# Which Problems Are Solved
Currently ZITADEL defines organization and instance member roles and
permissions in defaults.yaml. The permission check is done on API call
level. For example: "is this user allowed to make this call on this
org". This makes sense on the V1 API where the API is permission-level
shaped. For example, a search for users always happens in the context of
the organization. (Either the organization the calling user belongs to,
or through member ship and the x-zitadel-orgid header.
However, for resource based APIs we must be able to resolve permissions
by object. For example, an IAM_OWNER listing users should be able to get
all users in an instance based on the query filters. Alternatively a
user may have user.read permissions on one or more orgs. They should be
able to read just those users.
# How the Problems Are Solved
## Role permission mapping
The role permission mappings defined from `defaults.yaml` or local
config override are synchronized to the database on every run of
`zitadel setup`:
- A single query per **aggregate** builds a list of `add` and `remove`
actions needed to reach the desired state or role permission mappings
from the config.
- The required events based on the actions are pushed to the event
store.
- Events define search fields so that permission checking can use the
indices and is strongly consistent for both query and command sides.
The migration is split in the following aggregates:
- System aggregate for for roles prefixed with `SYSTEM`
- Each instance for roles not prefixed with `SYSTEM`. This is in
anticipation of instance level management over the API.
## Membership
Current instance / org / project membership events now have field table
definitions. Like the role permissions this ensures strong consistency
while still being able to use the indices of the fields table. A
migration is provided to fill the membership fields.
## Permission check
I aimed keeping the mental overhead to the developer to a minimal. The
provided implementation only provides a permission check for list
queries for org level resources, for example users. In the `query`
package there is a simple helper function `wherePermittedOrgs` which
makes sure the underlying database function is called as part of the
`SELECT` query and the permitted organizations are part of the `WHERE`
clause. This makes sure results from non-permitted organizations are
omitted. Under the hood:
- A Pg/PlSQL function searches for a list of organization IDs the passed
user has the passed permission.
- When the user has the permission on instance level, it returns early
with all organizations.
- The functions uses a number of views. The views help mapping the
fields entries into relational data and simplify the code use for the
function. The views provide some pre-filters which allow proper index
usage once the final `WHERE` clauses are set by the function.
# Additional Changes
# Additional Context
Closes#9032
Closes https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/issues/9014https://github.com/zitadel/zitadel/issues/9188 defines follow-ups for
the new permission framework based on this concept.
This implementation increases parallel write capabilities of the eventstore.
Please have a look at the technical advisories: [05](https://zitadel.com/docs/support/advisory/a10005) and [06](https://zitadel.com/docs/support/advisory/a10006).
The implementation of eventstore.push is rewritten and stored events are migrated to a new table `eventstore.events2`.
If you are using cockroach: make sure that the database user of ZITADEL has `VIEWACTIVITY` grant. This is used to query events.
