z/OS Cryptographic Services ICSF Administrator's Guide
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RACF Protecting ICSF Services used by the Token Browser Utility Panels

z/OS Cryptographic Services ICSF Administrator's Guide
SA22-7521-17

CRYPTOZ is a resource class defined in RACF in support of PKCS #11. Access to PKCS #11 tokens in ICSF is controlled by the CRYPTOZ class, with different access levels as well as a differentiation between standard users and security officers. For each token, there are two resources in the CRYPTOZ class for controlling access to tokens:

  • The resource USER.token-name controls the access of the User role to the token
  • The resource SO.token-name controls the access of the Security Officer (SO) role to the token.

A user's access level to each of these resources (read, update, or control) determines the user's access level to the token.

There are six possible token access levels. Three are defined by the PKCS #11 standard, and three are unique to z/OS®. The PKCS #11 token access levels are:

  • User R/O: Allows the user to read the token including its private objects, but the user cannot create new token or session objects or alter existing ones.
  • User R/W: Allows the user read/write access to the token object including its private objects.
  • SO R/W: Allows the user to act as the security officer for the token and to read, create, and alter public objects on the token.

The token access levels unique to z/OS are:

  • Weak SO: A security officer that can modify the CA certificates contained in a token but not initialize the token. (For example, a system administrator who determines the trust policy for all applications on the system.)
  • Strong SO: A security officer that can add, generate or remove private objects in a token. (For example, a server administrator.)
  • Weak User: A User that cannot change the trusted CAs contained in a token. (For example, to prevent an end-user from changing the trust policy of his or her token.)
Table 22 shows how a user's access level to a token is derived from the user's access level to a resource in the SAF CRYPTOZ class.
Table 22. Token access levels
SAF access level
CRYPTOZ resourceREADUPDATECONTROL
SO.token-labelWeak SO

Can read, create, delete, modify, and use public objects

SO R/W

Same ability as Weak SO plus can create and delete tokens

Strong SO

Same ability as SO R/W plus can read but not use (see Note1) private objects; create, delete, and modify private objects

USER.token-labelUser R/O

Can read and use (see Note 1) public and private objects

Weak User

Same ability as User R/O plus can create, delete, and modify private and public objects. Cannot add, delete, or modify certificate authority objects

User R/W

Same ability as Weak User plus can add, delete, and modify certificate authority objects

Notes:
  1. "Use" is defined as any of these:
    • Performing any cryptographic operation involving the key object; for example C_Encrypt
    • Searching for key objects using sensitive search attributes
    • Retrieving sensitive key object attributes.

    The sensitive attribute for a secret key is CKA_VALUE. The sensitive attribute for the Diffie Hellman, DSA, and Elliptic Curve private key objects is CKA_VALUE. The sensitive attributes for RSA private key objects are CKA_PRIVATE_EXPONENT, CKA_PRIME_1, CKA_PRIME_2, CKA_EXPONENT_1, CKA_EXPONENT_2, and CKA_COEFFICIENT.

  2. The CRYPTOZ resources can be defined as "RACF-DELEGATED" if required. For information about delegated resources, see z/OS Security Server RACF Security Administrator’s Guide.
  3. If the CSFSERV class is active, ICSF performs access control checks on the underlying callable services. The user must have READ access to the appropriate CSFSERV class resource. Table 23 lists the resources in the CSFSERV class for token services.
  4. READ access is required for token management via RACDCERT or gskkyman command. To manage tokens through the token browser panels, you’ll need READ access to services listed in Table 23.
    Table 23. Resources in the CSFSERV class for token services
    Name of resourceService
    CSF1GAVGet object attributes
    CSF1SAVUpdate object attributes
    CSF1TRCToken or object creation
    CSF1TRDToken or object deletion
    CSF1TRLToken or object find
  5. Although the use of generic profiles is permitted for the CRYPTOZ class, we recommend that you do not use a single generic profile to cover both the SO.token-label and USER.token-label resources. You should not do this, because another resource (FIPSEXEMPT.token-label, which is described in z/OS Cryptographic Services ICSF Writing PKCS #11 Applications) can be used to indicate whether compliance with the FIPS 140-2 standard is desired at the token level. Creating a profile that uses generic characters to match both the SO and USER portion of the resource names (for example *.token-label) will also inadvertently match the FIPSEXEMPT.token-label resource and can have unintended consequences.

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