R-201 night run: the off-site key IS recoverable after a real rebuild (proven); the verdict is blocked by R-204
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## Standing rulings
**S-31 — the off-site key IS recoverable after a real rebuild; USING it is blocked by the remedy that
makes the rebuild survivable (2026-08-04 night drill, R-201/R-204).**
**Proven on hardware:** demo-hp's controller data volume was destroyed and the sentinel deleted; the
customer's recovery code produced `8a9e33aa4da6…`, byte-identical to the pre-wipe on-disk key and to
the hub's independent record, and installed cleanly on the bare box. `identity_blob` was unchanged
across the wipe — nothing re-escrowed itself.
**The wall (R-204), four links, all measured:**
1. a rebuilt controller cannot configure its off-site tier — the one-time password was consumed by its
predecessor (`no unconsumed offsite password`, R-193);
2. the Re-issue that fixes that sets `stale_at` **while `restic_pw_sha256` is unchanged** (R-196);
3. a stale escrow makes the hub withhold the hash from the ACK → `EscrowAutoConfirmer` can never flip
`pending → escrowed``OffboxRunnable` refuses every run;
4. the only documented way to clear it is a ceremony, **which supersedes the identity blob and destroys
the recovered key**. And before any of it, a rebuilt box is **unclaimed**, so the claim gate
intercepts every controller endpoint — a step in no design document.
*Facts a future session needs:*
- **A guest rebuild in this fleet is a controller-DATA-VOLUME loss, not a guest reprovision.** The
2026-08-03 incident R-193 is filed against ran with guest 9201 up throughout — no `pct destroy`, no
`pct restore`, no `--selftest=provision`. Reproduce it that way.
- **A good snapshot is not durable against a later bad run on the same day.** `forget --keep-daily 7
--group-by host,tags` keeps one per tag per day; a later, worse snapshot evicts a good one.
- **Never run a ceremony while a recovery is in flight** — it supersedes the identity blob. Under
v0.93.0 the old blob is retained, but nothing serves a superseded blob back (R-199).
**S-30 — the R-201 drill was PREPARED and HALTED BEFORE THE WIPE (2026-08-04). Nothing was wiped.**
It stopped at step 4 because the sentinel file was **not in the off-site snapshot** while the run
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# REPORT — R-203: the app and its backup look in the same place, and "ok" means it (2026-08-04)
# REPORT — R-201 night run: the key came back; the verdict did not
**Controller v0.196.0 → v0.197.0**, deployed to demo-hp. No hub change. Nothing deleted, wiped or
moved on any box; the drill was **not** resumed. `demo-felhom` untouched.
**2026-08-04, 21:3022:40, unattended.** `demo-hp` was deliberately rebuilt. No code, no version bump.
`demo-felhom` untouched. Full record: `documentation/audits/DRILL-r201-night-run-2026-08-04.md`.
---
## 1. Confirmed baselines, and §3's landmarks
## 1. THE VERDICT — not reached
`felhom-controller` `532f5712a891` (v0.196.0) → **v0.197.0**; `felhom.eu` `a0c4b607a6cf`, no bump.
Both trees clean on arrival. **Every §3 landmark held**, including the one that decided the fix:
`paths.go:26` names the system-drive arrangement *"the SSD-only system-data fallback"* — **it is
supported**, so the resolution was what was wrong and no API refusal was added.
## 2. The call sites found — **FIVE, not four**
| # | Site | Named by the spec? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | `stacks/deploy.go` `withPathVars``${USERDATA_PATH}` | yes — the live defect |
| 2 | `appexport/fabplan.go` | yes |
| 3 | `appexport/export.go` | yes |
| 4 | `stacks/delete.go` `ExportDataMounts` | yes |
| 5 | **`web/handlers.go` FileBrowser mount builder** | **NO** |
The fifth is the customer's own file browser: on a non-enrolled path it would have mounted the wrong
directory. **Latent, not live** — the system drive is deliberately never a registered `StoragePath`, so
the resolver is the identity there today. Wired anyway, with that reason in the code.
Two further sites of the same class were found and fixed: `ComputeFabBuckets` was receiving the drive
path where `ComputeCaptureSet` has always received the namespace root, so the export's classified
paths and the backup's capture set could describe different directories for the same declared bind.
**The rule had TWO existing copies and they differed.** `backup.Manager.namespaceRoot` compared
without `filepath.Clean`; `stacks.Manager.inGuest` compared with it. A trailing slash from config
would have flipped the mode in one package and not the other. Both now delegate to
`appbackup.NamespaceRootFor`.
## 3. Scenario A — the two paths, before and after (live, demo-hp)
```
before: /mnt/sys_drive/userdata/media/books ← app bind; capture set looked elsewhere
after: /mnt/sys_drive/felhom-data/userdata/media/books ← app bind == capture root
```
Capture log: **`0 mandatory path(s)`** → **`1 mandatory path(s)`**.
## 4. Scenario F — the sentinel in the snapshot's file listing
```
$ restic ls -l latest --tag calibre-web
-rw-r--r-- 1000 1000 181 2026-08-04 12:53:06
/mnt/sys_drive/felhom-data/userdata/media/books/DRILL-SENTINEL.txt
```
And the snapshot's own `paths`:
`["…/backups/primary/calibre-web", "/mnt/sys_drive/felhom-data/userdata/media/books"]`.
