Issue 194 resolved: the fixed host forgot its former archive on all four machines

Issue 191's route proxy needs to know who the mesh is to serve an
internal name correctly, and the first fix had it work that out alone.
The membership on the bus now carries it, from the same list the filter
uses. ADR 0138 gains an insight that the proxy is where internal reach
is kept; designs 08 and 25 say how.

02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md

@@ -131,6 +131,32 @@ the plan says it too.
 | Genesis raises the forge as its module declares it | a genesis test that raises, assigns, and finds the module holding rather than raising a second |
 | Live | the next cutover on an adopted machine: `take` shows the comparison, refuses the downgrade if there is one, and the service keeps its configuration and its secret |
 
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+> **Progressive insight — 2026-10-02.** The decision stands; these are the facts of its building.
+
+Built across mesh-host 63 and 64 and mesh-controller 201, 202 and the pull request that followed
+them. Rule 1: `take` previews every held thing's comparison and ends with a digest; `take --yes
+<digest>` acts on exactly that preview, and a changed preview or an account older than the flip
+allows is refused, as the flip's are. A published port's reach is said as the machine reported it,
+behind the found firewall whose rules are not read. Rule 2: an older image, a differing file and a
+minted, unaccepted secret for found data refuse, overridden by `--downgrade`, `--replace <path>` and
+`--mint <name>`; the secrets a module holds on a machine are read with where each came from. Rule 3:
+`secret accept --provider` reaches a required secret. Rule 4: the per-machine setting is `networks`,
+a container id to the found networks it keeps; judged for an adopted machine only, joined by the host
+after the container runs, part of the container's spec, named in the preview. Rule 5: the host's
+facts, former targets and strays. Rule 6: one judgement, run where a setting is stored and where a
+machine is composed; a module whose stored setting its definition can no longer compose is left out
+of the declaration, the envelope says so, the host keeps that module's things, and `plan` and `push`
+say it by name. A key that reaches nothing is refused where stored and said by `plan`, and never
+costs a module. Rule 7: genesis raises the forge under the module's container name, with its image
+digest and its data directory; the network is the one difference left, said by the take, because the
+bootstrap forge reaches the store on the machine's loopback.
+
+**Not yet proven live.** Every machine of this mesh is converged, so the table's last row — a take
+on an adopted machine — waits for the next adoption. What is live is what the rows above it check.
+Issues 086, 098, 099, 100 and 101 stay located until that row is read.
+
 ## References
 
 - [ADR 0100](0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md), [ADR 0102](0102-the-mesh-writes-into-a-shared-file-never-over-it.md), [ADR 0103](0103-what-an-adopted-node-holds-and-what-its-guard-refuses.md), [ADR 0104](0104-a-provision-may-be-answered-by-an-adapter-to-the-predecessor.md), [ADR 0162](0162-a-merge-produces-a-tiered-plan-the-mesh-keeps.md)

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/05-the-node-host.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 layer: to-be
 status: in-progress
 code: [mesh-host]
-updated: 2026-10-01
+updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0141-the-host-delivers-its-own-successor.md
@@ -163,6 +163,19 @@ a resource's former targets, removes a container or file it wrote under a name t
 longer names, never removes what was found, and reports what runs on the machine that it neither
 wrote nor holds. *How it is checked:* ADR 0163's table.
 
+**What the host joins, keeps and raises for a take** — revision, 2026-10-02
+([ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 4, 6 and 7). A
+container may name networks it also joins once it runs — the found network a per-machine setting keeps
+for a taken container while a neighbour still resolves it there; joined after the run, part of the
+container's spec, refused when it cannot be joined. A declaration may name the modules the mesh left
+out of it because a stored setting cannot compose with the module's definition: the host keeps what it
+wrote and holds for a left-out module and says so, where absence used to read as removal. And genesis
+raises the bootstrap forge under the forge module's container name, with the module's image digest and
+its data directory, so the module holds it by the found rule; the network is the one difference a take
+has left to say. *How it is checked:* a host test joins a kept network and refuses one it cannot; a
+host test keeps a left-out module's record and hold and removes an absent module's; a bootstrap test
+holds the installer's constants to the module's manifest where the catalogue is checked out beside it.
+
 **Found reaches every kind that can touch what the machine has**
 ([ADR 0103](../../02-DECISIONS/0103-what-an-adopted-node-holds-and-what-its-guard-refuses.md)). For a module not yet taken, a directory present with no record
 keeps its mode and owner, a unit present with no record keeps its state and boot setting, a

