# Support filtering by forbidden aggregate membership

https://storyboard.openstack.org/#!/story/2005297

This blueprint proposes to support for negative filtering by the underlying resource provider’s aggregate membership.

## Problem description

Placement currently supports `member_of` query parameters for the `GET /resource_providers` and `GET /allocation_candidates` endpoints. This parameter is either “a string representing an aggregate uuid” or “the prefix `in:` followed by a comma-separated list of strings representing aggregate uuids”.

For example:

    &member_of=in:<agg1>,<agg2>&member_of=<agg3>

would translate logically to:

“Candidate resource providers should be in either agg1 or agg2, but definitely in agg3.” (See alloc-candidates-member-of spec for details)

However, there is no expression for forbidden aggregates in the API. In other words, we have no way to say “don’t use resource providers in this special aggregate for non-special workloads”.

### Use Cases

This feature is useful to save special resources for specific users.

#### Use Case 1

Some of the compute host are Licensed Windows Compute Host, meaning any VMs booted on this compute host will be considered as licensed Windows image and depending on the usage of VM, operator will charge it to the end-users. As an operator, I want to avoid booting images/volumes other than Windows OS on Licensed Windows Compute Host.

#### Use Case 2

Reservation projects like blazar would like to have its own aggregate for host reservation in order to have consumers without any reservations to be scheduled outside of that aggregate in order to save the reserved resources.

## Proposed change

Adjust the handling of the `member_of` parameter so that aggregates can be expressed as forbidden. Forbidden aggregates are prefixed with a `!`.

In the following example:

    &member_of=!<agg1>

would translate logically to:

“Candidate resource providers should not be in agg1”

This negative expression can also be used in multiple `member_of` parameters:

    &member_of=in:<agg1>,<agg2>&member_of=<agg3>&member_of=!<agg4>

would translate logically to:

“Candidate resource providers must be at least one of agg1 or agg2, definitely in agg3 and definitely not in agg4.”

Note that we don’t support `!` for arguments to the `in:` prefix:

    &member_of=in:<agg1>,<agg2>,!<agg3>

This would result in HTTP 400 Bad Request error.

Instead, we support `!in:` prefix:

    &member_of=!in:<agg1>,<agg2>,<agg3>

which is equivalent to:

    member_of=!<agg1>&member_of=!<agg2>&member_of=!<agg3>

### Nested resource providers

For nested resource providers, an aggregate on a root provider automatically spans the whole tree. When a root provider is in forbidden aggregates, the child providers can’t be a candidate even if the child provider belongs to no (or another different) aggregate.

In the following environments, for example,

                                         +-----------------------+
                                         | sharing storage (ss1) |
                                         |   agg: [aggB]         |
                                         +-----------+-----------+
                                                     | aggB
    +------------------------------+  +--------------|--------------+
    | +--------------------------+ |  | +------------+------------+ |
    | | compute node (cn1)       | |  | |compute node (cn2)       | |
    | |   agg: [aggA]            | |  | |  agg: [aggB]            | |
    | +-----+-------------+------+ |  | +----+-------------+------+ |
    |       | parent      | parent |  |      | parent      | parent |
    | +-----+------+ +----+------+ |  | +----+------+ +----+------+ |
    | | numa1_1    | | numa1_2   | |  | | numa2_1   | | numa2_2   | |
    | |  agg:[aggC]| |   agg:[]  | |  | |   agg:[]  | |   agg:[]  | |
    | +-----+------+ +-----------+ |  | +-----------+ +-----------+ |
    +-------|----------------------+  +-----------------------------+
            | aggC
      +-----+-----------------+
      | sharing storage (ss2) |
      |   agg: [aggC]         |
      +-----------------------+

the exclusion constraint is as follows:

- `member_of=!<aggA>` excludes “cn1”, “numa1_1” and “numa1_2”.

- `member_of=!<aggB>` excludes “cn2”, “numa2_1”, “numa2_2”, and “ss1”.

- `member_of=!<aggC>` excludes “numa1_1” and “ss2”.

Note that this spanning doesn’t happen on numbered `member_of` parameters, which is used for the granular request:

- `member_of<N>=!<aggA>` excludes “cn1”

- `member_of<N>=!<aggB>` excludes “cn2” and “ss1”

- `member_of<N>=!<aggC>` excludes “numa1_1” and “ss2”.

See granular-resource-request spec for details.

### Alternatives

We can use forbidden traits to exclude specific resource providers, but if we use traits, then we should put Blazar or windows license trait not only on root providers but also on every resource providers in the tree, so we don’t take this way.

We can also create nova scheduler filters to do post-processing of compute hosts by looking at host aggregate relationships just as BlazarFilter does today. However, this is inefficient and we don’t want to develop/use another filter for the windows license use case.

### Data model impact

None.

### REST API impact

A new microversion will be created which will update the validation for the `member_of` parameter on `GET /allocation_candidates` and `GET /resource_providers` to accept `!` both as a prefix on aggregate uuids and as a prefix to the `in:` prefix to express that the prefixed aggregate (or the aggregates) is to be excluded from the results.

We do not return 400 if an agg UUID is found on both the positive and negative sides of the request. For example:

    &member_of=in:<agg1>,<agg2>&member_of=!<agg2>

The first member_of would return all resource_providers in either agg1 or agg2, while the second member_of would eliminate those in agg2. The result will be a 200 containing just those resource_providers in agg1. Likewise, we do not return 400 for cases like:

    &member_of=<agg1>&member_of=!<agg1>

As in the previous example, we return 200 with empty results, since this is a syntactically valid request, even though a resource provider cannot be both inside and outside of agg1 at the same time.

