Dacs access control service
dacs_acs [\m[blue]dacsoptions\m[]\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2] [-proxy-static] [-proxy-exec]
dacs_acs-test
This program is part of the DACS suite.
The DACS access control service, dacs_acs (or simply ACS) is responsible for making access control decisions on web service requests. It is run by a web server. In the current implementation, dacs_acs is executed by the web server as an external program. ACS provides role-based access control using the DACS rule-processing engine, which consults access control rules (also referred to as ACLs) provided with DACS or written by a DACS administrator. Because access control is performed on URIs, ACS can control access to arbitrary resources, such as web pages, files, or programs.
A generic interface to DACS's rule processing engine is given by \m[blue]dacscheck(1)\m[]\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2.
A web server runs dacs_acs to determine whether a particular service request is authorized. Although in theory any web server that provides appropriate hooks could call dacs_acs, at present only Apache 2.x and 2.2.x web servers are supported. A DACS-aware Apache module called \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 is configured using custom Apache directives and runs dacs_acs. A web server having \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 functionality is said to be DACS-enhanced and web services that are under the control of \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 are said to be DACS-wrapped.
When Apache receives a DACS-wrapped service request, the mod_auth_dacs module is run, which in turn runs dacs_acs to determine whether the request should be granted. The module provides dacs_acs with the name of the requested service ("What is being accessed?"), parameters that were passed in the request ("How is it being accessed?"), the identity of the client ("Who is making the request?"), and other context associated with the request. With this information at hand, dacs_acs consults a set of access control rules (the ruleset) (see \m[blue]dacs.acls(5)\m[]\s-2\u[4]\d\s+2). Additional contextual information, such as DACS configuration directives and build-time options, and the run-time environment, is also available. The information returned by dacs_acs to the module either causes Apache to grant permission, possibly with a constraint that specifies additional, service-specific information, or denies permission, possibly with a reason for denial. dacs_acs may also instruct the web server to redirect the client.
All DACS services must be under the control of dacs_acs, even those that do not require the client to be authenticated. Also, a web server must be configured such that only DACS-controlled services and no other services can be invoked through URLs associated with its DACS jurisdiction.
It is not a requirement that all of a web server's resources be under the control of DACS. That is, it is not necessary to DACS-wrap everything, but it is certainly possible.
Please refer to the documentation for \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 for information on configuring the DACSApache module.
Security
A dacs_acs process, which is created by httpd, should ordinarily run as the same user id as httpd. File and directory ownership and modes must be set so that it can read its configuration files, access control rules, and so on. The DACS expression language includes functions that can execute an arbitrary program and perform file system operations, so care must be taken to ensure that files used by DACS cannot be edited or replaced by non-privileged users. In some circumstances, it may be necessary for dacs_acs to run as root, in which case a DACS administrator must be extra careful in this regard.
Tip
One way to understand what dacs_acs is doing, or to debug it, is to enable the most detailed level of \m[blue]logging\m[]\s-2\u[5]\d\s+2. This will emit a copious quantity of output to the DACS log file, so be sure to reduce the logging level and delete the log file when you are finished.
Setting the \m[blue]LOG_LEVEL\m[]\s-2\u[6]\d\s+2 directive to "debug" or "trace" will produce detailed output (although it can be moderated using the \m[blue]LOG_FILTER\m[]\s-2\u[7]\d\s+2 directive). LOG_LEVEL has the disadvantage that it cannot take effect until after configuration processing.
To enable logging output at the earliest possible time, you can add the desired \m[blue]dacsoptions\m[]\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2 flags to Apache's \m[blue]AddDACSAuth\m[]\s-2\u[8]\d\s+2 directive; for example, by using a directive like the following in httpd.conf:
AddDACSAuth dacs-acs /usr/local/dacs/bin/dacs_acs "-t -v"
Note that httpd must be restarted before changes to this directive take effect.
An alternative method of enabling detailed logging, equivalent to using the -t and -v flags if neither has been specified, is to create a file in the \m[blue]DACS_HOME\m[]\s-2\u[9]\d\s+2 directory with the name debug_progname. For example, to enable detailed logging for dacs_acs, the following command might be used:
% touch /usr/local/dacs/debug_dacs_acs
This method takes effect immediately and applies to any DACS web service or command that accepts \m[blue]dacsoptions\m[]\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2 at the time they begin execution. It overrides the current value of LOG_LEVEL, is more selective because it applies only to progname (unlike LOG_LEVEL), is easily turned on by creating the file and turned off by removing the file, and neither requires changes to httpd.conf nor an httpd restart.
DACS's \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 module for Apache invokes the dacs_acs program to do the hard part of deciding whether a request should be granted or denied. The module is responsible for configuring itself using new Apache directives, gathering information required to make the access control decision, passing that information to dacs_acs, and receiving the access control decision from dacs_acs, together with either environment information (if access is granted to an executable request) or error handling directives (if access is denied).
To prevent potentially sensitive information from becoming visible, \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 passes information to dacs_acs over an interprocess communication channel (\m[blue]pipe(2)\m[]\s-2\u[10]\d\s+2). dacs_acs reads its standard input, makes the access control decision, and writes either environment information or an optional error handling directive to its standard output. The exit status of dacs_acs communicates its decision: zero means the request should be granted, anything else means the request should be denied.
The information passed todacs_acsfromApache is in the format:
variable-name="variable-value"
each of which is terminated by a newline character. These variables are listed below. For details about how to reference these values, see \m[blue]Variables Available To Rules\m[]\s-2\u[11]\d\s+2.
SERVICE_ARGS
The query arguments (if any and whether GET or POST method is being used) followed by POST arguments (if any and to the maximum length configured), base-64 encoded.
SERVICE_ARGS_TRUNCATED
For POST method requests, if the POST data stream (i.e., the request's entity-body) was not completely captured, such as if the maximum length was reached, this variable will be present and assigned the value 1.
SERVICE_AUTHORIZATION
The value of the Authorization HTTP header field, if present.
SERVICE_CONTENT_ENCODING
The value of the Content-Encoding HTTP header field, if present.
SERVICE_CONTENT_LENGTH
The value of the Content-Length HTTP header field, if present.
SERVICE_CONTENT_TYPE
The value of the Content-Type HTTP header field, if present.
SERVICE_COOKIE
The value of the Cookie HTTP header field, if present.
SERVICE_FILENAME
The name of the file, as determined by Apache, corresponding to this response.
SERVICE_HOSTNAME
The name of the host as set by the full URI or Host HTTP header field, as determined by Apache.
SERVICE_HTTPS
If the request came over SSL (HTTPS), this variable will be present and set to "on".
SERVICE_METHOD
The request method, as set by Apache (e.g., "GET").
SERVICE_PATH_INFO
The PATH_INFO part of the URI, as set by Apache.
SERVICE_POSTDATA
When available, the POST data stream (the HTTP message body) (or part of it: see the description of the SetDACSAuthPostBuffer directive to \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[12]\d\s+2). It is MIME base-64 encoded.
SERVICE_PROXY_AUTH
The value of the DACS-Proxy-Authorization HTTP header field, if present. (Not currently used).
SERVICE_PROXYREQ
If the current request involves proxy processing on this server, this identifies the type of processing as "proxy" (for "forward proxying"), "proxy_reverse" (for "reverse proxying"), or "proxy_response".
