Policies Authorization Model¶

This document describes the authorization model used for policies and associated endpoints.

Actions¶

The following actions are defined for policies:

Create
Read
Update
Delete

Permissions¶

Permissions are granted cumulatively to users based on their group association. The following permission levels are granted to users:

Unauthenticated¶

Unauthenticated users do not have access to policy records.

Authenticated¶

Unauthenticated users do not have access to policy records by default.

POLICY_GROUPS¶

If a user is part of a group listed in configuration as part of POLICY_GROUPS, they have unrestricted create, read and update access to all policies.

ADMIN_GROUPS¶

If a user is part of a group listed in configuration as part of ADMIN_GROUPS, they have unrestricted create, read and update access to all policies.

DELETE_GROUPS¶

If a user is part of a group listed in configuration as part of DELETE_GROUPS, they have unrestricted delete access to all policies in the database.

Permission Matrix¶

Table of the different permission classes defined in casl. For all special permission groups, the full list includes the relevant permissions passed on from generic authenticated user permissions.

Operation	Unauthenticated	Authenticated	`POLICY_GROUPS`	`ADMIN_GROUPS`	`DELETE_GROUPS`
`Create`	-	-	any	any	-
`Read`	-	-	any	any	-
`Update`	-	-	any	any	-
`Delete`	-	-	-	-	any

Legend: - any: unrestricted access

Implementation Notes¶

The definition is implemented in the casl module under /src/casl/abilities/policies.ability.ts and accessible elsewhere via CaslAbilityFactory.policyAccess. This one function is used to build one casl ability for endpoint and instance authorization: When a user receives permission for an action under some instance-level condition, they should implicitly pass endpoint authorization.

The PolicyAbility module in /src/casl/abilities/policies.ability.ts is written in such a way that permissions are cumulative. In case multiple rules apply, casl will chain them in a logical or, ultimately giving precedence to the broadest applicable rule. The special permission groups are sorted roughly in ascending order of privilege level. In case there are expectations of mutual exclusivity for certain special groups (not the case for policies currently), additional rules using the cannot ability expression can be added after all can rules have been defined. For an example, see the jobs subsystem authorization docs.