Sign in Subscribe
Concepts

Fine-Grained Authorization for SQL*Plus with Open Policy Agent

Andrios Robert

• 1 min read

Open Policy Agent (OPA) with SQL*Plus is not just an integration—it's control at the gate. OPA enforces detailed policies across data operations without duct-taping scripts or trusting ad hoc rules. SQL*Plus executes commands. OPA decides if those commands should run. Together, they make authorization explicit, testable, and centralized.

OPA runs as a policy engine in your architecture. You define rules in Rego, OPA’s human-readable policy language. These rules can cover who may run a SQL*Plus command, what tables are touched, when certain operations are allowed. Every query leaving SQL*Plus can be checked against OPA before it reaches the database. This transforms loose permissions into precise, auditable decisions.

The flow is straightforward:

  1. A user issues a SQL*Plus command.
  2. The command is intercepted by a service or wrapper.
  3. That service queries OPA with metadata—user ID, command, time, dataset.
  4. OPA evaluates against your Rego policies.
  5. If the policy passes, SQL*Plus runs the command. If it fails, the command is blocked and logged.

This lets teams keep their Oracle workflows intact while gaining fine-grained authorization. In regulated environments, you can prove that policies were enforced before any change occurred. In sensitive workloads, you can deny dangerous queries before they ever hit the server.

Advanced setups integrate OPA as a sidecar service, using REST API calls for policy checks. SQL*Plus wrappers in bash, Python, or Go can fetch OPA decisions in milliseconds. You can version-control policies, roll back changes, and push updates without touching SQL*Plus itself.

Performance remains predictable. Policy evaluation in OPA is fast. With proper caching on common decisions, you can keep the overhead so low that users don’t notice. Yet every query now carries a signature of compliance.

When OPA and SQL*Plus work together, authorization becomes part of the data stack—not an afterthought. It’s precision. It’s clarity.

Build it. Test it. See it live in minutes at hoop.dev.