certctl/docs/operator/rbac.md

RBAC operator reference

Last reviewed: 2026-05-09

This is the operator-facing reference for the role-based access control primitive that ships with Bundle 1 (auth bundle 1) of certctl. Read this if you're running certctl in production and need to grant / revoke access to API keys, set up the auditor split, or onboard the first admin.

For the threat model behind these controls, see auth-threat-model.md. For the migration flow from a pre-Bundle-1 deployment, see docs/migration/api-keys-to-rbac.md.

Mental model

Every action against the certctl HTTP / CLI / MCP / GUI surface is performed by an actor (an API key, an agent's machine identity, the synthetic demo-anon actor when the server runs in CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE=none mode). Each actor holds zero or more roles. Each role grants a set of permissions at a scope. A request to a gated endpoint succeeds when the actor's effective permission set (the union across all held roles) contains the permission the endpoint requires.

The schema lives in migrations/000029_rbac.up.sql and ships with seven seeded default roles + a 33-permission canonical catalogue. The middleware that gates requests lives at internal/auth/require_permission.go. The service-layer authorizer that resolves "actor → permissions" lives at internal/service/auth/authorizer.go.

Default roles (seeded by migration 000029)

Role	ID	Use case	Permission shape
Admin	r-admin	Operator with full control	Every permission in the canonical catalogue
Operator	r-operator	Day-to-day cert lifecycle	cert.*, profile.read, issuer.read, target.*, agent.read, audit.read
Viewer	r-viewer	Read-only console access	*.read for every resource type
Agent	r-agent	Machine identity for certctl-agent	cert.read + agent.heartbeat + agent.job.poll + agent.job.complete + agent.job.report
MCP	r-mcp	Operator-equivalent for the MCP server, minus destructive ops	Like Operator without *.delete
CLI	r-cli	Day-to-day operator CLI	Like Operator + auth.key.list / auth.key.create / auth.key.rotate
Auditor	r-auditor	Compliance reviewer	audit.read + audit.export ONLY

The auditor split is the load-bearing one: an auditor cannot read certificates, profiles, or issuers - only audit events. That makes the role legitimate to hand to a SOC 2 / FedRAMP / PCI auditor without giving them the keys to the kingdom. The internal/domain/auth/auditor_test.go invariants pin this set going forward.

The five admin-only fine-grained perms seeded by migration 000030 (Phase 3.5 conversion) gate the high-blast-radius endpoints:

• cert.bulk_revoke - POST /api/v1/certificates/bulk-revoke and the EST sibling
• crl.admin - /api/v1/admin/crl/cache
• scep.admin - /api/v1/admin/scep/intune/*
• est.admin - /api/v1/admin/est/*
• ca.hierarchy.manage - /api/v1/issuers/{id}/intermediates, /api/v1/intermediates/{id}

Only r-admin holds these by default. To delegate one, create a custom role with the specific perm and grant it to the right actor.

Permission catalogue

The catalogue is namespaced. Permission strings are stable across releases; new permissions add to the namespace, never reshape an existing one. Run certctl-cli auth permissions list (or GET /api/v1/auth/permissions) for the live catalogue.

Namespace	Examples	What the namespace gates
cert.*	cert.read, cert.issue, cert.revoke, cert.delete, cert.bulk_revoke	The certificate lifecycle surface (/api/v1/certificates)
profile.*	profile.read, profile.edit, profile.delete	CertificateProfile CRUD
issuer.*	issuer.read, issuer.edit, issuer.delete	Issuer connector config
target.*	target.read, target.edit, target.delete	Deployment target config
agent.*	agent.read, agent.edit, agent.retire, agent.heartbeat, agent.job.*	Agent fleet + agent self-service endpoints
audit.*	audit.read, audit.export	The audit-events surface
auth.role.*	auth.role.list, auth.role.create, auth.role.edit, auth.role.delete, auth.role.assign	RBAC management
auth.key.*	auth.key.list, auth.key.create, auth.key.rotate, auth.key.delete	API key management
auth.bootstrap.*	auth.bootstrap.use	Day-0 first-admin path
crl.admin, scep.admin, est.admin, ca.hierarchy.manage	(single perms)	The five admin-only fine-grained perms (see above)

Scope semantics

Permissions are granted at one of three scopes:

• global - applies to every resource in the tenant. The default for the seeded role grants. A cert.read grant at global scope lets the actor read any certificate.
• profile - applies only to the named CertificateProfile (matched by ID). cert.issue at scope profile/p-corp-cdn lets the actor issue against p-corp-cdn only.
• issuer - applies only to the named issuer. Lets you grant issuer.edit on the production issuer to a senior operator without giving them edit on every issuer.

Global beats specific: an actor with cert.read at global scope passes a cert.read check against any specific profile or issuer even if no scoped grant exists. The reverse is also true - a scoped grant doesn't satisfy a request against a different scope. The Authorizer's CheckPermission is the single point of truth.

Note (Bundle 1 deferral): the scope_id column is not currently FK-constrained against the resource tables. An operator can grant a permission at scope profile/p-bogus without p-bogus existing; the gate still works (no rows match at request time), but the API does not 404 the grant. Bundle 2 tracks the strict-FK closure. See internal/repository/postgres/auth.go::AddPermission's TODO(bundle-2) comment.

Granting + revoking access

From the GUI

/auth/roles lists every role; click into one to see its permissions and (if you hold auth.role.edit) add or remove a permission. /auth/keys lists every actor with role grants; click "Assign role" to grant, click the × on a role tag to revoke.

The synthetic actor-demo-anon row is shown but flagged "system-managed" with the mutation buttons hidden - the server-side reserved-actor guard rejects mutations against it regardless.

