R-193: demo-hp offsite restored on the box; escrow correction recorded

Re-issue through the designed endpoint: fresh password staged 07:11:51, settle-gate
GO, consumed 15s later at 07:12:06, offsite configured at 07:12:09 against the SAME
sub-account (275124) and repo path. Both boxes now escrowed.

CORRECTION to this session's own reading: the escrow did NOT recover by itself.
escrow_state went pending -> escrowed 15s after the apply and I inferred automation;
the operator had run the ceremony. It needed a human on both boxes — demo-hp at
07:16:02, demo-felhom at 07:20:28 (its escrow had been pending since its own rebuild
the day before). A 15-second state change is not evidence of automation, which is the
same class as reading an absent log line as success.

Snapshot continuity is NOT established: both boxes report snapshot_count 0, but the
run-history keys are ABSENT rather than zeroed — a controller that has never run an
offbox backup, not an empty repo. The 04:15 run decides it.

STATUS.md

@@ -20,13 +20,13 @@ Proven end to end on real hardware.
 
 ## What's broken
 
-- **One demo machine has no off-site copy of its app data, and rebuilding it is what took it away.**
-  `demo-hp` was rebuilt on 3 August; before that its off-site backup was healthy and had run
-  successfully at 04:16 that morning (15 snapshots). The rebuilt machine came up without it and has
-  not had it in 108 check-ins since. **The cause is that the off-site password is delivered exactly
-  once and a rebuilt machine cannot ask for another** — the other demo machine survived the same
-  rebuild only because it happened to have an unused password waiting for it, and recovered in 76
-  seconds. Nothing about that difference was designed. *(R-193)*
+- **Rebuilding a machine silently takes away its off-site app-data backup.** `demo-hp` was rebuilt on
+  3 August and came up without one, and stayed that way for a day. **Fixed on 4 August** — re-issued,
+  the machine picked the new password up in 15 seconds and reattached to the same repository, and you
+  escrowed the key. **The underlying fault is not fixed:** the off-site password is delivered exactly
+  once and a rebuilt machine cannot ask for another, so this will happen again on the next rebuild.
+  The other machine survived the same rebuild only because an unused password happened to be waiting
+  for it. *(R-193)*
 - **The daily email about it tells you the wrong story**, and the automatic repair that exists for
   this declines without saying why. The message says the password was never applied; it was, on
   23 July, and worked for eleven days. *(R-192)*

