wiki:UniformClearinghouseAPI

Version 22 (modified by jmccolga@bbn.com, 11 years ago) (diff)

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GENI Clearinghouse API’s

Marshall Brinn, GPO

DRAFT: August 6, 2013

Introduction

This document proposes a set of standard API’s that any GENI Clearinghouse (CH) should or may provide. The document describes what is required and what is optional in the calls and responses to these APIs.

The GENI Software Architecture rests on the interaction between different entities:

Aggregates : Collections of resources managed and presented in accordance with the AM API

Members : Experimenters or other human consumers of aggregate resources

Authorities : Services that manage assertions about members and their permissions with respect to aggregate resources.

There are two fundamental authority types in GENI:

  • Member Authority [MA]: Manages and asserts attributes about particular members
  • Slice Authority [SA]: Manages slice objects and generates credentials for members with respect to slices.

A Federation is a collection of Authorities and Aggregates that establish mutual trust and common policies to facilitate the sharing of resources among members. A Clearinghouse (CH) is a set of software services representing a given Federation, providing lists of Slice Authorities, Member Authorities and aggregates associated with that federation, and providing a set of PKI certificates that any aggregate belonging to a given federation accepts as trust roots. The relationship of Federations to Clearinghouses is 1:1.

The Authorities of any given Federation are free to implement their own Authorization (AuthZ) scheme. The API’s allow for passing credentials to the calls, but an Authority may choose to allow or disallow calls using logic and policies that are internal to that Federation. There is no universal (cross-Federation) requirement for any particular policy regarding Authority AuthZ.

Authorities are fundamentally independent of one another. The objects defined at one Authority are not necessarily entitled to any services provided by another Authority. Each aggregate may choose to trust or not trust any particular Authority. Likewise, any Authority may chose to trust or not trust any other Authority. A CH may choose to advertise or not advertise any particular aggregate, regardless of whether that aggregate trusts the Authorities advertised by that CH. Similarly, a given Slice Authority or Member Authority may be advertised by a single CH or by multiple CH’s. CH API calls are unprotected: there is no notion of trust between CH’s or between CH’s and Authorities or Aggregates.

This document describes the APIs of the GENI CH as well as the MA and SA. It is expected that a well-behaved GENI tool will allow for interacting with any CH and Authority that implement the standard API’s described in this document.

API General Properties

The APIs described here share some common properties, which should be assumed for the rest of this document:

  • The wire-protocol is XML/RPC. It is thus language independent on both client and server side of the API calls.
  • Most calls are protected, running over SSL and thus requiring the caller to use its certificate and private key. Certain calls are unprotected and can be accessed with no certificate and private key.
  • Unprotected calls will be identified in API documentation with the annotation:

NB: This is an unprotected call , no client cert required.

  • Each call takes an ‘options’ argument, a dictionary allowing for passing specific non-standard/optional arguments
  • Each protected method takes a ‘credentials’ argument, a list of type/credential tuples that help the CH or Authority invoke whatever AuthZ logic it may choose. As noted above, the CH or Authority may choose to use or disregard these credentials. Unprotected methods do not take a ‘credentials’ argument.
  • Each CH or Authority provides a get_version method, which describes the version number of the API provided, credential types supported, supplementary object fields and other data for interpreting API call returns.
  • A CH or Authority is free to implement additional methods beyond those specified in this document.
  • The URN is the fundamental identifier in all GENI CH API’s. URN’s are globally unique at any given time, though not necessarily unique over time. Disambiguation for entities with the same URN over time may be provided by an optional UUID argument for certain API methods.

These API’s are provided in pseudo-code (i.e. language independent) format, with inputs and outputs (optional and required) described by comments, e.g.

/*

Perform method ‘ch_func’

Arguments

argl : ...

credentials : list of {type : credential} tuples representing credentials provided by caller to support AuthZ on method call. [NB: This argument will be omitted in descriptions below. ] options : … [ Recognized options: ….]

Return : E.g. a list of dictionaries with these fields mandatory (…) and these fields optional (…)

*/

function ch_func (arg1, arg2, credentials, options)

API 'get_version' methods

Different Clearinghouses will provide different sets of methods bundled into services. Further, they will manage different kinds of objects and support different details for these objects.

