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hyperhive/docs/swarm/secrets.md
atlas 9a241a1df1 swarm-nats: fetch the callout xkey before the server starts and seal callout traffic 
swarm-bao-nats-callout-xkey runs on the queue's host before the
swarm-nats container, under the responder's store leaf: it runs
`swarm-nats-auth ensure-xkey`, reads the public half back from the
store, and writes it where the container's runtime config dir is. On a
change it restarts the server.

nats-server now always starts through the runtime wrapper, in manual
mode too. A privileged ExecStartPre renders auth_callout with the xkey
(and, in auto mode, the two generated nkeys) at every start, and fails
the server when no xkey has been fetched. The auto-mode key unit now
only mints seeds and writes their public halves.

The responder is wanted by nats.service, so a server started late, once
its key arrived, brings the responder up with it.
2026-10-05 23:25:36 +02:00

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# Swarm secrets: what exists, and where each one lives
A swarm generates its credentials in three different places and reads them
in a fourth, so "where does this file go" has a different answer per deployment.
This page is that answer, one row per secret.
Two rules run through all of it.
**Private key material and access tokens are paths, never values.** Every option
carrying one takes a file path (`*File`), because a literal written into a nix
expression ends up in the nix store — world-readable and permanent. No
option in this tree accepts one inline, and adding one would be a leak rather
than a convenience.
The rule is about what must stay secret, not about credentials generally.
**Public material is a value**: a certificate, or a public nkey like
`deploy.nats.calloutUserPublicKey`, reaches every client that connects,
so the store is a perfectly good place for it.
**The generator and the reader typically live in different containers.** They share
the host's network namespace, which makes them feel co-located, but their
filesystem roots are separate. That's why delivery is a **host-side copy rather
than a bind mount**: `nixos-container` refuses to start when a bind source is
missing, and a secret minted on another container's first boot doesn't exist
yet. Binding it would make one container wait on a file that waits on a
container that starts after it.
## Topologies, by who places secrets
Read every row below against one of these. This is a different cut
from the [deployment shapes](services.md#deployment-shapes) --- those
say _where services run_, these say _who is responsible for a secret
file being there_ --- the two lists don't line up one-to-one, and
neither is a renaming of the other.
| topology | what it means | who places secrets |
| ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **all-local** | one host runs the swarm's shared services and its own hive | nobody — the reader itself generates each secret, or a host unit copies it |
| **swarm-managed** | the swarm's services run on a host with `swarmctl` | `swarmctl` writes what it owns; the rest is still generated in place |
| **hive elsewhere** | a hive that federates with a swarm it doesn't host | the operator provides the file and names it in config |
## Swarm-level — one of each per swarm
| secret | generated by | lives at | hive elsewhere |
| --------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| swarm-services root CA (cert + key) | `swarm-bao.nix`'s granting unit, inside the store's `pki` mount | the **key** never leaves the mount; the **cert** lands at `/var/lib/swarm-bao-services-pki/services-root.pem` (0644) and at `/var/lib/hive-tls/swarm-services-root.pem` on every hive | nothing to copy — every hive receives the cert with the leaf it asks the store for, or from `pki/ca/pem` where it fronts no swarm name and needs a store identity |
| authelia session, JWT and storage-encryption keys | authelia's first-boot unit, in-container | `/var/lib/authelia-swarm/{session,jwt,storage-encryption}.key` | generated in place; nothing outside that container reads them |
| authelia OIDC HMAC key | same unit | `/var/lib/authelia-swarm/oidc-hmac.key` | same |
| authelia OIDC issuer key (RSA) | same unit | `/var/lib/authelia-swarm/oidc-issuer.key` | same — relying parties verify against the **public** half at `/jwks.json` |
