MealQuest/deploy/RUNBOOK.md

MealQuest deployment runbook

How MealQuest is deployed on office-srvr (10.60.1.14), how it is reached through Authentik, Traefik and DNS, how it is updated and rolled back, how its data is backed up and restored, and how its secrets are rotated. Values are the ones in use on 2026-10-05. Secrets themselves are never written here.

Paths used below:

Name	Path
Checkout on the host	/home/overseer/mealquest
Data volume (mealquest-data) on the host	/var/lib/docker/volumes/mealquest-data/_data
Same volume inside the containers	/data
Database	mealquest.db (+ mealquest.db-wal, mealquest.db-shm while open)
Media	media/ in the data volume
Backup target (NAS, over SSH)	joshua@10.60.1.50:/volume1/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups
Same target over SFTP (Synology chroot)	/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups

Prerequisites

On office-srvr (10.60.1.14), as recorded on 2026-10-05:

Item	Value
OS	Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS
Docker Engine / Compose plugin	29.8.2 / 5.6.0
git, rsync, iptables	2.53.0, 3.4.1, 1.8.11 (nf_tables)
Account	overseer, with sudo
Network	LAN reachability to Traefik (10.60.1.33), Authentik (auth.cubecraftlabs.com) and the NAS (10.60.1.50, SSH)

Elsewhere:

• Admin access to Authentik at https://auth.cubecraftlabs.com.
• SSH access to the Traefik host 10.60.1.33.
• Cloudflare access for the cubecraftlabs.com zone, and admin access to both Pi-holes (10.60.1.101 dns.ccl, 10.60.1.85 dns2.ccl).
• A NAS account joshua on 10.60.1.50 with the backup directory /volume1/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups (see "Backups").
• A Gitea token able to read Maniacs_Mansion/MealQuest, for the clone.

Stack and first deploy

The compose stack is deploy/compose.yaml: the mealquest service (built from the repository Dockerfile, runs as uid/gid 10001, listens on 8080 in the container) and the litestream service. Data lives in the named volume mealquest-data.

1. Choose and check the port

The container's 8080 is published on 10.60.1.14:8090. Ports 8080 and 8081 on this host belong to NestQuest, so 8090 was chosen. Before the first deploy it was checked free with:

ss -ltnp | grep 8090   # printed nothing

After the deploy the same host shows NestQuest on 8080/8081 and MealQuest on 8090:

LISTEN 0 4096 10.60.1.14:8080 0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN 0 4096 10.60.1.14:8081 0.0.0.0:*
LISTEN 0 4096 10.60.1.14:8090 0.0.0.0:*

The published host port is fixed in deploy/compose.yaml, in deploy/systemd/mealquest-firewall.sh and in the Traefik route; change all three together.

2. Clone

The checkout lives at /home/overseer/mealquest, next to NestQuest's ~/nestquest (not /opt/mealquest). Clone over HTTPS with a Gitea token, then reset the remote to the clean URL so the token is not stored in .git/config:

cd /home/overseer
git clone https://<user>:<token>@code.cubecraftlabs.com/Maniacs_Mansion/MealQuest.git mealquest
cd mealquest
git remote set-url origin https://code.cubecraftlabs.com/Maniacs_Mansion/MealQuest.git
git remote -v   # must show no token
git checkout main

3. Environment file

deploy/.env (git-ignored) is copied from deploy/.env.example and is mode 0600, owned by overseer:

cp deploy/.env.example deploy/.env
chmod 600 deploy/.env

Then edit deploy/.env to the values below. In particular MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS must be changed: .env.example ships 127.0.0.1 (a dev machine), and left as is the service listens only on the host's loopback, which Traefik cannot reach. Set it to the LAN address and check:

sed -i 's/^MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS=.*/MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS=10.60.1.14/' deploy/.env
grep '^MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS=' deploy/.env      # MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS=10.60.1.14
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml config | grep -A4 'ports:'
#   host_ip: 10.60.1.14, target: 8080, published: "8090"

After step 5 the listener is 10.60.1.14:8090 (container port 8080):

docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml port mealquest 8080   # 10.60.1.14:8090
sudo ss -ltnp 'sport = :8090'                               # 10.60.1.14:8090 only, no 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1

Values in use:

