[Pki-devel] CLI for editing profiles

Thu Aug 7 07:15:56 UTC 2014

On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 04:13:33PM -0500, Endi Sukma Dewata wrote:
> On 7/23/2014 2:09 AM, Fraser Tweedale wrote:
> >On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 11:27:11AM +1000, Fraser Tweedale wrote:
> >>Along with LDAP profiles, we will be adding modules to the CLI for
> >>adding and editing profiles in the ConfigStore format that was used
> >>for file-based profiles.  For more info, see:
> >>
> >>   http://pki.fedoraproject.org/wiki/LDAP_Profile_Storage#Command-line_utilities
> >>
> >>There is an existing CLI for adding and modifying profiles, in the
> >>XML format, e.g. ``pki ca profile add caCustomProfile.xml``.  The
> >>XML format carries information including the profile ID and
> >>class_id, but these data must be supplied out-of-band when dealing
> >>with the ConfigStore format.
> >>
> >>Because of this, I intend to:
> >>
> >>- add new commands to the existing profile CLI for working with the
> >>   "raw" (i.e., ConfigStore) format, e.g. "edit-raw", "add-raw".
> >>   Where necessary, these commands will take compulsory
> >>   ``--profile-id`` and/or ``--class-id`` arguments, to account for
> >>   the absense of such information in the profile ConfigStore format;
> >>
> >>   and
> >>
> >>- transport this information in the XML format - not in the "raw"
> >>   format - so that it will be unnecessary to make changes to
> >>   ProfileClient or the ProfileService API.
> >>
> >>As usual, I welcome feedback - especially if you feel I am going the
> >>wrong way ^_^
> >>
> >
> >An update: due to the various Profile and ProfileInput/Output/Policy
> >classes not being distributed in the pki-tools package (or
> >dependencies thereof), I /did/ end up adding methods to the REST
> >API.
> >
> >The `pki ca profile show-raw <profileId>` command is implemented in
> >the attached patch 0009.  I expected I will complete the edit-raw
> >and add-raw commands tomorrow, and after that will move on to
> >testing replication and polling/monitoring for changes to profiles.
> >
> >Cheers,
> >
> >Fraser
> 
> Some comments/questions:
> 
Thanks for the review/feedback Endi.  Responses inline.

> 1. About the the new ou=certProfiles entry, We probably should move  it into
> the ou=ca subtree because that subtree already contains other CA-specific
> LDAP entries such as ou=certificateRepository.
> 
This makes sense; shall do.

> 2. Is certProfilesLastModified really necessary? Each LDAP entry already has
> a modifyTimestamp attributes. To be accurate, the certProfilesLastModified
> has to be updated whenever the profiles are imported or updated. There seems
> to be no code for that yet, and there's no guarantee it won't get out of
> sync (e.g. server crash, direct LDAP modification).
> 
This attribute is intended for use by the mechanism that
monitors/polls LDAP for changes and reloads profiles as necessary.
There is no code for it yet; if I don't end up using it I will
remove it.

> 3. If certProfilesLastModified is really necessary, instead of adding a
> separate cn=certProfilesInfo entry just to hold this attribute, we probably
> can move it into ou=certProfiles either by extending the organizationalUnit
> object class or adding an auxiliary object class. We probably should make it
> an optional attribute (i.e. no attribute means never updated).
> 
This is a nice idea.  If we keep it, I will do as you suggest.

> 4. I'm not sure if we really need the certProfileIsDefault attribute.
> There's no guarantee that the value will be accurate because someone could
> modify the certProfileConfig directly and forget to update
> certProfileIsDefault. Also, if we need to do any profile upgrade, it should
> be based on the actual configuration parameters in certProfileConfig, not
> based on the certProfileIsDefault.
> 
This attribute was intended for use by upgrade scripts.  I'm not
precious about keeping it, but it may be useful.  OTOH, default
profile updates are rare enough that all the information for a
three-way merge could be included in the upgrade helper.  So it can
probably be removed as you suggest.