SERVICE_QUERY
The value of the query string component of the URI.
SERVICE_REMOTE_ADDR
The client's IP address.
SERVICE_REMOTE_HOST
The client's DNS name, if known by Apache.
SERVICE_SERVER_PORT
The TCP/IP port on which the request was received by Apache.
SERVICE_URI
The path portion of the URI, as determined by Apache.
SERVICE_USER_AGENT
The value of the User-Agent HTTP header field, if present.
If access is granted, dacs_acs may provide a set of control directives for \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 to interpret, followed by a set of environment variables for \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 to introduce into the environment of an executable request. Each control directive starts with a "=" character and is terminated by a newline. Environment variables are specified in the format:
variable-name=variable-value
each of which is terminated by a newline character.
If access is denied, dacs_acs may instead provide an error handling directive, newline terminated, in the form expected as the third argument to Apache's ap_custom_response() function.
DACS credentials can be passed to dacs_acs in several ways, but they have the following representation:
DACS:federation-name::[jurisdiction-name]:[username]=value[; ...]
If the jurisdiction-name is omitted, the username must also be omitted. The string is URL encoded. If there are multiple credentials, they are separated by any combination of spaces and ";" characters.
Credentials are passed from \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2 to dacs_acs using the SERVICE_COOKIE variable (transmitted over a \m[blue]pipe(2)\m[]\s-2\u[10]\d\s+2)
Because a process's environment is public on some systems, DACS takes care not to pass credentials using environment variables. Passing credentials through the HTTP_COOKIE environment variable is forbidden unless enabled by the \m[blue]ALLOW_HTTP_COOKIE\m[]\s-2\u[13]\d\s+2 directive. When specifically enabled by a rule's attribute, they can be passed using the DACS_COOKIE environment variable (see the pass_credentials attribute described in \m[blue]dacs.acls(5)\m[]\s-2\u[4]\d\s+2).
If an HTTP Authorization header is used with the "DACS" authentication scheme, the "basic-credentials" component of the header may contain DACS credentials. Please refer to \m[blue]RFC 2617\m[]\s-2\u[14]\d\s+2. These credentials have the format given above but are also base-64 encoded.
Security
It is forbidden to submit multiple credentials for the same identity to DACS and such a request will trigger an error.
it is also forbidden to submit multiple DACS authentication cookies with the same cookie name.
Please refer to \m[blue]dacs_authenticate(8)\m[]\s-2\u[15]\d\s+2 for additional information.
An Rlink (rule link) is an alternate mechanism for providing DACS authentication and authorization. Instead of matching the name of a requested resource against rules, as is normally done by DACS, the request indirectly specifies authorization constraints that must be applied to the request. Optionally, a DACS identity and other information can accompany the request. An Rname, which is essentially the name of an access control rule, is used to point at the authorization constraints.
An Rlink is a URL that includes an Rname. During authorization processing, the Rname is resolved to an access control rule that is processed the same as any other access control rule and the requested resource must be DACS-wrapped. In other words, a request that is recognized as an Rlink essentially says "use the rule identified by this request's Rname to decide whether or not to grant access and do not consider any other rule". Subsequent access control processing is identical to the normal case.
In typical usage, an Rlink is created (probably, but not necessarily by \m[blue]dacsrlink(1)\m[]\s-2\u[16]\d\s+2) and the resulting URL is distributed (e.g., by email) to those parties intended to be able to access the resource. Similar mechanisms are widely used by web-based applications.
When an Rlink is used as a kind of "secret URL" that grants access to anyone who uses it, an Rname is a randomly generated identifier that is unique, with very high probability, relative to its namespace at a jurisdiction. By default, an Rname consists of eight symbols from the set of upper- and lower-case alphabetics and digits, yielding a namespace in excess of 10^14 identifiers. This makes guessing a valid Rname highly unlikely. The characteristics of new Rnames can be changed at will; the alphabet from which they are generated should be considered carefully, however, to avoid problems that might arise when they are embedded within a URL or used as a filename. \m[blue]RLINK\m[]\s-2\u[17]\d\s+2 directives can map Rnames to the same or different namespaces, depending on the filestore selected by a directive.
Note
An Rlink does not have to be used as a secret URL though, and its creator can choose any Rname that will work with the mechanism described here.
If a rule contains the optional name attribute, the attribute value must exactly match the Rname.
The base name of a file containing an Rlink will be its Rname. This naming scheme is different from \m[blue]the one used for normal rules\m[]\s-2\u[18]\d\s+2.
This feature allows multiple versions of an Rlink to be created, each bound to a different identity. By attaching an identity to an Rlink, its creator can confer different rights to different users, or simply track who has used the Rlink. These identities may or may not correspond to "real" identities that are associated with DACS authentication (i.e., there may or may not be an account associated with them); DACS administrators should keep this mind to avoid any confusion.
An Rname may be followed by a suffix that directly or indirectly associates a DACS identity with the Rlink. For want of a better name, this composite identifier is called an RnameIdent and has the following syntax:
RnameIdent -> Rname ':' ident | Rname ';' iptr
In the direct mode of identity attachment, the Rname is followed by a separator (a colon, which cannot appear in an Rname) and ident, a cryptographically protected and base-64 encoded \m[blue]concise user identity\m[]\s-2\u[19]\d\s+2 that is created by \m[blue]dacsrlink(1)\m[]\s-2\u[16]\d\s+2. These encrypted identities are not the same as encrypted credentials. Note that different encrypted identifiers may represent exactly the same identity. If DACS recognizes the Rname, when it performs authorization checking it will do so assuming the specified identity, ignoring any other credentials that might have accompanied the request.
In the indirect mode, the Rname is followed by a different separator (a semi-colon, which cannot appear in an Rname) and an arbitrary string, called an iptr (identity pointer) that is safe to embed in a URI. The same character set from which an Rname can be generated is safe for an iptr: any number of alphanumerics, hyphens, and underscores. The rule that is specified by the Rname is expected to map the string to an identity, probably by using the \m[blue]identity element\m[]\s-2\u[20]\d\s+2, and the identity is used in the same way as in the direct mode. Like an Rname, in typical usage an iptr must be difficult to guess and be kept secret, otherwise a valid Rlink might easily be constructed that is associated with a chosen identity. The indirect mode has the advantages of keeping the URL relatively short, is immune to changes of the encryption key, and allows identities to be modified after an Rlink is shared.
An identity obtained using either attachment mode is tested for revocation.
The Rname, specified identity, and identity pointer are accessible in the \m[blue]DACS namespace\m[]\s-2\u[11]\d\s+2, when they are available, as ${DACS::RNAME}, ${DACS::RIDENT}, and ${DACS::RIPTR}, respectively.
Rlinks can easily be created manually or by a custom program, but the \m[blue]dacsrlink(1)\m[]\s-2\u[16]\d\s+2 utility provides a simple interface to create and administer them. Rules created by dacsrlink can be manually edited and deleted just like any other rule. Their is no a priori limit on the lifetime of an Rlink; it continues to exist as far as DACS is concerned if the Rname is recognized by an RLINK directive and the named rule exists and is valid. Deleting the rule corresponding to an Rname effectively invalidates that Rlink.
