tahoe-lafs/docs/managed-grid.rst

Managed Grid
============

This document explains the "Grid Manager" concept and the
`grid-manager` command. Someone operating a grid may choose to use a
Grid Manager. Operators of storage-servers and clients will then be
given additional configuration in this case.


Overview and Motivation
-----------------------

In a grid using an Introducer, a client will use any storage-server
the Introducer announces (and the Introducer will announce any
storage-server that connects to it). This means that anyone with the
Introducer fURL can connect storage to the grid.

Sometimes, this is just what you want!

For some use-cases, though, you want to have clients only use certain
servers. One case might be a "managed" grid, where some entity runs
the grid; clients of this grid don't want their uploads to go to
"unmanaged" storage if some other client decides to provide storage.

One way to limit which storage servers a client connects to is via the
"server list" (:ref:`server_list`) (aka "Introducerless"
mode). Clients are given static lists of storage-servers, and connect
only to those. This means manually updating these lists if the storage
servers change, however.

Another method is for clients to use `[client] peers.preferred=`
configuration option (:ref:`Client Configuration`), which suffers
from a similar disadvantage.


Grid Manager
------------

A "grid-manager" consists of some data defining a keypair (along with
some other details) and Tahoe sub-commands to manipulate the data and
produce certificates to give to storage-servers. Certificates assert
the statement: "Grid Manager X suggests you use storage-server Y to
upload shares to" (X and Y are public-keys). Such a certificate
consists of:

 - the version of the format the certificate conforms to (`1`)
 - the public-key of a storage-server
 - an expiry timestamp
 - a signature of the above

A client will always use any storage-server for downloads (expired
certificate, or no certificate) because clients check the ciphertext
and re-assembled plaintext against the keys in the capability;
"grid-manager" certificates only control uploads.

Clients make use of this functionality by configuring one or more Grid Manager public keys.
This tells the client to only upload to storage-servers that have a currently-valid certificate from any of the Grid Managers their client allows.
In case none are configured, the default behavior (of using any storage server) prevails.


Grid Manager Data Storage
-------------------------

The data defining the grid-manager is stored in an arbitrary
directory, which you indicate with the ``--config`` option (in the
future, we may add the ability to store the data directly in a grid,
at which time you may be able to pass a directory-capability to this
option).

If you don't want to store the configuration on disk at all, you may
use ``--config -`` (the last character is a dash) and write a valid
JSON configuration to stdin.

All commands require the ``--config`` option and they all behave
similarly for "data from stdin" versus "data from disk". A directory
(and not a file) is used on disk because in that mode, each
certificate issued is also stored alongside the configuration
document; in "stdin / stdout" mode, an issued certificate is only
ever available on stdout.

The configuration is a JSON document. It is subject to change as Grid
Manager evolves. It contains a version number in the
`grid_manager_config_version` key which will increment whenever the
document schema changes.


grid-manager create
```````````````````

Create a new grid-manager.

If you specify ``--config -`` then a new grid-manager configuration is
written to stdout. Otherwise, a new grid-manager is created in the
directory specified by the ``--config`` option. It is an error if the
directory already exists.


grid-manager public-identity
````````````````````````````

Print out a grid-manager's public key. This key is derived from the
private-key of the grid-manager, so a valid grid-manager config must
be given via ``--config``

This public key is what is put in clients' configuration to actually
validate and use grid-manager certificates.


grid-manager add
````````````````

Takes two args: ``name pubkey``. The ``name`` is an arbitrary local
identifier for the new storage node (also sometimes called "a petname"
or "nickname"). The pubkey is the tahoe-encoded key from a ``node.pubkey``
file in the storage-server's node directory (minus any
whitespace). For example, if ``~/storage0`` contains a storage-node,
you might do something like this::

   grid-manager --config ./gm0 add storage0 $(cat ~/storage0/node.pubkey)

This adds a new storage-server to a Grid Manager's
configuration. (Since it mutates the configuration, if you used
``--config -`` the new configuration will be printed to stdout). The
usefulness of the ``name`` is solely for reference within this Grid
Manager.


grid-manager list
`````````````````

Lists all storage-servers that have previously been added using
``grid-manager add``.


grid-manager sign
`````````````````

Takes two args: ``name expiry_days``. The ``name`` is a nickname used
previously in a ``grid-manager add`` command and ``expiry_days`` is
the number of days in the future when the certificate should expire.

Note that this mutates the state of the grid-manager if it is on disk,
by adding this certificate to our collection of issued
certificates. If you used ``--config -``, the certificate isn't
persisted anywhere except to stdout (so if you wish to keep it
somewhere, that is up to you).

This command creates a new "version 1" certificate for a
storage-server (identified by its public key). The new certificate is
printed to stdout. If you stored the config on disk, the new
certificate will (also) be in a file named like ``alice.cert.0``.


Enrolling a Storage Server: CLI
-------------------------------


tahoe admin add-grid-manager-cert
`````````````````````````````````

- `--filename`: the file to read the cert from
- `--name`: the name of this certificate

Import a "version 1" storage-certificate produced by a grid-manager A
storage server may have zero or more such certificates installed; for
now just one is sufficient. You will have to re-start your node after
this. Subsequent announcements to the Introducer will include this
certificate.

