# Provisioning script safety — FreeBSD/Bastille worked patterns

Deeper worked examples for the "Provisioning script safety" section of
`SKILL.md`. Read this when the summary there isn't enough to actually
write the script.

**Provenance**: adapted from wshobson/agents' `bash-defensive-patterns`
skill (https://github.com/wshobson/agents,
`plugins/shell-scripting/skills/bash-defensive-patterns/{SKILL.md,references/details.md}`,
MIT licensed, fetched 2026-08-15). That upstream skill is written for
Linux/GNU and knows nothing about FreeBSD base tools, `/usr/local/bin/bash`,
Bastille, rc.d, ZFS, or PF. Every pattern below was checked against FreeBSD
15.1-RELEASE behavior and either kept, rewritten, or explicitly dropped —
see "What was deliberately left out" at the end. Nothing here was copied
from the upstream examples unchanged.

For shell-quoting-through-multiple-hops (`ssh` → `bastille cmd` → `su`),
see the `remote-shell-quoting-safety` skill instead — not duplicated here.

## Shell choice: don't assume `#!/bin/bash` exists

FreeBSD base's `/bin/sh` is a modified `ash` (POSIX-ish), not bash. Bash
is **not** part of FreeBSD base — it's a package (`pkg install bash`)
that installs to `/usr/local/bin/bash`, **never** `/bin/bash`. A
`#!/bin/bash` shebang written for a Linux-oriented example fails
immediately with "No such file or directory" on a bare FreeBSD host or a
freshly cloned jail — many base jail images don't have bash installed at
all.

- If bash-only features are genuinely needed (arrays, `[[ ]]`, `mapfile`,
  process substitution `< <(...)`), use `#!/usr/bin/env bash` **and**
  verify bash is actually present on the target first —
  `bastille cmd <jail> which bash` or `pkg info bash` on the host. Don't
  assume.
- For anything that runs early in provisioning (before you know what's on
  the target) or where plain POSIX does the job, prefer `#!/bin/sh` — it's
  guaranteed present on both the host and every jail, no package
  dependency. Drop arrays, `[[ ]]`, `mapfile`/`readarray`, and process
  substitution; use `case`, `$( )`, and POSIX `[ ]` test instead.

## Error-handling philosophy: contextual, not a blanket `set -Eeuo pipefail`

The upstream checklist's rule #1 is "always use strict mode." Treating
that as an absolute is wrong for provisioning scripts:

- `set -e` (and `set -u`) are genuinely valuable for early validation —
  bad jail name, IP already taken, missing base release — where any
  failure should hard-stop before anything destructive happens.
- Once a script is deep into a multi-step provisioning sequence, some
  steps are legitimately allowed to fail without aborting the whole run —
  e.g. `pkg install -y arp-scan` when it may already be installed, or
  restarting an optional service that doesn't exist on every base image
  yet. Blanket `-e` turns those into full-script aborts, which is exactly
  how you get the half-created-jail mess this skill warns about elsewhere.
- Practical rule for this fleet: turn strict mode on for the whole script
  (`set -eu`; add `-o pipefail` only if it's genuinely running under
  bash), but explicitly wrap any step that's allowed to fail —
  `cmd || true` or `if ! cmd; then log_warn "..."; fi` — with a comment
  saying *why* it's non-fatal. Silent blanket suppression (`set +e`
  everywhere) is worse than blanket strict mode; the goal is a script
  where every deliberately-tolerated failure is visible in a diff, not one
  with no error handling at all.
- `-o pipefail` and `-E` (ERR trap inherited into functions) are bash
  extensions, unavailable under POSIX `/bin/sh`. If the script is
  `/bin/sh`, restructure instead of relying on them — e.g. write a
  pipeline's output to a temp file and check that command's own exit
  status, rather than depending on an upstream stage's exit code surviving
  a pipe.

