Re: [xacml] wd-20 issues

[Erik Rissanen <erik@axiomatics.com>]

Remon,

See inline.

On 2011-06-10 09:51, remon.sinnema@emc.com wrote:
> Erik,
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Erik Rissanen [mailto:erik@axiomatics.com]
>> Sent: Thursday, June 09, 2011 11:27 AM
>> To: xacml@lists.oasis-open.org
>> Subject: Re: [xacml] wd-20 issues
>>
>>> 5.29 Element<AttributeDesignator>
>>> 	"If the Issuer is not present in the attribute designator, then
>> the matching of the attribute to the named attribute SHALL be governed
>> by AttributeId and DataType attributes alone."
>>> - And Category.
>> Yes!
> Also in 7.3.4 Attribute Matching.
>
>
> 5.48 Element<Result>
> 	"<PolicyIdentifierList>  [Optional]
> 	If the ReturnPolicyIdList attribute in the<Request>  is true (see section 5.42), a PDP that implements this optional feature MUST return a list of all policies which were found to be fully applicable."
> - This prevents the PDP from skipping evaluation of policies that cannot affect the decision. IOW, it prevents performance optimizations. This is not a big deal to me, since the feature is optional, but maybe something to note in the implementer's guide?

The intended behavior is not how you interpret it. It says "which were 
found..." so it's simply the list of policies the PDP worked on during 
evaluation. It does not mean that the PDP has to figure out which 
policies "might have been fully applicable if they were to be 
evaluated". If you have a suggestion for better wording, please post it, 
and I can update this while we are fixing the other issues.

> 7.3.7 AttributeSelector evaluation
> 	"If the DataType is not one of the primitive types listed above, then the return values shall be constructed from the nodeset in a manner specified by the of the particular DataType extension specification."
> - "specified by the of the" misses a crucial noun.

It should just say "in a manner specified by the particular datatype 
extension specification", meaning that if you extend XACML with a custom 
data type, you also need to define (and implement) this constructor.

> 7.7 Target evaluation
> 	"An empty target matches any request. Otherwise the target value SHALL be "Match" if all the AnyOf specified in the target match values in the request context."
> - This conflicts with 5.6 Element<Target>: "For the parent of the<Target>  element to be applicable to the decision request, there MUST be at least one positive match between each<AnyOf>  element of the<Target>  element and the corresponding section of the<Request>  element."

Yes, I will fix that. Thanks for noticing.

> Thanks,
> Ray
>