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Tracked as SYNCOPE-119.

Also see [DISCUSS] Dynamic Realms.

This topic dates very early in Syncope's history (the mail thread referenced in the issue mentioned above was started in 2011, even before entering the incubator).

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The idea is to introduce the concept of realm - widely employed elsewhere as a mean to define security constraints in order to restrict access to shared ' resources'.

Entity changes

1. Create the new Realm entity, with the following characteristics:
   1. has a name and a parent realm (except for the pre-defined root realm, which is named '/');
   2. will be either leaf or root of a sub-tree of realms;
   3. is uniquely identified by the path from root realm, e.g. /a/b/c identifies the sub-realm 'c' in the sub-tree rooted at 'b', having in turn 'a' as parent realm, directly under root realm;
   4. optionally refers to account or password policies.
2. Rename the Role entity to Group and
   1. remove inheritance;
   2. remove references to account or password policies;
   3. remove references to entitlements;
   4. adding add reference to a realm: each group of a sub- realm will also be group of sub-realms (as group of its parent realmis a specialization of any objects);
3. Rename all ROLE_* entitlements to GROUP_*
4. Create the new Role entity, with the following characteristics:
   1. has multiple references to entitlements;
   2. has multiple reference to realms: selected entitlements will be associated to the given realms (and sub-realms).
5. Update the User entity by
   1. adding reference to a realm: each user of a sub- realm will also be user of sub-realms (as user of its parent realm.is a specialization of any objects);
6. There won't be global account or password policies any more, but simply account / password policies for the root realm; account and password policies can be optionally defined for a given sub-realm: in this case the resulting policy to be applied will be the composition of all defined policies for ancestor realms up to root realm.

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The idea is that any user U assigned to a role R, which provides entitlements E₁...E_n for realms Re₁...Re_k can exercise E_i on entities (users or groups, depending on the type of E_i) under any Re_j or related sub-realms.

About group membership and any relationships (see the related discuss page for details):

• User U can be member of group G either if U and G are in the same realm, or G is in one of super-realms of the realm of U
• Any A₁ can be in relationship with any A₂ either if A₁ and A₂ are in the same realm, or A₂ is in one of super-realms of the realm of A₁

The rationale behind such conditions is to allow the definition of common groups and any objects (to enter in relationship with) at the topmost position in the realm tree, so that they can be shared by various realm sub-trees.

Example

Let's rephrase the sample used for current security model:

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