Summary

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This DIP describes the conceptual model and implementation of access control on the Diem blockchain.

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Abstract / Motivation

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Diem uses a variant of role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict access to sensitive on-chain operations.

A role is an entity with some authority in the Diem Payment Network (DPN). Every account in DPN is created with a single, immutable role that is granted at the time the account is created. Creating an account with a particular role is a privileged operation (e.g., only an account with the ParentVASP role can create an account with the ChildVASP role). In some cases, the role is globally unique (e.g., there is only one account with the DiemRoot role). In other cases, there may be many accounts with the given role (e.g., ChildVASP).

A permission is the authority to perform a specific action in DPN. Each permission may be assigned to one or more roles (usually only one), and each role may have zero or more permissions. Permissions can be assigned in genesis, upon account creation (most common), or claimed by an existing account with the appropriate role. Like roles, some permissions are globally unique (e.g., the permission to mint a particular currency type) and some are not.

Both roles and permissions can be parameterized by types (e.g., the AddCurrency(type) permission) and account address values (e.g., ChildVASP(addr)).

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Specification

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Mathematically, we can view Diem role/permissions as a pair of relations over three sets:

• Sets: Role, Permission, Address
• Relations: Permission -> Role (a many-many relation) and Address -> Role (a partial function)

This DIP focuses on defining the Roles and Permissions sets and the Permissions -> Role relation because these are fairly static. The relations only change when we add new roles/permissions or update the existing allocation of permissions. By contrast, the Address -> Role function is highly dynamic--it is updated by any transaction that creates a new account.

Roles

The current roles in Diem are:

		A	B	C	D	E	F	G
	Role	Granted by	Unique?	Address	Has balances?	Account limits?	Freezable?	Transaction priority
1	DiemRoot	genesis	Globally	0xA550C18	N	-	N	3
2	TreasuryCompliance	genesis	Globally	0xB1E55ED	N	-	N	2
3	Validator	DiemRoot	Per Association member	-	N	-	Y	1
4	ValidatorOperator	DiemRoot	At most one per Validator	-	N	-	Y	1
5	DesignatedDealer	TreasuryCompliance	N	-	Y	N	Y	1
6	ParentVASP	TreasuryCompliance	Per VASP	-	Y	Y	Y	0
7	ChildVASP(addr)	ParentVASP	N	-	Y	Y	Y	0

• DiemRoot - The root authority of DPN. Controlled jointly by DN and the Association Council.
• TreasuryCompliance - DN account responsible for day-to-day treasury (e.g. minting, burning), and compliance (e.g., updating on-chain exchange rates, freezing accounts) operations.
• Validator - The on-chain representation of a Diem Association member for validation purposes.
• ValidatorOperator - A third-partity entity authorized by DN to operate validator nodes on behalf of Association members.
• Designated Dealer - An entity with the authority to place mint and burn orders for Diem Coins with DN and interact with the Diem Reserve.
• ParentVASP - The primary account of a virtual asset service provider (VASP) operating on the Diem blockchain.
• ChildVASP(addr) - A child account of a the ParentVASP account at addr

Notes

• The "Granted by" column specifies which role can create accounts with the given role type (e.g., only DiemRoot can create accounts with the Validator role).
• The DiemRoot and TreasuryCompliance roles are globally unique and granted to the addresses 0x0...A550C18 and 0x0...B1E55ED (respectively).
• The addresses 0x0...0 and 0x...0 are special addresses that can never contain an account. 0x0 is a "reserved address" that cannot store any data and 0x1 is where the Move modules implementing the Diem Framework logic are stored.
• The administrative roles DiemRoot, TreasuryCompliance, Validator, and ValidatorOperator cannot hold balances in any currency and thus cannot receive funds sent from other accounts.
• The DesignatedDealer, ParentVASP, and ChildVASP roles can each hold balances in any currency. ParentVASP and ChildVASP accounts have daily limits on their incoming and outgoing transfers and total balance. DesignatedDealer accounts are not subject to these limits.
• All accounts with roles other than DiemRoot and TreasuryCompliance can be "frozen". A frozen account cannot send any transactions or receive funds from other accounts.
• To ensure that important system transactions are executed promptly, the Diem mempool prioritizes transactions sent by certain roles. DiemRoot transactions have the highest priority, TreasuryCompliance transactions have the second highest, Validator/ValidatorOperator/DesignatedDealer transactions have the third highest, and VASP transactions have the lowest. The mempool compares transactions by role priority first and gas price second.