.. note::

   This command will simply edit the `tahoe.cfg` file and direct you
   to re-start. In the Future(tm), we should consider (in exarkun's
   words):

       "A python program you run as a new process" might not be the
       best abstraction to layer on top of the configuration
       persistence system, though.  It's a nice abstraction for users
       (although most users would probably rather have a GUI) but it's
       not a great abstraction for automation.  So at some point it
       may be better if there is CLI -> public API -> configuration
       persistence system.  And maybe "public API" is even a network
       API for the storage server so it's equally easy to access from
       an agent implemented in essentially any language and maybe if
       the API is exposed by the storage node itself then this also
       gives you live-configuration-updates, avoiding the need for
       node restarts (not that this is the only way to accomplish
       this, but I think it's a good way because it avoids the need
       for messes like inotify and it supports the notion that the
       storage node process is in charge of its own configuration
       persistence system, not just one consumer among many ... which
       has some nice things going for it ... though how this interacts
       exactly with further node management automation might bear
       closer scrutiny).


Enrolling a Storage Server: Config
----------------------------------

You may edit the ``[storage]`` section of the ``tahoe.cfg`` file to
turn on grid-management with ``grid_management = true``. You then must
also provide a ``[grid_management_certificates]`` section in the
config-file which lists ``name = path/to/certificate`` pairs.

These certificate files are issued by the ``grid-manager sign``
command; these should be transmitted to the storage server operator
who includes them in the config for the storage server. Relative paths
are based from the node directory. Example::

    [storage]
    grid_management = true

    [grid_management_certificates]
    default = example_grid.cert

This will cause us to give this certificate to any Introducers we
connect to (and subsequently, the Introducer will give the certificate
out to clients).


Enrolling a Client: Config
--------------------------

You may instruct a Tahoe client to use only storage servers from given
Grid Managers. If there are no such keys, any servers are used. If
there are one or more keys, the client will only upload to a storage
server that has a valid certificate (from any of the keys).

To specify public-keys, add a ``[grid_managers]`` section to the
config. This consists of ``name = value`` pairs where ``name`` is an
arbitrary name and ``value`` is a public-key of a Grid
Manager. Example::

    [grid_managers]
    example_grid = pub-v0-vqimc4s5eflwajttsofisp5st566dbq36xnpp4siz57ufdavpvlq

See also https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/3507 which
proposes a command to edit the config.


Example Setup of a New Managed Grid
-----------------------------------

This example creates an actual grid, but it's all just on one machine
with different "node directories" and a separate tahoe process for
each node. Usually of course each storage server would be on a
separate computer.

Note that we use the ``daemonize`` command in the following but that's
only one way to handle "running a command in the background". You
could instead run commands that start with ``daemonize ...`` in their
own shell/terminal window or via something like ``systemd``

We'll store our Grid Manager configuration on disk, in
``./gm0``. To initialize this directory::

    grid-manager --config ./gm0 create

(If you already have a grid, you can :ref:`skip ahead <skip_ahead>`.)

First of all, create an Introducer. Note that we actually have to run
it briefly before it creates the "Introducer fURL" we want for the
next steps::

    tahoe create-introducer --listen=tcp --port=5555 --location=tcp:localhost:5555 ./introducer
    daemonize tahoe -d introducer run

Next, we attach a couple of storage nodes::

    tahoe create-node --introducer $(cat introducer/private/introducer.furl) --nickname storage0 --webport 6001 --location tcp:localhost:6003 --port 6003 ./storage0
    tahoe create-node --introducer $(cat introducer/private/introducer.furl) --nickname storage1 --webport 6101 --location tcp:localhost:6103 --port 6103 ./storage1
    daemonize tahoe -d storage0 run
    daemonize tahoe -d storage1 run

.. _skip_ahead:

We can now tell the Grid Manager about our new storage servers::

    grid-manager --config ./gm0 add storage0 $(cat storage0/node.pubkey)
    grid-manager --config ./gm0 add storage1 $(cat storage1/node.pubkey)

To produce a new certificate for each node, we do this::

    grid-manager --config ./gm0 sign storage0 > ./storage0/gridmanager.cert
    grid-manager --config ./gm0 sign storage1 > ./storage1/gridmanager.cert

Now, we want our storage servers to actually announce these
certificates into the grid. We do this by adding some configuration
(in ``tahoe.cfg``)::

    [storage]
    grid_management = true

    [grid_manager_certificates]
    default = gridmanager.cert

Add the above bit to each node's ``tahoe.cfg`` and re-start the
storage nodes. (Alternatively, use the ``tahoe add-grid-manager``
command).

Now try adding a new storage server ``storage2``. This client can join
the grid just fine, and announce itself to the Introducer as providing
storage::

    tahoe create-node --introducer $(cat introducer/private/introducer.furl) --nickname storage2 --webport 6301 --location tcp:localhost:6303 --port 6303 ./storage2
    daemonize tahoe -d storage2 run

At this point any client will upload to any of these three
storage-servers. Make a client "alice" and try!

::

    tahoe create-client --introducer $(cat introducer/private/introducer.furl) --nickname alice --webport 6401 --shares-total=3 --shares-needed=2 --shares-happy=3 ./alice
    daemonize tahoe -d alice run
    tahoe -d alice put README.rst  # prints out a read-cap
    find storage2/storage/shares  # confirm storage2 has a share

Now we want to make Alice only upload to the storage servers that the
grid-manager has given certificates to (``storage0`` and
``storage1``). We need the grid-manager's public key to put in Alice's
configuration::

    grid-manager --config ./gm0 public-identity

Put the key printed out above into Alice's ``tahoe.cfg`` in section
``client``::

    [grid_managers]
    example_name = pub-v0-vqimc4s5eflwajttsofisp5st566dbq36xnpp4siz57ufdavpvlq


Now, re-start the "alice" client. Since we made Alice's parameters
require 3 storage servers to be reachable (``--happy=3``), all their
uploads should now fail (so ``tahoe put`` will fail) because they
won't use storage2 and thus can't "achieve happiness".

A proposal to expose more information about Grid Manager and
certificate status in the Welcome page is discussed in
https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/3506