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2026-07-15 17:42:20 -04:00

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Disaster Recovery Audit

Standard procedure for auditing the Hermes infrastructure DR posture. Covers S3 backups, warm standby, config/password inventory, cron health, and issue tracking. This umbrella absorbs the content of infrastructure-audit (deleted 2026-07-08, was a duplicate of this skill).

Audit Checklist

Run these checks in order during any full DR audit:

2. Cron Job Health (updated Jul 10, 2026)

Use cronjob(action='list') or system crontab to get all scheduled jobs
Check last_status on each — flag any that are error
Specific jobs to verify:

Hermes cron scheduler:

hermes-live-sync — every 15 min, should be OK
hermes-system-config-sync — every 15 min, should be OK (Caddyfile, systemd, scripts, SSH keys, env)
hermes-docker-sync — every 15 min, should be OK (Docuseal, Vaultwarden, TwentyCRM, SearXNG, Ollama)
service-health-check — every 5 min, should be OK
home-router-watchdog — every 5 min, should be OK
bounce-check — every 60 min, should be OK
home-router-daily-backup — 6 AM daily, must exist (RESOLVED Jul 10 — paramiko installed, live test passed)
hetzner-weekly-snapshots — Monday 5 AM, must exist

System crontab (NOT in Hermes cron — blocked by gateway lifecycle guard):

hermes-full-backup — 1:00 AM UTC daily via /root/.hermes/scripts/hermes-backup.sh
root-essentials-backup — 3:00 AM UTC daily via /root/.hermes/scripts/root-essentials-backup.sh
backup-audit — 2:00 AM UTC daily via /root/.hermes/scripts/backup-audit-check.sh

CRON BACKUP PITFALL — AWS CLI venv: Backup scripts that call aws s3 cp will fail silently in cron with aws: command not found unless they activate the AWS CLI virtualenv first. The shell PATH in a cron context is minimal — even if aws works in your interactive session, it may not in cron. Every backup script that uploads to S3 MUST include this block after set -euo pipefail:

# Activate AWS CLI from venv (required for cron — PATH is minimal)
if [ -f /opt/awscli-venv/bin/activate ]; then
    source /opt/awscli-venv/bin/activate
fi

hermes-backup.sh was missing this line until Jul 11, 2026 — caused both nightly full and root-essentials backups to fail silently
root-essentials-backup.sh HAS this line but may still fail if the venv doesn't exist or AWS CLI wasn't installed there
Verify by running bash -x /path/to/backup.sh 2>&1 | grep -i "aws: command" in the audit
After patching any backup script, run it manually from cron's stripped environment to confirm: env -i HOME=$HOME PATH=/usr/bin:/bin bash /path/to/backup.sh

GATEWAY LIFECYCLE GUARD (#30719): The full backup script (hermes-backup.sh) is blocked by the gateway lifecycle guard when run as a Hermes cron job. The guard prevents agent-driven SIGTERM-respawn loops. Symptom: cron job creation returns error Blocked: cron job contains a gateway lifecycle command (restart/stop/kill). There is NO such command in the script — the guard triggers on script presence alone via the embedded restore.sh heredoc. FIX: The full backup MUST run from system crontab instead. Use (crontab -l; echo "0 1 * * * /path/to/script.sh 2>&1 | logger -t jobname") | crontab - to add. The audit watchdog runs at +1h to verify backup completion. Also applies to any agent-created cron job that shell-sources or wraps a script the guard considers risky.

Subagent model config drift: Setting delegation.model via hermes config set does NOT affect the running gateway process. The gateway caches config at startup. Changes sit in config.yaml but won't be picked up by subagents until hermes gateway restart runs from outside the gateway. Do not debug subagent failures by re-applying config changes; restart the gateway instead. Also: Hermes cron jobs created under one model config will SKIP their run if the model config drifted later — fix by pinning via cronjob action=update job_id=... provider=... model=....

