2. RBAC and JXTA 1 Role Based Access Control and the JXTA P2P Framework Mark Stamp Dept. of Computer Science San Jose State University stamp@cs.sjsu.edu Amit Mathur Symantec Corporation Suneuy Kim Dept. of Computer Science San Jose State University

3. RBAC and JXTA 2 Game Plan  Role based access control (RBAC)  Peer-to-peer (P2P) and JXTA  RBAC for a P2P network (in JXTA)  Secure?

4. RBAC and JXTA 3 What is Access Control?  Authentication o Who goes there?  Authorization/Access control o Are you allowed to do that? o User already has access to system o Restrictions placed on user  For example, “rwx” in Unix o Usually enforced by the operating system

5. RBAC and JXTA 4 What is RBAC?  In RBAC o Access determined by specified roles o Users assigned to roles  Good when user base changes o Roles are relatively stable  RBAC eases administrative burden o Main advantage of RBAC

6. RBAC and JXTA 5 RBAC  RBAC compatible with OO techniques o Access to resource  access to object method o Role  interface, where interface is set of methods that provide capability  RBAC provides separation of duties o Least privilege, etc.  Many applications have clear roles

7. RBAC and JXTA 6 What is P2P?  In contrast to client-server  P2P peers can act as clients and servers o Peers directly exchange data o Highly scalable o Different ways for peers to discover the data  Access control in P2P? o No “operating system” o No central authority to enforce access control o This could be a problem…

8. RBAC and JXTA 7 What is JXTA?  JXTA (short for “Juxtapose”) is open source P2P standard proposed by Sun o Takes care of the P2P “plumbing”  Usable, but has not really caught on (yet?)

9. RBAC and JXTA 8 RBAC for P2P?  How can that be?  No central authority!  Consider content distribution problem o Producer --- create digital content o Distributor --- gets content from producer to sell to consumer o Consumer --- purchase content  Seems like a sensible P2P application o And three obvious roles

10. RBAC and JXTA 9 JXTA Implementation  We implemented a generic RBAC system  Access to resource == access to a (remote) method via a “peer pipe”  Use XML files to configure peers  Every peer can o Request method execution on remote peer or locally (client) o Provide access to its methods (server)

11. RBAC and JXTA 10 JXTA Implementation  All peers have same role definition files at start  Each peer in one role at a time  A peer cannot change roles o Not as bad as it sounds  Peers must agree on role config and peer-to-role mapping

12. RBAC and JXTA 11 JXTA Implementation  Peers start and each is given a name  Initialize each peer using XML files o Peer-to-role mapping and role definitions  Suppose Peer 1 makes request of Peer 2 o Peer 1 sends its XML files to Peer 2 o Peer 2 checks that its XML files agree o Peer 2 verifies Peer 1’s role and its own role  If all is OK, Peer 2 executes requested method and returns result to Peer 1

13. RBAC and JXTA 12 JXTA Implementation  For any specific application… o Developer must define application-specific methods o But no need to deal with RBAC issues  Attacks? o Peer 1 lies about its role to Peer 2  Requires cooperation of Peer 1 and Peer 2 o Peer 1 lies to itself  Cannot prevent a peer from “attacking” itself

14. RBAC and JXTA 13 Bottom Line  RBAC in P2P network o Seems to make sense o Simple but useful approach o Implemented in JXTA o Developer only needs to develop application- specific code (not RBAC)  As secure as could be expected o Given inherent limitations of P2P environment