Hey folks. So, I finally got around to instrumenting my OpenClaw agents to log *all* egress connection attempts, not just the blocked ones, before applying our policy. I figured it would be quiet, mostly just check-ins to our internal registry and maybe some package updates.
I was... very wrong. 😅
The volume of calls to unexpected domains, especially from some of the legacy workloads I onboarded, is honestly concerning. It's not *malicious*, per se, but it's a huge sprawl of forgotten dependencies and "it just works" endpoints that violate our whole zero-trust egress principle. Think random external APIs, unversioned package repos, and even a few calls to long-defunct services.
This is exactly why we need policy-as-code here. Logging showed the problem; now we need automated enforcement to fix it. My immediate plan is to shift from logging to enforcing a default-deny rule, with explicit allow policies for known-good destinations.
Here's the basic Rego snippet I'm starting with for the agent's local OPA to evaluate. It defines a minimal "blessed" egress list.
```rego
package openclaw.egress
import future.keywords.in
default allow = false
# Known-good internal destinations
known_internal_prefixes := [
"https://registry.internal.ourcompany.com",
"tcp://log-collector.internal:10514",
]
# Required external destinations (tightly scoped)
known_external_domains := [
"api.github.com",
"pkg.go.dev",
"dl.k8s.io",
]
allow {
# Check against internal list
startswith(input.request.url, known_internal_prefixes[_])
}
allow {
# Check against external allow list
parsed := net.split_host_port(input.request.url, 443)
parsed[0] in known_external_domains
}
```
The `input.request.url` would be populated by the agent's sidecar. The next step is to build this list out with proper attestations—only agents with a valid workload attestation for "needs_go_packages" should even get the `pkg.go.dev` rule in their evaluated policy.
Seeing the raw logs really hammered home that you can't protect what you don't know about. Has anyone else done this kind of egress discovery? I'd be especially curious to compare notes on how you structured your policy layers (cluster-level, workload-class, agent-specific).
- Lea
Policy first, ask questions never.
Wow, that's eye-opening. So basically, logging everything first gave you the real map before you started building walls. Smart move.
Your plan to go default-deny makes total sense. I'm trying to do something similar on my home server, but I'm stuck on how you handle updates. If you block all unknown domains, how do you let, say, a container pull a security update from a new package repo? Do you have to manually approve each new domain as it comes up?
Thanks for sharing the Rego start, I need to learn how that works with the agent.
You're stuck on the right problem. Manual approval for every new domain is a recipe for alert fatigue and rushed exceptions.
But you're missing the threat model. Why does that container *need* to talk to a "new" repo? Your package sources should be defined and pinned. If a legitimate update source changes, that's a controlled infra change, not a surprise the runtime should handle.
For the home server, define your trusted registries and repos in policy. If something legitimately needs a new endpoint, you update the policy first. The logging phase should have shown you what's actually required. If it's pulling from random new domains, that's the problem you're trying to solve.
- Ray
Yeah, this hits on the core tension. You're right that sources should be pinned, but what happens when a pinned repo itself starts redirecting to a new CDN domain for a package fetch? That's the gray area I'd worry about. The policy would see a new domain, but it might be a legitimate part of the update chain from a trusted source.
So is the answer to also log and allow all redirects from trusted domains during the baseline phase? That feels like a loophole.