Debug OpenShell Gateway Deployment
Diagnose a gateway and its selected compute platform. Do not assume OpenShell provisions Kubernetes or runs a k3s container. OpenShell targets a reachable gateway endpoint backed by Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, the experimental VM driver, or an operator-managed out-of-tree compute driver.
Use openshell first to identify the active endpoint. Then use the platform tools that match the gateway's compute driver: docker, podman, kubectl/helm, or VM driver logs.
Overview
The target deployment flow is:
- Operator starts or deploys the gateway with system packages, systemd, or Helm. The CLI does not start, stop, or destroy gateway services.
- Operator configures the compute driver.
- Operator provides the CLI and supervisor authentication material required by the deployment mode: edge or OIDC user auth, optional CLI mTLS, and gateway-minted sandbox JWTs.
- The CLI registers a reachable gateway endpoint with
openshell gateway add. - The gateway creates sandboxes through the selected compute driver.
The openshell-gateway composition crate explicitly installs its compiled
Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, and VM registrations at startup; openshell-server
does not link compute-driver crates. Custom gateway binaries may include a
subset of those registrations. With no configured driver, the gateway probes only
installed registrations in priority order (Kubernetes, Podman, then Docker);
VM has no probe and remains opt-in. Confirm the binary's registered drivers
when auto-detection reports that no suitable driver is available. If
configuration selects a driver that was not compiled in, the gateway treats
the name as an external driver and reports a missing socket_path unless an
endpoint is configured.
On Windows, custom binaries can include MXC independently. Registrations for Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, and VM are rejection stubs when included; they do not enable those runtimes on Windows.
See the compute driver reference for selective-build options and external-driver configuration.
For local evaluation only, TLS may be disabled and the gateway can be reached through http://127.0.0.1:<port>.
Prerequisites
- The
openshellCLI must be available for endpoint checks. - Know the active gateway name and endpoint, or be able to inspect local gateway metadata.
- Know the compute platform: Docker, Podman, Kubernetes, VM, or an out-of-tree driver.
- For Kubernetes:
kubectlmust target the cluster that hosts OpenShell and Helm version 3 or later must be available. - For Docker or Podman: the runtime socket must be reachable from the gateway host.
Use openshell --help and nested --help output as the authority for the installed CLI version. Use the published installation guide, compute-driver reference, gateway configuration reference, and Kubernetes setup guide as the authority for deployment and configuration behavior.
Workflow
Run diagnostics in order and stop once the root cause is clear.
Step 1: Check CLI Reachability
openshell gateway list --output json
openshell gateway info
openshell statusFor a one-off endpoint check that bypasses stored gateway selection and metadata:
openshell --gateway-endpoint <url> statusCommon findings:
No active gateway: register one withopenshell gateway add <endpoint>.- Connection refused: gateway process is not running, service exposure is wrong, or a port-forward/proxy is not active.
- TLS/certificate errors: the endpoint scheme or trust chain is wrong, a CLI mTLS bundle does not match the gateway CA, a supervisor is missing the gateway CA, or TLS termination does not match the gateway listener. Workloads and supervisors should not contain a user TLS client certificate or private key.
- A Snap refresh restarts the gateway with its migrated mTLS config. The secure Snap gateway uses
https://127.0.0.1:17670and requires a client bundle in the user's Snap state. Refresh replaces insecure configs without keeping a copy; follow the published Snap installation steps to re-register an old HTTP client. Unauthenticatedfrom an edge or OIDC gateway: refresh stored credentials withopenshell gateway login [name], then retry. Usegateway logoutonly when intentionally clearing local credentials.- A direct development endpoint with a private or self-signed certificate can be isolated with
--gateway-endpoint <url> --gateway-insecure; do not persist or recommend insecure verification for shared gateways.
Step 2: Identify the Compute Platform
Use gateway metadata, deployment values, or the user's setup notes to identify the driver.
| Platform | Primary checks |
|---|---|
| Docker | Gateway process logs, Docker daemon health, sandbox containers, image pulls. |
| Podman | Podman socket, rootless networking, sandbox containers, image pulls. |
| Kubernetes | Helm release, gateway workload, service, secrets, sandbox pods, events. |
| OpenShift | Same as Kubernetes, plus SecurityContextConstraints (SCCs) and, for external access, an OpenShift Route. Detect OpenShift by the presence of the route.openshift.io API group (oc api-resources --api-group=route.openshift.io). |
| VM | VM driver logs, rootfs availability, host virtualization support. |
| Extension | External driver process, Unix socket ownership/mode, configured driver name, capability handshake, gateway logs. |
Step 3: Check Gateway Startup Dependencies
Before debugging the compute platform, inspect gateway logs for failures in dependencies initialized before the listener becomes ready.
For resource-admission failures, distinguish disabled caller driver config from
missing resource approval. Helm defaults server.drivers.kubernetes.allowDriverConfig
to false and resourceAdmission.enabled to true. Existing PVCs, RuntimeClasses,
and PriorityClasses need matching administrator-owned labels; namespace
membership and read-only access do not grant approval. GPU devices and
operator-selected image-pull Secrets do not need admission labels. In managed
mode, inspect the configured source image-pull Secret in the gateway namespace
and the generation copies (openshell.ai/component=image-pull) in the workspace
namespace. Legacy workloads without
admission provenance need recreation. Do not
automatically label control-plane resources or disable enforcement as a repair.
For out-of-tree compute drivers, also check that their versioned admission-policy
acknowledgement matches the gateway's policy. Configure standalone driver policy
through its administrator-owned --admission-config-json option.
For out-of-tree compute drivers, confirm the selected driver name and socket agree across CLI flags or gateway.toml, and that the operator-owned driver is running before the gateway starts:
rg -n '^version|compute_driver|socket_path|guest_tls_' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml
stat /run/openshell/<driver>.sock
journalctl -u <driver-service> --no-pager --lines=200
journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200Gateway configuration requires [openshell] version = 2, a singular
compute_driver selector, and driver-owned settings under
[openshell.drivers.<name>]. The gateway rejects legacy compute_drivers and
--drivers selectors rather than silently migrating them. One valid, nonempty
OPENSHELL_DRIVERS value remains a deprecated environment-only alias when the
canonical selector is absent; the gateway selects that driver with a warning.
Empty, invalid, comma-delimited, or conflicting values fail startup. The
WebSocket tunnel for edge-proxy CLI access is off unless
enable_websocket_tunnel = true (server.enableWebsocketTunnel in Helm). Homebrew
and RPM package startup migrates only exact package-generated v1 defaults. If
an upgraded package still reports an unsupported version, inspect the active prefix or ~/.config/openshell/gateway.toml; an edited v1 file must
follow the published schema-v2 migration steps and must not be overwritten.
The supervisor gateway CA is the exception to driver ownership: configure
guest_tls_ca under [openshell.gateway], and the gateway injects it only into
the selected local driver. Remove the retired guest_tls_cert and
guest_tls_key fields. TLS-enabled Docker, Podman, and VM drivers fail startup
when neither that CA nor the package-managed local CA is available. Kubernetes
projects only the gateway CA from a Secret into supervisor Pods; supervisors
authenticate gateway RPCs with sandbox bearer tokens.
Custom names use [openshell.drivers.<name>].socket_path. A launch-time --compute-driver-socket override may also use docker, podman, kubernetes, or vm; the endpoint then takes precedence over built-in construction. First-party standalone drivers require the socket parent directory to be owned by the driver's effective UID, force its mode to 0700, create the socket with mode 0600, and accept only peers with that same UID. Check the parent and socket separately with stat; a gateway running under a different UID cannot connect even when filesystem permissions or group membership would otherwise allow it. Operator-supplied drivers must provide equivalent access control appropriate to their implementation. Check gateway logs for connection errors, GetCapabilities failures, missing peer metadata, protocol-major mismatch, unmet required capabilities, or an unexpected advertised driver name. openshell gateway info reports successful startup negotiations. The advertised name is diagnostic metadata; negotiated features control optional behavior. The gateway does not create or supervise operator-supplied driver processes or sockets.
