Capabilities
Security
Security as a platform feature: identity, authorization, and secure communications for industrial environments.
Design intent
Use this lens when adopting Security: define success criteria, start narrow, and scale with safe rollouts and observability.
- Guard deployment/promotion as privileged audited actions
- Device identity and credential rotation prevent long-lived risk
- Least privilege keeps teams fast without compromising safety
What it is
BootCtrl is designed for secure operations: authenticated users/devices, encrypted connections, and auditable changes to control logic and configuration.
Design constraints
- Guard deployment/promotion as privileged audited actions
- Device identity and credential rotation prevent long-lived risk
- Least privilege keeps teams fast without compromising safety
Architecture at a glance
- Identity: users + devices; Authorization: actions scoped to sites/devices/projects
- Secure channels for control plane and telemetry paths
- Audit trails tie changes to snapshots and deployment actions
- This is a capability surface concern: security must be operational, not theoretical
Typical workflow
- Define roles and scopes (site/device/project) before scaling users
- Enable least-privilege paths for deployments and configuration edits
- Rotate credentials and validate secure connectivity at the edge
- Audit: verify snapshot + deployment actions are traceable
System boundary
Treat Security as a capability boundary: define what success means, what is configurable per site, and how you will validate behavior under rollout.
Example artifact
Authorization policy (conceptual)
role: commissioning-engineer
allowed:
- action: deploy_snapshot
scope: site:*
- action: edit_io_mapping
scope: site:*
denied:
- action: manage_identities
scope: *What it enables
- Controlled access to deployments and configuration
- Auditability for compliance and safety reviews
- Reduced blast radius for operational mistakes
Engineering outcomes
- Guard deployment/promotion as privileged audited actions
- Device identity and credential rotation prevent long-lived risk
- Least privilege keeps teams fast without compromising safety
Quick acceptance checks
- Define roles for design vs deploy vs operate; enforce least privilege
- Treat snapshot promotion/deploy as privileged audited actions
Common failure modes
- Over-broad permissions causing unsafe changes under pressure
- Device identity drift: credentials copied or reused across devices
- TLS/cert lifecycle issues leading to silent disconnections
- Audit gaps: changes not tied to snapshots or missing change notes
Acceptance tests
- Least privilege: validate that only authorized roles can deploy/change config
- Edge trust: validate device identity and secure channel establishment
- Audit trail: confirm actions are logged with snapshot/deployment IDs
- Verify the deployed snapshot/version matches intent (no drift)
- Run a canary validation: behavior, health, and telemetry align with expectations
- Verify rollback works and restores known-good behavior
Deep dive
Practical next steps
How teams typically turn this capability into outcomes.
Key takeaways
- Guard deployment/promotion as privileged audited actions
- Device identity and credential rotation prevent long-lived risk
- Least privilege keeps teams fast without compromising safety
Checklist
- Define roles for design vs deploy vs operate; enforce least privilege
- Treat snapshot promotion/deploy as privileged audited actions
- Manage device identity lifecycle (provision/rotate/revoke)
- Require secure transport for UI↔backend and edge↔cloud
Next steps
Related topics
Deep dive
Common questions
Quick answers that help align engineering and operations.
What are the highest-risk operations in an automation control plane?
Deployment and promotion. If an attacker (or mistake) can deploy arbitrarily, the system is compromised. Guard those actions hardest.
How do we keep “break-glass” safe?
Short-lived elevation, explicit logging, and mandatory review afterwards. You need operational escape hatches, but they must be auditable.
What’s the most common security operational failure?
Stale or mismanaged credentials/certs for edge devices and overly broad roles for users. Treat identity as a lifecycle, not a static setting.