What is RBAC? How it works and when to use it

Managing access and permissions in a growing organization can be overwhelming. Role-based access control (RBAC) simplifies this process by assigning permissions based on roles.

In this article, you'll learn:

• What RBAC stands for and how it works.
• Key benefits and limitations of using RBAC.
• Best practices for implementing RBAC.
• When to use RBAC effectively.

Let’s start by explaining what RBAC means.

What is Role-based access control (RBAC)?

RBAC is an access control method for managing access to resources by assigning permissions based on a user’s role within an organization.

Here's how it works:

1. Define roles: Roles are created to represent different job functions or levels of authority within the organization. For example, you might have roles like "Admin," "Manager," "Employee," or "Guest."
2. Assign permissions: Permissions are specific actions that a user can perform on a system, such as "read," "write," or "delete.” Each role is assigned a set of permissions.
3. Assign users to roles: Users are assigned to appropriate roles based on their job responsibilities and security requirements.

Benefits of RBAC

Simplified administration

With RBAC, you assign permissions based on more broad categories like roles rather than having to update it for each user. For example, instead of manually assigning access to every user in the finance department, you can create a "Finance" role and grant all necessary permissions once. This approach speeds up changes when employees switch roles or responsibilities. Instead of adjusting permissions from user to user, admins can simply update the role, and the changes will apply to everyone assigned to it.

Improved security

By restricting access based on well-defined roles and vigilant management, RBAC can help reduce the risk of unauthorized access. For example, in a financial app, only 'Senior Financial Analysts' and 'Account Managers' would access sensitive data, while entry-level staff or IT wouldn’t see information irrelevant to their roles.

Employees only get the permissions they need to do their job, nothing more.

Scalability

RBAC is inherently scalable, as you can create and modify roles that apply to entire teams or departments without having to make changes for every single user. This is especially helpful when onboarding new employees or when roles change.

Everything is also managed centrally, so you can quickly add users or adjust permissions without overhauling the whole system.

Compliance

Many industries require strict adherence to regulations around data access and privacy. RBAC helps meet these compliance requirements by providing a clear structure for who has access to what data, which is essential for audits and reporting. However, it is just one of several methods used to secure data.

Limitations of RBAC

While RBAC has many advantages, it also comes with some limitations.

Role explosion

One of the biggest challenges in RBAC systems is "role explosion." This happens when an organization ends up with too many highly specific roles, especially as it grows and diversifies. Instead of broad roles like 'Developer' or 'Project Manager,' you might start creating narrower roles like 'Front-End Developer' or 'Back-End Developer,' leading to a proliferation of roles.

Inflexibility

Once roles and permissions are set, RBAC can be a bit rigid. If something changes — like a new project starts or a new regulation kicks in — and it doesn't quite fit with the current roles, you might have to make some big adjustments. This could mean creating entirely new roles or significantly changing the existing permissions.

Maintenance challenges

Since access needs evolve, an RBAC system requires ongoing maintenance. New roles must be created, permissions modified, and users reassigned. If not properly maintained, the RBAC system can become outdated and ineffective.

Limited granularity

RBAC operates at the role level, meaning permissions are tied to roles, not individual data attributes or granular resources. This makes RBAC less suitable for situations where fine-grained control is needed, such as granting access to specific records or fields in a database.

Separation of duties issues

RBAC may pose risks to the separation of duties if roles are poorly designed, allowing users to accumulate permissions that provide excessive control. For example, if a developer holds roles for writing, reviewing, and deploying their code, it introduces security risks by eliminating independent reviews.

When should you use RBAC?

RBAC is a great fit when your company has well-defined job functions, and you want to make sure employees only access the resources they need for their specific roles. For instance, you could set up a 'Human Resources’ role with access to HR systems and employee records, an 'Accounting' role for financial reports and systems, and a 'Sales’ role with access to the CRM and customer data.

However, in smaller companies or startups, where roles are more fluid, and employees often wear multiple hats, RBAC can feel too restrictive. It might block access to resources needed for tasks that don’t fall neatly within an employee’s main role. If your business environment changes frequently, you could end up constantly updating roles and permissions, which is an administrative headache.

In such cases, it’s often better to pair RBAC with more flexible models like Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) or Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC). This way, you can manage broad access with RBAC and use the other methods for finer and more specific permissions.

Another option, that solves all the problems that RBAC has, is Fine-grained Authorization (FGA). FGA is an advanced access control model that considers several factors to decide whether a user should have access to a resource. These factors may include a user’s role, seniority, location, or the time of day. This allows you to tailor each user's access to the resources they need and thus tighten security. For example, while a RBAC rule might specify that [admins] can [edit] [reports], a fine-grained rule can specify that [user:1] can [edit] [report:xsd34] on the last day of every month. To learn more about how you can go from RBAC to FGA see our From RBAC to Fine-Grained Authorization guides.

RBAC best practices

To implement RBAC properly, follow these best practices:

• Start small and build up: Don’t try to overhaul your entire access control system at once. Pick a few applications or systems to start with, build out the role hierarchy and permissions, test them, and then slowly expand RBAC to more areas.
• Focus on job functions, not individuals: The core idea of RBAC is to assign permissions based on job roles, not specific people. Think about common roles and responsibilities in your organization and design roles around those. 
• Keep roles simple: Try not to get too granular with roles. Overly complex role structures with too many roles can be difficult to manage and understand. Start with broad roles that cover major responsibilities, and only introduce more specific sub-roles if necessary.
• Review and audit: Periodically review your RBAC policies to ensure they follow the principles of least privilege and separation of duties. Look for outdated roles or unnecessary permissions to remove and assess whether new roles need to be added. Audits will also help you catch and fix any incorrect role assignments.

RBAC vs. other access control models

Here’s a comparison of RBAC with three other common access control models, which are Discretionary Access Control (DAC), Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC), and Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC).

RBAC with WorkOS

Supporting RBAC is crucial for enterprise readiness. Companies like Slack use RBAC to let clients control user access to channels, workspaces, and actions. It’s just one aspect of being enterprise-ready that helped them land big clients. If your goal is big and possibly life-changing enterprise deals, you also need to support RBAC.

Ready to get implement RBAC? AuthKit by WorkOS makes adding RBAC to your app easy, with roles and permissions managed directly in the WorkOS dashboard. Best of all, it’s free for up to 1 million MAUs.

Get started with WorkOS.