Thanks Alan this is a very good set of minutes David Alan Sill wrote:
OGSA AuthN/AuthZ joint call
Chris David Mark Morgan Andrew Grimshaw FrankSiebenlist Jack Hiro Kishimoto Alan Sill Andreas Savva Stephen
Agenda items:
OGSA-AuthZ update (David Chadwick) OGSA-AuthN update (Alan Sill)
David summarized the current state of the OGSA-AuthZ work. No progress or changes have taken place since OGF-20 on the document set from the AuthZ work groupl
Jargon for below: PDP = policy decision point PEP = policy enforcement point PIP = policy information point
GFD-66 and 67 (65?) status GFD-66 was intended to describe the relation between PDPs and PEPs Previous version of GFD-66 based on SAML 1.1 was implemented by several groups and found to be insufficient.
An architecture document was written by David and others to propose 3 protocols: one for pull of credentials from an IdP or AA according to any of several protocols profiled by OASIS and others, an XACML protocol, and a credential validation service profile defined according to WS-trust. Alan requested that David get a document number for this architecture document and David agreed to move this along the path to formalization. It would be good to publish this as an informational document, with the 3 protocols pulled into separate documents.
Frank said that progress at Argonne on this has been slowed by work being done for GT4.2 - all security programmers have been pulled onto that work and have not had sufficient time available for standards work.
GFD-66 had value but does not extend to sufficiently realistic complex real-world use case requirements, for example validating signed credentials, interactions with PIPs, etc.
For requirements gathering, David put up a wiki but got very few submissions. Stephen points out that people see a need for security but do not see the relevance of the work done here, and socialization of the work being done here is not sufficiently seen as connected to real-world needs. Alan agreed that this is an important component of the work and is exactly what Duane, mark and Andrew have been trying to do in the requirements-gathering work they have been doing for the short-term AuthN documentation work they have been done.
Frank did not understand the disconnect, as the XACML work for example has been driven by strong communication between developers and community segments that have requested this work. Andrew says that the exercise of writing a use-case document has proven itself even in circumstances in which the use cases are thought to be well- known. Stephen and Alan felt this to be true even though writing such documents can be a chore.
People are often stuck on simple cases when the community doing work on standards is often focused on more advanced use cases. Andrew pointed out that documenting even the simple use cases is of value and must be written down to get rid of this barrier for users; some of the work being done for the HPC profile was driven by this need.
Last week David sent out a document written from the point of view of Authorization meant to match some of the current "simple AuthN" work. Mark more or less simultaneously requested such a document. Discussion followed as to whether AuthZ can be folded into the current security profile "express" documentation work being done, or instead whether another document to address "express authZ" should be written. Andrew prefers simple short documents over grand scheme documents at this stage. Another document in this series entitled "OGSA Security Profile 2.0 - Authorization" would be helpful. David agreed to look at this and will go through the current set from this perspective.
Moving on to authentication topics Alan is ready now to restart work on the OGSA-AuthN topics. Motivations here include examining the technical requirements of implementations and ensuring that the documentation and standards set offered by OGSA is sufficiently flexible and well-specified to allow interoperable implementations based on different technologies. As an example, Alan asks why Ws- Security is so SOAP-oriented, when grid implementations can be written based on the same WSDL and XML that could provide code using different RPC methods? Other motivations include ensuring that Shibboleth grid integration can be done on a well-defined standards basis within OGSA, and while this is largely an AuthZ question, we need to make sure that the OGSA-AuthN pieces and basis for this work are sufficiently documented, understood and specified. A documentation call series will be started sometime in July to get this work going.
Simultaneously, work should be continued to complete the "express profile" documentation series.
Hiro asked about the timing of the next joint call. David has Sep. 13 down as the next joint call. Hiro offered time at the Sunnyvale F2F Aug. 13-16.
Alan Sill, Ph.D TIGRE Senior Scientist, High Performance Computing Center Adjunct Professor of Physics TTU
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