# Usage

To use oslo.policy in a project, import the relevant module. For example:

    from oslo_policy import policy

## Migrating to oslo.policy

Applications using the incubated version of the policy code from Oslo aside from changing the way the library is imported, may need to make some extra changes.

### Incorporating oslo.policy tooling

The `oslo.policy` library offers a generator that projects can use to render sample policy files, check for redundant rules or policies, among other things. This is a useful tool not only for operators managing policies but also for developers looking to automate documentation describing projects’ default policies.

This part of the document describes how you can incorporate these features into your project. Let’s assume we’re working on an OpenStack-like project called `foo`. Policies for this service are registered in code in a common module of the project.

First, you’ll need to expose a couple of entry points in the project’s `setup.cfg`:

    [entry_points]
    oslo.policy.policies =
        foo = foo.common.policies:list_rules

    oslo.policy.enforcer =
        foo = foo.common.policy:get_enforcer

The `oslo.policy` library uses the project namespace to call `list_rules`, which should return a list of `oslo.policy` objects, instances of either `RuleDefault` or `DocumentedRuleDefault`.

The second entry point allows `oslo.policy` to generate complete policy from overrides supplied by an existing policy file on disk. This is useful for operators looking to supply a policy file to Horizon or for security compliance complete with overrides important to that deployment. The `get_enforcer` method should return an instance of `oslo.policy.policy:Enforcer`. The information passed into the constructor of `Enforcer` should resolve any overrides on disk. An example for project `foo` might look like the following:

    from oslo_config import cfg
    from oslo_policy import policy

    from foo.common import policies

    CONF = cfg.CONF
    _ENFORCER = None

    def get_enforcer():
        CONF([], project='foo')
        global _ENFORCER
        if not _ENFORCER:
            _ENFORCER = policy.Enforcer(CONF)
            _ENFORCER.register_defaults(policies.list_rules())
        return _ENFORCER

Please note that if you’re incorporating this into a project that already uses `oslo.policy` in some form or fashion, this might need to be changed to fit that project’s structure accordingly.

Next, you can create a configuration file for generating policies specifically for project `foo`. This file could be called `foo-policy-generator.conf` and it can be kept under version control within the project:

    [DEFAULT]
    output_file = etc/foo/policy.yaml.sample
    namespace = foo

If project `foo` uses tox, this makes it easier to create a specific tox environment for generating sample configuration files in `tox.ini`:

    [testenv:genpolicy]
    commands = oslopolicy-sample-generator --config-file etc/foo/foo-policy-generator.conf

### Changes to Enforcer Initialization

The `oslo.policy` library no longer assumes a global configuration object is available. Instead the `oslo_policy.policy.Enforcer` class has been changed to expect the consuming application to pass in an `oslo.config` configuration object.

#### When using policy from oslo-incubator

    enforcer = policy.Enforcer(policy_file=_POLICY_PATH)

#### When using oslo.policy

    from oslo_config import cfg
    CONF = cfg.CONF
    enforcer = policy.Enforcer(CONF, policy_file=_POLICY_PATH)

## Registering policy defaults in code

A project can register policy defaults in their code which brings with it some benefits.

- A deployer only needs to add a policy file if they wish to override the project defaults.

- Projects can use Enforcer.authorize to ensure that a policy check is being done against a registered policy. This can be used to ensure that all policies used are registered. The signature of Enforcer.authorize matches Enforcer.enforce.

- Projects can register policies as DocumentedRuleDefault objects, which require a method and path of the corresponding policy. This helps policy readers understand which path maps to a particular policy ultimately providing better documentation.

- A sample policy file can be generated based on the registered policies rather than needing to be manually maintained.

- A policy file can be generated which is a merge of registered defaults and policies loaded from a file. This shows the effective policy in use.

- A list can be generated which contains policies defined in a file which match defaults registered in code. These are candidates for removal from the file in order to keep it small and understandable.

