From 2e6b6345ee10858733a8c6b3523401734b9d84fe Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: John DiSanti Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2023 10:47:49 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Add an identity and auth design doc (#2559) ## Motivation and Context This PR adds a design doc for client identity and auth for the new client orchestrator. ---- _By submitting this pull request, I confirm that you can use, modify, copy, and redistribute this contribution, under the terms of your choice._ --------- Co-authored-by: Zelda Hessler --- design/src/SUMMARY.md | 1 + design/src/client/identity_and_auth.md | 189 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ design/src/client/overview.md | 1 + 3 files changed, 191 insertions(+) create mode 100644 design/src/client/identity_and_auth.md diff --git a/design/src/SUMMARY.md b/design/src/SUMMARY.md index 35979a3237..6b3510a643 100644 --- a/design/src/SUMMARY.md +++ b/design/src/SUMMARY.md @@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ - [Client](./client/overview.md) - [What is the 'orchestrator' and why does it exist?](./client/orchestrator.md) + - [Identity and Auth](./client/identity_and_auth.md) - [Server](./server/overview.md) - [Middleware](./server/middleware.md) diff --git a/design/src/client/identity_and_auth.md b/design/src/client/identity_and_auth.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..e6cfb2cdac --- /dev/null +++ b/design/src/client/identity_and_auth.md @@ -0,0 +1,189 @@ +Identity and Auth in Clients +============================ + +The [Smithy specification establishes several auth related modeling traits] that can be applied to +operation and service shapes. To briefly summarize: + +- The auth schemes that are supported by a service are declared on the service shape +- Operation shapes MAY specify the subset of service-defined auth schemes they support. If none are specified, then all service-defined auth schemes are supported. + +A smithy code generator MUST support at least one auth scheme for every modeled operation, but it need not support ALL modeled auth schemes. + +This design document establishes how smithy-rs implements this specification. + +Terminology +----------- + +- **Auth:** Either a shorthand that represents both of the authentication and authorization terms below, +or an ambiguous representation of one of them. In this doc, this term will always refer to both. +- **Authentication:** The process of proving an entity is who they claim they are, sometimes referred to as AuthN. +- **Authorization:** The process of granting an authenticated entity the permission to +do something, sometimes referred to as AuthZ. +- **Identity:** The information required for authentication. +- **Signing:** The process of attaching metadata to a request that allows a server to authenticate that request. + +Overview of Smithy Client Auth +------------------------------ + +There are two stages to identity and auth: +1. Configuration +2. Execution + +### The configuration stage + +First, let's establish the aspects of auth that can be configured from the model at codegen time. + +- **Data** + - **AuthOptionResolverParams:** parameters required to resolve auth options. These parameters are allowed + to come from both the client config and the operation input structs. + - **HttpAuthSchemes:** a list of auth schemes that can be used to sign HTTP requests. This information + comes directly from the service model. + - **AuthSchemeProperties:** configuration from the auth scheme for the signer. + - **IdentityResolvers:** list of available identity resolvers. +- **Implementations** + - **IdentityResolver:** resolves an identity for use in authentication. + There can be multiple identity resolvers that need to be selected from. + - **HttpRequestSigner:** a signing implementation that signs a HTTP request. + - **AuthOptionResolver:** resolves a list of auth options for a given operation and its inputs. + +As it is undocumented (at time of writing), this document assumes that the code generator +creates one service-level runtime plugin, and an operation-level runtime plugin per operation, hence +referred to as the service runtime plugin and operation runtime plugin. + +The code generator emits code to add identity resolvers and HTTP auth schemes to the config bag +in the service runtime plugin. It then emits code to register an interceptor in the operation runtime +plugin that reads the operation input to generate the auth option resolver params (which also get added +to the config bag). + +### The execution stage + +At a high-level, the process of resolving an identity and signing a request looks as follows: + +1. Retrieve the `AuthOptionResolverParams` from the config bag. The `AuthOptionResolverParams` allow client +config and operation inputs to play a role in which auth option is selected. +2. Retrieve the `AuthOptionResolver` from the config bag, and use it to resolve the auth options available +with the `AuthOptionResolverParams`. The returned auth options are in priority order. +3. Retrieve the `IdentityResolvers` list from the config bag. +4. For each auth option: + 1. Attempt to find an HTTP auth scheme for that auth option in the config bag (from the `HttpAuthSchemes` list). + 2. If an auth scheme is found: + 1. Use the auth scheme to extract the correct identity resolver from the `IdentityResolvers` list. + 2. Retrieve the `HttpRequestSigner` implementation from the auth scheme. + 3. Use the `IdentityResolver` to resolve the identity needed for signing. + 4. Sign the request with the identity, and break out of the loop from step #4. + +In general, it is assumed that if an HTTP auth scheme exists for an auth option, then an identity resolver +also exists for that auth option. Otherwise, the auth option was configured incorrectly during codegen. + +How this looks in Rust +---------------------- + +The client will use trait objects and dynamic dispatch for the `IdentityResolver`, +`HttpRequestSigner`, and `AuthOptionResolver` implementations. Generics could potentially be used, +but the number of generic arguments and trait bounds in the orchestrator would balloon to +unmaintainable levels if each configurable implementation in it was made generic. + +These traits look like this: + +```rust +#[derive(Clone, Debug)] +pub struct HttpAuthOption { + scheme_id: &'static str, + properties: Arc, +} + +pub trait AuthOptionResolver: Send + Sync + Debug { + fn resolve_auth_options<'a>( + &'a self, + params: &AuthOptionResolverParams, + ) -> Result, BoxError>; +} + +pub trait IdentityResolver: Send + Sync + Debug { + // `identity_properties` come from `HttpAuthOption::properties` + fn resolve_identity(&self, identity_properties: &PropertyBag) -> BoxFallibleFut; +} + +pub trait HttpRequestSigner: Send + Sync + Debug { + /// Return a signed version of the given request using the given identity. + /// + /// If the provided identity is incompatible with this signer, an error must be returned. + fn sign_request( + &self, + request: &mut HttpRequest, + identity: &Identity, + // `signing_properties` come from `HttpAuthOption::properties` + signing_properties: &PropertyBag, + ) -> Result<(), BoxError>; +} +``` + +`IdentityResolver` and `HttpRequestSigner` implementations are both given an `Identity`, but +will need to understand what the concrete data type underlying that identity is. The `Identity` struct +uses a `Arc` to represent the actual identity data so that generics are not needed in +the traits: + +```rust +#[derive(Clone, Debug)] +pub struct Identity { + data: Arc, + expiration: Option, +} +``` + +Identities can often be cached and reused across several requests, which is why the `Identity` uses `Arc` +rather than `Box`. This also reduces the allocations required. The signer implementations +will use downcasting to access the identity data types they understand. For example, with AWS SigV4, +it might look like the following: + +```rust +fn sign_request( + &self, + request: &mut HttpRequest, + identity: &Identity, + signing_properties: &PropertyBag +) -> Result<(), BoxError> { + let aws_credentials = identity.data::() + .ok_or_else(|| "The SigV4 signer requires AWS credentials")?; + let access_key = &aws_credentials.secret_access_key; + // -- snip -- +} +``` + +Also note that identity data structs are expected to censor their own sensitive fields, as +`Identity` implements the automatically derived `Debug` trait. + +### Challenges with this `Identity` design + +A keen observer would note that there is an `expiration` field on `Identity`, and may ask, "what about +non-expiring identities?" This is the result of a limitation on `Box`, where it can only be +downcasted to concrete types. There is no way to downcast to a `dyn Trait` since the information required +to verify that that type is that trait is lost at compile time (a `std::any::TypeId` only encodes information +about the concrete type). + +In an ideal world, it would be possible to extract the expiration like this: +```rust +pub trait ExpiringIdentity { + fn expiration(&self) -> SystemTime; +} + +let identity: Identity = some_identity(); +if let Some(expiration) = identity.data::<&dyn ExpiringIdentity>().map(ExpiringIdentity::expiration) { + // make a decision based on that expiration +} +``` + +Theoretically, you should be able to save off additional type information alongside the `Box` and use +unsafe code to transmute to known traits, but it is difficult to implement in practice, and adds unsafe code +in a security critical piece of code that could otherwise be avoided. + +The `expiration` field is a special case that is allowed onto the `Identity` struct directly since identity +cache implementations will always need to be aware of this piece of information, and having it as an `Option` +still allows for non-expiring identities. + +Ultimately, this design constrains `HttpRequestSigner` implementations to concrete types. There is no world +where an `HttpRequestSigner` can operate across multiple unknown identity data types via trait, and that +should be OK since the signer implementation can always be wrapped with an implementation that is aware +of the concrete type provided by the identity resolver, and can do any necessary conversions. + +[Smithy specification establishes several auth related modeling traits]: https://smithy.io/2.0/spec/authentication-traits.html diff --git a/design/src/client/overview.md b/design/src/client/overview.md index 398d20d957..4d4f31d7e0 100644 --- a/design/src/client/overview.md +++ b/design/src/client/overview.md @@ -4,3 +4,4 @@ here explain aspects of the client in greater detail. - [What is the 'orchestrator' and why does it exist?](./orchestrator.md) +- [Identity and Auth](./identity_and_auth.md)