Variable	Value
MEALQUEST_BIND_ADDRESS	10.60.1.14
MEALQUEST_PUBLIC_URL	https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com
MEALQUEST_SHUTDOWN_TIMEOUT	10s
MEALQUEST_TRUSTED_PROXY	10.60.1.33
MEALQUEST_DEFAULT_TZ	America/New_York
MEALQUEST_OIDC_ISSUER	https://auth.cubecraftlabs.com/application/o/mealquest/
MEALQUEST_OIDC_CLIENT_ID	i6zraqmWsF552b8nmte070LXz0SI5pRdArBxFxeq (not a secret)
MEALQUEST_OIDC_ALLOWED_GROUPS	mealquest-admin
MEALQUEST_SESSION_IDLE / MEALQUEST_SESSION_MAX	720h / 4320h

MEALQUEST_HTTP_ADDR, MEALQUEST_DATA_DIR and the *_FILE variables are set by deploy/compose.yaml and must not appear in deploy/.env.

4. Secrets

deploy/secrets/ (git-ignored) is mode 0700, owned by overseer. Each file holds one value, is owned by 10001:10001 (host user mealquest) and is mode 0600. Compose bind-mounts file secrets with their host owner and mode, so any other owner or mode stops the container reading them and the service refuses to start.

File	Content	Mounted at
secret_key	base64 of 32 random bytes; encrypts stored secrets (AES-256-GCM)	/run/secrets/secret_key
oidc_client_secret	Client Secret of the Authentik provider mealquest	/run/secrets/oidc_client_secret
litestream_key	dedicated SSH private key for the NAS (see "Backups")	/etc/litestream/sftp_key

mkdir -p deploy/secrets && chmod 700 deploy/secrets
head -c 32 /dev/urandom | base64 > deploy/secrets/secret_key
printf '%s\n' '<Authentik client secret>' > deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret
# litestream_key: see "Backups" > "Database — Litestream"
sudo chown 10001:10001 deploy/secrets/*
sudo chmod 600 deploy/secrets/*
sudo ls -la deploy/secrets   # three files, mealquest mealquest, -rw-------

The mealquest host user (uid/gid 10001) is created in "Media — nightly rsync"; until it exists ls shows the numeric ids.

5. Firewall, then the stack

Install the firewall unit and the stack unit first (see "Host firewall" and "Stack unit"), so port 8090 is never open to the LAN. Create the media directory (see "Media — nightly rsync"), then build and start:

docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml build
sudo systemctl enable --now mealquest   # starts mealquest-firewall first
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml ps   # mealquest healthy, litestream up
curl -fsS http://10.60.1.14:8090/health
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com/health   # 200

Host checkout state on 2026-10-05

The first deploy ran before Feature 07 reached main. The checkout is at main 9cddbbb and the Feature 07 files under deploy/ were copied in from the feature branch: deploy/compose.yaml and deploy/.env.example are listed in .git/info/exclude, the rest show as untracked. Before the first routine deploy of a main that contains deploy/, remove those .git/info/exclude lines and the copied files (keep deploy/.env and deploy/secrets/), or git checkout refuses to overwrite them:

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
git status --porcelain --untracked-files=all deploy   # the copied files
sed -i '/^deploy\/\(compose.yaml\|.env.example\)$/d' .git/info/exclude
git clean -n deploy      # dry run: must not list .env or secrets/ (both git-ignored)
git clean -f deploy

Then follow "Routine deploy"; the checkout brings the tracked copies back.

Authentik

Sign-in is OpenID Connect against Authentik at https://auth.cubecraftlabs.com.

Object	Setting
Provider	OAuth2/OpenID provider mealquest, client type Confidential
Redirect URI	https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com/auth/callback (strict)
Signing	RS256, with the instance's signing key
Scopes	MealQuest requests openid profile email groups offline_access; the provider's scope mappings include openid, profile, email and offline_access, and the groups claim is delivered by a property mapping (the default profile mapping carries groups)
Application	name MealQuest, slug mealquest, provider mealquest
Group	mealquest-admin, bound to the application; household members are added to it
Client ID	i6zraqmWsF552b8nmte070LXz0SI5pRdArBxFxeq (not a secret; in deploy/.env as MEALQUEST_OIDC_CLIENT_ID)
Client Secret	in deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret only

MealQuest refuses a sign-in unless the user's groups claim (from the ID token, or from userinfo when the token has none) contains a group in MEALQUEST_OIDC_ALLOWED_GROUPS.

Check discovery from the Docker host — the service discovers the issuer at boot and will not start if it cannot:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" \
  https://auth.cubecraftlabs.com/application/o/mealquest/.well-known/openid-configuration   # 200

On 2026-10-05 discovery returned 200 with issuer https://auth.cubecraftlabs.com/application/o/mealquest/ and id_token_signing_alg_values_supported: ["RS256"].

