# Debug Openshell Cluster > Debug why an OpenShell gateway deployment is unhealthy, unreachable, or unable to create sandboxes. Use for gateway health failures, Docker/Podman runtime issues, Helm failures, Kubernetes scheduling, TLS or auth, gateway interceptors, supervisor middleware startup or runtime failures, external compute-driver sockets, VM drivers, or sandbox startup. Trigger keywords - debug gateway, gateway failing, deployment failing, helm install failing, cluster health, gateway health, gateway not starting, health check failed, sandbox pending, docker driver, podman driver, kubernetes driver, external driver, compute driver socket, gateway interceptor, supervisor middleware, middleware failed, vm driver. - Skill: `nvidia/debug-openshell-cluster-2` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add nvidia/debug-openshell-cluster-2` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/nvidia/debug-openshell-cluster-2/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: DevOps & Infra - Author: NVIDIA (https://skillmd.com/u/nvidia) - Updated: 2026-09-22 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/nvidia/debug-openshell-cluster-2 --- # 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: 1. Operator starts or deploys the gateway with system packages, systemd, or Helm. The CLI does not start, stop, or destroy gateway services. 2. Operator configures the compute driver. 3. 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. 4. The CLI registers a reachable gateway endpoint with `openshell gateway add`. 5. 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. 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. A custom gateway binary may install a different set, so confirm the binary's registered drivers when auto-detection reports that no suitable driver is available. For local evaluation only, TLS may be disabled and the gateway can be reached through `http://127.0.0.1:`. ## Prerequisites - The `openshell` CLI 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: `kubectl` must 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](https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/about/installation.md), [compute-driver reference](https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/reference/sandbox-compute-drivers.md), [gateway configuration reference](https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/reference/gateway-config.md), and [Kubernetes setup guide](https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/kubernetes/setup.md) 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 ```bash openshell gateway list --output json openshell gateway info openshell status ``` For a one-off endpoint check that bypasses stored gateway selection and metadata: ```bash openshell --gateway-endpoint status ``` Common findings: - `No active gateway`: register one with `openshell gateway add `. - 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 local mTLS bundle does not match the gateway CA, or TLS termination does not match the gateway listener. - `Unauthenticated` from an edge or OIDC gateway: refresh stored credentials with `openshell gateway login [name]`, then retry. Use `gateway logout` only when intentionally clearing local credentials. - A direct development endpoint with a private or self-signed certificate can be isolated with `--gateway-endpoint --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 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: ```bash rg -n 'compute_drivers|socket_path' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml stat /run/openshell/.sock journalctl -u --no-pager --lines=200 journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200 ``` Custom names use `[openshell.drivers.].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, or an unexpected advertised driver name. 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 configured gateway interceptors, inspect `[[openshell.gateway.interceptors]]`, their Unix or network endpoints, and gateway startup logs: ```bash 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/.sock journalctl -u --no-pager --lines=200 journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200 ``` The gateway calls each interceptor's `Describe` RPC and validates its manifest at startup. Check for 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 `builtin` or `user` sources explicitly when composition is intended. For operator-run supervisor middleware, inspect `[[openshell.supervisor.middleware]]`, service reachability, and both gateway and supervisor logs: ```bash rg -n 'supervisor|middleware|grpc_endpoint|tls_ca_cert_path|audience|allow_insecure_transport|max_payload_bytes|timeout|gateway_jwt' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml journalctl -u --no-pager --lines=200 journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200 openshell logs --tail --source sandbox ``` The middleware service must start before the gateway and be reachable from both the gateway and sandbox supervisors. Gateway startup fails if `Describe` is unavailable, a manifest exposes duplicate operation/phase bindings, the registration claims the reserved `openshell/` namespace, or payload and timeout limits are invalid. Supported V1 bindings are `HTTP_REQUEST/PRE_CREDENTIALS` and `WEBSOCKET_MESSAGE/PRE_CREDENTIALS`. When gateway JWT signing is disabled, supervisors preserve the legacy unauthenticated connector and do not request extension credentials. When signing is enabled, credential acquisition and verification failures are fail closed: check HTTPS trust and hostname validation, audience and issuer agreement, the token `kid`, gateway `RefreshSandboxToken` errors, and middleware logs. Changing a registration requires a gateway restart. A policy update can also fail before persistence if the selected implementation rejects its `network_middlewares` config. At request time, distinguish attachment, binding selection, coverage, denial, and failure. A host-matched HTTP-only attachment can inspect the upgrade GET but does not join the WebSocket chain; the connection proceeds under either `on_error` mode and emits `binding_not_selected` coverage. A selected WebSocket stage receives text messages only. Binary messages pass under both modes, emit `unsupported_message_type` coverage, and consume a session sequence without an RPC. An explicit `middleware_denied` result is always enforced. WebSocket preflight returns `INSPECT`, voluntary `SKIP`, or authoritative `DENY`; `DENY` rejects the upgrade before upstream contact under both `on_error` modes. A selected-stage failure follows the policy-local `on_error`: `fail_closed` blocks the HTTP request or closes the WebSocket, while `fail_open` bypasses only that stage and emits a detection finding. A fail-open per-message capacity failure bypasses that message without disabling the stage. A timeout, transport failure, stream closure, missing or invalid response, duplicate or regressed sequence, or other failure that makes an established WebSocket stream unreliable disables that stage for later messages on the connection and emits `openshell.middleware.websocket_stage_disabled`. Confirm preflight, session-start, and session-end in service logs. OpenShell best-effort sends at most one session-end to each still-writable opened stage, including a preflight that terminates before session start; distinguish `MIDDLEWARE_DENIAL` from `MIDDLEWARE_FAILURE`. WebSocket message sequences are allocated session-wide; each stage receives a strictly increasing subset, so gaps are valid when binary messages or other units are not delivered to that stage. Zero, duplicate, or regressed sequences are protocol errors. If a running supervisor cannot install a new registry, it preserves its last-known-good generation and emits a configuration failure event. 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`: ```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. ### Step 4: Check Docker-Backed Gateways ```bash docker info docker ps --filter name=openshell docker logs --tail=200 docker run --rm --entrypoint /openshell-sandbox "${OPENSHELL_DOCKER_SUPERVISOR_IMAGE:-ghcr.io/nvidia/openshell/supervisor:latest}" --version openshell status ``` For Docker GPU failures, check CDI support and NVIDIA CDI discovery separately: ```bash docker info --format '{{json .CDISpecDirs}}' docker info --format '{{json .DiscoveredDevices}}' for dir in /etc/cdi /var/run/cdi; do if [ -d "$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=100 ``` When the NVIDIA Container Toolkit CDI refresh units are not enabled or no NVIDIA CDI spec has been generated, enable them and trigger a refresh: ```bash 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 `USER` and matching `/etc/passwd` and `/etc/group` entries, or explicitly set both process identity fields in policy. Numeric workload identities `1` through `4294967294` are 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 `WorkingDir` using the immutable image ID reported by the gateway. Empty, `/`, and explicit `/sandbox` use the managed `/sandbox` compatibility 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 `VOLUME` that covers the workdir or one of its parents because the runtime would mask the immutable path before validation. Move the `VOLUME` below 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. - Docker driver cannot initialize because it cannot find `openshell-sandbox`: verify `OPENSHELL_DOCKER_SUPERVISOR_BIN`, the sibling binary next to `openshell-gateway`, or the configured supervisor image contains `/openshell-sandbox`. - Sandbox never registers: check gateway logs and supervisor callback