### Security impact

None.

### Notifications impact

None.

### Other end user impact

None.

### Performance Impact

Queries to the database will see a moderate increase in complexity but existing table indexes should handle this with aplomb.

### Other deployer impact

None.

### Developer impact

This helps us to develop a simple reservation mechanism without having a specific nova filter, for example, via the following flow:

0. Operator who wants to enable blazar sets default forbidden and required membership key in the `nova.conf`.

   - The parameter key in the configuration file is something like `[scheduler]/placement_req_default_forbidden_member_prefix` and the value is set by the operator to `reservation:`.

   - The parameter key in the configuration file is something like `[scheduler]/placement_req_required_member_prefix` and the value would is set by the operator to `reservation:`.

1. Operator starts up the service and makes a host-pool for reservation via blazar API

   - Blazar makes an nova aggregate with `reservation:<random_id>` metadata on initialization as a blazar’s free pool

   - Blazar puts hosts specified by the operator into the free pool aggregate on demand

2. User uses blazar to make a host reservation and to get the reservation id

   - Blazar picks up a host from the blazar’s free pool

   - Blazar creates a new nova aggregate for that reservation and set that aggregate’s metadata key to `reservation:<resv_id>` and puts the reserved host into that aggregate

3. User creates a VM with a flavor/image with `reservation:<resv_id>` meta_data/extra_specs to consume the reservation

   - Nova finds in the flavor that the extra_spec has a key which starts with what is set in `[scheduler]/placement_req_required_member_prefix`, and looks up the table for aggregates which has the specified metadata:

         required_prefix = CONF.scheduler.placement_req_required_member_prefix
         # required_prefix = 'reservation:'
         required_meta_data = get_flavor_extra_spec_starts_with(required_prefix)
         # required_meta_data = 'reservation:<resv_id>'
         required_aggs = aggs_whose_metadata_is(required_meta_data)
         # required_aggs = [<An aggregate for the reservation>]

   - Nova finds out that the default forbidden aggregate metadata prefix, which is set in `[scheduler]/placement_req_default_forbidden_member_prefix`, is explicitly via the flavor, so skip:

         default_forbidden_prefix = CONF.scheduler.placement_req_default_forbidden_member_prefix
         # default_forbidden_prefix = ['reservation:']
         forbidden_aggs = set()
         if not get_flavor_extra_spec_starts_with(default_forbidden_prefix):
             # this is skipped because 'reservation:' is in the flavor in this case
             forbidden_aggs = aggs_whose_metadata_starts_with(default_forbidden_prefix)

   - Nova calls placement with required and forbidden aggregates:

         # We don't have forbidden aggregates in this case
         ?member_of=<required_aggs>

4. User creates a VM with a flavor/image with no reservation, that is, without `reservation:<resv_id>` meta_data/extra_specs.

   - Nova finds in the flavor that the extra_spec has no key which starts with what is set in `[scheduler]/placement_req_required_member_prefix`, so no required aggregate is obtained:

         required_prefix = CONF.scheduler.placement_req_required_member_prefix
         # required_prefix = 'reservation:'
         required_meta_data = get_flavor_extra_spec_starts_with(required_prefix)
         # required_meta_data = ''
         required_aggs = aggs_whose_metadata_is(required_meta_data)
         # required_aggs = set()

   - Nova looks up the table for default forbidden aggregates whose metadata starts with what is set in `[scheduler]/placement_req_default_forbidden_member_prefix`:

         default_forbidden_prefix = CONF.scheduler.placement_req_default_forbidden_member_prefix
         # default_forbidden_prefix = ['reservation:']
         forbidden_aggs = set()
         if not get_flavor_extra_spec_starts_with(default_forbidden_prefix):
             # This is not skipped now
             forbidden_aggs = aggs_whose_metadata_starts_with(default_forbidden_prefix)
         # forbidden_aggs = <blazar's free pool aggregates and the other reservation aggs>

   - Nova calls placement with required and forbidden aggregates:

         # We don't have required aggregates in this case
         ?member_of=!in:<forbidden_aggs>

Note that the change in the nova configuration file and change in the request filter is an example and out of the scope of this spec. An alternative for this is to let placement be aware of the default forbidden traits/aggregates (See the Bi-directional enforcement of traits spec). But we agreed that it is not placement but nova which is responsible for what traits/aggregate is forbidden/required for the instance.

### Upgrade impact

None.

## Implementation

### Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

  Tetsuro Nakamura (nakamura.tetsuro@lab.ntt.co.jp)

### Work Items

- Update the `ResourceProviderList.get_all_by_filters` and `AllocationCandidates.get_by_requests` methods to change the database queries to filter on “not this aggregate”.

- Update the placement API handlers for `GET /resource_providers` and `GET /allocation_candidates` in a new microversion to pass the negative aggregates to the methods changed in the steps above, including input validation adjustments.

- Add functional tests of the modified database queries.

- Add gabbi tests that express the new queries, both successful queries and those that should cause a 400 response.

- Release note for the API change.

- Update the microversion documents to indicate the new version.

- Update placement-api-ref to show the new query handling.

## Dependencies

None.

## Testing

Normal functional and unit testing.

## Documentation Impact

Document the REST API microversion in the appropriate reference docs.

## References

- alloc-candidates-member-of feature

- granular-resource-request feature

## History

Revisions
Release Name | Description
--- | ---
Stein | Approved but not implemented
Train | Reproposed

this page last updated: 2026-04-01 21:43:44

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