Zone Management: Users, Groups, Roles & Permissions for Developers

Owned by Mark Fitzpatrick (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Dec 02, 2017
3 min read

Users

Groups

Roles

Permissions

When talking about zone management and users, groups, roles, and permissions, it is useful to remember there is a distinct division between permissions and scopes. Permissions control access to a YOUnite resource (i.e endpoints) and scopes control access to the data behind the /domains and /dr endpoints.

When a zone is created, the automatically-created zone users of Zone Admin and Zone Data Steward (ZDS) are given appropriate permissions based on their respective roles. The Zone Admin can grant permissions to most of the resources in the zone. The remainder of the permissions, which are data related, are granted by the ZDS.

Resource permissions granted to Zone Users (users) are restrictive by default. Permissions can be granted to a resource by specifying:

  1. The "ALLOW" type of permission
  2. The URI location
    1. The URI can contain the * wildcard character.
  3. The REST action. Possible actions mirror the REST verbs available at the resource and the special case ALL, which is a shortcut for "all verbs":
    • GET
    • PUT
    • POST
    • DELETE
    • ALL

Examples

To allow a user to view the groups in a zone:

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/groups/*"
}

The user with the permissions to view zone groups can then get the list of groups in the zone:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/groups

Getting the group with UUID 9e463a36-5dd7-4440-8a90-94ce32e06c13 :

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/groups/9e463a36-5dd7-4440-8a90-94ce32e06c13

The wildcard character works recursively and allows the user access to the sub-resources as well:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/groups/9e463a36-5dd7-4440-8a90-94ce32e06c13/permissions

Special Cases

Typically, permissions end with the wildcard "*" e.g.  /zones/zone-uuid/users/*. However, there are cases where permissions end with:

  • The resource name e.g. e.g. /zones/zone-uuid/users
  • Individual resource e.g. /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156ac8

Individual resource access is needed at times when sub-resources contain sensitive information as described below in "Sensitive Sub Resource Access."

Access by Resource Name

This permission allows a user to view all of the adaptors in the zone (identified by UUID 18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a in the example below).

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors"
}

Note the absence of the wildcard character.

Setting access by resource name in the example above allows the user to request the following:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors

However, this would not allow the user to view the individual adaptor resource details. For example, if the zone had an adaptor identified by the UUID 7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156ac8, this request would be denied:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156ac8
Access by Individual Resource

This permission allows the user access to an individual adaptor, but not that adaptor's resource details.

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156ac8"
}

This is in contrast to allowing the user detailed access to all adaptors in the zone, using the * wildcard, which does allow the user access to that adaptor's resource details.

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/*"
}
Sensitive Sub Resource Access

NOTE: The examples below demonstrate how to manage secure access with the adaptors resource but similar situations could apply with other resources.

There are cases where using wildcards may not be desirable, since they allow access to resources that should be accessed by only the Zone Admin.

For example...

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/*"
}

...allows a user to see all of the adaptor's registration information for a given zone:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156ac8/registration

If the requirement is to grant a user detailed access to adaptors in a zone but not grant access to the adaptor's registration information, then permission to that zone's adaptors must be granted on an adaptor-by-adaptor basis.

For example, assume the zone in our examples has three adaptors:

[
  { ....
	"uuid": "7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156aaa",
    ....
  },
  { ....
	"uuid": "ae91d787-65c9-4f24-bff4-e3acbd616bbb",
    ....
  },
  { ....
	"uuid": "ca445ebd-ffcb-4001-9d63-19e773a95ccc",
    ....
  }
]

And that a user has the following permissions:

{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors"
},
{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156aaa/*"
},
{
	"type": "ALLOW",
	"action": "GET",
	"resource": "/zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/ae91d787-65c9-4f24-bff4-e3acbd616bbb"
}

The following request would return limited information on all three adaptors...

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors

...and detailed access to either adaptor specified in the permissions (ending in aaa and bbb) would be allowed but the following request would be denied:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/ca445ebd-ffcb-4001-9d63-19e773a95ccc

Since the user's permission setting for the adaptor ending in aaa has the wildcard permission, the user could see the registration details for this adaptor:

GET /zones/18e1f27a-36b5-472f-a03c-6831fb78f97a/adaptors/7c11c574-0e35-4c78-b572-222952156aaa/registration

But the user could not retrieve the registration details for the adaptor ending in bbb since the wildcard adaptor wasn't applied nor the adaptor aaa since specific permissions for it were not granted.

This allows information about the adaptors to be shared but limits the access to the sensitive registration information about the adaptor.