Files
flvx/plans/037-tunnel-chain-failover-repair.md

3.5 KiB

037 Tunnel Chain Failover Repair

Checklist

  • Analyze middle-hop primary/backup failover across backend runtime generation and agent route selection.
  • Add regression coverage for a tunnel relay chain where a same-hop fifo primary is down and the backup must take over.
  • Update tunnel runtime generation so chain services retry route selection when the next hop has multiple candidates.
  • Harden agent-side chain failover if backend-configured retries alone does not cover all relay/chain paths.
    • N/A: Router retry loop (go-gost/x/chain/router.go:91) rebuilds route on each iteration, so FailFilter applies to failed nodes.
  • Revalidate diagnosis output so tunnel/forward tests reflect failover behavior instead of looking fully broken.
    • N/A: Diagnosis tests individual legs (A→next, B→next) which is correct. Failover is for actual traffic, not diagnosis.
  • Run targeted backend and agent test suites.

Findings

  • Backend already emits hop selectors for tunnel chains with strategy, maxFails=1, and failTimeout=10m in go-backend/internal/http/handler/mutations.go:3243, so the control plane is not dropping the primary/backup mode itself.
  • Agent route construction selects one node per hop up front in go-gost/x/chain/chain.go:92. If the chosen primary node is offline, the dial fails inside go-gost/x/chain/route.go:220 and the node gets marked failed, but that mark only matters on a later route build.
  • Tunnel chain services are generated without handler retry settings in go-backend/internal/http/handler/mutations.go:3274, while the router only rebuilds a route when cfg.Handler.Retries is greater than zero in go-gost/x/config/parsing/service/parse.go:319.
  • Because the default retry count is effectively one attempt, a relay request never gets a second route selection after the primary middle-hop node is marked down, so traffic does not switch to the backup node.
  • The forward handlers already have explicit retry/exclude-node loops in go-gost/x/handler/forward/local/handler.go:179 and go-gost/x/handler/forward/remote/handler.go:207, which explains why failover logic exists in the codebase but is missing on the tunnel relay chain path.

Repair Direction

  • In backend tunnel runtime generation, compute the downstream candidate count for each chain service and set handler retries to at least len(nextTargets) - 1 when a hop has multiple selectable nodes. That gives the router another dial cycle so FailFilter can skip the failed primary and pick the backup.
  • Keep the retry value scoped to tunnel relay services built from buildTunnelChainServiceConfig so single-node hops do not incur unnecessary extra attempts.
  • Add an agent-side regression test around relay + chain routing that simulates an offline primary node and asserts the second attempt lands on the backup node after the first node is marked failed.
  • Add a backend regression test covering a tunnel definition with two nodes on the same middle hop in fifo mode, verifying the generated service config carries the retry budget needed for failover.
  • Recheck tunnel/forward diagnosis behavior after the runtime fix. The current diagnosis model probes individual branch legs, so it may need an aggregated result or clearer messaging to avoid reading a partial branch failure as total failover failure.

Validation

  • cd go-backend && go test ./internal/http/handler/... ./tests/contract/...
  • cd go-gost/x && go test ./chain/... ./handler/relay/... ./config/parsing/service/...