connect-site/support.html at main · openabdev/connect-site · GitHub

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<div class="wrap doc">
<h1>Support</h1>
<div class="panel"><p style="margin:0"><a href="mailto:support@openab.dev">support@openab.dev</a> — or open an issue at <a href="https://github.com/openabdev/openab-pty/issues">openabdev/openab-pty</a> for anything about the runtime itself.</p><p style="margin:10px 0 0" class="dim">Security issues: please use <a href="https://github.com/openabdev/openab-pty/security/advisories/new">a private advisory</a> rather than a public issue or email.</p></div>
<h2>Trying the app without deploying anything</h2>
<p>Open the <strong>OpenAB Connect</strong> menu and choose <strong>Demo Mode</strong>. Two sample connections appear; double-click a session under either one to open a terminal. It is a canned transcript with local echo — no network connection is made and nothing is executed. Choose Demo Mode again to remove the samples.</p>
<h2>Things that go wrong, and why</h2>
<h3>The first deployment takes a long time</h3><p>It is pulling a container image, and the first pull of any agent variant is the slow part — measured at over two minutes for 156 MB on an ordinary connection. The app reports what it is waiting on. Nothing is wrong until it says so.</p>
<h3>“No tailnet node appeared”</h3><p>Registration normally takes seconds, so this almost never means slowness. In order of likelihood: this Mac is signed out of the tailnet, or on a different one; the auth key was rejected — expired, already consumed, or not marked reusable; or a node of that name already exists, so the new one registered as <code>name-1</code>, which a non-ephemeral key does on every deploy.<br><br>Use a key that is both <strong>Reusable</strong> and <strong>Ephemeral</strong>. Ephemeral is what lets a deleted pod's node leave the tailnet instead of accumulating dead entries.</p>
<h3>A session says it expired, or was taken over</h3><p>Sessions are single-attach by design: a second device attaching takes the keyboard. TTLs are set when you deploy. Both are reported with a specific reason rather than a generic disconnect.</p>
<h3>The workspace lost my work</h3><p>The workspace is ephemeral unless you chose a persistent one at deploy time. It does not survive the pod being replaced. Push your work; lifecycle hooks are a backup, not a primary mechanism. The app says so in every session's header for this reason.</p>
<h3>A process kept running after I killed a session</h3><p>Teardown is best-effort and labelled as such throughout. Only one kill domain is implemented, and a process that leaves its process group may outlive its session until the pod or task is replaced. This is documented behaviour, not a fault. To be certain nothing remains, delete the pod or task.</p>
<h2>Requirements</h2><ul><li>macOS 13 or later.</li><li>A Kubernetes cluster or an AWS account you can deploy into.</li><li>A Tailscale tailnet, and an auth key for it.</li></ul>
<h2>Where things live on your Mac</h2><pre>~/Library/Containers/dev.openab.connect/     app data, sandboxed
Keychain (login)                             credentials, per connection</pre><p class="dim">Removing the app leaves those; delete them if you want it gone entirely.</p>
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