Problems with Cluster "Config" button

[davidnuzik]

Originated from https://github.com/rancher/dashboard/issues/3682, but problems are more clearly and correctly defined here in this issue.

There is a mismatch in the behavior of the "Config" button when viewing clusters in the Cluster Manager. There are other issues as well as outlined below.

1. An RKE1 cluster let's you configure the cluster (edit config) when clicking the "Config" button, based on discussion in https://github.com/rancher/dashboard/issues/3682 the "Config" button is supposed to be read-only (which is quite confusing to me and mentioned separately below).

2. It's not very obvious with the dark theme that the "Config" button is read-only. Sure you have the "No" cusrsor in most (but not all) areas but the styling should be modified a bit to make it more obvious what is actually disabled in the dark theme. To understand this, let's compare the light theme vs the dark theme here:

light:

dark:

Perhaps if the text was more uniformly gray instead of white for drop-downs it would be more obvious. Perhaps if we made the disabled fields more of a slightly lighter gray color it would be more obvious as well.

3. The "No" cursor doesn't work everywhere - For drop downs it won't show for the text or when clicking the drop-down arrow.

This is less of an issue if we could fix issue number 2.

4. Some fields actually ARE editable still. Click on "etcd" under Cluster Configuration section and you can edit the s3 fields:

5. Last, this is more of a complaint than anything so take it as you will - perhaps we change nothing but I have to say, the "Config" button should let me edit the cluster. I fail to understand why this is read-only. We are on the "Cluster Management" page/area here -- it's for managing the clusters. The Config page should not be read-only in my opinion -- that makes no sense to me.

If we're really going to stick with making this read-only for some reason could we maybe call this button something else? I can't think of anything that is short and 1 word but "Config Details" makes more sense to me, although we'd have to change the "Details" button to another name.

All in all, this just doesn't feel right to me. We can edit rke1 clusters with the "Config" button but not rke2 clusters and we're on the "Cluster Management" page/area where we admin clusters - why would the Config button be read-only for rke2 clusters?

[richard-cox]

Anything on the detail's config page should be read only. If any fields aren't read only or obviously disabled we'll need to fix it. Any changes to form fields on that page that aren't disabled won't be saved. The only way to edit a config is by the Edit Config buttons.

I couldn't see anywhere in the ember ui where the button to get to edit config is just 'Config', it's always edit. There's no 'view' equivalent.

In the Dashboard, Config is to view & Edit Config to edit.

I'm moving this out to 2.6.x where we can triage it for the next release

[davidnuzik]

@deniseschannon and/or @cloudnautique can we talk about this from PM perspective? Rationale for this page being read-only on cluster management area of UI? I think this is a poor decision.

[deniseschannon]

I thought there were view only styling versions of components @vincent99?

[vincent99]

• RKE1 is an ember type that shows as an iframe.
• Because there is an "edit" component defined for the [provisioning] cluster type, the Config tab shows up.
• When you click it, the "edit" view for that type of cluster is conditional, and for RKE1 is an iframe to Ember.
• Ember has no "read-only" view of the full config to show.

There is no chance we're going to add that to Ember. So the reasonable options are:

1. Do nothing, it's a little weird for this type.
2. Don't show the "Config" tab as an option on resources where it's going to lead to an iframe. The current behavior probably wasn't ever intended, but happens automatically because there is indeed an "edit" component defined for the cluster type.

Background:

The detail/"looking at an individual resource" pages in Vue have 0, 2, or 3 "tabs" of how you want to look at it depending on what code we've written:

• Everything gets a YAML view because it's completely generic.
• If we define an edit form, "Config" is that form but in a read-only mode. This gives users with no edit permission access to all the same information (which Ember lacks) and lets you see it without accidentally changing things.
• If we define a "detail" component, that's the "Detail" tab. It is intended to show the most important stuff about that type and how it's running/relates to other resources. It is not intended to describe every possible field on that resource and what the value is for them because that's duplicating a substantial part of the whole edit component.
• (If YAML is the only option available for a type, the buttons to switch views are hidden).

Ember has these modes all somewhat mixed together and inconsistently available:

• The "individual resource" view page is always a custom component. They shows whatever we felt like, which is sometimes every possible field and sometimes just summary stuff.
• If you don't have edit permission there is no way to see the complete config because the action is missing. Or sometimes we show it and you think you can edit but haha no on save.
• View/edit YAML is available only on certain types for no obvious-to-the-user reason (mostly it's available on native k8s types, but not ours).

[richard-cox]

Apologies, I didn't grok what was stated clearly. We should change the Config page for RKE1 clusters, so I'd vote for 2 if we have bandwith in 2.6. I'll check with the team on Monday.

We also need to do a run through and check any enabled form fields for RKE2