3.8. Security Contexts

3.8.1. Context Class – radical.saga.context

class radical.saga.context.Context(ctype, _adaptor=None, _adaptor_state={})[source]

Bases: Base, Attributes

A SAGA Context object as defined in GFD.90.

A security context is a description of a security token. It is important to understand that, in general, a context really just describes a token, but that a context is not a token (*). For example, a context may point to a X509 certificate – but it will in general not hold the certificate contents.

Context classes are used to inform the backends used by SAGA on what security tokens are expected to be used. By default, SAGA will be able to pick up such tokens from their default location, but in some cases it might be necessary to explicitly point to them - then use Session with context instances to do so.

The usage example for contexts is below:

# define an ssh context
ctx = saga.Context("SSH")
ctx.user_cert = '$HOME/.ssh/special_id_rsa'
ctx.user_key  = '$HOME/.ssh/special_id_rsa.pub'

# add the context to a session
session = saga.Session()
session.add_context(ctx)

# create a job service in this session -- that job service can now
# *only* use that ssh context.
j = saga.job.Service('ssh://remote.host.net/', session=session)

The Session argument to the job.Service constructor is fully optional – if left out, SAGA will use default session, which picks up some default contexts as described above – that will suffice for the majority of use cases.


(*) The only exception to this rule is the ‘UserPass’ key, which is used to hold plain-text passwords. Use this key with care – it is not good practice to hard-code passwords in the code base, or in config files. Also, be aware that the password may show up in log files, when debugging or analyzing your application.

3.8.2. UserPass Context

This context stores a user id and password, to be used for backend connections. This context can be used for SSH connections if it is preferred over public-/private-key authentication.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("UserPass")

The type for this context has to be set to “UserPass” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("ssh").

radical.saga.context.user_id

The username on the target resource.

radical.saga.context.user_pass

The pass-phrase to use.

Warning

NEVER put plain-text passwords into your source file. It is a huge security risk! Reading passwords from the command line, and environment variable or a configuration file instead would be a much better option.

Example:

ctx = radical.saga.Context("UserPass")

ctx.user_id   = "johndoe"
ctx.user_pass = os.environ['MY_USER_PASS']

session = radical.saga.Session()
session.add_context(ctx)

js = radical.saga.job.Service("ssh://machine_y.futuregrid.org",
                      session=session)

3.8.3. SSH Context

This SSH :context points to a ssh public/private key-pair and user id to be used for any ssh-based backend connections, e.g., ssh://, pbs+ssh:// and so on.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("SSH")

The type for this context has to be set to “SSH” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("SSH").

radical.saga.context.user_id

The username on the target resource.

radical.saga.context.user_key

The public ssh key file to use for the connection. This attribute is useful if an SSH key-pair other than the default one (in $HOME/.ssh/) is required to establish a connection.

radical.saga.context.user_pass

The pass-phrase to use to decrypt a password-protected key.

Warning

NEVER put plain-text passwords into your source file. It is a huge security risk! Reading passwords from the command line, and environment variable or a configuration file instead would be a much better option.

Example:

ctx = radical.saga.Context("SSH")

ctx.user_id   = "johndoe"
ctx.user_key  = "/home/johndoe/.ssh/key_for_machine_x"
ctx.user_pass = "XXXX"  # password to decrypt 'user_key' (if required)

session = radical.saga.Session()
session.add_context(ctx)

js = radical.saga.job.Service("ssh://machine_x.futuregrid.org",
                      session=session)

3.8.4. X.509 Context

The X.509 context points to an existing, local X509 proxy.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("X509")

The type for this context has to be set to “X509” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("X509").

radical.saga.context.user_proxy

The X509 user proxy file to use for the connection. This attribute is useful if a proxy file other than the default one (in /tmp/x509_u<uid>) is required to establish a connection.