The CH API provides a ‘get_version’ method, which provides information to the caller (or a tool composing calls for a tool user) about versions and options supported by that API. The call takes no argument and is unguarded (anyone can call it). The return from the get_version call will be a dictionary including the following entries (by key):

  • VERSION: The version number of the API (e.g. “10.0.7”)
  • SERVICES: The set of services the given URL supports (only for Slice Authority)
  • CREDENTIAL_TYPES: A list of recognized credential types (e.g. [ABAC, SFA]) on protected API methods.
  • ROLES : A list of recognized roles for slice/project membership (optional for those Slice Authorities supporting membership)
  • FIELDS: A dictionary of supplementary object field names (i.e. in additional to the required fields) and associated attributes including:
    • “OBJECT” provides the object to which the field belongs (if not the default authority object, i.e. SLICE for Slice Authority, MEMBER for Member Authority, Service for Clearinghouse)
    • “TYPE” may be one of “URN”, “UID”, “STRING”, “DATETIME”, “EMAIL”, “KEY”,“BOOLEAN”, “CREDENTIAL”, “CERTIFICATE”. [NB. This set of types subject to change. See Appendix for more information on these data types.]
    • “CREATE” attributes may be specified as “REQUIRED”, “ALLOWED” or “NOT ALLOWED” (default = “NOT ALLOWED”). These indicate whether the given supplementary field is required, allowed or prohibited in create calls.
    • “UPDATE” attributes may be specified as TRUE or FALSE (default = FALSE). These indicate whether the given field may be specified in an update call.
    • “PROTECT” attributes may be labeled as “PUBLIC”, “PRIVATE” or “IDENTIFYING”. These are for the Member Authority Only to differentiate between public, identifying and private data fields on members.

The return from the get_version call will be used to construct and validate options to CH and Authority API calls, as described in subsequent sections.

The following page provides some example returns from different get_version calls.

Example get_version returns:

The following is an example of a return from a get_version for an SA. The responses are all dictionaries via XMLRPC into the native implementation. They are shown here in JSON-like syntax:

{

“VERSION”: “10.0.7”, “SERVICES”: [“SLICE”, “PROJECT”, “SLICE_MEMBER”, “PROJECT_MEMBER”] “CREDENTIAL_TYPES”: [“SFA”, “ABAC”], “ROLES” : [“LEAD”, “ADMIN”, “MEMBER”, “AUDITOR”, “OPERATOR” ], “FIELDS”:

“PROJECT_URN”: {“TYPE”: “URN”, “CREATE”: “REQUIRED”, “UPDATE”: FALSE},

“SLICE_EMAIL”: {“TYPE”: “EMAIL”, “CREATE”: “REQUIRED”, “UPDATE”: TRUE}

“PROJECT_EMAIL”: {“TYPE”: “EMAIL”, “CREATE”: “REQUIRED”, “UPDATE”: TRUE, “OBJECT”: “PROJECT”}

}

}

}

The following is an example of a return from a get_version for an MA, provided in JSON-like syntax:

{

“VERSION”: “10.0.7”,

“CREDENTIAL_TYPES”: [“SFA”, “ABAC”],

“FIELDS”: {

“MEMBER_DISPLAYNAME”: {“TYPE”: “STRING”, “CREATE”: “ALLOWED”, “UPDATE”,

TRUE, “PROTECT”: “IDENTIFYING”},

“MEMBER_AFFILIATION”: {“TYPE”: “STRING”, “CREATE”: “ALLOWED”, “UPDATE”:

TRUE, “PROTECT”: “IDENTIFTYING”},

“MEMBER_SPEAKS_FOR_CREDENTIAL”: {“TYPE”: “CREDENTIAL”},

“MEMBER_SSL_PUBLIC_KEY”: {“TYPE”: “SSL_KEY”},

“MEMBER_SSL_PRIVATE_KEY”: {“TYPE”: “SSL_KEY”, “PROTECT”: “PRIVATE”},

“MEMBER_SSH_PUBLIC_KEY”: {“TYPE”: “SSH_KEY”},

“MEMBER_SSH_PRIVATE_KEY”: {“TYPE”: “SSH_KEY”, “PROTECT”: “PRIVATE”},

“MEMBER_ENABLED”: {“TYPE”: “BOOLEAN”, “UPDATE”: TRUE}

}

}

The following is an example of a return from a get_version from a CH, provided in JSON-like syntax:

{

“VERSION”: “10.0.7”,

“FIELDS”: {

“SERVICE_DESCRIPTION”: {“TYPE”: “STRING”}}

}

}

API Error Handing

All method calls return a tuple [code, value, output]. What is described as ‘Return’ in the API’s described below is the ‘value’ of this tuple in case of a successful execution. ‘Code’ is the error code returned and ‘output’ is the returned text (e.g. descriptive error message).

