jakman85andClaude Opus 5
44983095e1
Every platform-health alert rule carries `runbook_url: "https://${BASE_DOMAIN}/runbooks/<name>"` — 42 annotations over 34 distinct names, across platform/monitoring/alerts.yaml, platform/monitoring/pvc-capacity-alerts.yaml, platform/cnpg/alerts.yaml and platform/kubevirt/alerts.yaml. There was no runbooks/ directory and no HTTPRoute serving that path: an in-cluster probe of https://home.keithjackson.dev/runbooks/node-down returned HTTP 404. Every alert that reached a human handed them a dead link at the exact moment the documentation is read, and the annotation made it look solved — the same green-surface-over-absent-mechanism class as the import Job that reported success while storing placeholder secrets. No alerts.yaml is touched and no runbook_url value changes. The existing URL scheme is made to resolve instead. WHAT LANDS - runbooks/<34>.md — one per name, each grounded in this cluster's real topology and, where one exists, its real incident history: the 2026-09-07 k3s-prod-1 etcd I/O starvation (measured PSI 11.36 vs 0.75/1.29, the exact journal lines, the four mechanisms proven inert), the Longhorn reboot tax and the freeze/thaw of concurrent-replica-rebuild-per-node-limit, Cilium's once-resolved egress interface cache (Ifindex 3 against a live 1780) and the absence of OSS failover, the CNPG 38-hour ContinuousArchiving=False with its measured 6.8 MiB/h disk-full clock and the 2026-09-12 aggregation-scope fix, the 2026-09-06 Keycloak lockout in which all 12 clients held literal placeholder secrets behind an entirely green cluster, the Velero R2 x-amz-tagging NotImplemented incompatibility and its v1.14.3-rc.2 pin, and swap re-enabling itself across reboots via systemd-gpt-auto-generator. Each page states what the alert means HERE, the first diagnostic commands, likely causes ordered by probability with a remediation each, and when to escalate or stop. - Every page uses FULLY-QUALIFIED resource names and says why: three CRDs register the kind `Backup` here, the bare short name resolves to Longhorn's (zero objects), so `kubectl get backup -A` prints "No resources found" on a cluster holding 6 Velero and 27 CNPG backups. Acting on that false negative is how a CLI quirk becomes data loss. - Every page states that kubectl only works via `infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c '...'` with an explicit `--context k3s-prod`, because dev.sh defaults its current-context to k3s-dev. - Pages also record which alert groups are INERT today (measured 2026-09-13: no Longhorn, cert-manager, Flux-controller or Hubble scrape job exists, so 13 rules evaluate against nothing) so nobody reads their silence as health. SERVING — runbooks/serving/ plus clusters/base/runbooks.yaml A two-replica nginx-unprivileged serving a ConfigMap generated from runbooks/*.md, at the apex `/runbooks` prefix, in its own non-gating post-platform Flux tier (dependsOn platform-config, wait:false) — the platform/homepage pattern, file for file. - The service catalog cannot express this route: ingressRoutes[].host is pattern-bound to a single DNS label plus the apex, so the bare apex is unrepresentable, and there is no path field. - Rejected: redirecting to the Gitea web UI. A runbook is read when the platform is broken, and Gitea is an app-tier workload whose own dependencies several of these runbooks document; Gateway API's RequestRedirect also has no "append .md" modifier, so it would need 34 hand-maintained ReplaceFullPath rules. - configMapGenerator maps each file to an EXTENSIONLESS key (node-down=node-down.md), so /runbooks/node-down is a plain static lookup with no rewrite rule. Served as text/plain: the namespace has DNS-only egress, so a CDN markdown renderer could not load anyway. - The tier declares NO postBuild.substituteFrom, deliberately: envsubst would run over the prose and silently empty every ${...} shell example (it fails open — the 2026-09-01 emptied Cilium k8sServiceHost). The HTTPRoute omits `hostnames:` and inherits the https-apex listener's, so nothing needs substituting. AUTH — PUBLIC, deliberately auth-mode=none. Gating these pages behind oauth2-proxy/Keycloak would make runbooks/keycloak-down unreadable when Keycloak is down and runbooks/keycloak-client-secrets unreadable during the exact 2026-09-06 failure mode. An operator who cannot log in is this route's primary reader. Content is operational procedure only, no secrets. The rationale is recorded in an annotation on the HTTPRoute so the route is left OUT of the Gateway ext-authz attachment when forward-auth enforcement lands. PROVEN — in-cluster probe through the Gateway on prod /runbooks/node-down HTTP 200 8613 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 /runbooks/keycloak-down HTTP 200 9378 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 /runbooks/cnpg-archiving HTTP 200 11729 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 /runbooks/longhorn-faulted HTTP 200 9135 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 /runbooks/vpn-down HTTP 200 11092 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 /runbooks/backup-failure HTTP 200 9604 bytes text/plain; charset=utf-8 HTTPRoute Accepted by io.cilium/gateway-controller on sectionName https-apex; the `/runbooks` prefix wins over homepage's apex `/` by Gateway API longest-path precedence. GUARD — conformance/tests/l0-static/alert-runbooks-resolvable (R-OBS-04) 363 offline assertions. It checks BOTH halves, because the regression is silent in both directions: an alert with a new runbook_url and no runbook links to a 404, AND a runbook committed without its configMapGenerator entry is in git, reviewed, merged, and still 404s in the cluster. Also asserts a quality floor so a stub cannot make the link look fixed, and that route/listener/nginx prefix agree with the annotations. Proven to fail, then reverted: a bogus runbook_url (2 FAIL), a runbook removed from the generator (1 FAIL), and a 31-byte stub (7 FAIL). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
162 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
162 lines
8.7 KiB
Markdown
# cert-issuance — A Certificate is not Ready (ACME issuance is failing)
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**Alert:** `CertificateNotReady` (warning, 1h)
