opensource-portal

Microsoft's GitHub-at-scale management portal

This Node.js application is a part of the suite of services provided by the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft to enable large-scale GitHub management experiences.

Key features center around opinionated takes on at-scale management, with an emphasis on relentless automation and delegation:

Linking: the concept of associating a GitHub identity with an authenticated identity in another provider, for example an Azure Active Directory user
Self-service GitHub organization join: one-click GitHub organization joining for authorized users
Cross-organization functionality: consolidated views across a set of managed GitHub organizations including people, repos, teams

An introduction to this project is available in this 2015 post by Jeff Wilcox: http://www.jeff.wilcox.name/2015/11/azure-on-github/

Starting in 2020, the application pivoted to help scale better:

The portal works best as a GitHub App instead of the older GitHub OAuth app model
The app can be installed as multiple parallel apps (user-facing, operations, background jobs, and data) to ensure that key user experiences continue to function even if a background job or other task exhausts available REST API reosurces
When combined with a near-realtime webhook feed, the app tracks updates for views in a database instead of through REST API caches.

Node app

Node.js LTS (v10+)
TypeScript

Native promises and await/async are being introduced into the codebase. Older callback-based code using libraries such as async or the promise library q have been removed.

Service Dependencies

At least one of your own GitHub organizations
Bring your own cache system (built-in providers for Redis, Cosmos DB, and Azure storage)
Azure Active Directory, or hack your own Passport provider in
Data storage for links, etc.: either Azure Storage or Postgres

Dev prep, build, deploy

Prereqs

Install Node packages

Make sure to include dev dependencies.

npm install
cd default-assets-package
npm install

Build

npm run build

You need to rebuild the default-assets-package if you change something. see Static Site Assets

Building the Docker image

$ docker build .

Troubleshooting

If the docker image doesn't start you can debug the image using an interactive shell session. This allows you to browse the folders, update the files to test things and run the portal.

$ docker run --entrypoint /bin/sh -it opensource-portal
/usr/src/repos $ ls
app.js                   data                     lib                      package.json             tsconfig.tsbuildinfo     webhooks
app.js.map               entities                 localEnvironment.js      routes                   user
bin                      features                 localEnvironment.js.map  test                     utils.js
business                 github                   middleware               transitional.js          utils.js.map
config                   jobs                     node_modules             transitional.js.map      views
/usr/src/repos $ npm run start-in-container

Test

This project basically has no tests.

Work to be done

Continuing to refactor out Microsoft-specific things when possible
Tests
Proper model/view/API system
Front-end UI

Implementation Details

Configuration

The configuration story for this application has been evolving over time. At this time, the following configuration elements are available at this time, each with a distinct purpose.

A GitHub organization(s) configuration file in JSON format is required as of version 4.2.0 of the app.

Environment Variables (see configuration.js for details)
JSON Files (either committed directly to a repo or overwritten during deployment)
- config/resources.json: categories, links and special resources to light up learning resources
- config/organizations.json: organization configuration information, an alternate and additive way to include organization config in the app at deployment time. For this method to work, make sure to set the configuration environment to use from such a file using the CONFIGURATION_ENVIRONMENT env variable.
Azure Key Vault secrets

With the current configuration story, a CONFIGURATION_ENVIRONMENT variable is required, as well as a secret for AAD to get KeyVault bootstrapped. That requirement will go away soon.

Configuring organizations

When installed as a GitHub App, the installations can be added into the "dynamic settings" system where the org info is stored in an entity database. This allows the app and jobs to pick up the latest configuration without needing redeployment.

Alternatively, a static JSON file can be provided to store configuration details and other information about your GitHub orgs that the app will manage.

