rOCCI:EC2 Backend

rOCCI-server's EC2 backend has been primarily developed with Amazon Web Services. It is expected to work with other CMFs implementing the EC2 interface, but this guide considers AWS.

Please note that for an overview of operations that each method in the backend performs within the AWS cloud, you may consult the RubyDoc documentation for the EC2 backend. It lists Server-side Effects for each public method that has any.

Installation

For the time being, the EC2 backend is only available with rOCCI-server source.

TODO: Is EC2 backend going to be included in a separate package?

Configuration

1. Edit Virtual Host configuration file /etc/apache2/sites-available/occi-ssl or /etc/httpd/conf.d/occi-ssl.conf, respectively, and change the following:
   1. attribute ROCCI_SERVER_BACKEND must be set to ec2 as shown:

      SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_BACKEND ec2

      Note: Do not confuse with attribute ROCCI_SERVER_HOOKS; that has another purpose.

   2. If necessary, modify your region and availability zone settings. The default configuration is for western Europe:

      SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_AWS_REGION eu-west-1 SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_AWS_AVAILABILITY_ZONE eu-west-1a

      For a list of applicable regions see the Amazon EC2 Regions list.

   3. To speed up interaction with AWS, consider also setting filters for images. This speeds up the composition and transfer of the OCCI model. There are two configuration variables to consider:
      1. SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_IMAGE_FILTERING_POLICY – permissible values are:

         all	List all images contrary to recommendation
         only_owned	List only images you own
         only_listed	List only images specified in ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_IMAGE_FILTERING_IMAGE_LIST
         owned_and_listed	List images you own plus additional images specified in ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_IMAGE_FILTERING_IMAGE_LIST

      2. SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_IMAGE_FILTERING_IMAGE_LIST – A list of images to include in responses. Separate multiple images by whitespaces and enclose the whole list in double quotes. The use of this list is governed by option ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_IMAGE_FILTERING_POLICY.

      Note: Image filtering is implemented in the EC2 backend because there are thousands of images available from Amazon. Since constructing a list of available images is a very common operation, you get this option to limit the list.

   4. If necessary, adjust permissions to create/destroy network components. There are special options to specify permissions for handling AWS networks. If you already have virtual private clusters, gateways, elastic IPs and other network infrastructure components configured for your AWS account, you won't need to create new ones and neither will you wish to destroy them programmatically. Keep the following options set to no for the backend to behave most conservatively. Allow actions you really require, though (set those to yes). Applicable options are:
      • ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_NETWORK_CREATE_ALLOWED
      • ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_NETWORK_DESTROY_ALLOWED
      • ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_NETWORK_DESTROY_VPN_GWS
   5. If required, change the endpoint for the cloud management framework. This option should only be used if you plan to access another cloud management framework implementing the EC2 interface! If you still want to do this, set option ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_AWS_ENDPOINT accordingly.
      Disclaimer: rOCCI was developed testing against genuine Amazon Web Services. Using it with other CMFs implementing EC2 should be possible, but the rOCCI team cannot make any promises.
2. Choose and configure your authentication strategy. Regardless of which you choose, you need an ASW Access Key, and an accompanying Secret Access Key, for a valid ASW account. Obviously, obtaining those is beyond the scope of this document. The following strategies are supported:
   • Basic – requires no special settings. Basic authentication is completely pass-through. You just need to use your access key ID and the secret key in your client.
   • X.509 – Adjust the following options in your Virtual Host configuration file /etc/apache2/sites-available/occi-ssl or /etc/httpd/conf.d/occi-ssl.conf:

     SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID <actual_id_edited_out> SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY <actual_key_edited_out>

     Note that this gives access to all users who can authenticate to the rOCCI-server with a valid certificate. The rOCCI-server is, however, supplied with a blacklisting hook, which allows you to control access to certain extent. Virtual Host configuration attribute ROCCI_SERVER_USER_BLACKLIST_HOOK_USER_BLACKLIST controls the location of the blacklist file.

   • VOMS – In essence, each VO can be mapped to a (single) different AWS account. This is done through a map file. In case the accessing user is not a member of any configured VO, authentication can fall back to other strategies. The following configuration option can be used to refer to the map file:

     SetEnv ROCCI_SERVER_EC2_VO_AWS_MAPFILE /opt/occi-server/embedded/app/rOCCI-server/etc/backends/ec2/files/mapfile.yml

     The map file, then, has consecutive records for individual VOs in the following format: |

     vo_name:
       access_key_id:     awskeyid
       secret_access_key: secretaccesskey
     

     |}

   Find out more one configuration strategies in The rOCCI-server Admin Guide: Configuring Access.

3. Restart the WebServer. You may skip this step if you are going to configure GridSite next.

   APT-based distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, …)	RPM-based distributions (Scientific Linux, CentOS, …)
   service apache2 restart	service httpd restart
   Tested in Debian 7 Wheezy	Tested in SL 6.5 Carbon