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Managing Projects and Users
An OpenStack cloud does not have much value without users. This chapter covers topics that relate to managing users, projects, and quotas. This chapter describes users and projects as described by version 2 of the OpenStack Identity API.
Warning
While version 3 of the Identity API is available, the client tools do not yet implement those calls, and most OpenStack clouds are still implementing Identity API v2.0.
Projects or Tenants?
In OpenStack user interfaces and documentation, a group of users is
referred to as a project
or tenant
. These terms are interchangeable.
The initial implementation of OpenStack Compute had its own
authentication system and used the term project
. When
authentication moved into the OpenStack Identity (keystone) project, it
used the term tenant
to refer to a group of users. Because
of this legacy, some of the OpenStack tools refer to projects and some
refer to tenants.
Note
This guide uses the term project
, unless an example
shows interaction with a tool that uses the term
tenant
.
Managing Projects
Users must be associated with at least one project, though they may belong to many. Therefore, you should add at least one project before adding users.
Adding Projects
To create a project through the OpenStack dashboard:
- Log in as an administrative user.
- Select the
Identity
tab in the left navigation bar. - Under Identity tab, click
Projects
. - Click the
Create Project
button.
You are prompted for a project name and an optional, but recommended,
description. Select the checkbox at the bottom of the form to enable
this project. By default, it is enabled, as shown in figure_create_project
.
It is also possible to add project members and adjust the project quotas. We'll discuss those actions later, but in practice, it can be quite convenient to deal with all these operations at one time.
To add a project through the command line, you must use the OpenStack command line client.
# openstack project create demo
This command creates a project named "demo." Optionally, you can add
a description string by appending --description tenant-description
, which can be very
useful. You can also create a group in a disabled state by appending
--disable
to the
command. By default, projects are created in an enabled state.
Quotas
To prevent system capacities from being exhausted without
notification, you can set up quotas <quota>
. Quotas are operational limits.
For example, the number of gigabytes allowed per tenant can be
controlled to ensure that a single tenant cannot consume all of the disk
space. Quotas are currently enforced at the tenant (or project) level,
rather than the user level.
Warning
Because without sensible quotas a single tenant could use up all the available resources, default quotas are shipped with OpenStack. You should pay attention to which quota settings make sense for your hardware capabilities.
Using the command-line interface, you can manage quotas for the OpenStack Compute service and the Block Storage service.
Typically, default values are changed because a tenant requires more than the OpenStack default of 10 volumes per tenant, or more than the OpenStack default of 1 TB of disk space on a compute node.
Note
To view all tenants, run:
$ openstack project list
+---------------------------------+----------+
| ID | Name |
+---------------------------------+----------+
| a981642d22c94e159a4a6540f70f9f8 | admin |
| 934b662357674c7b9f5e4ec6ded4d0e | tenant01 |
| 7bc1dbfd7d284ec4a856ea1eb82dca8 | tenant02 |
| 9c554aaef7804ba49e1b21cbd97d218 | services |
+---------------------------------+----------+
Set Image Quotas
You can restrict a project's image storage by total number of bytes. Currently, this quota is applied cloud-wide, so if you were to set an Image quota limit of 5 GB, then all projects in your cloud will be able to store only 5 GB of images and snapshots.
To enable this feature, edit the
/etc/glance/glance-api.conf
file, and under the
[DEFAULT]
section, add:
user_storage_quota = <bytes>
For example, to restrict a project's image storage to 5 GB, do this:
user_storage_quota = 5368709120
Note
There is a configuration option in glance-api.conf
that
limits the number of members allowed per image, called
image_member_quota
, set to 128 by default. That setting is
a different quota from the storage quota.
Set Compute Service Quotas
As an administrative user, you can update the Compute service quotas
for an existing tenant, as well as update the quota defaults for a new
tenant.Compute Compute service See table_compute_quota
.
Quota | Description | Property name |
---|---|---|
Fixed IPs | Number of fixed IP addresses allowed per tenant. This number must be equal to or greater than the number of allowed instances. | fixed-ips |
Floating IPs | Number of floating IP addresses allowed per tenant. | floating-ips |
Injected file content bytes | Number of content bytes allowed per injected file. | injected-file-content-bytes |
Injected file path bytes | Number of bytes allowed per injected file path. | injected-file-path-bytes |
Injected files | Number of injected files allowed per tenant. | injected-files |
Instances | Number of instances allowed per tenant. | instances |
Key pairs | Number of key pairs allowed per user. | key-pairs |
Metadata items | Number of metadata items allowed per instance. | metadata-items |
RAM | Megabytes of instance RAM allowed per tenant. | ram |
Security group rules | Number of rules per security group. | security-group-rules |
Security groups | Number of security groups per tenant. | security-groups |
VCPUs | Number of instance cores allowed per tenant. | cores |
View and update compute quotas for a tenant (project)
As an administrative user, you can use the nova quota-*
commands,
which are provided by the python-novaclient
package, to
view and update tenant quotas.
