anwesen/deploy

Deploying Anwesen

Anwesen is a single read-only daemon. It binds 127.0.0.1:8080 by default and trusts every request it accepts -- access control lives in front of it, not inside it ([ADR-007]). A typical host runs the anwesen.service systemd unit and an nginx (or caddy, or warpgate) reverse proxy as the network boundary.

systemd

anwesen.service runs the daemon as a dedicated anwesen system user, restarts it on failure, and routes its structured stderr to the journal.

cp target/release/anwesen /usr/local/bin/anwesen
useradd --system --no-create-home --shell /usr/sbin/nologin anwesen
cp deploy/anwesen.service /etc/systemd/system/
systemctl edit anwesen.service        # set the real vault path, see below
systemctl enable --now anwesen.service
journalctl -u anwesen -f

Point the unit at your vault with a drop-in (systemctl edit anwesen.service) rather than editing the shipped unit:

[Service]
Environment=ANWESEN_VAULT=/srv/vault
ReadOnlyPaths=/srv/vault

The anwesen user needs read access to the vault and traverse (x) on its directories -- grant it via group membership or directory permissions. Anwesen never writes to the vault; the unit sets ProtectSystem=strict with no writable paths, so any write attempt fails outright.

The unit drains in-flight requests on SIGTERM (systemd's default stop signal) and is hardened for a service that writes nowhere and needs no privileges.

Reverse proxy

nginx.example.conf terminates TLS, routes by host, and authenticates the client before any request reaches Anwesen. It offers HTTP basic auth out of the box with mutual-TLS as a commented alternative. Adjust server_name, the certificate paths, and the auth block, then reload nginx.

Anwesen never sees the proxy's auth: the proxy authenticates the client and forwards to 127.0.0.1:8080. Per [ADR-007] this is deliberate -- "if you reach Anwesen, you may read everything it indexes."

Warpgate

For off-host access the operator's reference pattern is warpgate ticketing: a ticket-bearing client reaches warpgate, which forwards to Anwesen on localhost. Anwesen does not see the ticket and needs no configuration for it -- it is just another reverse proxy in front of the localhost bind.

[ADR-007]: the project's design vault, "ADR-007 Authentication Out of Scope".