The mesh composes the accounts; the module owns its server

The delivery question, decided. The alternative was a manifest field enumerating
the server's ports, TLS paths and store directory so the controller could write a
whole configuration file. That is wrong: those are properties of the container the
module raises, they live in its image and its mounts, and the controller would
have to be kept in step with a Dockerfile it never sees. So the mesh writes only
what only the mesh knows — who may connect — and the module's own configuration
includes it.

`ComposeAccounts` is that file. A test says what must *not* be in it as plainly as
what must: no port, no tls block, no store_dir. Each of those in the mesh's file
is a value the controller would then own, and the module could no longer change
its own image without the mesh agreeing.

`bus-users` is where a module wants it written, and **asking is not enough to
receive it**: the file holds every user's password hash, so a module that could ask
for it could read every credential on the bus. The claim on `mesh-broker`
authorises it, checked from the manifest alone. A holder with nothing composed is
refused rather than given an empty file, for the reason a certificate is — a bus
with no user list refuses every connection in the mesh and looks like a machine
problem.

Six claims checked against a running server before any of this was committed to,
and two of them changed what got written:

**An absolute include path is resolved relative to the including file's
directory.** `include /etc/nats/accounts.conf` from /etc/nats-server/nats.conf
makes the server look for /etc/nats-server/etc/nats/accounts.conf and refuse to
start. So both files share one directory, and the module declares its own as a
file resource beside the mesh's.

**`verify: true` was refusing every connection in the mesh.** It makes the server
demand a *client* certificate, and nothing in the mesh presents one: a host pins
this server's exact certificate and authenticates with the password the mesh
minted, and so does a module's runtime. Every connection died at the TLS handshake
before any password was looked at, with an error — "client didn't provide a
certificate" — that reads as a fault in the client. Removed. TLS is still
required; verify only decides whether client certificates are checked.

The other four: a user in an included file authenticates, an unknown user is
refused so the include is the whole authority rather than an addition, a publish
outside a grant is refused, and rewriting the mesh's half alone makes a new user
appear — noticed by the module's own watcher, with no signal from outside, and
without dropping the connection the mesh already had. That last one is task 1.2's
payoff, collected.
This commit is contained in:
2026-09-27 02:50:23 +02:00
parent ee1b8ffe24
commit f8ab9f2dcf
6 changed files with 239 additions and 4 deletions
+4 -1
View File
@@ -9,13 +9,16 @@ tls {
cert_file: "/tls/tls.crt"
key_file: "/tls/tls.key"
ca_file: "/tls/ca.crt"
verify: true
}
jetstream {
store_dir: "/data"
}
# The mesh's users, composed by the controller. Do not edit: the next
# composition overwrites it. Permissions are derived from what each module
# declares and nothing else (novox/hq ADR 0043, design 29 §2).
accounts {
MESH {
users = [