Apache Fortress is an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

project of the

Apache Software Foundation The Apache Software Foundation ( ; ASF) is an American nonprofit corporation (classified as a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States) to support a number of open-source software projects. The ASF was formed from a group of developers of the ...

and a subproject of the Apache Directory. It is an

authorization Authorization or authorisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences), in information security, computer security and identity management, IAM (Identity and Access Managemen ...

system, written in

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

, that provides

role-based access control In computer systems security, role-based access control (RBAC) or role-based security is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users, and to implementing mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control, discretion ...

delegated administration In computing, delegated administration or delegation of control describes the decentralization of role-based-access-control systems. Many enterprises use a centralized model of access control. For large organizations, this model scales poorly a ...

and

password policy A password policy is a set of rules designed to enhance computer security by encouraging users to employ strong passwords and use them properly. A password policy is often part of an organization's official regulations and may be taught as part o ...

using an

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed Directory service, directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) networ ...

backend. Standards implemented: * Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) ANSI INCITS 359 * Administrative Role-Based Access Control (ARBAC02) * IETF Password Policy (draft) *Unix Users and Groups (RFC2307) Fortress has four separate components: * Core - A set of security authorization APIs. * Realm - A

Web Container A web container (also known as a servlet container; and compare "webcontainer" ) is the component of a web server that interacts with Jakarta Servlets. A web container is responsible for managing the lifecycle of servlets, mapping a URL to a pa ...

plug-in that provides security for the

Apache Tomcat Apache Tomcat (called "Tomcat" for short) is a free and open-source implementation of the Jakarta Servlet, Jakarta Expression Language, and WebSocket technologies. It provides a "pure Java" HTTP web server environment in which Java code can also ...

container. * Rest -

HTTP HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, wher ...

protocol wrappers of core APIs using

Apache CXF Apache CXF is an open source software project developing a Web services framework. It originated as the combination of Celtix developed by IONA Technologies and XFire developed by a team hosted at the now defunct host CodeHaus in 2006. These two ...

. * Web -

HTML Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...

pages of core APIs using

Apache Wicket Apache Wicket, commonly referred to as Wicket, is a component-based web application framework for the Java programming language conceptually similar to JavaServer Faces and Tapestry. It was originally written by Jonathan Locke in April 2004. Ver ...

History

Fortress was first contributed in 2011 to the

OpenLDAP OpenLDAP is a free, open-source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) developed by the OpenLDAP Project. It is released under its own BSD-style license called the OpenLDAP Public License. LDAP is a platform-independ ...

Foundation and moved to the Apache Directory project in 2014.

API

Fortress provides security functions via APIs corresponding to the standards implemented. For example, its

RBAC In computer systems security, role-based access control (RBAC) or role-based security is an approach to restricting system access to authorized users, and to implementing mandatory access control (MAC) or discretionary access control (DAC). Ro ...

API design mimics the functional specifications of ANSI INCITS 359 with function names, entities being the same.

References

External links

Apache Fortress Project Pagepy-fortress on PyPI

Fortress A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from L ...

Directory services Access control {{security-software-stub