03-DESIGN/01-to-be/09-the-node-lifecycle.md

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ code:
   - mesh-host packaging/nox-mesh-host-network.sh
   - mesh-controller internal/token
   - mesh-controller internal/inventory/nodes.go
-updated: 2026-10-01
+updated: 2026-10-02
 decisions:
   - 02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md
   - 02-DECISIONS/0100-a-node-in-use-is-adopted-before-it-is-converged.md
@@ -323,6 +323,21 @@ network are said. `take --yes <digest>` cuts over what was previewed, as the fli
 container may keep a found network by a per-machine setting while its neighbours are not yet taken.
 *How it is checked:* ADR 0163's table.
 
+**A setting is judged where it is stored, and the take's words** — revision, 2026-10-02
+([ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 1, 2, 4 and 6).
+The preview ends with a digest of what it said; `take --yes <digest>` acts on that preview and nothing
+else, and a preview that has changed since, or an account of the machine older than the flip allows, is
+refused as the flip's is. A module the machine holds nothing for has nothing to compare, and `--yes`
+suffices. The overrides are `--downgrade`, `--replace <path>` and `--mint <name>`; the per-machine
+setting that keeps a found network is `networks`, a container id to the networks it keeps, accepted
+for an adopted machine only. Storing a setting composes it against the module's current definition and
+refuses, naming node, module, layer and key, what cannot compose or reaches nothing. A definition that
+later moves under a stored setting costs that module its place in the machine's declaration, said by
+name in `plan`, `push` and the declaration itself, and the machine is told everything else; a stray
+setting no longer refuses the machine where it is read. *How it is checked:* controller tests over the
+one judgement — refused where stored, a module left out where composed, the envelope naming it — and
+over a take's digest, staleness and secrets.
+
 A candidate machine is not empty. It has a package manager, probably a container runtime,
 configuration somebody chose. [ADR 0005](../../02-DECISIONS/0005-the-node-host.md)
 says the host never touches what it did not create — adoption is the deliberate act of taking

04-ISSUES/086-taking-a-module-narrows-a-port-without-saying-so/00-report.md

@@ -40,3 +40,9 @@ it changes before it changes it, and for taking a module this one does not.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 1 and 2: the preview names a narrowing. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-controller 201 and the pull request after it: the preview names it, and `take --yes <digest>`
+acts on the preview that was read. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted machine — every
+machine of this mesh is converged today, so the record's live row has not been run.

04-ISSUES/090-the-forge-module-does-not-take-over-the-forge-genesis-raised/00-report.md

@@ -53,3 +53,13 @@ network, or it is not a takeover.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rule 7: genesis raises as the module declares. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built in part, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 64: genesis raises the forge under the module's container name (`gitea`), pinned to the
+module's image digest, with the module's data directory mounted at `/data` — so the module finds it,
+holds it, and a take compares equal images and the same data. A test holds the installer's constants
+to the module's manifest where the catalogue is checked out beside it. The network is the difference
+left: the bootstrap forge runs on the machine's network to reach the store on its loopback, the module
+runs bridged and publishes its ports, and the take says so. Closing waits for group 9's genesis test —
+a mesh raised, the module assigned, and the module found holding rather than raising a second forge.

04-ISSUES/096-a-setting-that-cannot-work-is-stored-and-stops-the-node/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-controller (the pull request after 201: JudgeSettings, LeftOut), mesh-host 64 (left_out kept)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -63,3 +63,12 @@ knowing the code.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rule 6: judged where stored; an impossible statement costs a module. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+One judgement, in the catalogue, run where a setting is stored and where a machine is composed. Stored,
+a setting that cannot compose with the module's current definition is refused naming the node, the
+module, the layer and the key; a key that reaches nothing is refused there too. Composed, a definition
+that moved under a stored setting leaves that module out of the machine's declaration — the envelope
+names it, the host keeps what it holds and wrote for it, `plan` and `push` say it — and the machine is
+told everything else. A stray setting no longer refuses the whole machine where it is read.

