Sharing Images using the Image API v2¶

The OpenStack Image Service API v2 allows users to share images with each other in the following ways:

An image can be shared with specific other users of the cloud. This mode of sharing has been available since version 2.1 of the API. Thus when we speak about “shared” images in this document, we’re talking about this kind of sharing. It’s described in the section Sharing Images with Particular Users, below.
An image can be shared with all users of the cloud. This mode of sharing became available in version 2.5 of the API. Images shared in this way are referred to as “community” images because they’re available to the entire community of users in a cloud (and because we couldn’t think of a better name). Community images are discussed below in the section Sharing Images with All Users.

To keep the discussion to follow clear, here’s some terminology that will be used.

producer: A user who owns an image that’s going to be shared with other users.
consumer: A user who wants to use an image.
shared image: An image that’s been made accessible to specific other users, as described in Sharing Images with Particular Users. Since version 2.5 of the API, the visibility property of such an image is shared. (If you are using a prior version of the API, the visibility is private.)
community image: An image that’s been made accessible to all users in a cloud, as described in Sharing Images with All Users. Since version 2.5 of the API, the visibility property of such an image is community. (This type of image is not available prior to version 2.5.)

Sharing Images with Particular Users¶

Let the “producer” be the owner of image 71c675ab-d94f-49cd-a114-e12490b328d9, and let the “consumer” be a user who would like to boot an instance from that image.

The producer can share the image with the consumer by making the consumer a member of that image.

To prevent spamming, the consumer must accept the image before it will be included in the consumer’s image list.

The consumer can still boot from the image, however, if the consumer knows the image ID.

In summary:

The image producer may add or remove image members, but may not modify the member status of an image member.
An image consumer may change his or her member status, but may not add or remove him or herself as an image member.
A consumer may boot an instance from a shared image regardless of whether he/she has “accepted” the image.

How do you identify a producer or consumer?¶

As an image producer, you know who you are, but how do you identify a potential consumer of your image? As an image consumer, how do you refer to yourself, and if you want to consume community images, what do you use to identify the producer of an image you’re looking for? These are actually complicated questions, because Glance allows an operator to decide whether images will be owned by projects or whether they will be owned by users. The default is that images are owned by projects, so that’s what you’ll see most often.

Note

Sometimes you’ll see a project referred to as a tenant. A “tenant” was the original OpenStack term for a project. It’s been phased out because the word “tenant” in English is often used to refer to a person, and this makes it easy to confuse a tenant with an owner. But when documentation or members of the OpenStack community refer to a “tenant” or “tenant ID”, they really mean “project” or “project ID”.

In clouds where an image owner is a project, the way to identify an image producer or consumer is to use their project ID.
- In such a cloud, images are shared project-to-project. Thus all users within the consuming project will have access to the image. In such a cloud, there is no way to share an image with only a single user.
In clouds where an image owner is a user, an image producer or consumer is identified by their user ID.
- In such a cloud, images are shared user-to-user. Thus only the specific users who are image members have access to the image. This extends to other users in the same project as the user owning the image. Even though they are in the same project, they must explictly be made members in order to have access to the image.

Note that image producers or consumers do not get to decide which identifier to use. This is decided for the entire cloud by the cloud administrator. Consult your cloud’s local documentation to find out which applies in a particular cloud you’re using. (As mentioned above, the default is that images are owned by projects, so if the local documentation doesn’t say anything, it’s a good bet that the default is being used.)

Producer-Consumer Communication¶

No provision is made in this API for producer-consumer communication. All such communication must be done independently of the API.

An example workflow for shared images is:

The producer posts the availability of specific images on a public website.
A potential consumer provides the producer with his/her appropriate identifier and email address. (See How do you identify a producer or consumer? if you’re not sure what the appropriate identifier is.)
The producer uses the Images v2 API to share the image with the consumer.
The producer notifies the consumer via email that the image has been shared and what its UUID is.
If the consumer wishes the shared image to appear in his/her image list, the Images v2 API is used to change the image status to accepted.
If the consumer subsequently wishes to hide the image, the Images v2 API may be used to change the member status to rejected. If the consumer wishes to hide the image, but is open to the possibility of being reminded by the producer that the image is available, the Images v2 API may be used to change the member status to pending.

Note that as far as this API is concerned, the member status has only two effects:

If the member status is not accepted, the image will not appear in the consumer’s default image list.
The consumer’s image list may be filtered by status to see shared images in the various member statuses. For example, the consumer can discover images that have been shared with him or her by filtering on visibility=shared&member_status=pending.

Image Sharing Schemas¶

JSON schema documents are provided at the URIs listed below.

Recall that the schemas contained in this document are only examples and should not be used to validate your requests.

Get Image Member Schema¶

GET /v2/schemas/member

There is no request body.

Response body contains a json-schema document representing an image member entity.

