NFSv4 D. Noveck, Ed.
Internet-Draft NetApp
Updates: 8881, 7530 (if approved) 18 June 2024
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: 20 December 2024
ACLs within the NFSv4 Protocols
draft-dnoveck-nfsv4-acls-03
Abstract
This document is part of the set of documents intended to update the
description of NFSv4 Minor Version One as part of the rfc5661bis
effort. It describes the structure and function of Access Control
Lists within all minor versions of NFSv4.
It describes the structure of NFSv4 ACLs and their role in the NFSv4
security architecture. While the focus of this document is on the
role of ACLs in providing a more flexible approach to file access
authorization than is made available by the POSIX-derived
authorization-related attributes, the potential provision of other
security-related functionality is covered as well.
While the goals of the description are similar to those motivating
previous specifications, the approach taken is substantially
different, in that the relationship of the multiple ACL models
supported has changed. A core set of functionality, derived from the
now-withdrawn POSIX draft ACLs is presented as the conceptual base of
the feature set. Additional features used to provide the
functionality within the NFSv4 ACL model are presented as OPTIONAL
extensions to that core.
The current version of the document is intended, in large part, to
result in working group discussion regarding repairing problems with
previous specifications of ACL-related features and to enable work to
provide a greater degree of interoperability than has been available
heretofore. The drafts provide a framework for addressing these
issues and obtaining working group consensus regarding necessary
changes.
When the resulting document is eventually published as an RFC, it
will supersede the descriptions of ACL structure and semantics
appearing in existing minor version specification documents for
NFSv4.0 and NFSv4.1, thereby updating RFC7530 and RFC8881.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 20 December 2024.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1. Relationship to the Overall Security Document . . . . . . 6
1.2. Relationship to the Rfc5661bis Effort . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1. Keyword Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2. Special Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.3. Use of the Term "SHOULD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3. Problems to Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1. Nature of the Existing Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2. Probable Problem Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3. Semantic Laxity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.4. Challenges We Now Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4. ACL-based Authorization-related Attributes . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1. Definition to Support ACL-related attributes . . . . . . 19
4.2. Table of ACL-related Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.3. Types of ACLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.4. The Acl Attribute (v4.0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
4.5. The Aclsupport Attribute (v4.0) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.6. The Aclchoice Attribute (v4.1 extension for bis) . . . . 26
4.7. The Dacl Attribute (v4.1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.8. The Sacl Attribute (v4.1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
5. Structure of the ACL-related Features . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5.1. Role of the Core UNIX ACL model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
5.2. Support for the POSIX ACL Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.3. Server Behavioral Restrictions to Apply when Aclchoice is
not Supported . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.4. Feature Extensions With Clear Semantics . . . . . . . . . 38
5.5. Features with wide Semantic Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.6. Implementation Behavioral Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.7. ACL Choices in Various Stages of Development . . . . . . 45
6. Structure and Function of NFSv4 Access Control Lists . . . . 47
6.1. Overview of ACL Semantics Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6.2. ACL Semantics Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
6.3. Limited Inference Regarding ACL Semantics . . . . . . . . 50
7. Structure of Access Control Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
7.1. ACE Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.1.1. Existing ACE Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
7.1.2. ACE Type Support Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
7.1.3. ACE Type Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.2. ACE Access Mask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
7.2.1. Changes in Descriptions of Mask Bits . . . . . . . . 58
7.2.2. Role of Sticky Bit in ACL-based Authorization . . . . 60
7.2.3. Uses of Core Mask Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
7.2.4. Finer-grained Mask Bits Derived from Write . . . . . 64
7.2.5. Finer-grained Mask Bits Derived from Ownership . . . 68
7.2.6. Other Mask Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
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7.2.7. Possible Uses of Additional Mask Bits . . . . . . . . 74
7.2.8. ACE Mask Bit Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
7.2.9. Reporting of Mask Bit Support and Characteristics . . 76
7.2.10. ACE Mask Support Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7.2.11. ACE Mask Support Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
7.2.12. ACE Mask Bit Support Defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.2.13. ACE Mask Adaptation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2.14. Handling of Deletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.2.15. Handling of Deletion (Vestigial) . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.3. ACE flag bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.3.1. Details Regarding ACE Flag Bits . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.3.2. ACE Flag Support Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.3.3. ACE Flag Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7.4. ACE Who . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.4.1. ACE Who Value Support Discovery . . . . . . . . . . . 97
7.4.2. ACE Who Value Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
8. Automatic Inheritance Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9. Processing Access Control Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
10. Combining Authorization Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
10.1. Background for Combined Authorization Model . . . . . . 103
10.2. Needed Attribute Coordination . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
10.3. Computing a Mode Attribute from an ACL (proposed) . . . 108
10.4. Computing a Mode Attribute from an ACL (vestigial) . . . 110
10.5. Alternatives in Computing Mode Bits (vestigial) . . . . 111
10.6. Setting Multiple ACL Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
10.7. Setting Mode and not ACL (overall) . . . . . . . . . . . 112
10.7.1. Setting Mode and not ACL (vestigial) . . . . . . . . 112
10.7.2. Setting Mode and not ACL (Discussion) . . . . . . . 113
10.7.3. Setting Mode and not ACL (Proposed) . . . . . . . . 115
10.7.4. Setting Mode and not ACL in the Unix ACL Case
(Proposed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
10.7.5. Setting Mode and not ACL in the NFSv4 ACL Case
(Proposed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
10.7.6. Setting Mode and not ACL in Certain Hybrid ACL Cases
(Proposed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
10.8. Setting ACL and Not Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
10.9. Setting Both ACL and Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
10.10. Retrieving the Mode and/or ACL Attributes . . . . . . . 124
10.11. Use of Inherited ACL When Creating Objects . . . . . . . 125
10.12. Combined Authorization Models for NFSv4.2 . . . . . . . 126
11. Other Uses of Access Control Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
12. Aclchoice Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
12.1. Provisions for Aclchoice Modification . . . . . . . . . 127
12.2. Storing of ACLs which are not Enforced . . . . . . . . . 127
12.3. Advice/Recommendations Regarding ACL Choices . . . . . . 129
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
14. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
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15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Appendix A. Issues for which Consensus Needs to be
Ascertained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
A.1. List of Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
A.2. Issue Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.2.1. Issue Changes Until Acls-01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.2.2. Issue Changes In Acls-02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.3. Issue Priorities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Appendix B. Prospective Aclchoice Changes . . . . . . . . . . . 150
B.1. Possible Additions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
B.2. Possible Simplifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Appendix C. Possible Future Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
C.1. WRITING!! -- Extensions for Improved POSIX ACL Support . 150
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
1. Introduction
This document describes the ACL-related features of the NFsv4
protocol, all of which are accessed through the use of a set of
OPTIONAL attributes described in Section 4. These attributes
provide:
* Additional means of specifying file access authorization
constraints that are more flexible than those provided by the
authorization model inherited from POSIX, based on the attributes
mode, owner, and owner_group.
* A number of security-related facilities separate from
authorization that use ACLs to identify sets of actions that might
be subject to various forms of monitoring as described in
Section 11.
Because of the unsatisfactory state of current specifications of the
ACL features, the work needed to make the description appropriate as
part of an updated description of NFSv4.1 is far beyond the level of
clarification and cleanup that would normally be expected for a
feature that has been part of the NFSv4 protocols for so many years.
For more discussion of the reasons that this situation exists and
insights into the work necessary work to provide a satisfactory
description, see Section 3.
[Consensus Needed (Item #104a, #105a)]: One important element of a
new description of the ACL features is a means by which the client
can determine which set of features a server has implemented when the
ACL-related attributes are supported. For reasons discussed in more
detail in Section 3, that information has not previously been
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available to NFSv4 clients making it necessary that we provide, for
NFsv4.1 and later minor versions, a new OPTIONAL attribute, Aclchoice
to provide this information, as described in Section 4.6. While we
normally do not make additions to the XDR within an existing minor
version, we have taken this step now as it crucial is to provide
interoperability for this important security-related feature, since
it is allowed by Section 9 of [RFC8178] to provide necessary
corrections of this sort.
[Consensus Needed (Item #104a), Through end of section]: Given the
scale of the problems we now face, it appears that the following
additional steps are also necessary to arrive at a satisfactory
description:
* A conceptual restructuring of the existing material to consider
the UNIX-based features as the conceptual core together with the
extensions incorporated in the description as OPTIONAL extensions
to that core.
That restructuring, which is laid out in detail in Section 5 will
be the basis for the new the Aclchoice attribute.
* Addressing the unfortunate consequences of the current semantic
laxity, by reducing the range of behavioral diversity to that
which is truly necessary.
1.1. Relationship to the Overall Security Document
This document is best understood when it is read together with
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security] which discusses security features
provided that are not connected with ACLs, and which is a complete
description in cases in which the OPTIONAL ACL-related attributes are
not implemented.
In many cases, the overall security document will have abbreviated
descriptions that serve as an introduction to material in this
document and reference sections within this document. Similarly,
there will be occasions where it is necessary for this document to
reference general features of NFSv4 security documented in
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security].
For the most part, these two documents are independent, except for
the inter-document references discussed above. However, the
following exceptions should be noted:
* Section 1 of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], in its entirety,
applies to both documents, even in the absence of explicit inter-
document references.
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* The terminology defined in Section 4.1 of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security] can be used in either document,
without an explicit inter-document reference.
* The sections dealing with Security Considerations and IANA
Considerations appearing in [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], i.e.,
Sections 18 and 19 of that document apply to the security-related
changes being made in the current update as a whole, i.e., to both
documents.
* Appendix A of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], in describing the
security-related changes made from previous specifications,
includes changes made in both this document and the overall
security document.
* The Appendices devoted to tracking Consensus Items, i.e.,
Appendix A of this document and Appendix B of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], need to be considered together, even
though each appendix applies only to the document in which it
appears.
This is because there are related consensus items in the several
documents whose resolution might affect one another, including
some that are the descendants of consensus items affecting
material now in multiple documents.
1.2. Relationship to the Rfc5661bis Effort
This document is a necessary part of the rfc5661bis effort which
seeks to provide an updated and corrected specification of NFSv4
Minor Version One. Since ACLs are part of that minor version, a
corrected and updated specification of the processing of ACLs would
us required as part of that effort.
However, given the wide scope of the ACL model presented in [RFC3530]
and subsequent specifications and the wide allowances made in those
documents for non-implementation of elements of the spec, there is
necessarily a great deal of uncertainty about the necessary scope of
a respecification. Many features might have never been implemented
by servers or used by clients or been purely speculative.
This situation is complicated by the long time between the initial
inclusion of this package of features and now. In many cases, there
might not be a clear understanding of the gaps between the feature
set in the specification and that commonly implemented. In addition,
gaps between the specification and implementation of protocol
elements which were implemented may not have been understood or were
forgotten since implementation work in this area ceased. The
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practices discussed in Section 3.3 and the attitudes that led to
them, make it likely that this would happen without extensive
attention being devoted to regularizing this situation.
[Consensus Needed (Items #104b, #105b, #110a, #114a), Through end of
section]:
Since we now consider the extensions to the UNIX ACL model as
OPTIONAL features, we have a framework to consider the suitability of
these extensions to the protocol. We are now in a different
situation from that confronting the working group when the original
approach to ACLs was first arrived at. At that time, the idea of
conceiving these extensions as individually selectable OPTIONAL
features was not available.
In any case, the realities that make that view appropriate now
existed then as well. The way in which the Working chose to
accommodate the situation have left us with a set of challenging
issues that have been exacerbated by the passage of time, as
described in Section 3.4.
It appears that the specification of ACLs to be done as part of the
rfc561bis effort cannot include all of the possible features we are
able to identify since:
* Some of these features might not have been implemented due to a
lack of interest in the feature.
* There could of been issues exposed by implementation attempts that
might have excluded them as candidates for implementation.
* Many of the issues that made these difficult-to-implement in some
environments (e.g. UNIX) might have been more refractory than
expected.
* Even where none of the above issues exist, it might not be able to
research the relevant issues in a reasonable time.
Since it appears impossible to resolve all the questions left
unanswered since ACLs were included in the protocol, it appears
necessary to focus on the important subset in the near term while
allowing further development to proceed in later minor versions, as
set forth below:
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* The work to provide interoperability needs to focus on the core
ACL features, each of which is part of the UNIX ACL subset. This
will include the interaction of clients depending on this
functionality to interoperably interact with servers that support
any of the extensions within the more inclusive NFSv4 ACL model.
The inclusion of two different means of computing modes from ACLs
is a flaw that is desirable to remove, but that is probably not
possible to eliminate now given the likely existence of servers
implementing these two approaches.
Unless other issues arise, the current draft is expected to
provide this level of interoperability, for those not depending on
any of the extensions.
* For clients depending on some of the NFSv4 extensions, the
situation is different in that we will try to provide
interoperability, but we have to prepared for the possibility that
it will not be possible to provide it in time for the completion
of the rfc5661bis effort.
We will give priority to features used by clients for which server
implementations exist. While we hope to find no noteworthy
behavioral variants, giving us a specification supporting
interoperability, that is not guaranteed but we do have the
option, as described in Section 12.1 of allowing multiple variants
for now and working toward a common approach in late releases.
* There will probably be feature in for which there is no prospect
of either client use or server implementations. Although this
rises the possibility of eventually deleting such never-
implemented proposed features, this will not happen before the end
of the rfc3551bis effort.
Such feature deletions would only be possible in a new minor
version that allows features to be designated mandatory-to-not-
implement, as described in Section 12.1.
2. Requirements Language
2.1. Keyword Definitions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as specified in BCP 14 [RFC2119]
[RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown
here.
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2.2. Special Considerations
Because this document needs to revise previous treatments of its
subject, it will need to cite previous treatments of issues that now
need to be dealt with in a different way. This will take the form of
quotations from documents whose treatment of the subject is being
obsoleted, most often direct but sometimes indirect as well.
Paragraphs headed "[Previous Treatment] or otherwise annotated as
having that status, as described in Section 1 of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], can be considered quotations in this
context.
Such treatments in quotations will involve use of these BCP14-defined
terms in two noteworthy ways:
* The term may have been used inappropriately (i.e not in accord
with [RFC2119]), as has been the case for the "RECOMMENDED"
attributes, which are in fact OPTIONAL.
In such cases, the surrounding text will make clear that the
quoted text does not have a normative effect.
* The term may been used in accord with [RFC2119], although the
resulting normative statement is now felt to be inappropriate.
In such cases, the surrounding text will need to make clear that
the text quoted is no longer to be considered normative, often by
providing new text that conflicts with the quoted, previously
normative, text.
2.3. Use of the Term "SHOULD
[Consensus Needed (Item #4a), Through end of Section]:
The use of the BCP14-defined term "SHOULD" merits particular
attention because of its mistaken use common in earlier discussions
of matters addressed in this document and because of its central role
in defining interoperability for client and server implementations.
In particular, we will use the BCP14-defined term "SHOULD" in order
to designate recommended implementation characteristics without
retrospectively defining existing implementations as non-compliant.
In previous treatments of ACLs this term was used extensively in
contexts in which it was not made clear what might be valid reasons
to bypass the implied recommendation, as required by [RFC2119].
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* In some cases, specific uses of the term were described as
"intentional", with the apparent implication that the reason for
the use of this term was to allow implementations to ignore the
recommended action simply because it was felt to be inconvenient.
The effect was that such uses of "SHOULD" were interpreted as
"MAY" with the added expectation that implementations bypassing
the recommendation should be expected.
This left uncertain the question of how an "unintentional" use
should be interpreted but it made quite clear that this term was
not being used in accordance with BCP14.
* The majority of uses of this term, presumably unintentional ones,
do not seem to be in accord with [RFC2119] either in that it is
not made clear what might be valid reasons to bypass the
recommendation. The only conclusion that can be reached at this
point is that the author felt that there might be valid reasons to
bypass the recommendation but was unsure if any existed. However,
it appears likely that, in most cases the threshold for
considering a reason valid in this context were quite low, most
likely because it was often assumed that the possible existence of
existing software components (e.g. file systems designed without
regard to NFSv4's needs) which made it difficult to conform to the
recommendation would constitute a valid reason to bypass the
recommendation, the effect on feature interoperability
notwithstanding.
As might be expected, this pattern and other cases of excessive
deference to server implementation choices created a difficult
interoperability situation, which it is now the job of the working
group to correct. As part of doing so, we will, as was done in the
companion security document [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], when using
"SHOULD" without reference to specific valid reasons to bypass the
recommendation, the understanding is that, in this context, reliance
on an earlier specification which allowed behavior now recommended
against is a valid reason to continue to behave in that manner even
if the allowance was communicated through the mistaken use of
RFC2119-define keywords,
Also, with regard to such residual uses of "SHOULD", it needs to be
understood that:
* With regard to new server implementations, there are no further
valid reasons to bypass the recommendation unless those are
explicitly mentioned.
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* That when reporting implementation characteristics (e.g. by use of
the Aclchoice attribute) the right to bypass a recommendation is
not to be accepted does not allow an implementer to report the
recommendation as being adhered to.
* That clients are under no obligation to accept such variances from
these recommendations and MAY, as the implementors judge prudent,
decide to not use the ACL feature or to restrict its use to avoid
reliance on particular troublesome instance of recommendations
being bypassed.
3. Problems to Address
[Consensus Needed (Item #104c, #105c), Through end of section]:
Because of the problems described in Section 3.1 the state of the
description of ACLs in current minor version specification documents
[RFC7530] [RFC8881] makes it impossible to use these as a basis for
the current specification without the kind of major revisions
discussed below.
In order to better understand how this troubling situation came
about, see Section 3.2 which outlines the mistakes that led to out
current predicament. Other sections will discuss our options to undo
the damage without imposing unacceptable compatibility issues on
implementations that were allowed, intentionally or not, by this
older approach.
As described in Section 3.4, the state of the ACL-related features is
such that the work necessary to provide a specification as part of
the rfc5661bis effort far exceeds what might reasonably be expected
for a feature that has been part of a Proposed Standard for two
decades.
The work that has been done and that still needs to be done to arrive
at a satisfactory specification for the acl-related features can only
be understood if we address the fundamental problem that was
mishandled early in the development of NFSv4 and understand how that
led to the current unsatisfactory situation.
This problem arose, as described in Section 3.2, arose when the
working group had to deal with two very different approaches to the
ACL issue and was unable to either choose one or arrive at a
compromise. Early acl work for the rfc5661bis effort focused on
clarifying the situation and allowing clients to determine which of
two ACL models had been implemented.
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As we started to look at the implementations that diverged from the
UNIX ACL model, it appeared unlikely that we would find many (or even
any) implementing the NFSV4 ACL model presented in the current
specifications as canonical. The result of the basic approach to
accommodate multiple ACL models had resulted in situation in which
implementation of UNIX ACLs and various hybrids of the two models
predominated, with the model presented as canonical in existing
specification rarely (or never) implemented.
Later it was realized that the approach that was used to avoid
explicitly choosing an acl model had resulted in the creation of a
much more refractory situation as described in Section 3.4. In an
attempt to bring order to the situation the work described in
Section 5 was undertaken. As a result, the less ambitious approach
was considered as the core and the various extensions to that models
were considered optional extensions. That required several further
steps of which only the first few are accomplished in the current
document with the remaining work doable as part of the rfc5661bis
effort.
* Reorganize the presentation of the ACL-related features, along the
lines suggested Section 5. As part of this process, the
extensions to the UNIX ACL model to create the full NFSv4 ACL
model will be identified as OPTIONAL features whose presence is
made known to the client as Aclchoice flag bits.
* Find any allowed behavioral variants, whether these are explicitly
called out as allowed in the existing specifications or present in
existing implementations so that they need to be accommodated.
Most such variants will be identified as OPTIONAL features whose
presence is made known to the client as Aclchoice flag bits.
However, some are too complicated to do that and will be
represented as Aclchoice data items.
* To the degree possible, eliminate or simplify such behavioral
variants. That will be difficult in many cases because of the
existence of server manifesting different behaviors, making it
difficult to get to agreement on a common approach.
One possible path toward convergence is the association of certain
Aclchoice flag bits with various sort of advice/ recommendations,
as is done in Section 12.3.
3.1. Nature of the Existing Problems
[Consensus Needed (Item 104d), Through end of section]:
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Acl handling within the NFSv4 protocols is in an unsatisfactory
state, characterized by a troubling level of underspecification that:
* Leaves potential implementers unsure about what is needed to
implement the feature.
* Provides no reasonable way for the client to determine what part
of the existing feature specifications a server implements.
* Puts interoperability essentially beyond reach.
3.2. Probable Problem Sources
[Consensus Needed (Item #104d), Through end of section]:
Existing difficulties appear to have arisen from a misguided attempt
to accommodate two very different approaches to the issue of
providing ACL support within NFSv4, each one with its own strengths
and weaknesses:
* An approach based on ACL work being done for local UNIX file
systems. This was consistent with the pattern used in earlier
versions of NFS in which the focus the effort was on making file
system functions previously accessible locally available over a
network.
[Consensus Needed (Item #105d)]: In this document, we refer to
this approach as the core UNIX ACL model. Although this approach
was derived from the now-withdrawn POSIX draft ACLs there are some
elements of the latter that are considered distinct and
represented by their own Aclchoice flag bits. These include the
approach to computing Mode based on an ACL, the handling of
partial satisfaction of authorization requests using ALLOW ACEs,
and support for ACL inheritance (described as "default ACLs" in
the POSIX drafts).
While this approach provided a relatively simple path toward
implementation on both the client and server sides, it was
eventually not chosen.
Unfortunately, it was never made clear what specific gaps caused
that result and it still remains unclear to what degree the
extensions made available by a more ambitious approach could be
used by UNIX clients, even if they could be successfully
implemented on the server side.
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* A more ambitious approach not so strongly tied to the UNIX
ecosystem. This eventually turned out to be one based on Windows
ACLs.
Although many elements of this more ambitious approach have been
implemented, it is not clear that the more ambitious approach,
which we refer to as the NFSv4 ACL model was ever implemented by
any server.
The more ambitious approach to providing ACL support was added to
[RFC3010] as a five-page section that outlined an approach based on
Windows ACLs. That section was not a feature specification did not
appear to be attempting to fill that role. Instead, like other
ambitious proposals in that RFC, it was a statement of ambition and
its approval as a proposed standard did not involve a commitment by
implementers to implement that proposal.
When [RFC3530] was published the, ACL section followed the same basic
approach. At the same time, there were clear indications that
implementations based on the proposal in [RFC3010] might not be
possible in many environments. Despite this justified concern, a
shift to a more UNIX-oriented approach was not made. Instead, the
more ambitious approach continued to be presented as canonical while
the specification was revised to allow ACLs based on the withdrawn
POSIX draft ACLs to be implemented within the XDR established for the
original, more ambitious approach.
As a result, the fundamental differences between these two approaches
were obscured. Instead of providing explicitly for two distinct
approaches, these two approaches were presented as variant
implementations of the same underlying approach. In order to
accommodate these two models specifications had been drafted with a
troubling level of semantic laxity, as described in "PROB-lax"/>. As
a result, clients had no way to determine what approach a server had
implemented. As a result, most clients could only depend on the
features of the less ambitious model while these needing features of
the more ambitious model could only use them if they approached the
issue with no prospect of interoperability and chose particular
server implementations based on the features which each supported and
adapted each client to each server used.
3.3. Semantic Laxity
[Consensus Needed (Item #104e), Through end of section]:
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As we consider the extraordinary semantic laxity regarding ACLs in
current specifications, it appears that a number of factors were
involved in arriving at the approach we see reflected in [RFC7530]
and [RFC8881].
* A lack of concern about and experience with defining semantics.
For NFSv3, this was not an issue since all semantics was inherited
from (originally local) POSIX semantics.
Unfortunately, the working groups members with this background
were unable to shift their approach to a very different
environment, in which semantic extensions to POSIX, such as named
attributes and ACLs required a different approach.
* A lack of concern with authorization issues combined with a
tendency to treat these as inherently-server specific.
* A lack of familiarity with the needs of standards-based
specifications together the expectation, derived from the history
of NFS, that there would be coordinated dominant client and server
implementations that would resolve semantic issues at the
implementation level.
These resulted in a situation in which important behavior
specifications, important to provide interoperability were left
unresolved by writing the specs in various ways that, appear, in
retrospect, to be ill-advised:
* The use of SHOULD without any attention to a clear
characterization of the supposed "valid reasons" to bypass the
recommendation.
The common use of this keyword in connection with actions to be
taken in implementing ACLs might or might not have affected actual
implementations as there was often no reason to bypass the
recommendation. Nevertheless, it created a substantial
uncertainty about many elements of the specification since it
allowed the possibility of variant implementations to develop with
clients forced to adapt.
* The designation of certain choices by uses of SHOULD explicitly
identified as "intentional".
Essentially, these uses of SHOULD, had the same effect as if MAY
had been used but the fact that MAY was not used obscured the
reality that the license granted to the server had negative
consequences for interoperability.
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* In many cases, the specification simply cited distinct possible
server behavior, implying that it was the job of the client to
adapt to the server behavior.
The unfortunate consequences of this approach are discussed in
Section 3.4.
3.4. Challenges We Now Face
[Consensus Needed (Items #104f, #105e), Through end of section]:
The way in which the features incorporated in the original NFSv4 ACLs
model were selected and specified raises difficult-to-resolve issues
as we try to provide now what should have been provided at an earlier
stage.
Often, when the specification is at variance with existing
implementation, we can create a specification that matches the
existing implementation. This was the approach taken when the
internationalization specified in [RFC3530] was replaced by that in
[RFC7530].
In that case, we were able to make that switch because the existing
specification had essentially been ignored by implementers and their
uniform choice, which provided widespread interoperability, was based
on previous NFSv3 practice and was consistent with the needs of UNIX
users, clients, and servers and could be adapted carefully to meet
some of the needs that motivated the approach in [RFC3530].
In this case we have a far more difficult situation to deal with,
because:
* Implementation was not uniform in that there were two basic
implementation patterns to fill, with the non-POSIX pattern
presenting implementers many choices about the feature set to
support.
* Much more time has elapsed making it harder to access information
about implementations.
* Even within the POSIX-oriented set of implementations, there were
a significant set of behavioral choices allowed, whether
explicitly or by a lax approach to the specification of expected
behaviors.
As a result, we need to do the following for each of the constituent
features:
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* Assess the suitability of the extension for inclusion in NFSv4
based on user needs, server implementability, and issues
concerning the consistency of the extension with the rest of the
NFSv4 protocol.
In connection with this, the existence of implementations is a
clear indications of need/usefulness but non-existence cannot be
considered dispositive.
* Find server implementations of the feature
We will wind up with certain cases in which the number of severs
implementing the feature is low or zero.
It might take considerable time to find them and ascertain details
of their implementation, especially since this might depend on the
local file system used.
* Specify details of the required behavior.
In the ideal case, we will find an interoperable client-server
pair but even in that case, we will need to find out if other such
pairs exist, which might take considerable time.
If multiple such pairs exist it is possible, although unlikely,
that agreement on a single approach can be achieved. A more
likely result in that case is that one or more behavioral variants
will be added to Aclchoice.
4. ACL-based Authorization-related Attributes
[Author Aside: (Items #14a, #15a... ), Applies to entire top-level
section]: The treatment of the various ACL-based attributes in the
included subsections replaces the corresponding sections in earlier
documents, in which the attribute descriptions were not consolidated
in one place and were disbursed among a number of top-level sections.
Where it has been necessary to make significant changes, the
annotations for those changes, including author asides and proposed
text, appear here while vestigial text that is now superseded has not
been brought forward.
The per-object attributes Acl, Dacl, and Sacl all contain an ACL
object as described in Sections 6 and 7 and their subsections.
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4.1. Definition to Support ACL-related attributes
The definitions of the acemask4 and some other data structures
related to the Aclchoice attribute appear directly below, need to be
done earlier than others for a number pf reasons:
* They are used directly in the definition of ACL-related attributes
as well as within the definition of the ACE structure in
Section 7.
* They need to be referenced as part various data elements that need
to incorporated into the Aclchoice attribute, defined in
Section 4.6.
typedef uint32_t acemask4;
typedef uint32_t ombr4word;
struct nfs4acds {
uint32_t acd_offset;
uint32_t acd_length;
};
typedef struct nfs4acds nfs4acdi;
struct nfs4acas {
bitmap4 aca_bits;
nfs4acdi acs_ditems<>;
opaque aca_dpool<>;
};
The definition of the individual bits within mask words of type
acemask4 appears in Section 7.2
Words of type omnr4word are used to describe the particular usage of
ace mask bits whose semantics is not currently determinable. The
definition of the individual bit fields appears in Section 7.2.9.
An nfs4aclc structure is used to represent a particular value of the
per-fs scope read-only aclchoices attribute. This structure is
designed to be extensible with the definition in this document
capable of being extended in subsequent minor versions in the same
way that the set of attributes is extended using the method explained
[RFC8178]. It consists of the following elements:
* A bitmap containing flags with each indicating the presence or
absence o a particular feature extending the functionality
available using UNIX ACLs.
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* An array of nfs4acdi elements, with each element designating a
particular set of data providing additional information about the
details of a particular feature.
4.2. Table of ACL-related Attributes
The following table summarizes all the ACL-related attributes,
including:
* Attributes to support ACL-based authentication: Acl, Dacl.
* Attributes to provide other security-related services: Sacl.
* Attributes to provide information regarding the level of ACL
support provided: Aclchoices, Aclsupport.
+============+============+==========+===========+=====+=========+
| Name | Id | Ver | Data Type | Acc | Defined |
| | | | | | in: |
+============+============+==========+===========+=====+=========+
| Acl | 12 | 4.0 | nfsace4<> | R W | Section |
| | | | | | 4.4 |
+------------+------------+----------+-----------+-----+---------+
| Aclchoice | [TBD-ACLC] | 4.1(bis) | nfsaclc4 | R | Section |
| | | | | | 4.6 |
+------------+------------+----------+-----------+-----+---------+
| Aclsupport | 13 | 4.0 | uint32_t | R | Section |
| | | | | | 4.5 |
+------------+------------+----------+-----------+-----+---------+
| Dacl | 58 | 4.1 | nfsacl41 | R W | Section |
| | | | | | 4.7 |
+------------+------------+----------+-----------+-----+---------+
| Sacl | 59 | 4.1 | nfsacl41 | R W | Section |
| | | | | | 4.8 |
+------------+------------+----------+-----------+-----+---------+
Table 1
4.3. Types of ACLs
The ACL allows authorization schemes outside those conforming to the
POSIX approach to be specified and applied to file objects. This
provides additional flexibility in a number of ways:
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1. There may be multiple users or sets of users assigned different
privileges to address cases in which the appropriate privilege
assignments do not conform to the POSIX model in that they are
different for users in the same group or different for two groups
outside the owning group.
