Read against hal/modules/dnsmasq-app (hal dnsmasq-app conversion, hq 08-connectivity).
On the machines it runs, the predecessor's dnsmasq answers every name: the mesh's own
itself, the rest forwarded to 1.1.1.1 and 8.8.8.8, its module's defaults; resolv.conf
names it alone at 127.0.0.1, and the container runtime's dns is the machine's tunnel
address, so the host and every container resolve the world through it. The nox module
forwarded nothing, listened on 127.0.0.55 — a convention of its own beside the one every
machine already followed — and read a machines file that the module's `facts` already
asks the mesh for, so taking it would have left an adopted machine with a resolv.conf
pointing at an address nothing answered on, and no upstream for anything else.
Now the resolver keeps `no-resolv` (the documented loop — finding its own address in
resolv.conf and becoming its own upstream — stays impossible) and forwards to the same
two explicit upstreams; listens on mesh0 and 127.0.0.1, which systemd-resolved does not
hold; requires `mesh-addressing`, since its data is the mesh's addresses; and writes the
runtime's `dns` into daemon.json beside whatever the machine had (ADR 0102), at this
machine's own address — `${machine:address}`, new in the controller. The runtime is not
restarted for it: it reads the key at start, not on reload, and a restart stops every
container; on the machine this replaces the value is already there.
resolv-conf names the resolver alone, as the predecessor's file did; its placeholder second
line was a fallback nothing ever reached. resolved-split-dns follows the address. The
mesh's suffix as a local domain comes with the machines file, so a mesh name the resolver
does not know is refused here rather than asked upstream. mDNS is not carried: no module
does it and the design says mesh names are not multicast names.
The runtime beside the forge served 0 tools: GiteaClient.fromEnv required a token
(settings or MESH_GITEA_TOKEN), nobody had one to give — the mesh raised the forge —
and putting one in settings would store a secret in plaintext in the inventory. So
the fifteen tools registered nothing and the watcher logged "not watching".
What the mesh does deliver is the admin account: a login the manifest names and a
password the vault minted and the host unsealed into a file (ADR 0086). That is
enough to mint a token, so the module does (hq issue 100, the forge's tools):
POST /users/{admin}/tokens over basic auth, scoped to write:repository and
write:issue — the least the tools and the repo watcher need — kept at 0600 in the
module's own state (/var/lib/mesh/gitea/state, a new directory resource the runtime
mounts writable), read back on the next start, and minted afresh when the forge
answers 401 to it or the kept file is gone. A forge whose data came from the
predecessor has no mesh-admin: that is reported in plain words on every poll until
it clears, once per reason, not crash-looped. A configured token still wins and is
never minted over.
The mint happens on the first call, not at registration: a contributor is
synchronous, and a forge not yet answering must not keep the runtime from serving.
One source per kept file in a process, or the watcher and the tools would each
renew on a 401 and drop the other's token by name.
Review of the registry work found it node-scoped: a second `distribution` on another
machine resolved cleanly there, and only afterwards did the mesh notice `artifact-store`
offered by two nodes, with every consumer elsewhere refusing to choose. Worse, a node-scoped
requirement with one candidate installs that candidate, so anything that wanted the store
beside it would have raised a fresh, empty store on the wrong machine first.
There is one store in a mesh, which was already the effective rule; the claim now says it
where a second one is assigned, by name, instead of leaving consumers to discover it.
Read against hal/modules/mssql: the predecessor publishes 4848:1433 and its connections
block hands every consumer localhost:4848; its data has lived in /services/mssql/data
since it was installed — 4.6 GB of it. The nox module had 1433, db-data, and a pin three
builds behind, so taking it would have moved the port every consumer was told about,
started on an empty directory, and downgraded the engine at the same time.
db-data was not a convention: only this module and mongodb used it, and both predecessors
say data. Now nothing moves at the cutover.
The pin was a month old — 2026-08-20 against the 2026-09-17 image the container runs.
Third module in a row whose pin had aged into a downgrade; the pattern is hq issue 099.
The rule the forge's cutover taught: a module that takes over a running service must not
carry an older image than the one running, or the cutover is a downgrade nobody asked for.
6.10.4 exists; moving to it is an upgrade and its own act.
