Permissions

StackState Self-hosted v4.5.x

This page describes StackState v4.5.x. The StackState 4.5 version range is End of Life (EOL) and no longer supported. We encourage customers still running the 4.5 version range to upgrade to a more recent release.

Go to the documentation for the latest StackState release.

Overview

Permissions in StackState allow Administrators to manage the actions that each user or user group can perform inside StackState and the information that will be shown in their StackState UI. Only the feature set relevant to each user's active role will be presented. The actions, information and pages that a user does not have access to are simply not displayed in their StackState UI.

Permissions are stored in StackGraph. This means that:

• If you perform an upgrade with "clear all data", permission setup will also be removed.

• To completely remove a user, they must also be manually removed from StackGraph.

There are two types of permission in StackState:

• System permissions - Scope user capabilities, such as access to settings, query execution and scripting.

• View permissions - Allow for CRUD operations on StackState Views.

Predefined roles

StackState comes with four predefined roles:

• Administrators (stackstate-admin): Have access to all views and have all permissions, except for the platform management permission access-admin-api.

• Platform Administrators (stackstate-platform-admin): Have platform management permissions and have access to all views.

• Power Users (stackstate-power-user): This role is typically granted to users that need to configure StackState for their team(s), but will not manage the entire StackState installation. Power users have all Administrator permissions except for:

  • execute-restricted-scripts

  • update-permissions

  • upload-stackpacks

  • Guests (stackstate-guest): Have read access, as you can see below when we use the StackState CLI to show granted permissions for the role:

      $ sts permission show stackstate-guest
      subject           permission                 resource
      ----------------  -------------------------  ----------
      stackstate-guest  access-cli                 system
      stackstate-guest  access-explore             system
      stackstate-guest  perform-custom-query       system
      stackstate-guest  read-permissions           system
      stackstate-guest  update-visualization       system
      stackstate-guest  manage-star-view           system
      stackstate-guest  execute-component-actions  system
      stackstate-guest  access-view                everything

Default and custom role names

The default pre-defined role names (stackstate-admin, stackstate-platform-admin, stackstate-power-user, stackstate-guest) are always available. Additional custom role names can be added that have the same permissions. Below is an example of how to do this for both Kubernetes and Linux installations.

Kubernetes

Include this YAML snippet in an authentication.yaml when customizing the authentication configuration to extend the default role names with these custom role names.

stackstate:
  authentication:
    roles:
      guest: ["custom-guest-role"]
      powerUser: ["custom-power-user-role"]
      admin: ["custom-admin-role"]
      platformAdmin: ["custom-platform-admin-role"]

To use it in for your StackState installation (or already running instance, note that it will restart the API):

helm upgrade \
  --install \
  --namespace stackstate \
  --values values.yaml \
  --values authentication.yaml \
stackstate \
stackstate/stackstate

Linux

To extend the default role names with custom role names:

1. Edit the existing keys in the authorization section of the configuration file application_stackstate.conf.

2. Add custom roles using the syntax xxxGroups = ${stackstate.authorization.xxxGroups} ["custom-role"] as shown in the example below.

   authorization {
    guestGroups = ${stackstate.authorization.guestGroups} ["custom-guest-role"]
    powerUserGroups = ${stackstate.authorization.powerUserGroups} ["custom-power-user-role"]
    adminGroups = ${stackstate.authorization.adminGroups} ["custom-admin-role"]
    platformAdminGroups = ${stackstate.authorization.platformAdminGroups} ["custom-platform-admin-role"]
   }

3. Restart StackState for changes to take effect.

   The list of roles will be extended to include the new, custom roles. The default roles will remain available (stackstate-admin, stackstate-platform-admin, stackstate-guest and stackstate-power-user).

All permissions in StackState

There are two types of permission in StackState:

• System permissions - Scope user capabilities, such as access to settings, query execution and scripting.

• View permissions - Allow for CRUD operations on StackState Views.

System permissions

System permissions scope user capabilities, such as access to settings, query execution and scripting. They are set system wide.

See also the full list of view permissions.