ACLs support this additional flexibility by allowing an array of
Access Control Entries, each of which specifies handling for a
user or user group.
2. For particular users or sets of users, the set of operations to
be allowed might not be expressible using the three bits provided
by POSIX as supplemented by special privileges for operations
reserved to file owner.
NFSv4 ACLs, as described in Section 6, address both issues by
defining, within the Access Control Entry, a large set of distinct
privilege bits, modeled on those provided by Windows ACLs.
ACLs based on the withdrawn POSIX ACL draft, (i.e. UNIX ACLs) make a
more limited change to the POSIX authorization model and are
represented by the same sorts of structures as NFSv4 ACLs, although
there are restrictions imposed by the UNIX ACL model.
Although these two have some common goals and are presented in a
common XDR framework, they are substantially different, in that:
* The draft POSIX ACLs address only the first of the motivations for
extension, while the NFSv4 ACL model is intended to address both
of them, by defining a large range of bits in the ACE mask, rather
than the three POSIX bits.
* NFSv4 ACLs, by supporting DENY entries allow specific privileges
to be allowed for most members of a group and be denied to some
particular users.
* NFSv4 ACLs provide additional security-related facilities in
addition to authorization control, through the use of AUDIT and
alarm ACEs.
{Author Aside (Item #61a)]: In order to justify an eventual shift of
the Acl and Dacl attributes back to be truly OPTIONAL, it is
necessary to define for each file system, the type of ACL semantics
provided, using information such as that provided by the Aclsupport
attribute. In so doing, we will have to make provision for various
hybrids if such implementations actually exist, while not necessarily
seeking to preserve the ability to generate other such potential
hybrids, in all cases.
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[Consensus Needed, Including List (Item #61a)]: The determination of
the type of ACL semantics proceeds as follows:
* If the aclsupport attribute indicates that either AUDIT or ALARM
ACEs are supported, then it can be assumed that, in general, NFSv4
ACL semantics are provided, although some OPTIONAL ACE mask might
not supported.
* If the Aclsupport attribute is not supported, then if the Sacl
attribute is supported then it also can be assumed, as above, that
NFSv4 ACL semantics are provided.
* Otherwise, If the Aclsupport attribute is not supported then the
presence of support for DENY ACEs determines whether support for
NFSv4 ACL semantics is provided. However, it is required that
clients determine whether support for DENY ACEs is provide by
attempting to set ACLs containing such ACEs
* In the case in which neither the Aclsupport attribute nor the SACL
attribute is supported, then it is not possible to determine of
support for NFSv4 ACL semantics is provided.
As a consequence, server implementations providing support for
NFsv4 extensions need to support the Aclsupport attribute. This
is because, if they do not, the client could legitimately assume
that support for the NFSv4 ACL model is not present.
4.4. The Acl Attribute (v4.0)
This per-object attribute consists of an array of Access Control
Entries which apply to operations performed on the current object,
controlling authorization and monitoring of attempted operations.
This attribute, as opposed to the sacl and dacl attributes, consists
only of an ACE array and does not support automatic inheritance,
although some inheritance features might be supported, although not
when the UNIX ACL model is the one supported.
The acl attribute is OPTIONAL and there is no requirement that a
server support it. However, when the dacl attribute is supported, it
is a good idea to provide support for the acl attribute as well, in
order to accommodate clients that have not been modified to use the
dacl attribute.
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[Consensus needed, Including List (Item #65a)]: While the original
intention was to define a usable OPTIONAL attribute based on the
NFSv4 ACLs defined previous specifications, it is now more
appropriate to designate this under-specified attribute as
experimental although still formally OPTIONAL, until the items below
have been addressed.
* The intention to support, as values of this attribute two
different ACL approaches, each with its own semantics. These
include both the NFSv4 ACLs based on the Windows ACL model and a
subset based on the more restricted semantics provided by the
withdrawn POSIX ACL document with a straightforward mapping of
those into the format of NFSv4 ACLs.
The association of two such different semantic models without
giving the client a way to determine which semantic model is in
effect makes interoperability essentially impossible to provide.
* The potential interoperability problems are vastly expanded by the
specific method by which these two models are supported.
Instead of allowing servers to choose between these two
approaches, e.g. by using the term "MAY", most statements
regarding ACL semantics use the term "SHOULD", described in the
text as "intentional", apparently assuming that the result is
essentially equivalent to the use of "MAY". Even apart from the
misuse of the terms defined in [RFC2119], this has the effect of
replacing a single choice by allowing a large number of
uncoordinated choices, exponentially raising the number of
possibly valid semantic models that clients and users have to
accommodate.
* It is not clear how far this pick-and-choose approach extends. In
the case of the ace mask bits which are finer-grained than the
three bits in the mode and in POSIX ACLs, there is no explicit
text indicating how the coarser-grained approach would be
supported by a server built to support POSIX ACLs, leaving the
actual requirements uncertain.
* Although some efforts have been made to limit the damage caused by
this specification uncertainty by urging clients to determine
authorization decisions using ACCESS rather than by examining the
ACL itself, this only addresses half of the problem and the
question of what ACL to set to effect a particular authorization
regime remains unaddressed, limiting the usefulness of the ACL-
related features.
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Although significant efforts have been made to widen the
information returned by ACCESS beyond the three-bit POSIX model,
there are still cases in which it is insufficiently fine-grained.
For example, adding a new file and a new sub-directory which have
different ACE mask bits are both represented by a single bit in
ACCESS.
[Author Aside]: Although it has generally been assumed that changes
to sacl and dacl attributes are to be visible in the acl and vice
versa, NFSv4.1 specification do not appear to document this fact.
[Consensus Item, Including List (Item #16a)]: For NFSv4.1 servers
that support Both the acl attribute and one or more of the sacl and
dacl attributes, changes to the ACE's need to be immediately
reflected in the other supported attributes:
* The result of reading the dacl attribute MUST consist of a set of
ACEs that are exactly the same as the ACEs ALLOW and DENY ACEs
within the acl attribute, in the same order.
* The result of reading the sacl attribute MUST consist of a set of
ACEs that are exactly the same as the AUDIT and ALARM ACEs within
the acl attribute, in the same order.
* The result of reading the acl attribute MUST consist of a set of
ACEs that are exactly the same as the union of ACEs within the
sacl and dacl attributes. Two ACEs that both appear in one of the
sacl or dacl attributes will appear in the same order in the acl
attribute.
4.5. The Aclsupport Attribute (v4.0)
A server need not support all of the ACE types described in
Section 6.1. This attribute indicates which ACE types are supported
for the current file system by any of the acl, sacl, or dacl
attributes.
[Consensus Needed (Item #61b)]: Although this attribute is OPTIONAL,
there are important reasons, in certain cases, to provide support, as
described in Section 4.3.
The bitmask constants used to represent the abovementioned
definitions within the aclsupport attribute are as follows:
const ACL4_SUPPORT_ALLOW_ACL = 0x00000001;
const ACL4_SUPPORT_DENY_ACL = 0x00000002;
const ACL4_SUPPORT_AUDIT_ACL = 0x00000004;
const ACL4_SUPPORT_ALARM_ACL = 0x00000008;
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[Author Aside (Item #14b)]: Even though support aclsupport is
OPTIONAL, there has been no mention of the possibility of it not
being supported.
[Consensus Needed (Item #14b)]: If this attribute is not supported
for a server or filesystem, the client is entitled to assume that, if
the acl attribute is supported, support for ALLOW ACEs is present.
Thus, if such a server supports the sacl attribute, clients are not
likely to use it if aclsupport is not supported by the server.
[Previous Treatment (Item #110a)]: Servers that support either the
ALLOW or DENY ACE type SHOULD support both ALLOW and DENY ACE types.
[Author Aside, Including List: (Item #110a)]: The use of "SHOULD" in
the preceding is unhelpful for the following reasons:
* While it is unclear what the intention is, it is certainly is not
in accord with RFC2119 since there is no indication of potential
harm or what might be valid reasons to do otherwise.
* While it might be one of "intentional" SHOULDs, that would make
the paragraph meaningless since such SHOULDs are essentially equal
to MAYs.
* The most likely source of divergence, the fact that UNIX ACLs do
not support DENY ACEs, is not mentioned at all.
[Consensus Needed (Item #110a)]: Servers that support the DENY ACE
type MUST support the ALLOW ACE type as well.
[Consensus Needed, Including bulleted list (Item #110a)]: Clients
should not attempt to set an ACE unless the server claims support for
that ACE type. The server MUST reject requests with
NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP if any of the following apply:
* If the server receives a request to set an ACE type that is not
allowed as part of the acl attribute being set.
* If the server receives a request to set an ACE, it cannot store.
Support for any of the ACL attributes is OPTIONAL. However, certain
restrictions apply regarding the interaction of support for these
attributes, A server that supports either of the newer ACL attributes
(dacl or sacl) MUST support use of the new ACL attributes to access
all of the ACE types that it supports. In other words, if such a
server supports ALLOW or DENY ACEs and the sacl attribute, then it
MUST support the dacl attribute and any ALLOW or DENY ACE types
supported by the acl attribute MUST be supported in the dacl
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attribute as well. Similarly, if it supports AUDIT or ALARM ACEs and
the dacl attribute, then it MUST support the sacl attribute any AUDIT
or ALARM ACE types supported by the acl attribute MUST be supported
in the dacl attribute as well.
4.6. The Aclchoice Attribute (v4.1 extension for bis)
[Consensus Needed (Item #105f), Through end of section]:
enum acc4bitnums {
ACC4BN_NEINGM = 0,
ACC4BN_SEPFWX = 1,
ACC4BN_SEPAFD = 2,
ACC4BN_SEPDE = 3,
ACC4BN_RNASDI = 4,
ACC4BN_NAD = 5,
ACC4BN_NADMOD = 6,
ACC4BN_MBCA = 7,
ACC4BN_SMJUST3 = 8,
ACC4BN_SMOLD = 9,
ACC4BN_SMFULL = 10,
ACC4BN_3MASKB = 11,
ACC4BN_AANPS = 12,
ACC4BN_SPWHO = 13,
ACC4BN_IN1BIT = 14,
ACC4BN_INHFULL = 15,
ACC4BN_INHAUTO = 16,
ACC4BN_RVINV = 17
};
enum acc4dinums {
ACC4IN_OWNMB = 0,
ACC4IN_ODDMB = 1,
ACC4IN_STOREUA = 2
};
The tables below provide information about the individual
implementations that are communicated in the Aclchoice attribute.
One table is used for specific bits for cases in which the choice is
specified with the associate bit map. The other is used when the
choice is combined with some additional info in a subsidiary data
item. In both cases, the table identifies the choice class while is
selected from the following list:
Mbcs: Mask bit with clear semantics
Mbus: Mask bit with uncertain semantics
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Obv: Original behavioral variant
Lbv: Later behavioral variant
These tables and the sections they point to will contain restrictions
making certain sets of flags or data items invalid. When such
restrictions are violated, the client is free to ignore the Aclchoice
attribute and treat it as unsupported.
+============+=======+=========+====================================+
| Id | Class | Section | Description |
+============+=======+=========+====================================+
| BN_NEINGM | Obv | S 5.6 | Whether ALLOW ACEs for named |
| | | | entities contribute to the group |
| | | | mode bits. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SEPWX | Mbcs | S 5.4 | Whether to separately authorize |
| | | | extension of a file and rewriting |
| | | | of existing bytes. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SEPAFD | Mbcs | S 5.4 | Whether to separately authorize |
| | | | adding of subdirectories and |
| | | | additional of other sort of |
| | | | directory entries. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SEPDE | Mbcs | S 5.4 | Whether to separately authorize |
| | | | deletion of directory entries and |
| | | | other modifications of |
| | | | directories. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_RNASDI | Lbv | S 5.6 | Whether Rename within a directory |
| | | | are to require specific |
| | | | permissions to add and delete |
| | | | entries within the encompassing |
| | | | directory. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_NAD | Mbus | S 5.4 | Whether to separately authorize |
| | | | access to and modification of |
| | | | named attribute directories |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_NADMOD | Lbv | S 5.4 | Whether to use the mask bits |
| | | | associated with named attributes |
| | | | to control operations within |
| | | | those directories, in addition to |
| | | | the use of OPENATTR. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_MBCA | Obv | S 5.6 | Whether the server is allowed to |
| | | | convert sets of mask bits or |
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| | | | other flags it cannot enforce or |
| | | | undertake to store and retain |
| | | | unmodified to mask bits it does |
| | | | support, rather than returning an |
| | | | error. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SMJUST3 | Obv | S 5.6 | Whether the server when |
| | | | processing a change to the mode, |
| | | | sets the acl to represent the |
| | | | handling specified by those mode |
| | | | bits, making no effort to |
| | | | preserve other aspects of the ACL |
| | | | |
| | | | Although this appears to be an |
| | | | alternative to BN_SMOLD and |
| | | | BN_SMFULL, there are situation in |
| | | | which multiple of these can be |
| | | | true simultaneously |
| | | | |
| | | | For example, in the case of ACLs |
| | | | that fit within the UNIX ACL |
| | | | model, there are no inherited |
| | | | ACEs and no ACE with mask bits |
| | | | distinct not controlled by the |
| | | | mode, substituting an ACL |
| | | | consisting of three entries |
| | | | derived from the mode would |
| | | | satisfy BN_SMOLD and BN_SMFULL as |
| | | | well |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SMOLD | Obv | S 5.6 | Whether the server when |
| | | | processing a change to the mode, |
| | | | sets the acl to represent the |
| | | | handling specified by those mode |
| | | | bits, while making the efforts to |
| | | | preserve other aspects of the ACL |
| | | | as recommended by the existing |
| | | | specifications. |
| | | | |
| | | | Although this appears to be an |
| | | | alternative to BN_SMJUST3 and |
| | | | BN_SMFULL, there are situation in |
| | | | which multiple of these can be |
| | | | true simultaneously |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SMFULL | Obv | S 5.6 | Whether the server when |
| | | | processing a change to the mode, |
| | | | sets the acl to represent the |
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| | | | handling specified those mode |
| | | | bits, while making the efforts to |
| | | | preserve other aspects of the ACL |
| | | | as recommended by Section 10.7.3 |
| | | | |
| | | | Although this appears to be an |
| | | | alternative to BN_SMJUST3 and |
| | | | BN_SMOLD, there are situations in |
| | | | which multiple of these can be |
| | | | true simultaneously. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_3MASKB | Mbus | S 5.4 | Indicates the server only |
| | | | supports the three ACE mask bits |
| | | | derived directly from the POSIX |
| | | | privilege bits. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_AANPS | Lbv | S 5.6 | [Consensus Needed (Item #115a), |
| | | | Entire entry]: |
| | | | |
| | | | Indicates whether the server |
| | | | manifests the authorization |
| | | | behavior in which an |
| | | | authorization cannot be partially |
| | | | satisfied by each of two ACEs |
| | | | resulting in complete success |
| | | | once all requested mask bits are |
| | | | satisfied, by a set of multiple |
| | | | ACEs |
| | | | |
| | | | Although this behavior is not |
| | | | explicitly allowed by the current |
| | | | specifications, they do make |
| | | | other efforts to be compatible |
| | | | with file systems whose ACL |
| | | | semantics were implemented to be |
| | | | compatible with POSIX draft ACLs |
| | | | in other respects. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_SPWHO | Obv | S 5.6 | [Consensus Needed (Item #50a), |
| | | | Entire entry]: |
| | | | |
| | | | Indicates whether the server |
| | | | treats ACEs with the special who |
| | | | values defined in Section 7.4 as |
| | | | valid. |
| | | | |
| | | | Although existing specifications |
| | | | treat this as a feature, the lack |
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| | | | of associated semantics makes it |
| | | | inappropriate to treat it that |
| | | | way so we will treat the |
| | | | acceptance of ACEs containing |
| | | | such values of the "who" field as |
| | | | behavioral variants. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_INNO | Obv | S 5.6 | Indicates there is no support for |
| | | | ACL inheritance. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_IN1BIT | Obv | S 5.6 | Indicates there is some support |
| | | | for ACL inheritance but no |
| | | | support for separate inheritance |
| | | | bits for file and directories |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_INHFULL | Mbcs | S 5.4 | Indicates there is full support |
| | | | for ACL inheritance but not |
| | | | necessarily for automatic |
| | | | inheritance. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_INAUTO | Mbcs | S 5.4 | Indicates that there is support |
| | | | for automatic ACL inheritance. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
| BN_RVINV | Lbv | S 5.6 | Indicates that the server will, |
| | | | in some cases, when presented |
| | | | with incorrect or unsupported, |
| | | | ACLs modify them to be valid/ |
| | | | acceptable rather than rejecting |
| | | | them. |
+------------+-------+---------+------------------------------------+
Table 2: Aclchoice flag bits
+============+=====+=====+=======+=============+====================+
| Id |Class|Ov. | Det. | Data | Description |
| | |Sect.| Sect. | | |
+============+=====+=====+=======+=============+====================+
| IN_OWNMB |Fwsr |S 5.5| S | acemask4 | Provides |
| | | | 7.2.9 | | information |
| | | | | | relating to the |
| | | | | | support of ACE |
| | | | | | mask bits whose |
| | | | | | scope can only be |
| | | | | | accounted for as |
| | | | | | a finer- |
| | | | | | granularity |
| | | | | | variant of file |
| | | | | | ownership |
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+------------+-----+-----+-------+-------------+--------------------+
| IN_ODDMB |Fwsr |S 5.5| S | ombr4word<> | Provides |
| | | | 7.2.9 | | information |
| | | | | | relating to the |
| | | | | | support of ACE |
| | | | | | mask bits defined |
| | | | | | within |
| | | | | | Section 7.2.6, |
| | | | | | whose scope |
| | | | | | cannot accounted |
| | | | | | for as a finer- |
| | | | | | granularity |
| | | | | | variant of one of |
| | | | | | the three POSIX |
| | | | | | privilege bits or |
| | | | | | file ownership |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | Also used to |
| | | | | | provide |
| | | | | | information about |
| | | | | | mask bits defined |
| | | | | | in Sections 7.2.4 |
| | | | | | and 7.2.5, when |
| | | | | | the treatment of |
| | | | | | that mask bit |
| | | | | | does not fully |
| | | | | | accord with the |
| | | | | | requirement of |
| | | | | | the defining |
| | | | | | section. |
+------------+-----+-----+-------+-------------+--------------------+
| IN_STOREUE |Fwsr |S 5.5| S | acc4storeua | Provides |
| | | | 12.2 | | information |
| | | | | | relating to the |
| | | | | | support of ACE |
| | | | | | mask bits, ACE |
| | | | | | type, and special |
| | | | | | who values which |
| | | | | | are not enforced |
| | | | | | by current NFSv4 |
| | | | | | server |
| | | | | | implementation |
| | | | | | but are stored |
| | | | | | and retrieved so |
| | | | | | that ACLs with |
| | | | | | these feature can |
| | | | | | be preserved for |
| | | | | | use by other |
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| | | | | | NFsv4 servers, |
| | | | | | other remote file |
| | | | | | access protocol, |
| | | | | | or for local file |
| | | | | | access. |
+------------+-----+-----+-------+-------------+--------------------+
Table 3
4.7. The Dacl Attribute (v4.1)
The dacl attribute was added in NFSv4.1 in order to divide ACLs so
that the authorization-related entries (i.e. ALLOW and DENY entries
were no longer combined in the same attribute as AUDIT and ALARM
entries.
{Consensus needed, Thru rest of Section (Item #65b)]: While the
original intention was to define a usable OPTIONAL attribute based on
the NFSv4 ACLs defined previous specifications, it is now more
appropriate to designate this under-specified attribute as
experimental although still formally OPTIONAL until the issues
discussed in Section 4.4 are addressed
Although the issues applying to the acl attribute apply equally to
the dacl attribute, given the description in earlier specifications,
it might be easier to resolve them in the case of the dacl attribute
for the following reasons:
* Implementations of POSIX ACLs might not have been updated to
support the sacl attribute, since doing so would add no value.
* Even if such POSIX-ACL-oriented implementations of the sacl
attribute did exist, it might be easier to get agreement on
regularizing the sacl attribute since, if acl were left as it is,
the POSIX ACL support would still be available.
4.8. The Sacl Attribute (v4.1)
The sacl attribute is like the acl attribute, but sacl allows only
AUDIT and ALARM ACEs. The sacl attribute supports automatic (see
Section 8).
{Consensus needed, Thru rest of Section (Item #65c)]: While the
original intention was to define a usable OPTIONAL attribute based on
the NFSv4 ACLs defined in previous specifications, it is now more
appropriate to designate this under-specified attribute as
experimental although still formally OPTIONAL until the issues
discussed in Section 4.4 are addressed
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The Sacl attribute was added in NFSv4.1 in order to divide ACLs so
that the non-authorization-related entries (i.e. AUDIT and ALARM
entries) would no longer be combined in the same attribute with the
ALLOW and DENY entries.
[Author Aside, Including List (Items #61c, #105g, #110b)]: Although
the existing discussion of ACE structure results in the same sort of
lack of clarity affecting the Acl and Dacl attributes, it us more
likely that these will resolved in the case of the Sacl attribute as
compared to the Acl or Dacl attributes, even though the problems with
the existing text are essentially the same.
* There are no AUDIT or ALARM entries, in POSIX ACLs, so there would
be no need accommodate existing implementations of these that
embody a more POSIX-oriented semantic model.
As a result, it is likely to be easier to get WG approval for
changes that clearly state that the ACE mask bits are to followed
strictly for the these types of ACEs.
* Since such entries have no role in compute a corresponding mode
attribute, the effect of this issue for the sacl attribute is not
problematic.
5. Structure of the ACL-related Features
[Consensus Needed (Items #104g, #105h), Through end of section]:
Until now, the set of OPTIONAL features, had been limited to the set
of ACL-related attributes: acl, aclsupport, sacl, and dacl. Many of
these had a vast semantic range which resulted from the existence of
two different ACL models and the way in which previous specifications
attempted to accommodate those two models and the range of behaviors
provided by existing file systems.
In this specification, we will take a different approach in which,
where multiple approaches are to be allowed to server
implementations, we explicitly designate them as OPTIONAL and make
them visible to the client using the aclsupport and aclchoices
attributes.
These choices had a number of sources and were previously dealt with
in a number of ways:
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* An important ser of choices arose from the expansion of the set of
distinct actions that could be subject to authorization control
using ACLs. The options ranged from no expansion relative to
three privilege bits inherited from POSIX to the major expansion
of the set of ACE mask bits in [RFC3530].
Each of these additions is best thought of as distinct feature
most of them, for which the basic semantics can be inferred, base
on existing specifications are discussed in Section 5.4.
In the existing specifications, most of these mask bits, the ones
described in Section 7.2.4, are dealt with
* A number of cases in which multiple behaviors are allowed will be
addressed by defining the choice as a feature even without any
clear benefit to either approach. These are discussed in
Section 5.6.
These include cases in which multiple behaviors were allowed to
accommodate existing server behavior and also some cases in which
the utility of the approach was doubtful, and a different approach
was specified.
Because of the development of many distinct server implementations
with a specification that took the semantically lax approach
discussed above, there will inevitably more such cases as work on
ACLs proceeds. Since it is agreement on a uniform approach to
such issues is unlikely at this point, the Aclchoice attribute
will need to extended to accommodate them as described in
Section 12.1
5.1. Role of the Core UNIX ACL model
[Consensus Needed (Items #64a, 104i, 105g), Through end of section]
Although the working group did not adopt the ACLs in the withdrawn
POSIX draft, the continued existence of implementations of them and
variants sharing important features with them in UNIX contexts has
created protocol difficulties that need to be resolved. In many
cases, such ACLs and their associated semantics are the basis for ACL
support in UNIX client-side APIs and in UNIX file systems supported
by NFSv4.
In the context of this document, the Core UNIX ACL model is defined
as any approach which shares all of the following features:
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* Supports only the ACE mask bits that are direct replacements for
the three POSIX privilege bits.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, this characteristic is
reported to the server using the flag bit ACC4BN_3MASKB.
* Supports only ALLOW ACEs.
* Has no support for ACL inheritance. For a discussion of how this
affects support for handling of POSIX ACLs, see Section 5.2.
The following characteristics of draft POSIX ACLs are not included in
this definition but are treated as allowable behavioral variants
within the UNIX ACL model:
* The inclusion of mask bits derived from ALLOW ACEs for named users
and groups in the group mode bits.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, this characteristic is
reported to the server using the flag bit ACC4BN_NEINGM.
* The non-support for partial satisfaction of ALLOW ACEs, so that
each authorization request can only be supported by a single ALLOW
ACE.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, this characteristic is
reported to the server using the flag bit ACC4BN_AANPS.
Although the semantic range of core UNIX ACLs is a subset of that for
NFSv4 ACLs, expecting clients to perform the mapping between NFSv4
ACLs on POSIX ACL on their own has not worked well. Those issues are
addressed for NFv4.1 as described in Section 5.2 while possible
extensions to improve the situation in later minor versions are
discussed in Appendix C.1.
5.2. Support for the POSIX ACL Model
Although considerable efforts were made to accommodate POSIX ACL
implementations, those efforts left support for POSIX ACLs in an
unfortunate state for the following reasons:
* Many important parts of the POSIX ACL model, such as inheritance
were not REQUIRED and no attention was paid to the differences
between those functions in the two different ACL models that were
to be supported.
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* While efforts were made to accommodate semantic differences
between those models, the effect was limited since many
differences were simply ignored due to a lack of interest in
semantic description. In addition, behavioral differences that
were recognized were addressed in a way that gave the client no
ability to select its preferred variant or even determine the
choice made by the server.
The development of the Aclchoice attribute served to address some of
these issues, but did not provide full support, as discussed below.
Appendix C.1 suggests a number of ways the remaining issues could be
dealt with.
* The uncertainty about the mapping between ACL and modes (and
between core UNIX ACLs an server NFSv4 ACLs has been addressed by
making this server choice one that the client can find out about,
where Aclchoice is supported.
Fully addressing this variability would required a new attribute
and would only be possible in NFSv4.2 or later.
* The differences in the processing of ALLOW ACEs has been addressed
by making either of the approaches an allowable server behavioral
variant as was done in the mode computation case discussed above.
As part of that change, the server choice was made one that the
client can find out about, where Aclchoice is supported.
The fact that this had not been done previously was treated as an
easily remedied oversight, given the clear intention to allow
servers supporting POSIX ACLs to be used, without, as previous
specifications put it, "invalidating" them.
This does not address the need of the client to affect this
semantic choice, which would be more appropriate. For discussion
of alternative to address this issue, see Appendix C.1.
* In their handling of inheritance (treated as "default ACLs" in the
withdrawn POSIX draft), previous specifications basically ignored
the issue. While attempting to accommodate the existence of
servers supporting those draft POSIX ACLs, the needs of clients to
have the necessary support was not dealt with.
Given that the server choice to support inheritance was made
visible to the client when Aclchoice was supported, it became
possible for clients needing this support to determine whether it
was available, there was no opportunity, within NFSv4.1 to address
the fundamental mistake, that inheritance was made OPTIONAL.
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It is not yet clear whether the differences in the handling of
inheritance reflects a basic semantic incompatibility or is merely
a difference of terminology. In any case, this issue will affect
the choices discussed in Appendix C.1.
* Mask entries were not addressed since it is believed that are not
necessary and could be effected by making the changes directly in
the affected entries. Some potential approaches to adding further
POSIX ACL support would make them part of the protocol.
5.3. Server Behavioral Restrictions to Apply when Aclchoice is not
Supported
[Author Aside (Item #116a)]: This section explores possible
additional behavioral restrictions to avoid situations in which the
lax approach to the specification of server semantics could
unacceptably interfere with client operation. Given the difficulty
of supporting NFSv4 extensions without the use of Aclchoice, we are
focusing for now on NFSv4-oriented clients, although the working
group might consider what could be done for other clients in later
drafts.
[Consensus Needed (Item #116a), Through end of section]:
Because of the uncertainty about the proper handling of the ACE mask
bits defined in Section 7.2.6, the recommendations below SHOULD be
adhered to by servers that do not support the Aclchoice attribute in
order to allow clients to convert UNIX ACLs to NFSv4 ACLs as
described in Section 7.2.13. In the context of the above
recommendations, the only valid reason to bypass them is reliance on
previous specifications that do not make clear the importance of
adhering to these constraints. Further, those implementing such
servers need to be aware that they are compromising the utility of
the implementation for UNIX-oriented clients and that other clients
might not be able to with their semantics either.
When transforming an ALLOW ACE using only the three ACE mask bit that
correspond to POSIX privilege bits, the corresponding bit mask SHOULD
be constructed as follows:
* When ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES is not excluded (i.e., when named
attributes are supported) it is to be set if the mask bit
corresponding to the read privilege bit (i.e., ACE4_READ_DATA or
ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY) is set.
The bit can also be set in other circumstances, such as when the
ACE4_EXECUTE MASK bit is set.
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* ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES is always to be set.
* ACE4_READ_NAMED_ACL is always to be set.
* [Consensus Needed (Item #62a), Through end of bulleted item]:
ACE4_DELETE is always to be set.
This applies to authorization in the case in which the "sticky"
bit for the directory is set as well as the case in which it is
not set.
* ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION and ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD are not to set
unless the mask bit corresponding to the write privilege bit
(i.e., ACE4_WRITE_DATA or ACE4_ADD_FILE) is set.
Servers MAY condition these settings on other conditions (e.g.,
only setting the bit for ACEs for the owner of a file).
The above recommendations do not apply when Aclchoice is supported
because the information provided allows the mapping described in
Section 7.2.13 to be performed as needed by the semantics provided by
the server.
[Author Aside (Item #116a)]: The possibility of extending these
restrictions to case in Aclchoice is supported needs to be
considered, as does the possibility of follow-on restrictions
regarding the details of the mapping between modes and ACLs. Much
will depend on the range of existing server behaviors. This might
enable further simplification of the ACC4IN_ODDMB data item.
