tanshu
537a4f1e46
menu-admin was the odd one out: it built from the working directory with a date tag and a multi-arch manifest, deployed with `-e tag=`, and kept the Docker-era container name. The other two apps build from `git archive HEAD` and tag with the commit, so what runs on the host is exactly what git knows about; build only for the architecture emily actually runs; and use one slug for the container, its network and its data directory. The build is now their three lines: `podman build --platform linux/arm64` from `git archive HEAD`, tagged `:<commit>` and `:latest`, pushed with `podman push` rather than a manifest. `deploy.sh` pushes the commit first, then refuses a dirty tracked tree or a HEAD that is not origin/main — which is what makes the commit tag trustworthy — takes the same `--force` and `--no-push`, and ends in the same `-u tanshu ... -e image_tag=<commit>`. Its own lint/typecheck/test gate stays, but behind `--checks`, so a plain deploy behaves as theirs does. The registry credential moves into vars/default.yml and the role logs in, pulls and logs out around it, as their roles do. The image is only pulled at deploy time, so the unit keeps podman's default `Pull=missing` and a reboot never needs the registry. This is the same plaintext credential the other two repos carry. One real bug goes with it: the healthcheck gate ran before the handler that restarts a changed unit, so a run that only changed the unit checked the stale container. `meta: flush_handlers` before the gate is the fix the sibling repos already made. The container, network and data directory are all menu-<site> now. The dotted Docker-era name and the NetworkAlias it needed are gone, so `podman logs menu-<site>` and `systemctl --user status menu-<site>` are the same two commands across all three apps. The Dockerfile keeps its name for the same reason: podman reads it as readily as a Containerfile, and the siblings use that name too.
The menu deployment
Lives here, beside the app it deploys. One run deploys a Site: it starts the
app's container as a rootless Podman Quadlet unit on emily and points the
Site's web address at it through the shared Caddy unit that
ansible-playbooks/caddy owns. There is no older system to keep serving, so
there is no staged rollout and nothing to retire — deploying the image built from
an earlier commit is the rollback.
This is the same shape as the sibling services in ansible-playbooks (gitea,
nextcloud, tandoor, bitwarden, valkey, postgres, trillium): rootless Podman, one
Quadlet .container / .network per service in ~/.config/containers/systemd/,
state under ~/podman-data/, and Caddy reaching each app by name on a Podman
network. Nothing here talks to Docker.
The pieces
ansible/
├── hosts # one entry per Site, all on emily
├── playbook.yml # connects as tanshu, no become
├── vars/{default,hopsngrains,greatbear,hngmohali}.yml
└── roles/
├── register/ # writes menu-<site>.network and the Caddy drop-in
├── menu-app/ # the Quadlet unit, start + health + verify
└── caddy/ # appends the site block, reloads Caddy
Two things are worth internalising, because they are the whole design:
Caddy knows nothing about its upstreams. A service registers itself by
writing two files into the Quadlet directory: its own <name>.network unit and a
drop-in beside caddy.container that pulls that network into Caddy. This play
does that in pre_tasks, before the app unit starts, because Quadlet fails unit
generation when a unit references a .network file that does not exist yet.
The container's uid is mapped onto tanshu. UserNS=keep-id:uid=1000,gid=1000
maps the image's own node account onto the user that owns the units, so every
file the app writes is owned by tanshu on the host: plain tar/rsync
backups, no subuids, no podman unshare. scripts/provision-site-env.sh uses
the same mapping for the same reason.
What lives where
| Thing | Where |
|---|---|
| Name, tagline, icon, categories, menus | on the server under ~/podman-data/menu-<site>/data — the admin edits them |
| Admin password hash, session secret | ~/podman-data/menu-<site>/site.env (untracked, mode 600) |
| Theme colours | config/<site>.site.json in the repo, baked into the image |
| The unit that runs | ~/.config/containers/systemd/menu-<site>.container |
| The network and Caddy drop-in | menu-<site>.network, caddy.container.d/50-menu-<site>.conf |
| Which image tag runs | -e image_tag=<commit> |
| Which Site is deployed | the inventory entry in hosts |
| The web address it serves | host: in vars/<site>.yml |
<site> is the inventory name (hopsngrains, greatbear, hngmohali), and it
is the single slug for everything: the container, its Podman network and its data
directory are all menu-<site>. That is how the sibling hops and greatbear
apps are deployed, and it keeps podman logs menu-<site> and
systemctl --user status menu-<site> the same two commands across all three.
What the host needs
emily is already set up — it runs Caddy, Postgres, Tandoor and Valkey the same
way. If you are standing up a fresh host, run ansible-playbooks/caddy first: it
installs podman, enables lingering, lowers the privileged-port floor so rootless
Caddy can bind 80/443, creates the Quadlet directory, and starts the Caddy unit.
Those prerequisites deliberately are not duplicated here, so a host that has
not run that playbook will fail at the first systemctl --user — see
ansible-playbooks/caddy/readme.md.
The registry is private, but nothing here needs a manual login: the play logs in
from registry_username / registry_password in vars/default.yml, pulls the
image, and logs out again, so the credential is never left in the target user's
auth file. The unit keeps podman's default Pull=missing on purpose, so a
restart or a reboot never depends on the registry being reachable.
ssh on some machines complains about
/etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/20-systemd-ssh-proxy.conf being owned by nobody; that is
a local file-permission bug whose fix is sudo chown -R root:root /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d, not something this playbook works around.