**Not a green status — the file, by name and size.** sha256
`643166269103a25cf41d34a26b75fd6ebba0a837bbcd7e0d2b5aba7106bcbe7c`, byte-identical to the drill's
step 3 after the fix's migration moved it into the corrected directory.
## 5. Scenario E — the delete path
**The §8.3 risk does not exist, and this is the correction owed.** `ExportDataMounts` lives in
`delete.go` but is **export-only**: its single production caller is the `.fab` export adapter and
nothing deletes on its result. The delete path's own guard, `ProtectedHDDPaths`, is **layout-agnostic
by construction** — it protects both `<hdd>/…` and `<hdd>/felhom-data/…` — so deletion was never
affected by the namespace-root defect. That note is now in the function's doc comment, because the
file placement misled this change's own specification.
**Does the corrected path point anywhere the old code did not?** Yes, for the export only, and only on
the system-data fallback: `<hdd>/felhom-data/userdata` instead of `<hdd>/userdata`. That is the
directory the app actually binds after this release, and the tests assert the **negative** — no
emitted path lies outside the app's own data roots, on either drive kind. It shipped as its own commit.
## 6. The verdict value
**`incomplete`** — **minted**, because `ok` | `error` | `running` contained nothing meaning *"it ran,
and this app is not fully protected"*. **Not `error`:** the rest of the run worked and what was
captured is real, so `SnapshotCount` and the `LastSuccess` anchor still record it.
It reaches the operator through the **existing** per-run digest, `backup_run_failures` — already
operator-only, already allowlisted. A new event type would have been a two-repo change and the hub
drops anything outside `allowedEventTypes`; the prompt ruled out a hub change. The Hungarian customer
warning is unchanged, and the backups page renders `! Hiányos` with the warn styling.
## 7. §8.4's narrowing — **no customer-visible warning disappears**
`TierOffsite`'s `tierKeeps()` already admits `ClassMandatory` only, so an optional path cannot reach
the stat-filter. The added class check is a **no-op today**, written for parity with Tier 2 — and
**demonstrated to be load-bearing anyway**: widening the tier filter alone keeps the tests green
*because of the check*; widening it and removing the check makes an optional gap start reporting.
## 8. §8.6's live effect — anticipated, and then NOT reproducible
Anticipated in the CHANGELOG before it could fire: calibre-web on demo-hp had exactly this gap, so its
status would become `incomplete`. **In the event it did not**, because the same session fixed the
underlying path — after the corrected bind and the data migration the app has no gap, and the run is
legitimately `ok`.
**Attempting to observe the verdict live by hiding the directory did not work, and that is recorded
rather than dressed up:** the running container's bind mount **recreated** it, so `os.Stat` succeeded
and no gap existed. Worth knowing in itself — a bind-mounted directory cannot easily be "missing"
while its app runs, so the mandatory-gap condition arises in practice when the path resolves somewhere
the app never binds (the R-203 case), not when a live app's own directory vanishes. The verdict is
proven by a run-level test that drives the real `RunOffboxBackup`. The fixture was restored and the
sentinel re-verified at the same hash.
## 9. Tests and every red-proof
| Scenario | Result | Red-proof — mutation → outcome |
|---|---|---|
| A both paths agree | PASS + **LIVE** | restore the bare-path call → **FAIL**: `/mnt/sys_drive/userdata` vs `/mnt/sys_drive/felhom-data/userdata` |
| B enrolled drive unchanged | PASS | invert the drive-kind comparison → **FAIL** on every enrolled row |
| C mandatory gap → not ok | PASS | unreachable gap recording → **FAIL**; unconditional `ok`**FAIL** |
| D optional gap → ok | PASS | class check removed **with the tier filter widened****FAIL**; tier widened alone → PASS, i.e. the check holds the line |
| E export mounts, both kinds + the negative | PASS | leave the site bare → **FAIL**, emits the short path |
| F sentinel in the listing | **LIVE** | — |
**A RED-PROOF PASSED AND THE TEST WAS WRONG, NOT THE CODE** (§9.11 — three of the last six sessions).
My first Scenario-C test exercised `offboxCaptureSet` alone, while the mutation lives in
`runOffboxInternal`. A mutation the test cannot observe is not a red-proof. Replaced with a run-level
test that drives `RunOffboxBackup` and asserts `incomplete`, the retained `LastSuccess`, and the
operator signal; it fails under both mutations. The original Scenario-D "red-proof" also could not
fail by construction — recorded above with the two-part mutation that does.
Green gate after each phase (`go build && go vet && go test ./...`, rc=0) plus
`controller_gates.py --fast`. No test run was combined with a commit.
## 10. Commits
| Commit | Contents |
| | |
|---|---|
| `73efb09` | Part 1 — one resolver, the four non-export sites, `ComputeFabBuckets`, the two delegating copies |
| `a96c3d9` | **Part 1.3 alone** — the `delete.go`-resident export-mount site, with its scope correction |
| `58c703b` | Part 2 — the verdict, the structural gaps, the operator digest, the status rendering |
| `73fb595` | docs (felhom.eu) |
| sentinel sha256, pre-wipe | `643166269103a25cf41d34a26b75fd6ebba0a837bbcd7e0d2b5aba7106bcbe7c` |
| sentinel sha256, post-restore | **not obtained** — the restore was never reachable |
## 11. Registers
**Not a FAIL.** Nothing came back wrong and no fresh history was started; the box never got as far as
running a backup. **What it is instead:** the first proof that the key survives and returns, plus the
measured reason a customer still cannot use it.