5.4. Feature Extensions With Clear Semantics
[Consensus Needed (Items #104h, #105j), Through end of section]:
The following extensions of UNIX ACL model are now considered
OPTIONAL feature whose support, on each given file system, can be
determined using the Aclsupport and Aclchoice attributes. These
include some for which the core semantics is clear but there are
potential behavioral differences, that resolved based on the
existence of other features described in Section 5.6.
* The provision of separate authorization control for extending a
file and for overwriting existing bytes is represented by the flag
bit ACC4BN_SEPFWX of the Aclchoice attribute.
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When this feature is available and different authorization apply
to a file authorization decision cannot be made at OPEN time but
are reflected in the results returned to ACCESS and enforced on
each Write.
* The provision of separate authorization control for adding a new
entry to a directory and making sorts of modification for the
directory is represented by the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPAE of the
Aclchoice attribute.
The detailed semantics of this feature are affected by the feature
represented by the ACC4BN_RNASDI flag bit, discussed in
Section 5.6. Note that when this bit is not set, renaming of
objects within the directory would be affected by restrictions on
adding new entries.
* The provision of separate authorization control for adding a sub-
directories to a directory and for adding other sorts of entries
to a directory represented by the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPAFD of the
Aclchoice attribute.
This feature bit is only meaningful if feature represented by the
ACC4BN_SEPAE flag bit is also in effect.
The detailed semantics of this feature are affected by the feature
represented by the ACC4BN_RNASDI flag bit, discussed in
Section 5.6. Note that when this bit is not set, the ability to
rename a subdirectory and a file within a directory would be
controlled by different ACE mask bits and that renaming of objects
within the directory would be affected by restrictions on adding
new entries.
* The provision of separate authorization control for deleting a new
entry to a directory and making other sorts of modification to the
directory is represented by the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPDE of the
Aclchoice attribute.
The detailed semantics of this feature are affected by the feature
represented by the ACC4BN_RNASDI flag bit, discussed in
Section 5.6. Note that when this bit is not set, renaming of
objects within the directory would be affected by restrictions on
deleting existing entries.
* The provision of separate authorization control for operations
involving a file object's named attribute directory is represented
by flag bit ACC4BN_NAD of the Aclchoice attribute.
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The detailed semantics of this feature are affected by the feature
represented by the ACC4BN_NADMOD flag bit, discussed in
Section 5.6. Note that when this bit is not set the creation of a
new name attribute directory would be controlled by a separate ACE
mask bit but this same bit would not control the authorization of
otherwise modifying the named attribute directory.
* The server's support for a limited set of mask bit derived from
the three POSIX privilege bits is represented by flag bit
ACC4BN_3MASKB of the Aclchoice attribute.
This bit cannot be validly combined with any of the bits
ACC4BN_SEPFWX, ACC4BN_SEPAE, ACC4BN_SEPDFD, ACC4BN_SEPDE, or with
any use of the data items ACC4IN_OWNMB or ACC4IN_ODDMB.
* The server's support for DENY ACEs is indicated by the bit
ACL4_SUPPORT_DENY_ACL in the Aclsupport attribute.
* The server's support for AUDIT ACEs is indicated by the bit
ACL4_SUPPORT_AUDIT_ACL in the Aclsupport attribute.
* The server's support for ALARM ACEs is indicated by the bit
ACL4_SUPPORT_ALARM_ACL in the Aclsupport attribute.
5.5. Features with wide Semantic Ranges
[Consensus Needed (Item #105k), Through end of section]:
There are a number of features in which the wide latitude given to
server implementers creates a set of uncertainties that cannot be
reduced to a small set of individual binary choices. These cases are
dealt within the Aclchoice attribute by defining a data item to
provide the necessary data, as listed below:
* The Aclchoice data item with index ACC4IN_ODDMB is used to provide
information about the nature of the support for ACE mask bits
which are neither REQUIRED nor a finer-grained corelate of another
REQUIRED mask bit.
There are many aspects of the support for these mask bits that are
not clearly discussed in the existing specifications. That is
most likely because it was incorrectly assumed that all the mask
bits did fit in this model, making detailed explanation necessary.
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As a result, it remains unclear, for each of these bits, how
authorization for the corresponding operation is to be determined,
when ACLs are generated based on the setting of mode. Similarly,
their contribution, if any, to modes computed from existing ACLs
needs to be clarified.
See Section 7.2.9 for details about how such information is made
available to the client, when the server supports any of these ACE
mask bits.
* The Aclchoice data item with index ACC4IN_STOREUA is used to
provide information about cases in which a server accepts, store,
and returns ACLs that it is not prepared to enforce.
This includes cases in which the client specifies different
handling for two mask bits that the server is not prepared to
distinguish, an also cases in which there are other features of
the NFSv4 ACL model that the server is not prepared to support
(e.g. DENY ACEs, ACL inheritance).
While the possibility of servers accepting ACLs that they are not
prepared to enforce is mentioned in a number of places in the
existing specifications, there is no normative text regarding this
practice. In this document, we treat it as an OPTIONAL feature
with details of the set of ACLs supported in this way described
using the structures defined in Section 12.2.
Within the existing specifications, the possibility of accepting
ACLs that cannot be enforced has the unfortunate consequence that
clients needing particular ACL functionality might set ACLs using
that functionality and have them accepted with no way of finding
that the required functionality is not available.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, there is a way to find
out what type of ACL support is available. Nevertheless, it is
still helpful to be notified when unsupported ACLs are set. When
the ACC4IN_STOREUA is not present, clients can often be assured of
such notification. See Section 12.2 for details.
The handling of the ACE mask bit ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE could arguably
dealt with as part of either of the above data items, since it does
not fit in the varying-granularity model and, by its nature, it
cannot be enforced within NFsv4 semantics. Within the context of
this specification, this mask bit's handling is addressed in the
ACC4IN_ODDMB data item.
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It is possible that the above data items might be eventually replaced
by a small set of feature bits, as described in Section 12.1. For
that to be possible, the working group would need information about
servers that supported this feature and decide if a small set of bits
could adequately represent the needed semantic range. That could be
done for either of the above data items as part of the rfc5661bis
effort, as described in Section 5.7.
5.6. Implementation Behavioral Choices
[Consensus Needed (Item #105l), Through end of section]:
There are a number of cases in which for various reasons, multiple
behaviors are allowed in implementing some function. Since it is
necessary that clients be aware of these differences, they are being
treated as features within the Aclchoice attribute, even though they
might not be considered features in other contexts.
Such behavioral choices can arise as a result of an explicit decision
to allow multiple server behaviors, or because the lack of a clear
semantic description allowed multiple approaches to develop. In the
latter case, we may currently be unaware of these different
approaches, so that it is expected, as described in Section 12.1 to
extend Aclchoice as these different behaviors are discovered.
One additional source of such possible behavioral differences results
from cases in which existing specifications describe the function of
various ACE mask bits in a way that does not seem to make sense and
other approaches have had to be added to allow useful authorization
control. In such cases, the newer approach is presented as a
distinguishable feature, at least until such time as a consensus can
be arrived at to standardize on a single approach.
The following behavioral differences are treated as features within
the Aclchoice attribute:
* The Aclchoice flag bit BN_NEINGM specifies the behavior
implemented by the server in computing a mode based on an existing
ACL. Because two methods are explicitly allowed in existing
specifications, we represent this choice as a feature despite the
lack of a clear benefit to either approach.
When this flags is set, ALLOW ACEs for named entities contribute
to the privilege bits used for member of the owning group.
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The inclusion of this choice within the Aclchoice does not imply
that each of these choices is equally desirable. It is hard to
determine whether the existing specifications contains a clear
recommendation regarding this choice. In any case, this is a
matter that will need to be addressed in Section 12.3.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_RNASDI specifies that the
authorization of within-directory renames is to be controlled by
permission to write the specified directory and does not requires,
when these operations are authorized separately, specific
permission to delete directory entries and to add directory
entries of the type of object being renamed
This difference was not recognized in the existing specifications
and the existing text in those documents suggests a different
approach. Nevertheless, we take a different approach in this
document while allowing the older approach because of the
unfortunate consequences of the earlier approach for clients and
server that do support a finer-grained approach to the
authorization of directory-modifications. See Section 12.3 where
this issue is addressed as part of Consensus Item #9, for
specifics.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_NADMOD specifies that authorization
of operations accessing or modifying named attribute directories
is to be controlled as described in this document.
This approach is significantly different from the approach taken
in the existing specification, which essentially ignored the issue
of authorization of operations on named attribute directories and
only described authorization for the OPENATTR operation.
As there is no known implementation of the earlier approach, it is
uncertain whether allowances need to be made for such
implementations. In any case, the lack of authorization semantics
for named attribute directories means that the treatment of this
issue in the existing specifications cannot remain as it is. The
precise nature of the advice/recommendations to be provided
remains unclear but it will be addressed in Section 12.3 was part
of Consensus Item #111.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_MBCA specifies that when faced with
a request to store an ACL that it does not support and is not
prepared the server will sometimes modify it to a different one
that it can support, without notice to the client.
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This behavior is considered an allowable behavior variant because
existing specifications allowed it. Nevertheless, because of the
general uncertainty it creates and its unfortunate effect on
interoperability, its use is discouraged as provided for in
Section 12.3.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_SMJUST3 specifies that, when the
server is processing a change to the mode, it sets the acl to
represent the handling specified by those mode bits, making no
effort to preserve other aspects of the ACL
Although this appears to be an alternative to BN_SMOLD and
BN_SMFULL, described below, there are situations in which multiple
of these can be true simultaneously
For example, in the case of ACLs that fit within the UNIX ACL
model, there are no inheritable ACEs and no ACEs specifying mask
bits not controlled by the mode, substituting an ACL consisting of
three entries derived from the mode would satisfy BN_SMOLD and
BN_SMFULL as well
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_SMOLD specifies that, when the
server when processing a change to the mode, it sets the acl to
represent the handling specified by those mode bits, while making
the efforts to preserve other aspects of the ACL recommended by
the existing specifications.
This recommendation provide for the retention of inherit-only
ACEs, but allows effect outside the scope of the mode change in
that the elimination of inheritable ACEs affects inheritance as
well as authorization for actions involving the current object.
Although this appears to be an alternative to BN_SMJUST3 and
BN_SMFULL, there are situations in which ACL inheritance is not
supported so that multiple of these can be true simultaneously.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_SMFULL specifies that, when the
server when processing a change to the mode, it sets the acl to
represent the handling of authorization specified by the mode bit,
and avoid any other changes to the authorization of actions
involving the current object or the authorization for any
subordinate objects that result from ACL inheritance.
Unlike the cases of BN_SMJUST3 and BN_SMOLD, the server's action
is specified in terms of a goal to be to be reached rather than a
procedure to be applied. The necessary procedure depends on such
matters as support for DENY ACEs and the existence of ACL
inheritance and is discussed in Section 10.7.3.
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* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_INNO specifies that there is no
support for ACL inheritance.
This bit is incompatible with ACC4BN_IN1BIT, ACC4BN_INHFULL, and
ACC4BN_INHAUTO.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_IN1BIT specifies that there is some
support for ACL inheritance but no support for separate
inheritance bits for file and directories.
This bit is incompatible with ACC4BN_INO, ACC4BN_INHFULL, and
ACC4BN_INHAUTO.
When this bit is set ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE and
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE are expected to be both set or reset
together the ACE flag field. When they are not, the server
rejects the ACL with an error or change the flag word so that that
the two bits have the same setting. However, of the latter is
done the Aclchoice flag ACC4BN_RVINV MUST be set.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_INHFULL specifies that there is full
support for ACL inheritance but not necessarily for automatic
inheritance.
This bit is incompatible with ACC4BN_INO and ACC4BN_IN1BIT.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_INHAUTO specifies that there is
support for automatic ACL inheritance.
This bit can only be set if ACC4BN_INHFULL is also set.
* The Aclchoice flag bit ACC4BN_AANPS specifies that the server does
not allow authorization request to be satisfied without
encountering a single ALLOW ACE that satisfies the entire request
at once.
Although this behavior is not explicitly allowed by the current
specifications, they do make other efforts to be compatible with
file systems whose ACL semantics were implemented to be compatible
with POSIX draft ACLs in other respects.
5.7. ACL Choices in Various Stages of Development
The Aclchoice attribute is designed to be modified over time but the
propriety of any particular modification depends on the state of
development of the feature. In doing so, we will need to distinguish
between extensions and other modifications whose use is more limited.
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During development of this specification, until its eventual
publication as an RFC, the following stages need to be distinguished:
* The initial specification in this document.
The main goal is to fully cover the valid semantic range provided
by previous specifications where it reasonable to assume that
alternate approaches exist. Because of the lax approach taken to
the specification of semantics, there could be cases where
alternatives are allowed but there is no reason to suppose that
the multiple approaches have been adopted.
* As further drafts of this specification are developed there will
be the opportunity to provide needed changes.
These will includes the creation of new bits for newly discovered
variants and the deletion of bits for variants that were
previously allowed but found not to exist.
In addition, cases in which detailed behavior must be specified in
a complicated data item could be simplified if a less general
approach satisfies the needs of existing implementations.
* Subsequent to Working group last call, the state of the attribute
will be permanently assigned to NFSv4.1 and further change will be
limited as specified in [RFC8178].
After the completion of the rfc5661bis effort, handling will depend
primarily on the minor version, as described below:
* In NFSv4.0, this attribute will not be available. As a result,
clients that need the extensions of the UNIX ACL provided by
servers that do support will be unable to use them since there is
no good way to determine if they are supported. In addition, as
described in Section 7.2.13 certain servers whose semantics is
allowed by existing specification will not be usable because the
semantics associated with certain ACE mask bits might be such that
the client cannot map UNIX ACLs to those maintained by the server.
* Similar issues apply to NFSv.1 implementations that were developed
before rfc56661bis was published. While it is desirable to update
them to provide Aclchoice attribute, this might not be possible in
all cases.
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* Many implementations of NFSv4.1 will have support for the
Aclchoice attribute. As a result, the problems that exist for
implementations that do not support it will be ameliorated and
interoperable operation will be available for clients that do not
need any of the extensions to the UNIX ACL model.
* In NFSv4.2, it will be possible make additions to Aclchoice
attribute as extensions to deal with behavioral variants
discovered after thc5661bis was published.
* In a later minor version we will be able to further restrict
allowable behavior if the Working Group can reach a consensus.
One example would be to make standard the ACE mask bits where the
varying-granularity model is workable and expand it cover all mask
bits or eliminate mask bits that don't fit. As a result many
existing elements of the Aclchoice attribute could be made
mandatory-to-not-implement and what was left could be limited to
the distinct extensions made to the UNIX ACL model to arrive at
the NFSv4 ACL model plus a few behavioral variants that the
working group decides to accommodate.
6. Structure and Function of NFSv4 Access Control Lists
NFSv4 Access Control Lists consisting of multiple Access Control
Elements. While originally designed to support a more flexible
authorization model, these lists have multiple uses within NFSv4,
with the use of each element depending on its type, as defined in
Section 7.1.
* ACLs may be used to provide a more flexible authorization model as
described in Section 8.4 of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]. This
involves use of Access Control Entries of the ALLOW and DENY
types.
* ACLs may also be used to provide the security-related services
described in Section 11. This involves use of Access Control
Entries of the AUDIT and ALARM types.
[Consensus Needed (Items #61d, #105m, #110c)]: Subsections of this
section and of Section 7 define the structure of and semantics of
NFSv4 ACLs, whether they are used to represent the UNIX ACLs defined
in Section 5.1 or ACLs supporting various extensions thereof
supported by the server, which may include any of the extensions
defined in this document.
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Some Matters that relate only to extensions provided to support NFSv4
ACLs are discussed in 11 and summarized in Section 8.4 of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]. The definition of the NFSv4.1-specific
attribute Sacl used only in connections with these functions is
provided in Section 4.8.
6.1. Overview of ACL Semantics Choices
[Consensus Needed (Items #105n, #110d), Through end of section]:
For reasons discussed in Section 3, there is an extremely wide range
of ACL-related semantics that servers are allowed to support. While
it would be desirable to narrow this range, there are sufficient
practical problems in doing so that we need to focus on helping
clients deal appropriately with this wide range of semantic
variability. The following means are available:
* Where supported by the server, the Aclchoice attribute, described
in Section 4.6, can provide extensive information about the ACL
semantics provided by the server.
[Consensus Needed (Item #14c)]: The set of supported ACE types is
also needed. Normally, this is provided by the Aclsupport
attribute. However, when it is not supported, the default
discussed in Section 4.5 is available.
For a discussion of how the client can best use this information,
see Section 6.2.
* Where the Aclchoice is not supported, information is more limited.
This includes the case of use with Minor Version Zero, in which
this attribute is not defined.
For a discussion of how the client can best use the available
information, see Section 6.3.
The classes of semantic variability listed below are of potential
importance to clients. In some cases, the client's need for
information is related to the client's own semantic expectations with
an important distinction being that between client's expecting
support for the UNIX ACL model and those that require certain
features provided by the extensions to that model that servers MAY
provide. In the list below, we refer to the former as "UNIX-
oriented" clients.
* The set of ACE mask bits supported and how actions are mapped to
them.
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Although clients might need this information, UNIX-oriented
clients can interacts with servers since support for the mask bits
needed by these clients is REQUIRED. See Section 7.2.13 for
details.
* The presence of authorization-related extensions to the UNIX ACL
model such as ACL inheritance and support for DENY ACEs.
This information is of no interest to UNIX-oriented clients.
* Support for the security-related services described in Section 11.
This information is of no interest to UNIX-oriented clients.
* The presence of semantics associated with the withdrawn POSIX
draft ACLs that we do not treat as part of the UNIX ACL model.
These include the way in which a mode is computed from an ACL when
an ACL is set (see Section 10.3) and the POSIX-draft-specified
handling of the partial satisfaction of ALLOW ACEs in which
multiple ACEs can collectively allow an operations even if none of
them does so completely.
Although this information might be of interest to clients when it
is available, clients will need to allow for a range of sever
behaviors in cases in which Aclchoice is not supported
* Allowable behavioral variability in the handling of existing ACLs
when the mode is set.
This information is only available to the client when Aclchoice is
supported.
6.2. ACL Semantics Choices
[Consensus Needed (Items #14d, #61e, #105o, #110d), Through end of
section]:
There is a wide range of potential ACL semantics that servers can
provide. When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, the client can
determine the semantics provided by the server as described below.
* The set of supported ACE mask bits can be determined as described
in Section 7.2.11. Also described there is how other elements of
the ACE mask support information can be derived from the contents
of the Aclchoice attribute.
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* Supported ACE types can be determined using the Aclsupport
attribute or the appropriate default value described in
Section 4.5.
* The level support for ACL inheritance, including the automatic
inheritance features, can be determined as described in
Section 7.3.2.
* The way in which the mode corresponding is to be computed based on
the objects ACL is that described in Section 10.3. Note that the
effect of that procedure for a given file system depends on the
ACE mask support information for that file system.
* The way in which existing ACLs are modified when the mode
attribute is set is described Section 10.7.3. Note that the
effect of that procedure for a given file system depends on the
ACE mask support information for that file system.
* The way is which an ACL being set UNIX-oriented client (which only
support three ACE mask bits) can be mapped to an appropriate ACL
for the current server is discussed in Section 7.2.13 Note that
the effect of that procedure for a given file system depends on
the ACE mask support information for that file system..
6.3. Limited Inference Regarding ACL Semantics
In cases in which the Aclchoice attribute is not supported, including
use of the minor version for which it is not defined (i.e. NFSv4.0)
there are very limited ways to determine the extensions supported.
As a result clients that need to use the extensions to the UNIX ACL
are generally unable to determine whether that extension is
supported.
It is only possible for clients to use these extensions, if they do
so without providing for interoperability, by only using servers that
are known, from experience that support the required extensions, in
addition to those supporting the Aclchoice attribute where the set of
extensions available can be found as described in Section 6.2.
Although it is possible to test for the presence such extensions,
this is generally not helpful because of inherent complexity of
making such determinations when crossing into new file systems and
because of the freedom given to servers to avoid returning errors for
situations in which extensions are used bur not supported.
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As will be seen in the following list, paralleling the one in
Section 6.2, clients that need to use features beyond those provided
by UNIX ACLs are generally limited to use servers supporting
Aclchoice or to using the features in a non-Interoperable way as
discussed above.
* The set of supported ACE mask bits in addition to those which are
REQUIRED cannot be determined. This is not a problem for UNIX-
oriented clients, but those that need to use extensions to that
set are basically unable to take advantage of the extensions.
* Supported ACE types can be determined using the Aclsupport
attribute or the appropriate default value described in
Section 4.5.
* There is no way to determine the level of support for ACL
inheritance, including the automatic inheritance features. The is
particular troubling since draft POSIX ACLs require some acl
inheritance,
* The way in which the mode corresponding is to be computed based on
the objects ACL is that described in Section 10.3. Because that
computation depends on information provided by the Aclchoice
attribute, the client winds up having to accept the server's
preferences in this matter.
* The way in which existing ACLs are modified when the mode
attribute is set is described Section 10.7.3. As in the case of
computing a mode from an ACL, that computation depends on
information provided by the Aclchoice attribute. As a result, the
client winds up having to accept the server's preferences in this
matter.
* The way is which an ACL being set UNIX-oriented client (which only
support three ACE mask bits) can be mapped to an appropriate ACL
for the current server is discussed in Section 7.2.13. Certain
assumptions have to be made about the server's handling of certain
ACE mask bits. However, as long as recommendations in Section 5.3
are adhered to UNIX-oriented clients can function properly.
7. Structure of Access Control Entries
The attributes acl, sacl (v4.1 only) and dacl (v4.1 only) each
contain an array of Access Control Entries (ACEs) that are associated
with the file system object. The client can set and get these
attributes while the server is responsible for using the ACL-related
attributes to perform access control. The client can use the OPEN or
ACCESS operations to check access without modifying or explicitly
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reading data or metadata.
The NFS ACE structure is defined as follows:
typedef uint32_t acetype4;
typedef uint32_t aceflag4;
struct nfsace4 {
acetype4 type;
aceflag4 flag;
acemask4 access_mask;
utf8str_mixed who;
};
7.1. ACE Type
7.1.1. Existing ACE Types
The constants used for the type field (acetype4) and as shifts used
in determining ACE type support are as follows:
const ACE4_ACCESS_ALLOWED_ACE_TYPE = 0x00000000;
const ACE4_ACCESS_DENIED_ACE_TYPE = 0x00000001;
const ACE4_SYSTEM_AUDIT_ACE_TYPE = 0x00000002;
const ACE4_SYSTEM_ALARM_ACE_TYPE = 0x00000003;
All four are permitted in the Acl attribute. For NFSv4.1 and beyond,
only the ALLOWED and DENIED types are used in the Dacl attribute, and
only the AUDIT and ALARM types are used in the Sacl attribute.
+==============================+==============+=====================+
| Value | Abbreviation | Description |
+==============================+==============+=====================+
| ACE4_ACCESS_ALLOWED_ACE_TYPE | ALLOW | Explicitly grants |
| | | the ability to |
| | | perform the set of |
| | | actions specified |
| | | in acemask4 to the |
| | | file or directory. |
| | | |
| | | When all such |
| | | actions to be done |
| | | by a given |
| | | operation are |
| | | explicitly |
| | | allowed, the |
| | | operation is |
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| | | authorized and |
| | | scanning of the |
| | | ACL to determine |
| | | authorization |
| | | stops. |
+------------------------------+--------------+---------------------+
| ACE4_ACCESS_DENIED_ACE_TYPE | DENY | Explicitly denies |
| | | the ability to |
| | | perform the set of |
| | | actions specified |
| | | in acemask4 to the |
| | | file or directory. |
| | | |
| | | When any of the |
| | | actions to be done |
| | | by a given |
| | | operation are |
| | | explicitly denied, |
| | | the operation is |
| | | unauthorized and |
| | | scanning of the |
| | | ACL to determine |
| | | authorization |
| | | stops. |
+------------------------------+--------------+---------------------+
| ACE4_SYSTEM_AUDIT_ACE_TYPE | AUDIT | Logs (in a system- |
| | | dependent way) any |
| | | attempt to |
| | | perform, for the |
| | | file or directory, |
| | | any of the actions |
| | | specified in |
| | | acemask4. |
+------------------------------+--------------+---------------------+
| ACE4_SYSTEM_ALARM_ACE_TYPE | ALARM | Generates (in a |
| | | system-dependent |
| | | way) an alarm upon |
| | | any attempt to |
| | | perform, for the |
| | | file or directory, |
| | | any of the actions |
| | | specified in |
| | | acemask4. |
+------------------------------+--------------+---------------------+
Table 4
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The "Abbreviation" column denotes how the types will be referred to
throughout the rest of this document.
7.1.2. ACE Type Support Discovery
[Consensus needed (Item #105p), through end of section]:
Discovery of the ACE types that it is appropriate to use can occur in
two ways:
* By use of the OPTIONAL attribute Aclsupport, the set of supported
ACE types can be determined.
This set is limited to ACE types defined in Section 7.1.1and
cannot be extended.
* By use of the OPTIONAL attribute Aclfeature, the set of supported
ACE types can be determined together with a potentially larger set
of ACE types that can be set and retrieved without necessarily
being supported.
These sets can include ACE types defined by protocol extensions as
described in Section 7.1.3 as well as those defined in
Section 7.1.1.
When neither of these attribute values are available, the client has
no way of determining the ACE types supported and when attempting the
use of ACE types other than ALLOW needs to be prepared for a failure
due to non-support. Similarly, when the Aclfeature attribute is not
supported, clients attempting to use ACE types other than those
defined in Section 7.1.1, need to be prepared for failure to be
returned due to non-support.
Within the Aclfeature value, words of type af4typemask are analyzed
using the definitions below to determine the sets of types which are
supported or are storable without necessarily being supported.
const AF4TYPE_GSUPPMASK = 0x000003ff;
const AF4TYPE_BSUPPMASK = 0x000ffc00;
const AF4TYPE_STOREMASK = 0x3ff00000;
const AF4TYPE_GSUPPSHIFT = 0;
const AF4TYPE_BSUPPSHIFT = 10;
const AF4TYPE_GSTORESHIFT = 20;
The bits within the AF4TYPE_GSUPPMASK and AF4TYPE_BSUPPMASK values
each represent support for a specific ACE type using the value one
left-shifted by the numeric value of the ACE type plus the associated
shift for the field. Separate masks are used for types for which the
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support is accord with the recommendations of this document
(AF4TYPE_GSUPPMASK, AF4TYPE_GSUPPSHIFT) and for those that do not so
conform, relying on the more relaxed treatment within previous
specifications (AF4TYPE_BSUPPMASK, AF4TYPE_BSUPPSHIFT). Similarly,
the bits within the AF4TYPE_STOREMASK value each represent the
ability to store and return a specific ACE type using the value one
left-shifted by a number of bis equal to the numeric v value of the
ACE type plus twenty.
7.1.3. ACE Type Extension
[Consensus needed (Item #105p), through end of section]:
Standards-track documents which define NFSv4 protocol extensions, as
provided for in [RFC8178], can extend the set of ACE types. The
definition of a new extension type needs to provide the following
information:
* An ACE type name, generally of the form ACE4_???_????_ACE_TYPE
which is to be used to define ACEs of the specified type, when
appearing in the type fields of the ACE.
* A numeric value between four and nine that has not been previously
used as an ACE type value.
While it is theoretically possible to delete a previously defined
ACE type as part of a new minor version, the practical
difficulties that result from these being stored within existing
file systems require that such numeric values not be reused.
* An abbreviation to be used when referring to that ACE type.
* A description of the effect of the ACEs of the specified type
within ACL. This needs to include, for ACE types that can appear
within existing ACL-based attributes, how the presence of the ACE
affects existing scans of ACL-based attributes such as an
authorization scan or a notification scan in response to action
successfully or unsuccessfully attempted.
* Description of the set of attributes in which the ACE type can
appear which can include Acl, Dacl, Sacl, and new attributes added
in the same or previous extensions.
7.2. ACE Access Mask
The following bitmask constants can be used within the access mask
field of the ACE.
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const ACE4_READ_DATA = 0x00000001;
const ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY = 0x00000001;
const ACE4_WRITE_DATA = 0x00000002;
const ACE4_ADD_FILE = 0x00000002;
const ACE4_APPEND_DATA = 0x00000004;
const ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY = 0x00000004;
const ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRS = 0x00000008;
const ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRS = 0x00000010;
const ACE4_EXECUTE = 0x00000020;
const ACE4_DELETE_CHILD = 0x00000040;
const ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES = 0x00000080;
const ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES = 0x00000100;
const ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION = 0x00000200;
const ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD = 0x00000400;
const ACE4_DELETE = 0x00010000;
const ACE4_READ_ACL = 0x00020000;
const ACE4_WRITE_ACL = 0x00040000;
const ACE4_WRITE_OWNER = 0x00080000;
const ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE = 0x00100000;
Note that some masks have coincident values, or are treated
differently when used with different types of objects. For example,
ACE4_READ_DATA and ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY designate the same mask bit
which is treated differently depending on whether the object is a
directory or other type of object. Note that,
* The mask value names ACE4_ADD_FILE, ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY, and
ACE4_DELETE_CHILD are intended to be used with directory objects
that are not named attribute directories and are not supported
when used with objects of other types.
* The mask value name ACE4_APPEND_DATA is intended to be used with
non-directory objects.
* The mask values used for ACE4_READ_DATA and ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY
designate the same mask bit is which treated differently depending
on whether the object is a directory which is not a named
attribute directory, or other type of object.
The mask values for ACE4_WRITE_DATA and ACE4_ADD_FILE behave
similarly. as do the mask values for ACE4_APPEND_DATA and
ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY. In each case, the same mask bit has two
different names and controls two different sets of actions,
depending on whether the underlying object is a directory which is
not a named attribute directory or another type of object.
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* The mask bit designated by ACE4_EXECUTE controls two different
sets of action depending on whether the underlying object is a
directory which is not a named attribute directory or another type
of object.
[Consensus Needed (Items #102a, #103a), through end of list]: These
mask bit are explained in more detail in the sections mentioned below
based on their relationship to the three POSIX-derived permission
bits: Read, Write, and Execute. Changes include material in multiple
subsections of Section 7.2.
