Issue 188: a refusal inside on-the-network drops a machine silently

2026-10-01 18:10:57 +02:00
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+---
+status: located
+opened: 2026-10-01
+located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/network.go (onTheNetwork resolves every machine unchecked and skips one that refuses, saying nothing)]
+fixed-by:
+amended-design: []
+---
+
+# 188 — A refusal inside "who is on the network" drops a machine silently, and every symptom points elsewhere
+
+## What was observed
+
+At 15:28Z on 2026-10-01 the controller rolled to a build that refuses a machine with two modules
+answering one provision and no pin naming which (mesh-controller 195). The control node had two
+issuers of `acme-ca`. From that moment every plan of the control node failed with *step-ca has a
+content that says `${machine:at}`, and this machine says mesh-range or name*; `seats` listed every
+seat as unheld; the build machine refused the builder's and the proxy's builds with *no clone base
+for that seat — nothing holds it*; and the roll-out of the next controller was refused with the
+`${machine:at}` words. Not one of those names the cause. It was found by running the previous image
+as a one-shot beside the current one and reading the difference, forty minutes later.
+
+## Why this is here
+
+`onTheNetwork` decides which machines have an address by resolving each one, unchecked, and
+*skipping* any whose resolution errs. A machine skipped there has no `at`, so its own plan fails on
+the first placeholder that needs one, in another module's words; everything held on it reads as
+unheld; everything built from it cannot be built. The design lets one refusal become four unrelated
+symptoms and no sentence about the refusal itself. It is the same shape as
+[issue 187](../187-the-mesh-tells-nobody-when-it-stops-working/00-report.md): a fault that is swallowed
+where it happens and discovered where it hurts.
+
+## What a fix needs
+
+- A machine whose resolution refuses is said, by `onTheNetwork`'s caller or in `status`: *the
+  control node does not resolve: more than one module provides acme-ca; pin one* — the resolver's
+  own words, which exist and were dropped.
+- A refusal that a release introduces for a machine already converged — a new rule the stored
+  state does not meet — must not be silent at the roll either; the controller's prepare or first
+  resolution after a roll should name every machine it now refuses.
+
+*How this would be checked:* a controller test where one machine's unchecked resolution refuses:
+`status` names the machine and the refusal, and the other machines keep their addresses.
+
+## Resolved in the live mesh, 2026-10-01
+
+By hand: `pin novox acme-ca novox step-ca`, the provider the previous controller had in fact bound
+the proxy to (read from its plan), after which the control node resolved, every seat read as held
+and the roll-out proceeded. The design fault above stands.