For the Kubernetes Secrets credential driver, every provider credential lives in
the configured namespace, in every workspace mode. A PermissionDenied error
naming another namespace means the provider's credential handle points outside
the configured namespace; recreate the provider. An unknown field startup
error for [openshell.credential_drivers.kubernetes-secrets] means the table
sets a key the driver does not accept. Confirm the gateway can reach the
credential namespace:
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' | grep -A3 '^\[openshell\.credential_drivers\.kubernetes-secrets\]'
kubectl auth can-i get secrets -n <credential-namespace> --as system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshellFor a configured Vault credential driver, inspect its endpoint and trust bundle
before debugging provider resolution. Non-loopback addresses must use HTTPS,
and the driver never follows redirects. A private CA bundle augments platform
roots but does not disable hostname verification. With Helm,
server.credentialDrivers.vault.caConfigMapName names a ConfigMap whose
ca.crt key is mounted at /etc/openshell-tls/vault-ca/ca.crt:
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' | grep -A10 '^\[openshell\.credential_drivers\.vault\]'
kubectl -n openshell get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=openshell -o jsonpath='{range .items[0].spec.containers[0].volumeMounts[*]}{.name}{" "}{.mountPath}{"\n"}{end}' | grep vault-ca
kubectl -n openshell get configmap <vault-ca-configmap> -o jsonpath='{.data.ca\.crt}' | openssl x509 -noout -subject -issuer -dates
kubectl -n openshell logs statefulset/openshell -c openshell-gateway --tail=200An HTTP service DNS address fails configuration validation. UnknownIssuer or
an invalid CA error means the ConfigMap is missing, the ca.crt key is wrong,
or the bundle does not contain the Vault server's issuer. A hostname mismatch
means the HTTPS address host is absent from the server certificate SANs; keep
verification enabled and issue a certificate for the service DNS name.
For configured gateway interceptors, inspect [[openshell.gateway.interceptors]], their Unix or network endpoints, and gateway startup logs:
rg -n 'interceptors|provider_profile_sources|grpc_endpoint|tls_ca_cert_path|audience|allow_insecure_transport|binding_policy|failure_policy|gateway_jwt' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml
stat /run/openshell/interceptors/<name>.sock
journalctl -u <interceptor-service> --no-pager --lines=200
journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200The gateway calls each interceptor's Describe RPC and validates its manifest at startup. Check for missing peer metadata, protocol-major mismatch, unmet required capabilities, unreachable endpoints, invalid RPC/phase bindings, strict allowlist or exact mismatches, and post_commit bindings that resolve to fail_closed. If gateway JWT signing is enabled, authenticated network interceptors require HTTPS and a valid bearer token; check the private CA path, endpoint hostname, expected audience, issuer, kid, and interceptor logs for token rejection. allow_insecure_transport = true explicitly preserves unauthenticated plaintext behavior. If provider_profile_sources names an interceptor, that interceptor must advertise provider-profile capability and return a valid, duplicate-free catalog. A selected interceptor-only source is authoritative; include a user source explicitly when composition is intended. The builtin source type was removed: a config that still names it is rejected at startup.
If the deployment uses supervisor middleware, follow the supervisor middleware troubleshooting reference for startup, authentication, policy validation, and HTTP or WebSocket failures.
For network policy validation failures, first distinguish a gateway mutation
rejection from a supervisor runtime rejection. Direct policy updates,
incremental merges and approvals, provider attachments, and provider-profile
fanout are validated against the complete effective policy before persistence
when the gateway knows the affected sandbox scope. A FAILED_PRECONDITION
ambiguity response means no invalid revision or partial fanout was stored.
Supervisor validation remains defense in depth for startup, races, and policy
sources outside those mutation paths.
Runtime rejection behavior is configured only in gateway.toml:
[openshell.gateway]
policy_validation_failure_mode = "fail_closed"The default fail_closed mode deactivates the previous generation, closes
pinned relays, and quarantines new egress until a valid generation loads.
retain_last_valid explicitly keeps the previous valid policy active; without
one it still fails closed. Restart the gateway after changing this field.
Inspect sandbox OCSF configuration and finding events for the validation
rationale, configured and effective modes, active generation, and the explicit
previous_policy_active state.
The published supervisor image uses a shell-free distroless Debian 13 base.
Use container logs, engine inspection and the configured exec health probe for
diagnostics; exec ... sh, package installation and in-container shell scripts
are unavailable. Workload shells belong to the separate sandbox image. Preserve
the driver-selected UID and writable runtime/log mounts when reproducing a
supervisor startup failure.
A ConfigurationInvalid readiness condition means startup admission rejected
the image/effective policy or provider configuration. The supervisor remains
alive while the workload stays unstarted. Inspect openshell sandbox get and
repair the desired configuration with a complete policy replacement or provider
change; do not treat a healthy container as proof that the workload is ready.
If the 300-second provisioning repair window expires, the gateway records
ProvisioningTimedOut and stops workload and supervisor compute. Inspect
provisioning in sandbox JSON and TUI NOTES to distinguish cleanup pending from
complete. Repairing configuration after expiry does not restart compute: wait
for cleanup, then explicitly use sandbox start. Repeated rejected reports do
not refresh the deadline, and the CLI wait timeout does not control it.
See policy validation and repair.
The isolated supervisor requests image-policy discovery through the authenticated
sandbox boundary before admission. The workload boundary can remain alive without
launching the workload while configuration is repaired. An unavailable boundary
fails discovery within its control-request deadline. Permanent
gateway errors and exhausted transient retries terminate startup; inspect those
errors as connectivity, authorization, or lifecycle failures.
Step 4: Check Docker-Backed Gateways
The sandbox container's log holds the sandbox runtime's warnings and the main process's stdout and stderr when it runs without a TTY. The supervisor container's log holds supervisor diagnostics.
docker info
docker ps --filter name=openshell
docker logs <container> --tail=200
docker run --rm --entrypoint /openshell-sandbox "${OPENSHELL_SANDBOX_RUNTIME_IMAGE:-ghcr.io/nvidia/openshell/sandbox:latest}" --version
openshell statusFor Docker GPU failures, check CDI support and NVIDIA CDI discovery separately:
docker info --format '{{json .CDISpecDirs}}'
docker info --format '{{json .DiscoveredDevices}}'
for dir in /etc/cdi /var/run/cdi; do
if [ -d "$dir" ]; then
find "$dir" -maxdepth 1 -type f \( -name '*.yaml' -o -name '*.json' \) -print
else
echo "$dir missing"
fi
done
systemctl is-enabled nvidia-cdi-refresh.service nvidia-cdi-refresh.path || true
systemctl is-active nvidia-cdi-refresh.service nvidia-cdi-refresh.path || true
systemctl status nvidia-cdi-refresh.service nvidia-cdi-refresh.path --no-pager --lines=50
journalctl -u nvidia-cdi-refresh.service --no-pager --lines=100When the NVIDIA Container Toolkit CDI refresh units are not enabled or no NVIDIA CDI spec has been generated, enable them and trigger a refresh:
sudo systemctl enable --now nvidia-cdi-refresh.path
sudo systemctl enable --now nvidia-cdi-refresh.service
sudo systemctl restart nvidia-cdi-refresh.service
docker info --format '{{json .DiscoveredDevices}}'Common findings:
- Docker daemon unavailable: start Docker Desktop or Docker Engine.
