[Pki-devel] replication of new/modified profiles

[Endi Sukma Dewata]

On 7/3/2014 11:18 AM, Christina Fu wrote:
> Actually, I did not know that this discussion was restricted to a
> replicated ("clone") environment.  My view was more for a general
> organizational environment where there are multiple sub-ca's for
> different departments (which are not necessarily clones, but some could
> be) and there are two types of profiles:
> 1. centralized profiles (shared by all)
> 2. local profiles (customized by each department)
>
> I think this view (let's adopt your term and call it proposal #4) is
> more flexible in serving both non-clones and clones and yet retains the
> simplicity.

Thanks for clarifying. Yes, the main purpose of this enhancement is to 
simplify replicating the profiles within a cluster (e.g. IPA). Proposal 
#4 is probably meant to be an inter-cluster profile management. Within a 
cluster itself, the replicas should be indistinguishable.

For example:
* dept1 (cluster1: server1, server2): profile1, profile2
* dept2 (cluster2: server3, server4): profile1, profile3
* shared: profile1, profile4

I think proposal #4 can be done as a separate enhancement after we 
address the intra-cluster management (proposal #1-3).

> You are right, Endi, about how "local profiles" don't necessarily have
> to be on the disk.  It's just a personal preference that I feel most
> comfortable editing files directly than using ui's.  I have never used
> the java console to edit profiles.  I don't know if there are others who
> feel the same way.  Maybe a market research on administrators is needed
> here.

Here's the CLI that Fraser proposed:
http://pki.fedoraproject.org/wiki/LDAP_Profile_Storage#Edit_profile

So instead of executing the following commands on each replica (and 
risking inconsistent changes):

   $ vi /var/lib/pki/pki-tomcat/ca/profiles/ca/caUserCert.cfg
   $ systemctl restart pki-tomcatd at pki-tomcat.service

you can call this just once (it will use the same vi editor) from any 
machine:

   $ pki <connection/auth params> profile-edit caUserCert

and it should automatically propagate the changes to all replica. Same 
thing with the UI, you'll only need to do the changes once.

>> The problem with local profiles in files is that they are not
>> replicated, so in case the machine is hosed, all local settings is
>> gone, including the profiles. Unless the admin created a backup for
>> each machine, it will be difficult to restore the machine quickly. The
>> replicated LDAP profiles will take care of this problem automatically.
>> In other proposals the system profiles in files are read-only and not
>> customizable, so there's no local profiles that need to be backed up.
>>
> If they don't do backups, losing profiles would not be their only issue
> there.

I think, ideally, if we lose a replica, other replicas should be able to 
replace it immediately. We still need a backup for the shared 
data/configuration, but we shouldn't need to backup individual replica. 
A replica should be something that you can add/remove relatively 
quickly. So, as a long term goal we should gradually migrate local 
configuration files into LDAP, starting with the profiles.

> But anyway, like I said above, I think putting "local" profiles
> in the lda is fine.  It's just the user experience of administration
> that has to change.  I have no opinion on this other than stating my
> personal preference of editing files directly ;-)

Is the above CLI a good substitute?

-- 
Endi S. Dewata