mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The mesh knew a machine's architecture and kernel family and nothing it is made of, and heard even
that only when it sent the machine something. The profile now carries the machine's memory, each local
filesystem's size and free space, processor model, cores and threads, distribution and version, kernel
release, virtual or physical, boot time and timezone; a fact it cannot read is named unknown with why,
never zeroed. The reconcile says the profile unasked once the mesh last heard it 23 hours ago, so on a
machine nobody pushed to nothing the mesh holds of it is older than a day.
The fix is an order, and nothing failed if the trust call moved after the
push or went: steps 7 and 8 are now one function a test drives against a
runtime that refuses an untrusted push. Preflight now refuses, before
anything is raised, a runtime file that is no JSON object, a docker.service
that is not loaded and active, and a dockerd started with
--insecure-registry, which would refuse the reload. The comment names the
order the docker module's takeover rests on.
Genesis pushed the control plane's image to the mesh's plain-HTTP registry
before anything told the container runtime to trust it; the docker module
that writes that trust is applied long after. Genesis now writes the trust
itself at the registry step, with the same into-json writer and a reload,
for the address given and the node's mesh name on the node's registry
port, and refuses before any push unless the runtime says it trusts each.
The docker module later finds the mesh name there and takes it over
without a change.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A mesh directory outside every home was chmodded and chowned by path, so a
parent turned into a link between two applies carried root's chmod and chown
to the link's target. It is now made and changed through the descriptor of
the walk from / that follows a link only root alone could have made.
A directory that walk refuses is a refusal like the placement guard's
(review 47): judged before anything is applied, and again when the
directory is applied, used as found or not; refused at either point it gates
its module and refuses what is below it, so no file is written into the
link's target and the report does not say everything was attempted.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
Once a mesh directory's mode and owner go only through a walk that follows no
link another account could make, a directory behind such a link is refused
and its module gated: on the control-node that could stop the controller.
The operator is to be told which directories that walk would refuse on every
node before it lands. So the engine judges the declaration it keeps with the
same walk, making and changing nothing: on a signed ask from the controller
(mesh.node.<node>.ask.judge-directories, held to the hand-over's checks) and
as `nox-mesh-host judge-directories` at the machine.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The engine is built without cgo, so a check by name missed a root group a name
service holds or one number carrying another name: the root groups are resolved
to numbers (now with kmem and shadow) and a number named nothing is refused for
containers too. A group without write is granted nothing (§2). The look reads
each path off the lock within five seconds, so a dead network mount cannot stop
every health statement. A grant's account may not start with a dash. A group a
record leaves for another asker is handed to it, so it is still taken back when
the last asker goes (§5). The scheduler skips paths issue 339's guard refuses.
The engine reads the group owning the accessed path at apply and gives it to the
containers and the tools' account an access's new `grant` names: --group-add for a
container (recreated with it), an account group for the account (recorded, taken
back as ADR 0252 takes back). The path is never changed; an access whose group
cannot write is stated unhealthy for the operator to decide; group 0 and the
root-granting groups are refused by name. The tool runner restarts through the
restart-on the controller gives it, because the access reports updated exactly
when the account's groups moved. Health says GrantContract (4), which tells the
controller it may send `grant`.
The controller is to ask mesh-delivery whether a merge's delivery
group still has a member to merge, so that a merge in no waiting group
is cut at once (ADR 0304, ADR 0306); its bus grant names the verb, and
the installer's first user list must too, as for times (212a3cc).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A module-less action that stopped the apply after a module was gated was reported as
everything else attempted. The failure now names the gated modules and the stop, counts
skipped resources apart from applied ones, and the tests cover an archive below a refused
path, a gated module tried again by the next apply, and a refused file among the failures.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
On ace the engine refused Docker's data root as not placed, said nothing was touched, then
wrote a file into it and ran the module's step. A refused directory now gates the rest of
its module as a failed step does, a file is refused in a forbidden tree or below a refused
path, and the failure names the modules whose rest was not attempted.
Both fail on main: the shape seen on ace, a refused directory, a file below it and a
step after it, writes the file, runs the step and reports that everything was attempted.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A newer sequence carrying an older view of the assignments undeclared four
assigned modules on 2026-10-04; the sequence cannot tell it, the generation
can. The engine keeps the highest generation it applied, refuses an older one
before reading the machine unless the declaration is a gate's put-back, and
says the refusal in its report so the controller can name the sender. A
declaration without a generation is applied as before, and every report says
it reads one, so the controller sends it only to engines that do.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A failure recorded nothing, so the record of the step's last success stayed and
the next apply skipped it, opening ADR 0136's gate on what it had just refused.
The record is kept, for removal, with what it was run as cleared.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A refusal waiting for its request parsed it into a 64 KiB reader for up to 5 s,
on a socket every account may open. It now drains at most 4 KiB through a small
buffer for at most 1 s and never past the accept-time deadline, only 32 wait at
once, and an unknown account is refused before it takes a slot. The busy tests
wait for the first line with a timeout and say what came of it (novox/hq issue 434).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The engine answered busy and closed before the client's request had landed;
the client's write then broke and it never read the refusal waiting for it.
Under the whole suite's load this failed the busy test (novox/hq issue 434).
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A file's own details (lstat) may be read from the disk as a directory is,
so a directory of tens of thousands of files was read without a look and
the header's promise that no burst is longer than PaceLook did not hold.
The walk now asks the pacer before each file as well; the 250 ms gate
makes that a clock read per file. A test with one directory of twenty
files fails without it. The clock is read once after a run of pauses,
and the constants test says that it guards the constants only.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The review of #79 found that pacing alone brought back issue 361's
fault. The control-node's own I/O pressure sits near the 10 % bound with
no walk running, so a walk that paused 30 s for every 250 ms it read
would read 0.8 % of the time: a 16-minute walk would take some 32 hours,
outlive the age a search judges for, and be begun again at an engine
restart, leaving the machine unjudged.
