Community Solid Server evaluation === Maria Dimou (CERN) & Theo Meyer (IT University Copenhagen) Presentation for the [31st January 2022 Terra Incognita event](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1031678/) --- ## Overview * **Solid terms' reminder** * **Community Solid Server Introduction** 1. CSS introduction 3. Components.js 4. Customising CSS * **Community Solid Server Review** 1. UI integration 2. SSO integration 3. Code quality 4. Open source community review 5. Deploying CSS into CERN infrastructure --- ### Solid * **So**cial **Li**nked **D**ata, is a project, a standard, an ecosystem, a movement and a community initiated by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. * Allows people to control _where_ their own data are stored and _who_ has access to them. * It combines existing W3C standards and is built on top of the existing Web. --- ## Linked Data  [See more in presentation by Lukas Vanhoucke / CERN](https://indico.cern.ch/event/1094847/attachments/2340773/4015874/Lukas-Solid-presentation-for-his-CERN-colleagues.pdf) --- ### The Solid pod A decentralized data store for one’s personal data. A pod is like a secure personal Web server for all kinds of data. * Data is stored as _Linked Data_, i.e. the resource gets its own HTTP URI on the Web. * The pod is described by a unique WebID. WebID examples: * [https://timbl.inrupt.net/profile/card#me](https://timbl.inrupt.net/profile/card#me) * [https://dimou.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me](https://dimou.solidcommunity.net/profile/card#me) * [https://janschill.net/profile/card#me](https://janschill.net/profile/card#me) * [https://css.app.cern.ch/dimou/](https://css.app.cern.ch/dimou/) * [https://css.app.cern.ch/tmey/](https://css.app.cern.ch/tmey/) --- ### Pod example with Node Solid Server (NSS)  --- ### Pod example with Community Solid Server (CSS)  --- ### The Solid server A Web server that stores users’ pods, with support for access control. A Solid server acts as a data pod that stores and guards your data. It is a regular Web server …with support for access control. …with support for Linked Data. Its interface is application-agnostic. Application-specific logic resides in clients. --- ### Basic Solid workflow 1  --- ### Basic Solid workflow 2  --- ### Basic Solid workflow 3  --- ### Basic Solid workflow 4  --- ### Basic Solid workflow 5  --- ### Basic Solid workflow 6  --- ## What is the Community Solid Server (CSS) * A pod and ID provider server, i.e. delivers WebIDs. * A fresh replacement for the NSS Solid servers (https://solidcommunity.net is one of them) used by SolidOS. * Version 1.0 released in August 2021, i.e. still in testing phase. * Developed at [IDLab](https://www.ugent.be/ea/idlab/en) from Gent university (Belgium). * Four core contributors: Joachim Van Herwegen, Ruben Verborgh, Ruben Taelman, and Matthieu Bosquet. * Copyrighted by [Inrupt Inc.](https://inrupt.com/) and [imec](https://www.imec-int.com/) and available under the [MIT License](https://github.com/solid/community-server/#-license) * Abbreviated CSS for now (might change in the future for SCS). --- ## CSS Design * Highly modular and flexible software. * A configuration file foresees multiple installation options. * Written in typescript, as a Node Package Manager (NPM) package. * High standard of code quality. * Extensible through [components.js](https://componentsjs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) . * Unix-like: "Do one thing and do it well". Only a pod and ID provider but compatible with other software. * E.g. it doesn't provide a UI but is compatible with existing UIs, e.g. [penny](https://penny.vincenttunru.com/). --- ## Components.js 1 * A Dependency Injection framework by the CSS authors. * A Dependency Injection: allows to bring in software modifications to the config space instead of the source code. * Allows CSS to be modular and extensible. * Based on Linked Data (a way to format data so that it is understandable by humans and computers). --- ## Components.js 2  --- ## Components.js 3 * Advantages: - Allows tremendous flexibility and customization to CSS. - No need to hack CSS source code to modify it. - Makes the contribution to CSS by the community accessible. * Limitations: - Creates complex, nested config file. - The documentation is not mature yet. - Takes time to learn how to use it. --- ## CSS code quality review 1 <!