Thanks Doug. Please see my response inline starts with <jianghuaw>.

Jianghua

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Hellmann [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2016 9:31 PM
To: openstack-dev <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [neutron][oslo] proposal to resolve a rootwrap 
problem for XenServer

Excerpts from Jianghua Wang's message of 2016-11-02 04:14:48 +0000:
> Ihar and Tony,
>  Thanks for the input.
>  In order to run command in dom0, it uses XenAPI to create a session which 
> can be used to remotely call a plugin - netwrap which is located in dom0. The 
> netwrap plugin is executed as root. It will validate the command basing on 
> the allowed command list and execute it.
> The source code for netwrap is in neutron project: 
> https://github.com/openstack/neutron/blob/master/neutron/plugins/ml2/d
> rivers/openvswitch/agent/xenapi/etc/xapi.d/plugins/netwrap
> 
> So at least we can see there are two dependences: 
> 1. it depends on XenAPI which is XenServer specific.
> 2. it depends on Neutron's plugin netwrap.
> Is it acceptable to add such dependences in this common library of 
> oslo.rootwrap? 

Why would they need to be dependencies of oslo.rootwrap? They are dependencies 
of the driver, not the base library, right?

<jianghuaw> With a second thought, I think we can pass the plugin name netwrap 
as a parameter to the rootwrap; so maybe not a dependence. But if we host the 
XenAPI session creation in oslo.rootwrap, I think we should import XenAPI in 
oslo.rootwrap. Then it is a dependence in the base library, isn't it?

> And most of the code in oslo.rootwrap is to:
> 1. spawn a daemon process and maintain the connection between the 
> client and daemon; 2. filter commands in the daemon process.
> But both can't be re-used for this XenAPI/XenServer case as the daemon 
> process is already running in dom0; the command filtering is done in dom0's 
> netwrap plugin. In order to hold this in oslo.rootwrap, it requires some 
> refactoring work to make it looks reasonable. Is it worthy to do that? 
> Specially by considering it has determined to replace oslo.wrap with 
> oslo.provsep?
> 
> Maybe it's a good option to cover this dom0 case in oslo.provsep at the 
> beginning. But it becomes more complicated. Maybe we can run a daemon process 
> in dom0 with the privileges set properly and listening on a dedicated tcp 
> port . But that's much different from the initial provsep design [1]. And 
> also it makes the mechanism very different from the current XenServer 
> OpenStack which is using XenAPI plugin. Anyway, I think we have long to go 
> with a good solution to cover it in provsep.

What sort of refactoring do you have in mind for privsep? I could see something 
analogous to the preexec_fn argument to subprocess.Popen() to let the XenServer 
driver ensure that its privileged process is running in dom0.

<jianghuaw>Sorry, I don't have a clear idea on refactorying in privsep now. It 
seems privsep attempts to create a daemon process and set caps for this daemon. 
But for XenServer/XenAPI, the daemon and caps in daemon seems useless. As it 
sends all commands to the a common XAPI daemon running in dom0. No additional 
daemon is needed. TBH I don't know how to apply caps at here. But to make it to 
resolve the current issue, what I'm thinking is to create a XenAPI session and 
keep it in the rootwrap's client; then each command will be passed to dom0 via 
this same session.

