BluePrint for Authorization

User Stories

• A Developer needs to be able to restrict access to a Module
  • done: s3.modules (Add Controller check as well as menu check. Configure permissions in 000_config.py?)
• A Developer needs to be able to restrict access to a Function
  • Decorator function - although it doesn't support OR (we could easily write our own function to do this, though)
• A Developer needs to be able to restrict access to a resource
  • REST controller can be blocked via a Decorator
  • Full security policy can be invoked, but this is painful/untested within S3 recently
  • We could check for what other functions can access data? Sync. Hard to maintain though.
  • Need a new method. Do all accesses go via S3XRC? If not, then needs to be a DAL-level method! Use the Web2Py 'full' for tables but not records?
• A Developer needs to be able to restrict access to a record
  • Add 2 reusable multiple=True fields to each table which needs this: reader_id & writer_id combined as permissions_id
    • Full backward compatibility since they default to None
  • reader_id check as a new API function
    • combine with the deleted==True check?
      • makes it easier to then replace that check with an 'inactive' field which is a date instead of a boolean, so that records can be set to expire (as well as giving us easy access to know when a record was deleted)
    • Option 1: Do the check alongside deleted as part of a big JOIN

      def shn_accessible_query(user, table):
          """ Modified version of current function from models/01_crud.py """
      
          deleted = (table.deleted == None)
      
          _memberships = db.auth_membership
          memberships = db(_memberships.user_id == user).select(_memberships.group_id)
          roles = []
          for membership in memberships:
              roles.append(membership.group_id)
      
          if 1 in roles:
              # Admins see all data
              query = deleted
          else:
             # Fields with no restriction
             accessible = (table.reader_id == None)
             for role in roles:
                 accessible = accessible & (table.reader_id == str(role)) & (table.reader_id.like('%d|%' % role)) & (table.reader_id.like('%|%d|%' % role)) & (table.reader_id.like('%|%d' % role))
             query = deleted & accessible
          return query
      
      def user_function:
          table = db[tablename]
          available = shn_accessible_query(user, table)
          query = available & query
      

      • Advantages:
        • Combines the deleted into single API call
        • Single JOIN for optimal DB performance (Assumption needs testing)
    • Option 2: Do the check in Python after the initial query has returned
      • Advantage: Might have better performance than complex DB string?
      • Disadvantage: More records pulled from DB than necessary
  • writer_id check: All Write access goes via S3XRC so can be checked there (we can also develop an API call for Manual DAL access?)
  • UI to manage the fields.
    • We expect relatively few groups per instance, so can use the checkboxes widget?
    • Have a single checkbox for 'Restrict access' which then opens out the 2 fields.

Specific Examples

• A Person's Contacts shouldn't be visible by default.
  • Authenticated is OK
    • This requires all authenticated users to be added to the 'Authenticated' group
• A Person's Subscriptions shouldn't be visible by default.
  • Admin or themselves is OK
    • This requires the default of adding 1 group per user!?
• An Admin should be able to restrict access to records to just those within a certain GIS location (e.g. Country or Region)

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BluePrintAuthenticationAccess

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