openstack-manuals/doc/common/section_keystone-concepts.xml
Darren 3981735acd Edited Services sections of Admin Guide
Edit wording; changed term/description lists to variable lists as per writing
conventions

backport: none
Partial-Bug: #1251195

Change-Id: I3b7f3fedafa79ab64f75260fcd3c5daa7cbb5e34
2014-05-23 12:55:20 +10:00

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XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="5.0"
xml:id="keystone-concepts">
<?dbhtml stop-chunking?>
<title>OpenStack Identity concepts</title>
<para>The OpenStack<glossterm>Identity Service</glossterm> performs the
following functions:</para>
<itemizedlist spacing="compact">
<listitem>
<para>Tracking users and their permissions.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Providing a catalog of available services with their API
endpoints.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>To understand OpenStack Identity, you must understand the
following concepts:</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>User</term>
<listitem>
<para>Digital representation of a person, system, or
service who uses OpenStack cloud services. The
Identity service validates that incoming requests
are made by the user who claims to be making the
call. Users have a login and may be assigned
tokens to access resources. Users can be directly
assigned to a particular tenant and behave as if
they are contained in that tenant.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Credentials</term>
<listitem>
<para>Data that confirms the user's identity. For example, user
name and password; user name and API key; or an
authentication token provided by the Identity
Service.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Authentication</term>
<listitem>
<para>The process of confirming the identity of a user.
OpenStack Identity confirms an incoming request
by validating a set of credentials supplied by the
user.</para>
<para>These credentials are initially a user name and
password; or a user name and API key. When user
credentials are validated, OpenStack Identity issues an
authentication token which the user provides in subsequent
requests.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Token</term>
<listitem>
<para>An arbitrary bit of text that is used to access
resources. Each token has information which defines
access to resources. A token may be revoked at any time
and is valid for a finite duration.</para>
<para>While OpenStack Identity supports token-based
authentication in this release, the intention is
to support additional protocols in the future. Its main
purpose is to be an integration service, and not aspire to
be a full-fledged identity store and management
solution.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Tenant</term>
<listitem>
<para>A container used to group or isolate resources
and/or identity objects. Depending on the service
operator, a tenant may map to a customer, account,
organization, or project.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Service</term>
<listitem>
<para>An OpenStack service, such as Compute (nova),
Object Storage (swift), or Image Service (glance). It
provides one or more endpoints through which users can
access resources and perform operations.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Endpoint</term>
<listitem>
<para>A network-accessible address where you access a service,
usually a URL address. If you are using an extension for
templates, an endpoint template can be created, which
represents the templates of all the consumable services
that are available across the regions.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>Role</term>
<listitem>
<para>A personality with a defined set of user rights and
privileges to perform a specific set of operations.</para>
<para>In the Identity service, a token that is issued
to a user includes the list of roles. Services that are
being called by that user determine how they interpret the
set of roles a user has and to which operations or
resources each role grants access.</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
<para>The following diagram shows the OpenStack Identity process
flow:</para>
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