Apache NiFi SDLC Improvements

© Cloudera, Inc. All rights reserved.
Apache NiFi SDLC Improvements
Bryan Bende / @bbende
November 2019

© Cloudera, Inc. All rights reserved. 2© Cloudera, Inc. All rights reserved.
OUTLINE
• NiFi 1.10.0
• Parameterized Flows
• Force commit
• Auto-select external controller services
• Track enabled/disabled state
• Change version with nested versioning
• NiFi Registry 0.5.0
• Granular proxy permissions
• Public buckets
• Versioned Extension Bundles

PARAMETERIZED FLOWS

PROBLEMS
• Variables are referenced through expression language (EL)…
• Some properties don’t support EL and can’t be parameterized
• Can’t apply access control because references are ambiguous
• Ex: ${foo} could be a flow file attribute, variable, system property, or environment variable
• Without access control, can’t have sensitive variables
• Without sensitive variables, can’t parameterize sensitive properties!

SOLUTION – INTRODUCE PARAMETER CONTEXTS
• Parameter contexts created outside of the flow
• Context has a name, description, and one or more parameters
• Parameter has a name, description, and sensitivity flag
• Process group can be bound to one parameter context
• Components in the process group can reference parameters in the bound context
• New syntax for referencing parameters in properties: #{param-name}
• All properties support parameters regardless of expression language
• Sensitive properties can only reference sensitive parameters (vice versa)
• Integration with NiFi registry when migrating flow between environments

MANAGE PARAMETER CONTEXTS
• Control who can create
parameter contexts
• Control “view” & “modify”
permissions for each context
• Sensitive parameter values
encrypted and never
returned

BIND PROCESS GROUP TO CONTEXT
• Configure process group to select a
parameter context
• Select from contexts the current user
has “view” permissions for
• Requires “modify” on process group

REFERENCE PARAMETERS IN FLOW
• Reference parameters in any property,
regardless of EL support
• Sensitive properties can only reference
sensitive parameters
• Easily promote property values to
parameters from up-arrow icon

VERSION CONTROL FLOW WITH PARAMETERS
"parameterContexts" : {
"SFTP Params" : {
"name" : "SFTP Params",
"parameters" : [
{
"name" : "sftp.password",
"sensitive" : true
}, {
"name" : "sftp.host",
"sensitive" : false,
"value" : "localhost"
}, {
"name" : "sftp.user",
"sensitive" : false,
"value" : "myuser"
}
]
}
• Saved to registry with snapshots of referenced
parameter contexts
• Values of sensitive parameters scrubbed, set
once after importing to target environment
• Sensitive properties in versioned flow retain
parameter references like #{password}

IMPORT/UPGRADE VERSION CONTROLLED FLOW
• For each parameter context in incoming versioned flow…
• If no existing context with same name, create new context using initial values from versioned flow
• Requires permissions to create a new context
• If existing context with same name, add new parameters not already in existing context
• Requires “view” & "modify” permissions to the existing context
• After import/upgrade, set sensitive parameter values in given contexts

MANAGE PARAMETERS WITH NIFI CLI
• CLI commands for…
• create-param-context
• list-param-contexts
• get-param-context
• set-param
• delete-param
• pg-set-param-context
• export-param-context
• import-param-context
• merge-param-context

GENERAL NIFI SDLC IMPROVEMENTS

PROBLEM – CAN’T PROCEED AFTER REVERTING
• If latest version of a flow is bad, change version back to previous (i.e. revert),
BUT now local changes put flow into conflict state
• No way to move forward based on previous version

SOLUTION – FORCE COMMIT
• Allow committing local changes as next version regardless of available
upgrades (i.e. force commit next version)

PROBLEM – UNLINKED CONTROLLER SERVICES
• If a component references a controller service from outside the versioned
process group, service must be re-selected on import (first time only)

SOLUTION – AUTO-SLECET CONTROLLER SERVICES BY NAME
• Track names of external controller services referenced by versioned flow
• During import, find all services from parent groups…
• If only one service matching the desired type with same name, auto-select
• If multiple services matching desired type with same name, require user to select
• Example:
• Dev – service named ‘DBCPConnectionPool’ in root group
• Prod - service name ‘DBCPConnectionPool’ in root group
• Import flow from dev environment to prod environment
• Processors referencing ‘DBCPConnectionPool’ get correctly linked to prod service by name

OTHER IMPROVEMENTS…
• Store enabled/disabled state of components in registry
• Retain appropriate state on import of versioned flow
• https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/NIFI-6025
• Recursively change version on nested versioned process groups when
changing version on a parent
• Ignore changes in local flow caused by new properties with default values

NIFI REGISTRY IMPROVEMENTS

PROBLEM – PROD SHOULDN’T BE ABLE MODIFY REGISTRY
• Many teams want to enforce a development workflow
• Dev -> Staging -> Prod
• If a problem is found in staging or prod, start back in dev
• Previously no way to enforce that a NiFi instance can’t write to a registry

SOLUTION – GRANULAR PROXY PERMISSIONS
• Proxy permissions allow NiFi to make
requests to registry on behalf of an end user
• Previously a single permission for Proxy
(yes or no)
• Proxy permissions now split into ‘Read’,
‘Write’, ‘Delete’
• A proxy with only ‘Read’ can import flows,
but can’t save new versions

PROBLEM – ANONYMOUS ACCESS TO SOME BUCKETS
• Secured registry requires all access to come from authenticated users
• No way to make some items public so that anyone can retrieve them
• Requires all users to have accounts