Doug

> 
> But this issue is urgent for XenAPI/XenServer OpenStack. Please the details 
> described in the bug[2]. So I still think the PoC is a better option, unless 
> both oslo and Neutron guys agree it's acceptable to refactor oslo.rootwrap 
> and allow the above dependences introduced to this library.
> 
> [1]https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/oslo-specs/specs/liberty/priv
> sep.html [2] https://bugs.launchpad.net/neutron/+bug/1585510
> 
> Regards,
> Jianghua
> 
> On Tue, Nov 01, 2016 at 12:45:43PM +0100, Ihar Hrachyshka wrote:
> 
> > I suggested in the bug and the PoC review that neutron is not the 
> > right project to solve the issue. Seems like oslo.rootwrap is a 
> > better place to maintain privilege management code for OpenStack. 
> > Ideally, a solution would be found in scope of the library that 
> > would not require any changes per-project.
> 
> With the change of direction from oslo.roowrap to oslo.provsep I doubt that 
> there is scope to land this in oslo.rootwarp.
> 
> Yours Tony.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ihar Hrachyshka [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2016 7:46 PM
> To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [neutron] proposal to resolve a rootwrap 
> problem for XenServer
> 
> Jianghua Wang <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Neutron guys,
> >
> > I’m trying to explain a problem with the XenServer rootwrap and give 
> > a proposal to resolve it. I need some input on how to proceed with 
> > this
> > proposal: e.g. if requires a spec? Any concerns need further 
> > discussion or clarification?
> >
> > Problem description:
> > As we’ve known, some neutron services need run commands with root 
> > privileges and it’s achieved by running commands via the rootwrap. 
> > And in order to resolve performance issue, it has been improved to 
> > support daemon mode for the rootwrap [1]. Either way has the 
> > commands running on the same node/VM which has relative neutron services 
> > running on.
> >
> > But as a type-1 hypervisor, XenServer OpenStack has different behavior.  
> > Neutron’s compute agent neutron-openvswitch-agent need run commands 
> > in dom0, as the tenants’ interfaces are plugged in an integration 
> > OVS which locates in Dom0. Currently the script of
> > https://github.com/openstack/neutron/blob/master/bin/neutron-rootwra
> > p- xen-dom0is used as XenServer OpenStack’s rootwrap. This script 
> > will create a XenAPI session with dom0 and passes the commands to 
> > dom0 for the real execution.
> > Each command execution will run this script once. So it has the 
> > similar performance issue as the non-daemon mode of rootwrap on 
> > other
> > hypervisors:  For each command, it has to parse the
> > neutron-rootwrap-xen-dom0 script and the rootwrap configure file.  
> > Furthermore, this rootwrap script will create a XenAPI for each 
> > command execution and XenServer by default will log the XenAPI 
> > session creation events. It will cause frequent log file rotation 
> > and so other real useful log is lost.
> >
> > Proposal:
> > The os.rootwrap support daemon mode for other hypervisors; but 
> > XenServer’s compute agent can’t use that as again it need run 
> > commands in Dom0. But we can refer to that design and implement the 
> > daemon mode for XenServer. After creating a XenAPI session, Dom0’s 
> > XAPI will accept the command running requests from the session and 
> > reply with the running result. So logically we’ve had a daemon in 
> > dom0. So we can support daemon mode rootwrap with the following design:
> > 1. Develop a daemon client module for XenServer: The agent service 
> > will use this client module to create a XenAPI session, and keep 
> > this session during the service’s whole life.
> > 2. once need run command on dom0, use the above client to runs 
> > commands in dom0.
> > It should be able to result the issues mentioned above, as the 
> > client module need import only once for each agent service and only 
> > use a single session for all commands. The prototype code[3] works well.
> >
> > Any concern or comments for the above proposal? And how I can 
> > proceed with solution? We’ve filed a RFE bug[2] which is in 
> > wishlist&incomplete status. Per the neutron policy[4], it seems need 
> > neutron-drivers team to evaluate the RFE and determine if a spec is 
> > required. Could anyone help to evaluate this proposal and tell me 
> > how I should proceed? And I’m also open and happy for any comments. Thanks 
> > very much.
> >
> > [1]
> > https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/oslo-specs/specs/juno/rootwrap
> > -daemon-mode.html [2] 
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/neutron/+bug/1585510
> > [3]prototype code: https://review.openstack.org/#/c/390931/
> > [4] 
> > http://docs.openstack.org/developer/neutron/policies/blueprints.html
> >
> 
> I suggested in the bug and the PoC review that neutron is not the 
> right project to solve the issue. Seems like oslo.rootwrap is a better 
> place to maintain privilege management code for OpenStack. Ideally, a 
> solution would be found in scope of the library that would not require 
> any changes per-project.
> 
> I moved the bug to Opinion since I don’t believe it’s in scope for 
> neutron; I also added oslo.rootwrap to the list of affected projects 
> to collect feedback from oslo folks. Finally, I blocked the PoC patch 
> with -2 until we agree on how to scope the feature for neutron.
> 
> I hope it helps,
> Ihar
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ____ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Unsubscribe: 
> [email protected]?subject:unsubscribe
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> ______________________________________________________________________
> ____ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Unsubscribe: 
> [email protected]?subject:unsubscribe
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev

__________________________________________________________________________
OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Unsubscribe: [email protected]?subject:unsubscribe
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
__________________________________________________________________________
OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Unsubscribe: [email protected]?subject:unsubscribe
http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev

Reply via email to