Orgs, Spaces, Roles, and Permissions

PWS uses a role-based access control (RBAC) system to grant Pivotal Web Services (PWS) users permissions appropriate to their role within an org or a space. This topic describes how orgs and spaces work within a PWS deployment, and how different Pivotal Web Services (PWS) User roles operate within those contexts.

Admins, Org Managers, and Space Managers can assign user roles using the cf CLI.

Note: Before you assign a space role to a user, you must assign an org role to the user.

Orgs

An org is a development account that an individual or multiple collaborators can own and use. All collaborators access an org with user accounts. Collaborators in an org share a resource quota plan, applications, services availability, and custom domains.

By default, an org has the status of active. An admin can set the status of an org to suspended for various reasons such as failure to provide payment or misuse. When an org is suspended, users cannot perform certain activities within the org, such as push apps, modify spaces, or bind services. For details on what activities are allowed for suspended orgs, see Roles and Permissions for Suspended Orgs.

User Accounts

A user account represents an individual person within the context of a PWS installation. A user can have different roles in different spaces within an org, governing what level and type of access they have within that space.

Before you assign a space role to a user, you must assign an org role to the user. The error message Server error, error code: 1002, message: cannot set space role because user is not part of the org occurs when you try to set a space role before setting an org role for the user.

Spaces

Every application and service is scoped to a space. An org can contain multiple spaces. A space provides users with access to a shared location for application development, deployment, and maintenance. Each space role applies only to a particular space.

Roles and Permissions

A user can have one or more roles. The combination of these roles defines the user’s overall permissions in the org and within specific spaces in that org. Roles can be assigned different scopes of User Account and Authentication (UAA) privileges. For more information about UAA scopes, see Scopes in Component: User Account and Authentication (UAA) Server.

For non-admin users, the cloud_controller.read scope is required to view resources, and the cloud_controller.write scope is required to create, update, and delete resources.

• Org Managers are managers or other users who need to administer the org.

• Org Auditors view but cannot edit user information and org quota usage information.

• Org Billing Managers create and manage billing account and payment information.

• Org Users can view the list of other org users and their roles. When an Org Manager gives a person an Org or Space role, that person automatically receives Org User status in that Org.

• Space Managers are managers or other users who administer a space within an org.

• Space Developers are application developers or other users who manage applications and services in a space.

• Space Auditors view but cannot edit the space.

Roles and Permissions for Active Orgs

The following table describes the permissions for various PWS roles.

^* Managed by PWS administrators.

Roles and Permissions for Suspended Orgs

The following table describes roles and permissions applied after an operator sets the status of an org to suspended.