archipelagoandClaude Opus 5
c0cfc72a05
Reported: "peers seem to be slipping into trusted status somehow which is
absolutely terrible for security". Two independent fail-open paths, both
granting Trusted with no operator decision anywhere in the loop.
1. federation.peer-joined is UNAUTHENTICATED (middleware's no-session
list — federated peers call it over Tor without cookies) and reachable
on /rpc/v1, which is peer-allowed. It does verify an ed25519 signature,
but against THE PUBKEY THE CALLER SUPPLIED, so it proves the caller
holds its own key and nothing about whether we ever invited it. A join
presenting no invite_token fell through to
None => TrustLevel::Trusted.min(claimed_trust)
and claimed_trust itself defaults to Trusted when the field is absent.
So anything able to reach the node could generate a keypair, omit the
token, and be recorded as Trusted. Now capped at Observer: an invite
WE minted is the only path to Trusted. `min` is kept so a peer's own
lower claim is still honoured — this can only ever reduce trust.
2. merge_transitive_peers added every peer advertised by a Trusted source
as Trusted. That makes trust viral rather than transitive-by-one-hop:
the merged node is itself synced with, its peers merged in turn, so a
single invite anywhere in the graph eventually marked the entire graph
Trusted on every node. Now Observer — which is what this feature's own
spec always said. NodeStateSnapshot.federated_peers is documented as
"adds them as Observers on her side… doesn't auto-promote Observer-via-
Bob to Trusted". The code contradicted the comment directly above it.
Observer is deliberate rather than Untrusted: the merge exists for
routing, and Observer still passes the `!= Untrusted` gates that
federation, DWN and messaging actually check, so a legacy peer degrades
instead of breaking. Per the operator's decision, existing peers are NOT
auto-demoted — silently rewriting live trust relationships across the
fleet would be worse than the bug.
Instead they are made auditable: FederatedNode.trust_source records WHY a
level was granted (invite | uninvited-join | transitive-merge | manual).
It deliberately has no default provenance — None means "recorded before
this existed", which is exactly the population worth reviewing.
The one failing test was asserting the vulnerable behaviour
(merge_transitive_peers_skips_source_and_local_node expected Trusted); it
now asserts the security property and says why, so the escalation cannot
be reintroduced by making a test go green.
Verified: 42/42 federation tests, cargo check --all-targets clean.
Still open, tracked in .planning/RELEASE-1.7.121-TASKS.md: surface
trust_source in the UI, and require the node password to grant Trusted.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Archipelago
Self-sovereign Bitcoin node OS and manifest-driven app platform.
Archipelago is a bootable personal server OS for Bitcoin infrastructure,
self-hosted apps, mesh communication, decentralized identity, and federation.
Apps are packaged as declarative manifest.yml files and run as rootless
Podman containers managed by the Rust backend.
What is here
core/- Rust workspace: backend API, container runtime, security, OpenWrt helpers, and performance/resource management.neode-ui/- Vue 3 + TypeScript frontend.apps/- app manifests and custom app container sources.docker/- supporting container build contexts for UI companion surfaces.image-recipe/- bootable image/ISO build inputs.Android/- Android companion app.scripts/- development, release, deployment, and validation tooling.docs/- architecture, app packaging, operations, API, and roadmap docs.
Platform model
Archipelago is built as a developer-ready app platform, not a fixed appliance:
- Apps are declared in
apps/<app-id>/manifest.yml. - The Rust parser in
core/container/src/manifest.rsis the canonical schema. - The orchestrator compiles manifests to rootless Podman/Quadlet runtime state.
- App data lives under
/var/lib/archipelago/<app-id>/. - Secrets are generated or read from
/var/lib/archipelago/secrets/and injected through Podman secrets rather than static environment values. - Release and app catalogs are signed and verified against a pinned trust anchor.
Start with:
- Architecture
- Developer Guide
- App Developer Guide
- App Manifest Spec
- Nostr Git Source Hosting Plan
- Operations Runbook
- Troubleshooting
Quick start
Frontend
cd neode-ui
npm install
npm start
The dev UI runs at http://localhost:8100 with a mock backend on :5959.
Backend
cd core
cargo build
cargo test --all-features
Linux is the supported backend runtime and release-build target. macOS is fine for frontend work and many Rust compile/test loops, but host integration tests that touch Podman, systemd, networking, or image build paths require Linux.
App manifests
./scripts/validate-app-manifest.sh apps/filebrowser/manifest.yml
python3 scripts/generate-app-catalog.py
python3 scripts/check-app-catalog-drift.py --release --strict
scripts/generate-app-catalog.py requires Python with PyYAML installed.
Documentation map
| Doc | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Architecture | System layers, crates, data paths, security model |
| Developer Guide | Local setup, code workflow, testing |
| API Reference | JSON-RPC API overview |
| App Developer Guide | How to package and test apps |
| App Manifest Spec | Manifest schema and validation rules |
| Nostr Git Source Hosting Plan | ngit/NIP-34 contribution workflow and maintainer model |
| Apps README | Packaged app catalog overview |
| Image Recipe | Bootable image build flow |
| Operations Runbook | Production operations and recovery |
| Open Source Readiness | Public-release cleanup checklist |
| Roadmap | Shipped, in-progress, and planned work |
| Unified Task Tracker | Launch hardening task list |
| Archive | Historical plans, audits, and handoffs |
Contributing
Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request. For security issues, follow SECURITY.md and do not open a public issue.
License
Archipelago is licensed under the MIT License. Third-party notices are listed in NOTICE and generated license inventories in component release artifacts.