04-ISSUES/097-a-resource-that-changes-target-leaves-the-old-one-behind/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-23
 located-in: [mesh-controller cmd/mesh-controller/adoption.go (take previews nothing), mesh-host internal/apply (the comparison and the record)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-host 63 (former targets removed, strays reported), mesh-controller 201/202 (strays shown)
 amended-design:
 ---
 
@@ -80,3 +80,11 @@ found, and so would be kept for ever on purpose.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rule 5: former targets are removed and strays reported. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 63: the host's record keeps a resource's former targets, removes a container or file it
+wrote under a name the declaration no longer names, never what was found, and reports strays — what
+runs on the machine that the mesh neither wrote nor holds. mesh-controller 201 and 202 show strays
+on `node show` for an adopted and a converged machine alike; the live mesh reported four on the
+control node the evening it rolled.

04-ISSUES/098-taking-a-module-replaces-a-configuration-nobody-compared/00-report.md

@@ -68,3 +68,9 @@ written.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 1 and 2: the difference is shown and a differing file refuses. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 63 reports the difference between the kept original and the declared content; mesh-controller
+201 shows it in the preview and refuses a differing file unless `--replace <path>` names it, or the
+module declares the file partially. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted machine.

04-ISSUES/099-a-modules-image-pin-ages-into-a-downgrade/00-report.md

@@ -65,3 +65,9 @@ expected rate.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 1 and 2: the images are compared by age and a downgrade refuses. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 63 reports the found image and both images' creation dates; mesh-controller 201 says
+DOWNGRADE and refuses unless `--downgrade` is said. Stays located until a take is read on an adopted
+machine.

04-ISSUES/100-a-minted-secret-cannot-be-the-one-the-service-already-uses/00-report.md

@@ -70,3 +70,11 @@ the module can only be installed fresh.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 2 and 3: a minted secret for found data refuses; secret accept reaches required secrets. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+`secret accept <node> <module> <name> --provider <node>` reaches a required secret (mesh-controller 201).
+The pull request after it reads every secret a module holds on a machine with its origin, and a take
+of a module whose data was found refuses a minted, unaccepted one — naming the accept that carries
+the existing value in, or `--mint <name>` to let the service take the new one. Stays located until
+a take is read on an adopted machine.

04-ISSUES/101-taking-a-service-reached-by-container-name-cuts-its-neighbours-off/00-report.md

@@ -66,3 +66,10 @@ exercise.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 1 and 4: the neighbours are named; a found network may be kept by a setting. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Built, 2026-10-02
+
+The preview names every neighbour on a found network (mesh-controller 201). The pull request after it
+adds the per-machine setting `networks` — a container id to the found networks it keeps — judged for an
+adopted machine only, and mesh-host 64 has the taken container join each once it runs. Stays located
+until a take is read on an adopted machine.

04-ISSUES/126-a-volume-path-is-not-in-the-spec-comparison/00-report.md

@@ -1,7 +1,9 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-09-26
 located-in: [mesh-host internal/apply]
+fixed-by: mesh-host 63 (every written field compared), mesh-controller 201 (build says the policy)
+amended-design:
 ---
 
 # 126 — a volume path is not in the spec comparison, and a roll-out raced a data move
@@ -50,3 +52,9 @@ the install-page junk was discarded twice.
 
 [ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rules 5 and 7: every field compared; build says the policy. Building follows,
 host first, then the controller's `take`.
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 63: every field the host writes is compared before a container is called current, volumes
+and paths included. mesh-controller 201: `build` and the take-in say when a module's policy rolls a
+result out at once; under ADR 0162 the plan says it too.

04-ISSUES/191-a-route-with-only-an-internal-name-is-dropped/00-report.md

@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 ---
-status: located
+status: resolved
 opened: 2026-10-01
 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-controller internal/broker/membership.go (a membership says nothing of what its module receives or who the mesh is)]
-fixed-by:
+fixed-by: mesh-controller PR 207 (the membership carries what a module receives and who the mesh is; the proxy follows it and serves internal names to the mesh only), mesh-catalog PR 211 (the proxy's bus account), mesh-controller PR 208 (the issue verb that delivers it), live 2026-10-02
 amended-design: [03-DESIGN/01-to-be/08-connectivity.md, 03-DESIGN/01-to-be/25-the-bus-on-nats.md]
 ---
 