An Rname can be presented as an ordinary web service argument, as a component of the request URI, or via the special \m[blue]DACS_ACS argument\m[]\s-2\u[21]\d\s+2:
https://example.com/~alice/photos/myphoto.gif?RNAME=jigrFUwF https://example.com/cgi-bin/manage.cgi/jigrFUwF https://example.com/private/data?DACS_ACS=-rname+jigrFUwF
Each of these approaches has advantages and disadvantages; the best choice depends on web site and application details. For example, embedding an Rname as a component of a URI is particularly well suited to CGI programs and web services (e.g., https://example.com/cgi-bin/manage/jigrFUwF, where manage is the name of the program). Using the DACS_ACS argument allows the Rname to be used during access control testing but completely hidden from the requested resource.
\m[blue]RLINK\m[]\s-2\u[17]\d\s+2 directives are used to examine an incoming request, decide whether an Rname is present, extract the Rname, and specify where the rule can be found. If an Rname is present, normal access control processing is disabled and no search of the usual DACS rulesets for an applicable rule occurs. If no RLINK directive finds an Rname, normal access control processing occurs.
The main advantage of Rlinks is that they make controlled file sharing and web service access simple. An Rlink is created and disseminated, and all recipients can access the named resource (subject to the Rlink's rule) using any web browser. Any number of different rules can be created for the same resource, with each one having a different Rname. An Rlink's rule can be changed or deleted by its owner at any time, even after it has been distributed.
Rlinks also offer an alternative way to make exceptions to the rule normally applicable. Rather than revising the "normal" rule for a resource or set of resources to take account for the exceptions, one or more Rlinks can be created to handle the special cases and the normal rules need not be touched.
Another application of Rlinks is as a short representation of an arbitrary URL. Someone accessing an Rlink that has been configured in this way is redirected to a specified URL; see the \m[blue]redirect()\m[]\s-2\u[22]\d\s+2 function. The URL can be changed at will simply by editing the Rlink's rule. The Rlink need not be kept secret when it is used for this purpose.
The main disadvantage of Rlinks is that security may rely on keeping Rnames secret, and because an Rlink may be visible in a URL, this can be difficult to keep up. Anyone who can capture an Rname and use it properly with a resource to which it applies can potentially gain access to that resource. An Rname might be found in a log file, or in a browser's history or bookmark list. Although this method is convenient for users, the requirement for secrecy means that it might not be appropriate in some situations. At the expense of some convenience, however, a password can be bound to an Rlink when it is created; for the Rlink to be valid when it is invoked, the same password must be presented as an argument. Furthermore, because the access control rule associated with an Rname is the same as any other rule, it may express any conditions it likes, so it can still require authentication to have been performed, restrict the user's IP address, and so on. Also, an Rlink cannot be used to gain access to a resource that is not described by its rule's services element.
dacs_acs can be configured to trigger HTTP authentication (see \m[blue]RFC 2617\m[]\s-2\u[14]\d\s+2) by returning a WWW-Authenticate response header in certain circumstances. This will usually cause a browser or other web user agent to use its built-in mechanism for prompting the user for a username and password that corresponds to a particular access realm (a label that identifies a URL path prefix belonging to the server).
If dacs_acs denies access because the user is not authenticated (code 902, ACS_DENIAL_REASON_NO_AUTH), it checks to see if HTTP authentication has been enabled for the request. If not, processing of the denied request proceeds normally, otherwise DACS will try to use the \m[blue]RFC 2617\m[]\s-2\u[14]\d\s+2 protocol to have dacs_authenticate authenticate the user.
Tip
This feature is configured through the \m[blue]HTTP_AUTH_ENABLE\m[]\s-2\u[23]\d\s+2 and \m[blue]HTTP_AUTH\m[]\s-2\u[24]\d\s+2 directives, some configuration variables, and \m[blue]Auth clause directives\m[]\s-2\u[25]\d\s+2. Please refer to them for details.
When HTTP authentication is triggered in this way, no extra Apache configuration needs to be done or should be done. All that is required of Apache is that the resource that should trigger authentication be DACS-wrapped.
Anypassword style authentication module, or the CAS authentication module, can be configured in conjunction with DACS's HTTP Basic authentication. That is, DACS can be configured to cause a browser to pop-up a username/password prompt and then use the values supplied by the user as if they were the USERNAME and PASSWORD arguments to dacs_authenticate. The authentication module on the backend of the authentication procedure can use any type of Apache password file or DACS password file, NTLM, CAS, etc.
Besides authenticating against an Apache password file created by htpasswd, htdigest, or htdbm, this means that an ordinary browser can be used to capture a username and password for any DACS authentication module that requires it. Please refer to the description of the \m[blue]local_apache_authenticate\m[]\s-2\u[26]\d\s+2 module for details.
If the feature is enabled and applies to a request:
any \m[blue]ACS_ERROR_HANDLER\m[]\s-2\u[27]\d\s+2, \m[blue]AUTH_SUCCESS_HANDLER\m[]\s-2\u[28]\d\s+2, and \m[blue]AUTH_ERROR_HANDLER\m[]\s-2\u[29]\d\s+2 directives that would ordinarily apply are overridden.
the \m[blue]HTTP_AUTH\m[]\s-2\u[24]\d\s+2 directive that applies to the request specifies the authentication scheme, realm, and any additional authentication parameters.
a WWW-Authenticate response header is returned to the browser. For example, for Basic authentication this header might look like:
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="My Realm"
an HTTP status value of 401 (\m[blue]RFC 2616\m[]\s-2\u[30]\d\s+2) is returned. If the variable ${Conf::http_auth_message} is defined, its value is used as the message body; if it is "", then no message body will be sent; if not provided, the string "902 Authentication by DACS is required" is used.
if the variable ${Conf::http_auth_jurisdiction} is configured, it is expected to be the name of the jurisdiction (within the current federation) at which dacs_authenticate is to be invoked to authenticate the user; if the variable is undefined, the name of the current jurisdiction is used.
The values of some of these variables are neither examined by DACS nor meaningful to it. For example, all that DACS requires of the realm string is that it be syntactically valid.
When enabled, the following flow of control occurs:
The user hits a DACS-wrapped URL when not authenticated; if dacs_acs is configured to perform HTTP authentication for the request, it returns a 401 ("Unauthorized") status code and a WWW-Authenticate header;
The browser prompts for a username and password; the user enters the information and the browser re-submits the request, which this time includes an Authorization header;
dacs_acs again denies the request because the user is not authenticated, but sees an Authorization header and redirects the user to dacs_authenticate (at ${Conf::http_auth_jurisdiction} or the current jurisdiction) with arguments necessary for the selected authentication scheme; dacs_authenticate maps the given username (and password, if available) to the USERNAME argument (and possibly the PASSWORD argument) and invokes authentication modules as necessary;
If authentication succeeds, credentials are issued and the user is redirected to the original request (via the GET method);
If authentication fails, the procedure is repeated from the beginning.
Note
If a user authenticates using Basic authentication, signs out of DACS, and in the same browser session hits the link to trigger authentication, credentials may be automatically re-issued without prompting. This is because the browser will continue to send the Authorization request header, which dacs_authenticate may continue to honour.
With Digest authentication, various aspects of the authentication protocol are subject to time limits as a security measure. The configuration variable ${Conf::http_auth_timeout_secs} can be set to the number of seconds for which a nonce is valid, thereby overriding the default; only advanced administrators familiar with \m[blue]RFC 2617\m[]\s-2\u[14]\d\s+2 should change the default.
