A Workflow-based RBAC Model for Web
Services in Multiple Autonomous Domains
Zhenwu WANG
School of Mechanical and Information Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, China
Email: wangzhenwu@126.com
Xuejun ZHAO
1
, Benting WAN
2
, Jun XIE
3
, Pengfei BAI
1
1
School of Mechanical and Information Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Beijing, China
2
Software and Communication Engineering institute, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang, China
3
Information Engineering institute, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China
Abstract—A workflow-based RBAC model for web services
(WFRBAC4WS) has been proposed in this paper. The
model organizes web services in different autonomous
domains through workflow mechanism, and maps RBAC
model to tasks of workflow model. The paper details the
authorization procedure of WFRBAC4WS model, the
lifetime management, the extension of authorization
constraint and the formal descriptions of the proposed
model. Compared with other RBAC models for web services,
this model not only combines RBAC model to workflow, but
also describes the interactions between workflow
mechanism and RABC model in web services environment,
the authorization work of this model is dynamically and
comprehensively.
Index Terms—workflow, RBAC, web services, autonomous
domains
I. INTRODUCTION
(1) Cross-domain
Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a framework
for distributed systems, which is platform-independence
and is constructed by components. Web service becomes
the most popular implementation of SOA, and it has
many advantages, such as high development efficiency,
fast response ability, good reusability, and so on. The
service requesters and providers both have the high
dynamic because of the heterogeneity of environment and
the variousness of operation methods, it is necessary that
access control methods of web services need adapt the
variety dynamically. The access control of web services
must face the following problems [1, 2].
The traditional access control models base on single
autonomous domain, the providers and requesters are
both in the same domain, and they can “recognize” each
other. But web services generally are deployed in
different domains and the service requesters and
providers cannot “recognize” each other, this problem is
called the access control issue among “strangers” [3, 4].
(2) Dynamic authorization
The traditional access control models generally assign
permissions to subjects according to certain rules, and
This work was supported by National “863” High Technology
Research and Development Program of China (No.2012AA12A308).
then save these assignment relations, this procedure is
called static authorization. But in web services
environment, web services are distributed in multiple
autonomous domains and the authorization activities are
dynamic. The subjects which make the requests and the
objects which provide service resources both have high
dynamic characters, the dynamic traits of subjects are
caused by the variety of operations and the heterogeneous
environment, the dynamic characters of web services
represent that the web services composition is dynamic,
so we need a dynamic authorization mechanism.
(3) Loose coupling
Web services are deployed in different autonomous
domains, the coupling relationships among web services
are decided by the workflow of composite web services.
The coupling relationships are different in contexts of
different composite services because these components
can be reused in many applications.
Owing to the above traits, we cannot directly adopt the
traditional access control models which usually are used
to web services in single domain, and the security
problem of web services is the obstruction of web
services popularization. Many scholars discussed the
security problem of web services in various aspects [5-9].
Literature [5] proposed an attribute-based access control
(ABAC) model based on XACML in Web Service,
literature [6] designed a cross-domain trust-based access
control model for Web service, which based on XACML
and WS-Security, and literature [7] discussed the security
technologies based on SOAP, which adopted methods of
encryption, digital signature and authorization. Recently,
some literatures discussed the access control problem of
composite web services in multiple domains, literature [8]
detailed a dynamic multiple domains access control
model based on RBAC and gave a role mining algorithm
to find the role set with minimized permissions, literature
[9] proposed an UCON enhanced business process
dynamic access control model, which unbounded the
coupling relationship of organization model and the
process model. Business process access control
mechanism is a difficult problem in Web services
composition application [9], literature [8][9] analyzed the
permissions which are needed by services execution
according to the procedures of composite web services,
JOURNAL OF NETWORKS, VOL. 8, NO. 3, MARCH 2013
doi:10.4304/jnw.8.3.723-730