Access Control in an Object-Oriented Document Repository

The approach presented in this paper aims at combining the advances of a sophisticated document repository with a flexible access control mechanism. It proposes an authorization model for hypertext documents stored in an object-oriented database system (ODBMS). The work is based on the idea of an ODBMS working as an Internet server for hypermedia documents. The approach introduced offers fine grained storage and retrieval of HTML documents, providing document maintenance, referential integrity, document integration, integration with application objects and access control. In contrast to comparable systems it acts transparently to the WWW users, i.e. without using proprietary query languages or protocols. While achieving the full benefits of a modern document repository it keeps the ease of the traditional file system it replaces. An access control mechanism establishes the support of different views on documents. This is favoured both by the need for security and the request for role dependent information presentation.