Security
Authentication
Federated nodes leverage Corteza’s already established authentication facility that uses system user and JWT tokens (later referred as a token). During the pairing process between the two nodes, both nodes create a system user and securely exchange their authentication tokens.
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Node A defines a system user and token A that allows node B to access protected resources,
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node B defines a system user and token B that allows node A to access protected resources.
Whenever node A wishes to access protected resources on node B, it uses token B for authentication; vice-versa for node B accessing protected resources on node A.
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System users and authentication tokens are unique for each node pair. When a new node is added to the federated network, a new pair of system users and tokens are generated. |
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Token A and token B are not the same. |
Access control
The federation service uses Corteza’s already established RBAC access control facility that operates over user roles, system resources and operations over given resources.
Each node in a federated network has the ability to define what resources a paired node is allowed to access. This can be as simple as controlling access to records belonging to specific modules, or as detailed as controlling access to specific fields for specific modules.
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Passes the request through the access control facility to check if we are allowed to access the resource,
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collects the requested data, following the defined RBAC permissions, excluding data that the destination node is not allowed to access.
The federation service then performs some additional operations, see [rfc:federation:data-sync], and sends it over to the destination node.