From: Brian Warner Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 00:32:24 +0000 (-0700) Subject: document our current directory node (dirnode) design X-Git-Url: https://git.rkrishnan.org/simplejson/%22news.html/module-simplejson.tests.html?a=commitdiff_plain;h=8a4c174ce9487e026c123648cffa53bc4c13d6b0;p=tahoe-lafs%2Ftahoe-lafs.git document our current directory node (dirnode) design --- diff --git a/docs/dirnodes.txt b/docs/dirnodes.txt new file mode 100644 index 00000000..21b9216c --- /dev/null +++ b/docs/dirnodes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,414 @@ + += Tahoe Directory Nodes = + +As explained in the architecture docs, Tahoe can be roughly viewed as a +collection of three layers. The lowest layer is the distributed filestore, or +DHT: it provides operations that accept files and upload them to the mesh, +creating a URI in the process which securely references the file's contents. +The middle layer is the filesystem, creating a structure of directories and +filenames resembling the traditional unix/windows filesystems. The top layer +is the application layer, which uses the lower layers to provide useful +services to users, like a backup application, or a way to share files with +friends. + +This document examines the middle layer, the "filesystem". + +== DHT Primitives == + +In the lowest layer (DHT), we've defined two operations thus far, both of +which refer to "CHK URIs", which reference immutable data: + + chk_uri = put(data) + data = get(chk_uri) + +We anticipate creating mutable slots in the DHT layer at some point, which +will add some new operations to this layer: + + slotname = create_slot() + set(slotname, data) + data = get(slotname) + +== Filesystem Goals == + +The main goal for the middle (filesystem) layer is to give users a way to +organize the data that they have uploaded into the mesh. The traditional way +to do this in computer filesystems is to put this data into files, give those +files names, and collect these names into directories. + +Each directory is a series of name-value pairs, which maps "child name" to an +object of some kind. Those child objects might be files, or they might be +other directories. + +The directory structure is therefore a directed graph of nodes, in which each +node might be a directory node or a file node. All file nodes are terminal +nodes. + +== Dirnode Goals == + +What properties might be desireable for these directory nodes? In no +particular order: + + 1: functional. Code which does not work doesn't count. + 2: easy to document, explain, and understand + 3: private: it should not be possible for others to see the contents of a + directory + 4: integrity: it should not be possible for others to modify the contents + of a directory + 5: available: directories should survive host failure, just like files do + 6: efficient: in storage, communication bandwidth, number of round-trips + 7: easy to delegate individual directories in a flexible way + 8: updateness: everybody looking at a directory should see the same contents + 9: monotonicity: everybody looking at a directory should see the same + sequence of updates + +We do not meet all of these goals. For the current release, we favored #1, +#2, and #7 above the rest, which lead us to the following design. In a later +#section, we discuss some alternate designs and potential changes to the +#existing code that can help us achieve the other goals. + +In tahoe-0.4.0, each "dirnode" is stored as a file on a single "vdrive +server". The name of this file is an unguessable string. The contents are an +encrypted representation of the directory's name-to-child mapping. Foolscap +is used to provide remote access to this file. A collection of "directory +URIs" are used to hold all the parameters necessary to access, read, and +write this dirnode. + +== Dirnode secret values == + +Each dirnode begins life as a "writekey", a randomly-generated AES key. This +key is hashed (using a tagged hash, see src/allmydata/util/hashutil.py for +details) to form the "readkey". The readkey is hashed to form the "storage +index". The writekey is hashed with a different tag to form the "write +enabler". + +Clients who have read-write access to the dirnode know the writekey, and can +derive all the other secrets from it. Clients with merely read-only access to +the dirnode know the readkey (and can derive the storage index), but do not +know the writekey or the write enabler. The vdrive server knows only the +storage index and the write enabler. + +== Dirnode capability URIs == + +The "write capability" for a dirnode grants read-write access to its +contents. This is expressed on concrete form as the "dirnode write URI": a +printable string which contains the following pieces of information: + + furl of the vdrive server hosting this dirnode + writekey + +The "read capability" grants read-only access to a dirnode, and its "dirnode +read URI" contains: + + furl of the vdrive server hosting this dirnode + readkey + +For example, +URI:DIR:pb://xextf3eap44o3wi27mf7ehiur6wvhzr6@207.7.153.180:56677,127.0.0.1:56677/vdrive:shrrn75qq3x7uxfzk326ncahd4====== +is a write-capability URI, while +URI:DIR-RO:pb://xextf3eap44o3wi27mf7ehiur6wvhzr6@207.7.153.180:56677,127.0.0.1:56677/vdrive:4c2legsthoe52qywuaturgwdrm====== +is a read-capability URI, both for the same dirnode. + + +== Dirnode storage format == + +Each dirnode is stored in a single file, saved on the vdrive server, using +the (base32-encoded) storage index as a filename. The contents of this file +are a serialized dictionary which maps H_name (explained