From the CLI

# Identity probe - what can the current API key actually do?
certctl-cli auth me

# Roles
certctl-cli auth roles list
certctl-cli auth roles get r-admin

# Permissions catalogue
certctl-cli auth permissions list

# Key → role assignment
certctl-cli auth keys list
certctl-cli auth keys assign alice --role r-operator
certctl-cli auth keys revoke alice --role r-admin

# Walk-every-key prompt for downgrade
certctl-cli auth keys scope-down

# Audit-driven role suggestion (last 30 days of audit events)
certctl-cli auth keys scope-down --suggest
certctl-cli auth keys scope-down --suggest --apply

# JSON-driven scope-down for automation (Helm post-upgrade hook etc.)
certctl-cli auth keys scope-down --non-interactive ./scope-down.json

The mutating role-lifecycle commands (certctl-cli auth roles create / update / delete + roles add-permission / remove-permission) are tracked as Bundle 1 Phase 5.5 follow-up; today, manage custom roles via the HTTP API or GUI.

From the HTTP API

Every endpoint is documented in api/openapi.yaml under the [Auth] tag. Quick reference:

Endpoint	Permission
GET /v1/auth/me	(none - own data)
GET /v1/auth/roles	auth.role.list
GET /v1/auth/roles/{id}	auth.role.list
POST /v1/auth/roles	auth.role.create
PUT /v1/auth/roles/{id}	auth.role.edit
DELETE /v1/auth/roles/{id}	auth.role.delete
GET /v1/auth/permissions	auth.role.list
POST /v1/auth/roles/{id}/permissions	auth.role.edit
DELETE /v1/auth/roles/{id}/permissions/{perm}	auth.role.edit
GET /v1/auth/keys	auth.role.list
POST /v1/auth/keys/{id}/roles	auth.role.assign
DELETE /v1/auth/keys/{id}/roles/{role_id}	auth.role.assign
GET /v1/auth/check	(authenticated; surfaces effective perms)
GET /v1/auth/bootstrap + POST /v1/auth/bootstrap	(auth-exempt; gated by env-var token)

From the MCP server

Bundle 1 Phase 11 ships 12 RBAC tools: certctl_auth_me, certctl_auth_list_roles, certctl_auth_get_role, certctl_auth_create_role, certctl_auth_update_role, certctl_auth_delete_role, certctl_auth_list_permissions, certctl_auth_add_permission_to_role, certctl_auth_remove_permission_from_role, certctl_auth_list_keys, certctl_auth_assign_role_to_key, certctl_auth_revoke_role_from_key. Each routes through the same HTTP surface above; permission gates fire server-side.

The auditor pattern

Hand the auditor key to compliance reviewers. They get:

• GET /api/v1/audit?category=auth - every auth/authz mutation in the system (role creates, role grants on actors, bootstrap consumption, etc.).
• GET /api/v1/audit?category=cert_lifecycle - every cert event.
• GET /api/v1/audit?category=config - every issuer / target / settings edit.
• GET /api/v1/audit/export - bulk export.

They do NOT get cert read, profile read, issuer read, or any mutating permission. The categorization is enforced by the database CHECK constraint (migration 000032); the WORM trigger from migration 000018 keeps the audit table append-only at the DB layer.

To create an auditor key:

1. certctl-cli auth keys assign <key-id> --role r-auditor
2. (Optional) Revoke any other roles the key holds with certctl-cli auth keys revoke <key-id> --role r-...
3. Confirm via certctl-cli auth me while authenticated as the auditor key - the response should show only audit.read and audit.export in effective_permissions.

Day-0 bootstrap (first-admin path)

Bundle 1 Phase 6 ships a one-shot bootstrap endpoint for fresh deployments where no admin actor exists yet.

1. Set CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 32) in the server environment.

2. Boot the server. Logs include "bootstrap endpoint enabled - POST /api/v1/auth/bootstrap to mint the first admin key (one-shot)" when the path is callable.

3. Run a single curl:

   curl -X POST $URL/api/v1/auth/bootstrap \
     -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     -d '{"token":"<the-token>","actor_name":"first-admin"}'
   

4. Capture the key_value from the response. It is shown ONCE. The server never logs it.

5. Use the new key to authenticate against the rest of the API. The bootstrap path is now closed: subsequent calls return HTTP 410 Gone, even with the same valid token, because an admin actor exists.

The token is constant-time-compared. The server logs a startup warning if CERTCTL_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN is set AND admin actors already exist (config-drift signal). For OIDC-first-admin (the "first user who signs in via SSO becomes admin" pattern), wait for Bundle 2.

Demo mode (CERTCTL_AUTH_TYPE=none)

When auth is disabled, the server injects a synthetic actor actor-demo-anon into every request context. That actor holds r-admin at global scope (seeded by migration 000029), so every gated route resolves with a populated actor and admin grants. The synthetic actor is reserved: the API rejects any mutation that targets it (HTTP 409 with ErrAuthReservedActor).

Production deployments MUST NOT use demo mode - there is no per-request actor identity for the audit trail, and every request flows as admin. Use it for the docker compose up demo + the five example folders only.

Where to look next

• Threat model - what attacks this primitive defends against and which it does not
• Migration guide - moving pre-Bundle-1 deployments onto RBAC
• Profiles - the RequiresApproval=true flow that Bundle 1 Phase 9 closure protects from flip-flop
• Approval workflow - the Rank 7 Infisical deep-research deliverable that the Phase 9 closure piggybacks on
• internal/auth/ - the middleware + keystore + RequirePermission
• internal/service/auth/ - the service-layer Authorizer
• cowork/auth-bundle-1-prompt.md - the design + phase plan
• cowork/auth-bundles-index.md - the per-phase status tracker