- Gateway process stopped: inspect exit status and logs.
- Sandbox image missing or pull denied: verify image reference and registry credentials.
- Sandbox fails before readiness with an identity-resolution error: inspect the image's OCI
USERand matching/etc/passwdand/etc/groupentries, or explicitly set both process identity fields in policy. Numeric workload identities1through4294967294are accepted; root, the invalid identity sentinel, and missing identities are rejected. - Sandbox fails before readiness with an OCI workspace validation error: inspect the image's
WorkingDirusing the immutable image ID reported by the gateway. Empty,/, and explicit/sandboxuse the managed/sandboxcompatibility workspace. Any other workdir must be an absolute normalized directory with no symlink components; the final policy UID, primary GID, and supplementary groups must pass the kernel's effective traverse/write checks, including POSIX ACL and LSM decisions. OpenShell does not create, chown, or chmod a non-default image workdir. - Docker also rejects an image
VOLUMEthat covers the workdir or one of its parents because the runtime would mask the immutable path before validation. Move theVOLUMEbelow the workspace or remove the declaration. - A workdir rejected as a special filesystem or OpenShell control-path collision cannot be made valid with permissions. Move the image workdir away from kernel-backed mounts and the concrete supervisor, TLS, token, runtime, and socket paths named in the error.
- Local Docker gateway setup cannot copy
openshell-sandboxafter exporting a supervisor image: the sandbox runtime and supervisor are separate artifacts. The runtime image must provide/openshell-sandbox; the supervisor image provides/openshell-supervisor. - Docker driver cannot initialize because it cannot find
openshell-sandbox: verify the sibling binary next toopenshell-gateway, or that the configuredsandbox_runtime_imagecontains/openshell-sandbox. - Sandbox never registers: check gateway logs and the supervisor's gateway endpoint.
- Calls to an external tool server fail while the sandbox is Ready: inspect
Tool server connectionsinopenshell sandbox get <name>. For configured MCP-over-HTTP endpoints, JSON output exposes each address together withlast_resultandlast_reported_atinendpoint_statuses. Select the endpoint by host, path, and ports, then check the reported failure boundary.last_reported_atrecords gateway acceptance time and can advance when retained evidence is accepted after a reset. Results do not expire or prove current availability;HttpResponseReceivedcan still contain a tool error. If several paths share a host and port, a failure before the path is known remains in logs. Verify the actual operation when current tool availability matters. - On Docker Desktop, repeated
Policy fetch failed after 5 attemptsmessages can mean host networking is disabled. Enable host networking in Docker Desktop, ensure Enhanced Container Isolation is disabled, and verify the gateway's primary endpoint is reachable from a host-networked container. - Sandbox runtime image exits before printing
openshell-sandbox --version: verify the configured image contains a static executable at/openshell-sandbox. - A sandbox with explicit
protocol: tcpendpoints fails before workload readiness: confirm the selected isolation backend advertises TCP mediation, then inspect the sandbox and supervisor logs for protected-channel setup or listener failures. A driver that cannot supply the required outer egress fence and authenticated runtime channel must reject the policy before starting the agent. - Supervisor runtime validation fails: verify
supervisor_imagecontains an/openshell-supervisorexecutable from the same release as the sandbox runtime, and that the dynamic loader and shared libraries it links against are available inside that image.docker run --rm --network none --entrypoint /openshell-supervisor <supervisor_image> --versionshould print that release; ano such file or directoryerror for a binary that exists means the loader or a library is missing. The supervisor runs from its own image and does not need to be static; only/openshell-sandboxmust be. - The sandbox fails its enforcement probe: inspect the sandbox log for the exact nested seccomp user-notification, task-memory, Landlock, loopback DNS, or socket-injection check that failed. A runtime may return
ENOSYSforprocess_vm_readvandprocess_vm_writevwhile satisfying the production parent-to-workload-child task-memory probe through/proc/<pid>/mem; only failure of both backends is fatal. Do not add capabilities or switch to an unconfined seccomp profile; use a runtime whose default profile permits the unprivileged probe. - A GPU sandbox fails because Docker reports no discovered NVIDIA CDI devices: verify
.DiscoveredDevicescontains entries such asnvidia.com/gpu=all, verify/etc/cdior/var/run/cdicontains a generated NVIDIA spec, and check thatnvidia-cdi-refresh.serviceandnvidia-cdi-refresh.pathfrom NVIDIA Container Toolkit are enabled and healthy. The service is a one-shot unit, soinactive (dead)can be normal after a successful run; usesystemctl statusandjournalctlto distinguish success from a skipped or failed refresh. Restartnvidia-cdi-refresh.serviceto regenerate missing or stale CDI specs, then restart or reload Docker and re-checkdocker info.
Corporate upstream proxy
Docker corporate proxy settings are operator-owned fields under
[openshell.drivers.docker]. Confirm the complete proxy table and inspect the
companion supervisor command and logs:
grep -A20 '^\[openshell.drivers.docker\]' <gateway.toml> | grep -E 'https_proxy|no_proxy|proxy_auth_file|proxy_auth_allow_insecure|proxy_connect_by_hostname|proxy_ca_bundle'
docker ps --filter label=openshell.ai/isolation-role=supervisor
docker inspect --format '{{json .Config.Cmd}} {{json .Mounts}}' <supervisor-container>
docker logs <supervisor-container> --tail=200 | grep -Ei 'upstream|connect|proxy|certificate'proxy_ca_bundle names a gateway-host PEM file and requires https_proxy.
The proxy URL may use http:// or https://; a plain HTTP proxy may still
re-sign destination TLS. Missing, unreadable, empty, oversized, malformed, or
certificate-free bundles fail closed. The Docker driver copies a validated
bundle into its supervisor-only named volume and passes the fixed path
/.openshell/supervisor/upstream-proxy-ca-bundle.pem. The gateway-host path
must not appear in container arguments, mounts, workload environment, or
template.driver_config.docker.
An HTTPS proxy certificate error usually means the bundle lacks the proxy listener issuer or its certificate does not match the proxy hostname. A TLS-intercepted destination error means the re-signing issuer is missing or the supervisor did not receive the bundle. Keep verification enabled and correct the operator bundle.
During a graceful gateway restart, Docker, Podman, and VM sandboxes with
running intent should stop before the gateway exits and restart after it
returns. Check for Stopped sandbox during gateway shutdown and Started sandbox during gateway startup in gateway logs. A sandbox explicitly stopped
through the CLI remains stopped. Kubernetes sandboxes are cluster-owned and do
not follow this local gateway lifecycle. Internal and external drivers follow
the same rule: GetCapabilities.gateway_manages_lifecycle must be true for the
gateway to run shutdown and startup sweeps.
The gateway also drains supervisor-session ownership cleanup before exiting.
If shutdown reports Gateway supervisor session cleanup incomplete, inspect
the associated persistence errors: a stopped supervisor's owner record may
remain until its lease expires and temporarily block reconnection. Successful
compute stop alone does not confirm that session cleanup finished.
For a sandbox with --restart-policy on-failure or always, inspect
openshell sandbox get <name> for the policy, exit code, restart count, and
next restart time. Starting can mean the gateway is waiting for backoff or
for a replacement supervisor. Check gateway logs for stop or start errors if
the deadline passes without a transition to Ready. Docker, Podman,
Kubernetes, and VM native restart policies remain disabled; the gateway owns
the replacement.
Step 5: Check Podman-Backed Gateways
podman info
podman ps --filter name=openshell
podman logs <container> --tail=200
openshell statusCommon findings:
- Podman socket unavailable: start or expose the user socket.
