authentik: incident hardening after the signin-speedup rollout storm

The first apply of the signin-speedup change triggered a ~50min authentik
outage (and a shared CNPG primary failover): the helm chart pin (2026.2.2)
silently DOWNGRADED the Keel-managed live image (2026.2.4) against an
already-migrated DB, default liveness probes kill-looped pods queuing on
authentik's migration advisory lock, and kills mid-migration left ghost
idle-in-transaction sessions holding that lock. Full analysis in
docs/post-mortems/2026-06-10-authentik-downgrade-boot-storm.md.

Hardening (all root causes):
- values.yaml: pin global.image.tag to the Keel-managed live tag (2026.2.4)
  so helm applies can never downgrade under Keel again
- values.yaml: server livenessProbe 6x10s/5s (was chart-default 3x10s/3s)
- values.yaml: REMOVE AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__CONN_MAX_AGE (session-mode
  pgbouncer pins persistent conns 1:1 -> pool saturation, 58s/s waits)
- pgbouncer.ini: idle_transaction_timeout=300 reaps ghost lock holders;
  pgbouncer.tf gets a config-checksum annotation so ini changes roll pods
- authentik_provider.tf: drop the completed import stanza (adoption rule)
- traefik: suppress pre-existing keel.sh annotation/tier-label drift on
  auth-proxy/bot-block/x402/error-pages deployments (KEEL_LIFECYCLE_V1
  pattern) so applies stop stripping live Keel state

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Viktor Barzin 2026-06-11 00:26:52 +00:00
parent 97ccdbecb8
commit 4e88298976
8 changed files with 156 additions and 23 deletions

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# Post-mortem: Authentik downgrade boot storm + shared-PG failover (2026-06-10)
**Impact:** Authentik (and therefore forward-auth for all ~67 `auth="required"`
ingresses and every OIDC app) degraded/unavailable for ~50 minutes
(~22:2023:10 UTC). The auth-proxy basicAuth fallback served Emergency Access
prompts during outpost-check failures. The shared CNPG primary failed over
(pg-cluster-2 → pg-cluster-1, 22:40:58 UTC), briefly disturbing every PG-backed
tenant.
**Trigger:** a routine values-only `tg apply` on `stacks/authentik` (first-time
signin speedup work — env tuning, outpost config, static-asset ingress).
## Root causes (three stacked)
1. **Helm/Keel version split → silent downgrade.** Keel (namespace
`keel.sh/enrolled` + diun annotations) had upgraded the live authentik
image to `2026.2.4`, while the Helm release pinned chart `2026.2.2` (whose
appVersion drives the image tag). The values-only apply therefore rolled
every server/worker pod BACK to `2026.2.2` against a `2026.2.4`-migrated
database. Cores never came up healthy (`failed to proxy to backend`, plus
Django cross-version serialized-cache warnings), and mid-storm Keel
re-upgraded the image, adding a third ReplicaSet to the churn.
2. **Liveness budget too small for authentik's boot.** The chart-default
liveness probe (3×10s, 3s timeout) kills a pod ~30s after the go layer
passes the startup probe — but during a rolling restart the Python core
still waits on authentik's DB **migration advisory lock** (60120s+ under
contention). kubelet kill-looped every booting pod, and each kill increased
lock contention for the rest (thundering herd).
3. **Ghost lock holders.** Pods killed mid-migration-check left PgBouncer
server connections `idle in transaction` still **holding the migration
advisory lock** (observed twice: `SELECT * FROM authentik_version_history`
idle 2+ min). Every subsequent boot serialized behind a dead client.
PgBouncer had no `idle_transaction_timeout`, so the ghosts never expired.
**Aggravator:** `AUTHENTIK_POSTGRESQL__CONN_MAX_AGE=60` (newly made live) made
every Django thread hold its connection persistently; with PgBouncer in
*session* mode each one pins a server connection 1:1, so the restart churn
saturated all 3×(20+5) pool slots (58s/s client wait observed; authentik held
75 of 108 connections on the new primary). The shared primary's
restart/failover at 22:40 fits this storm window.
## Resolution
- Scaled workers to 0 (transient) to free pool capacity; rollout converged
once, then re-degraded when workers returned.
- Emergency `kubectl patch` of the server liveness probe (3×10s/3s →
6×10s/5s) — final state codified in Helm values in the same session.
- `pg_terminate_backend()` on the ghost `idle in transaction` lock holders
(twice).
- Scaled servers to 1 so a single `2026.2.4` pod booted uncontended, then back
to 3 — converged cleanly (51s boots, zero restarts).
- Final `tg apply` reconciled everything (image tag pinned, conn_max_age
removed, liveness in values, pgbouncer reaper config).
## Prevention (all landed in this change)
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| Helm/Keel version split | `global.image.tag` pinned in `values.yaml` to the Keel-managed live tag, with a comment requiring the pin be refreshed whenever the chart is touched. Long-term: bump the chart pin when Keel moves the image (diun notifies). |
| Liveness kill loop | `server.livenessProbe` 6×10s / 5s timeout in values (startup probe still bounds total boot at 60×10s). |
| Ghost advisory-lock holders | `idle_transaction_timeout = 300` in `pgbouncer.ini` + config-checksum annotation so ini changes actually roll pgbouncer pods. |
| Pool saturation | `CONN_MAX_AGE` removed (per-request connections are ~12ms through local PgBouncer; not worth pinning server connections in session mode). values.yaml carries a do-not-set warning. |
## Lessons
- **Check the live image tag against the chart pin before ANY helm-managed
apply on a Keel-enrolled namespace.** `kubectl get deploy <x> -o
jsonpath='{..image}'` vs the chart's appVersion — a mismatch means the apply
is a version change, not a config change.
- A "stuck rollout" of authentik is usually the migration advisory lock:
check `pg_locks` joined to `pg_stat_activity` for `idle in transaction`
holders before blaming probes or resources.
- The auth-proxy basicAuth fallback worked as designed throughout (Emergency
Access path); without it every protected app would have hard-failed.