Three changes: detection windows tightened, a Signal transport deployed, and
alerts attached to all 84 non-transport endpoints.
── Failing faster ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
The heartbeat is a TICKER, not a deadline: Gatus wakes every interval and asks
"did anything arrive in the last interval", so real detection is 1-2x the
window. And a window can only ever be as tight as the push frequency - which is
why two checks moved rather than just having their numbers changed.
liveness, cpu, ups, service-health, probes 16m -> 11m
disk, zfs daily/30h -> 6-hourly/7h
backup store + pull job daily/30h -> 6-hourly/7h
DNS records 24h -> 6h
backup dump 30h -> 26h
backup-dump stays slow because the dump genuinely is daily. The store-side check
catches the same fault within 6h by reading the source's dump timestamp out of
the artefact filename, so 26h is a backstop rather than the primary signal.
── Thresholds differ by check type, deliberately ───────────────────────────
`failure-threshold` counts consecutive failures, but "consecutive" is a
different amount of wall-clock time per check: a push endpoint produces one
failure per heartbeat window, a pulled one per interval. The default of 3 would
mean 33 minutes on an 11m heartbeat and over a day on a 7h one.
More importantly the heartbeat window ALREADY encodes the tolerance - an 11m
window on a 5-minute push is exactly "one missed push forgiven" - so stacking a
threshold of 3 triples a tolerance that was already chosen. Hence:
push/heartbeat endpoints failure-threshold 1
pulled, 5m (public) failure-threshold 3 (= 15 minutes)
pulled, 6h/24h (dns, domain) failure-threshold 1
── The Signal transport ────────────────────────────────────────────────────
roles/signal_api runs signal-cli-rest-api on the observability host, pinned by
digest, MODE=native.
It publishes NO PORTS. The API has no authentication of any kind - anything that
reaches it can send messages as you and read your Signal. Gatus talks to it over
a shared docker network by service name, which is also WHY the network exists:
Gatus runs in a container, so the host's loopback is unreachable from it and a
port published on 127.0.0.1 would not have worked.
MODE=native and not json-rpc because this VPS has 464MB of RAM and already runs
Gatus and Caddy. The json-rpc modes hold a resident JVM; native runs a binary
per request, and alerts are rare enough that startup cost per alert is the right
trade.
Monitored - Gatus polls /v1/health over the same network path the alerts take,
so it proves the delivery route rather than mere container liveness. Deliberately
NOT backed up: the data directory holds Signal private keys and the recovery
path is to link the device again from the phone.
Neither the signal-api endpoint nor Gatus's self-check carries a Signal alert.
If either is down, Signal is precisely what cannot deliver the alert.
── Four traps hit while linking, all now in the role README ────────────────
* /v1/qrcodelink is BROKEN in native mode - returns "no data to encode" while
the binary itself emits a perfectly good URI. Not worked around by switching
MODE, which would put a JVM in the path of every alert permanently.
* The data dir must be owned by uid 1000, not root. A root-owned 0700 dir
cannot be traversed by the container user, so linking silently never
completes and /v1/accounts returns "Failed to read local accounts list".
* `docker exec` runs as ROOT while the service runs as uid 1000, so without
--config the account is written to /root/... on the container's ephemeral
layer. It reports success and is destroyed on the next recreate.
* The phone reporting "network error" was IPv6: chat.signal.org resolves to
dualstack AAAA records first, the container has no IPv6 address, and this
host's IPv6 path is broken - the same edge that 404'd the Go tarball. Fixed
with a mounted gai.conf that prefers IPv4.
Verified: provider loads (configuredProviders=[signal]), a test message was
delivered and confirmed received, 84 endpoints carry alerts, 86 UP / 0 DOWN.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
watchtower is being destroyed. Removed from [vps], with its host_vars, its push
token, and the six Gatus endpoints that referenced it (liveness, disk, two
systemd services, the ntfy DNS record and the ntfy HTTP check).
ntfy went with it - it ran nowhere else - so services/ntfy is deleted,
subdomains.ntfy and ntfy_topic are gone from group_vars, and the ntfy playbook
is out of site.yml. ntfy_topic already had no readers: the three infra/4xx plays
that used it were deleted when their checks were superseded.
Two things this exposed.
services/ntfy/deploy_ntfy_playbook.yml was pointing at the WRONG MACHINE. It
said `hosts: observability`, which resolves to the host `monitoring`
(64.226.70.190) - but ntfy ran on watchtower, and ntfy.contrapeso.xyz pointed
there. Running it would have installed ntfy on the new VPS. Moot now, but it is
the same stale-identity failure as the rest: the group meant watchtower when the
play was written, and nobody revisited it when the group changed. Watchtower was
in [vps] and NO role group at all, while running caddy, ntfy and Uptime Kuma -
nothing in the repo managed any of it.