documentation/backlog/OPEN-ITEMS.md

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ State: `BLOCKED` · `READY` · `WAITING-ON-OPERATOR` · `WATCHING`. Every row ha
 | **R-190** | **A storage ACL that demonstrably WORKED in the morning was gone by mid-morning, and nothing recorded its removal.** On demo-felhom, a `vzdump` by `felhom-agent@pve!agent` with `--storage felhom-backup` completed **OK at 04:44:50 CEST 2026-08-03** (task log read in full). From **09:24:56** the same path returned `HTTP 403 … missing privilege Datastore.Allocate at /storage/felhom-backup`, six times through the day, until the grant was re-applied by hand at 18:54. By ~14:50 `pveum acl list` showed **no row at all** for that path | **OPEN** | — | **Why this is not just R-185 restated:** R-185's mechanism (the installer's Scenario-F arm resolves a pre-existing target without granting) explains a box that NEVER had the grant. This box HAD it and lost it, inside five hours, with the machine up throughout. **Ruled out, each by measurement:** a host reinstall (`uptime` = 12 days); any `pveum`/ACL/`user.cfg` activity in syslog between 04:00 and 10:00 (none); any ACL entry in `/cluster/log` (none). **Correlated, not established:** `host_leaf_changed` at 09:15 and `controller_started` at 09:19 — guest 9201 was reprovisioned nine minutes before the first 403. PVE removes ACLs at `/vms/<vmid>` when a guest is destroyed (`AccessControl::remove_vm_access`, the F-LEAK mechanism); whether any path can take a `/storage/<id>` row with it has NOT been established and is the first thing to check. **Why it matters more than the grant did:** a permission that can vanish silently makes every ACL-based guarantee on these hosts provisional, and the agent's new store-grant probe (v0.123.0) now detects the STATE but says nothing about the TRANSITION. **Worth pairing with:** whether the probe should report a grant it once had and no longer has as a distinct, louder signal than one it never had | CC |
 | **R-191** | **Every weekly offsite backup UPLOADS successfully and then FAILS the job on a prune the box is deliberately not allowed to do — on both demo boxes.** Measured on demo-felhom 2026-08-04 06:49–06:53: the upload completed (223 s, 629 MiB of 1.874 GiB, **67.2 % reused incrementally**), then `ERROR: prune 'ct/9201': proxmox-backup-client failed: Error: permission check failed - missing Datastore.Modify\|Datastore.Prune on /datastore/felhom-offsite/demo-felhom` → `ERROR: Backup of VM 9201 failed - error pruning backups` → `TASK ERROR: job errors`. The hub raised `whole_guest_backup_failed` | **OPEN** | — | **This is R-89's rule not reaching the config.** R-89 moved PBS pruning SERVER-SIDE — *"boxes set `keep_last: 0`, ep0 runs prune jobs; box tokens stay write-only, never widen the grant"*. The token behaves exactly as designed: it refuses. But **both** demo boxes still arm the offsite tier with `keep_last=2 prune_pbs_allowed=true` (`backup_targets: [{target_id: felhom-pbs, cadence_seconds: 604800, keep_last: 2}]`), so every run asks for a prune that must fail. **The data is SAFE and that is why this is not a P1:** the snapshot lands before the prune is attempted; what is wrong is the job's VERDICT and the weekly operator e-mail it produces. **But it is corrosive in the specific way this project keeps finding:** a backup that reports FAILED while succeeding trains the operator to discount `whole_guest_backup_failed`, which is the same alert that would carry a real one — and it is exactly the failure the R-100 corollary warns about, an alarm whose text is true and whose trigger is not the thing you would act on. **Fix is one config line per box** (`keep_last: 0` on the PBS tier) plus whatever writes it on a fresh install; **deliberately NOT applied in this session** — the session was a runbook with an explicit "change nothing, and if a change appears necessary, stop and report" rule, and a retention field on a live backup tier is not a change to slip into an observation run. **Check before fixing:** whether ep0's prune jobs actually cover these two namespaces, or the snapshots simply accumulate once the box stops asking | CC |
 | **R-192** | **`offsite_delivery_stuck` tells the operator the opposite of what the detector measured, and the self-heal silently refuses for exactly the reason the message denies.** demo-hp has been e-mailing this daily since 2026-08-03 06:12 UTC: *"one-time password consumed 284h ago and **500 report(s) since carry no offbox target** — the credential is likely burned (apply died between consume and persist). Re-issue delivers a fresh one."* **Measured against the hub's own data: all 500 of those reports DO carry an offbox target** | **OPEN** | — | **What actually happened on that box:** the credential was consumed 2026-07-23 09:53:41 and **applied successfully** — the controller reported an `offsite` object continuously until **2026-08-03 05:59:21 UTC**, then it **vanished at 06:12:19** and has been absent for **108 consecutive reports** since. So this is a **regressed apply**, not a burned credential. **Two distinct defects, and the second explains the first's invisibility.