Airflow Security Model¶

This document describes Airflow’s security model from the perspective of the Airflow user. It is intended to help users understand the security model and make informed decisions about how to deploy and manage Airflow.

If you would like to know how to report security vulnerabilities and how security reports are handled by the security team of Airflow, head to Airflow’s Security Policy.

Airflow security model - user types¶

The Airflow security model involves different types of users with varying access and capabilities:

While - in smaller installations - all the actions related to Airflow can be performed by a single user, in larger installations it is apparent that there different responsibilities, roles and capabilities that need to be separated.

This is why Airflow has the following user types:

Deployment Managers - overall responsible for the Airflow installation, security and configuration
Authenticated UI users - users that can access Airflow UI and API and interact with it
DAG Authors - responsible for creating DAGs and submitting them to Airflow

You can see more on how the user types influence Airflow’s architecture in Architecture Overview, including, seeing the diagrams of less and more complex deployments.

Deployment Managers¶

They have the highest level of access and control. They install and configure Airflow, and make decisions about technologies and permissions. They can potentially delete the entire installation and have access to all credentials. Deployment Managers can also decide to keep audits, backups and copies of information outside of Airflow, which are not covered by Airflow’s security model.

DAG Authors¶

They can create, modify, and delete DAG files. The code in DAG files is executed on workers and in the DAG File Processor. Note that in the simple deployment configuration, parsing DAGs is executed as a subprocess of the Scheduler process, but with Standalone DAG File Processor deployment managers might separate parsing DAGs from the Scheduler process. Therefore, DAG authors can create and change code executed on workers and the DAG File Processor and potentially access the credentials that the DAG code uses to access external systems. DAG Authors have full access to the metadata database.

Authenticated UI users¶

They have access to the UI and API. See below for more details on the capabilities authenticated UI users may have.

Non-authenticated UI users¶

Airflow doesn’t support unauthenticated users by default. If allowed, potential vulnerabilities must be assessed and addressed by the Deployment Manager. However, there are exceptions to this. The /health endpoint responsible to get health check updates should be publicly accessible. This is because other systems would want to retrieve that information. Another exception is the /login endpoint, as the users are expected to be unauthenticated to use it.

Capabilities of authenticated UI users¶

The capabilities of Authenticated UI users can vary depending on what roles have been configured by the Deployment Manager or Admin users as well as what permissions those roles have. Permissions on roles can be scoped as tightly as a single DAG, for example, or as broad as Admin. Below are four general categories to help conceptualize some of the capabilities authenticated users may have:

Admin users¶

They manage and grant permissions to other users, with full access to all UI capabilities. They can potentially execute code on workers by configuring connections and need to be trusted not to abuse these privileges. They have access to sensitive credentials and can modify them. By default, they don’t have access to system-level configuration. They should be trusted not to misuse sensitive information accessible through connection configuration. They also have the ability to create a Webserver Denial of Service situation and should be trusted not to misuse this capability.

Only admin users have access to audit logs.

Operations users¶

The primary difference between an operator and admin is the ability to manage and grant permissions to other users, and access audit logs - only admins are able to do this. Otherwise assume they have the same access as an admin.

Connection configuration users¶

They configure connections and potentially execute code on workers during DAG execution. Trust is required to prevent misuse of these privileges. They have full access to sensitive credentials stored in connections and can modify them. Access to sensitive information through connection configuration should be trusted not to be abused. They also have the ability to configure connections wrongly that might create a Webserver Denial of Service situations and specify insecure connection options which might create situations where executing DAGs will lead to arbitrary Remote Code Execution for some providers - either community released or custom ones.

Those users should be highly trusted not to misuse this capability.

Audit log users¶

They can view audit events for the whole Airflow installation.

Regular users¶

They can view and interact with the UI and API. They are able to view and edit DAGs, task instances, and DAG runs, and view task logs.

Viewer users¶

They can view information related to DAGs, in a read only fashion, task logs, and other relevant details. This role is suitable for users who require read-only access without the ability to trigger or modify DAGs.

Viewers also do not have permission to access audit logs.

For more information on the capabilities of authenticated UI users, see Access Control.

Capabilities of DAG Authors¶

DAG authors are able to submit code - via Python files placed in the DAGS_FOLDER - that will be executed in a number of circumstances. The code to execute is neither verified, checked nor sand-boxed by Airflow (that would be very difficult if not impossible to do), so effectively DAG authors can execute arbitrary code on the workers (part of Celery Workers for Celery Executor, local processes run by scheduler in case of Local Executor, Task Kubernetes POD in case of Kubernetes Executor), in the DAG File Processor (which can be either executed as standalone process or can be part of the Scheduler) and in the Triggerer.

There are several consequences of this model chosen by Airflow, that deployment managers need to be aware of:

Local executor and built-in DAG File Processor¶

In case of Local Executor and DAG File Processor running as part of the Scheduler, DAG authors can execute arbitrary code on the machine where scheduler is running. This means that they can affect the scheduler process itself, and potentially affect the whole Airflow installation - including modifying cluster-wide policies and changing Airflow configuration. If you are running Airflow with one of those settings, the Deployment Manager must trust the DAG authors not to abuse this capability.