* Mask bits whose set of authorized actions corresponds to a single
POSIX-derived permission bit are explained in Section 7.2.3.
These mask bits are always to be supported although the set of
authorized actions is expected to be smaller when other mask bits
covering a smaller set of actions are supported.
* Mask bits whose set of authorized actions is a subset of those
normally controlled by a single POSIX-derived permission bit are
explained in Section 7.2.4. These only include mask bits
controlled by the write privilege bit.
These mask bits are not always supported, but depend on ACL
extensions supported by the server. For detailed guidance
regarding how the client can determine which mask bits are
supported, see Sections 6.2 and 6.3.
* Mask bits whose set of authorized actions is a subset of those
normally allowed to the owner of a file are explained in
Section 7.2.5.
These mask bits are not always supported, but depend on ACL
extensions supported by the server. For detailed guidance
regarding how the client can determine which mask bits are
supported, see Sections 6.2 and 6.3.
* Other mask bits are explained in Section 7.2.6. These include
mask bits which do not fit in the varying-granularity approach
since they cannot be considered finer-grained variants of either a
single POSIX privilege bit or of ownership of the file. Also
included are bits where the relationship to POSIX privileges is
uncertain and might depend on the behavior of particular
implementations.
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This section includes some mask bits for which we have found
existing implementations and some for which no implementations
have yet been found. These mask bits are not always supported,
but clients need to be prepared for support actually present
depending on the set of ACL extensions supported.
[Author aside (Item #111a)]: The following paragraph has to be
considered tentative for now, at least until some implementation
of this bit is found or it is determined that none exist.
In at least one case, that of ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES, we
include a mask bit for which no implementation has yet been found.
Although, the specific details differ from those in existing
specifications, change has been necessary to appropriately co-
ordinate handling of actions controlled by this bit, with the
corresponding handling when POSIX authorization is in effect or
when UNIX ACLs are supported.
[Consensus Needed (Item #5a) The descriptions in the section below
are relevant to both authorization and for recognizing operations
whose success or failure are to be recorded when ACL are used for the
non-authorization functions described in Section 11. With regard to
ACCESS whose returned bits are affected, it is not necessarily the
case that the occurrence of ACCESS in these lists implies that such
operations are recordable events.
[Consensus Needed (Item #4c)]: While it s recommended that The sets
of actions to be authorized or otherwise noted in connection with
these mask bits be those cited in the sections below, it is possible
that existing implementations might behave differently, based on
their reliance on earlier specifications and a common understanding
within the working group that it was the job of the specification to
conform to the implementation, rather than the other way around. See
Section 7.2.11 for information about how the client is to be made
aware of such discordant implementations.
7.2.1. Changes in Descriptions of Mask Bits
[Author Aside, Through end of section]: The material in this section
identifies changes it has been necessary to make in the description
of the ACE mask bits. It is likely that it will be removed before
the successor document is published as an RFC
The following items should be noted as cases in which a change
related to the description of ACE mask bits. In some cases, there
will be corresponding annotations near the actual text change, but
this is not always the case. Nevertheless, there will need to be
consensus regarding the following changes:
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* [Author Aside (Item #3a)]: Because the following sections have
been moved to be part of a general description of ACEs, not
limited to authorization, the descriptions no longer refer to
permissions but rather to actions. This could be considered a
purely editorial change, but, to allow for possible disagreement
on the matter, it will be considered, here and in Appendix A, as
consensus item #3.
* [Author Aside (Item #4d)]: In a large number of places, SHOULD is
used inappropriately, since there appear to be no valid reasons to
allow a server to ignore what might well be a requirement. Such
changes are not always noted individually below. However, they
will be considered, here and in Appendix A, as part of consensus
item #4.
* [Author Aside (Item #5)}: In a significant number of cases the
ACCESS operation had not been listed as an operation affected by
the mask bit where logic suggests it needs to be. These
individual additions are not noted individually below, although
there is, in each affected section, an annotation indicating that
section requires consensus on this point. In all cases, they will
be considered, here, in the affected sections and in Appendix A,
as part of consensus item #5.
When ACCESS is included as an affected operation, the description
identifies the returned bits that are to affected.
When ACCESS is listed as affected, this is only with regard to
authorization. Non-authorization uses are discussed elsewhere, as
part of this consensus item.
* [Author Aside, Including entire bulleted item]: In a number of
cases, there are additional changes which go beyond editorial or
arguably do so. These will be marked as their own consensus items
usually with an accompanying author aside but without necessarily
citing the previous treatment. These include the following:
[Author Aside (Item #7a)]: Revisions were necessary to clarify the
relationship between READ_DATA and EXECUTE.
[Author Aside (Item #8a)]: Revisions were necessary to clarify the
relationship between WRITE_DATA and APPEND_DATA. These are part
of consensus item #8.
[Author Aside (Item #9a)]: Clarification of the handling of RENAME
by ADD_FILE, ADD_SUBDIRECTORY.
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* Revisions in handling of the masks WRITE_RETENTION and
WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD. These are parts of consensus items #10.
7.2.2. Role of Sticky Bit in ACL-based Authorization
[Author Aside (Item #62b)]: Because of the need to address sticky-bit
issue as part of the ACE mask descriptions, it is appropriate to
introduce the subject here.
[Author Aside (Item #62b)]: Despite the fact that NFSv4 ACLs and mode
bits are separate means of authorization, it has been necessary, even
if only for the purpose of providing compatibility with earlier
implementations, to introduce the issue here, since reference to this
mode bit are necessary to resolve issues regard directory entry
deletion, as is done in Section 7.2.14.
[Consensus Item, Including List (Item #62b): The full description of
the role of the sticky-bit appears in Section 5.3.2 of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]. In evaluating and understanding the
relationship between the handling of this bit when NFSv4 ACLs are
used and when they are not, the following points need to be kept in
mind:
* This is troublesome in that it combines data normally assigned to
two different authorization models and breaks the overall
architectural arrangement in which the mask bits represent the
mode bits but provide a finer granularity of control.
* It might have been possible to conform to the existing
architectural model if a new mask bit were created to represent
the directory sticky bit. It is probably too late to do so now,
even though it would be allowed, from the protocol point of view,
as an NFSv4.2 extension.
* The new treatment in Section 7.2.14 is more restrictive than the
previous one appearing in Section 7.2.15. This raises potential
compatibility issues since the new treatment, while designed to
address the same issues was designed to match existing Unix
handling of this bit.
* This handling initially addresses REMOVE and does not address
directory sticky bit semantics with regard to RENAME. Whether it
will do so is still uncertain.
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* The handling of this mode bit was not documented in previous
specifications. However, there is a preliminary attempt to do so
in Section 5.3.1 of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]. The reason for
doing so, is that, given the Unix orientation of the mode
attribute, it is likely that servers currently implement this,
even though there is no NFSv4 documentation of this semantics
This treatment needs to be checked for compatibility issues and
also to establish a model that we might adapt to the case of NFSv4
ACLs.
* In the long term, it would make more sense to allow the client
rather than the server to have the primary role in determining the
semantics for things like this. That does not seem possible right
now but it is worth considering.
7.2.3. Uses of Core Mask Bits
[Consensus Needed (Items #4e, #5a, #7b, #8b, #106a, #107a, #108a,
#109a), Throughout section]
ACE4_READ_DATA (for non-directory objects)
Operation(s) affected:
READ
[Consensus Needed (Item #101a)]: READLINK
OPEN (for read or read-write)
ACCESS (ACCESS4_READ)
Discussion:
The action of reading the data of the file, or, in some cases,
providing necessary preparation to do so.
[Previous Treatment (Items #4e, #7b)]: Servers SHOULD allow a
user the ability to read the data of the file when only the
ACE4_EXECUTE access mask bit is allowed.
[Author Aside (Item #7b)]: The treatment needs to be clarified
to make it appropriate to all ACE types.
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[Consensus Needed (Items #4e, #7b)]: When used to handle READ
or OPEN operations, the handling MUST be identical whether this
bit, ACE4_EXECUTE, or both are present, as the server has no
way of determining whether a file is being read for execution
are not. The only occasion for different handling is in
construction of a corresponding mode or in responding to the
ACCESS operation.
ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY (for ordinary directories)
Operation(s) affected:
READDIR
ACCESS (ACCESS_READ)
Discussion:
The action of enumerating the contents of a directory, as
opposed to searching for a particular name.
ACE4_ADD_FILE(for ordinary directories)
Operation(s) affected:
CREATE
- Will require ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY to add a directory , when
this is supported.
LINK
OPEN (which creates file in the directory)
ACCESS (ACCESS4_EXTEND)
REMOVE (may require ACE4_DELETE_CHIILD, when this is supported
RENAME (on the target directory)
Discussion:
Operations which modify a directory
Many of these operations may controlled at a finer granularity,
when the appropriate mask bits are supported.
ACE4_WRITE_DATA (for all non-directory object types)
Operation(s) affected (only when ACE4_WRITE_NAMED-ATTRIBUTES is
not supported):
OPENATTR (when createdir is true)
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Discussion:
[Consensus Needed (Item #111b)]: Through rest of this entry
This action is normally controlled by
ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES, but needs to be controlled by
ACE4_WRITE_DATA when the former is not supported (e.g. when
UNIX ACLs are provided by the server).
ACE4_EXECUTE (for non-directory objects)
Operation(s) affected:
READ
OPEN (for read or read-write)
ACCESS (ACCESS4_EXECUTE)
Discussion:
The action of reading a file in order to execute it.
Servers MUST allow a user the ability to read the data of the
file when only the ACE4_EXECUTE access mask bit is allowed.
This is because there is no way to execute a file without
reading the contents. Though a server may treat ACE4_EXECUTE
and ACE4_READ_DATA bits identically when deciding to permit a
READ or OPEN operation, it MUST still allow the two bits to be
set independently in NFSv4 ACLs, and distinguish between them
when replying to ACCESS operations. In particular, servers
MUST NOT silently turn on one of the two bits when the other is
set, as that would make it impossible for the client to
correctly enforce the distinction between read and execute
permissions.
As an example, following a SETATTR of the following NFSv4 ACL:
nfsuser:ACE4_EXECUTE:ALLOW
A subsequent GETATTR of acl attribute for that file will
return:
nfsuser:ACE4_EXECUTE:ALLOW
and MUST NOT return:
nfsuser:ACE4_EXECUTE/ACE4_READ_DATA:ALLOW
ACE4_EXECUTE (for directories which are not named attribute
directories)
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Operation(s) affected:
LOOKUP
ACCESS(ACCESS4_LOOKUP)
REMOVE
RENAME
Discussion:
The action of traversing directory by searching for a
particular named item.
7.2.4. Finer-grained Mask Bits Derived from Write
[Consensus Needed (Item #103b), Through the end of the following
list]: The mask bits presented in this section all control some
subset of the actions controlled by the write permission bit when
POSIX authorization is in effect. These mask bits, when fully
supported, provide for finer-grained control of authorization
decisions. The corresponding ACE mask bit, ACE4_WRITE_DATA, still
control actions for which no corresponding mask bit defined in this
section provides for finer-grained control.
Although object deletion is controlled by ACE4_DELETE for all types
of objects, the situation is different for directories and for non-
directory objects:
* For non-directory objects, once file deletions are excluded, all
actions can be divided into those controlled by ACE4_WRITE_DATA
and those controlled by ACE4_APPEND_DATA.
While separate control of these two bits is not available on
severs implementing UNIX ACLs, it appears that there will also be
servers more oriented to the NFSv4 ACL model, that do not
distinguish these either. As a result, clients that need control
of these to be distinct need to use the facilities described in
Section 7.2.11 to ensure that such support is available before
relying on different treatment for these two action subsets.
* For directories, many actions are subject to finer-grained control
when the mask bit defined in this section are implemented. These
include ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY and ACE4_DELETE_CHILD.
[Author Aside (Item #9b)]: The handling of RENAME in
distinguishing cross-directory and within-directory RENAME options
has to be considered tentative. However, even though this is
different from previous treatments of the issue, it needs to be
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carefully considered by the working group. This is primarily
because there seems to be no clear motivation for the previous
treatment and because it seems unlikely that restrictions on
adding or deleting objects would necessitate corresponding
restrictions on renaming them, in case in which the directory was
not read-only.
[Consensus Needed (Item #9b)]: Even when all the above bits are
fully supported, the action of renaming a file or directory is
controlled by ACE4_ADD_FILE for the enclosing directory since this
mask bit is the corelate of the write privilege bit for a
directory.
[Consensus Needed (Items #4f, #5a, #7b, #8b, #101a, #106a, #107a,
#108a, #109a), Throughout rest of section]
ACE4_ADD_FILE (For directories)
Operation(s) affected:
CREATE
LINK
OPEN (when creating a new file)
RENAME (in the cross-directory case)
Discussion:
The action of adding a new file in a directory. The CREATE
operation is affected when nfs_ftype4 is NF4LNK, NF4BLK,
NF4CHR, NF4SOCK, or NF4FIFO. (NF4DIR is not included because
it is covered by ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY.) OPEN is affected when
used to create a regular file. LINK is always affected and
RENAME is affected when a file/directory is moved between
directories, with ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY covering the case when
a directory is renamed between directories.
ACE4_APPEND_DATA (For non-directory objects)
Operation(s) affected:
WRITE
ACCESS
OPEN
SETATTR of size
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Discussion:
[Author Aside]: Also needs to be revised to deal with issues
related to the interaction of WRITE_DATA and APPEND_DATA.
The action of modifying a file's data, but only starting at
EOF. This allows for the specification of append-only files,
by allowing ACE4_APPEND_DATA and denying ACE4_WRITE_DATA to the
same user or group.
[Consensus Needed (Item #8c)]: As there is no way for the
server to decide, in processing an OPEN or ACCESS request,
whether subsequent WRITEs will extend the file or not, the
server will treat masks containing only WRITE_DATA, only
APPEND_DATA or both, identically.
[Consensus Needed (Item #8c)]: If the server is processing a
WRITE request and the area to be written extends beyond the
existing EOF of the file then the state of APPEND_DATA mask bit
is consulted to determine whether the operation is permitted or
whether alarm or audit activities are to be performed. If a
file has an NFSv4 ACL allowing only APPEND_DATA (and not
WRITE_DATA) and a WRITE request is made at an offset below EOF,
the server MUST return NFS4ERR_ACCESS.
[Consensus Needed (Item #8c)]: If the server is processing a
WRITE request and the area to be written does not extend beyond
the existing EOF of the file then the state of APPEND_DATA mask
bit does not need to be consulted to determine whether the
operation is permitted or whether alarm or audit activities are
to be performed. In this case, only the WRITE_DATA mask bit
needs to be checked to determine whether the WRITE is
authorized.
ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY (For directories)
Operation(s) affected:
CREATE
RENAME (in the cross-directory case)
Discussion:
[Author Aside]: The RENAME cases need to be limited to the
renaming of directories, rather than saying, "The RENAME
operation is always affected."
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[Consensus Needed (Item #9b)]: The action of creating a
subdirectory in a directory. The CREATE operation is affected
when nfs_ftype4 is NF4DIR. The RENAME operation is always
affected when directories are renamed and the target directory
NFSv4 ACL contains the mask bit ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY.
When this bit is not supported, the actions normally controlled
by it are controlled by ACE4_ADD_FILE.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, support for the
attribute is reported using the bit ACC4BN_SEPAFD.
ACE4_DELETE_CHILD (For Directories)
Operation(s) affected:
REMOVE
RENAME (in the cross-directory case)
Discussion:
The action of deleting a file or directory within a directory.
See Section 7.2.14 for information on now ACE4_DELETE and
ACE4_DELETE_CHILD are to interact.
When this bit is not supported, the actions normally controlled
by it are controlled by ACE4_ADD_FILE.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, support for the
attribute is reported using the bit ACC4BN_SETDE.
ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRS
Operation(s) affected, for all object types:
OPENATTR (when createdir is true)
Operation(s) affected, for the associated named attribute
directory:
CREATE
LINK
OPEN (which creates file in the directory)
ACCESS (ACCESS4_EXTEND)
REMOVE
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RENAME
Discussion:
The action of writing the named attributes of a file or of
creating a named attribute directory. OPENATTR is affected
when it is used to create a named attribute directory. This is
when createdir is TRUE.
[Author Aside (Item #111c)]: Despite the original intention for
this bit, it appears that the original scheme incorrectly
allowed all sorts of changes to named attributes as long as the
named attribute directory already existed. For this reason,
the current version changes that scheme even though no
implementation supporting this mask bit has yet been found. To
deal with the possibility implementation exists that follows
the original scheme, it has it needs to be understood that the
new scheme is RECOMMENDED and that earlier implementations are
allowed to rely on the earlier scheme. When Aclchoice is
supported, the ACC4BN_NADMOD bit indicate whether the new
scheme is supported and the recommendation to use appears in
Section 12.3.
The ability to check whether or not a named attribute directory
exists depends on the ability to look it up; therefore, users
also need the ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRS permission in order to
create a named attribute directory.
[Author Aside (Item #111c)]: Actually, they need that
permission to create a named attribute.
When this bit is not supported, the actions normally controlled
by it are controlled by ACE4_ADD_FILE.
When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, support for this
mask bit is reported using the bit ACC4BN_SEPWNA.
7.2.5. Finer-grained Mask Bits Derived from Ownership
The mask bits discussed in this section all authorize actions, that,
in the absence of support for that bit are resolved based on the
ownership of the file object.
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When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, the support for each of
these bits is normally indicated using the data item ACC4IN_OWNMB.
However, because the existing specifications do no require this
behavior, it is possible that server may not use that model. In such
cases, and when support is different for the directory and non-
directory cases, support is reported using the data item
ACC4IN_ODDMB.
ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
SETATTR of time_access_set, time_backup, time_create,
time_modify_set, mimetype, hidden, system.
Discussion:
The action of changing the times associated with a file or
directory to an arbitrary value. Also controls changing the
mimetype, hidden, and system attributes.
Implementation Information:
A user having ACE4_WRITE_DATA or ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES will be
allowed to set the times associated with a file to the current
server time.
ACE4_WRITE_ACL (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
SETATTR of acl and mode
Discussion:
The action of modifying the acl or mode attributes.
ACE4_WRITE_OWNER (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
SETATTR of owner and owner_group
Discussion:
The action of modifying the owner or owner_group attributes.
On UNIX systems, this done by executing chown() and chgrp().
7.2.6. Other Mask Bits
The mask bits discussed in this section all authorize actions, that,
in the absence of support for that bit mask bit, are not resolved by
one of the three POSIX-derived permission bits.
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It is important to note this fact because previous treatments of the
bit mask have strongly suggested that each bit is either identical to
a POSIX permission bit or controls a subset of one, as part of a
system of controlling actions at a finer level of granularity. This
seems to exclude cases like the mask bits defined in this section and
in Section 7.2.7.
Where these bits are not supported, the authorization decision will
be arrived at, in one of the ways listed below, with the specifics
presented below as part of the discussion of that particular bit.
* The authorization can be controlled by file ownership.
* The authorization can be controlled by some boolean combination of
multiple permission bits or the mask bits that correspond to those
permission bits.
* The authorization can be controlled by some boolean combination
file ownership and permission bits
[Consensus Needed (Item #102b)]: The authorization information
presented here is based on the only known implementation of each of
the specified bits. Facilities need to be provided to allow the
specifics to be derived as part of mask support discovery.
ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRS (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
OPENATTR
OPEN when the current fh is a named attribute directory(for
read or read-write)
ACCESS when the current fh is a named attribute directory
(ACCESS4_READ, ACCESS4_LOOKUP)
READDIR when the current fh is a named attribute directory
LOOKUP when the current fh is a named attribute directory
Discussion:
The action of reading the named attribute directory of a file
or of looking up a named attribute directory.
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[Author Aside (Item #111d)]: It appears that this bit is
identical to the or of the read and execute privilege bits for
the named attribute directory. Unfortunately, there is no way
to set the Mode attribute (or any attribute) of the named
attribute directory.
[Consensus needed (Item #111d): When this mask bit is not
supported, the actions normally controlled by it are controlled
by the or of the two mask bits ACE4_EXECUTE and
ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY.
[Previous treatment (Item 111d)}: OPENATTR is affected when it
is not used to create a named attribute directory. This is
when 1) createdir is TRUE, but a named attribute directory
already exists, or 2) createdir is FALSE.
[Author Aside (Item #111d)]: The implication in the above
paragraph, the OPENATTR is not affected when it is used to
create a named directory is troublesome, since, regardless of
the clients intentions, lookup access in the named directory
should probably be necessary to look up things within it.
ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE
Operation(s) affected:
NONE
Discussion:
Permission to use the file object as a synchronization
primitive for interprocess communication. This permission is
not enforced or interpreted by the NFSv4.1 server on behalf of
the client.
Typically, the ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE permission is only meaningful
on local file systems, i.e., file systems not accessed via
NFSv4.1. The reason that the permission bit exists is that
some operating environments, such as Windows, use
ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE.
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For example, if a client copies a file that has
ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE set from a local file system to an NFSv4.1
server, and then later copies the file from the NFSv4.1 server
to a local file system, it is likely that if ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE
was set in the original file, the client will want it set in
the second copy. The first copy will not have the permission
set unless the NFSv4.1 server has the means to set the
ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE bit. The second copy will not have the
permission set unless the NFSv4.1 server has the means to
retrieve the ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE bit.
Implementation Information:
In the only known implementation of this mask bit, its
effective setting, for ACEs for OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@,
is derived by oring the three POSIX-derived privilege bits for
that who value.
ACE4_DELETE (For all types of objects)
Operation(s) affected:
REMOVE
Discussion:
The action of deleting the associated file or directory.
See Section 7.2.14 for information on how ACE4_DELETE and
ACE4_DELETE_CHILD are to interact.
[Consensus Needed (Item #62c)]: This approach is in support of
the handling of deletion when the directory's "sticky" bit is
off.
ACE4_READ_ACL (For all types of objects)
Operation(s) affected:
GETATTR (of sacl, dacl)
Discussion:
The action of interrogating the ACL of the associated file or
directory.
ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
GETATTR of file system object attributes
VERIFY
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NVERIFY
READDIR
Discussion:
The action of reading basic attributes (non-ACLs) of a file.
On a UNIX system, such basic attributes can be thought of as
the stat-level attributes. Allowing this access mask bit would
mean that the entity can execute "ls -l" and stat.
[Author Aside (Items #11a, #112a)]: It is not clear that
existing clients are prepared to deal with denial of
authorization for such operations. As a result, if this mask
bit is retained, there need to be a way for clients to know, in
advance that such behavior is possible before proceeding to use
the file system.
If a READDIR operation requests attributes, this mask needs to
be allowed for the READDIR to succeed.
[Author Aside (Items #11a, #112a)]: The suggestion above needs
to be looked at closely. Even if it is justifiable to prevent
access to attribute values, failing the entire READDIR seems
unduly harsh. Returning an empty attribute set would be
preferable as there seems no justification for making it
impossible to get attributes for other files in the directory
simply because a single one is so constrained.
ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
SETATTR of retention_set, retentevt_set.
Discussion:
The action of modifying the durations for event and non-event-
based retention. Also includes enabling event and non-event-
based retention.
[Previous Treatment]: A server MAY behave such that setting
ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES allows ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION.
[Author Aside]: The use of "MAY" here ignores the potential for
harm which unexpected modification of the associated attributes
might cause for security/compliance.
[Consensus Needed (Items #10a, #11a)]: If this mask bit is not
supported, the specified action would be controlled by
ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES .
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ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD (for all object types)
Operation(s) affected:
SETATTR of retention_hold.
Discussion:
The action of modifying the administration retention holds.
[Author Aside]: It seems that if multiple bits are to be
defined for this and ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION, there would be a
need to further restrict authorization for the modification of
administrative retention holds.
[Previous Treatment]: A server MAY map ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES to
ACE_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD.
[Author Aside]: The use of "MAY" here ignores the potential for
harm which unexpected modification of the associated attributes
might cause for security/compliance.
[Consensus Needed (Items #10a, #11a)]: If this mask bit is not
supported, the specified action would be controlled by
ACE4_WRITE_ATTRIBUTES .
7.2.7. Possible Uses of Additional Mask Bits
The mask bits discusssed in this section all have definitions in
existing specifications, but, so far, no substantive support for them
has been found. As a result, any discussion of these is tentative
and the working group will need to adjust appropriately when
implementations are found or it is concluded that no such
implementations exist.
Information about implementations of these mask bits are not yet
available for various reasons:
* In the case of ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES, it is because the
implementation investigated, while it does accept this bit in ACLs
and returns it as set or not appropriately it never uses this bit
to control authorization decisions
[Author Aside (Item #112a)]: It does not seem likely that client-
side software would be prepared to deal effectively with a file
which could be looked up but whose attributes cannot be obtained.
As a result, it appears unlikely that more substantive
implementations will exist.
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* In the cases of ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION and ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION, it
is because the implementation investigated does not contain
support for the specific OPTIONAL attributes affected.
[Author Aside (Items #10a, #11a)]: It does not appear that the
descriptions of the mask bits appearing below were fully thought
out before being incorporated as part of Proposed Standards. For
specific cases, asides below will provide more detail. In any
case, the working group will need to think about replacements
while avoiding compatibility issues for any existing
implementations. Any replacement would need to:
1. If separate bits for these are to be maintained and the server
is allowed to refer to a coarser-grained bit when the finer-
rained bit is supported, the client needs a way to determine,
in advance, whether this will happen.
2. There needs to be some recognition of the fact that a
retention hold, by its nature needs to be protected from
arbitrary disablement as is likely to happen if the privileges
to modify these or to change authorization for their change,
is identical to privileges to establish them.
7.2.8. ACE Mask Bit Extension
Standards-track documents which define NFSv4 protocol extensions, as
provided for in [RFC8178], can extend the set of ACE mask bits. The
definition of a new mask bit needs to provide the following
information:
* The set of actions affected by the new mask bit.
* The name of the new mask bit together with a previously unused
mask bit value.
* Information about the way that support (or not) for the new mask
bit is to be determined.
* Information about how the actions affected by this bit are dealt
with when this new bit is not fully supported.
This includes situations in which this mask bit has to have the
same state some other mask bit, i.e. it is a finer-grained variant
of that other bit.
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In addition case in which the new bit is not a finer-grained
variant of an existing bit need to be addressed by specifying a
boolean combination of existing mask bits or of conditions such as
being the owner of the file or within the owning group of the
file.
7.2.9. Reporting of Mask Bit Support and Characteristics
For the reasons summarized in the list below, it was necessary to
provide a means of reporting information about the sets of bit masks
supported, how actions controlled normally controlled by these bits
are dealt with when these bits are not supported and how bits these
relate to the efforts server make to coordinate the values of mode
and acl-related attributes. Those means involve various aspects of
the Aclchoice attribute that are explained later.
* While existing specifications assume that all mask bits are finer-
grained variants of the mask bits defined in Section 7.2.3, once
one looks at all of the defined mask bits, it is clear that this
cannot be the case.
Even if that were the case, there is no way that the necessary
mapping could be deduced based on the existing specifications.
* It appears that a considerable set of mask bits are finer-grained
variants of file ownership.
While the mask bits listed in Section 7.2.5 appear likely to be
dealt with in this way, the lack of any explicit statement to this
effect means that servers might be encountered for which it is not
true.
* While it appears likely that the mask bits defined in
Section 7.2.4 are treated as finer-grained variants od the write
privilege, the specifications do not require this. This make it
necessary that the client is aware of situations in which it is
not the case.
In addition, it is not made clear how the state of these mask bits
are dealt with in computing mode.
* There is a large set of mask bits defined in Section 7.2.6 for
which it is not clear exactly how the actions controlled are to be
determined when the mask bits is not supported or where it is
supported but is not referenced by an ACL.
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* For most mask bits, existing specifications provide no way to
determine whether the actions controlled are to be allowed or
denied when ACEs are constructed from mode bits (e.g. when the
mode is changed). Although reasonable guesses can be made for
mask bits defined in Sections 7.2.4 and 7.2.5, for those defined
in Section 7.2.6 considerable variability is allowed and is most
likely necessary.
The reporting described below might turn out to be more general than
is necessary. However, we have strived to make it as general as
possible because existing specifications have not put any limits on
the handling of most mask bits. Any case in which the result is not
usable for appropriately mapping a client's ACLs to those of the
server will be dealt with in Section 12.3. Because existing
specifications allowed a large range of potential behaviors in
handling of mask bits, most indications of the need to avoid certain
approaches are addressed by using what we term a "residual SHOULD"
where it is made clear that only valid reason to bypass the
recommendation is an implementor's reliance on a previous valid
specification with the consequences of any such bypass on client
functioning being made clear.
Reporting is necessary for all defined mask bits except those for
which the action to be controlled can never occur. While the case of
ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE is not included among these, the following cases
exclusions are sometimes necessary:
* ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES and ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES are to
be excluded on file systems in which named attributes are not
supported/
* ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION and ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD are to be
excluded on file systems in which the retention attributes are not
supported.
Reporting of mask bit characteristics depends initially on the
subsection in which the mask bit is defined. In most cases, this
takes care of the issue, but, for each of the groups listed below, it
is possible that a later default method will be needed.
* For mask bits defined in Section 7.2.3, no reporting is necessary,
since support for these mask bits is REQUIRED
Even though these are the only mask bits UNIX-oriented clients
deal with, such clients need to be able to interact with servers
that do support other mask bits, as described in Section 7.2.13.
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* For mask bits defined in Section 7.2.4, support normally is
indicated by setting the bits ACC4BN_SEPFWX, ACC4BN_SEPAFD,
ACC4BN_SEPDE, and ACC4BN_SEPWNA in the Aclchoice attribute
When the mask bit in question is referred to in computing the mode
corresponding to an ACL or is not derived from the value of write
privilege bit, when a mode is set, this mask bit is reported using
the default method, whether the mask bit is supported or not.
* For mask bits defined in Section 7.2.5, support normally is
indicated by setting the mask bit within the acemask4 associated
with data item ACC4IN_OWNMB in the Aclchoice attribute.
When the mask bit in question is referred to in computing the mode
corresponding to an ACL or is not derived from the mode in any
other way but by setting the bit in the ACE for OWNER@ this mask
bit is reported using the default method, whether the mask bit is
supported or not.
