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Chapter 1. Security authorization with role-based access control

Role-based access control (RBAC) capabilities use different permissions levels to restrict user interactions with Data Grid.

Note

For information on creating users and configuring authorization specific to remote or embedded caches, see:

1.1. Data Grid user roles and permissions
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Data Grid includes several roles that provide users with permissions to access caches and Data Grid resources.

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RolePermissionsDescription

admin

ALL

Superuser with all permissions including control of the Cache Manager lifecycle.

deployer

ALL_READ, ALL_WRITE, LISTEN, EXEC, MONITOR, CREATE

Can create and delete Data Grid resources in addition to application permissions.

application

ALL_READ, ALL_WRITE, LISTEN, EXEC, MONITOR

Has read and write access to Data Grid resources in addition to observer permissions. Can also listen to events and execute server tasks and scripts.

observer

ALL_READ, MONITOR

Has read access to Data Grid resources in addition to monitor permissions.

monitor

MONITOR

Can view statistics via JMX and the metrics endpoint.

1.1.1. Permissions
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User roles are sets of permissions with different access levels.

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Table 1.1. Cache Manager permissions

Permission

Function

Description

CONFIGURATION

defineConfiguration

Defines new cache configurations.

LISTEN

addListener

Registers listeners against a Cache Manager.

LIFECYCLE

stop

Stops the Cache Manager.

CREATE

createCache, removeCache

Create and remove container resources such as caches, counters, schemas, and scripts.

MONITOR

getStats

Allows access to JMX statistics and the metrics endpoint.

ALL

-

Includes all Cache Manager permissions.

Expand
Table 1.2. Cache permissions

Permission

Function

Description

READ

get, contains

Retrieves entries from a cache.

WRITE

put, putIfAbsent, replace, remove, evict

Writes, replaces, removes, evicts data in a cache.

EXEC

distexec, streams

Allows code execution against a cache.

LISTEN

addListener

Registers listeners against a cache.

BULK_READ

keySet, values, entrySet, query

Executes bulk retrieve operations.

BULK_WRITE

clear, putAll

Executes bulk write operations.

LIFECYCLE

start, stop

Starts and stops a cache.

ADMIN

getVersion, addInterceptor*, removeInterceptor, getInterceptorChain, getEvictionManager, getComponentRegistry, getDistributionManager, getAuthorizationManager, evict, getRpcManager, getCacheConfiguration, getCacheManager, getInvocationContextContainer, setAvailability, getDataContainer, getStats, getXAResource

Allows access to underlying components and internal structures.

MONITOR

getStats

Allows access to JMX statistics and the metrics endpoint.

ALL

-

Includes all cache permissions.

ALL_READ

-

Combines the READ and BULK_READ permissions.

ALL_WRITE

-

Combines the WRITE and BULK_WRITE permissions.

1.1.2. Role and permission mappers
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Data Grid implements users as a collection of principals. Principals represent either an individual user identity, such as a username, or a group to which the users belong. Internally, these are implemented with the javax.security.auth.Subject class.

To enable authorization, the principals must be mapped to role names, which are then expanded into a set of permissions.

Data Grid includes the PrincipalRoleMapper API for associating security principals to roles, and the RolePermissionMapper API for associating roles with specific permissions.

Data Grid provides the following role and permission mapper implementations:

Cluster role mapper
Stores principal to role mappings in the cluster registry.
Cluster permission mapper
Stores role to permission mappings in the cluster registry. Allows you to dynamically modify user roles and permissions.
Identity role mapper
Uses the principal name as the role name. The type or format of the principal name depends on the source. For example, in an LDAP directory the principal name could be a Distinguished Name (DN).
Common name role mapper
Uses the Common Name (CN) as the role name. You can use this role mapper with an LDAP directory or with client certificates that contain Distinguished Names (DN); for example cn=managers,ou=people,dc=example,dc=com maps to the managers role.

Consider the following user retrieved from an LDAP server, as a collection of DNs: 

CN=myapplication,OU=applications,DC=mycompany
CN=dataprocessors,OU=groups,DC=mycompany
CN=finance,OU=groups,DC=mycompany
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Using the Common name role mapper, the user would be mapped to the following roles: 

dataprocessors
finance
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Data Grid has the following role definitions: 

dataprocessors: ALL_WRITE ALL_READ
finance: LISTEN
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The user would have the following permissions: 

ALL_WRITE ALL_READ LISTEN
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1.1.3. Configuring role mappers
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Data Grid enables the cluster role mapper and cluster permission mapper by default. To use a different implementation for role mapping, you must configure the role mappers.

Procedure

  1. Open your Data Grid configuration for editing.
  2. Declare the role mapper as part of the security authorization in the Cache Manager configuration.
  3. Save the changes to your configuration.

With embedded caches you can programmatically configure role and permission mappers with the principalRoleMapper() and rolePermissionMapper() methods.

Role mapper configuration

XML

<cache-container>
  <security>
    <authorization>
      <common-name-role-mapper />
    </authorization>
  </security>
</cache-container>
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JSON

{
  "infinispan" : {
    "cache-container" : {
      "security" : {
        "authorization" : {
          "common-name-role-mapper": {}
        }
      }
    }
  }
}
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YAML

infinispan:
  cacheContainer:
    security:
      authorization:
        commonNameRoleMapper: ~
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Add security authorization to caches to enforce role-based access control (RBAC). This requires Data Grid users to have a role with a sufficient level of permission to perform cache operations.

Prerequisites

  • Create Data Grid users and either grant them with roles or assign them to groups.

Procedure

  1. Open your Data Grid configuration for editing.
  2. Add a security section to the configuration.

  3. Specify roles that users must have to perform cache operations with the authorization element.

    You can implicitly add all roles defined in the Cache Manager or explicitly define a subset of roles.

  4. Save the changes to your configuration.

Implicit role configuration

The following configuration implicitly adds every role defined in the Cache Manager:

XML

<distributed-cache>
  <security>
    <authorization/>
  </security>
</distributed-cache>
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JSON

{
  "distributed-cache": {
    "security": {
      "authorization": {
        "enabled": true
      }
    }
  }
}
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YAML

distributedCache:
  security:
    authorization:
      enabled: true
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Explicit role configuration

The following configuration explicitly adds a subset of roles defined in the Cache Manager. In this case Data Grid denies cache operations for any users that do not have one of the configured roles.

XML

<distributed-cache>
  <security>
    <authorization roles="admin supervisor"/>
  </security>
</distributed-cache>
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JSON

{
  "distributed-cache": {
    "security": {
      "authorization": {
        "enabled": true,
        "roles": ["admin","supervisor"]
      }
    }
  }
}
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YAML

distributedCache:
  security:
    authorization:
      enabled: true
      roles: ["admin","supervisor"]
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