802-line playbook becomes 68 lines (three plays: the role, the Caddy dashboard,
the Stratum socket proxy) plus a 345-line role. datum_gateway_vars.yml is
deleted; its content is the role's defaults.
Verified after a real run with zero miners connected: datum-gateway restarted
cleanly onto the reformatted config, deployed config.json semantically identical
to what was there (pool_address bc1qvrj3g84..., pool_pass_* false, ports
unchanged), health check timer firing, and the Knots side untouched - bitcoind
still up since 2026-08-19 with blocknotify intact.
TWO PIECES OF DRIFT WHERE THE NODE WAS RIGHT, both confirmed with the operator:
- datum_mining_address: the vault held bc1qdse9dsg... while the node had been
mining to bc1qvrj3g... since 2026-08-08. This is WHERE BLOCK REWARDS ARE PAID.
And unlike fulcrum and bitcoin-knots, the `Restart datum-gateway` handler here
was never gated, so the stale value would have applied immediately rather than
sitting inert on disk.
- pool_pass_workers / pool_pass_full_users: false on the node, true in the vars
file.
Both corrected in the vault and role defaults with notes recording why.
Comparing this config needs semantics, not text: the live file is single-line
JSON and the template renders pretty-printed, so a textual diff is pure noise.
Rendering it and comparing parsed JSON is what surfaced both differences.
config.json carries bitcoind.rpcpassword and api.admin_password, and --diff
prints rendered content - so `--check --diff` put them on the terminal. The task
now sets diff: false by default (-e datum_reveal_config=true to opt in). Those
two should be rotated.
I also mis-reported pool_pass_workers/pool_pass_full_users as exposed credentials
because my masking matched "pass" in the key name. They are BOOLEANS, and
mining.pool_address is a Bitcoin address, public by nature. Only the two real
passwords above were exposed.
`Configure cmake build` and `Compile datum_gateway` are bare command: tasks with
no changed_when, so they recompile on every run. The build is reproducible -
Install datum_gateway binary sees identical content and leaves the installed
binary's timestamp alone - but it is wasted work each time. Documented as the
idempotent floor.
Ownership parity checked mechanically against `git show HEAD:` keyed by task
name: 7/7 match, 9 Kuma tasks dropped.
This completes Plan 6 Stage 2: all six services in the list are roles.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
892-line playbook becomes 40 lines plus a role with install/build/configure/
service/healthcheck phases, five templates and one handler. bitcoin_knots_vars.yml
is deleted; its content is the role's defaults.
Verified after a real run: bitcoind still active since 2026-08-19 (NO restart),
chain at 966844 blocks / 875 GB, DATUM config intact, dbcache still 200, health
check timer firing again. changed=3, all health-check. vipy changed=0.
⚠ THE BIG ONE: the playbook would have deleted the mining integration.
bitcoin.conf on the node carries a section that was hand-added and was missing
from the template entirely:
blockmaxsize=3985000
blockmaxweight=3985000
blocknotify=killall -USR1 datum_gateway
maxmempool=1000
blockreconstructionextratxn=1000000
blocknotify is how datum_gateway learns a new block landed. Running the old
playbook would have stripped all of it and solo mining would have carried on
against a stale template - a silent failure that costs money rather than raising
an error. Also dbcache 200 -> 3528 (hand-tuned down; the calculation wants 90% of
RAM) and logging moved off the file. All now reconciled, dbcache behind
bitcoin_dbcache_mb_override.
bitcoin-knots and datum-gateway are ONE SYSTEM. Noted in the README.
AND MY OWN FIX MADE IT MORE DANGEROUS. The `Restart bitcoind` handler was guarded
by uptime_kuma_enabled, so it had been inert: bitcoin.conf and the systemd unit
both notify it and neither could restart anything - a config change applied to
disk, reported success, and never took effect. Ungating that is right, but it
converts "wrong config sitting inertly on disk" into "node restarted onto a
config that breaks mining". The ungating had to land WITH the template
reconciliation, not before it.
It also raises the bar permanently: any residual template/live difference now
restarts a Bitcoin node on every run. Four rounds of --check --diff to reach
changed=0 - the DATUM section, an explanatory comment that was rendering into the
deployed config (now a {# #} Jinja comment), a "# Pruning (optional)" comment the
live file had, and one trailing blank line.
The build path is 32 tasks all guarded by `not bitcoind_binary_exists.stat.exists`,
so a converged host skips the 30-60 minute compile and both `state: absent`
deletions. Those target /opt/bitcoin-knots/{source,bitcoin-<version>}; the chain
is in /mnt/knots_data and is never touched. Signature-verification tasks copied
verbatim.
