The agent-plane server cert was issued by hand (server-pki.sh / docker exec
step ca certificate), which needs the step CLI on the host, re-specifies SANs
each time, and silently expires at the CA's 90-day cap — the exact failure that
just broke agent TLS (cert minted with a stale SAN, missing manager.fleet.lab).
Automate it:
- agent-cert-renewer sidecar (smallstep step-cli image, compose profile
cert-auto): issues the cert once from the co-located fleet step-ca, then
'step ca renew --daemon' rotates it before the cap. Renewal preserves the
subject + SANs, so SAN drift cannot recur. Chowns to the manager's nonroot
uid so the distroless manager reads the key. Opt-in + only valid where the CA
is co-located; server-pki.sh stays as the manual/remote-CA path.
- manager hot-reloads via GetCertificate (certreload.go): a rotated cert on
disk is picked up on the next handshake with no restart and no dropped agent
streams; a half-written pair keeps the last good cert serving. Unit-tested.
- defaults.env documents the cert-auto knobs; DEPLOY.md §2a recommends the
renewer and flags the mandatory manager.fleet.lab SAN.
The agent's baked default pointed at the PUBLIC admin-UI name
(diskless-server.bitasylum.org), which resolves to the serving host's outbound IP
— unreachable from the fleet LAN. There's no split-horizon to "automate": the
manager agent plane is just another *.fleet.lab, served by the fleet dnsmasq like
boot/nvme/audit.
- serving/.env.example: MGMT_HOST=manager.fleet.lab.
- serving/docker-compose.yml: dnsmasq --address=/${MGMT_HOST}/${SERVER_IP}.
- files/agent/agent.env + main.go default: FLEET_AGENT_MANAGER=manager.fleet.lab:9600.
- server-pki.sh: AGENT_SANS default -> manager.fleet.lab (cert SAN matches the
baked name, so no FLEET_AGENT_SERVER_NAME override).
- docs/TODO #14 gotcha #4 updated: fleet name, not the IP+server-name workaround.
The public diskless-server.bitasylum.org stays the ADMIN-UI name (Traefik/:443).
Four fixes from the on-host agent bring-up:
1. Bake the real fleet CA into the image. New `fleet_ca` build var (default =
the committed placeholder) file-provisions the trust anchor to
/etc/dot1x/radius-ca.pem — used by wpa_supplicant (RADIUS) AND the fleet-agent
(verify the manager). CI materializes a FLEET_CA secret to a runner-temp file
and passes -var fleet_ca; unset => placeholder (lab). No CA material committed.
2. server-pki.sh installs the agent CLIENT CA as root+intermediate (not root
only). Host TPM certs are leaf-only in NV and signed by the step-ca
intermediate, so a root-only client CA makes the manager advertise only the
root in its CertificateRequest -> Go clients send no cert ("tls: certificate
required") and it couldn't verify a leaf-only cert anyway. bootstrap.sh now
exports intermediate_ca.crt so FLEET_CA_INTERMEDIATE resolves.
3. New `fleet-manager register-host <serial> [-name] [-hostnqn]` subcommand:
seeds/updates an inventory record for a host enrolled out of band (bench
broker, migrated fleet) through the real store, so its agent stream is
accepted. The manual counterpart to the authorise-approve flow.
4. The agent surfaces the authoritative recv-side gRPC status instead of the
bare io.EOF gRPC returns on the send side when the server ends the stream —
so "host is not enrolled" (PermissionDenied) shows up instead of "EOF".
Follow the code removal through the rest of the tree now that Traefik owns UI TLS:
- compose: drop FLEET_MGR_ADMIN_BEHIND_PROXY + ADMIN_CERT/_KEY from the manager
env; correct the ./pki mount comment (agent + broker certs only).
- .env.example: drop the BEHIND_PROXY + cert vars + self-TLS note.
- DEPLOY.md / README: remove the self-TLS "alternative" and the BEHIND_PROXY /
ADMIN_CERT config rows.
- server-pki.sh: point the admin UI cert at Traefik, not ./pki/admin.
- delete serving/fleet-manager/acme/ (the retired ACME side-car).
Complete the deployment story for the server-side control plane:
- docker-compose.yml: private InfluxDB (published to loopback only) + a
host-networked fleet-manager (reaches the loopback enrol-broker on
127.0.0.1:9443 and binds a routable gRPC agent listener, like the broker).
- .env.example: RP origin (diskless-server.bitasylum.org), Influx token/DB
password, cert/PKI paths; the Influx token wires influxdb + manager with
one value.
- server-pki.sh: issue the agent-plane server cert from the fleet CA (step)
and stage the fleet root as the client-verify CA.
- DEPLOY.md: end-to-end runbook — three-cert PKI (fleet-CA agent cert, broker
admin-client cert, Let's Encrypt DNS-01 UI cert), register-admin passkey
bootstrap, compose up, hardware-free smoke test, backups.
- .dockerignore: keep host node_modules/dist/pki/secrets out of the build
context so the embedded SPA is the one built in-image.
- .gitignore: never commit .env / issued PKI / data.
Design docs marked as-built: fleet-management-design.md as-built note
(resolved forks — gRPC bidi transport, InfluxDB metrics, SPA graphs, passkey
admin auth, broker fold-in "alongside"); tpm-enrolment-design.md (broker
fold-in + agent transport fork resolved); TODO.md #14 → partly built, with
the on-host agent + per-host boot-version assignment (#6) called out as the
remaining work.
Audiobuzz