A PostgreSQL extension implementing the Multi-OrBAC access control model - enabling organization-centric, context-aware, and hierarchical access control with advanced features like delegation, separation of duty, and cross-organizational policies.

Features

• Multi-organization with organizational hierarchy
• Unattributed (no-org) objects as a first-class rule target
• Role-based access with full hierarchy support
• Activity and view hierarchies with transitive permission inheritance
• Prohibition precedence over permissions
• Temporal delegation with time bounds
• Temporal constraints on rules with validity periods
• Separation of duty constraints
• Derived roles computed from application logic
• Cross-organizational policies
• Context-aware rules
• Audit logging for security-critical operations
• Row-level security integration

Installation

Prerequisites

• PostgreSQL 13 or higher
• Development tools: make, bash

Quick Install

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/crudylabs/pgmorbac.git
cd pgmorbac

# Build and install extension
make build          # Build versioned file from src/
sudo make install   # Install to PostgreSQL

# Enable in your database
psql -d mydb -c "CREATE EXTENSION pgmorbac;"

Alternative: Using install script

# Build first
make build

# Run installer
sudo ./tools/install.sh

Manual Install

# Build versioned file from source
make build          # Concatenates src/ files into pgmorbac--1.0.0.sql

# Copy files to PostgreSQL extension directory
sudo cp pgmorbac.control $(pg_config --sharedir)/extension/
sudo cp pgmorbac--1.0.0.sql $(pg_config --sharedir)/extension/

# Enable in PostgreSQL
psql -d mydb -c "CREATE EXTENSION pgmorbac;"

From Node.js (npm)

@crudy/pgmorbac ships the same install and upgrade scripts for projects that apply SQL through a migration runner instead of CREATE EXTENSION:

npm install @crudy/pgmorbac

import { extensionSql, upgradeScripts, version, sqlDir } from '@crudy/pgmorbac';

await client.query(extensionSql());          // pgmorbac--<version>.sql
for (const u of upgradeScripts()) {          // pgmorbac--<from>--<to>.sql, in order
    await client.query(u.sql);
}

Quick Start

-- 1. Create organization
INSERT INTO morbac.orgs (name) VALUES ('Acme Corp');

-- 2. Create role
INSERT INTO morbac.roles (org_id, name)
SELECT id, 'employee' FROM morbac.orgs WHERE name = 'Acme Corp';

-- 3. Assign user to role
INSERT INTO morbac.user_roles (user_id, role_id, org_id)
SELECT
    '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001'::uuid,
    r.id,
    o.id
FROM morbac.orgs o
JOIN morbac.roles r ON r.org_id = o.id
WHERE o.name = 'Acme Corp' AND r.name = 'employee';

-- 4. Define policy
INSERT INTO morbac.policy (org_name, role_name, activity, view, modality)
VALUES ('Acme Corp', 'employee', 'read', 'documents', 'permission');

-- 5. Compile policy
SELECT * FROM morbac.compile_policy();

-- 6. Check authorization
SELECT morbac.is_allowed(
    '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001'::uuid,
    (SELECT id FROM morbac.orgs WHERE name = 'Acme Corp'),
    'read',
    'documents'
); -- Returns: true

-- 7. Initialize performance cache (recommended for production)
SELECT morbac.refresh_hierarchy_cache();

Usage

Authorization Check

-- Production (cached by default)
SELECT morbac.is_allowed(user_id, org_id, activity, view);

-- Debugging (bypasses cache)
SELECT morbac.is_allowed_nocache(user_id, org_id, activity, view);

-- Unattributed object (no org): pass NULL as the org
SELECT morbac.is_allowed(user_id, NULL, activity, view);

-- Capability probe for UI gating (any org, unattributed, or global)
SELECT morbac.has_permission(user_id, activity, view);

See PERFORMANCE.md for optimization details.

Row-Level Security (RLS)

-- Enable RLS on your table
ALTER TABLE app.documents ENABLE ROW LEVEL SECURITY;

-- Table without an org column
CREATE POLICY doc_access ON app.documents
    FOR SELECT
    USING (morbac.rls_check('read', 'documents'));

-- Table with an org column: pass it. A NULL org_id means the record
-- is unattributed (awaiting attribution).
CREATE POLICY doc_access ON app.documents
    FOR SELECT
    USING (morbac.rls_check('read', 'documents', org_id));

Unattributed (no-org) Records

A record whose org_id is NULL is unattributed. Give a role access to that pool without granting anything org-wide:

INSERT INTO morbac.rules (org_id, role_id, activity, view, context_id, modality, scope)
SELECT o.id, r.id, 'read', 'documents', c.id, 'permission', 'unattributed'
FROM morbac.orgs o
JOIN morbac.roles r ON r.org_id = o.id AND r.name = 'triage'
JOIN morbac.contexts c ON c.name = 'always'
WHERE o.name = 'Acme Corp';

Choose which records a query returns:

SET morbac.org_ids = '[null]';              -- unattributed only (attribution queue)
SET morbac.org_ids = '["<org-uuid>", null]';-- that org plus unattributed
SET morbac.org_id  = '<org-uuid>';          -- that org only
-- nothing set                              -- everything authorized, unattributed included

See DOCUMENTATION.md for the full org target vocabulary (a specific organization, unattributed, or all).

Advanced Features

-- Temporal rules: Rule active only during business hours or specific period
INSERT INTO morbac.rules (org_id, role_id, activity, view, context_id, modality, valid_from, valid_until)
VALUES (org_id, role_id, 'write', 'sensitive_data', ctx_id, 'permission',
        '2024-01-01 00:00:00', '2024-12-31 23:59:59');

-- Delegation: Alice delegates role to Bob for 1 week
INSERT INTO morbac.delegations (delegator_id, delegatee_id, role_id, org_id, valid_until)
VALUES (alice_id, bob_id, role_id, org_id, NOW() + INTERVAL '7 days');

-- Separation of Duty: Invoice creator and approver roles are mutually exclusive
INSERT INTO morbac.sod_conflicts (role_a_id, role_b_id, org_id)
VALUES (creator_role_id, approver_role_id, org_id);

-- Cross-Org: Global auditor can access subsidiary
INSERT INTO morbac.cross_org_rules (source_org_id, target_org_id, role_id, activity, view, context_id, modality)
VALUES (global_org_id, subsidiary_org_id, auditor_role_id, 'read', 'reports',
        (SELECT id FROM morbac.contexts WHERE name = 'always'), 'permission');

-- Audit logging: Track changes to user roles
SELECT morbac.enable_audit('user_roles');

-- Query audit log
SELECT * FROM morbac.audit_log
WHERE table_name = 'user_roles'
ORDER BY timestamp DESC
LIMIT 10;

Development & Testing

# Development workflow
# 1. Edit source files in src/ directory
# 2. Build and test
make build         # Build versioned pgmorbac--X.Y.Z.sql from src/
make test          # Build and run test suite

# Manual testing
make build
createdb morbac_test
psql -d morbac_test -f pgmorbac.sql
# ... test manually ...
dropdb morbac_test

See DEVELOPMENT.md for source code organization.

Documentation

• DOCUMENTATION.md: Architecture, API reference, integration guides
• PERFORMANCE.md: Performance optimization and caching guide
• ADMIN_GUIDE.md: Organization administrator setup and delegation
• DEVELOPMENT.md: Development workflow and version management
• SECURITY.md: Security policy
• CONTRIBUTING.md: Contribution guidelines
• CHANGELOG.md: Version history

Architecture

Authorization decision flow:

1. Collect all roles for user (direct, delegated, derived, hierarchy)
2. Filter out negative role assignments
3. Find the highest-priority applicable prohibition and highest-priority applicable permission
4. If a permission with strictly higher priority than the prohibition exists, allow
5. If a prohibition exists (and no higher-priority permission), deny
6. If no prohibition, allow if any permission was found; otherwise deny

Prohibitions win over permissions at equal or unset priority.

Research

Based on the CNRS research paper: "Extending the OrBAC model to handle multi-organization environments"

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

git clone https://github.com/crudylabs/pgmorbac.git
cd pgmorbac

# Edit source files in src/
vim src/authorization.sql

# Build and test your changes
make check         # Run test suite

# When ready to release
# 1. Update version in pgmorbac.control
# 2. Build versioned file
make build         # Creates pgmorbac.sql from src/
# 3. Tag in git
git tag v1.0.1
git push --tags

Support

• Read the documentation
• Report bugs via GitHub Issues
• Security issues: see SECURITY.md

Comparison with Traditional RBAC

| Feature | Traditional RBAC | Traditional OrBAC | pgmorbac (Multi-OrBAC) | |---------|-----------------|-------------------|-------------------------| | Multi-tenancy | No | Single organization | Multi-organization | | Prohibitions | No | Yes | Yes | | Context-aware | No | Yes | Yes | | Hierarchies | Basic roles only | Roles, activities, views | Organizations, roles, activities, views | | Delegation | No | Yes | Yes (temporal) | | Separation of Duty | No | Possible | Database-enforced | | Cross-organization | No | No | Yes |