[Openstack] Comparing roles - case (in)sensitivity

Dolph Mathews dolph.mathews at gmail.com
Sat Jun 9 03:27:41 UTC 2012


Role *names* are a human-interface element (arbitrarily defined by users for organizational purposes) and humans would intuitively compare them with case insensitivity (they're comparing organizational meaning, not strings)... if we're going to bother comparing them in code, I'd prefer it to be done with case-insensitivity to avoid confusion.

However, the machine-readable identifier is really intended to be the Role ID (UUID, etc) from keystone.

-Dolph Mathews

On Jun 8, 2012, at 6:35 PM, Christopher B Ferris <chrisfer at us.ibm.com> wrote:

> case-insensitive - why would 'Admin' and 'admin' be different? Sure, a role is represented by a string, but why does that string need to be case sensitive?
> I'd think that if you had distinct roles attributed to 'Admin' and 'admin' that that would lead to confusion.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Christopher Ferris
> IBM Distinguished Engineer, CTO Industry and Cloud Standards
> Member, IBM Academy of Technology
> IBM Software Group, Standards Strategy
> email: chrisfer at us.ibm.com
> Twitter: christo4ferris
> phone: +1 508 234 2986
> 
> 
> -----openstack-bounces+chrisfer=us.ibm.com at lists.launchpad.net wrote: -----
> To: Kiall Mac Innes <kiall at managedit.ie>
> From: Brian Waldon 
> Sent by: openstack-bounces+chrisfer=us.ibm.com at lists.launchpad.net
> Date: 06/08/2012 07:21PM
> Cc: "openstack at lists.launchpad.net \(openstack at lists.launchpad.net\)" <openstack at lists.launchpad.net>
> Subject: Re: [Openstack] Comparing roles - case (in)sensitivity
> 
> I guess I'm looking at this from more of a purist development point of view: 'Admin' and 'admin' just can't be equal. If I think of this as comparing roles, where a role is an abstract concept, case-insensitivity makes more sense. A string is simply being used to represent the role, where the intent of the role is what really needs to be compared.
> 
> My goal here is to get everybody on board with a single approach and apply it across all projects. I don't *really* care too much which approach we take.
> 
> Waldon
> 
> On Jun 8, 2012, at 3:27 PM, Kiall Mac Innes wrote:
> 
>> Sure - The most obvious reason is human error leading to a security hole. E.g. Accidently assigning a user "Admin" when you really meant to assign "admin".
>> 
>> Treating roles as case insensitive helps prevent this kind of human error.
>> 
>> What advantages does allowing distinct "Admin" and "admin" roles provide?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Kiall
>> 
>> Sent from my phone.
>> 
>> On Jun 8, 2012 11:20 p.m., "Brian Waldon" <brian.waldon at rackspace.com> wrote:
>> Can you explain why?
>> 
>> On Jun 8, 2012, at 3:18 PM, Kiall Mac Innes wrote:
>> 
>>> No, I'm suggesting they should all be treated as a single role. I.e. roles should be case insensitive.
>>> Thanks,
>>> Kiall
>>> 
>>> Sent from my phone.
>>> 
>>> On Jun 8, 2012 11:16 p.m., "Brian Waldon" <brian.waldon at rackspace.com> wrote:
>>> I'm suggesting we support only a single representation of a role across all projects: 'admin', 'Admin', and 'admIn' would be three separate roles.
>>> 
>>> Are you suggesting otherwise?
>>> 
>>> On Jun 8, 2012, at 3:14 PM, Kiall Mac Innes wrote:
>>> 
>>>> What's the argument for allowing both, for example, "admin", "Admin" and "admIn" roles?
>>>> 
>>>> This seems like one place where case insensitive makes the most sense.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Kiall
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my phone.
>>>> 
>>>> On Jun 8, 2012 11:01 p.m., "Joseph Suh" <jsuh at isi.edu> wrote:
>>>> I'd vote case-sensitive.
>>>> 
>>>> Joseph
>>>> 
>>>> ----
>>>> (w) 703-248-6160
>>>> (c) 571-340-2434
>>>> (f) 703-812-3712
>>>> 3811 N. Fairfax Drive Suite 200
>>>> Arlington, VA, 22203, USA
>>>> http://www.east.isi.edu/~jsuh
>>>> 
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Brian Waldon" <brian.waldon at rackspace.com>
>>>> To: "openstack at lists.launchpad.net (openstack at lists.launchpad.net)" <openstack at lists.launchpad.net>
>>>> Sent: Friday, June 8, 2012 5:50:45 PM
>>>> Subject: [Openstack] Comparing roles - case (in)sensitivity
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> tl;dr - Should we compare roles as case-sensitive or case-insensitive? I vote case-sensitive.
>>>> 
>>>> This bug was recently filed in Glance: https://bugs.launchpad.net/glance/+bug/1010519 . It points out that Nova and Keystone are both case-insensitive when it comes to role comparison, yet Glance *is* case sensitive. I'm in favor of moving other projects to a case-sensitive approach for two main reasons:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 1) If a role is a string, and comparing strings is inherently case-sensitive, then role comparison would logically be case-sensitive
>>>> 2) I get to do less work
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Thoughts?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Brian Waldon
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
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>> 
> 
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