Add internal-frontend role #3706

dnr · 2022-12-13T17:29:21Z

What changed?

Add a new server role, internal-frontend
- This is intended for the worker role to connect to
- This does what the frontend does, but acts as an "internode" role for the purposes of TLS
- It also fixes the claim mapper to one that always returns admin permission
Change development configs to enable internal-frontend (and remove publicClient hostPort)
Integration tests do not use internal-frontend
Change docker config template to add internal-frontend service, conditional on new environment variable
Also to remove publicClient section if internal-frontend is present or not using claim mapper/authorizer
If publicClient.hostPort is not set, frontend connections use the membership resolver, pointing to internal-frontend (using internode TLS) if present, else frontend (using frontend TLS)
Remove the temporal-system special case in the default authorizer

Why?
The server worker needs to make connections to the frontend with effective "admin" access (to all namespaces). With pluggable claim mappers and authorizers, we can't control the logic in them, and requiring all users to set up mTLS with special claims is a large burden. Adding internal frontends as an alternative is easier and more reliable.

How did you test it?
Updated unit tests, lots of manual testing with https://github.com/temporalio/samples-server/tree/main/tls/tls-full

Potential risks
Users who are currently using the default authorizer and relying on the temporal-system special case will need to switch their setup to use internal frontends (but this is good, since the special case could be a security hole). Other configurations that I haven't thought of could also break.

Overall, this creates more configuration options, which increases the support burden. Eventually I'd like to eliminate most of them and require internal frontends (with internode TLS if used), to reduce the number of options and make things even simpler than they were before this change, but that can come later.

Is hotfix candidate?

yiminc · 2022-12-13T23:38:33Z

common/config/config.go

@@ -561,6 +577,12 @@ func (c *Config) Validate() error {
 		return err
 	}

+	switch c.PublicClient.ForceTLSConfig {
+	case ForceTLSConfigDefault, ForceTLSConfigInternode, ForceTLSConfigFrontend:


what is default (empty string) mean?

It means use "internode" if there is an internal-frontend section, otherwise use "frontend". Maybe I should name it ForceTLSConfigAuto?

I really don't think anyone should ever have to use this, it's just for completeness.

yiminc · 2022-12-13T23:49:36Z

common/resource/fx.go

+		if hasIFE && cfg.PublicClient.HostPort == "" {
+			forceTLS = config.ForceTLSConfigInternode
+		} else {
+			forceTLS = config.ForceTLSConfigFrontend


if hasIFE && cfg.PublicClient.HostPort != "", then it will use public frontend config?
It means if publicClient.hostPort is configured it will be highest priority, and it will use public frontend, the internal-frontend will be ignored. Shall we error out if internal-frontend is configured with publicClient.hostPort?
We need clear documentation about this behavior.

Correct. I considered making that combination fail validation but thought maybe we should trust the user. But maybe failing on that would avoid some user error.

I'm trying to think of any reason you might want to have an internal-frontend config section present but also have an explicit hostPort... maybe someone doesn't like the membership-based resolver and wants to use k8s dns or something like that?

I think I added && cfg.PublicClient.HostPort == "" because I considered the case where someone explicitly put membership://frontend as HostPort. But on second thought that config doesn't really make sense either. Yeah, I'll simplify this.

yux0 · 2022-12-13T23:43:37Z

common/config/config.go

-		// Frontend controls SDK Client to Frontend communication TLS settings.
+		// Frontend controls frontend server TLS settings. To control system worker -> frontend
+		// TLS, use the SystemWorker field. (Frontend.Client is accepted for backwards
+		// compatibility.)
 		Frontend GroupTLS `yaml:"frontend"`
 		// SystemWorker controls TLS setting for System Workers connecting to Frontend.
 		SystemWorker WorkerTLS `yaml:"systemWorker"`


if we have inner node frontend, do we still need the system worker?

I made a bunch more commits on a branch where I ripped out SystemWorker, GetFrontendClientConfig, and everything that touches those. Total diff stats: 11 files changed, 57 insertions(+), 365 deletions(-). And we could clean up even more. I'd like to push that through some day. However, in the interest of a smooth 1.20 release, I agree with Yimin that we should be backwards compatible for now, i.e. any existing config should not change behavior, we should only add new options.

I will note that this addition of SystemWorker (as a more flexible alternative to Frontend.Client) never made it to the docs, or docker/config_template.yaml. So probably only a very small number of users are using it.

+1 I think we should wait, and deprecate-remove SystemWorker at a later point.

service/frontend/fx.go

…SConfigAuto

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:16:33Z

common/authorization/default_authorizer.go

-	// we should remove "temporal-system" from here. Handling of call with
-	// no namespace will need to be performed at the API level, so that data would
-	// be filtered based of caller's permissions to namespaces and system.
-	if target.Namespace == "temporal-system" || target.Namespace == "" {


Question for reviewers: I'm confident that this handles the issues around temporal-system. But this default authorizer also allowed all empty-namespace calls through. Now, those will require claims.System >= RoleReader. This makes logical sense: System is the field for stuff that applies outside of namespaces. The question is might this break anyone's expectations (in a way that's hard to fix)?

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:22:53Z

common/config/config.go

-		// Frontend controls SDK Client to Frontend communication TLS settings.
+		// Frontend controls frontend server TLS settings. To control system worker -> frontend
+		// TLS, use the SystemWorker field. (Frontend.Client is accepted for backwards
+		// compatibility.)
 		Frontend GroupTLS `yaml:"frontend"`
 		// SystemWorker controls TLS setting for System Workers connecting to Frontend.
 		SystemWorker WorkerTLS `yaml:"systemWorker"`


I made a bunch more commits on a branch where I ripped out SystemWorker, GetFrontendClientConfig, and everything that touches those. Total diff stats: 11 files changed, 57 insertions(+), 365 deletions(-). And we could clean up even more. I'd like to push that through some day. However, in the interest of a smooth 1.20 release, I agree with Yimin that we should be backwards compatible for now, i.e. any existing config should not change behavior, we should only add new options.

