 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Resource Access Control Facility" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) is anIBM software security product that provides access control and auditing functions for thez/OS andz/VMoperating systems.[1] RACF was introduced in 1976.[2] Originally called RACF it was renamed toz/OS Security Server (RACF), although many mainframe professionals still refer to it as RACF.[3]
Its main features are:[2]
RACF establishes securitypolicies rather than just permission records. It can set permissions for file patterns—that is, set the permissions even for files that do not yet exist. Those permissions are then used for the file (or other object) created at a later time.[4]
There is a long established technical support community for RACF based around aLISTSERV operated out of theUniversity of Georgia. The list is calledRACF-L which is described asRACF Discussion List. The email address of the listserv isRACF-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU and can also be viewed via a webportal athttps://listserv.uga.edu/scripts/wa-UGA.exe .[5][6]
The first text book published (first printing December 2007) aimed at giving security professionals an introduction to the concepts and conventions of how RACF is designed and administered wasMainframe Basics for Security Professionals: Getting Started with RACF by Ori Pomerantz, Barbara Vander Weele, Mark Nelson, and Tim Hahn.[4]
RACF has continuously evolved[7] to support such modern security features asdigital certificates/public key infrastructure services,LDAP interfaces, and case sensitive IDs/passwords. The latter is a reluctant concession to promote interoperability with other systems, such asUnix andLinux. The underlyingzSeries (nowIBM Z) hardware works closely with RACF. For example, digital certificates are protected withintamper-proofcryptographic processors. Major mainframe subsystems, especiallyDb2, use RACF to providemulti-level security (MLS).
Its primary competitors have beenACF2 andTopSecret, both now produced byCA Technologies.[8]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) | Thiscomputer security article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byadding missing information. |