Each CH and Authority is free to define and return its own specific error codes. However we suggest the following essential set of error codes to report on generic conditions:

CODE_NAME CODE_VALUE DESCRIPTION
NONE 0 No error encountered – the return value is a successful result. An empty list form a query should be interpreted as ‘nothing found matching criteria’.
AUTHENTICATION_ERROR 1 The invoking tool or member did not provide appropriate credentials indicating that they are known to the CH or that they possessed the private key of the entity they claimed to be
AUTHORIZATION_ERROR 2 The invoking tool or member does not have the authority to invoke the given call with the given arguments
ARGUMENT_ERROR 3 The arguments provided to the call were mal-formed or mutually inconsistent.
DATABASE_ERROR 4 An error from the underlying database was returned. (More info should be provided in the ‘output’ return value]
NOT_IMPLEMENTED_ERROR 100 The given method is not implemented on the server.
SERVER_ERROR 101 An error in the client/server connection

API Method Conventions

Each CH and Authority manages the state of or access to objects. Some conventions apply to similar methods across CH or Authority services.

Create_*Method : Creates a new instance of the given object with a ‘fields’ option specifying particular field values that are to be associated with the object. These may only include those fields specified as ‘ALLOWED or ‘REQUIRED’ in the ‘Creation’ column of the object descriptions below or in the “CREATE’ key in the supplemental fields in the get_version specification for that object. If successful, the call returns a dictionary of the fields associated with the newly created object.

Update_* Method : Updates an object instance specified by URN with a ‘fields’ option specifying the particular fields to update. Only a single object can be updated from a single update call. The fields may include those specified as ‘Yes’ in the ‘Update’ column of the object descriptions below, or ’TRUE’ in the ‘UPDATE’ key in the supplemental fields provided by the get_version call. Note: There may be more than one entity of a given URN at an authority, but only one ‘live’ one (any other is archived and cannot be updated).

Lookup_* Method : This call takes a set of ‘match’ criteria provided in the ‘options’ field, and returns a dictionary of dictionaries of object attributes keyed by object URN matching these criteria. If a ‘filter’ option is provided, only those attributes listed in the ‘filter’ options are returned.

Specifically, the options argument to the lookup_* call is a dictionary. It contains an entry with key ‘match’ that contains a dictionary of name/value pairs. The names are of fields listed in the get_version for that object. The values are values for those fields to be matched. The semantics of the match is to be an “AND” (all fields must match).

The value in the dictionary of a ‘match’ option can be a list of scalars, indicating an “OR”. For example, a list of URNs provided to the SLICE_URN key would match any slice with any of the listed URNs.

The options argument may include an additional dictionary keyed “filter” which is a list of fields associated with that object type (again, as specified in the get_version entry for that object). No “filter” provided means all fields are to be returned.

The return of the call will be a dictionary of dictionaries, one per matching object indexed by URN, of fields matching the filter criteria. If the query found no matches, an empty dictionary is returned (i.e. no error is reported, assuming no other error was encountered in processing).

If a lookup method asks for information about objects whose disclosure is prohibited to the requestor by policy, the method must not return the data. It is implementation specified as to whether the call should return an error, return a dictionary with the URN key pointing to an empty dictionary, or have no URN key in the returned dictionary.

API Method Examples:

A Member Authority (MA) manages information about member objects. The MA method lookup_member could take an options argument such as

{

"match”: {“MEMBER_LASTNAME”: “BROWN”},

"filter”: [“MEMBER_EMAIL”, “MEMBER_FIRSTNAME”]

Such a call would find any member with last name Brown and return a dictionary keyed by the member URN containing a dictionary with their email, and first name.