Static orgs

The opensource-portal only shows GitHub-organizations which are configured in a specific file. The path for this file is handed over with the environment-variable GITHUB_ORGANIZATIONS_FILE, which specifies the relative path of this file from the data-folder as root directory. This JSON-file has to be created, here is an example of the organizations-file:

[
  {
    "name": "ContosoDev",
    "id": 20195765,
    "type": "public",
    "ownerToken": "keyvault://portalppe.vault.azure.net/secrets/dev-github-org-contosodev-repos-token",
    "description": "Contoso Public Development - Cloud",
    "teamAllMembers": "2063735",
    "teamPortalSudoers": "2063734",
    "preventLargeTeamPermissions": true,
    "teamAllReposRead": "2280089",
    "teamAllReposWrite": "2148455",
    "templates": ["mit", "microsoft.docs", "dnfmit", "dnfmit.docs", "other"]
  },
  {
    "name": "contoso-d",
    "id": 9669768,
    "type": "public",
    "ownerToken": "keyvault://portalppe.vault.azure.net/secrets/local-github-org-contosodev-repos-token",
    "description": "Classic contoso-d",
    "teamAllMembers": "1944235",
    "preventLargeTeamPermissions": true,
    "teamAllReposRead": "2275189",
    "teamAllReposWrite": "2275190",
    "teamAllReposAdmin": "2279870",
    "templates": ["mit", "dnfmit"]
  }
]

Here is a short overview about the meanings of the different parameters:

name (mandatory): GitHub organization name
id (mandatory (soon)): organization id
ownerToken (mandatory): personal access token of an organization owner
type: supported repo types
description: description text which is shown for the organization
teamAllMembers: every member of this team is org-member (team-ID required)
teamAllReposRead: every member of this team has read access to all repos (team-ID required)
teamAllReposWrite: every member of this team has write access to all repos (team-ID required)
teamAllReposAdmin: every member of this team has admin access to all repos (team-ID required)
templates: GitHub repository templates
locked: joining this organization via the opensource-portal is disabled

PostgreSQL Configuration

To run the opensource-portal with a postgres database, you need to setup postgres and initialize the database by running the pg.sql-file in the psql-terminal. It's recommended to run postgres in a docker container, there is also an offical docker image called postgres for building.

Once the setup is done, set the host, database, user, password, ssl (as boolean) and port of the postgres in the config/data.postgres.json-file. Additionally set the name of the linking-table (tableName parameter), if the tables were created with the pg.sql-file, the name for this table is links.

There is also a script in the scripts folder that can blast the pg.sql insertions into a new database. Be sure to configure grants and your user accounts with the concept of least privilege required.

Cache Configuration

For caching GitHub-requests with Redis, setup a redis database (running Redis in a docker container is recommended, there is an official docker image called redis for building).

After Redis setup is complete, set your Redis configs in the config/redis.json-file. The post and host parameters are mandatory, other configs are optional (depending on the Redis configuration).

Other providers available include Azure Blob (slower but cheap), Cosmos DB, and a hybrid Cosmos+Blob.

KeyVault Secret Support

Any configuration string property can be resolved to a KeyVault secret.

To use a stored KeyVault secret, configuration to allow this application's service principal to get the secret value, simply use a custom keyvault:// URI format.

For example, given a key vault named samplevault, setting a configuration parameter to keyvault://samplevault.vault.azure.net/secrets/secret-name/optionalVersion would resolve that secret.

To select a custom user tag for a secret, use the auth parameter of the URI: a value of keyvault://username@samplevault.vault.azure.net/secrets/secret-name would get the secret and its metadata, setting the configuration value to the username tag, if present.

Key rotation

As configuration, including secrets, is resolved at startup, any key rotation would need to include a restart of the app service.

Minimum Configuration

If you place a JSON file env.json above the directory of your cloned repo (to prevent committing secrets to your repo by accident or in your editor), you can configure the following extreme minimum working set to use the app.

In this mode memory providers are used, including a mocked Redis client. Note that this does mean that a large GitHub organization configured with memory providers could become a token use nightmare, as each new execution of the app without a Redis Cache behind the scenes is going to have 100% cache misses for GitHub metadata. Consider configuring a development or local Redis server to keep cached data around.