| OIDC client secret, plaintext half | `authelia crypto hash generate --random` | `/var/lib/authelia-swarm/oidc-clients/<id>.secret` | operator provides the file and names it in whichever option reads it — `sso.clientSecretFile` for a service, `otel.clientSecretFile` for the hive's telemetry collector |
| OIDC client secret, digest half | the same mint | `oidc-clients/<id>.digest` | authelia's own half; merged at runtime via `settingsFiles` |
| the swarm collector's copy of its OIDC secret | `swarm-bao-otel-oidc.service` reads it out of the swarm secret store, **on every host that runs the collector and holds a store identity** | `/var/lib/swarm-otel-oidc/<id>.secret` inside the `swarm-otel` container | same unit, same path — one route, co-located or not. A collector with no store identity has `clientSecretFile == null`, its already-supported unauthenticated-push degrade — see below |
| Grafana's copy of its OIDC secret | `swarm-bao-grafana-oidc.service` reads it out of the swarm secret store, **on every host that runs Grafana** | `/var/lib/grafana-oidc/<id>.secret` inside the `swarm-grafana` container | same unit, same path — one route, co-located or not. Nothing for an operator to place beyond this host's store leaf, see below |
| the swarm controller's copy of its OIDC secret | `swarm-controller` reads it out of the swarm secret store at start, under its own leaf | the daemon's memory only; never on disk | same read, co-located or not. Nothing for an operator to place beyond the controller's store leaf (`deploy.swarm-controller.baoClientCertFile`) |
| the queue responder's copy of its OIDC secret | `swarm-bao-nats-auth-oidc.service` reads it out of the swarm secret store, on the host that runs the queue, under the responder's own leaf | `/var/lib/swarm-nats-auth/oidc-client.secret` inside the `swarm-nats` container, handed to the responder through `LoadCredential` | same unit, same path, wherever authelia runs. Nothing for an operator to place beyond the responder's store leaf (`deploy.nats.authBaoClientCertFile`) |
| authelia subject store | `swarmctl` and `swarm-authelia-bridge` | `users.yml` — one file, read and written by both | `swarmctl`, on the host that runs authelia |
| wireguard private key | **the operator** — `wg genkey` | whatever `deploy.wireguard.privateKeyFile` names | always operator-provided; nothing generates this for you |
| queue auth-callout nkeys (user seed + account seed) | `swarm-nats-callout-keys` first-boot unit, when the operator sets `deploy.nats.autoGenerateCallout` | `/var/lib/swarm-nats-callout/{callout-user,issuer}.seed`, `0600` | operator mints both with `nk` and names them in `deploy.nats.calloutUserSeedFile` / `deploy.nats.calloutIssuerSeedFile` |
| queue auth-callout xkey (curve seed) | `swarm-nats-auth ensure-xkey`, run by `swarm-bao-nats-callout-xkey` on the queue's host when the store holds no seed | the swarm secret store: the seed at `swarm/services/swarm-nats/callout/xkey-seed`, read by the `swarm-nats-auth` role alone; the public half at `swarm/public/swarm-nats/callout-xkey` | nothing to place beyond the responder's store leaf (`deploy.nats.authBaoClientCertFile`) |
| the secret store's own contents | openbao, on first `bao operator init` — **an operator action, not a unit** | inside the `swarm-bao` container, at its own `/var/lib/openbao`, kept across rebuilds by `ephemeral = false`. ⚠️ **Not a host path**: `nixos-container destroy swarm-bao` takes the raft data with it, so back up the container's tree, not `/var/lib/`. Only the store's TLS material (`/var/lib/swarm-bao-tls`) and its PKCS11 token (`/var/lib/swarm-bao-token`) are host-level | n/a — there is one store; a hive elsewhere is a _client_ of it and holds none of this |
| the secret store's unseal material | the HSM/TPM under `deploy.bao.seal = "pkcs11"`; openbao itself under `"shamir"` | in the token; or held by whoever ran `bao operator init`, which is what `"shamir"` means and why it's stated rather than inferred | n/a — only the host running the store seals anything |
Authelia mints the three keys for itself, in-container, precisely
because nothing outside that container ever reads them. **That's the test worth
applying to any secret added here** — and the client secret's plaintext half is
the one row that fails it, which is the entire reason a delivery step exists.
Three telemetry collectors exist, and they don't land on the same side of
that test.
