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Palette User Access using RBAC

RBAC stands for Role-Based Access Control. RBAC allows a single user to have different types of access control based on the resource being accessed. RBAC is the scenario that allows the Tenant Admin to grant full and unrestricted access to some parts of the system and withhold it for some others.

Palette enforces a very well-structured RBAC design on how to grant granular access to resources and their operations within our management console. We maintain precise Roles and Resource Access Control List. Role-based access control primarily focuses on assigning permissions to roles instead of individual users and then assigning these roles to users. Multiple roles can be assigned to a user, which defines the permitted actions on the resource. This module lists and enumerates all the roles available within the Palette console within specific scopes.

Palette enables:

  • A role can have multiple permissions. We encourage custom role creation, coupling the wide range of Palette permissions.

  • Multiple roles can be assigned to a single user, defining the permitted actions on a Palette resource.

Palette RBAC Model

The Palette RBAC Model, is based on the following three components:

  • Scopes
  • Permissions
  • Roles

Scopes

A Scope defines the resources on which the role has coverage. The scope will be either Tenant or Project. For example, a role within the scope project can operate within the projects. The combination of user and roles indicates the totality of the accessibility available to that user. Scopes are structured in a parent-child relationship. Each level of hierarchy makes the Scope more specific. The roles are assigned at any of these levels of Scope. The level you select determines how widely the role is applied. Lower levels inherit role permissions from higher levels. palette-rbac-scope.webp

The following are the major properties of Palette driven Scopes:

  • Scopes control the visibility of the resource.

  • Resource created in the higher scope will be visible in the lower scope as read-only. The cluster profiles created by a tenant will be available to all the projects created by that tenant.

  • Resource Isolation: Resources within the same scope will be restricted to the respective scope entity.

    • Cluster Profile created in project-1 will not be available in project-2 of the same tenant
  • Resource with the same name can co-exist across scopes and will be distinguished with scope prefix (icon)

    • A profile with the same name can be created in tenant and project scope. The resource will have the scope information, which helps to distinguish them.

Palette resources can be allocated to roles under Three Scopes:

  • System (The system admin internal to Palette)

  • Tenant

  • Project


A diagram of Palette's RBAC model


Permissions

Permissions determine the type of operations allowed on a resource. Permissions can be defined in the following format:

resourceKey.operation

Examples:

  • cluster.create
  • cluster.edit
  • cluster.delete

Each permission has a defined scope. The role creation is based on scope, type and permissions.


Palette Permissions

Palette has a wide range of permissions and these permissions can be combined in any combination as per the user requirements to create a role. If the Palette built-in roles does not meet the specific needs of your organization, custom roles can be created using different combination of these permissions. Just like built-in roles, you can assign custom roles to users or teams within a specific scope (Tenant or Project). Refer to the available set of permissions in the Palette Resource Scope Matrix.



Roles

A Role is a collection of permissions. When a role is assigned to a user, it means all the permissions the role contains are assigned to that user. The Role will have a Scope. The Type signifies the creator's scope and the Scope signifies the role visibility. The permissions will be restricted to the permission's scope list based on the role's scope. The ProfileEditor will be visible under Tenant, but neither the Tenant nor the Project admins are allowed to modify the Project Scopes.


Access Modes

  • Tenant
  • Project

Tenant

Tenant is an isolated workspace within the Palette. Users and Teams with specific Roles can be associated with the Tenant(s) you create. Palette provides a wide set of permissions under the scope of a Tenant. Everyone is a user and there should be at least one user with Tenant Admin privilege to control the product operations.

Project

The Global Project Scope holds a group of resources, in a logical grouping, to a specific project. The project acts as a namespace for resource management. Users and Teams with specific roles can be associated with the project, cluster, or cluster profile you create. Users are members of a tenant who are assigned project scope roles that control their access within the platform.

Palette Specific (Default) Roles:

Palette RBAC has several built-in roles that can be assigned to users and teams. Role assignments are the way you control access to Palette resources.

Tenant Scope Default Roles:

The Global Tenant Scope holds all the tenant resources of Palette. The list of Role types within the Tenant Scope are as follows:

  1. Tenant Administrator Role

  2. Tenant Viewer Role

  3. Tenant Project Admin Role

  4. Tenant Cluster Profile Admin Role

  5. Tenant Role Admin Role

  6. Tenant Team Admin Role

  7. Tenant User Admin Role


Project Scope Default Roles:

The Global Project Scope holds a group of resources in a logical grouping. Users and Teams with specific Roles can be associated with the Project(s) you create. Below is a list of Role types within the Project Scope built in to the Palette console. These Roles can neither be deleted nor edited.


  1. Project Administrator Role

  2. Project Editor Role

  3. Project Viewer Role

  4. Cluster Profile Admin Role

  5. Cluster Profile Editor Role

  6. Cluster Profile Viewer Role

  7. Cluster Admin Role

  8. Cluster Editor Role

  9. Cluster Viewer Role

  10. Cluster Account Admin Role

  11. Cluster Account Editor Role

  12. Cluster Account Viewer Role

  13. Workspace Admin Role

  14. Workspace Operator Role

Assign Palette Specific Roles to Users

The Default (built-in) roles of Palette can be directly assigned to a user. The roles needs to be assigned based on who needs the access. The roles can be assigned to Users or Teams. The appropriate role needs to be selected from the list of several built-in roles. If the built-in roles are not meeting the specific needs of your organization, you can create your own custom roles.


