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Protect Entities Using ACLs

Using ACLs you can granularly grant access to your entities. Doing so requires three steps:

1. Activate ACL checks for your entities.

2. Create access control lists for all available actions.

3. Add access checks to where your entities are displayed or manipulated.

Activating ACL Checks on your Entities

To have your entity available in the admin UI to be able to assign permissions to your users, you have to enable ACLs for these entities using the @Config annotation:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Entity/Favorite.php

namespace Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity;

use Doctrine\ORM\Mapping as ORM;
use Oro\Bundle\EntityConfigBundle\Metadata\Annotation\Config;

/**
 * ORM Entity Favorite.
 *
 * @ORM\Table(
 *     name="acme_demo_favorite"
 * )
 * @Config(
 *     defaultValues={
 *         "security"={
 *             "type"="ACL",
 *             "permissions"="All",
 *             "group_name"="",
 *             "category"="",
 *         },
 *     }
 * )
 */

After you have done this and have cleared the cache, you can toggle all kinds of permission checks (CREATE, EDIT, DELETE, VIEW, and ASSIGN) in the user role management interface.

Tip

You can use the optional group_name attribute to group entities by application. The value of this attribute is used to split the configured access control list into application scopes.

Creating Access Control Lists

You have two options to define your custom access control lists:

1. In your controller class, you can use the @Acl annotation:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Controller/FavoriteController.php

namespace Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Controller;

use Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Favorite;
use Oro\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Annotation\Acl;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;

/**
 * Contains CRUD actions for Favorite
 *
 * @Route("/favorite", name="acme_demo_favorite_")
 */
class FavoriteController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Route("/custom", name="custom")
     * @Template("@AcmeDemo/Favorite/index.html.twig")
     * @Acl(
     *   id="acme_demo_favorite_custom",
     *   type="entity",
     *   class="AcmeDemoBundle:Favorite",
     *   permission="VIEW"
     * )
     * @CsrfProtection()
     */
    public function customAction(): array
    {
        return ['entity_class' => Favorite::class];
    }
}

Using the @Acl annotation does not only create new access control lists to which you can refer in other parts of your code, it also triggers the access decision manager when your actions are accessed by users and thus protect them from being accessed without the needed permissions.

1. If you do not want to protect any controller methods or if you prefer to keep the definition of your ACLs separated from the application code, you can define them using some YAML config in a file named acls.yml:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/acls.yml

acls:
    favorites_edit:
        type: entity
        class: AcmeDemoBundle:Favorite
        permission: EDIT

Security Actions that Are not Related to an Entity

You can also create access control lists that are only used to protect specific actions unrelated to an entity. To do that, set the type of the ACL to action instead of entity:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Controller/FavoriteController.php

namespace Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Controller;

use Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Favorite;
use Oro\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Annotation\Acl;
use Oro\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Annotation\CsrfProtection;
use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;

/**
 * Contains CRUD actions for Favorite
 *
 * @Route("/favorite", name="acme_demo_favorite_")
 */
class FavoriteController extends AbstractController
{
    /**
     * @Acl(
     *   id="acme_demo_favorite_protected_action",
     *   type="action"
     * )
     * @Route("/protected", name="protected")
     * @Template("@AcmeDemo/Favorite/index.html.twig")
     * @CsrfProtection()
     */
    public function protectedAction()
    {
        $repository = $this->container->get('doctrine')->getRepository(Favorite::class);
        $queryBuilder = $repository
            ->createQueryBuilder('f')
            ->where('f.viewCount > :viewCount')
            ->orderBy('f.viewCount', 'ASC')
            ->setParameter('viewCount', 6);
        $aclHelper = $this->container->get(AclHelper::class);
        $query = $aclHelper->apply($queryBuilder, 'VIEW');

        return [
            'data' => $query->getResult()
        ];
    }
}

When configuring the ACL using the YAML config format, you also have to set the controller to use the bindings option to bind the ACL:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/acls.yml

acls:
    favorites_edit:
        type: entity
        class: AcmeDemoBundle:Favorite
        permission: EDIT
        bindings:
            -   class: Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Controller\FavoritesController
                method: newEditAction

See also

All configuration options are explained in full details in the @Acl, @AclAncestor, and ACL YAML format reference.

