fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# doctor.sh — is this host in a fit state to drill, and if not, what is wrong?
#
# bash drill/doctor.sh # report
# bash drill/doctor.sh --fix # report, then revert what the drill left behind
#
# The drill MUTATES the host in phase D (dns.mode, NIC filtering, ACL rules) to
# rehearse the #16 hardening. If a run aborts before it reverts them, those
# mutations outlive it — and the next run mints boxes on a broken network. That
# is not a hypothetical: it is how a box came up with no DNS at all
# ("Temporary failure resolving deb.debian.org" in cloud-init), and how a false
# design veto against #16 got posted from a poisoned baseline.
#
# This script is the answer to "what state is the host actually in?" — the
# question that kept getting answered by hand.
set -u
fix: a failed cold mint must say why, and the doctor must find the cause
Two cold mints in a row died with cloud-init 'status: error' on a host
the doctor had just certified clean — so the earlier "leftover mutations
poisoned the network" theory is dead, and the DNS failure is
reproducible rather than transient.
'claudebox new' printed four hundred dots and the word "error", leaving
the user with nothing to act on: the reason was in the box's own log and
nobody was told the log existed. It now prints cloud-init's status, the
fetch/resolve errors from the box's log, and how to inspect the box —
which is left running, because a box that failed to build is evidence,
not garbage. It also names the usual culprit: the host's resolver.
doctor.sh gains the diagnosis that keeps being done by hand:
· what the HOST resolves through, and whether that is a CGNAT/Tailscale
resolver the boxes inherit (issue #33);
· whether claudenet's resolver is pinned;
· and inside a box, the question that settles it — DNS is broken, but
can it still reach 1.1.1.1 BY ADDRESS? If yes, egress is fine and the
fault is purely the inherited forwarder.
· --pin-dns applies the #33 fix (raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + public
servers) so the hypothesis can be TESTED rather than argued.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:55:39 +00:00
FIX = 0; PIN = 0
case " ${ 1 :- } " in
--fix) FIX = 1 ; ;
--pin-dns) PIN = 1 ; ;
"" ) ; ;
*) echo "usage: doctor.sh [--fix | --pin-dns]" ; exit 2 ; ;
esac
fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
bad = 0
ok( ) { printf ' \033[32mOK\033[0m %s\n' " $* " ; }
no( ) { printf ' \033[31mDIRTY\033[0m %s\n' " $* " ; bad = $(( bad + 1 )) ; }
inf( ) { printf ' %s\n' " $* " ; }
head_( ) { printf '\n\033[1m%s\033[0m\n' " $* " ; }
command -v incus >/dev/null || { echo "doctor: incus is not installed on this host." ; exit 1; }
timeout 10 incus list >/dev/null 2>& 1 || {
echo "doctor: the incus daemon is not answering (see issue #26 for recovery):"
echo " sudo pkill -9 -f 'incusd shutdown'"
echo " sudo systemctl stop incus.service incus.socket"
echo " sudo systemctl reset-failed incus.service incus.socket"
echo " sudo systemctl start incus.socket incus.service"
exit 1
}
head_ "Network — claudenet"
if incus network show claudenet >/dev/null 2>& 1; then
dns = " $( incus network get claudenet dns.mode 2>/dev/null) "
if [ -z " $dns " ] || [ " $dns " = managed ] ; then
ok " dns.mode = ${ dns :- <unset, i.e. managed> } "
else
no " dns.mode = $dns ← the drill's phase D left this behind. Boxes minted now get NO working DNS. "
[ " $FIX " = 1 ] && { incus network unset claudenet dns.mode && inf "reverted: dns.mode unset" ; }
fi
inf " ipv4.address = $( incus network get claudenet ipv4.address 2>/dev/null) "
ipv6 = " $( incus network get claudenet ipv6.address 2>/dev/null) "
[ " $ipv6 " = none ] && ok "ipv6.address = none (the isolation contract — every ACL rule is IPv4-only)" \
|| no " ipv6.address = $ipv6 — IPv6 is on and NOT covered by any ACL rule "
else
inf "claudenet does not exist (a fresh host — setup-host.sh will create it)"
fi
head_ "Profile — claude-dev (the NIC is the isolation contract)"
if incus profile show claude-dev >/dev/null 2>& 1; then
for k in security.mac_filtering security.ipv4_filtering; do
