Allow Redelegation via Trusts

bp trusts-redelegation

Add support to trusts such that redelegation between consumers of trusts (trustees, which are services for the currently expected use-cases) is possible.

Problem Description

Heat uses trusts to enable the service to act on behalf of a user when performing deferred operations during the lifecycle of a Heat stack, for example, when creating new instances in response to an autoscaling event.

The usage is as follows:

1. User (trustor) creates a Heat stack.
2. Heat creates a trust between the trustor and the Heat service user (trustee).
3. At some point after the stack is completed, Heat consumes the trust to impersonate the trustor, typically to perform some deferred task.

This poses a problem if the request creating the Heat stack comes from another service which is also using trusts, as the token in the request will be scoped to a trust, thus will be denied from creating the trust in step (2) above.

The main use-case for this is Solum, which wishes to use trusts in a similar way to Heat, to perform deferred operations via trusts, which may include creating Heat stacks, thus requiring creation of trusts enabling redelegation from a trust-scoped token.

Another potential use-case is when Heat creates an alarm with Ceilometer, we would like Ceilometer to create a trust, so it can impersonate the user owning the stack when sending asynchronous alarm signals to Heat (which could trigger creation of stacks, thus creation of trusts).

Proposed Change

The proposal is that Keystone trusts will add optional support for chained delegation, which would enable a trust to specify that redelegation is permissible via a flag set on creation.

On creation of a trust, a new allow_redelegation argument may be specified, which if omitted will default to False, meaning the current default behavior remains where no redelegation is allowed.

If allow_redelegation is True, then explicit redelegation of some or all of the roles delegated by the trust will be possible, up to a configurable maximum number of redelegations, tracked by a redelegation_count associated with each trust, which is incremented each time a redelegation happens.

Thus, the following becomes possible:

1. Solum creates trust1 with allow_redelegation=True, redelegation_count is 0.
2. Solum creates a Heat stack with a trust-scoped token by consuming trust1
3. Heat creates trust2 using the trust scoped token, allow_redelegation=True, redelegation_count is 1.
4. Heat creates a Ceilometer alarm with a trust-scoped token consuming trust2.
5. Ceilometer creates a trust using the trust scoped token, redelegation_count becomes 2.

Proposed Change

• Add a allow_redelegation interface to the OS-TRUST API specification.
• Update the trusts implementation adding allow_redelegation and redelegation_count to the DB and internal data model.
• Implement controller logic which handles the checking of allow_redelegation / redelegation_count when creating a trust.
• Implement chaining such that trusts created via redelegation are invalidated or when the parent trust is deleted or expires.
• When a trust is invalidated, all redelegated trusts are also invalidated.

Alternatives

• Passing OAuth access/secret keys between services was considered, but have been discounted for now because there’s no non-global way to disable accesskey expiry.
• Move to a model where one trust can have multiple trustee users (e.g more than one service can consume the same trust).

Data Model Impact

One new DB column and item in the data structure representing a trust, similar to “remaining_uses” which was added during Icehouse.

REST API Impact

One new optional item in the dictionary representing the trust, allow_redelegation.

Backwards compatibility will be maintained by simply defaulting it to zero inside the controller if it’s not passed by the user.

Security Impact

None, other than allowing for explicit redelegation where none is currently allowed.

To limit the maximum number of redelegations, there will be a new global config option max_redelegation_count, defaulted to a small number (such as 3) has been suggested.

If redelegation_count would be greater than max_redelegation_count when creating the trust, the request will be rejected.

Notifications Impact

None

Other End User Impact

Currently this is expected to be primarily useful for layered services consuming trusts, but other use-cases could include supporting redelegation workflow between human users.

There’s no actual impact on the end user though, as the default behavior is unchanged.

Performance Impact

The performance penalty for the additional logic to decrement the counter on trust create should be negligible.

Other Deployer Impact

None

Developer Impact

None, other than allowing full resolution of bug bug #1317293

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

shardy (Steven Hardy)

Work Items

• Update data model to add allow_redelegation
• Implement controller logic for defaulting/decrementing allow_redelegation
• Implement controller logic to cascade on expiry/delete
• Update python-keystoneclient to support allow_redelegation

Dependencies

None, but related to fixing Solum/Heat bug #1317293

Testing

Writing a new tempest test will be a good idea. I’ll do that as part of the implementation, exact items to be tested TBC, but will probably include:

• Test default (no redelegation)
• Test a positive allow_redelegation and prove redelegation is prevented when it reaches zero via chained creation of trusts.
• Prove scope (project and roles) accessible after redelegation is the same as in the parent trust, and that no escalation of privileges is possible.
• Prove cascading invalidation on delete works
• Prove cascading invalidation works on expiry

Documentation Impact

identity-api documentation will require an update.

References

• http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2014-June/036490.html
• https://bugs.launchpad.net/solum/+bug/1317293
• https://etherpad.openstack.org/p/icehouse-delegation
• http://dolphm.com/openstack-icehouse-design-summit-outcomes-for-keystone/