CKAN Restricted API

Extension to allow dataset restriction via CKAN API.

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Documentation: https://envidat.gitlab-pages.wsl.ch/ckanext-restricted_api/

Source Code: https://gitlabext.wsl.ch/EnviDat/ckanext-restricted_api

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This plugin is primarily intended for custom frontends built on the CKAN API.

Requires CKAN >= 2.10. For <2.10, use ckanext-restricted-api==1.0.0

• Restrict the accessibility to the resources of a dataset.
• This way the package metadata is accesible but not the data itself (resource).
• The resource access restriction level can be individualy defined for every package.

Based on work by @espona (Lucia Espona Pernas) for ckanext-restricted (https://github.com/EnviDat/ckanext-restricted).

Install

pip install ckanext-restricted-api

Config

Optional variables can be set in your ckan.ini:

• restricted_api.access_request_template
  • Description: Path to access request template to render as html email.
  • Default: uses default template.
• restricted_api.access_granted_template
  • Description: Path to access granted template to render as html email.
  • Default: uses default template.
• ckanext.restricted_api.omit_resources_on_pkg_list
  • Description: on current_package_list_with_resources omit resources completely, or process them all to restrict fields (this may not be performant).
  • Default: True (to maximise performance).

The Restricted Dict

• This plugin works by storing information in the extra field of the resource table in CKAN.

• By default, CKAN extras values are extracted into the package/resource JSONs returned by the API.

• The key restricted is stored, with a value containing a nested dictionary of:

  • level: a string containing the restriction level, with options:
    • public any user
    • registered only registered users
    • only_allowed_users only users specified in the allowed_users key.
    • any_organization any user that is a member in an organisation.
    • same_organization only users of the same organisation the dataset is within.
  • allowed_users: a comma separated string containing specified allowed users, to be used with only_allowed_users.

Example:

"restricted": '{"level": "same_organization", "allowed_users": ""}'

"restricted": '{"level": "only_allowed_users", "allowed_users": "user1,user2,user3"}'

Granting Access

1. Users can request access to a dataset by calling an API endpoint from a frontend.
2. The package owner is emailed and can allow individual users to access the resource. a. Access can be granted by updating the restricted dict (via the API / frontend).
3. If access is granted, the user will be notified by email automatically.

Endpoints

POST

GET

Notes

Users who do not have restricted access have two fields redacted:

• url: to download the dataset
• restricted: to see the restriction information

Downloading of the restricted resource is also not possible via the CKAN API.

However, it should be noted, if resources are hosted in public S3 storage, then this obfuscation does not prevent direct download of the data.