More seriously: ntfy-emergency-app on vipy (avisame.contrapeso.xyz) sends its
notifications to https://ntfy.contrapeso.xyz, topic "emergencia". Destroying
watchtower breaks it, and it is an EMERGENCY notifier - it would fail silently
at exactly the moment it matters. That is NOT resolved here, deliberately:
standing ntfy up elsewhere, pointing at ntfy.sh, or retiring the app are all
decisions, not cleanups.
What this change does is make the break impossible to miss. The URL was derived
from subdomains.ntfy, so deleting that would have turned it into an undefined
variable buried in a template. It is now an explicit ntfy_service_url in the
app's own vars, still holding the old value, with the three options written
above it. The ntfy credentials stay in the vault because that app still needs
them - the vault was restored from HEAD and only watchtower's push token
removed, rather than re-handling the plaintext.
Verified: no reference to watchtower or its IP anywhere in the repo; Gatus down
from 91 to 85 endpoints, 85 UP, 0 DOWN.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Nothing in the repo pushes to, authenticates against, or is gated by Uptime
Kuma any more.
── The sixth instance of the banner bug ────────────────────────────────────
memos had `Restart memos` guarded by `uptime_kuma_enabled`, because the
deprecation banner was placed immediately above it and swept it in. It is a
HANDLER, so every memos config change since 2026-09-11 applied to disk and
silently never restarted the service. Ungated.
That is the same failure found in forgejo-runner's self-assert, phoenixd's timer
enable, mempool's three timer enables, fulcrum's restart handler and bitcoind's
restart handler. Every guard was read and asked "monitoring or deployment?"
before being deleted, which is the only reason this was caught.
── What was removed ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
30 uptime_kuma_enabled guards across 7 unconverted service playbooks, and
the 29 Kuma monitor-creation tasks they gated (embedded Python that drove
the Kuma API, temp credential files, cleanup)
7 dead uptime_kuma_api_url definitions
7 stale DEPRECATED banners
uptime_kuma_enabled and subdomains.uptime_kuma from group_vars/all
healthcheck_push_urls from the vault - 30 push tokens
services/ntfy/setup_ntfy_uptime_kuma_notification.yml -> archive/
The explanatory comments in the six converted roles are KEPT on purpose. They
record why a handler is ungated, and deleting the explanation invites someone
to helpfully re-add the guard.
── The probes moved rather than died ───────────────────────────────────────
Eight per-service health checks were still pushing to Kuma. They are not
superseded by infra/401: that answers "is the unit running", these answer "does
the service actually respond" - an RPC call to bitcoind, a TCP connect to
Fulcrum's Electrum port, an HTTP fetch from Mempool's backend. A process can be
perfectly `active` and useless.
So they were repointed, not deleted. Gatus external endpoints take a POST with
a bearer token and success=true|false where Kuma took a GET with ?status=up, so
report() now maps up/down to true/false internally and no call site changed.
Registered by infra/403 as the `probe` group, one token per host.
Two bugs fixed while in there:
* forgejo-runner's check only ever reported SUCCESS - it exited before pushing
when the runner was down, so a failure was invisible until the heartbeat
window expired. Reporting the failure is the entire point of a check.
* All six healthcheck .service units were mode 0644 and now carry a bearer
token. They are 0600.
Verified: 91 endpoints, 91 UP, 0 DOWN. Every probe triggered by hand and
confirmed arriving. Zero Kuma URLs left in the vault, zero live references in
any playbook or role.
Still standing, deliberately: the Kuma container on watchtower, its Caddy vhost,
and the uptime.contrapeso.xyz DNS record. Turning the service off is a separate
decision from removing the code that talked to it.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Twelve endpoints in two groups, because they answer different questions and
fail for different reasons:
backup-dump_<svc> pushed by the SOURCE right after its dump runs
backup-store_<svc> pushed by the BOX at 05:30, per source
backup-store_pull-job pushed by the BOX, about the box itself
The store alone could catch almost everything, because the artefact filename
carries the source's dump timestamp - a source whose timer died still pulls
"ok" forever, but the timestamp gives it away. What the source side adds is
LATENCY and DIAGNOSIS: the store only learns at the next 04:00 pull, and it
cannot tell you whether the dump broke or the pull did.
pull-job is separate from the per-source checks because it is a LEADING
indicator where those are lagging ones. A disabled pull timer, a failed pull
job, or a filling disk are all visible immediately, while the per-source checks
only fire once an artefact is >26h stale - about a day later. Disable the timer
at 10:00 and every source stays green until tomorrow; pull-job goes red this
morning and names the cause instead of showing six stale sources.
