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Distributed wiki

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The idea is to deploy mirrors across dn42 using anycast addressing (BGP), thus providing redundancy, load-balancing and improved access times to the wiki. Sites are powered by gollum which has no native SSL support, so Nginx acts as a reverse proxy and handles the encryption. The local webserver is monitored with a simple shell script working in conjunction with ExaBGP, announcing/withdrawing the assigned route if the service is up/down.

Prerequisites

Network

Data replication

Site files are stored in a local DVCS repository (Git) on each node and replicated through a central server hosted by XUU-DN42. Since gollum is built on top of Git, it is not overly complicated to keep the local site in sync with others, each site only triggers periodic pulls/pushes from/to the Git server.

Setup the repo

#!/bin/bash

WIKI_PATH=<repo path>
GIT=/usr/bin/git

cd "${WIKI_PATH}"
${GIT} push
${GIT} pull

exit 0

*/10 * * * * <path>/wiki-sync.sh &> /dev/null

Running in 10 minute intervals is reasonable, if you choose to change this, please keep it in the range from 5 to 15 minutes.

gollum

RACK_ENV=production gollum --css --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4568 Read-only: RACK_ENV=production gollum --css --host 127.0.0.1 --port 4567 --no-edit ```

Set `<path>` to the location where wiki Git repo was cloned.

Nginx reverse proxy

SSL

./ca.dn42 tls-gen \
   <AS>-<CC>(-<UID>).wiki.dn42 \
   EXAMPLE-MNT \
   mail@example.com \
   DNS:<AS>-<CC>(-<ID>).wiki.dn42,DNS:wiki.dn42,DNS:www.wiki.dn42,DNS:internal.dn42,DNS:www.internal.dn42

Wait for a reply and then sign the certificate:

./ca.dn42 tls-sign wiki.dn42 MIC92-MNT

Site identification

A custom header X-SiteID identifies the site you're connecting to:

Enabling HPKP

openssl rsa -in wiki.key -outform der -pubout | openssl dgst -sha256 -binary | openssl enc -base64 ```

add_header Public-Key-Pins pin-sha256=""; pin-sha256=""; max-age=5184000; includeSubDomains'; ```

Read more about this here.

Domains

The proxy should accept the following domain names:

Nginx should listen on a unicast address as well, so your site can be reached exclusively. Assign an IP address for the occasion and send it to XUU-DN42 including your AS <aut-num> and the country code <CC> where your site is located. A forward DNS record will be created, pointing to the unicast IP address:

Config example

ssl_protocols  TLSv1.2 TLSv1.1 TLSv1;
ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:2m;

ssl_ciphers   ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA;

ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;

upstream wiki { server 127.0.0.1:4567; }

server { 
        server_name internal.dn42 wiki.dn42 as<aut-num>-<cc>.wiki.dn42;

        listen 172.23.0.80:80 default;
        listen [fd42:d42:d42:80::1]:80 default;
        listen <unicast ipv4> 80;
        listen [<unicast ipv6>]:80;

        add_header X-SiteID                   '<aut-num>-<cc>';

        location / {
                proxy_pass http://wiki;
        }
}

upstream wikirw { server 127.0.0.1:4568; }


server { 
        server_name internal.dn42 wiki.dn42 as<aut-num>-<cc>.wiki.dn42;

        listen 172.23.0.80:443 ssl default;
        listen [fd42:d42:d42:80::1]:443 ssl default;
        listen <unicast ipv4> 443 ssl;
        listen [<unicast ipv6>]:443 ssl;

	ssl on;
        ssl_certificate      <path>/ssl.crt;  
        ssl_certificate_key  <path>/ssl.key;

        add_header strict-transport-security  "max-age=5184000; includeSubDomains";
        add_header Public-Key-Pins            'pin-sha256="<primary-pin>";pin-sha256="<backup-pin>";  max-age=5184000; includeSubDomains';
        add_header X-SiteID                   '<aut-num>-<cc>';

        location / {
                proxy_pass http://wikirw;
        }
}

ExaBGP

Announcing

The prefix AS-PATH should show the announcement is originating from your AS. After peering ExaBGP to the nearest speaker(s), check if the prefix is routing properly inside your network. Try not to blackhole the passing traffic (e.g. no static routes to 172.23.0.80/32). Test the whole thing by shutting down nginx/gollum and watch what happens.

