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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-1237?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:all-tabpanel
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Stu Hood updated CASSANDRA-1237:
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    Attachment:     (was: sample-usage.patch)

> Store AccessLevels externally to IAuthenticator
> -----------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: CASSANDRA-1237
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-1237
>             Project: Cassandra
>          Issue Type: Bug
>          Components: Core
>            Reporter: Stu Hood
>            Assignee: Stu Hood
>             Fix For: 0.7 beta 2
>
>         Attachments: 
> 0001-Consolidate-KSMetaData-mutations-into-copy-methods.patch, 
> 0002-Thrift-and-Avro-interface-changes.patch, 
> 0003-Add-user-and-group-access-maps-to-Keyspace-metadata.patch, 
> 0004-Remove-AccessLevel-return-value-from-login-and-retur.patch, 
> 0005-Move-per-thread-state-into-a-ClientState-object-1-pe.patch, 
> 0006-Apply-access.properties-to-keyspaces-during-an-upgra.patch, 
> sample-usage.patch, simple-jaas-authenticator.patch, 
> v2-0001-Remove-AccessLevel-return-value-from-login-since-aut.patch, 
> v2-0002-Add-IAuthority-and-split-login-into-authenticate-aut.patch, 
> v2-0003-Factor-out-reflection-based-class-construction.patch, 
> v2-0004-Add-configuration-for-IAuthority-and-handle-SimpleAu.patch, 
> v2-0005-Separate-authentication-and-authorization-into-Clien.patch
>
>
> Currently, the concept of authentication (proving the identity of a user) is 
> mixed up with permissions (determining whether a user is able to 
> create/read/write databases). Rather than determining the permissions that a 
> user has, the IAuthenticator should only be capable of authenticating a user, 
> and permissions (specifically, an AccessLevel) should be stored consistently 
> by Cassandra.
> EDIT: Adding summary
> ----
> In summary, there appear to be 3 distinct options for how to move forward 
> with authorization. Remember that this ticket is about disconnecting 
> authorization (permissions) from authentication (user/group identification), 
> and its goal is to leave authentication pluggable.
> Options:
> # Leave authentication and authorization in the same interface. If we choose 
> this option, this ticket is invalid, and CASSANDRA-1271 and CASSANDRA-1320 
> will add-to/improve IAuthenticator
> ** Pros:
> *** Least change
> ** Cons:
> *** Very little actually implemented by Cassandra: burden is on the backend 
> implementors
> *** Each combination of authz and authc backends would require a new 
> implementation (PAM for authc + permissions keyspace for authz, for 
> instance), causing an explosion of implementations
> # Separate out a pluggable IAuthority interface to implement authorization
> ## IAuthenticator interface would be called at login time to determine 
> user/groups membership
> ## IAuthority would be called at operation time with the user/groups 
> determined earlier, and the required permission for the operation
> ** Pros:
> *** Provides the cleanest separation of concerns
> *** Allows plugability for permissions
> ** Cons:
> *** Pluggability of permissions gains limited benefit
> *** IAuthority would need to support callbacks for keyspace/cf creation and 
> removal to keep existing keyspaces in sync with their permissions (although 
> technically, option 1 suffers from this as well)
> # Separate authorization, but do not make it pluggable
> ** This option is implemented by the existing patchset by attaching 
> permissions to metadata, but could have an alternative implementation that 
> stores permissions in a permissions keyspace.
> ** Pros:
> *** Cassandra controls the scalability of authorization, and can ensure it 
> does not become a bottleneck
> ** Cons:
> *** Would need to support callbacks for user creation and removal to keep 
> existing users in sync with their permissions

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