For authentication, the opensource-portal uses Azure Active Directory (AD) for corporate authentication and GitHub OAuth2 for the GitHub authentication.

Azure Active Directory Configuration

Create an Azure Active Directory application (guide) and set the IDs and the redirect-URL in the config/activeDirectory.json file.

GitHub App Configuration (modern)

Create a new GitHub App.

Make sure the app has these permissions:

Administration (R&W)
Metadata (R)
Org members (R&W)
Org administration (R&W)
Plan (R)
Blocking users (R&W, recommended)

Subscribe to these events in only your single app instance or your operations instance:

meta
fork
member
membership
organization
public
repository
star
team
team add
org block

Download the private key for the app to be able to authenticate.

You can do this 3 more times to create dedicated apps for UI, background jobs, data, and operations in total.

GitHub OAuth2 Configuration (legacy)

Create an GitHub OAuth2 application (guide) and set the IDs and the callback-URL in the config/github.oauth2.json file.

You need to grant the application third party permissions. To do this, navigate to the following link https://github.com/orgs/<org-name>/policies/applications/<application-ID>.

Jobs

Several jobs are available in the container or the jobs/ folder. These can optionally provide useful operational and services support. Often a Kubernetes CronJob can help.

cleanupInvites: if configured for an org, cleanup old unaccepted invites
firehose: ongoing processing of GitHub events for keeping cache up-to-date
managers: cache the last-known manager for links, to use in notifications after a departure may remove someone from the graph
permissions: updating permissions for all-write/all-read/all-admin teams when configured
refreshUsernames: keeping link data fresh with GitHub username renames, corporate username and display name updates, and removing links for deleted GitHub users who remove their accounts permanently from GitHub.com
reports: processing the building of report data about use, abandoned repos, etc. this job is broken

Scripts

migrateLinks: a one-time migration script to help when moving link source of truth

Application Insights

When using Microsoft Application Insights, this library reports a number of metrics, events and dependencies.

Library events include:

UserUnlink: When a user object is unlinked and dropped

User interface events include:

PortalUserUnlink: When a person initiates and completes an unlink
PortalUserLink: When a person links their account
PortalUserReconnectNeeded: When a user needs to reconnect their GitHub account
PortalUserReconnected: When a user successfully reconnects their GitHub account when using AAD-first auth

Email, corporate contacts and graph providers

A custom mail provider is being used internally, but a more generic mail provider contract exists in the library folder for the app now. This replaces or optionally augments the ability of the app to do workflow over mail. Since Microsoft is an e-mail company and all.

API

Please see the API.md file for information about the early API implementation.

people

/people search view

Add a type=former query string parameter to show a current understanding of potential former employees who cannot be found in the directory
In the type=former view, portal system sudoers will receive a link next to the user to 'manage user', showing more information and the option to remove from the org

repos

/repos search view

Add a showids=1 query string parameter to have repository IDs show up next to repository names

new repo templates

When a new repository is created, a template directory can be used to pre-populate that repo with any important files such as a standard LICENSE file, README, contribution information, issue templates for GitHub, etc.

See also: config/github.templates.js which exports information from a template data JSON file, as well as determines where those templates live on the file system.

The original location for templates was within the same repo in the data/templates folder; however, you can also use a public or private NPM package that contains the template content.

Static Site Assets

To simplify the app build process, and also make it easier for us to open source a lot of the project without Microsoft-specific assets and content, the site pulls its static assets (favicon, graphics, client scripts) from an NPM package.

Inside the app's package.json, a property can be set, static-site-assets-package-name, pointing to the name of an NPM package (public or private) that contains those assets.

By default, this project contains a default-assets-package sub-folder NPM package with more generic Bootstrap content, Grunt build scripts, etc. It is used if this variable is not defined in the package JSON. Unfortunately you need to separately npm install and grunt to use it, or just point it at your own set of CSS files and other assets. Sorry, its not pretty.