Deploying
From the repo root:
./deploy.sh # push HEAD, build <commit>, deploy every Site
./deploy.sh --no-push # skip the push (you already pushed)
./deploy.sh --force # skip the guards
./deploy.sh --checks # lint, format, typecheck and test first
SITE=greatbear ./deploy.sh # one Site instead of every Site
deploy.sh requires a clean tracked tree and HEAD == origin/main, tags the
build with the commit it came from, and refuses a dirty tree for a reason: the
image is built from git archive HEAD, so what runs on the host is exactly what
git knows about. It runs make build-production COMMIT=<commit>, which builds
linux/arm64 — the architecture emily runs — and pushes both the commit tag
and latest to registry.tanshu.com/menu-admin.
By hand:
git push
make build-production COMMIT=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
cd ansible
ansible-playbook -u tanshu --inventory=hosts playbook.yml -e image_tag=$(git rev-parse --short HEAD)
Every Site runs on the same box, so hosts has one entry per Site pointing at
the same ansible_host with its own var_file. The play carries no become: the
Quadlet units belong to ansible_user (tanshu), and running as that user is
what gives us a real PAM session, which is what makes systemctl --user work.
Connecting as anyone else would write units into the wrong home.
Adding a Site is one line in hosts, a copy of vars/hopsngrains.yml, and a
config/<site>.site.json. The image is shared and carries every Site's config,
so a new Site needs a new build — which the commit tag gives it.
Migrating a Site's data from monoco
The menus still serve from Docker containers on monoco. A Site moves across
with its data, before it is ever pointed at from DNS. Run this from a machine
that can ssh to both hosts — the monoco and emily aliases this repo's own
tooling uses:
scripts/copy-site-data.sh hopsngrains
scripts/copy-site-data.sh greatbear
scripts/copy-site-data.sh hngmohali
For one Site it stops the old container, streams /var/lib/menu.<domain> across,
starts the old container again so monoco keeps serving until DNS moves, and
then proves the copy: the SHA-256 of the whole tree is compared against the
source, and every file is checked to belong to tanshu. --live skips the stop;
MONOCO=, EMILY=, SRC_ROOT= and DEST_ROOT= override the defaults.
Two things make the copy look different from a plain rsync:
sudoon monoco./var/lib/menu.<domain>belongs to uid 1000 (theubuntuaccount) and the ssh user there is 1001, so it is not readable without it. monoco'stanshuhas passwordless sudo.- The workstation relays it. monoco cannot ssh to emily, so the tar streams
through the machine running the script; nothing large is written locally.
Extracting as
tanshuon emily is what makes the files land owned by the userkeep-idmaps the app onto — as root they would arrive owned by uid 1000, which on emily is nobody.
By hand, that is:
SITE=hopsngrains
HOST=menu.hopsngrains.com
ssh monoco "docker stop menu-app.$HOST"
ssh -n monoco "sudo -n tar -C /var/lib/$HOST -cf - ." \
| ssh emily "mkdir -p ~/podman-data/menu-$SITE && tar -C ~/podman-data/menu-$SITE -xf -"
ssh monoco "docker start menu-app.$HOST"
# Same checks the script runs.
ssh -n monoco "sudo -n sh -c 'cd /var/lib/$HOST && find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} +' | sort | sha256sum"
ssh -n emily "cd ~/podman-data/menu-$SITE && find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} + | sort | sha256sum"
ssh -n emily "find ~/podman-data/menu-$SITE ! -user tanshu"
The old layout put everything under /var/lib/menu.<domain>/, with the content
one level down in data/; the new one is ~/podman-data/menu-<site>/ with the
same data/ inside it and site.env beside it. Nothing inside changes.
site.env carries over so the admin keeps working; without it the app starts
with the admin disabled and the playbook says so rather than failing.
Then deploy that Site and check it on a Host: override before touching DNS.
monoco keeps serving until the cutover; only then stop its container — and
leave it in place, not removed, so docker start is the rollback.
The admin password
The app starts with the admin disabled while ~/podman-data/menu-<site>/site.env
is missing, and the playbook says so rather than failing. Create it once per Site;
run it again with --force to reset the password (a fresh session secret signs
everyone out). There is no minimum password length.
scp scripts/provision-site-env.sh emily:/tmp/
ssh -t emily bash /tmp/provision-site-env.sh ~/podman-data/menu-hopsngrains
systemctl --user restart menu-hopsngrains.service
The -t matters: the script prompts for the password, and without a terminal on
the remote side the prompt cannot be read, so it would sit there looking frozen.
With no image argument it borrows the one the running container uses. It has to
run as tanshu, the user whose rootless Podman owns the container.
Checking it landed
npm run check-site -- https://menu.hopsngrains.com
Read-only, exits non-zero on failure. Then from a phone: the landing page, a
Section page, the page counter, tap-to-zoom, and signing into /admin to publish
something.
Rolling back
Deploy the image built from an earlier commit — the commit tag is what makes this a one-liner, since every commit ever pushed to the registry is still there:
cd ansible
ansible-playbook -u tanshu --inventory=hosts playbook.yml -e image_tag=<older-commit>
podman logs menu-<site> and journalctl --user -u menu-<site> are where a
container that will not start says why. To go all the way back to the Docker
deployment, start the container that was left on monoco and point Caddy at it
again.