I will note that this addition of SystemWorker (as a more flexible alternative to Frontend.Client) never made it to the docs, or docker/config_template.yaml. So probably only a very small number of users are using it.

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:24:53Z

common/config/config.go

@@ -561,6 +577,12 @@ func (c *Config) Validate() error {
 		return err
 	}

+	switch c.PublicClient.ForceTLSConfig {
+	case ForceTLSConfigDefault, ForceTLSConfigInternode, ForceTLSConfigFrontend:


It means use "internode" if there is an internal-frontend section, otherwise use "frontend". Maybe I should name it ForceTLSConfigAuto?

I really don't think anyone should ever have to use this, it's just for completeness.

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:32:43Z

common/resource/fx.go

+		if hasIFE && cfg.PublicClient.HostPort == "" {
+			forceTLS = config.ForceTLSConfigInternode
+		} else {
+			forceTLS = config.ForceTLSConfigFrontend


Correct. I considered making that combination fail validation but thought maybe we should trust the user. But maybe failing on that would avoid some user error.

I'm trying to think of any reason you might want to have an internal-frontend config section present but also have an explicit hostPort... maybe someone doesn't like the membership-based resolver and wants to use k8s dns or something like that?

I think I added && cfg.PublicClient.HostPort == "" because I considered the case where someone explicitly put membership://frontend as HostPort. But on second thought that config doesn't really make sense either. Yeah, I'll simplify this.

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:36:46Z

common/resource/fx.go

+	), nil
+}
+
+func getFrontendConnectionDetails(


Note for reviewers: I'm pretty unhappy about the existence of this function: tlsConfigProvider already has a whole bunch of switching logic, and now I'm adding another layer of switching on top of that. It would seem better to integrate this logic into tlsConfigProvider.

But the problem is that this needs the whole config (for PublicClient and Services) and tlsConfigProvider only gets the TLS section. Also, this deals with grpc endpoints and TLS config in a linked way, where tlsConfigProvider deals only with TLS. So it makes some sense to keep it separate.

dnr · 2022-12-14T06:43:55Z

docker/config_template.yaml

@@ -357,10 +366,14 @@ namespaceDefaults:
      state: "disabled"
      URI: "file:///tmp/temporal_vis_archival/development"

+{{- if or (.Env.USE_INTERNAL_FRONTEND) (and (not .Env.TEMPORAL_AUTH_AUTHORIZER) (not .Env.TEMPORAL_AUTH_CLAIM_MAPPER)) }}


Question for reviewers: is this logic sufficient? The idea is that if you're using internal-frontend, then you just use membership to find that and you're good. If using external frontend only, but you have no authorizer and claim mapper (no security or maybe using an external validating proxy or something), then you can use membership to find frontend and it'll work (even with TLS).

Otherwise you're on your own and you can set PUBLIC_FRONTEND_ADDRESS

@alexshtin @mindaugasrukas

This logic looks good to me.

yiminc

lgtm

yiminc · 2022-12-15T06:52:13Z

common/config/config.go

-	// Membership resolver (new in 1.18): Leave this empty, and other nodes will use the
-	// membership service resolver to find the frontend.
-	// TODO: remove this and always use membership resolver
+	// PublicClient is the config for internal nodes (history/matching/worker) connecting to


Currently, does history/matching ever need to connect to frontend?

I believe, not.

yux0

LGTM. But it would be good to let @sergeybykov take a look.

alexshtin · 2023-01-05T21:09:15Z

common/config/config.go

-	// Membership resolver (new in 1.18): Leave this empty, and other nodes will use the
-	// membership service resolver to find the frontend.
-	// TODO: remove this and always use membership resolver
+	// PublicClient is the config for internal nodes (history/matching/worker) connecting to


I believe, not.

alexshtin · 2023-01-05T22:32:41Z

docker/config_template.yaml

@@ -357,10 +366,14 @@ namespaceDefaults:
      state: "disabled"
      URI: "file:///tmp/temporal_vis_archival/development"

+{{- if or (.Env.USE_INTERNAL_FRONTEND) (and (not .Env.TEMPORAL_AUTH_AUTHORIZER) (not .Env.TEMPORAL_AUTH_CLAIM_MAPPER)) }}


This logic looks good to me.

Add internal-frontend role

74accc9

dnr requested a review from a team as a code owner December 13, 2022 17:29

yiminc requested a review from sergeybykov December 13, 2022 17:58

yiminc reviewed Dec 13, 2022

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yux0 reviewed Dec 13, 2022

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dnr added 3 commits December 13, 2022 23:07

more comments, fail validation on IFE+publicClient, rename to ForceTL…

ada4193

…SConfigAuto

nits

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don't fail DescribeCluster if IFE missing

38945af

dnr commented Dec 14, 2022

View reviewed changes

set up mock and fix simpleMonitor

9e7be85

yiminc reviewed Dec 15, 2022

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yux0 approved these changes Dec 16, 2022

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merge

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sergeybykov approved these changes Jan 4, 2023

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alexshtin approved these changes Jan 5, 2023

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dnr added 5 commits January 5, 2023 15:04

add missing logger provider

45397a6

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master' into feport2

c47b2d2

Merge remote-tracking branch 'upstream/master' into feport2

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lint

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comments

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dnr merged commit 1a9695e into temporalio:master Jan 11, 2023

dnr deleted the feport2 branch January 11, 2023 01:44

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Add internal-frontend role #3706

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Add internal-frontend role #3706

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dnr commented Dec 13, 2022

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