Configuration

# exabgp.conf

group gollum-watchdog {
  neighbor <peer1> {
    router-id x.x.x.x;
    local-address <source-address>;
    local-as <ownas>;
    peer-as <peeras>;
  }

  ## (example ipv4) peer with one of our iBGP speakers:
  neighbor 172.22.0.1 {
    router-id 172.23.0.80;
    local-address 172.22.0.2;
    local-as 123456;
    peer-as 123456;
  }

  ## (example ipv6) peer with one of our iBGP speakers:
  neighbor fd42:4992:6a6d::1 {
    router-id 172.23.0.80;
    local-address fd42:4992:6a6d::2;
    local-as 123456;
    peer-as 123456;
  }

  ## ...

  process watch-gollum {
     run <path>/gollum-watchdog.sh;
  }
}

Watchdog script

Watchdog runs in an infinite loop, sending the appropriate commands to stdout. ExaBGP attaches to the process' stdout and listens for instructions. Watchdog sends either a route announce or widthdraw.

Run gollum-watchdog.sh in a shell first to validate it's working:

#!/bin/bash

CURL=curl

## url's to check (all listed must be alive to send announce)
URL=("http://172.23.0.80" "https://172.23.0.80" "http://[fd42:d42:d42:80::1]" "https://[fd42:d42:d42:80::1]")

ROUTE='172.23.0.80/32'
## the anycast v6 route (/64 due to prefix size limits)
ROUTE6='fd42:d42:d42:80::/64'

## the next-hop we'll be advertising to neighbor(s)
NEXTHOP='<source-address>' 
NEXTHOP6='<source-address-v6>'

## regex match this keyword against HTTP response from curl
VALIDATE_KEYWORD='gollum'

INTERVAL=60

###########################

RUN_STATE=0             

check_urls() {          
        for url in "${URL[@]}"; do

                ## workaround curl errno 23 when piping
                http_response=`${CURL} --insecure -g -s -L -o - "${url}"`

                echo "${http_response}" | egrep -q "${VALIDATE_KEYWORD}" || {
                        return 1
                }

                ## add more checks

        done
        return 0
}

while [ 1 ]; do
        if [ ${RUN_STATE} -eq 0 ]; then
                check_urls && {
                        RUN_STATE=1
                        echo "announce route ${ROUTE} next-hop ${NEXTHOP}"
                        echo "announce route ${ROUTE6} next-hop ${NEXTHOP6}"
                }       
        else    
                check_urls || {
                        RUN_STATE=0
                        echo "withdraw route ${ROUTE} next-hop ${NEXTHOP}"
                        echo "withdraw route ${ROUTE6} next-hop ${NEXTHOP6}"
                }       
        fi

        sleep ${INTERVAL}

done    

exit 0

Run

Normally SIGUSR1 to the exabgp process triggers a configuration update, but at occasion the process might need to be restarted - since its gracefull shutdown can be glitchy , this might be a bit difficult. Sending SIGKILL to the child(ren) and immediately after, the parent, does the job (quick-and-dirty).

USAGE: /etc/exabgp/run.sh [start|stop|restart]

#!/bin/bash

PID_FILE=/var/run/exaBGP/exabgp_PID

######################################

EXABGP=<path>/sbin/exabgp
EXA_LOG=/var/log/exabgp.log
CONF=/etc/exabgp/exabgp.conf


start() {
	[ -f ${PID_FILE} ] && {
		echo "WARNING: `cat ${PID_FILE}`: exabgp already running"; return 1
	}
	${EXABGP} ${CONF} &> ${EXA_LOG} &
	cpid=$!
	[ ${cpid} -eq 0 ] && {
		echo "ERROR: could not start process"; return 1

	}
        echo ${cpid} > ${PID_FILE}
}

stop(){
	[ -f ${PID_FILE} ] || return 1 
	pkill -9 -P $(cat ${PID_FILE})
        kill -9  $(cat ${PID_FILE})
	rm -f ${PID_FILE}
}

case ${1} in
    start )
	start
    ;;
    stop )
	stop
   ;;
    restart )
	stop
	sleep 1
	start
   ;;
esac

exit 0

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