@@ -59,3 +59,22 @@ It also publishes an administration interface to the internet to get a name on t
   only in its own log? The same silent skip covers a route with no usable port or an unknown scheme.
 - What checks that what the controller composes and what the proxy serves stay the same shape? ADR
   0138 changed one side and nothing failed on the other.
+
+## Resolved (2026-10-02)
+
+Built as [ADR 0167](../../02-DECISIONS/0167-a-membership-carries-what-its-module-receives-and-who-the-mesh-is.md)
+decided, and live on both machines that run the proxy. Each logs that its routes now come from its
+membership, and serves internal names to the four machines the mesh names. Checked by hand:
+
+- the internal-only route answers through the proxy from the serving machine and from two other
+  machines of the mesh, over a certificate from the mesh's own authority that each verifies;
+- the same name asked from an address outside the mesh is answered as a name never routed, over plain
+  HTTP, and refused in the TLS handshake; the list of served names it is shown leaves out every internal
+  name.
+
+Two things the rollout found are their own records: the proxy's bus account could be issued only from
+the controller's command line, until mesh-controller PR 208 added the `issue` verb, and the status line
+counting every module as a bus user without a credential is
+[issue 195](../195-every-assigned-module-is-counted-as-a-bus-user-without-a-credential/00-report.md).
+The serving machine also lacked the certificate-trust module, so it could not verify the mesh's own
+certificates until it was assigned there.

04-ISSUES/194-the-hosts-own-former-archive-stops-every-apply/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+---
+status: resolved
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-host internal/apply (removeOrphan: a former target of a kind with no removal was fatal), mesh-host internal/store (Record keeps a former target for every kind, the host's own archive included)]
+fixed-by: mesh-host 65 — a former target of a kind the host cannot remove is left in place, said and forgotten; a dropped archive still refuses
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 194 — The host's own former archive stops every machine applying anything
+
+## What was observed
+
+2026-10-02, 00:34Z, on all four machines of this mesh, the first time a host carrying former
+targets ([ADR 0163](../../02-DECISIONS/0163-taking-a-module-over-is-a-comparison.md), rule 5,
+built in mesh-host 63) replaced itself with a newer host (mesh-host 64).
+
+The host delivers its own successor as an archive whose target is a versioned directory
+([ADR 0141](../../02-DECISIONS/0141-the-host-delivers-its-own-successor.md)): every new version
+is the same resource with a new target. Since mesh-host 63 the record keeps a resource's former
+target so the next apply removes what the host wrote under it
+([issue 097](../097-a-resource-that-changes-target-leaves-the-old-one-behind/00-report.md)). So
+the new host's first apply found the previous version's directory as a former target of its own
+archive, and asked the removal for an archive — which does not exist
+([issue 162](../162-an-archive-cannot-be-undeclared/00-report.md)):
+
+```
+applying "mesh-host.next@former:/usr/lib/nox-mesh-host/versions/3c906749ad27": no way to remove a "archive"
+0 resource(s) were applied and remain
+```
+
+Orphans are removed before any resource is applied on a converged machine, so the refusal ended
+every apply at its first step. Every machine reported `failed`, applied nothing, and would have
+gone on doing so: a host fix is itself an archive the same apply would have to write, and the apply
+never reached it. The machines kept running what they had; nothing new from the mesh could land.
+
+## Why it matters beyond this instance
+
+Two rules that are each right met in the one resource the host cannot afford to stop on. Rule 5
+says a former target is removed and said; issue 162 says an archive has no removal, deliberately,
+so an unassignment nothing can undo is never reported as done. Neither rule was wrong; their
+meeting was never tested, because the bed that would have found it is a host replacing itself
+under the new rule, and the first such replacement was the live one. The fix is narrow: a former
+target of a kind the host cannot remove is left in place, said, and forgotten — never fatal,
+because nobody dropped it. An archive the declaration dropped still refuses, as 162 has it.
+
+## What it took to recover
+
+The broken host cannot apply its own fix: the fix is delivered as an archive, and the apply fails
+before writing anything. On each machine the host's record (`/var/lib/mesh-host/state.json`) had to
+lose the one `@former:` entry by hand, once, so that the next push could write the fixed archive and
+stand aside for it. A manual edit of the host's record is otherwise never done; it is written here
+because the alternative was four machines that could apply nothing.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- Should `Record` keep a former target for a kind the host cannot remove at all? The trace is
+  useful; the removal it implies is not. Keeping it and letting the apply forget it is what the fix
+  does; not recording it would be quieter.
+- Should the host's own versions directory be cleaned by the launcher rather than by the apply —
+  the one archive whose former targets are genuinely removable, by the thing that knows which one
+  runs?
+- Is there a bed that replaces a host under the current rules before the live mesh does
+  (the proof row of [ADR 0141](../../02-DECISIONS/0141-the-host-delivers-its-own-successor.md) was
+  a single crossover, before former targets existed)?
+
+## Resolved, 2026-10-02
+
+mesh-host 65, merged 07:35Z. Recovered as the record above says: the operator dropped the one
+`@former:` entry from each machine's host record and pushed; the fixed host then ran on all four and
+its first apply said `forgotten mesh-host.next@former:… a former target left in place` and applied the
+rest. The open questions stand as questions for the host's own versions, not as faults.