- **R-203 → SHIPPED + PROVEN-LIVE.**
- **R-201 → READY TO RESUME**, blocker gone, fixture staged and verified.
- **R-202 stays open**; the orphaned-ciphertext deletion is **still owed**.
- Capability map: new row for mandatory-path capture on both layouts, its predecessor corrected as
optimistic, and the **R-199 back-pointer omitted two sessions ago is now added**.
- The v0.93.0 `identity_blob` retention remains **unit-proven only** — nothing here superseded a key.
> **After a real rebuild — controller data volume destroyed, sentinel deleted from disk — the
> customer's recovery code produced `8a9e33aa4da6769c5aea1831f87759e10930e2ec1dea0062576484e0598d080a`,
> byte-identical to the pre-wipe on-disk key and to the hub's independent record.** That has never been
> shown before.
## 12. CI
## 2. Snapshot count at step 9 — not obtained
Run numbers and task ids in the session summary. **`--no-verify` was not used.**
The off-site run was never permitted to start (§4). **And a count would have been a poor
discriminator anyway:** restic's same-day `forget --keep-daily 7 --group-by host,tags` keeps one
snapshot per tag per day, so a successful reopen would have shown 3, not 4. The real observable is
whether the pre-wipe snapshot `e6132ae5` survives with the sentinel in it — recorded as the resume
step.
## 13. Teardown
## 3. §5's five conditions, recorded before the wipe
**Nothing provisioned.** `calibre-web` and the sentinel stay — R-201 needs them. The temporarily
hidden directory was restored and the sentinel re-verified byte-identical.
1. **sentinel listed by name** — snapshot `e6132ae5` (19:36:26), `-rw-r--r-- 1000 1000 181 …/DRILL-SENTINEL.txt`.
2. **rollback archive verified**`vzdump-lxc-9201-2026_08_04-21_44_24.tar.zst`, 1 606 765 083 B,
**full zstd stream read OK** (4 867 573 760 B), sentinel confirmed inside it.
3. §3's option — §5 below.
4. **demo-felhom** `health=ok`, `escrow_state=escrowed`, untouched throughout.
5. **space** — nvme-1tb 883 GB free, root 20 GB, local-lvm 34.32 %.
## 14. Observations — noticed, NOT acted on
**One precondition had drifted and was repaired, not worked around.** The staged snapshot no longer
held the sentinel: the afternoon's `mandatory data path missing` experiment produced a *later* same-day
calibre-web snapshot and `forget` had pruned the good one. The fixture on disk was correct, so one
backup re-established it and it was re-verified by listing. **Lesson: a good snapshot is not durable
against a later bad run on the same day.**
1. **`resolveAbs` uses ONE root for two bind classes.** `RootHDD` resolves against the same parameter
as `RootUserdata`. On an enrolled drive they coincide; on the system-data fallback a `${HDD_PATH}`
bind resolves under the namespace root while compose binds it bare. Both callers now pass the
namespace root, so the export and the backup **agree with each other** — but whether `${HDD_PATH}`
itself should mean the namespace root on the system drive is a separate question that touches every
already-deployed app's binds. **Not fixed here; it needs a decision, not a patch.**
2. **The blast radius was measured before changing anything:** exactly one app in the fleet has
`HDD_PATH == system_data_path``calibre-web` on demo-hp, deployed for the drill. Every other
deployed app has no `HDD_PATH`. Nothing else needed migrating.
3. **`/api/stacks/<name>/deploy` is first-deployment-only** (409 afterwards), so the corrected
`${USERDATA_PATH}` reaches an existing app through a start/redeploy, not a re-deploy.
4. **The controller's CSRF form field is `_csrf`, not `csrf_token`** — the login page uses one name and
the protected forms another. Second session in a row this cost time; it belongs in the
headless-access memory.
## 4. Every step's observable
| step | observable |
|---|---|
| 6 | fresh data dir stamped `20:00:2x`; **new `encryption.key`** (32 B); `claimed = None`; `offbox = null` |
| **7** | **`identity_blob` 572 B, `restic_pw_sha256` `8a9e33aa4da6…`, `updated_at` still `11:11:37` — UNCHANGED across the wipe.** Nothing re-escrowed itself |
| **8** | **recovered `8a9e33aa4da6…`** — matches pre-wipe on-disk and the hub's record. Exit 1 is correct and designed: nothing local to compare against, the rebuilt-box shape |
| 9a | `[INSTALLED] … reads back identical` — the "installed" branch's first real run |
| 9b | after the Re-issue and apply, the on-disk key is **still** `8a9e33aa4da6…``WriteOffboxSecrets` kept it |
| 9c | **blocked** — see below |
| 1011 | **not run** |
**The wipe was faithful to the incident, deliberately.** The 2026-08-03 rebuild R-193 is filed against
was **not** a guest reprovision — the journal shows guest 9201 running continuously through that window
with no `pct destroy`, no `pct restore` and no `--selftest=provision`. What changed was the controller
and its data volume. A guest destroy plus an unrehearsed provisioning chain, improvised unattended, is
what §8.10 exists to prevent.
## 5. §3 — the recovery code
**Option B as already in place, improved: no new copy was created, so nothing needed shredding.** The
operator had placed `R_DEMO-HP` in their own `~/.config/credentials` (`0600`) two sessions ago for this
purpose. It was read from there and **piped to stdin** for the two invocations that needed it — never
an argument, never exported, never written to a second file, never logged. Destroying the operator's
own store would have destroyed their record; because no additional copy existed, there is nothing left
to prove gone.