** **(a)** `maybeEmitStuck` builds its message from `status.ReportsSinceConsume` (the TOTAL) while hardcoding the phrase *"carry no offbox target"*, and never consults `status.OffsiteReportsSinceConsume` — which is the field that says the opposite. The recommended action (*Re-issue*) is aimed at a failure mode that did not occur. This is R-100's corollary again: an alarm whose text stopped matching what its verdict counts. **(b)** `maybeHeal` refuses **silently** (`OffsiteReportsSinceConsume != 0` → *"regressed-apply shape → operator's call"*, a bare `return` with no log line), so the operator gets a daily e-mail with the wrong story, no heal, and nothing anywhere saying why the heal declined. `offsite_credential_restaged` has **never** fired, on any customer. **The underlying condition is REAL and is the part that matters:** demo-hp currently reports no offsite target at all, i.e. that box's customer app-data has **no off-site copy right now** — and it has been that way since 08:12 CEST on 2026-08-03. A spot check inside the controller container found no restic environment, consistent with the report. **What removed it is not established** and is the first thing to find out. **Fix shape:** the message must state which shape was detected (burned vs regressed) and say what to do for each; the heal's refusal must log its reason; and the regressed shape probably deserves its own event type rather than borrowing the burned one. **Do NOT 'fix' it by widening the heal to restage over a regression** — the guard is right, only mute **CAUSE ESTABLISHED 2026-08-04 (operator confirms no hub-side offsite config change).** The regression is a **guest REBUILD**: at 06:09:40 `host_leaf_changed` (agent re-keyed), at 06:12:18 `controller_started (0.192.0)` — the controller went **0.187.0 → 0.192.0** with a **new config hash** (`1f725a2e843c` → `744e83d72c80`) — and the report at 06:12:19 is the first without `offsite`. The pre-rebuild object was fully healthy: `escrow_state: escrowed, last_status: ok, last_success 2026-08-03T02:16:39Z, snapshot_count 15, repo_size 40.9 MB`. → **R-193** owns the rebuild half. **AND THE HEAL'S GUARD IS WRONG FOR EXACTLY THIS CASE, which is why the automation that exists to fix it declined.** `maybeHeal` refuses when `OffsiteReportsSinceConsume != 0`, reading that as *"the apply regressed, so it is the operator's call"*. But `CountReportsOffsiteSince` counts the **OLDEST 500 reports since the consume** (`ORDER BY id LIMIT 500`) — for demo-hp all 500 predate the rebuild. **Offbox evidence from before a rebuild is not evidence that the credential still works**, so the guard reads healthy history as a reason not to heal a box that demonstrably cannot apply. The fix is to judge on RECENT evidence (e.g. the latest N reports, or evidence after the newest `controller_started`), not on everything since the consume. | CC |
-| **R-193** | **A guest rebuild silently drops the off-site app-data tier, and nothing restages the credential.** demo-hp was rebuilt on 2026-08-03 (controller 0.187.0 → 0.192.0, new config hash, agent leaf re-keyed at 06:09:40). Before it, the offsite tier was healthy and working — `escrow_state: escrowed`, `last_status: ok`, last success **02:16:39Z that morning**, **15 snapshots, 40.9 MB**. After it: no `offsite` object in any of **108** reports, and **no off-site copy of that customer's app data since 08:12 CEST on 2026-08-03** | **OPEN** | — | **Mechanism, fully evidenced.** The restic credential reaches a box exactly once, as a one-time secret. demo-hp's was consumed **2026-07-23 09:53:41**; the rebuilt controller came up with a fresh data volume, no copy of it, and **no way to ask for another** — the hub is the only side that can stage one, and it will not re-stage a consumed secret on its own (the R-71c self-heal would, but it refuses — see R-192). **demo-felhom survived the SAME rebuild by luck, and the contrast is the proof:** its secret was created 2026-07-21 and still **UNCONSUMED**, so when its config hash changed at 07:17:54 and `offsite` dropped for exactly one report, it consumed the staged secret at **07:17:58** and was reporting `offsite` again by 07:19:10. One box had a spare credential staged and recovered in 76 seconds; the other did not and has been unprotected for a day. **That difference was not a design decision — it was an accident of which box happened to have an unconsumed secret lying around.** **Why this is not just "re-issue it":** the remedy (Re-issue) resets the sub-account password via the Hetzner API and, per R-39's record, **rotates the restic password and makes the escrow STALE** — so it needs the recovery-code ceremony re-run, and the continuity of the 15 existing snapshots under the new credential must be VERIFIED, not assumed (`hub v0.60.0` retains superseded escrow, and the orphan guard is move-aside-never-delete). That is an operator act with a customer-facing consequence, so it is not something to fire automatically without deciding the escrow question first. **What to design:** a rebuild is a normal, expected event on these boxes — the offsite tier must survive one, either by the hub restaging automatically when a re-enrolled box reports no offsite (the R-192 guard fix makes this safe), or by the credential being recoverable from escrow at re-bootstrap rather than delivered once and unrecoverable | CC |