Reverse proxy (Traefik)

MealQuest is published at https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com by the shared Traefik instance on 10.60.1.33 (Feature 07, task 0c1dc172). The route is a dynamic-configuration file that lives on the Traefik host only, at /home/overseer/Code/traefik/config/dynamic/mealquest-ccl.yml. Its exact contents:

# MealQuest - https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com
#   Feature 07 task 0c1dc172. Single Go binary (API + embedded PWA) on
#   office-srvr 10.60.1.14:8090. HTTP -> HTTPS is handled globally by
#   http-conf.yml, so only a websecure router is defined here.
#   This file lives on the Traefik host only; the repo copy is recorded in
#   deploy/RUNBOOK.md by task 876134bc.
http:
  routers:
    mealquest:
      entryPoints:
        - websecure
      rule: "Host(`mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com`)"
      priority: 100
      middlewares:
        - mealquest-headers
      service: mealquest
      tls:
        certResolver: myresolver
        domains:
          - main: mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com

  services:
    mealquest:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: "http://10.60.1.14:8090"

  middlewares:
    mealquest-headers:
      headers:
        stsSeconds: 31536000
        stsIncludeSubdomains: true
        contentTypeNosniff: true
        frameDeny: true

Traefik watches the dynamic directory, so saving the file loads the route; the certificate comes from certResolver: myresolver (Let's Encrypt, DNS-01 through Cloudflare). Check from the LAN:

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com/health   # 200

DNS

Where	Record
Cloudflare, zone cubecraftlabs.com	CNAME mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com → cubecraftlabs.com, proxied = true (orange cloud). Because it is proxied, public resolvers answer with Cloudflare's anycast addresses, A and AAAA (AAAA on 2026-10-05: 2606:4700:3032::6815:34ed, 2606:4700:3035::ac43:cd75), never the origin
Pi-hole primary 10.60.1.101 (dns.ccl), Local DNS records	A mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com → 10.60.1.33 (Traefik)
Pi-hole secondary 10.60.1.85 (dns2.ccl), Local DNS records	A mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com → 10.60.1.33 (Traefik)

The local record must be on both Pi-holes, or clients using the secondary go out through Cloudflare. Check:

for s in 10.60.1.101 10.60.1.85; do dig +short @$s mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com A; done
# 10.60.1.33 from each

AAAA caveat. The Pi-hole local record is A only, so both Pi-holes still forward AAAA queries and return Cloudflare's IPv6 addresses (2606:4700:3032::6815:34ed, 2606:4700:3035::ac43:cd75 on 2026-10-05). An IPv6-capable LAN client may prefer those and reach MealQuest through Cloudflare instead of directly through Traefik. It still works (Cloudflare proxies to the public route), but it is not the LAN path. If that matters, add a local AAAA override or block AAAA for this name on both Pi-holes.

Host firewall

Docker publishes 10.60.1.14:8090 past the host's INPUT rules, so the port is restricted in the DOCKER-USER chain instead: only Traefik (10.60.1.33) and the host itself (10.60.1.14) may connect; every other source is dropped.

Docker DNATs the published port to the container address and port 8080 before DOCKER-USER, so a plain -p tcp --dport 8090 rule never matches. The rules match the original destination 10.60.1.14:8090 with conntrack (--ctorigdst 10.60.1.14 --ctorigdstport 8090 --ctdir ORIGINAL) and are tagged with the comment mealquest-firewall. The port is never open while the rules change: if the chain does not already start with exactly the three rules, the script first inserts the DROP at position 1, then deletes its other tagged rules and inserts the two RETURN rules above the DROP. A re-run on a correct chain changes nothing. NestQuest's 8080/8081 rules below them are left untouched.

Repository file	Installed as
deploy/systemd/mealquest-firewall.sh	/usr/local/sbin/mealquest-firewall (root, 0755)
deploy/systemd/mealquest-firewall.service	/etc/systemd/system/mealquest-firewall.service (root, 0644)

The unit is Type=oneshot, RemainAfterExit=yes, Requires= and PartOf=docker.service, and WantedBy=multi-user.target docker.service: it re-applies the rules whenever Docker starts or restarts (Docker recreates DOCKER-USER empty), and a failure fails this unit only.

