OpenStackAPI 1-1

OpenStack API 1.1

The OpenStack API version 1.1 will support a few new features as well as bring parity between the OpenStack Compute API and Rackspace Cloud Servers API. You can find a draft of the spec here: OpenStack Compute DevGuide 2/9/11 (DRAFT)

New features in the OpenStack API 1.1 include IPv6 support, migration to the OpenStack namespace, and support for API extensions. IPv6 support is a requirement for large scale deployments of openstack. Migration to the OpenStack namespace is a requirement of the OpenStack project so that the primary API is not branded with Rackspace. API Extensions will allow developers to innovate more quickly than the core API is updated by providing a method for developers to add extensions to their local installation ahead of the code being accepted by the OpenStack community as a whole. This should stimulate additional features for the core of OpenStack as extensions can be promoted into the core API after their initial implementation as an extension.

As a side note, some features are still missing from the 1.0 specification, such as file injection, server meta data and limits. File injection supports the ability of API users to specify the content of files on the server upon creation, for example adding an ssh key. Server meta data allows users to provide custom key value pairs to describe a server. Finally, limits allow OpenStack administrators to rate limit and provide absolute limits to users. This allows administrators to protect against malicious or poorly written code from its customers. These features will be completed as a part of the OpenStack API 1.1 implementation. These are probably outside the scope of this blueprint until some work is done on the backend for those features.

Discussion

Please direct all feedback / discussion to the mailing list or the following Etherpad: http://etherpad.openstack.org/osapi1-1

I will maintain this page to reflect the feedback. -GabeWestmaas

OS API 1.0 Features

Thoughts and issues around features specified in the RS API 1.0 but missing from the OS API 1.0.

File Injection

This is just an API level exposure of the feature specified in the xs-fileinject blueprint. This feature is also specified in https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/file-injection-at-creation however we just need to make sure it is included in the OS API when the feature is available.

Rate Limiting

We need to identify the current state of this, it seems there is some work done, but not complete. It is likely that any work currently done for this reflects global rate limiting and not per project limiting. Decisions need to be made around project vs account and after that we can decide how to set up limits on a per account/project basis. Until then, this cannot be in the API. A separate blueprint should be set up.

Instance MetaData

This feature allows API users to specify custom key-value pairs about an instance, not to be confused with metadata about a host. Some thought needs to be put into this feature as well. Do we want there to be certain metadata always available here? Do we want instances to have special access to their own metadata without needing the API key? Another blueprint should be created.

Error Codes

It is important to work with the implementor of the error-codes blueprint to ensure the proper propagation of nova errors into http errors. The error-codes blueprint is a dependency of the OpenStack blueprint since the API must translate the error codes correctly.

Related Blueprints

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/file-injection-at-creation

https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/error-codes