Operational semantics of Java 2 access control

Java 2 Security enhanced with the Java Authentication and Authorization Service (JAAS) provide sophisticated access control features via a user-configurable authorization policy. Fine-grained access control, code-based as well as user-based authorization, and implicit access rights allow the implementation of real-world policies, but of the cost of increased complexity. In this paper we provide a formal specification of the Java 2 and JAAS access control model that helps remove ambiguities of the informal definitions. It defines Java 2 access control in terms of an abstract machine, whose behavior is determined by a small set of transition rules. We illustrate the power of Java 2 access control by showing how commonly encountered authorization requirements can be implemented in Java 2.