The **hive's** collector needs no delivery step. It authenticates to the swarm's
collector as its own hive, and it's a host unit rather than a container, so on
an all-local swarm it reads authelia's file where it lies and nothing makes a
second copy. On any other topology it's an ordinary "operator provides the file"
case — see `services.hyperhive.otel.clientSecretFile`.
The **swarm's** collector does need one, and its delivery route is the fourth
store reader — the same shape as Grafana's, described in full below. In short:
`swarm-bao-otel-oidc.service` reads `swarm/services/<client-id>/oidc/client`
out of the store on every host that runs the collector and holds a store
identity, whether authelia is a network away or in the container next door.
The same call `glue-grafana-oidc-client.nix` makes for Grafana's registers
the client it reads for unconditionally: authelia refuses a
bearer-authz client with no audience, and the push audiences supply one even
for a collector with nothing published to scrape.
⚠️ **A collector with no store identity isn't refused.** Unlike Grafana,
where an absent OIDC block is a container with no way in at all, a collector
with nothing to authenticate with still receives every hive's telemetry —
only its own pushes to the stores go out unauthenticated and get refused
there. `swarm-bao-otel-oidc.service` therefore doesn't render at all without
`deploy.bao.otelOidcClientCertFile` / `otelOidcClientKeyFile`, the same choice
`glue-queue-agent-credential.nix` makes for its own reader, rather than the hard assertion `swarm-grafana.nix`
uses for its non-optional one. The operator can still deliver the secret by
hand, at `services.hyperhive.deploy.swarm-otel.clientSecretFile`, on a
collector this unit never reaches.
The **secret store's own** collector — the forwarder inside the `swarm-bao`
container — needs a delivery step too, and it takes the same route with one
principal of its own: `swarm-bao-forwarder-oidc.service` reads
`swarm/services/<client-id>/oidc/client` under a leaf of its own and
lands it in the container's tree, where `LoadCredential` hands it to the
collector. The client id is its own
(`services.hyperhive.swarm.bao.otel.clientId`), registered by
`glue-swarm-bao-otel-oidc-client.nix` wherever authelia runs, and the swarm
collector admits it on a receiver of its own — one identity per principal, so
this forwarder borrows neither the swarm collector's client nor
`swarm-controller`'s.
⚠️ **This one has no degraded mode, and the difference is structural.** The
route it exports over accepts an authenticated request and nothing else, so a
forwarder without the secret has nothing to fall back to: the unit fails and
retries, and the collector refuses to start until the file arrives rather than
exporting into a 401 while reporting healthy. Its ordering differs from the
unit above it for the same structural reason — it reads the store inside the
container it delivers into, so it runs **after** that container rather than
before it, and only a first boot ever waits.
### Minting the queue's callout nkeys
`deploy.nats.autoGenerateCallout` mints both keypairs on the host before the queue
starts. It's on by default only under `singleHostSwarm` — the one
topology where the queue, its responder and the operator are the same person. On
every other topology, mint them yourself:
```
nk -gen user > callout-user.seed # the responder's own identity
nk -gen account > issuer.seed # signs the user JWTs it hands out
nk -inkey callout-user.seed -pubout # → calloutUserPublicKey
nk -inkey issuer.seed -pubout # → calloutIssuerPublicKey
```
Keep both seeds at `0600` and name them in `deploy.nats.calloutUserSeedFile` /
`deploy.nats.calloutIssuerSeedFile`. Possession of the **issuer** seed is the authority to
admit anyone to the queue, so it belongs wherever the responder runs and nowhere
else.
A hive that sets neither the public keys nor `autoGenerateCallout` fails at
eval, naming the option it wants. That's deliberate: a queue that started
without them would accept `CONNECT {"user":"auth"}` from anyone sharing the
host's network namespace, and nothing would look wrong until somebody connected.
**All four or none** — you must supply the seed paths too, not just the public
keys. They're two halves of the same pair: the server verifies with the public
half, the responder signs with the private one. Supplying only the public keys
used to pass eval and leave the queue with an auth-callout nobody answers, which
refuses every client rather than degrading — and a refusal reaches the client as
a timeout, so the symptom is every consumer hanging with nothing logged.