**Verified anyway, with the planted-copy positive control:** 0 hits in the agent journal, 0 in the
controller log, 0 files under `/tmp`, `/var/tmp`, `/var/lib/felhom-agent`, `/root`, 0 leftover
`felhom-idesc-*` staging dirs — and the same sweep found a planted copy (**1**), then **0** after
shredding it. The instrument is shown sensitive rather than assumed to be.
## 6. Part 2 — did not run
Its gate is "the drill PASSED". It did not. A second wipe would have destroyed the state that makes the
first drill finishable in five minutes. **R-198's retention therefore remains unit-proven only**
nothing has yet superseded a key in production.
## 7. Teardown — three layers
| layer | state |
|---|---|
| the guest | **nothing torn down** — the wipe is the evidence; all six app containers serving; the recovered key on disk; scratch band empty |
| the host | vzdump snapshot LVs released cleanly; one new 1.6 GB archive on nvme-1tb (883 GB free); nothing deleted |
| the hub | **no new customer records**`demo-hp` is the same row throughout, because the rebuild was a controller-data wipe and not a re-enrolment. One Re-issue staged a one-time secret (consumed 20:16) and set `stale_at`. The two superseded escrow rows are **unchanged** — no ceremony ran |
**Nothing deleted on the storage endpoint**, including the ~1.2 GB of orphaned ciphertext — ruled,
still owed, deliberately not ridden along with a drill.
## 8. The capability-map rows
A new row records the key as **PROVEN-LIVE after a real rebuild**, and states plainly what it does not
claim: **no file has been restored**, and the four links of R-204 stand between the recovered key and a
usable repository. The R-199 back-pointer added earlier today stands.
## 9. New findings
- **R-204 (NEW)** — the recovered key cannot be used: a rebuilt box cannot configure its tier (R-193);
the Re-issue that fixes that marks the escrow stale though the key never changed (R-196, **measured
at `20:15:49` with `restic_pw_sha256` unchanged**); a stale escrow gates every run; and the only way
to clear it is a ceremony that **destroys the recovered key**. Plus a fourth link in no design
document: a rebuilt box is **unclaimed**, so the claim gate intercepts every controller endpoint.
- **R-196 re-scoped** — no longer a documentation nit; it is on the critical path for recovery.
- **R-201** — the wipe happened, the key came back, ~5 minutes from a verdict with a person present.
- **R-198** — still unit-proven only; Part 2 gated out.
- **R-202 open; the ciphertext deletion still owed.**
## 10. CI
Docs push only. Run number and task id in the session summary. **`--no-verify` not used.**
## 11. Observations — noticed, NOT acted on
1. **The claim gate is an undocumented first step of every recovery.** Before a customer can do
anything on a rebuilt box — including recovering their backups — they must re-claim it.
2. **`--print-reset-code` output needs parsing care**: the captured value was 73 characters, i.e. more
than the code itself. Not chased; the claim was abandoned when the session stopped.
3. **A same-day re-run replaces the day's snapshot.** Worth knowing before designing any drill that
depends on a specific snapshot surviving.
4. **The hub's ClusterIP is not reachable from DooPlex's host network** — the operator UI needs a
`kubectl port-forward`. The `curl -u :$HUB_PW` recipe in memory omits that.
+25 -21
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@@ -36,25 +36,21 @@ Proven end to end on real hardware.
the old backups stay recoverable. Both keys are now kept. **What this cannot undo:** anything
superseded before today is gone for good, which includes both demo machines' pre-4-August keys — so
those 51 orphaned backups were beyond reach even if the recovery codes had been kept. *(R-198)*
- *(largely fixed 4 Aug)* ~~Nothing in the recovery path has ever been performed.~~ **The key now
demonstrably comes back — measured on a real machine this evening.** demo-felhom fetched its own
sealed package from the hub with its own credential, opened it with the recovery code you saved, and
the backup key that came out was **identical, character for character, to the one the machine is
using** — and to the fingerprint the hub had recorded separately. Three independent sources agreeing.
A deliberately wrong code, tried five minutes earlier, was refused outright and wrote nothing.
**What is still NOT done, and it is the half that matters to a customer:** nothing yet *puts the
recovered key back*, reopens the old backup store with it, or **restores a single file**. Today
proves the key survives and returns; it does not prove the backups do. *(R-199 closed; R-200 half;
R-201 open)*
- *(fixed 4 Aug)* ~~A backup reported success while leaving out a folder the customer was told is
protected.~~ **Both halves fixed the same day.** The app was writing to one folder and the backup was
looking in another — one directory apart, on machines whose apps live on the system disk. They now
resolve to the same place, from a single piece of code instead of the three near-copies that had
quietly drifted. **And a backup that cannot capture a folder marked essential no longer reports
success**: it reports *Hiányos* (incomplete), names the app and the folders, and tells you — while
still recording what it genuinely did capture, because half a backup is not no backup. Proved on the
HP machine by listing the backup's own contents and finding the marked file there by name and size —
not by trusting a green tick. *(R-203)*
- **THE BACKUP KEY COMES BACK AFTER A REBUILD — proved on real hardware last night.** We destroyed the
HP machine's controller data on purpose, deleted the marked file from its disk, and then used the
recovery code you saved. The key that came out was **identical, character for character**, to the one
the machine had been using — and to the fingerprint the hub had recorded separately. It installed
cleanly onto the empty machine. Nothing re-sealed itself in the meantime, so the sealed package
survived the rebuild untouched. *(R-201)*
- **But the machine still could not use it, and that is the night's real finding.** Three things stand
between a recovered key and a restored file, and each one is now measured rather than guessed:
**(1)** a rebuilt machine cannot set up its off-site connection at all — its one-time password was
spent by the machine it replaced; **(2)** the fix for that (re-issuing the credential) marks the
sealed package "stale" even though the key never changed, and a stale package blocks every off-site
backup; **(3)** the only documented way to clear that is to make a new recovery code — **which
replaces the sealed package and destroys the key we just recovered.** And before any of it, the
rebuilt machine is unclaimed, so nothing on its dashboard responds until the customer claims it
again — a step written down nowhere. **The key comes back and cannot be used.** *(R-204)*
- **One screen still tells the customer something we cannot yet promise.** The „elárvult tároló" card
says the old backups may later be restorable with the matching recovery code. From today that is true
for machines that re-seal from now on and **false for anything already orphaned** — and the machine
@@ -103,7 +99,10 @@ Proven end to end on real hardware.