The response from the API should be considered authoritative. The schema is reproduced here solely for your convenience:

{
    "name": "member",
    "properties": {
        "created_at": {
            "description": "Date and time of image member creation",
            "type": "string"
        },
        "image_id": {
            "description": "An identifier for the image",
            "pattern": "^([0-9a-fA-F]){8}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){12}$",
            "type": "string"
        },
        "member_id": {
            "description": "An identifier for the image member",
            "type": "string"
        },
        "status": {
            "description": "The status of this image member",
            "enum": [
                "pending",
                "accepted",
                "rejected"
            ],
            "type": "string"
        },
        "updated_at": {
            "description": "Date and time of last modification of image member",
            "type": "string"
        },
        "schema": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    }
}

Get Image Members Schema¶

GET /v2/schemas/members

There is no request body.

Response body contains a json-schema document representing an image members entity (a container of member entities).

The response from the API should be considered authoritative. The schema is reproduced here solely for your convenience:

{
    "name": "members",
    "properties": {
        "members": {
            "items": {
                "name": "member",
                "properties": {
                    "created_at": {
                        "description": "Date and time of image member creation",
                        "type": "string"
                    },
                    "image_id": {
                        "description": "An identifier for the image",
                        "pattern": "^([0-9a-fA-F]){8}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){4}-([0-9a-fA-F]){12}$",
                        "type": "string"
                    },
                    "member_id": {
                        "description": "An identifier for the image member",
                        "type": "string"
                    },
                    "status": {
                        "description": "The status of this image member",
                        "enum": [
                            "pending",
                            "accepted",
                            "rejected"
                        ],
                        "type": "string"
                    },
                    "updated_at": {
                        "description": "Date and time of last modification of image member",
                        "type": "string"
                    },
                    "schema": {
                        "type": "string"
                    }
                }
            },
            "type": "array"
        },
        "schema": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    },
    "links": [
        {
            "href": "{schema}",
            "rel": "describedby"
        }
    ]
}

Image Producer Calls¶

The following calls are germane to a user who wishes to act as a producer of shared images.

Note

The shared value for an image’s visiblity property was introduced in version 2.5 of the Image API. From version 2.5 on, a necessary condition for image member calls to succeed is that the visibility field of the image referred to in the call has the value shared.

Create an Image Member¶

POST /v2/images/<IMAGE_ID>/members

The request body must be JSON in the following format:

{
    "member": "<MEMBER_ID>"
}

where the MEMBER_ID is the ID of the consumer with whom the image is to be shared.

The member status of a newly created image member is pending.

If the user making the call is not the image owner, the response is HTTP status code 404.

The response conforms to the JSON schema available at /v2/schemas/member, for example,

{
    "created_at": "2013-09-19T20:36:53Z",
    "image_id": "71c675ab-d94f-49cd-a114-e12490b328d9",
    "member_id": "8989447062e04a818baf9e073fd04fa7",
    "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
    "status": "pending",
    "updated_at": "2013-09-19T20:36:53Z"
}

Delete an Image Member¶

DELETE /v2/images/<IMAGE_ID>/members/<MEMBER_ID>

There is no request body.

A successful response is 204 (No Content).

The call returns HTTP status code 404 if MEMBER_ID is not an image member of the specified image.

The call returns HTTP status code 404 if the user making the call is not the image owner.

Image Consumer Calls¶

The following calls pertain to a user who wishes to act as a consumer of shared images.

Note

Update an Image Member¶

PUT /v2/images/<IMAGE_ID>/members/<MEMBER_ID>

The body of the request is a JSON object specifying the member status to which the image member should be updated:

{
    "status": "<STATUS_VALUE>"
}

where STATUS_VALUE is one of { pending, accepted, or rejected }.

The response conforms to the JSON schema available at /v2/schemas/member, for example,

{
    "created_at": "2013-09-20T19:22:19Z",
    "image_id": "a96be11e-8536-4910-92cb-de50aa19dfe6",
    "member_id": "8989447062e04a818baf9e073fd04fa7",
    "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
    "status": "accepted",
    "updated_at": "2013-09-20T20:15:31Z"
}

If the call is made by the image owner, the response is HTTP status code 403 (Forbidden).

If the call is made by a user who is not the image owner and whose identifier does not match the MEMBER_ID, the response is HTTP status code 404.

Image Member Status Values¶

There are three image member status values:

pending: When a member is created, its status is set to pending. The image is not visible in the member’s image-list, but the member can still boot instances from the image.
accepted: When a member’s status is accepted, the image is visible in the member’s image-list. The member can boot instances from the image.
rejected: When a member’s status is rejected, the member has decided that he or she does not wish to see the image. The image is not visible in the member’s image-list, but the member can still boot instances from the image.

Calls for Both Producers and Consumers¶

These calls are applicable to users acting either as producers or consumers of shared images.