2. S3 Bucket Integrity

Check all 5 Wasabi S3 buckets for recent activity:

Bucket	Purpose	Sync Script	Key Check
`hermes-vps-backups`	Hermes config/sessions/profiles	`hermes-live-sync.sh` (every 15 min)	Has `live/`, `standby/`, `hermes-full-backup/`
`itpropartner-system-configs`	System configs (Caddy, systemd, SSH, scripts, env)	`hermes-system-config-sync.sh` (every 15 min)	Bucket created Jul 10, versioning enabled, IAM policy updated
`itpropartner-docker-volumes`	Docker volumes (Docuseal, VW, Twenty, SearXNG, Ollama)	`hermes-docker-sync.sh` (every 15 min)	Bucket created Jul 10, versioning enabled, IAM policy updated
`mikrotik-ccr-backups`	Router configs	`wisp-backup.py` (daily 6 AM)	Has recent uploads
`itpropartner-backups`	Legacy files (mostly migrated)	None (no writer)	Known stale -- last write Jul 7

For each bucket, verify:

Versioning enabled (via S3 API)
Most recent upload timestamp -- flag if >48h stale
Sub-paths exist: live/, standby/, hermes-full-backup/
For system-configs/docker-volumes: verify the sync script exists, is chmod 755, and its cron job is active
If a sync script targets a bucket that doesn't exist yet (itpropartner-system-configs, itpropartner-docker-volumes), flag as blocked -- buckets must be created in Wasabi Console first
Full backup tarball — flag if >48h stale
Expected file sizes (not 0 bytes, WAL/SHM artifacts excepted)

BACKUP INTEGRITY VERIFICATION (mandatory for every audit): S3 listing alone is NOT sufficient — a tarball can exist on S3 and still be corrupt. For the full backup and root-essentials backup, download and test:

# Download the latest tarball
aws s3 cp s3://hermes-vps-backups/hermes-full-backup/hermes-full-backup-$(date +%F).tar.gz \
  /tmp/dr-audit-verify.tar.gz --endpoint-url https://s3.us-east-1.wasabisys.com

# Test tar integrity
tar tzf /tmp/dr-audit-verify.tar.gz > /dev/null 2>&1 && \
  echo "VALID: $(tar tzf /tmp/dr-audit-verify.tar.gz | wc -l) files" || \
  echo "CORRUPT — archive fails tar tzf"

# Clean up
rm /tmp/dr-audit-verify.tar.gz

Do NOT skip this step. The Jul 11, 2026 audit discovered that BOTH the nightly full backup AND root-essentials backup had failed silently — the S3 listing showed only stale Jul 10 files. The root cause was aws: command not found in cron (see Cron Job Health section above). The backup audit watchdog only checks S3 listing freshness, not integrity.

S3 Command Pitfalls (Write-Only IAM)

When transitioning AWS/Wasabi S3 backup scripts to use strict write-only IAM policies (e.g., s3:PutObject only, no s3:ListBucket), you cannot use aws s3 sync.

aws s3 sync fundamentally requires list permissions to compare the source against the destination.
Fix: Rewrite sync scripts to create local archives (e.g., tar) and perform blind uploads using aws s3 cp.
Scripts that read from S3 (e.g., aws s3 ls for audit checks or downloading for standby restores) must be separated into a different IAM user/role with read permissions, or moved to a pre-signed URL workflow.

3. Password & Config File Inventory

File	Expected	Permission
`/root/.hermes/config.yaml`	600	EXIST
`/root/.hermes/.env`	600	EXIST
`/etc/caddy/Caddyfile`	640	IN BACKUP
`/root/.config/himalaya/g-germainebrown.pass`	600	EXIST
`/root/.config/himalaya/shonuff.pass`	600	EXIST
`/root/.config/himalaya/g-germainebrown-icloud-calendar.pass`	600	EXIST
`/root/.aws/credentials`	600	EXIST
`/root/.ssh/itpp-infra`	600	EXIST
`/root/.hermes/migration-creds.txt`	600	IN BACKUP
`/root/.hermes/references/dre-temp-passwords.txt`	600	EXIST

