8.4. Authorization policies

The scope authorization provides means of granting permission, independently of the actual authentication process.

Authorization policies can evaluate a wide range of parameters, such as the user, the token type, the IP address of the request or even custom request parameters.

The following actions are available in the scope authorization:

8.4.1. authorized

This is the basic authorization, that either grants the user access or denies access via the /validate endpoints (see Validate endpoints). The default behaviour is to grant access, if and after the user has authenticated successfully.

Using authorized=deny_access specific authentication requests can be denied, even if the user has provided the correct credentials.

In combination with different IP addresses and policy priorities the administrator can generically deny_access with the lowest policy priority and grant_access for specific requests e.g. originating from specific IP addresses to certain users by defining higher policy priorities.

Note

Since authorized is checked as a postpolicy the OTP value used during an authentication attempt will be invalidated even if the authorized policy denies the access.

Note

The actual “success” of the authentication can be changed to “failed” by this postpolicy. Meaning pre-event handlers (Pre and Post Handling) would still see the request as successful before it would be changed by this policy and match the event handler condition result value == True.

8.4.2. tokentype

type: string

Users will only be authorized with this very tokentype. The string can hold a space separated list of case sensitive tokentypes. It should look like:

hotp totp spass

This is checked after the authentication request, so a valid OTP value will be used up, even if the user was not authorized with this request.

Note

Combining this with the client IP you can use this to allow remote access to sensitive areas only with one special token type while allowing access to less sensitive areas with other token types.

8.4.3. application_tokentype

type: bool

If this policy is set, an application may add a parameter type as tokentype in the authentication request like validate/check, validate/samlcheck or validate/triggerchallenge.

Then the application can determine via this parameter, which tokens of a user should be checked.

E.g. when using this in triggerchallenge, an application could assure that only SMS tokens are used for authentication.

8.4.4. serial

type: string

Users will only be authorized with the serial number. The string can hold a regular expression as serial number.

This is checked after the authentication request, so a valid OTP value will be used up, even if the user was not authorized with this request.

Note

Combining this with the client IP you can use this to allow remote access to sensitive areas only with hardware tokens like the Yubikey, while allowing access to less secure areas also with a Google Authenticator.

8.4.5. tokeninfo

type: string

Users will only be authorized if the tokeninfo field of the token matches this regular expression.

This is checked after the authentication request, so a valid OTP value will be used up, even if the user was not authorized with this request.

A valid action could look like:

action = key/regexp/

Example:

action = last_auth/^2018.*/

This would mean the tokeninfo field needs to start with “2018”.

8.4.6. setrealm

type: string

This policy is checked before the user authenticates. The realm of the user matching this policy will be set to the realm in this action.

This policy is only applied to POST /validate/check.

This can be used if the user can not pass their realm when authenticating at a certain client, but the realm needs to be available during authentication since the user is not located in the default realm.

Note

It is recommended to use the policy set_realm from the authentication scope instead of this policy. It takes precedence over this policy, is also applied to POST /auth, and is applied before the first user resolving, which avoids unnecessary requests to the user store.

Note

The mangle policy is still executed after this policy and can change the realm again.

8.4.7. no_detail_on_success

Deprecated since version v3.12: Please use the ResponseMangler Handler Module to delete the detail section.

type: bool

Usually an authentication response returns additional information like the serial number of the token that was used to authenticate or the reason why the authentication request failed.

If this action is set and the user authenticated successfully this additional information will not be returned.

8.4.8. no_detail_on_fail

Deprecated since version v3.12: This policy breaks challenge-response authentication.

type: bool

Usually an authentication response returns additional information like the serial number of the token that was used to authenticate or the reason why the authentication request failed.

If this action is set and the user fails to authenticate this additional information will not be returned.

8.4.9. api_key_required

type: bool

This policy is checked before the user is validated.

You can create an API key that needs to be passed to use the validate API. If an API key is required, but no key is passed, the authentication request will not be processed. This is used to avoid denial of service attacks by a rogue user sending arbitrary requests, which could result in the token of a user being locked.

You can also define a policy with certain IP addresses without issuing API keys. This would result in “blocking” those IP addresses from using the validate endpoint.

