OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) TC

The following is a use case of the XML access control (target resource is
XML instance). I assume here that an access request consists of a
principal, a target XML file name, a target element name (XPath), and an
action. An example of the access request:
(Alice, medicalRecord.xml, /chemotherapy, read)

The target resource specification might be concatinated by "/" (I use this
notation in the following specifications):
(Alice, medicalRecord.xml/chemotherapy, read)

The policy I want to specify here is:
1. In the target resource classification, applicability is specified using
the DTD name of the requested XML file.
2. In the policy, each rule consists of XPath expression and principal
name.

For example, the policy below means that "doctor can read <chemotherapy>
and <drug> element of any XML instance that is based on medicalRecord.dtd"
and "nurse can read <drug> element of any XML instance that is based on
medicalRecord.dtd". The external function "xpath" returns "true" or "false"
depending on the target element name specified in the access request. I use
the syntax of ver 0.8 here.


<target resourceClssification="medicalRecord.dtd"
           resourceAction="read"/>
<policy>
  <or>
    <and>
      <extFunc name="xpath" value="/rec:patient/rec:chemotherapy"/>
      <equal>
        <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
        <value xsi:type="string">doctor</value>
      </equal>
    </and>
    <and>
      <extFunc name="xpath" value="/rec:patient/rec:drug"/>
      <or>
        <equal>
          <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
          <value xsi:type="string">nurse</value>
        </equal>
        <equal>
          <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
          <value xsi:type="string">doctor</value>
        </equal>
      </or>
    </and>
  </or>
</policy>

For example, if the access request is (Bob, medicalRecord.xml/chemotherapy,
read) and Bob is a doctor, then the access decision is "grant". If the
access request is (Alice, medicalRecord.xml/chemotherapy, read)  and Alice
is a nurse, then the access decision is "deny". If the access request is
(Alice, contract.xml/companyName, read), then the decision is Indeterminate
because contract.xml is not medicalRecord.dtd.

I show a different specification here. It does not have the body of the
policy. If the access request that matches the target applicability test,
it automatically means "grant" here.

<target resourceClassification
="medicalRecord.dtd/rec:patient/rec:chemotherapy"
           subjectClassification="doctor"
           resourceAction="read/>
<policy>
   <true/>
</policy>

<target resourceClassification="medicalRecord.dtd/rec:patient/rec:drug"
           subjectClassification="doctor"
           resourceAction="read/>
<policy>
   <true/>
</policy>

<target resourceClassification="medicalRecord.dtd/rec:patient/rec:drug"
           subjectClassification="nurse"
           resourceAction="read/>
<policy>
   <true/>
</policy>


Finally, I show another specification of "triple" oriented syntax based on
my extension model proposal.

<target resourceClssification="medicalRecord.dtd"
           resourceAction="read"/>
<policy>
  <grant>
    <rule>
      <resource>
        <extFunc name="xpath" value="/rec:patient/rec:chemotherapy"/>
      </resource>
      <principal>
        <equal>
          <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
          <value xsi:type="string">doctor</value>
        </equal>
      </principal>
      <preCondition/>
    </rule>
    <rule>
      <resource>
        <extFunc name="xpath" value="/rec:patient/rec:drug"/>
      </resource>
      <principal>
        <or>
          <equal>
            <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
            <value xsi:type="string">doctor</value>
          </equal>
          <equal>
            <valueRef attributeName="saml:NameIdentifier/Name"/>
            <value xsi:type="string">nurse</value>
          </equal>
        </or>
      </principal>
      <preCondition/>
    </rule>
  </grant>
</policy>


<grant> element explicitly specify that the semantics of the rules are
bound to grant/deny semantics as we have discussed. Each rule under
<policy> element is connected disjunctively. <resource> and <principal>
specify the condition on resource and the condition on principal,
respectively. Those conditions and <preCondition> expression are
conjunctively connected. In <preCondition> element, policy writer can write
any Boolean expression as the current specification (no expression in this
example though)


Best regards,
Michiharu Kudo

IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, Internet Technology
Tel. +81 (46) 215-4642   Fax +81 (46) 273-7428