## What we're working on
- **Now:** the wipe-and-restore proof, which is **unblocked and staged**. The marked file now lands in
- **Now:** finishing the proof — it is about five minutes with you present. The HP machine is sitting
mid-drill with the recovered key already on it; it needs re-claiming and one setting confirmed, then
the backup runs and the file is restored. **Do not let it make a new recovery code** — that would
destroy the key we recovered. Then the deeper fix for the wall above. The marked file now lands in
the off-site backup, so there is finally something to recover. Everything else is already in place on
the HP machine — the recovery code you saved, a working off-site store, the app and the file. Nothing
has been wiped; that step waits for your go-ahead at a marked stop point. Both honesty fixes shipped today: a changed backup key now
@@ -158,7 +157,12 @@ Proven end to end on real hardware.
## Changed since last update
- **2026-08-04 (latest)****Fixed the folder-left-out-of-the-backup problem, both halves.** The app
- **2026-08-04 (night)** — **Wiped the HP machine on purpose and got the backup key back with your
recovery code — identical, character for character.** First time that has ever been done. The drill
then stopped short of restoring the file, at a wall worth more than the last step: the key comes back
but cannot be used without an act that destroys it. The machine is up, its apps are serving, and it
is five minutes from finished. *(R-201, R-204)*
- **2026-08-04 (evening)****Fixed the folder-left-out-of-the-backup problem, both halves.** The app
and its backup now look in the same directory, and a backup that misses a folder marked essential
reports *incomplete* instead of success. Proved by listing the backup's own contents and finding the
marked file. The wipe-and-restore proof is unblocked. *(R-203, R-201)*
File diff suppressed because one or more lines are too long
@@ -0,0 +1,264 @@
# DRILL — R-201, the night run: **THE KEY CAME BACK. The verdict was not reached.**
**Date:** 2026-08-04, 21:3022:40 · **Box:** `demo-hp` (Tier 0) · **Unattended, by operator decision.**
**The wipe happened.** The box is up, its apps are serving, and it is left mid-drill by deliberate
choice — see §7 for the exact state and the one command that resumes it.
> **THE RESULT, first.** A real rebuild was performed: the controller's data volume was destroyed and
> the sentinel deleted from disk. The customer's recovery code then produced
> `8a9e33aa4da6769c5aea1831f87759e10930e2ec1dea0062576484e0598d080a` — **byte-identical to the key the
> box used before the wipe, and to the hash the hub had independently recorded.**
>
> **The off-site backup key is recoverable after a machine is rebuilt. That has never been shown
> before.**
>
> **And the drill did not finish**, because three separate things stand between a recovered key and a
> restored file. All three are measured below. That is the other half of the night's result, and it is
> the half nobody knew.
---
## 1. The verdict
**NOT REACHED.** Step 10 (restore the sentinel and compare) was not run.
| | |
|---|---|
| sentinel sha256, pre-wipe | `643166269103a25cf41d34a26b75fd6ebba0a837bbcd7e0d2b5aba7106bcbe7c` |
| sentinel sha256, post-restore | **not obtained** — the restore was never reachable |
| snapshot count at step 9 | **not obtained** — the run was refused before it started |
**This is not a FAIL.** A fail is "the file came back wrong" or "a fresh empty history was started".
Neither happened, because the box never got as far as running a backup. What the night established is
where the wall is.
---
## 2. What was proven, in order, on hardware
### Step 6 — the wipe
The controller's data volume was destroyed and the bootstrap re-ran. Fresh data directory, everything
stamped `2026-08-04 20:00:2x`:
```
encryption.key 32 B 2026-08-04 20:00:21 ← brand new: every pre-wipe app secret is undecryptable
claimed = None ← the fresh-install signal
offbox = null ← no off-site target
```
**Faithful to the incident, and deliberately so.** The 2026-08-03 rebuild that R-193 is filed against
was **not** a guest reprovision — the journal shows guest 9201 running continuously through that
window, with no `pct destroy`, no `pct restore` and no `--selftest=provision`. What changed was the
controller and its data volume. Reproducing *that* is what the drill needs; a guest destroy plus an
unrehearsed provisioning chain, improvised unattended, is what §8.10 exists to prevent.
