RBPIM: Enforcing RBAC policies in distributed heterogeneous systems

This paper presents a PCIM-based framework for storing and enforcing RBAC (Role Based Access Control) policies in distributed heterogeneous systems. PCIM (Policy Core Information Model) is an information model proposed by IETF. PCIM permits to represent network policies in a standard form, allowing software from different vendors to read the same set of policy rules. This paper describes a PCIM extension, called RBPIM (Role-Based Policy Information Model), in order to represent network access policies based on the RBAC model. A RBPIM implementation framework based on the PDP/PEP (Policy Decision Point/Policy Enforcement Point) approach is also presented and evaluated.