Issue 191: an internal name is served to the private network only
The first fix served the dropped route to anyone who sent its name. Record why in the issue, as a progressive insight on ADR 0138, and in the to-be connectivity design.
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@@ -124,6 +124,30 @@ This corrects a fact, not the decision: one statement per endpoint, three things
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none of them deciding on its own, all stand. The table in the decision should be read with the filter
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column applying to an unrouted endpoint.
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## Progressive insight — 2026-10-02, from issue 191
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**For a routed endpoint, "the proxy serves the internal name" has to mean "serves it to the private
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network", and only the proxy can make it mean that.** The decision says `internal` means the proxy
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serves the internal name and not the public one. It does not say to whom, and the proxy answered
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every name it routes to any request that carried it, on the same listeners as its public names. A
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name being internal kept nobody out: a request from the internet only had to send it. While every
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routed endpoint also had a public name, nothing showed it. Once an endpoint could be internal alone
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([issue 191](../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md)), serving
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its name to everyone would have published exactly what `internal` was chosen to keep private.
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The earlier insight above says the port is not the path for a routed endpoint. This is its other
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half: the proxy is the path, so the proxy is where `internal` is enforced. It serves an internal name
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only to a request from the private network — the mesh's range, the machine itself, or one of its own
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container networks ([ADR 0144](0144-anything-on-a-machine-may-call-anything-on-it.md)). To anyone else, the name is
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answered as one never routed, in the handshake and in the request, and not listed among the names it
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serves. This holds for the internal name of a `both` endpoint too, whose outsiders have its public
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name.
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The decision, the options and the consequences stand: one statement per endpoint, three things
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derived from it. Checked in the proxy's own tests: an internal-only name is served to the mesh
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range, to loopback and to a container bridge, and refused, unlisted and uncertified for a request
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from outside; with no range given, it is served to the machine alone.
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## Consequences
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- **A manifest gains endpoint names, and a route contribution names an endpoint instead of a port.**
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@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ code:
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- mesh-controller internal/identity/authority.go
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- mesh-host internal/identity/serving.go
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- mesh-host internal/apply (the service that reflects a rule set)
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updated: 2026-09-30
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updated: 2026-10-02
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decisions:
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- 02-DECISIONS/0148-the-meshs-names-are-resolved-not-copied-into-containers.md
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- 02-DECISIONS/0151-a-routes-internal-name-is-composed-under-the-node-that-serves-it.md
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@@ -842,6 +842,15 @@ One value, three readers:
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| `public` | the machine port, to anywhere | the public name | the public authority |
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| `both` | the machine port, to anywhere | both names | each name's own authority |
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*2026-10-02.* **The proxy serves an internal name to the private network only**
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([ADR 0138](../../02-DECISIONS/0138-an-assignment-binds-an-endpoint-and-says-how-far-it-reaches.md),
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its insight of this date). It answers public and internal names on the same listeners, so the name a
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request carries is the request's own claim, not where the request came from. An internal name is
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served to the mesh's range, to the machine itself and to its own container networks; to anyone else
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it is answered as a name never routed, in the handshake as well as the request. Without this, an
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endpoint with reach `internal` would be public under a name that is easy to guess
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([issue 191](../../04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md)).
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**An endpoint that is not routed is reached and never named.** No route contribution means no name is
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composed and no certificate requested, while the filter still acts on it. That is the case the model
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could not express at all, and it is the ordinary case for anything that is not HTTP.
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@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
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---
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status: located
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opened: 2026-10-01
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located-in: [mesh-controller examples/route-proxy/main.go (routesFrom requires a route's public `name` and treats `internal-name` only as an alias of it)]
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located-in: [mesh-controller examples/route-proxy/main.go (routesFrom requires a route's public `name` and treats `internal-name` only as an alias of it; the handler serves every routed name to any source), mesh-catalog modules/route-proxy/module.json (the proxy is not told the private network's range)]
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fixed-by:
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amended-design: []
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amended-design: [03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md]
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---
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# 191 — A route with only an internal name is dropped as naming nothing
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@@ -23,9 +23,43 @@ mesh before ADR 0138, when both names were always composed. It has been wrong si
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The other half of the proxy already handles the case. Certificates for a host are split by whether it
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is in the public set: hosts outside it go to the internal authority, and only hosts inside it are
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eligible for ACME. A host that is only ever an internal name falls on the correct side of both checks
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without change. Only reading the route was wrong.
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without change. For certificates, only reading the route was wrong; who may reach the route is the next section.
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**The fix.** `routesFrom` takes a route that names either host, serves each name it carries, and
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marks only the public one as public. It still skips a route that names neither, with the same log line.
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A test proves an internal-only route is served, certified by the internal authority, and refused by
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the public one. That test fails against the code before the change.
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## The first fix would have made the name public — 2026-10-02, from review
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Serving the dropped route was not enough. The proxy picks a route from the name a request carries
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and never from where the request came from, and it answers public and internal names on the same
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listeners. Its public names resolve to an address the internet reaches. So once the internal-only
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route was served, any request from the internet carrying `unifi.home-server.internal` — a name of a
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fixed, guessable shape — would have reached an administration interface that reach `internal` was
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chosen to keep private. Before the fix the route was unreachable from everywhere. After it, it would
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have been reachable from everywhere. Two more leaks came with it: the proxy's answer for an unrouted
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name listed every name it serves, internal ones included, and the handshake handed a certificate
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naming the internal host to any client.
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Nothing showed this while every routed endpoint also had a public name: its internal name exposed
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nothing the public one did not. It is a gap in the decision's wording, not only in the proxy — ADR
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0138 says the proxy *serves* the internal name without saying to whom — so it is recorded there as a
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progressive insight and in the to-be connectivity design.
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**Where "inside" is decided.** The mesh's guard recognises the private network by the interface a
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packet arrives on, never by source address, because a source can be claimed. The proxy cannot see the
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interface, so it reads the source: the mesh's range, loopback, and the ranges of the machine's own
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container bridges, which are the same interfaces the guard names. A claimed source does not carry
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here, as a connection needs its replies, and replies to those addresses leave by the tunnel or a
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local bridge. The range reaches the proxy from the catalog as the machine's `mesh-range`, the way the
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intrusion filter already receives it. With none given, the proxy serves internal names to the machine
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alone: refused, not opened.
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**What changed with it.** The internal name of a route that also has a public one is now served to
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the private network only, like any other internal name. Outsiders have the public name, so nothing
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they could reach is lost.
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**Order of release.** The catalog change comes first. A proxy built from the change but started
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without the range would serve internal names to its own machine alone, and every other member of the
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mesh would lose them until the range arrived.
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