Permission	Purpose	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform Admin
access-cli	Access the CLI page. This provides the API key to use for authentication with the StackState CLI.	✅	✅	✅	✅
access-explore	Access the Explore page.	✅	✅	✅	-
execute-component-actions	Execute component actions.	✅	✅	✅	-
manage-star-view	Add and remove stars from views.	✅	✅	✅	✅
perform-custom-query	Access the topology filter.	✅	✅	✅	-
read-permissions	List all granted permissions across the entire system via the CLI.	✅	✅	✅	-
update-visualization	Change visualization settings.	✅	✅	✅	-
access-analytics	Access the Analytics page.	-	✅	✅	-
access-admin-api	Access the administrator API.	-	-	-	✅
access-log-data	Access StackState logs via the CLI.	-	✅	✅	✅
access-synchronization-data	Access StackState synchronization status and data via the CLI.	-	✅	✅	-
access-topic-data	Access StackState receiver data via the CLI.	-	✅	✅	-
create-views	Create views.	-	✅	✅	-
execute-component-templates	Invoke a component template API extension (internal use only).	-	✅	✅	-
execute-node-sync	Reset or delete a synchronization.	-	✅	✅	-
execute-scripts	Execute a query in the StackState UI Analytics environment. The execute-restricted-scripts permission is also required to execute scripts using the HTTP script API.	-	✅	✅	-
import-settings	Import settings.	-	✅	✅	-
export-settings	Export settings.	-	✅	✅	-
manage-annotations	Persist and fetch Anomaly annotations in StackState.	-	✅	✅	-
manage-event-handlers	Create or edit event handlers.	-	✅	✅	-
manage-telemetry-streams	Create or edit new streams for components via the UI.	-	✅	✅	-
manage-topology-elements	Create/update/delete topology elements.	-	✅	✅	-
manage-stackpacks	Install/upgrade/uninstall StackPacks.	-	✅	✅	-
read-settings	Access the Settings page.	-	✅	✅	-
update-settings	Update settings.	-	✅	✅	-
execute-restricted-scripts	Execute scripts using the HTTP script API in the StackState UI analytics environment. Also requires execute-scripts.	-	-	✅	-
update-permissions	Grant/revoke permissions or modify subjects.	-	-	✅	-
upload-stackpacks	Upload new (versions of) StackPacks.	-	-	✅	-

View permissions

View permissions allow for CRUD operations on StackState Views. They can be set for a specific view or all views (everything).

See also the full list of system permissions.

Permission	Purpose	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform Admin
access-view	Access a specific view (when granted on a view) or all views (when granted on everything).	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything
delete-view	Delete a specific view (when granted on a view) or all views (when granted on everything).	-	✅ everything	✅ everything	-
save-view	Update a specific view (when granted on a view) or all views (when granted on everything).	-	✅ everything	✅ everything	-

Permissions by action

Page access

The permissions in the table below are required to access specific pages in the StackState UI. Without these permissions, the associated page will be hidden in the StackState UI and will not be accessible via its URL.

Main menu with all permissions granted

Page	Description	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Explore Mode	Explore the unfiltered topology.	access-explore	✅	✅	✅	-
Views	Access can be granted either for a specific view using the view ID or for all views using the everything resource. See view management permissions.	access-view	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything
Analytics	See analytics environment permissions.	access-analytics	-	✅	✅	-
CLI	The CLI page provides the API key to use for authentication with the StackState CLI.	access-cli	✅	✅	✅	✅
StackPacks	Browse, install and uninstall StackPacks.	manage-stackpacks	-	✅	✅	-
Settings	See settings page permissions.	read-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Settings > Export Settings	Allows the export of settings from Settings Menu. See settings page permissions.	export-settings and read-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Settings > Import Settings	Allows the import of settings from Settings Menu. See settings page permissions.	import-settings and read-settings	-	✅	✅	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Topology

The permissions listed below are required to work with topology in StackState:

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Access and edit the view visualization settings. Adds the visualization settings button.	update-visualization	✅	✅	✅	-
Basic and Advanced filtering. Adds filtering options.	perform-custom-query	✅	✅	✅	-
Execute actions from the component context menu.	execute-component-actions	✅	✅	✅	-
Drag and drop components.	manage-topology-elements	-	✅	✅	-
Add components button. Create relations between topology elements.	manage-topology-elements and perform-custom-query and read-settings	-	✅	✅	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Component/relation details

The permissions listed below are required to carry out specific actions in the component or relation details pane.

