OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) TC

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RE: [xacml] Observation on "context"

  • 1.  RE: [xacml] Observation on "context"

    Posted 06-03-2002 10:03
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    Subject: RE: [xacml] Observation on "context"


    
    Tim,
    
    I am not all that familiar with the intricacies of XPATH. However,
    something has been bothering me for quite sometime. It appears that XPATH
    can only get you the information at a particular node of a document
    downwards, and any upwards information about how you got there is gone,
    correct?
    
    For example, suppose there were more than one particular thing referenced
    by a prefix of an XPATH expression. Just for fun, let's say we have
    multiple resources, If you ask for an attribute of:
    
    <equals>
    <RequestContext/Resources/ResourceAttribute[@AttributeName="Forest"]/AttributeValue>
    <AttributeValue>
       Sherwood
    </AttributeValue>
    </equals>
    
    You kind of loose the thing of which had the "Forest" attribute of
    "Sherwood", and the only thing at your disposal is
    <AttributeValue>Sherwood</AttributeValue>
    
    Cheers,
    -Polar
    
    
     On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, Tim Moses wrote:
    
    > Anne - I think I am starting to "get the picture".  Forgive me for being
    > slow on the uptake.  Would this be another way of putting it ? ...
    >
    > The basic entities are universal, regardless of the application domain.
    > They are the subject, resource and action.  The SAML data models for these
    > entities are inadequate.  There are some universal aspects to these data
    > models (subjects have attributes, for instance).  But, some elements differ
    > between application domains and (in addition) we cannot anticipate how
    > domains may need to extend these data models.  This sounds like a job for
    > XML, because it can express arbitrarily-complex data models and is
    > extensible.
    >
    > If this is the case, I might want to rethink my view that XPATH is not the
    > right way to identify context elements.  If we are deliberately choosing an
    > extensible mark-up language to model the context, then perhaps all the tools
    > associated with that language should be available to us to manipulate an
    > instance of it.  An XPATH expression would be a convenient way to identify
    > an element such as: 'the role attribute of the subject whose name is
    > "codesigner"'.  For sure, we don't need the full complexity of XPATH, but
    > perhaps we could define a small subset.
    >
    > Thoughts any one?
    >
    > All the best.  Tim.
    >
    > -----------------------------------------
    > Tim Moses
    > Tel: 613.270.3183
    >
    >
    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: Anne Anderson [mailto:Anne.Anderson@Sun.com]
    > Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 2:58 PM
    > To: XACML TC
    > Subject: Re: [xacml] Observation on "context"
    >
    >
    > On 30 May, Tim Moses writes: [xacml] Observation on "context"
    >  > For instance, we could define a name tree that includes:
    >  >
    >  >      xacml/context/input/principal/codeSigner/name
    >  >
    >  > to indicate the name of the code-signer principal in the input context.
    >  > This idea doesn't conflict with the excellent idea of a "context".  It
    >  > merely gets away from thinking of it as an XML document.  You could think
    > of
    >  > it as equivalent to an XML document in which attributes are not allowed,
    > if
    >  > you like.
    >
    > I think the problem here is that XACML would need to define a
    > "standard" set of names like "codeSigner", "requestingUser",
    > "executingMachine", "delegatingUser", etc.
    >
    > By using an XML attribute, XACML can define a default
    > "requestingUser" value, and let others be URLs that specific user
    > communities define.
    >
    > Anne
    > --
    > Anne H. Anderson             Email: Anne.Anderson@Sun.COM
    > Sun Microsystems Laboratories
    > 1 Network Drive,UBUR02-311     Tel: 781/442-0928
    > Burlington, MA 01803-0902 USA  Fax: 781/442-1692
    >
    >
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