[jira] Updated: (COUCHDB-835) Whitelisting which config variables may be changed via HTTP

["Jason Smith (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

     [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-835?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel ]

Jason Smith updated COUCHDB-835:
--------------------------------

    Attachment: 0001-Refactor-read-only-config-handlers-to-be-near-each-o.patch

No-op refactor just to make subsequent patches easier to reason about. This patch makes the code cleaner at any rate.

> Whitelisting which config variables may be changed via HTTP
> -----------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: COUCHDB-835
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-835
>             Project: CouchDB
>          Issue Type: New Feature
>          Components: HTTP Interface
>    Affects Versions: 1.0
>         Environment: Linux, Erlang R13B03
>            Reporter: Jason Smith
>            Priority: Minor
>         Attachments: 0001-Refactor-read-only-config-handlers-to-be-near-each-o.patch
>
>
> A database rite of passage is partitioning responsibility into system administrators and DBAs. CouchDB has reached this point. Congratulations!
> The _config API allows changing the .ini file completely over authenticated HTTP, without requiring the CouchDB admin to log in to the server OS. Unfortunately, some configuration settings are OS-oriented (http.port, couchdb.view_index_dir); others are strictly database settings (uuids.algorithm); and still others must be decided case-by-case (log.level, couchdb.max_document_size).
> In short, CouchDB should support a whitelist, with which the system administrator can specify which _config values are may be modified by the DBA, and which are read-only.
> I propose that this whitelist is itself a config option, httpd.config_whitelist. If it is undefined, there is no whitelist and no change of behavior. If specified, the whitelist is an Erlang list of 2-tuples of the format:
>     [{section1, key1}, {section2, key2}, {section_with_wildcard, "*"}, ...]
> When processing a PUT or DELETE, CouchDB confirms inclusion of the section/key in the whitelist.
> I foresee two modes of operation:
> * DBA is top dog: The whitelist includes {httpd,config_whitelist} itself. Thus the DBA may modified the list later over HTTP. The whitelist is just a safeguard against accidental changes.
> * Sysadmin is top dog: The whitelist does not include {httpd,config_whitelist}. The DBA is unable to change the list and may only ask politely for updates to the policy.
> (In any case, you can always edit the .ini file and _restart from the server OS.)

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