Section 1

• Part 4:

  Improving the security of .NET Framework applications by using the .NET Framework 2.0 security features

  • Topic 1

Implement access control by using the System.Security.AccessControl classes.

• DirectorySecurity class, FileSecurity class, FileSystemSecurity class, and RegistrySecurity class
• AccessRule class
• AuthorizationRule class and AuthorizationRuleCollection class
• CommonAce class, CommonAcl class, CompoundAce class, GeneralAce class, and GeneralAcl class
• AuditRule class
• MutexSecurity class, ObjectSecurity class, and SemaphoreSecurity class

Summary

The entire System.Security.AccessControl Namespace is new to .Net 2.0. It encapsulated everything that you could manually do to a file or folder by going to the Security tab of the properties dialog and change the access permissions, click on advanced and set up auditing and permissions inheritance.

The DirectorySecurity and FileSecurity Classes represent the access control and security for directories and files. Using these classes you can define the rules for a file and pass it to the System.IO objects as you create them.

The FileSystemSecurity Class is the base class for the directorysecurity and filesecurity classes.

The RegistrySecurity Class represent access control security for registry keys.

The AccessRule Class represents the user, an access mask, control type (allow or deny), and inheritance information. Each Rule can be applied to one of the previously mentioned classes to define policy.

The AuthorizationRule Class is the base class for the AccessRule and AuditRule Classes. The AuthorizationRule Collection is a strongly typed collection of AuthorizationRules.

The CommonAce, CommonAcl, CompoundAce, GeneralAce and GeneralAce Classes all represent Access Control Lists or Access Control Entries.

The AuditRule Class represents the entry you would make to setup auditing of a file or directory.

Object Security is the base class of the CommonObjectSecurity class which exposes methods for accessing the five parts of a security descriptor.

The following is my understanding of MutexSecurity and SemaphoreSecurity. They provide security for instances of the Mutex and Semaphore Classes. Both are used primarily in multithreaded environments to manage access to a resource. Where Semaphores allow more than one accesses, Mutexes can only allow one.

Other Resources & Links:

Setting ACE/ACL permissions in .NET 2.0
http://west-wind.com/weblog/posts/4072.aspx

Security Enhancements for the .Net Framework 2.0
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/01/SecurityBriefs/

The Windows Access Control Model Part 3
http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/accessctrl3.asp

DirectorySecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.directorysecurity(VS.80).aspx

FileSecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.directorysecurity(VS.80).aspx

FileSystemSecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.filesystemsecurity(VS.80).aspx

RegistrySecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.registrysecurity(VS.80).aspx

AccessRule Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.accessrule(VS.80).aspx

AuthorizationRule Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.authorizationrule(VS.80).aspx

AuthorizationRuleCollection Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.authorizationrulecollection(VS.80).aspx

CommonACE Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.commonace(VS.80).aspx

CommonACL Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.commonacl(VS.80).aspx

AuditRule Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.auditrule(VS.80).aspx

MutexSecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.mutexsecurity(VS.80).aspx

ObjectSecurity Class
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.objectsecurity(VS.80).aspx

SemaphoreSecurity
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.security.accesscontrol.semaphoresecurity(VS.80).aspx