One consequence worth knowing before you debug it: the queue assembles its
config each time the server starts rather than at build time, in every mode,
because the callout xkey below exists only at runtime. A malformed config
surfaces when the server starts instead of when the system builds. The server
names the offending file and refuses to run.
### The queue's callout xkey
The server seals every auth-callout request to a curve key, the callout
xkey, and the responder seals its reply back, so nothing else in the callout
account or on the wire can read the request or the user JWT minted for it.
You configure nothing about the key: it lives in the swarm secret store and
comes into being on the queue's first boot.
- **Seed** at `secret/swarm/services/swarm-nats/callout/xkey-seed`. Only the
`swarm-nats-auth` role reads it, and it may create the path but never
replace it.
- **Public half** at `secret/swarm/public/swarm-nats/callout-xkey`. Every token
the store issues may read `swarm/public/`; see
[`bao.md`](bao.md#what-every-token-may-read).
On the queue's host, `swarm-bao-nats-callout-xkey` runs before the
`swarm-nats` container, under the responder's store leaf:
1. `swarm-nats-auth ensure-xkey` creates the pair when the store holds no
seed, and otherwise only reads it. It needs no queue, so on a first boot
the key exists before the server that needs it.
2. It reads the public half back from the store into
`/var/lib/nats-callout/callout-xkey.pub` inside the container.
3. Each time `nats-server` starts, it renders that key into
`auth_callout.xkey`. With no file, the server doesn't start.
4. The responder starts after the server and reads the seed from the store.
A responder that can't read it doesn't start, rather than answering
requests it can't open.
When the store is down at boot, the fetch unit fails and retries for a day.
The server starts with the key fetched last time, or not at all on a first
boot. The retry that lands the file starts or restarts the server, and the
responder comes up with it.
Two starts that create the key at once can't both win: each write is a
create that fails once the path holds anything, and the start that lost reads
the winner's key back. To replace the key, delete both paths, then restart
`swarm-bao-nats-callout-xkey`.
## Hive-level — one of each per hive
| secret | generated by | lives at |
| ---------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| hive leaf certs | `hive-tls.nix`, issued by the secret store's `pki` mount | `<deploy.hive-controller.tls.stateDir>/<name>.pem` |
| the hive's own store identity | `glue-bao-tls.nix` on the store's host; placed by hand on every other host ([`ca.md`](ca.md#the-gateway-leaf-comes-from-the-secret-store)) | `deploy.hive-controller.tls.baoHiveIdentityCertFile` / `baoHiveIdentityKeyFile` |
| the forge's copy of its OIDC secret | `hive-forge-oidc-secret.service` copies it from authelia's tree | `/var/lib/forgejo-oidc/<id>.secret` inside the forge container |
| the homeserver's copy of its OIDC secret | `swarm-bao-matrix-oidc.service` reads it out of the swarm secret store under matrix-ctl's leaf, wherever authelia runs | `/var/lib/tuwunel-oidc/<id>.secret`, handed to tuwunel through `LoadCredential` |
| the agent containers' queue credential | authelia, published to the store by `swarm-secret-publish` | `<deploy.hive-controller.queue.agentCredentialDir>/secret` (`0600`) and `/client_id` (`0644`) |
The forge's delivery unit waits for authelia's first boot to mint the secret — a
bounded wait, 120s — and then **fails loudly** rather than skipping. A silent skip
produces a service whose login button always fails, which is a symptom many
layers from its cause. The homeserver's reads the store under matrix-ctl's leaf,
the way Grafana's does below.
The store's **first reader** is the agent containers' queue credential:
`glue-queue-agent-credential.nix` lands it as two files, the client secret and
the client id it authenticates, because that's how a queue client reads them —
the secret by path, the id by value. No local fallback exists, and none is
possible, so absent files mean this hive's agents have no `swarm-logs`, which
is what a swarm looks like before the publisher on the authelia host has run.
