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Launchpad Entry: NovaSpec:admin-account-actions
Created: 25 February 2011
Update: 8 April 2011
Contributors: GlenCampbell

Summary

This document proposes a Management API for Nova. Whereas the public API is targeted at the users of the system (and is thus focused on terminal artifacts such as servers and images), the Management API (also called the "Admin API") is expected to be used by system administrators. Specifically, the management API provides functions that access the physical deployment of a cloud computing system and the associated features that might be used, for example, by an enterprise IT department or a cloud hosting provider such as Rackspace. This initial proposal, as one might expect, is heavily influenced by the needs of Rackspace, but the goal of this Nova effort is to separate those features that have a more general audience from those that are Rackspace-specific.

Initially, all features of the Management API are implemented using the API Extensions mechanism; if the OpenStack community agrees upon the need for certain features, they will be migrated to the Nova Core. Other features, specific to Rackspace, will be left as custom extensions and maintained by Rackspace.

Release Note

TBD

Rationale

Administrators that deploy compute clouds based on Nova need a method beyond simple command-line tools for managing a large, complex environment. Because of this, tools need to be developed to support the cloud administrators, and not just the cloud users. By providing a management API, Nova enables the development of those tools.

In addition, by abstracting (to the greatest extent possible) the functions of the hypervisor, the Management API also permits flexibility in deployment. If, in the future, a new hypervisor becomes popular, the Management API may be implemented on top of its functionality and thus permit the use of existing tools.

User stories

As a compute cloud administrator, I need to take action to prevent my users from potentially harming one another—for example, if a user is abusing resources, I need to suspend or delete that user.

As a tool developer, I need a stable API so that I can develop tools that have the widest possible use (instead of having to re-implement the same function for multiple different environments).

Assumptions

The Multi-cluster "Zones" blueprint has been implemented.

Design

/{account_id}/action

This resource provides a mechanism for performing specific actions on resources associated with a specific account. Like the /servers/ID/action resource, a message is passed in the request body that specifies the action to take.

Note that account_id is assumed to be the same as tenant_id.

Action

|SUSPEND_SERVERS

|UNSUSPEND_SERVERS

|SUSPEND

|UNSUSPEND

Comment: "RESUME" might be better than "UNSUSPEND," but "UNSUSPEND" was chosen for conformity with existing Rackspace functions.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

data migration, if any
redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Unresolved issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

NovaAdminAPI

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