jerryshao commented on code in PR #12177: URL: https://github.com/apache/gravitino/pull/12177#discussion_r3783507108
########## design-docs/policy-on-tag.md: ########## @@ -0,0 +1,692 @@ +<!-- + Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one + or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file + distributed with this work for additional information + regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file + to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the + "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance + with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at + + http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 + + Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, + software distributed under the License is distributed on an + "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY + KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the + specific language governing permissions and limitations + under the License. +--> + +# Design of Policy-on-Tag in Gravitino + +--- + +## Background + +Gravitino currently has two independent governance concepts: + +| Concept | Current state | +|---------|---------------| +| Tag | A flat metalake-scoped metadata object used to classify or annotate metadata objects. Tags can be associated with catalogs, schemas, tables, filesets, topics, models, and columns. Tag listing follows the metadata object hierarchy, so a child object can receive tags from parent metadata objects. | +| Policy | A metalake-scoped metadata object with typed content, enabled state, and audit information. The current model allows policies to be associated directly with metadata objects. The system iceberg compaction policy is the first built-in policy type and is consumed by the table maintenance service. | + +The current object-side governance model is: + +```text +Tag -> Metadata Object +Policy -> Metadata Object +``` + +This direct object policy model is understandable for a small number of objects, but it creates +problems when governance needs to scale across many catalogs, schemas, tables, and columns: + +1. Users must manage both object tags and object policies on the same metadata object. +2. Policy assignment does not naturally follow classification. A table can be marked as + `maintenance_standard`, but the maintenance policy still has to be attached separately. +3. New objects can be missed unless administrators attach policies to every new object or rely on + ancestor-level direct policy assignment. +4. TMS needs maintenance policy selection now, while future ABAC needs tag-driven policy selection. + Direct object policies do not provide a shared selection layer for both scenarios. +5. Keeping two object-side governance paths makes the user model harder to explain and document. + +The proposed target model is: + +```text +Policy -> Tag -> Metadata Object +``` + +Policy remains a first-class object. Tags become the only object-side governance attachment point. +An object policy is a read-only policy result for a metadata object, derived from the tags the +object has or inherits from parent metadata objects. Tags themselves are not nested. + +--- + +## Goals + +1. **Single Object-Side Attachment Point**: Metadata objects receive governance behavior only + through tags, not through direct policy attachment. +2. **Reusable Policy Lifecycle**: Policies remain first-class objects with typed content, enabled + state, audit information, and existing metalake-scoped lifecycle and mutation operations. +3. **Policy-to-Tag Association**: Administrators can associate policies with tags and inspect which + tags carry a policy. +4. **Flat Tags**: Tags remain flat metalake-scoped objects. The design does not add parent tags, + child tags, tag groups, or tag-to-tag inheritance. +5. **Object Policy Resolution**: Gravitino can compute object policies for a metadata object from + its effective tags, including inherited tags. +6. **Read-Only Object Policies**: Object policies are derived results. Users cannot create, alter, + enable, disable, delete, or associate policies directly on a metadata object. +7. **Explicit Visibility Privileges**: Tag and policy visibility are controlled by read-only + privileges that are separate from mutation privileges. +8. **Secure Policy Enforcement**: Row filter and column mask enforcement does not depend on whether + the end user can view policy details. +9. **TMS Integration**: TMS consumes the system iceberg compaction policy through object policy + lookup, not through direct object policy relations. +10. **ABAC Evolution Path**: The resolver boundary can later support tag-expression policies without + changing every policy consumer. +11. **Explicit Breaking Migration**: Existing direct object policy relations are migrated or retired + explicitly; runtime behavior does not read direct object policy relations. + +--- + +## Non-Goals + +1. **Direct Object Policy Compatibility**: Gravitino will not preserve direct policy attachment to + metadata objects in the target model. Object-side policy behavior comes only from tags. +2. **Object Policy Mutation**: Object policies are not mutable entities. The object policy API is a + lookup API, not a