Move Implementation

Roles are implemented in the Roles Move module. Every account contains a Roles::RoleId resource with an integer code to identify the role. The codes are:

const DIEM_ROOT_ROLE_ID: u64 = 0;

const TREASURY_COMPLIANCE_ROLE_ID: u64 = 1;

const DESIGNATED_DEALER_ROLE_ID: u64 = 2;

const VALIDATOR_ROLE_ID: u64 = 3;

const VALIDATOR_OPERATOR_ROLE_ID: u64 = 4;

const PARENT_VASP_ROLE_ID: u64 = 5;

const CHILD_VASP_ROLE_ID: u64 = 6;

Permissions

The current permissions in Diem are:

		H	I	J
	Permission	Granted to	Unique?	Transferable?
1	MintCurrency(type)	TreasuryCompliance	Per currency type	N
2	{Enable,Disable}Minting(type)	TreasuryCompliance	Per currency type	N
3	BurnCurrency(type)	TreasuryCompliance	Per currency type	N
4	PreburnCurrency(type)	DesignatedDealer	N	N
5	UpdateExchangeRate(type)	TreasuryCompliance	Per currency type	N
6	UpdateDualAttestationLimit	TreasuryCompliance	Y	N
7	{Freeze,Unfreeze}Account	TreasuryCompliance	Y	N
8	RegisterNewCurrency	DiemRoot	Y	N
9	ProcessWriteSetTransaction	DiemRoot	Y	N
10	UpdateDiemProtocolVersion	DiemRoot	Y	N
11	UpdateVMConfig	DiemRoot	Y	N
12	ManageConsensusConfig	DiemRoot	Y	N
13	PublishModule	DiemRoot	Y	N
14	{Add,Remove}Validator	DiemRoot	Y	N
15	UpdateValidatorConfig(addr)	ValidatorOperator	Per validator	N
16	{Set,Remove}ValidatorOperator(addr)	Validator	Per validator	N
17	RotateDualAttestationInfo(addr)	ParentVASP, DesignatedDealer	Per VASP/DesignatedDealer	N
18	RotateAuthenticationKey(addr)	Account at addr	Per address	Y
19	WithdrawalCapability(addr)	Account at addr	Per address	Y

• MintCurrency(type): Create currency of the given type
• {Enable,Disable}Minting(type): Enable and disable minting the currency of the given type
• BurnCurrency(type): Destroy currency of the given type
• PreburnCurrency(type): Create a burn request for the currency of the given type to be fulfilled or canceled by the holder of BurnCurrency
• UpdateExchangeRate(type): Update the exchange rate from each non-XDX currency type to XDX
• UpdateDualAttestationLimit: Update the amount above which VASP <-> VASP transactions must use the travel rule protocol
• {Freeze,Unfreeze}Account: Prevent an account from sending transactions or receiving funds
• RegisterNewCurrency: Add a new currency type to the system
• ProcessWriteSetTransaction: Process writeset transactions (i.e., direct writesets and admin scripts) to update the Diem protocol by changing on-chain Move modules and/or global state
• UpdateDiemProtocolVersion: Change the current Diem protocol version. This will atomically update the behavior of node software
• UpdateVMConfig: Update the transaction script allowlist, module publishing options, or gas costs
• ManageConsensusConfig: Initialize and update the consensus config for the Diem blockchain.
• PublishModule: Publish a new Move module
• {Add,Remove}Validator: Add and remove validators
• UpdateValidatorConfig(addr): Rotate the consensus public key and network address for the validator account at addr
• {Set,Remove}ValidatorOperator(addr): Set and remove the address of the operator account that has permission to rotate the consensus public key of the validator account at addr
• RotateDualAttestationInfo(addr): Change the public key and endpoint URL that addr uses for the KYC and travel rule protocols
• RotateAuthenticationKey(addr): Rotate the authentication key for the account at addr
• WithdrawCapability(addr): Decrease the balance of the account at addr

Notes

• The "Granted to" column specifies which role(s) can be assigned the given privilege
• All privileges are granted to an account upon creation, and most remain in that account forever. There are three exceptions: UpdateValidatorConfig, RotateAuthenticationKey and Withdraw.
  • UpdateValidatorConfig is granted to a Validator account upon creation, but can be delegated to a ValidatorOperator. The Validator can subsequently revoke the privilege and delegate to a different operator with the permission of DN.
  • Both RotateAuthenticationKey and Withdraw are "transferable" privileges that can be be extracted from their original account and placed in a resource elsewhere (including one published under a different account).

Move Implementation

Conceptually, each permission encodes the authority to mutate some piece of on-chain state. Each permission check is implemented inside the module that performs this mutation.

• Diem: MintCurrency, {Enable,Disable}Minting, BurnCurrency, PreburnCurrency, UpdateExchangeRate, RegisterNewCurrency.
• DualAttestation: UpdateDualAttestationLimit, RotateDualAttestationInfo
• AccountFreezing: {Freeze, Unfreeze}Account
• WriteSetManager: ProcessWriteSetTransaction
• DiemVersion: UpdateDiemProtocolVersion
• DiemVMConfig: UpdateVMConfig
• DiemConsensusConfig: UpdateConsensusConfig
• DiemSystem: {Add,Remove}Validator, UpdateValidatorConfig, {Set,Remove}ValidatorOperator
• DiemAccount: RotateAuthenticationKey, Withdraw