Single-node Vault (raft storage, standalone mode) plus a restore CronJob
that pulls the latest raft snapshot from the VPS's own local MinIO
(already receiving snapshots every 6h from home) and restores it every
6h, offset 30 minutes after the home-side snapshot job.
Not an independent root of trust: raft snapshot restore replaces the
entire storage backend including the keyring, so after every restore
this Vault is sealed with HOME's actual keyring - unsealing it needs a
copy of home's real unseal key, stored directly on the VPS cluster
(kubectl, not git, same pattern as vps-minio-root-secret). First-run
bootstrap uses a throwaway single-Shamir-key init just to get through
the very first restore, then is irrelevant from then on.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
rootUser/rootPassword were left unset, relying on the chart's
auto-generation - but ArgoCD renders Helm via 'helm template', which
doesn't support the lookup() function charts use to preserve an existing
generated secret across upgrades. With selfHeal: true, every single sync
generated a BRAND NEW random root password, immediately invalidating
whatever credentials were stored in the home cluster's Vault for the
backup/CronJob consumers (vault-raft-snapshot, 3x CNPG barmanObjectStore,
nextcloud-pvc-sync) - confirmed live: all of them failing with 'Access
Key Id does not exist' right after being fixed, because the password had
already rotated out from under them again.
Fixed by pointing at a pre-existing Secret created directly on the VPS
cluster (kubectl, not git - this cluster has no Vault/ESO of its own).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Foundation for a DR/backup path using an always-on VPS as a second
ArgoCD-managed cluster, plus DB/backup standardization work that fell
out of it:
- vps-standby ArgoCD cluster destination + AppProject, MinIO backup
receiver, VPS bootstrap script (k3s, Netbird, cert-manager)
- Dual-site DNS failover watcher + home-IP DDNS CronJob, Cloudflare
token moved out of git into Vault+ExternalSecret
- Nextcloud migrated from ad-hoc MariaDB to CNPG + redis-operator
(matches n8n/Authentik/GitLab's backup-native pattern)
- Authentik's CNPG manifests moved into the actual ArgoCD-synced
manifests/ path (were present but never wired into the sync path)
- Vault raft-snapshot CronJob, CNPG barmanObjectStore backups
(Authentik/n8n/Nextcloud), Nextcloud file-PVC restic sync - all
targeting the new VPS MinIO receiver
See VPS Warm-Standby plan doc for full design rationale.
