Bidirectional Message Routing in Multi-Tenant Clusters
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Solution Overview
Problem
The OpenStack Swift system faces challenges in establishing a secure and persistent bidirectional communication channel between a central management system and nodes across insecure networks, particularly in a multitenant, multi-network distributed environment, where secure management and monitoring are necessary to prevent unauthorized access and ensure data integrity.
Innovation Solution
A node router process at the controller node receives messages wrapped in routing envelopes with universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) and ephemeral IDs, using secure virtual private network tunnels to route messages between services on different nodes, ensuring secure communication and reestablishing connections after network interruptions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a central management system establishes communication channels with multiple distributed nodes over insecure networks, then the system achieves multitenant, multi-network distributed management capability, but the security and persistence of communication channels cannot be guaranteed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a control plane as an intermediary between management systems and data plane nodes. The control plane establishes secure persistent channels (Unix domain sockets, named pipes, or secure TCP sockets) with each node, mediating all communication. This allows the management system to communicate securely with distributed nodes without exposing itself directly to insecure networks, resolving the contradiction between distributed management capability and communication security.
2Reliability
If secure persistent communication channels are established between the central management system and distributed nodes, then communication security is improved, but the system complexity increases due to channel management overhead
Solution Approach 1:
The control plane implements self-service mechanisms for channel management. It automatically discovers nodes on the network, dynamically establishes secure communication channels with them, and maintains channel persistence. This automation eliminates the need for manual channel configuration and reduces management overhead, allowing secure communication to be maintained without proportionally increasing system complexity.
3Reliability
If manual configuration of secure communication channels is performed for each node, then communication security can be ensured, but the ease of operation and deployment is significantly reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The control plane performs preliminary actions by proactively discovering nodes and establishing secure communication channels before any management operations are required. Nodes are automatically registered with the control plane, and communication channels are pre-configured and validated. This eliminates the need for operators to manually configure security parameters, making deployment simple while maintaining security through automated best-practice configurations.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems are disclosed for secure bi-directional message routing between services running on a different nodes in a computer cluster. According to some embodiments, a multi-tenant computer cluster is accessed online via a controller. The controller, acting as central management system, may establish secure independent connections with each of the many nodes. Messages from the controller to any given node, and vice versa, are wrapped in a routing envelope and transferred over an independent and secure virtual private network tunnel. This allows the plurality of nodes to be centrally managed and utilized as a cluster while not being allowed to communicate with each other.