Frequencies: dumps 02:00-02:30 staggered, pull 04:00, verification 05:30, all
daily and Persistent. 26h staleness decides red; a 30h Gatus heartbeat catches
the verification itself having stopped, so a dead check-backups.timer cannot
hide a stale backup.
arbret has no dump endpoint: prd-arbret is in [arbret], which `managed`
deliberately excludes, so nothing of ours runs there. Store-checked only.
check-backups.sh was manual-only; it now runs on a timer and reports per source
rather than only printing. The human-readable report is unchanged.
A SERIOUS bug introduced and fixed in this change, recorded because the shape
is easy to repeat: the reporting hook was added to backup.sh as a second
`trap ... EXIT`. Bash REPLACES the EXIT handler rather than adding to it, so
that silently deleted the trap which restarts the stopped service - the one the
script's own comment calls "the point", and the bug the role was written to
eliminate. Every backup then stopped its service and left it stopped. It took
forgejo, lnbits, headscale and memos down for several minutes each, and nothing
caught it: the dumps exit 0, the artefacts are correct, the deploy reports
failed=0, and liveness only proves the HOST is up. There is now ONE EXIT
handler doing both jobs, armed BEFORE the stop so a failure during the stop
still restarts. Verified by rendering both variants, asserting exactly one EXIT
trap in each, and simulating a mid-way failure to confirm the restart fires.
Verified: all 12 endpoints UP; six sources pulled cleanly (arbret 31M,
headscale 198K, memos 7.8M, vaultwarden 2.1M, lnbits 30M, forgejo 2.6G), store
16% full, "RESULT: all checks passed".
Known gaps, deliberately not closed here:
* `yell` warnings - disk 75-90%, an artefact under half the previous size,
retention not pruning - never reach Gatus, because a push is binary.
* Nothing verifies a backed-up service came back UP. That is the gap that let
the trap bug run unnoticed, and it is what the next change addresses.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
First step of replacing Uptime Kuma and ntfy. Gatus runs on the new
observability VPS, fronted by Caddy at status.contrapeso.xyz.
Deployed as the upstream container image, not built from source. The role did
build from source first - their Dockerfile is a bare `CGO_ENABLED=0 go build`,
the Vue dashboard is compiled in via `//go:embed static` in web/static.go, and
CGO can stay off because the sqlite driver is pure-Go modernc.org/sqlite - but
that produces a binary upstream never ran, and it meant compiling the AWS SDK
and gRPC on the smallest box in the estate. That load was heavy enough that
unrelated Ansible tasks timed out while it ran. The cost of the container is a
daemon on the machine whose job is to notice when everything else breaks; that
trade is made deliberately and is written down in the role README.
Pinned by DIGEST, not tag. A tag is mutable - v5.36.0 can be repushed - so
pinning it alone is a weaker promise than it looks:
gatus_image: "ghcr.io/twin/gatus@sha256:c5f210d0..."
`docker compose pull` now either fetches exactly the reviewed image or fails.
gatus_version is kept beside it only so a human can read the release; the two
move together.
The image is FROM scratch, so it has no /etc/passwd and its default user is
root. The container runs as 10001:10001 with the host data dir owned to match,
plus read_only, cap_drop ALL, and no-new-privileges. NET_RAW is added back only
when gatus_allow_icmp, so the capability for icmp:// checks is a visible grant
rather than something inherited from running as root.
Config is a DIRECTORY, not a file. Gatus merges every *.yaml under
GATUS_CONFIG_PATH - maps deep-merge, lists append - so the role owns
00-base.yaml (web, storage, ui, alerting, security) and each service will drop
its own file into endpoints/, the same shape as caddy_site. A primitive defined
twice is ambiguous and upstream refuses it, so anything that is not a list lives
in the base file and nowhere else.
Two bugs the deploy caught:
* Gatus panics on a config with no endpoints ("configuration should contain at
least one endpoint or suite"), so "install now, add endpoints later" is not
a valid state. The role ships endpoints/00-self.yaml checking its own
/health. Less circular than it looks: it proves the directory merged, the
listener serves, and storage accepted a write.
