I know this thread is not about tools but concepts, and I have no digged into
details.
However I wonder if using another tool could not help the concept. Of course, I
think about Apache Shiro
http://shiro.apache.org/authorization-features.html
Small and easy tutorial/demo
http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2011/10/apache-shiro-application-security-made.html
By and large http://shiro.apache.org/index.html
Like we hope to delegate a part of CMS to JackRabbit, delegating Authorisation and Permission to Shiro could maybe facilitate our
work in this area...
Jacques
From: "Bilgin Ibryam" <bibr...@gmail.com>
We have lot's of fine grained small services with permission service
SECAs and the current permission checks doubles its execution time
because each service call requires a permission service call.
With the changes you propose I believe there will be significant
performance improvement.
+ 1
Bilgin
On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 8:14 AM, Adrian Crum
<adrian.c...@sandglass-software.com> wrote:
I am running into that familiar problem of handling authorization in nested
services. Example:
Application A
Invoke Service "A"
Authorized with permissions "A"
Invokes Service "C" in Application "C"
Authorized with permissions "C"
In order for a user to run Service "A", I have to give them permission to
run Service "A" and Service "C". This might not be desirable because
granting permission "C" to the user could give them access to other things I
didn't intend to give them access to.
So far, we have handled that permission issue with permission service SECAs
- where a second permission service is invoked if the first one fails. SECA
Example:
Invoke permission service for permissions "C"
If permission service fails, invoke permission service for permissions "A"
Return results of permission service "A"
Else
Return results of permission service "C"
This solves the problem (an example can be found in the Asset Maint
application), but it is cumbersome to implement.
There are other places in the project where the problem is solved by
invoking Service "C" with "system" or "admin" user credentials - which looks
hackish to me.
It seems to me this could be made a lot simpler by having the service
dispatcher keep track of previous authorizations. In other words, move the
authorization tracking (which is currently handled outside the service
dispatcher) into the service dispatcher. Example:
Service invoked
If user previously authorized
Execute service
Else
Execute permission service
If user authorized
Set previously authorized to true
Execute service
Set previously authorized to false
With this change, giving the user permission to run Service "A" will
automatically authorize them to run any services called by the service.
Naturally, this approach does not solve the problem if permission checks are
embedded in service code - it depends on the use of permission services.
So, what do you think?
-Adrian
