OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) TC

[xacml] Review of Section 8

  • 1.  [xacml] Review of Section 8

    Posted 08-22-2002 09:21
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    Subject: [xacml] Review of Section 8


    - Change request to other sections:
      + Section B.10: Resource Attributes
    
    The identifier indicates the scope of the request with regard to the
    resource. When this attribute is specified in the request, the value MUST
    be either 'Immediate', 'Children', or 'Descendant'.
    
    - Change request to Section 8 Operational Model (normative)
      + Description change of Section 8.1 and new subsections
    
    8.1 Policy Decision Point (PDP)
    Given a valid XACML "Policy" or a "PolicySet", a compliant XACML PDP MUST
    evaluate that statement in accordance to the semantics specified in Section
    4,5, and 6 when applied to a specific input context. The PDP MUST return an
    output context, with one value of "Permit", "Deny", "Indeterminate", or
    "NotApplicable".
    
    If a permit is returned, the PEP permit access to the requested resource.
    If a denial is returned, the PEP denies access to the requested resource.
    If a permit with one or more obligations is returned, the PEP permits
    access provided that every obligations are fulfilled successfully. If a
    denial with one or more obligations is returned, the PEP denies access but
    still fulfills the obligations. In each case, when fulfilling obligations
    failed, the PEP SHOULD raise an error. How the error is raised is out of
    the scope of XACML. In any case, the PDP can return additional information
    in the status code element in the response context. For 'Permit' decision,
    it MAY specify which rules are used in decision making.
    
    If an indeterminate is returned, it means that the PDP could not make
    decision due to some reason. The PDP MAY return decision of "indeterminate"
    with a status code of "urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:1.0:missing-attribute",
    signifying that more information is needed. In this case, the decision MAY
    list the names of any attributes of the subject and the resource that are
    needed by the PDP to refine its decision. A PEP MAY resubmit a refined
    request context in response to a decision of "indeterminate" with a status
    code of "missing-attribute" by adding attribute values for the attribute
    names that are listed in the response. When the PDP returns an decision of
    "indeterminate", with a status code of "missing-attribute", a PDP MUST NOT
    list the names of any attribute of the subject or the resource of the
    request for which values were already supplied in the request. Note, this
    requirement forces the PDP to eventually return a decision of "permit",
    "deny", or "indeterminate" with some other reason, in response to
    successively-refined requests.
    
    If not applicable is returned, it means that the PDP's policy does not
    cover the request, implying that the PEP should ask another PDP.
    
    XACML does not assume how top-level XACML policies should be configured.
    For example, a top-level policy might be a 'Policy' element containing a
    target element that matches every request, or it might be a 'Policy'
    element containing a target element that matches only a specific subject.
    
    8.2 Hierarchical Resource
    It is often the case that a target resource is organized as a hierarchy
    (e.g. file system, XML document). Some applications may require access to
    an entire subtree of the resource. XACML allows the PEP (or Context
    Handler) to specify whether the access is just for a single resource or for
    a subtree below the specified resource. The latter is equivalent to
    repeating a single request for the entire subtree. When a request context
    contains a resource attribute of
    'urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:1.0:resource:scope' with a value of 'Immediate',
    or does not contain that attribute in the context, then it means that the
    access is just for a single resource specified by 'ResourceId' attribute.
    When 'urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:1.0:resource:scope' attribute specifies a
    value of 'Children', it means that the access is for both a specified
    resource and its children resources. When
    'urn:oasis:names:tc:xacml:1.0:resource:scope' attribute specifies a value
    of 'Descendant', it means that the access is for both a specified resource
    and all the descendant resources. In the case of 'Children' and
    'Descendant', the access decision may include multiple results for the
    multiple resources. XACML response can contain multiple result elements. In
    such case, the status element SHOULD be included only in the first result
    element (the remaining result elements SHOULD NOT include the status
    element). Note that the method how PDP finds out whether the resource is
    hierarchically organized or not is out of the scope of the XACML.
    
    8.3 Propagation through Data Hierarchy
    When the resource is hierarchically organized, it is often the case that an
    access control rule associated to a certain node propagates down to the
    descendant nodes. The XACML core rule combining algorithm does not support
    such propagation with regard to access control rules. Policy writers who
    need propagation MUST implement their own local algorithm and specify that
    algorithm ID in RuleCombiningAlgId in policy element.
    
    Michiharu Kudo
    
    IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory, Internet Technology
    Tel. +81 (46) 215-4642   Fax +81 (46) 273-7428
    
    
    
    
    


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