Open Stack

Let me propose another approach. I agree with most of Dmitry's statements
and it seems in MVP we need plugin management UI where we can enable
installed plugins. It should be a separate page. If you want to create
environment with a plugin, enable the plugin on this page and create a new
environment. You can also disable and uninstall plugins using that page (if
there is no environments with the plugin enabled).

The main reason why I'm against Evgeniy's 2nd approach (explicitly enabling
plugins in the wizard) is that we need to add a step where we choose the
plugins. This step should be added right after choice of environment name
and release, because options on the next steps and even steps could be
added from plugins. And this is complete disaster for UX. Imagine a new
user which uses Fuel for the first time and has to decide which plugins he
will use right after giving a name to an environment.

So I think if we implement plugin management page and make user explicitly
and globally enable installed plugins there we can implement Evgeniy's 2nd
approach, but in a slightly different way. I think we need to use all
enabled plugins for new environments by default and let user to uncheck
some of them, so they won't be used for that particular environment. I
think the checkboxes should be right on the first pane under release
selectbox (it makes sense because different releases could have different
plugins available). These checkboxes should be hidden by default and only
appear after user clicks a button named like "customize used plugins". I
think we should use the word "use" here instead of "enable" as we "enable"
plugins on the plugin management page.

The plugin management page and explicit enabling of plugins are also
required for plugins with an UI part as we need to preload it when UI loads
and not when the wizard opens as the plugin can contain mixins for the
wizard.

What do you think?

2014-10-09 11:04 GMT+07:00 Dmitry Borodaenko <dborodaenko at mirantis.com>:

> I don't like how this discussion is framed. The initial premise that we
> have
> only two controversial options to choose from is lazy. If there is no
> consensus, we should look for more options, not for a popular vote.
>
> Secondly, current level of UX is not negotiable. You can't take something
> that
> we already have and that works (and current Fuel UI is the best out there
> by a
> wide margin), and make it worse just to add a new feature. Even something
> as
> important as plugins must be an incremental improvement.
>
> With that premise, lets decompose the problem.
>
> 1. There are two levels of settings related to any plugin: a) first you
> have to
> enable enable the plugin itself; b) when the plugin is enabled, it may
> expose
> additional settings.
>
> - How can it be acceptable to have all plugins always enabled in all
>   environments? Do you really trust all plugin writers to carefully check
> for
>   plugin-specific options and ensure there is zero impact on an
> environment if
>   none of its options are enabled?
>
> - If all your plugins are enabled everywhere, you can't uninstall any of
> them
>   because all environments you deployed would become unmanageable.
>
> - If you ignore uninstallation, soon you will be stuck with plugins that
> cannot
>   be made removable even when Fuel itself begins to support it.
>
> - To break away from unremovable plugins, you're likely going to have to
> break
>   backwards compatibility (unless you already have a forward-compatible
> design
>   that allows for removable plugins in the future, but then you wouldn't
> have
>   to exclude removing plugins from MVP).
>
> - And if a Fuel upgrade ever requires uninstalling a plugin due to
>   irreconcilable incompatibility, and they're enabled in all of your
>   environments, you're stuck unable to upgrade.
>
> So, lets not enable any plugins by default. And if we can come up with a
> way to
> make them removable (when they're not enabled in any deployed
> environments), we
> should at least leave room for that in the design.
>
> 2. Either level of plugin settings (enable or configure) may be exposed in
> setup wizard, settings page, or both.
>
> - Yes, additional plugin settings also may show up in the wizard (e.g.
> vCenter
>   credentials).
>
> - Yes, we should maintain the settings page as the SSoT, and that means
>   reflecting as many of setup wizard options in it as possible.
>
> - Yes, for some options (like choice of operating system or network
> topology),
>   our settings page is not dynamic enough to allow user to go back and
> revert
>   them without recreating the environment.
>
> - No, plugin writer shouldn't have to explicitly describe a checkbox to
> enable
>   their plugin. They only should provide name and description of the
> plugin.
>   Plugin engine should be able to produce a catalogue of installed
> plugins, and
>   UI should generate enable checkboxes from that catalogue.
>
> - If a plugin doesn't affect any available environment configuration
> options
>   outside of the settings tab (i.e. setup wizard, network settings, node
> roles,
>   disk & nic configuration), there's no reason to limit it to setup
> wizard, the
>   "enable" checkbox and whatever other options it has should all be
> present in
>   the settings page.
>
> - Do we have any plugins in 6.0 that have to be present in setup wizard
> because
>   they affect UI outside of settings page? I'm not aware of any.
>
> If so, lets start by representing all plugin settings in the settings
> page. But
> leave the room in the metadata to force some or all of plugin's settings to
> show up in the setup wizard (or even to present plugin configuration
> options
> differently in the wizard than in the settings).
>
> Just my $2,
> -DmitryB
>
> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 9:18 AM, Nikolay Markov <nmarkov at mirantis.com>
> wrote:
> > Vitaly,
> >
> > Once again, as a plugin developer I don't care about how Sahara or
> Murano is
> > implemented. I don't care about checkboxes, either. I just want one
> simple
> > command to run on target nodes and I should be provided with the simplest
> > possible interface to:
> > 1) Write this command in some YAML and don't care about anything else
> > 2) Enable my plugin for particular environment and see if it's really
> > enabled both on UI and CLI (and through pure API by simple field
> checking)
> >
> > If it provides some separate service - this doesn't change anything, I
> just
> > need it to be listed somewhere in "plugins" inside cluster data to know
> that
> > it'll be executed.
> >
> > How will it work with your approach?
> >
> > 08 Окт 2014 г. 20:00 пользователь "Vitaly Kramskikh"
> > <vkramskikh at mirantis.com> написал:
> >
> >> Hi, responses inline.
> >>
> >> 2014-10-08 21:09 GMT+07:00 Evgeniy L <eli at mirantis.com>:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> Vitaly, I understand your concerns about UX.
> >>> But there are technical problems and statements which affect
> >>> plugin developer and makes his live more complicated.
> >>>
> >>> My opinion is we definitely should know, if plugin is disabled
> >>> or if it's enabled for specific environment.
> >>>
> >>> 1. plugin developer defines tasks, like "I want the script to be
> >>>     executed on nodes with controller role" and I don't think that
> >>>     he expects this task to be run on all of the nodes, also
> >>>     I don't think that we want ask plugin developer to parse
> >>>     yaml with bash in order to understand if his plugin is enabled,
> >>>     it's a bad design
> >>
> >> Bash script shouldn't be even run if the conditions to run it are not
> met.
> >> I described above how it could be done.
> >>>
> >>> 2. there will be no way to uninstall the plugin, because all of the
> >>>     plugins are enabled on the environments, even if user doesn't
> >>>     use them
> >>
> >> Well, this is the only issue that I see with the first approach and I
> >> still don't know how to solve it.
> >>>
> >>> Also I don't think that it's a good interface, to ask plugin developr
> >>> to include checkbox in each plugin.
> >>>
> >> It should be included only in plugins which affect the installation. For
> >> example, if OSTF was a plugin it wouldn't need such a checkbox. We can