* For mask bits defined in Section 7.2.6, the default method is
always used, whether the mask bit is supported or not.
When the default method is to be used for a given mask bit, either
one or two sets of ombr4words are created and added to the data item.
One can be used if the handling of the mask bit is the same for
directory and non-directory objects, with use of two being available
where there is any difference. Normally, each set consists of only a
single word is necessary but two can be used to possible conflicting
uses
typedef uint32 ombr4word;
/*
* Fields in an ombr4word
8/
const OMBR4_BNUM_SHIFT = 0;
const OMBR4_BNUM_MASK = 0x1f;
const OMBR4_OTYP_SHIFT = 5;
const OMBR4_OTYP_MASK = 0X60;
const OMBR4_SUPP_SHIFT = 7;
const OMBR4_SUPP_MASK = 0X80;
const OMBR4_MCC_SHIFT = 8;
const OMBR4_MCC_MASK = 0x300;
const OMBR4_UAM_SHIFT = 10;
const OMBR4_UAM_MASK = 0x3800
const OMBR4_MSM_SHIFT = 16;
const OMBR4_MSM_MASK = 0xfff00000;
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/*
* Values within the otype field
*/
const OMBR4OT_DIR = 1;
const OMBR4OT_NDIR = 2;
const OMBR4OT_BOTH = 3;
/*
* Values within the mode-computation-control field
*/
const OMBR4MCC_NONE = 0;
const OMBR4MCC_READ = 1;
const OMBR4MCC_WRITE = 2;
const OMBR4MCC_EXEC = 3;
/*
* Values within the UNIX-ACL-map field
*/
const OMBR4UAM_NEVER = 0;
const OMBR4UAM_READ = 1;
const OMBR4UAM_WRITE = 2;
const OMBR4UAM_EXEC = 3;
const OMBR4UAM_ALWAYS = 4;
const OMBR4UAM_OWNER = 8;
/*
* Values of shifts used in forming the mode-set mask field.
*/
const OMBR4MSH_RBIT = 1;
const OMBR4MSH_WBIT = 2;
const OMBR4MSH_XBIT = 4;
const OMBR4MSH_OWN = 8;
/*
* Values of the mode-set mask field to reflect dependence on a
* single one of the indices used in accessing the sixteen-bit
* integer as a four-dimensional boolean array.
*/
const OMBR4MSH_RBIT = 0xaaaa;
const OMBR4MSH_WBIT = 0xcccc;
const OMBR4MSH_XBIT = 0xf0f0;
const OMBR4MSH_OWN = 0xff00;
Whether one or two words is used, the various fields defined above
are filled in as described below:
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1: The BNUM field gets the bit number of the mask bit being
described in the form of the number of bit to left-shift the
value one to get the value of the mask bit
2: The OTYP field is set to either OMBR4OT_BOTH, if a single word is
being filled in applying to all objects, or to OMBR4OT_DIR or
OMBR4OT_NDIR for each word depending on the objects being
described.
3: The SUPP field is filled in with a one or zero depending on
whether the mask bit is supported as defined below.
In this context we define a mask bit as "supported" only if the
actions controlled can be allowed or disallowed, independently of
the handing of other actions.
4: Fill in the MCC field based the kind of effect the allowance of a
particular mask has in computing a mode based on ACL:
The value OMBR4MCC_NONE indicate that the setting of the bit has
no effect on the mode being computed.
The value OMBR4MCC_READ indicates that when the action is
allowed, the associated read privilege bit s is turned on. on.
The value OMBR4MCC_WRITE indicates that when the action is
allowed, the associated write privilege bit is turned on. on.
The value OMBR4MCC_EXEC indicates that when the action is
allowed, the associated exec privilege bit is turned on. on.
5: Fill in the UAM field to indicate the appropriate setting to
indicate how the bit is to be dealt with in translating a UNIX
ACL:
The value OMBR4UAM_ALWAYS indicates that the bit's actions are
always to be allowed in the resulting ACL.
The value OMBR4UAM_NEVER indicates that the bit's actions are
never to be allowed in the resulting ACL.
The value OMBR4UAM_READ indicates that the bit's actions are to
be allowed in the resulting ACL if read privilege bit is set.
The value OMBR4UAM_WRITE indicates that the bit's actions are to
be allowed in the resulting ACL if the write privilege bit is
set.
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The value OMBR4UAM_OWN is ored into the value to indicates that
the bit's actions are to be allowed in the resulting ACL iff the
user is the owner of the file.
6: Fill in the MSM field to indicate the appropriate handling of
this mask bit when setting the mode attribute. The value is a
sixteen-bit value to indicate whether the action is to be allowed
based on the setting of the three privilege bits and whether the
entry being generate is for the owner of the file.
Each of the bits within this field describes whether action
specified is to be allowed. The bit offset for each combination
of privilege bits and file ownership is determined by summing the
following values:
* OMBR4MSH_RBIT if the read privilege bit is set.
* OMBR4MSH_WBIT if the write privilege bit is set.
* OMBR4MSH_XBIT if the execute privilege bit is set.
* OMBR4MSH_OWN if the ACE being built is for the owner of file.
7.2.10. ACE Mask Support Info
This section describes the ACE mask support information that is
needed to needed to fully specify the needs of client and server for
information relevant to the handling of ACE mask bits
(1): The set of supported ACE mask bits for the filesystem, in the
form of an acemask4. There needs to be one such mask for
directories and one for non-directory objects.
Initially both mask words are set to the set of ACE mask bits
defined in Section 7.2.3. The mask words are the same even
though different sets of names are used for different object
types.
(2): The information necessary to support the computation of modes
based on ACLs, as described in Section 10.3.
This set of information, the set of mode-computation control
bits, consists of three ACE masks for each of the read, write,
and execute privilege bits. There needs to be one such set for
directories and one for non- directory objects.
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Initially both sets of mask bits ae filled in with values that
reflect the mapping between privilege bits and the
corresponding ACE mask bit so that:
* The bit mask for read contains the mask bits for
ACE4_READ_DATA/ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY.
* The bit mask for write contains the mask bits for
ACE4_WRITE_DATA/ACE4_ADD_FILE.
* The bit mask for execute contains the mask bits for
ACE4_EXECUTE.
(3): The information necessary to support the generations of ACEs
corresponding to modes, as described in Section 10.7.3.
This set of information, the set of mode-set mask support bits,
consists consist of thirty-two unsigned 16-bit integers, one
for each potential ACE mask bit. As with the other sorts of
information that needs to be determined, there needs to be one
such set for directories and one for non- directory objects.
Once the appropriate integer is selected, it is used
essentially as a linearized four-dimensional boolean array,
with the four indices consisting of the read, write and execute
privilege bits and whether the current ACE is for the owner of
the file, as with the MSM field of an ombr4word described in
Section 7.2.9.
Initially each of these consist of 32 16-bit zero words. They
are then updated to reflect the proper handling of mask bits
defined in Section 7.2.3 as follows.
* The word at position ACE4_READ_DATA/ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY
receives the value OMBR4MSH_RBIT.
* The word at position ACE4_WRITE_DATA/ACE4_ADD_FILE receives
the value OMBR4MSH_WBIT.
* The word at position ACE4_EXECUTE receives the value
OMBR4MSH_XBIT.
(4): The information necessary to support the conversion of UNIX-
oriented ACE mask words (i.e., those that only consist of three
valid ACE mask bis) to those appropriate to a particular file
system which might support a larger set of mask bits.
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This set of information, the set of UNIX-ACL-expansion mask
consists of two sets of three ACE masks for each the read,
write, and execute privilege bits. One is used for the file
owner the other for users other than OWNER@. As with the case
of mode-computation control bits, there needs to be one such
set for directories and one for non- directory objects.
For clients, the information, where needed, is obtained as follows:
* When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, the information
described above can be derived from the contents of that attribute
as described in Section 7.2.11.
* When the Aclchoice attribute is not supported, the information
described is replaced by various defaults described in
Section 7.2.12. These defaults may be inaccurate in a number of
respects but they are designed so that UNIX ACLs can be translate
into those appropriate for servers who support finer-grained
authorization. To allow that to happen, servers need to follow
the recommendations in Section 5.3. While servers who do not
follow these recommendations will often be, formally speaking,
spec-compliant, it needs to be understood that such servers may
behave in unexpected manners when interacting with clients who
have no way to find out where exactly the problem lies.
7.2.11. ACE Mask Support Discovery
This section describes how to determine the ACE mask support
information once it is initialized as described in Section 7.2.10.
On the client, the information is updated using the contents of the
Aclchoice attribute as described below. On the server, the values
presented in the Aclchoice attribute will match the ACE mask support
used here. The intention is that the client and server have the same
ACE mask support information and are aware of each other's handling
of the related processes.
Of the ACE mask bits defined above and those added later by
extensions as described in Section 7.2.8, support for most is
OPTIONAL. The only exceptions are for those discussed in
Section 7.2.3, which need to be supported whenever ACL-related
attributes are supported. The ACE mask support information when
initialized as described in Section 7.2.10 reflects support only for
those mask bits.
Information regarding most of the supported mask bits defined in
Section 7.2.4 is based on determining the sets of mask bits to add to
for both directory and non-directory objects, as described below
using the Aclchoice flag bits:
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* When the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPFWX is set, ACE4_APPEND_DATA is added
to the mask bits for non-directory objects.
* When the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPDE is set, ACE4_DELETE_CHILD is added
to the mask bits for directories.
* When the flag bit ACC4BN_SEPAFD is set, ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY is
added to the mask bits for directories.
* When the flag bit ACC4BN_NAD is set, ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES
is added to both masks.
Once these masks have been determined, each bit set in one of the
masks causes the following changes in the ACE mask support
information:
* The mask bit is added to the corresponding mask of supported ACE
bits.
* Within the entry within the set of mode-computation control bits
devoted to the write privilege, the bit is added to the set of
corresponding ACE mask bits.
* Similar changes are made to the sets of UNIX-ACL-expansion bits.
The same changes are made to masks for owners and for non-owner.
* The set of mode-set mask support bits for the mask bit in question
receives the value OMBR4MSH_WBIT.
At the point, the bits set in the mask associated with Aclchoice data
item ACC4IN_OWNMB are applied to data for both directory and non-
directory objects. The following changes are made for each set bit.
* The bit is added to the set of supported ACE mask bits.
* No changes are made to the set of mode-computation control bits or
the set of UNIX-ACL-expansion bits.
* The entry for the mask bit in set of mode-set mask support bits
receives the value OMBR4MSH_OBIT.
After processing the mask bits whose role in the ACL semantics are
clear, the ombr4words in Aclchoice data item ACC4IN_ODDMB are applied
to deal, with mask bits defined in Section 7.2.6 and those defined in
Sections 7.2.4 and 7.2.5 whose semantic is any way atypical.
Successive ombr4words are obtained from that item and applied to the
data for directories, non-directory-objects or both as specified in
the OTYP field. For each such words, the following changes are made:
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* If the SUPP field is non-zero the set(s) of supported mask bits
are updated to add the current mask bit.
* Mode computation bits are update to reflect the value of the MCM
field. if that field is not OMBR4MCC_NONE, then the current mask
bit is added to the specific mask denoted by that field current
mask bit
* UNIX-ACL map control bits are updated as specified by the UAM
field. Normally the sets for both owner and non-owner entries are
specified but if OMBR4UAM_OWNER is set, only the owner entries are
modified. Form this point the handling depends on the UAM field
with this it removed.
If the value is OMBR4UAM_READ, the current mask is ored into the
mask(s) associated with the read privilege.
If the value is OMBR4UAM_WRITE, the current mask is ored into the
mask(s) associated with the write privilege.
If the value is OMBR4UAM_EXEC, the current mask is ored into the
mask(s) associated with the execute privilege.
If the value is OMBR4UAM_ALWAYS, the current mask is ored into the
masks for all of the privileges.
* The value of the MSM field is transferred to the mode-set-mask
control bit for the specified mask bit
7.2.12. ACE Mask Bit Support Defaults
When the Aclchoice attribute is not supported, default ACE mask
support information is initialized based on the set of write-
associated mask bits.
The set of write-associated mask bits starts with a set based on
object type:
* For directories, it includes ACE4_ADD_FILE,
ACE4_ADD_SUBDIRECTORY,and ACE4_DELETE_CHILD
* For non-directory objects, it includes ACE4_WRITE_DATA and
ACE_APPEND_DATA.
Then ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES is added to both sets if named
attributes are supported. Then the ACE mask support information is
generated as described below.
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* The set of supported mask bits are limited to those that are
REQUIRED: ACE4_READ_DATA/ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY, ACE4_WRITE_DATA/
ACE4_ADD_FILE, and ACE4_EXECUTE.
This default might be inaccurate but clients have no way to
determine what extensions are implemented by the server
* Within the entry within the set of mode-computation control bits
devoted to the write privilege, each write-associated bit is added
to the set of corresponding ACE mask bits.
* Similar changes are made to the sets of UNIX-ACL-expansion bits.
The same changes are made to masks for owners and for non-owner.
* The set of mode-set mask support bits for each mask bit within the
write-associated mask bits receives the value OMBR4MSH_WBIT.
7.2.13. ACE Mask Adaptation
When, as is often the case, clients are limited to the use of the
three REQUIRED ACE mask bit they need to be able to appropriately
adapt the ACL they use in interacting with the server to reflect a
larger set of ACE mask bits that the server is using. This can occur
when Aclchoice is supported, in which case the UNIX-ACL mapping
information is derived as described in Section 7.2.11 or when it is
not supported in which case that information is generated as
described in Section 7.2.12.
The ACEs are processed in turn regardless of their ACE types. For
each ACE, a new mask needs to be arrived at based on the following
information:
* Whether ACE4_READ_DATA/ACE4_LIST_DIRECTORY is set in the original
ACE mask.
* Whether ACE4_WRITE_DATA/ACE4_ADD_FILE is set in the original ACE
mask.
* Whether ACE4_EXECUTE is set in the original ACE mask.
* Whether the ACE specifies OWNER@ s the who value
Based on the who value, either the owner or non-owner bits are
selected.
Then, the appropriate set of masks are ored together with the masks
selected based on the original ACE mask controlling which masks are
selected. The resulting mask become the ACE mask for the new ACE.
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7.2.14. Handling of Deletion
[Author Aside]: This section, exclusive of subsections contains a
proposal for the revision of the ACL-based handling of requests to
delete directory entries. All unannotated material within it is to
be considered part of consensus item #12a.
[Author Aside]: The associated previous treatment is to be found in
Section 7.2.15
This section describes the handling requests of that involve deletion
of a directory entry or the disappearance of directory entry as a
result of RENAME. It needs to be noted that:
* The creation of a new directory entry , as happens in RENAME is
not covered. However, the deletion of files as result of RENAMEs
(i.e., in the rename-over case) is covered.
* The deletion of the file's data due to other operations is dealt
with separately since these actions, including a truncation to
length zero, requires only ACE4_WRITE_DATA on the target file
* It is not clear how this all applies to deletions of
subdirectories. This also needs information about existing
implementations before we close on Consensus Item #12.
In general, the recognition of such an operation for
authorization/auditing/alarm depends on either of two bits mask bits
being set: ACE4_MASK_DELETE on the file being deleted and
ACE4_MASK_DELETE_CHILD on the directory from which the entry is being
deleted.
[Consensus Items, Including List (#6c, #12a): When it is not the case
that both mask bits is are allowed, the result is normally negative.
That is, permission is denied and no audit or alarm event is
recognized. However, in the case of authorization, the server MAY
make permission dependent on the setting of MODE4_SVTX, as follows:
* If that bit not set, allow the removal if and only if
ACE4_DELETE_CHILD (ACE4_ADD_FILE is that is not supported) is
permitted.
* If that bit is set, allow the removal if one of the following is
the case
1: If ACE4_DELETE_CHILD (ACE4_ADD_FILE is that is not supported)
is permitted and the requester is the owner of the target.
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2: If the requester is the owner of the directory and of the
target file.
7.2.15. Handling of Deletion (Vestigial)
[Author Aside]: This section contains the former content of
Section 7.2.14. All unannotated paragraphs within it are to be
considered the Previous Treatment associated with consensus item
#12b.
[Author Aside, Including List]: Listed below are some of the reasons
that I have tried to replace the existing treatment rather than
address the specific issues mentioned here and in later asides.
* The fact that there is no clear message about what servers are to
do and about what behavior clients might rely on. This derives in
turn from the use of "SHOULD" in contexts in which it is clearly
not appropriate, combined with non-normative reports of what some
systems do, and the statement that the approach suggested as a way
of providing "something like traditional UNIX-like semantics".
* The complexity of the approach without any indication that there
is a need for such complexity makes me doubtful that anything was
actually implemented, especially since the text is so wishy-washy
about the need for server implementation. The probability that it
would be implemented so widely that clients might depend on it is
even more remote.
* The fact that how audit and alarm issues are to be dealt with is
not addressed at all.
* The fact that this treatment combines ACL data with mode bit
information in a confused way without any consideration of the
fact that the mode attribute had been OPTIONAL.
Two access mask bits govern the ability to delete a directory entry:
ACE4_DELETE on the object itself (the "target") and ACE4_DELETE_CHILD
on the containing directory (the "parent").
Many systems also take the "sticky bit" (MODE4_SVTX) on a directory
to allow unlink only to a user that owns either the target or the
parent; on some such systems the decision also depends on whether the
target is writable.
Servers SHOULD allow unlink if either ACE4_DELETE is permitted on the
target, or ACE4_DELETE_CHILD is permitted on the parent. (Note that
this is true even if the parent or target explicitly denies one of
these permissions.)
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If the ACLs in question neither explicitly ALLOW nor DENY either of
the above, and if MODE4_SVTX is not set on the parent, then the
server SHOULD allow the removal if and only if ACE4_ADD_FILE is
permitted. In the case where MODE4_SVTX is set, the server may also
require the remover to own either the parent or the target, or may
require the target to be writable.
This allows servers to support something close to traditional UNIX-
like semantics, with ACE4_ADD_FILE taking the place of the write bit.
7.3. ACE flag bits
The bitmask constants used for the flag field are as follows:
const ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE = 0x00000001;
const ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE = 0x00000002;
const ACE4_NO_PROPAGATE_INHERIT_ACE = 0x00000004;
const ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE = 0x00000008;
const ACE4_SUCCESSFUL_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG = 0x00000010;
const ACE4_FAILED_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG = 0x00000020;
const ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP = 0x00000040;
const ACE4_INHERITED_ACE = 0x00000080;
[Author Aside]: Although there are multiple distinct issues that
might need to be changed, in the interest of simplifying the review,
all such issues within this section will be considered part of
Consensus Item #13a with a single revised treatment addressing all
the issues noted.
[Previous Treatment]: A server need not support any of these flags.
[Author Aside]: It is hard to understand why such broad license is
granted to the server, leaving the client to deal, without an
explicit non-support indication, with 256 possible combinations of
supported and unsupported flags. If there were specific issues with
some flags that makes it reasonable for a server not to support them,
then these need to be specifically noted. Some additional problems
with the existing treatment are that many of the flags in this list
are not, by their nature, capable of support by the server (e.g.,
ACE4_INHERITED_ACE) and that some cannot reasonably be made OPTIONAL
in general (e.g. ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP for all ACEs and both
ACE4_SUCCESSFUL_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG and ACE4_FAILED_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG for
AUDIT and ALARM ACES). Also troubling is the lack of any statement
regarding the use of unassigned bits and the consequent effect on
protocol extensibility.
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[Previous Treatment]: If the server supports flags that are similar
to, but not exactly the same as, these flags, the implementation may
define a mapping between the protocol-defined flags and the
implementation-defined flags.
[Author Aside]: The above regarding, the possibility of defining a
mapping between the protocol-defined flags and hypothetical
implementation-defined flags might store the bits it supports, while
valid, is out-of-scope and need to be deleted.
[Previous Treatment]: For example, suppose a client tries to set an
ACE with ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE set but not
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE. If the server does not support any form
of ACL inheritance, the server should reject the request with
NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP. If the server supports a single "inherit ACE"
flag that applies to both files and directories, the server may
reject the request (i.e., requiring the client to set both the file
and directory inheritance flags). The server may also accept the
request and silently turn on the ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE flag.
[Author Aside]: What is the possible justification for accepting a
request asking you do something and then, without notice to the
client, do something else. I believe there is none.
Consensus Needed (Item #13a)]: Server support for many of the flags
defined above is OPTIONAL, although there are constraints in some
cases so that certain combination of support and non-support are not
allowed, as described in Section 7.3.1
Consensus Needed (Item #13a)]: When a server which does not support
all the flags bits receives a request to set an NFSv4 ACL containing
an ACE with an unsupported flag bit set the server MUST reject the
request with NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP.
Consensus Needed (Item #13a)]: The case of servers which do not
provide support for particular flag combinations is to be treated
similarly. If a server supports a single "inherit ACE" flag that
applies to both files and directories, receives a request set an
NFSv4 ACL with ACE ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE set but
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE not set, it MUST reject the request with
NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP.
7.3.1. Details Regarding ACE Flag Bits
ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE
Any non-directory file in any sub-directory will get this ACE
inherited.
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Support for this flag bit is OPTIONAL.
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE
Can be placed on a directory and indicates that this ACE is to be
added to each new sub-directory created.
Support for this flag bit is OPTIONAL.
If this flag is set in an ACE in an NFSv4 ACL attribute to be set
on a non-directory file system object, the operation attempting to
set the ACL SHOULD fail with NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP.
[Author Aside (Items #13b, #4g)]: Since I am unable to guess what
might by "valid reasons" to bypass the recommendation in the
paragraph, keeping this as a residual "SHOULD" for now. This
could change if it is determined that the recommendation was never
bypassed in existing server implementations, or if a specific
valid reason to bypass the recommendation is found.
ACE4_NO_PROPAGATE_INHERIT_ACE
Can be placed on a directory. This flag tells the server that
inheritance of this ACE is to stop at newly created child
directories.
While Support for this flag bit is formally OPTIONAL, it has no
use if ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE is not supported and is REQUIRED
if it is.
ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE
Can be placed on a directory but does not apply to the directory;
ALLOW and DENY ACEs with this bit set do not affect access to the
directory, and AUDIT and ALARM ACEs with this bit set do not
trigger log or alarm events. Such ACEs only take effect once they
are applied (with this bit cleared) to newly created files and
directories as specified by the ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE and
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE flags.
If this flag is present on an ACE, but neither
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE nor ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE is present,
then an operation attempting to set such an attribute SHOULD fail
with NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP.
ACE4_SUCCESSFUL_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG and ACE4_FAILED_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG
The ACE4_SUCCESSFUL_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG (SUCCESS) and
ACE4_FAILED_ACCESS_ACE_FLAG (FAILED) flag bits may be set only on
ACE4_SYSTEM_AUDIT_ACE_TYPE (AUDIT) and ACE4_SYSTEM_ALARM_ACE_TYPE
(ALARM) ACE types. If during the processing of the file's NFSv4
ACL, the server encounters an AUDIT or ALARM ACE that matches the
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principal attempting the OPEN, the server notes that fact, and the
presence, if any, of the SUCCESS and FAILED flags encountered in
the AUDIT or ALARM ACE. Once the server completes the ACL
processing, it then notes if the operation succeeded or failed.
If the operation succeeded, and if the SUCCESS flag was set for a
matching AUDIT or ALARM ACE, then the appropriate AUDIT or ALARM
event occurs. If the operation failed, and if the FAILED flag was
set for the matching AUDIT or ALARM ACE, then the appropriate
AUDIT or ALARM event occurs. Either or both of the SUCCESS or
FAILED can be set, but if neither is set, the AUDIT or ALARM ACE
is not useful.
The previously described processing applies to ACCESS operations
even when they return NFS4_OK. For the purposes of AUDIT and
ALARM, we consider an ACCESS operation to be a "failure" if it
fails to return a bit that was requested and supported.
ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP
Indicates that the "who" refers to a GROUP as defined under UNIX
or a GROUP ACCOUNT as defined under Windows. Clients and servers
MUST ignore the ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP flag on ACEs with a who
value equal to one of the special identifiers outlined in
Section 7.4.
Support for this flag bit is REQUIRED.
ACE4_INHERITED_ACE
Indicates that this ACE is inherited from a parent directory. A
server that supports automatic inheritance will place this flag on
any ACEs inherited from the parent directory when creating a new
object. Client applications will use this to perform automatic
inheritance. Clients and servers MUST clear this bit in the acl
attribute; it may only be used in the dacl and sacl attributes.
7.3.2. ACE Flag Support Discovery
[Consensus Needed (Items #13c, #105q), Entire Section]:
The ability to determine what ACE flags are supported depends on
information reported by the Aclchoice attribute.
Because support for all of these flags is OPTIONAL, clients
interacting with servers on which the Aclsupport attribute is not
supported have no access to extensions, such as those involving ACL
inheritance, that require ACE flag support. This problem is
exacerbated because there is no way to test for support by using lags
and depending on the existence of an error return to resolve the
question.
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When the Aclchoice attribute is supported, support for ACE flags can
be determined as described below:
* When the flag bit ACC4BN_INHFULL is set, it can be assumed that
support for the ACE flags ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE,
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE, ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE, AND
ACE4_NO_PROPAGATE_INHERIT_ACE is present.
* When the flag bit ACC4BN_INHFULL is set, it can be assumed that
support for the ACE flags ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE,
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE, ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE, AND
ACE4_NO_PROPAGATE_INHERIT_ACE although there is no support for
dealing separately with inheritance in newly created
subdirectories and other objects.
In this case the server does not support ACEs in which the flags
ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE and ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE have
different settings. While such combinations are normally
rejected, the server is allowed to modify the ACEs to make these
settings the same if ACC4BN_RVINV is set. In addition, such ACEs
can be accepted but not enforced based on the settings of the data
item ACC4IN_STOREUA.
* The setting of ACC4BN_INHAUTO has no direct effect but it useful
to find out whether automatic inheritance is supported when using
the sacl and dacl attributes.
7.3.3. ACE Flag Extension
[Consensus Needed (Item #13d), Entire Section]:
Although, in general, previously unused bits within flags words such
as the flag field within an ACE can easily be added in extensions,
the way that the flag field within is defined creates unusual
difficulties, since we cannot be sure that undefined bits in these
words are always zero. As a consequence, the definition of
additional flags must satisfy one the following constraints:
* Use of the extension needs to be conditioned on support for the
Aclfeature attribute and the server setting the flag
AF4FLAG_UNDEF0 in the af4flags word returned.
* Definition of the extension has to occur in a future minor version
that requires that unused bits in an ACE flag word always be sent
not set.
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Assuming the flag can be defined as discussed above are
satisfactorily dealt with, definitions of new flags needs the
following items to be specified:
* An XDR definition of the value of the flag assigning an used flag
value to a symbol typically beginning with "ACE4_".
* A definition of what the flag indicates.
* Discussion of the pattern of use of the flag, including whether it
is set by the client and used by the server, the reverse, or both.
* For flags set by the client and interpreted by the server,
specification of a means by which the client can determine whether
the flag is supported.
This can take the form of a new bit with that purpose within the
af4flags word, the support for or value returned by an OPTIONAL
attribute, or other means that the client can easily determine
whether support is present.
7.4. ACE Who
The "who" field of an ACE is an identifier that specifies the
principal or principals to whom the ACE applies. It may refer to a
user or a group, with the flag bit ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP specifying
which of the two is referred to.
There are several special identifiers that need to be understood
universally, rather than in the context of a particular DNS domain.
[Author Aside, including list]: The above paragraph is OK, but the
following issues regarding these special identifiers need to be
addressed:
* Lack of clarity about the question of which of these special
identifiers have to be supported and for which support is
OPTIONAL.
* Lack of clarity about which special identifiers can be understood
by NFSv4.
* Confusion of "authentication" and "identification".
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[Previous treatment (Item #50b)]: Some of these identifiers cannot be
understood when an NFS client accesses the server, but have meaning
when a local process accesses the file. The ability to display and
modify these permissions is permitted over NFS, even if none of the
access methods on the server understands the identifiers.
[Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: Server support for the special
identifiers "OWNER", "GROUP", and "EVERYONE" is REQUIRED. For others
support is OPTIONAL with information regarding support discovery
appearing in Section 7.4.1
[Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: Some of these identifiers, such as
"NETWORK", "DIALUP", "INTERACTIVE", "BATCH", and "SERVICE" cannot be
reliably understood when an NFS client accesses the server, but might
have meaning when a local process accesses the file or when protocols
other than NFSv4 are used As a result, when ACEs containing these who
values are encountered, a server that supports these values when
NFSv4 request are processed is free to make its own judgment as to
whether any particular request will be treated as matching.
[Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: The ability to display and modify
these OPTIONAL permissions is provided for by NFSv4, even though they
are not, in most cases, useful when processing NFSv4 requests,
+===============+===================================================+
| Who | Description |
+===============+===================================================+
| OWNER | The owner of the file. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| GROUP | The group associated with the file. |
| | |
| | Note that the mode bits for the group do not |
| | apply to the owner of the file while the owner |
| | of the file is a member of GROOUP@ |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| EVERYONE | [Previous treatment (Item #50b)]: The world, |
| | including the owner and owning group. |
| | |
| | [Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: All requesters, |
| | including the owner, members of the owning |
| | group, and requests for which no user |
| | information is available. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| INTERACTIVE | Accessed from an interactive terminal. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| NETWORK | Accessed via the network. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| DIALUP | Accessed as a dialup user to the server. |
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+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| BATCH | Accessed from a batch job. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| ANONYMOUS | [Author Aside]: Although AUTH_NONE requests, are |
| | included here it is not clear whether AUTH_SYS |
| | requests, particularly those issued without |
| | client peer authentication should be included. |
| | Although I feel that they are not truly |
| | authenticated, it is hard to be sure of the |
| | intention given the way term "authenticated" has |
| | been used in earlier specifications. Also hard |
| | to resolve is the status of "nobody@domain" |
| | which is intended to be anonymous but may well |
| | be authenticated, as some other user. |
| | |
| | [Author Aside]: For now, am doing the best I |
| | can, given that no implementations of these have |
| | been found. When they are, will need to |
| | consider revision. If none are found, could |
| | consider deleting these. In any case, think we |
| | will wind up treating these as opposites, unless |
| | forced to do otherwise by existing |
| | implementations. |
| | |
| | [Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: Accessed without |
| | any authentication of the user principal (e.g., |
| | via AUTH_NONE). Also can include user defined |
| | as anonymous such as those which result from |
| | root-squashing, regardless of the quality of |
| | authentication |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| AUTHENTICATED | [Author Aside]: As for the previous case, am |
| | doing the best I can given that no |
| | implementation of these have been found. |
| | |
| | [Consensus Needed (Item #50b)]: Any |
| | authenticated user except those to be treated as |
| | anonymous (opposite of ANONYMOUS). |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
| SERVICE | Accessed from a system service. |
+---------------+---------------------------------------------------+
Table 5
To avoid conflict, these special identifiers are distinguished by an
appended "@" and will appear in the form "xxxx@" (with no domain name
after the "@"), for example, ANONYMOUS@.