The health check timer had last fired 2026-08-09 while reporting active/enabled -
same OnBootSec + OnUnitActiveSec dead chain as fulcrum. The role runs the check
once after enabling to supply the reference the timer schedules from.
Ownership parity checked mechanically against `git show HEAD:`, keyed by TASK
NAME rather than path - keying by path gave a false positive, because
bitcoin_knots_source_dir is created with ownership and later removed with
state: absent, so whichever task comes last wins and that differs between one
file and five. 13/13 match.
bitcoin_p2p_port and the tailscale hostname moved to services_config.yml for the
socket-proxy play on the edge host.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
685-line playbook becomes 33 lines plus a 426-line role
(install/service/healthcheck phases, six templates, one handler).
fulcrum_vars.yml is deleted; its content is the role's defaults.
Verified: fulcrum untouched - active since 2026-07-29 (no restart), 192G datadir,
height 966842, bitcoind and db_mem unchanged on disk. Second run changed=1 (the
arming run, changed_when: false aside). vipy changed=0.
THREE PRE-EXISTING LANDMINES the check-mode diff caught, any of which a faithful
extraction would have detonated:
- bitcoin_rpc_host was "192.168.1.140", commented "IP of knots_box_local". But
.140 is fulcrum-box ITSELF; knots-box is .135. The DHCP leases had reshuffled -
the fifth instance of this same disease in this estate. The live config had
been hand-corrected to knots-box; running the playbook would have reverted it
and pointed Fulcrum at itself. Now addressed by Tailscale name.
- The `Restart fulcrum` handler was guarded by uptime_kuma_enabled, so the three
tasks that notify it (SSL cert, fulcrum.conf, systemd unit) could not restart
anything. A config change applied to disk, reported success, and silently never
took effect. That is worse than the other banner casualties: it makes the
deployment itself lie. Ungated.
- db_mem was about to go 2048 -> 4448 (75% of 5931MB RAM), leaving ~1.4GB for the
OS and Fulcrum's non-cache memory. The live value had been hand-tuned down.
fulcrum_db_mem_mb_override pins it. Note set_fact outranks role defaults, so
the calculation itself has to honour the override.
MY OWN ERROR, third instance: retyping `copy:` as `template:` lost `owner:` on
the banner and on fulcrum.conf. Rather than keep catching these by eye, every
managed path's owner/group/mode is now compared against `git show HEAD:`
mechanically - 12/12 match.
The health check timer had not fired since 2026-02-17 while reporting `active`
and `enabled`. It is OnBootSec + OnUnitActiveSec with no OnCalendar: OnBootSec
elapses once, and OnUnitActiveSec needs the SERVICE to have run this boot to have
anything to schedule from. Restarting the timer does not supply that; running the
service does, so the role now runs the check once after enabling. Also dropped
`Requires=fulcrum.service` from the timer - on a timer that means "stop watching
when the watched thing stops".
Diagnostic note: NextElapseUSecRealtime is always empty for a monotonic timer, so
it reads as broken even when healthy. I misread it once and wrongly called the
timer dead. Use NextElapseUSecMonotonic or systemctl list-timers.
fulcrum_ssl_port and fulcrum_tailscale_hostname moved to services_config.yml -
the socket-proxy play on the edge host needs them and a role default cannot reach
a second play.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
745-line playbook becomes 37 lines (the role, plus the Caddy play for the edge
host) and a 408-line role with docker/deploy/healthcheck phases and six
templates. mempool_vars.yml is deleted; its content is the role's defaults.
Three health checks are kept, not collapsed: Mempool is three moving parts and
knowing which one is down is the point. Each has its own script, unit, timer and
push_url, driven by a mempool_healthchecks list. The Uptime Kuma specifics are
gone - the embedded Python creating monitors over the API, the /tmp credentials
file, the push-URL file read back and parsed, three Environment= rewrites - and
the three live push URLs are preserved from the vault, so reporting is unchanged.
`Enable and start health check timers` and `Display deployment status` were both
guarded by uptime_kuma_enabled despite being deployment tasks. Third service in
a row with that pattern: the deprecation banner was applied to contiguous blocks,
so anything sitting near the push plumbing was disabled with it. Ungated.
TWO OWNERSHIP PROBLEMS, different in kind:
- MINE: I wrote `owner: root` on docker-compose.yml where the original says
`owner: "{{ ansible_user }}"`. A straight violation of extract-mechanically-
change-nothing, caught only by reading the check-mode diff line by line.
Reverted to match the original.