Performing Access Checks

Once you have configured the ACLs, you can protect all application parts. You can use the isGranted() method of the security.authorization_checker service (which is an instance of the Symfony\Component\Security\Core\Authorization\AuthorizationCheckerInterface) anywhere in your PHP code:

$authorizationChecker = $this->get('security.authorization_checker');

if ($authorizationChecker->isGranted('acme_static_pages')) {
    // do something when the user is granted permissions for the acme_static_pages ACL
}

You can set the second parameter to check access on Object level (with Access Level check):

$taskEntity = $this->getTask();

$authorizationChecker = $this->get('security.authorization_checker');

if ($authorizationChecker->isGranted('acme_task_edit', $taskEntity)) {
     // do something when the user is granted permissions for the acme_task_edit ACL of the entity in $taskEntity
}

When you do not have proper ACL annotation, you can set the first parameter as the permission name you want to check:

$taskEntity = $this->getTask();

$authorizationChecker = $this->get('security.authorization_checker');

if ($authorizationChecker->isGranted('EDIT', $taskEntity)) {
    // do something when the user is granted EDIT permission for the $taskEntity
}

This example will work the same as before. It will check EDIT permission for the Task instance object.

However, there are ways to perform these checks in different parts of your application:

Hiding Menu Items

Use the acl_resource_id option to hide navigation items from users who are not granted access to the linked action. The value of this option is the name of the ACL to check for:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/navigation.yml

 menu_config:
     items:
         task_list:
             label: Tasks
             route: acme_task_index
             acl_resource_id: acme_task_view

Protecting Controllers Referring to Existing ACLs

You can define new ACLs as shown above and protect your controllers with them in a single step using the @Acl annotation. However, you can also refer to an existing access control list using the @AclAncestor annotation:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Controller/TaskController.php

 namespace Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Controller;

 use Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Task;
 use Oro\Bundle\SecurityBundle\Annotation\AclAncestor;
 use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\AbstractController;

 class TaskController extends AbstractController
 {
     /**
      * @AclAncestor("acme_task_view")
      */
     public function viewAction(Task $task)
     {
         // ...
     }
 }

Show Parts of Templates Based on Permissions

Inside your templates, you can use the is_granted() Twig function to check for certain permissions to hide parts of your views for users who do not have the required permissions:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Task/update.html.twig

 {% block someBlock %}
     {% if is_granted('acme_task_edit') %}
         Some info if access is granted
     {% endif %}
 {% endblock %}

In this example, we check access by ACL annotation info without an Object to test. So, is_granted will return true if the user has any access level to EDIT permission to the Task entity.

If you want to perform a deeper access check, you can set the entity instance as the second parameter of the is_granted() function:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Task/update.html.twig

 {% block someBlock %}
     {# an `entity` variable contains a Test entity instance #}
     {% if is_granted('acme_task_edit', entity) %}
         Some info if access is granted
     {% endif %}
 {% endblock %}

This example illustrates the check of the access level for the given object instance.

If you have no ACL annotation, you can set the permission name directly as the first parameter:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/views/Task/update.html.twig

 {% block someBlock %}
     {# an `entity` variable contains a Test entity instance #}
     {% if is_granted('EDIT', entity) %}
         Some info if access is granted
     {% endif %}
 {% endblock %}

Restrict Access to Data Grid Results

In a data grid, you can protect the entire result set (not to show results if the user is not granted access and the action embedding the grid was not protected by accident):

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/datagrids.yml

 datagrids:
     acme-tasks-grid:
         source:
             acl_resource: acme_task_view

     # ...

Hide Unaccessible Grid Actions

You can also use the acl_resource option to hide actions in a data grid the user does not have access to:

src/Acme/Bundle/DemoBundle/Resources/config/oro/datagrids.yml

 datagrids:
     acme-tasks-grid:
         # ...
         actions:
             # ...
             edit:
                 type: navigate
                 label: Edit
                 link: update_link
                 icon: edit
                 acl_resource: acme_task_edit
             delete:
                 type: delete
                 label: Delete
                 link: delete_link
                 icon: trash
                 acl_resource: acme_task_delete

Check Access on ORM Queries

You can protect your Doctrine ORM query with the apply method of the oro_security.acl_helper service.

namespace Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Controller;

use Acme\Bundle\DemoBundle\Entity\Task;
use Doctrine\ORM\Query;
use Doctrine\ORM\QueryBuilder;
use Oro\Bundle\SecurityBundle\ORM\Walker\AclHelper;

class TaskController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * @param Task $task
     * @return array
     */
    public function viewAction(Task $task)
    {
        /** @var QueryBuilder $qb */
        $qb = $this->getSomeQuery();

        /** @var Query $query */
        $query = $this->getContainer()->get('oro_security.acl_helper')->apply($qb);

        $result = $query->getResult();

        // ...
    }
}

As a result, the query will be modified, and the result data set will contain only the records the user can see.

By default, VIEW permission is used as the second parameter. If you want to check another permission, you can set it as the second parameter of the apply method.