Johnathan Corgan
bf173d8d98
Every chaos scenario draws n01 at the top of its topology, and until now that held in three of thirteen. The mesh roots itself at the numerically smallest NodeAddr, which is a hash of the node's public key and bears no relation to the node numbering, so which node ended up as root was effectively arbitrary. The consequences were not cosmetic. cost-reeval rooted at n04, its own designated test subject, so that node had no parent and the periodic parent switch the scenario exists to observe could not occur at all. mixed-technology rooted at n09, which put its two documented parent criteria out of reach and made correct cost-based selection look like a defect. Identities are still derived from the mesh name exactly as before and are still deterministic. What changes is which node id holds which one: they are now assigned in NodeAddr order, so n01 holds the smallest and is the root. Verified against a model of the daemon's own derivation that reproduces the previously observed root for every scenario and n01's address byte for byte; all twelve pinned scenarios now root at n01. smoke-10 deliberately opts out via pin_root: false so that root election from an arbitrary key distribution stays exercised somewhere. Its assertion is a convergence floor and is root-agnostic, which is why it is the cheapest home for that. The new key is rejected when non-boolean, and a near-miss spelling is rejected as unknown; both checked. Not yet established: the trees themselves change, so the parent-dependent assertions in bottleneck-parent, cost-avoidance and cost-stability need re-deriving against live runs. Those are held until the in-flight CI finishes, because a chaos run rebuilds the shared fips-test image that run is using.
FIPS Testing
Integration and simulation test harnesses for FIPS, using Docker containers running the full protocol stack.
Test Harnesses
static/ -- Static Docker Network
Fixed topologies with manual scripts for building, config generation, connectivity tests (ping, iperf), and network impairment (netem). Useful for deterministic debugging and validating specific topology configurations.
| Topology | Nodes | Transport | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| mesh | 5 | UDP | Sparse mesh, 6 links, multi-hop |
| chain | 5 | UDP | Linear chain, max 4-hop paths |
| mesh-public | 5+1 | UDP | Mesh with external public node |
| tcp-chain | 3 | TCP | Linear chain over TCP (port 8443) |
| rekey | 5 | UDP | Rekey integration test topology |
tor/ -- Tor Transport Integration
End-to-end Tor transport testing with Docker containers running real Tor daemons. Requires internet access for Tor bootstrapping.
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| socks5-outbound | Outbound SOCKS5 connections through Tor to clearnet peer |
| directory-mode | Inbound via HiddenServiceDir onion service (co-located) |
nat/ -- NAT Traversal Lab
Real Docker NAT traversal tests for the Nostr/STUN bootstrap path,
using router containers with iptables-based NAT, a local Nostr relay,
and a local STUN responder.
| Scenario | Description |
|---|---|
| cone | Two NATed peers establish a UDP traversal path |
| symmetric | UDP traversal fails under symmetric NAT, TCP fallback wins |
| lan | Peers on the same LAN prefer local addresses over reflexive |
chaos/ -- Stochastic Simulation
Automated network testing with configurable node counts, topology algorithms (random geometric, Erdos-Renyi, chain, explicit), and fault injection (netem mutation, link flaps, traffic generation, node churn). 20 scenarios covering general stress testing, cost-based parent selection, mixed link technologies (fiber/Bluetooth/WiFi), transport-specific validation (UDP, TCP, Ethernet), and ECN/congestion testing. Scenarios are defined in YAML and executed via a Python harness that manages the full lifecycle: topology generation, Docker orchestration, fault scheduling, log collection, and analysis.
interop/ -- Mixed-Version Interop Harness
On-demand harness that runs an N-node full mesh from a node-spec where
each node can run a different build of the FIPS daemon, then attributes
every FMP/FSP/rekey/connectivity failure to a specific version pair
(same-version vs MIXED). Used to catch interop regressions between
builds, not as a per-commit CI gate; not part of ci-local.sh.
mesh-lab/ -- Mesh Reliability Lab
On-demand harness that runs a chosen integration suite N times under a
configurable host-pressure profile (idle / light / github-runner-
equivalent / heavy via stress-ng), per-container netem impairment,
and optional trace-level RUST_LOG, capturing per-rep diagnostics and a
mechanism-match summary across the run. Used for statistical reliability
characterization of known flake classes under calibrated stress, not as
a per-commit gate; not part of ci-local.sh.