v = " $( incus profile device get claude-dev eth0 " $k " 2>/dev/null) "
if [ -z " $v " ] ; then
ok " $k unset (as shipped) "
else
no " $k = $v ← phase D left this behind. A box can fail to get on the network at all. "
[ " $FIX " = 1 ] && { incus profile device unset claude-dev eth0 " $k " && inf " reverted: $k unset " ; }
fi
done
inf " cpu/mem: $( incus profile get claude-dev limits.cpu 2>/dev/null) / $( incus profile get claude-dev limits.memory 2>/dev/null) (the drill lowers these on a small host) "
else
inf "claude-dev does not exist (a fresh host)"
fi
head_ "ACL — claude-isolate"
if incus network acl show claude-isolate >/dev/null 2>& 1; then
n = " $( incus network acl show claude-isolate | grep -c 'action:' || true ) "
inf " $n rules "
incus network acl show claude-isolate | grep -E 'action:|destination:' | sed 's/^/ /'
if incus network acl show claude-isolate | grep -q '@internal' ; then
no "an @internal rule survived phase D"
[ " $FIX " = 1 ] && { incus network acl rule remove claude-isolate egress action = drop destination = @internal && inf "reverted: @internal rule removed" ; }
fi
else
inf "claude-isolate does not exist (a fresh host)"
fi
head_ "Instances"
left = " $( incus list --format csv --columns ns 2>/dev/null) "
[ -z " $left " ] && inf "(none)" || printf ' %s\n' " $left "
for b in drill clone archive peer payroll cbprobe cbcopy cbnotours; do
if incus config show " $b " >/dev/null 2>& 1; then
no " leftover drill box: $b "
[ " $FIX " = 1 ] && { timeout 60 incus delete -f " $b " >/dev/null 2>& 1 && inf " reverted: deleted $b " ; }
fi
done
fix: a failed cold mint must say why, and the doctor must find the cause
Two cold mints in a row died with cloud-init 'status: error' on a host
the doctor had just certified clean — so the earlier "leftover mutations
poisoned the network" theory is dead, and the DNS failure is
reproducible rather than transient.
'claudebox new' printed four hundred dots and the word "error", leaving
the user with nothing to act on: the reason was in the box's own log and
nobody was told the log existed. It now prints cloud-init's status, the
fetch/resolve errors from the box's log, and how to inspect the box —
which is left running, because a box that failed to build is evidence,
not garbage. It also names the usual culprit: the host's resolver.
doctor.sh gains the diagnosis that keeps being done by hand:
· what the HOST resolves through, and whether that is a CGNAT/Tailscale
resolver the boxes inherit (issue #33);
· whether claudenet's resolver is pinned;
· and inside a box, the question that settles it — DNS is broken, but
can it still reach 1.1.1.1 BY ADDRESS? If yes, egress is fine and the
fault is purely the inherited forwarder.
· --pin-dns applies the #33 fix (raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + public
servers) so the hypothesis can be TESTED rather than argued.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:55:39 +00:00
# --- the box's DNS comes from the HOST's resolver. See issue #33. -----------
head_ "Host resolver — a box's DNS is forwarded through this"
hostns = " $( grep -E '^nameserver' /etc/resolv.conf 2>/dev/null | awk '{print $2}' | tr '\n' ' ' ) "
inf " /etc/resolv.conf: ${ hostns :- <none> } "
raw = " $( incus network get claudenet raw.dnsmasq 2>/dev/null | tr '\n' ';' ) "
if [ -n " $raw " ] ; then
ok " claudenet has a pinned resolver (raw.dnsmasq: $raw ) "
inf "boxes do NOT inherit the host's resolver — good (issue #33)"
else
# 100.64.0.0/10 is CGNAT — which is exactly Tailscale's range.
if printf '%s' " $hostns " | grep -qE '(^| )100\.(6[4-9]|[7-9][0-9]|1[01][0-9]|12[0-7])\.' ; then
no " the host resolves via a CGNAT/Tailscale resolver ( $hostns ), and boxes INHERIT it — see issue #33 "
inf "· box DNS breaks whenever the tailnet's resolver does (this is what kills cold mints)"
inf "· and tailnet names RESOLVE from inside a box, though its ACL blocks connecting to them"
inf "fix + test: bash drill/doctor.sh --pin-dns"
else
inf "boxes inherit the host's resolver (unpinned). Fine while it is stable; see issue #33."
