I did something stupid to this machine trying to clear up its
`/var/lib/containers/storage` volume and now it won't start any new
pods. Killing it and replacing.
Having the VM hosts as members of the domain has been troublesome since
the very beginning. In full shutdown events, it's often difficult or
impossible to log in to the VM hosts while the domain controller VMs are
down or still coming up, even with winbind caching.
Now that we have the `users.yml` playbook, the SSH certificate
authority, and `doas`+*pam_ssh_agent_auth*, we really don't need the AD
domain for centralized authentication.
I've become rather frusted witih Grafana Loki lately. It has several
bugs that affect my usage, including issues with counting and
aggregation, completely broken retention and cleanup, spamming itself
with bogus error log messages, and more. Now that VitoriaLogs has
first-class support in Grafana and support for alerts, it seems like a
good time to try it out. It's under very active development, with bugs
getting fixed extremely quickly, and new features added constantly.
Indeed, as I was experimenting with it, I thought, "it would be nice if
the web UI could decode ANSI escapes for terminal colors," and just a
few days later, that feature was added! Native support for syslog is
also a huge benefit, as it will allow me to collect logs directly from
network devices, without first collecting them into a file on the Unifi
controller.
This new role deploys VictoriaLogs in a manner very similar to how I
have Loki set up, as a systemd-managed Podman container. As it has no
built-in authentication or authorization, we rely on Caddy to handle
that. As with Loki, mTLS is used to prevent anonymous access to
querying the logs, however, authentication via Authelia is also an
option for human+browser usage. I'm re-using the same certificate
authority as with Loki to simplify Grafana configuration. Eventually, I
would like to have a more robust PKI, probably using OpenBao, at which
point I will (hopefully) have decided which log database I will be
using, and can use a proper CA for it.
The _linuxserver.io_ image for UniFi Network is deprecated. It sucked
anyway. I've created a simple image based on Debian that installs the
_unifi_ package from the upstream apt repository. This image doesn't
require running anything as _root_, so it doesn't need a user namespace.
I continually struggle with machines' (physical and virtual, even the
Roku devices!) clocks getting out of sync. I have been putting off
fixing this because I wanted to set up a Windows-compatible NTP server
(i.e. on the domain controllers, with Kerberos signing), but there's
really no reason to wait for that to fix the clocks on all the
non-Windows machines, especially since there are exactly 0 Windows
machines on the network right now.
The *chrony* role and corresponding `chrony.yml` playbook are generic,
configured via the `chrony_pools`, `chrony_servers`, and `chrony_allow`
variables. The values for these variables will configure the firewall
to act as an NTP server, synchronizing with the NTP pool on the
Internet, while all other machines will synchronize with it. This
allows machines on networks without Internet access to keep their clocks
in sync.
*nut1.pyrocufflink.blue* is a member of the *pyrocufflink.blue* AD
domain. I'm not sure how it got to be so without belonging to the
_pyrocufflink_ Ansible group...
The *k8s-iot-net-ctrl* group is for the Raspberry Pi that has the Zigbee
and Z-Wave controllers connected to it. This node runs the Zigbee2MQTT
and ZWaveJS2MQTT servers as Kubernetes pods.
Since the _hostvds_ group is not defined in the static inventory but by
the OpenStack inventory plugin via `hostvds.openstack.yml`, when the
static inventory is used by itself, Ansible fails to load it with an
error:
> Section [vps:children] includes undefined group: hostvds
To fix this, we could explicitly define an empty _hostvds_ group in the
static inventory, but since we aren't currently running any HostVDS
instances, we might as well just get rid of it.
It turns out, $0.99/mo might be _too_ cheap for a cloud server. Running
the Blackbox Exporter+vmagent on the HostVDS instance worked for a few
days, but then it started having frequent timeouts when probing the
websites. I tried redeploying the instance, switching to a larger
instance, and moving it to different networks. Unfortunately, none of
this seemed to help.
Switching over to a VPS running in OVH cloud. OVH VPS servers are
managed statically, as opposed to via API, so we can't use Pulumi to
create them. This one was created for me when I signed up for an OVH
acount.