To view and update default quota values
List all default quotas for all tenants, as follows:
$ nova quota-defaults
For example:
$ nova quota-defaults +-----------------------------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------------------------+-------+ | metadata_items | 128 | | injected_file_content_bytes | 10240 | | ram | 51200 | | floating_ips | 10 | | key_pairs | 100 | | instances | 10 | | security_group_rules | 20 | | injected_files | 5 | | cores | 20 | | fixed_ips | -1 | | injected_file_path_bytes | 255 | | security_groups | 10 | +-----------------------------+-------+
Update a default value for a new tenant, as follows:
$ nova quota-class-update default key value
For example:
$ nova quota-class-update default --instances 15
To view quota values for a tenant (project)
Place the tenant ID in a variable:
$ tenant=$(openstack project list | awk '/tenantName/ {print $2}')
List the currently set quota values for a tenant, as follows:
$ nova quota-show --tenant $tenant
For example:
$ nova quota-show --tenant $tenant +-----------------------------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------------------------+-------+ | metadata_items | 128 | | injected_file_content_bytes | 10240 | | ram | 51200 | | floating_ips | 12 | | key_pairs | 100 | | instances | 10 | | security_group_rules | 20 | | injected_files | 5 | | cores | 20 | | fixed_ips | -1 | | injected_file_path_bytes | 255 | | security_groups | 10 | +-----------------------------+-------+
To update quota values for a tenant (project)
Obtain the tenant ID, as follows:
$ tenant=$(openstack project list | awk '/tenantName/ {print $2}')
Update a particular quota value, as follows:
# nova quota-update --quotaName quotaValue tenantID
For example:
# nova quota-update --floating-ips 20 $tenant # nova quota-show --tenant $tenant +-----------------------------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------------------------+-------+ | metadata_items | 128 | | injected_file_content_bytes | 10240 | | ram | 51200 | | floating_ips | 20 | | key_pairs | 100 | | instances | 10 | | security_group_rules | 20 | | injected_files | 5 | | cores | 20 | | fixed_ips | -1 | | injected_file_path_bytes | 255 | | security_groups | 10 | +-----------------------------+-------+
Note
To view a list of options for the
quota-update
command, run:$ nova help quota-update
Set Object Storage Quotas
There are currently two categories of quotas for Object Storage:account quotascontainers quota settingObject Storage quota setting
- Container quotas
-
Limit the total size (in bytes) or number of objects that can be stored in a single container.
- Account quotas
-
Limit the total size (in bytes) that a user has available in the Object Storage service.
To take advantage of either container quotas or account quotas, your
Object Storage proxy server must have container_quotas
or
account_quotas
(or both) added to the
[pipeline:main]
pipeline. Each quota type also requires its
own section in the proxy-server.conf
file:
[pipeline:main]
pipeline = catch_errors [...] slo dlo account_quotas proxy-server
[filter:account_quotas]
use = egg:swift#account_quotas
[filter:container_quotas]
use = egg:swift#container_quotas
To view and update Object Storage quotas, use the swift
command provided by
the python-swiftclient
package. Any user included in the
project can view the quotas placed on their project. To update Object
Storage quotas on a project, you must have the role of ResellerAdmin in
the project that the quota is being applied to.
To view account quotas placed on a project:
$ swift stat
Account: AUTH_b36ed2d326034beba0a9dd1fb19b70f9
Containers: 0
Objects: 0
Bytes: 0
Meta Quota-Bytes: 214748364800
X-Timestamp: 1351050521.29419
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Accept-Ranges: bytes
To apply or update account quotas on a project:
$ swift post -m quota-bytes:
<bytes>
For example, to place a 5 GB quota on an account:
$ swift post -m quota-bytes:
5368709120
To verify the quota, run the swift stat
command again:
$ swift stat
Account: AUTH_b36ed2d326034beba0a9dd1fb19b70f9
Containers: 0
Objects: 0
Bytes: 0
Meta Quota-Bytes: 5368709120
X-Timestamp: 1351541410.38328
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Set Block Storage Quotas
As an administrative user, you can update the Block Storage service
quotas for a tenant, as well as update the quota defaults for a new
tenant. See table_block_storage_quota
.
Property name | Description |
---|---|
gigabytes | Number of volume gigabytes allowed per tenant |
snapshots | Number of Block Storage snapshots allowed per tenant. |
volumes | Number of Block Storage volumes allowed per tenant |
View and update Block Storage quotas for a tenant (project)
As an administrative user, you can use the cinder quota-*
commands,
which are provided by the python-cinderclient
package, to
view and update tenant quotas.