- PRE-EXISTING, and dangerous: the playbook declared
`owner: "{{ ansible_user }}"` (1000) on the MariaDB data directory, which the
container owns as uid 999. Confirmed against `git show HEAD:` before
concluding it was not mine. It had drifted since the containers were created
and went unnoticed because the playbook had not been run since.
This was not academic. The first real run pulled a newer mariadb:10.11 and
recreated mempool-db; with the chown still in place MariaDB would have come
back to a data directory it could not write. The role now ensures the
directory exists and leaves ownership to the container. Verified after the
run: /opt/mempool/mysql is still 999:999 and all three containers are healthy.
This is a deliberate behaviour change, not part of the extraction. It is in
this commit rather than a follow-up because the faithful version was never
safe to run, so there was no intermediate state worth recording as verified.
mempool_frontend_port moved to services_config.yml: two hosts need it (this role
deploys the frontend, the Caddy play proxies to it from the edge host) and a role
default is invisible to the second play. caddy_site's parameter assert caught
this loudly - "'mempool_frontend_port' is undefined" - rather than silently.
Verified: check-mode diff clean apart from unavoidable check-mode artifacts;
first run ok=24 changed=5, zero failures; second run changed=2 - the two bare
`command:` tasks (pull, compose up) that have no changed_when and always report
changed. That is the idempotent floor. All three health checks report
ExecMainStatus 0 with their push URLs intact.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
552-line playbook becomes 18 lines plus a 411-line role
(install/service/healthcheck phases, four templates, two handlers).
phoenixd_vars.yml is deleted; its content is the role's defaults.
Task-list diff vs the old playbook shows ONLY the eight Uptime Kuma tasks
removed - everything else identical and in the same order.
phoenixd holds a Lightning node, so the run was checked against a pre-flight:
before: channel 6c25fa83..., balanceSat 1550723, capacitySat 3114830,
blockHeight 966692, active since 2026-09-02
after: identical, and still active since 2026-09-02 - it did NOT restart
`Create phoenixd systemd service` came back unchanged, which is what proves the
template reproduces the live unit byte-for-byte. changed=3 was the health check
script, its unit (Environment rename), and the timer restart. Second run:
changed=0.
Two things the conversion fixed, both symptoms of the deprecation banner having
been applied to contiguous blocks rather than to individual tasks:
- The health check logged "ERROR: UPTIME_KUMA_PUSH_URL not set" on every fire -
about 1,400 times a day - because its Environment= was emptied at
decommissioning. The exit code was still correct so nothing was broken, but it
is exactly the kind of noise that trains you to ignore a log. An unset push
URL is now normal and silent.
- `Enable and start phoenixd health check timer` was guarded by
uptime_kuma_enabled and so had not run since the decommissioning, while the
timer itself was still live on the host from before. Ansible had quietly
stopped managing something that was still running. Ungated.
Noted, not changed: seed.dat is mode 0644 on the host. That is phoenixd's own
doing, but it is a Lightning seed and worth tightening.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
409-line playbook becomes a 16-line playbook plus a 318-line role with phases
split across tasks/{prerequisites,install,configure,service,healthcheck}.yml and
four templates. forgejo_runner_vars.yml is deleted; its content is the role's
defaults.
Applies the Plan 6 Stage 0 decision: keep whatever determines whether the
service is healthy, drop the Uptime Kuma specifics, make the reporting point
pluggable. Gone from the role: the embedded Python that created monitors over
the Kuma API, the /tmp credentials file, token extraction, the systemd
Environment= rewrite, and 8 `when: uptime_kuma_enabled` guards. What remains is
the check itself, its log, the systemd unit and timer, and an honest exit code -
`systemctl is-failed forgejo-runner-healthcheck.service` now answers the
question with no monitoring system involved at all.
Reporting is one variable, healthcheck_push_url, empty by default. Any endpoint
that accepts an HTTP ping plugs in there. A pull-based monitor wants it left
empty and reads unit state instead.
PREMISE CORRECTION: Uptime Kuma is NOT dead. Plan 3 recorded "48 push timers
curling an endpoint that no longer answers" and Plan 6 said the check had
"nowhere to report to". Both wrong - 24+ push scripts across 11 hosts are
pushing successfully right now (HTTP 200). Only the Ansible code and the vault
credentials were decommissioned; the service never stopped. So the existing push
URLs were harvested into a vaulted healthcheck_push_urls dict and are preserved,
keeping this refactor behaviour-neutral. Retiring Kuma stays a deliberate act
rather than a side effect. PLAN_3 and PLAN_6 are corrected.