{

“urn:publicid:IDN+mych+user+abrown” :

{“MEMBER_EMAIL”: abrown@williams.edu,

“MEMBER_FIRSTNAME”: “Arlene”},

“urn:publicid:IDN+mych+user+mbrown” :

{“MEMBER_EMAIL”: mbrown@umass.edu,

“MEMBER_FIRSTNAME”: “Michael”},

“urn:publicid:IDN+mych+user+sbrown” :

{“MEMBER_EMAIL”: sbrown@stanford.edu,

“MEMBER_FIRSTNAME”: “Sam”}

}

A Slice Authority (SA) manages information about slice objects. The SA method update_slice could take an options ‘update’ argument such as to change the slice description and extend the slice expiration:

{

“fields” : { “SLICE_DESCRIPTION”: “Updated Description”,

“SLICE_EXPIRATION”: “2013-07-29T13:15:30Z” }

}

An example of lookup_slice that wanted to retrieve the slice names for a list of slice URNs could specify options:

{“match”: {

“SLICE_URN”: [

“urn:publicid+IDN+this_sa:myproject+slice+slice1”,

“urn:publicid+IDN+this_sa:myproject+slice+slice2”,

“urn:publicid+IDN+this_sa:myproject+slice+slice3”

]},

“filter”: [“SLICE_NAME”]

}

API Method Examples (cont.):

An example of create_slice call would specify required options e.g.:

{

‘fields’ : {

“SLICE_NAME”: “TEST_SLICE”,

“SLICE_DESCRIPTION”: “My Test Slice”,

“SLICE_EMAIL”: myemail@geni.net,

“PROJECT_URN”: “urn:publicid+IDN+this_sa+project+myproject”

}

}

and receive a return dictionary looking like:

{

“SLICE_URN”: “urn:publicid+IDN+this.sa+slice+TESTSLICE”,

“SLICE_UID”: “…”,

“SLICE_NAME”: “TESTSLICE”,

“SLICE_CREDENTIAL”: “.....”,

“SLICE_DESCRIPTION”: “My Test Slice”,

“PROJECT_URN”: “urn:publicid+IDN+this_sa+project+myproject”,

“SLICE_EXPIRATION”: “2013-08-29T13:15:30Z”,

“SLICE_EXPIRED”: “FALSE”,

“SLICE_CREATION”: “2013-07-29T13:15:30Z”,

“SLICE_EMAIL”: myemail@geni.net

}

API Authentication

This document suggests that the Authentication required for the CH is implicit in the SSL protocol: the invoker of the call must have its cert and private key to have a valid SSL connection. Moreover, the cert must be signed by a member of the trust chain recognized by the CH.

Support for Speaks-for API Invocations

Best practices dictate that individuals should speak as themselves: that is, the entity on the other side of an SSL connection is the one referred to by the certificate on the connection. Obviously, people typically use tools or software interfaces to create these connections. When a tool is acting directly on a user’s desktop using the user’s key and cert with the user’s explicit permission, it may be acceptable to consider the tool as speaking as the user. But for many tools, the tool is acting on behalf of the user in invoking CH or AM API calls. In this case, it is important for the tool to not speak as the user but to speak for the user, and to have the service to whom the tool is speaking handle the authorization and accountability of this request accordingly.

Accordingly, a Clearinghouse and associated Authorities should support speaks-for API transactions. These API transactions use the same signatures as the calls described in this document, with these enhancements:

  • The user (spoken-for) URN provided as a ‘speaking-for’ option on the call
  • The user’s certificate be provided as part of the credentials of the call
  • The speaks-for credential: a statement signed by the user indicating that the tool has the right to speak for the user, possibly limited to a particular scope (e.g. slice, project, API call, time window).

The CH is then required to determine if the call is being made in a speaks-for context or not (that is, the ‘speaking-for’ option provided). If so, the CH call must determine if the tool is allowed to speak for the user by checking for the presence of a valid speaks-for credential and the spoken-for user’s cert. If so, the CH should validate if the user is authorized to take the proposed API action. If so, the action is taken and accounted to the user, with identity of the speaking-for tool logged. If the call is ‘speaks-for’ but any of these additional criteria are not met, the call should fail with an authorization error. If the call is not a ‘speaks-for’, then the normal authorization is performed based on the identity (certificate) provided with the SSL connection.

Aggregates are also encouraged to support speaks-for authentication and authorization, but this is an aggregate-internal policy and implementation decision, and outside the scope of this document.

Clearinghouse API

The Clearinghouse provides a list of Slice Authorities, Member Authorities and Aggregates associated with a given Federation. The URL for accessing these methods (i.e. the URL of the Clearinghouse) is to be provided out-of-band (i.e. there is no global service for gaining access to CH addressees).

