9c63e049a6
Adds specification for integrating Castellan for key management. Castellan is a key manager interface library that is intended to be usable with multiple back ends, including Barbican. The Castellan code is based on the basic key manager interface that resides in Nova and Cinder. Now that the key manager interface lives in a separate library, the key manager code can be removed from Nova and Cinder, and Castellan can be used as the key manager interface instead. Related: blueprint use-castellan-key-manager Change-Id: I025995584e74c0b2df00841697714c10d1afb674
5.7 KiB
Integrate Castellan for Key Management
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/use-castellan-key-manager
Castellan is a key manager interface library that is intended to be usable with multiple back ends, including Barbican. The Castellan code is based on the basic key manager interface that resides in Nova and Cinder. Now that the key manager interface lives in a separate library, the key manager code can be removed from Nova and Cinder, and Castellan can be used as the key manager interface instead.
Problem description
As encryption features in OpenStack projects are becoming more common, the projects typically need a way to interface with a key manager. Different deployers may have different requirements for key managers, so the key manager interface must also be configurable to have different back ends. The Castellan key manager interface was based off the key manager interfaces found in Cinder and Nova. Now that the shared key manager interface lives in a separate library, the original key manager interface embedded in Nova can be removed and Castellan used instead.
Use Cases
Castellan supports existing features such as ephemeral storage encryption and volume encryption.
Proposed change
Castellan by default pulls configuration options from a Castellan-specific configuration file in /etc/castellan, but can also take in configuration options if passed in directly. The configuration options for the key manager can still be specified in nova.conf, and passed along to Castellan.
The old key manager interface code and back end implementations in nova/keymgr and tests in nova/tests/unit/keymgr can be removed. Any place in the Nova code where the key manager interface was called will be replaced by calls to Castellan instead. Castellan does not include ConfKeyManager, an insecure fixed-key key manager that reads the key from the configuration file. The implementation for ConfKeyManager will remain in Nova as the Nova community agrees that it provides a valuable test fixture.
Alternatives
The alternative is to leave the key manager interface as it is, but this means that Nova's key manager will not benefit from the updates, new features, and future additional back ends available in Castellan.
Data model impact
None
REST API impact
None
Security impact
Castellan behaves very similarly to the current Nova key manager. Castellan has added improvements and bug fixes beyond what is currently in the Nova and Cinder key managers, making it more secure. The fixed-key key manager found in Nova and Cinder is insecure for deployments, but it is useful for testing. Castellan doesn't include the fixed-key key manager, so the ConfKeyManager will remain in Nova.
Notifications impact
None
Other end user impact
None
Performance Impact
None
Other deployer impact
The deployer should be made aware of a change in the default key manager back end. The current default back end in Nova is a fixed key, but Castellan uses Barbican as the default. This means the deployer should ensure Barbican is running and the fixed key added to Barbican so it can continue to be used.
The options in the Nova configuration file for disk encryption will change. The option group 'keymgr' will be spelled out to 'key_manager'. The key manager option group will still have an option 'api_class' to specify the desired back end, but an option to specify the fixed key will no longer be available. In the 'barbican' option group, a few new options will be available to increase the robustness of the back end, such as the number of times to check if a key has been successfully created.
To maintain backwards compatibility, the old options will still be listed as deprecated options. Standard deprecation policy will be followed, and these old options should be removed in the next release cycle.
Developer impact
Nova developers should not be impacted by this change. If developers find more uses for a key manager, Castellan should be just as easy to use as the current Nova key manager interface.
Implementation
Assignee(s)
- Primary assignee:
-
Kaitlin Farr <kaitlin.farr@jhuapl.edu> kfarr on IRC
- Other contributors:
-
None
Work Items
- Remove calls to Nova's key manager with calls to Castellan.
- Remove Nova key manager code.
- Update documentation.
Dependencies
This change depends on Castellan, version >= 0.2.0. Castellan is already in OpenStack's global requirements.
Testing
This change can be unit tested using a simple in-memory back end. As actual deployments should be using Barbican, this feature should be tested using a Barbican back end, too.
Documentation Impact
These changes will be documented. Nova documentation for disk encryption will be updated to reference Castellan [4].
References
- [1] Castellan source code:
- [2] Castellan in OpenStack's global requirements:
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https://github.com/openstack/requirements/blob/master/global-requirements.txt
- [3] Current Nova key manager implementation
- [4] Disk encryption configuration reference
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http://docs.openstack.org/liberty/config-reference/content/section_volume-encryption.html
History
| Release Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Mitaka | Introduced |