> also
> >> make kind of plugin bootstrap or a sample plugin whcih will include a
> single
> >> control.
> >>>
> >>> The second solution is discussed because it's the most explicit
> >>> way to solve described problem.
> >>>
> >>> Let's try to figure out the solution which will work well for user
> >>> and for plugin developer.
> >>>
> >>> For example, for each plugin generate section on UI with checkbox
> >>> Like:
> >>
> >> Well, first Nikolay disliked need for a checkbox for any plugin and now
> >> you want to autogenerate a section. Why woudn't we give plugin writers
> >> ability to describe the controls themselves? For example, LBaaS would
> >> require a single checkbox in "Additional Services" section.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> GlusterFS [ ] - disable all of the fields for the section
> >>> Here is some description of the section, which we can take from
> >>> description field.
> >>>
> >>> IP address [127.0.0.1] - this field provides plugin developer
> >>>
> >>> If plugin is set, we add env <-> plugin relation, if it's unset, we
> >>> delete it.
> >>> Also when user checks the checkbox, UI will be able to retrieve
> >>> attributes which plugin provides. But it's not so easy todo, I'm not
> >>> sure if we can do it with hooks, but it's possible with some separate
> >>> model and handlers.
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 12:48 PM, Vitaly Kramskikh
> >>> <vkramskikh at mirantis.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Nikolay,
> >>>>
> >>>> Currently every thing that can be turned into a plugin (Ceph, vCenter,
> >>>> Sahara, Murano, Ceilometer) provides a checkbox (or more complicated
> >>>> controls) for the settings tab. Why change this approach for plugins?
> The
> >>>> settings tab (cluster attributes) currently is a SSOT, and you want
> to ruin
> >>>> it for no reason.
> >>>>
> >>>> Of course it makes no sense to generate anything. Checkboxes on the
> >>>> settings tab can be added using simple YAML mixin and if you want to
> check
> >>>> this checkbox to determine whether to perform some action or not and
> don't
> >>>> want to write any python code, try to add to plugin's YAML
> "restrictions"
> >>>> section which we already have for the settings tab, the wizard and
> roles.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2014-10-08 14:50 GMT+07:00 Nikolay Markov <nmarkov at mirantis.com>:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> >>> Right now we already have like 2 types of plugins (extensions),
> >>>>> >>> classified by usage of settings tab:
> >>>>> >>> 1. Some kind of backend for service (swift/ceph, lvm/ceph,
> >>>>> >>> ovs/nsx), or hypervisor (lvm/qemu/vmware)
> >>>>> >>> 2. Self-contained service that just needs to be installed
> (sahara,
> >>>>> >>> murano, zabbix)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> That's not quite right. In 6.0 and after that there will be a lot of
> >>>>> small plugins which only modify some config and/or install some
> >>>>> package. There is nothing to configure here, and I as a plugin
> >>>>> developer don't even want to know anything about checkboxes on UI. I
> >>>>> just want two things: role to execute my command on and command
> >>>>> itself. That's one small YAML.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And autogenerating checkboxes for such plugins on UI is bad, because
> >>>>> explicit is better than implicit (and all our settings are explicitly
> >>>>> defined in openstack.yaml).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Dmitriy Shulyak
> >>>>> <dshulyak at mirantis.com> wrote:
> >>>>> > If there is no checkboxes (read configuration) and plugin is
> >>>>> > installed - all
> >>>>> > deployment tasks will be applied
> >>>>> > to every environment, but why do you think that there will be no
> >>>>> > checkboxes
> >>>>> > in most cases?
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Right now we already have like 2 types of plugins (extensions),
> >>>>> > classified
> >>>>> > by usage of settings tab:
> >>>>> > 1. Some kind of backend for service (swift/ceph, lvm/ceph,
> ovs/nsx),
> >>>>> > or
> >>>>> > hypervisor (lvm/qemu/vmware)
> >>>>> > 2. Self-contained service that just needs to be installed (sahara,
> >>>>> > murano,
> >>>>> > zabbix)
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > In 1st case you need to provide shared configuration storage (like
> >>>>> > cluster
> >>>>> > attributes right now), in order for plugin
> >>>>> > to be able to exclude part of core workflow from running (not
> >>>>> > installing
> >>>>> > swift for example).
> >>>>> > In case if the plugin is self-contained entity, like Sahara, Murano
> >>>>> > right
> >>>>> > now - checkboxes would be simply required.
> >>>>> > It works this way right now, and it doesnot look like huge
> overhead.
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > So what do you think, will it work or no?
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 8:42 AM, Nikolay Markov <
> nmarkov at mirantis.com>
> >>>>> > wrote:
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Hi,
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> Frankly speaking, I'm not sure on how 1st approach will even work.
> >>>>> >> What if plugin doesn't provide any checkboxes (and in most cases
> it
> >>>>> >> won't)? How should we determine in serializer, which plugins
> should
> >>>>> >> be
> >>>>> >> applied while generating astute.yaml and tasks.yaml? Should we
> >>>>> >> autogenerate some stuff for plugins which are not even enabled and
> >>>>> >> do
> >>>>> >> needless work?
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> This looks too complicated for me from the backend side, and
> option
> >>>>> >> with enabling/disabling plugins in wizard for specific environment
> >>>>> >> (we
> >>>>> >> can invent mechanism to disable them on env which is not deployed
> >>>>> >> yet,
> >>>>> >> besides, for API it's just one PUT) is MUCH simpler and much more
> >>>>> >> obvious, as I see.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 8:34 AM, Vitaly Kramskikh
> >>>>> >> <vkramskikh at mirantis.com> wrote:
> >>>>> >> > Hi,
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> > I would go with the 1st approach. The thing I don't like in the
