What is the exact difference between ACL and RBAC in general?

Question

Hello all this may be a silly question but I am really confused about ACL, RBAC, DAC, MAC...

with the simple example of online university management system that has following user types:

• admin
• hod
• faculty
• student

each of them have different privileges to access.

Can some one make me understand what will be used here ACL? RBAC? DAC? MAC? and why it will be preferable than others? I have searched alot but was not able to understand how to decide which authorization technique most fits the above situation...

Leena

Answer 1

In your example, I would suggest to use RBAC rather than ACL, because RBAC is more flexible for enhancements and maintenance, which will be always in system like University management system.

In this kind of system, the privilege or permissions you will apply on the resources, and these resources will be frequently changed as the system expands. so technically managing all these resources and their access controls will be a headache, in terms of database, code and architecture.

and if we apply RBAC in this case, database and architecture will be flexible enough for handling future changes, where you just need to manage permissions and actions accordingly,

Saurischian