The following is an example of configuration that might appear in the appropriate section (or sections) in DACS configuration files:
HTTP_AUTH_ENABLE "yes"
HTTP_AUTH "Basic \"Doggies\" /basic/*"
EVAL ${Conf::http_auth_message} = \
"902 https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_authenticate"
Given this example configuration, whenever access is denied for a resource having a URL path that begins with "/basic/" because the user is not authenticated, the following response-headers will be returned:
WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Doggies" Status: 401
and the message body will contain the single line:
902 https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_authenticate
Instead of enabling the feature for all requests, the following example enables it only for those user agents that supply a User-Agent request-header that matches the regular expression "DACS-http/.*" (which happens to match the default User-Agent string sent by the DACS\m[blue]dacshttp(1)\m[]\s-2\u[31]\d\s+2 utility).
HTTP_AUTH_ENABLE = regmatch("${DACS::USER_AGENT}", "DACS-http/.*") ? "yes" : "no"
A similar expression would enable the feature only for Internet Explorer, Mozilla, curl, \m[blue]dacshttp(1)\m[]\s-2\u[31]\d\s+2, etc., or some combination of browsers. Simply obtain the User-Agent string(s) sent by the browser(s) and write the appropriate regular expression to match it/them.
Although \m[blue]RFC 2617\m[]\s-2\u[14]\d\s+2 allows multiple WWW-Authenticate response-headers to be returned, this mechanism can only send one.
When provided by a user agent, dacs_acs makes the value of the Authorization request-header available to access control rules through the ${DACS::AUTHORIZATION} variable. DACS credentials can also be \m[blue]passed using this request-header\m[]\s-2\u[32]\d\s+2.
After a rule grants access, dacs_acs can be configured to save some context about its access control decision so that if the user makes a subsequent request for a resource managed by the same rule in a similar context, authorization can be granted quickly and without having to search for the applicable rule or re-evaluate it. Basically, the administrator tells DACS that if the rule grants access to a particular user, then it is safe for DACS to assume that future requests for the same resource by the same user should be granted without doing a complete authorization check.
This mechanism offers improved performance in cases where:
users tend to make many requests for the same resource, or for a set of resources that are managed by the same rule (such as CSS files or images);
rule evaluation is relatively slow or expensive;
there are a large number of rules and/or rule retrieval is relatively slow;
re-evaluation of the rule is unnecessary (e.g., the rule does not update any state information)
it is acceptable for changes to the ruleset to not immediately affect cachable decisions
Security
Pending further testing, this feature should be considered experimental. Use it in production situations only after you have satisfied yourself that it is working properly with your access control rules.
Authorization caching is implemented using a special HTTP cookie, called an access token (not related to the tokens used in authentication), and a simple database maintained by dacs_acs. A cookie is returned to the user when caching is possible and the user does not already possess a valid cookie. An access token points to server-side data that describes the cached authorization, including the context in which it is valid. Immediately after revocation testing, dacs_acs checks if authorization caching applies to the current request; if it does, no access control rules are examined and access is immediately granted. If caching does not apply, process continues as usual. If any invalid access tokens were sent with the request, dacs_acs will ask for them to be deleted (i.e., it unsets the cookies). These cookies have the following format:
DACS:federation-name::jurisdiction-name::TOKEN-unique
Here, unique is the "dacs64" encoding (see \m[blue]dacs.exprs(5)\m[]\s-2\u[33]\d\s+2) of a cryptographically strong pseudo-random 16 byte value. Since access control is purely a jurisdictional responsibility in DACS, a cookie is meaningful only to the jurisdiction that issues it.
These cookies are non-persistent (they are supposed to disappear when a browser session ends). The value of \m[blue]COOKIE_PATH\m[]\s-2\u[34]\d\s+2, or "/", determines the cookie's path attribute. The \m[blue]COOKIE_NO_DOMAIN\m[]\s-2\u[35]\d\s+2 and \m[blue]COOKIE_HTTP_ONLY\m[]\s-2\u[36]\d\s+2 directives are also honoured.
Here is a simple example of how DACS might be configured to enable authorization caching for a particular resource. The jurisdiction's dacs.conf would include directives similar to the following:
ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_ENABLE "yes" ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_SECS "43200" VFS "[tokens]dacs-kwv-fs:/usr/local/dacs/conf/tokens"
A rule for the resource might look like this:
<acl_rule status="enabled">
<services>
<service url_pattern="/cgi-bin/database.cgi"/>
<service url_pattern="/cgi-bin/someprog.cgi"/>
</services>
<rule order="allow,deny">
<allow permit_caching="yes">
user("auth")
</allow>
</rule>
</acl_rule>
Given this configuration, the first time an authenticated user requests, say, https://example.com/cgi-bin/database.cgi, he will be issued an access token. This token will be valid for up to 12 hours, and its associated data will be stored as an entry in the file /usr/local/dacs/conf/tokens.
Note
In the current implementation, each access token is contained within its own cookie, rather than a jurisdiction collecting all of the user's tokens within a single cookie. A user might therefore simultaneously hold many access tokens from each jurisdiction. This should not be significant for middleware agents, but web browsers typically impose various kinds of limits on cookie "real estate". Administrators should take this into account when using this feature.
Before it can be used, DACS must be built with the feature enabled (see --enable-access-tokens in \m[blue]dacs.install(7)\m[]\s-2\u[37]\d\s+2). The virtual filestore item type "tokens" must be configured to identify an indexed virtual storage method and location for storing cache entries. Also, the authorization caching mechanism must be configured (see \m[blue]ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_ENABLE\m[]\s-2\u[38]\d\s+2, \m[blue]ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_LIMIT\m[]\s-2\u[39]\d\s+2, and \m[blue]ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_SECS\m[]\s-2\u[40]\d\s+2).
Enabling the feature in a particular context also requires setting a rule's permit_caching attribute to "yes" (see \m[blue]dacs.acls(5)\m[]\s-2\u[41]\d\s+2). Whenever access is granted because of the rule, authorization caching of the rule is possible.
Note
Only the url_pattern of the rule's matching Service element (or the path derived from a url_expr attribute) is associated with the access token. This implies that when a rule has more than one service element, as in the example rule above, a single access token would be associated with only one of the two resources. Requests for different services could result in multiple access tokens being returned to a user, one for each service. A wildcard pattern is required if an access token is intended to grant access to more than one resource (this restriction may be lifted in future releases).
Note that although a service request's arguments may be significant when initially granting access, they are not significant with respect to authorization caching applied to subsequent requests that use the access token. Once an access token is issued, the resource or resources named by it may therefore be invoked with different arguments without negating authorization caching.
If any constraint, permit_chainingpass_credentials, or pass_http_cookie attributes are associated with the cachable rule, their values are also remembered and set if the access token subsequently causes access to be granted.
Authorization caching is possible irrespective of whether a user has been authenticated. Caching is not allowed, however, in cases where the granting rule uses \m[blue]tail matching\m[]\s-2\u[42]\d\s+2and a rule exists for a subordinate URL (i.e., where there is a "more specific" rule for some other resource that should not be overridden by caching the "more general" rule). These cases are simply ignored; they are not considered to be errors. It is therefore not possible to cache the outcome of a rule with a url_pattern of "/*", for example, unless it is the only rule in the ruleset.
