Gh Aw Firewall Debug

AWF Firewall Debugging

Use this skill when you need to debug the awf firewall, inspect container state, analyze traffic, or troubleshoot network issues.

When to Use

• When an agentic workflow run fails with a blocked egress error.
• To inspect Docker container states (awf-squid, awf-agent) during local firewall debugging.
• When needing to view or analyze Squid access logs or iptables rules to troubleshoot network issues.

When Not to Use

• For debugging simple YAML schema errors in the workflow frontmatter (use gh aw compile --verbose).
• When diagnosing missing MCP tools (use gh aw audit instead of checking the network firewall).
• For standard GitHub Actions CI/CD network issues unrelated to the AWF infrastructure.

Common Pitfalls

• Stray Containers: Starting a debug session but forgetting to run the manual cleanup commands, leaving awf-squid and awf-agent containers running and consuming resources.
• Ignoring Subdomains: Assuming allowing github.com implicitly allows api.github.com, leading to confusing TCP_DENIED errors in the Squid log.
• DNS Confusion: Failing to check dmesg for FW_DNS blocks when a domain simply won't resolve, assuming it's a HTTP layer issue.

Core Principles

• Non-Interactive Debugging: Rely on docker exec and grep/awk pipelines to extract logs and states.
• Identify Access Blocks: Quickly trace TCP_DENIED in Squid logs or FW_BLOCKED in dmesg.

Commands / Usage Patterns

Check Container Status

docker ps | grep awf
docker inspect awf-squid --format='{{.State.Running}}'
docker inspect awf-agent --format='{{.State.ExitCode}}'

View and Analyze Logs

Squid proxy container (IP: 172.30.0.10) & Agent execution container (IP: 172.30.0.20).

docker exec awf-squid cat /var/log/squid/access.log
docker exec awf-squid grep "TCP_DENIED" /var/log/squid/access.log | awk '{print $3}' | sort -u
docker exec awf-squid tail -f /var/log/squid/access.log | grep --line-buffered TCP_DENIED

Inspect iptables Rules

sudo iptables -t filter -L FW_WRAPPER -n -v
docker exec awf-agent iptables -t nat -L OUTPUT -n -v
sudo dmesg | grep "FW_BLOCKED"

Network Inspection

docker network inspect awf-net
docker exec awf-agent nc -zv 172.30.0.10 3128
docker exec awf-agent cat /etc/resolv.conf

Diagnostics and Troubleshooting

Debug Mode Workflow:

1. Run with debug logging and keep containers: sudo awf --allow-domains github.com --log-level debug --keep-containers 'curl https://api.github.com'
2. Inspect containers: docker ps | grep awf
3. Check iptables: sudo iptables -t filter -L FW_WRAPPER -n
4. Manual cleanup when done: docker rm -f awf-squid awf-agent && docker network rm awf-net

Domain blocked unexpectedly: Look at the Host header (3rd column) in /var/log/squid/access.log - it may need a subdomain allowlisted.

DNS resolution failing: Verify DNS allowed in iptables with sudo dmesg | grep "FW_DNS".

What to Avoid

• Avoid leaving debug containers running indefinitely. Always run cleanup (docker rm -f awf-squid awf-agent && docker network rm awf-net).
• Do not make persistent iptables changes outside of the FW_WRAPPER lifecycle.

Limitations

• Logs inside normal executions are moved after cleanup and not accessible inside the container anymore. Access them via /tmp/squid-logs-*/access.log instead.

Related Skills

• robust-commands: You MUST load this skill when executing commands requiring resilient error recovery or fallbacks.
• shell: You MUST load this skill when handling shell commands with performance monitoring or timeouts.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: Cogni-AI-OU
• Source: Cogni-AI-OU/cogni-ai-agent-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.