A node being adopted cannot take a web module: every module reachable by
name requires route, the mesh's only provider of it binds the two public
ports, and the predecessor's proxy holds them and serves every public
name there. Stopping the predecessor to break the circle darkens every
name at once, with every certificate to re-obtain in the same window.
So this answers the same provision without binding anything. It provides
route and receives the same contributions file, and writes each
contribution as one route file where the predecessor's file provider
reads, naming the predecessor's own certificate resolver so no
certificate is asked for. It removes a file it wrote when its
contribution goes and never touches a file it did not write — the name
and a marker inside both have to say it is the mesh's.
A step, not a daemon: run-once, re-run by restart-on over the received
file and the settings. The predecessor's dynamic directory is a node
setting, because it is a fact about one machine.
Migration scaffolding with a stated end: assigned only on an adopted
node, deleted when the predecessor's proxy retires.
MESH_GITEA_URL named 3000 outright. The forge's container publishes 3000 without
fixing the machine side, so the mesh assigns it — and on a node given that port
as a setting it is the operator's number. The mapping that lets the forge go on
binding 3000 does nothing for a caller dialling the machine's loopback, so the
sidecar dialled a port nothing was listening on wherever the two differed.
${port:3000} is the mesh's answer to exactly that question, and it now resolves
in a container's environment as it always has in a file. The forge declares it
listens on 3000, so it may ask.
Still names 3000: the route contribution (hq issue 089) and the `listens` and
`ports` entries, which are the software's own number and belong there.
`at` was settable. A node setting could point the builder's package binding at
any host, and the builder sends its registry credential there as basic auth — so
a setting meant for a port was a way to hand the password to somebody else.
novox/hq 04-ISSUES/085
The forge is raised by hand at genesis, before any module provides
`package-registry`, so the builder carries a binding instead of resolving one —
and the port in it was rewritten, as text, by the installer. A later
registration of this manifest from the catalogue put 3000 back, silently, and
pointed the builder and its registry credential at whatever holds that port.
Made settable instead: the port is a per-node setting the controller holds, and
the catalogue's number is only its default. `provision`, `from` and `as` are
protected — a setting here is about where the forge answers, never about who the
binding is with.
novox/hq 04-ISSUES/085, ADR 0100
step-ca's root certificate, its key and that key's password were own secrets — random
bytes the mesh minted, which no certificate is (novox/hq 04-ISSUES/076). The mesh
mints only the CA password now; step-ca makes its root at first start and serves it
at /roots.pem, which the manifest now names beside the ACME directory. The route
proxy fetches that root over the mesh network in a run-once step before it starts,
instead of being handed a served fact that could only be written before anything ran
(ADR 0098).
The copy between registries (ADR 0096) reaches the mesh's registry over HTTP from
inside the builder's container, where loopback on the default bridge is not the
machine; docker push never noticed because it went through the machine's daemon.
The builder already holds the runtime's socket, so the host network adds nothing
it did not have.
gitea, umami, influxdb, icecast and mailu require a secret and keep each of theirs
under a local name (novox/hq ADR 0094); the broker account stays their own. The
route proxy's recipe starts FROM the bases its manifest declares (ADR 0097).
ADR 0069 put it there; genesis now takes it from the build it runs (mesh-host,
novox/hq 04-ISSUES/072). This copy was read by nothing else and had already drifted.
The official entrypoint re-executes itself as mongodb (uid 999) and only then reads
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD_FILE, so a root-owned 0600 file is 'Permission denied' at line 83 and
the server never starts. secrets-owner is the mechanism ADR 0086 gives for exactly this.
From the survey of every env-file secret (ADR 0086, issue 041): amqp-ping,
minio, mongodb and grafana use the _FILE twin their software honours;
mesh-catalog and model-usage read DATABASE_URL_FILE (a file the mesh
templates, mounted where only the runtime reads it); grafana's secret files
belong to its own account. Two dead deliveries removed: a line nothing read
in amqp-email-forwarder, and mailu's secret.env on four containers that
never read it. The 25 exceptions that remain carry the surveyed reason —
convertible and awaiting a bed, convertible through a generated config file,
the application's own code, or not convertible.
jschoubben