## Trap-based cleanup for interrupted provisioning

A half-created jail is a real mess: `bastille create` partway through, a
DB created but no grant, an nginx vhost written but not enabled, a pf
table entry added but the jail never started. A script that dies partway
(Ctrl-C, a dropped SSH session, a later step's genuine failure) should at
minimum log exactly how far it got — automatically rolling back a jail
creation from inside a trap is its own risk (see this skill's
create/destroy-churn IP-alias gotcha; automating teardown under failure
conditions can make the mess worse, not better).

```sh
# POSIX-compatible: /bin/sh, no bash-only trap features needed
PROVISION_LOG="/tmp/provision-${JAIL_NAME}.log"
CREATED_JAIL=""
CREATED_DB=""
CURRENT_STEP=""

cleanup() {
    status=$?
    if [ "$status" -ne 0 ]; then
        {
            echo "FAILED at step: ${CURRENT_STEP:-unknown} (exit $status)"
            echo "Partial state: jail=${CREATED_JAIL:-none} db=${CREATED_DB:-none}"
            echo "Manual cleanup needed before retrying with the same name/IP."
        } >> "$PROVISION_LOG"
        echo "Provisioning failed — see $PROVISION_LOG" >&2
    fi
}
trap cleanup EXIT INT TERM

CURRENT_STEP="bastille create"
bastille create "$JAIL_NAME" 15.1-RELEASE "$JAIL_IP" vtnet0
CREATED_JAIL="$JAIL_NAME"

CURRENT_STEP="db grant"
# ... etc, set CURRENT_STEP before each major step
```

Set `CURRENT_STEP` before each major step so the log names the actual
failed step, not just "something failed."

## Input validation before jail names/IPs reach a destructive command

Bastille commands take a jail name and/or IP as a bare positional
argument with no confirmation prompt — `bastille destroy <name>` is
irreversible. Validate **before** the value is interpolated into any
`bastille` command, especially if it ever originates from outside the
script (a ticket description, a generated name, pasted text):

```sh
validate_jail_name() {
    name="$1"
    case "$name" in
        ''|*[!a-zA-Z0-9_-]*)
            echo "ERROR: invalid jail name: '$name' (letters, digits, - and _ only)" >&2
            return 1
            ;;
    esac
    if bastille list all 2>/dev/null | grep -qx "$name"; then
        echo "NOTE: jail '$name' already exists" >&2
    fi
}

validate_ipv4() {
    ip="$1"
    case "$ip" in
        *[!0-9.]*|'') echo "ERROR: not an IPv4 literal: '$ip'" >&2; return 1 ;;
    esac
    IFS=. read -r o1 o2 o3 o4 <<EOF
$ip
EOF
    for o in "$o1" "$o2" "$o3" "$o4"; do
        [ -n "$o" ] && [ "$o" -le 255 ] 2>/dev/null || {
            echo "ERROR: octet out of range in '$ip'" >&2
            return 1
        }
    done
}
```

This is intentionally plain `case`/`[` pattern matching, not a regex
call — it works identically under `/bin/sh` and bash, and avoids needing
`[[ =~ ]]` (bash-only) or GNU `grep -P`. Run `arp-scan` (see the main
SKILL.md's IP-conflict section) only **after** `validate_ipv4` passes, not
before.

## Safe temporary files: FreeBSD `mktemp` syntax

FreeBSD's base `mktemp` is BSD mktemp, not GNU coreutils mktemp —
long options like `--tmpdir=DIR` or `--suffix=` don't exist there.

```sh
# Portable on FreeBSD and Linux: bare mktemp / mktemp -d, no custom template
TMPFILE=$(mktemp) || { echo "ERROR: mktemp failed" >&2; exit 1; }
TMPDIR=$(mktemp -d) || { echo "ERROR: mktemp -d failed" >&2; exit 1; }

# A custom prefix/path needs an explicit trailing run of X's on BOTH
# platforms — a prefix alone (no X's) is not enough on either:
TMPFILE=$(mktemp "/tmp/provision-${JAIL_NAME}.XXXXXX") || exit 1
```

Clean up with a trap (see above), and always quote and use `--`:
`rm -rf -- "$TMPDIR"` — the `--` guards against a temp path that could
otherwise be parsed as an option if it somehow started with `-`.

