# ADR-021 — Operational access: documented, verifiable ways in ## Status Accepted (2026-06-09). Resolves TODO 7.2 (what to set up on hosts given direct access will be rare) and TODO 3.2 (the service admin-API access question). **Doctrine ADR.** It pins the operational-access doctrine, the declarative `access__*` data model, the rendered `ACCESS.md` record, and the `/check-access` verifier. It does **not** build any of them — `base`'s non-firewall concerns, service roles, and live hosts do not exist yet. Designed now, built when there is something to access (see *Scope*). Reconciles a latent contradiction between ADR-016 and ADR-020 (see *Reconciliation*). ## Context boma is built security-first: nftables default-deny, SSH reachable only on the NetBird `wt0` mesh interface (ADR-016), every service behind the reverse proxy + SSO, no ad-hoc ports (ADR-002/ADR-020). That posture is correct — but it leaves one operational question unanswered: **when a host or service breaks, how does the operator (and the AI working from `ubongo`) actually get in to troubleshoot it?** Troubleshooting is far more effective with *several* documented ways in — SSH, container exec, logs, an admin API — so a single broken path does not mean blind. Today boma has no standard guaranteeing those paths exist, are documented, or still work. The risk is the classic one: the access you assumed you had is stale exactly when you need it (key rotated, API disabled, token expired). boma already has the right *shape*. Service roles carry record docs — `SECURITY.md` (security answers) and `VERIFY.md` (acceptance spec). What is missing is the third sibling — an operational-access record — and the doctrine behind it. Two constraints shape the decision: 1. **Minimal attack surface is non-negotiable.** "Multiple ways in" must mean multiple paths over *trusted* interfaces, never new exposed ports. 2. **A documented path that is never tested drifts** — it fails exactly when needed. So the access facts must be *data* that both renders the doc and drives an active verifier; the two can then never disagree. ## Decision ### The doctrine > **Every host and every service guarantees at least one documented, verifiable way in > for operational troubleshooting — and the deploy that creates it also records and > proves it.** Access is a deployment deliverable, not something rediscovered under pressure. The deploy that creates a host/service also records its access paths and (by design) proves them. ### Two layers - **Host layer** (resolves TODO 7.2). Every host, via the `base` role, guarantees a fixed access baseline: SSH over `wt0` and from `ubongo` (the ladder below), Docker/Compose tooling present, and log shipping live (Alloy → Loki; ADR-018). Little is *exposed*; a known, uniform set of paths exists over trusted interfaces. The break-glass console per host class is recorded once at this layer. This is boma's answer to "what every host runs for access." - **Service layer** (resolves TODO 3.2). Every service role guarantees and records its own paths: container exec + compose management, its Loki log labels, and its admin API where one exists (enabled, token in vault, endpoint + health probe documented) — or an explicit "no API." ### The three-tier access ladder 1. **`wt0` mesh SSH — primary.** WireGuard *cryptographically authenticates* the peer before SSH sees it. The preferred path (ADR-016's original rationale). 2. **LAN SSH from `ubongo` only — secondary, mesh-independent.** All hardware but `askari` shares a LAN. SSH from `ubongo`'s LAN address is allowed, giving a fallback that survives a NetBird/`wt0` outage. It is gated by *source IP* (spoofable on a LAN) **plus** the standing keys-only + fail2ban SSH hardening (ADR-002), so the marginal cost is "SSH daemon reachable from one trusted LAN host" — modest and deliberate. All *other* LAN hosts stay default-denied. 3. **Console — break-glass.** Mesh-*and*-LAN-independent, recorded per host class, never exercised for routine work: - **Cluster VMs** → Proxmox serial/VNC console — independent of the guest network, `wt0`, and even a broken guest nftables ruleset. - **`askari`** (bare-metal Hetzner) → provider rescue/console. - **`ubongo`** (physical) → local console. A total mesh outage therefore still leaves exactly one documented way in to each box. ### Reconciliation, not weakening ADR-016 already requires Ansible to reach the fleet by LAN IP — "a mesh/coordinator outage never blocks on-LAN runs" — which **requires** LAN SSH from `ubongo`. Yet ADR-016 also stated "SSH only on `wt0`," and ADR-020's guaranteed management plane listed only `wt0`. That was a latent contradiction. ADR-021 resolves it by making the control-node SSH allow **explicit** and adding it to the guaranteed management plane. This does **not** weaken default-deny: it admits exactly one extra trusted source on the LAN (`ubongo`), keys-only + fail2ban-gated; every other LAN host stays denied. ADR-016 and ADR-020 are amended to cross-reference this ladder. ### The declarative `access__*` data model Structured access facts live as **data** — the single source of truth that both renders `ACCESS.md` *and* tells `/check-access` what to probe, so doc and verifier cannot diverge (the firewall-catalog philosophy of ADR-020, applied to access). Each service role's defaults carry: ```yaml access__service: photoprism access__compose_project: photoprism # docker compose -p access__compose_path: /opt/photoprism/compose.yml access__containers: [photoprism, photoprism-db] # exec targets access__log: loki_labels: { service: photoprism } # how to query logs (ADR-018) access__api: enabled: true base_url: "http://photoprism.srv:2342" # reachable over the mesh firewall_ref: photoprism-api # the catalog entry that opens it (ADR-020) auth: { vault_ref: "vault.photoprism.api_token" } health_path: "/api/v1/status" # what /check-access pings # where the service has no API: # access__api: { enabled: false, reason: "" } ``` **Invariant — `access__api` never opens a port.