[openstack-dev] [nova] nova networking API and CLI are poorly documented and buggy
Mike Spreitzer
mspreitz at us.ibm.com
Tue Jun 17 06:26:05 UTC 2014
I am not even sure what is the intent, but some of the behavior looks like
it is clearly unintended and not useful (i.e., buggy).
IMHO, the API and CLI documentation should explain these calls/commands in
enough detail that the reader can tell the difference. And the difference
should be useful in at least some networking configurations. It seems to
me that in some configurations an administrative user may want THREE
varieties of the network listing call/command: one that shows networks
assigned to his tenant, one that also shows networks available to be
assigned, and one that shows all networks. And in no configurations
should a non-administrative user be blind to all categories of networks.
In the API, there are the calls on /v2/{tenant_id}/os-networks and they
are documented at
http://docs.openstack.org/api/openstack-compute/2/content/ext-os-networks.html
. There are also calls on /v2/{tenant_id}/os-tenant-networks --- but I
can not find documentation for them.
http://docs.openstack.org/api/openstack-compute/2/content/ext-os-networks.html
does not describe the meaning of the calls in much detail. For example,
about "GET /v2/{tenant_id}/os-networks" that doc says only "Lists networks
that are available to the tenant". In some networking configurations,
there are two levels of availability: a network might be assigned to a
tenant, or a network might be available for assignment. In other
networking configurations there are NOT two levels of availability. For
example, in Flat DHCP nova networking (which is the default in DevStack),
a network CAN NOT be assigned to a tenant.
You might think that the "to the tenant" qualification implies filtering
by the invoker's tenant. But you would be wrong in the case of an
administrative user; see the model_query method in
nova/db/sqlalchemy/api.py
In the CLI, we have two sets of similar-seeming commands. For example,
$ nova help net-list
usage: nova net-list
List networks
$ nova help network-list
usage: nova network-list
Print a list of available networks.
Those remarks are even briefer than the one description in the API doc,
omitting the qualification "to the tenant".
Experimentation shows that, in the case of flat DHCP nova networking, both
of those commands show zero networks to a non-administrative user (and
remember that networks can not be assigned to tenants in that
configuration) and all the networks to an administrative user. At the API
the GET calls behave the same way. The fact that a non-administrative
user sees zero networks looks unintended and not useful.
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/openstack-manuals/+bug/1152862 and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/nova/+bug/1327406
Can anyone tell me why there are both /os-networks and /os-tenant-networks
calls and what their intended semantics are?
Thanks,
Mike
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