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Exchange Topology

What this screen is for

The topology is a map of your tenant's cryptographic exchanges. Your applications stand in the centre column, under Internal applications; external counterparties stand on the left under External origins when they send, and on the right under External destinations when they receive. The map draws one line per origin and destination, and that line carries every exchange between them; its badge counts their grants. A line from an application to itself is drawn as a loop, and one between two of your applications as an arc between their cards.

The map shows what the server decides; it computes no authorization itself.

What must exist first

This screen is for tenants that compose authorization by hand. It is not offered to SIMPLE tenants.

Before you work here you need cryptographic exchanges, and the permission to read them. The map is empty until the tenant has one, and the empty state offers Go to Cryptographic Exchanges. When the tenant holds more exchanges than the map draws, it says it shows the first ones of the total.

Decisions you make here

Reading the map

A solid card is one of your applications and a dashed card an external counterparty. A line is drawn Active, Suspended, Not started (draft or ready) or Ended (consumed, revoked or expired), as the legend shows, and the legend reads "One line per origin and destination; select it to list its exchanges".

The legend also reads Number on a line = grants · number on a card = exchanges: the number on a line counts its grants, and the number on a card counts that party's exchanges. Every card shows its count on a line of its own, such as "3 exchanges"; a counterparty's description, and whether it is also an origin or also a destination, read on the line below. Select a card or the number on a line to see what it exchanges.

The Relationship chips filter the map and the list together: All, Same app A → A, Internal A → B, Outbound A → external and Inbound external → A. Only the cards and lines of exchanges with that relationship stay drawn. When none has it, the map and the list say "No exchange has this relationship."

Selecting a line

Selecting a line that carries one exchange opens that exchange's detail. Selecting a line that carries several narrows the list beside the map to them: "Showing the {count} exchanges from {origin} to {destination}. Select one to see its grants." Select one of them to open its detail. Show all exchanges returns the list to every exchange the filter admits. Changing the relationship filter also returns it.

Reading the list

The list, under Exchange Contexts, shows one entry per exchange. It groups them by exchange context, with the context's number of exchanges and its sensitivity, as in "3 exchanges · High", and inside each context by origin → destination. When more than 12 exchanges are listed, the contexts start folded, except the one holding the exchange you selected; open a context to see its exchanges. A list narrowed to one line is never folded.

Reading an exchange's detail

The detail panel only shows; it changes nothing. It shows origin → destination, the exchange context, its status and, while it is suspended, when, by whom and why. Authorized operations (from grants) sums what its grants allow. Then, for each grant:

  • its actor, as the kind of actor of its application;
  • its operations, and its keys or its Key pairs, source to target;
  • its Policy with the version in force, or No Constraint Policy;
  • its Limits and its Schedule;
  • whether it is Usable, or why not, such as the exchange not being active or the context being suspended, or being outside its schedule now.

A grant carrying several operations states that they share one usage budget. The panel names the platform time zone schedules are read in; when that zone cannot be read, a grant with a schedule refuses every request until it can.

"Usable" is the administration plane's verdict at the moment of the read. The key's state, rate limits and usage counts are decided per request, so a usable grant can still be refused when it is used.

Changing a grant's version

With the permission to re-pin capability grants, Change version on a grant in force pins it to another version of any constraint policy, from its next request on. A grant that is no longer in force has no Change version. The dialog says how uses are counted: uses made while the grant had no usage limit do not count toward the new limit; otherwise the grant keeps the uses it has already counted.

Opening the exchange

Open exchange opens the exchange's own screen. Adding a grant, suspending the exchange and resuming it are done there, not on the topology.

How it relates to other screens

Where to read more