[libvirt] RFC: adding configuration for standard dhcp options to <network>

[Laine Stump]

On 11/24/2012 04:41 PM, Laine Stump wrote:
> There have been multiple requests over the last couple years to make the
> DHCP server of libvirt's virutal networks more configurable (for
> example, see the following BZ:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=824573 ).
>
> You can see a full list of the options supported by dnsmasq with this
> command:
>
>    dnsmasq --help dhcp
>
> The biggest question here is in exactly how to represent the options in
> the network XML. I can see a few different options, among them:
>
> 1) make each option its own element within <dhcp>, e.g.:
>
>      <dnsServer family='ipv4' address='x.x.x.x'/>
>      <dnsServer family='ipv6' address='xxxx:xxxx::1'/>
>      <ntpServer address='y.y.y.y'/>
>      <smtpServer address='z.z.z.z'/>
>
> 2) A variation of (1) where each option could appear only once, but with
> two attributes, one for ipv6 address and one for ipv4:
>
>      <dnsServer address4='x.x.x.x'address6='xxxx:xxxx::1'/>
>      <ntpServer address4='y.y.y.y'/>
>
> 3) have a repeatable "option" element (again, a subelement of <dhcp>
> that can contain any number of the options as attributes:
>
>      <option family='ipv4' dnsServer='x.x.x.x' ntpServer='y.y.y.y'
> smtpServer='z.z.z.z'/>
>      <option family='ipv6' dnsServer='xxxx:xxxx:1'/>
>
>   (in this case, we may or may not support repeating <option> to add
> more options for the same family).
>
> 4) yet another variation, where each option is a subelement of <option
> family='xxxx'>:
>
>      <option family='ipv4'>
>        <dnsServer>x.x.x.x</dnsServer>
>        <ntpServer>y.y.y.y</ntpServer>
>        <smtpServer>z.z.z.z</smtpServer>
>      </option>
>      <option family='ipv6'>
>        <dnsServer>xxxx:xxxx::1</dnsServer>
>      </option>

5) With so many options, it may save lots of repetitive code in the
parser/formatter to make a generic <option> element:

       <option name='dns-server' value='x.x.x.x'/>
       <option name='ntp-server' value='y.y.y.y'/>
       <option name='smtp-server' value='z.z.z.z'/>
       <option family='ipv6' name='dns-server' value='xxxx::1'/>
       <option number='201' value='/netboot/boot-dir/' force='yes'/>

The final is an example of something I just noticed in the BZ I
mentioned above - it is both using an option number and forcing the
option to be sent back to the client even if the client doesn't request
it. This is apparently needed for some clients.

There is a precedent for the "name/value" type of object in nwfilter
parameters. The advantages in this case are

  a) the code for the parser couple possibly be much smaller, with just
a single
     enum + VIR_ENUM_(DECL|IMPL)

  b) it would be easier to support the options by number (which are all
defined
     somewhere in RFCs, but not all have mnemonic equivalents in dnsmasq)

On the other hand, if we allowed any possible option by specifying a
number (and even if not, depending on how the parser was implemented),
it would be easier to create a situation where "bad stuff" could be
injected into the dnsmasq commandline (we should have some type of
intelligent parsing of the values - known options should have a type
associated with them, and unknown should at least be checked for
dangerous characters).

Any opinions from those with more XML experience?



>
> I'm not sure which of these would be more straightforward for a user.
> One thought I've had is that dnsmasq at least allows specifying
> different groups of guest addresses (with a "tag") and applying
> different options to addresses with different tags. I don't know if
> we'll ever use that capability, but if we do it *seems* like any of
> these methods could be adapted to specifying multiple groups.
>
> Does anyone have a preference? (I have a narrow preference for (1),
> simply because it was the first to come to my mind, but could easily be
> swayed to one of the others, or something else, given a logical reason).
>
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