loopback-authorization-extension

Access controlling is one of the most important parts of every application, there are many kinds of models for access controlling like MAC (Mandatory Access Control), DAC (Discretionary Access Control), RBAC (Role Based Access Control) and etc (for more information about access models see this link)

loopback-authorization-extension is a powerful and generic implementation of HRBAC (Hierarchical Role Based Access Control) access model

Installation

npm i --save loopback-authorization-extension

Usage

Follow these steps to add authorization extension to your loopback4 application

1. Optional: Define User, Role, Permission models
2. Optional: Define User, Role, Permission repositories
3. Optional: Define Permissions class
4. Define your dataSource
5. Add AuthorizationMixin to your application
6. Add AuthorizationActionProvider to your custom http sequence handler
7. Use GetUserPermissionsProvider to find user permissions when signin and save the permissions in user's session

Now, let's try these

Step 1 (Define Models)

Use the command lb4 model for simplifing your Entity model creation, then just replace Entity class with User, Role or Permission as the parent class

See this example:

import { model, property } from "@loopback/repository";
import {
    User as UserModel,
    UserRelations as UserModelRelations
} from "loopback-authorization-extension";
 
@model({ settings: {} })
export class User extends UserModel {
    @property({
        type: "string"
    })
    name?: string;
 
    @property({
        type: "number"
    })
    age?: number;
 
    constructor(data?: Partial<User>) {
        super(data);
    }
}
 
export interface UserRelations extends UserModelRelations {
    // describe navigational properties here
}
 
export type UserWithRelations = User & UserRelations;

---

Step 2 (Define Repositories)

Use the command lb4 repository for simplifing your Repository creation, then replace DefaultCrudRepository class with UserRepositoryMixin()(), RoleRepositoryMixin()() or PermissionRepositoryMixin()() as the parent class, then bind them

See this example:

import { User, UserRelations } from "~/models";
import { MySqlDataSource } from "~/datasources";
import { inject } from "@loopback/core";
 
import { UserRepositoryMixin } from "loopback-authorization-extension";
 
export class UserRepository extends UserRepositoryMixin<
    User,
    UserRelations
>()() {
    constructor(@inject("datasources.MySQL") dataSource: MySqlDataSource) {
        super(User, dataSource);
    }
}

---

Step 3 (Define Permissions)

Create a class contaning your permissions

See this example:

import { PermissionsList } from "loopback-authorization-extension";
 
export class MyPermissions extends PermissionsList {
    /** Files */
    FILES_READ = "Read files";
    FILES_WRITE = "Write files";
 
    /** Roles */
    ROLES_READ = "Read roles";
    ROLES_WRITE = "Write roles";
 
    /** Users */
    USERS_READ = "Read users";
    USERS_WRITE = "Write users";
}

---

Step 4 (Define DataSource)

Bind your dataSource you want to use for authorization tables using bindRelationalDataSource

See this example:

import { bindRelationalDataSource } from "loopback-authorization-extension";
 
@bindRelationalDataSource()
export class MySqlDataSource extends juggler.DataSource {
    static dataSourceName = "MySQL";
 
    constructor(
        @inject("datasources.config.MySQL", { optional: true })
        dsConfig: object = config
    ) {
        super(dsConfig);
    }
}

---

Step 5 (Application Mixin)

Edit your application.ts file, add your permissions class to authorize mixin:

import {
    AuthorizationApplication,
    AuthorizationApplicationConfig
} from "loopback-authorization-extension";
import { MyPermissions } from "~/permissions.ts";
import { User, Role, Permission, UserRole, RolePermission } from "~/models";
 
export class TestApplication extends AuthorizationMixin(
    BootMixin(ServiceMixin(RepositoryMixin(RestApplication)))
) {
    constructor(options: ApplicationConfig = {}) {
        super(options);
 
        // ...
 
        // Config authorization mixin
        this.authorizationConfigs = {
            permissions: MyPermissions,
            userModel: User,
            roleModel: Role,
            permissionModel: Permission,
            userRoleModel: UserRole,
            rolePermissionModel: RolePermission
        };
    }
}

