neutron-server should be called neutron-api to conform with the rest of OpenStack

[Joe Gordon]

The rest of OpenStack calls its api server *-api, so to make things more uniform neutron should rename neutron-server as neutron-api

[Salvatore Orlando (salvatore-orlando)]

The request sounds fair, but we need to come up with a plan to ensure we do not break backward compatibility.

This affects at least devstack; I think packaging should be updated too.

[Joe Gordon (jogo)]

since neutron uses entry points this should be pretty easy and has already been done once for quantum rename

http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/neutron/tree/setup.cfg#n93

Also while changing things it would be nice to move binaries into an cmd directory similar to nova (http://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack/nova/tree/setup.cfg#n32)

[Akihiro Motoki (amotoki)]

The request sounds fair to me too, but there is a point to be considered before just changing the name.
neutron-server does several number of jobs other than handling API requests.
In my understanding, *-api in other OpenStack projects do only the jobs related to API calls.
(keystone and neutron-server are the exceptions.)
Any thought?

[Joe Gordon (jogo)]

What else does neutron server do besides API calls? Keystone has only one service so there is no need to differentiate between services, so its just keystone.

Perhaps neutron-server should be split up into the API server and the other parts?

[Armando Migliaccio (armando-migliaccio)]

Is the rationale for changing the name just to 'conform' to other openstack projects? Is there a rule that every openstack project need to have an *-api component? This sounds more trouble than it's really worth.

If we went down the road of breaking down the server in multiple components (api + core plugins + service plugins) then I can see that and then calling the api component neutron-api seems obvious, but just doing a rename for the sake of it seems rather pointless. But that's just my opinion.

[Joe Gordon (jogo)]

Armando, two things:

1) What else does neutron-server do besides API? do the other components of neutron-server scale out the same way the rest API does?
2) The reason to conform to the pattern in other openstack projects is to make for a more uniform user (deployer) experience. When debugging issues across multple OpenStack services in gate, I know to first click on the *-api servers at track the request-ids, neutron having a different name just makes things confusing.

I am not very familiar with the neutron code base, so perhaps this change may be more work that it is worth.

[Armando Migliaccio (armando-migliaccio)]

Joe,

neutron-server is not strictly just API handling, it implements all sorts of things: authN/authZ, server-side RPC communication handling with agents (for those plugins that use agents), DB management etc.

Changing a name to be consistent across the board is the least of a deployer's worry if OpenStack projects keep add/removing/moving tons of options per release (let me tell you that I have been there and it's not fun!). Also, since there's a counter-example (keystone), what does changing neutron-server's name buy a deployer anyway?

Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything particular against the name change, but I'd rather avoid the ripple effect caused by the name change, unless we absolutely have too (i.e. we go down the path of rearchitecting the server to align more with other Openstack projects', in which case I am all in for it).

Cheers,
Armando

[Joe Gordon (jogo)]

Armando, the man page calls it an api server http://docs.openstack.org/developer/neutron/man/neutron-server.html. So wither I am missreading that or its a little vague.

Also on the surface I could say nova-api does auth, sends off RPC messages to back end services and uses the database. So I am still unclear on a specific thing neutron-server does that neutron api wouldn't do?

Also keystone has just one service, keystone so no need to differentiate between api and other services. Although that is the same name as the client ...

[Dean Troyer (dtroyer)]

DevStack hasn't even removed the 'q-' prefixes from Neutron process window names. I'd accept a patch for that, and if it included changing q-svc to something else that would be fine.

[Armando Migliaccio (armando-migliaccio)]

I personally think that renaming neutron-server to neutron-api isn't really the right thing to do and it buys us nothing, whilst creating a massive bw compat headache.