-- sustainability --> * **Compatibility** → Highly compatible with other software through Components.js * **Performance efficiency** → No benchmark available for _time behavior_ nor _resource utilization_. Solid applications often need to fetch data from various pods, which affects performance. (Without being a rigorous ISO25010 review, I take inspiration from the evaluation grid to review CSS). --- ## CSS code quality review 2 * **Usability** → Depends on the chosen UI * **Security** → Built with strong, well established security standards ( ACL authorization, SOLID-OIDC authentification). → No security audit has been done yet → Used in production by some clients of digita.ai. * **Maintainability** → To be compatible with components.js, class and function are created in a modular fashion, which makes CSS highly testable and modifiable * **Portability** → Easily portable (NPM package, docker image) --- ## CSS Integration with CERN SSO * Current state of CSS integration with keycloak: not yet compatible. * Compatibility gap between OIDC (Open ID Connect) provided by Keycloak and Solid-OIDC required by CSS. * Not compatible either with other open source SSO providers (i.e. Auth0). * keycloak not going to support Solid-OIDC anytime soon. * Potential solutions: * Digita proxy * Close the compatibility gap between Solid and keycloak * Community pull requests --- ## UI integration * Currently 5 options: * [Mashlib](https://github.com/solid/community-server-recipes/tree/main/mashlib) * [penny](https://penny.vincenttunru.com/) * [inrupt's pod browser](https://pod-browser.vercel.app/) * [Oh-My-Pod](https://ohmypod.netlify.app/) * [Pod Homepage](https://gitlab.com/angelo-v/pod-homepage) * Usable as an external app or can be integrated into CSS * External UI: stable and usable * Internal UI: still experimental or under-developped --- ## UI possible locations  --- ## UI Candidate: Penny  --- ## UI Candidate: Oh my pod  --- ## UI Candidate: Pod homepage  --- ## CSS open-source community in numbers * Median time to issues' first response: 5h ( !! ) * 98% of new issues are answered * 90% of issues first response made by a core dev * newcomers make 25% of PRs * 27 different newcomers submitted PR --- ## CSS open-source community * Core devs involved in the community * always answer * answer fast * Community is not strongly developed yet * no issue answered by non-core dev * newcomers start submitting PRs --- ## Deploying CSS inside CERN infrastructure step 1 * Creation of a 'recipe', meaning the creation of two files: * Package.json: * import dependencies such as CSS and UIs * define context for components.js if custom files need to be imported * config.json: customize the feature needed for the CSS instance --- ## Deploying CSS inside CERN infrastructure step 2  Script available at: https://github.com/joeitu/cern-css/blob/master/devops/create_app.sh --- ## Conclusions on CSS * CSS software of high quality, built to last, design to adapt → CSS is not opinionated software → Highly extensible → Configure your own CSS instance with the chosen feature → Great support from core-devs → Small community but growing * Integration with SSO not ready yet, but Work In Progress * UI integration with CSS still experimental --- ## Use cases * CERN User profiles * Easier way to create apps for CERN users * handle most if not all of the backend needs (authorization, authentification, store data) * build-in, standardized API with Linked-Data * helps with GDPR compliance --- ## Strategic decisions for CERN Despite the challenges with the UI, encryption and evolving specs, the Solid project has: * Government agencies that embrace it officially (UK NHS, Flanders' and Swedish administration). * Universities in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland. * At least four start-ups per month showing Solid pod interfaces. * Almost 2K members in [the Solid gitter chat](https://gitter.im/solid/chat) * It is strategically and ideologically important for CERN to be engaged with Solid, as a standard for the Decentralised Web. --- ## Recommendation on the CERN-Solid future For the above-explained reasons we recommend that: * we get resources approved for a stable in-house CSS instance. * integrate it with the new CERN SSO. * develop our own UI with open source tools, proceding incrementally from the current one available with SolidOS. * Consider the creation of long-overdue CERN users' profiles as the first use-case. The EDH, HRT, LANDB, MERIT, dosimetry info, Indico events where chair/speaker, personalised searches, notifications, etc can be referenced from the users' pods. ---  --- ## References * [CSS manual for CERN users](https://github.com/joeitu/cern-css) * [The Solid project website](https://solidproject.org) * [CERN-Solid entry point](http://solid.cern.ch) * [CERN-Solid chat](https://gitter.im/cern-solid/community) * [Solid pod providers](https://solidproject.org/users/get-a-pod#get-a-pod-from-a-pod-provider) * [This project](https://it-student-projects.web.cern.ch/projects/cern-solid-server-hosting) * [Policy document for a CERN Solid server](https://codimd.web.cern.ch/1VLKK_rYQYixHmwOuGL2fg#) ---