Skip to content

[FC-0099] feat: allow disabling auto-load policy based on settings#113

Merged
mariajgrimaldi merged 7 commits intoopenedx:mainfrom
eduNEXT:bav/allow-turn-off-auto-reloading
Oct 27, 2025
Merged

[FC-0099] feat: allow disabling auto-load policy based on settings#113
mariajgrimaldi merged 7 commits intoopenedx:mainfrom
eduNEXT:bav/allow-turn-off-auto-reloading

Conversation

@BryanttV
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@BryanttV BryanttV commented Oct 23, 2025

Description

This PR adds the possibility to disable the auto-load of policies by setting the CASBIN_AUTO_LOAD_POLICY_INTERVAL = -1.

When disabled, no policy is loaded, and auto-save is also disabled; therefore, permission validation will always return False.

Merge Checklist:

Check off if complete or not applicable:

  • Version bumped
  • Changelog record added
  • Documentation updated (not only docstrings)
  • Fixup commits are squashed away
  • Unit tests added/updated
  • Manual testing instructions provided
  • Noted any: Concerns, dependencies, migration issues, deadlines, tickets

@openedx-webhooks openedx-webhooks added open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U core contributor PR author is a Core Contributor (who may or may not have write access to this repo). labels Oct 23, 2025
@openedx-webhooks
Copy link
Copy Markdown

openedx-webhooks commented Oct 23, 2025

Thanks for the pull request, @BryanttV!

This repository is currently maintained by @openedx/committers-openedx-authz.

Once you've gone through the following steps feel free to tag them in a comment and let them know that your changes are ready for engineering review.

🔘 Get product approval

If you haven't already, check this list to see if your contribution needs to go through the product review process.

  • If it does, you'll need to submit a product proposal for your contribution, and have it reviewed by the Product Working Group.
    • This process (including the steps you'll need to take) is documented here.
  • If it doesn't, simply proceed with the next step.
🔘 Provide context

To help your reviewers and other members of the community understand the purpose and larger context of your changes, feel free to add as much of the following information to the PR description as you can:

  • Dependencies

    This PR must be merged before / after / at the same time as ...

  • Blockers

    This PR is waiting for OEP-1234 to be accepted.

  • Timeline information

    This PR must be merged by XX date because ...

  • Partner information

    This is for a course on edx.org.

  • Supporting documentation
  • Relevant Open edX discussion forum threads
🔘 Get a green build

If one or more checks are failing, continue working on your changes until this is no longer the case and your build turns green.

Details
Where can I find more information?

If you'd like to get more details on all aspects of the review process for open source pull requests (OSPRs), check out the following resources:

When can I expect my changes to be merged?

Our goal is to get community contributions seen and reviewed as efficiently as possible.

However, the amount of time that it takes to review and merge a PR can vary significantly based on factors such as:

  • The size and impact of the changes that it introduces
  • The need for product review
  • Maintenance status of the parent repository

💡 As a result it may take up to several weeks or months to complete a review and merge your PR.

@BryanttV BryanttV marked this pull request as ready for review October 23, 2025 20:29
@BryanttV BryanttV changed the title feat: allow disabling auto-load policy based on settings [FC-0099] feat: allow disabling auto-load policy based on settings Oct 23, 2025
Comment thread openedx_authz/engine/enforcer.py Outdated
auto_load_policy_interval = getattr(settings, "CASBIN_AUTO_LOAD_POLICY_INTERVAL", -1)
if auto_load_policy_interval != -1:
enforcer.start_auto_load_policy(auto_load_policy_interval)
enforcer.enable_auto_save(True)
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Shouldn't this be also part of the internal checking?

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

We probably don't want to default to -1 either, and may want to check that the interval is > 0 since I don't know what will happen at 0 but it might result in a tight loop of database requests.

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Thanks for your comments!

Finally, I implemented this code:

auto_load_policy_interval = getattr(settings, "CASBIN_AUTO_LOAD_POLICY_INTERVAL", 0)
if auto_load_policy_interval > 0:
    enforcer.start_auto_load_policy(auto_load_policy_interval)
    enforcer.enable_auto_save(True)
else:
    # Disable auto-save to prevent unnecessary database writes
    enforcer.enable_auto_save(False)

If CASBIN_AUTO_LOAD_POLICY_INTERVAL is not greater than 0, the following actions are performed:

  • The auto-loading of the policy is disabled.
  • Auto-save is also disabled.

What do you think? @bmtcril @mariajgrimaldi

self.assertIn(new_assignment, policies_after_auto_load)

@override_settings(CASBIN_AUTO_LOAD_POLICY_INTERVAL=-1)
def test_auto_load_disabled(self):
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

@mariajgrimaldi mariajgrimaldi Oct 24, 2025

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Can we also make sure there are no SQL queries run in the background against the DB during this?

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Yes, that's right! Thanks. I updated the unit test to check the queries.

@BryanttV
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor Author

I think we could bump to 0.8.0 with these latest changes. What do you think?

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@bmtcril bmtcril left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Changes make sense to me, thanks!

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@rodmgwgu rodmgwgu left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Code looks good, could you expand on which cases we would want to disable auto-load?

@bmtcril
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

bmtcril commented Oct 24, 2025

@rodmgwgu right now RBAC only works with the v2 libraries, so if a site isn't using that feature the auto reloading is an unnecessary burden on the database. This will just let sites that aren't using the feature have a way to get away from the extra unnecessary queries.

@mariajgrimaldi mariajgrimaldi merged commit ca5f899 into openedx:main Oct 27, 2025
14 checks passed
@github-project-automation github-project-automation Bot moved this from Needs Triage to Done in Contributions Oct 27, 2025
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

core contributor PR author is a Core Contributor (who may or may not have write access to this repo). open-source-contribution PR author is not from Axim or 2U

Projects

Archived in project

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

5 participants