below) to a tuple +with three values: (E_name, E_write, E_read). The vdrive server is made +available as a Foolscap "Referenceable" object, with the following +operations: + + create_dirnode(index, write_enabler) -> None + list(index) -> list of (E_name, E_write, E_read) tuples + get(index, H_name) -> (E_write, E_read) + set(index, write_enabler, H_name, E_name, E_write, E_read) + delete(index, write_enabler, H_name) + +For any given entry of this dictionary, the following values are obtained by +hashing or encryption: + + H_name is the hash of the readkey and the child's name. + E_name is the child's name, encrypted with the readkey + E_write is the child's write-URI, encrypted with the writekey + E_read is the child's read-URI, encrypted with the readkey + +All encryption uses AES in CTR mode, in which the high-order 10 or 12 bytes +of the 16-byte key are used as an IV (randomly chosen each time the data is +changed), and the remaining bytes are used as the CTR-mode offset. An +HMAC-SHA256 is computed for each encrypted value and stored alongside. The +stored E_name/E_write/E_read values are thus the concatenation of IV, +encrypted data, and HMAC. + +When a new dirnode is created, it records the write_enabler. All operations +that modify an existing dirnode (set and delete) require the write_enabler be +presented. + +This approach insures that clients who do not have the read or write keys +(including the vdrive server, which knows the storage index but not the keys) +will be unable to see any of the contents of the dirnode. Clients who have +the readkey but not the writekey will not be allowed to modify the dirnode. +The H_name value allows clients to perform lookups of specific keys rather +than requiring them to download the whole dirnode for each operation. + +By putting both read-only and read-write child access capabilities in each +entry, encrypted by different keys, this approach provides transitive +read-only-ness: if a client has only a readkey for the parent dirnode, they +will only get readkeys (and not writekeys) for any children, including other +directories. When we create mutable slots in the mesh and we start having +read-write file URIs, we can use the same approach to insure that read-only +access to a directory means read-only access to the files as well. + + +== Design Goals, redux == + +How well does this design meet the goals? + + #1 functional: YES: the code works and has extensive unit tests + #2 documentable: YES: this document is the existence proof + #3 private: MOSTLY: see the discussion below + #4 integrity: MOSTLY: the vdrive server can rollback individual slots + #5 availability: BARELY: if the vdrive server is offline, the dirnode will + be unuseable. If the vdrive server fails, + the dirnode will be lost forever. + #6 efficient: MOSTLY: + network: single dirnode lookup is very efficient, since clients can + fetch specific keys rather than being required to get or set + the entire dirnode each time. Traversing many directories + takes a lot of roundtrips, and these can't be collapsed with + promise-pipelining because the intermediate values must only + be visible to the client. Modifying many dirnodes at once + (e.g. importing a large pre-existing directory tree) is pretty + slow, since each graph edge must be created independently. + storage: each child has a separate IV, which makes them larger than + if all children were aggregated into a single encrypted string + #7 delegation: VERY: each dirnode is a completely independent object, + to which clients can be granted separate read-write or + read-only access + #8 updateness: VERY: with only a single point of access, and no caching, + each client operation starts by fetching the current + value, so there are no opportunities for staleness + #9 monotonicity: VERY: the single point of access also protects against + retrograde motion + + + +=== Privacy leaks in the vdrive server === + +Dirnodes are very private against other clients: traffic between the client +and the vdrive server is protected by the Foolscap SSL connection, so they +can observe very little. Storage index values are hashes of secrets and thus +unguessable, and they are not made public, so other clients cannot snoop +through encrypted dirnodes that they have not been told about. + +On the other hand, the vdrive server gets to see the access patterns of each +client who is using dirnodes hosted there. The childnames and URIs are +encrypted and not visible to anyone (including the vdrive server), but the +vdrive server is in a good position to infer a lot of data about the +directory structure. It knows the length of all childnames, and from the +length of the child URIs themselves it can tell whether children are file +URIs vs. directory URIs vs read-only directory URIs. By watching a client's +access patterns it can deduce the connection between (encrypted) child 1 and +target directory 2 (i.e. if the client does a 'get' of the first child, then +immediately does an operation on directory 2, it can assume the two are +related. From this the vdrive server can build a graph with the same shape as +the filesystem, even though the nodes and edges will be unlabled. + +By providing CHK-level storage services as well (or colluding with a server +who is), the vdrive server can infer the storage index of file nodes that are +downloaded shortly after their childname is looked up. + + +=== Integrity failures in the vdrive server === + +The HMAC prevents the vdrive server from modifying the child names or child +URI values without detection: changing a few bytes will