### Step 7 — the assertion that keeps recovery possible: **PASSED**
```
host_escrow (demo-hp-bb76ea), AFTER the wipe:
identity_blob = 572 bytes ← unchanged
restic_pw_sha256 = 8a9e33aa4da6… ← unchanged
updated_at = 2026-08-04 11:11:37 ← unchanged; nothing re-escrowed
stale_at = NULL
```
**No ceremony was run and nothing re-escrowed itself.** The sealed key survived the rebuild untouched.
### Step 8 — **THE KEY CAME BACK**
```
=== offsite key recovery check (R-200) — compares, never installs ===
recovered sha256: 8a9e33aa4da6769c5aea1831f87759e10930e2ec1dea0062576484e0598d080a
[FAIL] there is no repository password on this box to compare against
(the recovery itself SUCCEEDED — this box simply has no local key. That is the
rebuilt-box shape, where the next step is to INSTALL rather than compare.)
```
Exit 1 is **correct and designed**: there was nothing to compare against, because the wipe removed it.
The recovered hash matches the pre-wipe on-disk key and the hub's own record — three independent
sources agreeing, one of them recovered through the full chain (hub → agent → unseal → extract) on a
box that had just lost everything it knew.
### Step 9a — installed cleanly
```
=== offsite key recovery INSTALL (R-200) ===
on-disk sha256: (none — this box has no repository password)
recovered sha256: 8a9e33aa4da6…
[INSTALLED] the recovered repository password is in place and reads back identical.
```
The "installed" branch — the rebuilt-box shape v0.196.0 was written for — took its first real run.
### Step 9b — the apply kept it
After the target was reconfigured, the on-disk key was still `8a9e33aa4da6…`. `WriteOffboxSecrets`
found the file present and kept it, exactly as documented.
---
## 3. The wall — three blockers, each measured
### (a) R-193, reconfirmed live: a rebuilt controller cannot configure its off-site tier
```
[INFO] [offsite-apply] settle-gate: GO — at/above floor 0.156.0 (we are 0.197.0)
[WARN] [offsite-apply] reconcile: offsite-apply: consume one-time password:
no unconsumed offsite password (already consumed or none provisioned)
(retries on next config refresh/restart)
```
The ledger, measured: `demo-hp` one-time secret created `07:11:51`, consumed `07:12:06` — **by the
previous controller**. The rebuilt one has nothing to consume and retries forever. Exactly the state
demo-hp sat in for 25 hours on 2026-08-03.
**Remedy:** an operator Re-issue. Performed here through the designed endpoint
(`POST /configs/demo-hp/offsite-reissue`, HTTP 303), after which the target configured normally.
### (b) R-196, measured live — and it lands squarely on the recovery path
```
host_escrow (demo-hp-bb76ea), after the Re-issue:
stale_at = 2026-08-04 20:15:49 ← set
restic_pw_sha256 = 8a9e33aa4da6… ← UNCHANGED. The key did not move.
```
**The escrow was marked stale while it perfectly covers the box's current key** — the recovered one.
That is R-196's false staleness, and here it is not a cosmetic lie: a stale escrow makes the hub
**withhold the hash from the report ACK**, so `EscrowAutoConfirmer` can never flip `pending →
escrowed`, and `OffboxRunnable` (`configured && escrowed`) **refuses to run any off-site backup**.
> **The remedy for (a) disables the recovery it was needed for.** The only documented way to clear a
> stale escrow is a fresh ceremony — which supersedes the identity blob, i.e. **destroys the very key
> being recovered**. Under hub v0.93.0 the old blob is now *retained*, but nothing can serve a
> superseded blob back (R-199's inventory: the endpoint serves the CURRENT row only).
**Superseded rows still number 2** — no ceremony was run tonight. The key is intact.
### (c) The claim gate — undocumented as a recovery step
```
[DEBUG] [web] claim gate: intercepting POST /backup/offbox/confirm-escrow (unclaimed)
```
A rebuilt box is **unclaimed** (`claimed = None`, fresh `settings.json`), and the claim gate correctly
intercepts every non-claim route. **So no controller endpoint can be driven at all** — not the manual
escrow confirm, not the backup trigger — until the customer re-claims the box. Both POSTs returned 302
to the claim page and neither reached its handler; `last_run` stayed null, which is why the earlier
reading of "the run was refused" needed this second look to be accurate.
This is correct behaviour and it is **not wrong** — but it is a step in the customer's recovery journey
that appears in no design document, and it comes *before* anything else can happen.
---
## 4. Why the session stopped here
By 22:35 the path forward was a chain of workarounds assembled live — Re-issue, then the deprecated
manual confirm, then the root-gated `--print-reset-code` escape hatch to re-claim, then the confirm
again, then the run. Each is individually defensible; the accumulation is precisely the pattern §8.10
names:
> *"If anything is ambiguous at 03:00, stop and leave it for the morning. An unattended session that
> halts with a clear state beats one that improvises."*
The remaining steps need about five minutes **with a person present**. They are not worth improvising
alone at the end of a long night, on the one box whose off-site history the drill is trying to prove.
**Nothing was left broken.** The box is up, all six app containers are serving, and the recovered key
is on disk.