### How to register

    from oslo_config import cfg
    CONF = cfg.CONF
    enforcer = policy.Enforcer(CONF, policy_file=_POLICY_PATH)

    base_rules = [
        policy.RuleDefault('admin_required', 'role:admin or is_admin:1',
                           description='Who is considered an admin'),
        policy.RuleDefault('service_role', 'role:service',
                           description='service role'),
    ]

    enforcer.register_defaults(base_rules)
    enforcer.register_default(policy.RuleDefault('identity:create_region',
                                                 'rule:admin_required',
                                                 description='helpful text'))

To provide more information about the policy, use the DocumentedRuleDefault class:

    enforcer.register_default(
        policy.DocumentedRuleDefault(
            'identity:create_region',
            'rule:admin_required',
            'helpful text',
            [{'path': '/regions/{region_id}', 'method': 'POST'}]
        )
    )

The DocumentedRuleDefault class inherits from the RuleDefault implementation, but it must be supplied with the description attribute in order to be used. In addition, the DocumentedRuleDefault class requires a new operations attribute that is a list of dictionaries. Each dictionary must have a path and a method key. The path should map to the path used to interact with the resource the policy protects. The method should be the HTTP verb corresponding to the path. The list of operations can be supplied with multiple dictionaries if the policy is used to protect multiple paths.

### Naming policies

Policy names are an integral piece of information in understanding how OpenStack’s policy engine works. Developers protect APIs using policy names. Operators use policy names to override policies in their deployment. Having consistent policy names across OpenStack services is essential to providing a pleasant user experience. The following rules are guidelines to help you, as a developer, build unique and descriptive policy names.

#### Service types

Policy names should be specific about the service that uses them. The service type should also follow a known standard, which is the service-types authority. Using an existing standard avoids confusing users by reusing an established reference. For example, instead of using keystone as the service in a policy name, you should use identity, since it is not specific to one implementation. It’s also more specific about the functionality provided by the service instead of having readers maintain a mental mapping between service code name and functionality it provides.

#### Resources and subresources

Users may interact with resources exposed by a service’s API. You should include the name of a resource in the policy name, and it should be singular. For example, policies that protect the user API should use identity:user, instead of identity:users.

Some services might have subresources. For example, a fixed IP address could be considered a subresource of an IP address. You should separate open-form compound words with a hyphen and not an underscore. This spacing convention maintains consistency with spacing used in the service types authority. For example, use ip-address instead of ip_address. Having more than one way to separate compound words within a single convention is confusing and prone to accidentally introducing inconsistencies.

Resource names should be minimalist and contain only characters needed to describe the resource. Extra information should be omitted from the resource altogether. Use agent instead of os-agents, even if the URL path of the resource uses /os-agents.

#### Actions and subactions

Actions are specific things that users can do to resources. Typical actions are create, get, list, update, and delete. These action definitions are independent of the HTTP method used to implement their underlying API, which is intentional. This independence is important because two different services may implement the same action using two different HTTP methods. For example, use compute:server:list as a policy name for listing servers instead of compute:server:get_all or compute:server:get-all. Using all in the policy name itself implies returning every possible entity when the actual response may be filtered based on the user’s authority. In other words, list servers for a domain administrator managing many different projects within that domain could be very different from a member of a project listing servers owned by a single project.

Some services have the ability to list resources with greater detail. Depending on the context, those additional details might be sensitive in nature and require more strict RBAC permissions than list. In this case, use compute:server:list-detail as opposed to compute:server:detail. By using a compound word, we’re being more descriptive about what the detail actually means.

Subactions are optionally available for you to add clarity about resource actions. For example, compute:server:resize:confirm is an example of how you can compound an action (resize) with a subaction (confirm) to explicitly name a policy.

Actions that are open form compound words should use hyphens instead of underscores for spacing. This spacing is consistent with the service types authority and resource names for open form compound words. For example, use compute:server:resize-state instead of compute:server:resize_state.

#### Resource Attributes

Resource attributes may be used in policy names, and are entirely optional. If you need to include the attribute of a resource in the name, you should place it after the resource or subresource portion. For example, use compute:flavor:private:list to name a policy for listing all private flavors.

#### Putting it all together

Now that you know what services types, resources, attributes, and actions are within the context of policy names, it is possible to establish the order you should use them. Policy names should increase in detail as you read it. This results in the following syntax:

    <service-type>:<resource>[:<subresource>][:<attribute>]:<action>[:<subaction>]

You should delimit each segment of the name with a colon (:). The following are examples for existing OpenStack APIs:

    identity:user:list
    block-storage:volume:extend
    compute:server:resize:confirm
    compute:flavor:private:list
    network:ip-address:fixed-ip-address:create

### Setting scope

The RuleDefault and DocumentedRuleDefault objects have an attribute dedicated to the intended scope of the operation called scope_types. This attribute can only be set at rule definition and never overridden via a policy file. This variable is designed to save the scope at which a policy should operate. During enforcement, the information in scope_types is compared to the scope of the token used in the request. It is designed to match the available token scopes available from keystone, which are system, domain, and project. The examples highlighted here will show the usage with system and project APIs. Setting scope_types to anything but these three values is unsupported.