> 5. In LDAPConfigStore let's not use the 'm' prefix for the field names. It's
> a legacy convention and we should not use it for newer code.
> 
OK

> 6. The mInDatabase in LDAPConfigStore doesn't seem to be used anywhere.
> 
Yep, I didn't end up using it.  Good catch.

> 7. In LDAPConfigStore the certProfileConfig attribute is read as binary
> using getByteValues(). Is there a specific reason? Can we use
> getStringValues() since the content is a string (i.e. property file)?
> 
The load() function takes in InputStream, which is a byte stream
abstraction.  getByteValues() result in the least work.  If the
bytes/chars discrepancy is a cause for concern, I can change the
LDAP syntax to Octet String.

> 8. The ProfileService constructs the profile DN. I think this level of
> details should be hidden in the ProfileSubsystem layer. The ProfileService
> shouldn't need to know where/how the profiles are stored.
> 
This was the simply implementation based on existing usage of
ProfileService, i.e. the existing implementation told
ProfileSubsystem about file locations.  I will do this refactor.

> 9. The ProfileAdminServlet calls ProfileSubsystem.createProfile() but it
> supplies a config path instead of a DN. As in #8, I think the caller should
> only specify the profile ID, it's up to the ProfileSubsystem to determine
> the actual location (i.e. profile DN).
> 
Whups, I missed this class.  Will update.

> 10. The mProfileDNs in ProfileSubsystem shouldn't be necessary because we
> can generate the DN from the profileId since it's a flat tree.
> 
This was motivated by the fact that the caller of
ProfileSubsystem.createProfile would specify the DN (see #8).  Will
remove in the refactor.

> 11. The profile subsystem index is hard-coded in the following line:
> 
>   cs.remove("subsystem.1.enabled");
> 
> Although this code is modifying the standard CS.cfg, it would be better to
> do a search the index, then make the modification with the index.
> 
>   int index = ... find subsystem index where id=profile ...
>   cs.remove("subsystem." + index + ".enabled");
> 
> This will avoid problems if we ever add a default subsystem in the future.
> 
Fair enough; will update.

> 12. The profile-show-raw is essentially the same as profile-show, except the
> output format is different. I'd suggest merging them into profile-show and
> use an option like --raw to show the raw profile.
> 
> About the out-of-band class ID, I think we should just map it into a
> 'virtual' property in the raw profile (e.g. class_id=...). The property will
> only exist if the client pulls the raw profile. As already in done the
> patch, in the database it will be stored in classId attribute instead of
> certProfileConfig. In the long term all properties will be converted into
> separate attributes like this, and the 'raw' format should only exist as a
> legacy interface.
> 
Will assess impact of this change on the API (e.g., it may be
acceptable to have `null' classId, in which case it is looked for in
the config).  It will certainly simplify the "unified" CLI command
implementation you suggest.

> 13. The ProfileResource.retrieveProfileRaw() returns a byte[]. Although it
> works just fine for this purpose, I think returning a Properties would make
> it more developer-friendly. That way the output is readily usable, and it
> takes care of any CR/LF issue across different platforms. Maybe call it
> getProfileProperties()?
> 
I'll look into this implications and benefits of doing this... once
I've done all the other things :)

> 14. The CAInstallerService.importProfiles() and importProfile() don't need
> to be static. As virtual methods it will have access to other member
> attributes/methods already defined in the class and its super classes (e.g.
> config store). A long term goal is to eliminate the use of static methods in
> CMS (it's not very modular).
> 
Yep, there's a ConfigStore already available.  Will change to
non-static.

> 15. Minor. I see two styles of writing the try-catch block in the patch:
> 
>   try {
>       ...
>   } catch (...) {
>       ...
>   }
> 
> and
> 
>   try {
>       ...
>   }
>   catch (...) {
>       ...
>   }
> 
> I think the first one is more common.
> 
> 16. Minor. Instead of adding the enabled parameter to the existing
> SubsystemInfo constructor (and having to modify all invocations), it's also
> possible to create a new constructor with the enabled parameter and call it
> from the old constructor with enabled set to true.
> 
Will do #15 and #16.

> -- 
> Endi S. Dewata