Install (done on 10.60.1.14 on 2026-10-05):

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 deploy/systemd/mealquest-firewall.sh /usr/local/sbin/mealquest-firewall
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0644 deploy/systemd/mealquest-firewall.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mealquest-firewall

Check:

systemctl is-enabled mealquest-firewall; systemctl is-active mealquest-firewall   # enabled, active
sudo iptables -S DOCKER-USER

Expected head of the chain (recorded 2026-10-05; NestQuest's rules follow):

-A DOCKER-USER -s 10.60.1.33/32 -m conntrack --ctorigdst 10.60.1.14 --ctorigdstport 8090 --ctdir ORIGINAL -m comment --comment mealquest-firewall -j RETURN
-A DOCKER-USER -s 10.60.1.14/32 -m conntrack --ctorigdst 10.60.1.14 --ctorigdstport 8090 --ctdir ORIGINAL -m comment --comment mealquest-firewall -j RETURN
-A DOCKER-USER -m conntrack --ctorigdst 10.60.1.14 --ctorigdstport 8090 --ctdir ORIGINAL -m comment --comment mealquest-firewall -j DROP

From any other LAN machine, curl -m 5 http://10.60.1.14:8090/health must time out; from 10.60.1.33 and 10.60.1.14 it returns 200.

Stack unit

deploy/systemd/mealquest.service owns the compose stack and is the only way it starts. Both compose services use restart: "no", so Docker never starts them on its own; the unit has Requires= and After=mealquest-firewall.service, so the stack starts only after the firewall rules are applied, and not at all if that unit fails. It is PartOf=docker.service, so restarting Docker (which recreates DOCKER-USER empty) stops the stack, re-applies the firewall, then starts the stack again. ExecStart is docker compose … up -d and ExecStop is docker compose … down; neither builds, so build before starting.

Containers no longer restart after a crash; systemctl restart mealquest brings them back.

Repository file	Installed as
deploy/systemd/mealquest.service	/etc/systemd/system/mealquest.service (root, 0644)

Install (done on 10.60.1.14 on 2026-10-05):

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0644 deploy/systemd/mealquest.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mealquest

Check:

systemctl is-enabled mealquest; systemctl is-active mealquest   # enabled, active
systemctl show mealquest -p Requires -p After                    # both list mealquest-firewall.service

Start, stop and restart the whole stack with sudo systemctl start|stop|restart mealquest, never with docker compose up or down. Per-service compose commands (stop mealquest, up -d --force-recreate litestream) are fine while the unit is active, because the firewall is already in place.

Routine deploy and rollback

Production runs main (a release); only overseer merges dev → main. Every deploy builds the image on the host from the checked-out commit.

Deploy

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
git fetch origin
git rev-parse --short HEAD          # the SHA being replaced: note it for rollback
git checkout --detach origin/main   # or a release tag
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml build
sudo systemctl restart mealquest    # applies the firewall, then down + up -d
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml ps   # mealquest healthy, litestream up
curl -fsS http://10.60.1.14:8090/health
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com/health   # 200
git rev-parse HEAD                  # the deployed SHA

Record the deployed SHA, the previous SHA and the date in the Maestro task for the release. Migrations run at start-up; the service refuses to start if the database has an applied migration it does not know.

If deploy/.env.example gained a variable, add it to deploy/.env before the restart; the service fails fast at boot naming any missing required variable.

Rollback to a previous SHA

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
git checkout --detach <previous SHA>
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml build
sudo systemctl restart mealquest
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml ps
curl -fsS http://10.60.1.14:8090/health

A rollback across a release that added a migration fails at start-up (the older binary refuses the newer schema). In that case restore the database to a point before the upgrade — "Restore the database" with -timestamp set just before the deploy — then start the older SHA. Changes made since that point are lost; say so to the household.

Backups

Database — Litestream

The litestream compose service streams every committed change to mealquest.db to the NAS over SFTP (deploy/litestream.yml). It takes a full snapshot daily (compaction level 9) and keeps a week of snapshots plus the incremental LTX files between them.

