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Web-Based Access Control for ITS Web Services, Present and Future

Jeffrey C. D’Angelo, Programmer/Analyst, Enabling Technologies Group James A. Vuccolo, Manager, Software Solutions Group Applied Information Technologies (AIT) in Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET), a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS).

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Web-Based Access Control for ITS Web Services, Present and Future

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  1. Jeffrey C. D’Angelo, Programmer/Analyst, Enabling Technologies Group James A. Vuccolo, Manager, Software Solutions Group Applied Information Technologies (AIT) in Academic Services and Emerging Technologies (ASET), a unit of Information Technology Services (ITS) Web-Based Access Control for ITS Web Services, Present and Future

  2. Topics • Access Control Concepts, Methods and Technology • Restricting Access on ITS Web Services • Role Based Tools • New and changing services

  3. Access Control Concepts • Identification and Authentication (AuthN) • Authorization (AuthZ) • Roles and Groups

  4. Access Control Methods • File Permissions • all or nothing? • Special cases: Portal, share.pass, WebMail • Database restrictions (SQL GRANT) • Web server control / .htaccess • Roles and Groups

  5. Access Control Technology - AuthN • HTTP Basic auth • .htpasswd • mod_auth_kerb / mod_auth_dce / mod_auth_external • CGI form / Cookies • Penn State WebAccess / CoSign • Custom database enabled application • Less used • Client certificates • Kerberos browser support

  6. Access Control Technology - AuthZ • File Permission Control • ACL Explorer (on http://www.work.psu.edu/) • PASS Shares (“File Sharing” button of the PASS Explorer) • Web Permission Control: .htaccess • Restrict Access to COLA (on http://www.work.psu.edu/) • Dynamic Web application based (CGI, PHP, etc) • Groups: User Managed Groups (DCE, LDAP) • Course groups • Implicit UMGs

  7. ACLs and UMGs • Explicit UMGs must be told what to do • To restrict file access by explicit UMG, the UMG must be added to the ACLs. • File users can be specified in ACLs or UMGs • Which is better for you? • Web users can be specified in .htaccess or UMGs • However, UMGs need mm_mod_auth_ldap (with patch) • Alternatives: mod_auth_ldap, mod_authz_ldap Demonstration

  8. Manage Web Editors (Implicit UMGs) • Departmental Web Space (http://www.psu.edu/dept/) • umg/services.www.dept.departmentname • https://umg.its.psu.edu/ • Course Online Accounts (http://www.courses.psu.edu/) • umg/services.www.courses.coursename • https://umg.its.psu.edu/ • Student Orgs Web Space (http://www.clubs.psu.edu/) • umg/clubs.campusname.clubname • https://admin.clubs.psu.edu/

  9. ACL Problems to Avoid • mask_obj problems • Secure FTP setting / SMB share setting • Removing in ACL explorer • Removing desired permissions by recursion • User home & www, share • Departmental space and group folders • Removing user_obj the wrong way

  10. Roles • What is a role? • Example • Case Studies • WebRAT

  11. What is a role? Roles are groups of people with attributes

  12. Example Group dn: cn=wfg.046.notify,dc=psu,dc=edu member: psdiridn=375704,dc=psu,dc=edu dn: psdiridn=375705,dc=psu,dc=edu psmnemonics=wfg.046.notify:0:TLT psaccountnumbers=wfg.046.notify:0:ALL psfundtype=wfg.046.notify:0:ALL psdollarthreshold=wfg.046.notify:0:NoLimit Entry

  13. Case Studies • Penn State WorkFlow • Departmental Identity

  14. Penn State WorkFlow • Problem • Needed a solution to control authorization to various financial applications within the Penn State WorkFlow system • Solution • Use roles to group financial people together and specify access restrictions via attributes

  15. Departmental Identity • Problem • How do you represent information about a person who has multiple affiliations? • i.e. A staff member at UP who teaches at Penn State Altoona • Solution • Use a role to represent the additional affiliations

  16. WebRAT • Web-based Role Authorization Tool (A.K.A “The RAT”) • Allows authorized personnel to assign roles • Uses role as template to determine what attributes to assign Demonstration

  17. protected.personal.psu.edu • Problem • The web server, http://www.personal.psu.edu/ is open to the world. It does not have a mechanism by which an average user can control access to his/her content. • Technically inclined users can set .htaccess file based password protection. However, they cannot authenticate Access/FPS accounts on http://www.personal.psu.edu/. • Solution • https://protected.personal.psu.edu/ is a future service that will solve this problem • Access can be controlled using any combination of Access and FPS Accounts, groups and roles

  18. Access Control Manager • A prototype of a Web-based tool that will be used to control access to content that is hosted on https://protected.personal.psu.edu/. Demonstration

  19. Directory Authorization Control • mm_mod_auth_ldap example • PHP example • http://php.scripts.psu.edu/jcd/useful/webcon/2005/ldap.php Demonstration

  20. ITS Web Service Changes 2007+ • http://www.work.psu.edu/ facelift • Install mm_mod_auth_ldap on more servers • E.g. http://www.courses.psu.edu/ • PASS Migration • ACL Explorer redo • https://protected.personal.psu.edu/ • http://blogs.psu.edu/ may have a protected version Demonstration

  21. Resources • Apply for Web space • Individual: http://www.work.psu.edu/webspace/ • Course: http://aset.its.psu.edu/accounts/cola.html • Departmental: http://aset.its.psu.edu/accounts/dept.html • Student Org: http://www.clubs.psu.edu/info/start.html • Apply for User Managed Group (explicit) • http://aset.its.psu.edu/accounts/accountsforms/ • Regular: Apply for Services > “Create a User Managed Group for Personal or Departmental space” • Course group: Manage Services > “Create a User Managed Group for a Course” • Authentication / Authorization control basics • Set UMG in ACLs: https://umg.its.psu.edu/instructions.shtml • Basic password protect: http://css.its.psu.edu/publish/htpasswd/ • WebAccess for Web dev: http://aset.its.psu.edu/docs/webaccess/

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