* web.address was carried over from the systemd design as 127.0.0.1. Inside a
container that is the CONTAINER's loopback, which docker-proxy cannot reach
- gatus came up healthy, self-check passing, while every connection to the
published port was refused. It now always binds 0.0.0.0 inside the
container; the isolation comes from publishing to 127.0.0.1 on the host.
Auth is done at the edge, NOT with Gatus's own security.basic. Reading
api/api.go, that middleware protects exactly four routes - the statuses
endpoints. Everything else is registered on the unprotected router, including
/api/v1/config, every badge, and /api/v1/endpoints/:key/uptimes/:duration and
.../response-times/:duration/history, which return real data to anyone who can
guess a key ("<group>_<name>"). Verified against the live instance: all seven
routes returned 200 unauthenticated, and /uptimes/24h returned "1.000000".
So the vhost uses caddy_site_body with a path carve-out rather than
caddy_site_basic_auth, which has no way to exempt a path. The external-endpoint
push API must NOT sit behind basic auth: it authenticates with
`Authorization: Bearer <token>`, and basic auth wants the same header. It is not
unauthenticated - the handler 401s on a missing prefix, an empty token, or a
token that does not match that endpoint's own.
Verified end to end. All seven previously-open routes now 401. The push path
distinguishes cleanly: POST with no auth gets Gatus's own "invalid Authorization
header" with NO WWW-Authenticate; POST with a bogus Bearer gets 404 (key looked
up, no external endpoints yet); GET on the same path gets Caddy's 401 with
WWW-Authenticate: Basic, so the exemption is scoped to POST alone. The
self-check still passes because it polls localhost inside the container and
never traverses Caddy.
The host itself was rebuilt from scratch: 01 (ok=9 changed=8), 02 (ok=12
changed=6), 910_docker (--limit, since that playbook still wrongly claims all of
`managed` needs Docker), caddy (ok=13 changed=8), gatus (ok=18 changed=2).
Not done here: gatus_alerting is still {} - valid, and every condition is
evaluated and recorded, there is just nowhere to shout until a provider is
chosen to replace ntfy.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
site.yml is a TABLE OF CONTENTS, not a second source of truth. It is 25
import_playbook: lines and comments - no `hosts:`, no `roles:`. Which hosts get
what stays on the `hosts:` line inside each playbook, exactly where it already
was; nothing moved. Every role is already wrapped in a thin playbook carrying
its own `hosts:` line, so there is no roles-vs-playbooks split to reconcile:
from here everything is a playbook.
What it buys:
What runs on a host? ansible-playbook site.yml --limit <host> --list-hosts
Who gets thing Y? the `hosts:` line in Y's own playbook
What is a host? ansible-inventory --graph
Note --list-hosts, not --list-tasks: the latter prints every play regardless of
--limit, so it will happily show you the bitcoin play under memos-box.
Nine playbooks are deliberately excluded and the file names every one with a
reason, so it accounts for all of them: the three infra/4xx monitoring plays
(still assert on the removed Uptime Kuma credentials and fail immediately),
910_docker (says `hosts: managed`, but Docker is on 5 of 11 managed hosts and
those 5 are exactly the ones that need it - running it installs Docker on the
Bitcoin node and the hypervisor), two nodito one-shots, the Kuma notification
setup, and two deliberate manual actions.
Writing it surfaced an inventory collision. There is a HOST named `monitoring`
in [vps] AND a group [monitoring], so Ansible warned and resolved `hosts:
monitoring` to the host:
[WARNING]: Found both group and host with same name: monitoring
The group is renamed to [observability]; the host keeps its name. [caddy:children]
and the two ntfy playbooks follow. Behaviour is unchanged - `hosts: monitoring`
already resolved to the host - but the ambiguity is gone and the warning with it.
Verified: inventory graph is warning-free, site.yml passes --syntax-check, and
per-host play counts are identical before and after the rename.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The four ports were the only entries in services_config.yml with a real
justification: each is read twice, by the role that deploys the service on its
own box AND by a socket-proxy or Caddy play that runs on the EDGE host and
publishes it. A role default is invisible to that second play.
But the shape was wrong in two ways. The file had to be named in vars_files: by
30 plays - opt-in configuration that someone will eventually forget - and five
role defaults silently interpolated service_settings.*, so bitcoin_knots,
fulcrum, datum_gateway and mempool were not self-contained: using any of them
without that one vars_file entry broke it.