To view and update default Block Storage quota values
List all default quotas for all tenants, as follows:
$ cinder quota-defaults
For example:
$ cinder quota-defaults +-----------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------+-------+ | gigabytes | 1000 | | snapshots | 10 | | volumes | 10 | +-----------+-------+
To update a default value for a new tenant, update the property in the
/etc/cinder/cinder.conf
file.
To view Block Storage quotas for a tenant (project)
View quotas for the tenant, as follows:
# cinder quota-show tenantName
For example:
# cinder quota-show tenant01 +-----------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------+-------+ | gigabytes | 1000 | | snapshots | 10 | | volumes | 10 | +-----------+-------+
To update Block Storage quotas for a tenant (project)
Place the tenant ID in a variable:
$ tenant=$(openstack project list | awk '/tenantName/ {print $2}')
Update a particular quota value, as follows:
# cinder quota-update --quotaName NewValue tenantID
For example:
# cinder quota-update --volumes 15 $tenant # cinder quota-show tenant01 +-----------+-------+ | Property | Value | +-----------+-------+ | gigabytes | 1000 | | snapshots | 10 | | volumes | 15 | +-----------+-------+
User Management
The command-line tools for managing users are inconvenient to use directly. They require issuing multiple commands to complete a single task, and they use UUIDs rather than symbolic names for many items. In practice, humans typically do not use these tools directly. Fortunately, the OpenStack dashboard provides a reasonable interface to this. In addition, many sites write custom tools for local needs to enforce local policies and provide levels of self-service to users that aren't currently available with packaged tools.
Creating New Users
To create a user, you need the following information:
- Username
- Email address
- Password
- Primary project
- Role
- Enabled
Username and email address are self-explanatory, though your site may have local conventions you should observe. The primary project is simply the first project the user is associated with and must exist prior to creating the user. Role is almost always going to be "member." Out of the box, OpenStack comes with two roles defined:
- member
-
A typical user
- admin
-
An administrative super user, which has full permissions across all projects and should be used with great care
It is possible to define other roles, but doing so is uncommon.
Once you've gathered this information, creating the user in the dashboard is just another web form similar to what we've seen before and can be found by clicking the Users link in the Identity navigation bar and then clicking the Create User button at the top right.
Modifying users is also done from this Users page. If you have a large number of users, this page can get quite crowded. The Filter search box at the top of the page can be used to limit the users listing. A form very similar to the user creation dialog can be pulled up by selecting Edit from the actions dropdown menu at the end of the line for the user you are modifying.
Associating Users with Projects
Many sites run with users being associated with only one project. This is a more conservative and simpler choice both for administration and for users. Administratively, if a user reports a problem with an instance or quota, it is obvious which project this relates to. Users needn't worry about what project they are acting in if they are only in one project. However, note that, by default, any user can affect the resources of any other user within their project. It is also possible to associate users with multiple projects if that makes sense for your organization.
Associating existing users with an additional project or removing
them from an older project is done from the Projects page of the
dashboard by selecting Modify Users from the Actions column, as shown in
figure_edit_project_members
.
From this view, you can do a number of useful things, as well as a few dangerous ones.
The first column of this form, named All Users, includes a list of all the users in your cloud who are not already associated with this project. The second column shows all the users who are. These lists can be quite long, but they can be limited by typing a substring of the username you are looking for in the filter field at the top of the column.
From here, click the +
icon to add users to the project. Click the
-
to remove
them.
The dangerous possibility comes with the ability to change member
roles. This is the dropdown list below the username in the Project Members
list. In
virtually all cases, this value should be set to Member. This example
purposefully shows an administrative user where this value is admin.
Warning
The admin is global, not per project, so granting a user the admin role in any project gives the user administrative rights across the whole cloud.
Typical use is to only create administrative users in a single project, by convention the admin project, which is created by default during cloud setup. If your administrative users also use the cloud to launch and manage instances, it is strongly recommended that you use separate user accounts for administrative access and normal operations and that they be in distinct projects.
Customizing Authorization
The default authorization
settings allow administrative users
only to create resources on behalf of a different project. OpenStack
handles two kinds of authorization policies:
- Operation based
-
Policies specify access criteria for specific operations, possibly with fine-grained control over specific attributes.
- Resource based
-
Whether access to a specific resource might be granted or not according to the permissions configured for the resource (currently available only for the network resource). The actual authorization policies enforced in an OpenStack service vary from deployment to deployment.
The policy engine reads entries from the policy.json
file. The actual location of this file might vary from distribution to
distribution: for nova, it is typically in
/etc/nova/policy.json
. You can update entries while the
system is running, and you do not have to restart services. Currently,
the only way to update such policies is to edit the policy file.
