Re: [xacml] [Issue] How many resourceIds in request context?

From
Satoshi Hada <>
Date
2004-01-06T00:21:45+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [xacml] [Issue] How many resourceIds in request context?
>> Part of the motivation for requiring "one and only one"
was based

>> on the need to index on something that would always be present.

One comment (based on Section 7.8 Hierarchical
resources):

The following may be another motivation.

When a request context specifies a "scope"
attribute, 

I think that one and only one "resource-id"
attribute 

must be specified. Otherwise, we cannot process 

the "scope" attribute.

In this sense, "resource-id" is special
and 

different from any other attributes.

Satoshi Hada

IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory 

mailto:

Anne Anderson <>

2004/01/06 04:02

Please respond to

Anne.Anderson

To

"'XACML'" <>

cc

Subject

Re: [xacml] [Issue] How many
resourceIds in request context?

On 5 January, Seth Proctor writes: Re: [xacml] [Issue]
How many resourceIds in request context?

 > On Mon, 2004-01-05 at 11:33, Anne Anderson wrote:

 > > Some people, including Hal and, I think, Seth, believe that
there

 > > absolutely must be one and only one resource-id attribute.  The

 > > reasoning is that any Request must at least specify the

 > > resource-id in order to know what is being accessed.

 > 

 > I don't know why you think I have such a strong opinion on this.
I don't

 > think I've ever weighed in on this matter. I do believe that the
spec

 > currently requires a valid Request to contain exactly one resource-id

 > attribute, so that requirement is in my open source project.

I stand corrected.  Seth convinced me that the spec currently

does require at least one resource-id, but he never stated an

opinion on whether that was goodness or not.

 > > I disagree with this view.  I believe a resource could
be

 > > described via attributes other than its resource-id.  For

 > > example, a Request could ask for access to a resource that has
a

 > > security label of "Top Secret".  The policy may
not care what the

 > > resource-id is, but is willing to grant or deny access based
on

 > > whether the Subject has a corresponding security clearance

 > > attribute.

Part of the motivation for requiring "one and only one" was based

on the need to index on something that would always be present.

If we accept, however, that there are valid cases where policy is

based on resource attributes other than resource-id, then an

implementation that supplies its own default dummy resource-id

(when none is present) will be more robust than one that depends

on each application to provide the correct dummy value.

Anne

-- 

Anne H. Anderson             Email: 

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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