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Hi Prabhakar, 

Thanks for the feedback. I'd be interested to hear what other policy types you have in mind. 

To answer your questions... 

We're planning on extending our policy language in such a way that you can use Python functions as conditions ("<atom>" in the grammar) in rules. That's on my todo-list but didn't mention it yesterday as we were short on time. There will be some syntactic restrictions so that we can properly execute those Python functions (i.e. we need to always be able to compute the inputs to the function). I had thought it was just an implementation detail I hadn't gotten around to (all Datalog implementations I've seen have such things), but it sounds like it's worth writing up a proposal and sending it around before implementing. If that's a pressing concern for you, let me know and I'll bump it up the stack (a little). If you'd like, feel free to draft a proposal (or remind me to do it once in a while). 

As for actions, I typically think of them as API calls to other OS components like Nova. But they could just as easily be Python functions. But I would want to avoid an action that changes Congress's internal data structures directly (e.g. adding a new policy statement). Such actions have caused trouble in the past for policy languages (though for declarative programming languages like Prolog they are less problematic). I don't think there's anyway we can stop people from creating such actions, but I think we should advocate against them. 

Tim 

----- Original Message -----

From: "prabhakar Kudva" <nandavarpk at hotmail.com> 
To: "OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)" <openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org> 
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 11:34:04 AM 
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [Congress] Policy types 

Hi Tim, All, 

I was in the discussion yesterday (kudva), and would like to start gradually 
contributing to the code base. 

So, this discussion below is based on my limited exploration of Congress 
code, running it. I am trying some small pieces to implement to familiarize. 
Please view it as such. As I start adding code, I am sure, my thoughts will 
be more evolved. 

I agree with the three types you outline. I also agree that these will grow. 
We are already thinking of expanding congress for various other types of 
policies. But those would be a manageable start. 

Regarding the comment below. I was wondering if all conditions, and actions 
could be both: 
1. python functions (for conditions they eval 
2. policy primitives. 

The advantage of 1, is that it is just executed and a True or False returned 
by Python for conditions. For actions, python functions are executed to respond to conditions. 
This controls the growth of policies and adding more primitives, and makes it flexible (say 
to use alarms, monitors, os clients, nova actions etc). 

The advantage of 2, is the ability to use unification (as in unify.py) and do 
some logic reduction. This gives us the full strength of extensive and mature 
logic reasoning and reduction methods. 

One possibility is that it checks which one the two it is and does the appropriate 
evaluation for condition and action. 


>There are drawbacks to this proposal as well. 
>- We will have 3 separate policies that are conceptually very similar. As the policies grow larger, it will become >increasingly difficult to keep the policies synchronized. This problem can be mitigated to some extent by having >all 3 share a library of policy statements that they all apply in different ways (and such a library mechanism is >already implemented). 
>- As cloud services change their behavior, policies may need to be re-written. For example, right now Nova does >not consult Congress before creating a VM; thus, to enforce policy surrounding VMs, the best we could do is >write a Condition-Action policy that adjusts VM configuration when it learns about new VMs being created. If we >later make Nova consult with Congress before creating a VM, we need to write an Access-control policy that puts >the proper controls in place. 

Thanks, 

Prabhakar Kudva 




Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 10:05:23 -0700 
From: thinrichs at vmware.com 
To: openstack-dev at lists.openstack.org 
Subject: [openstack-dev] [Congress] Policy types 

Hi all, 

We started a discussion on IRC yesterday that I'd like to continue. The main question is what kind of policy does a Congress user actually write? I can see three options. The first two focus on actions (API calls that make changes to the state of the cloud) and the last focuses on just the cloud state. (By "state of the cloud" I mean all the information Congress can see about all the cloud services it is managing, e.g. all the information we can get through API calls to Nova, Neutron, Cinder, Heat, ...). 

1) Access Control (e.g. Linux, XACML, AD): which *actions* can be performed by other cloud services (for each state of the cloud) 
2) Condition Action: which *actions* Congress should execute (for each state of the cloud) 
3) Classification (currently supported in Congress): which *states* violate real-world policy. [For those of you who have read docs/white-papers/etc. I'm using "Classification" in this note to mean the combination of the current "Classification" and "Action Description" policies.] 

The important observation is that each of these policies could contain different information from each of the others. 

- Access Control vs Condition Action. The Access Control policy tells *other cloud services* which actions they are *allowed* to execute. The Condition Action policy tells *Congress* which actions it *must* execute. These policies differ because they constrain different sets of cloud services. 

- Access Control vs. Classification. The Access Control policy might permit some users to violate the Classification policy in some situations (e.g. to fix violation A, we might need to cause violation B before eliminating both). These policies differ because a violation in one policy might be be a violation in the other. 

- Classification vs. Condition Action. The Classification policy might imply which actions *could* eliminate a given violation, but the Condition Action policy would dictate which of those actions *should* be executed (e.g. the Classification policy might tell us that disconnecting a network and deleting a VM would both eliminate a particular violation, but the Condition Action policy would tell us which to choose). And the Condition Action policy need not eliminate all the violations present in the Classification policy. Again these policies differ because a violation in one policy might not be a violation in the other. 

I'm proposing that for the first release of Congress we support all 3 of these policies. When a user inserts/deletes a policy statement, she chooses which policy it belongs to. All would be written in basically the same syntax but would be used in 3 different scenarios: 

- Prevention: If a component wants to consult Congress before taking action to see if that action is allowed, Congress checks the Access Control policy. 

- Reaction: When Congress learns of a change in the cloud's state, it checks the Condition Action policy to see which actions should be executed (if any). 

- Monitoring: If a user wants to simply check if the cloud's state is in compliance and monitor compliance over time, she writes and queries the Classification policy. 

There are several benefits to this proposal. 
- It allows users to choose any of the policy types, if they only want one of them. From our discussions with potential users, most seem to want one of these 3 policy types (and are uninterested in the others). 
- It makes the introduction to Congress relatively simple. We describe 3 different uses of policy (Prevention, Reaction, Monitoring) and then explain which policy to use in which case. 
- This allows us to focus on implementing a single policy-engine technology (a Datalog policy language and evaluation algorithms), which gives us the opportunity to make it solid. 

There are drawbacks to this proposal as well. 
- We will have 3 separate policies that are conceptually very similar. As the policies grow larger, it will become increasingly difficult to keep the policies synchronized. This problem can be mitigated to some extent by having all 3 share a library of policy statements that they all apply in different ways (and such a library mechanism is already implemented). 
- As cloud services change their behavior, policies may need to be re-written. For example, right now Nova does not consult Congress before creating a VM; thus, to enforce policy surrounding VMs, the best we could do is write a Condition-Action policy that adjusts VM configuration when it learns about new VMs being created. If we later make Nova consult with Congress before creating a VM, we need to write an Access-control policy that puts the proper controls in place. 

These drawbacks were the original motivation for supporting only the Classification policy and attempting to derive the Access Control and Condition Action policies from it. But given that we can't always derive the proper Access Control and Condition Action policies from the Classification policy, we will eventually need support for all 3. In addition, the technical complexity of supporting all 3 is much lower than supporting just the Classification policy and deriving the others. 

I'll stop there for now. 

Comments, thoughts, questions? 
Tim 

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