Secure the broker for public exposure: TLS and per-node credentials
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Edge nodes are deployed to arbitrary locations by arbitrary people, so the
broker has to be reachable from the internet and secured on its own merits
rather than by a VPN.

Three defects made that impossible. The broker only had a plaintext 1883
listener; every node shared one drb-node password; and the ACL pattern used
%c, the client-supplied client id, so any holder of that shared password
could set client_id to another node and take over its namespace. The comment
claiming this cryptographically prevented cross-node access was wrong and is
gone.

Authentication now uses mosquitto 2.x's built-in dynamic-security plugin on
the stock eclipse-mosquitto image. c2-core administers it over the control
topic, creating each node's client on approval with username=<node_id> and
password=<its node_keys api_key>, attached to a role whose ACL is nodes/%u/#
against the authenticated username. One credential, one revocation point.
An HTTP-callback plugin was implemented first and rejected: that project is
archived upstream, which is not an acceptable dependency on an
internet-facing broker.

Because dynsec state is a second source of truth alongside Firestore,
approve/reissue/delete now write to the broker first and surface a 502
rather than drifting, and c2-core reconciles every approved node into dynsec
on startup.

Adds node self-enrollment (POST /nodes/enroll, GET /nodes/{id}/credentials)
so a new node can obtain its key over HTTPS without an operator handling
secrets by hand. Enrolling an already-approved node_id is refused on the
fleet token alone — otherwise a leaked token plus a guessable id would let
an attacker steal a live node's key before the real node asked for it.
Pickup secrets are stored hashed and returned once, and the endpoint is rate
limited per source IP.

Infrastructure: an 8883 TLS listener fed by Caddy's certificate via a
systemd path unit, a firewall rule for it, and Caddy now 404s /internal/*
so the api vhost cannot proxy internal routes.