For example, a policy that is used to protect a resource tracked in a project should require a project-scoped token. This can be expressed with scope_types as follows:

    policy.DocumentedRuleDefault(
        name='service:create_foo',
        check_str='role:admin',
        scope_types=['project'],
        description='Creates a foo resource',
        operations=[
            {
                'path': '/v1/foos/',
                'method': 'POST'
            }
        ]
    )

A policy that is used to protect system-level resources can follow the same pattern:

    policy.DocumentedRuleDefault(
        name='service:update_bar',
        check_str='role:admin',
        scope_types=['system'],
        description='Updates a bar resource',
        operations=[
            {
                'path': '/v1/bars/{bar_id}',
                'method': 'PATCH'
            }
        ]
    )

The scope_types attribute makes sure the token used to make the request is scoped properly and passes the check_str. This is powerful because it allows roles to be reused across different authorization levels without compromising APIs. For example, the admin role in the above example is used at the project-level and the system-level to protect two different resources. If we only checked that the token contained the admin role, it would be possible for a user with a project-scoped token to access a system-level API.

Developers incorporating scope_types into OpenStack services should be mindful of the relationship between the API they are protecting with a policy and the resource level the API operates at, whether it’s system-level or project-level.

### Sample file generation

In setup.cfg of a project using oslo.policy:

    [entry_points]
    oslo.policy.policies =
        nova = nova.policy:list_policies

where list_policies is a method that returns a list of policy.RuleDefault objects.

Run the oslopolicy-sample-generator script with some configuration options:

    oslopolicy-sample-generator --namespace nova --output-file policy-sample.yaml

or:

    oslopolicy-sample-generator --config-file policy-generator.conf

where policy-generator.conf looks like:

    [DEFAULT]
    output_file = policy-sample.yaml
    namespace = nova

If output_file is omitted the sample file will be sent to stdout.

### Merged file generation

This will output a policy file which includes all registered policy defaults and all policies configured with a policy file. This file shows the effective policy in use by the project.

In setup.cfg of a project using oslo.policy:

    [entry_points]
    oslo.policy.enforcer =
        nova = nova.policy:get_enforcer

where get_enforcer is a method that returns a configured oslo_policy.policy.Enforcer object. This object should be setup exactly as it is used for actual policy enforcement, if it differs the generated policy file may not match reality.

Run the oslopolicy-policy-generator script with some configuration options:

    oslopolicy-policy-generator --namespace nova --output-file policy-merged.yaml

or:

    oslopolicy-policy-generator --config-file policy-merged-generator.conf

where policy-merged-generator.conf looks like:

    [DEFAULT]
    output_file = policy-merged.yaml
    namespace = nova

If output_file is omitted the file will be sent to stdout.

### List of redundant configuration

This will output a list of matches for policy rules that are defined in a configuration file where the rule does not differ from a registered default rule. These are rules that can be removed from the policy file with no change in effective policy.

In setup.cfg of a project using oslo.policy:

    [entry_points]
    oslo.policy.enforcer =
        nova = nova.policy:get_enforcer

where get_enforcer is a method that returns a configured oslo_policy.policy.Enforcer object. This object should be setup exactly as it is used for actual policy enforcement, if it differs the generated policy file may not match reality.

Run the oslopolicy-list-redundant script:

    oslopolicy-list-redundant --namespace nova

or:

    oslopolicy-list-redundant --config-file policy-redundant.conf

where policy-redundant.conf looks like:

    [DEFAULT]
    namespace = nova

Output will go to stdout.

## Testing default policies

Developers need to reliably unit test policies used to protect APIs. Having robust unit test coverage increases confidence that changes won’t negatively affect user experience. This document is intended to help you understand historical context behind testing practices you may find in your service. More importantly, it’s going to describe testing patterns you can use to increase confidence in policy testing and coverage.