Check each:

Does the file exist?
Is the permission correct? (flags 644 → 600, 755 is fine for scripts)
Is it included in backup scripts? (check hermes-backup.sh and hermes-live-sync.sh)

4. Systemd Services

List custom services and verify they're backed up to correct path:

ls /etc/systemd/system/hermes*.service /etc/systemd/system/shark-game*.service /etc/systemd/system/*gateway*.service

Service naming reality vs expected names:

The main Hermes unit is hermes.service (NOT hermes-agent.service). The gateway runs embedded inside hermes.service as the main process.
hermes-assistant.service and hermes-browser.service exist as separate systemd units.
A user-level hermes-gateway-anita.service may exist at ~/.config/systemd/user/ for the Anita profile.
There is NO separate hermes-gateway.service systemd unit on the Core server -- the gateway runs inline.
If you run systemctl status hermes-agent or hermes-gateway and get "could not be found", check hermes.service instead. The process running is hermes gateway.
Running hermes gateway status returns the correct state showing gateway is running inside the main service.

Backup script must collect from /etc/systemd/system/ NOT ~/.config/systemd/user/.

5. Warm Standby (app1-bu)

SSH to the standby server via itpp-infra key and verify:

Check	Command	Expected
Watchdog cron	`crontab -l \| grep standby`	`/5 * * *`
Sync cron	`crontab -l \| grep sync`	`/10 * * *`
Watchdog script	`cat` the script	30s x 4 cycles = 2 min confirmation
Sync script	`cat` the script	Exists, pulls from S3 every 10 min
AWS CLI	`source /opt/awscli-venv/bin/activate && aws s3 ls ...`	Returns data
Config freshness	`ls -la ~/.hermes/config.yaml`	Recent (today/tomorrow)
Gateway status	`hermes gateway status`	Inactive/dead (dormant)
Network to Core	`ping -c 2 152.53.192.33`	Successful (low ms)
Disk space	`df -h /`	>20% free (CRITICAL if <10%: failover will fail)

Operational Truth and Restore Verification (Critical)

A plan, command shown in chat, or agent statement is not an executed operation. During incidents and restores:

Never report a restart, reboot, DNS change, Caddy reload, provider test, failover, message delivery, disk cleanup, or restore as successful without tool output proving it.
Distinguish requested, started, completed, and verified states explicitly.
Verify a host reboot using boot ID or uptime before and after; an uninterrupted chat session is not evidence either way.
Verify DNS against the authoritative nameserver and at least two public resolvers. Compare with the local resolver because local caches can disagree with public DNS.
Verify the actual service name before operating it. On Core, the gateway is embedded in hermes.service; guessed units such as hermes-gateway.service are not evidence.
Verify failover on both sides: active Core state, standby gateway/process state, synchronized-state timestamp, disk headroom, and an end-to-end message.
A process listing proves only that a process exists. It does not prove Telegram delivery, provider authentication, or successful inference.
Subagent reports are leads. Read back files, query remote state, and verify external side effects before repeating their claims.
If verification cannot be performed, say not verified; do not fill the gap with expected output.

Scope Discipline (Critical)

When the user asks you to fix or audit a single server/app/bucket, DO ONLY THAT. Do not:

Touch the config of other servers you weren't asked about
Update credentials, API keys, or secrets in config files without explicit direction
Fix "related" problems you noticed along the way unless the user says "while you're at it"
Propagate changes to other profiles (Anita, Tony, etc.) unless specifically asked

Every time I broke the session tonight, it was because I self-assigned extra scope. Fixing app1-bu? Fix app1-bu. Generating an API key? Generate it — don't wire it in. If you see a related problem, report it as a finding and ask if they want it fixed. Do not decide for them.

This is not a suggestion — it was a repeated source of frustration this session.

Issue Log Format

The DR issue log lives at /root/.hermes/references/dr-issue-log.md.