One-time setup (already done on 10.60.1.14):

1. Generate the dedicated keypair, git-ignored, owned by the container user:

   cd /home/overseer/mealquest
   ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -N '' -C mealquest-litestream -f deploy/secrets/litestream_key
   # append deploy/secrets/litestream_key.pub to joshua@10.60.1.50:~/.ssh/authorized_keys
   rm deploy/secrets/litestream_key.pub
   sudo chown 10001:10001 deploy/secrets/litestream_key
   sudo chmod 0600 deploy/secrets/litestream_key
   

2. The NAS host key is pinned in deploy/litestream.yml (host-key).

Check replication — list every LTX file at every level. Level 9 holds the full snapshots; the default listing (-level 0) shows only L0 files:

docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml exec -T litestream \
  litestream ltx -config /etc/litestream.yml -level all /data/mealquest.db

Media — nightly rsync

mealquest-media-backup.timer runs mealquest-media-backup.service at 03:30 every night. The service runs /usr/local/sbin/mealquest-media-backup (deploy/systemd/mealquest-media-backup.sh) as the unprivileged host user mealquest (uid/gid 10001, the app's own user) with no capabilities. systemd bind-mounts the data volume read-only at /run/mealquest-data and passes the Litestream key in as the credential nas_key; uid 10001 cannot otherwise reach /var/lib/docker or deploy/secrets/. The script refuses a media path that is a symlink and fails (exit 1) if media is missing.

One-time setup (already done on 10.60.1.14):

cd /home/overseer/mealquest
# Host user for the backup; ssh needs a passwd entry for its uid.
sudo groupadd --system --gid 10001 mealquest
sudo useradd --system --uid 10001 --gid 10001 --no-create-home \
  --home-dir /nonexistent --shell /usr/sbin/nologin mealquest
# Pinned NAS host keys, root-owned and world-readable.
sudo install -d -o root -g root -m 0755 /etc/mealquest
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0644 deploy/known_hosts /etc/mealquest/known_hosts
# The media directory; the backup fails if it is ever missing.
sudo install -d -o 10001 -g 10001 -m 0755 /var/lib/docker/volumes/mealquest-data/_data/media
# Script and units.
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0755 deploy/systemd/mealquest-media-backup.sh /usr/local/sbin/mealquest-media-backup
sudo install -o root -g root -m 0644 deploy/systemd/mealquest-media-backup.service \
  deploy/systemd/mealquest-media-backup.timer /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now mealquest-media-backup.timer

Run it by hand and read the result:

sudo systemctl start mealquest-media-backup.service
journalctl -u mealquest-media-backup --no-pager -n 30

To restore media, follow "Restore photos (media)" — never copy back while the timer or the service can still run.

Restore the database

SQLite in WAL mode keeps recent commits in mealquest.db-wal, indexed by mealquest.db-shm. A restored database must never sit beside an old WAL or shared-memory file: on open, SQLite would replay the old WAL's pages onto the restored database and corrupt it or mix in state from the database it replaced. So all three files are moved aside together, with Litestream's local state directory .mealquest.db-litestream, before the restore — and the restore runs into an empty volume.

Run from /home/overseer/mealquest:

D=/var/lib/docker/volumes/mealquest-data/_data
A=/var/tmp/mealquest-restore-aside-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)

# 1. Stop the whole stack (app and Litestream). Nothing may hold the
#    database open; a clean close checkpoints the WAL into mealquest.db.
sudo systemctl stop mealquest

# 2. Move the database, its -wal and -shm files and Litestream's state
#    aside — all of them, every time. Keep the directory until the
#    restored stack is verified.
sudo mkdir "$A"
for f in mealquest.db mealquest.db-wal mealquest.db-shm .mealquest.db-litestream; do
  if sudo test -e "$D/$f"; then sudo mv "$D/$f" "$A/"; fi
done
sudo ls -la "$D"   # must list only media/

# 3. Restore from the NAS. --no-deps keeps the app stopped so it cannot
#    create a fresh, empty database first.
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml run --rm --no-deps litestream \
  restore -config /etc/litestream.yml -o /data/mealquest.db /data/mealquest.db
sudo ls -la "$D"   # mealquest.db only: no -wal, no -shm

# 4. Check the restored file before starting the app (see "Count check").

# 5. Start the stack and check health.
sudo systemctl start mealquest
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml ps
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "health %{http_code}\n" http://10.60.1.14:8090/health

To restore to a point in time, add -timestamp 2026-10-05T23:00:00Z (or -txid) to the restore command.

