os-collect-config local data source

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/tripleo-juno-occ-local-datasource

os-collect-config needs a local data source collector for configuration data. This will allow individual elements to drop files into a well-known location to set the initial configuration data of an instance.

There is already a heat_local collector, but that uses a single hard coded path of /var/lib/heat-cfntools/cfn-init-data.

Problem Description

  • Individual elements can not currently influence the configuration available to os-apply-config for an instance without overwriting each other.

  • Elements that rely on configuration values that must be set the same at both image build time and instance run time currently have no way of propagating the value used at build time to a run time value.

  • Elements have no way to specify default values for configuration they may need at runtime (outside of configuration file templates).

Proposed Change

A new collector class will be added to os-collect-config that collects configuration data from JSON files in a configurable list of directories with a well known default of /var/lib/os-collect-config/local-data.

The collector will return a list of pairs of JSON files and their content, sorted by the JSON filename in traditional C collation. For example, if /var/lib/os-collect-config/local-data contains bar.json and foo.json

[ (‘bar.json’, bar_content),

(‘foo.json’, foo_content) ]

This new collector will be configured first in DEFAULT_COLLECTORS in os-collect-config. This means all later configured collectors will override any shared configuration keys from the local datasource collector.

Elements making use of this feature can install a json file into the /var/lib/os-collect-config/local-data directory. The os-collect-config element will be responsible for creating the /var/lib/os-collect-config/local-data directory at build time and will create it with 0755 permissions.

Alternatives

OS_CONFIG_FILES

There is already a mechanism in os-apply-config to specify arbitrary files to look at for configuration data via setting the OS_CONFIG_FILES environment variable. However, this is not ideal because each call to os-apply-config would have to be prefaced with setting OS_CONFIG_FILES, or it would need to be set globally in the environment (via an environment.d script for instance). As an element developer, this is not clear. Having a robust and clear documented location to drop in configuration data will be simpler.

heat_local collector

There is already a collector that reads from local data, but it must be configured to read explicit file paths. This does not scale well if several elements want to each provide local configuration data, in that you’d have to reconfigure os-collect-config itself. We could modify the heat_local collector to read from directories instead, while maintaining backwards compatibility as well, instead of writing a whole new collector. However, given that collectors are pretty simple implementations, I’m proposing just writing a new one, so that they remain generally single purpose with clear goals.

Security Impact

  • Harmful elements could drop bad configuration data into the well known location. This is mitigated somewhat that as a deployer, you should know and validate what elements you’re using that may inject local configuration.

  • We should verify that the local data source files are not world writable and are in a directory that is root owned. Checks to dib-lint could be added to verify this at image build time. Checks could be added to os-collect-config for instance run time.

Other End User Impact

None

Performance Impact

An additional collector will be running as part of os-collect-config, but its execution time should be minimal.

Other Deployer Impact

  • There will be an additional configuration option in os-collect-config to configure the list of directories to look at for configuration data. This will have a reasonable default and will not usually need to be changed.

  • Deployers will have to consider what local data source configuration may be influencing their current applied configuration.

Developer Impact

We will need to make clear in documentation when to use this feature versus what to expose in a template or specify via passthrough configuration. Configuration needed at image build time where you need access to those values at instance run time as well are good candidates for using this feature.

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

james-slagle

Work Items

  • write new collector for os-collect-config

  • unit tests for new collector

  • document new collector

  • add checks to dib-lint to verify JSON files installed to the local data source directory are not world writable

  • add checks to os-collect-config to verify JSON files read by the local data collector are not world writable and that their directory is root owned.

Dependencies

Testing

Unit tests will be written for the new collector. The new collector will also eventually be tested in CI because there will be an existing element that will configure the persistent data directory to /mnt/state that will make use of this implementation.

Documentation Impact

The ability of elements to drop configuration data into a well known location should be documented in tripleo-image-elements itself so folks can be made better aware of the functionality.

References