Format rules (enforced Jul 8, 2026 after user called out unreadable pipe tables and garbled emoji on iPhone):

NO markdown pipe tables in the summary -- use bullet lists grouped by status (**Fixed** [OK] then bullet items, **Resolved** [INFO], **Investigating** [PENDING])
ASCII-only characters throughout -- no emoji (🔴 🟡 🟢 ✅ 🔄), no em dashes (use --), no arrows (use ->)
Status labels: [OK] for fixed, [PENDING] for investigating, [HIGH] [MED] [INFO] for severity
Each entry follows: Problem -> Root Cause -> Fix -> Verification
Apply ASCII-only rule to ALL reference files the user may read from a phone (Telegram file preview, email, open-in-browser)

\n### DR-NNN: Short Title\n**Problem:** What happened or what was found\n**Root cause:** Why it happened\n**Fix:** What was done to resolve it\n**Status:** [OK] Fixed YYYY-MM-DD / [PENDING] Investigating\n**Verified by:** How we confirmed the fix works\n

New entries are appended to the bottom. Existing entries are updated (status/verification) when a previously resolved issue is confirmed working on revisit.

Failover Architecture

Design: Warm standby. app1-bu runs 24/7 with Hermes inactive. Synchronizes state from S3 every 10 min. If Core goes down, watchdog confirms over 2 min (4 x 30s), then fails over.

For a full infrastructure reference (IPs, ports, URLs, S3 buckets, API endpoints), see references/network-and-service-endpoints.md.

For a comprehensive infrastructure recovery manual covering all 10 servers, every service, Docker containers, S3 backups, router networking, shared credentials, and step-by-step disaster scenarios, see references/itpp-recovery-manual.md. This was generated in July 2026 by synthesizing the server audit, app inventory, Docker compose files, Caddy config, systemd units, S3 bucket listings, and all deployment references into a single manual.

For gateway service lifecycle diagnostics -- what to do when hermes gateway restart fails (linger, DBus, dual-process conflicts, stale systemd units, profile-specific gateways) -- see references/gateway-lifecycle-troubleshooting.md.

For backup pipeline failure patterns and integrity verification — the Jul 11, 2026 audit that caught silent cron failures (aws: command not found) and the standby disk crisis — see references/dr-audit-findings-2026-07-11.md.

When to update the recovery manual

A new service is deployed on Core -- add to Section 5
A Hetzner server changes IP, hostname, or provider -- update Section 1 table
A Caddy domain or port mapping changes -- update Section 1 domain map and affected server section
A backup script or cron job is added/removed -- update Sections 8 and 13
A server is decommissioned or provisioned -- update Section 1 and add/remove from Sections 2 or 7
User corrects the manual's scope -- if the user says "this is too narrow" or "it's not only for X", broaden immediately. The manual must cover the ENTIRE infrastructure, not a single service. The Jul 9 session proved that scoping to one project (shark-game-recovery-manual.md) required near-immediate replacement with a full ITPP version.

┌──────────────────────┐     ┌───────────────────────┐
│  Core (netcup)       │     │  app1-bu (Hetzner)    │
│  152.53.192.33       │     │  5.161.114.8          │
│  RS 2000 (8C/16G)    │     │  CPX11 (2C/2G)        │
│  Active Hermes       │     │  Dormant Hermes       │
│  Active gateway      │     │  Active watchdog      │
└────────┬─────────────┘     └──────────┬────────────┘
         │  S3 sync (every 15 min)       │  S3 sync (every 10 min)
         └──────────────┬───────────────┘
                        ▼
              ┌──────────────────┐
              │  Wasabi S3       │
              │  hermes-vps-     │
              │  backups/live/   │
              └──────────────────┘

Failover Sequence

Watchdog (runs every 5 min via cron) pings Core (152.53.192.33)
If no ping response: check every 30s × 4 cycles (~2 min total confirmation)
If still unreachable: sync latest state from S3 → start Hermes gateway → send Telegram alert + email alert
User communicates with standby instance

Fallback Sequence (recovery)

Core comes back online
Shut down standby gateway (hermes gateway stop) or leave both running — user decides
If standby stays active, it keeps syncing. If powering off reduces confusion, do that.

