Role Based Access Control (RBAC)
Many Role Based Access Control (RBAC) implementations differ, but the basics is widely adopted since it simulates real life role (job) assignments. But while data is getting more and more complex; you need to define policies on resources, subjects or even environments, this is called Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC).
Core Features
- Chainable, friendly API, e.g.
ac.can(role).create(resource)
- Role hierarchical inheritance.
- Define grants at once (e.g. from database result) or one by one.
- Grant/deny permissions by attributes defined by glob notation.
- Ability to control access on own or any resources.
- No silent errors.
- Fast. (Grants are stored in memory, no database queries.)
Getting Started
yarn install
yarn build
yarn test
Installation
yarn add @minddocdev/accesscontrol
Publishing
To publish a new version of the package, firstly bump the version in the package.json
file,
then cut a new release on Github. This
will automatically initiate the publish
Github Action workflow and publish a new version to
Github Packages
Guide
import { AccessControl } from 'accesscontrol';
Basic Example
Define roles and grants one by one.
const ac = new AccessControl();
ac.grant('user') // define new or modify existing role. also takes an array.
.createOwn('video') // equivalent to .createOwn('video', ['*'])
.deleteOwn('video')
.readAny('video')
.grant('admin') // switch to another role without breaking the chain
.extend('user') // inherit role capabilities. also takes an array
.updateAny('video', ['title']) // explicitly defined attributes
.deleteAny('video');
const permission = ac.can('user').createOwn('video');
console.log(permission.granted); // —> true
console.log(permission.attributes); // —> ['*'] (all attributes)
permission = ac.can('admin').updateAny('video');
console.log(permission.granted); // —> true
console.log(permission.attributes); // —> ['title']
Roles
You can create/define roles simply by calling .grant(<role>)
or .deny(<role>)
methods on an AccessControl
instance.
- Roles can extend other roles.
// user role inherits viewer role permissions
ac.grant('user').extend('viewer');
// admin role inherits both user and editor role permissions
ac.grant('admin').extend(['user', 'editor']);
// both admin and superadmin roles inherit moderator permissions
ac.grant(['admin', 'superadmin']).extend('moderator');
- Inheritance is done by reference, so you can grant resource permissions before or after extending a role.
// case #1
ac.grant('admin')
.extend('user') // assuming user role already exists
.grant('user')
.createOwn('video');
// case #2
ac.grant('user')
.createOwn('video')
.grant('admin')
.extend('user');
// below results the same for both cases
const permission = ac.can('admin').createOwn('video');
console.log(permission.granted); // true
Notes on inheritance:
- A role cannot extend itself.
- Cross-inheritance is not allowed.
e.g.ac.grant('user').extend('admin').grant('admin').extend('user')
will throw. - A role cannot (pre)extend a non-existing role. In other words, you should first create the base role. e.g.
ac.grant('baseRole').grant('role').extend('baseRole')
Actions and Action-Attributes
[CRUD][crud] operations are the actions you can perform on a resource. There are two action-attributes which define the possession of the resource: own and any.
For example, an admin
role can create
, read
, update
or delete
(CRUD) any account
resource. But a user
role might only read
or update
its own account
resource.
Action | Possession | |
---|---|---|
Create Read Update Delete |
Own | The C|R|U|D action is (or not) to be performed on own resource(s) of the current subject. |
Any | The C|R|U|D action is (or not) to be performed on any resource(s); including own. |
ac.grant('role').readOwn('resource');
ac.deny('role').deleteAny('resource');
Note that own requires you to also check for the actual possession.
Checking Permissions
You can call .can(<role>).<action>(<resource>)
on an AccessControl
instance to check for granted permissions for a specific resource and action.
const permission = ac.can('user').readOwn('account');
permission.granted; // true
Defining All Grants at Once
You can pass the grants directly to the AccessControl
constructor.
It accepts either an Object
:
// This is actually how the grants are maintained internally.
let grantsObject = {
admin: {
video: {
'create:any': ['*'],
'read:any': ['*'],
'update:any': ['*'],
'delete:any': ['*'],
},
},
user: {
video: {
'create:own': ['*'],
'read:own': ['*'],
'update:own': ['*'],
'delete:own': ['*'],
},
},
};
const ac = new AccessControl(grantsObject);
... or an Array
(useful when fetched from a database):
// grant list fetched from DB (to be converted to a valid grants object, internally)
let grantList = [
{ role: 'admin', resource: 'video', action: 'create:any', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'admin', resource: 'video', action: 'read:any', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'admin', resource: 'video', action: 'update:any', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'admin', resource: 'video', action: 'delete:any', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'user', resource: 'video', action: 'create:own', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'user', resource: 'video', action: 'read:any', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'user', resource: 'video', action: 'update:own', attributes: '*' },
{ role: 'user', resource: 'video', action: 'delete:own', attributes: '*' },
];
const ac = new AccessControl(grantList);
You can set grants any time...
const ac = new AccessControl();
ac.setGrants(grantsObject);
console.log(ac.getGrants());
Contribution Guidelines
Never commit directly to master, create a new branch and submit a pull request.