** It `firewall_ref`s an entry in the `group_vars` firewall catalog; ADR-020 stays the **sole owner of exposure**. The access data adds only *how to use* the path (endpoint, token ref, health probe) — no duplication, no ad-hoc ports (CLAUDE.md: ports only in the catalog). The host baseline (SSH on `wt0` + from `ubongo`, Docker/Compose present, Alloy live) is uniform, so it is asserted by `base` and recorded once at the host/group level, not re-stated per service. ### The rendered record — `ACCESS.md` `ACCESS.md` is a first-class sibling of `SECURITY.md`/`VERIFY.md`, **rendered** from the `access__*` data with a prose tail for the narrative parts: - **Access paths (generated)** — a table: each path (mesh SSH, LAN-SSH-from-`ubongo`, exec/compose, logs, API), its tier (primary / secondary / break-glass), and the exact invocation. - **Break-glass (generated from host class)** — the Proxmox/provider/local console line. - **Operational notes (prose)** — service quirks, gotchas, "if X is wedged, do Y." The part a template cannot know. A `docs/access/service-access-template.md` defines the shape, alongside the existing security/verify templates. ### The verifier — `/check-access` `/check-access ` runs from `ubongo` and turns the `access__*` data into live probes, reporting which declared paths are green right now — the access analogue of `/verify-service` (ADR-017). It probes mesh SSH, LAN SSH, exec + compose, Loki logs, and the admin API health path; on any red it names the path and the likely cause. **Break-glass is checked for reachability only, never exercised** — firing a serial console is invasive, so the verifier confirms the fallback *exists* without disrupting anything. Designed now, **build-pending on infra** (needs live hosts + staging + vault), exactly like `/verify-service` under ADR-017. ### Governance Three light touches, mirroring how `SECURITY.md`/`VERIFY.md` are enforced: the service checklist (`docs/security/service-checklist.md`) gains an access item; the `new-role` runbook gains a fill/render/`check-access` step; and the `make new-role` scaffold drops a stub `access__*` block + the `ACCESS.md` template into every service role — so it is structurally impossible to ship one with no access record (deviations go in `accepted-risks.md`). ## Consequences - Every host and service has at least one documented, verifiable way in — and a verifier that proves it, so stale access is caught before an outage, not during one. - Doc and verifier share one source of truth (`access__*`), so they cannot drift apart. - The management plane gains exactly one extra trusted LAN source (`ubongo`); attack surface grows by one keys-only + fail2ban-gated SSH path, no new exposed ports. - Cost: per-service `access__*` declarations and a rendered `ACCESS.md` to maintain (mitigated by the uniform host baseline + scaffold), plus `/check-access` to build. ## Scope Delivered by ADR-021's implementation plan (`docs/superpowers/plans/2026-06-09-operational-access.md`), task by task, and tracked in `STATUS.md` as it lands — not all of it exists at the moment this ADR is written. The split below is near-term tranche vs longer build-pending, not instant-existence vs not. **Near-term tranche (this plan):** the doctrine; this ADR; the `ACCESS.md` template; the `ssh-from-control` firewall management-plane source — added to ADR-020's *guaranteed management plane* (the always-allowed block that already holds the `wt0` SSH/Ansible allow and is explicitly independent of the service catalog), not added to the catalog itself (the catalog owns service ingress only) — via the `base__firewall_control_addr` knob and its nftables rule, both of which do **not** exist in `roles/base` yet and land with the `firewall` concern of `base`; and the governance wiring (checklist item, runbook step, scaffold stub). ADR-016 and ADR-020 are amended to reference the ladder. **Build-pending on infra:** per-service `access__*` data and rendered `ACCESS.md` files (wait on service roles), `/check-access` *running* (waits on live hosts + staging + vault), and the real `ubongo` LAN address value behind `base__firewall_control_addr`. Designed now, built when there is something to verify. **Out of scope:** broader LAN SSH (a management VLAN) — explicitly rejected, `ubongo`-only; exercising (vs reachability-probing) the break-glass console; any access path that is not over the mesh or the one `ubongo` LAN source. ## Related ADR-002 (security baseline: SSH hardening, default-deny, fail2ban), ADR-004 (Docker model, Compose), ADR-016 (NetBird mesh; amended — SSH on `wt0` **and** from `ubongo`'s LAN address), ADR-017 (`/verify-service` Level-4 verification), ADR-018 (logging: Alloy → Loki/Grafana), ADR-020 (firewall: service catalog + guaranteed management plane; amended — adds the `ssh-from-control` management-plane source), ADR-019 (`firewall` tag).