fi
fi
if [ " $PIN " = 1 ] ; then
head_ "Pinning claudenet's resolver (issue #33)"
if incus network set claudenet raw.dnsmasq " $( printf 'no-resolv\nserver=1.1.1.1\nserver=8.8.8.8\n' ) " 2>/tmp/pin.err; then
ok "set raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + 1.1.1.1 + 8.8.8.8 — dnsmasq now ignores /etc/resolv.conf"
inf "a box's DNS no longer depends on the host's VPN state, and MagicDNS is out of the path"
inf "re-run the drill; if the cold mint now succeeds, issue #33 is confirmed and the fix belongs in setup-host.sh"
else
no " incus rejected raw.dnsmasq: $( head -1 /tmp/pin.err 2>/dev/null) "
inf "then raw.dnsmasq is the wrong lever and #33 needs a different mechanism — say so on the issue"
fi
fi
fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
head_ "Can a box actually resolve DNS?"
probe = ""
for b in drill archive peer clone; do
incus config show " $b " >/dev/null 2>& 1 && { probe = " $b " ; break; }
done
if [ -n " $probe " ] && [ " $FIX " != 1 ] ; then
fix: a failed cold mint must say why, and the doctor must find the cause
Two cold mints in a row died with cloud-init 'status: error' on a host
the doctor had just certified clean — so the earlier "leftover mutations
poisoned the network" theory is dead, and the DNS failure is
reproducible rather than transient.
'claudebox new' printed four hundred dots and the word "error", leaving
the user with nothing to act on: the reason was in the box's own log and
nobody was told the log existed. It now prints cloud-init's status, the
fetch/resolve errors from the box's log, and how to inspect the box —
which is left running, because a box that failed to build is evidence,
not garbage. It also names the usual culprit: the host's resolver.
doctor.sh gains the diagnosis that keeps being done by hand:
· what the HOST resolves through, and whether that is a CGNAT/Tailscale
resolver the boxes inherit (issue #33);
· whether claudenet's resolver is pinned;
· and inside a box, the question that settles it — DNS is broken, but
can it still reach 1.1.1.1 BY ADDRESS? If yes, egress is fine and the
fault is purely the inherited forwarder.
· --pin-dns applies the #33 fix (raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + public
servers) so the hypothesis can be TESTED rather than argued.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:55:39 +00:00
inf " probing inside ' $probe ' — this separates DNS from routing, which is the whole question: "
inf " its resolv.conf: $( timeout 20 incus exec " $probe " -- sh -c 'grep -m2 nameserver /etc/resolv.conf' 2>/dev/null | tr '\n' ' ' ) "
timeout 20 incus exec " $probe " -- ping -c1 -W2 10.87.0.1 >/dev/null 2>& 1 \
&& ok "reaches the gateway (10.87.0.1) — routing is fine" \
|| no "cannot even reach the gateway — this is routing, not DNS"
fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
if timeout 25 incus exec " $probe " -- getent hosts deb.debian.org >/dev/null 2>& 1; then
fix: a failed cold mint must say why, and the doctor must find the cause
Two cold mints in a row died with cloud-init 'status: error' on a host
the doctor had just certified clean — so the earlier "leftover mutations
poisoned the network" theory is dead, and the DNS failure is
reproducible rather than transient.
'claudebox new' printed four hundred dots and the word "error", leaving
the user with nothing to act on: the reason was in the box's own log and
nobody was told the log existed. It now prints cloud-init's status, the
fetch/resolve errors from the box's log, and how to inspect the box —
which is left running, because a box that failed to build is evidence,
not garbage. It also names the usual culprit: the host's resolver.
doctor.sh gains the diagnosis that keeps being done by hand:
· what the HOST resolves through, and whether that is a CGNAT/Tailscale
resolver the boxes inherit (issue #33);
· whether claudenet's resolver is pinned;
· and inside a box, the question that settles it — DNS is broken, but
can it still reach 1.1.1.1 BY ADDRESS? If yes, egress is fine and the
fault is purely the inherited forwarder.
