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Distributed Access Control System

{{inline|date=April 2016}}

{{Infobox software

| name = Distributed Access Control System

| released = {{Start date and age|2005}}

| latest release version = 1.5.0

| latest release date = {{Start date and age|2025|04|8}}

| latest preview version =

| latest preview date =

| programming language = C with APIs for some other languages

| operating system = FreeBSD, Linux, macOS

| size =

| language = English

| genre = Computer security

| license = Modified Sleepycat License

| website = {{URL|https://dacs.dss.ca/}}

}}

Distributed Access Control System (DACS){{cite web|url=https://dacs.dss.ca|title=DACS: The Distributed Access Control System}} is a light-weight single sign-on and attribute-based access control system for web servers and server-based software. DACS is primarily used with Apache web servers to provide enhanced access control for web pages, CGI programs and servlets, and other web-based assets, and to federate

Apache servers.

Released under an open-source license, DACS provides a modular authentication framework that supports an array of common authentication methods and a rule-based authorization engine that can grant or deny access to resources, named by URLs, based on the identity of the requestor and other contextual information. Administrators can configure DACS to identify users by employing authentication methods and user accounts already available within their organization. The resulting DACS identities are recognized at all DACS jurisdictions that have been federated.

In addition to simple web-based APIs, command-line interfaces are also provided to much of the functionality.

Most web-based APIs can return XML or JSON documents.

Development of DACS began in 2001, with the first open source release made available in 2005.

Authentication

DACS can use any of the following authentication methods and account types:

The extensible architecture allows new methods to be introduced.

The DACS distribution includes various cryptographic functionality,

such as message digests, HMACs,

symmetric and public key encryption,

ciphers (ChaCha20, OpenSSL),

digital signatures,

password-based key derivation functions (HKDF, PBKDF2),

and

memory-hard key derivation functions (scrypt, Argon2),

much of which is available from a simple scripting language.

DACS can also act as an Identity Provider for InfoCards and function as a Relying Party,

although this functionality is deprecated.

Authorization

DACS performs access control by evaluating access control rules that are specified by an administrator.

Expressed as a set of XML documents, the rules are consulted at run-time to determine

whether access to a given resource should be granted or denied.

As access control rules can be arbitrary computations, it

combines attribute-based access control, role-based access control,

policy-based access control, delegated access control, and other approaches.

The architecture provides many possibilities to administrators.

See also

{{Portal|Free and open-source software}}

References

{{reflist}}

;Notes

{{refbegin}}

  • R. Morrison, [http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/Web-2-0-Access-Control-Part-1.html "Web 2.0 Access Control"], 2007.
  • J. Falkcrona, [http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-11224 "Role-based access control and single sign-on for Web services"], 2008.
  • B. Brachman, [http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-soa-access.html "Rule-based access control: Improve security and make programming easier with an authorization framework"], 2006.
  • A. Peeke-Vout, B. Low, [https://archive.today/20130414191213/http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations/view.php?abstract_id=203 "Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)-In-A-Box, a Footprint to Deliver Geospatial Data through Open Source Applications"], 2007.

{{refend}}

External links

  • {{Official website|url=https://dacs.dss.ca}}
  • {{sourceforge|dacs}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Distributed Access Control System (Dacs)}}

Category:Cross-platform free software

Category:Free security software

Category:Free software programmed in C

Category:Unix security software

Category:Unix user management and support-related utilities

Category:Computer access control