create, update, delete, enable, disable, or association API. +3. **Nested Tags**: This design does not introduce tag hierarchy, tag groups, parent tags, child + tags, tag-to-tag relations, or tag-to-tag inheritance. Policy selection is based on flat tags + assigned to metadata objects. +4. **Tag-Expression ABAC in Phase 1**: The first phase does not introduce an expression language. + Policy selection is a fixed relation from policy to tag. +5. **Full Explainability UI**: A dedicated UI is not required for the first milestone. APIs must + still return enough source information to trace object policy sources. +6. **Multi-Value Tag Append Semantics**: This design does not append multiple values to the same tag + key on one object. If assignment values are used, the same tag key has one effective value. +7. **Engine-Specific Enforcement Plugins**: This design defines policy selection inside Gravitino. + Trino, Spark, Iceberg, or OPA enforcement integrations are separate designs. + +--- + +## Solution Investigations + +### Policy Assignment Model + +| Approach | Pros | Cons | Decision | +|----------|------|------|----------| +| Direct object policy | Simple to understand for one object; current implementation already exists. | Does not scale well; duplicates object-side tag and policy management; does not align classification with action. | Rejected | +| Controls embedded in tags | Simplest user model; objects only receive tags. | Tags become heavy governance objects; policy lifecycle, reuse, audit, enable/disable, and versioning are weaker; does not keep tag and policy concepts clear. | Rejected | +| Policy-on-tag | Keeps policies reusable and auditable; makes tags the only object-side attachment point; works for TMS without an expression engine; keeps a clean path to ABAC. | Requires a new relation table, resolver, APIs, and breaking migration away from direct object policy. | **Chosen** | +| Nested tags | Can model classification hierarchy directly in tag objects. | Adds a second hierarchy beside metadata object hierarchy; complicates policy resolution, authorization, migration, and explainability. | Rejected | +| Tag-expression ABAC | Most expressive; supports complex conditions over tag names, tag values, principals, and scopes. | Requires expression language, matching engine, and more complex UX; too large for the next milestone. | Future | + +Policy-on-tag is the best next step because it is useful as a standalone model and keeps the +long-term ABAC path open. The consumer path can stay stable: + +```text +Consumer -> ObjectPolicyResolver -> object policies +``` + +Only the policy selection layer needs to evolve later from fixed `policy -> tag` relations to tag +expressions. + +### Row Filter and Column Mask Conflict Handling + +| Approach | Example | Trade-off | Decision | +|----------|---------|-----------|----------| +| Restrict conflicts at configuration time | Snowflake allows only one directly assigned row access policy on a table or view, and evaluates row access policies before masking policies. | Simple and predictable, but stricter for administrators. | Rejected for tag-driven policy selection because conflicts can still arise from multiple effective tags. | +| Combine row filters with OR semantics | BigQuery combines multiple row-level access policies with OR semantics. | Flexible, but can broaden access and is risky as a default for tag-driven governance. | Rejected | +| Priority-based resolution | Some systems can choose a winning policy by priority. | Flexible, but effective access becomes harder to reason about and easier to misconfigure. | Rejected | +| Fail closed on ambiguity | Databricks ABAC blocks access when multiple distinct row filters or column masks apply to the same target. | Safest default, but administrators must fix overlapping tags or policy associations. | **Chosen** | + +### Tag Value Semantics + +| Approach | Pros | Cons | Decision | +|----------|------|------|----------| +| Append values | Can express multiple values for the same tag key on one object. | Makes policy selection ambiguous and can trigger multiple policies for one logical classification dimension. | Rejected | +| Overwrite values | Keeps each tag key single-valued for one object; aligns with common tag and label systems. | Administrators must use separate tag keys for separate dimensions. | **Chosen** | + +--- + +## Proposal + +### Target Model + +The target model has four concepts: + +| Concept | Description | +|---------|-------------| +| Policy | A metalake-scoped governance rule with typed content, enabled state, audit information, and version history. | +| Tag | A flat metalake-scoped classification object associated with metadata objects. Tags do not have parent or child tags. | +| Policy-tag relation | A relation that binds one policy to one tag in the same metalake. | +| Object policy | A read-only policy result for a metadata object, derived from effective tags and policy-tag relations. | + +Object-side governance becomes: + +```text +Metadata Object -> Effective Tags -> Object Policies +``` + +Metadata objects do not store direct policy relations. Object policies are not persisted as separate +entities. + +### Effective Tag