risk-nexus/findings/RISK-F-0006-apps-pg-no-backup-configured.md

id	type	title	status	owner	reported_by	reported_via	routed_by	date_reported	date_filed	system	environment	fix_owner	fix_tracking	related	severity	severity_at_production	impact	likelihood	fidelity_modifier	production_rescore	disclosure	publication	publication_id	publication_path	publication_subtitle	revision	last_reviewed	review_interval	embargo_lifted	embargo_was_since	escalation	escalation_trigger	escalation_status	date_fixed	escalation_answered	escalation_answered_by	escalation_act	decision	last_checked	next_check	cadence	clean_streak	graded_by	ruling	checked_by
RISK-F-0006	finding	apps-pg has no backup configured at all: R0 means no recovery	fixed	risk-nexus	railiance-platform	flex-auth	risk-nexus	2026-08-17	2026-08-19	railiance-platform	production	railiance-platform	RPF-WP-0019 (finished)	RISK-F-0001	high	critical	I4	L2	false	true	public	pending-handover	risk-f-0006-apps-pg-no-backup	findings/apps-pg-no-backup/v1/index.html	A shared production database had no backup or recovery path; encrypted off-host backup and a demonstrated restore closed the gap.	fixed-1	2026-08-21	6m	2026-08-20 — backup live, restore demonstrated with matching row counts	2026-08-19	answered	3	answered	2026-08-20	2026-08-19	the-custodian	approve	spend for apps-pg backup storage approved; no ceiling stated	2026-08-21T07:32:09Z	2026-08-21T07:32:09Z	instant	0	risk-nexus	RISK-RULING-2026-08-19-B	risk-nexus

RISK-F-0006 — the platform database cannot be recovered

What is true, as reported

apps-pg (railiance-platform) has no backup configured at all: no barmanObjectStore, no retention policy, and BestEffort QoS on the pod. Reported in the same round as RISK-F-0001, whose author noted that R0 here means no recovery, not merely no erasure policy.

Not verified by this repo. railiance-platform owns it.

Why it is graded highest of the round despite being the least exciting

The other findings in this round are about someone reaching something. This one is about nothing coming back. There is no attacker in it and no clever step — an ordinary node failure, a lost volume, a mistaken DROP, and the data that was in apps-pg is gone.

BestEffort QoS makes the pod the first candidate for eviction under memory pressure. Eviction alone is an availability event and recoverable. What is not recoverable is anything that damages the volume, and that is the case with no answer today.

Register ruling — 2026-08-19

high today (I4 × L2, non-adversarial reading), critical at production, embargoed, and escalated on trigger 3 (spend).

I4: apps-pg is shared platform infrastructure, so the loss is not confined to one system, and it is unrecoverable rather than degraded. L2 on the non-adversarial reading the scale gained for this finding: irrecoverable loss needs a volume or corruption event, which is an ordinary failure the estate has seen the shape of but not an expected weekly occurrence.

production_rescore: true: at production this is L3, because the surface area of ordinary operational events grows with real traffic and real operators.

Escalation, trigger 3. Object storage for backups is recurring spend that is not currently committed, and no repo can authorise it for itself. The ask is narrow: approve a backup target and its cost, or state that the estate accepts running apps-pg with no recovery and for how long. The second is a legitimate answer in build mode and needs saying out loud rather than happening by default.

The disclosure condition deliberately includes a demonstrated restore. A backup nobody has restored from is a claim, not a control — the same class of error as the gate in RISK-F-0002.

Reviews

• 2026-08-19 — filed and graded from RISK-F-0001's unfiled list. Open at review: has the spend been ruled on; is a backup configured; has a restore been demonstrated; does railiance-platform track it anywhere.

Operator decision — 2026-08-19: approved

The spend is approved. railiance-platform may provision backup storage for apps-pg without returning for authorisation.

No ceiling was stated, so none is recorded. The register asks railiance-platform to report the actual target and its monthly cost once chosen; a figure materially above the trigger-3 band (recurring €50/month) comes back for confirmation rather than being assumed covered. That is the register being careful with an open approval, not a condition on it.

What is now blocking is work, not permission. The finding stays open at high, and the embargo condition is unchanged: a backup exists and a restore has been demonstrated once. A backup nobody has restored from is a claim, not a control.

fix_tracking is still unset and is now railiance-platform's to open.

Reviews

• 2026-08-19 — escalation answered, spend approved. Open at review: is a backup configured; has a restore been demonstrated; what does it cost.
• 2026-08-20 — clean check: checked against the inbox and the owner's record; nothing moved. Cadence instant → 1h (1 clean in a row); next check 2026-08-20 11:02Z.

Check — 2026-08-21: fixed, and the evidence was read rather than taken

railiance-platform finished RPF-WP-0019 on 2026-08-20. This register read their evidence file rather than accepting the report: railiance-platform/docs/evidence/RPF-WP-0019-backup-restore-2026-08-20.md.

• Governed target live at s3://railiance-platform-pg-backup/platform-pg/apps-pg/, 30-day retention, continuous WAL.
• apps-pg-daily-20260820204148 completed in 8s, LastBackupSucceeded=True.
• A separately named scratch cluster restored both consumer databases in 56s, with exact database sizes and all 13 coulomb_social user-table row counts matching. The scratch namespace was deleted; production stayed Ready.

The embargo condition required a demonstrated restore and got one. That condition existed because a backup nobody has restored from is a claim, not a control — and the demonstration is the difference between this finding closing and merely appearing to.

They also fixed something the grading had cited but not asked for: apps-pg-1 moved from BestEffort to Burstable QoS, with requests and limits, which was part of why L2 rather than L1. And their evidence records a failed first WAL attempt against the wrong prefix rather than only the successful one, which is the standard this register keeps asking of reporters.

fixed, public, escalation closed. The spend approved on 2026-08-19 has a real target behind it.

• 2026-08-21 — not clean: owner replied; see the dated check section Cadence 1h → instant; checked again immediately.