The following table describes the default fields for services (aggregates and authorities) provided by CH API calls:

Name Type DESCRIPTION
SERVICE_URN URN URN of given service
SERVICE_URL URL URL by which to contact the service
SERVICE_CERT Certificate Public certificate of service
SERVICE_NAME String Short name of service
SERVICE_DESCRIPTION String Descriptive name of service

/*

Provide a structure detailing the version information as well as details of accepted options s for CH API calls.

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

None

Return:

get_version structure information as described above

*/

function get_version()

/*

Return information about all aggregates associated with the Federation

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

options: List of field names (from get_version) to be provided for each AM

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs for each returned AM

*/

function get_aggregates(options)

/*

Return information about all MA’s associated with the Federation

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

options: List of field names (from get_version) to be provided for each MA

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs for each returned MA

*/

function get_member_authorities(options)

/*

Return information about all SA’s associated with the Federation

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

options: List of field names (from get_version) to be provided for each SA

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs for each returned SA

*/

function get_slice_authorities(options)

/*

Lookup the authorities for a given URNs

There should be at most one (potentially none) per URN

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

urns: URNs of entities for which the authority is requested

Return:

List of URL’s of Authorities corresponding, in order, to given URN’s

*/

function lookup_authorities_for_urns(urns)

/*

Return list of trust roots (certificates) associated with this CH.

Often this is a concatenatation of the trust roots of the included authorities.

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

None

Return:

List of certificates representing trust roots of this CH.

*/

function get_trust_roots()

Slice Authority API

The Slice Authority API provides services to manage slices and their associated permissions. To support its AuthZ policies, a particular SA may choose to manage objects and relationships such as projects and slice/project membership. The SA API is thus divided into a set of services, each of which consists of a set of methods. Of these, only the SLICE service is required, the others are optional. If an SA implements a given service, it should implement the entire service as specified. All available SA service methods are available form the same SA URL. The get_version method should indicate, in the ‘SERVICES’ tag, which services the given SA supports. The following is a list of potential SA services.

Service Description Required
SLICE Managing generation, renewal of slice credentials and slice lookup services YES
SLICE_MEMBER Defining and managing roles of members with respect to slices NO
SLIVER_INFO Providing information about what Aggregates have reported having slivers for a given slice. Non-authoritative/advisory NO
PROJECT Defining projects (groupings of slices) and project lookup services NO
PROJECT_MEMBER Defining and managing roles of members with respect to projects NO

Slice Service Methods

The Slice Authority manages the creation of slices, which are containers for allocating resources. It provides credentials (called slice credentials) which aggregates may use to make authorization decisions about allocating resources to a particular user to a particular slice. These slice credentials are one of the fields that may be provided from the create_slice call or requested in the lookup_slices call.

Note that renewal of slice expiration is handled in the update_slice call (with “SLICE_EXPIRATION” specified as the options key. The semantics of slice expiration is that slice expiration may only be extended, never reduced. Further restrictions (relative to project expiration or relative to slice creation, e.g.) are CH-specific.

The following table contains required fields for slice objects and whether they are allowed in lookup ‘match’ criteria, required at creation or allowed at update:

Name Type Description Match Creation Update
SLICE_URN URN URN of given slice Yes No No
SLICE_UID UID UID (unique within authority) of slice Yes No No
SLICE_CREATION DATETIME Creation time of slice No No No
SLICE_EXPIRATION DATETIME Expiration time of slice No Allowed Yes
EXPIRED BOOLEAN Whether slice has expired Yes No No
SLICE_NAME STRING Short name of Slice No Required No
SLICE_DESCRIPTION STRING Description of Slice No Allowed Yes

/*

Provide details on the version, services and options supported by this SA

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

Options:

Return:

get_version structure information as described above

*/

function get_version()

/*

Create a new slice, optionally within a project. See generic create_* method description above.

Arguments:

Options: Contains field/value pairs for object to be created

slice_name: Name of slice to create

Return: Dictionary of field/value pairs for created slice (e.g. slice URN, slice UUID, expiration and slice credential)

*/

function create_slice (credentials, options)

/*

Lookup slice detail for slices matching ‘match’ options.

‘filter’ options indicate what detail to provide. See generic lookup_* method description above.

Arguments: options: What details to provide (filter options) for which slices (match options)

Return: List of dictionaries with slice field/value pairs

*/

function lookup_slices (credentials, options)

/*

Update fields in given slice object. See generic update_* method description above.