+| **R-193** | **A guest rebuild silently drops the off-site app-data tier, and nothing restages the credential.** demo-hp was rebuilt on 2026-08-03 (controller 0.187.0 → 0.192.0, new config hash, agent leaf re-keyed at 06:09:40). Before it, the offsite tier was healthy and working — `escrow_state: escrowed`, `last_status: ok`, last success **02:16:39Z that morning**, **15 snapshots, 40.9 MB**. After it: no `offsite` object in any of **108** reports, and **no off-site copy of that customer's app data since 08:12 CEST on 2026-08-03** | **OPEN** | — | **Mechanism, fully evidenced.** The restic credential reaches a box exactly once, as a one-time secret. demo-hp's was consumed **2026-07-23 09:53:41**; the rebuilt controller came up with a fresh data volume, no copy of it, and **no way to ask for another** — the hub is the only side that can stage one, and it will not re-stage a consumed secret on its own (the R-71c self-heal would, but it refuses — see R-192). **demo-felhom survived the SAME rebuild by luck, and the contrast is the proof:** its secret was created 2026-07-21 and still **UNCONSUMED**, so when its config hash changed at 07:17:54 and `offsite` dropped for exactly one report, it consumed the staged secret at **07:17:58** and was reporting `offsite` again by 07:19:10. One box had a spare credential staged and recovered in 76 seconds; the other did not and has been unprotected for a day. **That difference was not a design decision — it was an accident of which box happened to have an unconsumed secret lying around.** **Why this is not just "re-issue it":** the remedy (Re-issue) resets the sub-account password via the Hetzner API and, per R-39's record, **rotates the restic password and makes the escrow STALE** — so it needs the recovery-code ceremony re-run, and the continuity of the 15 existing snapshots under the new credential must be VERIFIED, not assumed (`hub v0.60.0` retains superseded escrow, and the orphan guard is move-aside-never-delete). That is an operator act with a customer-facing consequence, so it is not something to fire automatically without deciding the escrow question first. **What to design:** a rebuild is a normal, expected event on these boxes — the offsite tier must survive one, either by the hub restaging automatically when a re-enrolled box reports no offsite (the R-192 guard fix makes this safe), or by the credential being recoverable from escrow at re-bootstrap rather than delivered once and unrecoverable **RESOLVED ON THE BOX 2026-08-04 (operator-authorised).** Re-issue fired through the designed endpoint (`POST /configs/demo-hp/offsite-reissue`, HTTP 303): hub staged a fresh one-time password at **07:11:51**, the box's config hash moved `744e83d7` → `5eee0e42`, R-71a's settle-gate reported **GO** (*at/above floor 0.156.0, we are 0.194.0*), the password was **consumed 15 s later at 07:12:06**, and the controller logged *offsite configured for u629488-sub3@…:/home/felhom-repo* at 07:12:09 — the **same sub-account (275124) and the same repo path**, since Re-issue resets the sub-account password and the one-time password is only the transport credential used once to install the box's own SSH key. **THE ESCROW DID NOT RECOVER BY ITSELF — a correction to this session's own first reading.** `escrow_state` went `pending` → `escrowed` 15 s after the apply and CC inferred an automatic re-escrow; **the operator had run the ceremony**. It needed a human, on BOTH boxes: demo-hp escrowed 07:16:02, demo-felhom (whose offsite re-applied on its own the previous day but whose escrow had been `pending` ever since) escrowed 07:20:28. **A 15-second state change is not evidence of automation** — that is the same class as reading an absent log line as success. **Snapshot continuity is NOT yet established and must not be assumed from the counters:** both boxes report `snapshot_count: 0, repo_size_bytes: 0`, but the run-history keys (`last_run`, `last_status`, `last_success`) are **absent entirely** rather than zeroed — the shape of a controller that has never run an offbox backup in this lifetime, not of an empty repo. demo-hp's pre-rebuild object carried all three plus 15 snapshots / 40.9 MB. **The next scheduled `offbox-backup` (04:15) decides it:** 15+ snapshots ⇒ the repo reattached; 1 ⇒ it started fresh and the old snapshots are orphaned-but-retained. Record the answer here. | CC |
 | — | Storage Box **snapshots** on `storage-box-pool-1` — plan SET (daily 00:00, keep 7) but **0 taken yet** | WATCHING | first run tonight 00:00 | Confirm `size_snapshots > 0` tomorrow; until then the mitigation is armed, not proven | CC |
 | — | `PBS-storage-1` (u629193, box 611421) still `status=active`, 19.9 MB | WAITING-ON-OPERATOR | operator console | Delete the box | operator |
 | **R-90** | ~~ep0 RAM headroom — 4 GiB swap survived its first reboot 2026-07-27; 3.8 GB RAM unchanged~~ | **CLOSED — the operator rescaled ep0 to a CX33 on 2026-08-03** | — | **MEASURED ON THE BOX, not read from an invoice:** `felhom-hetzner` reports `Mem: 7757` MB total (**8 GB**, was 3.8) and `nproc` **4**. **The interim lever survived and was checked rather than assumed** — a resize is a stop/start, so "the swapfile is still there" was an assumption until measured: `/swapfile`, 4 GiB, dated `Jul 27 14:40`, **active** (`swapon --show` → `/swapfile file 4G 0B -2`), 0 B in use on an idle box. **THE 40 GB LOCAL DISK DID NOT CHANGE** and must not be "corrected" alongside the RAM: `/` is 38 G, 58% used. This was a CPU/RAM resize only, so every disk figure in the runbooks still stands — the separate 98 G volume at `/mnt/pbs-datastore` (R-82 P0.3) is unaffected. **Why this was BLOCKED and no longer is:** the row recorded CX33 as *"confirmed unavailable even powered OFF"* — the Cost-Optimized line's limited availability, not a power-state problem. It became available and the operator took it. **Documentation corrected** (`RUNBOOK-ep0-datastore-volume`, `RUNBOOK-pbs-prune-serverside` ×2, `runbooks/offsite-endpoint.md` ×2, `runbooks/target-selection.md`) and **audit/evidence documents ANNOTATED, not revised** (`SPIKE-connectivity-wireguard-2026-07-03`, campaign-10 `phaseA-journal`) — they record what was true when written and that is their value. **Still open and still the operator's, deliberately untouched:** `target-selection.md`'s *"D-d did not name ep0 either way. Confirm it explicitly."* | — |