The reader runs before `hive-c0re.service`, which wants it (doesn't require
it), so an agent container never renders ahead of the credential; an
unreachable store delays the daemon's start rather than failing it.
That credential still has one hop left, because the reader of it lives inside
an agent container. **It crosses as a systemd credential, not as a bind
mount**, and the mode decides that: the secret is `root:0600` and a harness
runs as its own unprivileged agent user, so a bind would deliver a file that
user can't open. `hive-c0re` stats the two files — the directory is `0755`, so
it needs no read access to either — and hands them to
`systemd-nspawn --load-credential` through `hive-priv`, which runs as root.
Inside, `hive-agent.service` names the same two ids in `LoadCredential=`, which
lands them in its own `$CREDENTIALS_DIRECTORY`, owned by the agent user and by
nobody else, where the agent's `swarm-logs` reads them. The harness itself
doesn't: it connects to the queue with the agent's own credential. `hive-c0re`
never reads the bytes at any point: it runs as `hive-core`, which is the reason
a copy wasn't an option either. When the files aren't there the daemon forwards
nothing and says so in its journal, and the container starts without them.
The **second reader** is Grafana's OIDC client secret, and it's the first one
that's a _swarm service's_ own credential rather than a hive's. It has exactly
one delivery route: `swarm-bao-grafana-oidc.service` reads
`swarm/services/<client-id>/oidc/client` out of the store, on **every** host
that runs Grafana. Where authelia is doesn't enter into it — the publisher on
authelia's host writes that path whether the reader is a network away or in the
container next door.
That's a deliberate refusal of the shortcut. Copying the plaintext
straight out of authelia's tree when the two happen to share a host is one
round trip cheaper and costs a second delivery unit, a second way for the file
to be wrong, and a gate deciding between them — and the gate is the expensive
part, because whatever it's wrong about is an outage nobody can read. The store
exists so the only secrets a host holds out of band are **certificates**, and
a host reads everything else with them.
Two things follow, and `swarm-grafana.nix` asserts both rather than degrading:
running Grafana requires `swarm.authelia.url` (this module disables its local
login form unconditionally, so SSO isn't a feature of some topologies — it's the
only way in), and it requires this host's `deploy.bao.grafanaOidcClientCertFile`
/ `grafanaOidcClientKeyFile`. Each refusal names the option to set. Both used to be silent:
a null URL dropped the OIDC block, a missing leaf produced a warning, and
either one left a Grafana with no SSO and no password box — nothing failed, so
nothing said anything. Registration is separate and stays where authelia is
(`glue-grafana-oidc-client.nix`): a client is a row in authelia's own config,
so it's declared on the host running authelia, which isn't necessarily the host
running Grafana. The swarm controller, the queue and the homeserver register the
same way (`glue-controller-oidc-client.nix`, `glue-nats-oidc-client.nix`,
`glue-matrix-oidc-client.nix`), and the queue's responder and the homeserver read
their secrets from the store too: `swarm-bao-nats-auth-oidc.service` under the
responder's own leaf, `swarm-bao-matrix-oidc.service` under matrix-ctl's. Each
renders wherever its consumer runs and fails, naming the option pair, when that
leaf is unset — neither consumer starts without its secret.
The **third reader** is the swarm collector's own OIDC client secret, the
same shape one level down: `swarm-bao-otel-oidc.service` reads
`swarm/services/<client-id>/oidc/client` out of the store on every host that
runs the collector, and registration lives separately in
`glue-swarm-otel-oidc-client.nix` for the same reason Grafana's does. Where it
differs is what an absent credential means: the collector still receives
telemetry with none, so `swarm-otel.nix` doesn't assert
`deploy.bao.otelOidcClientCertFile` / `otelOidcClientKeyFile` the way Grafana
does — it
doesn't render the reading unit without them, the shape
`glue-queue-agent-credential.nix` uses for its own read.