04-ISSUES/195-every-assigned-module-is-counted-as-a-bus-user-without-a-credential/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+---
+status: open
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: []
+fixed-by:
+amended-design:
+---
+
+# 195 — Every assigned module is counted as a bus user without a credential, and the real gaps are lost in the count
+
+## What was observed
+
+`status`, and `plan` for any machine, open with one line before anything else:
+
+```
+the bus's user list leaves out 49 user(s) the mesh has minted no credential for: <node>.<module>, …
+Each is a user that cannot connect until one is issued
+```
+
+The 49 are spread over four machines and name 26 distinct modules. Checked against the catalogue on
+2026-10-02:
+
+| what the module's definition says | modules |
+|---|---|
+| declares an own secret named `broker` | 1 — the route proxy, which needed a bus account for issue 191 |
+| declares no `broker` secret, and emits, consumes and serves nothing on the bus | 17 — the packet filter, the intrusion filter, the ssh daemon, the resolver configuration, the certificate authority, the broker itself and others |
+| declares no `broker` secret, and **emits events** | 1 |
+| not in this catalogue, so not checked | 7 |
+
+So the line counts every module assigned anywhere as a bus user. For almost all of them that is not a
+missing credential. A module with no `broker` secret has nowhere to receive one, and the mesh already
+says an account nothing reads is an orphan ([issue 078](../078-a-delivered-secret-is-accepted-under-any-name/00-report.md)).
+
+Two real gaps sit inside the count and cannot be told from the noise:
+
+- **A declared `broker` secret was filled with a value that is not an account.** Before its account was
+  issued, the route proxy's plan on both machines already carried a sealed `broker` file, while the same
+  status line said no credential had been minted for it. A push had made the declared secret the way it
+  makes any own secret. The module would have started with a credential the bus does not know, and
+  nothing would have said why. It was found only because the account was being issued by hand.
+- **A module that emits events declares no way to reach the bus.** Its events can go nowhere, and no
+  check refuses that.
+
+## Why it matters
+
+**A warning that is always on is read as never on.** The line names 49 users on every `status` and every
+`plan`. An operator, or an agent, learns to scroll past it. The one entry that was a real fault looked
+exactly like the 48 that were not.
+
+**The fault that was real is the silent kind.** A module whose broker credential is a generated value
+starts, fails to authenticate, and reports that three layers away from the cause. That is the failure
+the composition already refuses for a secret that was never made at all ("declared and not made"). Here
+a value was made, so the refusal never fired.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- Should a bus user be composed for a module that declares no `broker` secret at all? If not, the line
+  shrinks to the modules that can actually use an account.
+- Is a `broker` secret ever correctly made by the generic generator? If not, should composition refuse
+  a declared `broker` until it is issued, or should the mesh issue it as part of placing the module?
+- Should a module that emits, consumes or serves on the bus be refused when it declares no `broker`
+  secret?

