The OPC UA .NET Standard Stack implements the role-based security model from OPC UA Part 18: Role-Based Security (v1.05.06) together with the well-known roles defined in OPC UA Part 3 4.9.2.
The nine well-known roles are pre-registered at server start:
| Role | NodeId | Reserved? | Default identities |
|---|---|---|---|
Anonymous |
i=15644 |
Yes | Anonymous, AuthenticatedUser |
AuthenticatedUser |
i=15656 |
Yes | AuthenticatedUser |
TrustedApplication |
i=18625 |
Yes | TrustedApplication |
Observer |
i=15668 |
No | (empty) |
Operator |
i=15680 |
No | (empty) |
Engineer |
i=16036 |
No | (empty) |
Supervisor |
i=15692 |
No | (empty) |
ConfigureAdmin |
i=15716 |
No | (empty) |
SecurityAdmin |
i=15704 |
No | (empty) |
Reserved roles cannot be modified or removed per Part 18 4.3 - any attempt to call AddIdentity, AddApplication, AddEndpoint, RemoveIdentity, RemoveApplication, RemoveEndpoint, or RemoveRole on them returns Bad_RequestNotAllowed.
See src/Opc.Ua.Server/RoleBasedUserManagement/ for the source.
The IRoleManager interface (Opc.Ua.Server.IRoleManager) is the server-side extensibility surface. The default implementation Opc.Ua.Server.RoleManager is fully in-memory; integrators that need persistence implement IRoleManager directly. For DI-hosted servers, register the implementation through AddRoleManager(instance) or AddRoleManager<TManager>() on the server builder before building the host. For a custom non-DI StandardServer, override CreateRoleManager.
Every mutator returns a ServiceResult that mirrors the spec-defined status codes:
AddIdentity(4.4.5) - Good or Bad_InvalidArgument / Bad_AlreadyExists / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.RemoveIdentity(4.4.6) - Good or Bad_NotFound / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.AddApplication(4.4.7) - Good or Bad_InvalidArgument / Bad_AlreadyExists / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.RemoveApplication(4.4.8) - Good or Bad_NotFound / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.AddEndpoint(4.4.9) - Good or Bad_InvalidArgument / Bad_AlreadyExists / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.RemoveEndpoint(4.4.10) - Good or Bad_NotFound / Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.AddRole(4.2.2) - Good or Bad_InvalidArgument / Bad_AlreadyExists.RemoveRole(4.2.3) - Good or Bad_NodeIdUnknown / Bad_RequestNotAllowed.SetApplicationsExclude/SetEndpointsExclude/SetCustomConfiguration- Good or Bad_RequestNotAllowed / Bad_NodeIdUnknown.
IdentityMappingRuleType is validated per Part 18 4.4.3 before storage:
Anonymous,AuthenticatedUser,TrustedApplication- criteria must be empty.Thumbprint- upper-case hexadecimal, no spaces.X509Subject-Name=Value(/Name=Value)*grammar with names from Part 18 Table 10.
EndpointType comparisons in identity resolution honour Part 18 4.4.2: fields set to their default value on the rule
side act as wildcards. A rule may therefore constrain any subset of endpoint fields by assigning non-default values to
those fields. For example, this rule applies to every endpoint URL that uses SignAndEncrypt:
IRoleManager roles = server.CurrentInstance.RoleManager;
roles.AddEndpoint(
ObjectIds.WellKnownRole_Engineer,
new EndpointType
{
SecurityMode = MessageSecurityMode.SignAndEncrypt
});At least one field must be non-default; AddEndpoint returns Bad_InvalidArgument for a null or completely default
EndpointType.
Identity-claim criteria support:
IdentityCriteriaType.GroupIdprobes the returnedIUserIdentityforOpc.Ua.Identity.IIdentityClaims(see Identity Providers) and matchesIIdentityClaims.Groups.IdentityCriteriaType.Rolematches roles asserted inside the access token viaIIdentityClaims.Roles, optionally prefixed by the issuer URI asiss/roleName, per Part 18 4.4.4.
