Cloud Foundry: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 15. User Account and Authentication Management

Role-based access control (RBAC) provides a mechanism for establishing who can access specific resources (be it an internal service or a user-facing app). The term “access” refers more broadly to the specific level of authorization a user might have, allowing her to perform a specific action such as to view or modify a resource.

Cloud Foundry RBAC defines two aspects: who can use the platform, and what those individuals can use it for. Cloud Foundry employs RBAC via a component known as the UAA service. The Cloud Foundry UAA is the central identity-management service for platform components, users, and apps.

The UAA has two key modes of operation:

• Secure the Cloud Foundry platform components and API endpoints; for example, the Cloud Controller and Doppler require clients like the Cloud Foundry CLI to use UAA access tokens when invoking the component’s API

• Provide authentication and access control data for apps running on the platform that require access to internal services such as the Cloud Controller or any other external service that requires authentication

The UAA can manage the authentication of users internally, against the UAA’s internal user-identity store. Alternatively, you can configure it to connect to external user stores through identity providers such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), and OpenID Connect (OIDC). The UAA is based on the latest ...