Let the container run with nothing writable

The server writes to one path and no other: SESSION_FILE, from sessions.ts.
Everything else it touches on disk it only reads. So a container with a
read-only root filesystem already works -- except that `VOLUME ["/data"]`
quietly undid it. Docker acts on that directive: a container started without
`-v` gets an anonymous volume mounted there anyway, writable even under
`--read-only`. It persisted nothing across a redeploy, since each new container
got a fresh empty volume, and it left an orphan behind every time one was
replaced. Deployments that want the sessions to survive already say so
themselves -- docker-compose.yml and deploy.example.sh both mount a named
volume -- so removing the line changes nothing for them.

IMMUTABLE=1 asserts that this is how the instance is running. It is checked
rather than believed: the server refuses to start if SESSION_FILE is still set,
or if the filesystem it is installed on turns out to be writable. Left
unchecked the misconfiguration is silent, because persisting sessions is
best-effort -- a read-only /data costs one warning at the first sign-in and
nothing more until the instance is replaced and everyone is signed out.

SessionBackend names what the rest of the server asks of a session store, and
`sessions` in app.ts is typed as it. Nothing changes today; SessionStore is
still the only implementation. It is there so the OAuth work is written against
the interface rather than the class, and so the interface can record which of
its methods a stateless backend could satisfy alone: create, resolve, reseal
and destroy each touch one session, while listForUser and destroyAllForUser
have to reach sessions other than the caller's. The second of those carries the
guarantee that changing a password invalidates the sessions still holding the
old one, which is why it needs a registry -- Stalwart's token registry, once
sign-in goes through OAuth.

server/src/app.ts

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ import type { Context, MiddlewareHandler } from "hono";
 import { getCookie, setCookie, deleteCookie } from "hono/cookie";
 import { getConnInfo } from "@hono/node-server/conninfo";
 import { config } from "./config.js";
-import { SessionStore, type LiveSession } from "./sessions.js";
+import { SessionStore, type SessionBackend, type LiveSession } from "./sessions.js";
 import { RateLimiter } from "./ratelimit.js";
 import { resolveClientIp } from "./clientip.js";
 import {
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ import { staticHandler } from "./static.js";
 
 type Env = { Variables: { session: LiveSession } };
 
-export const sessions = new SessionStore(config.sessionFile);
+export const sessions: SessionBackend = new SessionStore(config.sessionFile);
 const loginLimiter = new RateLimiter(config.loginRateLimit, 15 * 60_000);
 /**
  * Credential changes verify the current password upstream, and Stalwart's

server/src/config.test.ts

@@ -0,0 +1,40 @@
+import { test } from "node:test";
+import assert from "node:assert/strict";
+import { chmodSync, existsSync, mkdtempSync, rmSync } from "node:fs";
+import { tmpdir } from "node:os";
+import { join } from "node:path";
+import { assertImmutable } from "./config.js";
+
+function tempRoot(): string {
+  return mkdtempSync(join(tmpdir(), "ihasmail-immutable-"));
+}
+
+test("IMMUTABLE refuses a configured SESSION_FILE", () => {
+  const root = tempRoot();
+  try {
+    assert.throws(() => assertImmutable("/data/sessions.json", root), /SESSION_FILE is \/data\/sessions\.json/);
+  } finally {
+    rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  }
+});
+
+test("IMMUTABLE refuses a writable root, and leaves no probe behind", () => {
+  const root = tempRoot();
+  try {
+    assert.throws(() => assertImmutable("", root), /is writable/);
+    assert.equal(existsSync(join(root, ".immutable-probe")), false);
+  } finally {
+    rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  }
+});
+
+test("IMMUTABLE accepts a root it cannot write to", () => {
+  const root = tempRoot();
+  try {
+    chmodSync(root, 0o555);
+    assert.doesNotThrow(() => assertImmutable("", root));
+  } finally {
+    chmodSync(root, 0o755);
+    rmSync(root, { recursive: true, force: true });
+  }
+});

server/src/config.ts

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import { resolveVersion } from "../../scripts/version.mjs";
 import { randomBytes } from "node:crypto";
 import { fileURLToPath } from "node:url";
-import { existsSync, readFileSync } from "node:fs";
+import { existsSync, readFileSync, unlinkSync, writeFileSync } from "node:fs";
 import { resolve } from "node:path";
 
 /** Minimal .env loader (no dependency): first match wins, never overrides real env. */
@@ -58,6 +58,58 @@ if (!appSecret || appSecret === "change-me") {
 
 const stalwartUrl = env("STALWART_URL", "https://mail.example.com").replace(/\/+$/, "");
 