Count check

/tmp/mqcount.py prints row counts for key tables, the number of application tables, a SHA-256 over every application row (first 16 hex digits; Litestream's own _litestream* tables are excluded) and PRAGMA integrity_check. Run it on a copy of the database, never on the live file; copy -wal/-shm along with it when the app is running.

import sqlite3, sys, hashlib
c = sqlite3.connect(sys.argv[1])
tabs = [r[0] for r in c.execute("select name from sqlite_master where type=\"table\" and name not like \"sqlite_%\" and name not like \"_litestream%\" order by name")]
for t in ("dinners", "week_plans", "schema_migrations"):
    print(t, c.execute(f"select count(*) from {t}").fetchone()[0])
h = hashlib.sha256()
for t in tabs:
    for row in c.execute(f"select * from \"{t}\" order by rowid"):
        h.update(repr(row).encode())
print("tables", len(tabs), "content-sha256", h.hexdigest()[:16])
print("integrity", c.execute("pragma integrity_check").fetchone()[0])

rm -rf /tmp/mqcheck && mkdir /tmp/mqcheck
sudo sh -c "cp -a $D/mealquest.db* /tmp/mqcheck/" && sudo chown -R "$USER" /tmp/mqcheck
python3 /tmp/mqcount.py /tmp/mqcheck/mealquest.db

Before and after must match exactly.

Restore photos (media)

Recipe and dinner photos live in media/ in the data volume and are backed up nightly to joshua@10.60.1.50:/volume1/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups/media/ (see "Media — nightly rsync"). The backup service mirrors with rsync --delete. An rsync --delete run must never see an empty or partial media/: it would delete the NAS copy you are about to restore from. Stopping the timer is not enough — it does not stop a run that is already in flight, and the service can still be started by hand. So stop both the timer and the service, confirm no rsync is running, and do not start the service until the restore is verified.

Run from /home/overseer/mealquest:

M=/var/lib/docker/volumes/mealquest-data/_data/media
NAS=/volume1/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups/media
SSH="ssh -i deploy/secrets/litestream_key -o IdentitiesOnly=yes -o UserKnownHostsFile=/etc/mealquest/known_hosts -o StrictHostKeyChecking=yes"

# 1. Stop the nightly mirror: the timer AND any run in flight.
sudo systemctl stop mealquest-media-backup.timer mealquest-media-backup.service

# 2. Pre-check — all three must hold before media/ is touched. If any
#    fails, stop here and find out why.
systemctl is-active mealquest-media-backup.timer     # inactive
systemctl is-active mealquest-media-backup.service   # inactive (or failed)
pgrep -a -u mealquest rsync || echo "no rsync"       # no rsync
sudo $SSH joshua@10.60.1.50 "find $NAS -type f | wc -l"
#    ^ note this NAS file count; it must be non-zero and is the target below.

# 3. Stop the app (no writes into media/ meanwhile).
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml stop mealquest

# 4. Recreate the directory if it is gone, owned by the app user.
sudo install -d -o 10001 -g 10001 -m 0755 "$M"

# 5. Copy back from the NAS as uid 10001's files. No --delete in this
#    direction: the NAS copy is the source and is only read.
sudo rsync -a --stats --chown=10001:10001 -e "$SSH" "joshua@10.60.1.50:$NAS/" "$M/"

# 6. Post-condition — before anything can mirror again:
sudo find "$M" -type f | wc -l                            # >= the NAS count from step 2
sudo $SSH joshua@10.60.1.50 "find $NAS -type f | wc -l"   # unchanged from step 2

# 7. Start the app, then the timer again. Only now may the service run.
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml up -d
curl -fsS http://10.60.1.14:8090/health
sudo systemctl start mealquest-media-backup.timer
systemctl is-active mealquest-media-backup.timer          # active

The local count may exceed the NAS count only if media/ still held files the NAS never received (photos added since the last nightly run); the next nightly run then copies them up. If the local count is lower, the copy did not complete: leave the timer stopped and re-run step 5.

When the database is restored too, restore it first ("Restore the database"), then the media, so every photo the database refers to is present. This media restore has not been run against production yet; the backup direction was checked on 2026-10-05 (see "Media backup checks").

Restore drill record — 2026-10-05

Drill on 10.60.1.14 against the live (pre-launch, empty-household) database, Litestream 0.5.17. Commands as in "Restore the database"; output trimmed only of compose progress lines.

Replica before the drill (ltx -level all; level 9 is the full snapshot):

level  min_txid          max_txid          size   created
0      0000000000000003  0000000000000003  14110  2026-10-05T23:13:30Z
1      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
1      0000000000000003  0000000000000003  14110  2026-10-05T23:13:30Z
2      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
2      0000000000000003  0000000000000003  14110  2026-10-05T23:13:30Z
3      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
9      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z

1. docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml down — both containers stopped and removed. The volume then held mealquest.db, .mealquest.db-litestream/ and media/; the clean close had checkpointed and removed -wal and -shm.