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice to update

Options: Contains ‘update’ key referring dictionary of name/value pairs to update

Return: None

*/

function update_slice(slice_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Provide list of credentials for the invoking member relative to the given slice. If the invocation is in a speaks-for context, the credentials will be for the ‘spoken-for’ member, not the invoking tool.

For example, this call may return a standard SFA Slice Credential and some ABAC credentials indicating the role of the member with respect to the slice.

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice for which to get member’s credentials

options: Potentially contains ‘speaking-for’ key indicating a speaks-for invocation (with certificate of the accountable member in the credentials argument)

Return:

List of credential in “CREDENTIAL_LIST” format, i.e. a list of credentials with type information suitable for passing to aggregates speaking AM API V3.

*/

function get_credentials(slice_urn, credentials, options)

==Slice Member Service Methods ==

Slices may have a set of members associated with them in particular roles. Certain CH’s may have policies that require certain types of membership requirements (exactly one lead, never empty, no more than a certain number of members, etc.). To that end, we provide a single omnibus method for updating slice membership in a single transaction, allowing any authorization or assurance logic to be supported at a single point in CH implementations.

The set of recognized role types (e.g. LEAD, ADMIN, MEMBER, OPERATOR, AUDITOR) are to be listed in the get_version for a given Slice Authority.

/*

Modify slice membership, adding, removing and changing roles of members with respect to given slice

Arguments:

Slice_urn: URN of slice for which to modify membership

Options:

members_to_add: List of member_urn/role tuples for members to add to slice of form {‘SLICE_MEMBER’ : member_urn, ‘SLICE_ROLE’ : role}

members_to_remove: List of member_urn of members to remove from slice

members_to_change: List of member_urn/role tuples for members whose role should change as specified for given slice of form {‘SLICE_MEMBER’ : member_urn, ‘SLICE_ROLE’ : role}

Return:

None

*/

function modify_slice_membership (slice_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Lookup members of given slice and their roles within that slice

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice for which to provide current members and roles

Return:

Dictionary of member_urn/role pairs {‘SLICE_MEMBER’: member_urn, ‘SLICE_ROLE’: role } where ‘role’ is a string of the role name

*/

function lookup_slice_members (slice_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Lookup slices for which the given member belongs

Arguments:

Member_urn: The member for whom to find slices to which it belongs

Return:

Dictionary of slice_urn/role pairs (‘SLICE_URN’ : slice_urn, ‘SLICE_ROLE’ : role} where role is a string of the role name

*/

function lookup_slices_for_member(member_urn, credentials, options)

Sliver Info Service API

Sliver information is authoritatively held in aggregates: aggregates know which slivers are in which slices at that aggregate. As a convenience to tools, aggregates are encouraged to register with the SA which slices they have information about. In this way, tools can reference only certain aggregates and not all known aggregates to get a useful (if not authoritative) set of sliver details for a slice.

/*

Associate an aggregate as having sliver information in a given slice Expected to be called by an aggregate as an asynchronous (not critical-path) part of the resource allocation process.

*/

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice for which to associate aggregate

aggregate_url : URL of aggregate for which slivers may exist for the given slice

Return:

None

function register_aggregate(slice_urn, aggregate_url, credentials, options)

/*

Dis-associate an aggregate as having sliver information in a given slice

Expected to be called by an aggregate as an asynchronous (not critical-path) part of the resource de-allocation process.

*/

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice for which to associate aggregate

aggregate_url : URL of aggregate for which slivers may exist for the given slice

Return:

None

function remove_aggregate(slice_urn, aggregate_url, credentials, options)

/*

Provide a list of URLs of all aggregates that have been registered as having resources allocated with a given slice.

NB: This list is not definitive in that the aggregate may not have called the register_aggregate call, and that the slivers may no longer be at the aggregate. But it is provided as a convenience for tools to know where to go for sliver information (rather than querying every aggregate in the CH).

Arguments:

slice_urn: URN of slice for which to return associated aggregates

Return:

List of URL’s of aggregates for which slivers may exist for given slice.

*/

function get_slice_aggregates(slice_urn, credentials, options)

Project Service Methods

Projects are groupings of slices and members for a particular administrative purpose. Some CH’s will chose to create and manage projects and apply policies about the invocation of CH methods (e.g. the creation of slice credentials0 based on roles or memberships in projects.