- Rootless networking unavailable: inspect Podman network configuration.
- Sandbox image missing or pull denied: verify image reference and registry credentials.
- Sandbox fails before readiness with an identity-resolution error: inspect the image's OCI
USERand matching/etc/passwdand/etc/groupentries, or explicitly set both process identity fields in policy. Numeric workload identities1through4294967294are accepted; root, the invalid identity sentinel, and missing identities are rejected. - Supervisor cannot connect: check its gateway endpoint and gateway logs.
- Inspect both Podman containers for the sandbox: the
sandboxisolation role must have network modenone; thesupervisorrole owns the gateway session and egress. Both run non-root with all capabilities dropped. Check the private channel volume and shared user-namespace mapping if authentication fails. - If a sandbox fails before readiness, inspect its unprivileged enforcement probe and the companion supervisor's private health check. Do not add capabilities, attach a workload network, or disable the runtime seccomp profile. There is no sandbox nftables or nested-network setup to repair.
- On Linux, verify that the host-networked Podman supervisor can reach the
gateway's primary loopback endpoint. On macOS, verify Podman Machine's
host-loopback forwarding or configure an explicit
grpc_endpoint. - If
host.openshell.internaldoes not resolve inside a workload, verify its/etc/resolv.confcontainsnameserver 127.0.0.53. The Podman driver mounts that file from a per-sandbox secret and supplies the alias destination to the supervisor. Checkhost_gateway_iponly when the platform default (127.0.0.1on native Linux or192.168.127.254on macOS Podman Machine) does not reach the gateway host.
When userns is configured (e.g. userns = "auto" or userns = "keep-id"):
- Sandbox runtime delivery uses bind-mount fallback instead of image volumes because
overlay mounts do not support
idmappedmounts. The supervisor binary is extracted from the sandbox runtime image and cached at$XDG_DATA_HOME/openshell/podman-supervisor/(typically~/.local/share/openshell/podman-supervisor/). - Stale cache: if the sandbox runtime image is updated but the cached binary is not refreshed, sandbox creation may fail with an ELF validation error or version mismatch. Remove the cache directory and retry.
automode requires subuid/subgid ranges for the current user in/etc/subuidand/etc/subgid. If missing, Podman returns a user-namespace mapping error at container creation.privatemode requires explicituidmapandgidmaparrays in the TOML config. Without both, the gateway rejects the config at startup. Rootless Podman uses intermediate IDs (e.g.uidmap = ["0:0:1", "1:1:65535"]); rootful Podman uses absolute host IDs (e.g.uidmap = ["0:1000:1", "1:100000:65536"]).nomap(without hyphen) is accepted as input but canonicalized tono-mapfor Podman's API.- A workload remains in
stoppinguntil Podman resorts toSIGKILL: inspect supervisor logs forfailed to signal entrypoint process group. The supervisor must retainCAP_KILLso its root process can forwardSIGTERMto a workload that runs as the sandbox user.
Step 6: Check Kubernetes Helm Gateways
helm -n openshell status openshell
helm -n openshell get values openshell
kubectl -n openshell get deployment,statefulset,pod,svc,pvc
GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT="$(kubectl -n openshell get deployment openshell >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo deployment/openshell || echo statefulset/openshell)"
kubectl -n openshell logs "${GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT}" -c openshell-gateway --tail=200
kubectl -n openshell rollout status "${GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT}"Use the log and rollout commands for the gateway resource kind that exists in the release. Look for failed installs, unexpected values, missing namespace, wrong image tag, TLS settings that do not match the registered endpoint, and scheduling failures.
The chart mounts the gateway.toml ConfigMap key directly at
/etc/openshell/gateway.toml as a read-only subPath file. This avoids the
atomic-writer symlink exposed by a ConfigMap directory mount because the gateway
rejects symlinked configuration. A checksum pod-template annotation rolls the
workload when the ConfigMap changes. If config preflight reports a symlink or
nonregular path, inspect the rendered mount and confirm the workload rolled to
the current chart revision:
kubectl -n openshell get deployment,statefulset -o yaml | rg -n 'gateway-config|mountPath|subPath|checksum/gateway-config'
kubectl -n openshell rollout status <deployment-or-statefulset>/openshell
kubectl -n openshell logs <gateway-pod> -c openshell-gateway --tail=200server.telemetryEnabled renders OPENSHELL_TELEMETRY_ENABLED on the gateway
pod, and the gateway propagates the effective value to sandbox supervisors.
When no external credential driver is enabled, the Helm chart uses the
gateway's default encrypted database credential storage. The chart creates a
retained Kubernetes Secret for the shared KEK, injects it into gateway pods, and
stores encrypted credential envelopes in the OpenShell database. For
workload.kind=deployment or multi-replica gateways, confirm
server.externalDbSecret points at a shared database. A render/install error
mentioning server.credentialDrivers means the values selected multiple
external credential backends.
For HA or PostgreSQL-backed installs, also check the external database Secret
referenced by server.externalDbSecret and the PostgreSQL workload when it is
deployed in-cluster:
kubectl -n <namespace> get secret <external-db-secret> -o yaml
kubectl -n <namespace> get deployment,service,pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=<postgres-workload>
kubectl -n <namespace> logs deployment/<postgres-workload> --tail=200Multi-replica gateways serialize cross-object sandbox and provider mutations with a PostgreSQL advisory lock. If those RPCs stall while ordinary reads and health checks remain responsive, inspect long-running database sessions and advisory-lock waiters. Do not print the database URI or Secret contents into logs:
SELECT pid, granted, waitstart
FROM pg_locks
WHERE locktype = 'advisory';For multi-replica gateway installs, supervisor and client session traffic may
be served by a non-owner gateway replica and relayed to the current supervisor
owner over the internal PeerRelay RPC. Check the headless peer Service,
projected peer ServiceAccount token volume, and TokenReview RBAC:
kubectl -n openshell get svc openshell-peer -o wide
kubectl -n openshell get endpoints openshell-peer
kubectl -n openshell get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=openshell \
-o jsonpath='{range .items[*]}{.metadata.name}{"\n"}{.spec.volumes[?(@.name=="gateway-peer-token")]}{"\n"}{.spec.volumes[?(@.name=="peer-client-tls")]}{"\n"}{.spec.containers[0].env[?(@.name=="OPENSHELL_PEER_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE")]}{"\n"}{.spec.containers[0].env[?(@.name=="OPENSHELL_PEER_ENDPOINT")]}{"\n"}{.spec.containers[0].env[?(@.name=="OPENSHELL_PEER_TLS_SERVER_NAME")]}{"\n"}{end}'
kubectl auth can-i create tokenreviews.authentication.k8s.io \
--as=system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshell
kubectl auth can-i get pods -n openshell \
--as=system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshell
kubectl -n openshell logs "${GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT}" --tail=200 | grep -E 'gateway peer|PeerRelay|supervisor owner|owner relay'Expected gateway startup logs include
gateway peer ServiceAccount TokenReview authentication enabled. If peer relay
calls fail with Unauthenticated, verify the gateway-peer-token projected
volume has audience openshell-gateway-peer and that the receiving gateway can
create TokenReviews. If they fail with PermissionDenied, verify the gateway
ServiceAccount name, release namespace, pod UID, and Helm selector labels match
the live gateway pods. Deployment-backed gateway pods should also publish
OPENSHELL_PEER_ENDPOINT from their pod IP. The
OPENSHELL_PEER_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN_FILE name follows the existing
token-file convention used by OPENSHELL_SANDBOX_TOKEN_FILE and
OPENSHELL_K8S_SA_TOKEN_FILE.
