# Property Protections

There are two types of image properties in Glance:

- Core Properties, as specified by the image schema.

- Meta Properties, which are arbitrary key/value pairs that can be added to an image.

Access to meta properties through Glance’s public API calls may be restricted to certain sets of users, using a property protections configuration file. Glance also reserves the `os_glance` namespace of meta properties for its own use, and will refuse to let an API user set any property prefixed as such.

This document explains exactly how property protections are configured and what they apply to.

## Constructing a Property Protections Configuration File

A property protections configuration file follows the format of the Glance API configuration file, which consists of sections, led by a `[section]` header and followed by `name = value` entries. Each section header is a regular expression matching a set of properties to be protected.

Note

Section headers must compile to a valid regular expression, otherwise glance api service will not start. Regular expressions will be handled by python’s re module which is PERL like.

Each section describes four key-value pairs, where the key is one of `create/read/update/delete`, and the value is a comma separated list of user roles that are permitted to perform that operation in the Glance API. If any of the keys are not specified, then the glance api service will not start successfully.

In the list of user roles, `@` means all roles and `!` means no role. If both @ and ! are specified for the same rule then the glance api service will not start

Note

Only one policy rule is allowed per property operation. If multiple are specified, then the glance api service will not start.

The path to the file should be specified in the `[DEFAULT]` section of `glance-api.conf` as follows.

    property_protection_file=/path/to/file

If this config value is not specified, property protections are not enforced. If the path is invalid, glance api service will not start successfully.

The file may use either roles or policies to describe the property protections. The config value should be specified in the `[DEFAULT]` section of `glance-api.conf` as follows.

    property_protection_rule_format=<roles|policies>

The default value for `property_protection_rule_format` is `roles`.

Property protections are applied in the order specified in the configuration file. This means that if for example you specify a section with `[.*]` at the top of the file, all proceeding sections will be ignored.

If a property does not match any of the given rules, all operations will be disabled for all roles.

If an operation is misspelled or omitted, that operation will be disabled for all roles.

Disallowing `read` operations will also disallow `update/delete` operations.

A successful HTTP request will return status `200 OK`. If the user is not permitted to perform the requested action, `403 Forbidden` will be returned.

this page last updated: 2026-08-19 03:42:39

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