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README for Apache Fortress Security Model

Apache Fortress Rest System Architecture

Document Overview
Understand the security model of Apache Fortress Rest
Java EE security
Apache CXF's SimpleAuthorizingInterceptor
Apache Fortress ARBAC02 Checks

Document Overview

Provides a description of the security mechanisms that may be applied during Apache Fortress REST operation.

Understand the security model of Apache Fortress Rest

Apache Fortress Rest is a JAX-RS Web application that allows the Apache Fortress Core APIs to be called over an HTTP interface.
It deploys inside of any compliant Java Servlet container although here we'll be using Apache Tomcat.

Apache Fortress Rest security model includes:

TLS

Nothing special or unique going on here. Refer to the documentation of your servlet container for how to enable.

Java EE security

Apache Fortress Rest uses the Apache Fortress Realm to provide Java EE authentication, coarse-grained authorization mapping the users and roles back to a given LDAP server.
The policy for Apache Fortress Rest is simple. Any user with the fortress-rest-user role and correct credentials is allowed in.
The Fortress Rest interface uses HTTP Basic Auth tokens to send the userid/password.

Apache CXF's SimpleAuthorizingInterceptor

This enforcement mechanism maps roles to a given set of services. The following table shows what roles map to which (sets of) services:

service type	fortress-rest-super-user	fortress-rest-admin-user	fortress-rest-review-user	fortress-rest-access-user	fortress-rest-deladmin-user	fortress-rest-delreview-user	fortress-rest-delaccess-user	fortress-rest-pwmgr-user	fortress-rest-audit-user	fortress-rest-config-user
Admin Manager	true	true	false	false	false	false	false	false	false	false
Review Manager	true	false	true	false	false	false	false	false	false	false
Access Manager	true	false	false	true	false	false	false	false	false	false
Delegated Admin	true	false	false	false	true	false	false	false	false	false
Delegated Review	true	false	false	false	false	true	false	false	false	false
Delegated Access	true	false	false	false	false	false	true	false	false	false
Password Manager	true	false	false	false	false	false	false	true	false	false
Audit Manager	true	false	false	false	false	false	false	false	true	false
Config Manager	true	false	false	false	false	false	false	false	false	true

Apache Fortress ARBAC02 Checks

Disabled by default. To enable, add this to fortress.properties file and restart instance:

# Boolean value. Disabled by default. If this is set to true, the runtime will enforce administrative permissions and ARBAC02 DA checks:
is.arbac02=true

These checks include the following:

All API invocations calls checkAccess on an admin perm corresponding with the API being called, e.g. AdminMgr.addUser. This means at least one admin role activated for the caller has to have been granted that particular permission.
The assignUser, deassignUser, grantPermission, revokePermission APIs enforce administrative authority over the role being targeted. This is being done by establishing a range of roles (hierarchically), for which the target role falls inside.

For example, the following top-down role hierarchy:

       CTO
        |
    |       |
   ENG      QC
 |  |     |    |   
E1  E2   Q1    Q2
  |         |
 DA         QA
       |
       A

Where a role called ‘CTO’ is the highest ascendant, and ‘A’ is the lowest descendant. In a top-down role hierarchy, privilege increases as we descend in the tree. So a person with role ‘A’ inherits all that are above.

In describing a range of roles, begin range is the lowest descendant in the chain, and end range the highest. Furthermore a bracket, ‘[’, ‘]’, indicates inclusiveness, whereas parenthesis indicates exclusiveness for a particular endpoint.

Some example ranges that can be derived:

[A, CTO] is the full set: {CTO, ENG, QC, E1, E2, Q1, Q2, DA, QA, A}.
(A, CTO) is the full set, minus the endpoints: {ENG, QC, E1, E2, Q1, Q2, DA, QA}.
[A, ENG] includes: {A, DA, E1, E2, ENG},
[A, ENG) includes: {A, DA, E1, E2}.
etc...

So, for an administrator to be able to target a role in one of the specified APIs above, at least one of their activated admin roles must pass the role range test. There are currently two roles created by the security policy in this project, that are excluded from this type of check: fortress-rest-admin and fortress-core-super-admin

Which means they won't have to pass the role range test. All others use the range field to define authority over a particular set of roles, in a hierarchical structure.

Some APIs on the AdminMgr do organization checks, matching the org on the admin role with that on the target. There are two types of organziations, User and Permission.

For example, de/assignUser(User, Role) will verify that the caller has an admin role with a matching user org unit (UserOU) on the target role.

There is similar check on grant/revokePermission(Role, Permission), where the caller must have activated admin role matching the perm org unit (PermOU), corresponding with permission being targeted.

The complete list of APIs that enforce range and OU checks follow:

API	Validate UserOU	Validate PermOU	Range Check On Role
AdminMgr.addUser	true	false	false
AdminMgr.updateUser	true	false	false
AdminMgr.deleteUser	true	false	false
AdminMgr.disableUser	true	false	false
AdminMgr.changePassword	true	false	false
AdminMgr.resetPassword	true	false	false
AdminMgr.lockUserAccount	true	false	false
AdminMgr.unlockUserAccount	true	false	false
AdminMgr.deletePasswordPolicy	true	false	false
AdminMgr.assignUser	true	false	true
AdminMgr.deassignUser	true	false	true
AdminMgr.grantPermission	false	true	true
AdminMgr.revokePermission	false	true	true