mesh-controller/internal/overlay/declaration.go

package overlay

import (
	"encoding/json"
	"fmt"
	"strings"
)

// The overlay is delivered as an ordinary declaration.
//
// novox/hq 08-connectivity: what the host receives is an interface configuration and a peer list,
// as files. It does not compute them and it does not know what a private network is — the shapes
// it already has are enough, which is why connectivity needs nothing new from tier 0.
//
// **No private key travels.** The configuration points at a file the node wrote from a key the
// mesh has never seen, using WireGuard's own ability to set one after the interface is up. So the
// control plane composes a complete configuration for a node it cannot impersonate.

// Interface is what the private network is called on a machine, and where the node's own key
// lives. A constant rather than a setting: two nodes disagreeing about the name would produce a
// mesh where each is configured correctly and nothing meets.
const (
	Interface      = "mesh0"
	ConfigPath     = "/etc/wireguard/" + Interface + ".conf"
	Unit           = "wg-quick@" + Interface
	DefaultKeyPath = "/var/lib/mesh-host/overlay.key"
)

// Resource is one entry in a declaration, built here and read by the host.
type Resource map[string]any

// Declaration is what the mesh sends a node to put it on the network.
//
// Three resources and nothing clever: the tools, the configuration, and the interface running. A
// person can read it, which is the point — this is the first thing a node is ever told, and if it
// is wrong the node is unreachable and the mistake has to be findable by eye.
func Declaration(node Node, peers []Peer, keyPath string) ([]byte, error) {
	if node.Address == "" {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("%s has no address on the overlay, so there is nothing to configure",
			node.Name)
	}
	if keyPath == "" {
		keyPath = DefaultKeyPath
	}

	resources := []Resource{
		{
			"id": "overlay-tools", "type": "package", "package": "wireguard-tools",
		},
		{
			"id": "overlay-config", "type": "file", "path": ConfigPath,
			// Readable only by root: it lists every peer's key and endpoint, which is a map of
			// the mesh. Not secret in the way a private key is, and not something to leave
			// world-readable on a machine somebody else also uses.
			"mode":    "0600",
			"content": config(node, peers, keyPath),
		},
		{
			"id": "overlay-up", "type": "service", "unit": Unit,
			"state": "running",
			// Enabled, so the node comes back onto the network after a reboot without waiting to
			// be told again. A node whose overlay only exists while something is watching is not
			// a node that survives being switched off and on.
			"boot": "enabled",
			// And restarted when the peer list changes, because a running interface does not
			// re-read its configuration.
			//
			// This is the whole of it: a node joins, every existing node's peer list changes,
			// each file is replaced — and without this the service is already running, nothing
			// reloads it, and every node keeps a network that no longer matches the mesh. It
			// reports complete success. The lab found it the moment a third node arrived.
			//
			// Declared state rather than a command. The service must reflect the file; the host
			// works out that it does not. A command to restart would be an action, and the link
			// may not carry one (novox/hq ADR 0005) — the host refused exactly that, correctly,
			// which is how this shape was arrived at.
			"restart-on": []string{"overlay-config"},
		},
	}

	// The names used to be appended here, on the argument that a node with peers and no names is
	// half on the network. True, and the wrong place to fix it: names would be identical over a
	// different private network, so bundling them with WireGuard made one module out of two
	// things. They are their own module now, requiring this one — which is what keeps them
	// arriving together without pretending they are the same concern.
	return json.Marshal(map[string]any{"declaration": 1, "resources": resources})
}

// config writes the interface file.
//
// Deliberately in the order a person would read it: who I am, then who I talk to, each with a
// line saying why it is there. A generated file that cannot be understood by the person it
// confuses is a generated file that gets edited by hand.
func config(node Node, peers []Peer, keyPath string) string {
	var b strings.Builder
	b.WriteString("# Generated by the mesh. Do not edit — this file is replaced whenever the\n")
	b.WriteString("# peer graph changes, and an edit would survive until the next change and\n")
	b.WriteString("# then vanish, which is worse than not being applied at all.\n")
	fmt.Fprintf(&b, "#\n# node %s", node.Name)
	if node.Site != "" {
		fmt.Fprintf(&b, ", at %s", node.Site)
	}
	if !node.Reachable() {
		b.WriteString(", not dialable — it opens every path itself")
	}
	b.WriteString("\n\n[Interface]\n")
	fmt.Fprintf(&b, "Address = %s/32\n", node.Address)
	if node.Reachable() {
		if port := portOf(node.Endpoint); port != "" {
			fmt.Fprintf(&b, "ListenPort = %s\n", port)
		}
	}
	// The private key is set from a file the node wrote, so it never appears here and never
	// travelled. Everything else in this file came from the mesh; this one line is the node's.
	fmt.Fprintf(&b, "PostUp = wg set %%i private-key %s\n", keyPath)

	if node.Hub {
		// A hub carries traffic *between* its spokes, and a Linux machine does not forward
		// packets unless it is told to. Without this every spoke reaches the hub perfectly and
		// no spoke reaches any other — which is exactly how it failed in the lab, and it looks
		// like a peering problem rather than a kernel setting.
		//
		// Here rather than in a separate resource because it is part of what being a hub means,
		// and because it should last exactly as long as the interface does: a machine that stops
		// being the hub should stop forwarding, and PostDown below is how that happens.
		b.WriteString("PostUp = sysctl -q -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=1\n")
		b.WriteString("PostDown = sysctl -q -w net.ipv4.ip_forward=0\n")

		// And past the machine's own firewall, which on any node with a container runtime is
		// closed. Docker sets the FORWARD policy to DROP and inserts its chains, so the substrate
		// this mesh installs at tier 1 silently breaks the network it builds at tier 2: every
		// spoke reaches the hub, no spoke reaches any other, and every part of it reports
		// success. Found in the lab; nothing about it is visible from the mesh's own state.
		//
		// Inserted at the top so it precedes those chains, and removed on the way down so a
		// machine that stops being the hub stops carrying other people's traffic. Guarded on
		// iptables existing: a machine without it has no policy to get past.
		for _, direction := range []string{"-i", "-o"} {
			fmt.Fprintf(&b,
				"PostUp = command -v iptables >/dev/null && iptables -I FORWARD 1 %s %%i -j ACCEPT || true\n",
				direction)
		}
		for _, direction := range []string{"-i", "-o"} {
			fmt.Fprintf(&b,
				"PostDown = command -v iptables >/dev/null && iptables -D FORWARD %s %%i -j ACCEPT || true\n",
				direction)
		}
	}

	for _, p := range peers {
		fmt.Fprintf(&b, "\n# %s — %s\n[Peer]\n", p.Name, p.Why)
		fmt.Fprintf(&b, "PublicKey = %s\n", p.Key)
		fmt.Fprintf(&b, "AllowedIPs = %s\n", p.Allowed)
		if p.Endpoint != "" {
			fmt.Fprintf(&b, "Endpoint = %s\n", p.Endpoint)
		} else {
			b.WriteString("# no endpoint: this peer cannot be dialled and opens the path itself\n")
		}
		if p.Keepalive {
			b.WriteString("PersistentKeepalive = 25\n")
		}
	}
	return b.String()
}

func portOf(endpoint string) string {
	if i := strings.LastIndex(endpoint, ":"); i >= 0 {
		return endpoint[i+1:]
	}
	return ""
}