Directory Access Rights Caching for ACL Evaluation Bottlenecks
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional directory deployment scenarios face significant performance issues due to numerous Access Control List (ACL) attribute values, leading to lengthy access evaluation times, which can exceed 17 seconds even for moderate-sized directories, impacting usability and business reputation.
Innovation Solution
A method that collects access rights from a directory root to a container, generates a rights buffer, and caches it for future access, allowing immediate retrieval and application of access rights when a trustee accesses a target resource or attribute within the container, thereby reducing the need for repeated ACL evaluations across the directory tree.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If ACL attributes are read from tree root to target entry for each access request, then access rights are accurately enforced, but access evaluation time becomes excessively long (17 seconds or more)
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-calculates and stores access rights in a rights buffer during directory initialization or ACL modification events, rather than calculating them on-demand during each access request. This preliminary action creates a cached representation of access rights that can be quickly evaluated during actual access operations, resolving the contradiction between accurate enforcement and fast evaluation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent prepares access rights evaluation data in advance by creating a rights buffer that contains pre-processed access control information. This cushioning mechanism ensures that when access requests occur, the system already has the necessary rights information ready, eliminating the need for time-consuming real-time ACL traversal and resolution during access operations.
2Reliability
If a rights buffer is created for every entry matching the search filter, then accurate access control is maintained, but processing time increases significantly for large directory trees
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges access rights evaluation into a single rights buffer structure that can serve multiple directory entries simultaneously. Instead of creating separate rights buffers for each matching entry, the system consolidates the evaluation logic and shares the rights buffer across multiple entries, maintaining access control accuracy while dramatically reducing processing time for large directory searches.
Solution Approach 2:
The rights buffer is designed as a universal structure that can be applied to multiple directory entries and search scenarios. This multi-functional rights buffer serves various access control evaluation needs without requiring separate processing for each entry, improving both productivity and reliability across different directory access operations.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for enforcing access rights during directory access are presented. Access rights are maintained at the container level of a directory tree for container objects within a cache. When security is set for a requester of a target, the container object cache is directly accessed along with rights assigned to the target and the security is calculated and then set against the requester.