Verified:
- task-list diff vs the old playbook shows ONLY the five Kuma tasks removed,
everything else identical and in the same order
- first run ok=22 changed=1 (the rewritten health script); both systemd units
and forgejo-runner.service came back ok, so the templates reproduce the
previous files byte-for-byte
- second run ok=22 changed=0, fully idempotent
- still reports "Ping sent successfully (HTTP 200)" from a script containing
zero Uptime Kuma references
- the 4 skipped tasks are genuine already-configured guards, checked not assumed
Two things for the next service:
- import_tasks, not include_tasks. Dynamic includes are opaque to --list-tasks,
which is the primary verification tool here; the first attempt produced a
useless diff.
- `Assert runner is running` was guarded by uptime_kuma_enabled and so had not
run since the decommissioning. It is not monitoring, it is the deployment
checking its own work - the deprecation banner swept it up with the Kuma
plumbing, and a runner that failed to start was deploying "successfully" in
silence. Ungated now. The banner was applied to contiguous blocks, so read
every uptime_kuma_enabled guard and ask whether it is monitoring or deployment.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
All five close-out greps return nothing: no sites-enabled handling outside
roles/, no `systemctl reload caddy`, no caddy_sites_dir self-reference, no
inline proxy unit writes. 37 playbooks syntax clean. The 14 Caddy site files
and 6 proxy units on the hosts are byte-identical to the Stage 0 baseline.
Seven play names still said "on vipy" while the play targeted a group. Renamed
to "on the edge host" - the last place a play claimed a hostname after Plan 2.
Documented the four vhosts in /etc/caddy/sites-enabled that no playbook writes
(uptime-kuma, arbretstaging, bitcoininfra, scriberr) in the caddy_site README.
None deleted.
uptime-kuma.conf was going to be deleted as dead config. It is not dead: the
louislam/uptime-kuma container is STILL RUNNING on watchtower - created
2026-02-07, restart=unless-stopped, healthy - and uptime.contrapeso.xyz returns
302, not the 502 a dead backend would give. The "decommissioning" retired the
Ansible code and the vault credentials, not the service. PLAN_3 claimed "the
tokens died with the server"; that is corrected there.
The Caddyfile.* backups are kept: one per host, Nov-Dec 2025, not churning, and
the only record of each Caddyfile before the import line was added.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three near-identical hosts: edge plays become one role plus three short
calls. 183 lines removed, 34 added, plus a 111-line role.
Verified before touching any playbook: all six live units on vipy reproduced
byte-identically. Then --limit edge --check per playbook - bitcoin-knots and
fulcrum changed=0; datum-gateway changed=2, both attributable to the already
known caddy_site comment line and the Reload caddy handler it triggers.
The 6 units and 14 Caddy files on the hosts are byte-identical afterwards.
PLAN_4 claimed these three plays had "no behavioural drift at all". That was
wrong - it came from a diff truncated by head -60. The live bitcoin-p2p-proxy
units carry four settings this playbook never wrote:
.socket Documentation=, FreeBind=true
.service Documentation=, TimeoutStopSec=5,
StandardOutput=journal, StandardError=journal
FreeBind is the one that matters: it lets the socket bind to an address that
is not up yet, so without it the socket can fail to start on boot. Running
the bitcoin-knots playbook would have stripped it. Same class of hazard as
headscale. The role expresses all four; bitcoin-p2p is the only caller that
passes any.
Also: UFW treats the rule comment as part of the rule. datum-stratum's live
comment is "DATUM Gateway Stratum public access" but the role's derived
default produced "DATUM Stratum public access", which rewrote the rule.
Caught in the dry-run; datum now passes the comment explicitly.
Two deliberate differences from the original, both documented in the README:
ignore_errors: yes on the upstream check became failed_when: false, and the
handler restarts the .socket, which drops connections open through it - it
fires only when a unit file actually changes.
The inert Uptime Kuma TCP monitor blocks stay in the playbooks rather than
being pulled into a new role (12/12/18 guarded tasks).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Completes Stage 3. No hand-rolled Caddy plumbing remains anywhere:
`grep sites-enabled` outside roles/ returns nothing, and so does
`grep "systemctl reload caddy"`.
ntfy uses caddy_site_body for its plain-HTTP listener and @httpget redirect.
Verified ok/unchanged against watchtower; the one other changed task is a
pre-existing "Update APT cache".
datum-gateway keeps a whole-Caddyfile validate after the role call. The role
validates its own fragment, but only a whole-file validate catches a conflict
between two sites, and this playbook was the only one that ever had it. Its
two debug tasks that echoed command output are gone with the commands.
headscale is the one that mattered. Its playbook wrote
`reverse_proxy localhost:8080`, but spacey is actually running a /admin*
route in front of Headplane behind Caddy basic auth. Running that playbook
would have deleted the admin route and its auth - a hazard that predates this
work. It now renders the config that is really there, verified ok/unchanged
via --start-at-task (the play cannot reach Caddy in check mode: "Install
headscale package" fails because the .deb is not really downloaded, before
and after this edit alike).