+/**
+ * Declares that this instance is running as an immutable container: read-only
+ * root filesystem, nothing durable of its own, replaceable by its image.
+ *
+ * It is a claim the process checks rather than one it takes on trust, because
+ * the failure it guards against is silent. Left to itself the server survives
+ * a read-only filesystem perfectly well -- sessions are held in memory and the
+ * write is best-effort, so the only sign that `SESSION_FILE` is going nowhere
+ * is one warning at the first login, long after anyone was watching. The
+ * instance looks healthy right up until it is replaced and everyone is signed
+ * out. Setting IMMUTABLE turns both halves of that into a refusal to start.
+ */
+const immutable = bool("IMMUTABLE", false);
+const sessionFile = process.env.SESSION_FILE ?? "";
+
+/**
+ * Refuse to run when the promise IMMUTABLE makes is not one this instance can
+ * keep. Exported so it can be tested without a read-only filesystem to hand.
+ */
+export function assertImmutable(sessionFile: string, root: string): void {
+  // The image sets SESSION_FILE=/data/sessions.json, so this is a deliberate
+  // refusal rather than a formality: running immutably means clearing it. It
+  // is not quietly ignored, because a configured path that silently persists
+  // nothing is exactly the failure this flag exists to surface.
+  if (sessionFile) {
+    throw new Error(
+      `IMMUTABLE is set, but SESSION_FILE is ${sessionFile}. An immutable instance keeps no durable state of its own: ` +
+        "pass SESSION_FILE= (empty) to hold sessions in memory, or unset IMMUTABLE.",
+    );
+  }
+  // And check the property itself, not just the intention to have it. Setting
+  // the variable while forgetting `--read-only` is the easy mistake, and it
+  // leaves an instance claiming a guarantee it does not have.
+  const probe = resolve(root, ".immutable-probe");
+  let writable = false;
+  try {
+    writeFileSync(probe, "");
+    writable = true;
+    unlinkSync(probe);
+  } catch {
+    /* EROFS, or EACCES on a root we do not own: either way, not writable by us */
+  }
+  if (writable) {
+    throw new Error(
+      `IMMUTABLE is set, but ${root} is writable. Run the container with --read-only (and --tmpfs /tmp), or unset IMMUTABLE.`,
+    );
+  }
+}
+
+if (immutable) assertImmutable(sessionFile, fileURLToPath(new URL("../..", import.meta.url)));
+
+
 export const config = {
   isProd,
   appName: env("APP_NAME", "ihasmail"),
@@ -92,7 +144,9 @@ export const config = {
   secureCookies: (process.env.SECURE_COOKIES ?? "auto").toLowerCase(),
   sessionTtl: int("SESSION_TTL", 12 * 60 * 60),
   sessionRememberTtl: int("SESSION_REMEMBER_TTL", 30 * 24 * 60 * 60),
-  sessionFile: process.env.SESSION_FILE ?? "",
+  sessionFile,
+  /** True when this instance has asserted, and verified, that it is immutable. */
+  immutable,
   upstreamTimeout: int("UPSTREAM_TIMEOUT", 30_000),
   maxUploadBytes: int("MAX_UPLOAD_BYTES", 50 * 1024 * 1024),
   imageProxy: bool("IMAGE_PROXY", true),

server/src/sessions.ts

@@ -34,9 +34,64 @@ export interface LiveSession {
   ip: string;
 }
 
+/** What `/api/auth/sessions` reports about a session, with nothing secret in it. */
+export interface SessionSummary {
+  id: string;
+  username: string;
+  createdAt: number;
+  lastSeenAt: number;
+  expiresAt: number;
+  remember: boolean;
+  userAgent: string;
+  ip: string;
+}
+
+export interface CreateSessionParams {
+  username: string;
+  password: string;
+  remember: boolean;
+  userAgent: string;
+  ip: string;
+}
+
+/**
+ * Everything the rest of the server asks of a session store.
+ *
+ * There is one implementation today -- `SessionStore` below, which keeps the
+ * records in memory and optionally mirrors them to `SESSION_FILE`. The reason
+ * it is named as an interface anyway is that a second one is planned: a
+ * stateless backend that carries the whole record in the cookie, so that a
+ * replica can serve a session it never issued and `/data` can go away. Callers
+ * written against the concrete class would all have to be revisited then.
+ *
+ * Five of these are already stateless in shape -- `create`, `resolve`,
+ * `reseal` and `destroy` each touch exactly one session, and the sealing key is
+ * derived from the cookie secret (see `crypto.ts`), so the record can move into
+ * the cookie without the server keeping a map.
+ *
+ * The other two cannot be. `listForUser` and `destroyAllForUser` have to reach
+ * sessions other than the one presenting itself, which means something has to
+ * be enumerable somewhere. `destroyAllForUser` is not only the "sign out my
+ * other sessions" button: `app.ts` also calls it when the password or the app
+ * password changes, so it carries the guarantee that changing a credential
+ * invalidates the sessions still holding the old one. A stateless backend
+ * cannot honour that alone; the plan is for OAuth to hand the job to
+ * Stalwart's own token registry, which can already answer both questions.
+ */
+export interface SessionBackend {
+  init(): Promise<void>;
+  close(): Promise<void>;
+  create(params: CreateSessionParams): { cookie: string; session: LiveSession };
+  resolve(cookie: string | undefined): LiveSession | null;
+  reseal(cookie: string | undefined, password: string): boolean;
+  destroy(id: string): void;
+  destroyAllForUser(username: string, exceptId?: string): number;
+  listForUser(username: string): SessionSummary[];
+}
+
 const COOKIE_SEP = ".";
 
-export class SessionStore {
+export class SessionStore implements SessionBackend {
   private sessions = new Map<string, StoredSession>();
   private dirty = false;
   private saveTimer: NodeJS.Timeout | null = null;
@@ -104,13 +159,7 @@ export class SessionStore {
   }
 
   /** Create a session; returns the cookie value to hand to the client. */
-  create(params: {
-    username: string;
-    password: string;
-    remember: boolean;
-    userAgent: string;
-    ip: string;
-  }): { cookie: string; session: LiveSession } {
+  create(params: CreateSessionParams): { cookie: string; session: LiveSession } {
     const id = randomToken(18);
     const secret = randomToken(32);
     const salt = randomBytes(16);
@@ -211,7 +260,7 @@ export class SessionStore {
     return n;
   }
 
-  listForUser(username: string): Array<Omit<StoredSession, "secretHash" | "salt" | "sealedCredentials">> {
+  listForUser(username: string): SessionSummary[] {
     const out = [];
     for (const s of this.sessions.values()) {
       if (s.username !== username) continue;