API - oVirt workshop November 2011 Notes

Presenter slides: File:OVirt-API-CLI-SDK-20111102.pdf

oVirt API

Maintainer

Michael Pasternak: mpastern@redhat.com

Overview

• Overview of HTTP and RESTful protocols
• Compare/Contrast SOAP & REST
• Overview of oVirt-API url structure / headers; examples of different methods
• Responses are blocked until operation completes (is what I think I heard)
• Browser tour of API
• Suggested tools for using the REST API (FF REST, curl, etc), and examples operations w/ 'em
• Python SDK - fully compliant w/ oVirt API, autogenerated
  • RSDL - RESTful Services Description Language; http(s)://server:port/api?rsdl describes parameter constraints
  • Overview of using the SDK
  • (Something about SSL - missed it doubletasking)
• CLI usage
• What next?
  • non-admin user access - restricting views of resources
  • atomic ops - e.g. changing network config w/o losing access (iirc)
  • supporting new features of the oVirt engine

Discussion

Q: How do we know that we didn't break API compat?
In general we don't want to break the API, but some things are marked as new/may change.
Need to define a deprecation strategy.
Suggestion: major versions can break the API/minors must not.
Maybe too early to keep a static API.
DB scheme changes - API will have to change or backward compat layer maintained

Q: can you lock a resource (e.g. while updating)
Not today; actions can conflict (shutdown a vm racing w/ a vm change) - but updates do not.
Maybe worth adding this functionality to the API.