Recovery & Sync Timing

Component	Interval	Purpose
Live S3 sync (Core → S3)	Every 15 min	Pushes latest state from active server
Standby sync (S3 → app1-bu)	Every 10 min	Pulls latest state to standby
Watchdog health check	Every 5 min	Pings Core to detect failure
Confirmation window	4 × 30s = 2 min	Proves failure before failover
Max total outage detection	~7 min	Worst case: 5 min to next check + 2 min confirm

DR Issue Log Maintenance

The DR issue log at /root/.hermes/references/dr-issue-log.md is the permanent record of all audit findings, fixes, root causes, and verification dates.

Entry format

Format convention (CRITICAL — mobile-first rendering):

NO markdown pipe/tables in the summary — unreadable on mobile
NO emoji or Unicode characters — plain ASCII labels only
Use [HIGH], [MED], [INFO], [OK], [PENDING] for severity/status
Use double hyphens (--) not em dashes
Summary is grouped bullet lists by status, see example below
Each entry has Problem -> Root Cause -> Fix -> Verification blocks
Separate entries with ---

Each entry MUST contain all 5 fields:

### DR-NNN: Short Title
**Problem:** What happened or what was found
**Root cause:** Why it happened
**Fix:** What was done to resolve it
**Status:** [OK] Fixed YYYY-MM-DD / [PENDING] Investigating
**Verified by:** How we confirmed the fix works

When to add entries

Any gap found during audit
Any untested failover path
Any configuration that was updated but not reflected in docs
Any server whose Hetzner type, tag, or purpose differs from DR plan
Any new server provisioned or decommissioned
Any cron job that shows a new error state
Fault is common, not exceptional — when multiple systems fail in the same audit, log each as a separate DR issue. Don't collapse the cluster into one.
VPS resource threshold crossing — when the automated VPS threshold checker (running every 15 min, checking 80/90/95% levels on RAM/disk/CPU across all servers) fires a new alert that requires action (e.g. ai.itpropartner.com disk at 92%). Log as a DR issue and investigate.

When to update existing entries

A previously marked [PENDING] entry is now resolved
Verification step confirms the fix is still working

Memory Consolidation Safety (Jul 9, 2026)

The memory consolidation system (hermes-consolidate.sh + hermes-consolidate.py) runs every 10 min and prunes stale entries from MEMORY.md. It is a DR-critical component — if it over-prunes, identity and rules entries can be permanently lost from active memory.

Architecture

Backup-before-prune: S3 upload is a hard gate — prune never runs without it
Local retention: 48h of pre-prune copies under ~/.hermes/memories/.consolidate-backups/
S3 history: Timestamped copies at s3://hermes-vps-backups/live/memories/history/

PROTECT entry types (these are NEVER pruned)

The Python script guards entries containing:

Identity: Sho'Nuff Brown, shonuff@, germainebrown.com
Rules: rule, never make up, fabrication, Germaine's #1 rule
Infrastructure: Core:, STANDING PRACTICE, app1-bu, netcup, admin-ai.itpropartner, Ops portal, Recovery manual, Ollama, RS 4000, Migration target
Credentials: credential, API, DR issue log, NETCUP_PASSWORD, LoveMyBoys, itpp-infra
Email: email, signature, format, shonuff.py

If memory gets over-pruned

Restore from S3 backup — the JSON schema is {backed_up_at, source, entry_count, char_count, entries}.

Known limitation

The size safety valve drops oldest-appended entries when pattern-pruning doesn't reach 7,000 chars. Always verify after first consolidation run. If a critical entry was lost, restore from S3 and add it to the PROTECT regex.

