1.2.16 Access Control Lists

Access control lists (ACLs) govern the operations that users can perform on Exascale vaults and files.

Each Exascale vault or file has an ACL. A vault ACL enables users to perform actions on the vault and on the files that it contains. A file ACL only controls the file that it is associated with.

The following table lists the ACL privileges and the actions that they enable users to perform:

ACL Privilege	In a vault ACL, the ACL privilege enables the user to:	In a file ACL, the ACL privilege enables the user to:
inspect	Create a file in the vault. View attributes of the vault, but not the vault contents.	View attributes of the file, but not the file contents.
read	View attributes of all files in the vault, but not their contents. Perform all inspect actions.	Read the file contents. Perform all inspect actions.
use	Read the contents of all files in the vault. Perform all inspect and read actions.	Read and write the file contents. Alter attributes of the file. Perform all inspect and read actions.
manage	Read and write the contents of any file in the vault. Alter the attributes and ACL for the vault and any file in the vault. Drop the vault and any file in the vault. Perform all inspect, read and use actions.	Alter the file ACL. Drop the file. Perform all inspect, read and use actions.

Note that the same ACL privilege enables different actions in a vault ACL or a file ACL. For example, in a file ACL the read privilege enables the user to read the contents of the file. However, to read file contents using a vault ACL requires the use privilege.

Every ACL is a list of user IDs and privilege pairs. Depending on the user creation method, the user ID may be a system-generated value or a user-specified value. For example:

96a68014-5762-4579-86ee-29eb743decbd:manage;scott:use;sue:inspect;dd7c8e35-3c8d-4441-a9b0-f58e959b84ba:read

A user is added to an ACL when they are assigned one of the ACL privileges. A user is removed from an ACL when they are assigned the none privilege. It is possible for a vault or file to have an empty list of user and privilege pairs, which is also known as a null ACL.

ACLs work in conjunction with user privileges, in particular vault top-level privileges. To perform an action on a vault or file, a user requires the appropriate ACL privilege or the appropriate vault top-level privilege. See Vault and File Access Control.