The **fourth reader** is the secret store forwarder's OIDC client secret:
`swarm-bao-forwarder-oidc.service`, on the store's own host, registered by
`glue-swarm-bao-otel-oidc-client.nix` on authelia's. It differs from the
third in both directions. It renders unconditionally, because the export it
authenticates has no unauthenticated mode to degrade into — and it orders
itself **after** `container@swarm-bao`, because the store it reads runs in the
container it delivers into. Nothing circular sits behind that: the identity it
logs in with is the static `forwarder-oidc.pem` leaf `swarm-bao-pki` signs, not
anything the store mints. With no leaf it has no fallback, so `swarm-bao.nix`
refuses the build and names `deploy.bao.forwarderOidcClientCertFile` /
`forwarderOidcClientKeyFile`.
A service's secret is one value for the whole swarm rather than one per hive, so
it lives under the `services` prefix, and a hive's read policy grants that prefix
whole. That's because nothing in a swarm's configuration records which hive runs
a given service — placement is a `deploy.*` fact, per-host by definition — so
there is nothing to scope the grant to. A hive's **own** leaf can therefore read
every swarm service's client secret, and that's stated in
`swarm-secret-client`'s `policy` module beside the grant itself.
⚠️ **The readers no longer present it.** Five units used to log in with
`deploy.bao.clientCertFile`, which is the hive's own leaf, and bao identifies a
principal by the subject of the certificate it presents — so five readers behind
one leaf were one principal holding the union of their needs. Each now holds a
leaf of its own, and a policy naming only the path that unit reads. See
[per-principal identities](#per-principal-identities) below.
Absence behaves
as it does for the other readers: a store that says "not here" leaves the
file alone and says so, since there is no such thing as a locally valid OIDC
client secret to stand in.
⚠️ **Service↔store mTLS is its own trust domain.** You can't fetch a
credential you must already hold to authenticate from the thing it
authenticates you to, so the store's identity can't come from an authority the store
distributes — which excludes the store's `pki` root, and has nothing to do
with the gateway's HTTPS certificates either way. `glue-bao-tls.nix`
mints a CA that signs a fixed, short list of leaves — the store's server
certificate, the hive's own reader certificate, and one per service principal —
and distributes nothing. A deployment with a real
internal CA deletes that file and names its own paths in
`deploy.bao.serverCertFile` / `clientCaFile`; the store itself has no opinion.
A hive that reads from a store on **another** machine names the reader's half —
`clientCertFile`, `clientKeyFile`, `serverCaFile` — and places that leaf by hand,
plus one leaf per principal it runs (the table below names the options). Those are the
credentials that can't come out of the store, being what opens it; everything
else a hive needs does.
Agents are the one principal whose leaf the store issues. Its `pki-agents`
mount (`deploy.bao.agentPkiMountPath`) holds an agent CA generated inside the
store, and `swarm-controller`, already logged in under its own host leaf, asks
that mount's one role for a `hive-agent-<agent>` client certificate at agent
creation. Host roles never pin that CA and agent roles pin only it, so an
agent's certificate opens that agent's own `swarm/agents/<agent>/*` and
nothing else: `read` on the values there and `list` on their names.
`swarm-controller` writes that policy at agent creation and rewrites every
agent's at its own start, so a change to it reaches existing agents with the
next controller restart.
