Introduction

This knowledge base article outlines the common symptoms, root cause, and recommended customer actions for a specific type of Boundary worker registration failure: transient Identity Provider (IDP) desynchronization. These guidelines are designed to help customers improve the resilience of their automated worker registration scripts and troubleshoot similar future events.

Problem

Customers who use automated scripts to register self-managed Boundary workers, typically authenticating via credentials fetched from an identity store like Vault, may experience registration failures.

The primary symptoms observed during such a desynchronization event include:

Worker Unavailability: New and renewing workers cannot successfully register, potentially resulting in a loss of connectivity paths to targets.
API Errors: Critical API endpoints, such as POST /v1/credential-stores, may return HTTP 500 errors.
Log Sprawl: Automated registration scripts enter a high-frequency retry loop, generating significant log noise with repeated failure messages such as "unknown token".

Solution

The failure is typically caused by a short, temporary mismatch that prevents login tokens from being checked properly in the OIDC/LDAP state management within the Boundary Controller, which prevents workers from successfully authenticating and registering.

1. Root Cause Summary

A transient instability or desynchronization event originating from the upstream IDP integration utilized by the Boundary Controller can lead to:

IDP Communication Failure: Errors in the Boundary Controller logs (e.g., failed LDAP user creation, search issues, or "0 rows updated" during SetManagedGroupMemberships) indicate a desync between the OIDC provider and Boundary’s internal state.
Token Invalidation: This desynchronization causes the Boundary Controller to immediately reject incoming authentication tokens, often logging authenticateOidcCallback failures with invalid_grant ("The authorization code is invalid or has expired").
Worker Rejection Loop: The rejection cascades to workers, causing them to fail with Status Code 470 and the message "unknown token".

2. Follow-up Actions (Refining Automation Logic)

To prevent log sprawl and sustained failure loops during future transient outages, all customers should implement the following changes in their automated worker registration scripts:

Action	Description
Token Rotation	Modify the worker registration scripts so that upon receiving a Status Code 470 or an invalid_grant error, the script discards the current token and requests a fresh authentication token from the IDP before attempting a retry. Retrying an invalid token results in indefinite failure.
Exponential Backoff	Implement an exponential backoff strategy (increasing the wait time between retries) for the registration loop. This prevents the "thundering herd" effect and significantly reduces log noise during transient upstream outages.

Verification

If a worker registration failure is suspected due to IDP desynchronization, perform the following verification steps:

Manual Registration: Attempt a successful manual worker registration using the same credentials that failed in the automation script. Success indicates that the underlying transient IDP issue has resolved, or that the manual action forced a state refresh.
IDP Health Check and Review: Review the logs of your upstream Identity Provider (e.g., Self-managed Vault, LDAP, or OIDC provider) for any corresponding upstream transient errors, such as connection timeouts, failed user creation events, or sync errors that align with the "0 rows updated" error seen in the Boundary Controller logs.

Conclusion

By implementing robust retry logic, including token rotation and exponential backoff, customers can significantly improve the resilience of their automated Boundary worker registration process against transient upstream IDP instability. If issues persist after these mitigations are applied, please contact support for further assistance and reference this article.

References -

Boundary Self-Managed Worker Registration Failure : failure "unknown token"

Introduction

Problem

Solution

1. Root Cause Summary

2. Follow-up Actions (Refining Automation Logic)

Verification

Conclusion

References -

Articles in this section

Introduction

Problem

Solution

1. Root Cause Summary

2. Follow-up Actions (Refining Automation Logic)

Verification

Conclusion

References -

Articles in this section

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