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NAME

OpenResty::Spec::MetaModel - Metamodel for OpenResty backends

VERSION

This document describes OpenResty 0.5.11's meta model, version 0.009.

DESCRIPTION

The metamodel in OpenResty is a set of internal database schemas or tables for storing meta information regarding the user data. They're usually invisible to the outside users and their names are carefully chosen so as to prevent potential naming conflicts with users' objects.

Global metamodel

The global metamodel stores the global (system-wide) information about the OpenResty users.

It sits in a separate PostgreSQL schema named _global. It owns the following meta tables:

_general

The definition of the _general table is

    create table _general (
        version varchar(10),
        captcha_key char(16)
    )

Usually it stores the version and other general information of the global metamodel itself. Note that the version of the metamodel is independent of the version number of the whole OpenResty server implementation. For instance, the OpenResty 0.1.8 uses metamodel 0.001 while the versions earlier does not have a versioned metamodel.

This table usually has only one row. But it's also fine to keep track of all the version history. The largest version number will be considered the current version of the metamodel in the current user schema.

The captcha_key column stores the secret key used in captcha generation, whose value must be exactly 16 bytes long and contains only characters in [0-9a-zA-Z].

_accounts

The _accounts table stores the list of all the available OpenResty accounts in the whole system. It has the following definition:

    create table _accounts (
        id serial primary key,
        name text unique not null,
    )

The name column specifies the name of the account.

Local metamodel

Each OpenResty account registered by an outside user has a PostgreSQL schema for storing its models, views, roles, actions, and other user objects. Such schema has the same name as the account name. For instance, account carrie has a corresponding database schema (or namespace) named carrie. The carrie schema has the following meta tables:

_general

The definition of the _general table is

    create table _general (
        version varchar(10),
        created timestamp (0) with time zone default now()
    )

The version column keeps the metamodel version number for the current account while the created column records its creation time.

_roles

The _roles table stores the meta information of the OpenResty Role objects.

    create table _roles (
        id serial primary key,
        name text unique not null,
        login text not null,
        password text,
        description text not null,
        created timestamp(0) with time zone default now()
    );

The login column specifies the login method used by the role. Allowed values are 'password', 'anonymous', and 'captcha'.

The password column must be not null when the login column has the value of 'password'. Its values should be null otherwise.

_access

The _access table stores the information of the access rules associated with the OpenResty Role objects.

    create table _access (
        id serial primary key,
        role text not null,
        method varchar(10) not null,
        prefix text not null,
        segments smallint,
        prohibiting boolean default false not null,
        applied_to cidr[] default '{0.0.0.0/0}'
    );

The role column stores the name of the role which owns the current rule.

Each access rule has two components, HTTP method and the (abbreviated) URL, which are saved in the columns method, prefix, and segments, respectively. An example is that method has a value of 'GET' and url has a value of '/=/model/~/~/~'.

_views

The _views table stores the information of the OpenResty View objects.

    create table _views (
        id serial primary key,
        description text,
        name text unique not null,
        definition text not null,
        created timestamp(0) with time zone default now()
    );

All of the columns have similar meaning as the _model table except that the definition column stores the minisql string defining the functionality of the view.

_actions

The _actions table stores the information of the OpenResty Action objects.

    create table _actions (
        id serial primary key,
        name text unique not null,
        definition text not null,
        description text,
        compiled text,
        created timestamp(0) with time zone default now()
    );

    create table _action_params (
        id serial primary key,
        name text not null,
        type text not null,
        label text,
        default_value text,
        used bool not null,
        action_id integer references _actions(id) on delete cascade
    );

Most of the columns are similar to those in the _view table except that it takes an auxiliary table _action_params.

[TODO: add the confirmed_by column to specify the confirmation method used to fire the action. Allowed values for this column are "email", "cellphone", and "captcha".]

_feeds

The _feeds table stores the meta information for the OpenResty Feed objects.

    create table _feeds (
        id serial primary key,
        name text unique not null,
        description text not null,
        view text not null,
        title text not null,
        link text not null,
        logo text,
        copyright text,
        language text,
        author text,
        created timestamp (0) with time zone default now()
    );

The view argument specifies the OpenResty view name from which the RSS/Atom feed is generated.

The title, link, logo, copyright, and author are properties of the web site the current feed is referred to.

_ylogins
    create table _ylogins(
        id serial primary key,
        name text unique not null,
        mapping_view text,
        on_register text not null,
        on_login text,
        next_page text not null,
        error_page text not null,
        description text,
        created timestamp(0) with time zone default now()
    );

The _ylogins table merely serves our proprietary YLogin (Yahoo! Login) handler.

HISTORY

0.008
  • Left tables _models and _columns alone; no longer make use of them.

  • Added _ylogins for our closed-source YLogin (Yahoo! Login) handler.

  • Added a DB index for _access;

0.007

Added tables _actions and _action_params.

Upgrading

OpenResty supports automatic upgrading for its meta model. See OpenResty::Spec::Upgrading for details.

AUTHOR

agentzh <agentzh@yahoo.cn>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright (c) 2008 Yahoo! China EEEE Works, Alibaba Inc.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html

SEE ALSO

OpenResty::Spec::Upgrading, openresty, OpenResty, OpenResty::Spec::Overview.