Semantics + +Policy-on-tag reuses the current metadata-object tag inheritance model. This is not tag nesting: +tags are flat, and only tag assignments flow through the metadata object hierarchy. Examples use +flat tag names without dot separators. + +1. Tags associated with an object are direct tags. +2. Tags associated with parent metadata objects are inherited tags. +3. If a child object has a direct assignment for a tag name, that direct tag becomes the effective + source for that tag and overrides inherited assignments with the same tag name. +4. Policy-on-tag uses tag presence for policy resolution. It does not need assignment values to + resolve the phase-1 policy set. +5. The effective tag set is the de-duplicated result of walking from the object to its ancestors. +6. Policies bound to effective tags become object policy candidates. + +For example: + +```text +policy iceberg_compaction_standard + policyType: system_iceberg_compaction + +catalog iceberg + direct tags: [maintenance_standard] + +table iceberg.db.orders + direct tags: [] + inherited tags: [maintenance_standard] + effective tags: [maintenance_standard] + object policies: [iceberg_compaction_standard] + policy source: CATALOG iceberg through tag maintenance_standard +``` + +### Policy Supported Object Types + +`PolicyContent.supportedObjectTypes()` is deprecated in the policy-on-tag model. Its current purpose +is to restrict the metadata object types to which a policy can be directly attached. The target +model associates policies with tags instead of metadata objects, so relation creation no longer has +a metadata object type to validate. + +Object policy resolution therefore does not filter policies by `supportedObjectTypes()`. It returns +enabled policies associated with the effective tags. Type-specific consumers decide whether and how +to consume a policy type. For example, TMS requests object policies for tables and consumes only the +system iceberg compaction policy type. The deprecated field should be removed from the public API in +a compatible release according to the project's API evolution policy. + +### Policy Mutability + +Policy-on-tag does not change the existing policy lifecycle or mutation APIs. Users can continue to +create, alter, enable, disable, delete, and view policy objects according to authorization rules. +Existing operations such as `PolicyOperations.alterPolicy()` and `PolicyChange.updateContent()` +remain supported. Only object policies, which are derived from effective tags, are read-only. + +### Object Policy Mutability + +Object policies are read-only derived results. + +Users cannot perform these operations on a metadata object: + +```text +create object policy +alter object policy +enable object policy +disable object policy +delete object policy +associate object policy +disassociate object policy +``` + +To change the object policy result, users must change one of the source inputs: + +1. alter the policy definition, or create a replacement policy and update the policy-to-tag + relation; +2. enable or disable the policy object; +3. associate or disassociate the policy with a tag; +4. assign or remove the tag from the metadata object or one of its ancestors. + +### Data Model + +Existing policy metadata tables remain: + +```text +policy_meta +policy_version_meta +``` + +Existing tag metadata and tag assignment tables remain: + +```text +tag_meta +tag_relation_meta +``` + +There is no tag-to-tag relation table. The design does not add parent tag IDs, nested tag paths, or +tag hierarchy metadata. + +The current policy-to-metadata-object relation table is not part of the target model: + +```text +policy_relation_meta +``` + +Add a policy-to-tag relation table: + +```text +policy_tag_relation_meta + policy_id + tag_id + audit_info + current_version + last_version + deleted_at +``` + +Constraints and indexes: + +1. Active rows are unique by `(policy_id, tag_id)`. +2. Index `tag_id` for object policy lookup from tags. +3. Index `policy_id` for impact analysis from policies. +4. Policy and tag must belong to the same metalake. +5. The table follows the same soft-delete and version fields as existing relation tables. + +### REST API Changes + +#### New: `GET /api/metalakes/{metalake}/tags/{tag}/policies` + +**Request:** No body. + +| Query parameter | Type | Required | Description | +|-----------------|------|----------|-------------| +| `details` | boolean | no | If true, return full policy objects. If false, return policy names. | + +**Response:** `200 OK` + +```json +{ + "names": ["iceberg_compaction_standard"] +} +``` + +With `details=true`: + +```json +{ + "policies": [ + { + "name": "iceberg_compaction_standard", + "policyType": "system_iceberg_compaction", + "enabled": true, + "content": {} + } + ] +} +``` + +**Behavior:** Lists policies directly associated with the tag. Returns `404 Not Found` if the tag +does not exist. + +#### New: `POST /api/metalakes/{metalake}/tags/{tag}/policies` + +**Request:** + +| Field | Type | Required | Description | +|-------|------|----------|-------------| +| `policiesToAdd` | array of string | no | Policy names to associate with the tag. | +| `policiesToRemove` | array of string | no | Policy names