Removed features and functions

Issue-based approval workflow (backed by GitHub issues) removed for all approvals

Data quality issues

username casing

The original table store for usernames (GitHub users, etc.) was case sensitive for stored data. However, the newer Postgres system uses case insensitive indexes. As a result there may be latent bugs.

date/times

Approval 'decisionTime' field was buggy in the past
Approval 'requested' field was buggy in the past

Going forward these fields are ISO8601 date time fields. Existing data may continue to have poor formats, and may be an issue during data migration.

Migration of data

The localEnvironment TypeScript file is intended to permit prototyping and local development hacks.

A job, migrateLinks, is able to move links between providers when proper configuration is in place.

Bare minimum local development environment

The central operations token is a personal access token that is a org owner of the GitHub org(s) being managed.

  "DEBUG_ALLOW_HTTP": "1",
  "GITHUB_CENTRAL_OPERATIONS_TOKEN": "a github token for the app",
  "GITHUB_ORGANIZATIONS_FILE": "../../env-orgs.json",
  "GITHUB_CLIENT_ID" : "your client id",
  "GITHUB_CLIENT_SECRET" : "your client secret",
  "GITHUB_CALLBACK_URL" : "http://localhost:3000/auth/github/callback",
  "AAD_CLIENT_ID": "your corporate app id",
  "AAD_REDIRECT_URL" : "http://localhost:3000/auth/azure/callback",
  "AAD_CLIENT_SECRET" : "a secret for the corporate app",
  "AAD_TENANT_ID" : "your tenant id",
  "AAD_ISSUER": "https://sts.windows.net/your tenant id/",

How the app authenticates with GitHub

The service as a monolith is able to partition keys and authentication for GitHub resources at the organization level.

GitHub org owner Personal Access Token

There is a 'central operations token' supported to make it easy for the simple case. That central token is used if an org does not have a token defined, or in resolving cross-org assets - namely teams by ID and accounts by ID.

In lieu of a central ops token, the first configured organization's token is used in the current design.

Individual orgs can have their own token(s) defined from their own account(s).

Traditional GitHub OAuth app

An OAuth app is used to authenticate the GitHub users. This app needs to be approved as a third-party app in all your GitHub apps currently.

Modern GitHub App

Work in progress: supporting modern GitHub apps. Will require configuring the installation ID for a given organization.

For performance reasons, a partitioned/purpose-intended app model is being designed that will fallback to the one configured app installation, if any. If there is no modern GitHub app, the GitHub PAT for an org will be used.

Feature flags

Under development, configuration values in config/features.json map explicit opt-in environment variables to features and functions for the monolithic site.

This was, organizations can choose which specific features they may want to have exposed by the app.

Most features can be opted in to by simply setting the environment variable value to 1.

allowUnauthorizedNewRepositoryLockdownSystem
- Variable: FEATURE_FLAG_ALLOW_UNAUTHORIZED_NEW_REPOSITORY_LOCKDOWN_SYSTEM
- Purpose: Allows the "unauthorized new repository lockdown system" to be available as an organization feature flag. It does not turn this system on by default in any case.
- Requirements: the event firehose must be used (there is no equivalent job, to make sure to not accidentially destroy permissions across existing repos)
allowUnauthorizedForkLockdownSystem
- Variable: FEATURE_FLAG_ALLOW_UNAUTHORIZED_FORK_LOCKDOWN_SYSTEM
- Purpose: Locks repositories that are forks until they are approved by an administrator
- Requirements: depends on the new repo lockdown system already being enabled and in use

Breaking changes

The newer events entity type was refactored to use proper Postgres columns in April 2020. As this was not being used by any others, there is no entity migration script at this time that mapped the prior JSONP values into top-level column names.

LICENSE

MIT License

Contributions welcome

Happy to have contributions, though please consider reviewing the CONTRIBUTING.MD file, the code of conduct, and then also open a work item to help discuss the features or functionality ahead of kicking off any such work.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

wdelmail001/opensource-portal