mteehan 0ed275835d fix: auth review fixes — token revocation, WS auth, seeding, and hardening
Refresh/logout and token robustness
- drop the post-rotation refresh_tokens row delete in auth_refresh so
  logout blacklists the current (rotated) refresh token; remove the
  dead _clear_refresh_token_after_rotation helper and clear_active_refresh_token
- reject non-object JWT payloads in _extract_unverified_sub so crafted
  Authorization headers return 401 instead of crashing with 500

SQLite user store
- make builtin-admin seeding idempotent: on a concurrent first start the
  losing seeder re-checks, finds the winner, and returns instead of
  raising IntegrityError
- per-thread sqlite connections + busy_timeout so Flask worker threads
  don't hit cross-thread ProgrammingError / SQLITE_BUSY
- add LogsDirectory + /var/log/vacuum-wall to ReadWritePaths in both
  systemd units so the fallback admin password actually lands on disk

Frontend
- skip apiFetch 401-recovery for public auth endpoints so a failed
  login no longer logs out a valid session
- add /passkeys to the nav (passkey registration was unreachable);
  remove the dead checkWebAuthnCapable export
- drop the CSP-blocked inline WS-URL script and the
  __WS_URL_PLACEHOLDER__ plumbing; the WS URL is derived from location

Daemon / WS
- parse Sec-WebSocket-Protocol manually (web.Request.get_subprotocols
  does not exist in aiohttp 3.13); X-Auth-Token is a custom-nginx
  fallback only — docstring and security docs corrected

Install / system
- bootstrap_auth.py is now idempotent: preserves existing auth config
  and syncs the admin password on re-runs (new reset_password helper)
- WebUI server block renders auth_basic off (the UI is JWT-protected)
- install.sh chown/chmod skips .git to avoid git dubious-ownership
  breakage
- tolerate unreadable /etc/wireguard during system import

Contracts / docs
- create_user returns 409 on duplicate username per docs/api.md
- correct docs/api.md response shapes, docs/security.md blacklist
  cleanup wording + one-refresh-per-user caveat, stale WS-URL
  references, and the .htpasswd description

Tests: +7 regression tests (rotation/logout revocation, crafted-token
401, concurrent seeding); placeholder-substitution tests replaced with
serve-as-is SPA root tests.
2026-08-17 01:45:15 +00:00

Vacuum Wall

A zone-based firewall appliance with a built-in SSL reverse proxy. Combines firewalld policy control, DHCP/DNS, WireGuard VPN, and automated certificate provisioning into a single device managed through one web UI.

Tech Stack

  • Debian 13 (trixie) target platform
  • Python 3.13+, Flask 3.x web UI
  • firewalld (nftables backend), dnsmasq, nginx, WireGuard
  • acme.sh for ACME certificates (ZeroSSL)

For Operators

Prerequisites

  • Clean Debian 13 system with root access
  • git installed
  • One public-facing NIC (external) and at least one LAN NIC (internal)
  • A DNS A record pointing to the appliance's public IP for the management domain
  • Minimum hardware: 1 CPU, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB disk

Install (Production)

MGMT_DOMAIN=wall.example.com \
MGMT_PASS="strongpassword" \
MGMT_USER="admin" \
ACME_EMAIL="admin@example.com" \
bash scripts/install.sh

Install (Development)

./scripts/install.sh --dev --mgmt-pass strongpassword --acme-email "admin@example.com"

--dev auto-detects the repo's file owner as the service user, skips the safety warning about running as a regular user, and keeps file ownership dev-friendly.

Flag Env Var Required Description
-- MGMT_DOMAIN No Public domain for the management WebUI (auto-detected as hostname.local)
--mgmt-pass MGMT_PASS Yes HTTP basic auth password for the WebUI
--mgmt-user MGMT_USER No WebUI username (defaults to admin)
--acme-email ACME_EMAIL Yes ACME registration email (ZeroSSL by default)
--user, -u USER_NAME No System user for service (default: vacuum-wall)
--path, -p INSTALL_DIR No Install directory (default: repo root)
--dev -- No Auto-detect repo owner as service user, skip safety warning
--mgmt-domain MGMT_DOMAIN No (alias for env var)
--wan-iface WAN_IFACE No WAN interface (auto-detected)
--lan-ifaces LAN_IFACES No LAN interfaces, comma-separated (auto-detected)

CLI flags take precedence over environment variables. Run ./scripts/install.sh --help for full usage.

After installation, access the WebUI at https://<MGMT_DOMAIN>. The initial certificate is self-signed — use the Certs tab to issue a real one once DNS is propagating.

Next Steps

  1. Assign interfaces to zones from the Interfaces tab
  2. Configure DHCP ranges for your LAN
  3. Add proxy domains with ACME certificates
  4. Set up WireGuard (optional)

See docs/deployment.md for the full guide, including troubleshooting.


For Developers

Local Development

git clone <repo-url> && cd vacuum-wall
bash scripts/update-vendor.sh
python3 -m venv .venv && . .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Start the WebUI locally (binds to 127.0.0.1:9090):

.venv/bin/python webui/server.py

Lint and Format

.venv/bin/ruff check lib/ webui/ tests/
.venv/bin/ruff format lib/ webui/ tests/

All lib/ modules share lib.common utilities (run, run_proc, load_json, save_json, deep_merge, ensure_dirs) and have full type hints and __all__ exports. API blueprints share _ok/_error from webui.api.common.

Tests

.venv/bin/python -m pytest tests/ -v

Tests mock all subprocess calls (firewalld, acme.sh, WireGuard, nginx, dnsmasq) — no system services required. 192 tests across 5 test modules.

Documentation MCP Server

This project uses docs-mcp-server for grounded, real-time documentation lookups during development.

pipx install docs-mcp-server
docs-mcp init

Then run with Claude Code or Opencode to activate it. It automatically checks live docs before answering technical questions — no manual doc search needed.

Architecture

Client ──→ nginx (SSL + basic auth) ──→ Flask (127.0.0.1:9090)
Flask ──→ lib/*.py ──→ sudo <cmd> ──→ system service
Blueprint URL prefix Backend module
webui/api/firewall /api/firewall/ lib.firewall
webui/api/dhcp /api/dhcp/ lib.dnsmasq
webui/api/proxy /api/proxy/ lib.nginx
webui/api/certs /api/certs/ lib.acme
webui/api/wireguard /api/wireguard/ lib.wireguard

See docs/architecture.md for detailed request flow, zone model, and shared utility patterns.


Documentation

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