The _remote-blackbox_ group defines a system that runs
_blackbox-exporter_ and _vmagent_ in a remote (cloud) location. This
system will monitor our public web sites. This will give a better idea
of their availability from the perspective of a user on the Internet,
which can be by factors that are necessarily visible from within the
network.
So far, I have been managing Kubernetes worker nodes with Fedora CoreOS
Ignition, but I have decided to move everything back to Fedora and
Ansible. I like the idea of an immutable operating system, but the FCOS
implementation is not really what I want. I like the automated updates,
but that can be accomplished with _dnf-automatic_. I do _not_ like
giving up control of when to upgrade to the next Fedora release.
Mostly, I never did come up with a good way to manage application-level
configuration on FCOS machines. None of my experiments (Cue+tmpl,
KCL+etcd+Luci) were successful, which mostly resulted in my manually
managing configuration on nodes individually. Managing OS-level
configuration is also rather cumbersome, since it requires redeploying
the machine entirely. Altogether, I just don't think FCOS fits with my
model of managing systems.
This commit introduces a new playbook, `kubernetes.yml`, and a handful of
new roles to manage Kubernetes worker nodes running Fedora Linux. It
also adds two new deploy scripts, `k8s-worker.sh` and `k8s-longhorn.sh`,
which fully automate the process of bringing up worker nodes.
_loki1.pyrocufflink.blue_ replaces _loki0.pyrocufflink.blue_. The
former runs Fedora Linux and is managed by Ansible, while the latter ran
Fedora CoreOS and was managed by Ignition and _cfg_.
The current Grafana Loki server, *loki0.pyrocufflink.blue*, runs Fedora
CoreOS and is managed by Ignition and *cfg*. Since I have declared
*cfg* a failed experiment, I'm going to re-deploy Loki on a new VM
running Fedora Linux and managed by Ansible.
The *loki* role installs Podman and defines a systemd-managed container
to run Grafana Loki.
Gitea and Vaultwarden both have SQLite databases. We'll need to add
some logic to ensure these are in a consistent state before beginning
the backup. Fortunately, neither of them are very busy databases, so
the likelihood of an issue is pretty low. It's definitely more
important to get backups going again sooner, and we can deal with that
later.
The `restic.yml` playbook applies the _restic_ role to hosts in the
_restic_ group. The _restic_ role installs `restic` and creates a
systemd timer and service unit to run `restic backup` every day.
Restic doesn't really have a configuration file; all its settings are
controlled either by environment variables or command-line options. Some
options, such as the list of files to include in or exclude from
backups, take paths to files containing the values. We can make use of
these to provide some configurability via Ansible variables. The
`restic_env` variable is a map of environment variables and values to
set for `restic`. The `restic_include` and `restic_exclude` variables
are lists of paths/patterns to include and exclude, respectively.
Finally, the `restic_password` variable contains the password to decrypt
the repository contents. The password is written to a file and exposed
to the _restic-backup.service_ unit using [systemd credentials][0].
When using S3 or a compatible service for respository storage, Restic of
course needs authentication credentials. These can be set using the
`restic_aws_credentials` variable. If this variable is defined, it
should be a map containing the`aws_access_key_id` and
`aws_secret_access_key` keys, which will be written to an AWS shared
credentials file. This file is then exposed to the
_restic-backup.service_ unit using [systemd credentials][0].
[0]: https://systemd.io/CREDENTIALS/
Moving the Nextcloud database to the central PostgreSQL server will
allow it to take advantage of the monitoring and backups in place there.
For backups specifically, this will make it easier to switch from BURP
to Restic, since now only the contents of the filesystem need backed up.
The PostgreSQL server on _db0_ requires certificate authentication for
all clients. The certificate for Nextcloud is stored in a Secret in
Kubernetes, so we need to use the _nextcloud-db-cert_ role to install
the script to fetch it. Nextcloud configuration doesn't expose the
parameters for selecting the certificate and private key files, but
fortunately, they can be encoded in the value provided to the `host`
parameter, though it makes for a rather cumbersome value.
