[Twg] TWG meeting minutes for 2011-09-15

[John Carrier]

Attached are the meeting minutes from last week's TWG call where we reviewed the IU proposal for developing UID mapping and shared-key security to improve Lustre functionality over a WAN.   The result of our discussion was to recommend that OpenSFS fund IU's proposal.  Dave and I have sent the IU proposal  to the Board and recommended its approval.

Please post questions/comments to discuss at lists.opensfs.org<mailto:discuss at lists.opensfs.org>

Thanks,

--jc

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OpenSFS Technical Working Group
Meeting minutes : 2011-09-15

Concall: start : 9:30a PT, adjourn : 10:14a PT

Attending : 

   Name              Organization   email
   ----------------- -------------- ----------------------------
   Cory Spitz        Cray           spitzcor at cray.com
   John Carrier      Cray           carrier at cray.com
   Alex Kulyavtsev   FNAL           aik at fnal.gov
   Justin Miller     IU             jupmille at indiana.edu                            
   Steve Simms       IU             ssimms at indiana.edu                            
   Joshua Walgenbach IU             jjw at indiana.edu
   Chris Morrone     LLNL           morrone2 at llnl.gov
   Dave Dillow       ORNL           dillowda at ornl.gov
   Ercan Kamber      RAID, Inc.     ercan_kamber at raidinc.com
   Andreas Dilger    Whamcloud      adilger at whamcloud.com
   Eric Barton       Whamcloud      eeb at whamcloud.com

Agenda :
   * Whamcloud PAC nominations
   * IU's LustreWAN security proposal


PAC for Whamcloud Development Project

   goal:  Finish nominations for the open position and then start the voting
          process. 

   Two people have been nominated for the open position on the Project
   Advisory Committee (PAC)- two people nominated
      Ercan Kamber    RAID
      Josh Walgenbach IU

   Dave invited the two nominees to introduce themselves and explain why
   they wanted to be on the PAC.  
   
   All OpenSFS member organizations to vote by 5pm Tuesday 9/20 by
   sending email to Shay.  Dave to send instructions to the reflector on
   how to vote.  Dave will forward new PAC member to Board for approval.


IU's Lustre WAN Proposal
   
   [John sent IU's proposal for adding a UID mapping and a new security
    model for the Lustre WAN project to the TWG reflector before the
    meeting.]

   goal: Evaluate IU's Lustre WAN UID mapping and security proposal for
         recommendation to the Board.

   discussion:

     pros : UID mapping
      * IU plans to implement an improved UID mapping mechanism for
         Lustre 2.1 
      * UID mapping enables Lustre communication for resources in
         different administrative domains and coexists with their 
         proposed GSSAPI extensions
      * The new mapping mechanism will enable quota support for UID
         mapped file systems, which is not currently supported on Lustre 1.6/1.8, and
         root squashing with finer granularity than is currently possible

     pros : security
      * IU plans to add a shared key authentication using the existing
         GSSAPI mechanism already within Lustre.
      * This new authentication and encryption mechansim is an
         alternative to the existing Kerberos mechanism, which is not
         widely used because of the complexity of Kerberos deployment. 
      * Using GSSAPI means that IU is not changing the Lustre
         internals, but creating a new plug-in to let Lustre use
         security features already available in Linux.
      * IU providing a security engineer to supervise implementation.

     cons :
      * Proposal is short on specifics of deliverables.  The TWG
         expects these details to be provided in SOW should a contract
         be granted.

     conclusion :
         The TWG believes the work is important and the inclusion of the
         shared key authentication and encryption mechanism as IU 
         proposes will significantly improve security of Lustre as a
         wide-area file system.

   vote: 
      * Cray proposed forwarding IU's proposal to the OpenSFS Board for
         funding 
      * ORNL seconded

      No dissent; voting unanimuously in favor
      
meetin adjourned: 10:14PT