[Openstack] Identity API v3 - Why allow multi-tenant users?

Adam Young ayoung at redhat.com
Wed Jul 18 15:46:13 UTC 2012


The idea of a Domain is that it is a single administrative entity, such 
as a company.

When a person joins a company,  they get an email adddress.  THat 
address does not change regardless of the position they hold.

Tenants are administrative groupings below that.  It is unfortunate that 
we used the name tenants for this, as it actually contradicts the usual 
meaning of the term.  We will be shortly switching back to using the 
term projects, and I think that is clearer.


It certainly makes sense for a user to belong to one domain, but have 
access to a project controlled in another domain.  Here is a scenario.  
Joe's Sporting Goods and Local Bank are both companies that have a 
presense in a coud provider. Each has their own domain.  
tom at localbank.com  is going to set up a Point of Sale system for Joe.  
So Joe creates a project called joes-point-of-sale and provides access 
to user tom at localbank.com.




On 07/18/2012 02:46 AM, Matt Joyce wrote:
> I could see service users and security / operations teams having a 
> need to span many domains.
>
> -Matt
>
> On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Tim Bell <Tim.Bell at cern.ch 
> <mailto:Tim.Bell at cern.ch>> wrote:
>
>     I thought that the v3 API supports domains as a group of tenants
>     which would make the question rather different.
>
>     Thus, I guess the question is
>
>     A.Should there be users in multiple tenants in a single domain ?
>
>     B.Should there be users in multiple domains ?
>
>     There are clear use cases for A (such as researchers working on
>     multiple projects sharing project quotas)
>
>     For B, it is less clear as if I am a domain administrator, I do
>     not want to be told that I cannot allocate user X since another
>     domain has already taken it. On the other hand, there is a clear
>     architectural benefit from having the concept of identity (and
>     authentication) split off from roles and projects.
>
>     Tim
>
>     *From:*openstack-bounces+tim.bell=cern.ch at lists.launchpad.net
>     <mailto:cern.ch at lists.launchpad.net>
>     [mailto:openstack-bounces+tim.bell
>     <mailto:openstack-bounces%2Btim.bell>=cern.ch at lists.launchpad.net
>     <mailto:cern.ch at lists.launchpad.net>] *On Behalf Of *John Postlethwait
>     *Sent:* 18 July 2012 07:42
>     *To:* Rouault, Jason (Cloud Services)
>     *Cc:* openstack at lists.launchpad.net
>     <mailto:openstack at lists.launchpad.net>
>
>
>     *Subject:* Re: [Openstack] Identity API v3 - Why allow
>     multi-tenant users?
>
>     Forcing a user to remember different usernames and/or passwords
>     for each project they are a part of, when it is possible they are
>     part of N projects, really isn't an acceptable option in my opinion.
>
>     I believe that regardless of the engineering complexities, the end
>     users shouldn't have to feel pain in order to make engineering the
>     solutions and features they interact with easier. Software is for
>     end users (in their various forms) and as such we need to take
>     that into account when we make decisions. While no functionality
>     is lost per se, there is a major end-user impact, and that should
>     be reason enough to implement it...
>
>     John Postlethwait
>
>     Nebula, Inc.
>
>     206-999-4492 <tel:206-999-4492>
>
>     On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Rouault, Jason (Cloud
>     Services) wrote:
>
>         One benefit is the user does not need to have multiple sets of
>         credentials to interact with multiple projects.
>
>         Jason
>
>         *From:*openstack-bounces+jason.rouault=hp.com at lists.launchpad.net
>         <mailto:openstack-bounces+jason.rouault=hp.com at lists.launchpad.net>
>         [mailto:openstack-bounces+jason.rouault=hp.com at lists.launchpad.net
>         <mailto:hp.com at lists.launchpad.net>] *On Behalf Of *Adam Young
>         *Sent:* Tuesday, July 17, 2012 11:55 AM
>         *To:* openstack at lists.launchpad.net
>         <mailto:openstack at lists.launchpad.net>
>         *Subject:* Re: [Openstack] Identity API v3 - Why allow
>         multi-tenant users?
>
>         On 05/29/2012 01:18 PM, Caitlin Bestler wrote:
>
>             One of the major complication I see in the API is that
>             users can be associated with multiple tenants.
>
>             What is the benefit of this? What functionality would be
>             lost if a human user merely had to use a different account
>             with each tenant?
>
>             There are numerous issues with multi-tenant users. For
>             example, if a user is associated with multiple tenants,
>             who resets the user's password?
>
>
>
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>         Did you ever get an answer?  This has been discussed in depth.
>
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