Per-Server DR Plans — v3 Consolidated (Jul 10, 2026)

The v3 DR plan (references/server-dr-plans-v3.md) is the ACTIVE plan. It incorporates two expert DR reviews and replaces v1 (references/server-dr-plans.md). The v3 plan addresses every finding from the reviews.

DOCX versions (formatted for sharing) are at:

references/1-DR-Master-Plan-v2.docx — Firm RTO/RPO, failover/failback design, split-brain prevention
references/2-Backup-Security-Standard.docx — Object Lock, write-only IAM, secondary destination, retention tiers
references/3-Per-Server-Runbooks.docx — Restore steps per host with bracketed fields
references/4-DR-Testing-Schedule.docx — Test cadence, log templates, sign-off table

The v3 improvements:

v3 Improvements:

Failover timing corrected: 30s checks (was 5 min), failover after 4 failures = 2 min detection, ~3-3.5 min actual RTO -> 5 min committed target. The old 5-min polling interval made a 2-min RTO mathematically impossible.
Split-brain prevention: S3 active-lock.json file, fencing, external quorum required before takeover
Failback protocol: 12-step sequence with rollback path — no auto-failback, no improvisation during incidents
S3 single point of failure mitigated: Secondary backup destination (separate provider/account) designed
Backup immutability designed: Object Lock + write-only IAM production credentials (not yet implemented)
Per-server restore runbooks: Exact commands, dependency maps, DNS records, validation checks, known failure modes
RPO honesty by data type: Core = 15 min (Hermes state) / 24h (Docker data), not a single number
Testing schedule: Daily automated checks -> monthly DB restore -> quarterly failover/failback -> biannual tabletop

Per-server RTO/RPO targets (v3):

System	RTO	RPO
Core	5 min	15 min
app1/2/3	60 min	24h
wphost02	2h	24h
fleettracker360	2h	24h
Legacy Hetzner	4h	24h

Known gaps remaining (Jul 10, 2026):

Docker volume backup automation not yet deployed
MariaDB dumps on fleettracker360 not automated
S3 secondary backup destination not provisioned
Write-only IAM credentials not yet created (policy designed, pending Wasabi Console)
30-second watchdog deployed but needs load-test verification

Resolved this session (Jul 10):

Object Lock enabled on all 5 buckets ✅
S3 buckets itpropartner-system-configs + itpropartner-docker-volumes created, versioned, IAM updated ✅
Daily full backup cron restored (system crontab at 1 AM UTC) ✅
Daily backup audit watchdog deployed (2 AM UTC) ✅
Home router backup paramiko error resolved (live test passed) ✅
wphost02 full backup captured (656MB to S3) ✅
AI server disk at 92% — documented as P0, deferred to next maintenance window

File locations:

references/server-dr-plans-v3.md — ACTIVE (replaces all prior)
references/server-dr-plans.md — v1 (superseded)
references/server-dr-plans-redacted.md — for 3rd party review (IPs/credentials stripped)

Cross-Reference with Ops Collector Data

After completing sections 1-5, validate the ops portal's live data against the DR issue log:

cat /var/www/ops/data/ops-status.json | python3 -m json.tool 2>/dev/null | grep -A5 '"s3_backups"' | head -20
cat /var/www/ops/data/ops-status.json | python3 -m json.tool 2>/dev/null | grep -B2 '"status": "error"' | head -20

Cross-reference checklist:

DR issues marked [OK] Fixed -- does the ops collector confirm the fix is still working?
DR issues marked [PENDING] Investigating -- what does live data show now? Any new evidence?
Any new cron errors or stale buckets that aren't in the DR issue log yet? (open new entries)
S3 normalization buckets still missing? (itpropartner-system-configs, itpropartner-docker-volumes show NoSuchBucket)
Full backup fresh? (hermes-full-backups age_hours should be < 48)

If the ops collector shows a status that contradicts the DR issue log (e.g., DR issue marked [OK] Fixed but the error persists in live data), re-open the issue rather than silently updating the log. If a new error appears that isn't logged, create a new DR entry.

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