JWT authenticators that return an identity implementing IIdentityClaims
allow Part 18 rules to match Entra-style claims. The in-box
RoleManager treats entries in a role's Identities collection as OR
criteria, per the standard IdentityMappingRuleType[] shape. Add one
entry for each accepted claim value:
IRoleManager roles = server.CurrentInstance.RoleManager;
roles.AddIdentity(
ObjectIds.WellKnownRole_Engineer,
new IdentityMappingRuleType
{
CriteriaType = IdentityCriteriaType.Role,
Criteria = "https://login.microsoftonline.com/{tenant}/v2.0/OpcUa.Engineer"
});
roles.AddIdentity(
ObjectIds.WellKnownRole_Engineer,
new IdentityMappingRuleType
{
CriteriaType = IdentityCriteriaType.GroupId,
Criteria = "00000000-1111-2222-3333-444444444444"
});The first rule matches an access-token role claim OpcUa.Engineer only
when IIdentityClaims.Issuer is the Entra issuer. The second matches a
groups claim containing the Entra group object id. If your policy must
require both a role and a group simultaneously, implement a custom
IRoleManager (or a custom authorization layer) because the shipped
RoleConfigurationOptions DTO does not define an AND-rule collection.
IRoleManager.RoleConfigurationChanged fires after every successful mutation with the role NodeId and a RoleConfigurationChangeKind. Integrators can subscribe to:
- materialize dynamic-role address-space nodes when
RoleAddedfires (the default in-memoryRoleManagerdoes not create address-space nodes forAddRole- the well-known roles are already in the standard nodeset); - re-evaluate active sessions per Part 18 4.4.1 ("If the configuration of a Role is changed, the Role assignment to active Session shall be re-evaluated and applied");
- emit audit events beyond the spec-defined
RoleMappingRuleChangedAuditEvent.
RoleStateBinding.BindAsync(diagnosticsNodeManager, roleManager, auditServer) uses the source-generated typed proxies (RoleSetState, RoleState, AddIdentityMethodState, AddRoleMethodState, ...). Each typed OnCallAsync delegate:
- Enforces
RoleAuthorizationGate.CheckAdmin(SecurityAdmin role over aSignAndEncryptchannel) - returnsBad_SecurityModeInsufficientorBad_UserAccessDeniedotherwise (Part 18 4.2 / 4.4). - Delegates to
IRoleManager. - Reports a
RoleMappingRuleChangedAuditEvent(Part 18 4.5). - Keeps the typed
Identities,Applications,Endpoints,ApplicationsExclude,EndpointsExcludeandCustomConfigurationproperty values in sync with the manager via theRoleConfigurationChangedevent.
DiagnosticsNodeManager.AddBehaviourToPredefinedNodeAsync upgrades passive BaseObjectState instances of RoleSetType and RoleType to the typed RoleSetState and RoleState proxies at predefined-node load time.
Queued removal retains the exact binding generation and node reference it owns. Re-adding a role advances that generation, even when the same well-known NodeId and RoleState are reused. Cleanup rechecks the role manager and conditionally claims the removed generation before deleting the node. A failed AddRole that never acquired a binding cannot delete the foreign node that caused its collision.
Per Part 3 4.9 and Part 18 4.3 the default RoleManager rules already grant:
Anonymousfor sessions without authentication;AuthenticatedUserfor any session with a non-anonymous token;TrustedApplicationwhen the session was authenticated with a trusted ApplicationInstance certificate over a signed channel.
Any nonempty Applications filter requires a signed channel and an
application certificate, including when ApplicationsExclude is true.
The Thumbprint and X509Subject identity criteria evaluate the authenticated
user certificate, not the application's channel certificate. Application
and TrustedApplication criteria continue to evaluate application identity.
Additional identity-mapping rules are evaluated by IRoleManager.ResolveGrantedRoles after authentication. New integrations should expose claims through IIdentityClaims and add IdentityMappingRuleType entries to the role manager.
Live role changes are reconciled before the session's next request, including
Publish, and before background event authorization. Event permission-cache
entries are bound to the current session, effective identity and permission
versions, so an earlier ReceiveEvents approval cannot authorize newly generated
events after that reconciliation.
Changed role grants also retire queued events and retransmission messages from
the previous grants before the session can publish them.
The Part 18 §5 UserManagementType is bound to the standard
Server.ServerConfiguration.UserManagement object (NodeId i=24290).
