I'm trying to set up a CAEAGLLayer subclass with a gl context. That is, instead of creating a UIView subclass which returns a CAEAGLLayer and binding a gl context to this layer from within the UIView subclass, I'm directly subclassing the layer and trying to setup the context in the layer's init, like so:
- (id)init
{
    self = [super init];
    if (self) {
        self.opaque = YES;
        _glContext = [[EAGLContext alloc] initWithAPI:kEAGLRenderingAPIOpenGLES2];
        NSAssert([EAGLContext setCurrentContext:_glContext], @"");
        glGenRenderbuffers(1, &_colorRenderBuffer);
        glBindRenderbuffer(GL_RENDERBUFFER, _colorRenderBuffer);
        [_glContext renderbufferStorage:GL_RENDERBUFFER fromDrawable:self];
        glGenFramebuffers(1, &_framebuffer);
        glBindFramebuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, _framebuffer);
        glFramebufferRenderbuffer(GL_FRAMEBUFFER, GL_COLOR_ATTACHMENT0, GL_RENDERBUFFER, _colorRenderBuffer);
        /// . . .
up to that point everything seems fine. However, I then try to create a shader program with a "pass-thru" vertex/fragment shader pair and while linking the program returns no errors, validation fails saying: "Current draw framebuffer is invalid."
The code that links and validates the shader program (after attaching the shaders) looks like so, just in case:
- (BOOL)linkAndValidateProgram
{
    GLint status;
    glLinkProgram(_shaderProgram);
#ifdef DEBUG
    GLint infoLogLength;
    GLchar *infoLog = NULL;
    glGetProgramiv(_shaderProgram, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &infoLogLength);
    if (infoLogLength > 0) {
        infoLog = (GLchar *)malloc(infoLogLength);
        glGetProgramInfoLog(_shaderProgram, infoLogLength, &infoLogLength, infoLog);
        NSLog(@"Program link log:\n%s", infoLog);
        free(infoLog);
    }
#endif
    glGetProgramiv(_shaderProgram, GL_LINK_STATUS, &status);
    if (!status) {
        return NO;
    }
    glValidateProgram(_shaderProgram);
#ifdef DEBUG
    glGetProgramiv(_shaderProgram, GL_INFO_LOG_LENGTH, &infoLogLength);
    if (infoLogLength > 0) {
        infoLog = (GLchar *)malloc(infoLogLength);
        glGetProgramInfoLog(_shaderProgram, infoLogLength, &infoLogLength, infoLog);
        NSLog(@"Program validation log:\n%s", infoLog);
        free(infoLog);
    }
#endif
    glGetProgramiv(_shaderProgram, GL_VALIDATE_STATUS, &status);
    if (!status) {
        return NO;
    }
    glUseProgram(_shaderProgram);
    return YES;
}
I'm wondering if there might be some extra setup at some point throughout the lifecycle of CAEAGLLayer that I might be unaware of and might be skipping by trying to setup GL in init?