Celery Executor¶

In case of Celery Executor, DAG authors can execute arbitrary code on the Celery Workers. This means that they can potentially influence all the tasks executed on the same worker. If you are running Airflow with Celery Executor, the Deployment Manager must trust the DAG authors not to abuse this capability and unless Deployment Manager separates task execution by queues by Cluster Policies, they should assume, there is no isolation between tasks.

Kubernetes Executor¶

In case of Kubernetes Executor, DAG authors can execute arbitrary code on the Kubernetes POD they run. Each task is executed in a separate POD, so there is already isolation between tasks as generally speaking Kubernetes provides isolation between PODs.

Triggerer¶

In case of Triggerer, DAG authors can execute arbitrary code in Triggerer. Currently there are no enforcement mechanisms that would allow to isolate tasks that are using deferrable functionality from each other and arbitrary code from various tasks can be executed in the same process/machine. Deployment Manager must trust that DAG authors will not abuse this capability.

DAG files not needed for Scheduler and Webserver¶

The Deployment Manager might isolate the code execution provided by DAG authors - particularly in Scheduler and Webserver by making sure that the Scheduler and Webserver don’t even have access to the DAG Files (that requires standalone DAG File Processor to be deployed). Generally speaking - no DAG author provided code should ever be executed in the Scheduler or Webserver process.

Allowing DAG authors to execute selected code in Scheduler and Webserver¶

There are a number of functionalities that allow the DAG author to use pre-registered custom code to be executed in scheduler or webserver process - for example they can choose custom Timetables, UI plugins, Connection UI Fields, Operator extra links, macros, listeners - all of those functionalities allow the DAG author to choose the code that will be executed in the scheduler or webserver process. However this should not be arbitrary code that DAG author can add in DAG folder. All those functionalities are only available via plugins and providers mechanisms where the code that is executed can only be provided by installed packages (or in case of plugins it can also be added to PLUGINS folder where DAG authors should not have write access to). PLUGINS_FOLDER is a legacy mechanism coming from Airflow 1.10 - but we recommend using entrypoint mechanism that allows the Deployment Manager to - effectively - choose and register the code that will be executed in those contexts. DAG Author has no access to install or modify packages installed in Webserver and Scheduler, and this is the way to prevent the DAG Author to execute arbitrary code in those processes.

Additionally, if you decide to utilize and configure the PLUGINS_FOLDER, it is essential for the Deployment Manager to ensure that the DAG author does not have write access to this folder.

The Deployment Manager might decide to introduce additional control mechanisms to prevent DAG authors from executing arbitrary code. This is all fully in hands of the Deployment Manager and it is discussed in the following chapter.

Access to All DAGs¶

All DAG authors have access to all DAGs in the airflow deployment. This means that they can view, modify, and update any DAG without restrictions at any time.

Responsibilities of Deployment Managers¶

As a Deployment Manager, you should be aware of the capabilities of DAG authors and make sure that you trust them not to abuse the capabilities they have. You should also make sure that you have properly configured the Airflow installation to prevent DAG authors from executing arbitrary code in the Scheduler and Webserver processes.

Deploying and protecting Airflow installation¶

Deployment Managers are also responsible for deploying airflow and make it accessible to the users in the way that follows best practices of secure deployment applicable to the organization where Airflow is deployed. This includes but is not limited to:

protecting communication using TLS/VPC and whatever network security is required by the organization that is deploying Airflow
applying rate-limiting and other forms of protections that is usually applied to web applications
applying authentication and authorization to the web application so that only known and authorized users can have access to Airflow
any kind of detection of unusual activity and protection against it
choosing the right session backend and configuring it properly including timeouts for the session

Limiting DAG Author capabilities¶

The Deployment Manager might also use additional mechanisms to prevent DAG authors from executing arbitrary code - for example they might introduce tooling around DAG submission that would allow to review the code before it is deployed, statically-check it and add other ways to prevent malicious code to be submitted. The way how submitting code to DAG folder is done and protected is completely up to the Deployment Manager - Airflow does not provide any tooling or mechanisms around it and it expects that the Deployment Manager will provide the tooling to protect access to the DAG folder and make sure that only trusted code is submitted there.

Airflow does not implement any of those feature natively, and delegates it to the deployment managers to deploy all the necessary infrastructure to protect the deployment - as external infrastructure components.

Limiting access for authenticated UI users¶

Deployment Managers also determine access levels and must understand the potential damage users can cause. Some Deployment Managers may further limit access through fine-grained privileges for the Authenticated UI users. However, these limitations are outside the basic Airflow’s security model and are at the discretion of Deployment Managers.

Examples of fine-grained access control include (but are not limited to):

Limiting login permissions: Restricting the accounts that users can log in with, allowing only specific accounts or roles belonging to access the Airflow system.
Access restrictions to views or DAGs: Controlling user access to certain views or specific DAGs, ensuring that users can only view or interact with authorized components.

Future: multi-tenancy isolation¶

These examples showcase ways in which Deployment Managers can refine and limit user privileges within Airflow, providing tighter control and ensuring that users have access only to the necessary components and functionalities based on their roles and responsibilities. However, fine-grained access control does not provide full isolation and separation of access to allow isolation of different user groups in a multi-tenant fashion yet. In future versions of Airflow, some fine-grained access control features could become part of the Airflow security model, as the Airflow community is working on a multi-tenant model currently.