support root-based web service URL's

I think you are refering to the "Host" header in HTTP as a way of co-locating multiple services. In the context of the current Eucalyptus system this isn't possible to support without the use of the DNS service. For example, virtual bucket hosting in S3 already works this way when DNS is enabled and configured correctly (e.g., http://bucket_name.eucalyptus_domain_name/). Adding support for this is likely when/if DNS-enabled becomes the standard installation mode.

cheers,
chris

Correct: the virtual bucket URL should be: http://bucket_name.walrus.eucalyptus_domain_name/

Well I mean for both EC2 and S3, not just S3. Should I file separate bugs? [I had been thinking this was just a rewritemap issue..]

(Oh, and I'm not referring to the use of Host headers).

Currently there is no way that I can see to implement this support without either: the use of the Host header (which requires DNS support), or deviating from the API spec (which would break compatibility and require support from client tools).

thanks.
chris

SOAP requests for S3 and EC2 use different namespace URIs, so it's quite possible to have both services served at the same URL, without the Host header. You just need to look at the namespace URI of the body.

@6: Eucalyptus also handles Query and REST requests along with some less well-defined HTTP requests (e.g., form POST uploads). The decision on which path the web services stack takes when parsing a request is made solely based on the contents of the HTTP start-line and headers. This is primarily because consuming the message body is not feasible in some cases. In the absence of a service path or Host header/DNS info there is not enough information to determine the destination of a request. For these reasons using SOAP namespaces is not a sufficient approach.

With respect to the Host header, from the HTTP/1.1 RFC: "A client MUST include a Host header field in all HTTP/1.1 request messages". Thus, requiring use of DNS in order to provide virtual hosting seems reasonable and sufficient. A more thorough discussion of related topics can be found in the apache vhost documentation (n.b. some of the limitations do not apply to Eucalyptus): http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/vhosts/

cheers.
chris

This issue is now being tracked upstream at http://eucalyptus.atlassian.net/browse/EUCA-2679

Please watch that issue for further updates.