Example:

ctx = radical.saga.Context("X509")

ctx.user_proxy = "/tmp/x509_u123_for_machine_y"

session = radical.saga.Session()
session.add_context(ctx)

js = radical.saga.job.Service("gsissh://machine_y.futuregrid.org",
                      session=session)

3.8.5. MyProxy Context

The MyProxy context fetches a delegated X.509 proxy from a (Globus) myproxy server.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("MyProxy")

The type for this context has to be set to “MyProxy” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("MyProxy").

radical.saga.context.server

The hostname of the myproxy server. This is equivalent to myproxy-logon --pshost.

radical.saga.context.user_id

The username for the delegated proxy. This is equivalent to myproxy-logon --username.

radical.saga.context.life_time

The lifetime of the delegated proxy. This is equivalent to myproxy-logon --proxy_lifetime (default is 12h).

radical.saga.context.user_pass

The password for the delegated proxy.

Warning

NEVER put plain-text passwords into your source file. It is a huge security risk! Reading passwords from the command line, and environment variable or a configuration file instead would be a much better option.

Example:

c = radical.saga.Context("MyProxy")

c.server    = "myproxy.teragrid.org"
c.user_id   = "johndoe"
c.user_pass = os.environ['MY_USER_PASS']

session = radical.saga.Session()
session.add_context(ctx)

js = radical.saga.job.Service("pbs+gsissh://gsissh.kraken.nics.xsede.org",
                       session=session)

3.8.6. EC2 Context

The EC2 context can be used to authenticate against the Amazon EC2 service.

Note

EC2 Contexts are usually used in conjunction with an EC2_KEYPAIR and an SSH Context as shown in the example below.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("MyProxy")

The type for this context has to be set to “EC2” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("EC2").

radical.saga.context.user_id

The Amazon EC2 ID. See the Amazon Web-Services website for more details.

radical.saga.context.user_key

The Amazon EC2 key. See the Amazon Web-Services website for more details.

Example:

ec2_ctx = radical.saga.Context('EC2')
ec2_ctx.user_id = 'XXXXXXXXXXYYYYYYYYZ'
ec2_ctx.user_key = 'WwwwwwXxxxxxxxxxYyyyyyyyyZzzzzzz'

# The SSH key-pair we want to use the access the EC2 VM. If the keypair is
# not yet registered on EC2 saga will register it automatically.
ec2keypair_ctx = radical.saga.Context('EC2_KEYPAIR')
ec2keypair_ctx.token = 'KeyName'
ec2keypair_ctx.user_key = '$HOME/.ssh/ec2_key'
ec2keypair_ctx.user_id = 'root'  # the user id on the target VM

# The same SSH key-pair as above, but this one will be picked up by the SSH
# adaptor. While this is somewhat redundant, it is still necessary because
# of current limitations imposed by 'liblcoud', the library which implements
# the radical.saga EC2 adaptor.
ssh_ctx = radical.saga.Context('SSH')
ssh_ctx.user_id = 'root'
ssh_ctx.user_key = '$HOME/.ssh/ec2_key'

session = radical.saga.Session(False)  # FALSE: don't use other (default) contexts
session.contexts.append(ec2_ctx)
session.contexts.append(ec2keypair_ctx)
session.contexts.append(ssh_ctx)

3.8.7. EC2_KEYPAIR Context

This context refers to an SSH key-pair and is very similar to the SSH Context described above. It is used to inject a key-pair into an Amazon EC2 VM and is used injunction with an EC2 Context. See above for an example.

The following context attributes are supported:

radical.saga.context.Contex("EC2_KEYPAIR")

The type for this context has to be set to “EC2_KEYPAIR” in the constructor, i.e., radical.saga.Context("EC2_KEYPAIR").

radical.saga.context.user_id

The username on the target resource.

radical.saga.context.user_key

The public ssh key file to use for the connection. This attribute is useful if an SSH key-pair other than the default one (in $HOME/.ssh/) is required to establish a connection.

radical.saga.context.user_pass

The pass-phrase to use to decrypt a password-protected key.

radical.saga.context.token

The Amazon EC2 identifier for this key-pair.