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**File:** `platform/monitoring/alerts.yaml`, group `platform-health.certificates`
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**Expression:** `certmanager_certificate_ready_status{condition="False"} == 1`
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## What this means here
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cert-manager cannot issue or renew a certificate. The one that matters is `wildcard-home` in the
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`gateway` namespace — secret `wildcard-home-tls`, requesting **both** `*.${BASE_DOMAIN}` **and**
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`${BASE_DOMAIN}` from `${ACME_CLUSTER_ISSUER}` (`letsencrypt-prod` on prod). Every HTTPS listener on the
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shared Gateway terminates with it, so issuance failing is a slow-burning cluster-wide outage: it does
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nothing today and takes down every hostname plus in-cluster SSO when the existing certificate expires.
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The 1h `for` reflects that — a failing order is worth investigating today, not paging at 3am.
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The solver is **DNS-01 against Cloudflare**, which matters because DNS-01 has a failure mode this
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cluster has already hit:
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**The self-check, not the challenge, is the usual failure.** On 2026-08-16 the wildcard stalled with the
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challenge at `Presented=true` — the Cloudflare TXT record *was* created, so the API token worked — while
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cert-manager's propagation self-check looped **"DNS record not yet propagated"**. The record was
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publicly resolvable at 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8; the NAT'd cluster's own DNS could not see it, because
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split-horizon CoreDNS answers authoritatively for the zone and never forwards. The fix is live in
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`platform/cert-manager/helmrelease.yaml`:
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```yaml
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dns01RecursiveNameservers: "1.1.1.1:53,8.8.8.8:53"
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dns01RecursiveNameserversOnly: true
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```
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The challenge went pending → valid and the certificate Issued. If you find those two lines missing or
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changed, that is your answer.
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### Verify the alert can even fire (measured 2026-09-13)
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**This alert is currently INERT.** `count(certmanager_clock_time_seconds)` returned **0 series** on
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prod — there is no cert-manager scrape job among Prometheus's 19 jobs, so all three certificate rules
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evaluate against nothing. Certificate health must be read from the CRs, as below. See
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`/runbooks/targets-down` for the full list of inert rule groups.
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## Running the commands in this runbook
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`kubectl` does not work on the operator workstation. The toolchain lives only in the pinned dev
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container, and the host's `k3s-oidc` context hangs on a browser prompt once its token expires —
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that hang is not the cluster being down. Every command below runs as:
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infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c 'kubectl --context k3s-prod get nodes'
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Always pass `--context k3s-prod` explicitly. `dev.sh` merges both clusters into one kubeconfig and
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defaults its current-context to k3s-**dev**, so a command without `--context` silently answers
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about the wrong cluster. (`CLUSTER=prod infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run kubectl ...` is equivalent.)
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Do not run two `dev.sh` invocations at once — they share one container and interfere.
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USE FULLY-QUALIFIED RESOURCE NAMES, ALWAYS. Three CRDs on this cluster register the kind `Backup`:
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`longhorn.io/v1beta2`, `postgresql.cnpg.io/v1` and `velero.io/v1`. The bare short name resolves to
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Longhorn's, which holds zero objects — so `kubectl get backup -A` prints **"No resources found"** on
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a cluster holding 6 Velero backups and 27 CNPG backups. Verified on prod 2026-09-13. Reading that as
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"the backups are gone" and acting on it turns a false negative into real data loss. Write
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`backups.velero.io`, `backups.postgresql.cnpg.io`, `clusters.postgresql.cnpg.io`,
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`settings.longhorn.io`, `volumes.longhorn.io`, `nodes.longhorn.io`.
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Mutating kubectl (`apply`, `patch`, `annotate`, `rollout`) and `flux reconcile` are blocked for
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agents here: every durable change goes through git (`git push origin main` **is** the deploy).
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Where this runbook gives a mutating command it is for an operator, and it says so.