### Per-principal identities
Bao matches a cert-auth role on the certificate's subject, so a certificate is an
identity and sharing one merges the identities. These five units read one path
each and each holds a leaf, a role and a policy of its own:
| unit | option pair under `deploy.bao.` | reads |
| -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| `swarm-bao-queue-agent` | `queueAgentClientCertFile` / `queueAgentClientKeyFile` | `swarm/hives/<hive>/queue/agent` |
| `swarm-bao-grafana-oidc` | `grafanaOidcClientCertFile` / `grafanaOidcClientKeyFile` | `swarm/services/<grafana client id>/oidc/client` |
| `swarm-bao-otel-oidc` | `otelOidcClientCertFile` / `otelOidcClientKeyFile` | `swarm/services/<collector client id>/oidc/client` |
| `swarm-bao-forwarder-oidc` | `forwarderOidcClientCertFile` / `forwarderOidcClientKeyFile` | `swarm/services/<store forwarder client id>/oidc/client` |
| `swarm-bao-ci-runner` | `ciRunnerClientCertFile` / `ciRunnerClientKeyFile` | `swarm/services/ci-runner/registration-token` |
The first exists **per hive**, because the path it reads carries a hive name
and every hive runs its own reader. Its subject is
`<deploy.bao.queueAgentCommonNamePrefix>-<hive>`; `swarm.nix` reserves that
composed spelling as a hive name, so nobody can name a hive into another hive's
role. The other four read a path that names a swarm service rather than a hive,
so one role each is enough and their subjects are the flat
`deploy.bao.grafanaOidcCommonName`, `deploy.bao.otelOidcCommonName`,
`deploy.bao.forwarderOidcCommonName` and `deploy.bao.ciRunnerCommonName`.
On a host that mints its own PKI, `glue-bao-tls.nix` signs all five and defaults
all ten options, and there is nothing to do. Elsewhere you issue each leaf from
that CA out of band and name it here — one file per principal rather than one file
shared by five, which is the whole of what this buys. `swarm-ci-runner.nix`
refuses the build wherever the runner runs without its pair, as
`swarm-grafana.nix` does for Grafana.
On a host without the store, where the forwarder never runs, forgetting one of
the other six isn't a quiet degrade. A hand-configured remote-store hive that
names the hive's own `clientCertFile` and misses a principal's pair has the
build refused, by the module of the reader it missed, naming that pair — see
[what a missing leaf costs](#what-a-missing-leaf-costs) below.
### What a missing leaf costs
Each of the three modules asserts its own pair, on the same condition: **this host
already reads the store** — it holds `deploy.bao.clientCertFile` and
`clientKeyFile` — **and the consumer is on, and this principal's pair is null**.
The refusal names the two options, so an operator acts on the message without
opening the nix.
That condition fires on exactly one shape, the hand-configured remote-store hive
that named the hive's own pair and missed a principal's. It stays silent everywhere else, and each half of
that matters on its own:
- **A host with no store identity at all** holds no `clientCertFile` either, so
the first clause is false. That's the supported no-store deployment, and also
the one an operator passes through while bringing a hive up — neither should
fail to evaluate.
- **A host that runs the store** gets every pair from `glue-bao-tls.nix` as
defaults, so the third clause is false. Nothing to set, nothing to refuse.
- **A consumer that's off** — no collector, no Grafana — has no
unit to skip, so the second clause is false. Only the queue-credential reader
has no toggle of its own to check: every hive runs one for its own agents, so
reading the store at all is what asks for it.
The collector keeps a separate degrade underneath this, unchanged: a host with no
store identity runs a collector with no OIDC client secret and still receives
telemetry. The assertion doesn't touch that shape, because that host has no
`clientCertFile` either.
## How a reader reaches the store
Every reader dials the same URL — `https://bao.<swarm domain>:<port>` — and on
the host that runs the store that name resolves twice. `/etc/hosts` answers a
host-side unit with loopback, where openbao binds; the hive's dnsmasq answers a
container with the bridge IP, where nginx holds the same port. One `BAO_ADDR`,
and the network namespace that asked decides which half of it answers.
The container's half goes through nginx and **still doesn't terminate TLS**. It
is an nginx `stream` server with `ssl_preread on`: it reads the SNI off the
ClientHello and splices the rest of the connection through byte for byte, so
openbao completes the handshake itself. A vhost would decrypt here instead, and
the client certificate — the store's whole authentication — would stop at nginx,
leaving openbao seeing one client for every hive in the swarm. That's why the
store has no vhost and gets a passthrough: not an exception to the no-vhost
rule, the one shape that keeps it.
The stream listener binds the bridge IP rather than every address, because
openbao already holds loopback on that port in the same network namespace and a
wildcard bind would fail with `EADDRINUSE` — taking nginx, and with it every
hive domain behind the gateway, down. `network.exposeHostPorts` opens the port
on the bridge firewall and nowhere else.