> >>>>> >> > 2nd
> >>>>> >> > approach
> >>>>> >> > is that we have to make the user enable plugin twice. For
> example,
> >>>>> >> > we
> >>>>> >> > have
> >>>>> >> > to enable Ceph as a plugin and then add Ceph role to nodes and
> >>>>> >> > choose
> >>>>> >> > what
> >>>>> >> > we want to store in Ceph (images, objects). Why we would need to
> >>>>> >> > explicitly
> >>>>> >> > enable Ceph plugin? Let's always show plugin options in wizard
> and
> >>>>> >> > settings
> >>>>> >> > tab, and if the user just doesn't want to enable Ceph, he would
> >>>>> >> > just
> >>>>> >> > leave
> >>>>> >> > all the checkboxes unchecked. The 2nd approach would also lead
> to
> >>>>> >> > some
> >>>>> >> > kind
> >>>>> >> > of inconsistency in case the user enabled Ceph plugin but left
> all
> >>>>> >> > the
> >>>>> >> > Ceph-related checkboxes unchecked and didn't add Ceph nodes.
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> > 2014-10-07 21:17 GMT+07:00 Evgeniy L <eli at mirantis.com>:
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Hi,
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> We had a meeting today about plugins on UI, as result of the
> >>>>> >> >> meeting
> >>>>> >> >> we have two approaches and this approaches affect not only UX
> but
> >>>>> >> >> plugins itself.
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> 1st - disable/enable plugin on settings tab
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> user installs the plugin
> >>>>> >> >> creates a cluster
> >>>>> >> >> configures and enables/disables plugins on settings tab
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> For user it will look like Ceph plugin checkboxes on settings
> >>>>> >> >> tab,
> >>>>> >> >> if he enables checkbox, then we pass the parameter to
> >>>>> >> >> orchestrator
> >>>>> >> >> as `true`.
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Cons:
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> plugin developer should define a checkbox in each plugin (for
> >>>>> >> >> plugin
> >>>>> >> >> disabling/enabling)
> >>>>> >> >> on the backend we have to enable all of the plugins for
> >>>>> >> >> environment,
> >>>>> >> >> because user can define any name for his checkbox and we won't
> be
> >>>>> >> >> able
> >>>>> >> >> to
> >>>>> >> >> find it and make appropriate mapping plugin <-> env
> >>>>> >> >> since all of the plugins are always "enabled" we have to run
> >>>>> >> >> tasks for
> >>>>> >> >> all
> >>>>> >> >> of the plugins, and each plugin should parse astute.yaml in
> order
> >>>>> >> >> to
> >>>>> >> >> figure
> >>>>> >> >> out if it's required to run task current script
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Pros:
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> it won't require additional setting or step for wizard
> >>>>> >> >> user will be able to disable plugin after environment creation
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> 2nd - enable plugins in wizard
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> user installs the plugin
> >>>>> >> >> now he can choose specific plugins for his environment in
> wizard
> >>>>> >> >> after cluster is created, he can configure additional
> parameters
> >>>>> >> >> on
> >>>>> >> >> settings tab, if plugin provides any
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Cons:
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> user won't be able to disable plugin after cluster is created
> >>>>> >> >> additional step or configuration subcategory in wizard
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Pros:
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> On backend we always know which plugin is disabled and which is
> >>>>> >> >> enabled.
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> it means we don't provide settings for plugins which are
> disabled
> >>>>> >> >> we don't run tasks on slaves if it's not required
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> Thanks,
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> >> >> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>>> >> >> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>>> >> >>
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>> >> >>
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> > --
> >>>>> >> > Vitaly Kramskikh,
> >>>>> >> > Software Engineer,
> >>>>> >> > Mirantis, Inc.
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >> > _______________________________________________
> >>>>> >> > OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>>> >> > OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>>> >> >
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>> >> >
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> --
> >>>>> >> Best regards,
> >>>>> >> Nick Markov
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> >> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>>> >> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>>> >> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > _______________________________________________
> >>>>> > OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>>> > OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>>> > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>> >
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Best regards,
> >>>>> Nick Markov
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>>> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Vitaly Kramskikh,
> >>>> Software Engineer,
> >>>> Mirantis, Inc.
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>>> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >>> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Vitaly Kramskikh,
> >> Software Engineer,
> >> Mirantis, Inc.
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> >> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> >> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > OpenStack-dev mailing list
> > OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> > http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Dmitry Borodaenko
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
>



-- 
Vitaly Kramskikh,
Software Engineer,
Mirantis, Inc.
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