Files
Panama/server/README.md
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gibandClaude Opus 5 a493fa5584 Open what is shut, and never widen what is already open
setup-server queried --query-port, saw "not open", and blanket-opened 80,
443 and 81. On a machine reaching those ports through rich rules -- one CDN's
address sets, say -- neither appears in --list-ports, so the step read a
deliberate, narrow grant as "closed" and replaced it with a public one. It
did this during `panama update`, which asks nothing and runs unattended, so
there was no prompt and no diff for anyone to read. A production server lost
its firewall posture that way, port 81 and the proxy's admin portal included.

Each port is now checked for existing coverage first -- an open port, an
enabled service, or an accepting rich rule, ranges included -- and left alone
when it has some. The bias stays where it was: only a rule that positively
reads as a grant counts, and anything unrecognised still falls through to
opening the port, because a fresh server that is silently unreachable is the
worse failure. A rule that DROPS a port is not coverage either; reading a
block as a grant would leave the proxy unreachable on a machine nobody
thought to re-check.

A machine that manages its own firewall opts out once, with
`echo manual > ~/.local/state/panama/firewall`, and Panama never touches
firewalld on it again. A file rather than an environment variable, because
the run that needs to respect it is the unattended one.

tests/setup/server-firewall-contract pins all of it, and fails against the
previous code on exactly the cases that cost the posture.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
2026-10-01 17:50:14 -04:00

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4.2 KiB
Markdown

# The server role
What a Panama machine runs when the interview answered `server`: the same
shell environment as every other machine, minus everything that needs a
screen, plus rootless podman compose services managed as systemd user units.
```
server/
containers/ One directory per service: compose.yml, the
podman-<name>.service user unit, and an .env.example
naming what the service needs told
scripts/ update-containers, the nightly image updater
systemd/ The units behind it, linked by setup-server
```
## The contract with ~/Server
The repository carries the definitions; the machine carries the state.
`panama server enable <Name>` creates `~/Server/<Name>/` as a **real
directory** and symlinks only `compose.yml` into it; the unit symlinks into
`~/.config/systemd/user/`. The `.env` (seeded once from `.env.example`, then
yours) and the bind-mounted `data/` live in `~/Server/<Name>/` and are never
inside the checkout — so nothing git can do, `clean -fdx` included, can reach
a database.
Because of that split, compose files must reference secrets as `${VAR}`
interpolations resolved from the `.env` beside them, never inline.
`tests/server/compose-secrets-contract` fails the suite when a tracked file
under `server/` carries anything that looks like a secret: this repository is
public, and the gitignore is a seatbelt, not the brakes.
Placeholders in `.env.example` are spelled `CHANGE_ME`, exactly — that token
is what `panama server enable` refuses to start on.
## Conventions
- Service directories are TitleCase, matching `~/Server` as it has always
looked: `server/containers/Gitea` becomes `~/Server/Gitea`.
- Bind mounts live under `./data/` in new services. Imported services keep
the volume path they were running with until their cutover, because the
repo copy must render identically to the live one — renames happen with
the service stopped, not in git.
- Only 80, 443 and 81 are open, and `setup-server` opens each one only where
nothing already grants it. A port reachable through an enabled service or an
accepting rich rule — a CDN-scoped grant, say — is left exactly as it is,
because turning a narrow grant into a public one during an unattended
`panama update` is not a decision an installer gets to make. A machine that
manages its own firewall opts out for good with
`echo manual > ~/.local/state/panama/firewall`. Everything else is
reverse-proxied over the `nginx-bridge` network by container name, with no
published ports of its own. A service that truly needs another host port
says so in a README in its directory, and the port is opened by hand.
- Every compose joins `nginx-bridge` (external; created by setup-server).
## Enabling, updating, cutting over
```sh
panama server list # the catalog, and what this machine runs
panama server enable Gitea # link, seed .env, enable --now
panama server status # is what is enabled actually up
panama server disable Gitea # stop and unlink; data and .env stay
```
`panama update` relinks and reloads but **never restarts a running
service** — it names the ones whose definitions changed and leaves the
restart to you.
Moving a service that already runs from hand-managed files onto the repo's
(the cutover): stop the unit, standardize the volume directory to `data/`
(updating the repo compose to match), then `panama server enable <Name>` —
it backs up the hand-written files as `*.pre-panama` and links the tracked
ones — and verify it came back up. One service at a time, quiet hours.
## Adding a service
Add `server/containers/<Name>/` with the three files, modelled on any
existing service. The unit is the standard oneshot `podman compose up -d`
shape (`WorkingDirectory=%h/Server/<Name>`); the shape contract pins the
details. Secrets go in `.env.example` as `KEY=CHANGE_ME` lines.
## Nightly updates
`server/scripts/update-containers` pulls images and restarts changed
services through their units, nightly at midnight via `podman-update.timer`.
It replaced watchtower after watchtower recreated a container outside its
compose pod and took Gitea down for three days — the script's header carries
the full story, plus the SKIP list for services that must only ever be
updated by hand (postgresql, authentik).