qubes-doc/services/mgmt1.md

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doc-full	Management API	/doc/mgmt1/

Management API

(This page is the current draft of the proposal. It is not implemented yet.)

The API should be implemented as a set of qrexec calls. This is to make it easy to set the policy using current mechanism.

The calls

call	dest	argument	inside	return	note
mgmt.vm.List	dom0	-	-	<name> class=<class> state=<state>\n
mgmt.vm.Create.<class>	dom0	template	name=<name> label=<label>	-
mgmt.vm.CreateInPool.<class>	dom0	template	name=<name> label=<label> pool=<pool>	-
mgmt.vm.CreateTemplate	dom0	name	root.img	-
mgmt.vm.property.List	vm	-	-	<property>\n
mgmt.vm.property.Get	vm	property	-	`default={yes	no} `
mgmt.vm.property.Help	vm	property	-	help.rst
mgmt.vm.property.Reset	vm	property	-	-
mgmt.vm.property.Set	vm	property	value	-
mgmt.vm.feature.List	vm	-	-	<feature>\n
mgmt.vm.feature.Get	vm	feature	-	value
mgmt.vm.feature.CheckWithTemplate	vm	feature	-	value
mgmt.vm.feature.Remove	vm	feature	-	-
mgmt.vm.feature.Set	vm	feature	value	-
mgmt.vm.tag.List	vm	tag	-	<tag>\n
mgmt.vm.tag.Get	vm	tag	-	0 or 1	retcode?
mgmt.vm.tag.Remove	vm	tag	-	-
mgmt.vm.tag.Set	vm	tag	-	-
mgmt.vm.firewall.Get	vm	position	-	<rule id> <rule>\n
mgmt.vm.firewall.InsertRule	vm	position	rule	rule id
mgmt.vm.firewall.RemoveRule	vm	rule id	-	-
mgmt.vm.firewall.Flush	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.device.<class>.Attach	vm	device	-	-
mgmt.vm.device.<class>.Detach	vm	device	-	-
mgmt.vm.device.<class>.List	vm	-	-	<device>\n
mgmt.vm.device.<class>.Available	vm	-	-	<device>\n
mgmt.vm.microphone.Attach	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.microphone.Detach	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.pool.List	dom0	-	-	<pool>\n
mgmt.pool.Info	dom0	pool	-	<property>=<value>\n
mgmt.pool.Add	dom0	pool	<property>=<value>\n	-
mgmt.pool.Remove	dom0	pool	-	-
mgmt.pool.volume.List	dom0	pool	-	volume id
mgmt.pool.volume.Info	dom0	pool:vid	-	<property>=<value>\n
mgmt.pool.volume.ListSnapshots	dom0	pool:vid	-	<snapshot>\n
mgmt.pool.volume.Snapshot	dom0	pool:vid	-	snapshot
mgmt.pool.volume.Revert	dom0	pool:vid	snapshot	-
mgmt.pool.volume.Extend	dom0	pool:vid	-	<size_in_bytes>
mgmt.vm.volume.List	vm	-/pool?	-	?
mgmt.vm.volume.Info	vm	volume	-	?
mgmt.vm.volume.ListSnapshots	vm	volume	-	snapshot	duplicate of mgmt.pool.volume., but with other call params
mgmt.vm.volume.Snapshot	vm	volume	-	snapshot	id.
mgmt.vm.volume.Revert	vm	volume	snapshot	-	id.
mgmt.vm.volume.Extend	vm	volume	-	<size_in_bytes>	id.
mgmt.vm.volume.Attach	vm	volume	-	-
mgmt.vm.volume.Detach	vm	volume	-	-
mgmt.vm.Start	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.Shutdown	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.Pause	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.Unpause	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.vm.Kill	vm	-	-	-
mgmt.backup.Execute	dom0	config id	-	-	config in /etc/qubes/backup/<id>.conf
mgmt.backup.Info	dom0	?	content?	?
mgmt.backup.Restore	dom0	?	content	?

Returned messages

First byte of a message is a message type. This is 8 bit non-zero integer. Values start at 0x30 (48, '0', zero digit in ASCII) for readability in hexdump. Next byte must be 0x00 (a separator).

This alternatively can be thought of as zero-terminated string containing single ASCII digit.

OK (0)

30 00 <content>

Server will close the connection after delivering single message.

EVENT (1)

31 00 <subject> 00 <event> 00 ( <key> 00 <value> 00 )* 00

Events are returned as stream of messages in selected API calls. Normally server will not close the connection.

A method yielding events will not ever return a OK or EXCEPTION message.

EXCEPTION (2)

32 00 <type> 00 ( <traceback> )? 00 <format string> 00 ( <field> 00 )*

Server will close the connection.

Traceback may be empty, can be enabled server-side as part of debug mode. Delimiting zero-byte is always present.

Fields are should substituted into %-style format string, possibly after client-side translation, to form final message to be displayed unto user. Server does not by itself support translation.

Tags

• created-by-<vm>
• managed-by-<vm>
• backup-<id>

General notes

• there is no provision for qvm-run, but there already exists qubes.VMShell call

TODO

• something to configure/update policy
• notifications
  • how to constrain the events?
  • how to pass the parameters? maybe XML, since this is trusted anyway and parser may be complicated
• how to constrain the possible values for mgmt.vm.property.Set etc, like "you can change netvm, but you have to pick from this set"; this currently can be done by writing an extension
• a call for executing *.desktop file from /usr/share/applications, for use with appmenus without giving access to qubes.VMShell; currently this can be done by writing custom qrexec calls
• maybe some generator for .desktop for appmenus, which would wrap calls in qrexec-client-vm