A run of pauses is now at most nine times as long as the walk read since
the one before, so the walk keeps at least a tenth of the time whatever
the pressure, and takes at most ten times as long as unpaced: about
2.7 hours for the 16-minute walk, inside the 12 hours the controller
waits quietly. A test ties the bound to rootsearch.Quiet.
The pressure is the share of the time since the last look in which some
task waited on I/O, from PSI's cumulative counter, not its ten-second
average, which the kernel moves only every two seconds. A pause is
500 ms, then the pressure is looked at again.
The engine's walker is built in one place, engineWalker, and a test
fails if it is not paced by /proc/pressure/io. What the walk cannot read
is said through the search's own channel (the cache's Say), as the rest
of the search is, with what it means for the disk.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The walk for setuid programs is put in the idle I/O class so it yields
to everything else, but only a scheduler that schedules by class (BFQ)
honours that. The control-node's disks run mq-deadline, which does not,
so the walk read at full priority. On 2026-10-11 the walk started at
01:27, right after the engine applied a new controller, and ran sixteen
minutes; it kept two spinning disks saturated, the bus whose store
shares them stalled for half a minute twice, and the controller lost
its lease and restarted each time.
The walk now also paces itself by PSI, which reads the same whatever
the scheduler: before it reads a directory, while some task has waited
on I/O for more than 10 % of the last ten seconds, it pauses two
seconds at a time. It looks at most every 250 ms, pauses at most 30 s
in a row and then reads one more directory, so a machine that is never
quiet is walked slowly but still judged. Its own reads count in the
pressure, so on an otherwise idle machine it holds the disk below the
bound. Pressure it cannot read pauses nothing, and is said once.
A paced walk finds what an unpaced one finds; a walk ended while it
pauses is an incomplete walk, never one that found nothing.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A resource that passed, then waited, then failed once after its grace was
still stated healthy from the old pass; and a change of what it waits for
alone raised no change event, so the controller could miss it.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
A module whose only fault was a secret the operator had not given yet was
stated unhealthy, failed its first-node gate and was put back. The engine
now reads the tool's answer through mesh-sdk go/health and states such a
resource waiting, with what it waits for, on one look; a malformed wait
stays unhealthy.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The two finds on the control-node sit in the operator's home of mode 0700, which the agent account cannot
search. The search keeps every find; each judgement reads the modes on the way again, since an account can
open its own home without root. A find in a home is said by count, its path in the journal alone. Also
from review: a checkpoint racing SearchNow forgets the walk it just kept, and a walk kept by an older engine
says its counts as lower bounds.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The walk kept its progress every minute and nobody could read it: root-free said only that a search ran.
The account verdict now carries the progress (counts, times, mount points; never a path) as fields and in
its reason, outside what makes a verdict changed. A signed ask from the controller's terminal throws the last
search away and starts a full one, after the operator removed by hand what it found.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The review found a cursor of a name that is not UTF-8 came back changed
from JSON, so a resumed walk skipped what it stood before; an ask to
search again was lost to a restart, which carried the older walk on; a
fresh search judged a filesystem it never walked; a mount point root
cannot read failed or hung the walk; a found file gone before the package
manager was asked failed every resume; and skipped or kept outcomes
started a search on every reconcile, back to back with a long walk.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
The control-node's walk takes far longer than the engine runs between
updates, so a search that starts over at every restart never completes.
The walk is the engine's own, in lexical order, so its progress is one
cursor per filesystem, kept every minute beside the engine's state and
carried on after a restart while younger than rootsearch.FreshFor. It runs
on a thread of its own at nice 19 and the idle I/O class.
A machine with millions of files never finished the walk within fifteen
minutes, so its agent account was never judged and the router refused to
link. Only root can make a setuid-root file, so a complete search stays
sound until root acts: it now runs at idle priority with no bound, is kept
beside the engine's state, judges for rootsearch.FreshFor from its start,
runs again daily and after an apply that moves accounts, packages, actions
or sudo rules, and an incomplete or stale search is never free.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
SetuidCache compared the caller's now with a time read from the wall clock when the search finished. When the caller's clock ran behind the wall clock, a search was never due again: TestTheSetuidSearchRunsInTheBackgroundAndIsKeptForItsInterval, whose clock is a fixed date, has failed on main and every branch since 2026-10-09 18:00 UTC. A search's time is now the now it was started at; a result reads at most one search older than it is, which errs towards searching again.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
After the first apply the record is no longer used as found, so the directory read as the mesh's own and later applies set its mode and owner by path: a parent swapped for a link after the hand-over took carried root's chmod and chown to its target. The hand-over is now checked before that shortcut, so a handed-over directory always goes through applyHandedOver. The test swaps the parent and the grandparent after an apply already gave the directory its mode; both cases fail with the old order.
mesh/merge-gate pass: builds mesh-host → ace, g14, novox, shanks; no bus step; every machine composes with the change as it did without (4 of 4 compose)
Two holes the review proved. The ask's subject proved nothing — a responder can reach it through a reply — so the engine now verifies the mesh's signature over a fixed context with the key it verifies declarations with, before reading anything, and refuses an ask for another node, expired, good too long, without a nonce, or replayed. And the apply followed a link the hand-over had refused: a component swapped for a link after the record carried root's chmod and chown to its target. A handed-over directory must now still resolve to itself, and is changed only through one descriptor opened from / with no link followed (fchmod, fchown). Tests for the reply guard, the run loop's hook, the fallback renewal on proof and a non-regular fallback; 27 checks each removed in turn, each failing a test.
jochen
mesh-admin
jschoubben