cause an HMAC failure +that the client can detect. This means the vdrive server can make the dirnode +unavailable, but not corrupt it. + +However, the vdrive server can perform a rollback attack: either replacing an +individual entry in the encrypted table with an old version, or replacing the +entire table. Despite not knowing what the child names or URIs are, the +vdrive server can undo changes made by authorized clients. It could also +perform selective rollback, showing different clients different versions of +the filesystem. To solve this problem either requires mutable data (like a +sequence number or hash) to be stored in the URI which points to this dirnode +(rendering them non-constant, and losing most of their value), or requires +spreading the dirnode out over multiple non-colluding servers (which might +improve availability but makes updateness and monotonicity harder). + + +=== Improving the availability of dirnodes === + +Clearly it is somewhat disappointing to have a sexy distributed filestore at +the bottom layer and then have a single-point-of-failure vdrive server on top +of it. However, this approach meets many of the design goals and is extremely +simple to explain and implement. There are many avenues to improve the +reliability and availability of dirnodes. (note that reliability and +availability can be separate goals). + +A simple way to improve the reliability of dirnodes would be to make the +vdrive server be responsible for saving the dirnode contents in a fashion +that will survive the failure of its local disk, for example by simply +rsync'ing all the dirnodes off to a separate machine on a periodic basis, and +pulling them back in the case of disk failure. + +To improve availability, we must allow clients to access their dirnodes even +if the vdrive server is offline. The first step here is to create multiple +vdrive servers, putting a list of furls into the DIR:URI, with instructions +to update all of them during write, and accept the first answer that comes +back during read. This introduces issues of updateness and monotonicity: if a +dirnode is changed while one of the vdrive servers is offline, the servers +will diverge, and subsequent clients will see different contents depending +upon which server they ask. + +A more comforting way to improve both reliability and availability is to +spread the dirnodes out over the mesh in the same way that CHK files work. +The general name for this approach is the "SSK directory slot", a structure +for keeping a mutable slot on multiple hosts, setting and retrieving its +contents at various times, and reconciling differences by comparing sequence +numbers. The "slot name" is the hash of a public key, which is also used to +sign updates, such that the SSK storage hosts will only accept updates from +those in possession of the corresponding private key. This approach (although +not yet implemented) will provide fairly good reliability and availability +properties, at the expense of complexity and updateness/monotonicity. It can +also improve integrity, since an attacker would have to corrupt multiple +storage servers to successfully perform a rollback attack. + +Reducing centralization can improve reliability, as long as the overall +reliability of the mesh is greater than the reliability of the original +centralized services. + +=== Improving the efficiency of dirnodes === + +By storing each child of a dirnode in a separate element of the dictionary, +we provide efficient directory traversal and clean+simple dirnode delegation +behavior. This comes at the cost of efficiency for other operations, +specifically things that operation on multiple dirnodes at once. + +When a backup program is run for the first time, it needs to copy a large +amount of data from a pre-existing filesystem into reliable storage. This +means that a large and complex directory structure needs to be duplicated in +the dirnode layer. With the one-object-per-dirnode approach described here, +this requires as many operations as there are edges in the imported +filesystem graph. + +Another approach would be to aggregate multiple directories into a single +storage object. This object would contain a serialized graph rather than a +single name-to-child dictionary. Most directory operations would fetch the +whole block of data (and presumeably cache it for a while to avoid lots of +re-fetches), and modification operations would need to replace the whole +thing at once. This "realm" approach would have the added benefit of +combining more data into a single encrypted bundle (perhaps hiding the shape +of the graph from the vdrive server better), and would reduce round-trips +when performing deep directory traversals (assuming the realm was already +cached). It would also prevent fine-grained rollback attacks from working: +the vdrive server could change the entire dirnode to look like an earlier +state, but it could not independently roll back individual edges. + +The drawbacks of this aggregation would be that small accesses (adding a +single child, looking up a single child) would require pulling or pushing a +lot of unrelated data, increasing network overhead (and necessitating +test-and-set semantics for the modification side, which increases the chances +that a user operation will fail, making it more challenging to provide +promises of atomicity to the user). + +It would also make it much more difficult to enable the delegation +("sharing") of specific directories. Since each aggregate "realm" provides +all-or-nothing access control, the act of delegating any directory