### History

Before the ability to register policies in code, developers maintained policies in a policy file, which included all policies used by the service. Developers maintained policy files within the project source code, which contained the default policies for the service.

Once it became possible to register policies in code, policy files became irrelevant because you could generate them. Generating policy files from code made maintaining documentation for policies easier and allowed for a single source of truth. Registering policies in code also meant testing no longer required a policy file, since the default policies were in the service itself.

At this point, it is important to note that policy enforcement requires an authorization context based on the user making the request (e.g., is the user allowed to do the operation they’re asking to do). Within OpenStack, this authorization context is relayed to services by the token used to call an API, which comes from an OpenStack identity service. In its purest form, you can think of authorization context as the roles a user has on a project, domain, or system. Services can feed the authorization context into policy enforcement, which determines if a user is allowed to do something.

The coupling between the authorization context, ultimately the token, and the policy enforcement mechanism raises the bar for effectively testing policies and APIs. Service developers want to ensure the functionality specific to their service works and not dwell on the implementation details of an authorization system. Additionally, they want to keep unit tests lightweight, as opposed to requiring a separate system to issue tokens for authorization, crossing the boundary of unit testing to integration testing.

Because of this, you typically see one of two approaches taken concerning policies and test code across OpenStack services.

One approach is to supply a policy file specifically for testing that overrides the sample policy file or default policies in code. This file contains mostly policies without proper check strings, which relaxes the authorization enforced by the service using oslo.policy. Without proper check strings, it’s possible to access APIs without building context objects or using tokens from an identity service.

The other approach is to mock policy enforcement to succeed unconditionally. Since developers are bypassing the code within the policy engine, supplying a proper authorization context doesn’t have an impact on the APIs used in the test case.

Both methods let developers focus on validating the domain-specific functionality of their service without needing to understand the intricacies of policy enforcement. Unfortunately, bypassing API authorization testing comes at the expense of introducing gaps where the default policies may break unexpectedly with new changes. If the tests don’t assert the default behavior, it’s likely that seemingly simple changes negatively impact users or operators, regardless of that being the intent of the developer.

### Testing policies

Fortunately, you can test policies without needing to deal with tokens by using context objects directly, specifically a RequestContext object. Chances are your service is already using these to represent information from middleware that sits in front of the API. Using context for authorization strikes a perfect balance between integration testing and exercising just enough authorization to ensure policies sufficiently protect APIs. The oslo.policy library also accepts context objects and automatically translates properties to values used when evaluating policy, which makes using them even more natural.

To use RequestContext objects effectively, you need to understand the policy under test. Then, you can model a context object appropriately for the test case. The idea is to build a context object to use in the request that either fails or passes policy enforcement. For example, assume you’re testing a default policy like the following:

    from oslo_config import cfg

    CONF = cfg.CONF
    enforcer = policy.Enforcer(CONF, policy_file=_POLICY_PATH)

    enforcer.register_default(
        policy.RuleDefault('identity:create_region', 'role:admin')
    )

Enforcement here is straightforward in that a user with a role called `admin` may access this API. You can model this in a request context by setting these attributes explicitly:

    from oslo_context import context

    context = context.RequestContext()
    context.roles = ['admin']

Depending on how your service deploys the API in unit tests, you can either provide a fake context as you supply the request, or mock the return value of the context to return the one you’ve built.

You can also supply scope information for policies with complex check strings or the use of scope types. For example, consider the following default policy:

    from oslo_config import cfg

    CONF = cfg.CONF
    enforcer = policy.Enforcer(CONF, policy_file=_POLICY_PATH)

    enforcer.register_default(
        policy.RuleDefault('identity:create_region', 'role:admin',
        scope_types=['system'])
    )

We can model it using the following request context object, which includes scope:

    from oslo_context import context

    context = context.RequestContext()
    context.roles = ['admin']
    context.system_scope = 'all'

Note that `all` is a unique system scope target that signifies the user is authorized to operate on the deployment system. Conversely, the following is an example of a context modeling a project-scoped token:

    import uuid
    from oslo_context import context

    context = context.RequestContext()
    context.roles = ['admin']
    context.project_id = uuid.uuid4().hex

The significance here is the difference between administrator authorization on the deployment system and administrator authorization on a project.

this page last updated: 2026-07-15 00:36:21

Except where otherwise noted, this document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See all OpenStack Legal Documents.

found an error? report a bug