04-ISSUES/196-the-hub-relays-only-the-ports-it-publishes-itself/00-report.md

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+---
+status: resolved
+opened: 2026-10-02
+located-in: [mesh-controller internal/catalogue/filtering.go (AsNftables: the forward chain has no rule for the mesh passing through, so a relayed packet is judged by this machine's own published ports)]
+fixed-by: mesh-controller PR 209 (the forward chain relays what comes in and goes out on the tunnel), live 2026-10-02
+amended-design: []
+---
+
+# 196 — The hub relays the mesh only on the ports it publishes for itself
+
+## What was observed
+
+A sweep of every listening port on every machine, from every other machine, on 2026-10-02. Two home
+machines, neither of which can be dialled, reach a third home machine through the hub, as
+[ADR 0007](../../02-DECISIONS/0007-connectivity.md) says every path between machines that are not
+co-located does.
+
+From either of the two, the third answered on **17 of its 55** listening ports over the mesh. The hub
+itself, probing the same machine directly, reached all the ports that machine's rules open to the mesh.
+The result was the same at 40 probes in parallel and at 4, so it was not load.
+
+The 17 were not a property of the target. They were exactly the ports **the hub** publishes for its own
+containers: ssh, the proxy's two, and the hub's own block of published ports. A capture on the target
+during one probe to a port that answered and one that did not:
+
+- the answering one: the SYN arrives on the tunnel, reaches the container, and the reply leaves by the
+  tunnel;
+- the other: nothing arrives at all, on any interface.
+
+## Why it matters
+
+**ADR 0007's hub carries every path between machines that are not co-located, and the filter breaks
+that path without saying so.** Whether one home machine can reach a service on another depends on
+whether the hub happens to publish the same port number for something of its own. Adding or removing
+a module on the hub silently opens or closes paths between two other machines that it has nothing to
+do with.
+
+It also hid behind another fault. A missing placement made the same pair look disconnected earlier the
+same day, and that explanation fit well enough that the per-port pattern was not looked for.
+
+## Open questions
+
+- The relaying rule accepts what comes in on the tunnel and leaves on it, and leaves judging to the
+  machine it is for. Should the hub also restrict relayed traffic to what that machine opens to the
+  mesh? That would duplicate the target's rules on the hub.
+- No test raises two machines behind a hub and checks a port between them that the hub does not
+  publish. The lab's beds have one machine per site.
+
+## Resolved (2026-10-02)
+
+Live on all four machines after one push each. The same sweep, from both home machines to the third
+over the mesh: 45 of 55 ports answer, the same 45 the hub reaches directly. The 9 that do not are
+ports the target opens to nobody on the mesh, and one is refused because it listens only on a LAN
+address. Nothing answers that the target's rules do not open.

04-ISSUES/196-the-hub-relays-only-the-ports-it-publishes-itself/01-diagnosis.md

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+# Diagnosis
+
+*2026-10-02.*
+
+**Not the tunnel.** The route from either home machine to the target is the tunnel, and traffic to the
+17 ports travels it in both directions. A placement fault would have stopped every port.
+
+**Not the target's filter.** The target opens the failing ports to every address of the mesh in its
+input chain and its forward chain, the hub reaches them directly, and the SYN for a failing port never
+arrived at the target to be judged.
+
+**The hub's forward chain.** A relayed packet comes in on the tunnel and leaves on it, so the hub's
+forward hook judges it. The chain the controller renders (`AsNftables`) has a default of drop, accepts
+established traffic, and accepts what did not arrive on an outward link or the tunnel. That last rule is
+for the machine's own containers reaching outward. After that come the rules for this machine's own
+published ports, each matching the **original destination port** of the connection. None of them names
+an outgoing interface or a destination. So a relayed packet to another machine's port 20000 matched the
+hub's own rule for its own port 20000 and passed. One to port 8080, which the hub does not publish,
+matched nothing and was dropped.
+
+**The fix.** One rule: in on the tunnel **and** out on the tunnel is accepted. That is the mesh passing
+through to another of its machines, which filters it against its own rules. It does not widen anything
+on the hub. A packet for the hub itself is the input chain's, and one for the hub's own containers
+leaves by a bridge, not the tunnel. Both still meet their rules. WireGuard only accepts a packet from a
+peer whose address that peer is allowed to use, so in-on-the-tunnel means from a machine of the mesh.
+A controller test asserts the rule in the forward chain only, never in the input chain, and absent on a
+machine with no tunnel. It fails without the fix, and the rendered set loads with `nft -c`.