For DI-hosted servers, register IUserManagement in the service collection
before building the host. For a custom non-DI StandardServer, override
CreateUserManagement. These startup hooks supply the implementation before
the configuration node manager binds the address space. The default
UserManagement implementation wraps
an existing IUserDatabase for credential persistence. Built-in
LinqUserDatabase and JsonUserDatabase also persist the per-user
UserConfigurationMask and description.
The AddSecureServer DI preset registers IUserDatabase as LinqUserDatabase
and IUserManagement as UserManagement using TryAddSingleton. After calling
that preset (or registering those services explicitly), the following
replacement changes the password policy while retaining the registered user
database. Configure it before building the host:
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection.Extensions;
using Opc.Ua.Server.UserDatabase;
using Opc.Ua.Server.UserManagement;
services.Replace(ServiceDescriptor.Singleton<IUserManagement>(provider =>
new UserManagement(
provider.GetRequiredService<IUserDatabase>(),
passwordLength: new Opc.Ua.Range { Low = 8, High = 256 },
passwordOptions:
Opc.Ua.PasswordOptionsMask.SupportDisableUser
| Opc.Ua.PasswordOptionsMask.SupportInitialPasswordChange
| Opc.Ua.PasswordOptionsMask.RequiresDigitCharacters)));IUserDatabase commits credentials and metadata together, so disabled and
MustChangePassword decisions survive a restart. A custom database implements
CreateUser, ResetPassword and UpdateUserMetadata alongside the credential
members; each mutation must be one transaction, and a rejected or failed write
must leave the live and persisted records unchanged.
The reference server rejects disabled accounts during fresh username
authentication as well as closing their existing sessions. Custom username
verifiers must check IUserManagement.IsUserActive before granting an identity;
a matching password alone does not authorize a disabled account.
UserManagementBinding.Bind (called automatically by
ConfigurationNodeManager.CreateServerConfiguration when an
IUserManagement is injected) wires the typed AddUser, ModifyUser,
RemoveUser and ChangePassword method-state proxies, enforces
RoleAuthorizationGate.CheckAdmin on the admin methods (SecurityAdmin +
SignAndEncrypt) and RoleAuthorizationGate.CheckSelfUserName on
ChangePassword, and closes a deactivated user's sessions and
subscriptions through the server's coordinated teardown. ModifyUser
and RemoveUser wait for that teardown and return the user-change result.
A session-close failure is logged; it does not turn a committed user change
into a failed method result.
The binding resolves the server's session manager when needed because
the diagnostics address space is created before the session manager.
External deactivation notifications are tracked; DisposeAsync drains
accepted work. The master drains configuration shutdown work before acquiring
the address-space teardown gate, so pending session-close notifications can
complete without deadlocking shutdown.
Spec result codes honoured:
| Operation | Failure codes |
|---|---|
AddUser (§5.2.5) |
Bad_AlreadyExists, Bad_OutOfRange, Bad_NotSupported, Bad_ConfigurationError, Bad_UserAccessDenied, Bad_SecurityModeInsufficient, Bad_ResourceUnavailable |
ModifyUser (§5.2.6) |
Bad_NotFound, Bad_OutOfRange, Bad_NotSupported, Bad_ConfigurationError, Bad_UserAccessDenied, Bad_SecurityModeInsufficient, Bad_InvalidSelfReference |
RemoveUser (§5.2.7) |
Bad_NotFound, Bad_UserAccessDenied, Bad_NotSupported (NoDelete), Bad_SecurityModeInsufficient, Bad_InvalidSelfReference |
ChangePassword (§5.2.8) |
Bad_IdentityTokenInvalid, Bad_OutOfRange, Bad_InvalidState, Bad_NotSupported (NoChangeByUser), Bad_SecurityModeInsufficient, Bad_AlreadyExists (new == old) |
Client AddUser, password-bearing ModifyUser, and ChangePassword operations
reject non-confidential channels before sending credentials. Their security
decision and service Call use the same captured session/channel generation;
unsupported custom session implementations fail with BadNotSupported.
Non-password metadata edits remain available through their ordinary dispatch path.
The IUserDatabase interface (Opc.Ua.Server.UserDatabase.IUserDatabase) remains the extension point for username/password storage. The shipped implementations are:
LinqUserDatabase- in-memory.JsonUserDatabase- JSON file backed.