· --pin-dns applies the #33 fix (raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + public
servers) so the hypothesis can be TESTED rather than argued.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:55:39 +00:00
ok "resolves deb.debian.org — DNS works"
fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
else
fix: a failed cold mint must say why, and the doctor must find the cause
Two cold mints in a row died with cloud-init 'status: error' on a host
the doctor had just certified clean — so the earlier "leftover mutations
poisoned the network" theory is dead, and the DNS failure is
reproducible rather than transient.
'claudebox new' printed four hundred dots and the word "error", leaving
the user with nothing to act on: the reason was in the box's own log and
nobody was told the log existed. It now prints cloud-init's status, the
fetch/resolve errors from the box's log, and how to inspect the box —
which is left running, because a box that failed to build is evidence,
not garbage. It also names the usual culprit: the host's resolver.
doctor.sh gains the diagnosis that keeps being done by hand:
· what the HOST resolves through, and whether that is a CGNAT/Tailscale
resolver the boxes inherit (issue #33);
· whether claudenet's resolver is pinned;
· and inside a box, the question that settles it — DNS is broken, but
can it still reach 1.1.1.1 BY ADDRESS? If yes, egress is fine and the
fault is purely the inherited forwarder.
· --pin-dns applies the #33 fix (raw.dnsmasq: no-resolv + public
servers) so the hypothesis can be TESTED rather than argued.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:55:39 +00:00
no "CANNOT resolve deb.debian.org — this is exactly what kills cloud-init on every cold mint"
# Does the box reach the internet at all WITHOUT DNS? If yes, the fault is
# purely name resolution — i.e. the forwarder, i.e. issue #33.
if timeout 25 incus exec " $probe " -- curl -sS -m 10 -o /dev/null https://1.1.1.1 2>/dev/null; then
inf "…but it CAN reach 1.1.1.1 by address. So egress works and only NAME RESOLUTION is broken:"
inf "the fault is the forwarder the box inherits from the host — issue #33."
inf "test the fix: bash drill/doctor.sh --pin-dns then re-run the drill"
else
inf "…and it cannot reach 1.1.1.1 by address either — so egress itself is broken, not just DNS."
fi
fix(drill): stop poisoning the host, and add a doctor to prove it
Run 8's cold mint failed with 'cloud-init status: error' — the box could
not resolve deb.debian.org, or claude.ai, or anything. The cause was not
in that run at all: run 7's phase D set dns.mode=none on claudenet, the
run ended before reverting it, and every box minted afterwards came up
with no DNS.
This is the worst failure mode the drill has: a poisoned host does not
fail the next run honestly, it produces confident wrong answers. It is
how a false design veto against #16 got posted, and it wasted a cold
mint plus an hour of diagnosis that had nothing to do with the code
under test.
Three defences:
· the phase-D revert is armed with a trap BEFORE the first mutation,
so it fires on any exit, Ctrl-C included;
· the revert is VERIFIED rather than fired into /dev/null, so a failed
unset can no longer masquerade as a successful one;
· the drill refuses to start on a host still carrying the mutations.
And drill/doctor.sh answers the question that kept being answered by
hand: what state is this host actually in? Network, profile, ACL,
leftover boxes, and whether a box can still resolve DNS — with --fix to
revert the leftovers.
RUNS.md gains trap 10.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-07-14 00:32:03 +00:00
fi
else
inf "no box to probe with (mint one, or run without --fix after a run)"
fi
head_ "Verdict"
if [ " $bad " -eq 0 ] ; then
printf ' \033[32mclean\033[0m — this host is fit to drill.\n\n'
exit 0
fi
printf ' \033[31m%s problem(s)\033[0m — this host is NOT fit to drill.\n' " $bad "
if [ " $FIX " = 1 ] ; then
printf ' reverted what could be reverted; re-run doctor to confirm.\n\n'
else
printf ' run: bash drill/doctor.sh --fix\n\n'
fi
exit 1