On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 8:22 AM, Carlucci, Tony <[email protected]> wrote:
> >-----Original Message----- > >From: Chris Geer [mailto:[email protected]] > >Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2012 11:08 AM > >To: [email protected] > >Subject: Re: [Proposal] Spring Permissions Change > > > >Tony, > > > >On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Carlucci, Tony <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > >> Hi Chris, could you go a little more into your use case (I think what > >> you've hinted at it with your Widget->add_comment block)? I believe the > >> spirit of that Permission enum was to define the context of the security > >> check to keep in line with CRUD actions. The detailed business logic of > >> the Model/Permission Context combination can then be customized as > needed > >> in the various Default<Model>PagePermissionEvaluator.hasPermission > >> functions. So if there is some specific security logic related to > adding a > >> comment to a widget, I believe you can put it in the appropriate > >> PermissionEvaluator class. > >> > > > >I understand the current model and I think it works great for top level > >objects but it doesn't work all so well for subordinate objects, or for > >business logic checks that are beyond CRUD. Right now everything is a top > >level object (everything has it's own repository for example) but as part > >of the object model restructure we have proposed to change that slightly. > >If you view WidgetComment as a subordinate object to a Widget, the > security > >checks are different. Instead of checking WidgetComment => "Create" as a > >standalone check, you really want to check Widget => "can_add_comment" > >which is at the Widget level since the Comment doesn't exist yet. This > >check would check to make sure the Widget is published, that the user has > >access to the Widget, etc. Once the WidgetComment exists, the current > >checks in place make sense (mostly). > > > >I know currently we could just check the widget in the > >WidgetCommentPermissionEvaluator because the WidgetComment has an > >attribute > >of "widget_id" but that is another thing we are proposing to change in the > >object model restructure. As we try and restructure things so that we can > >support backends other than JPA we need to tweak the object model at the > >interface level. For example, WidgetComment would no longer have an > >attribute of widget_id, it is just associated with whatever widget it's > >part of. This cleans up a few things like being able to create a > >WidgetComment with a widget_id of 3 but adding it to the WidgetComment > >collection of Widget id 2. > > > >Does that make sense? > > > >Beyond the WidgetComment example I still think there is a need for more > >fine grained permission checks. For example: > > - can_publish_widget > > - can_reset_other_users_password (low level admin who can't do some other > >functions) > > - can_delete_other_users_comment (like a moderator) > > - ... > > > >I know those functions can be covered by "admin" but I know our product > >needs a finer level of control than just "admin". This will become much > >more important as we start talking multi-tenancy which I'll bring up again > >soon where you need multiple levels of admins. > > > >Chris > > Ok yes, this definitely makes sense to me given the context of the model > refactoring changes. I think changing the enum to strings should be fine, > so long as we don't see hard-coded "can_add_comment" strings in lots of > spots, which could make maintenance a little difficult. > The only place the string would show up would be in the hasPermission annotation (which is already a string) and in the PermissionEvaluator. In the permission evaluators we could still define/use enums to define the valid strings, the interface just wouldn't be bound to a single enum. Sound reasonable? > > Also we should keep in mind the current ability to override the default > security behaviors[1] as part of this change, and make sure only the most > common of changes should go into the Rave code base. > > [1] http://rave.apache.org/documentation/model-permission-override.html > > Tony > > > > >> > >> Am I understanding your use case or completely off the mark? :) > >> > >> Tony > >> > >> >-----Original Message----- > >> >From: Chris Geer [mailto:[email protected]] > >> >Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 7:50 PM > >> >To: dev > >> >Subject: [Proposal] Spring Permissions Change > >> > > >> >I would like to propose we change how the spring permission checks work > >> >slightly. Right now the "Permission" value (i.e. Create, Update...) is > >> >defined as part of a enum named Permission defined in > >> >the org.apache.rave.portal.security.ModelPermissionEvaluator interface. > >> The > >> >various hasPermissions methods take an instance of that Permission enum > >> >(created from a string on the check permission annotation). Having the > >> >permissions defined in an enumeration limits what we are able to check > >> >permissions for in my opinion. Right now we have two choices, 1) limit > our > >> >permission checks to the list there is now, 2) add new permissions to > the > >> >generic Permissions enum which could lead to a bunch of permissions > stored > >> >on a generic enum that aren't really reusable (i.e. Widget -> > add_comment > >> >permission). I would like to propose we change the way we define > >> >permissions to remove the enum and just pass along the string defined > in > >> >the annotations. The only real downside of that is that we can't use a > >> >switch/case statement during permissions checks unless we use Java7. > >> > > >> >Thoughts/concerns? > >> > > >> >Thanks, > >> >Chris > >> >
