python api error when security group is included in server.create()

[Travis]

Including a security group in the novaclient server.create() causes this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./scripts/vm_boot.py", line 23, in <module>
    ,security_groups=security_group)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/v1_1/servers.py", line 902, in create
    **boot_kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/v1_1/servers.py", line 554, in _boot
    return_raw=return_raw, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/base.py", line 100, in _create
    _resp, body = self.api.client.post(url, body=body)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/client.py", line 490, in post
    return self._cs_request(url, 'POST', **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/client.py", line 465, in _cs_request
    resp, body = self._time_request(url, method, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/client.py", line 439, in _time_request
    resp, body = self.request(url, method, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/novaclient/client.py", line 394, in request
    kwargs['data'] = json.dumps(kwargs['body'])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/__init__.py", line 243, in dumps
    return _default_encoder.encode(obj)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 207, in encode
    chunks = self.iterencode(o, _one_shot=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 270, in iterencode
    return _iterencode(o, 0)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/json/encoder.py", line 184, in default
    raise TypeError(repr(o) + " is not JSON serializable")
TypeError: <SecurityGroup description=this is a test group, id=3, name=SECURITY_TEST, rules=[{u'from_port': -1, u'group': {}, u'ip_protocol': u'icmp', u'to_port': -1, u'parent_group_id': 3, u'ip_range': {u'cidr': u'0.0.0.0/0'}, u'id': 2}], tenant_id=954ce66bf8dc44f088367e200af0505c> is not JSON serializable

[melanie witt (melwitt)]

Hi, unfortunately I see the parameter format for security_groups isn't present in the docstring of the public function, but is in the private function as:

:param security_groups: list of security group names

so I think the problem is that you haven't specified the security groups as a list of names.

This is an example:

>>> c.servers.create('hi', '731fcb9a-29ac-4e8d-9147-fa7d2a5c567f', 1, security_groups=['default'])
<Server: hi>
>>> c.servers.list()
[<Server: hi>]

Can you confirm this is the problem? I will get the documentation updated to reflect the parameter description.

[Travis (tmill3r)]

Hi,

Thanks for looking in to this.

I did end up passing my security group as a list like so

security_group = [nova.security_groups.find(name="SECURITY_TEST")]

and still got the error. It seemed it has something to do with the json.dumps() on security groups. The only way I could fix it was add str() in line 497 in novaclient/v2/server.py

if security_groups:
            body["server"]["security_groups"] = [{'name': sg}
                                                 for sg in security_groups]

to

if security_groups:
            body["server"]["security_groups"] = [{'name': str(sg)}
                                                 for sg in security_groups]

and then in novaclient/v2/security_groups.py replace

def __str__(self):
        return str(self.id)

with

def __repr__(self):
        return str(self.name)

[melanie witt (melwitt)]

It appears you are passing a list of security group objects. The parameter has to be a list of security group *names*.

Your call should look something like this based on your example:

client.servers.create('myserver', 'image uuid', 1, security_groups=['SECURITY_TEST'])

[Travis (tmill3r)]

Aha! You are exactly right. It works perfectly now. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[melanie witt (melwitt)]

Thanks for the update, Travis!

I had updated the api docs in this patch: https://review.openstack.org/#/c/163923/

We could use a better error message here though, so I'll look into that.