Note
A positive result will be cached regardless of whether the requested resource actually exists or is subsequently processed without error by the web server. It is therefore possible for an access token to be issued for a resource that does not exist at the time of issue but which is created at some later time.
The store of tokens may be deleted or modified at any time. Any access token that points to an invalid or missing entry in the store becomes invalid.
Over time, the server-side access token database tends to accumulate entries for access tokens that no longer exist or have expired. These should be garbage collected. (This is currently not automated, so the database needs to be truncated. There should also be way to list the entries and manually delete entries.) The \m[blue]dacsacl(1)\m[]\s-2\u[43]\d\s+2 command and \m[blue]dacs_admin(8)\m[]\s-2\u[44]\d\s+2 service can perform administrative functions on the entry database.
Security
Access tokens are created and used in such a way that it is practically impossible for an attacker to manufacture a valid access token or to convert an access token valid for one resource into one valid for a different resource.
If a user is authenticated at the time an access token is generated, the token is "tied" to those credentials (all of them) and becomes invalid if any of the credentials become invalid or are not sent with the access token. If a user signs out or reauthenticates after being issued an access token, therefore, the access token will become invalid. Additional credentials, beyond what were present at the time an access token was generated, have no effect in this regard.
As with cookies bearing DACS credentials, cookies containing access tokens must be kept private. For an authenticated user, an attacker would need to acquire an access token and all credentials to make use of the token. For an unauthenticated user, only the access token is needed; presumably (but not necessarily) in this case a lower level of security is being applied to the resource in any case.
It is the administrator's responsibility to ensure that authorization caching does not break the intended semantics of a rule - DACS does not do any consistency or sanity checks. For instance, if a rule is written to grant access only between 12:00 and 12:59 but an access token produced by the rule could continue to be valid beyond that time interval, authorization caching could violate the intent of the rule. Also, a rule that ordinarily produces side effects would not do so for any requests granted through authorization caching.
As long as an authorization decision remains valid, changes to the ruleset will not cause a cached decision to be reversed. That is, a change to the ruleset that would ordinarily cause a request to be denied will have no effect on a cached decision. The \m[blue]revocation list\m[]\s-2\u[45]\d\s+2 is, however, processed as usual, so it is possible for a cached decision to be denied due to revocation. An error encountered during processing would also cause access to be denied, regardless of authorization caching.
When XML output has been enabled, dacs_acs will emit a document (conforming to \m[blue]dacs_acs.dtd\m[]\s-2\u[46]\d\s+2) when access is denied, a processing error occurs, or when an access testing mode has been requested using the DACS_ACS argument.
dacs_acs associates an error code with each event or reason for which access might be denied (see the description of the ACS_ERROR_HANDLER directive in \m[blue]dacs.conf(5)\m[]\s-2\u[47]\d\s+2). The error code is itself sufficient for a client to know why access was denied. When access is denied, an appropriately named XML element is emitted. The element will include an explanatory text message, and optionally, the URI of a handler that the client might call to continue the workflow. This URI is obtained from the applicable ACS_ERROR_HANDLER directive, if any.
The event905 element corresponds to the ACK_NEEDED (equivalent to error code 905) DACS error event. It is emitted if the client must acknowledge one or more notices before the request will be granted. Its handler attributes, which are optional, are obtained from the ACS_ERROR_HANDLER directive that applies to this error and the NOTICES_ACK_HANDLER directive. If the ack_handler attribute is absent, then the presentation_handler is expected to perform both presentation and acknowledgement handling functions. The notice_uris attribute is a comma-separated list of URIs of notices that must be acknowledged by the user. The resource_uris attribute is a comma-separated list of URIs of resources associated with this request; this will usually be only a single URI. The time and hmac attributes are used to enforce a secure workflow mode. Please refer to \m[blue]dacs_notices(8)\m[]\s-2\u[48]\d\s+2 and \m[blue]dacs.conf(5)\m[]\s-2\u[47]\d\s+2 for additional detail.
A common_status element indicates that dacs_acs could not process the request. This might happen, for example, if dacs_acs were not properly configured.
dacs_acs predefines several variables that may be accessed by rules. Additionally, variables obtained from the request's credentials are exported into the environment of an invoked CGI program. In this way, services can know who is making the request, to retrieve user preferences, for example.
In addition, parameters passed to a CGI program, whether through a query string or a message body (e.g., POST method data), may be accessed as variables. For example, for the service request:
.../cgi-bin/foo?A=hello&B=world
the variables ${Args::A} with the value hello and ${Args::B} with the value world will be defined at the time ACL rulesets are evaluated. Also, variables obtained from the authenticated credentials may be referenced (e.g., ${DACS::JURISDICTION}).
Note
Because at present a variable cannot be multi-valued, if a variable is set more than once its value at the time of evaluation is not predictable. For example, given this query string you cannot depend on which value is assigned to ${Args::ARG}:
.../cgi-bin/foo?ARG=hello&ARG=world
This also creates problems if you need to examine arguments produced by an HTML SELECT element within a form when the MULTIPLE attribute is used because each OPTION selected by the user will be associated with the same argument name. Syntactical and functional improvements are planned in this regard.
Any "null" arguments in the query string (e.g., "&&") are ignored. A query string with a component that has a value but not a name (e.g., "&=foo") is considered to be invalid.
From these sources, the execution environment, and from the DACS configuration, dacs_acs automatically creates four "classes" of variables: CGI parameter variables, configuration variables, environment variables, and request-specific variables created by DACS. These classes are called namespaces; please refer to \m[blue]dacs.exprs(5)\m[]\s-2\u[49]\d\s+2 for details. For example, the value of a CGI parameter is accessed by ${Args::varname}, the value of a DACS context variable is accessed by ${DACS::varname} (e.g., ${DACS::JURISDICTION}), and the value of configuration variable is obtained using ${Conf::varname} (e.g., ${Conf::FEDERATION_DOMAIN}).
For dacs_acs, the Env namespace is comprised of all CGI variables exported by Apache, which includes HTTP request variables such as ${Env::HTTP_USER_AGENT}. The values of recognized headers that might compromise security are edited or deleted. Note that Apache will export unrecognized HTTP request headers by prefixing the header name with HTTP_ and mapping the header name to upper case; this example results in ${Env::AUGGIE} having the value "Doggie":
% http -header Auggie Doggie https://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/someprog
For other programs, the Env namespace is populated from the program's normal environment.
These namespaces are reserved from other uses and their contents are, for the most part, read-only.
The only MIME content types currently supported with respect to capturing CGI parameters are application/x-www-form-urlencoded, which is the default used by browsers when submitting a form, and multipart/form-data. At present, only 7bit data encoding is supported. The methods by which values from forms can be returned to a server are described in \m[blue]RFC 1867\m[]\s-2\u[50]\d\s+2, \m[blue]RFC 2388\m[]\s-2\u[51]\d\s+2, and \m[blue]HTML 4\m[]\s-2\u[52]\d\s+2.
The following variables are exported to the "DACS" namespace (e.g., ${DACS::QUERY}). Upper and lower case are distinct in variable names. These values are either obtained from Apache or are elements of the client's credentials.
ACS
If dacs_acs is requested to test access, this variable will be defined and have the value of the DACS_ACS argument.
ARGS
A string representing all of the parameters to a CGI program, excluding multipart/form-data, encoded as a query string. If the number or total size of the parameters exceeded the implementation-dependent limit, the variable ARGS_TRUNCATED will be defined and have a non-zero value.