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{Previous treatment (Item #51a)]: The ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP flag MUST
be ignored on entries with these special identifiers. When encoding
entries with these special identifiers, the ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP
flag SHOULD be set to zero.
[Author Aside]: I don't understand what might be valid reasons to
ignore this or how a server would respond in the case the that it was
ignored.
[Consensus Needed (Item #51a)]: The ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP flag MUST
be ignored on entries with these special identifiers. When encoding
entries with these special identifiers, the ACE4_IDENTIFIER_GROUP
flag should be set to zero.
It is important to note that "EVERYONE@" is not equivalent to the
UNIX "other" entity. This is the case because, by definition, UNIX
"other" does not include the owner or owning group of a file.
"EVERYONE@" means literally everyone, including the owner or owning
group.
7.4.1. ACE Who Value Support Discovery
[Consensus Needed (Item #50c, #105r), for entire section]:
[Author Aside (Item #5cb), to the end of the bulleted list]: Given
that we have not yet encountered any implementations of these special
values. When we complete our analysis of existing implementations,
we might update this in various ways:
* If it is the case that one or more of these special who values is
never accepted, the group will need to consider whether it make
sense to delete it now.
While there is no time gap that, by itself, would justify
unimplemented feature, the working group could reasonably conclude
that the absence of implementation for multiple decades could
consider that there is no real need for he feature.
* If an entire class of special who values (e.g. auth-related or
miscellaneous) were never implemented, it would be possible
streamline this section to delete it together with the flag bits
in af4flags supporting its discovery
The support for special who values is indicated by the flag
ACC4BN_SPWHO when Aclchoice is supported, but when that attribute is
not supported there is no way for the client to determine whether
support is present.
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7.4.2. ACE Who Value Extension
[Consensus Needed (Item #50d), for entire section]:
Because use of unknown who values is defined as returning
NFS4ERR_BADOWNER, standard track documents defining extensions to
extensible minor versions can define new special who values.
Definitions of such new values need to include the following:
* The string(s) to serve with each together with an appended "@" as
the new special who value. The specification should be in term of
the Unicode characters. If it is desired that case-insensitive or
normalization-form-insensitive string matching is desired, then
multiple strings should be specified rather than specifying the
type of code- insensitivity desired.
* A description of how it is to be determined whether a given NFSv4
request matches the new special who value. In this context,
"never", indicating such ACEs are to be ignored, is acceptable.
How these affect handling of non-NFSv4 requests can be treated as
out of scope.
* A description of how support for this new value is to be
ascertained. This can take the form of the specification of the
new value as auth-related, miscellaneous, or the identification of
a new bit within af4whoinf values that indicates whether support
is present.
8. Automatic Inheritance Features
The acl attribute consists only of an array of ACEs, but the sacl
(Section 4.8) and dacl (Section 4.7) attributes also include an
additional flag field.
struct nfsacl41 {
aclflag4 na41_flag;
nfsace4 na41_aces<>;
};
The flag field applies to the entire sacl or dacl; three flag values
are defined:
const ACL4_AUTO_INHERIT = 0x00000001;
const ACL4_PROTECTED = 0x00000002;
const ACL4_DEFAULTED = 0x00000004;
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and all other bits are to be cleared. The ACE4_INHERITED_ACE flag
can be set in the ACEs of the sacl or dacl (whereas it always needs
to be cleared in the acl).
Together these features allow a server to support automatic
inheritance, which we now explain in more detail.
Inheritable ACEs are normally inherited by child objects only at the
time that the child objects are created; later modifications to
inheritable ACEs do not result in modifications to inherited ACEs on
descendants.
However, the dacl and sacl provide an OPTIONAL mechanism that allows
a client application to propagate changes to inheritable ACEs to an
entire directory hierarchy.
A server that supports this feature performs inheritance at object
creation time in the normal way, and SHOULD set the
ACE4_INHERITED_ACE flag on any inherited ACEs as they are added to
the new object.
A client application such as an ACL editor may then propagate changes
to inheritable ACEs on a directory by recursively traversing that
directory's descendants and modifying each NFSv4 ACL encountered to
remove any ACEs with the ACE4_INHERITED_ACE flag and to replace them
by the new inheritable ACEs (also with the ACE4_INHERITED_ACE flag
set). It uses the existing ACE inheritance flags in the obvious way
to decide which ACEs to propagate. (Note that it may encounter
further inheritable ACEs when descending the directory hierarchy and
that those will also need to be taken into account when propagating
inheritable ACEs to further descendants.)
The reach of this propagation may be limited in two ways: first,
automatic inheritance is not performed from any directory ACL that
has the ACL4_AUTO_INHERIT flag cleared; and second, automatic
inheritance stops wherever an ACL with the ACL4_PROTECTED flag is
set, preventing modification of that ACL and also (if the ACL is set
on a directory) of the ACL on any of the object's descendants.
This propagation is performed independently for the sacl and the dacl
attributes; thus, the ACL4_AUTO_INHERIT and ACL4_PROTECTED flags may
be independently set for the sacl and the dacl, and propagation of
one type of acl may continue down a hierarchy even where propagation
of the other acl has stopped.
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New objects are to be created with a dacl and a sacl that both have
the ACL4_PROTECTED flag cleared and the ACL4_AUTO_INHERIT flag set to
the same value as that on, respectively, the sacl or dacl of the
parent object.
Both the dacl and sacl attributes are Recommended, and a server MAY
support one without supporting the other.
A server that supports both the old acl attribute and one or both of
the new dacl or sacl attributes MUST do so in such a way as to keep
all three attributes consistent with each other. Thus, the ACEs
reported in the acl attribute will be the union of the ACEs reported
in the dacl and sacl attributes, except that the ACE4_INHERITED_ACE
flag will be cleared from the ACEs in the acl. And of course a
client that queries only the acl will be unable to determine the
values of the sacl or dacl flag fields.
When a client performs a SETATTR for the acl attribute, the server
SHOULD set the ACL4_PROTECTED flag to true on both the sacl and the
dacl. By using the acl attribute, as opposed to the dacl or sacl
attributes, the client signals that it may not understand automatic
inheritance, and thus cannot be trusted to set an ACL for which
automatic inheritance would make sense.
When a client application queries an NFSv4 ACL, modifies it, and sets
it again, it needs to leave any ACEs marked with ACE4_INHERITED_ACE
unchanged, in their original order, at the end of the NFSv4 ACL. If
the application is unable to do this, it needs to set the
ACL4_PROTECTED flag. This behavior is not enforced by servers, but
violations of this rule may lead to unexpected results when
applications perform automatic inheritance.
If a server also supports the mode attribute, it SHOULD set the mode
in such a way that leaves inherited ACEs unchanged, in their original
order, at the end of the ACL. If it is unable to do so, it SHOULD
set the ACL4_PROTECTED flag on the file's dacl.
Finally, in the case where the request that creates a new file or
directory does not also set permissions for that file or directory,
and there are also no ACEs to inherit from the parent's directory,
then the server's choice of ACL for the new object is implementation-
dependent. In this case, the server SHOULD set the ACL4_DEFAULTED
flag on the ACL it chooses for the new object. An application
performing automatic inheritance takes the ACL4_DEFAULTED flag as a
sign that the ACL is to be completely replaced by one generated using
the automatic inheritance rules.
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9. Processing Access Control Entries
To determine if a request succeeds, the server processes each nfsace4
entry of type ALLOW or DENY in turn as ordered in the array. Only
ACEs that have a "who" that matches the requester are considered. An
ACE is considered to match a given requester if at least one of the
following is true:
* The "who' designates a specific user which is the user making the
request.
* The "who" specifies "OWNER@" and the user making the request is
the owner of the file.
* The "who" designates a specific group and the user making the
request is a member of that group.
* The "who" specifies "GROUP@" and the user making the request is a
member of the group owning the file.
* The "who" specifies "EVERYONE@".
* The "who" specifies "INTERACTIVE@", "NETWORK@", "DIALUP@",
"BATCH@", or "SERVICE@" and the requester, in the judgment of the
server, feels that designation appropriately describes the
requester.
* The "who" specifies "ANONYMOUS@" or "AUTHENTICATED@" and the
requestor's authentication status matches the who, using the
definitions in Section 7.4
Each ACE is processed until all of the bits of the requester's access
have been ALLOWED. Under most circumstances, once a bit (see below)
has been ALLOWED by an ACCESS_ALLOWED_ACE, it is no longer considered
in the processing of later ACEs. However if the server chooses not
to allow partial satisfaction of ALLOW ACEs (reported as flag bit
ACC4BNB_AAPS in the Aclchoice attribute) this does not happen and the
operation can only be allowed of a single ACE allows all required
actions. If an ACCESS_DENIED_ACE is encountered where the
requester's access still has unALLOWED bits in common with the
"access_mask" of the ACE, the request is denied. When the ACL is
fully processed, if there are bits in the requester's mask that have
not been ALLOWED or DENIED, access is denied.
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Unlike the ALLOW and DENY ACE types, the ALARM and AUDIT ACE types do
not affect a requester's access, and instead are for triggering
events as a result of a requester's access attempt. AUDIT and ALARM
ACEs are processed only after processing ALLOW and DENY ACEs if any
exist. This is necessary since the handling of AUDIT and ALARM ACEs
are affected by whether the access attempt is successful.
[Previous Treatment]: The NFSv4.1 ACL model is quite rich. Some
server platforms may provide access-control functionality that goes
beyond the UNIX-style mode attribute, but that is not as rich as the
NFS ACL model. So that users can take advantage of this more limited
functionality, the server may support the acl attributes by mapping
between its ACL model and the NFSv4.1 ACL model. Servers must ensure
that the ACL they actually store or enforce is at least as strict as
the NFSv4 ACL that was set. It is tempting to accomplish this by
rejecting any ACL that falls outside the small set that can be
represented accurately. However, such an approach can render ACLs
unusable without special client-side knowledge of the server's
mapping, which defeats the purpose of having a common NFSv4 ACL
protocol. Therefore, servers should accept every ACL that they can
without compromising security. To help accomplish this, servers may
make a special exception, in the case of unsupported permission bits,
to the rule that bits not ALLOWED or DENIED by an ACL must be denied.
For example, a UNIX-style server might choose to silently allow read
attribute permissions even though an ACL does not explicitly allow
those permissions. (An ACL that explicitly denies permission to read
attributes should still be rejected.)
[Author Aside]: While the NFSv4.1 provides features that many might
not need or use, it is the one that the working group adopted by the
working group, and I have to assume that alternatives, such as the
withdrawn POSIX ACL proposal were considered but not adopted. The
phrase "unsupported permission bits" with no definition of the bit
whose support might be dispensed with, implies that the server is
free to support whatever subset of these bits it chooses. As a
result, clients would not be able to rely on a functioning server
implementation of this OPTIONAL attribute. If there are specific
compatibility issues that make it necessary to allow non-support of
specific mask bits, then these need to be limited and the client
needs guidance about determining the set of unsupported mask bits.
[Previous Treatment]: The situation is complicated by the fact that a
server may have multiple modules that enforce ACLs. For example, the
enforcement for NFSv4.1 access may be different from, but not weaker
than, the enforcement for local access, and both may be different
from the enforcement for access through other protocols such as SMB
(Server Message Block). So it may be useful for a server to accept
an ACL even if not all of its modules are able to support it.
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[Author Aside]: The following paragraph does not provide helpful
guidance and takes no account of the need of the client to be able to
rely on the server implementing protocol-specifying semantics and
giving notice in those cases in which it is unable to so
[Previous Treatment]: The guiding principle with regard to NFSv4
access is that the server must not accept ACLs that appear to make
access to the file more restrictive than it really is.
10. Combining Authorization Models
10.1. Background for Combined Authorization Model
Both [RFC7530] and [RFC8881] contain material relating to the need,
when both mode and ACL attributes are supported, to make sure that
the values are appropriately coordinated. Despite the fact that
these discussions are different, they are compatible and differ in
only a small number of areas relating to the existence absence of the
set-mode-masked attribute.
Such co-ordination is necessary is necessary since it is expected
that servers providing both sets of attributes will encounter users
who have no or very limited knowledge of one and need to work
effectively when other users changes that attribute. As a result,
these attributes cannot each be applied independently since that
would create an untenable situation in which some users who have the
right to control file access would find themselves unable to do so.
[Author Aside]: From this point on, all paragraphs in this section,
not other annotated are to be considered part of Consensus Item #63a.
The description in this section of changes to be made reflects the
author's proposal to address this issue and related issues. It might
have to be adjusted based on working group decisions.
As a result, in this document, we will have a single treatment of
this issue, in Sections 10.2 through 10.11. In addition, an
NFSv4.2-based extension related to attribute co-ordination will be
described in Section 10.12.
The current NFSv4.0 and NFSv4.1 descriptions of this co-ordination
share an unfortunate characteristic in that they are both written to
give server implementations a broad latitude in implementation
choices while neglecting entirely the need for clients and users to
have a reliable description of what servers are to do in this area.
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As a result, one of the goals of this new combined treatment will be
to limit the uncertainty that the previous approach created for
clients, while still taking proper account of the possibility of
compatibility issues that a more tightly drawn specification might
give rise to.
The various ways in which these kinds of issues have been dealt with
are listed below together with a description of the needed changes
proposed to address each issue.
* In some cases, the term "MAY" is used in contexts where it is
inappropriate, since the allowed variation has the potential to
cause harm in that it leaves the client unsure exactly what
security-related action will be performed by the server.
The new treatment will limit use of MAY to cases in which it is
truly necessary, in order to give clients proper notice of cases
in which server behavior cannot be determined and limit the work
necessary to deal with a large array of possible behaviors.
* There are also cases in which no RFC2119-defined keywords are used
but it is stated that certain server implementations do a
particular thing, leaving the impression that that action is to be
allowed, just as if "MAY" had been used.
If the flexibility is necessary, MAY will be used. In other
cases, SHOULD will be used with the understanding that maintaining
compatibility with clients that have adapted to a particular
approach to this issue is a valid reason to bypass the
recommendation. However, in no case will it be implied, as it is
in the current specifications, that the server MAY do whatever it
chooses, with the client having no option but to adapt to that
choice.
* There was a case, in Section 10.2, in which the term "SHOULD" was
explicitly used intentionally, without it being made clear what
the valid reasons to ignore the guidance might be, although there
was a reference to servers built to support the now-withdrawn
draft definition of POSIX ACLs, which are part of what is referred
to in this document as "UNIX ACLs", as described in Section 4.1 of
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]. A discussion of the issues for
support of for these ACLs appears in Section 5.1.
[Author Aside]: Despite the statement, now cited in Section 10.2,
that this was to accommodate implementations "POSIX" ACLs, it now
appears that this was not complete. I've been given to understand
that this was the result of two groups disagreeing on the
appropriate mapping from ACLs, and specifying both, using the
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"intentional" "SHOULD" essentially as a MAY, with the text now in
Section 10.2 discouraging such use as potentially confusing, not
intended to be taken seriously. Since the above information might
not be appropriate in a standards-track RFC, we intend to retain
this as an Author Aside which the working group might consider as
it discusses how to navigate our way out of this situation.
The new approach will use the term "RECOMMENDED" without use of
the confusing term "intentional". The valid reasons to bypass the
recommendation will be clearly explained as will be the
consequences of choosing to do other than what is recommended.
* There are many case in which the terms "SHOULD" and "SHOULD NOT"
are used without any clear indication why they were used. In this
situation it is possible that the "SHOULD" was essentially treated
as a "MAY" but also possible that servers chose to follow the
recommendation.
In order to deal with the many uses of these terms in Section 10
and included subsections, which have no clear motivation, it is to
be assumed that the valid reasons to act contrary to the
recommendation given are the difficulty of changing
implementations based on previous analogous guidance, which may
have given the impression that the server was free to ignore the
guidance for any reason the implementer chose. This allows the
possibility of more individualized treatment of these instances
once compatibility issues have been adequately discussed.
[Author Aside]: In each subsection in which the interpretation of
these terms in the previous paragraph applies there will be an
explicit reference to Consensus Item #63, to draw attention to
this change, even in the absence of modified text.
10.2. Needed Attribute Coordination
On servers that support acl or dacl attributes, together with the
mode attribute, the server needs to keep the two attributes
consistent with one another. The value of the mode attribute (with
the exception of the high-order bits reserved for client use as
described in Section 5.3.1 of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], are
modified as necessary to be consistent with the ACLs set by the by
client. When the ACL-related attributes are supported, they control
authorization so that the role is more limited since authorization
uses the ACL rather than the mode to make decisions. As a result
clients that need to change authorization for file have most control
when they directly affect the ACL which supports a more flexible
authorization model. As a result, users and clients that deal with
the mode value do so for the following reasons:
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* They do so to view or modify the three high-order bits of the mode
that are not devoted to controlling authorization.
* They do it to affect authorization for the object in which case
the ACL needs to be modified to be consonant with it.
The previous specifications have allowed considerable behavioral
variation on what does and does not need to be modified. In
addition, the existence of mask bits whose relationship to the
three privilege bits is unclear causes considerable uncertainty.
As a result, the server handling of this will be different for
different servers.
* They do it to provide a rough, but not deceptive, description of
the file's authorization status for display.
Since opinions differ as to what an appropriate summary might be
and because previous specifications have allowed considerable
behavioral variation, the server handling of this will be
different for different servers
See Sections 10.7 through 10.9 for detailed discussion of these
matters.
[Previous Treatment (Item #63b)]: When a mode attribute is set on an
object, the ACL attributes may need to be modified in order to not
conflict with the new mode. In such cases, it is desirable that the
ACL keep as much information as possible. This includes information
about inheritance, AUDIT and ALARM ACEs, and permissions granted and
denied that do not conflict with the new mode.
[Author Aside]: one the things that this formulation leaves
uncertain, is whether, if the ACL specifies permission for a named
user group or group, it "conflicts" with the mode. Ordinarily, one
might think it does not, unless the specified user is the owner of
the file or a member of the owning group, or the specified group is
the owning group. However, while some parts of the existing
treatment seem to agree with this, other parts, while unclear, seem
to suggest otherwise, while the treatment in Section 10.7.1 is
directly in conflict.
[Previous Treatment (Item #26a)]: The server that supports both mode
and ACL must take care to synchronize the MODE4_*USR, MODE4_*GRP, and
MODE4_*OTH bits with the ACEs that have respective who fields of
"OWNER@", "GROUP@", and "EVERYONE@".
[Author Aside]: This sentence ignores named owners and group, giving
the impressions that there is no need to change them.
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[Previous Treatment (Item #26a)]: This way, the client can see if
semantically equivalent access permissions exist whether the client
asks for the owner, owner_group, and mode attributes or for just the
ACL.
[Author Aside, Including List:] The above sentence, while hard to
interpret for a number a reasons, is worth looking at in detail
because it might suggest an approach different from the one in the
previous sentence from the initial paragraph for The Previous
Treatment of Item #26a.
* The introductory phrase "this way" adds confusion because it
suggests that there are other valid ways of doing this, while not
giving any hint about what these might be.
* It is hard to understand the intention of "client can see if
semantically equivalent access permissions" especially as the
client is told elsewhere that he is not to interpret the ACL
himself.
* If this sentence is to have any effect at all it, it would be to
suggest that the result be the same "whether the client asks for
the owner, owner_group, and mode attributes or for just the ACL."
If these are to be semantically equivalent it would be necessary
to delete ACEs for named users, which requires a different
approach from the first sentence of the original paragraph.
{Consensus Needed, Including List (Items #26a, #28a)]: A server that
supports both mode and ACL attributes needs to take care to
synchronize the MODE4_*USR, MODE4_*GRP, and MODE4_*OTH bits with the
ACEs that the have respective who fields of "OWNER@", "GROUP@", and
"EVERYONE@". This requires:
* When the mode is changed, in most cases, the ACL attributes will
need to be modified as described in Section 10.7.3.
* When the ACL is changed, the corresponding mode is determined and
used to set the nine low-order bits of the mode attribute.
This is relatively straightforward in the case of forward-slope
modes, but the case of reverse-slope modes needs to be addressed
as well. It is RECOMMENDED that the procedure presented in
Section 10.3 be used or another one that provides the same
results.
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{Consensus Needed (Item #26a)]: How other ACEs are dealt with when
setting mode is described in Section 10.7.3. This includes ACEs with
other who values, all AUDIT and ALARM ACEs, and all ACES that affect
ACL inheritance.
[Previous Treatment (Item #27a)]: In this section, much depends on
the method in specified Section 10.4. Many requirements refer to
this section. It needs to be noted that the methods have behaviors
specified with "SHOULD" and that alternate approaches are discussed
in Section 10.5. This is intentional, to avoid invalidating existing
implementations that compute the mode according to the withdrawn
POSIX ACL draft (1003.1e draft 17), rather than by actual permissions
on owner, group, and other.
[Consensus (Item #27a)]: In performing the coordination discussed in
this section, the method used to compute the mode from the ACL has an
important role. In this regard, the method described Section 10.3 is
to be used. This method allows considerable variation including that
motivated by a decision allow computation using the method mandated
by withdrawn POSIX ACL draft (1003.1e draft 17). Since this means
that a client, having no way of determining the method the server
uses may face interoperability difficulties in moving between servers
which approach this matter differently, these problems need to be
accepted unless and until the working group revises the protocol to
require more uniform treatment. In any case, the Aclchoices
attribute allows the client to determine which approach is used by
the current server. A more complete discussion of handling of the
UNIX ACLs in general is to be found in Section 5.1.
10.3. Computing a Mode Attribute from an ACL (proposed)
[Consensus Needed (Items #27b, #28b, #61f, #105s, #110f), Through end
of section]:
The following method (or another one providing exactly the same
results) SHOULD be used to calculate the MODE4_R*, MODE4_W*, and
MODE4_X* bits of a mode attribute. In this case, the only valid
reason to bypass the recommendation is implementor reliance on
previous specifications which left this to implementor choice or
ignored the cases of the owner having less access than the owning
group or the owning group having less access than others. Further,
in implementing or the maintaining an implementation previously
believed to be valid, the implementor needs to be aware that this
will result in invalid values in some uncommon cases.
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First, for each of the sets of mode bits (i.e., user, group other,
process the ACL in order, with the result in each case with a
specific evaluation procedure depending on the specific set of mode
bits being determined. The result will be two acemask4 words which
are referred to below as "Allowed" and "Denied".
For each set there will be one or more special identifiers considered
in a positive sense so that ALLOW and DENY ACE's are considered in
arriving at the mode bit. In addition, for some sets of bits, there
will be one or more special identifiers to be considered only in a
negative sense, so that only DENY ACE's are considered in arriving at
the mode it.
The users to be considered are as follows:
* For the owner bits, "OWNER@", @GROUP, and "EVERYONE@" are to be
considered, all in a positive sense.
* For the group bits, "GROUP@" and "EVERYONE@" are to be considered,
both in a positive sense, while "OWNER@" is to be considered in a
negative sense.
In some cases, ALLOW ACEs specifying named users and groups are
considered, in a positive sense. Fundamentally the decision
whether to do so or not is up to the server, although it needs to
always make the same choice for all object in a given file system.
* For the bits for others, "EVERYONE@" is to be considered in a
positive sense, while "OWNER@" and "GROUP@" are to be considered
in a negative sense.
Regarding the phrases "considered in a ...sense", the following
actions are indicated:
* When the ACE to be considered in a positive sense is an ALLOW ACE,
the associated mask m is used in AddToAllowed(m), as described
below. When it is a DENY ACE, the associated mask m is used in
AddToDenied(m), as described below.
* When the ACE to be considered in a negative sense is an ALLOW ACE,
the associated mask ignored When it is a DENY ACE, the associated
mask m is used in AddToDenied(m), as described below.
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void AddToAllowed(acemask4 m)
{
acemask4 ov = Denied & m;
m &= ~ov;
Allowed |= m;
};
void AddToDenied(acemask4 m)
{
acemask4 ov = Allowed & m;
acemask4 nov = m & ~ov;
Allowed &= ~ov;
Denied |= nov;
};
acemask4 GetAllowed(void)
{
return Allowed & ~Denied;
}
Once these ACL masks are constructed, the mode bits for, user, group,
and others can each be obtained as described below:
* The mask to use to determine the privilege bits is obtained using
GetAllowed().
* For each of the mode-computation masks, the associated privilege
bit is set if all of the mask bits in the associated mask are
allowed.
10.4. Computing a Mode Attribute from an ACL (vestigial)
[Previous Treatment (Item #27c)]: The following method can be used to
calculate the MODE4_R*, MODE4_W*, and MODE4_X* bits of a mode
attribute, based upon an ACL.
[Author Aside]: "can be used" says essentially "do whatever you
choose" and would make Section 10 essentially pointless. Would
prefer "is to be used" or "MUST", with "SHOULD" available if valid
reasons to do otherwise can be found.
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[Author Aside, Including List]: The algorithm specified below, now
considered the Previous Treatment associated with Item #24a, has an
important flaw in does not deal with the (admittedly uncommon) case
in which the owner_group has less access than the owner or others
have less access than the owner-group. In essence, this algorithm
ignores the following facts:
* That GROUP@ includes the owning user while group bits in the mode
do not affect the owning user.
* That EVERYONE includes the owning group while other bits in the
mode do not affect users within the owning group.
[Previous Treatment (Item #28b)]: First, for each of the special
identifiers OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@, evaluate the ACL in order,
considering only ALLOW and DENY ACEs for the identifier EVERYONE@ and
for the identifier under consideration. The result of the evaluation
will be an NFSv4 ACL mask showing exactly which bits are permitted to
that identifier.
[Previous Treatment (Item #28b)]: Then translate the calculated mask
for OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@ into mode bits for, respectively,
the user, group, and other, as follows:
10.5. Alternatives in Computing Mode Bits (vestigial)
[Author Aside]: All unannotated paragraphs within this section are to
be considered the Previous Treatment corresponding to Consensus Item
#27d.
Some server implementations also add bits permitted to named users
and groups to the group bits (MODE4_RGRP, MODE4_WGRP, and
MODE4_XGRP).
Implementations are discouraged from doing this, because it has been
found to cause confusion for users who see members of a file's group
denied access that the mode bits appear to allow. (The presence of
DENY ACEs may also lead to such behavior, but DENY ACEs are expected
to be more rarely used.)
[Author Aside]: The text does not seem to really discourage this
practice and makes no reference to the need to standardize behavior
so the clients know what to expect or any other reason for providing
standardization of server behavior.
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The same user confusion seen when fetching the mode also results if
setting the mode does not effectively control permissions for the
owner, group, and other users; this motivates some of the
requirements that follow.
[Author Aside]: The part before the semicolon appears to be relevant
to Consensus Item #23 but does not point us to a clear conclusion.
The statement certainly suggests that the nine low-order bits of the
mode select one of 512 corresponding ACLs is a desirable but the
absence significant details or a more direct statement to that effect
suggest that this is a server implementer choice.
[Author Aside]: The part after the semicolon is hard to interpret in
that it is not clear what "this" refers to or which requirements are
referred to by "some of the requirements that follow". The author
would appreciate hearing from anyone who has insight about what might
have been intended here.
10.6. Setting Multiple ACL Attributes
In the case where a server supports the sacl or dacl attribute, in
addition to the acl attribute, the server MUST fail a request to set
the acl attribute simultaneously with a dacl or sacl attribute. The
error to be given is NFS4ERR_ATTRNOTSUPP.
10.7. Setting Mode and not ACL (overall)
10.7.1. Setting Mode and not ACL (vestigial)
[Author Aside]: All unannotated paragraphs are to be considered the
Previous treatment of Consensus Item #30a.
When any of the nine low-order mode bits are subject to change,
either because the mode attribute was set or because the
mode_set_masked attribute was set and the mask included one or more
bits from the nine low-order mode bits, and no ACL attribute is
explicitly set, the acl and dacl attributes must be modified in
accordance with the updated value of those bits. This must happen
even if the value of the low-order bits is the same after the mode is
set as before.
Note that any AUDIT or ALARM ACEs (hence any ACEs in the sacl
attribute) are unaffected by changes to the mode.
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In cases in which the permissions bits are subject to change, the acl
and dacl attributes MUST be modified such that the mode computed via
the method in Section 10.4 yields the low-order nine bits (MODE4_R*,
MODE4_W*, MODE4_X*) of the mode attribute as modified by the
attribute change. The ACL attributes SHOULD also be modified such
that:
1. If MODE4_RGRP is not set, entities explicitly listed in the ACL
other than OWNER@ and EVERYONE@ SHOULD NOT be granted
ACE4_READ_DATA.
2. If MODE4_WGRP is not set, entities explicitly listed in the ACL
other than OWNER@ and EVERYONE@ SHOULD NOT be granted
ACE4_WRITE_DATA or ACE4_APPEND_DATA.
3. If MODE4_XGRP is not set, entities explicitly listed in the ACL
other than OWNER@ and EVERYONE@ SHOULD NOT be granted
ACE4_EXECUTE.
Access mask bits other than those listed above, appearing in ALLOW
ACEs, MAY also be disabled.
Note that ACEs with the flag ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE set do not affect
the permissions of the ACL itself, nor do ACEs of the type AUDIT and
ALARM. As such, it is desirable to leave these ACEs unmodified when
modifying the ACL attributes.
Also note that the requirement may be met by discarding the acl and
dacl, in favor of an ACL that represents the mode and only the mode.
This is permitted, but it is preferable for a server to preserve as
much of the ACL as possible without violating the above requirements.
Discarding the ACL makes it effectively impossible for a file created
with a mode attribute to inherit an ACL (see Section 10.11).