For TLS-enabled gateways, peer clients verify the stable gateway Service DNS
name and load the chart CA plus client identity from
OPENSHELL_PEER_TLS_CA_FILE, OPENSHELL_PEER_TLS_CERT_FILE, and
OPENSHELL_PEER_TLS_KEY_FILE. If peer calls fail during TLS negotiation, verify
the peer-client-tls volume exists, those files are readable, and the server
certificate includes the name in OPENSHELL_PEER_TLS_SERVER_NAME.
Check required Helm deployment secrets:
kubectl -n openshell get secret \
openshell-server-tls \
openshell-server-client-ca \
openshell-client-tls \
openshell-jwt-keysWhen server.tls.clientCaSecretName="", the chart intentionally omits
client_ca_path and the tls-client-ca mount, even with built-in PKI or
cert-manager. That is expected; do not treat a missing tls-client-ca pod
mount as a defect (openshell-server-client-ca may still exist from PKI).
User auth is OIDC or trusted proxy (server.auth.allowUnauthenticatedUsers=true);
supervisor transport still uses openshell-client-tls.
In cert-manager installs, certManager.enabled=true makes cert-manager own TLS
generation. The Helm chart should still render the openshell-certgen
pre-install/pre-upgrade hook in JWT-only mode to create openshell-jwt-keys,
even if pkiInitJob.enabled remains true.
If the gateway pod is pending with MountVolume.SetUp failed for volume "sandbox-jwt" and openshell-jwt-keys is absent, inspect the rendered
templates/certgen.yaml output and the hook Job logs; cert-manager creates TLS
Secrets but does not create the sandbox JWT signing Secret.
If the gateway exits with failed to read sandbox JWT signing key from /etc/openshell-jwt/signing.pem, verify that openshell-jwt-keys contains
signing.pem, public.pem, and kid, and that the gateway workload mounts the
sandbox-jwt secret at /etc/openshell-jwt. The sandbox JWT mount is required
even when local Helm values disable TLS.
If certManager.serverIssuerRef points the server certificate at an external
Issuer or ClusterIssuer (for example an ACME issuer, for a publicly-trusted
cert on an OpenShift Route with TLS passthrough — see
openshiftRoute.enabled), the chart creates two server certificates: an
internal one (chart CA, internal SANs) and an external one (from the configured
issuer, external SANs only). The gateway uses SNI to present the right cert.
Check the external Certificate/CertificateRequest/Challenge resources
directly when the external secret never becomes Ready:
kubectl -n openshell get certificate,certificaterequest,challenge
kubectl -n openshell describe certificate openshell-server-external
oc -n openshell get routeACME issuers reject certificate requests that include internal-only names
(*.svc.cluster.local, localhost, loopback IPs) and require the
commonName to also be a SAN — the external Certificate only requests the
hostnames in certManager.serverDnsNames, for exactly this reason.
If sandbox supervisors fail their TLS handshake to the gateway with
UnknownCA after configuring serverIssuerRef, the most likely cause is
server.grpcEndpoint set to the external hostname. This forces supervisors
to connect via the external hostname, receiving the ACME cert (via SNI) which
they cannot verify against the chart CA. Remove server.grpcEndpoint or set
it to the internal service name so supervisors receive the internal cert:
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'grpcEndpoint|clientCaFromServerTlsSecret|clientCaSecretName|serverIssuerRef|caSecretName'
# server.grpcEndpoint should be unset or point to internal service nameLess commonly, UnknownCA can occur if the gateway's client-verification CA
is misconfigured. The default clientCaFromServerTlsSecret=true is correct
for all configurations — the internal server certificate is always signed by
the chart CA (the same CA that signs the client cert), so its ca.crt is
the right trust anchor. Supervisor Pods project only ca.crt from the copied
Secret; tls.crt and tls.key are reserved for user clients and must not be
visible in a sandbox. Only override this if you intentionally mount a
separate client CA via server.tls.clientCaSecretName. Verify the mounted
client CA matches the CA that signed the client certificate:
kubectl -n openshell get statefulset openshell -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.volumes[?(@.name=="tls-client-ca")]}' | jq .
# Should show items filter for ca.crt from openshell-server-tlsIf server.providerTokenGrants.spiffe.enabled=true, the gateway should still
render [openshell.gateway.gateway_jwt] and mount the sandbox-jwt Secret.
SPIRE is used by both the gateway and sandbox supervisors for dynamic provider
token grants. The gateway pod must mount the spiffe-workload-api CSI volume
and set OPENSHELL_GATEWAY_SPIFFE_WORKLOAD_API_SOCKET; supervisor Pods must
receive the matching Workload API socket from the Kubernetes driver config.
The gateway verifies supervisor JWT-SVIDs from JWT bundles fetched through this
Workload API socket, not from the SPIRE OIDC discovery endpoint.
Verify that SPIRE is installed, the CSI driver is available, and the Kubernetes
driver config includes provider_spiffe_workload_api_socket_path:
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'providerTokenGrants|workloadApiSocketPath'
kubectl get pods -A | grep -E 'spire|spiffe'
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o yaml | grep provider_spiffe_workload_api_socket_path
kubectl -n openshell get pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=helm-chart -o jsonpath="{.items[*].spec.containers[*].env[?(@.name==\"OPENSHELL_GATEWAY_SPIFFE_WORKLOAD_API_SOCKET\")].value}{\"\n\"}"Sandbox pods using provider token grants should have an
openshell.ai/sandbox-id annotation, an openshell.ai/managed-by=openshell
label, supervisor env vars OPENSHELL_K8S_SA_TOKEN_FILE and
OPENSHELL_PROVIDER_SPIFFE_WORKLOAD_API_SOCKET, plus both the projected
openshell-sa-token volume and the spiffe-workload-api CSI volume.
If grpcRoute.backendTLSPolicy.enabled=true, the Gateway proxy validates the
backend pod's TLS certificate against a CA in a ConfigMap. Check that the
ConfigMap exists and contains the correct CA, that enableMtls is disabled,
and that the BackendTLSPolicy resource is present:
kubectl -n openshell get backendtlspolicy
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-backend-ca -o yaml
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'backendTLSPolicy|enableMtls|failOnTimeout|timeoutSeconds|caCertificateConfigMapName'If the ConfigMap is missing after a cert-manager install, the post-install certgen hook may have timed out waiting for cert-manager to issue the server certificate. Check the certgen Job logs:
kubectl -n openshell get jobs | grep certgen
kubectl -n openshell logs job/openshell-certgen-backend-caIncrease pkiInitJob.timeoutSeconds and run helm upgrade to retry. If the
Gateway proxy reports TLS error: Secret is not supplied by SDS or similar
backend TLS errors, the ConfigMap CA likely does not match the server
certificate CA — verify both are from the same issuer.
Check the image references currently used by the gateway deployment:
GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT="$(kubectl -n openshell get deployment openshell >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo deployment/openshell || echo statefulset/openshell)"
kubectl -n openshell get "${GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT}" -o jsonpath="{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].image}{\"\n\"}{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].env[?(@.name==\"OPENSHELL_SUPERVISOR_IMAGE\")].value}{\"\n\"}"
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'repository|tag|supervisorImage|workload'The gateway, sandbox, and supervisor images should use the same release tag. A stale runtime image can make sandbox behavior lag behind gateway policy or protocol changes.
For vulnerability reports, record the running image digest and scan that exact
artifact. The gateway includes a pinned Distroless base; the supervisor includes
Alpine packages updated at image build time. A dependency or base-image fix only
reaches deployed containers after rebuilding, publishing, and redeploying the
images. Compare findings against the SBOM for that digest, not just its mutable
latest or dev tag.
