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PubNub Access Manager (PAM) extends PubNub's existing security framework by allowing developers to create and enforce secure access to channels and channel groups throughout the PubNub Real-Time Network.

As soon as Access Manager is enabled, no pub/sub-operations can be done without first explicitly providing an authorization token to the PubNub object. If an invalid token is provided, the requesting client will receive a Forbidden Error.

Learn more about Access Manager here.

Grant

Description

1. Application level privileges are based on subscribeKey applying to all associated channels.
2. Channel level privileges are based on a combination of subscribeKey and channel name.
3. User level privileges are based on the combination of subscribeKey, channel and auth Key.

1. Application Level - PAM privileges are always evaluated first at the Application level. If either read or write attribute is set to true for a subscribeKey, PAM will immediately grant access for that attribute without proceeding to check permissions at either Channel or User levels. If an attribute is set to false at the Application level, PAM proceeds to evaluate the attribute at the next most granular level.

   Use application level grants with caution When access is granted on an application level, all channels and users will have access. Application level grants can also happen due to a bug in your code. e.g. Null parameters for channels and auth-keys can cause accidental application level grants.

2. Channel Level - After first verifying an attribute at the Application level, PAM evaluates the attribute at the Channel level. If an attribute is set to true for a combination of subscribeKey and channel, PAM grants access for that attribute at the Channel level without proceeding to check whether there may be user level permissions.
3. User Level - As a final step PAM evaluates the attributes at the User level. If an attribute is set to true for subscribeKey, channel and auth Key, access is granted for that attribute.

• History: To access historical messages you must grant full read access at either the subscribeKey or channel level. When a user has the appropriate permissions they can access any data stored. If they do not have access a 403 will be returned by PAM.
• Presence: To grant access to Presence for a particular channel name you must also allow read and write access to the presence channel name which is specified by adding the -pnpres suffix to the name. Also note that a leave will fail in the case where a user's grant expires while connected. An HTTP 403 will be returned.
• APNS: Standard permissions are required for publishing.

Method(s)

1. grant({Array channels, Array channelGroups, Array authKeys, Number ttl, Boolean read, Boolean write, Boolean manage},Function callback)

   Parameter	Type	Required	Defaults	Description
   Operation Arguments	Hash	Yes		A hash of arguments.
   channels	Array	Specifying either channels or channelGroups is mandatory.		Specifies the channels on which to grant permissions. If no channels/channelGroups are specified, then the grant applies to any and all channels/channelGroups that have been or will be created for that publish/subscribe key set. Furthermore, any existing or future grants on specific channels are ignored, until the all channels grant is revoked. It is possible to grant permissions to multiple channels simultaneously by specifying the channels as a comma separated list. Wildcard notation like a.* can be used to grant access on channels. You can grant one level deep. a.* - you can grant on this. a.b.* - grant will not work on this. If you grant on a.b.*, the grant will treat a.b.* as a single channel with name a.b.*.
   channelGroups	Array	Specifying either channels or channelGroups is mandatory.		Specifies the channelGroups to grant permissions. If no channels/channelGroups are specified, then the grant applies to any and all channels/channelGroups that have been or will be created for that publish/subscribe key set. Furthermore, any existing or future grants on specific channelGroups are ignored, until the all channelGroups grant is revoked. It is possible to grant permissions to multiple channelGroups simultaneously by specifying the channelGroups as a comma separated list.
   authKeys	Array	Optional		Specifies auth Key to grant permissions. It is possible to specify multiple auth keys as comma separated list in combination with a single channel name. You can also grant access to a single auth key for multiple channels at the same time. Zero or more channels with zero or more auth tokens are allowed.
   ttl	Number	Yes	1440 (24hrs)	Time in minutes for which granted permissions are valid. Default is 1440 (24hrs), Max is 525600 , Min is 1. Setting ttl to 0 will apply the grant indefinitely.
   read	Boolean	Yes	false	Read permissions are granted by setting to true. Read permissions are removed by setting to false.
   write	Boolean	Yes	false	Write permissions are granted by setting to true. Write permissions are removed by setting to false.
   manage	Boolean	Yes	false	Manage permissions are granted by setting to true. Manage permissions are removed by setting to false.
   callback	Function	Optional		Executes on a successful/unsuccessful grant.

Basic Usage

pubnub.grant(
    {
        channels: [ch1, ch2],
        channelGroups: [cg1, cg2],
        authKeys: [key1, key2],
        ttl: 12313, // 0 for infinite
        read: true, // false to disallow
        write: true, // false to disallow
        manage: true // false to disallow
    },
    function (status) {
        // handle state setting response
    }
);

Other Examples

1. Grant subscribe privileges to all users on all channel(s) with default ttl (1440 minutes):

   // grant world read access to all channels
   
   pubnub.grant({
       read: true
   });
   

2. Allow subscribe and publish to a specific channel for all users (no auth Key required) with default ttl (1440 minutes):

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channels: ['my_channel'],
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: true // false to disallow
       },
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

3. Grant subscribe access to a channel only for clients with a specific auth Key with a 5 minute ttl:

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channels: ['my_channel'],
           authKeys: ['my_ro_authkey'],
           ttl: 5, // 0 for infinite
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: false // false to disallow
       }, 
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

   The above code would return the following response to the client:

   {
       error: false,
       operation: 'PNAccessManagerGrant',
       statusCode: 200
   }

4. Allow access to a specific channel for Presence:

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channels: ['my_channel-pnpres'],
           ttl: 5, // 0 for infinite
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: true // false to disallow
       }, 
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

5. Allow access to all channel groups using wildcard:
   To perform a first level wildcard grant for channel groups you need to specify : (colon) as the parameter for channelGroups. This will ensure that users can read or manage all channel groups.

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channelGroups: [':'],
           read: true, 
           manage: true
       },
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

6. Application Level Grant

   Use application level grants with caution When access is granted on an application level, all channels and users will have access. Application level grants can also happen due to a bug in your code. e.g. Null parameters for channels and auth-keys can cause accidental application level grants.

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: true // false to disallow
       },
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

7. Channel Level Grant

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channels: ['ch1'],
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: true // false to disallow
       },
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

8. User Level Grant

   pubnub.grant(
       {
           channels: ['ch1'],
           authKeys: ['key1'],
           read: true, // false to disallow
           write: true // false to disallow
       },
       function (status) {
           console.log(status);
       }
   );

Grant Token

Description

To Grant object permissions use the grantToken() method.

Method(s)

1. grantToken( {Object resources, Object patterns, Number ttl, Object meta}, Function callback )

   Parameter	Type	Required	Defaults	Description
   Operation Arguments	Hash	Yes		A hash of arguments.
   resources	Object	Specifying either resources or patterns is mandatory		Set permissions by resource
   patterns	Object	Specifying either resources or patterns is mandatory		Set permissions matching pattern
   ttl	Number	Optional	0	Time to live for permission to be valid
   meta	Object	Optional		Custom metadata included in token
   callback	Function	Optional		Executes on a successful/unsuccessful grantToken

Basic Usage

pubnub.grantToken(
    {
        resources : {
            users : {
                user1 : {
                    create : true,
                    write : true,
                    delete : true,
                },
            },
            spaces : {
                space1 : {
                    read : true,
                    manage : true,
                },
            },
        },
        patterns  : {
            users : {
                '.*' : {
                    manage : true,
                    write  : true,
                },
            },
            spaces : {
                '.*' : {
                    delete : true,
                },
            },
        },
        ttl : 1440,
        meta : {
            foo : 'bar',
        },
    }, 
    function (status, token) {
        console.log(status, token);
    }
);