File Manager Service in OpenBMC

[Sunitha Harish]

Thank you Andrew for the reply.

When IBM manages a single server with multiple management 
clients(redfish clients), they need to save some server related data 
(host data) in the form of files at BMC's persistent file system. Here 
BMC is used as a common persistent storage, which is accessible to all 
connected redfish clients.

Additionally, for IBM usecase, BMC need not consume these files, as they 
are targeted to be used by the host/hypervisor. We control the file 
permissions accordingly to make it non-executable at BMC. We already 
have a implementation at the bmcweb currently at 
https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/include/ibm/management_console_rest.hpp. 
This is being re-designing as i mentioned in previous email.

If community is interested to have a File Manager running in BMC, then 
this re-design can be a generic solution.

Thanks & regards,
Sunitha


On 09/02/24 4:48 am, Andrew Jeffery wrote:
> On Thu, 2024-02-08 at 12:52 +0530, Sunitha Harish wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> This email is about adding a FileManager Service in OpenBMC.
>>
>> IBM has usecases implemented under /ibm/v1 path at bmcweb, which uploads
>> and manages files on the BMC. This usecase is being re-designed, to stop
>> bmcweb from modifying and accessing BMC file system directly.
>>
>> To achieve this, a dbus & backend application is needed. This should
>> provide APIs to Create, Update, Get and Delete a file. This application
>> should also take care of security aspects of the File upload usecases,
>> before letting the BMC file system updated. Please share your views on
>> adding this application.
> I'm struggling to make sense of this.
>
> What are we actually trying to achieve? If bmcweb can indirectly write
> arbitrary files through this service there's no advantage. Instead we
> have a whole bunch of complexity and overhead.
>
> It feels like the GPIO conversation that we seem to have periodically
> in the project. I think we need more information on *the use* of the
> files you need to upload.
>
> Andrew
>