endpoint. - On macOS, repeated `Policy fetch failed after 5 attempts` messages with a Homebrew gateway bound to `[::1]:17670` indicate that the Docker `host-gateway` IPv4 route has no matching callback listener. Current releases leave `bind_address` unset in the Homebrew config, use the built-in `127.0.0.1:17670` primary listener, and reuse it for authenticated sandbox callbacks. On an older release, set `bind_address = "127.0.0.1:17670"` or upgrade. - Supervisor image exits before printing `openshell-sandbox --version`: verify the configured supervisor image contains a static executable at `/openshell-sandbox`. - A sandbox with explicit `protocol: tcp` endpoints fails before workload readiness: confirm the Docker or Podman driver supplied the `policy-dns-transparent-tcp` runtime capability and inspect supervisor logs for missing `nft`, synthetic-route overlap, or namespace-local DNS/TCP listener bind failures. Kubernetes, VM, sidecar, and out-of-tree drivers must reject this policy until they provide the complete substrate; use omitted protocol with an explicit proxy on those runtimes. - A GPU sandbox fails because Docker reports no discovered NVIDIA CDI devices: verify `.DiscoveredDevices` contains entries such as `nvidia.com/gpu=all`, verify `/etc/cdi` or `/var/run/cdi` contains a generated NVIDIA spec, and check that `nvidia-cdi-refresh.service` and `nvidia-cdi-refresh.path` from NVIDIA Container Toolkit are enabled and healthy. The service is a one-shot unit, so `inactive (dead)` can be normal after a successful run; use `systemctl status` and `journalctl` to distinguish success from a skipped or failed refresh. Restart `nvidia-cdi-refresh.service` to regenerate missing or stale CDI specs, then restart or reload Docker and re-check `docker info`. 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. ### Step 5: Check Podman-Backed Gateways ```bash podman info podman ps --filter name=openshell podman logs --tail=200 openshell status ``` Common 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 `USER` and matching `/etc/passwd` and `/etc/group` entries, or explicitly set both process identity fields in policy. Numeric workload identities `1` through `4294967294` are accepted; root, the invalid identity sentinel, and missing identities are rejected. - Supervisor cannot call back: check callback endpoint and gateway logs. - A sandbox with explicit `protocol: tcp` endpoints fails before readiness: inspect supervisor logs for policy DNS port-53 binding, synthetic-route, or nftables redirect failures. Rootless Podman must provide these primitives inside the supervisor-owned nested network namespace; setup fails closed. - Gateway exits before becoming healthy with a callback-listener discovery error: inspect `podman info --debug`, the configured Podman network, and the host's IPv4 default route. Rootless pasta uses the private source address selected by that route; rootful Podman uses the bridge gateway address. - Current gateways reuse the primary listener when it covers Podman's callback address. If the primary does not cover that address, inspect the gateway startup logs for the additional callback-only listener and its provenance. - Rootless slirp4netns, another named helper, or missing helper metadata requires an explicitly remote `grpc_endpoint`. An explicit `host_gateway_ip` cannot bypass slirp4netns host-loopback isolation. Do not work around discovery failures by broadening the primary gateway listener to `0.0.0.0`. When `userns` is configured (e.g. `userns = "auto"` or `userns = "keep-id"`): - Supervisor delivery uses bind-mount fallback instead of image volumes because overlay mounts do not support `idmapped` mounts. The supervisor binary is extracted from the supervisor image and cached at `$XDG_DATA_HOME/openshell/podman-supervisor/` (typically `~/.local/share/openshell/podman-supervisor/`). - Stale cache: if the supervisor 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. - `auto` mode requires subuid/subgid ranges for the current user in `/etc/subuid` and `/etc/subgid`. If missing, Podman returns a user-namespace mapping error at container creation. - `private` mode requires explicit `uidmap` and `gidmap` arrays 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 to `no-map` for Podman's API. - A workload remains in `stopping` until Podman resorts to `SIGKILL`: inspect supervisor logs for `failed to signal entrypoint process group`. The supervisor must retain `CAP_KILL` so its root process can forward `SIGTERM` to a workload that runs as the sandbox user. ### Step 6: Check Kubernetes Helm Gateways ```bash helm -n openshell status openshell helm -n openshell get values openshell kubectl -n openshell get deployment,statefulset,pod,svc,pvc kubectl -n openshell logs deployment/openshell -c openshell-gateway --tail=200 kubectl -n openshell logs statefulset/openshell -c openshell-gateway --tail=200 kubectl -n openshell rollout status deployment/openshell kubectl -n openshell rollout status statefulset/openshell ``` Use the log and rollout commands for the workload 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. `server.