[openstack-dev] [keystone] Redesign of Keystone Federation

Morgan Fainberg morgan.fainberg at gmail.com
Thu May 29 16:59:22 UTC 2014


I agree that there is room for improvement on the Federation design within Keystone. I would like to re-iterate what Adam said that we are already seeing efforts to fully integrate further protocol support (OpenID Connect, etc) within the current system. Lets be sure that whatever redesign work is proposed and accepted takes into account the current stakeholders (that are really using Federation) and ensure full backwards compatibility.

I firmly believe we can work within the Apache module framework for Juno. Moving beyond Juno we may need to start implementing the more native modules (proposal #2). Lets be sure whatever redesign work we perform this cycle doesn’t lock us exclusively into one path or another. It shouldn’t be too hard to continue making incremental improvements (agile methodology) and keeping the stakeholders engaged.

David and Kristy, the slides and summit session are a great starting place for this work. Now we need to get the proposal drafted up in the new Keystone-Specs repository ( https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/keystone-specs ) so we can keep this conversation on track. Having the specification clearly outlined and targeted will help us address any concerns with the proposal/redesign as we move into implementation.

Cheers,
Morgan
—
Morgan Fainberg


From: Adam Young ayoung at redhat.com
Reply: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org
Date: May 28, 2014 at 09:24:26
To: openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org
Subject:  Re: [openstack-dev] [keystone] Redesign of Keystone Federation  

On 05/28/2014 11:59 AM, David Chadwick wrote:  
> Hi Everyone  
>  
> at the Atlanta meeting the following slides were presented during the  
> federation session  
>  
> http://www.slideshare.net/davidwchadwick/keystone-apach-authn  
>  
> It was acknowledged that the current design is sub-optimal, but was a  
> best first efforts to get something working in time for the IceHouse  
> release, which it did successfully.  
>  
> Now is the time to redesign federated access in Keystone in order to  
> allow for:  
> i) the inclusion of more federation protocols such as OpenID and OpenID  
> Connect via Apache plugins  

These are underway: Steve Mar just posted review for OpenID connect.  
> ii) federating together multiple Keystone installations  
I think Keystone should be dealt with separately. Keystone is not a good  
stand-alone authentication mechanism.  

> iii) the inclusion of federation protocols directly into Keystone where  
> good Apache plugins dont yet exist e.g. IETF ABFAB  
I though this was mostly pulling together other protocols such as Radius?  
http://freeradius.org/mod_auth_radius/  

>  
> The Proposed Design (1) in the slide show is the simplest change to  
> make, in which the Authn module has different plugins for different  
> federation protocols, whether via Apache or not.  

I'd like to avoid doing non-HTTPD modules for as long as possible.  

>  
> The Proposed Design (2) is cleaner since the plugins are directly into  
> Keystone and not via the Authn module, but it requires more  
> re-engineering work, and it was questioned in Atlanta whether that  
> effort exists or not.  

The "method" parameter is all that is going to vary for most of the Auth  
mechanisms. X509 and Kerberos both require special set up of the HTTP  
connection to work, which means client and server sides need to be in  
sync: SAML, OpenID and the rest have no such requirements.  

>  
> Kent therefore proposes that we go with Proposed Design (1). Kent will  
> provide drafts of the revised APIs and the re-engineered code for  
> inspection and approval by the group, if the group agrees to go with  
> this revised design.  
>  
> If you have any questions about the proposed re-design, please don't  
> hesitate to ask  
>  
> regards  
>  
> David and Kristy  
>  
> _______________________________________________  
> OpenStack-dev mailing list  
> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org  
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev  


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