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Subject: Re: [xacml] Comment on issue 8? "choice element" or "Policy w no Rules"


Rich,

I just reviewed the combining algorithm specifications and they are all fine with empty input. They basically have a structure by which some state variables are set to default values, then a loop iterates over the children. In case there are no children, the loop body is never executed and the decision is returned based on the default state of the variables in the algorithm, and the decision is correct for each algorithm. So the normative descriptions are perfectly fine.

What I will do is to add to the non-normative descriptions the special case of no children.

Best regards,
Erik


On 2012-02-24 18:08, rich levinson wrote:
Hi Erik,

It looks to me like there has been a subtle shift of emphasis from
the contents of the Policy determining the Decision to the combining
algorithm becoming more active in coming to a Decision regardless
of what's contained in the Policy. This is not necessarily a bad thing,
but it is a shift of emphasis when considering Policy evaluation. In fact,
it is probably a good thing, because the algorithm can clearly state
what all the special cases are and we don't have to rely on a bottom
up analysis of the individual Rules.

So, the bottom line is that the value of a Policy is equal to either
a value of NotApplicable or Indeterminate returned from Target
evaluation, or a value determined by the rule-combining algorithm
applied to a set of Rule nodes, which may have length 0->n.

Personally, I think it is important in this situation that each
combining algorithm explicitly state its intent wrt to 0-length
arrays, or at least there should be an introductory section
to the combining algorithm section that makes this situation
clear. i.e. there is a specific argument passed to the combining
algorithm (Node[] children, where Node can be either Rule or
Policy) and the details of what this argument can contain
and how the algorithm behaves based on that should be clear.

    Thanks,
    Rich



On 2/24/2012 4:12 AM, Erik Rissanen wrote:
Rich,

You are reading an old version of the spec. The current table looks like this:

Target    Rule values     Policy Value
“Match”    Don’t care    Specified by the rule-combining algorithm
“No-match”    Don’t care    “NotApplicable”
“Indeterminate”    See Table 7 See Table 7

The change was introduced in wd 20 in order to make sure the new combining algorithms were always invoked. It would be confusing if a policy with permit-unless-deny could return not-applicable since this algorithm was specifically introduced to guarantee that N/A or Indeterminate are never returned.

Best regards,
Erik



On 2012-02-23 21:58, rich levinson wrote:
To TC:

To collect the info from today's discussion, which was ref'd in the
Feb 9 minutes:

the "latest email" I thought Erik and I had agreement that a statement
would be made in the "implementor's guide" that a Policy w no Rules
may be ignored  by developers:
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/xacml/201202/msg00000.html
"It would seem to me that at a minimum, we could include
an advisory note to developers that a PDP may ignore
a Policy that contains no Rules, since there is no point
from a XACML functional perspective to provide any logic
to do anything specific with such Policies.

Such an approach would remove any questions from developers,
and could leave the schema unchanged.
"
During today's discussion, the notion was introduced that somehow a
combining algorithm could effectively introduce a decision despite the
fact that there were no Rules in the Policy.

However, I think that interpretation is wrong for the following reason.
For Policy evaluation, we have to refer to section 7.11 "Policy Evaluation".
According to Table 5 there, the following is normative behavior:
The policy truth table is shown in Table 5.
Target Rule values Policy Value
“Match” At least one rule value is its Effect Specified by the rule-combining algorithm
“Match” All rule values are “NotApplicable”
“NotApplicable”
“Match” At least one rule value is “Indeterminate” Specified by the rule-combining algorithm
“No-match” Don‟t care “NotApplicable”
“Indeterminate” Don‟t care “Indeterminate”
Table 5 Policy truth table
I think we can agree that the Target is a "Match", since, by section 7.7, even
an empty Target matches any request.

Also, I think that rows 1 and 3 that begin with "At least one rule ..." do
not apply since there are "zero Rules" in the use case we are discussing.
Since those rows are the only places that cause the rule-combining
algorithm to  be invoked, I think we can assume that even combining
algorithms, such as "Deny-unless -permit" (section C.6) or
"Permit-unless-deny" (section C.7) will not get invoked.

Therefore, the only thing that is left is row 2, which states:
"All Rule values are "NotApplicable"". I believe this statement
is TRUE, because in order to be false there must be at least
one Rule which has a value other than "NotApplicable", which
is FALSE, and therefore the statement is TRUE.

Therefore, a Policy w no Rules must evaluate to NotApplicable.
QED. :)

    Thanks,
    Rich





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