2. Before (copy of the stopped database):

   dinners 0
   week_plans 0
   schema_migrations 7
   tables 26 content-sha256 836e230e16c58dc7
   integrity ok
   

3. Moved aside to /var/tmp/mealquest-restore-aside-20261005: mealquest.db and .mealquest.db-litestream (no -wal/-shm existed after the clean stop; the loop moves them whenever they do). Volume afterwards: media/ only.

4. docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml run --rm --no-deps litestream restore -config /etc/litestream.yml -o /data/mealquest.db /data/mealquest.db — volume afterwards: mealquest.db (258048 bytes) and media/; no -wal, no -shm.

5. After (copy of the restored file, before the app started):

   dinners 0
   week_plans 0
   schema_migrations 7
   tables 26 content-sha256 836e230e16c58dc7
   integrity ok
   

6. docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml up -d — mealquest-mealquest-1 healthy, mealquest-litestream-1 up; GET /health → 200. Counts on a copy of the running database (mealquest.db, -wal, -shm) were identical to the above.

7. Litestream resumed against the restored database:

   level=INFO msg="detected database behind replica" db=mealquest.db db_txid=0000000000000000 replica_txid=0000000000000003
   level=INFO msg="fetched latest L0 file from replica" db=mealquest.db min_txid=0000000000000003 max_txid=0000000000000003
   level=INFO msg="compaction complete" db=mealquest.db level=1 txid.min=0000000000000004 txid.max=0000000000000004 size=14110
   

   Replica after the drill (ltx -level all):

   level  min_txid          max_txid          size   created
   0      0000000000000004  0000000000000004  14110  2026-10-05T23:27:21Z
   1      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
   1      0000000000000003  0000000000000003  14110  2026-10-05T23:13:30Z
   1      0000000000000004  0000000000000004  14110  2026-10-05T23:27:21Z
   2      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
   2      0000000000000003  0000000000000003  14110  2026-10-05T23:13:30Z
   3      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
   9      0000000000000001  0000000000000002  14110  2026-10-05T23:12:38Z
   

The first drill earlier the same day (before -level all was recorded) gave the same before/after result: checksum 836e230e16c58dc7, 26 tables, integrity ok.

Media backup checks — 2026-10-05

sudo systemctl start mealquest-media-backup.service on 10.60.1.14:

Case	Result
Normal run	Result=success; journal: synced /run/mealquest-data/media to joshua@10.60.1.50:/volume1/homes/Joshua/mealquest-backups/media/ as uid 10001
A test file added	Number of regular files transferred: 1; removing it then gave Number of deleted files: 1 (reg: 1)
media replaced by a symlink to /etc	Result=exit-code, status 1; /run/mealquest-data/media is a symlink to /etc; refusing to back it up
media removed	Result=exit-code, status 1; media directory /run/mealquest-data/media is missing
sudo -u mealquest writing into the volume via /var/lib/docker/...	Permission denied — uid 10001 cannot traverse /var/lib/docker (mode 0710 root)

Secret rotation

Rotate a secret when it may have leaked, when someone with access leaves, or on the owner's schedule. Never paste a secret into a ticket, chat or this file.

App key (deploy/secrets/secret_key)

The app key encrypts every stored secret: the _ct columns ai_settings.api_key_ct (LLM API key), recipe_search_settings.api_key_ct (recipe-search API key), integrations_google.refresh_token_ct (Google Calendar refresh token) and chat_settings.webhook_url_ct (Google Chat webhook URL). Rotating it re-encrypts nothing: a value encrypted with the old key can no longer be read. A mealquest rotate-key helper that re-encrypts in place is planned but does not exist yet.

What is recoverable today. The service currently exposes only household settings; no shipped flow writes or re-enters any of these four secrets. The re-entry flows are planned: the LLM key in Settings → AI assistant (the AI settings feature), the recipe-search key (Feature 10), Google Calendar reconnect (Feature 16) and the Google Chat webhook (Feature 19). So today the rotation is safe only if no _ct value is stored, which the pre-check below proves. If the pre-check finds a stored value, do not rotate: it could not be re-entered afterwards. Keep the current key and wait for the matching flow (or the rotate-key helper).

The pre-check and the key replacement run with the whole stack stopped, from the pre-check until the new key is in place. A raw copy of mealquest.db and mealquest.db-wal taken while the stack runs is not a consistent snapshot: the two files are copied one after the other, and a checkpoint (by the app or by Litestream) between the two copies can move committed pages out of the WAL into mealquest.db after mealquest.db was already copied, then reset the WAL before it is copied. The copy then lacks those commits — possibly a stored _ct value — and the pre-check reports a false 0. A running app could also store a _ct value after a correct pre-check and before the key is replaced. Stopping both containers removes every writer (Litestream also writes and checkpoints), and the clean close checkpoints the WAL into mealquest.db, so the file alone is complete.

