Authorization
Authorization is a security mechanism used to determine user privileges
or access levels related to system resources, including computer
programs, files, services, data and application features.
Authorization is normally preceded by authentication for user identity
verification.
System administrators are typically assigned permission levels covering
all system and user resources.
There are a variety of types of authorization systems, including user
rights, role-based authorization, access control lists, and rule-based
authorization.
Types Of Authorization
1. User Rights
User rights is a security feature that controls that user can use which
resources and what actions can he perform over those resources.
Privileges or user rights are different from permissions.
A systems administrator assigns a permission to let a user access a
resource and assigns a right to let a user perform a task which affects
the entire system.
Other user rights are implicit and are rights that are granted to default
groups that are created by the operating system instead of by
administrators. These rights cannot be removed.
In the typical implementation of a UNIX system, implicit privileges are
granted to the root account. This account is authorized to do anything
on the system.
On some UNIX systems, system administrators can grant certain users
the right to use specific commands as root, without issuing them the
root password. An application that can do this, and which is in the public
domain, is called sudo.
