REST API compatibility is intended to minimize the impact for breaking changes applied to the REST API. Compatibility is implemented to strike a balance between preserving the REST API contract across major versions while still allowing for breaking changes. URL paths, parameters, HTTP verbs, request bodies and response bodies are all covered by REST API compatibility.
The recommended procedure to upgrade Elasticsearch to a new major version is to first upgrade Elasticsearch (the server), then upgrade any of the consumers/clients. This implies that the consumers/clients during and immediately after an upgrade may still be attempting to communicate with Elasticsearch using the prior major version's REST API contract. During this time, without compatibility, if any of consumers/clients continue to call into one of the REST API's that include breaking changes, the consumer/client can also break. Compatibility is a best attempt to honor the spirit of the original API call even after the breaking change has been applied.
For example, assume a REST request requires a consumer to send a "limit" parameter in the body of the request. Elasticsearch (the server) is upgraded to the next major version and that major version made a non-passive change that removes "limit" in favor of a "minimum" and "maximum" fields to enable some new functionality to also support a new lower limit. After the major version upgrade Elasticsearch only knows about "minimum" and "maximum", but the consumer/client (still on the older version of the client) only knows about "limit". With REST API compatibility the consumer/client can continue to send "limit" and Elasticsearch will honor that request using the value of "limit" as the "maximum". Since the prior version had no notion of "minimum", mapping "limit" -> "maximum" is the best attempt to honor the spirit of the request while still allowing the API and underlying behavior to evolve. A warning will be emitted to let the consumer/client know Elasticsearch applied compatibility.
REST API compatibility is opt-in per request using a specialized value for the Accept or Content-Type HTTP header. The intent is that this header may be sent prior to a major version upgrade resulting in no differences with the standard header values when the client and server match versions. For example, assume the consumer/client using the REST API for Elasticsearch version 7. If the client sends the specialized header value(s) for compatibility with version 7, then it will have no effect when talking with Elasticsearch version 7. However, once Elasticsearch is upgraded to version 8, and the compatibility with version 7 headers are sent, then Elasticsearch version 8 attempts to honor the version 7 REST API contract. This allows Elasticsearch to be upgraded to version 8 while the clients can generally remain on version 7. It is not always guaranteed to fix all upgrade issues but should provide an additional level of confidence during/post upgrade.
Breaking changes always follow a life-cycle of deprecation (documentation and warnings) in the current version before implementing the breaking change in the next major version. This give users an opportunity to adopt the non-deprecated variants in the current version. It is the still recommended approach to stop the usage of all deprecated functionality prior to a major version upgrade. However, in practice this can be a difficult, error prone, and a time consuming task. So it also recommended that consumers/clients send the specialized header to enable REST API compatibility before an upgrade to help catch any missed usages of deprecated functionality.
REST API compatibility is enabled per request using a specialized HTTP header.
For a request without a body the following Accept header is required to request REST API compatibility:
Accept: "application/vnd.elasticsearch+json;compatible-with=7"If the request also has a body the following is also necessary
Content-Type: "application/vnd.elasticsearch+json;compatible-with=7"The headers mirrors the 4 supported media types for both the Accept and Content-Type headers.
"application/vnd.elasticsearch+json;compatible-with=7"
"application/vnd.elasticsearch+yaml;compatible-with=7"
"application/vnd.elasticsearch+smile;compatible-with=7"
"application/vnd.elasticsearch+cbor;compatible-with=7"The version request is found in compatible-with=7. When sent to a version 7 server will do nothing special. When sent to a version 8 server will apply compatiblity if needed. When sent to a version 9 server will fail since compatibility is only supported across 1 major version.
A consumer/client may not mix "compatible-with" versions between headers. Attempts to mix and match compatible versions between Accept and Content-Type headers will result in an error. A consumer/client may mix the media type (i.e. send yaml and get back json).
The remainder of this guide is intended to help Elasticsearch developers understand how to introduce breaking changes to the REST API with support for REST API compatibility.
Any changes that touch the URL path, URL parameters, HTTP verbs, the shape or response code for the non-error response, the shape of the request should account for REST API compatibility. REST API compatibility is first introduced with version 8 with compatibility back to version 7. The 7.x branch of code has some minimal support to allow for easy back porting and to allow for the reading of the header on a version 7 cluster. There are no plans to provide compatibility back to version 6.
REST API compatibility is not the same as a fully version-ed API. It is a best attempt find a compatible way to honor the prior major version REST API contract. There will be cases where it is not possible to apply a compatibility. In those cases a meaningful error message should be emitted.