Run from /home/overseer/mealquest:

D=/var/lib/docker/volumes/mealquest-data/_data

# 1. Stop the whole stack (app and Litestream) and leave it stopped until
#    step 4. Nothing may hold the database open.
sudo systemctl stop mealquest
sudo ls -la "$D"   # mealquest.db and media/ only: no -wal, no -shm; if
                   # either exists, the close was not clean — stop here

# 2. Pre-check, on a copy of the now-quiescent database.
rm -rf /tmp/mqcheck && mkdir /tmp/mqcheck
sudo cp -a "$D/mealquest.db" /tmp/mqcheck/ && sudo chown -R "$USER" /tmp/mqcheck
python3 - /tmp/mqcheck/mealquest.db <<'PY'
import sqlite3, sys
c = sqlite3.connect(sys.argv[1])
for t, col in (("ai_settings", "api_key_ct"), ("recipe_search_settings", "api_key_ct"),
               ("integrations_google", "refresh_token_ct"), ("chat_settings", "webhook_url_ct")):
    print(t, col, c.execute(f"select count(*) from {t} where {col} is not null").fetchone()[0])
PY
rm -rf /tmp/mqcheck
# every count must be 0; otherwise start the stack again on the current
# key (sudo systemctl start mealquest) and stop here

# 3. Replace the key, still with the stack stopped.
sudo cp -a deploy/secrets/secret_key /var/tmp/secret_key.old   # keep until verified, then shred
head -c 32 /dev/urandom | base64 | sudo tee deploy/secrets/secret_key >/dev/null
sudo chown 10001:10001 deploy/secrets/secret_key
sudo chmod 600 deploy/secrets/secret_key

# 4. Start the stack on the new key and check health.
sudo systemctl start mealquest
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml ps
curl -fsS http://10.60.1.14:8090/health

Then sign in and open household settings to confirm the service runs on the new key. Finally sudo shred -u /var/tmp/secret_key.old. Once the planned flows ship, this section gains a step per secret to re-enter it and confirm it works.

OIDC client secret (deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret)

In Authentik, open the provider mealquest and regenerate the Client Secret. Write it to the file (same owner and mode as above) and recreate the service:

printf '%s\n' '<new Authentik client secret>' | sudo tee deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret >/dev/null
sudo chown 10001:10001 deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret
sudo chmod 600 deploy/secrets/oidc_client_secret
docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml up -d --force-recreate mealquest

Sign in at https://mealquest.cubecraftlabs.com to confirm; sign-ins fail between regenerating the secret in Authentik and recreating the service.

LLM API key

Stored encrypted in the database, not in deploy/. In the app, open Settings → AI assistant, choose Replace, paste the new key and Verify, and check the verified state is shown. Then revoke the old key in the provider's console. (The AI assistant settings page is delivered by its own feature; until it ships there is no stored LLM key to rotate.)

VAPID keys (Web Push)

Planned with Web Push (Feature 19): the public key goes in deploy/.env as MEALQUEST_VAPID_PUBLIC_KEY, the private key in deploy/secrets/vapid_private_key (owner 10001:10001, mode 0600), and the pair is generated with cmd/vapidgen. Changing the VAPID pair invalidates every push subscription: each device must turn notifications on again (/settings/notifications) before it receives pushes. Rotate only when the private key may have leaked, write both halves, recreate the service with --force-recreate mealquest, and tell the household to re-enable notifications on each device.

Litestream / NAS key (deploy/secrets/litestream_key)

Generate a new keypair as in "Database — Litestream", add the new public key to joshua@10.60.1.50:~/.ssh/authorized_keys, replace the file (owner 10001:10001, mode 0600), run docker compose -f deploy/compose.yaml up -d --force-recreate litestream and sudo systemctl start mealquest-media-backup.service, check both (litestream ltx and the journal), then remove the old public key from the NAS.

Context records

The confirmed values in this runbook (port 8090, checkout path, Authentik group mealquest-admin, DNS, firewall, backup target) are also recorded in the CTXD project mealquest: RUNBOOKS.MD (deployment procedure) and the open questions in CONTEXT.MD, updated for Feature 07 task 876134bc.