Four sites where a check could report a verdict it had not established, or
detect a failure and then not turn it red.
assert_no_panic in both NAT suites read `docker logs ... || true`, so a
container that could not be read produced empty output, matched no panic
pattern, and returned success. The assertion's failure mode was
indistinguishable from its success condition. It now reports that absence of
panics is not established.
deb-install's apt capture discarded the exit status, so a failed docker exec
gave an empty capture that matched neither error pattern and reached the pass
branch. The status is now kept and checked before the output is inspected, with
the output still printed on failure.
wait_for_systemd printed a warning and returned success on timeout, so every
check after it read a system that may not have started its units. It now returns
non-zero and the caller abandons that distro leg rather than testing an
unstarted system.
interop's copy of count_log_pattern carried the same defect fixed in rekey: a
node whose logs could not be read contributed zero to eight expect-zero
assertions. Fixed the same way, and its consumer now reports the unreadable case
rather than comparing a sentinel against zero.
Each validated by breaking what it guards and by confirming the healthy path is
unchanged: an absent container now fails each check where it previously passed,
a readable panic-free container still passes, a real panic is still caught, and
a genuinely successful install still passes.
A bash function returns its last command's status, so one ending in a log
call returns 0 whatever it did, and a caller written as `if func` or
`func || fail` has a gate that cannot fire. This tree found two in one
day: run_chaos ended in record, making every chaos row unconditionally
green since 2026-03-09, and build_fips_for_e2e ended in log, letting five
end-to-end legs test the previous commit's binary and report green. Both
were repaired one at a time. This is the rule that catches the next one.
What it enforces is a contract, not a bug hunt: a function whose status a
caller tests must end in an explicit return rather than leaving its
success value to whatever the last log call produced. That distinction is
deliberate and worth stating, because all three instances found in the
tree were benign — each failure path already returned early, so the
trailing echo reported a real success. Reading the function is the only
way to know that, and the next edit that puts an unguarded command before
the final log converts the benign shape into the defect with nothing to
notice. An explicit return costs a line and makes the class unreachable.
The three are given one here.
Scoped on the call sites rather than the definitions, the same way
check-log-strings.py scopes on what a grep reads rather than what its file
mentions: 315 functions scanned, 42 end in a log call, and only the ones
whose status something consumes are reported. A function that ends by
reporting and is called for its output is idiomatic and is left alone.
Without that scoping the finding list would be 42 long and would stop
being read.
Validated by construction rather than by a green run: injecting a copy of
build_fips_for_e2e's exact shape — unguarded docker cp, then a log as the
last statement, with a `|| { ...; return 1; }` caller — makes the checker
report it and exit 1.
Wired into both runners beside the parity and log-string checks.
Two suites could report a clean pass for work that did not run.
stun-faults skips Phase 2 when tc netem is unavailable, announcing it
several hundred lines above the result and then printing a bare
"stun-faults-test passed". The verdict line now carries the count and
names each skipped phase, and a run in which every phase was skipped
fails outright, since it tested nothing.
deb-install defines a skip() helper and a SKIP counter, prints "N
skipped" in its summary, and calls skip() from nowhere, so the number can
only ever be 0. Its exit tested FAIL alone, meaning a skip could not have
failed the run even once something did set the counter. Gate on SKIP too.
That changes no current outcome, which is the reason to do it now rather
than later: the machinery and the reported number already existed, so the
first skip path added would have printed "N skipped" beside a zero exit
and read as coverage.
Verified by driving the verdict logic at zero, one and three skips: clean
pass, pass with the skip named, and a non-zero exit when nothing ran.
Two runs on one host destroyed each other's containers, producing
mid-test "No such container" failures that look like real defects. The
automated builder runs a full local CI on the same box every few minutes,
so the machine is contended almost always and this has red-ed both a hand
run and an automated gate.
Two independent causes are fixed here. Container names were hardcoded, and
docker names are global rather than scoped by compose project, so two runs
collided on the same name; every name now takes an optional suffix that
the harness sets from the run id. And the cleanup sweep matched a label
shared by every run, so one run's teardown force-removed another's
containers; resources now also carry a per-run label and the sweep can be
narrowed to it.
A third hazard turned up that was not in the original report: the sidecar
suite passes explicit compose project names, which override the run-scoped
project and put it outside the shared prefix entirely. Its project names,
network, and derived container references are now scoped too.
Both are default-off. With the suffix unset, names render exactly as they
do today and a bare compose invocation is unchanged, which is what keeps
the hosted CI and the documentation correct. A cleanup run with no run id
still reaps everything, which is what a manual "clear the box" wants.
The literal-name sweep was not sufficient: six scripts build container
names dynamically from node labels, and two suites create their own
containers outside compose. Those are handled at their construction sites.
Verified: syntax check on all modified scripts; compose validation on
every modified file with the suffix both set and unset; and a synthetic
two-run reproduction that shows the old cleanup destroying a bystander run
and the new one leaving it alone.
Known gap: subnets are still hardcoded, so two concurrent full runs will
still collide on address-pool overlap. That fix reaches into topology
configs, chaos scenarios, diagrams and production source, so it is left
for its own change rather than half-done here.
Cover the previously untested STUN client behavior under server
unreachable, response timeout, and packet loss. The 3 NAT scenarios
test happy paths only; if the STUN client mishandled a fault (panic,
hang, missing log signal), it would silently degrade NAT traversal
without surfacing in CI.
testing/nat/scripts/stun-faults-test.sh (new, 244 lines):
Phase 1 (drop, ~12s): tc prio + netem loss 100% band + u32 filter on
dst 172.31.10.40 udp 3478. Falls back to iptables -j DROP if netem
isn't available. Asserts daemon process alive, no panic, log line
matching stun.*(timed?out|fail|fallback|unreachable|no address)
within the phase window.
Phase 2 (delay then clear, ~17s): tc qdisc add dev eth0 root netem
delay 5000ms for 7s, then deleted. 10s settle. Asserts process alive,
no panic, AND "STUN observation succeeded" log line after clear
(recovery proof).
Phase 3 (kill, ~12s): docker stop fips-nat-stun. Asserts process
alive, no panic, fault evidence in logs.
testing/nat/docker-compose.yml: stun-faults profile adds two
services. stun-fault-node is fips-test:latest on shared-lan at
172.31.10.50. stun-fault-shim is fips-test:latest sharing the
daemon's network namespace via network_mode: service:stun-fault-
node, with cap_add NET_ADMIN, NET_RAW; entrypoint sleep infinity so
the script can docker exec into it. Reuses existing stun
(172.31.10.40:3478) and relay (172.31.10.30:7777) services.
testing/nat/scripts/generate-configs.sh: 3-hunk update so the
generator accepts the new scenario and points its peer config at the
existing relay/STUN. The peer is configured for connect_peer() so
the daemon retries traversal on a loop, repeatedly invoking
observe_traversal_addresses() — which is the fault-injection target.
testing/ci-local.sh: STUN_FAULTS_SUITES=(stun-faults) array,
run_stun_faults runner, list/integration-loop/--only-dispatch hooks.
.github/workflows/ci.yml: matrix row {suite: stun-faults, type:
stun-faults} + 3 steps gated on matrix.type == 'stun-faults' between
nostr-publish-consume and any chaos suite. Reuses fips-linux
artifact + fips-test:latest image.
Approach: script-driven via docker exec stun-fault-shim. Sharing
network namespace means tc rules on the shim's eth0 affect daemon
egress. No timing logic in the shim itself.
Johnathan Corgan