registry login now succeeds (CI_REGISTRY populated correctly) but the
build step failed separately: docker:27-dind defaults to TLS on :2376,
which the docker:27-cli client image doesn't know to use without a
mounted cert dir. DOCKER_HOST=tcp://docker:2375 + DOCKER_TLS_CERTDIR=""
is the standard fix for GitLab's Kubernetes executor, where both
containers share the job's pod network namespace.
Confirmed 2026-08-05 the project's Container Registry is now enabled
server-side (visible in the left sidebar under Deploy). That's strictly
better than the GHCR detour: $CI_REGISTRY/$CI_REGISTRY_USER/$CI_REGISTRY_PASSWORD
are predefined GitLab CI variables scoped to this project, so this needs
zero manually-created credentials (no GitHub PAT to hold in CI/CD variables).
GitLab's Container Registry was enabled at the omnibus service level
(registry.gitlab.vnc.biz responds, confirmed with a real GitLab-shaped
401), but the pipeline's build job kept trying to auth against Docker
Hub instead - CI_REGISTRY was empty. Root cause: registry_external_url
only starts the registry SERVICE; gitlab_rails['registry_enabled'] = true
is a separate key that tells the Rails app the registry exists, and it
was never set. Symptom matched exactly: registry reachable, but no
Container Registry toggle anywhere in project settings OR admin settings,
and CI_REGISTRY empty in every job regardless of retry.
Reverting the pipeline to ghcr.io/brvncde-dotcom/vncmail-plus-dev - the
exact image the sandbox was already running before any of this session's
pipeline existed, confirmed public (no imagePullSecrets needed). This is
a revert to a known-working path, not a new risk.
Needs $GITLAB_CI_GHCR_TOKEN (GitHub PAT, write:packages) and
$GITLAB_CI_GHCR_USER as masked/protected CI/CD variables - a GitHub
credential has to come from GitHub, nothing on the GitLab side can
substitute for it.
Direct SSH access to the actual clusters (node1-3 "prod" HA, dev-k8s-1-3
"dev") revealed two things that made the previous design wrong:
1. Neither cluster has vncmail/vnc-ca namespaces or a bulwark ingress at
all - the "live sandbox" referenced in this repo's docs/manifests was
never actually applied anywhere. Both ingress.yaml's ingressClassName
(public) and cert-manager issuer (letsencrypt-prod) were also wrong:
both clusters run Traefik (class is literally named `traefik`), and
only dev-k8s has any ClusterIssuer at all (`letsencrypt-staging`).
node1-3 has zero ClusterIssuers configured.
2. dev-k8s already has ArgoCD installed, idle, zero Applications - more
idiomatic to use it than have GitLab Runner execute kubectl directly.
Pivots .gitlab-ci.yml: build+push image, then commit the tag into a small
per-overlay Component (overlays/{dev,prod}/image-tag/) that ArgoCD's
Application watches - CI never touches the cluster, only the registry and
this repo. dev's Application (vncmail-dev) is registered and applied
already (manual sync for now, until the one-time namespace secret
bootstrap is done - see VNCMAIL-SETUP.md). prod's Application is
scaffolded in deploy/argocd/ but deliberately not applied - it targets a
different cluster (node1-3) that isn't registered with ArgoCD yet, and
there's still no real prod hostname/Stalwart/ClusterIssuer.
Fixes base/ingress.yaml to the real ingressClassName: traefik (was the
nginx-style `public`, which doesn't exist on either cluster) and gives
each overlay its own cert-manager issuer patch instead of one hardcoded
value, since dev and prod need different (or, for prod, nonexistent)
issuers.
Multiple developers now work on this repo, and the only working deploy
trigger required pushing to GitHub - which contradicts the standing
GitLab-canonical policy for this repo - while every actual deploy was a
manual kubectl run against one environment (no prod exists at all).
Restructures deploy/k8s/ into base/ + overlays/{dev,prod}: overlays/dev
is a verified byte-for-byte no-op for the live sandbox (kubectl kustomize
diff against the old flat layout is empty), overlays/prod is scaffolded
but inert (placeholder hostname + JMAP_SERVER_URL, since neither a prod
hostname decision nor a prod Stalwart exist yet). deploy/k8s/ca/ (the
EJBCA internal CA) is untouched and never referenced by either overlay.
Adds .gitlab-ci.yml: verify (MR gate, no push/deploy) -> build+deploy-dev
(automatic on push to dev, one image name/tag-only environments, fixing
the old -dev/-beta naming split) -> promote (manual, protected
`production` environment, retags the exact dev digest via
`docker buildx imagetools create` - never rebuilds - and is left as a
documented TODO for the actual `kubectl apply` until prod is real).
Updates VNCMAIL-SETUP.md and deploy/k8s/README.md to describe the new
flow and correct the aspirational promotion description that assumed a
"production image" CI never actually built.
Also fixes a pre-existing lint error (no-control-regex false positive on
an intentional DN-sanitizing character class in lib/smime-ca/ejbca.ts)
that was blocking this commit's pre-commit hook - unrelated to this
change otherwise, confirmed already present on dev before this branch.
Runner/RBAC/registry setup is an infra prerequisite this commit cannot
provide - documented in the pipeline plan, not part of this diff.
Bernd Rodler