Settings, SQL, scripting, CAT APIs, and errors messages all touch the REST API but are not covered by REST API compatibility.
There are 4 primary integration points with REST API compatibility.
- Serializing responses to xContent
- De-serializing requests from xContent
- URL path, URL parameters, and HTTP verbs
- Testing for compatibility
Emitting a response back to the client is generally done via the ToXContent#toXContent method. The requested compatibility can be found in the XContentBuilder object allowing for conditional logic based on a specific request. For example:
if (builder.getRestApiVersion() == RestApiVersion.V_7) {
builder.field("limit", max);
} else {
builder.field("maximum,", max);
builder.field("minimum", min);
}In some cases the ToXContent#toXContent is also used to serialize the values to the cluster state. In these cases some refactoring or additional runtime validation is necessary to prevent the REST API conditional serialization from persisting in cluster state.
In places where ToXContent#toXContent is not used for serialization, then the requested compatibility can also be found in the RestRequest object and used accordingly. It is generally discouraged to push the requested compatibility version down through the transport actions to keep the REST compatibility a REST layer concern.
Accepting a payload from a prior version's REST request is a bit more difficult than sending a compatible response. There are a couple different approaches for de-serialization, however, in general all of them use a request specific parser. XContentParser has a getRestApiVersion() method that could be used in manner that is near identical to serialization. However, in practice most parsers are invoked via a ConstructingObjectParser or an ObjectParser and quite often they are daisy chained together via the NamedXContentRegistry.
Both ConstructingObjectParser and ObjectParser use ParseField's to statically declare the relationship between a named key and value pairing. A parser via it's ParseField can be made version aware, meaning that the parser will match on the incoming payload if the requested compatibility is the correct version.
For example:
PARSER.declareInt(MyPojo::setMax, new ParseField("maximum", "limit").forRestApiVersion(RestApiVersion.equalTo(RestApiVersion.V_7)));
PARSER.declareInt(MyPojo::setMax, new ParseField("maximum").forRestApiVersion(RestApiVersion.onOrAfter(RestApiVersion.V_8)));The above example is for code that live in the version 8 branch of code. In this example, limit has been deprecated in version 7 and removed in version 8. The above code reads use the maximum value from the request for both version 7 and version 8. However, if compatibility is requested it will also allow limit in the payload. If limit is used a warning will be emitted.
The version in forRestApiVersion is reference to when the declaration is valid. Assuming version 8 is the main branch and all changes start in the main branch then get back ported. The above text is what would be applicable for the v8 branch of code. The first line of code is essentially ignored except for when compatibility with version 7 is requested. When back-porting this change to the 7.x branch, the first line would be identical, and the second line would be omitted.
The above strategy works well for single fields, but could get overly complex very fast for large multiple field changes. For more complex de-serialization changes there is also support to construct a NamedXContentRegistry with some "normal" entries as well some entries that are only applied when compatibility with the prior version is requested. The syntax is very similar where can express the desired version from the required ParseField when adding an entry to the NamedXContentRegistry.
Additionally, there is a pseudo standard method fromXContent which also generally has access to the XContentParser for that request which can be used to conditionally change how to parse the input.
private static final ParseField limitField = new ParseField("maximum", "limit").forRestApiVersion(RestApiVersion.equalTo(RestApiVersion.V_7));
//call to fromXContent
MyExample.fromXContent(XContentType.JSON.xContent().createParser(XContentParserConfiguration.EMPTY.withDeprecationHandler(LoggingDeprecationHandler.INSTANCE).withRestApiVersion(request.getRestApiVersion()), " { \"limit\" : 99 }"));
//contents of a fromXContent
while ((token = parser.nextToken()) != XContentParser.Token.END_OBJECT) {
if (token == XContentParser.Token.FIELD_NAME) {
currentFieldName = parser.currentName();
} else if (token.isValue()) {
if (limitField.match(currentFieldName, LoggingDeprecationHandler.INSTANCE)) {
if (parser.getRestApiVersion().matches(RestApiVersion.onOrAfter(RestApiVersion.V_8))
&& "maximum".equals(currentFieldName) == false) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("invalid parameter [limit], use [maximum] instead");
} else {
value = parser.intValue();
}
}
}
}Paths are declared via a Route. Routes are composed of the HTTP verb and the relative path. Optionally they can declare a deprecated verb/path combination and the REST API version in which they were deprecated.
For example:
Route.builder(GET, "_mypath/{foo}/{bar}").deprecated(MY_DEPRECATION_MESSAGE, RestApiVersion.V_7).build(),Note: you can safely backport this route declaration to 7.x branch.