*chromie.pyrocufflink.blue* will replace *burp1.pyrocufflink.blue* as
the backup server. It is running on the hardware that was originally
*nvr1.pyrocufflink.blue*: a 1U Jetway server with an Intel Celeron N3160
CPU and 4 GB of RAM.
This playbook uses the *minio-nginx* and *minio-backups-cert* role to
deploy MinIO with nginx.
The S3 API server is *s3.backups.pyrocufflink.blue*, and buckets can be
accessed as subdomains of this name.
The Admin Console is *minio.backups.pyrocufflink.blue*.
Certificates are issued by DCH CA via ACME using `certbot`.
_haproxy0.pyrocufflink.blue_ is a Fedora Linux VM that runs HAProxy to
provide reverse proxy, exposing web sites and applications to the
Internet. It has a static MAC address because it will need a static IP
address, at least initially, in order for DNAT to work.
Originally, the VM hosts were in a separate inventory so they would
not be managed with the rest of the servers. It used to be that one
server was running all the VMs, while the other was asleep. That's
no longer the case; both alre always running and each has about half
of the VMs. Since they're both always online, they can be managed
normally now.
*nvr2.pyrocufflink.blue* originally ran Fedora CoreOS. Since I'm tired
of the tedium and difficulty involved in making configuration changes to
FCOS machines, I am migrating it to Fedora Linux, managed by Ansible.
The *useproxy* role configures the `http_proxy` et al. environmet
variables for systemd services and interactive shells. Additionally, it
configures Yum repositories to use a single mirror via the `baseurl`
setting, rather than a list of mirrors via `metalink`, since the proxy
a) the proxy only allows access to _dl.fedoraproject.org_ and b) the
proxy caches RPM files, but this is only effective if all clients use
the same mirror all the time.
The `useproxy.yml` playbook applies this role to servers in the
*needproxy* group.
*db0.pyrocufflink.blue* will be the primary server in the new PostgreSQL
database cluster. We're starting with Fedora 39 so we can have
PostgreSQL 15, to match the version managed by the Postgres Operator in
the Kubernetes cluster right now.
I am going to use the *postgresql* group for the dedicated database
servers. The configuration for those machines will be quite a bit
different than for the one existing machine that is a member of that
group already: the Nextcloud server. Rather than undefine/override all
the group-level settings at the host level, I have removed the Nextcloud
server from the *postgresql* group, and updated the `nextcloud.yml`
playbook to apply the *postgresql-server* role itself.
Eventually, I want to move the Nextcloud database to the central
database servers. At that point, I will remove the *postgresql-server*
role from the `nextcloud.yml` playbook.
*k8s-amd64-n0.pyrocufflink.blue*, *k8s-amd64-n1.pyrocufflink.blue*, and
*k8s-amd64-n2.pyrocufflink.blue*, which ran Fedora Linux, have been
replaced by *k8s-amd64-n4.pyrocufflink.blue*,
*k8s-amd64-n5.pyrocufflink.blue*, and *k8s-amd64-n6.pyrocufflink.blue*,
respectively. The new machines run Fedora CoreOS, and are thus not
managed by the Ansible configuration policy.
New AD DC servers run Fedora 40. Their LDAP server certificates are
issued by *step-ca* via ACME, signed by *dch-ca r2*.
I've changed the naming convention for domain controllers again. I
found the random sequenc of characters to be too difficult to remember
and identify. Using a short random word (chosen from the EFF word list
used by Diceware) should be a lot nicer. These names are chosen by the
`create-dc.sh` script.
The internal DNS server for the *pyrocufflink.blue* et al. domains runs
on the firewall now, and is thus no longer managed by Ansible. Dropping
the group variables so the file encrypted with Ansible Vault can go
away.
*serial0.pyrocufflink.blue* has been replaced by
*serial1.pyrocufflink.blue*. The latter runs Fedora CoreOS and is
managed by the CUE-based configuration policy in *cfg.git*.
The Metrics Pi has bit the dust. The NVMe disk has never been
particularly reliable, but now it's gotten to the point where it's a
real issue. The Pi needs rebooted at least once a day.
I've moved the Victoria Metrics/Grafana ecosystem to Kubernetes.
Dustin