---

Step 6

Then edit your sequence.ts file:

import {
    AuthorizationBindings,
    AuthorizeFn
} from "loopback-authorization-extension";
import { MyPermissions } from "~/permissions.ts";
 
const SequenceActions = RestBindings.SequenceActions;
 
export class MySequence implements SequenceHandler {
    constructor(
        @inject(SequenceActions.FIND_ROUTE) protected findRoute: FindRoute,
        @inject(SequenceActions.PARSE_PARAMS)
        protected parseParams: ParseParams,
        // add the AuthorizeActionProvider
        @inject(AuthorizationBindings.AUTHORIZE_ACTION)
        protected authorize: AuthorizeFn<MyPermissions>,
        @inject(SequenceActions.INVOKE_METHOD) protected invoke: InvokeMethod,
        @inject(SequenceActions.SEND) public send: Send,
        @inject(SequenceActions.REJECT) public reject: Reject
    ) {}
 
    async handle(context: RequestContext) {
        try {
            const { request, response } = context;
            const route = this.findRoute(request);
            const args = await this.parseParams(request, route);
 
            // use `@loopback/authentication` module
            const userSession = await this.authenticate(...);
 
            // check user permissions
            /*
            * User permissions, will passed to this method,
            * they are loaded, before using `getUserPermissions(id)`
            * action on `sign-in` step of your application,
            * then you must save them in the client's session
            * and at the end, you must pass them to this method
            */
            if (userSession) {
                await this.authorize(userSession.permissions, args);
            }
 
            const result = await this.invoke(route, args);
            this.send(response, result);
        } catch (err) {
            this.reject(context, err);
        }
    }
}

If the client doesn't have correct permissions, will see Http Forbidden (403) error code

---

Step 7

At the final step you must get user permissions using getUserPermissions(id) provider and save it in the user's session or token

import {
    AuthorizationBindings,
    GetUserPermissionsFn,
    authorize
} from "loopback-authorization-extension";
import { inject } from "@loopback/context";
import { MyPermissions } from "~/permissions.ts";
 
export class SignInController {
    constructor(
        @inject(AuthorizationBindings.GET_USER_PERMISSIONS_ACTION)
        protected getUserPermissions: GetUserPermissionsFn<MyPermissions>
    ) {}
 
    // ...
 
    @post("/signin", {
        responses: {
            "200": {
                //...
            }
        }
    })
    async signIn(...args): Promise<Session> {
        // authentication
        // ...
 
        // authorization
        const permissions = await this.getUserPermissions(id);
 
        return this.sessionRepository.create(
            new Session({
                //...
                permissions: permissions
            })
        );
    }
 
    // ...
}

---

Controllers

Now authorization extension is fully added and you can protect your endpoints using @authorize decorator

You can feel the power of loopback-authorization-extension is in this step, by using And types, Or types, Async Authorizers

// ...
import { MyPermissions } from "~/permissions.ts";
 
@authenticate(...)
@authorize<MyPermissions>({
    and: ["CREATE_USER", "DELETE_USER"]
})
async editUser(...args): Promise<any> {...}
 
// ...

---

More about @authorize

This decorator accepts an object of type And or Or or StringPermissionKey or AsyncPermissionKey

your can define any logical combinations of your Permissions to control access much better

Example:

{
    and: [
        { key: "A" },
        { key: "B" },
        { key: "C", not: true },
        { or: [{ key: "D" }, { key: "E" }] }
    ];
}

AsyncAuthorizer

In some special cases we need to check some other permissions or conditions such as querying in database or etc, for these cases we can use AsyncAuthorizer for running an async function of type (invocationContext) => Promise<boolean>

Example:

{
    or: [
        {
            and: [
                {key: "A"},
                {key: "B"}
            ]
        },
        {
            key: async invocationContext => {
                let result = await controller.userRepository.find({...});
 
                if (result.length > 0) {
                    return true;
                }
 
                return false;
            }
        }
    ]
}

---

How to define Users, Roles, Permissions

You can add or remove users, roles and permissions using your repositories

Many-To-Many relations

Users, Roles, Permissions has many-to-many relations, using, DefaultUserRoleRepository, DefaultRolePermissionRepository you can add some users to roles or assign permissions to roles

Example:

import {
    AuthorizationBindings,
    GetUserPermissionsFn,
    authorize
} from "loopback-authorization-extension";
import { inject } from "@loopback/context";
 
export class UserControllerController {
    constructor(
        @inject(AuthorizationBindings.USER_REPOSITORY)
        public userRepository: DefaultUserRepository
    ) {}
 
    @post("/users/...", {
        responses: {
            "200": {
                ...
            }
        }
    })
    async add(...args): Promise<any> {
        // add user to role
        await this.userRepository.userRoles("userId").create(new UserRoleModel({
            userId: "userId",
            roleId: "roleId"
        }));
    }
}

---

Complete Example

See this example

Contributions

• KoLiBer

License

This project is licensed under the MIT license.
Copyright (c) KoLiBer ([e-mail])