[Openstack] Using Nova APIs from Javascript: possible?

Adrian Smith adrian_f_smith at dell.com
Fri Apr 27 11:37:21 UTC 2012


I'd be really interested to hear how you go on with the CORS middleware Javier.
Did it work as-is or did you have to modify it? Was there much effort
involved in using it with Nova?

>From your experience it sounds like there's decent CORS support in browsers
now so it's probably time to submit this change to gerrit.

Adrian


2012/4/27 Diego Parrilla Santamaría <diego.parrilla.santamaria at gmail.com>

> Awesome Javier!!!!
>
> Anxiously waiting for a meeting with you guys to see your progress!
>
> Cheers
> Diego
>  --
> Diego Parrilla
> <http://www.stackops.com/>*CEO*
> *www.stackops.com | * diego.parrilla at stackops.com** | +34 649 94 43 29 |
> skype:diegoparrilla*
> * <http://www.stackops.com/>
> *
>
> *
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>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 9:50 AM, javier cerviño <jcervino at dit.upm.es>wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'm glad to hear that there's a lot of interest in the implementation
>> of Openstack JavaScript clients. Actually, in my group we're
>> developing a "single page" application developed entirely in
>> JavaScript, that widely supports Nova and Keystone APIs.  This work is
>> part of a European Project called FI-Ware (http://www.fi-ware.eu/), in
>> which we are currently using Openstack APIs.
>>
>> We've modified Nova and Keystone installations by adding CORS support.
>> We did it by implementing a kind of filter on their APIs. For doing
>> this we used Adam's implementation
>> (https://github.com/adrian/swift/tree/cors), and we adapted it to Nova
>> and Keystone components. We also developed a JS library
>> (http://ging.github.com/jstack/) that can be used by both web and
>> Node.js applications, for example. This library aims to provide same
>> functionalities as python-novaclient, adding support for Keystone API.
>>
>> And finally we are copying Openstack horizon functionality, using JS
>> library and other frameworks such as jQuery and Backbone.js to
>> implement the web application. This web application is an
>> "early-stage" work, but we will probably publish it by the end of this
>> week. I will let you know the github link.
>>
>> We didn't find much problems with CORS implementation and support in
>> browsers.  For the time being, according to our experiments, the only
>> web browser that is not usable at all with this technology is Internet
>> Explorer, but we have tried it in Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox as
>> well and we didn't have any problems.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Javier Cerviño.
>>
>> On 26 April 2012 06:28, Nick Lothian <nick.lothian at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 5:49 AM, Adam Young <ayoung at redhat.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Let me try to summarize:
>> >>
>> >> 1.  If you are running from a web browser,  post requests to hosts or
>> >> ports other than the origin are allowed,  but the headers cannot be
>> >> modified.  This prevents the addition of the token from Keystone to
>> provide
>> >> single sign on.
>> >>
>> >> 2.  There are various browser side technologies (JSONP, CORS) that get
>> >> around this limitation, but they are typically not enabled,  and can be
>> >> considered security issues.  While implementing these might require
>> support
>> >> from teh Openstack server,  they are fundamentally browser decisions.
>> >>
>> >
>> > This is inaccurate. JSONP is supported by all browsers since ~Netscape
>> 4.0.
>> >
>> > CORS is supported by all modern browsers: IE > 8, Firefox > 3.5, Chrome
>> > 3,
>> > Safari > 4
>> > (See
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-origin_resource_sharing#Browser_support
>> ).
>> > Additionally, CORS support is not a browser decision - the server has to
>> > EXPLICITLY opt-in to support it.
>> >
>> > Obviously CORS support *can* be a security issue - that is why it is
>> > disabled unless the server enables it.
>> >
>> > I do not believe that CORS support adds any additional security issues
>> above
>> > what the OpenStack APIs already face. Specially, the most common problem
>> > (CSRF) is not an issue here because the APIs are not authorised on a
>> session
>> > basis.
>> >
>> >  [snip]
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I've been working on Single Sign on Issues for another project for the
>> >> past year and a half.  Here's a couple things I've learned.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Kerberos is designed to solve this problem.  It has the benefit of
>> being
>> >> integrated into the browser.  Where Kerberos fails is that:  typically
>> it
>> >> only allows a single authentication provider (KDC in Kerberso speak)
>> and it
>> >> does not work well with Firewalls.
>> >>
>> >> The only crytographically secure way to authenticate on the web that
>> can
>> >> get around the firewall issue is Client side X509 certificates.  This
>> is the
>> >> foundation for https://blueprints.launchpad.net/keystone/+spec/pki.
>>  This
>> >> could, in theory, work in with OAuth, OpenID,  or some other
>> distributed
>> >> authorization service,  or we could embed the authorization information
>> >> right into the Certitificate, which is what I suggest we do.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> > To be clear, identity/authorisation is NOT the problem here. The
>> OpenStack
>> > APIs work well for my use cases, once I work around the cross domain
>> POST
>> > problem.
>> >
>> > However, I've also worked with SSO solutions. The simple truth is that
>> > client side certificates do not play well with the web - browser support
>> > ranges from non-existent (on some mobile platforms -
>> > see
>> http://mobilitydojo.net/2010/12/28/client-certificate-support-across-mobile-platforms-a-summary/
>> ) to
>> > abysmal (there is a reason why many websites that use certificates end
>> up
>> > using a Java applet), and their interaction with cross domain
>> Javascript is
>> > unknown.
>> >
>> > Even if certificates did work for identification, CORS would still be
>> needed
>> > - many OpenStack APIs require a POST request which is impossible without
>> > it.
>> >
>> >
>> > Nick
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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