Note

Show Image Member¶

GET /v2/images/<IMAGE_ID>/members/<MEMBER_ID>

The response conforms to the JSON schema available at /v2/schemas/member, for example,

{
    "created_at": "2014-02-20T04:15:17Z",
    "image_id": "634985e5-0f2e-488e-bd7c-928d9a8ea82a",
    "member_id": "46a12bfd09c8459483c03e1b0d71bda8",
    "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
    "status": "pending",
    "updated_at": "2014-02-20T04:15:17Z"
}

The image owner (the producer) may make this call successfully for each image member. An image member (a consumer) may make this call successfully only when MEMBER_ID is the correct identifier for that consumer. For any other MEMBER_ID, the consumer receives a 404 response.

List Image Members¶

GET /v2/images/<IMAGE_ID>/members

The response conforms to the JSON schema available at /v2/schemas/members, for example,

{
    "members": [
        {
            "created_at": "2013-09-20T19:16:53Z",
            "image_id": "a96be11e-8536-4910-92cb-de50aa19dfe6",
            "member_id": "818baf9e073fd04fa78989447062e04a",
            "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
            "status": "pending",
            "updated_at": "2013-09-20T19:16:53Z"
        },
        {
            "created_at": "2013-09-20T19:22:19Z",
            "image_id": "a96be11e-8536-4910-92cb-de50aa19dfe6",
            "member_id": "8989447062e04a818baf9e073fd04fa7",
            "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
            "status": "pending",
            "updated_at": "2013-09-20T19:22:19Z"
        }
    ],
    "schema": "/v2/schemas/members"
}

If the call is made by a user with whom the image has been shared, the member-list will contain only the information for that user. For example, if the call is made by consumer 8989447062e04a818baf9e073fd04fa7, the response is:

{
    "members": [
        {
            "created_at": "2013-09-20T19:22:19Z",
            "image_id": "a96be11e-8536-4910-92cb-de50aa19dfe6",
            "member_id": "8989447062e04a818baf9e073fd04fa7",
            "schema": "/v2/schemas/member",
            "status": "pending",
            "updated_at": "2013-09-20T19:22:19Z"
        }
    ],
    "schema": "/v2/schemas/members"
}

If the call is made by a consumer with whom the image is not shared, the response is a 404.

List Shared Images¶

Shared images are listed as part of the normal image list call. In this section we emphasize some useful filtering options.

visibility=shared: show only images shared with me where my member status is ‘accepted’
visibility=shared&member_status=accepted: same as above
visibility=shared&member_status=pending: show only images shared with me where my member status is ‘pending’
visibility=shared&member_status=rejected: show only images shared with me where my member status is ‘rejected’
visibility=shared&member_status=all: show all images shared with me regardless of my member status
owner=<OWNER_ID>: show only images shared with me by the producer whose identifier is OWNER_ID

Sharing Images with All Users¶

Since version 2.5, the Image Service API v2 offers another kind of image sharing, Community Images. A community image is made available to all users in a cloud without the requirement of creating members on the image.

A community image is an image whose visibility value is community. The ability to communitize an image may be prohibited or restricted to specific users at the discreation of the cloud operator. To make an image a community image, use the image update call to change the image’s visibility appropriately. (See Update an image for more information.)

Community images do not appear in the default image list of any user other than the image owner. In order to discover community images, make the image-list call with a ‘visibility’ filter:

GET v2/images?visibility=community

As with the standard image-list call, other filters may be applied to the request. For example, to see the community images supplied by the image producer identified by 931efe8a-0ad7-4610-9116-c199f8807cda, the following call would be made:

GET v2/images?visibility=community&owner=931efe8a-0ad7-4610-9116-c199f8807cda

Note

See How do you identify a producer or consumer? for information about how to determine an image producer’s identifier.

Keep in mind that the name property of an image is not required to be unique, so filtering by name may result in multiple matches. For example, there may be multiple image producers promoting something named “Fred’s Excellent OS”, and thus the following call (remembering to URL encode the apostrophe and spaces):

GET v2/images?visibility=community&name=Fred%27s%20Excellent%20OS

may result in several image records for different image producers. If you want to find only images supplied by some particular producer, filtering by owner will give you more accurate results. Additionally, if “Fred’s Excellent OS” image is ever deleted by Fred, who you trust, some other producer George, who you don’t even know, could create a “Fred’s Excellent OS” image. If you are searching by name only, you’ll find George’s image—which you probably don’t want to use until you’ve figured out who George is, whether he’s trustworthy, and what exactly he’s put on the image.

No provision is made in this API for producer-consumer communication. All such communication must be done independently of the API.

An example workflow for community images is:

The producer posts information about community images on a public website. This information would be a description of the image including the image’s UUID.
A consumer uses the UUID in Images v2 API calls to access the image.

An alternative workflow is:

The producer posts information about community images on a public website. This post would include the producer’s identifier.
A potential consumer uses the producer’s identifier in an image-list call as in the example above to discover the available images and to determine the UUID of an image to be consumed.
The consumer uses the UUID in Images v2 API calls to access the image.

Sharing Images using the Image API v2

Glance Specs 0.0.1.dev482

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