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License.
Tacker API Framework¶
Currently there is an API implementation in tacker but it doesn’t follow the OpenStack standard. There are two API frameworks which are largely adopted by the community 1. PECAN 2. Falcon I have gone through all the possibilities about the selecting the framework but the PECAN’s adoption is very high as compare to Falcon by Openstack community. Currently there are many OpenStack project already using PECAN like zaqar, magnum & others but Ironic is facing lot of issues in PECAN + WSME approach. Pecan community is not providing the support on filed bugs. Falcon is faster and more secure as compare to PECAN. We don’t need to depend on third part project like WSME for attribute validation if we use Falcon. Falcon has less dependencies as compare to PECAN. There are many project using PECAN now but taking all the above considerations, we should better choose Falcon over PECAN. Falcon is developed for complete Cloud REST API’s. Currently Zaqar is using.
Problem description¶
We need an API framework which gives us better performance, secure and has good community support. Current implementation is not adopted by OpenStack community & has less performance as compare to Falcon/PECAN.
Proposed changes¶
It has huge impact on the API implementation layer. So we need to re-write every API implementation but API endpoints remain the same. All the API files we need to change & current directory structure will also get changed.
WSGI Application Server -
Falcon uses gunicorn a Python WSGI HTTP Server. We should create an application class where we can keep all the implementation related to WSGI. Running Falcon API application is very simple. Falcon used gunicorn to run the application & that’s the reason falcon is faster as compare to other frameworks. Gunicorn is a Python WSGI HTTP server for UNIX.
Following are the changes -
Implement Controllers instead extensions -
We have written separate extension for nfvo & vnfm for API. We need to introduce new controllers to below extensions. tacker/extension/nfvo.py tacker/extension/vnfm.py
Falcon Controllers - tacker/api/controller/v1/nfvo.py tacker/api/controller/v1/vnfm.py All model attributes are defined under the same file which will be effective way to handle all things at one level.
Handling attributes -
We can add validation hooks for images etc for checking given image type is valid. Falcon offer before hooks, its decorator for validation attributes.
Example:
@falcon.before(validate_image_type) def create_vim()
In this file, we can handle build-in types as well as custom types like ImageName, TemplateName etc.
Exception Handling -
Falcon offers its own API level exception, no need to depend on other modules to handle API level exceptions.
Example - falcon.HTTPNotFound falcon.HTTPForbidden falcon.HTTPInternalServerError
Plugins -
I don’t think there will be direct impact on existing plugins, but for new features, we should write separate controllers & introduce the functionality. Like VNFFG, it’s better to write separate api/controller/v1/vnffg.py because we are offering complete CRUD for VNFFG. It’s always better to write separate controller file for those who offer complete CRUD operations.
Authentication -
Falcon supports multi authentication like SSL/TLS/HTTPS.
Tacker Web - I don’t think there is any impact on Tacker Web UI because we use HTTP WSGI for new Tacker API framework. We will use Apache server to launch Tacker Web UI.
Alternatives¶
None
Data model impact¶
None
REST API impact¶
We have to rewrite API framework but endpoints remain same.
Security impact¶
None
Notifications impact¶
None
Other end user impact¶
None
Performance Impact¶
None
Other deployer impact¶
We need add falcon to build.
Developer impact¶
None
Implementation¶
Assignee(s)¶
Digambar Patil (digambarpat@gmail.com)
Work Items¶
Introduce new API directory structure.
Implement validation using falcon hooks.
Implement controller for every extensions.
Write script to run tacker-api
Write unittests & functional tests
Dependencies¶
Testing¶
API controller testing will be done. Unit tests and function tests will be added for new API framework.
Documentation Impact¶
We need to write how to new API framework implementation.
References¶
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Zaqar/pecan-evaluation http://falcon.readthedocs.io/en/stable/user/tutorial.html http://gunicorn.org https://pypi.org/project/falcon-mutualauth