Also fixes CORS, which allowed https://app.<domain> while the frontend is
served on the bare domain — every call from the portal would have failed —
and widens the vault gitignore to a glob, since ansible-vault leaves
backup siblings that the exact-name rule left committable.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Logan Cusano
2026-08-16 09:34:44 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 1f5f1fede8
commit ee633cbe46
25 changed files with 962 additions and 112 deletions
@@ -1,11 +1,34 @@
# Managed by Ansible — do not edit manually.
api.{{ domain }} {
reverse_proxy localhost:8888 {
header_up X-Forwarded-For {remote_host}
# MQTT auth is no longer an HTTP backend c2-core exposes (it moved to
# mosquitto's own built-in dynamic-security plugin, administered over MQTT
# control topics — see app/internal/dynsec.py) — there is currently no
# /internal/* route in c2-core at all. This block stays anyway as defence
# in depth: c2-core's app-wide reverse_proxy below forwards every path by
# default, so this guarantees any FUTURE /internal/* route (or a
# regression that reintroduces one) is still unreachable from the public
# internet unless someone also deliberately deletes this block. `route`
# forces top-to-bottom evaluation instead of Caddy's automatic directive
# sorting, so this is guaranteed to run before reverse_proxy.
route {
respond /internal/* 404
reverse_proxy localhost:8888 {
header_up X-Forwarded-For {remote_host}
}
}
}
# mqtt.{{ domain }} has no application behind it — mosquitto's TLS listener
# (8883) is a raw MQTT socket, not HTTP, so Caddy can't reverse_proxy to it.
# This block's only job is to make Caddy request+manage a Let's Encrypt cert
# for the name via ACME HTTP-01, which infra/ansible's cert-sync unit then
# copies out to mosquitto. The DNS A record for mqtt.{{ domain }} must exist
# before this runs, or ACME issuance fails (see MQTT-PUBLIC-AUTH-PLAN.md).
mqtt.{{ domain }} {
respond 404
}
# Frontend is served on the bare domain, not app.{{ domain }}: only drb and api
# have public DNS records. A vhost for a name with no A record still starts,
# but Caddy retries ACME against it forever and logs a failure each time.
@@ -5,6 +5,11 @@ MQTT_PORT=1883
MQTT_USER={{ vault_mqtt_c2_user }}
MQTT_PASS={{ vault_mqtt_c2_pass }}
# Same value as mosquitto's MOSQUITTO_DYNSEC_PASSWORD (root.env.j2) — lets
# c2-core log in as the dynsec plugin's built-in "admin" client to
# administer node credentials. See app/internal/dynsec.py.
MQTT_DYNSEC_ADMIN_PASS={{ vault_mqtt_dynsec_admin_pass }}
# No GCP_CREDENTIALS_PATH — the VM uses Application Default Credentials
# via the GCE metadata server. The Terraform IAM bindings grant the required roles.
FIRESTORE_DATABASE={{ vault_firestore_database }}
@@ -15,6 +20,11 @@ GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY={{ vault_google_maps_api_key }}
GEMINI_API_KEY={{ vault_gemini_api_key }}
SERVICE_KEY={{ vault_service_key }}
NODE_API_KEY={{ vault_node_api_key }}
ENROLLMENT_TOKEN={{ vault_enrollment_token }}
CORS_ORIGINS=["https://app.{{ domain }}"]
# Bare domain, not app.<domain>: the frontend is served on {{ domain }} itself
# (see Caddyfile.j2 — only api. and the bare name have DNS records). This said
# app.{{ domain }} while the browser origin was https://{{ domain }}, so every
# frontend call to the API would have failed CORS. If the frontend ever moves
# to app.{{ domain }}, change this at the same time.
CORS_ORIGINS=["https://{{ domain }}"]
@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
# Managed by Ansible — do not edit manually.
#
# Watches Caddy's on-disk cert for mqtt.{{ domain }} and fires
# mqtt-cert-sync.service on every change (initial issuance + every renewal).
# See sync-mqtt-cert.sh.j2 for the "unverified path" caveat — if Caddy's
# storage layout doesn't match, this unit simply never fires and mosquitto
# keeps using its self-signed placeholder cert (see mosquitto/entrypoint.sh)
# rather than failing loudly, so check `systemctl status mqtt-cert-sync.path`
# after the first deploy.
[Unit]
Description=Watch for a renewed MQTT TLS cert from Caddy (mqtt.{{ domain }})
[Path]
PathChanged=/var/lib/caddy/.local/share/caddy/certificates/acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org-directory/mqtt.{{ domain }}/mqtt.{{ domain }}.crt
Unit=mqtt-cert-sync.service
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
# Managed by Ansible — do not edit manually.
#
# Runs as root: it needs read access to Caddy's 0700 cert storage AND the
# ability to run `docker compose kill -s HUP` regardless of docker group
# membership. Triggered by mqtt-cert-sync.path, not run standalone.
[Unit]
Description=Sync Caddy-issued MQTT TLS cert to mosquitto and reload
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/opt/drb/sync-mqtt-cert.sh
@@ -12,8 +12,15 @@
MQTT_C2_USER={{ vault_mqtt_c2_user }}
MQTT_C2_PASS={{ vault_mqtt_c2_pass | replace('$', '$$') }}
MQTT_NODE_USER={{ vault_mqtt_node_user }}
MQTT_NODE_PASS={{ vault_mqtt_node_pass | replace('$', '$$') }}
# Seeds mosquitto's built-in dynamic-security plugin's one-time "admin"
# bootstrap client on first boot (read directly by the plugin's C code via
# getenv — see app/internal/dynsec.py). Must be >=12 chars (plugin-enforced
# minimum). c2-core needs this SAME value as MQTT_DYNSEC_ADMIN_PASS in its
# own env (c2-core.env.j2) to log in as "admin" and administer node
# credentials — kept as one vault var (vault_mqtt_dynsec_admin_pass) so the
# two can't drift.
MOSQUITTO_DYNSEC_PASSWORD={{ vault_mqtt_dynsec_admin_pass | replace('$', '$$') }}
# Container registry prefix — docker compose uses this for image: ${REGISTRY}/name:latest
REGISTRY={{ vault_registry }}
@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
#!/bin/bash
# Managed by Ansible — do not edit manually.
#
# Copies Caddy's managed TLS cert for mqtt.{{ domain }} out of Caddy's
# storage (root:caddy, 0700 — nothing else can read it) into a location the
# mosquitto container can read, then SIGHUPs the broker so it picks up the
# new cert without a full restart.
#
# Triggered by mqtt-cert-sync.path.j2 (a systemd path unit) watching the
# source cert file for changes — a path unit rather than cron so this fires
# on the actual write instead of racing a polling interval.
#
# UNVERIFIED: the exact source path below assumes Caddy's default file
# storage layout and Let's Encrypt's production ACME directory name. This
# has not been confirmed against a real Caddy cert issuance for this
# project — check `caddy storage` / find the actual path under
# /var/lib/caddy the first time this runs, and correct CADDY_CERT_DIR below
# if it doesn't match.
#
# UNVERIFIED: mosquitto 2.x reloading TLS certs on SIGHUP without dropping
# connections is documented upstream but untested here. If listener 8883
# doesn't pick up the new cert (check `docker compose logs mosquitto` after
# a sync), replace the `kill -s HUP` line below with a full
# `docker compose ... restart mosquitto` instead.
set -euo pipefail
DOMAIN="mqtt.{{ domain }}"
CADDY_CERT_DIR="/var/lib/caddy/.local/share/caddy/certificates/acme-v02.api.letsencrypt.org-directory/${DOMAIN}"
DEST_DIR="/opt/drb/mosquitto-certs"
APP_DIR="{{ app_dir }}"
SRC_CERT="${CADDY_CERT_DIR}/${DOMAIN}.crt"
SRC_KEY="${CADDY_CERT_DIR}/${DOMAIN}.key"
if [ ! -f "$SRC_CERT" ] || [ ! -f "$SRC_KEY" ]; then
echo "sync-mqtt-cert: source cert/key not found yet at $CADDY_CERT_DIR — Caddy may not have issued it yet." >&2
exit 0
fi
mkdir -p "$DEST_DIR"
# Copy, don't symlink — nothing outside the caddy user can read the
# originals (0700-owned), so mosquitto (running as a different container/
# user) needs its own readable copy, not a pointer to an unreadable file.
cp "$SRC_CERT" "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.crt"
cp "$SRC_KEY" "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.key"
chmod 600 "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.crt" "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.key"
chown root:root "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.crt" "$DEST_DIR/mqtt.key"
cd "$APP_DIR"
docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.prod.yml kill -s HUP mosquitto
echo "sync-mqtt-cert: copied cert for ${DOMAIN} and sent SIGHUP to mosquitto."