Reaching the port grants nothing by itself: openbao answers nothing without a
client certificate signed by `deploy.bao.clientCaFile` or by the store's own
agent CA. The listener reads both from `listener-client-ca.pem`, which no
cert-auth role pins. The passthrough carries
whichever certificate the reader presents, unchanged.
## The browser UI
OpenBao's built-in web UI is at `https://bao-ui.<swarm domain>/`
(`swarm.bao.ui.domain`), for members of authelia's `admins` group only. Log in
with the **OIDC** tab, or with a bao token under **Other**. The gateway vhost
checks the session with authelia and proxies to an nginx inside the store's
container on
`127.0.0.1:<deploy.bao.uiProxyPort>`. That nginx forwards `/ui/` and `/v1/` to
a second openbao listener on `127.0.0.1:<deploy.bao.uiPort>`, answers 403 on
the unseal, seal, step-down, rekey and generate-root endpoints, and 404 on
everything else. ⚠️ That listener asks for **no client certificate**, because
a browser has none to present, so on this one door a bao token is the whole
credential. Anything on the store's host that can dial loopback, and any
`admins` session through the vhost, needs only a token to use the API. Unseal
from the host's `bao` CLI; the UI's unseal form gets a 403. On a self-signed
gateway where the UI is the only swarm name its host fronts, that host's nginx
doesn't wait for the store: it serves the hive leaf, or on a host that runs no
hive a throwaway self-signed certificate, on the UI's name (a browser warning)
until the unsealed store issues the services leaf, so the
stream passthrough readers use on that host comes up with the store sealed.
### OIDC login
The OIDC tab logs in through authelia as the client `swarm-bao-ui`
(`swarm.bao.ui.oidc.clientId`). An `admins` member gets a token under
`swarm-operator-viewer`: `list` and `read` on `secret/metadata/*`. That shows
the key tree and each key's versions and timestamps, and no value: the store
refuses every `secret/data/` read. Anything more needs a token.
| piece | written by |
| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| authelia client, with redirect `swarm.bao.ui.oidc.redirectUri` | `glue-bao-ui-oidc-client.nix`, wherever authelia runs |
| its secret at `swarm/services/swarm-bao-ui/oidc/client` | `swarm-secret-publish`, like every other service's |
| the `oidc` auth mount | `swarm-bao-granter-role`, with the bootstrap token |
| `swarm-operator-viewer` policy, the mount's config and role `swarm-operator-viewer` | `swarm-bao-operator-viewer-policy`, as the granter, which reads the secret above into the config |
The granter holds no `sys/auth`, so enabling the mount stays a bootstrap-token
step. A store set up before the mount existed needs the
[one-time granter step](../getting-started/setup.md) again: it re-writes
`bao-bootstrap`, which covers `sys/auth/oidc`, and the granter's own
policy, which covers `auth/oidc/`. Until then
`swarm-bao-operator-viewer-policy` writes the viewer policy, logs the step, and
exits 0, and the UI offers token login only. `swarm-bao-granter-role` re-runs
it each time the step succeeds, so OIDC login needs no further restart.
## The constraint that decides where the root lives
The store issues a hive's gateway leaf through a role whose `allowed_domains` is
that hive's domain and `*.` that domain, and **a swarm service name is a sibling of
the hive domain rather than a child** — `forge.<swarm>` next to `<hive>.<swarm>`.
That role can't issue a certificate for a swarm service; the store refuses it.
The store's `swarm-services` role issues them instead, from the root inside its
`pki` mount. That root's private key never leaves the mount, and its
certificate is the only anchor the swarm has. Each hive fetches the certificate
from the store at boot, so nothing build-time can name it — the system reads
`security.pki.certificateFiles`' value at build time, which makes it the wrong
tool here. Trust reaches containers through a bind-mounted bundle assembled at
boot instead.
## Adding a secret
State three things, in the row you add above: **who mints it**, **which
container reads it**, and **what happens when they differ**. If they differ, it
needs a delivery unit, and the unit copies — it doesn't bind.
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