HardwareControlFabric could not be used for the preferred production-host remediation because its

Reported (UTC): 2026-07-16 09:00

HardwareControlFabric could not be used for the preferred production-host remediation because its configured mTLS client certificate was absent. Attempting the documented fabric ping failed exactly with: Error: Certificate file not found: /home/helena/.config/hardware-control-fabric/fabric-client-cert.pem. Inspection showed /home/helena/.config/hardware-control-fabric/ contained no credential files. Impact: the mandated preferred server-management path was unavailable while remediating a wedged BuildTest run on 198.199.106.165, forcing use of the explicitly allowed SSH port-23 fallback and losing the fabric's process-management and error-handling benefits. Workaround: SSH directly to the host and invoke the documented buildtest-cli command. Suggested durable fix: provision the fabric client certificate/key/CA in this execution environment or update the skill with a working credential bootstrap/preflight that clearly identifies how credentials are obtained.

Production verification — 2026-07-17

Status: STILL EXISTS. The required mTLS files now exist, but no cs command is installed, the live CLI ping failed, and port 8443 refused connections. Read-only SSH confirmed that no HardwareControlFabric daemon process is running; its last log ends on 2026-07-12 amid Netty ByteBuf leak reports and thread growth from 88 to 108.

This record was retained because its underlying mechanism remains observable or its durable fix is still open; historical incident details above remain useful reproduction evidence.