The following table contains required fields for project objects and whether they are allowed in lookup ‘match’ criteria, required at creation or allowed at update:

Name Type Description Match Creation Update
PROJECT_URN URN URN of given project Yes No No
PROJECT_UID UID UID (unique within authority) of project Yes No No
PROJECT_CREATION DATETIME Creation time of project No No No
PROJECT_EXPIRATION DATETIME Expiration time of project No Allowed Yes
EXPIRED BOOLEAN Whether project has expired Yes No No
PROJECT_NAME STRING Short name of Project No Required No
PROJECT_DESCRIPTION STRING Description of Project No Allowed Yes

/*

Create project with given details. See generic create_* description above.

Arguments:

Options: Dictionary of name/value pairs for newly created project.

Return:

Dictionary of name/value pairs of newly created project including urn

*/

function create_project(credentials, options)

/*

Lookup project detail for projects matching ‘match options.

‘filter options indicate what detail to provide.

Arguments:

options: What details to provide (filter options) for which members (match options)

Return: Dictionary of name/value pairs from ‘filter’ options for each project matching ‘match’ option criteria.

*/

function lookup_projects (credentials, options)

/*

Update fields in given project object, as allowed in Get_version advertisement. See generic update_* description above.

Arguments:

project_urn: URN of project to update

Options: Contains ‘update’ key referencing dictionary of key/value pairs to update project Return: None

*/

function update_project(project_urn, credentials, options)

Project Member Service Methods

Projects may have members associated with them in particular roles. See the Slice Member Service Methods above for more description.

/*

Modify project membership, adding, removing and changing roles of members with respect to given project Arguments:

project_urn: Name of project for which to modify membership

Options:

members_to_add: List of member_urn/role tuples for members to add to project of form {‘PROJECT_MEMBER’: member_urn, ‘PROJECT_ROLE’ : role}

members_to_remove: List of member_urn of members to remove from project

members_to_change: List of member_urn/role tuples for members whose role should change as specified for given project of form {‘PROJECT_MEMBER’ : member_urn, ‘PROJECT_ROLE’ : role} Return:

None

*/

function modify_project_membership (project_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Lookup members of given project and their roles within that project

Arguments:

project_urn: project_urn for which to provide current members and roles

Return:

Dictionary of member_urn/role pairs of form {‘PROJECT_MEMBER’: member_urn, ‘PROJECT_ROLE’: role}

*/

function lookup_project_members (project_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Lookup projects for which the given member belongs

Arguments:

Member_urn: The member for whom to find project to which it belongs

Return:

Dictionary of slice_urn/role pairs (‘PROJECT_URN’ : project_urn, ‘PROJECT_ROLE’ : role} where role is a string of the role name

*/

function lookup_projects_for_member(member_urn, credentials, options)

Member Authority API

As noted above, this document does not specify required policies for Clearinghouses. A given CH is free to implement its own policies. That said, the management of member private information is a subject for particular attention and care.

The protected APIs described here are standard SSL calls and can be invoked by anyone with their own SSL cert and private key. Reasonable security policy, however, should allow this call to succeed only if the following criteria are met:

  • The user/tool cert is signed by someone in the CH’s trust chain
  • If the cert is held by a tool, then the call must contain a user cert and a ‘speaks-for’ credential and the tool is trusted by the CH to perform speaks-for.
  • The requestor is asking for their own identifying info or has privileges with respect to the people about whom they are asking for that identifying info.
  • Access to private info (SSL or SSH keys) should be restricted only to the user’s own keys for ordinary users.

The information managed by the MA API is divided into three categories, for purposes of applying different AuthZ policies at these different levels:

  • Public: Public information about a member (e.g. public SSH or SSH keys, speaks-for credentials, certificates)
  • Private: Private information (e.g. private SSL or SSH keys) that should be given only to the member or a tool speaking for the member with a valid speaks-for credential
  • Identifying: Information that could identify the given member (e.g. name, email, affiliation)

The following table contains required fields for member objects and whether they are allowed in lookup ‘match’ criteria and their protection (public, private, identifying):

Name Type Description Match Protection
MEMBER_URN URN URN of given member Yes Public
MEMBER_UID UID UID (unique within authority) of member Yes Public
MEMBER_FIRSTNAME DATETIME First name of member Yes Identifying
MEMBER_LASTNAME DATETIME Last name of member Yes Identifying
MEMBER_USERNAME BOOLEAN Username of user Yes Public
MEMBER_EMAIL STRING Email of user No Identifying

/*

Return information about version and options (filter, query, credential types) accepted by this member authority

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

None

Return:

get_version structure information as described above

*/

function get_version()

/* Lookup public information about members matching given criteria

NB: This is an unprotected call, no client cert required.