For gateway base refreshes, verify the installed libc package revision in each
platform's SBOM; the binary's glibc compatibility floor is not its runtime version.
For plaintext local evaluation, confirm the chart has:
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'disableTls|grpcEndpoint'Expected shape:
server:
disableTls: true
grpcEndpoint: http://openshell.openshell.svc.cluster.local:8080Check service exposure:
kubectl -n openshell get svc openshell -o wide
kubectl -n openshell get endpoints openshellFor local port-forward testing:
kubectl -n openshell port-forward service/openshell 8080:8080Leave the port forward running. In another terminal, register the local endpoint if needed and verify it:
openshell gateway add http://127.0.0.1:8080 --local --name local-kubernetes
openshell statusIf the gateway is healthy but sandbox creation fails:
kubectl -n openshell get pods
kubectl -n openshell get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp | tail -n 50
GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT="$(kubectl -n openshell get deployment openshell >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo deployment/openshell || echo statefulset/openshell)"
kubectl -n openshell logs "${GATEWAY_DEPLOYMENT}" -c openshell-gateway --tail=200Check the configured sandbox namespace:
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep sandboxNamespaceThen inspect sandbox resources in that namespace.
For a split release, the gateway values should have
workspaceResources.enabled=false, and the target namespace should contain a
separate openshell-workspace release:
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A2 workspaceResources
helm -n <sandbox-namespace> status openshell-workspace
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get serviceaccount,role,rolebinding,networkpolicy \
-l app.kubernetes.io/instance=openshell-workspace
kubectl auth can-i create sandboxes.agents.x-k8s.io \
--namespace <sandbox-namespace> \
--as system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshellIf the gateway cannot create or watch sandboxes, verify the workspace
RoleBinding subject matches the gateway ServiceAccount name and namespace.
If SSH relay connections fail, verify the workspace NetworkPolicy selects the
gateway's actual app.kubernetes.io/name and
app.kubernetes.io/instance labels.
Check the configured sandbox service account when TokenReview bootstrap or
sandbox registration fails. Helm creates a dedicated sandbox service account by
default and writes it to [openshell.drivers.kubernetes].service_account_name;
the selected Kubernetes compute driver rejects projected tokens from other
service accounts. For an external driver, inspect its logs and confirm it
advertises supports_sandbox_authentication; the gateway delegates the opaque
credential over the driver socket and never interprets Kubernetes settings.
Drivers that advertise sandbox authentication must return the same non-empty
runtime identity from sandbox creation and credential authentication. A
gateway log reporting a compute runtime identity mismatch indicates stale or
re-created runtime resources; compare the live resource UID with the sandbox
that the gateway provisioned. Restart also rejects multiple Sandbox resources
with the same sandbox label and requires the persisted namespace and CR UID to
remain unchanged. A generation-bound session-token rejection usually means the
supervisor is presenting credentials from a runtime that was replaced; inspect
the persisted generation before retrying bootstrap.
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A3 sandboxServiceAccount
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get serviceaccount openshell-sandbox
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get sandbox <sandbox-name> -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.serviceAccountName}{"\n"}'The Kubernetes driver creates a sandbox workload Pod and a separate, directly managed supervisor Pod. The cluster CNI must enforce ingress and egress Kubernetes NetworkPolicy in every sandbox namespace; the Kubernetes API cannot attest enforcement. Run sandboxes only in a trusted namespace where tenants cannot create Pods, copy OpenShell role labels, or read the bootstrap Secret.
The workload Pod runs /openshell-sandbox. It has no gateway credentials and
no direct egress. One namespace-wide workload NetworkPolicy is created before
the suspended Sandbox resource. It denies all workload egress and allows
supervisor Pods to reach sandbox TLS listeners. The driver then creates a
per-sandbox Service, split immutable bootstrap Secrets, and a gated supervisor
Pod before releasing either Pod. The supervisor Pod runs
/openshell-supervisor. Both Pods use the
same resolved non-root identity, request no capabilities, drop ALL, disable
privilege escalation, and use RuntimeDefault seccomp. The supervisor reaches
the sandbox over per-sandbox TLS with server-certificate verification plus
bootstrap-token client authentication, and owns gateway policy, provider
credentials, DNS, and mediated upstream connections.
Inspect all driver-managed resources when a Kubernetes sandbox remains Starting or loses readiness:
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get sandbox,pod,service,secret -l openshell.ai/sandbox-id=<sandbox-id>
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get networkpolicy openshell-sandbox-workloads -o yaml
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> describe pod -l openshell.ai/sandbox-id=<sandbox-id>,openshell.ai/boundary-role=supervisor
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> logs pod/<supervisor-pod> --tail=200
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod -l openshell.ai/sandbox-id=<sandbox-id>,openshell.ai/boundary-role=workload -o yaml
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get networkpolicy -l openshell.ai/sandbox-id=<sandbox-id> -o yamlCreation and recovery fail closed. A missing Secret leaves both pods inert; a
missing or unobserved workload fence must prevent the driver from releasing the
Sandbox; and readiness requires both Agent Sandbox readiness and an Available
supervisor Pod. Its exec readiness check succeeds only after the
supervisor has attached, confirmed enforcement, started or resumed the
workload, and registered the gateway access plane. Use both Pod logs for
bootstrap errors. An EPERM during enforcement setup means the runtime blocked
a required unprivileged seccomp, task-memory, or Landlock operation. Do not add
capabilities, gateway egress, or credentials to the workload Pod as a
workaround.
If a Sandbox remains in the releasing bootstrap phase, inspect the supervisor
Pod first. The gateway keeps the workload running during this phase so the
supervisor can release that sandbox's runtime-control relationship cleanly.
Check the Pod's deletion timestamp, termination grace period, events, and
finalizers, and verify that the gateway ServiceAccount can delete Pods in the
sandbox namespace:
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod \
-l openshell.ai/sandbox-id=<sandbox-id>,openshell.ai/boundary-role=supervisor \
-o yaml
kubectl auth can-i delete pods \
--namespace <sandbox-namespace> \
--as system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshellDo not suspend or delete the workload Pod manually. The driver advances to
suspending only after runtime control has been released, and then suspends the
workload.
If a Sandbox remains in the suspending bootstrap phase, verify that the
gateway ServiceAccount can create and delete Secrets in the sandbox
namespace. In operator mode, those permissions come only from the
openshell-workspace chart installed in the namespace. Recovery deletes the
recorded generation's bootstrap Secrets by name before clearing the suspension
annotations:
for verb in create delete; do
kubectl auth can-i "$verb" secrets \
--namespace <sandbox-namespace> \
--as system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshell
doneAny no result can strand recovery before workload Pod creation. Upgrade the
OpenShell chart rather than treating missing workload Pods as Pod failures.
Corporate upstream proxy
When the deployment routes sandbox egress through a corporate HTTP forward
proxy, the operator-owned settings render under [openshell.drivers.kubernetes]
from the Helm upstreamProxy values. Absent proxy configuration preserves
direct-dial egress; any present-but-invalid value fails closed at gateway
startup (validate_upstream_proxy_config) rather than silently reverting to a
direct connection. Confirm the rendered configuration first:
kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' | grep -E 'https_proxy|no_proxy|proxy_auth_secret_(name|key)|proxy_auth_allow_insecure|proxy_connect_by_hostname|proxy_ca_bundle'
helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A12 upstreamProxyBoth http://host:port and https://host:port forward proxies are supported;
plain-HTTP egress is out of scope and always dials directly. The credential
Secret named by proxy_auth_secret_name must exist in the sandbox namespace
with the key named by proxy_auth_secret_key, and Kubernetes will not create
keys longer than 253 bytes or named ./...