ARGS_TRUNCATED
If this variable is defined and its value is non-zero, the argument list has been truncated. This means that not all arguments to the CGI program are accessible to dacs_acs and the value of one argument may have been truncated. See \m[blue]ACS_POST_EXCEPTION_MODE\m[]\s-2\u[53]\d\s+2.
ARG_COUNT
The number of arguments available in the Args namespace. If there are four arguments in a request's query string and two arguments within its application/x-www-form-urlencoded message body, for instance, then the value of ${DACS::ARG_COUNT} will be six. These arguments will be available collectively as the value of ${DACS::ARGS} and individually in the Args namespace.
AUTHORIZATION
The value of the Authorization HTTP header field, if available.
CONTENT_ENCODING
The value of the Content-Encoding HTTP header field, if available.
CONTENT_LENGTH
The value of the Content-Length HTTP header field, if available.
CONTENT_TYPE
The value of the Content-Type HTTP header field, if available.
CURRENT_URI
The full URI for the requested resource, including any query component.
CURRENT_URI_NO_QUERY
The full URI for the requested resource, excluding any query component.
FEDERATION
The official name of the federation to which JURISDICTION belongs. If the user was not authenticated, this variable will be undefined.
FILENAME
The full path of the file corresponding to the URL being invoked, equivalent to Apache's SCRIPT_FILENAME environment variable or its REQUEST_FILENAME variable.
IDENTITY
The DACS identity (the username component plus federation and jurisdiction components) if the user was authenticated, otherwise undefined.
INTERACTIVE
If the standard input is a valid terminal type device, this variable is set to 1, otherwise it is undefined.
IP
The IP address, in standard numeric dot notation, associated with USERNAME. If the user was not authenticated, this variable will be undefined.
JURISDICTION
The official, abbreviated name of the jurisdiction that authenticated USERNAME. If the user was not authenticated, this variable will be undefined.
METHOD
The method used to invoke the URL, equivalent to Apache's REQUEST_METHOD environment variable.
PATH_INFO
The PATH_INFO part of the URI, as set by Apache.
POSTDATA
A MIME base-64 encoded string representing the data stream (message body) sent to a CGI program. If the number or total size of the parameters exceeded the configured limit, the variable ARGS_TRUNCATED will be defined and have a non-zero value. See the description of the SetDACSAuthPostBuffer directive to \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[12]\d\s+2).
PROXYREQ
If set, the type of proxy processing performed for this request by Apache (from SERVICE_PROXYREQ).
QUERY
The query string, if any, that was appended to the URL.
REMOTE_ADDR
The REMOTE_ADDR, as set by Apache.
REMOTE_HOST
The REMOTE_HOST, as set by Apache.
RIDENT
The Rlink identity, if any, associated with the rule currently being evaluated. See \m[blue]Rlinks\m[]\s-2\u[54]\d\s+2.
RIPTR
The Rlink identity pointer, if any, associated with the rule currently being evaluated. See \m[blue]Rlinks\m[]\s-2\u[54]\d\s+2.
RNAME
The Rname, if any, associated with the rule currently being evaluated. This is also available as ${Args::RNAME}. See \m[blue]Rlinks\m[]\s-2\u[54]\d\s+2.
ROLES
The role string associated with USERNAME. If the user was not authenticated, this variable will be undefined.
URI and URL
The URL being invoked.
USERNAME
The username (without any federation or jurisdiction component). If the user was not authenticated, this variable will be undefined.
USER_AGENT
When provided by the user agent, this is equivalent to the HTTP User-Agent request-header field and HTTP_USER_AGENT environment variable provided by Apache. When an actual value is unavailable, this variable is set to "unknown".
The normal execution environment of a CGI program or internally processed script (e.g., mod_php) invoked through DACS is augmented with environment variables instantiated from validated credentials, access control rules, configuration information, and so on. Through these variables, services have access to the identity of the user making the request to retrieve user preferences, for example, or make run-time decisions.
Note
Environment variables with the prefix "DACS_" are reserved for use by DACS and should not be used for other purposes by an application. Upper and lower case are distinct in variable names.
Tip
If \m[blue]PHP\m[]\s-2\u[55]\d\s+2 is installed, a nice way to see the DACS environment variables that are passed to a CGI program is to run a DACS-wrapped script like this:
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html><head> <meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1"> <title></title></head> <body> <p> <?php phpinfo(); ?> </p> </body></html>
Alternatively, you can use \m[blue]dacs_prenv(8)\m[]\s-2\u[56]\d\s+2.
Currently defined environment variables are listed here. More detailed descriptions of these variables appear in other DACS documents.
DACS_ACS_JURISDICTION
This is the official DACS internal, abbreviated name for the jurisdiction that has granted access.
DACS_APPROVAL
A digitally signed message that confirms that DACS authorized the request. See \m[blue]dacs_acs(8)\m[]\s-2\u[57]\d\s+2.
DACS_CONCISE_IDENTITY
This is the full DACS identity to which access was granted expressed in the concise syntax used by \m[blue]dacscheck(1)\m[]\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2. When available, the user's roles and IP address are included.
DACS_CONF
This is the full pathname of the DACS configuration file.
DACS_CONSTRAINT
A constraint string associated with a sub-component of the matching access control rule permitting the service request.
DACS_DEFAULT_CONSTRAINT
A constraint string associated with the matching access control rule.
DACS_FEDERATION
This is the federation name component of DACS_IDENTITY.
DACS_IDENTITY
This is the full DACS identity to which access was granted. Apache's REMOTE_USER environment variable is also set to this value, so it is available for logging purposes and export to CGI programs.
DACS_JURISDICTION
This is the jurisdiction component of DACS_IDENTITY.
DACS_MOD_AUTH_DACS
This is a version identification string for \m[blue]mod_auth_dacs\m[]\s-2\u[3]\d\s+2.
DACS_ROLES
This is the role string associated with DACS_USERNAME within DACS_JURISDICTION.
DACS_SITE_CONF
This is the full pathname of the DACS site configuration file.
DACS_USERNAME
This is the username component of the identity to which access was granted.
DACS_VERSION
The major version number of DACS.
About Servlets
Note
The details of how environment variables are passed from Apache to servlets are beyond the scope of DACS. But for what it's worth, the following illustrates how to export and access them from servlets that are under the control of DACS in conjunction with \m[blue]mod_jk\m[]\s-2\u[58]\d\s+2 and \m[blue]Tomcat\m[]\s-2\u[59]\d\s+2. This used to work at one time but may no longer be correct.
The following directives (which appear in, or are included in, the Apache configuration file) are used (this list may be expanded):
<IfModule mod_jk.c> JkEnvVar DACS_FEDERATION NONE JkEnvVar DACS_JURISDICTION NONE JkEnvVar DACS_ACS_JURISDICTION NONE JkEnvVar DACS_ROLES NONE JkEnvVar DACS_USERNAME NONE JkEnvVar DACS_CONSTRAINT NONE JkEnvVar DACS_DEFAULT_CONSTRAINT NONE JkEnvVar DACS_COOKIE NONE JkEnvVar DACS_MOD_AUTH_DACS NONE </IfModule mod_jk.c>
From a servlet, the values of these variables can be obtained through the getAttribute() method, invoked on an HttpServletRequest object. For example:
Object username = req.getAttribute("DACS_USERNAME");
out.println("roles = " + req.getAttribute("DACS_ROLES"));
In addition to the standard \m[blue]dacsoptions\m[]\s-2\u[1]\d\s+2, dacs_acs recognizes the following arguments:
-proxy-static
Reserved for future use.