Each port now lives in host_vars/<owning box>/main.yml:
host_vars/knots_box_local/main.yml bitcoin_p2p_port, datum_gateway_api_port,
datum_gateway_stratum_port
host_vars/fulcrum_box_local/main.yml fulcrum_ssl_port
host_vars/mempool_box_local/main.yml mempool_frontend_port
host_vars auto-loads and outranks role defaults, so the owning role picks the
value up with no vars_files at all, and the edge play reads the same single
definition as hostvars['<host>'].<name>. The role defaults keep the protocol
standard (8333, 50002, ...) so each role still works standalone, with the live
deployment's value in host_vars winning.
Also fixed a fourth copy of an inventory identity: the mempool Caddy play had
"mempool-box:{{ ... }}" hardcoded in the upstream. It now derives the host from
hostvars['mempool_box_local'].ansible_host, so inventory is the only place any
box's name is written down.
services_config.yml is deleted, with 25 more vars_files entries across 19
playbooks. Between this and the previous commit, 87 vars_files entries are gone
and every variable in the repo now comes from group_vars/all, host_vars,
inventory, a role default, or that service's own *_vars.yml.
Verification: an edge-host probe resolves all eight ports and hostnames to
byte-identical values to the ones services_config.yml used to supply. Each
owning host resolves its own port through host_vars. All 37 playbooks'
--list-tasks output is unchanged. The four edge plays that consume these values
all check-diff changed=0 - the socket-proxy and Caddy units on vipy are
byte-identical, which is the direct proof the rewiring landed on the same
values. fulcrum and datum-gateway check-diff exactly as before (ok=28/changed=1
and ok=15/changed=1, both the known timer re-arm).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Three files existed only as second copies of things group_vars/all already
auto-loads, and 34 playbooks named them in vars_files: - which outranks
group_vars, so the copies won. The day someone edited one and not the other,
those plays would silently keep the stale value. infra_vars.yml was already
drifting: group_vars/all/main.yml had grown age_backup_recipient and
backup_pull_public_key that it lacked.
infra_vars.yml - a strict subset of group_vars/all/main.yml
infra_secrets.yml - decrypts byte-identical to group_vars/all/vault.yml
infra_secrets.yml.example - documented Uptime Kuma credentials as the reason
the file exists, which stopped being true
Deleted, along with 62 vars_files entries across 34 playbooks (12 of which
named ../../group_vars/all/main.yml directly - same defect, a vars_files entry
duplicating an auto-loaded file at higher precedence than the file itself).
Checked before touching anything: infra_secrets.yml was listed LAST in 10 plays,
after services_config.yml, so removal would flip precedence if the two shared a
key. They share none, and neither does services_config.yml with
group_vars/all/main.yml, so the removal is provably inert.
services_config.yml was the last one standing. It held four unrelated things:
caddy_sites_dir - an identical copy of roles/caddy_site/defaults/.
Deleted; the role default is now the only one.
*.tailscale_hostname (x3) - a THIRD copy of each box's identity, which
inventory.ini already holds as ansible_host.
Deleted. Edge plays now read
hostvars['<host>'].ansible_host - verified an
edge play resolves that with nothing loaded and
the other host in no play. Three copies of one
name is how bitcoin_rpc_host ended up labelled
"knots_box" while pointing at fulcrum-box.
subdomains, ntfy topic, - genuinely global: their readers span managed,
headscale namespace monitoring, vpn_control and edge, so no single
group covers them. Moved to group_vars/all/main.yml
where they auto-load. The ntfy_topic and
headscale_namespace indirection through
service_settings collapses to the global name.
the four cross-host ports - the only entries with a real justification.
Left in place; they move in the next commit.
Also dead, all Uptime Kuma residue or duplication:
phoenixd_monitor_name, forgejo_runner healthcheck_timeout_seconds/retries,
fulcrum_tailscale_hostname, and bitcoin_knots_version - the last being a
v-prefixed copy of bitcoin_knots_version_short that nothing read, two
hand-maintained copies of one version string.
Corrected a false comment: services_config.yml claimed the uptime_kuma subdomain
"no longer resolves to anything". It resolves to 164.92.239.72 and answers HTTP
302, and 11 playbooks still template it. Same wrong premise as PLAN_3.
Verification: all 37 playbooks' --list-tasks output is byte-identical before and
after. A probe resolving all 22 values services_config.yml used to supply returns
21 identical and one intended deletion (caddy_sites_dir, now role-only - confirmed
the role still resolves it: "Ensure Caddy sites-enabled directory exists" comes
back ok against the real path). memos check-diff identical before and after.
Syntax passes on every playbook.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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>