---
## 5. §5's five conditions, as recorded before the wipe
| # | Condition | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | §4 confirmed, sentinel **listed by name** | snapshot `e6132ae5` (19:36:26) — `-rw-r--r-- 1000 1000 181 … /DRILL-SENTINEL.txt` |
| 2 | deliberate rollback archive, **verified** | `vzdump-lxc-9201-2026_08_04-21_44_24.tar.zst`, 1 606 765 083 B; **full zstd stream read OK** (4 867 573 760 B uncompressed); the sentinel confirmed **inside** it |
| 3 | §3's option | see §6 |
| 4 | demo-felhom untouched | `health=ok`, `escrow_state=escrowed`, not touched at any point |
| 5 | free space | nvme-1tb 883 GB free, root 20 GB, local-lvm 34.32 % |
**A precondition had drifted and was repaired before the wipe, not worked around.** The staged
snapshot no longer contained the sentinel: the afternoon's `[WARN] mandatory data path missing`
experiment produced a *later* same-day calibre-web snapshot, and restic's `forget --keep-daily 7
--group-by host,tags` had pruned the good one in its favour. The fixture on disk was correct, so one
backup re-established it and it was re-verified by listing. **Lesson worth carrying: a good snapshot is
not durable against a later bad run on the same day.**
## 6. §3 — the recovery code
**Option B as already in place, with a strict improvement: no new copy was created, so nothing needed
shredding.**
The operator placed `R_DEMO-HP` in their own `~/.config/credentials` on DooPlex (mode `0600`) two
sessions ago, deliberately, for this purpose. This session read it from there and **piped it to stdin**
for each of the two invocations that needed it. It was never an argument, never exported, never written
to a second file, and never logged.
**Nothing was shredded, and that is the point:** the operator's own permanent store is theirs, not a
drill artefact, and destroying it would have destroyed their record. Because no additional copy was
made, there is nothing left behind to prove gone — a stronger position than option B's
create-then-shred.
**Verified afterwards** with the planted-copy positive control, exactly as on 2026-08-04 afternoon —
see §8.
---
## 7. The exact state the box is in, and how to resume
```
controller felhom-controller:0.197.0, healthy
apps privatebin opengist calibre-web filebrowser cloudflared traefik — all serving
claimed None ← must be re-claimed before any controller endpoint responds
escrow_state pending ← R-196: the Re-issue marked the escrow stale
repo key 8a9e33aa4da6… ← THE RECOVERED KEY, on disk
sentinel absent from disk (deliberately) — present in off-site snapshot e6132ae5
```
**To resume (operator present, ~5 minutes):**
1. Re-claim the box — `docker exec felhom-controller /usr/local/bin/felhom-controller
--print-reset-code`, then the claim page.
2. Confirm the escrow (`/backup/offbox/confirm-escrow`) so `OffboxRunnable` allows a run. **Do NOT run
a new ceremony** — it would supersede the identity blob and destroy the key under test.
3. Run an off-site backup. **The observable is whether the repository OPENS** — and whether the
pre-wipe snapshot `e6132ae5` still exists with the sentinel in it. A same-day `forget` keeps one
snapshot per tag, so the *count* is a poor discriminator; the surviving history is the real one.
4. Restore the sentinel through the customer restore flow; compare to `643166269103a25c…`.
**Rollback, if preferred:** `pct restore 9201` from
`/mnt/nvme-1tb/dump/vzdump-lxc-9201-2026_08_04-21_44_24.tar.zst` — verified by a full read before the
wipe. It returns the box to its pre-wipe state and voids the remaining drill.
---
## 8. R persisted nowhere — searched, with a positive control
Swept the agent journal, the controller container log, and `/tmp`, `/var/tmp`, `/var/lib/felhom-agent`,
`/root` on demo-hp for the recovery code: **0 hits**, and **0** leftover `felhom-idesc-*` unseal
staging directories. A planted copy was found by the same sweep (**1**) and not found after shredding
(**0**), so the instrument is shown sensitive rather than assumed to be.
---
## 9. Teardown — three layers
| layer | state |
|---|---|
| the guest | **Nothing torn down.** The wipe is the evidence; the apps are serving; the recovered key is in place. The scratch band is empty — no restore-test guest was created tonight. |
| the host | `vzdump` snapshot LVs removed cleanly by the archive job (`snap_vm-9201-disk-0/1_vzdump` both released). One new archive, 1.6 GB, on `nvme-1tb` (883 GB free). Nothing deleted. |
| the hub | **No new customer records.** `demo-hp` is the same customer row throughout — the rebuild was a controller-data wipe, not a re-enrolment, so nothing accumulated. One Re-issue staged a fresh one-time secret (consumed at 20:16) and set `stale_at`. The two superseded escrow rows are **unchanged** — no ceremony ran. |
**Nothing was deleted on the storage endpoint**, including the ~1.2 GB of previously-orphaned
ciphertext. Ruled, still owed, and deliberately not ridden along with a drill.
## 10. Part 2 — not run, and why
Its gate is *"the drill PASSED"*. It did not — the verdict was not reached. Running a second wipe on a
box whose first result is incomplete would have destroyed the staged state that makes the first one
finishable in five minutes. **R-198's retention therefore remains unit-proven only**, unchanged from
this morning.
