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# OpenBMC Webserver Development

1. ### Performance targets

   As OpenBMC is intended to be deployed on an embedded system, care should be
   taken to avoid expensive constructs, and memory usage. In general, our
   performance and metric targets are:

   - Binaries and static files should take up < 1MB of filesystem size
   - Memory usage should remain below 10MB at all times
   - Application startup time should be less than 1 second on target hardware
     (AST2500)

2. ### Asynchronous programming

   Care should be taken to ensure that all code is written to be asynchronous in
   nature, to avoid blocking methods from stopping the processing of other
   tasks. At this time the webserver uses boost::asio for it async framework.
   Threads should be avoided if possible, and instead use async tasks within
   boost::asio.

3. ### Secure coding guidelines

   Secure coding practices should be followed in all places in the webserver

   In general, this means:

   - All buffer boundaries must be checked before indexing or using values
   - All pointers and iterators must be checked for null before dereferencing
   - All input from outside the application is considered untrusted, and should
     be escaped, authorized and filtered accordingly. This includes files in the
     filesystem.
   - All error statuses are checked and accounted for in control flow.
   - Where applicable, noexcept methods should be preferred to methods that use
     exceptions
   - Explicitly bounded types should be preferred over implicitly bounded types
     (like std::array<int, size> as opposed to int[size])
   - no use of
     [Banned functions](https://github.com/intel/safestringlib/wiki/SDL-List-of-Banned-Functions "Banned function list")

4. ### Error handling

   Error handling should be constructed in such a way that all possible errors
   return valid HTTP responses. The following HTTP codes will be used commonly

   - 200 OK - Request was properly handled
   - 201 Created - Resource was created
   - 401 Unauthorized - Request didn't posses the necessary authentication
   - 403 Forbidden - Request was authenticated, but did not have the necessary
     permissions to accomplish the requested task
   - 404 Not found - The url was not found
   - 500 Internal error - Something has broken within the OpenBMC web server,
     and should be filed as a bug

   Where possible, 307 and 308 redirects should be avoided, as they introduce
   the possibility for subtle security bugs.

5. ### Startup times

   Given that the most common target of OpenBMC is an ARM11 processor, care
   needs to be taken to ensure startup times are low. In general this means:

   - Minimizing the number of files read from disk at startup. Unless a feature
     is explicitly intended to be runtime configurable, its logic should be
     "baked in" to the application at compile time. For cases where the
     implementation is configurable at runtime, the default values should be
     included in application code to minimize the use of nonvolatile storage.
   - Avoid excessive memory usage and mallocs at startup.

6. ### Compiler features

   - At this point in time, the webserver sets a number of security flags in
     compile time options to prevent misuse. The specific flags and what
     optimization levels they are enabled at are documented in the
     CMakeLists.txt file.
   - Exceptions are currently enabled for webserver builds, but their use is
     discouraged. Long term, the intent is to disable exceptions, so any use of
     them for explicit control flow will likely be rejected in code review. Any
     use of exceptions should be cases where the program can be reasonably
     expected to crash if the exception occurs, as this will be the future
     behavior once exceptions are disabled.
   - Run time type information is disabled
   - Link time optimization is enabled

7. ### Authentication

   The webserver shall provide the following authentication mechanisms.

   - Basic authentication
   - Cookie authentication
   - Token authentication

   There shall be connection between the authentication mechanism used and
   resources that are available over it. The webserver shall employ an
   authentication scheme that is in line with the rest of OpenBMC, and allows
   users and privileges to be provisioned from other interfaces.

8. ### Web security

   The OpenBMC webserver shall follow the latest OWASP recommendations for
   authentication, session management, and security.

9. ### Performance

   The performance priorities for the OpenBMC webserver are (in order):

   1. Code is readable and clear
   2. Code follows secure guidelines
   3. Code is performant, and does not unnecessarily abstract concepts at the
      expense of performance
   4. Code does not employ constructs which require continuous system resources,
      unless required to meet performance targets. (example: caching sensor
      values which are expected to change regularly)

10. ### Abstraction/interfacing

    In general, the OpenBMC webserver is built using the data driven design.
    Abstraction and Interface guarantees should be used when multiple
    implementations exist, but for implementations where only a single
    implementation exists, prefer to make the code correct and clean rather than
    implement a concrete interface.

11. ### phosphor webui

    The webserver should be capable of hosting phosphor-webui, and implementing
    the required flows to host the application. In general, all access methods
    should be available to the webui.

12. ### Redfish

    bmcweb's Redfish implementation, including Redfish OEM Resources, shall
    conform to the Redfish specification. Please keep bmcweb's
    [Redfish support document](https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/Redfish.md)
    updated. OEM schemas should conform and be developed in line with the rules
    in
    [OEM SCHEMAS](https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/OEM_SCHEMAS.md).

13. ### Common errors

    A number of examples of common errors are captured in the common errors doc.
    It is recommended that developers read and understand all of them before
    starting any openbmc development.
    [Common Errors](https://github.com/openbmc/bmcweb/blob/master/COMMON_ERRORS.md).

14. ### Commit messages
    Project commit message formatting should be obeyed
    [link](https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#formatting-commit-messages)

Commit messages should answer the following questions:

- Why are the changes useful? Given that bmcweb is a user-facing daemon, commits
  adding new functionality should include statements about how the commit in
  question is useful to the user.

- What changes would a user expect to see? This includes new parameters, new
  resources, and new or changed properties. Any route changes should be
  explicitly called out.

- Are there compatibility concerns? Is this change backward compatible for
  clients? If not, what commit would be broken, and how old is it? Have clients
  been warned? (ideally on the mailing list) link the discussion.

Commit messages should be line wrapped 50/72.

15. ### Compatibility
    "Don't make your users mad" Greg K-H
    [source](https://git.sr.ht/~gregkh/presentation-application_summit/tree/main/keep_users_happy.pdf)

The kernel has very similar rules around compatibility that we should aspire to
follow in the footsteps of.

To that end, bmcweb will do its' best to insulate clients from breaking api
changes. Being explicit about this ensures that clients can upgrade their
OpenBMC version without issue, and resolves a significant bottleneck in getting
security patches deployed to users. Any change that's visible to a user is
potentially a breaking change, but requiring _all_ visible changes to be
configurable would increase the software complexity, therefore bmcweb makes
exceptions for things which a client is reasonably expected to code against:

- New items added to a collection
- Changes in UID for hypermedia resources (In line with Redfish spec)
- New properties added to a resource
- New versions of a given schema

Special note: Code exists in bmcweb that is missing upstream backends to make it
function. Given that compatibility requires the ability to use and test the
feature in question, changes to these methods, including outright removal, does
not constitute a breaking change.

Security: There may be cases where maintainers make explicit breaking changes in
the best interest of security; In these rare cases, the maintainers and
contributors will endeavor to avoid breaking clients as much as is technically
possible, but as with all security, impact will need to be weighed against the
security impact of not making changes, and judgement calls will be made, with
options to allow providing the old behavior.

## clang-tidy

clang-tidy is a tool that can be used to identify coding style violations, bad
design patterns, and bug prone constructs. The checks are implemented in the
.clang-tidy file in the root of bmcweb, and are expected to be passing.
[openbmc-build-scripts](https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc-build-scripts/blob/master/run-unit-test-docker.sh)
implements clang-tidy checks and is the recommended way to run these checks