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: ```bash kubectl -n get secret -o yaml kubectl -n get deployment,service,pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name= kubectl -n logs deployment/ --tail=200 ``` Check required Helm deployment secrets: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get secret \ openshell-server-tls \ openshell-server-client-ca \ openshell-client-tls \ openshell-jwt-keys ``` When `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: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get certificate,certificaterequest,challenge kubectl -n openshell describe certificate openshell-server-external oc -n openshell get route ``` ACME 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: ```bash helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'grpcEndpoint|clientCaFromServerTlsSecret|clientCaSecretName|serverIssuerRef|caSecretName' # server.grpcEndpoint should be unset or point to internal service name ``` Less 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. 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: ```bash 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-tls ``` If `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`; sandbox 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`: ```bash 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. Check the image references currently used by the gateway deployment: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get deployment openshell -o jsonpath="{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].image}{\"\n\"}{.spec.template.spec.containers[*].env[?(@.name==\"OPENSHELL_SUPERVISOR_IMAGE\")].value}{\"\n\"}" kubectl -n openshell get statefulset openshell -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 and supervisor images should use the same release tag. A stale supervisor image can make sandbox behavior lag behind gateway policy or protocol changes. For plaintext local evaluation, confirm the chart has: ```bash helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -E 'disableTls|grpcEndpoint' ``` Expected shape: ```yaml server: disableTls: true grpcEndpoint: http://openshell.openshell.svc.cluster.local:8080 ``` Check service exposure: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get svc openshell -o wide kubectl -n openshell get endpoints openshell ``` For local port-forward testing: ```bash kubectl -n openshell port-forward service/openshell 8080:8080 ``` Leave the port forward running. In another terminal, register the local endpoint if needed and verify it: ```bash openshell gateway add http://127.0.0.1:8080 --local --name local-kubernetes openshell status ``` If the gateway is healthy but sandbox creation fails: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get pods kubectl -n openshell get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp | tail -n 50 kubectl -n openshell logs deployment/openshell -c openshell-gateway --tail=200 kubectl -n openshell logs statefulset/openshell -c openshell-gateway --tail=200 ``` Check the configured sandbox namespace: ```bash helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep sandboxNamespace ``` Then 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: ```bash helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A2 workspaceResources helm -n status openshell-workspace kubectl -n get serviceaccount,role,rolebinding,networkpolicy \ -l app.kubernetes.io/instance=openshell-workspace kubectl auth can-i create sandboxes.agents.x-k8s.io \ --namespace \ --as system:serviceaccount:openshell:openshell ``` If 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. ```bash helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A3 sandboxServiceAccount kubectl -n get serviceaccount openshell-sandbox kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' kubectl -n get sandbox -o jsonpath='{.spec.template.spec.serviceAccountName}{"\n"}' ``` If `topology = "sidecar"` is rendered under `[openshell.drivers.kubernetes]`, sandbox pods should have an `openshell-network-init` init container running `--mode=network-init`, an `agent` container running `openshell-sandbox --mode=process`, and an `openshell-supervisor-network` container running `--mode=network`. The init container owns nftables setup and should be the only sidecar topology container with `NET_ADMIN`. It also needs `CHOWN`/`FOWNER` to hand shared emptyDir state to the effective sidecar UID. The default binary-aware network sidecar runs as UID 0 with primary GID `sandbox_gid` and adds `SYS_PTRACE` plus `DAC_READ_SEARCH`. When `process_binary_aware_network_policy = false`, it runs as the configured non-root `proxy_uid` without those inspection capabilities. That dedicated proxy UID must remain at least `1000` and must not match the workload UID because the pod egress fence exempts its traffic. The pod `fsGroup` is set to `sandbox_gid` in both modes. In sidecar topology only the network sidecar should mount the gateway bootstrap credentials (`openshell-sa-token` and `openshell-client-tls`). The process container should not receive `OPENSHELL_ENDPOINT`, gateway TLS env vars, the sandbox token file, or those credential mounts. Instead, the network sidecar serves policy and provider environment state over the Unix control socket from `OPENSHELL_SIDECAR_CONTROL_SOCKET` (`/run/openshell-sidecar/control.sock` by default). The process supervisor must be the first and only client. After validating its peer UID, GID, and PID, the sidecar unlinks the listener. If the connection later closes, the network sidecar exits non-zero so Kubernetes can restart it with a fresh listener. If the process supervisor fails before launching the workload, inspect both containers for control-socket bind, connect, bootstrap, or update errors. If new SSH/exec sessions do not pick up refreshed provider environment, inspect the network sidecar settings-poll logs and the process container logs for provider environment update handling; the process container should consume newer provider-env revisions without receiving gateway credentials. The process container reports the workload entrypoint PID over the same control socket, and the network sidecar uses that PID for binary-scoped policy decisions through `/proc`. If rules with `policy.binaries` are unexpectedly denied, inspect the sidecar control logs and confirm the pod has `shareProcessNamespace: true`. The shared state directory should preserve `sandbox_gid` inheritance (`02775`). Sidecar SSH uses the Linux abstract socket `@openshell-sidecar-ssh`; the network sidecar verifies its peer PID before bridging gateway relay requests. No `ssh.sock` file should appear in the shared state directory. Inspect all three when sandbox registration or egress enforcement fails: ```bash kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' | grep -E '^\[openshell\.drivers\.kubernetes\]|^topology\s*=' kubectl -n get pod -o jsonpath='{range .spec.initContainers[*]}{.name}{" "}{.command}{"\n"}{end}' kubectl -n get pod -o jsonpath='{range .spec.containers[*]}{.name}{" "}{.command}{"\n"}{end}' kubectl -n logs -c openshell-network-init --tail=200 kubectl -n logs -c openshell-supervisor-network --tail=200 kubectl -n logs -c agent --tail=200 ``` #### 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: ```bash 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' helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep -A8 upstreamProxy ``` Only `http://host:port` forward proxies are supported; `https://` proxy URLs and plain-HTTP egress are out of scope and rejected. Proxy credentials require `topology = "sidecar"` — combined topology shares the credential mount with the workload, so the gateway rejects credentials there. 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 `.`/`..`. The proxy arguments and credential mount are injected only into the container that runs network supervision (the `agent` container in combined topology, the `openshell-supervisor-network` sidecar in sidecar topology). The one-shot `openshell-network-init` container and the process `agent` container in sidecar topology must never receive them. The credential is projected read-only as the `openshell-upstream-proxy-auth` volume at `/run/openshell/upstream-proxy-auth` and passed as `--upstream-proxy-auth-file`; it must never appear in env, annotations, or command arguments. ```bash kubectl -n get secret -o jsonpath='{.data}' >/dev/null && echo "secret present" kubectl -n get pod -o jsonpath='{range .spec.containers[*]}{.name}{" "}{.command}{"\n"}{end}' | grep -- '--upstream-' kubectl -n get pod -o jsonpath='{range .spec.containers[*]}{.name}{": "}{range .volumeMounts[*]}{.name}{" "}{end}{"\n"}{end}' | grep upstream-proxy-auth kubectl -n get events --sort-by=.lastTimestamp | grep -Ei 'secret|MountVolume' | tail -n 20 ``` A 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: ```bash kubectl -n logs -c openshell-supervisor-network --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. - Host virtualization support is enabled. - The sandbox supervisor can establish its callback connection to the gateway. Then run: ```bash openshell status openshell logs ``` #### 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 `--https-proxy`, `--no-proxy`, `--proxy-auth-file`, `--proxy-auth-allow-insecure`, `--proxy-connect-by-hostname`, and `--proxy-ca-bundle`. Both the gatew …(truncated)