[ovirt-devel] UI Plugin to Upload ISO Files

[Alon Bar-Lev]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Itamar Heim" <iheim at redhat.com>
> To: "Tony James" <tony at anthonyjames.org>
> Cc: "Nir Soffer" <nsoffer at redhat.com>, "Liron Aravot" <laravot at redhat.com>, devel at ovirt.org, "Alon Bar-Lev"
> <alonbl at redhat.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 2, 2015 9:44:45 AM
> Subject: Re: [ovirt-devel] UI Plugin to Upload ISO Files
> 
> On 12/29/2014 06:13 PM, Tony James wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 5:26 AM, Itamar Heim <iheim at redhat.com> wrote:
> >> On 12/29/2014 09:25 AM, Nir Soffer wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>
> >>>> From: "Tony James" <tony at anthonyjames.org>
> >>>> To: devel at ovirt.org
> >>>> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 3:30:49 AM
> >>>> Subject: [ovirt-devel] UI Plugin to Upload ISO Files
> >>>>
> >>>> This message is in response to an earlier thread regarding a UI plugin
> >>>> to upload ISO files.  Like the original poster, Lucas, I began work on
> >>>> a UI plugin to allow uploading ISO files through a UI plugin.  After
> >>>> reading the previous thread I'm re-thinking the architecture.
> >>>>
> >>>> It was suggested that the recommended approach to upload files to a
> >>>> storage domain is through the VDSM API [1].  I'm pretty familiar with
> >>>> the oVirt REST API but have been unable to find documentation
> >>>> regarding accessing the VDSM API.  Should the VDSM API be accessible
> >>>> by a UI plugin? If so, is there documentation available to do so?
> >>>>
> >>>> [1] http://lists.ovirt.org/pipermail/devel/2014-December/009497.html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Basically you have to:
> >>> 1. Use the vdsm xmlrpc/jsonrpc to create an image
> >>> 2. Use the vdsm http api to upload the data to the image. This will
> >>> create
> >>>      a task and return a task id.
> >>> 3. Use the vdsm xmlrpc/jsonrpc api to check the task status, and clear
> >>>      the task when done
> >>>
> >>> The xmlrpc/jsonrpc api is documented here:
> >>>
> >>> http://gerrit.ovirt.org/gitweb?p=vdsm.git;a=blob;f=vdsm/rpc/vdsmapi-schema.json;h=1edcda86c8468b68c620eff4844b57ca30e44ea7;hb=HEAD
> >>>
> >>> You can check the code for upload here:
> >>>
> >>> http://gerrit.ovirt.org/gitweb?p=vdsm.git;a=blob;f=vdsm/rpc/BindingXMLRPC.py;h=759ed7845e63658a13c139684095bd56c03a29ac;hb=HEAD#l158
> >>
> >>
> >> I assume the upload will be done via a servlet on the engine, not directly
> >> by the ui plugin accessing vdsm.
> >> worth discussing your plans here, to make sure architecture/security are
> >> correct.
> >>
> >
> > I was planning on using a python CGI script which would accept the
> > upload via POST from the UI plugin.  The file would be stored in /tmp
> > on the engine host.
> >
> > After the file was successfully uploaded, the CGI script would send a
> > POST to a python HTTP server (BaseHTTPServer, also running on engine
> > host) with the filename and storage domain information.  This python
> > script would then take care of mounting the storage domain and copying
> > the file to the appropriate location.
> >
> > This was my initial approach, I plan on checking out the VDSM API as well.
> >
> 
> my preference would be to stream via a servlet to the vdsm api, rather
> than "store and forward" to avoid potentially exhausting space on engine
> or having to deal with two phased task tracking.
> 
> the tricky part which requires a review is validating authentication and
> authorization by the servlet - to make sure one has the permission to
> write to a certain disk (for data domains) / iso domain.
> this should be similar to the websocket novnc approach of validating
> user has access to relevant VM (but Alon may correct me if its different)

these requirements are for core product feature, while I guess Tony is after a solution to bridge the gap of the missing basic product feature within his environment. his solution is the most simple to solve his local problem, please assign core developer(s) to resolve the generic problem. Expecting a contributer to apply something the product was not designed for or to fix the entire product is incorrect.

we have long way to enable pluggable server side logic; we have no stable interface for authentication check (although we plan to have one for 3.6), we have no stable xmlrpc wrapper, not to mention that the xmlrpc should be obsoleted once the json rpc is out, we do not have access to dao to obtain information about entities, we do not have stable interface to engine key and track its usage, we do not have restapi extensions to extend server side functionality, I guess we do not have many more, as engine was never designed as modular extensible component.

we should also consider dropping the image upload to vdsm in favor of glance, so that core product will support glance directly either by embedding it or by delegating into it. this will enable us to retire the xmlrpc entirely as far as I understand, it will also enable to implement similar functionality of what initially requested within this thread.

Regards,
Alon