-proxy-exec
Reserved for future use.
-test
Perform some self-tests, then exit. A non-zero exit status means an error occurred. If -test is the only argument (recommended), no configuration is necessary; otherwise, normal configuration processing will be performed before the self-tests.
Various aspects of the behaviour of dacs_acs can be controlled by an optional argument named DACS_ACS. This argument, which may be passed to any web service, is interpreted by dacs_acs rather than the web service that is being invoked. The value of this argument is parsed as a list of space-separated command line flags.
Tip
The space character(s) must be properly escaped; e.g., as %20 or +.
One use of this feature is when an application or middleware would like to know whether DACS will grant or deny a service request without having to actually execute the service request. When building a menu, for instance, an application might want to exclude items involving service requests that would be denied to the user. dacs_acs provides this capability.
To check whether access would be granted or denied, the application invokes the DACS-wrapped service or resource exactly as it would normally except that it provides the DACS_ACS argument. In some situations, if access would be denied dacs_acs will return an indication of what must be done; e.g., the user must authenticate or a notice must be acknowledged. Note that there can be multiple reasons for denying access, in which case an application may have to repeatedly request a check and address the reason for denial before access may be granted.
The DACS_ACS argument can be a query argument or can appear in a message body with the content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded (as in the case of an HTML form submitted using the POST method, for example). The DACS_ACS argument may not be specified more than once. It is not always possible to escape this argument (see \m[blue]-invisible\m[]\s-2\u[60]\d\s+2).
The following flags are recognized:
-check_only
The presence of this flag tells dacs_acs not to actually execute the web service or return the resource, but to merely return the access control decision. This flag and the -check_fail flag are mutually exclusive.
If the access check was performed, HTTP status code 200 (OK) will be returned; any other result indicates that the check could not be executed (e.g., due to an Apache configuration problem or a DACS error). If the check is performed, a DACS-Status-Line HTTP extension header is included in the response by default (see below).
The default response consists of a single line of text that gives the result. This line consists of a three digit result code, followed by a space, an explanatory message, and a newline character; for example,
797 Access denied 798 Access granted 799 Access error
Inspecting the result code is sufficient to obtain the outcome of the check. Any ApacheErrorDocument directive for "error-code" 200 is overridden. The -format flag (see below) can be used to select a different output format.
Note
The service or resource in question does not have to exist for dacs_acs to grant access; for instance, this can happen if a wildcard rule pattern is used. Also, keep in mind that access control rules can be written to be highly context specific; there is no guarantee that the same decision made at one point in time will also be made an instant later (access control rules can depend on the current date or time, for instance).
Rules can be written such that their evaluation results in persistent changes; for example, a database might be updated. These kinds of changes will occur both in normal operation and when only checking access. dacs_acs defines the variable ${DACS::ACS} only during the testing mode of operation so that, if necessary, rules can be written to differentiate between testing mode and normal operation.
-check_fail
This flag is like the -check_only flag, except if access is granted the request is allowed to proceed. If access is not granted and HTTP status code 200 is returned, a DACS-Status-Line HTTP extension header is included in the response by default (see below). The -check_fail flag is useful in situations where a -check_only test that indicates that access would be granted is always immediately followed by the actual request. This flag and the -check_only flag are mutually exclusive.
-format fmt
By default, the -check_only flag (and in the case where access is denied, also the -check_fail flag) results in a single line of text being output (equivalent to "-format text"). If more detail is required, an XML description can be produced by specifying any of the XML output formats. Refer to \m[blue]XML Output\m[]\s-2\u[61]\d\s+2, the \m[blue]FORMAT CGI argument\m[]\s-2\u[62]\d\s+2, and the \m[blue]-format\m[]\s-2\u[63]\d\s+2 command line argument.
-rname rname
The string rname, which is assumed to be the name of an Rlink, is made available available as ${Args::RNAME} during evaluation of \m[blue]ACS_PRE_AUTH\m[]\s-2\u[64]\d\s+2 directive expressions.
-status_line
-no-status_line
The -status_line flag enables the \m[blue]DACS-Status-Line\m[]\s-2\u[65]\d\s+2 header, overriding the setting of the \m[blue]STATUS_LINE\m[]\s-2\u[66]\d\s+2 configuration directive. The -no_status_line flag always suppresses this header, regardless of the \m[blue]STATUS_LINE\m[]\s-2\u[66]\d\s+2 directive and the -check_only and -check_fail flags.
-visible
-invisible
If the DACS_ACS argument is passed as a query argument, the default behaviour is to delete it so that it cannot be seen after access control processing grants access. This deletion is explicitly enabled by the -invisible flag and disabled by the -visible flag. If DACS_ACS is not deleted, it will be passed to an invoked program and might affect subsequent processing.
Important
Deletion of the DACS_ACS argument is currently possible only if it is passed as a query argument.
For example, consider the hypothetical URL:
https://example.com/cgi-bin/myprog?DACS_ACS=-check_fail+-visible&foo=baz
If the CGI program myprog is executed, it will not only see the foo=baz argument, but also the DACS_ACS=-check_fail+-visible argument, and this could trigger an error or incorrect behaviour when myprog processes it.
All DACS web services ignore a DACS_ACS argument, however, so its presence will not affect them.
The flag list is processed from left to right. Any flag may be repeated, with the value of a later occurrence overriding an earlier one. If some part of the DACS_ACS argument is invalid, the initial, valid part will still be effective; e.g., if the initial part is -formatXML, the output format will be XML.
dacs_acs removes the DACS_ACS argument from the rule-processing environment so as not to disturb access control processing. DACS credentials may accompany the service request just as they would a real request and are incorporated into the check.
Assuming the target resource is DACS-wrapped, instead of returning the resource, accessing the following URL would return an indication of whether an actual request to access the resource would be granted or denied:
% http -v -v \ 'https://dacs.dss.ca/infocard-demo/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_version?DACS_ACS=-check_only%20-format+xml'
The DACS-Status-Line header
When the DACS_ACS=-check_only argument is present, the response from DACS includes an extension header named DACS-Status-Line. The format of this extension header follows that of the HTTP Status-Line (\m[blue]RFC 2616\m[]\s-2\u[30]\d\s+2, section 6.1):
DACS-Status-Line = "DACS-Status-Line" ":" DACS-Version SP ACS-Status-Code SP Reason-Phrase CRLF
Where:
DACS-Version = "DACS-" Version
and Version is the DACS_VERSION_RELEASE string (e.g., 1.4.8b), and where:
ACS-Status-Code = "797" | "798" | "799"
The status code 797 means that DACS denies access, 798 means that it grants access, and 799 means that an error occurred during processing.
Here are some examples:
DACS-Status-Line: DACS-1.4.8b 797 Access denied DACS-Status-Line: DACS-1.4.8b 798 Access granted DACS-Status-Line: DACS-1.4.8b 799 Access error
The reason phrases in the examples are only recommendations; they may be replaced by local equivalents without affecting the protocol.
