Re:Aserto: Developer API for permissions and RBAC
by ogazitt on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @12:05PM
(#30362498)
Great question. There are two scenarios that are relevant for authorization:
1. Gating the operation (whether it's retrieving a single resource, or creating / updating / deleting a resource). In this scenario, the application does need to call the authorizer before performing the operation on the resource, but the relationship between the authorizer and the application is at "arms length".
2. Filtering a list of resources. In this scenario, the authorization system can help you by running what in OPA is known as a "partial evaluation", which returns an abstract syntax tree. Your code would then walk that tree and insert the proper where clauses (if you're talking to a SQL back-end). As you mentioned, by necessity, your application needs to work more closely with the authorizer.
1. Gating the operation (whether it's retrieving a single resource, or creating / updating / deleting a resource). In this scenario, the application does need to call the authorizer before performing the operation on the resource, but the relationship between the authorizer and the application is at "arms length".
2. Filtering a list of resources. In this scenario, the authorization system can help you by running what in OPA is known as a "partial evaluation", which returns an abstract syntax tree. Your code would then walk that tree and insert the proper where clauses (if you're talking to a SQL back-end). As you mentioned, by necessity, your application needs to work more closely with the authorizer.