Create and Manage Roles

This section has instructions for creating and managing Sumo Logic roles. The roles you assign to a user control what Sumo Logic capabilities are available to the user and what log data the user can access. This functionality is referred to as role-based access control.  

Built-in Administrator and Analyst roles

There are two built-in roles in a Sumo Logic account: Administrator and Analyst. 

The Administrator role is a super user. It has all of the capabilities that can be assigned to a role, and its role search filter enables access to all data in Sumo Logic. You cannot edit or delete the Administrator role. 

Users with the Analyst role have a single capability: View Collectors. Its role search filter enables access to all data in Sumo Logic. You can edit the Analyst role filter to change the capabilities assigned to it and to make the role filter more restrictive. You can also delete the Analyst role if desired. For more information, see Edit a role and Delete a role below.

Create a role

To create a role:

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Click + Add Role on the upper right side of the page.
3. The Create New Role pane appears on the right side of the page.
   
4. Name. Enter a name for the role. 
5. Description. Enter a description of the role to help other Administrators understand the purpose or limitations of the role.
6. Search Filter. Select one of the following to create a filter that allows access to only the logs that match the defined conditions. Only one is allowed for each. For examples, see Search Filter and Index Access examples below. (For general guidance on creating search filters, see Construct a Search Filter for a Role.)
   • Log Analytics data filter. This filter applies to all the partitions and LiveTail.
   • Audit data filter. This filter applies to all the logs in Audit Indexes and LiveTail. For example, you could include filters for sumologic_audit_events, sumologic_search_events, sumologic_search_usage_per_query, or sumologic_system_events, sumologic_volume, to name a few.
   • Security data filter. This filter applies on all logs in Cloud SIEM security indexes.
7. Index Access. Allows or denies access to search indexes. Select one of the following and choose the indexes in the Select Indexes box that appears:
   • All indexes. Allow access to all indexes.
   • Allow few indexes. Allow access to only the selected indexes.
   • Deny few indexes. Deny access to the selected indexes.
8. Capabilities. In this section, click the checkbox beside each capability you want to grant to users with this role. For information about what each capability enables, see Role Capabilities.
9. Click Save. 

Restrict access using Search Filter and Index Access

Follow this process to restrict access using the Search Filter and Index Access sections on the Create New Role pane:

1. Identify the dataset you would like to control access to. Test it out using a search query.
2. Create the role using the Search Filter and/or Index Access sections.
3. Verify the dataset access is correct using emulation.
4. Assign the role to the relevant users.

Search Filter and Index Access examples

Following are examples for using the Search Filter and Index Access sections on the Create New Role pane:

• Let’s say you want to deny access to all logs that contain error in log analytics, and contain malicious=high in security logs. Select Log Analytics data filter and add !error to the filter, and then select Security data filter and add !malicious=high to the filter.
• Let’s say you want to deny access to partition and security indexes. In our example environment, the accessLogs and authenticationLogs indexes give access to partitions, and the sec_* indexes give access to security information. To deny access to these indexes, click Deny few indexes and select those indexes.
• Let’s say you want to deny access to all error logs in log analytics, and deny access to all audit indexes. In this case, you will have to create two roles. For role 1, select Log Analytics filter and add !error to the filter. For role 2, select Index Access > Deny few indexes and select all audit indexes. Then assign both roles to users.

Keep in mind that these are examples only, and you must adapt them for use in your environment. For general guidance on creating search filters, see Construct a Search Filter for a Role.

Index Access behavior when a user has multiple roles

A role can have one of the following Index Access settings:

• All indexes. Allows access to all indexes.
• Allow few indexes. Allows access to only the selected indexes.
• Deny few indexes. Denies access to the selected indexes.

However, if a user is assigned multiple roles that each have different Index Access settings, following is how they are evaluated:

• All indexes + Allow few indexes. Indexes in the "Allow few indexes" list are allowed, and all other indexes are allowed.
• All indexes + Deny few indexes. Indexes in the deny list are denied, but all other indexes are allowed.
• Allow few indexes + Deny few indexes. Indexes in the "Allow few indexes" list are allowed, indexes in the deny list are denied, and all other indexes are denied.
• All indexes + Deny few indexes + Allow few indexes. Indexes in the "Allow few indexes" list are allowed, indexes in the deny list are denied, and the rest of the indexes are allowed.

Test a role with Search Filter and Index Access defined

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Select a role with Search Filter and/or Index Access defined.
3. Click Emulate log search. The search will be emulated for the filtering defined in the role. (In the example below, an index access filter is defined.)
   
4. Enter your search parameters in the log search emulation window. The search will return only what is allowed by filtering defined in the role.
   

Add a user to a role

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Navigate to the role and click the number in the Users column.
   
3. A list of users currently assigned to the role appears.
   
4. Click the Assign Users field. A list of users that are not currently assigned to the role appears. Click a user’s name to add the user to the role. 
5. Add additional users to the role, as desired.
6. Click Save when you are done adding users to the role.

info

When you add or remove a role from a user, it can take about an hour for the RBAC changes to take effect on an existing real-time alert. For example, when a user creates a real-time alert, the user’s search filter governs what log data is returned by the scheduled search. If an admin subsequently makes that user’s search filter more restrictive or removes that role from the user, for about an hour, alerts triggered by data that the user’s updated search filter now prohibits will still fire. (Changes take effect immediately for manually run searches.) 

Remove a user from a role

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Navigate to the role and click the number in the Users column.
   
3. A list of users currently assigned to the role appears. 
4. Navigate to the user you want to remove from the role, and click the trash can icon in that row.
   
5. Click Save when you are done removing users from the role. 

info

When you add or remove a role from a user, it can take about an hour for the RBAC changes to take effect on an existing real-time alert. For example, when a user creates a real-time alert, the user’s search filter governs what log data is returned by the scheduled search. If an admin subsequently makes that user’s search filter more restrictive or removes that role from the user, for about an hour, alerts triggered by data that the user’s updated search filter now prohibits will still fire. (Changes take effect immediately for manually run searches.) 

See which users are assigned to a role

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
   
2. Navigate to the role and click the number in the Users column to see a list of users assigned to the role.

Edit a role

To edit a role:

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Click the row for the role you want to edit.
3. The current configuration of the role appears in a pane on the right side of the page.
4. Click Edit at the top of the right side of the page.
5. Make your edits. For information about edit options, see Create a role above.
6. After editing the role, click Save.

Delete a role

You can only delete a role to which no users are assigned. Before deleting a role, you must unassign any users currently assigned to it. For information about unassigning a user from a role, see Remove a User from a Role.

To delete a role:

1. Classic UI. In the main Sumo Logic menu select Administration > Users and Roles > Roles.
   New UI. In the top menu select Administration, and then under Users and Roles select Roles. You can also click the Go To... menu at the top of the screen and select Roles.
2. Click the row for the role you want to delete.
3. The current configuration of the role appears in a pane on the right side of the page.
4. Click Delete at the top of the right side of the page.
5. If there are users currently assigned to the role, an error message will appear. Otherwise, you’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to delete the role.