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## First commands
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Walk the chain top-down — Certificate → CertificateRequest → Order → Challenge. The failure is almost
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always visible at one specific level:
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```
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infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
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'kubectl --context k3s-prod get certificates.cert-manager.io -A \
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-o custom-columns=NS:.metadata.namespace,NAME:.metadata.name,READY:.status.conditions[?\(@.type==\"Ready\"\)].status,MSG:.status.conditions[?\(@.type==\"Ready\"\)].message,NOTAFTER:.status.notAfter'
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```
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```
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infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
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'kubectl --context k3s-prod get certificaterequests.cert-manager.io -A; echo ==; \
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kubectl --context k3s-prod get orders.acme.cert-manager.io -A; echo ==; \
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kubectl --context k3s-prod get challenges.acme.cert-manager.io -A -o wide'
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```
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The controller log, which carries the actual ACME error text:
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```
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infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
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'kubectl --context k3s-prod -n cert-manager logs deploy/cert-manager --tail=150 2>&1 | grep -iE "error|propagat|challenge|order|rate" | tail -30'
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```
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Is the TXT record really there? **Ask the authority, never a resolver** — 1.1.1.1 has served a deleted
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TXT record here for minutes and produced a false failure diagnosis:
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```
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dig +short @betty.ns.cloudflare.com _acme-challenge.home.keithjackson.dev TXT
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dig +short @1.1.1.1 _acme-challenge.home.keithjackson.dev TXT
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```
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Is the resolver override still configured?
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```
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grep -n "dns01Recursive" platform/cert-manager/helmrelease.yaml
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```
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The issuer and its credential:
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```
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infra/devcontainer/dev.sh run bash -c \
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'kubectl --context k3s-prod get clusterissuers.cert-manager.io \
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-o custom-columns=NAME:.metadata.name,READY:.status.conditions[?\(@.type==\"Ready\"\)].status,MSG:.status.conditions[?\(@.type==\"Ready\"\)].message'
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```
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## Likely causes, most likely first
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### 1. The DNS-01 propagation self-check cannot resolve the TXT record
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The recorded failure. Signature: Challenge `Presented=true`, status looping on *"DNS record not yet
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propagated"*, and `dig @betty.ns.cloudflare.com` **does** return the TXT. Cause: cert-manager is asking
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the cluster's own resolver, which is split-horizon CoreDNS answering authoritatively for the zone and
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never forwarding. Remediation: the two `dns01Recursive*` values above, in git.
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### 2. The Cloudflare API token is wrong, expired, or scoped too narrowly
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Signature: Challenge never reaches `Presented=true`, and the log carries a Cloudflare 403/6003. The
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token lives in a SOPS-encrypted Secret. Note the standing rule from the OIDC incident: **non-secret
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environment-specific values must never live inside an encrypted Secret** — `${BASE_DOMAIN}`
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substitution cannot reach inside one, and that is precisely how prod's OIDC clients once ended up
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pointed at dev's Keycloak. Keep hostnames out; keep only the token in.
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### 3. `EXTERNALDNS_DOMAIN_FILTER` / zone confusion
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Recorded as finding F-DNS1: the filter **must be the ZONE** (`keithjackson.dev`), not the subdomain.
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A zone mismatch means the TXT record is created in the wrong place or not at all.
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### 4. Two clusters racing the same `_acme-challenge` record
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`infra/PROD-PROVISIONING.md` §10: after the 2026-09-04 incident `platform-config` would have requested a
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`*.home.keithjackson.dev` wildcard from letsencrypt-prod for a certificate dev already held; both
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clusters would then have raced each other's `_acme-challenge` TXT records on one Cloudflare zone and
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**neither would reliably solve DNS-01**. Only the tier being suspended prevented it. If any second
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cluster exists, establish which one owns the zone first.
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### 5. Let's Encrypt rate limit
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`too many certificates already issued` in the log. One wildcard is well inside the limits, so this means
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something has been retrying in a loop. Stop the loop and wait out the window.
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### 6. A new Certificate for a hostname that does not resolve
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A newly added service whose DNS is not yet published cannot solve DNS-01. Check ExternalDNS first.
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## When to escalate or stop
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- **Escalate if `wildcard-home` has been not-Ready for more than a day**, and check
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`/runbooks/cert-expiry` for how much runway the existing certificate has. Under 3 days of runway is an
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operator page.
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- **Never switch `${ACME_CLUSTER_ISSUER}` to letsencrypt-staging** to get a green certificate. Staging
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issues fine and then breaks every in-cluster OIDC client with `x509: certificate signed by unknown
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authority` — that is the bug that forced LE-prod in the first place.
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- **Do not delete the existing `wildcard-home-tls` Secret** while issuance is broken. A stale but valid
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certificate is far better than none.
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- **Do not create certificates by hand.** cert-manager owns them; the durable change is in git.
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- Rotating the Cloudflare token is an operator action (SOPS, DR path).
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---
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Source of truth: `runbooks/cert-issuance.md`. Index: `/runbooks/`
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Records: `DECISIONS-LOG.md` "Fix 5 — cert-manager DNS-01 self-check via public resolvers"
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(commit ~`59dd3d9`) and the LE-staging → LE-prod switch; `infra/PROD-PROVISIONING.md` §10.
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