SOLUTION – DECLARE BUCKETS PUBLICLY VISIBLE
• Allow a bucket to be marked as public
• All items in a public bucket are read-only
for unauthenticated users
• Configure anonymous access
• nifi.registry.security.needClientAuth=false
• When no client cert is presented, user sent to
home page seeing publicly visible items

PROBLEM – VERSION CONTROL OF EXTENSIONS
• Versioned flows reference specific versions of extensions bundles
{
"type" : "org.apache.nifi.processors.standard.LookupRecord",
"bundle" : {
"artifact" : "nifi-standard-nar",
"group" : "org.apache.nifi",
"version" : "1.10.0"
}
...
}
• In order to deploy a flow, we also need the correct extensions bundles
• Previously no way to version control bundles along side the flows

SOLUTION – VERSIONED EXTENSION BUNDLES
• New type of versioned item in registry – ‘bundle’
• Currently one type of bundle – ‘NAR’
• Bundle must provide extension manifest (more info later)
• Registry REST API for interacting with bundles
• Bundles show in registry UI similar to flows

VERSIONED BUNDLES - DEEPER DIVE

EXTENSION MANIFESTS
• Extension manifest describes all extensions contained in the bundle
• XSD
• https://gist.github.com/bbende/8df60c186bd94ed1dbfd42d61cfc63ef
• Example
• https://github.com/apache/nifi-registry/blob/master/nifi-registry-core/nifi-registry-bundle-
utils/src/test/resources/descriptors/extension-manifest-hadoop-nar.xml
• Plan to support different types of bundles for NiFi, MiNiFi CPP, etc.
• Same extension manifest regardless of bundle type
• Extractors to read extension manifest from given bundle types

NAR BUNDLES
• NAR Maven Plugin version 1.3.1 generates extension manifests
• Requires NAR built against nifi-api 1.10.0
• Example from nifi-hadoop-nar
META-INF/
├── docs
| ├── additional-details│
| | ├── org.apache.nifi.processors.hadoop.CreateHadoopSequenceFile│
| | | └── additionalDetails.html│
| | ├── org.apache.nifi.processors.hadoop.ListHDFS│
| | └── org.apache.nifi.processors.hadoop.PutHDFS│
| └── extension-manifest.xml

REGISTRY REST API
• Consult Swagger documentation at:
• http://<registry-host>:18080/nifi-registry-api/swagger/ui.html
• Consult Admin Guide at:
• https://nifi.apache.org/docs/nifi-registry-docs/html/user-guide.html#manage-bundles

NIFI CLI
• Commands to make working with registry REST API easier…
• upload-bundle
• upload-bundles
• download-bundle
• list-bundle-groups
• list-bundle-artifacts
• list-bundle-versions
• list-extensions
• list-extension-tags

EXAMPLE – GENERATE AND BUILD NAR
mvn archetype:generate
-DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.nifi
-DarchetypeArtifactId=nifi-processor-bundle-archetype
-DarchetypeVersion=1.10.0
-DnifiVersion=1.10.0
Define value for property 'groupId': org.apache.nifi
Define value for property 'artifactId': nifi-test-bundle
Define value for property 'version' 1.0-SNAPSHOT: : 1.0.0
Define value for property 'artifactBaseName': test
Define value for property 'package' org.apache.nifi.processors.test: :
cd nifi-test-bundle
mvn clean package
[1] https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NIFI/Maven+Projects+for+Extensions

EXAMPLE – UPLOAD BUNDLE
• Download nifi-toolkit-1.10.0-bin.tar.gz from
https://nifi.apache.org/download.html
• Launch CLI from nifi-toolkit-1.10.0/bin/cli.sh
• Execute upload-bundle command:
• registry upload-bundle -u http://localhost:18080 -b 1005e90f-5751-4f10-8ae5-
69e0961fc02f -ebf /path/to/nifi-test-nar-1.0.0.nar -ebt nifi-nar

EXAMPLE – VIEW IN REGISTRY UI
• Navigate to the registry UI and view bundle as a versioned item

EXAMPLE - BROWSE EXTENSION REPOSITORY API
• Registry REST API exposes a hierarchical linked API for browsing bundles
• Level 1 – Buckets the user is authorized for
• http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-repository
• Level 2 – Bundle group ids within a selected bucket
• http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-repository/Bundles
• Level 3 – Bundle artifact ids within a selected group
• http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-repository/Bundles/org.apache.nifi
• Level 4 – Bundle versions within a selected artifact
• http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-repository/Bundles/org.apache.nifi/nifi-test-nar
• Level 5 – Version specific info (download, checksum, docs)
• http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-repository/Bundles/org.apache.nifi/nifi-test-nar/1.0.0

EXAMPLE – DOWNLOAD BUNDLE
• Use CLI to download bundle to NiFi’s auto-load directory…
• registry download-bundle -u http://localhost:18080 -bn "Bundles" -gr
org.apache.nifi -ar nifi-test-bundle -ver 1.0.0 -od /path/to/nifi-home/extensions
• Alternatively, curl can be used:
• curl http://localhost:18080/nifi-registry-api/extension-
repository/Bundles/org.apache.nifi/nifi-test-nar/1.0.0/content > /path/to/nifi-home/nifi-
test-nar-1.0.0.nar
• NAR will automatically load after a few seconds
• Currently requires hard refresh of NiFi UI to show in the ‘Add Processor’ list

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