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Idea #3897
open[SDKs] Clients can specify which auth config file to load.
Start date:
Due date:
Story points:
0.5
Release:
Release relationship:
Auto
Description
The usual methods by which a client authenticates to Arvados are
- ARVADOS_API_HOST, ARVADOS_API_TOKEN and ARVADOS_API_HOST_INSECURE environment variables
- $HOME/.config/arvados/settings.conf
Both methods stop being convenient when a given UNIX shell account is used to authenticate to more than a single Arvados account at a single Arvados instance with a single API token. Both methods are just plain useless when a single process uses multiple Arvados accounts/instances/tokens (e.g., arv-copy).
The Python SDK has a concept of a connection profile (API version, host, token, insecure flag). This concept should be extended to configuration files: the choice of which credentials/endpoint to use can be indicated by a path to a configuration file.
For example, these could be equivalent:
arv --auth-file ~/.config/arvados/foo.conf user current arv --auth foo user currentNotes:
- Avoid the obvious command line parameter name
--config
for choosing a connection profile, despite the tempting~/.config
path convention. This causes confusion between configuration and authentication. (When the arv tool gets real configuration options, like default output format, visual editor, and auth profile, we'll want those configs to be orthogonal to authentication profiles.) - Avoid assuming there is only one auth profile per Arvados instance. In documentation, avoid directing users to make qr1hi.conf. Something like
tom@qr1hi.conf
makes it more clear what's happening. - Leave room for supporting a file format like yaml, and multiple auth profiles per config file. But for now,
~/.config/arvados/{string}.conf
provides a decent amount of flexibility.
Related issues
Updated by Tom Clegg about 10 years ago
- Subject changed from Clients can authenticate to multiple Arvados instances consistently to [SDKs] Clients can specify which auth config file to load.
- Story points set to 0.5
Updated by Brett Smith over 8 years ago
#3805 suggests an implementation based on an ARVADOS_CONFIG
environment variable.
Updated by Ward Vandewege about 3 years ago
- Target version deleted (
Arvados Future Sprints)
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