GCube Security Model

This page describes the security model adopted in the DILIGENT infrastructure

Authentication Model

The DILIGENT Security model uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) mechanisms to authenticate identities acting in the infrastructure. Each authenticated invocation must be performed using valid credentials issued by a trusted Certification Authority (CA). To speed up performances of some services unauthenticated invocatons are also allowed, even if not planned in the design of DILIGENT security. These invocations can be performed without any credentials, neither authentication nor authorization is enforced in these cases.

Authentication Mechanism

The mechanism used in DILIGENT to authenticate service invocatons is the WS-SecureConversation one. The Java WS-Core container provides a built-in implementation of this standard called GSI-SecureConversation.

This choice is driven by the need to delegate caller credentials to invoked services. The HTTPS mechanism (also available in the Java-WS-Core) cannot interoperate with the GSI-SecureConversation one, thus preventing the exploiting of both mechanisms in the DILIGENT infrastructure. For this reason the HTTPS mechanism has been discarded.

Authorization Mechanism

Each Digital Library (DL) need to be The different Digital Libraries corresponds to VOMS groups

The DL context

Authenticated invocations to DILIGENT services are performed in the context of a DL. The context is identified from the proxy certificate attached to the request. It should contains roles for a single VOMS group