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, Helm, or a development task. 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.

For local evaluation only, TLS may be disabled and the gateway can be reached through http://127.0.0.1:<port>.

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.

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 status

For a one-off endpoint check that bypasses stored gateway selection and metadata:

openshell --gateway-endpoint <url> status

Common findings:

• No active gateway: register one with openshell 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 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 <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.

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 custom 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 'compute_drivers|socket_path' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml
stat /run/openshell/<driver>.sock
journalctl -u <driver-service> --no-pager --lines=200
journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200

The custom driver name must not be a reserved built-in name (docker, podman, kubernetes, or vm). The socket must be accessible only to the intended gateway identity. Check gateway logs for connection errors, GetCapabilities failures, or an unexpected advertised driver name. The gateway does not create or supervise out-of-tree driver processes or sockets.

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|binding_policy|failure_policy' /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=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 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:

rg -n 'supervisor|middleware|grpc_endpoint|max_body_bytes|timeout' /etc/openshell/gateway.toml
journalctl -u <middleware-service> --no-pager --lines=200
journalctl -u openshell-gateway --no-pager --lines=200
openshell logs <sandbox-name> --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 HttpRequest/pre_credentials bindings, the registration claims the reserved openshell/ namespace, or body and timeout limits are invalid. 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 an explicit middleware_denied result from middleware_failed. A denial is always enforced. A failure follows the policy-local on_error: fail_closed blocks the request, while fail_open bypasses only that stage and emits a detection finding. If a running supervisor cannot install a new registry, it preserves its last-known-good generation and emits a configuration failure event.

Step 4: Check Docker-Backed Gateways

docker info
docker ps --filter name=openshell
docker logs <container> --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:

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:

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.
• 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.
• Supervisor image exits before printing openshell-sandbox --version: the image should be the scratch supervisor image from deploy/docker/Dockerfile.supervisor and must contain a static executable at /openshell-sandbox.
• mise run e2e:docker:gpu fails with docker info --format json did not report any discovered NVIDIA CDI GPU devices: Docker may report CDISpecDirs while still having no generated NVIDIA CDI specs. 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. NVIDIA recommends enabling the path and service units, and restarting nvidia-cdi-refresh.service to regenerate missing or stale CDI specs. If specs are generated but Docker still reports no discovered devices, restart Docker or reload the daemon and re-check docker info.

For source checkout development, restart the local gateway with:

mise run gateway:docker

Step 5: Check Podman-Backed Gateways

podman info
podman ps --filter name=openshell
podman logs <container> --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.
• Supervisor cannot call back: check callback endpoint and gateway logs.

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
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.

For HA or PostgreSQL-backed installs, also check the external database Secret referenced by server.externalDbSecret and the PostgreSQL workload if the test or operator deployed one in-cluster:

kubectl -n openshell get secret openshell-ha-pg -o yaml
kubectl -n openshell get deployment,service,pod -l app.kubernetes.io/name=openshell-e2e-postgres
kubectl -n openshell logs deployment/openshell-e2e-postgres --tail=200

Check required Helm deployment secrets:

kubectl -n openshell get secret \
  openshell-server-tls \
  openshell-server-client-ca \
  openshell-client-tls \
  openshell-jwt-keys

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 server.providerTokenGrants.spiffe.enabled=true, the gateway should still render [openshell.gateway.gateway_jwt] and mount the sandbox-jwt Secret. SPIRE is used only by sandbox pods for dynamic provider token grants. 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

Sandbox pods using provider token grants should have an openshell.io/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:

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 image built from deploy/docker/Dockerfile.gateway and the scratch supervisor image built from deploy/docker/Dockerfile.supervisor should use the same build tag in branch and E2E deploys. A stale supervisor image can make sandbox behavior lag behind gateway policy or proto changes.

For local/external pull mode (the default local path via mise run cluster), local images are tagged to the configured local registry base, pushed to that registry, and pulled by k3s via the registries.yaml mirror endpoint. The cluster task pushes prebuilt local tags (openshell/*:dev, falling back to localhost:5000/openshell/*:dev or 127.0.0.1:5000/openshell/*:dev).

Gateway image builds stage a partial Rust workspace from deploy/docker/Dockerfile.images. If cargo fails with a missing manifest under /build/crates/..., or an imported symbol exists locally but is missing in the image build, verify that every current gateway dependency crate, including openshell-driver-docker, openshell-driver-kubernetes, and openshell-ocsf, is copied into the staged workspace there.

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:8080

Check service exposure:

kubectl -n openshell get svc openshell -o wide
kubectl -n openshell get endpoints openshell

For local port-forward testing:

kubectl -n openshell port-forward svc/openshell 8080:8080
openshell gateway add http://127.0.0.1:8080 --local --name local
openshell status

If the gateway is healthy but sandbox creation fails:

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:

helm -n openshell get values openshell | grep sandboxNamespace

Then inspect sandbox resources in that namespace.

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 gateway rejects projected tokens from other service accounts.

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"}'

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. 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:

kubectl -n openshell get configmap openshell-config -o jsonpath='{.data.gateway\.toml}' | grep -E '^\[openshell\.drivers\.kubernetes\]|^topology\s*='
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod <sandbox-pod> -o jsonpath='{range .spec.initContainers[*]}{.name}{" "}{.command}{"\n"}{end}'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> get pod <sandbox-pod> -o jsonpath='{range .spec.containers[*]}{.name}{" "}{.command}{"\n"}{end}'
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> logs <sandbox-pod> -c openshell-network-init --tail=200
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> logs <sandbox-pod> -c openshell-supervisor-network --tail=200
kubectl -n <sandbox-namespace> logs <sandbox-pod> -c agent --tail=200

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:

openshell status
openshell logs <sandbox-name>

Common Failure Patterns

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.