Supporting changes for headscale:
- headscale_ui_password_hash added to infra_secrets.yml and the identical
group_vars/all/vault.yml, read from the live config on spacey. The vault
already had headscale_ui_username (= counterweight, confirmed) and
headscale_ui_password; I did not verify the password is the plaintext of
this hash.
- headplane_port added to headscale_vars.yml.
- The role's handler now sets become: true. Handlers do not inherit become
from the task that notified them, and this play runs become: no.
- The include uses `apply: become: yes`; `become:` on an include_role is
rejected outright.
All 14 site files on all 3 hosts still byte-identical.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
lnbits is the header_up shape; memos and mempool are the Tailscale MagicDNS
shape. 108 lines removed, 25 added.
mempool was the one playbook already reloading Caddy correctly
(systemd: state: reloaded rather than command: systemctl reload caddy), so
its end marker differed - the role's handler does the same thing.
Verified:
- lnbits: full --check, site task ok, byte-identical to the live file
- memos, mempool: --check --diff via --limit edge shows exactly one added
line each, the standardised MagicDNS comment. Both playbooks fail earlier
in check mode on their VM play ("Extract memos binary", the same
download-does-not-happen-in-check-mode artifact as forgejo), but the edits
are confined to the hosts: edge play - memos at line 169+, play 2 starts
at 159; mempool at 617+, play 2 starts at 606.
The added comment means the next real run of memos/mempool rewrites one
comment line. Those two host files were already stale against their
playbooks before this change.
All 14 site files on all 3 hosts still byte-identical.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The plain reverse_proxy shape. All three removed a byte-identical 23-line
block (verified by md5 of the diff with the service name normalised) and
gained the same 7-line include_role call. The caddy_sites_dir self-reference
goes with it.
Verified in check mode, nothing applied to the hosts yet:
- ntfy-emergency-app: site task ok, changed=0
- vaultwarden: site task ok; the one changed task is a pre-existing
always-restarts fail2ban step, identical before the edit
- forgejo: check mode cannot run this playbook at all - get_url does not
download in check mode so the next task fails on "Source /tmp/forgejo not
found". Confirmed identical before the edit. Covered instead by the
Stage 2 dry-run, which ran the role against vipy with forgejo's real
parameters and reported ok/unchanged.
All 14 site files on all 3 hosts still byte-identical. Real runs for these
three are still outstanding.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
First service on the role. 31 lines of copy-pasted Caddy plumbing become 7.
Verified: --check before and after the edit reports the same three unrelated
tasks as changed, so the edit introduces nothing. Real run leaves all 14 site
files on all 3 hosts byte-identical, and the blog still answers HTTP 200. A
second consecutive run reports the site task ok with the handler not firing.
Side effect worth noting: the playbook no longer has a perpetually-changed
task. `command: systemctl reload caddy` always reported changed; the role's
handler only fires when the file actually moves.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
services/caddy_playbook.yml was the one play still targeting a location
group (vps) rather than a role group. The two coincide today — vps is
exactly vipy, watchtower and spacey, the three hosts with
/etc/caddy/sites-enabled — but adding a fourth VPS that does not run
Caddy would have silently pulled it into the play.
[caddy:children] is edge + monitoring + vpn_control. Verified the play
selects the same three machines before and after.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
README, both setup guides and the forgejo-runner notes now point at
archive/uptime_kuma/ instead of describing a live service.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
These five plus the ntfy notification playbook assert on the credentials, so
they now fail immediately instead of running — deliberately, before anything is
installed. The banner says so and points at archive/uptime_kuma/.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Removing the credentials would otherwise break these playbooks mid-deploy: they
template uptime_kuma_password with no assert to stop them first. 100 tasks are
now guarded by uptime_kuma_enabled (false), so deployments run normally and the
monitoring sections skip. A further 28 tasks were already self-guarding on
monitor_setup/push_url being defined; verified that a skipped task's registered
variable makes those skip cleanly rather than error.
The blocks are kept on purpose — the health-check logic is the durable part and
should be rewired to whatever replaces Uptime Kuma.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Captured from the live instance rather than the repo: the playbooks created 17
monitors, the server had 75. The rest existed only in the UI. Push tokens are
excluded deliberately — they are live credentials.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