Running CI locally (ci-local.sh)
ci-local.sh runs the full local CI pipeline — build,
clippy, unit tests, and the integration suites (including the chaos
scenarios) — mirroring the GitHub ci.yml integration matrix. Run
./ci-local.sh --help for the full option list and --list for the
available suites. Every run starts with a parity check that verifies the
local suite set covers the same work as the GitHub matrix, per scenario for
chaos and per distro for deb-install; a divergence fails the run. GitHub
runs the same check as its own ci-parity job. --check-parity runs it
alone (see check-ci-parity.sh).
Per-run isolation and the FIPS_CI_RUN_ID override
Every invocation derives a run id and scopes all of its Docker resources to it, so two simultaneous runs on the same host (for example, one per git worktree, or an operator testing by hand while CI is in flight) never collide:
- Compose projects are named
fipsci_<run-id>_<suite>, so container, network, and volume names are all prefixed per run. - Build images are tagged
fips-test:<run-id>andfips-test-app:<run-id>(exported asFIPS_TEST_IMAGE/FIPS_TEST_APP_IMAGEfor the compose consumers). - Each parallel chaos child gets a unique, non-overlapping
/24in10.30.x(via the sim--subnetoverride).10.30.xsits outside Docker's default address pool and the fixed-subnet suites'172.xranges, so neither a sibling chaos child nor an auto-assigned network can swallow a pinned subnet.
By default the run id is <short-git-sha>-<random> — the SHA portion
records what code a container is testing, the random suffix keeps
simultaneous runs of the same SHA disjoint. Override it for a
reproducible, attach-by-name debug session:
FIPS_CI_RUN_ID=mydebug ./ci-local.sh --only static-mesh
# containers are named fipsci_mydebug_static_fips-node-a, etc.
Preemption-safety and exit codes
ci-local.sh is safe to cancel mid-run. A signal trap tears down every
compose project the run started (not just the current suite) and reaps
any in-flight parallel chaos children, bounded by a timeout so a stuck
compose down cannot wedge the trap. Exit codes distinguish a cancelled
run from a failing one:
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
0 |
all stages passed |
1 |
one or more stages failed |
130 |
interrupted by SIGINT — cancelled, not a failure |
143 |
terminated by SIGTERM — cancelled, not a failure |
A preempting CI worker (the push-triggered, CI-gated build pipeline that
kills an in-flight run when a newer same-branch tip arrives) maps
130/143 → cancelled (discard, do not record a failing commit), 0
→ green, any other non-zero → red.
Cleaning up leftover resources
Every CI-created container, network, and volume carries the label
com.corganlabs.fips-ci=1. If a run is hard-killed (SIGKILL, OOM, crash)
and leaves resources behind, reap them with:
./ci-local.sh --reap # or: ./ci-cleanup.sh
ci-cleanup.sh force-removes everything bearing the CI
label or a fipsci_ compose-project prefix; it is safe to run when there
is nothing to reap and safe to run repeatedly. Pass --project-prefix to
scope the sweep to a single run.
It also removes the chaos simulation's leftover host-namespace veth
interfaces (vh…a/vh…b), the one resource it touches that is neither a
docker object nor labelled — a host interface can carry neither a label
nor a compose project, so it is matched by name shape alone. That makes
the reach here asymmetric with everything above, and worth stating
plainly:
- A bare
chaos.shrun's containers survive a broad reap. Its compose project is notfipsci_, and the simulation labels only the network, not the services. - A bare
chaos.shrun's veth interfaces do not. An unscoped reap deletes them while they are in use, severing the Ethernet links of a live simulation and leaving its containers running.
So do not run a broad --reap while a bare simulation is up. Scope the
interface sweep with --veth-suffixes (which is what ci-local.sh's own
teardown passes) or wait for the simulation to finish. --project-prefix
does not help here: it scopes only the compose-project sweep.