Apache + PERMIS

The PERMIS Shibboleth Apache Authorisation Module (SAAM) is an Apache module (version 1.3 and 2.0) that uses PERMIS to control access to websites that use either Apache or Shibboleth to provide user authentication.

Why protect Apache web sites with PERMIS?

There are several benefits of using PERMIS with Apache. Firstly you get the rich and fine grained authorisation infrastructure that PERMIS provides. Secondly, when using Apache's internal authorisation system it is the administrator of the Apache server who gives the privileges to the end-users. Embedding PERMIS with Apache allows you to distribute the privilege management to other people, specifically the owners of the various resources or the security officer. Resource owners no longer need to explain to Apache administrators who can have access to their resources - and rely on them to implement the authorisation policy correctly. Now the resource owners or security officers who specify the authorisation policies for the web resources can be the very same people to create the PERMIS policies that will control access to their the web resources.
 

Some technical information about Apache + PERMIS


Architecure of PERMIS+Apache intergration (click on the picture to enlarge it)

DIAGRAM LEGEND
PERMIS PV= Privilege Validator. This component checks if the attribute assignments are valid and were carried out according to the SP's policy
PERMIS PDP = Policy Decision Point. This component makes the access control decision based on the user's validated attributes and the SP's policy
SOA = Source of Authority. The person responsible for the SP's policy

The interactions between SAAM, the authentication module (mod_auth_ldap) and the Apache server are as follows:

  1. When a user contacts an Apache web server, requesting access to a URL which is protected by mod_auth_ldap and mod_permis, the user is prompted by mod_auth_ldap to enter their username and password in order to be authenticated.
  2. Mod_auth_ldap authenticates the user by searching in the authentication LDAP server and locating the correct entry which matches the username and password, then retrieves and puts the user's DN in the Apache HTTP header (mod_auth_ldap has been modified so as to output the user's DN to the HTTP header during authentication) .
  3. During the authorisation phase in the HTTP request handling process, mod_permis is invoked by the Apache server, and the user's DN is acquired by mod_permis through the HTTP header.
  4. Mod_permis calls the Privilege Validator (PV) and passes the user's DN to it, the PV retrieves the user's ACs from the configured LDAP servers and validates them. The PDP then makes an authorisation decision based on the valid attributes and the configured PERMIS policy, and this is returned back to mod_permis.
  5. Mod_permis returns the decision result to the Apache server, and the user is granted or denied access to the target resource according to the decision result.