Requiring header fields for creating certain packets

[ericblau]

In my admittedly not terribly thorough look through the code, it seems that we have a mechanism to require certain fields in the body of the packet, per packet type, but there doesn't appear to exist a way to require particular header fields.

It would be useful to be able to require the originating_site_name in the header for notify_person_ids (and/or have it default to the remote_site_name), as this packet type originates at the remote site, and is not a reply to any other packet.

[sabo]

It'd be pretty easy to require certain header fields on packet creation and/or validation, but I'd need more info on what is required when in what cases. Separately, having default values in certain cases is doable but might complicate things a bit.

For example, can we assume for all packets that originating_site_name should be remote_site_name unless otherwise specified? Or would the 'rule' be, for certain specific packets, we can assume that; otherwise we must require it?

[ericblau]

This was in reference to the issue described at https://jira.xsede.org/browse/A3M-482

Namely, notify_person_ids is one of the few packets that a remote site can POST to start a new transaction--it isn't in reply to another packet, and thus the API (which knows as little as possible about the specifics of the packets it processes) needs to know what the originating_site_name is.

As of the resolution of that JIRA issue, the API rejects packets that are posted not-in-reply-to another packet, if they don't include an originating_site_name. It also enforces that the originating_site_name must match either "TGCDB" or the remote_site_name.

It would still be nice if the amieclient would do this too, but the API gives a reasonable error message now if not, so it's probably not a big deal.

[sabo]

End result of the discussion is that adding a validation check for notify_person_ids that will check if originating_site_id is present and equal to either TGCDB or remote_site_name will be added to the next release, but it's nothing that needs to be pushed out on its own.