OASIS eXtensible Access Control Markup Language TC

The original Call For Participation for this TC may be found at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200104/msg00000.html

The charter for this TC was last modified on 15 July 2001; this change was announced at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200107/msg00001.html

The charter for this TC is as follows.

Name
eXtensible Access Control Markup Language - XACML

Statement of Purpose/List of Deliverables

The XACML Technical Committee will define a core XML schema for representing authorization and entitlement policies, also called XACML.

Policy Target

The target of a policy (hereafter referred to as "target") can be any object that can be referenced using XML.

Protocols and Bindings

The XACML Technical Committee will identify bindings to existing protocols (e.g., XPath, LDAP), and define new protocols, if necessary, as means of accessing and communicating the policies.

Scope

XACML is expected to address fine grained control of authorized activities, the effect of characteristics of the access requestor, the protocol over which the request is made, authorization based on classes of activities, and content introspection (i.e. authorization based on both the requestor and potentially attribute values within the target where the values of the attributes may not be known to the policy writer). XACML is also expected to suggest a policy authorization model to guide implementers of the authorization mechanism.

Extensibility

XACML core schema is extensible for as yet unknown features

Interoperability

The XACML Technical Committee will define interoperability of XACML core schema with other standards. To ensure work is not duplicated and standards adoption is as simple as possible, XACML shall adopt as baseline documents the work products of the Security Services Technical Committee including but not limited to a Domain Model and Glossary. Furthermore, Use Cases and Requirements documents will share content that is common through normative references. The XACML TC shall keep its work consistent with the work of the Security Services TC by requesting enhancements to, modifications of, and cross-references from Security Services TC documents through a formal liaison with the Security Services TC. This liaison will include the regular sharing of deliverables and status reports during teleconferences or at face-to-face meetings.

Successfully Using the XACML Specification:

XACML is an XML schema for representing authorization and entitlement policies. However, it is important to note that a compliant Policy Decision Point (PDP) may choose an entirely different representation for its internal evaluation and decision-making processes. That is, it is entirely permissible for XACML to be regarded simply as a policy interchange format, with any given implementation translating the XACML policy to its own local/native/proprietary/alternate policy language sometime prior to evaluation.

A set of test cases (each test case consisting of a specific XACML policy instance, along with all relevant inputs to the policy decision and the corresponding PDP output decision) will be devised and included on the XACML Web site. These test cases are provided to assist implementers in creating implementations that are conformant with the XACML specification.

The XACML TC adopts the OASIS definition of "successfully using" as described in its TC Process and IPR Policy documents (see http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml and http://www.oasis-open.org/who/intellectualproperty.shtml).

The XACML specification must make it possible for an XACML PDP to be capable of accepting SAML conformant inputs and producing SAML conformant outputs.

 

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