One of the most important aspects of the design of the Package Forge system is the filesystem used to store all the data associated with build jobs at the various stages in their lifecycle. Basically this breaks down into three sections:
These requirements can be converted into a number of different methods of running the system. It could be that each sub-system (incoming processor, build daemons and web interface) runs as a different Unix user with permissions being managed by the traditional Unix model. In the School of Informatics we use OpenAFS so the ACLs were done using that system and they are described below.
Some form of networked filesystem is required for the build daemons to be able to access the input files in the accepted jobs directory and store back files into the results directory. NFS should work but has not been tested.
When using AFS it probably makes most sense to have all the pkgforge directories within a single AFS volume. This makes it easy to move around and make backups. A volume can be created like this:
% vos create -server host1.example.org -partition /vicepd -name pkgforge -maxquota 100000000 % fs mkmount -dir /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge -vol pkgforge -rw
This would be done as an AFS super-user. Note that the maximum quota has been deliberately set to something fairly large, the default limit is fairly small and will be reached quite quickly.
Once this has been done the sub-directories can be created:
% mkdir -p /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge % mkdir -p /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/incoming % mkdir -p /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/accepted % mkdir -p /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/results
The different sub-systems each run as the same Unix user but as a different AFS user. We currently have the following AFS users:
Rather than managing the ACLs on the various directories by adding and deleting individual users, which is likely to result in errors and oversights, AFS groups are used. This means that the ACLs on the directories should never need to be altered. There are normally three groups:
The purpose of each group should be fairly obvious. Normally
the pkgforge_incoming
and pkgforge_web
AFS
groups would each only contain a single AFS user but there are no
limits. This is useful when moving services from one host to another
and they both need access during a transition period.
Full details on managing AFS users and groups can be found elsewhere but here is an example of the basics:
% pts creategroup pkgforge_builder % pts createuser -name pkgforge_builder.host1.example.org -id 28251 % pts adduser -user pkgforge_builder.host1.example.org -group pkgforge_builder
If you do not already have an appropriate AFS group you may wish to
create another AFS group (e.g. pkgforge_users
) which
would include all users of the pkgforge system.
Note that the createuser commands must be done as the AFS super-user but all the group management can be done as a normal AFS user.
The previous description of requirements is translated into a set
of AFS ACLs which can now be applied to the previously created
directories with the various groups. Note that to gain access (for
either read or write) all the users must be able to at least list the
higher-level directories in the tree. Note also that to ensure only
the required ACLs are set on each directory the -clear
option is being used throughout.
% fs setacl -clear -dir /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge -acl\ system:administrators rlidwka\ pkgforge_incoming read\ pkgforge_builder read\ pkgforge_web read\ pkgforge_users read\ system:authuser read % fs setacl -clear -dir /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/incoming -acl\ system:administrators rlidwka\ pkgforge_incoming write\ pkgforge_users rli\ system:authuser read % fs setacl -clear -dir /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/accepted -acl\ system:administrators rlidwka\ pkgforge_incoming write\ pkgforge_builder read\ pkgforge_web read\ pkgforge_users read\ system:authuser read fs setacl -clear -dir /afs/example.org/pkgs/pkgforge/results -acl\ system:administrators rlidwka\ pkgforge_incoming write\ pkgforge_builder write\ pkgforge_web read\ pkgforge_users read\ system:authuser read
It is assumed that the /afs/example.org/pkgs
directory
already existed and was accessible by the users.
Most of the ACLs are fairly self-explanatory but note that for the incoming directory the users only have read, lookup and insert rights, they do not have any ability to delete entries or write into files they do not own (normal write access translates into rlidwk) see the DROPBOXES section of the fs_setacl(1) manual page for more details.
Note also that we have added permissions for all authenticated users to be able to read the contents. Depending on what you are building on the pkgforge system you may wish to remove that access.