RE: security policy and xml

From: Jorgen_Sigvardsson <jorgen@profitab.com>
Subject: RE: security policy and xml
Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 08:33:47 +0200

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It depends on how you want to define your XML language. XML puts no
restrictions on your language other than the "basic XML rules" -
correct structure and etc.

A very simple and generic syntax would yield a language such as:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<secpolicies>
	<model name = "acl">
		<object name = "/etc/shadow" type = "file">
			<subject name = "root" operation = "read"/>
			<subject name = "root" operation = "write"/>
		</object>
	</model>
	.
	.
</secpolicies>
A very small DTD is needed, and the syntax can be applied to pretty
much any model since it is very generic/abstract. The interpreter of
this configuration file must do a lot of work however. The parser
does not give you a specific ACL-syntax tree for this particular
example, thus you have to parse the syntax tree again and do
translations (and validation).

If you allow a "sub-DTD" for each model (i.e. a specific syntax for
each model), then you can
skip the last translation pass.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<secpolicies>
	<acl>
		<file name = "/etc/shadow">
			<give user = "root" right = "read"/>
			<give user = "root" right = "write"/>
		</file>
	</acl>
	.
	.
</secpolicies>

The latter example is less abstract and more clear to the policy
writer. I think this would be
the way to go. The DTD may be bloated, but I'll take a bloated DTD
over bad readability/ease of configuration any day.

my 0,2 skr
- --
Jorgen Sigvardsson * SW Developer   * jorgen@profitab.com
Gelinsgatan 1      * 65229 Karlstad * +46-54-21 75 50


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-rsbac@compuniverse.de 
> [mailto:owner-rsbac@compuniverse.de]On
> Behalf Of T.R.Y.
> Sent: den 27 juli 2001 07:57
> To: rsbac@rsbac.org
> Subject: security policy and xml
> 
> 
> Is xml capable of expressing security policies?
> Sure, different model has different rulesets.
> Just curious.
> 
> - T.
> -
> To unsubscribe from the rsbac list, send a mail to
> majordomo@rsbac.org with
> unsubscribe rsbac
> as single line in the body.
> 

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