[ovs-dev] [PATCH ovn] docs: Add note about RBAC and remote ovn-northd connection

[numans at ovn.org]

From: Frode Nordahl <frode.nordahl at canonical.com>

Signed-off-by: Frode Nordahl <frode.nordahl at canonical.com>
Acked-by: Aliasgar Ginwala <aginwala at ebay.com>
---
 .../topics/role-based-access-control.rst      |  7 ++++++
 Documentation/tutorials/ovn-rbac.rst          | 25 +++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 32 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/topics/role-based-access-control.rst b/Documentation/topics/role-based-access-control.rst
index 2acd1e88b..e13e2d5dc 100644
--- a/Documentation/topics/role-based-access-control.rst
+++ b/Documentation/topics/role-based-access-control.rst
@@ -82,6 +82,13 @@ command:
 
    $ ovn-sbctl set-connection role=ovn-controller ssl:192.168.0.1:6642
 
+.. note::
+
+   There is currently no pre-defined role for ovn-northd. You must configure
+   a separate listener on the OVN southbound database that ovn-northd can
+   connect to if your deployment topology require ovn-northd to connect to a
+   OVN southbound database instance on a remote machine.
+
 Pre-defined Roles
 -----------------
 This section describes roles that have been defined internally by OVS/OVN.
diff --git a/Documentation/tutorials/ovn-rbac.rst b/Documentation/tutorials/ovn-rbac.rst
index 22b169d6d..fc2de5d5d 100644
--- a/Documentation/tutorials/ovn-rbac.rst
+++ b/Documentation/tutorials/ovn-rbac.rst
@@ -132,3 +132,28 @@ Configuring RBAC
                     /path/to/chassis_2-cert.pem /path/to/cacert.pem
       $ ovs-vsctl set open_vswitch . \
                     external_ids:ovn-remote=ssl:machine_3-ip:6642
+
+The OVN central control daemon and RBAC
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The OVN central control daemon (`ovn-northd`) needs full write access to
+the southbound database. When you have one machine hosting the central
+components, `ovn-northd` can talk to the databases through a local unix
+socket, bypassing the `ovn-controller` RBAC configured for the listener
+at port '6642'. However, if you want to deploy multiple machines for
+hosting the central components, `ovn-northd` will require a remote
+connection to all of them.
+
+1. Configure the southbound database with a second SSL listener on a
+   separate port without RBAC enabled for use by `ovn-northd`.
+
+   In `machine_3`::
+
+      $ ovn-sbctl -- --id=@conn_uuid create Connection \
+          target="pssl\:16642" \
+          -- add  SB_Global . connections=@conn_uuid
+
+   .. note::
+
+     Care should be taken to restrict access to the above mentioned port
+     so that only trusted machines can connect to it.
-- 
2.23.0