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Telemetry streams Add a new telemetry stream. Without this permission, only the Inspect action is available in the ... menu and the ADD button is hidden.	manage-topology-elements	-	✅	✅	-
Health checks Add a new StackState health check. Edit / delete an existing health check. Without this permission, the ... menu and the ADD button are hidden.	manage-topology-elements	-	✅	✅	-
Elements Delete an element or element template.	manage-topology-elements	-	✅	✅	-
Elements Edit an element or element template.	manage-topology-elements and perform-custom-query and read-settings	-	✅	✅	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

View management

The permissions listed below can be set to access and work with views:

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Access a specific view or all views (everything). Example: Grant permissions to open a view.	access-view	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything	✅ everything
Add and remove stars from views.	manage-star-view	✅	✅	✅	✅
Access and edit the view visualization settings. Adds the visualization settings button.	update-visualization	✅	✅	✅	-
Add or edit event handlers. Adds the ADD NEW EVENT HANDLER button. Without this permission, users will only be able to view details of existing event handlers. Example: Grant permissions to add and edit event handlers.	manage-event-handlers	-	✅	✅	-
Create views. Example: Grant permissions to create views.	create-views	-	✅	✅	-
Save updates to a specific view or all views (everything).	save-view	-	✅ everything	✅ everything	-
Delete a view. For a specific view or all views (everything).	delete-view	-	✅ everything	✅ everything	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Analytics environment

The permissions listed below are required to access and execute scripts in the StackState UI analytics environment:

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Access the Analytics page in the StackState UI. Without this permission, the analytics environment will be hidden from the main menu, and it will not be accessible via its URL.	access-analytics	-	✅	✅	-
Execute scripts in the StackState UI analytics environment. Adds the Execute button.	execute-scripts and access-analytics	-	✅	✅	-
Execute scripts that use the HTTP script API. Also requires access-analytics and execute-scripts.	execute-restricted-scripts	-	-	✅	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Settings page

The permissions listed below are required to access and manage settings in the StackState UI:

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform admin
Access the Settings pages in the StackState UI. Without this permission, the settings section will be hidden from the main menu and it will not be accessible via its URL.	read-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Add / Edit / Delete capabilities. This permission unlocks the ... menu and the ADD buttons on all Settings Pages.	update-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Export capability. Adds checkboxes to export individual items from the settings pages and the page Export Settings.	export-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Import capability. Adds the page Import Settings.	import-settings	-	✅	✅	-
Delete and Reset synchronization capabilities.	execute-node-sync	-	✅	✅	-

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Platform Management

The permissions listed below are required to access and manage StackState platform:

Action	Permission	Guest	Power user	Admin	Platform Admin
Access the administrator API.	access-admin-api	-	-	-	✅
Access StackState logs via the CLI.	access-log-data	-	✅	✅	✅

See the full list of permissions for pre-defined roles (above).

Example CLI commands

Important note: All permissions in StackState are case sensitive.

List all permissions

List all permissions:

sts permission list

Show granted permissions

Show the permissions granted to a specific role.

sts permission show [role-name]

Grant permissions

Allow a user to open a view

Provide a subject with permission to open a view:

sts permission grant [subject-handle] access-view [view-name]

Allow a user to create (save) views

Provide a subject with the system permission to create (save) views:

sts permission grant [subject-handle] create-views system

Allow a user to check StackState settings

Provide a subject with the system permission to check StackState settings:

sts permission grant [subject-handle] read-settings system

Allow a user to add or edit event handlers

Provide a subject with the system permission to add new event handlers and edit existing event handlers:

sts permission grant [subject-handle] manage-event-handlers system

Revoke permissions

Revoke permissions for a subject to open a view:

sts permission revoke [subject-handle] access-view [view-name]

StackState UI with no permissions

Below is an example of how the StackState UI would look for a user without any permissions:

No permissions