You can issue API keys like this:

pi-manage api createtoken -r validate

The API key (Authorization token) which is generated is valid for 365 days.

The authorization token has to be used as described in Authentication endpoints.

8.4.10. auth_max_success

type: string

Here you can specify how many successful authentication requests a user is allowed to perform during a given time. If this value is exceeded, the authentication attempt is canceled.

Specify the value like 2/5m meaning 2 successful authentication requests per 5 minutes. If during the last 5 minutes 2 successful authentications were performed the authentication request is discarded. The used OTP value is invalidated.

Allowed time specifiers are s (second), m (minute) and h (hour).

This policy applies to /auth and /validate/check and holds for both admins and users. The policy is evaluated before checking the password or OTP value.

Note

This policy depends on reading the audit log. If you use a non-readable audit log like Logger Audit this policy will not work.

In case a local admin and a user in the default realm exist with the same username, we can not distinguish them before the authentication if no realm is passed. The policy is first checked for local admins; hence, if the admin reaches the time limit of successful authentications, the user will not be able to authenticate anymore. This can be avoided by explicitly passing the user’s realm. Anyway, local admins are not affected by the number of successful user authentications.

8.4.11. auth_max_fail

type: string

Here you can specify how many failed authentication requests a user is allowed to perform during a given time.

If this value is exceeded, authentication is not possible anymore. The user will have to wait.

If this policy is not defined, the normal behaviour of the failcounter applies. (see failcount)

Specify the value like 2/1m meaning 2 failed authentication requests per minute. If during the last 5 minutes 2 failed authentications were performed the authentication request is discarded. The used OTP value is invalidated.

Allowed time specifiers are s (second), m (minute) and h (hour).

This policy applies to /auth and /validate/check and holds for both admins and users. The policy is evaluated before checking the password or OTP value.

Note

This policy depends on reading the audit log. If you use a non-readable audit log like Logger Audit this policy will not work.

In case a local admin and a user in the default realm exist with the same username, we can not distinguish their failed authentications. Hence, if the admin reaches the time limit of failed authentications, the user will not be able to authenticate anymore, and vice versa.

8.4.12. last_auth

type: string

You can define if an authentication should fail, if the token was not successfully used for a certain time.

Specify a value like 12h, 123d or 2y to disallow authentication, if the token was not successfully used for 12 hours, 123 days or 2 years.

The date of the last successful authentication is store in the tokeninfo field of a token and denoted in UTC.

8.4.13. add_user_in_response

type: bool

In case of a successful authentication additional user information is added to the response. A dictionary containing user information is added in detail->user.

8.4.14. add_resolver_in_response

type: bool

In case of a successful authentication the resolver and realm of the user are added to the response. The names are added in detail->user-resolver and detail->user-realm.

8.4.15. webauthn_authenticator_selection_list

type: string

This action configures a whitelist of authenticator models which may be authorized. It is a space-separated list of AAGUIDs. An AAGUID is a hexadecimal string (usually grouped using dashes, although these are optional) identifying one particular model of authenticator. To limit enrollment to a few known-good authenticator models, simply specify the AAGUIDs for each model of authenticator that is acceptable. If multiple policies with this action apply, the set of acceptable authenticators will be the union off all authenticators allowed by the various policies.

If this action is not configured, all authenticators will be deemed acceptable, unless limited through some other action.

Note

If you configure this, you will likely also want to configure webauthn_authenticator_selection_list

8.4.16. webauthn_req

type: string

This action allows filtering of WebAuthn tokens by the fields of the attestation certificate.

The action can be specified like this:

webauthn_req=subject/.*Yubico.*/

The keyword can be “subject”, “issuer” or “serial”. Followed by a regular expression. During registration of the WebAuthn authenticator the information is fetched from the attestation certificate. Only if the attribute in the attestation certificate matches accordingly the token can be enrolled.

Note

If you configure this, you will likely also want to configure webauthn_req

8.4.17. require_auth_for_resolver_details

type: bool

Usually, /healthz/resolversz will include in its response the name and status of each resolver individually, as well as the total status of all resolvers; without requiring any form of authentication.

If this policy is set, admin credentials must be provided to receive the individual resolver details. The total status will be included either way.

Note

In order to limit the amount of information exposed to third parties, it is recommended to activate this policy.