CSNS2 Security Implementation

Department

Requirements

• System admin can create departments.
• Department admin can edit their own department such as changing logo, theme, and adding/removing faculty, instructors, and courses.

In theory department name abbreviation (e.g. cs) should not be changed once a department is created because doing so may break department role check. Right now it can be changed by System Admin.

Implementation

• /admin/** requires sysadmin.
• DepartmentDao.saveDepartment() requires system or department admin by @PreAuthorize
• The following controller methods require department admin by @PreAuthorize
  • DepartmentUserController.operation()
  • DepartmentCourseController.operation()

User

Requirements

• General user management operations like add, edit, disable, and search require sysadmin, department admin, or department faculty.
• The search function used by auto complete is available to department instructors.
• Users can edit their own account profile.
• Temporary user accounts may be created during roster/grade import.

Implementation

• /user/** requires sysadmin, department admin, or department faculty.
• /user/autocomplete requires department instructors.
• /profile requires authenticated users.
• /register requires authenticated users with temporary accounts.

Course

Requirements

• Adding and editing courses require department admin.
• Other course operations like view and search are available to everyone, including anonymous users.

Implementation

• /course/add and /course/edit require department admin.

Section

Requirements

• Sections can be added by department admin, department faculty, and department instructor.
• Sections can be edited by department admin.
• Department faculty and department instructors can edit their own sections.

Section access is kind of tricky because it's not just access the Section objects, but also other data associated with a section such as assignments, student roster, student grades, and so on.

Implementation

• /section/taken requires authenticated users.
• /section/** requires department admin, department faculty, or department instructor.
• SectionDao.getSection() require the caller to be either an instructor or a student in the section (using @PostAuthorize).

The current implementation is not perfect. In fact, there is a known loophole ....

Enrollment

Requirements

• The instructor(s) of a section and department admin* can add, view, edit, delete enrollments.
• The students can view their own enrollments.

* Because we allow a course to be included in the curriculum of any department (e.g. TECH250 included in CS BS program), it's difficult to determine which department a section belongs to. So here we allow the admin of any department to manage enrollments, basically trusting that all department admins are good people.

Implementation

• EnrollmentDao.getEnrollment() is secured with an @PostAuthorize.
• EnrollmentDao.saveEnrollment() and deleteEnrollment() are secured with @PreAuthorize.

Assignment

Requirements

• Department instructors can view, add, edit, delete assignments of the sections they teach.
• Students can views the assignments of the sections they take.
• Department admins can view all assignments (again, it's admins of all departments)

Implementation

• /assignment/** requires department admin/faculty/instructor.
• AssignmentDao.getAssignment() is secured by an @PostAuthorize.
• AssignemntDao.saveAssignment() is secured by an @PreAuthorize.

Submission

Requirements

• Department instructors can create, view, edit, grade the submissions for their sections.
• Students can create, view, and edit their own submissions.
• Department admins can view all submissions.

Implementation

• /submission/view, /submission/upload, and /submission/online/edit require authenticated users.
• /submission/** require department instructors.
• SubmissionDao.getSubmission() is secured with an @PostAuthorize.
• SubmissionDao.saveSubmission() is secured with an @PreAuthorize.