The JSON testing/sample database publishes a complete temporary snapshot through atomic file replacement. Failed writes leave the previous file intact, and saves are serialized per database instance. Missing files initialize an empty database; malformed or inaccessible files are logged and reported as errors instead of silently becoming empty databases. Authentication reads committed credential and role records without waiting for snapshot I/O; the pending replacement is visible only to snapshot persistence until the write succeeds. A failed write never publishes its candidate credentials.
Self-service password changes verify the captured credential and derive the
replacement outside the credential-store and metadata-reader locks, retaining
100,000-iteration PBKDF2-SHA512. The store commits only if the user's identity
and captured verifier still match, so a concurrent password reset or change
cannot be overwritten by stale verification. The password and cleared
MustChangePassword flag remain one atomic persisted update, preserving the
latest other metadata. Management mutations remain serialized separately from
authentication reads; self-service hashing and snapshot I/O do not hold the
metadata write lock. Administrative mutations retain their existing metadata
publication semantics.
Password verification uses the shared fixed-time comparison with the expected derived-key width and clears working key/password buffers on every exit. Unknown users perform bounded dummy-key verification, and inactive users still perform credential verification before access is denied. This equalizes the expensive verification work; it is not a claim that all surrounding application behavior has constant execution time.
External implementations may be provided by integrators (e.g. backed by SQL, LDAP, or a vendor-specific store).
Opc.Ua.Client.Roles.RoleManagementClient is a strongly-typed async client over the standard Server.ServerCapabilities.RoleSet object:
using Opc.Ua.Client.Roles;
RoleManagementClient client = session.OpenRoleManagementClient();
// List every role exposed by the server.
IReadOnlyList<RoleInfo> roles = await client.ListRolesAsync();
// Add a UserName identity rule to the Observer role.
await client.AddIdentityAsync(
Opc.Ua.ObjectIds.WellKnownRole_Observer,
new IdentityMappingRuleType
{
CriteriaType = IdentityCriteriaType.UserName,
Criteria = "alice"
});
// Toggle the ApplicationsExclude flag on the Operator role.
await client.SetApplicationsExcludeAsync(
Opc.Ua.ObjectIds.WellKnownRole_Operator, value: false);
// Add a custom role under a vendor namespace.
NodeId newRoleId = await client.AddRoleAsync(
"OpsLead",
namespaceUri: "urn:example:roles");
// Remove a dynamic role.
await client.RemoveRoleAsync(newRoleId);ListRolesAsync includes both RoleType instances and instances of its
subtypes, resolving derived types through the session's node cache. Other
object types under the RoleSet are excluded.
All mutator methods require the calling session to hold the SecurityAdmin role and use a SignAndEncrypt secure channel; otherwise the server returns Bad_UserAccessDenied / Bad_SecurityModeInsufficient which surfaces as a ServiceResultException.
Use new RoleManagementClient(session, maxMappingEntries: 1000) to limit a role
snapshot. The limit applies separately to identity, application and endpoint
mapping collections, before client-side decoded-array/list copies. Zero and the
existing one-argument constructor preserve legacy behavior. This does not bound
the separate ListRolesAsync traversal.
When a target check and subsequent role calls must use the same server session,
capture a SessionRequestContext
first. Resolve the target through context.Session and use
new RoleManagementClient(context.Session, maxMappingEntries: 1000) until the
operation is finished. Recovery then refuses later calls instead of silently
moving the operation to a replacement session.
The GDS adds the following roles in addition to the standard well-known set:
DiscoveryAdminSecurityAdminCertificateAuthorityAdminRegistrationAuthorityAdminApplicationSelfAdmin
See GdsRole.cs.
- Integration tests for end-to-end RoleSet / UserManagement scenarios (e.g. AddRole over the wire followed by browse + AddIdentity + activated session under the new grant) are tracked as a follow-up.
- OPC UA Part 18 v1.05.06 - Role-Based Security
- OPC UA Part 3 4.9 - Well-Known Roles
src/Opc.Ua.Server/RoleBasedUserManagement/src/Opc.Ua.Client/Roles/tests/Opc.Ua.Server.Tests/RoleManagerTests.cs