diff --git a/ansible/inventory.tmpl.gpg b/ansible/inventory.tmpl.gpg
index f5d72a4e943e96ef8d037d8a693ebb37c8055658..aa4e674e6c0038d4ec53d8169f2ef095bb2e5d57 100644
Binary files a/ansible/inventory.tmpl.gpg and b/ansible/inventory.tmpl.gpg differ
diff --git a/ansible/playbooks/provision.yml b/ansible/playbooks/provision.yml
index 12b1a6d01d4c2cb256a6cd3779878934593141c4..5531069e9ab5e36853136e5319d6f2212c329a0f 100644
--- a/ansible/playbooks/provision.yml
+++ b/ansible/playbooks/provision.yml
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
     secrets_method: copy
     backup_dir: /srv/backups
     # docker dependencies (pip packages)
+    pip_package: python3-pip
     pip_install_packages:
       - name: docker
       - name: docker-compose
@@ -56,7 +57,6 @@
         - lsof
         - rsync
         - python3
-        - python3-pip
         - python3-setuptools
         - emacs-nox
     tags: packages
@@ -221,7 +221,16 @@
       line: "/swapfile   none    swap    sw    0   0"
       state: present
 
+  ################
+  # MISC CLEANUP #
+  ################
+
   # https://github.com/grafana/loki/blob/v1.5.0/docs/clients/docker-driver/README.md
   - name: Install Loki docker driver plugin
     command: docker plugin install grafana/loki-docker-driver:latest --alias loki --grant-all-permissions
     tags: docker
+
+  # this is intended to avoid EAI_AGAIN errors on node install attempts
+  # in deploy step that can usually be fixed manually by restarting docker (which we here attempt to automate)
+  - name: Restart docker
+    command: systemctl restart docker
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/bin/restore b/bin/restore
index 8c14e86dfb6ca1480e9e877636eb2f124287f0b1..0bb26093d3e1664a0f69dc17e93d8a4749b227f0 100755
--- a/bin/restore
+++ b/bin/restore
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ set -euo pipefail
 # throat-clearing #
 ###################
 
+export NODE_ENV=production
+
 project_root="/srv/signalboost"
 docker_compose="docker-compose --env-file .env -f ${project_root}/docker-compose.yml"