Skip to content

Device Metadata

Issue #1171

Summary

The nexlink design proposal described a use case for an external application that would like to store custom metadata about a device. This proposal describes a mechanism for storing such metadata.

Proposal

Instead of changing the Device table, we will create a new table called device_metadata. I propose keeping it separate from the Device table while we work through how we want this to work. This table will have the following columns:

type DeviceMetadata struct {
    DeviceID  uuid.UUID      `json:"device_id" gorm:"type:uuid;primary_key"`
    Key       string         `json:"key"       gorm:"primary_key"`
    Value     interface{}    `json:"value"     gorm:"type:JSONB; serializer:json"`
    Revision  uint64         `json:"revision"  gorm:"type:bigserial;index:"`
    DeletedAt gorm.DeletedAt `json:"-"         gorm:"index"`
    CreatedAt time.Time      `json:"-"`
    UpdatedAt time.Time      `json:"-"`
}

DeviceMetadataInstance to Device has an N:1 ratio.

key must be a string. value is json that will be serialized and stored as a JSONB. Each key must be unique for a given device_id. Metadata is stored by key to make it easy to create, update, and delete on a per-key basis.

The proposed API additions are as follows:

        // Get all metadata for all devices in an organization
        private.GET("/organizations/:organization/metadata", api.ListOrganizationMetadata)
        // Get all metadata for a device
        private.GET("/devices/:id/metadata", api.GetDeviceMetadata)
        // Get a specific metadata key for a device
        private.GET("/devices/:id/metadata/:key", api.GetDeviceMetadataKey)
        // Set a specific metadata key for a device
        private.PATCH("/devices/:id/metadata/:key", api.UpdateDeviceMetadataKey)
        // Delete all metadata for a device
        private.DELETE("/devices/:id/metadata", api.DeleteDeviceMetadata)
        // Delete a specific metadata key for a device
        private.DELETE("/devices/:id/metadata/:key", api.DeleteDeviceMetadataKey)

Alternatives Considered

  • The nexlink proposal could have suggested expanding Nexodus with the metadata needed, but it seemed better to focus on how to build this as a layered application.
  • Metadata could have been added directly to the Device table, but that seemed more invasive than necessary, at least for now.

References