A collaborative approach for testing MapReduce access control issues using agent-based architecture

Abstract

Security mechanisms such as access control are of the utmost importance. There have been a number of applications where it has been used to control the actions performed on resources by system users. In this study, a novel approach to testing access control list (ACL) policies based on the analysis of access control responses is presented. The main objective is to verify that the policies meet the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) specifications. As part of addressing the issue in a practical manner, we propose an Agent-based architecture for testing access control of a MapReduce application in a multi-node Hadoop cluster. The methodology is then tested and validated through an 'inverted index' case study.