## `sed -i` and `date`: don't copy GNU-only invocations into jail.conf/pf.conf edits

Two gotchas that bite specifically because provisioning steps edit
`jail.conf` and `pf.conf` in place:

- **`sed -i`**: FreeBSD/BSD sed requires an explicit (possibly empty)
  backup-suffix argument as its own token:
  `sed -i '' -e 's/old/new/' file`. GNU sed's `-i` only takes the suffix
  glued to the flag (`-i.bak` or bare `-i`) — passing `-i ''` as two
  separate arguments to GNU sed does **not** mean "no backup"; it's
  parsed differently and can silently do the wrong thing. These two forms
  are not cross-compatible. Use the BSD form on this fleet's FreeBSD
  hosts, don't copy a Linux-written example verbatim.
- **`date`**: FreeBSD date has no GNU-style free-text parsing
  (`date -d "1 day ago"` doesn't work). Use `-v` adjustments
  (`date -v-1d +%F`) or `-j -f <informat> <string> +<outformat>` to parse
  a fixed format. A script that only timestamps a log line
  (`date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'`, fixed format, no relative math) is fine
  as-is on both platforms — the trap is only when a script tries to
  compute a relative date.

## Structured logging (portable as written)

The upstream timestamped-log-level pattern is fine to reuse as-is —
fixed-format `date`, no relative parsing, identical under FreeBSD and GNU
date:

```sh
log_info()  { echo "[$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] INFO: $*" >&2; }
log_warn()  { echo "[$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] WARN: $*" >&2; }
log_error() { echo "[$(date +'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S')] ERROR: $*" >&2; }
```

## What was deliberately left out

- **Arrays, `mapfile`/`readarray`, `[[ ]]`, process substitution
  (`< <(...)`)** — all bash-only, and bash isn't guaranteed present on a
  freshly cloned jail. Only reach for them once you've confirmed the
  target will always run under a real installed bash; default to POSIX
  `/bin/sh` constructs for anything that has to run early or on an
  unknown target.
- **The upstream `rm -rI` "safe cleanup" pattern** — `-I` prompts for
  interactive confirmation, which is the opposite of what an unattended
  provisioning script run over SSH (often with no TTY) needs; a script
  waiting on a prompt that can never be answered just hangs. Validate
  inputs hard (see above) instead, then remove non-interactively
  (`rm -rf --`).
- **Retry/backoff and file-locking patterns** from the general upstream
  checklist — not reproduced here because the fetched upstream content
  (`SKILL.md` + `references/details.md`, both fetched directly from
  GitHub) doesn't actually contain a worked retry or locking pattern
  specific enough to adapt; those topics only appear as chapter-title-level
  mentions in secondhand catalog summaries, not in the real file. If a
  real retry-needing case shows up in provisioning (a flaky `pkg install`
  in a fresh jail before DNS is confirmed working — see this skill's
  resolver-failure-after-destroy/create-churn gotcha), write a
  fleet-specific pattern then, rather than importing a generic one now on
  spec.
- **ShellCheck as a hard gate** — worth running locally before landing a
  new provisioning script (`pkg install shellcheck`; point it at a
  `/bin/sh` script with `# shellcheck shell=sh` since its default dialect
  guess is bash), but not made mandatory here since this fleet has no CI
  wired to enforce it on these scripts yet.
- **The upstream "always use `[[ ]]`" advice as a blanket rule** — true
  only once bash is confirmed present; POSIX `[ ]` is required, not just
  "more portable," for any `/bin/sh` script.