Attribute authorization

Contents

Overview
Configuration

Overview

The purpose of the filters in the Attributes filter group is to extract user attributes from various sources. You can use these filters to retrieve attributes from the message, an LDAP directory, a database, the API Gateway user store, HTTP headers, a SAML attribute assertion, and so on.

After retrieving a set of user attributes, API Gateway stores them in the attribute.lookup.list message attribute, which is essentially a map of name-value pairs. It is the role of the Attributes authorization filter to check the value of these attributes to authorize the user.

Configuration

Configure the following fields on the Attributes configuration window:

Name:

Enter a suitable name for this filter.

Attributes:

The Attributes table lists the checks that the API Gateway performs on user attributes stored in the attribute.lookup.list message attribute. The API Gateway performs the following checks:

  • The entries in the table are OR-ed together so that if any one of them succeeds, the filter returns a pass.

  • The attribute checks listed in the table are run in series until one of them passes.

  • You can add a number of attribute-value pairs to a single attribute check by separating them with commas (for example, company=oracle, department=engineering, role=engineer).

  • If multiple attribute-value pairs are present in a given attribute check, these pairs are AND-ed together so that the overall attribute check only passes if all the attribute-value pairs pass. For example, if the attribute check comprises, department=engineering, role=engineer, this check only passes if both attributes are found with the correct values in the attribute.lookup.list message attribute.

To add an attribute check to the Attributes table, click Add, and enter attributes in the dialog. For attribute checks involving attributes extracted from a SAML attribute assertion, you must specify the namespace of the attribute given in the assertion. For example, API Gateway can extract the role attribute from the following SAML <Attribute Statement>, and store it in the attribute.lookup.list map: 

<saml:AttributeStatement>
 <saml:Attribute Name="role" NameFormat="http://www.company.com">
  <saml:AttributeValue>admin</saml:AttributeValue>
 </saml:Attribute>
 <saml:Attribute Name="email" NameFormat="http://www.company.com">
  <saml:AttributeValue>joe@company.com</saml:AttributeValue>
 </saml:Attribute>
 <saml:Attribute Name="dept" NameFormat="">
  <saml:AttributeValue>engineering</saml:AttributeValue>
 </saml:Attribute> 
</saml:AttributeStatement>

The NameFormat attribute of the <Attribute> gives the namespace of the attribute name. You must enter this namespace (together with a corresponding prefix) in the Add Attributes dialog. For example, to extract the role attribute from the SAML attribute statement above, enter pre:role=admin in the Attribute Requirement field. Then you must also map the pre prefix to the http://www.company.com namespace, as specified by the NameFormat attribute in the attribute statement.

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