An https:// proxy with a private CA, or a TLS-intercepting proxy, also needs
upstreamProxy.caBundle.configMapName. That ConfigMap lives in the gateway's
release namespace, not the sandbox namespace, and the gateway reads it and
stages the bundle into each sandbox's supervisor bootstrap Secret. A missing
ConfigMap leaves the gateway Pod in ContainerCreating, like oidc-ca and
vault-ca:
kubectl -n openshell get configmap <proxy-ca-configmap> -o jsonpath='{.data}' >/dev/null && echo "CA ConfigMap present"
kubectl -n openshell describe pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=openshell | grep -A5 'ContainerCreating\|MountVolume'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get secret <supervisor-bootstrap-secret> -o jsonpath='{.data.upstream-proxy-ca\.pem}' | head -c 20An empty last command with proxy_ca_bundle set in the rendered TOML means the
bundle never reached the sandbox; check the gateway logs for a proxy_ca_bundle
error, which fails closed at startup rather than falling back to direct egress.
The proxy arguments and credential mount belong only to the separate supervisor
Pod. The workload Pod must never receive them. The credential is projected
read-only as openshell-upstream-proxy-auth at
/run/openshell/upstream-proxy-auth and passed by file path; it must never
appear in environment variables, annotations, or command arguments.
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get secret <proxy-auth-secret> -o jsonpath='{.data}' >/dev/null && echo "secret present"
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod <supervisor-pod> -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[0].command}' | grep -- '--upstream-'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod <supervisor-pod> -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[0].command}' | grep -- '--upstream-proxy-ca-bundle'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod <supervisor-pod> -o jsonpath='{.spec.containers[0].volumeMounts}' | grep upstream-proxy-auth
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp | grep -Ei 'secret|MountVolume' | tail -n 20A missing Secret or wrong key leaves the pod stuck with a
MountVolume.SetUp failed / secret ... not found event. If the pod starts but
egress still fails, the corporate proxy itself is the next suspect: policy-
approved TLS CONNECT requests that time out after policy evaluation usually mean
the proxy URL is unreachable from the sandbox namespace, or a cluster-internal
destination that should be direct is missing from no_proxy. Inspect the
network supervisor logs for CONNECT and upstream-proxy decisions:
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> logs pod/<supervisor-pod> --tail=200 | grep -Ei 'upstream|connect|proxy'Step 7: Check VM-Backed Gateways
Use the VM driver logs and host diagnostics available in the user's environment. Verify:
- The VM driver process is running and reachable by the gateway.
- The runtime rootfs exists and matches the expected architecture.
mke2fsormkfs.ext4anddebugfsfrom e2fsprogs are installed; explicitsandbox_uid/sandbox_giddoes not remove this prerequisite.- A persisted overlay identity error is resolved from its owner marker, overlay
upper layer, prepared rootfs, explicit config, or current image. Do not assign
10001:10001unless the persisted state reports that legacy identity. - Host virtualization support is enabled.
- The sandbox supervisor can establish its authenticated gateway session.
Then run:
openshell status
openshell logs <sandbox-name>Corporate upstream proxy
When VM sandbox egress routes through a corporate HTTP forward proxy, the
operator-owned settings live under [openshell.drivers.vm] and the gateway
forwards them to the openshell-driver-vm subprocess as --upstream-proxy,
--upstream-no-proxy, --upstream-proxy-auth-file,
--upstream-proxy-auth-allow-insecure,
--upstream-proxy-connect-by-hostname, and --upstream-proxy-ca-bundle. Both the gateway and
the driver validate them at startup, so any present-but-invalid value fails
closed with an error naming the key rather than reverting to a direct dial.
Confirm the configuration and the resulting driver argv first:
grep -A20 '^\[openshell.drivers.vm\]' <gateway.toml> | grep -E 'https_proxy|no_proxy|proxy_auth_file|proxy_auth_allow_insecure|proxy_connect_by_hostname|proxy_ca_bundle'
ps -o args= -p "$(pgrep -f openshell-driver-vm | head -n1)" | tr ' ' '\n' | grep -A1 -- '--upstream-proxy\|--upstream-no-proxy'Both libkrun and QEMU guests are NIC-less. Proxy settings, credentials, and
private CA material stay with the host openshell-supervisor. For a proxy on
the gateway host, use http://host.openshell.internal:<port>; the supervisor
normalizes that name to host loopback. Inspect supervisor.log and
supervisor.err.log under the sandbox state directory for connection or
credential failures.
Common Failure Patterns
| Symptom | Likely cause | Check |
|---|---|---|
openshell status fails |
Gateway endpoint unreachable or auth mismatch | openshell gateway info, gateway logs |
| Gateway OCSF JSONL stops growing, has gaps, or is rejected by a SIEM | File errors, queue pressure, shipper falling behind retention, or a schema mismatch | Inspect gateway warnings and openshell_ocsf_log_* metrics; check [openshell.gateway.ocsf_log], schema_version, directory permissions, free space, per-replica paths, and shipper rotation checkpoints. See the published gateway configuration reference. |
BatchSpanProcessor.ExportError repeatedly reports connection refused on 127.0.0.1:4317 |
The local gateway started with OTLP configured but the collector forwarding task later stopped, or the config was created manually | Restart gateway:docker, gateway:podman, or gateway:vm so it re-detects the listener; inspect the generated gateway.toml for [openshell.gateway.otlp] |
| Gateway starts but sandbox create fails | Compute driver cannot reach runtime | Docker/Podman/Kubernetes/VM driver logs |
| Docker or Podman sandbox never registers | Wrong gateway endpoint, unavailable host networking, or supervisor startup failure | Gateway logs and supervisor container logs |
CPU-only VM startup reports that read-only /proc cannot be removed |
Older supervisors can infer GPU requirements from host devices | Check gateway, VM driver, and bundled supervisor versions; use matching updated artifacts. CPU-only VMs do not require read-write /proc. |
| Docker GPU sandbox fails before startup | NVIDIA CDI specs are missing or Docker has not discovered them | docker info --format '{{json .DiscoveredDevices}}', /etc/cdi, /var/run/cdi, nvidia-cdi-refresh.service |
| Kubernetes gateway pod pending | PVC unbound, taint, selector, or insufficient resources | kubectl -n openshell describe pod <pod> |
| Kubernetes sandbox pod stuck pending, workspace PVC unbound | Cluster has no default StorageClass and OpenShell does not set storageClassName on the workspace PVC (clusters with a default StorageClass bind fine without it) |
kubectl -n openshell describe pvc; set server.workspaceStorageClass (gateway config workspace_storage_class) to a valid StorageClass |
| Kubernetes gateway pod crash loops | Missing secret, bad DB URL, bad TLS config | kubectl -n openshell logs deployment/openshell -c openshell-gateway or kubectl -n openshell logs statefulset/openshell -c openshell-gateway |
OpenShift gateway pod fails to start with an SCC/runAsUser error (e.g. unable to validate against any security context constraint) |
Chart's default podSecurityContext/securityContext hardcodes runAsUser/fsGroup, which the restricted-v2 SCC rejects; it must instead inject the namespace-assigned UID/GID range |
oc -n openshell describe pod <pod>; deploy with podSecurityContext: null and clear securityContext.runAsUser (see deploy/helm/openshell/ci/values-openshift-scc.yaml) |
OpenShift sandbox pod fails to start (unable to validate against any security context constraint) |
The openshell-sandbox service account lacks the privileged SCC it needs |
oc adm policy add-scc-to-user privileged -z openshell-sandbox -n openshell; remove with remove-scc-from-user when done |
OpenShift self-hosted Vault/OpenBao credential store pod never schedules (waits time out with no matching resources found) |
The store's Helm chart pins runAsUser/fsGroup/seccomp, which restricted-v2 rejects, so the StatefulSet controller never creates the pod |
