Simplified permission model

This is for:

Developer System Administrator

Each secured item must have a permission model which you can define or modify using the permissions property when you add or update an item in a secured Push source. The index uses the permission model of an item, along with the currently available information in the security identity cache, to evaluate the effective permissions of that item (that is, who can or can’t see the item in query results).

This article describes the simplified permission model, flexible and powerful enough to replicate access rights of most secured enterprise systems.

Important

You can’t define security identities in item permission models. The permission model of an item must rather refer to existing security identities retrieved through a security identity provider. For more information, see Security identity definition examples and User alias definition examples.

By default, each object in the allowedPermissions and deniedPermissions arrays is assumed to reference an existing security identity retrieved through the first security identity provider associated with the target Push source. The securityProvider property allows you to explicitly specify another security identity provider if needed.

Effective permission evaluation

Once a security identity update has been performed and all security identities can be resolved to individual user entities, effective permissions are evaluated as follows for each item with a simplified permission model:

Flowchart showing how permissions are evaluated to display query results | Coveo
Note

This process becomes more complex when you use the complete permission model to define many permission levels. For more information, see Effective permission evaluation with the complete permission model.

Allowing Anyone

This is one of the most basic permission models you can provide for an item in a secured Push source.

{
  "permissions": [
    {
      "allowAnonymous": true
    }
  ]
}

In this example, the permission model contains a single permission set that makes the item essentially public. Any user, authenticated or not, can see this item in query results.

Note

When the allowAnonymous property is true in a permission set, including security identities in the allowedPermissions array is redundant, and can therefore be omitted.

Allowing only specific users

Suppose that the SampleTeam2 security identity group only contains the following members:

  • User cbrown@example.com

  • User dmoore@example.com

{
  "permissions": [
    {
      "allowAnonymous": false,
      "allowedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "asmith@example.com",
          "identityType": "User"
        },
        {
          "identity": "SampleTeam2",
          "identityType": "Group"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

In this example, the permission model contains a single permission set that only allows authenticated users asmith@example.com, cbrown@example.com, and dmoore@example.com to see the item in query results.

Allowing only specific users, except specific users

Suppose that:

  • The SampleGroup virtual group only contains the SampleTeam1 and SampleTeam2 groups as members.

  • The SampleTeam1 group only contains users asmith@example.com and bjones@example.com as members.

  • The SampleTeam2 group only contains users cbrown@example.com and dmoore@example.com as members.

{
  "permissions": [
    {
      "allowAnonymous": false,
      "allowedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "SampleGroup",
          "identityType": "VirtualGroup"
        }
      ],
      "deniedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "SampleTeam2",
          "identityType": "Group"
        },
        {
          "identity": "asmith@example.com",
          "identityType": "User"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

In this example, the permission model contains a single permission set that only allows authenticated user bjones@example.com to see the item in query results.

Allowing anyone except specific users

This is a rather exceptional, corner case permission model.

Suppose that the SampleTeam1 group only contains the following members:

  • User asmith@example.com

  • User bjones@example.com

{
  "permissions": [
    {
      "allowAnonymous": true,
      "deniedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "SampleTeam1",
          "identityType": "Group"
        },
        {
          "identity": "cbrown@example.com",
          "identityType": "User"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

In this example, the permission model contains a single permission set that allows any user except authenticated users asmith@example.com, bjones@example.com, and cbrown@example.com to see the item in query results.

Of course, the three excluded users could easily manage to see the item by performing unauthenticated queries.

Combining many permission sets

Suppose that:

  • The SampleGroup virtual group only contains the SampleTeam1 and SampleTeam2 groups as members.

  • The SampleTeam1 group only contains users asmith@example.com and bjones@example.com as members.

  • The SampleTeam2 group only contains cbrown@example.com and dmoore@example.com as members.

  • The MysteryUserX alias resolves to user emitchell@example.com. For more information, see User alias definition examples.

{
  "permissions": [
    {
      "allowAnonymous": true,
      "deniedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "asmith@example.com",
          "identityType": "User"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "allowAnonymous": false,
      "allowedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "SampleTeam1",
          "identityType": "Group"
        },
        {
          "identity": "emitchell@example.com",
          "identityType": "User"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "allowAnonymous": false,
      "allowedPermissions" : [
        {
          "identity": "MysteryUserX",
          "identityType": "User"
        }
      ],
      "deniedPermissions": [
        {
          "identity": "SampleGroup",
          "identityType": "VirtualGroup"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

In this example, the permission model contains three permission sets:

  • The first permission set allows anyone except authenticated user asmith@example.com.

  • The second permission set only allows authenticated users asmith@example.com, bjones@example.com, and emitchell@example.com.

  • The third permission set allows authenticated user emitchell@example.com, and denies authenticated users asmith@example.com, bjones@example.com, cbrown@example.com, and dmoore@example.com.

Consequently, when all three permission sets are combined, only authenticated user emitchell@example.com can see the item in query results.