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[Proposal 005] Node Authorization #8

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71 changes: 71 additions & 0 deletions accepted/005-node-authentication.md
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# Design / Feature

*TODO for the document:*
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I should include a section about observability here.

* *analyse and select default policy engine.*
* *analyse policy engines available in rust.*

This feature will allow an administrative user to authenticate with the node.

#### Scope
This document only covers node authorization. Application authorization is out
of scope for this proposal.

#### Policy Engine
[Proposal 002](/accepted/002.md) provides the aurae daemon with an SSH authenticated
user based upon SSH Certificates. The selected authentication provides identity
and communication channel encryption.

Authorization consumes the identity provided by Proposal 002. When the user
connects, the user identity is authenticated directly from the connection. Upon
initial connection, the identity is sent to an authorization plugin.

The authorization engine receives a message with the identity, action, and
parameters. The authorization engine returns a decision. Aurae Daemon is
responsible for enforcing the decision.

A default policy engine will be installed when no other authorization engine
has been installed.

Authorization decisions default to deny.

Not installing a policy engine causes all requests to be denied.
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We must must have "reasonable defaults" and opinions. Its a key part of the project.

Is this our reasonable default? Or should we give the user a default policy engine?


### Policy Engine Selection

**TODO**

#### Workflow:

```mermaid
sequenceDiagram
client-->>auraed: Connect via ssh
auraed-->>policy engine: id, action, parameters
policy engine-->>auraed: decision
note over auraed: enforce
auraed-->>client: status
```

### Outcomes

The outcomes of adding support for policy engines are:

* auraed will be capable of handling arbitrary scenarios based upon the connecting client.
* policies may be written in languages designed to deal with policy.
* changes to the policy do not require a recompilation of auraed.
* policy can be centralized for multiple auraed.

### Goals
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We will need to bake both authn and authz into our standard library, or at the very least call it out of scope.

  • Do we have an authn subsystem? Or is this "transparent" based on the aurae.toml?
  • Do we have an authz subsystem? Or is this "transparent" based on the aurae.toml?

More on subsystems: https://github.com/aurae-runtime/api/tree/main/spec#aurae-api-specification


- Aurae Daemon will integrate with an authentication policy engine.

### Decisions

- The project will use a policy engine plugin to implement the policy.
- TODO: select the policy engine plugin.

### Notes

### Authors

- [@kris-nova](https://github.com/kris-nova)
- [@tani](https://github.com/taniwha3)