Deploy the store's chart in its OpenShift mode (--set global.openshift=true for the OpenBao/Vault chart) so the namespace SCC assigns a compliant security context — no manual SCC grant needed |
Vault credential driver returns HTTP 403 / Vault Kubernetes auth denied the configured role on provider create |
Vault's auth/kubernetes method or the gateway login role is not provisioned, or the role is not bound to the gateway service account and namespace |
In Vault: bao auth enable kubernetes and bao write auth/kubernetes/config kubernetes_host=... kubernetes_ca_cert=@...; ensure the login role's bound_service_account_names/bound_service_account_namespaces match the gateway SA and namespace and its policy grants the credential paths |
| CLI TLS error | Local mTLS bundle does not match server cert/CA | Check ~/.config/openshell/gateways/<name>/mtls/ |
Edge or OIDC gateway returns Unauthenticated |
Stored login expired, audience/scopes mismatch, or gateway auth configuration changed | openshell gateway info, openshell gateway login <name>, gateway auth logs |
| Gateway exits during OIDC initialization | Issuer is not HTTPS, discovery redirected, metadata used a non-JSON media type or exceeded its size limit, or jwks_uri uses an untrusted origin |
Use an HTTPS issuer; mount a private CA with server.oidc.caConfigMapName; keep JWKS on the issuer origin or explicitly add its HTTPS origin to server.oidc.jwksAllowedOrigins. Numeric-loopback HTTP is development-only and also requires server.oidc.dangerouslyAllowInsecureHttp=true |
| Gateway fails before serving health after enabling an interceptor | Interceptor endpoint unavailable or manifest/binding validation failed | Gateway and interceptor logs; interceptor socket; binding_policy, phases, and failure policy |
| Authenticated interceptor or middleware rejects gateway calls | Private CA or hostname mismatch, expected audience or issuer mismatch, stale/unknown kid, or malformed extension token |
tls_ca_cert_path, registration audience, service verifier config and logs; fetch well-known metadata only through the already-trusted gateway TLS endpoint |
| Provider profiles disappear after enabling an interceptor catalog | provider_profile_sources selected only an authoritative interceptor or returned invalid/duplicate IDs |
Inspect source list and interceptor Describe/catalog logs; include user when composition with imported profiles is intended |
provider list-profiles is empty on a new gateway |
Profiles are import-only and nothing has been imported | Import with openshell provider profile import --from providers --global; an empty catalog is a valid ready state, not a failure |
| Sandbox create or provider attach fails naming a missing profile | The provider's profile was never imported, was deleted, or lives at another scope | Import it at the scope the provider uses; the error names the profile ID and the command |
| Gateway fails after registering supervisor middleware | Service unavailable, invalid manifest, duplicate binding, reserved name, or invalid payload/timeout limit | Middleware service and gateway logs; [[openshell.supervisor.middleware]]; Describe response |
Policy update rejects network_middlewares |
Unknown middleware name, implementation-owned config invalid, duplicate order, broad/invalid host selector, or fail-closed coverage of tls: skip |
Policy error, gateway logs, middleware ValidateConfig, selector and order fields |
| Gateway or extension rejects its peer before serving health | Missing peer metadata, incompatible protocol major, or unmet required_capabilities |
Gateway and extension startup logs; compare PeerMetadata; legacy-to-current migration requires a coordinated gateway and extension outage |
Policy mutation returns FAILED_PRECONDITION for endpoint ambiguity |
Equally specific effective endpoint selectors disagree on connection or request-processing metadata | CLI error, base and provider-composed policy, affected profile attachments; confirm no new revision was stored |
| Supervisor enters policy quarantine | A runtime candidate failed validation while policy_validation_failure_mode = "fail_closed" |
Sandbox OCSF config/finding events, validation rationale, active generation, previous_policy_active |
| Custom compute driver is unavailable | Driver process/socket missing, inaccessible, or selected name does not match its endpoint/config key | Socket ownership/mode, driver service logs, gateway GetCapabilities logs |
Sandbox remains Stopping or Starting |
Driver stop/start failed, retained resource is missing, or a fresh supervisor has not connected | Gateway and driver logs; docker inspect, podman inspect, Agent Sandbox status/PVC, or VM state marker and launcher process |
| Image pull failure | Gateway or sandbox image cannot be pulled | Runtime events and image pull credentials |
Gateway API resources fail with the server could not find the requested resource |
Optional Gateway API resources were applied without Envoy Gateway CRDs | Install Envoy Gateway and enable grpcRoute before applying the optional ingress resources |
HTTPS ingress (grpcRoute.gateway.listener.protocol=HTTPS) connection resets or TLS handshake hangs |
Envoy terminates TLS but the gateway pod still expects TLS, so the plaintext backend hop fails | Set server.disableTls=true so Envoy forwards plaintext to the pod; verify the listener certificateRefs Secret exists in the release namespace and openshell status over https://<host> |
HTTPS ingress returns Unauthenticated after connecting |
TLS terminates at Envoy, so the gateway never sees a client cert; no OIDC issuer is configured for identity | Configure server.oidc.issuer and register with openshell gateway add https://<host> --oidc-issuer <url>, or set server.auth.allowUnauthenticatedUsers=true for a trusted-proxy/dev cluster |
External server Certificate never becomes Ready with certManager.serverIssuerRef set |
ACME issuer rejected internal-only SANs, a loopback IP, or a commonName absent from the SANs |
kubectl -n openshell describe certificate openshell-server-external; confirm certManager.serverDnsNames lists only real, externally-resolvable hostnames |
Sandbox supervisors fail TLS handshake with UnknownCA after configuring certManager.serverIssuerRef |
server.grpcEndpoint is set to the external hostname, forcing supervisors to receive the ACME cert (via SNI) which they can't verify against chart CA |
Remove server.grpcEndpoint or set it to the internal service name; supervisors should connect via internal service name to receive the internal cert |
Browser ERR_BAD_SSL_CLIENT_AUTH_CERT or gateway logs show client cert verification when OIDC or direct HTTPS is expected |
Listener client-CA verification still enabled (clientCaSecretName unset or client_ca_path in ConfigMap) |
Set server.tls.clientCaSecretName="", upgrade chart, confirm ConfigMap omits client_ca_path |
Reporting
When handing results back to the user, include:
- Active gateway endpoint and auth mode.
- Compute platform and driver.
- Gateway process or workload status.
- Recent gateway log summary.
- Missing or malformed TLS, OIDC/mTLS, or sandbox JWT material.
- Service exposure status.
- Sandbox workload status.
- The exact command that failed and the shortest fix.
Package Configuration Preflight
For a Debian, Ubuntu, or Snap gateway that stops before certificate generation or daemon startup, validate the selected configuration without starting the service:
openshell-gateway config preflight [--path PATH | -- GATEWAY_ARGS...]Without a path, preflight validates a nonempty OPENSHELL_GATEWAY_CONFIG or an
auto-discovered XDG config; no config succeeds. An explicit missing path, legacy
schema-v1 file, malformed TOML, symlink, or nonregular file fails before gateway
startup. It also applies read-only effective-config checks for driver selection
and configuration, sockets, rate limits, TLS, interceptors, and supervisor
middleware. If the file omits the selector, preflight validates configured tables
for auto-detectable drivers without running socket or process-based detection
probes. Arguments after -- validate the effective daemon invocation,
including its command-line overrides. Preflight preserves every failed file. Do
not advise users to delete or rewrite it automatically; back it up and follow the
manual schema-v2 migration in the Gateway Configuration reference.