10.7.2. Setting Mode and not ACL (Discussion)
[Author Aside]: All unannotated paragraphs are to be considered
Author Asides relating to Consensus Item #30b.
Existing documents are unclear about the changes to be made to an
existing ACL when the nine low-order bits of the mode attribute are
subject to modification using SETATTR.
A new treatment needs to apply to all minor versions. It will be
necessary to specify that, for all minor versions, setting of the
mode attribute, subjects the low-order nine bits to modification.
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One important source of this lack of clarity is the following
paragraph from Section 10.7.1, which we refer to later as the
trivial-implementation-remark".
Also note that the requirement may be met by discarding the acl
and dacl, in favor of an ACL that represents the mode and only the
mode. This is permitted, but it is preferable for a server to
preserve as much of the ACL as possible without violating the
above requirements. Discarding the ACL makes it effectively
impossible for a file created with a mode attribute to inherit an
ACL (see Section 10.11).
The only "requirement" which might be met by the procedure mentioned
above is the text quoted below.
In cases in which the permissions bits are subject to change, the
acl and dacl attributes MUST be modified such that the mode
computed via the method in Section 10.4 yields the low-order nine
bits (MODE4_R*, MODE4_W*, MODE4_X*) of the mode attribute as
modified by the attribute change.
While it is true that this requirement could be met by the specified
treatment, this fact does not, in itself, affect the numerous
recommendations that appear between the above requirement and the
trivial-implementation-remark.
It may well be that there are implementations that have treated the
trivial-implementation-remark as essentially allowing them to
essentially ignore all of those recommendations, resulting in a
situation in which were treated as if it were a trivial-
implementation-ok indication. How that issue will be dealt with in a
replacement for Section 10.7.1 will be affected by the working
group's examination of compatibility issues.
The following specific issues need to be addressed:
* Handling of inheritance.
Beyond the possible issues that arise from the trivial-
implementation-ok interpretation, the treatment in Section 10.7.1,
by pointing specifically to existing INHERIT_ONLY ACEs obscures
the corresponding need to convert ACE's that specify both
inheritance and access permissions to be converted to INHERIT_ONLY
ACEs.
* Reverse-slope modes
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The effect of ignoring this case is often so pervasive that the
algorithms offered cannot be patched to avoid the issue but need
to be rethought.
* Named users and groups.
The particular handling of these in computing mode, could
conceivably affect other aspects of mode handling as well.
We will need to consider the behavior of clients and servers to
get a better handle on these issues.
* The exact bounds of what within the ACL is covered by the low-
order bits of the mode.
A particular concern is the handling of ACE mask bits that are
neither derived directly from a POSIX permission bit nor control a
subset of the actions controlled by a POSIX permission bit. It is
often assumed in previous specification that no such bits exist
but, since that is not the case, the issue needs to be addressed
somehow.
We have wound up accommodating a large set of bits, but might need
to revisit this issue if and when we decide to standardize the
handling of mask bits that are not finer-grained version of one of
the three POSIX permission bits.
It appears that for many of the issues, there are many possible
readings of the existing specs, leading to the possibility of
multiple inconsistent server behaviors. Furthermore, there are cases
in which none of the possible behaviors described in existing
specifications meets the needs.
As a result of these issues, the existing specifications do not
provide a reliable basis for client-side implementations of the ACL
feature which a Proposed Standard is normally expected to provide.
10.7.3. Setting Mode and not ACL (Proposed)
[Author Aside]: This proposed section is part of Consensus Item #30c
and all unannotated paragraphs within it are to be considered part of
that Item. Since the proposed text includes support for reverse-
slope modes, treats all minor versions together and assumes decisions
about handling of ACEs for named users and groups, the relevance of
consensus items #26b, #28, and #29 needs to be noted.
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[Author Aside]: As with all such Consensus Items, it is expected that
the eventual text in a published RFC might be substantially different
based on working group discussion of client and server needs and
possible compatibility issues. In this particular case, that
divergence can be expected to be larger, because the author was
forced to guess about compatibility issues and because earlier
material, on which it is based left such a wide range of matters to
the discretion of server implementers. It is the author's intention
that, as the working group discusses matters, sufficient attention is
placed on the need for client-side implementations to have reliable
information about expected server-side actions.
[Author Aside, through end of bulleted list]: In this and subsequent
sections I have tried to come up with overall recommendations that
are as consistent with the previous treatment as I can come up with,
as I have done in other areas. In this particular case, I have had
more difficulty than in others since this is the existing text
treatment is so unclear, making it hard to determine what hard-to-
accommodate aspects are intentional. In particular, as the working
group discusses this area and accommodate actual implementation, the
following difficult issues will need to be focused on:
* The retention or not of ACEs using special who values. Some of
the previous text suggests these are to be retained but I have
specified they are to be invalidated.
In part, I am motivated by the fact that retaining these would
force a wholesale rewriting of the ACL, even in those cases in
which it can normally be avoided by using DENY ACEs to prevent
file authorization scanning from proceeding beyond the portion of
the new ACL that is derived from the from the mode.
Requiring that these be retained would partially erode the control
of file authorization unless the ACL were rewritten to put these
first, which might have unforeseen effects.
* The statement in existing specification about avoiding conflicts
with the mode derived from the acl is not all that clear about
which method is intended. In addition, it is not clear how
seriously to take this since the purpose of supporting ACLs is
precisely to express authorization patterns that are different
from those expressible by all potential mode values and thus
inconsistent with all of them.
I have allowed multiple modes of computation while providing
facilities within Aclchoice for the client to be informed of
server choices in this regard.
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* The handling of many of the ACE mask bits is not addressed, or is
addressed in flawed way because of mistaken that new mask bits
only change the granularity of the set of action controlled and
nothing else.
We have tried to accommodate mask bits derivable from sets of mask
bits or from file ownership. While the result seems to make
sense, it might not do so once we look at detailed implementation
characteristics and try to standardize the mappings between mask
bits and permission bits.
This section describes how ACLs are to be updated in response to
actual or potential changes in the mode attribute, when the
attributes needed by both of the file access authorization models are
supported. It supersedes the discussions of the subject in [RFC7530]
and [RFC8881], each of which appeared in Section 6.4.1.1 of the
corresponding document.
Despite this supersession, it needs to be understood that previous
implementations addressed the issues using relying often on now-
superseded statements about the requirements to be satisfied and how
these requirements might be met. In light of the existence of these
implementations, in defining what would normally be requirements, we
use the term "SHOULD" with the understanding that reliance on
material in these earlier specifications is a valid reason to bypass
the new recommendation.
It is necessary to approach the matter differently than in the past
because:
* Organizational changes are necessary to address all minor versions
together.
* Those previous discussions are often internally inconsistent
leaving it unclear what specification-mandated actions are to be
performed.
* In many cases, servers were granted an extraordinary degree of
freedom to choose the action to take, either explicitly or via an
apparently unmotivated use of "SHOULD", leaving it unclear what
might be considered "valid" reasons to bypass the recommendation.
* There appears to have been no concern for the problems that
clients and applications might encounter dealing ACLs in such an
uncertain environment.
* Cases involving reverse-slope modes were not adequately addressed.
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* The security-related effects of SVTX were not addressed.
While that earlier approach might have been considered workable at
the time, it made it difficult to devise client-side ACL
implementations that incorporated the extensions within NFSv4 ACLs,
even if there had been any interest in doing so. In order to enable
this situation to eventually be rectified, we will define the
preferred implementation here, but in order to provide temporary
compatibility with existing implementations based on reasonable
interpretations of [RFC7530] [RFC8881]. To enable such compatibility
the term "SHOULD" will be used, with the understanding that valid
reasons to bypass the recommendation, are limited to implementers'
previous reliance on these earlier specifications and the difficulty
of changing them now.
When the recommendation is bypassed in this way, it is necessary to
understand, that, until the divergence is rectified, or the client is
given a way to determine the detail of the server's non-standard
behavior, client-side implementations may find it difficult to
implement a client-side implementation that correctly interoperates
with existing servers that based their implementations on various
pieces of the existing text, now superseded.
The fundamental requirement that needs to be addressed is that when
mode bits involved in determining file access authorization are
subject to modification, the server MUST, when ACL-related attributes
have been set, modify the associated ACEs so as not to conflict with
the new value of the mode attribute.
The occasions to which this requirement applies, vary with the
attribute being set and the type of object being dealt with:
* For all minor versions, any change to the mode attribute, triggers
this requirement
* When the set_mode_masked attribute is being set on an object which
is not a directory, whether this requirement is triggered depends
on whether any of the nine low-order bits of the mode is included
in the mask.
* When the set_mode_masked attribute is being set on a directory,
whether this requirement is triggered depends on whether any of
the nine low-order bits of the mode or the SVTX bit is included in
the mask of bit whose values are to be set.
When the requirement is triggered, ACLs need to be updated to be
consistent with the new mode attribute. The necessary action depends
on specific of the ACEs involved.
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* In the case of AUDIT and ALARM ACEs, which are used outside of
file access authorization, no change needs to be made.
* For ALLOW and DENY ACEs, which are marked as inherit-only, no
change needs to be made since such ACEs have no effect on file
access authorization for the current file.
* For ALLOW and DENY ACEs, which are marked as providing ACE
inheritance without being marked as inherit-only, the effect of
these ACEs on inheritance needs to be retained while their direct
effect on file access authorization needs to be disabled.
This can be effected by modifying the ACE to be inherit-only or
ensuring that such ACEs are never reached when scanning an ACL for
file access authorization. For example, a DENY ACE for EVERYONE@
early in the ACL would have this effect
* The handling of remaining ACEs with a who-value of OWNER@, GROUP@,
or EVERYONE@ needs to be adapted to the new mode.
This could take the form of rewriting them in place or of
generating new ACEs at the start of the ACL.
* The effect on file authorization of remaining ACEs whose who-value
is a named user needs to be avoided.
This can be accomplished by rewriting the ACL, eliminating such
ACEs or by or ensuring that such ACEs are never reached when
scanning an ACL for file access authorization. For example, a
DENY ACE for EVERYONE@ early in the ACL would have this effect.
* The effect on file authorization of ACEs whose who-value is one of
the other special values defined in Section 7.4 are to be left
unmodified.
This can be accomplished by rewriting the ACL, eliminating such
ACEs or by or ensuring that such ACEs are never reached when
scanning an ACL for file access authorization. For example, a
DENY ACE for EVERYONE@ early in the ACL would have this effect.
How these needs are best effected depends on the ACL model
implemented. Of particular importance is the existence of DENY ACEs
which allow one to force scanning for file access to be stopped at
some point while retaining later ACEs to be retained without any
possibility that they will affect file access authorization. We
discuss three classes of ACL implementations as discussed below.
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* For implementation of NFSv4 ACLs and hybrids that contain support
for DENY ACEs, implementation suggestions appearing in
Section 10.7.5 are provided.
* For implementation of UNIX ACLs, implementation suggestions
appearing in Section 10.7.4 are provided.
* For implementation of various hybrid ACLs that do not provide
support for DENY ACEs, implementation suggestions appearing in
Section 10.7.6 are provided.
All of the abovementioned suggestions share common logic regarding
the formation of ACE masks used and how the mode bits are mapped to
ACE masks designating allowed actions.
The mask of allowed actions for each of OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@
is derived as described below using mode-set mask support
information, as described below. For each of the above, the
following is done:
* The three privilege bits are extracted for owner, group, and
others.
* That set of three bits is combined with a fourth which one in the
case of OWNER@ and zero in the other case.
* Those four fits are used to arrive at a shift to get to the
appropriate bit in the of mode-set masks.
* All of the mode set mask words are scanned to find those with that
specific bit on. For entries in which it is on the associated ACE
mask bit is added to the mask being accumulated.
* The resulting mask designate the allowed actions for the specific
who being interrogated.
10.7.4. Setting Mode and not ACL in the Unix ACL Case (Proposed)
[Author Aside]: This proposed section is part of Consensus Item #30d
and all unannotated paragraphs within it are to be considered part of
that Item. Since the proposed text includes support for reverse-
slope modes, treats all minor versions together and assumes decisions
about handling of ACEs for named users and groups, the relevance of
consensus items #26c, #28, and #29 needs to be noted.
[Author Aside]: The inability of ACLs without DENY ACEs to present
certain modes in a newly discovered issue and a troublesome one which
will need extensive working group discussion. This issue applies to
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Section 10.7.6 as well. It appears that this issue is not fixable
before NFSv4.2 but that it could be addressed by defining OTHERS@ and
GROUPEXCEPTOWNER@ as NFSv4.2 extensions.
When UNIX ACLs are implemented, the absence of support for DENY ACEs
forces the ACL to be rewritten in its entirety, rather than have a
mode-related section prepended to a mostly unchanged ACL. In
addition, the absence of support for DENY ACEs requires special
attention to the possible presence of reverse slope mode because
OWNER@ is a subset of GROUP@ and both OWNER@ and GROUP@ are subsets
of EVERYONE@.
It should be noted however, that the complexity of the rewriting
process is reduced because of features not part of the UNIX ACL
model:
* The absence of support for ACEs other than ALLOW means only a
single ACE type needs to be dealt with.
* The absence of ACE inheritance means that ACEs marked to be
inherited or inherit-only, do not exist.
* The absence of support for ACEs with OPTIONAL special who value
allow these cases to be ignored as well.
The replacement ACL begins with three ALLOW ACEs for the who values
OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@. The order in which these are placed
in the resultant ACL needs to be adjusted based on the mode value
avoid problems with reverse-slope modes. Such problems can arise
when a who value processed later contains permission bits not present
in previous one so that the later who value, covering a superset of
the principals of the earlier one, receives permissions that should
not, for example, be granted to the owning user according to the
POSIX definition of privileges for the owning group
In order to address this issue the three entries need to be sorted in
order of descending privilege, using the inclusion relationship for
the privilege bits of each one.
It is possible that two entries will have privilege sets not
orderable by inclusion, i.e., neither is a subset of the other.
Given the absence of DENY ACEs, the resulting permissions cannot be
representing by an ACL, so that the ACL needs to be deleted in this
case.
These preliminary ACEs are followed by a series of ACEs derived from
the existing ACL with entries copied over or not as described below:
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* ACEs with who value of OWNER@, GROUP@, or EVERYONE@ are not copied
over.
* ACEs with other who values are copied to the ACL, unmodified.
10.7.5. Setting Mode and not ACL in the NFSv4 ACL Case (Proposed)
[Author Aside]: This proposed section is part of Consensus Item #30e
and all unannotated paragraphs within it are to be considered part of
that Item. Since the proposed text includes support for reverse-
slope modes, treats all minor versions together and assumes decisions
about handling of ACEs for named users and groups, the relevance of
consensus items #26d, #28, and #29 needs to be noted.
This covers in addition to NFSv4 ACLs per se, all cases in which
support for DENY ACEs is present. The availability of support for
DENY ACEs affects the generation of a new ACL as follows:
* Reverse slope modes do not force a re-ordering of the initial
ACEs. To avoid this, each initial ALLOW ACE is paired with a
corresponding DENY ACE
* Detailed analysis of the existing ACEs is not necessary since the
new ACL will prevent those from ever being referenced in
connection with file access authorization. This allows the
existing ACL to be appended to the three initial ACE pairs.
The replacement ACL begins with three pairs of ACEs for the who
values OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@. Each pair consists of an ALLOW
ACE for that who value followed by a corresponding DENY ACE with the
same who value. The ACE mask for the ALLOW ACE is derived from the
corresponding permission bits as described above. The mask for the
DENY ACE is the set of mode-related mask bits with the allows mask
bits turned off.
These preliminary ACEs are followed by copies of the ACEs within the
existing ACL. It is possible, although not necessary, to eliminate,
as part of this copy, all ALLOW and DENY ACEs with who values of
OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@.
10.7.6. Setting Mode and not ACL in Certain Hybrid ACL Cases (Proposed)
[Author Aside]: This proposed section is part of Consensus Item #30f
and all unannotated paragraphs within it are to be considered part of
that Item. Since the proposed text includes support for reverse-
slope modes, treats all minor versions together and assumes decisions
about handling of ACEs for named users and groups, the relevance of
consensus items #26e, #28, and #29 needs to be noted.
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This section covers ACL implementations that do not have support for
DENY ACEs. In such cases, the absence of support for DENY ACEs
forces the ACL to be rewritten in its entirety, rather than have a
mode-related section prepended to a mostly unchanged ACL. In
addition, the absence of support for DENY ACEs requires special
attention to the possible presence of reverse slope modes because
OWNER@ is a subset of GROUP@ and both OWNER@ and GROUP@ are subsets
of EVERYONE@.
The replacement ACL begins with three ALLOW ACEs for the who values
OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@. The order in which these are placed
in the resultant ACL needs to be adjusted based on the mode value
avoid problems with reverse-slope modes. Such problems can arise
when a who value processed later contains permission bits not present
in previous one so that the later who value, covering a superset of
the principals of the earlier one, receives permissions that should
not, for example, be granted to the owning user according to the
POSIX definition of privileges for the owning group
In order to address this issue the three entries need to be sorted in
order of descending privilege, as described in Section 10.7.4. As in
that case the existence of sets of privilege bits not comparable
according to inclusion might force the ACL to be deleted, rather than
being replaced by an ACL equivalent to the mode, which in this case
cannot exist.
These preliminary ACEs are followed by a series of ACEs derived from
the existing ACL with entries copied over or not as described below:
* AUDIT and ALARMS ACEs are copied over.
* ALLOW and DENY ACEs that are marked inherit-only are copied over.
* ALLOW and DENY ACEs that are marked as inheritable without being
inherit-only are copied over in a modified form. They need to be
marked as inherit only.
* Other ALLOW and DENY ACEs are not copied over. This applies
irrespective of the who value, although the reasons for doing this
are different for different sorts of who values.
ACEs with who values of OWNER@, GROUP@, and EVERYONE@ are to be
eliminated because they are dealt with in the prepended ACEs.
ACEs with a who value denoting a specific user or group are to be
eliminated because their presence is incompatible with the POSIX
file access authorization model.
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ACEs with a special who value (auth-related or miscellaneous) are
to be eliminated in order to assume that the file access
authorization after setting the mode reflects the mode alone.
10.8. Setting ACL and Not Mode
[Author Aside]: The handling of SHOULD in this section is considered
as part of Consensus Item #63d.
When setting the acl or dacl and not setting the mode or
mode_set_masked attributes, the permission bits of the mode need to
be derived from the ACL. In this case, the ACL attribute SHOULD be
set as given. The nine low-order bits of the mode attribute
(MODE4_R*, MODE4_W*, MODE4_X*) MUST be modified to match the result
of the method in Section 10.3. The three high-order bits of the mode
(MODE4_SUID, MODE4_SGID, MODE4_SVTX) SHOULD remain unchanged.
10.9. Setting Both ACL and Mode
When setting both the mode (includes use of either the mode attribute
or the mode_set_masked attribute) and the acl or dacl attributes in
the same operation, the attributes MUST be applied in the following
order: mode (or mode_set_masked), then ACL. The mode-related
attribute is set as given, then the ACL attribute is set as given,
possibly changing the final mode, as described above in Section 10.8.
10.10. Retrieving the Mode and/or ACL Attributes
[Author Aside]: The handling of SHOULD in this section is considered
as part of Consensus Item #63e.
If a server supports any ACL attributes, it may use the ACL
attributes on the parent directory to compute an initial ACL
attribute for a newly created object. This will be referred to as
the inherited ACL within this section. The act of adding one or more
ACEs to the inherited ACL that are based upon ACEs in the parent
directory's ACL will be referred to as inheriting an ACE within this
section.
Implementors need to base the behavior of CREATE and OPEN depending
on the presence or absence of the mode and ACL attributes by
following the directions below:
1. If just the mode is given in the call:
In this case, inheritance SHOULD take place, but the mode MUST be
applied to the inherited ACL as described in Section 10.7,
thereby modifying the ACL.
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2. If just the ACL is given in the call:
In this case, inheritance SHOULD NOT take place, and the ACL as
defined in the CREATE or OPEN will be set without modification,
and the mode modified as in Section 10.8.
3. If both mode and ACL are given in the call:
In this case, inheritance SHOULD NOT take place, and both
attributes will be set as described in Section 10.9.
4. If neither mode nor ACL is given in the call:
In the case where an object is being created without any initial
attributes at all, e.g., an OPEN operation with an opentype4 of
OPEN4_CREATE and a createmode4 of EXCLUSIVE4, inheritance SHOULD
NOT take place (note that EXCLUSIVE4_1 is a better choice of
createmode4, since it does permit initial attributes). Instead,
the server SHOULD set permissions to deny all access to the newly
created object. It is expected that the appropriate client will
set the desired attributes in a subsequent SETATTR operation, and
the server SHOULD allow that operation to succeed, regardless of
what permissions the object is created with. For example, an
empty ACL denies all permissions, but the server need to allow
the owner's SETATTR to succeed even though WRITE_ACL is
implicitly denied.
In other cases, inheritance SHOULD take place, and no
modifications to the ACL will happen. The mode attribute MUST be
as computed in Section 10.3, with the MODE4_SUID, MODE4_SGID, and
MODE4_SVTX bits clear. If no inheritable ACEs exist on the
parent directory, the rules for creating acl, dacl, or sacl
attributes are implementation defined. If either the dacl or
sacl attribute is supported, then the ACL4_DEFAULTED flag SHOULD
be set on the newly created attributes.
10.11. Use of Inherited ACL When Creating Objects
[Author Aside]: The handling of SHOULD in this section is considered
as part of Consensus Item #63f.
If the object being created is not a directory, the inherited ACL
SHOULD NOT inherit ACEs from the parent directory ACL unless the
ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE flag is set.
If the object being created is a directory, the inherited ACL is to
inherit all inheritable ACEs from the parent directory, that is,
those that have the ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE or
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ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE flag set. If the inheritable ACE has
ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE set but ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE is clear,
the inherited ACE on the newly created directory MUST have the
ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE flag set to prevent the directory from being
affected by ACEs meant for non-directories.
When a new directory is created, the server MAY split any inherited
ACE that is both inheritable and effective (in other words, that has
neither ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE nor ACE4_NO_PROPAGATE_INHERIT_ACE set),
into two ACEs, one with no inheritance flags and one with
ACE4_INHERIT_ONLY_ACE set. (In the case of a dacl or sacl attribute,
both of those ACEs SHOULD also have the ACE4_INHERITED_ACE flag set.)
This makes it simpler to modify the effective permissions on the
directory without modifying the ACE that is to be inherited to the
new directory's children.
10.12. Combined Authorization Models for NFSv4.2
The NFSv4 server implementation requirements described in the
subsections above apply to NFSv4.2 as well and NFSv4.2 clients can
assume that the server follows them.
NFSv4.2 contains an OPTIONAL extension, defined in [RFC8257], which
is intended to reduce the interference of modes, restricted by the
umask mechanism, with the acl inheritance mechanism. The extension
allows the client to specify the umask separately from the mask
attribute.
11. Other Uses of Access Control Lists
Whether the Acl or Sacl attributes are used, AUDIT and ALARM ACEs
provide security-related facilities separate from the file access
authorization provided by ALLOW and DENY ACEs
* AUDIT ACEs provide a means to audit attempts to access a specified
file by specified sets of principals.
* ALARM ACEs provide a means to draw special attention to attempts
to access specified files by specified sets of principals.
12. Aclchoice Details
The structure of Aclchoice attribute is extendible for many of the
same reasons that the set of NFSv4 attributes is extendible and
shares many of the same mechanisms including use of an easily
extended bitmap and a nominally opaque array overlain with a
disparate set of individual items. However, these are not exactly
the same and the following important differences should be noted:
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* The bitmap4 aca_bits is optimized to represent binary choices and
has no role in defining the use of the nominally opaque area
within aca_dpool.
* The array acs_ditems does define the individual data items that
overlay pieces of aca_dpool.
Because of this structure each individual data item can be located
without knowing the length of all preceding ones, as is the case
with fattr4.
12.1. Provisions for Aclchoice Modification
The structure of the Aclchoice attribute makes it quite easy to add
or delete existing flag and data item. However, to ensure
interoperability, there are a number of policies set out below,
derived from [RFC8178], that restrict how necessary changes can be
done.
* New items, whether flags or data item can be done whenever new
attributes or similar item can be added. Since all such items are
OPTIONAL, defaults need to be specified to cover the case in which
the items in question are not present
This serves a way to address newly discovered behavioral variants.
In addition to allowing this in extensible minor versions, we will
also allow them during the development of this document. New
items will be allowed in successive drafts both before and after
working group adoption. However, once the document approaches
Working Group last call, these will need to cease.
* Deletions, as such, will not be allowed. However, as with
OPTIONAL attributes, there will be the opportunity to make
existing flags and data items mandatory-to-not-implement in new
minor versions, such as, for example NFSv4.3.
It is desirable ability to allow complicated data items by a set of
binary choices, when that can be done. In this case the addition of
the new flags bits can proceed quickly but the data item to be
superseded will remain in the protocol until it can be made
mandatory-to-not-implement in a later minor version.
12.2. Storing of ACLs which are not Enforced
The potential ability of servers to accept and store ACEs that they
are not prepared to enforce requires the server that supports the
Aclchoice attribute to either:
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* Set acd_length to zero in acsditems[ACC4IN_STOREUA] to indicate
that this functionality is never provided.
* Set acsditems[ACC4IN_STOREUA] to refer to an acc4storeua (as
described below) within acs_dpool to describe the non-enforced
ACEs that they accept.
Acceptance of ACE4_SYNCHRONIZE is not considered a use of this
facility, since that is true of that bit in all cases.
struct acc4storeua {
uint32_t asua_types;
uint32_t asua_flags;
ace4mask asua_mask:
};
This structure is to be filled in as described below:
* asua_types contain a mask of ACE type that are accepted but not
enforced. Each type is represented by a one left-shifted by the
numeric value of the type.
* asua_flags contains a mask of ACE flags accepted but and returned
on fetched ACLs but not enforced.
When both ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE and ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE are
set, the is no opportunity to determine potential inheritance so
specifying any of ACC4BN_IN1BIT, ACC4BN_INHFULL, or ACC4BN_INHAUTO
as part of the Aclchoice attribute is invalid.
When one of either ACE4_FILE_INHERIT_ACE or
ACE4_DIRECTORY_INHERIT_ACE is set inheritance is limited to being
decided by the bit not included if ACC4BN_IN1BIT is set. In
addition specifying either of ACC4BN_INHFULL, or ACC4BN_INHAUTO as
part of the Aclchoice attribute is invalid
* asua_mask contains a set of mask bits that the server is prepared
to accept and return on fetched ACLs, but have no role in
authorization and are not considered for the AUDIT and ALARM
functions.
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12.3. Advice/Recommendations Regarding ACL Choices
The Aclchoice allows the clients to be informed about behavioral
choices the server is allowed to make. The fact that the server is
allowed to make these choices and report them does not necessarily
imply that these choices are valid. They may be allowed solely
because they always have been allowed since previous specifications
chose to be quite lax in these matters. Also, to correct situations
in which previous specifications gave servers undue latitude in
making such choices, some behavior previously not felt to be
noteworthy is recommended against using "SHOULD" or "SHOULD NOT" with
the understanding that the valid reasons to bypass the recommendation
are limited to the reliance on earlier specifications.
In the table below, we summarize the existing items defined within
the Aclchoice attribute, including both flags and data items,
providing summary advice/recommendations regarding their use together
with some expectations/speculations regarding future development.
The advice is summarized using the codes listed below.
Vox Valid OPTIONAL extension.
An extension to the core that was allowed to be present or not
according to previous specifications, without clearly stating
that. The absence of the extension was treated as an excusable
implementation flaw.
Vax Valid absence of an OPTIONAL extension
A choice to support core functionality without any of a set of
extensions that were allowed to be present or not according to
previous specifications. Only the core functionality is provided
despite the absence of a clear statement that this was REQUIRED.
Lux Valid OPTIONAL extension with limited uses
Mentioned in passing as acceptable in previous specfications.
Despite the fact it should avoided because of its unfortunate
side-effects, has some valid use cases.
Bix Badly Implemented Extension
An extension to the core that was allowed to be present or not
according to previous specifications, despite he fact that there
is no client use for the extension so implemented. Allows badly
implemented server to be considered acceptable.
Nbc Needed Behavioral Choice.
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Whether allowed by previous specifications or not, needed by
clients to provide needed functionality.
Vbc Valid Behavioral Choice.
Allowed by previous specifications. The validity in the title
does not necessarily imply that it was necessary to allow this
choice, but indicates hat it needs to be treated as valid for the
foreseeable future
Sbt Should be True.
Indicate that setting this false has negative consequences of
which clients and servers need to be aware.
Sbf Should be false.
Indicate that setting this true has negative consequences of which
clients and servers need to be aware.
Mbc Miscellaneous behavioral choices.
Describes a set of matters for which previous specifications gave
no behavioral guidance allowing a range of server behaviors to be
chosen.
+================+======+====+=====================================+
| Item | Adv. | CI | Future Dev. |
+================+======+====+=====================================+
| ACC4BN_NEINGM | Vbc | - | Convergence desirable but unlikely. |
| | | | Should work to allow client choice. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SEPFWX | Vox | - | Will be guided by client needs |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SEPAFD | Vox | - | Will be guided by client needs |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SEPDE | Vox | - | Will be guided by client need |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_RNASDI | Sbf | - | Old approach might or might not be |
| | | | implemented |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_NAD | Vox | - | Will be guided by client needs |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_RNADMOD | Sbt | - | Old approach makes no sense. Will |
| | | | need to look at implementations. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_MBCA | Sbf | - | Would like to get rid of this when |
| | | | we can. |
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+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SMJUST3 | Sbf | - | Might be possible to get rid of |
| | | | this. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SMOLD | Sbf | - | Would like to get rid of this but |
| | | | can't. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SMJUST3 | Sbt | - | Want to get here. Would take a |
| | | | while. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_3MASKB | Vax | - | No changes expected. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_AANPS | Nbc | - | Not explicitly allowed by previous |
| | | | specs. Needed for POSIX ACL |
| | | | support. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_SPWHO | Vbc | - | Might not find any implementations. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_IN1BIT | Bix | - | Implementations might exist. Not |
| | | | clear why. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_INHFULL | Vox | - | Needed for support of POSIX ACLs |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_INHAUTO | Vox | - | Not sure any implementations exist. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4BN_RVINV | Sbf | | |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4IN_OWNMB | Vox | - | Expect to be common. If they are |
| | | | all the same, can get rid of this. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4IN_ODDMB | Mbc | - | Will try to simplify over time. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
| ACC4IN_STOREUA | Lux | - | Expect some implementations but |
| | | | have not seen any. |
+----------------+------+----+-------------------------------------+
Table 6: Table of Aclchoice Items (with Advice)
13. Security Considerations
There are no Security considerations specific to this document.