The OpenStack service's policy engine matches a policy directly. A
rule indicates evaluation of the elements of such policies. For
instance, in a compute:create: [["rule:admin_or_owner"]]
statement, the policy is compute:create
, and the rule is
admin_or_owner
.
Policies are triggered by an OpenStack policy engine whenever one of
them matches an OpenStack API operation or a specific attribute being
used in a given operation. For instance, the engine tests the
create:compute
policy every time a user sends a
POST /v2/{tenant_id}/servers
request to the OpenStack
Compute API server. Policies can be also related to specific API extensions
<API extension>
. For instance, if a user needs an extension
like compute_extension:rescue
, the attributes defined by
the provider extensions trigger the rule test for that operation.
An authorization policy can be composed by one or more rules. If more rules are specified, evaluation policy is successful if any of the rules evaluates successfully; if an API operation matches multiple policies, then all the policies must evaluate successfully. Also, authorization rules are recursive. Once a rule is matched, the rule(s) can be resolved to another rule, until a terminal rule is reached. These are the rules defined:
- Role-based rules
-
Evaluate successfully if the user submitting the request has the specified role. For instance,
"role:admin"
is successful if the user submitting the request is an administrator. - Field-based rules
-
Evaluate successfully if a field of the resource specified in the current request matches a specific value. For instance,
"field:networks:shared=True"
is successful if the attribute shared of the network resource is set totrue
. - Generic rules
-
Compare an attribute in the resource with an attribute extracted from the user's security credentials and evaluates successfully if the comparison is successful. For instance,
"tenant_id:%(tenant_id)s"
is successful if the tenant identifier in the resource is equal to the tenant identifier of the user submitting the request.
Here are snippets of the default nova policy.json
file:
{
"context_is_admin": [["role:admin"]],
"admin_or_owner": [["is_admin:True"], ["project_id:%(project_id)s"]], ~~~~(1)~~~~
"default": [["rule:admin_or_owner"]], ~~~~(2)~~~~
"compute:create": [ ],
"compute:create:attach_network": [ ],
"compute:create:attach_volume": [ ],
"compute:get_all": [ ],
"admin_api": [["is_admin:True"]],
"compute_extension:accounts": [["rule:admin_api"]],
"compute_extension:admin_actions": [["rule:admin_api"]],
"compute_extension:admin_actions:pause": [["rule:admin_or_owner"]],
"compute_extension:admin_actions:unpause": [["rule:admin_or_owner"]],
...
"compute_extension:admin_actions:migrate": [["rule:admin_api"]],
"compute_extension:aggregates": [["rule:admin_api"]],
"compute_extension:certificates": [ ],
...
"compute_extension:flavorextraspecs": [ ],
"compute_extension:flavormanage": [["rule:admin_api"]], ~~~~(3)~~~~
}
- Shows a rule that evaluates successfully if the current user is an administrator or the owner of the resource specified in the request (tenant identifier is equal).
- Shows the default policy, which is always evaluated if an API
operation does not match any of the policies in
policy.json
. - Shows a policy restricting the ability to manipulate flavors to administrators using the Admin API only.admin API
In some cases, some operations should be restricted to administrators only. Therefore, as a further example, let us consider how this sample policy file could be modified in a scenario where we enable users to create their own flavors:
"compute_extension:flavormanage": [ ],
Users Who Disrupt Other Users
Users on your cloud can disrupt other users, sometimes intentionally and maliciously and other times by accident. Understanding the situation allows you to make a better decision on how to handle the disruption.
For example, a group of users have instances that are utilizing a large amount of compute resources for very compute-intensive tasks. This is driving the load up on compute nodes and affecting other users. In this situation, review your user use cases. You may find that high compute scenarios are common, and should then plan for proper segregation in your cloud, such as host aggregation or regions.
Another example is a user consuming a very large amount of bandwidthbandwidth recognizing DDOS attacks. Again, the key is to understand what the user is doing. If she naturally needs a high amount of bandwidth, you might have to limit her transmission rate as to not affect other users or move her to an area with more bandwidth available. On the other hand, maybe her instance has been hacked and is part of a botnet launching DDOS attacks. Resolution of this issue is the same as though any other server on your network has been hacked. Contact the user and give her time to respond. If she doesn't respond, shut down the instance.
A final example is if a user is hammering cloud resources repeatedly. Contact the user and learn what he is trying to do. Maybe he doesn't understand that what he's doing is inappropriate, or maybe there is an issue with the resource he is trying to access that is causing his requests to queue or lag.
Summary
One key element of systems administration that is often overlooked is that end users are the reason systems administrators exist. Don't go the BOFH route and terminate every user who causes an alert to go off. Work with users to understand what they're trying to accomplish and see how your environment can better assist them in achieving their goals. Meet your users needs by organizing your users into projects, applying policies, managing quotas, and working with them.