# Structured Configuration - Project lead: jsankey@google.com - Area(s): Components ## Problem statement Software is more flexible and reusable if it can be "configured"; that is, if aspects of its behavior can be controlled externally rather than being fixed by its source code. Fuchsia is intended for use in large scale production environments across a wide range of products so there are many reasons configuration might be necessary. For example: - A product engineer tailoring operation of a platform component to meet the needs of the product. - A software engineer enabling additional diagnostics or faster timeouts during an automated platform test. - A release manager enabling a new feature on a product's beta channel before the production channel. - A user researcher A/B testing a proposed UI change on a small fraction of a product's production fleet. - An enterprise administrator constraining the functionality of devices owned and managed by the enterprise. - A software developer changing system parameters while developing an application in order to explore failure modes. - An end user customizing their device to enable a pre-release feature. Note that these examples have very different properties. Some are "static", applying the configuration when a package is built or a system is assembled, others are "dynamic", applying the configuration without any change in the system image. Some imply a change that should persist across power cycles while in others change should be only temporary. Some should be possible across all products while others are only meaningful in the context of a single product. Other platforms offer one or more flexible configuration mechanisms to meet this wide range of needs. For example, Chrome has Prefs, Settings, Features, Switches \& Flags On Fuchsia today, configuration of platform components is performed primarily through two mechanisms: - `config_data`. Build creates a single `config_data` package containing a directory for each package containing a configurable component. These components can read their own configuration files from this package at runtime. - `#defines`. Some software is conditionally compiled based on build system arguments (e.g. `auto_update_packages`). These arguments can be varied across products. Some platform services also expose FIDL interfaces to control their configuration and may persist this data across power cycles using isolated persistent storage or stash. These mechanisms have been adequate for handling simple configuration cases across a small number of products but are not amenable to dynamic or multi-layered configuration and are already causing a number of pain points. For example: - Configuration is set at the system image level and so even minor differences in configuration have required the addition of new products (e.g., `_eng_arrested` products) - Configuration is set at the system image level and so (given the current lack of out of tree assembly) can't be managed out-of-tree - Configuration is fixed for a system image so production images cannot be directly debugged. For example, a "user" image cannot be combined with different flags and re-signed with developer keys to enable ssh on a dev-keyed device. - Some configuration occurs during compilation which limits the reuse of precompiled artifacts across products. - Some areas have introduced domain-specific workarounds for the lack of platform-level configuration (e.g. modular config) - Non-trivial migrations are dangerous since all devices in a channel will migrate at the same time. Safely launching places significant burden on the component developer to support parallel operation and conduct a dark launch (e.g. roughtime to HTTPSDate migration) - The `config_data` system was created for CFv1 and a model of one component per package. Support in CFv2 is possible using the "directory subdir" feature but this is labor intensive and error prone. ## Solution statement This project is still in its early stages and further work is required to finalize the requirements and the solution. Files delivered to components through the `config_data` package are opaque to the platform - different components use different file formats and the data can be arbitrarily complex. The Fuchsia platform has no way of knowing what data a component expects or accepts so the platform cannot validate the data or combine elements from different sources. Accepting opaque configuration data from untrusted sources would raise a number of security concerns. We believe a new type of "structured configuration data" is necessary to complement the existing "opaque configuration data". This structured configuration data should have the following properties: - Each component clearly defines the data elements it expects - The permitted values for each data element are clearly defined: Booleans, enumerations, and bounded integers would be sufficient in many cases. - The platform assembles structured configuration data from a variety of sources supporting both static and dynamic configuration. - Sources are able to prohibit certain changes at "higher" layers, for example a product configuration should be able to prevent dynamic rollout of an incompatible feature. - The platform delivers structured configuration data to components (e.g. through a runner) independently of the source that set the data, i.e. components do not know whether a particular data element was configured dynamically or statically. - Dynamic configuration is available to diagnostics so bugs and system metric changes can be attributed to the experiments and partial rollouts that caused them. We expect work over the next quarter will involve the following phases. ### Phase 1 Clearly define the potential sources of configuration, the relationships between these, and the key attributes used to describe configuration changes. Agree which combinations are supported in the short and long term and which are the recommended mechanisms for implementing each. This includes describing the boundaries between the different forms of configuration, for example when should a configuration be handled by the system settings service. The exercise will better define the gap that structured configuration must fill. The end result should feel similar to the Chrome reference page for configuration and should be published on fuchsia.dev. ### Phase 2 Define and prioritize the requirements that structured configuration must fulfil both in the short term and the eventual future. Work with 1-2 launch customers to agree schedules and needs for 2021. Likely candidates are supporting the migration of existing customers away from modular (and hence away from modular config) or expanding the types of configuration possible in scalable product assembly. Open questions for this phase are largely related to scope. For example: - Do v1 components or non-componentized drivers need to be supported? - Should component manager be configured using the same system as the components it manages? - Should it be possible to configure different instances of the same component differently? - Is persistence of dynamic configuration necessary in the short term? ### Phase 3 Propose and agree on a technical solution meeting these requirements through the RFC process. ## Dependencies At this stage the structured configuration project does not depend on any other ongoing projects. It is likely that the other projects will choose to depend on structured configuration to enable some new capability or migration. For example, migrating an existing product to session framework might depend on structured configuration to replace modular configuration. Depending on scope and schedule, structured configuration might only be supported for component framework v2 components. Potentially this would create a transitive dependency from projects wishing to use structured configuration to component v2 migration or drivers as components. ## Risks and mitigations The solution is not yet fully defined and additional risks may emerge during this process. Currently the primary risk appears to be around schedule; will structured configuration be ready in time to meet the needs of the first customers? This risk could be partially mitigated by adding more people to the project once a technical solution has been agreed. 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