from the +middle of the realm would require the realm first be split into the upper +piece that isn't being shared and the lower piece that is. This splitting +would have to be done in response to what is essentially a read operation, +which is not traditionally supposed to be a high-effort action. + + +=== Dirnode expiration and leases === + +Dirnodes are created any time a client wishes to add a new directory. How +long do they live? What's to keep them from sticking around forever, taking +up space that nobody can reach any longer? + +Our plan is to define the vdrive servers to keep dirnodes alive with +"leases". Clients which know and care about specific dirnodes can ask to keep +them alive for a while, by renewing a lease on them (with a typical period of +one month). Clients are expected to assist in the deletion of dirnodes by +canceling their leases as soon as they are done with them. This means that +when a client deletes a directory, it should also cancel its lease on that +directory. When the lease count on a dirnode goes to zero, the vdrive server +can delete the related storage. Multiple clients may all have leases on the +same dirnode: the server may delete the dirnode only after all of the leases +have gone away. + +We expect that clients will periodically create a "manifest": a list of +so-called "refresh capabilities" for all of the dirnodes and files that they +can reach. They will give this manifest to the "repairer", which is a service +that keeps files (and dirnodes) alive on behalf of clients who cannot take on +this responsibility for themselves. These refresh capabilities include the +storage index, but do *not* include the readkeys or writekeys, so the +repairer does not get to read the files or directories that it is helping to +keep alive. + +After each change to the user's vdrive, the client creates a manifest and +looks for differences from their previous version. Anything which was removed +prompts the client to send out lease-cancellation messages, allowing the data +to be deleted. + + +== Starting Points: root dirnodes == + +Any client can record the URI of a directory node in some external form (say, +in a local file) and use it as the starting point of later traversal. The +current vdrive servers are configured to create a "root" dirnode at startup +and publish its URI to the world: this forms the basis of the "global shared +vdrive" used in the demonstration application. In addition, client code is +currently designed to create a new (unattached) dirnode at startup and record +its URI: this forms the root of the "per-user private vdrive" presented as +the "~" directory. + +== Mounting and Sharing Directories == + +The biggest benefit of this dirnode approach is that sharing individual +directories is almost trivial. Alice creates a subdirectory that she wants to +use to share files with Bob. This subdirectory is attached to Alice's +filesystem at "~alice/share-with-bob". She asks her filesystem for the +read-write directory URI for that new directory, and emails it to Bob. When +Bob receives the URI, he asks his own local vdrive to attach the given URI, +perhaps at a place named "~bob/shared-with-alice". Every time either party +writes a file into this directory, the other will be able to read it. If +Alice prefers, she can give a read-only URI to Bob instead, and then Bob will +be able to read files but not change the contents of the directory. Neither +Alice nor Bob will get access to any files above the mounted directory: there +are no 'parent directory' pointers. If Alice creates a nested set of +directories, "~alice/share-with-bob/subdir2", and gives a read-only URI to +share-with-bob to Bob, then Bob will be unable to write to either +share-with-bob/ or subdir2/. + +A suitable UI needs to be created to allow users to easily perform this +sharing action: dragging a folder their vdrive to an IM or email user icon, +for example. The UI will need to give the sending user an opportunity to +indicate whether they want to grant read-write or read-only access to the +recipient. The recipient then needs an interface to drag the new folder into +their vdrive and give it a home. + +== Revocation == + +When Alice decides that she no longer wants Bob to be able to access the +shared directory, what should she do? Suppose she's shared this folder with +both Bob and Carol, and now she wants Carol to retain access to it but Bob to +be shut out. Ideally Carol should not have to do anything: her access should +continue unabated. + +The current plan is to have her client create a deep copy of the folder in +question, delegate access to the new folder to the remaining members of the +group (Carol), asking the lucky survivors to replace their old reference with +the new one. Bob may still have access to the old folder, but he is now the +only one who cares: everyone else has moved on, and he will no longer be able +to see their new changes. In a strict sense, this is the strongest form of +revocation that can be accomplished: there is no point trying to force Bob to +forget about the files that he read a moment before being kicked out. In +addition it must be noted that anyone who can access the directory can proxy +for Bob, reading files to him and accepting changes whenever he wants. +Preventing delegation between communication parties is just as pointless as +asking Bob to forget previously accessed files. However, there may be value +to configuring the UI to ask Carol to not share files with Bob, or to +removing all files from Bob's view at the same time his access is revoked. +