIN in clusters/prod/

infra/ansible/roles/node_baseline/defaults/main.yml

@@ -242,3 +242,9 @@ node_baseline_dns_search:
 node_baseline_dns_options:
   - timeout:2
   - attempts:2
+# Static /etc/hosts entries (tags: dns, hosts), as a list of {ip, names}. EMPTY by default:
+# dev needs none. Prod pins its OIDC issuer host to the Gateway VIP because the public
+# answer for it is the non-hairpinned WAN IP (inventory/group_vars/k3s_prod/vars.yml).
+# Written as ONE marked block, so removing an entry here removes it from the node, and
+# an empty list removes the block entirely.
+node_baseline_hosts_pins: []

infra/ansible/roles/node_baseline/tasks/main.yml

@@ -1090,3 +1090,22 @@
       {% endif %}
   when: node_baseline_dns_mechanism == 'resolv-conf-file'
   tags: [dns]
+
+# /etc/hosts pins — tag `dns` (and `hosts` on its own). Some node processes must reach a
+# public hostname at the in-cluster Gateway, not at its public answer. On prod, the
+# kube-apiserver's OIDC issuer resolves publicly to the WAN IP, which the router does not
+# hairpin. glibc reads /etc/hosts before any nameserver (nsswitch `files dns`), so a pin wins
+# regardless of which resolver mechanism above is in effect. One marked block: entries
+# dropped from node_baseline_hosts_pins disappear from the node, and an empty list
+# removes the block.
+- name: Pin node-process hostnames in /etc/hosts
+  ansible.builtin.blockinfile:
+    path: /etc/hosts
+    marker: "# {mark} node_baseline hosts pins (Ansible, tags: hosts)"
+    block: |
+      {% for pin in node_baseline_hosts_pins %}
+      {{ pin.ip }}	{{ pin.names | join(' ') }}
+      {% endfor %}
+    state: "{{ 'present' if node_baseline_hosts_pins | length > 0 else 'absent' }}"
+    backup: true
+  tags: [dns, hosts]