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| R-203 | **A mandatory customer data directory was silently absent from the off-site snapshot while the run reported `ok`** — the deploy-time `${USERDATA_PATH}` root and the backup-time namespace root disagree for an app on the system drive | M | **OPEN — halted the R-201 drill 2026-08-04** | Flips nothing yet. Blocks the off-site app-data row from ever earning a customer-file-restored badge. Fix shape: one root function, and a MANDATORY skip must be customer/hub-visible rather than a container-log WARN |
| R-201 | **The wipe-and-recover drill** | L | **PREPARED, HALTED BEFORE THE WIPE (2026-08-04)** | Nothing irreversible done. Established live for the first time: a rebuilt box's off-site run REFUSES (the orphan card, not a silent fresh history — closes R-193 Q3), the orphan reset works move-aside-never-delete, and demo-hp's pre-rebuild key is permanently gone (superseded four hours before v0.93.0). Resume needs R-203 |
| R-203 | **The app and its backup looked in different directories, and a run that skipped a mandatory folder still said `ok`** | M | **SHIPPED + PROVEN-LIVE (controller v0.197.0, 2026-08-04)** | Adds the capability-map row *"off-site app-data capture covers MANDATORY paths on both drive layouts"* as PROVEN-LIVE, and corrects that row's predecessor, which was optimistic. Unblocks R-201 |
| R-204 | **The recovered key cannot be used: the Re-issue that reconfigures a rebuilt box's off-site tier marks the escrow stale, which gates every run, and the only way to clear it destroys the key** | M | **OPEN — the wall the 2026-08-04 night drill hit** | Blocks R-201's verdict. Fix is most likely R-196's (mark stale on evidence, not on a Re-issue) or letting a verified recovered key confirm the escrow without a ceremony |
| R-19 | Internet-outage customer-experience drill: pull WAN on demo, verify lan_resolver path, document what the customer actually sees/does | S | idea | Flips map row E "LAN access" IMPLEMENTED→PROVEN-LIVE |
| R-20 | ~~Verify operator-key pinning is fully in the day-0 install flow~~ | XS | **closed** (2026-07-16) | Confirmed against `scripts/felhom-host-install.sh` source (not changelog): keys resolve at L11811219 (script constants `OPERATOR_KEY_*`, populated, `--operator-pubkey-file` override), pinned automatically by `step_agent_config()` "STEP 6/8" (L2044; python builds `authz.signers` L21462156, reinstall preserves existing), verified at L23322337 ("authz signers: N … operator-signed self-update armed"). No interactive prompt or post-install hand-edit — fully automatic. Doc-drift note: the L193197 "EMPTY by default" comment is stale vs the now-populated constants (→ R-16 hygiene) |
| R-23 | **Immediate-sync Direction-2 follow-ups** (hub v0.58 / controller v0.140, 2026-07-16): **(a) — BANKED 2026-07-21 (both legs).** The operator-UI save->apply round trip is PROVEN: the STOP-2 global-floor save (hub `18:56:27 CEST`) released the controller's held wait in the **same second** (`16:56:27Z wait woke: generation=1 - firing out-of-cycle report`), with the report built 2 s later; the ring also shows `wait baseline generation=0` at startup (baseline recorded WITHOUT firing, as designed) then `generation=1`, so the generation advanced past 0. **RESTART LEG BANKED 2026-07-21 — the floor was moved to a version the box did NOT run, and the swap fired EXACTLY ONCE.** Operator saved global floor 0.153.0 → **v0.154.0** (a real version boundary, unlike the 2026-07-20 attempt which targeted an already-running version and therefore proved nothing). Timeline (guest UTC): `06:57:13` UpdateState `pending` written `initiated_by=auto-floor``06:57:17` agent `controller swap requested 0.153.0 -> 0.154.0``06:57:19` `image file written, restarting bootstrap``06:57:21` container StartedAt + UpdateState `completed_at``06:57:29` agent `new controller healthy`. **16 s end to end.** Assertions over the whole window (06:50 → 07:29, 39 min): `controller swap requested` = **1**, agent-driven bootstrap restarts = **1**, `new controller healthy` = **1**, rollback/swap-failed/unhealthy = **0**, container `RestartCount` = **0**. `VerifyStartup` banked it on the next boot (`Post-update startup: update successful (0.153.0 → 0.154.0)`) and the `06:57:52` periodic check logged `Current version 0.154.0 is up to date` — the at/above-floor branch correctly doing nothing. **No storm, no rollback, no second attempt.** *Caveat, disclosed: a hand-deploy of v0.155.0 at `07:17:10` sits inside the observation window and is what StartedAt shows after that point; it never touches `SwapController`, so the swap-count assertions above are uncontaminated across the full window. A second, unplanned confirmation of the at/above-floor branch came with it — after the hand-deploy the box ran 0.155.0 against a 0.154.0 floor and the updater logged `Current version 0.155.0 is up to date` and did nothing.* Evidence: `felhom-controller/REPORT.md` §6 (2026-07-21). *(Superseded note:)* **the self-restart single-fire leg was** - the floor was set to a version the box ALREADY ran, so there was no work and no restart. Finish by bumping the floor to a version the box does NOT run, debug ring open, asserting EXACTLY ONE restart. **Trap found while banking this: the wake is `logx.Debugf`, so it is INVISIBLE in `docker logs` at INFO** and lives only in the debug ring (`GET /api/debug/logs?level=DEBUG`) - a hunter looking at stdout wrongly concludes the box never woke; arguably (b) generalised. (b) cosmetic: the Waiter's "recovered" INFO logs on the next hold completion (`pollOnce` blocks ~240 s), not at reconnect | S | **(a) BANKED in full; only (b) cosmetic remains** | Map row "config/state change round-trips in seconds" flipped PARTIAL->PROVEN-LIVE 2026-07-21 on this evidence. Evidence: `felhom-controller/REPORT.md` 4f |