[jboss-dev-forums] [JBoss AS 7 Development] - Access control notes

[Heiko Braun]

Heiko Braun [https://community.jboss.org/people/heiko.braun] modified the document:

"Access control notes"

To view the document, visit: https://community.jboss.org/docs/DOC-48596

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h1. Objective

By early September to implement a simplified domain management access control solution suitable for both AS 8 and EAP 6.x.

The primary objective is to establish a simple set of roles with which users can be associated, with clear sets of operation execution permissions associated with each role. The second critical objective is to develop an architecture for authorization that will allow for a much more generic/flexible authorization scheme to be implemented in future releases without breaking the simple scheme we do now.

Actually providing a generic scheme is out of scope for AS 8.

h1. Team and Timeline

Full time: Heiko Braun, Darran Lofthouse, Kabir Khan, Brian Stansberry
Available to assist as needed: Jason Greene, Anil Saldhana, subsystem leads

Design Phase I:
+ Lay out the fundamental architecture, identify the main requirements and intended approach for meeting each
+ 2 weeks
+ Completion allows some aspects of dev to begin (which, TBD)
+ Inability to get the stated time commitments from all participants delays completion by that amount of time

Design Phase II:
+ Design in detail some of the fundamental areas where either coordinated design is required or a sub-team needs to flesh out details
+ 2 weeks

Dev Phase:
+ 2.5 months
+ Achieve feature completion
+ See tasks below
++ need to assign resources and timelines to each task.

Dev Test Phase:
+ hardening period
+ 1 month
+ ends Sept 6

QE Phase:
+ begins following September 6 end of Dev Test Phase

h1. Tasks

*General Tasks*

- Provide a permission model, storage and API
- Enable configuration of the permission model
- Provide operations to retrieve permission meta data 
- Enforce permissions in core management compoments (mapping of permission model against resources)
- Respect permissions  in web console (mapping of permission model against interaction units and use cases)
- Respect permissions in CLI (mapping of permission model against command line syntax and use cases)

*Component Breakdown*

Core Management Compoments
*
*
interface to decision point
+ information about resource access request
+ information about user
+ other information about request (time of day, interface, etc)


misc op authorization
+ basic control over op execution
write-attribute/undefine-attribute authorization
add op authorization
+ trick here is cases where certain attributes can't be written
++ my instinct is to reject the add; no sophisticated rules


read-attribute authorization
read-resource authorization, output control to use response header to indicate content was filtered


configuration of our default decision point
user info configuration (what data to provide decision point, where to get it)


read-resource-access op (an op to learn about user's ability to use API; based on read-resource-description)
+ uses
++ general information
++ allow caller to disable features that will be non-functional (e.g. buttons for misc ops that are not available)


model-reference issues
+ general issue of resources in a tree being affected by other resources
+ server groups
++ user has rights to a resource that affects an SG, but not to the SG itself
+ hosts
++ similar issue
++ twist is host-specific config vs domain-wide config affecting server's on a host
+ others?
+ notion: enforce this at domain rollout time?
++ problem: what about an admin-only HC situation? -- no rollout

Configuration propagation
++ master HC to slave

JMX security
+ AS domains depend on core security, as they just delegate
++ provide some information about access mechanism
+ other mbeans
++ what policy?
++ what control point?



Web Console

+ the interface structure doesn't necessarily refelct the model structure
++ i.e. some coarse grained interface compoments rely on a number of resources across the model

+ distinction between interface structure (interaction units) and DMR payload
+ suppression of interaction units can only be done if the screens properly bootstrap from the model
++ relates to "read-resource-access"
++ currently not the case and a major change (intended first prototype for AS8)

+ distinction between logical entities and resource tree structure 
++ i.e. /subsystem=datasources is resource tree structure 
++ datasource=ExampleDS is a logical entity within the tree structure
++ makes a diference for address pattern matching...

+ do we support security constraints for logical entities? (can see datasource "Foo" but not datasource "Bar")
++ relates to "model-reference issues".

CLI
+ basic handling of low-level (should be ok)
+ disable high-level commands in advance?
+ ls -- high-level equivalent to read-resource


Misc issues:
sniffing for resources -- request a resource to learn it exists from the failure response

h2. Permission Model

+ Should we aim for a mapping of resources onto a permission model?
++ Do we provide the permission model?
++ For a starting point see:  https://community.jboss.org/docs/DOC-47854 https://community.jboss.org/wiki/ManagementLayerAccessControl

h1. Resource and Action Attributes

The following describes attributes required as inputs to a authorization mechanism, which that mechanism would use to enforce some permission schemes we've heard of. The assumption was the authorization mechanism would be some form of Attribute Based Access Control, although the use of ABAC is not a requirement. The terms "Resource Attributes" and "Action Attributes" is derived from the XACML spec, which notes that "Information security policies operate upon attributes of subjects, the resource, the action and the environment in order to arrive at an authorization decision." This section is concerned with identifying relevant attributes of the management resources toward which an operations is targetted, as well as the relevant attributes of the operation itself.

DMR API and Wireformat

+ separate static security meta data from dynamic runtime headers?
++ static: part of "read-resource-access"
++ dynamic: indication of enforced constraints as part of a DMR response (i.e suppressed elements)

h4. Scheme 1:

Monitor:
-- read-only flag on the operation

Configurator:
-- Storage flag on attribute
-- flag on operation to indicate runtime-only
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Operator:
-- Storage flag on attribute
-- flag on operation to indicate runtime-only
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Administrator
-- resource address

Deployer
-- resource address

Admin Security Manager
-- I would consider the equivalent for us to be the ability to configure the access control policies
-- resource address

Auditor
-- resource address

h4. Scheme 2:

Anonymous
-- N/A

Admin
-- none; user is root

Deployer
seems equivalent to Scheme 3's read-write
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Operator
-- read-only flag on the operation
-- resource-address
-- operation name
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Monitor
-- read-only flag on the operation
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

h4. Scheme 3:

Read-only
-- read-only flag on the operation
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Read-write
-- "security privileged" flag attribute
-- "security privileged" flag on resource
-- attribute value is a vault expression?

Privileged
-- none; user is root

This is basically equivalent to Scheme 2, without Scheme 2's "Operator".

h4. Scheme 4:

Administrator
view or modify anything; deploy apps, perform lifecycle functions 
-- none; user is root


Deployer
view anything, deploy apps, perform lifecycle functions
-- read-only flag on the operation
-- resource-address
-- operation name


Operator
view anything, perform lifecycle
-- read-only flag on the operation
-- resource-address
-- operation name


Monitor
view anything
-- read-only flag on the operation
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