Support adding/removing access rights

[haadcode]

We currently only support "immutable" access rights in that the access rights are defined when the database is created and can't be modified afterwards without changing the address of the database. This is great for some use cases, but obviously it's not enough and we want to be able to add and remove access "dynamically".

Fortunately, we have a way to do this! The access controller is currently an IPFS object and the hash of the object is saved as part of the manifest file of the database. To support dynamic access rights, we can dogfood on our own tech: use an OrbitDB database for the access controller! :) This could be implemented in a way that instead of creating an IPFS object (ipfs-access-controller.js), we implement another access-controller class that resolves OrbitDB addresses. The address of the access controller database could always be for example <orbitdb address>/_access. The access controller database could be immutable in the same way all databases are now, effectively setting the creator of the database as the "admin" in that only the creator can add/remove access for others, or it could even be a chain of dynamic access controllers.

Here's an example how it could be implemented: https://gist.github.com/haadcode/d36b5e75b95e95fc1b15479c8defbe46.

I hope I can get to work on this soon, but if anyone is looking to contribute, implementing this would be of great help and a hugely valuable feature to OrbitDB!

[thiagodelgado111]

Hey folks, I left a few comments on the prototype proto/dynamic-access branch – I know it's a WIP but I wanted to get them out of my head :)

Those comments are actually questions that came up while I was looking at it. It looks pretty good! Let me know if I can help anyway!

[haadcode]

Thanks @thiagodelgado111, much appreciate the comments and thoughts! Replied to your comments.

[haadcode]

@shamb0t are you actively working on this atm?

[ydennisy]

@haadcode is there any advancement on this topic of creating access controls for DBs built with Orbit?

[shamb0t]

@haadcode @ydennisy sorry for the delay I'm not actively working on this atm but there's a lot of discussion happening on the prototype branch here

Thank you @thiagodelgado111 for the comments! I think there's still a lot to discuss regarding what we'd like to support, for example currently the db creator must grant new capabilities, what are thoughts on others being able to grant access once they have been granted admin capabilities? Or users of a certain group having certain rights? Was planning to return to this next week but anyone feel free to move this forward!

[ashwin-yardi]

Hi Guys! Orbit-DB has indeed introduced very creative and revolutionary ways of using IPFS for data storage. I am using Orbit-db in one of my projects. However, Dynamic access control is the desideratum. Its really good to see that this feature is already WIP. May I know some rough estimate on when this branch will be merged? So that I can plan things accordingly. Thanks :) @haadcode @shamb0t

[haadcode]

Update on this: a lot of work has happened over the past couple of months in https://github.com/orbitdb/ipfs-log. Specifically orbitdb-archive/ipfs-log#159 was merged which is the lowest level of changes needed to support dynamic access control in OrbitDB. Next up is to make OrbitDB use the new version of the log which will bring us the dynamic access control as per this issue. Stay tuned! 😄

[5310]

Forgive me if I'm too off-topic; there this question is spread across several repositories but ultimately relates to this access-control feature: Is it possible to use libp2p-/js-ipfs keys instead of orbit-db-keystore/-identity-provider for identity and verification? It fits the use-case doesn't it?

[haadcode]

@5310 indeed, it fits the use case! The orbit-db-keystore was originally designed IPFS Keys in mind that it could be swapped to the one in IPFS. We took some design decisions in implementing the orbit-db-keystore so it's not 1-to-1 compatible with the IPFS Keys API but it should be fairly trivial to create a wrapper, say orbit-db-keystore-ipfs, that maps the functionality between the two APIs.

As for orbit-db-identity-provider, it's a orbitdb-internal functionality so it wouldn't be directly replaced by the IPFS Keys, but we made it so that orbit-db-identity-provider could use "IPFS Keys as Identity Provider" thus using libp2p/ipfs keys for identity and verification.

None of this is implemented yet, but would be happy to accept PRs and provide help implementing the support for IPFS Keys API as a Keystore in OrbitDB.

[MirceaKitsune]

I've been thinking of programming a serverless social media platform using nothing but IPFS and OrbitDB. Currently my plan is on hold for this very limitation: You cannot change the owner keys of an existing database, thus you wouldn't be able to login to your account from another browser or device (you'd be stuck to the IPFS instance that registered it). I'm eagerly awaiting for this issue to be resolved.

[ghost]

Are there any updates about this?

[tabcat]

@Independent-Eye2446 you can add and remove writers with the 'orbit-db' access controller. i think this can actually be closed.

[ghost]

@tabcat Thank you for the information

[haydenyoung]

OrbitDBAccessController should address this requirement. Closing.