Note
The reason phrase may include additional information, such as an audit identifier, that can be used to track the request in the DACS logs:
DACS-Status-Line: DACS-1.4.10 798 Access granted, unauth user (j10OXL2Z)
This header is also returned when -check_fail is requested, but only if access is not granted.
The DACS_APPROVAL environment variable
If enabled by the \m[blue]ACS_EMIT_APPROVAL\m[]\s-2\u[67]\d\s+2 directive, the DACS_APPROVAL environment variable will be passed to a DACS-wrapped program. If the program cares to verify that its execution has been authorized, it may validate the approval's signature (to ensure that the approval has not been forged) and validate the stamp (to ensure that the approval is not being replayed). Note that if a man-in-the-middle attack is of concern, end-to-end encryption should be used.
With proper configuration, this feature can be used by a web-based program that is not DACS-wrapped but for which authorization has been obtained indirectly. For example, when \m[blue]dacs_uproxy(8)\m[]\s-2\u[68]\d\s+2, invokes a program, dacs_uproxy will forward the value of DACS_APPROVAL (when available) to the invoked program, which can obtain the value in its HTTP_DACS_UPROXY_APPROVAL environment variable. If it is able to validate the value (or can trust it), the invoked program knows that its execution was authorized by DACS, even though DACS may not be configured or even installed on the host where the invoked program runs.
A jurisdiction's cryptographic keys, identified by the virtual filestore item type jurisdiction_keys, must be configured so that the approval can be digitally signed.
The value of DACS_APPROVAL has the following format:
a="dacs64-approval-message", s="dacs64-signature"
The dacs64-approval-message is a \m[blue]dacs64\m[]\s-2\u[33]\d\s+2 encoded string, described below. The dacs64-signature is the dacs64 encoded RSA signature of the approval message, which is the unencoded dacs64-approval-message.
An approval message has the following format:
j="jurisdiction-name"<newline> h="digest-name"<newline> s="stamp"<newline> u="uri"<newline> m="method"<newline> i="ident"
Here, jurisdiction-name is the name of the jurisdiction (including its federation name) that generated the approval. The name of the message digest (secure hash) algorithm used to sign the approval is digest-name. The unique stamp is stamp (as generated by \m[blue]ustamp()\m[]\s-2\u[69]\d\s+2) and the URI, including any query component, is uri. The HTTP method is method. The DACS identity of the user for which access was granted is ident (or "unauth", if none). The stamp and method are mapped to lowercase. Here is an example of an approval message:
j="DSS::DSS-dacs" h="SHA1" s="1185565675:130", u="http://example.com/cgi-bin/dacs/dacs_current_credentials?FORMAT=HTML" m="get" i="unauth"
The RSA signature is computed using the jurisdiction's private key and SHA-1 (by default) over the approval message. A different message digest algorithm can be used by setting the configuration variable ${Conf::dacs_approval_digest_name} (see \m[blue]digest()\m[]\s-2\u[70]\d\s+2 for information about message digest algorithms):
EVAL ${Conf::dacs_approval_digest_name} = "SHA256"
The program exits 0 if everything was fine, 1 if an error occurred.
\m[blue]dacsacl(1)\m[]\s-2\u[43]\d\s+2, \m[blue]dacscheck(1)\m[]\s-2\u[2]\d\s+2, \m[blue]dacs.acls(5)\m[]\s-2\u[4]\d\s+2, \m[blue]dacs.conf(5)\m[]\s-2\u[47]\d\s+2, \m[blue]dacs_admin(8)\m[]\s-2\u[44]\d\s+2
While the DACS_ACS mechanism can be useful, it is still a kludge,
Distributed Systems Software (\m[blue]www.dss.ca\m[]\s-2\u[71]\d\s+2)
Copyright2003-2013 Distributed Systems Software. See the \m[blue]LICENSE\m[]\s-2\u[72]\d\s+2 file that accompanies the distribution for licensing information.
dacsoptions
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.1.html#dacsoptions
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacscheck.1.html
mod_auth_dacs
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/mod_auth_dacs.html
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html
logging
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.1.html#logging
LOG_LEVEL
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#LOG_LEVEL
LOG_FILTER
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#LOG_FILTER
AddDACSAuth
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/mod_auth_dacs.html#AddDACSAuth
DACS_HOME
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#var_dacs_home
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=pipe&apropos=0&sektion=2&manpath=FreeBSD+9.1-RELEASE&format=html
Variables Available To Rules
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#vars_in_rules
mod_auth_dacs
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/mod_auth_dacs.html#SetDACSAuthPostBuffer
ALLOW_HTTP_COOKIE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ALLOW_HTTP_COOKIE
RFC 2617
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_authenticate.8.html#credentials
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacsrlink.1.html
RLINK
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#RLINK
the one used for normal rules
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html#acl_files
concise user identity
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.1.html#concise_user_syntax
identity element
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html#elements
DACS_ACS argument
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#dacs_acs_argument
redirect()
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.exprs.5.html#redirect
HTTP_AUTH_ENABLE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#HTTP_AUTH_ENABLE
HTTP_AUTH
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#HTTP_AUTH
Auth clause directives
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_authenticate.8.html#auth_clause
local_apache_authenticate
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_authenticate.8.html#local_apache_authenticate
ACS_ERROR_HANDLER
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_ERROR_HANDLER
AUTH_SUCCESS_HANDLER
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#AUTH_SUCCESS_HANDLER
AUTH_ERROR_HANDLER
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#AUTH_ERROR_HANDLER
RFC 2616
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacshttp.1.html
passed using this request-header
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#http_authentication
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.exprs.5.html#encode
COOKIE_PATH
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#COOKIE_PATH
COOKIE_NO_DOMAIN
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#COOKIE_NO_DOMAIN
COOKIE_HTTP_ONLY
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#COOKIE_HTTP_ONLY
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.install.7.html#configure_options
ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_ENABLE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_ENABLE
ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_LIMIT
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_LIMIT
ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_SECS
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME_SECS
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html#acl_syntax
tail matching
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html#tail_matching
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacsacl.1.html
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_admin.8.html
revocation list
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.acls.5.html#revocation_list
dacs_acs.dtd
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/../dtd-xsd/dacs_acs.dtd
dacs.conf(5)
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_notices.8.html
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.exprs.5.html#variables
RFC 1867
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1867.txt
RFC 2388
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2388.txt
HTML 4
http://www.w3.org/TR/html4
ACS_POST_EXCEPTION_MODE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_POST_EXCEPTION_MODE
Rlinks
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#rlinks
PHP
http://www.php.net
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_prenv.8.html
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_acs.8.html#dacs_approval
mod_jk
http://tomcat.apache.org/connectors-doc/generic_howto/quick.html
Tomcat
http://jakarta.apache.org
-invisible
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#invisible_flag
XML Output
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/#XML-output
FORMAT CGI argument
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.1.html#FORMAT
-format
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.1.html#format-arg
ACS_PRE_AUTH
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_PRE_AUTH
DACS-Status-Line
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_acs.8.html#dacs_status_line
STATUS_LINE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#STATUS_LINE
ACS_EMIT_APPROVAL
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.conf.5.html#ACS_EMIT_APPROVAL
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs_uproxy.8.html
ustamp()
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.exprs.5.html#ustamp
digest()
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/dacs.exprs.5.html#digest
www.dss.ca
http://www.dss.ca
LICENSE
http://dacs.dss.ca/man/../misc/LICENSE