  1. Login to Palette console as Tenant Admin.

  2. Select Users and Teams from the left Main Menu to list the created users.

  3. From the list of users select the user to be assigned with role to open the role addition wizard.

  4. Make the choice of role category from the top tabs:

    • Project Role
    • Tenant Role
    • Workspace Role
  5. Once the choice of category is made Click on + New Role.

  6. In the Add Roles to User-name wizard, select the project name from the drop down and select the roles from the list.

  7. Confirm to complete the wizard.

  8. The role user association can be edited and deleted from the left Main Menu.


Custom Roles in Palette

Palette enables the users to have custom Roles. These custom roles can be created either under the Tenant Scope or the Project Scope, but not both. These roles need to have unique names for identification. The names are case-insensitive. To create custom role in Palette Platform, we need to understand the components and operations in the Palette Platform enumerated as a Resource Scope Matrix as below:

Resource Scope Matrix

ComponentResource KeyOperationsScopeUsage
API KeyapiKeycreate, get, list, update, deleteTenantAPI Key related operations
Applianceedgehostcreate,get,list,update,deleteProjectEdge appliance deployment and management
Auditauditget, listTenant ProjectAudit log access
Cloud Accountcloudaccountcreate, get,list,update,deleteTenant ProjectCloud account creation and management
Cloud Configcloudconfigcreate,update,delete,get,listProjectCluster level cloud configuration
Clusterclustercreate,get,list,update,deleteProjectCreation and management of Palette workload clusters
Cluster ProfileclusterProfileupdate,publish,delete,create,get,listTenant ProjectCreation and management of Palette cluster profiles
DNS MappingdnsMappingcreate,get,list,update,deleteProjectDomain Name Server mapping services creation and management
Locationlocationcreate,get,list,update,deleteTenant Projectlocation services related to backup and restore
Macromacrocreate,get,list,update,deleteTenant ProjectKey value management for Palette resources
Machinemachinecreate,get,list,delete,updateProjectPalette node pool management
Private GatewayprivateGatewaycreate,get,list,update,deleteTenantPCG creation and maintenance
RegistrypackRegistrycreate, get, list, update, deleteTenantCreation and management of registries
Rolerolecreate,update,delete,get,listTenantcreation and management of Palette roles
Projectprojectcreate,get,list,delete,updateProjectCreation and management of Palette roles
Workspaceworkspacecreate,list,update,delete,backup,restore,getProjectWorkspace operations including backup and restore
Teamteamcreate,list,update,delete,getTenantCreation and management of user teams in Palette
Userusercreate,update,delete,get,listTenantCreation and management of users in Palette

Create Custom Role in Palette

To create a custom role, login to the Palette console as Tenant Admin:

1.From the left Main Menu, click on Tenant Settings and select Roles.

  1. Click Create Role, to open the Add New Role wizard

  2. Give a Role Name of user choice.

  3. Clicking on a Role Name will show the permissions available under this role. Default Roles (built-in into the Palette system) cannot be edited or deleted. Select the scope from the available options:

    • Tenant
    • Project
  4. Make your choice of Permissions and Operations to create a custom Palette role. After entering the Role Name, use the checkboxes to select the permissions. The checkbox list can be expanded to fine-tune the required permissions.

  5. The created role can be viewed under the Global Roles list

  6. Click on the name of the role to:

    • View
    • Edit Role
    • Delete Role

Example:

If the user is creating a role under the Tenant scope for API Key operations, select the API Key Permissions and then from the drop-down menu of that permission, check (tick) the required API operations listed under API Key permissions. Similarly, several permissions can be combined to create a Custom Role. The created role can be assigned to an existing or new user.



Assign Custom Roles to Users

  1. Login to Palette console as Tenant Admin.

  2. Select Users and Teams from the left ribbon menu to list the created users.

  3. From the list of users select the user to be assigned with role to open the role addition wizard.

  4. Make the choice of role category from the top tabs:

    • Project Role
    • Tenant Role
    • Workspace Role
  5. Once the choice of category is to br made by clicking on + New Role.

  6. In the Add Roles to User-name wizard, select the project name from the drop down and select the roles from the list.

  7. Confirm to complete the wizard.

  8. The role user association can be edited and deleted from the kebab menu.

Example Scenario:

Palette has a number of permissions that you can potentially include in your custom role. Here is an example scenario enumerating the minimum permissions required for a user to Create a Cluster in Palette platform.


1. Decide the actions, scopes and permissions required by the user to Create a Cluster.

The role creation is done from the Tenant Admin console. For the above scenario, two roles needs to be created under Project and Tenant scope and attached to the user.


2. Identify the Permissions required under Project Scope:

  • Add the minimum Project management permissions

    • project.list
    • project.get
  • Add the minimum permissions required for Cloud Account creation

    • cloudaccount.create
    • cloudaccount.get
    • cloudaccount.list
  • Add the ClusterProfile permissions

    • clusterProfile.create
    • clusterProfile.delete
    • clusterProfile.get
    • clusterProfile.list
    • clusterProfile.publish
    • clusterProfile.update
  • Add the Cluster permissions (for creating and listing the cluster)

    • cluster.create
    • cluster.list
    • cluster.get
  • Add the Location permission.

    • location.list
  • Add the Cloud Configuration permissions for node pool management

    • cloudconfig.create

3. Identify the Permissions required under Tenant Scope:

To attach the Packs and Integrations from Palette public repository, add the Registry Permissions. The minimum permission required in this scenario is:

  • packRegistry.get

4. Attach Roles to the User and Create the Cluster

  • Once both the roles are created with the above scopes, attach them to the user.

  • Login to Palette console using the user credentials to create the cluster profile and the cluster.