Ponder: A Language for Specifying Security and Management Policies for Distributed Systems

Abstract

This document defines a declarative, object-oriented language for specifying policies for the security and management of distributed systems. The language includes constructs for specifying the following basic policy types: authorisation policies that define permitted actions; event-triggered obligation policies that define actions to be performed by manager agents; refrain policies that define actions that subjects must refrain from performing; and delegation policies that define what authorisations can be delegated and to whom. Filtered actions extend authorisations and allow the transformation of input or output parameters to be defined. Constraints specify limitations on the applicability of policies while meta-policies define semantic constraints on permitted policies. Policy groups define a scope for related policies to which a common set of constraints can apply. Roles define a group of policies relating to positions within an organisation. Relationships define a group of policies pertaining to the interactions between a set of roles. Management structures define a configuration of role instances as well as the relationships between them. This document defines the grammar for the various types of policies in EBNF and provides simple examples of the constructs.

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