Security considerations for NFSv4 as a whole are dealt with in the
Security Considerations section of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security].
14. IANA Considerations
This document requires no actions from IANA>
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15. References
15.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC4506] Eisler, M., Ed., "XDR: External Data Representation
Standard", STD 67, RFC 4506, DOI 10.17487/RFC4506, May
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4506>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8178] Noveck, D., "Rules for NFSv4 Extensions and Minor
Versions", RFC 8178, DOI 10.17487/RFC8178, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8178>.
[RFC7530] Haynes, T., Ed. and D. Noveck, Ed., "Network File System
(NFS) Version 4 Protocol", RFC 7530, DOI 10.17487/RFC7530,
March 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7530>.
[RFC7863] Haynes, T., "Network File System (NFS) Version 4 Minor
Version 2 External Data Representation Standard (XDR)
Description", RFC 7863, DOI 10.17487/RFC7863, November
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7863>.
[RFC8881] Noveck, D., Ed. and C. Lever, "Network File System (NFS)
Version 4 Minor Version 1 Protocol", RFC 8881,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8881, August 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8881>.
[I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security]
Noveck, D., "Security for the NFSv4 Protocols", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-dnoveck-nfsv4-security-10,
17 June 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/draft-
dnoveck-nfsv4-security/>.
15.2. Informative References
[RFC3010] Shepler, S., Callaghan, B., Robinson, D., Thurlow, R.,
Beame, C., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "NFS version 4
Protocol", RFC 3010, DOI 10.17487/RFC3010, December 2000,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3010>.
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[RFC3530] Shepler, S., Callaghan, B., Robinson, D., Thurlow, R.,
Beame, C., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "Network File System
(NFS) version 4 Protocol", RFC 3530, DOI 10.17487/RFC3530,
April 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3530>.
[RFC8257] Bensley, S., Thaler, D., Balasubramanian, P., Eggert, L.,
and G. Judd, "Data Center TCP (DCTCP): TCP Congestion
Control for Data Centers", RFC 8257, DOI 10.17487/RFC8257,
October 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8257>.
Appendix A. Issues for which Consensus Needs to be Ascertained
A.1. List of Issues
This section helps to keep track of specific changes which the author
has made or intends to make to deal with ACL-related issues that
appear in RFCs 7530 and 8881. The changes listed here exclude those
which are clearly editorial but includes some that the author
believes are editorial but for which the issues are sufficiently
complicated that working group consensus on the issue is probably
necessary.
These changes are presented in the table below, organized into a set
of "Consensus Items" identified by the numeric code appearing in
annotations in the proposed document text. For each such item, a
type code is assigned with separate sets of code define for pending
items and for those which are no longer pending.
The following codes are defined for pending consensus items:
* "NM" denotes a change which is new material that is not purely
editorial and thus requires Working Group consensus for eventual
publication.
* "BE" denotes a change which the author believes is editorial but
for which the change is sufficiently complex that the judgment is
best confirmed by the Working Group.
* "BC" denotes a change which is a substantive change that the
author believes is correct. This does not exclude the possibility
of compatibility issues becoming an issue but is used to indicate
that the author believes any such issues are unlikely to prevent
its eventual acceptance.
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* "CI" denotes a change for which the potential for compatibility
issues is a major concern with the expected result that working
group discussion of change will focus on clarifying our knowledge
of how existing clients and server deal with the issue and how
they might be affected by the change or the change modified to
accommodate them.
* "NS" denotes a change which represents the author's best effort to
resolve a difficulty but for which the author is not yet confident
that it will be adopted in its present form, principally because
of the possibility of troublesome compatibility issues.
* "NE" denotes change based on an existing issue in the spec but for
which the replacement text is incomplete and needs further
elaboration.
* "WI" denotes a potential change based on an existing issue in the
spec but for which replacement text is not yet available because
further working group input is necessary before drafting. It is
expected that replacement text will be available in a later draft
once that discussion is done.
* "LD" denotes a potential change based on an existing issue in the
spec but for which replacement text is not yet available due to
the press of time. It is expected that replacement text will be
available in a later draft.
* "EV" denote a potential change which is tentative or incomplete
because further details need to be provide or because the author
is unsure that he has a correct explanation of the issue. It is
expected that replacement text will be available in a later draft.
The following codes are defined for consensus items which are no
longer pending.
* "RT" designates a former item which has been retired, because it
has been merged with another one or otherwise organized out of
existence.
Such items no longer are referred to the document source although
the item id is never reassigned. They are no longer counted among
the set of total items.
* "CA" designates a former item for which consensus has been
achieved in the judgment of the author, although not by any
official process.
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Items reaching this state are effected in the document source
including the deletion of annotations and the elimination of
obsoleted previous treatments.
Items in this state are still counted among the total of item but
are no longer considered pending
* "CV" designates a former item for which consensus has been
achieved and formally verified.
Items in this state are not counted among the item totals. They
may be kept in the table but only to indicate that the item id is
still reserved.
* "DR" designates a former item which has been dropped, because it
appears that working group acceptance of it, even with some
modification, is unlikely.
Such items no longer are referred to the document source although
the item id is never reassigned. They are no longer counted among
the set of total items.
When asterisk is appended to a state of "NM", "BC" or "BE" it that
there has been adequate working group discussion leading one to
reasonably expect it will be adopted, without major change, in a
subsequent document revision.
Such general acceptance is not equivalent to a formal working group
consensus and it not expected to result in major changes to the draft
document,
On the other hand, once there is a working group consensus with
regard to a particular issue, the document will be modified to remove
associated annotations, with the previously conditional text
appearing just as other document text does. The issue will remain in
this table as a non-pending item. It will be mentioned in Appendix A
of [I-D.dnoveck-nfsv4-security], to summarize the changes that have
been made.
It is to be expected that these designations will change as
discussion proceeds and new document versions are published. It is
hoped that most such shifts will be upward in the above list or
result in the deletion of a pending item, by reaching a consensus to
accept or reject it. This would enable, once all items are dealt
with, an eventual request for publication as an RFC, with this
appendix having been deleted.
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The consensus items in the following table can be divided into three
groups, based on the associated numeric id.
* Those with ids less than 62 were created as part of the security
document and transferred to this one as part of the document
split.
* Those with ids between 62 and 65 are the result of splitting items
created as part of the security document that now address issues
in both documents
* Those with id 100 and above were created after the document split.
In most case, there is no connection to material within the
security document.
+===+====+==================+=====================================+
|# |Type| ...References... | Substance |
+===+====+==================+=====================================+
|3 |BE | #3a in S 7.2 | Conversion of mask bit descriptions |
| | | | from being about "permissions" to |
| | | | being about the action permitted, |
| | | | denied, or specified as being |
| | | | audited or generating alarms. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|4 |CI | #4a in S 2.3 | Elimination of uses of SHOULD |
| | | | believed inappropriate in the |
| | | [MAYBE] #4b in S | descriptions of ACEs and |
| | | 4.6 | clarification of ongoing use of |
| | | | SHOULD. |
| | | #4c in S 7.2 | |
| | | | |
| | | #4d in S 7.2.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #4e in S 7.2.3 | |
| | | | |
| | | #4f in S 7.2.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #4g in S 7.3.1 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|5 |NE | #5a in S 7.2 | Changes needed in treatment of |
| | | | ACCESS, including the following: |
| | | #5b in S 7.2.1 | |
| | | | * ACCESS is listed as an operation |
| | | | in all cases in which one of the |
| | | | bits returned by the operation |
| | | | could be affected. |
| | | | |
| | | | * There is now explicit indication |
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| | | | of which bit(s) returned by |
| | | | ACCESS might be affected. |
| | | | |
| | | | * There is now a discussion of |
| | | | differences between the effect |
| | | | on authorization and that on |
| | | | other uses of the associated |
| | | | mask bits for ACEs not connected |
| | | | with authorization. |
| | | | |
| | | | Given the inability of the |
| | | | server to determine which bits |
| | | | are being tested by the client, |
| | | | determining when success or |
| | | | failure has occurred is |
| | | | impossible. As a result it |
| | | | appears best to given the server |
| | | | freedom, in any particular case, |
| | | | to decide whether an ACCESS has |
| | | | succeeded or failed in |
| | | | determining whether it |
| | | | constitutes a recordable event. |
| | | | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|7 |BE | #7a in S 7.2.1 | Clarification of relationship |
| | | | between READ_DATA and EXECUTE. |
| | | #7b in S 7.2.3 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|8 |CI | #8a in S 7.2.1 | Revised discussion of relationship |
| | | | between WRITE_DATA and APPEND_DATA. |
| | | #8b in S 7.2.3 | |
| | | | |
| | | #8c in S 7.2.4 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|9 |CI | #9a in S 7.2.1 | Clarification of how ADD_DIRECTORY |
| | | | relates to RENAME. |
| | | #9b in S 7.2.4 | |
| | | | We are assuming that the cross- |
| | | | directory and within-directory |
| | | | cases need to be treated |
| | | | differently. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|10 |WI | #10a in S 7.2.7 | Possible revisions in handling of |
| | | | the masks WRITE_RETENTION and |
| | | | WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|11 |CI | #11a in S 7.2.7 | Explicit recommendation and |
| | | | requirements for mask granularity, |
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| | | | replacing the previous treatment |
| | | | which gave the server license to |
| | | | ignore most of the previous |
| | | | section, placing clients in an |
| | | | unfortunate situation. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|12 |BC | #12a in S 7.2.14 | Revised treatment of directory |
| | | | entry deletion. |
| | | #12b in S 7.2.15 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|13 |BC | #13a in 7.3 | Attempt to put some reasonable |
| | | | limits on possible non-support (or |
| | | #13b in 7.3.1 | variations in the support provided) |
| | | | for the ACE flags. This is to |
| | | #13c in 7.3.2 | replace a situation in which the |
| | | | client has no real way to deal with |
| | | #13d in 7.3.3 | the freedom granted to server |
| | | | implementations. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|14 |BC | #14a in S 4 | Explicit discussion and use of the |
| | | | case in which aclsupport is not |
| | | #14b in S 4.5 | supported. |
| | | | |
| | | #14c in S 6.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #14d in S 6.2 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|15 |BC | #15a in S 4.5 | Handling of the proper relationship |
| | | | between support for ALLOW and DENY |
| | | | ACEs. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|16 |NM | #16a in S 4.4 | Discussion of coherence of acl, |
| | | | sacl, and dacl attributes. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|26 |CI | #26a in S 10.2 | Decide how ACEs with who values |
| | | | other than OWNER@, Group, or |
| | | #26b in S 10.7.3 | EVERYONE@ are be dealt with when |
| | | | setting mode. |
| | | #26c in S 10.7.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #26d in S 10.7.5 | |
| | | | |
| | | #26e in S 10.7.6 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|27 |CI | #27a in S 10.2 | Concerns the possible existence of |
| | | | multiple methods of computing a |
| | | #27b in S 10.3 | mode from an acl that clients can |
| | | | depend on, and the proper |
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| | | #27c in S 10.4 | relationship among these methods. |
| | | | |
| | | #27d in S 10.5 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|28 |WI | #28a in S 10.2 | Decide how to address flags in |
| | | | mapping to/from reverse- slope |
| | | #28b in S 10.3 | modes. |
| | | | |
| | | #28 in S 10.7.3 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|29 |BC | #29 in S 10.7.3 | Address the coordination of mode |
| | | | and ACL-based attributes in a |
| | | | unified way for all minor versions. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|30 |CI | #30a in S 10.7.1 | New proposed treatment of setting |
| | | | mode incorporating some |
| | | #30b in S 10.7.2 | consequences of anticipated |
| | | | decisions regarding other consensus |
| | | #30c in S 10.7.3 | items (#26, #28, #29) |
| | | | |
| | | #30d in S 10.7.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #30e in S 10.7.5 | |
| | | | |
| | | #30f in S 10.7.6 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|31 |WI | #31a in S 10.7.3 | Need to deal with mask bits |
| | | | ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES, |
| | | | ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION, |
| | | | ACE4_WRITE_RETENTION_HOLD, |
| | | | ACE4_READ_ACL to reflect the |
| | | | semantics of the mode attribute. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|50 |BC | #50a in S 4.6 | Revise handling of "special" who |
| | | | values, making it clear for which |
| | | #50b in S 7.4 | ones "special" is a euphemism for |
| | | | "semantics-challenged". |
| | | #50c in S 7.4.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #50d in S 7.4.2 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|51 |BC | #51a in S 7.4 | Clarify the handling of the group |
| | | | bit for the special who values. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|61 |RT | #61a in S 4.3 | Proposal to distinguish support for |
| | | | UNIX and NFSv4 ACLS, depending on |
| | | #61b in S 4.5 | the results returned by the |
| | | | Aclsupport attribute. |
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| | | #61c in S 4.8 | |
| | | | Modified to be conditional on the |
| | | #61d in S 6 | absence of Aclchoice attribute |
| | | | because of the need to effectively |
| | | #61e in S 6.2 | handle hybrids. |
| | | | |
| | | #61f in S 10.4 | Many previous instances of this |
| | | | item now include Item #105 as well, |
| | | #61g in S 10.5 | since Aclchoice, when supported, |
| | | | replaces the attempt to infer the |
| | | | semantic model based on material |
| | | | available in earlier minor |
| | | | versions. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|62 |NE | #62a in S 5.3 | New/revised description of the role |
| | | | of the "sticky bit" for |
| | | #62b in S 7.2.2 | directories, with respect to ACL/ |
| | | | ACE handling. |
| | | | |
| | | | Needs to be considered together |
| | | | with Item #6 in the security |
| | | | document proper. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|63 |CI | #63a in S 10.1 | Revised description of co- |
| | | | ordination of acl and mode |
| | | #63b in S 10.2 | attributes to apply to NFSv4 as a |
| | | | whole. While this includes many |
| | | #63d in S 10.8 | aspects of the shift to be more |
| | | | specific about the co-ordination |
| | | #63e in S 10.10 | requirements including addressing |
| | | | apparently unmotivated uses of the |
| | | #63f in S 10.11 | terms "SHOULD" and "SHOULD NOT", it |
| | | | excludes some arguably related |
| | | | matters dealt with as Consensus |
| | | | Items #26 and #27. |
| | | | |
| | | | Needs to be considered together |
| | | | with Item #25 in the security |
| | | | document proper. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|64 |WI | #64a in S 5.1 | Discussion of issues related to the |
| | | | scope of the UNIX ACL model and the |
| | | | provisions made to handle it. |
| | | | |
| | | | Needs to be considered together |
| | | | with Item #56 in the security |
| | | | document proper. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
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|65 |NS | #65a 4.4 | Designation of the Acl, Dacl, and |
| | | | Sacl attributes as Experimental in |
| | | #65b 4.7 | previous specifications even though |
| | | | still formally OPTIONAL. |
| | | #65c 4.8 | |
| | | | Note that this is separate from the |
| | | | possibility of sufficiently |
| | | | clarifying the description of the |
| | | | acl, dacl, and sacl attributes to |
| | | | make the Experimental designation |
| | | | unnecessary, or providing other |
| | | | means of semantic model discovery, |
| | | | which will be covered as Item #110. |
| | | | |
| | | | Needs to be considered together |
| | | | with Item #58 in the security |
| | | | document proper. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|101|NM | #101a in S 7.2.3 | Inclusion of the action of READLINK |
| | | | as authorized by ACE4_READ_DATA |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|102|NE | #102a in S 7.2 | Mask bits have to be dealt with |
| | | | that are not simply finer-grained |
| | | #102b in S 7.2.6 | correlates of one of the three |
| | | | POSIX privilege bits or of |
| | | | ownership. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|103|NM | #103a in S 7.2 | Classification of masks bits based |
| | | | on relationship to permission bits |
| | | #103b in S 7.2.4 | and existence of implementations. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|104|NE | #104a in S 1 | Presentation of UNIX ACLs as the |
| | | | basis of the feature, rather than |
| | | #104b in S 1.2 | the possibly aspirational NFSv4 |
| | | | ACLs |
| | | #104c in S 3 | |
| | | | Includes work to track the possible |
| | | #104d in S 3.2 | deletion of Extension features that |
| | | | were never implemented, where the |
| | | #104e in S 3.3 | WG agrees. |
| | | | |
| | | #104d in S 3.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #104d in S 3.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #104f in S 3.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #104g in S 5 | |
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| | | | |
| | | #104h in S 5.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #104i in S 5.1 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|105|NE | #105a in S 1 | Support for discovery of ACL |
| | | | extensions using the Aclchoice |
| | | #105b in S 1.2 | attribute or by using inference |
| | | | rules, to help in those case in |
| | | #105c in S 3 | which it is not supported. |
| | | | |
| | | #105d in S 3.2 | Includes necessary restrictions on |
| | | | server semantics to enable useful |
| | | #105e in S 3.4 | support to be provide when |
| | | | Aclchoice is not supported (e.g., |
| | | #105f in S 4.6 | in NFSv4.0) |
| | | | |
| | | #105g in S 4.8 | Presumes Item #104 has been |
| | | | implemented as well. |
| | | #105h in S 5 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105i in S 5.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105j in S 5.4 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105k in S 5.5 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105l in S 5.6 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105m in S 6 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105n in S 6.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105o in S 6.2 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105p in S 7.1.2 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105q in S 7.3.2 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105r in S 7.4.1 | |
| | | | |
| | | #105s in S 10.3 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|106|BC | #106a in S 7.2.3 | More detail about cases in which |
| | | | OPEN is affected by ACE mask bits, |
| | | #106b in S 7.2.4 | including the dependence on the |
| | | | type of OPEN. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
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|107|BC | #107a in S 7.2.3 | More detail about use of |
| | | | ACE4_WRITE_DATA and the dependence |
| | | #107b in S 7.2.4 | on the support for finer-grained |
| | | | bits in descriptions of ACE mask |
| | | | bits. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|108|BC | | Distinguish mask bit treatments |
| | | | depending on the type of the |
| | | | objects |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|109|BC | | More detail about cases in which |
| | | | RENAME is affected by ACE mask bits |
| | | | including the dependence on the |
| | | | directories for which the mask |
| | | | bits, distinguishing the within- |
| | | | directory and cross-directory |
| | | | cases, and dealing appropriately |
| | | | with the rename-over case. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|110|NM | #110a in S 4.5 | Make explicit reference to the ACL |
| | | | semantics provided by the server, |
| | | #110b in S 4.8 | assuming this can be known somehow, |
| | | | rather than by hand-wavily assuming |
| | | #110c in S 6 | that clients will somehow get by. |
| | | | |
| | | #110d in S 6.1 | Assumes that Item #61 or #105 is |
| | | | present or some replacement. |
| | | #110f in S 10.3 | |
| | | | |
| | | #110g in S 10.5 | |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|111|WI | #111a in S 7.2 | Needs to be considered together |
| | | | with Item #66 in the security |
| | | #111b in S 7.2.3 | document which deal with parallel |
| | | | issues regarding POSIX-based |
| | | #111c in S 7.2.4 | authorization. |
| | | | |
| | | #111d in S 7.2.6 | Addresses more substantively the |
| | | | handling of the mask bits |
| | | | ACE4_{READ,WRITE}_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES. |
| | | | |
| | | | Part of the eventual necessary |
| | | | resolution, most likely best |
| | | | deferred until we learn about an |
| | | | actual implementation, will need to |
| | | | tackle seriously the question of |
| | | | whether ACE4_WRITE_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES |
| | | | is somehow a finer-grained variant |
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| | | | of the write privilege bits. While |
| | | | this is arguable despite it refers |
| | | | to a different object, the |
| | | | corresponding issue with regard to |
| | | | ACE4_READ_NAMED_ATTRIBUTES is more |
| | | | troublesome in that it is a finer- |
| | | | grained variant of the or of two |
| | | | privilege bits: R and X. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|112|WI | #112a in S 7.2.7 | Address the validity/utility of |
| | | | ACE4_READ_ATTRIBUTES. This might |
| | | | be unnecessary, if Aclchoice were |
| | | | implemented, since non-support |
| | | | would be a available as an option |
| | | | likely to be commonly chosen. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|113|NE | | Clarify how ACE mask bits defined |
| | | | in Section 7.2.4 are to be dealt |
| | | | with by clients when the server |
| | | | does not support those mask bits, |
| | | | as might be the case when he server |
| | | | supports the UNIX ACL model. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|114|NM | #114a in S 1.2 | Clarify the goals of the document |
| | | | as part of the rfc5661bis effort, |
| | | | given that we might be unable to |
| | | | undo the damage created by the |
| | | | earlier approach taken and |
| | | | subsequent decades of neglect. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|115|CI | | Create a separate bit, if |
| | | | necessary, to govern the |
| | | | authorization approach used in |
| | | | draft POSIX ACLs, in which an ACE |
| | | | is not allowed to partially satisfy |
| | | | an authorization request. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
|116|NM | #116a in S 5.3 | Create behavioral restrictions in |
| | | | the form of residual SHOULDs, to |
| | | | provide ensure proper support for |
| | | | clients when Aclchoice is not |
| | | | available. The focus will be on |
| | | | UNIX-oriented clients although |
| | | | better support for other clients |
| | | | should be considered. |
+---+----+------------------+-------------------------------------+
Table 7
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The following table summarizes the issues in each particular state.
+===============+=====+====================+
| Type | Cnt | Detail |
+===============+=====+====================+
| BC | 11 | 12, 13, 14, 15 |
| | | |
| | | 29, 50, 51 |
| | | |
| | | 106, 107, 108, 108 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| BE | 2 | 3, 7 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| CI | 9 | 4, 8, 9, 11 |
| | | |
| | | 26, 27, 30, 63 |
| | | |
| | | 115 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| NE | 6 | 5, 62, 102, 104 |
| | | |
| | | 105, 113 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| NM | 6 | 16, 101, 103, 110 |
| | | |
| | | 114, 116 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| NS | 1 | 65 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| WI | 6 | 10, 28, 31, 64 |
| | | |
| | | 111, 112 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| Non-terminal) | 41 | BC, BE, CI, NE |
| | | |
| | | NM, NS, WS |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| RT | 1 | 61 |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| Terminal | 1 | RT |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
| All | 42 | Grand total for |
| | | above table. |
+---------------+-----+--------------------+
Table 8
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A.2. Issue Changes
A.2.1. Issue Changes Until Acls-01
When the acls document was split form the overall security document
the Consensus items related to ACLs were moved over, with their
original item number from that document to this. In addition, five
items that affected text in both documents were split and had new
item numbers assigned for the acl-related portion of the item.
In addition, as a result of work to make server semantics more
visible to the client, a substantial number of new issues, with item
numbers over one hundred were added.
As a result, there were forty unresolved Consensus items in acls-01.
A.2.2. Issue Changes In Acls-02
As a result of a review of existing consensus items the following
changes were made:
* Items #100 and #111 were merged.
* A new Item #114 was created. It deals with document goals.
* A new Item #115 was created. It dealing with the partial-
authorization-prohibition in the semantics of draft POSIX ACLs.
* A new Item #116 was created. It deals with possible server
behavior restrictions to ensure proper support to clients.
As a result, there are now forty-two unresolved Consensus items in
acls-02.
A.3. Issue Priorities
As a result of the history of this document, there are two important
classes of issues that should be dealt with expeditiously to allow us
to make progress on this document and complete the rfc5661bis effort,
despite the plethora of problems in the specification of ACL in
exiting standard-track documents.
* There a large set of issues whose discussion is now long overdue,
as a result of lack of working group discussion of the issues
raised by the existing approach to specification of this feature.
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Thirteen of these issues listed in Table 9 should be non-
controversial making it desirable we get these out of the way in
order to focus on more difficult matters.
* Another set of important issues are of more recent origin and
reflect the important need, previously unaddressed, is to
recognize OPTIONAL features and behavioral variants and make these
choices accessible to clients.
Eight of these issues listed in Table 10 need to prioritized so
that the working group has a clearly understood shared
understanding of the general approach being taken towards ACLs.
+======+==========================================================+
| Item | Discussion |
+======+==========================================================+
| 4 | Resolving cases in which SHOULD is used inappropriately. |
| | |
| | Most or all of these are cases in which the definition |
| | in [RFC2119] is not adhered to. |
| | |
| | Might be some controversy about the replacement in |
| | specific cases, but we need to isolate any disagreements |
| | so that we can focus on resolving them. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 7 | Clarification of READ vs, Execute. |
| | |
| | Believe this is editorial and expect the working group |
| | to agree. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 8 | Clarification of Write vs, Append |
| | |
| | The previous concern about possible compatible issues is |
| | no longer relevant since there is an Aclchoice flag for |
| | this, so that all previously valid approaches remain |
| | valid. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 14 | Deals with the case of Aclsupport not being supported. |
| | |
| | Fixing this gap should be uncontroversial. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 15 | Fix relationship of support for ALLOW and SENY. |
| | |
| | What is there is clearly bogus. Can be sure my |
| | replacement is better but there may people who want |
| | something else. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 16 | Coherence requirements for acl, sacl, dacl. |
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| | |
| | Although this is new material, it is unlikely to |
| | generate controversy. I think the new text merely |
| | clarifies existing expectations |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 27 | Multiple methods of computing mode. |
| | |
| | There is likely to be controversy about details but it |
| | seems that a least two methods will be required, |
| | especially since the protocol has been that way from the |
| | beginning. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 29 | Making sure that the co-ordination requirements for |
| | modes and ACLs apply to all minor versions. |
| | |
| | There is some text that suggests otherwise but if the |
| | same requirements do not hold, it is hard to see what |
| | can be said or how clients could be asked to deal with |
| | the resulting vacuum. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 30 | New proposed treatment of setting mode incorporating |
| | some consequences of anticipated decisions regarding |
| | other consensus items (#26, #28, #29) |
| | |
| | There might be objections and this could change but the |
| | existing confusion cannot continue as it has. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 50 | Handling of special "who" values. |
| | |
| | Expect a big yawn and difficulty getting comments but |
| | controversy is unlikely. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 51 | Clarify the handling of the group bit for the special |
| | who values. |
| | |
| | Need to resolved somehow. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
| 101 | Inclusion of the action of READLINK as authorized by |
| | ACE4_READ_DATA |
| | |
| | Can't imagine any controversy about this. |
+------+----------------------------------------------------------+
Table 9: Issues For Which Resolution is Long Overdue
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+======+========================================================+
| Item | Discussion |
+======+========================================================+
| 64 | Clarification of the role, scope, an handling of the |
| | UNIX ACL model. |
| | |
| | It is important to be clear about this because the |
| | existing specs, while making great efforts to allow |
| | use of this model, are very unclear about the scope of |
| | that model or the range of behaviors to be supported. |
| | |
| | The decision of make this model the required core of |
| | supported has raised the importance of this issue. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 102 | Handling of orphan mask bits. |
| | |
| | Discussion may turn up some useful suggestions. In |
| | any case, the working group has to make decisions |
| | about each of these as was not done when they entered |
| | the protocol in RFC3010. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 104 | UNIX ACLs as basic. |
| | |
| | Might be controversial but the issue needs to be |
| | discussed regardless. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 105 | Aclchoice attribute. |
| | |
| | Expect a lot of controversy, but the inability of |
| | clients to determine the presence of extensions needs |
| | to be addressed somehow. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 109 | More detail about cases in which RENAME is affected by |
| | ACE mask bits including the dependence on the |
| | directories for which the mask bits, distinguishing |
| | the within-directory and cross-directory cases, and |
| | dealing appropriately with the rename-over case. |
| | |
| | Can't see what would be controversial here. |
| | Nevertheless, working group feedback is expected to be |
| | helpful. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 110 | Make explicit reference to the ACL semantics provided |
| | by the server, assuming this can be known somehow, |
| | rather than by hand-wavily assuming that clients will |
| | somehow get by. |
| | |
| | Could be a shock for some but the issue needs to be |
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| | clearly understood and a decision made. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 113 | Clarify how ACE mask bits defined in Section 7.2.4 are |
| | to be dealt with by clients when the server does not |
| | support those mask bits, as might be the case when he |
| | server supports the UNIX ACL model. |
| | |
| | Don't expect much controversy on this. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
| 114 | Clarify the goals of the document as part of the |
| | rfc5661bis effort, given that we might be unable to |
| | undo the damage created by the earlier approach taken |
| | and subsequent decades of neglect. |
| | |
| | Expect controversy which is precisely why we need to |
| | have this discussion instead of putting it off |
| | repeatedly. |
+------+--------------------------------------------------------+
Table 10: Issues that need to be addressed soon to set direction
Appendix B. Prospective Aclchoice Changes
B.1. Possible Additions
B.2. Possible Simplifications
Appendix C. Possible Future Extensions
C.1. WRITING!! -- Extensions for Improved POSIX ACL Support
Although considerable progress has been made providing better support
for POSIX ACLs, further could be done in late minor versions. There
are a number of approaches that could be adopted:
* Creation of a new attribute devoted to support of the POSIX ACL
model.
While this is straightforward, there are problems to be addresed
about the relation among the five ACL attributes that would exist
(three for the existing ACLs and two for POSIX ACLs) taht would
exists as well as possible conversion issues for existing ACLs
stored in existing file systems.
* Addressing the remaining semantic incompatibilities via extensions
of the existing framework.
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This would make it easier to provide access to server file systems
that can support both models by allowing the client to specify his
needs on a per-request basis.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Tom Haynes for his helpful suggestion to
deal with security for all NFSv4 minor versions in the same document.
The benefits of this approach have been even more apparent in dealing
with the ACL description,
The author wishes to thank Bruce Fields for his helpful comments
regarding ACL support which had a major role in the evolution of this
document.
The author wishes to thank Rick Macklem for his help in addressing
issues relating to POSIX ACL support.
Author's Address
David Noveck (editor)
NetApp
201 Jones Road, Suite 16
Waltham, MA 02451
United States of America
Phone: +1-781-572-8038
Email: davenoveck@gmail.com
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