to disassociate from the tag. | + +```json +{ + "policiesToAdd": ["iceberg_compaction_standard"], + "policiesToRemove": ["iceberg_compaction_legacy"] +} +``` + +**Response:** `200 OK` + +```json +{ + "names": ["iceberg_compaction_standard"] +} +``` + +**Behavior:** Atomically updates policy associations for one tag. The request supports adding and +removing multiple policies so callers can change the complete relation set without issuing one +request per policy or exposing an intermediate partial state. The tag and all added policies must +exist in the same metalake. Adding an already associated policy returns a duplicate association +error. Removing a missing association is ignored. A policy listed in both arrays is ignored. + +#### New: `GET /api/metalakes/{metalake}/policies/{policy}/tags` + +**Request:** No body. + +| Query parameter | Type | Required | Description | +|-----------------|------|----------|-------------| +| `details` | boolean | no | If true, return full tag objects. If false, return tag names. | + +**Response:** `200 OK` + +```json +{ + "names": ["maintenance_standard"] +} +``` + +**Behavior:** Lists tags that carry the policy. This is used for impact analysis before disabling +or deleting a policy. Returns `404 Not Found` if the policy does not exist. + +#### Changed: `GET /api/metalakes/{metalake}/objects/{type}/{fullName}/policies` + +**Request:** No body. + +| Query parameter | Type | Required | Description | +|-----------------|------|----------|-------------| +| `details` | boolean | no | If true, return policy content and source information. If false, return policy names. | + +**Response:** `200 OK` + +```json +{ + "policies": [ + { + "name": "iceberg_compaction_standard", + "policyType": "system_iceberg_compaction", + "enabled": true, + "sourceTag": "maintenance_standard", + "sourceTagInherited": true, + "sourceObjectType": "CATALOG", + "sourceObjectName": "iceberg" + } + ] +} +``` + +**Current behavior:** This API loads policies directly associated with the requested metadata object +and its parent metadata objects. Policies loaded from a parent are marked as inherited. The API +returns policy names by default and policy details when `details=true`; detailed results are +filtered by the current policy authorization expression. It does not derive policies through tags. + +**New behavior:** This API becomes a read-only derived object policy lookup API. It resolves object +policies from effective tags and policy-to-tag relations. It does not read direct policy relations +and does not modify policy objects or object-policy relationships. + +**Migration impact:** Callers must use policy-to-tag association APIs and read object policies from +`GET /api/metalakes/{metalake}/objects/{type}/{fullName}/policies`. Object-side policy association +calls must be replaced with tag assignment calls. + +#### Removed: Direct Object Policy Mutation APIs + +The target model removes direct object policy mutation and direct object-policy-detail APIs: + +```text +GET /api/metalakes/{metalake}/objects/{type}/{fullName}/policies/{policy} +POST /api/metalakes/{metalake}/objects/{type}/{fullName}/policies +``` + +**Current behavior:** The GET API first checks the policy relation on the requested metadata object. +If no direct relation exists, it searches parent metadata objects and marks a parent result as +inherited. The POST API atomically adds and removes direct policy relations on the requested +metadata object using `policiesToAdd` and `policiesToRemove`. Neither API modifies the policy +definition itself. + +**New behavior:** Object policies are derived from tags and are only exposed through the object +policy lookup API. + +**Migration impact:** Callers must move direct policy association workflows to tag assignment and +policy-to-tag association workflows. + +### Client API Changes + +| Area | Old API | New API | +|------|---------|---------| +| Object policy association | `SupportsPolicies.associatePolicies(String[] add, String[] remove)` | Removed from metadata object mixins in the target model. | +| Object policy listing | `SupportsPolicies.listPolicies()` | Reinterpreted as read-only derived object policy lookup. | +| Tag policy association | None | New tag-scoped API such as `associatePoliciesForTag(tagName, add, remove)`. | +| Policy impact analysis | `Policy.associatedObjects()` | Replaced or supplemented by `Policy.associatedTags()`. | + +The exact Java and Python method names can be finalized during implementation, but the API shape +must not expose direct object policy association or object policy mutation as target behavior. + +### Object Policy Resolution Algorithm + +```text +ObjectPolicyResolver + input: metalake, metadata object + output: object policies +``` + +Algorithm: + +1. Validate that the metadata object exists. +2. Load effective tags for the object using current inheritance semantics. +3. Load policies associated with those tags in batch. +4. Drop disabled policies. +5. Return the object policies and their source tag information. + +### Authorization, Visibility, and Audit Review Comment: We should consider the event listener part in the doc. -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected]