Arguments:

options: set of ‘filter’ and ‘match’ criteria specifying which members and which fields for each member to return

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs of fields specified in ‘filter’ options for members matching ‘match’ criteria

*/

function lookup_public_member_info (options)

/*

Lookup private (SSL/SSH key) information about members matching given criteria

Arguments:

options: set of ‘filter’ and ‘match’ criteria specifying which members and which fields for each member to return

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs of fields specified in ‘filter’ options for members matching ‘match’ criteria

*/

function lookup_private_member_info (credentials, options)

/*

Lookup identifying (e.g. name, email) info about matching members

Arguments:

options: set of ‘filter’ and ‘match’ criteria specifying which members and which fields for each member to return

Return:

List of dictionaries of name/value pairs of fields specified in ‘filter’ options for members matching ‘match’ criteria

*/

function lookup_identifying_member_info (credentials, options)

/*

Update information about given member public, private or identifying information

Arguments:

member_urn: URN of member for whom to set information

options: Containing ‘update’ key with dictionary of name/value pairs to update info for given member

Return:

None

*/

function update_member_info (member_urn, credentials, options)

/*

Provide list of credentials (signed statements) for given member This is member-specific information suitable for passing as credentials in an AM API call for aggregate authorization.

Arguments:

member_urn: URN of member for which to retrieve credentials

options: Potentially contains ‘speaking-for’ key indicating a speaks-for invocation (with certificate of the accountable member in the credentials argument)

Return:

List of credential in “CREDENTIAL_LIST” format, i.e. a list of credentials with type information suitable for passing to aggregates speaking AM API V3.

*/

function get_credentials(member_urn, credentials, options)

Appendix: CH Object Models

As described, each CH service method takes a set of options that provide further details on the request. Many of these options reflect the fields of the underlying object models. For example, the Slice Authority manages slice objects and allows for options for querying for and by slice object fields.

Different Clearinghouses will implement different subsets of the possible set of CH services. Those that do implement a given service should implement the API’s described above. The fields of the objects maintained through these API’s are flexible: some fields are required but different Clearinghouses may have their own additional data, to be returned by the get_version method.

The following diagram reflects the different objects maintained within the full range of CH services, their interactions and mandatory fields.

INSERT DIAGRAM

Appendix B: API Data Types

The following table describes the data types referenced in the document above, in terms of format and meaning.

Type Description Format
URN Standard GENI identifier, guaranteed to be unique across all GENI services and authorities at a given time, but may be reused by obsolete/expired objects (e.g. slices) Example: urn:publicid:IDN+mych+user+abrown Details: urn:publicid:IDN+AUTHORITY+TYPE+NAME where AUTHORITY is the unique fully qualified identifier of the authority creating the URN (e.g. ch.geni.net), TYPE is the type of entity (e.g. slice, user, tool, project) and name is the unique name of the entity (e.g. slice_name, user_name, tool_name, project_name)
UID Unique identifier within the scope of a single authority, not guaranteed to be unique across authorities Example: 8e405a75-3ff7-4288-bfa5-111552fa53ce Details: Varies by implementation but the python UUID4 standard is a good example.
STRING Generic UTF-8 string
DATETIME Date time in UTC format Examples: 2013-06-15 02:39:08 2013-06-15 02:39:08-05:00 Details: Assumed in GMT time zone unless specified: GMT: YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss Time zone offset specified: YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss-HH:mm
EMAIL Well-formed email address Example: jbrown@geni.net
KEY SSH or SSL public or private key (contents, not filename) Key-specific format
BOOLEAN True or False (case insensitive) Example: True
CREDENTIALS List of credentials, tagged with credential type (as indicated in the GENI AM API specification Details: Credentials = { { geni_type: <string, case insensitive>, geni_version: <string containing an integer>, geni_value : <string>, <others> } }
CERTIFICATE X509 certificate (contents, not filename)

As noted above, this list is subject to change as the API develops over time.