>-----Original Message----- >From: Chris Geer [mailto:[email protected]] >Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2012 11:08 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [Proposal] Spring Permissions Change > >Tony, > >On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 6:58 AM, Carlucci, Tony <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Chris, could you go a little more into your use case (I think what >> you've hinted at it with your Widget->add_comment block)? I believe the >> spirit of that Permission enum was to define the context of the security >> check to keep in line with CRUD actions. The detailed business logic of >> the Model/Permission Context combination can then be customized as needed >> in the various Default<Model>PagePermissionEvaluator.hasPermission >> functions. So if there is some specific security logic related to adding a >> comment to a widget, I believe you can put it in the appropriate >> PermissionEvaluator class. >> > >I understand the current model and I think it works great for top level >objects but it doesn't work all so well for subordinate objects, or for >business logic checks that are beyond CRUD. Right now everything is a top >level object (everything has it's own repository for example) but as part >of the object model restructure we have proposed to change that slightly. >If you view WidgetComment as a subordinate object to a Widget, the security >checks are different. Instead of checking WidgetComment => "Create" as a >standalone check, you really want to check Widget => "can_add_comment" >which is at the Widget level since the Comment doesn't exist yet. This >check would check to make sure the Widget is published, that the user has >access to the Widget, etc. Once the WidgetComment exists, the current >checks in place make sense (mostly). > >I know currently we could just check the widget in the >WidgetCommentPermissionEvaluator because the WidgetComment has an >attribute >of "widget_id" but that is another thing we are proposing to change in the >object model restructure. As we try and restructure things so that we can >support backends other than JPA we need to tweak the object model at the >interface level. For example, WidgetComment would no longer have an >attribute of widget_id, it is just associated with whatever widget it's >part of. This cleans up a few things like being able to create a >WidgetComment with a widget_id of 3 but adding it to the WidgetComment >collection of Widget id 2. > >Does that make sense? > >Beyond the WidgetComment example I still think there is a need for more >fine grained permission checks. For example: > - can_publish_widget > - can_reset_other_users_password (low level admin who can't do some other >functions) > - can_delete_other_users_comment (like a moderator) > - ... > >I know those functions can be covered by "admin" but I know our product >needs a finer level of control than just "admin". This will become much >more important as we start talking multi-tenancy which I'll bring up again >soon where you need multiple levels of admins. > >Chris
Ok yes, this definitely makes sense to me given the context of the model refactoring changes. I think changing the enum to strings should be fine, so long as we don't see hard-coded "can_add_comment" strings in lots of spots, which could make maintenance a little difficult. Also we should keep in mind the current ability to override the default security behaviors[1] as part of this change, and make sure only the most common of changes should go into the Rave code base. [1] http://rave.apache.org/documentation/model-permission-override.html Tony > >> >> Am I understanding your use case or completely off the mark? :) >> >> Tony >> >> >-----Original Message----- >> >From: Chris Geer [mailto:[email protected]] >> >Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 7:50 PM >> >To: dev >> >Subject: [Proposal] Spring Permissions Change >> > >> >I would like to propose we change how the spring permission checks work >> >slightly. Right now the "Permission" value (i.e. Create, Update...) is >> >defined as part of a enum named Permission defined in >> >the org.apache.rave.portal.security.ModelPermissionEvaluator interface. >> The >> >various hasPermissions methods take an instance of that Permission enum >> >(created from a string on the check permission annotation). Having the >> >permissions defined in an enumeration limits what we are able to check >> >permissions for in my opinion. Right now we have two choices, 1) limit our >> >permission checks to the list there is now, 2) add new permissions to the >> >generic Permissions enum which could lead to a bunch of permissions stored >> >on a generic enum that aren't really reusable (i.e. Widget -> add_comment >> >permission). I would like to propose we change the way we define >> >permissions to remove the enum and just pass along the string defined in >> >the annotations. The only real downside of that is that we can't use a >> >switch/case statement during permissions checks unless we use Java7. >> > >> >Thoughts/concerns? >> > >> >Thanks, >> >Chris >>