The above declares that GET _mypath/foo/bar is deprecated in version 7. When this path is called in a version 7 server, it will emit the deprecation warning. When this path is called in a version 8 server, it will throw a 404 error unless REST API compatibility is requested. Only then will the path be honored and will also emit a warning message.
HTTP parameters (i.e. ?user=alice) are also covered by REST API compatibility and must be at least consumed as to not cause an error. For example if you remove a parameter in version 8, you must at least read that parameter and emit a warning when version 7 compatibility is requested.
For example:
if (request.getRestApiVersion() == RestApiVersion.V_7 && request.hasParam("limit")) {
deprecationLogger.compatibleCritical("limit_parameter_deprecation",
"Deprecated parameter [limit] used, replaced by [maximum and minimum]");
setMax(request.param("limit"));
}The above code checks the request's compatible version and if the request has the parameter in question. In this case the deprecation warning is not automatic and requires the developer to manually log the warning. request.param is also required since it consumes the value as to avoid the error of unconsumed parameters.
The primary means of testing compatibility is via the prior major version's YAML REST tests. The build system will download the latest prior version of the YAML rest tests and execute them against the current cluster version. Prior to execution the tests will be transformed by injecting the correct headers to enable compatibility as well as other custom changes to the tests to allow the tests to pass. These customizations are configured via the build.gradle and happen just prior to test execution. Since the compatibility tests are manipulated version of the tests stored in Github (via the past major version), it is important to find the local (on disk) version for troubleshooting compatibility tests.
The tests are wired into the check task, so that is the easiest way to test locally prior to committing. More specifically the task is called yamlRestTestV7CompatTest, where 7 is the version of tests that are executing. For example, version 8 of the server will have a task named yamlRestTestV7CompatTest and version 9 of the server will have a task named yamlRestTestV8CompatTest. These behaves nearly identical to it's non-compat yamlRestTest task. The only variance is that the tests are sourced from the prior version branch and the tests go through a transformation phase before execution. The transformation task is yamlRestTestV7CompatTransform where the Vnumber follows the same convention as the test.
For example:
./gradlew :rest-api-spec:yamlRestTestV7CompatTestSince these are a variation of backward compatibility testing, the entire suite of compatibility tests will be skipped anytime the backward compatibility testing is disabled. Since the source code for these tests live in a branch of code, disabling a specific test should be done via the transformation task configuration in build.gradle (i.e. yamlRestTestV7CompatTransform).
In some cases the prior version of the YAML REST tests are not sufficient to fully test changes. This can happen when the prior version has insufficient test coverage. In those cases, you can simply add more testing to the prior version or you can add custom REST tests that will run along side of the other compatibility tests. These custom tests can be found in the yamlRestTestV7 (where Vnumber follows the same conventions) sourceset and the test directory is versioned for example: yamlRestTestV7/resources/rest-api-spec/test/v7compat). Custom REST tests for compatibility will not be modified prior to execution, so the correct headers need to be manually added.
There should not be much, if any, deviation in a developers normal workflow to introduce and back-port changes. Changes should be applied in main, then back ported as needed.
Most of the compatibility will work correctly when back-porting as-is, but some care is needed that the logic is correct for that version when back-porting. For example, both the route (URL) and field (de-serialization) declarations with version awareness will behave differently if the declared version is the current version or the prior version. This allows the same line of code to be back ported as-is with differing behavior. Additionally the compatible version is always populated (even when not requested, defaulting to the current version), so conditional logic comparing against a specific version is safe across branches.
Mixed clusters are not explicitly tested since the change should be applied at the REST (coordinating node) layer.
By far the most common reason that compatibility tests can seemingly randomly fail is that your main branch is out of date with the upstream main. For this reason, it always suggested to ensure that your PR branch is up to date.
Test failure reproduction lines should behave identical to the non-compatible variant. However, to assure you are referencing the correct line number when reading the test, be sure to look at the line number from the transformed test on disk. Generally the fully transformed tests can be found at build/restResources/v7/yamlTests/transformed/rest-api-spec/test/* (where v7 will change with different versions).
Muting compatibility tests should be done via a test transform. A per test skip or a file match can be used to skip the tests.
tasks.named("yamlRestTestV7CompatTransform").configure({ task ->
task.skipTestsByFilePattern("**/cat*/*.yml", "Cat API are not supported")
task.skipTest("bulk/10_basic/Array of objects", "Muted due failures. See #12345")
})