Final answer:
The OpenStack component responsible for user authentication and authorization is Keystone. It handles identity management, offers various authentication methods, and employs role-based access control to regulate user access to resources within OpenStack.
Step-by-step explanation:
The OpenStack component responsible for user authentication and authorization is Keystone. Keystone plays a central role in the OpenStack ecosystem, functioning as the identity service used by the cloud operating system to manage both users and the services they can access. It implements the OpenStack Identity API, which provides a series of operations for managing authentication mechanisms, issuing tokens, and cataloging the services available within an OpenStack cloud environment.
Keystone supports multiple forms of authentication including username and password credentials, token-based systems, and AWS-style logins. Additionally, Keystone handles authorization by maintaining roles and the actions that each role is permitted to perform. With role-based access control (RBAC), administrators can control access to OpenStack resources based on the roles assigned to individual users.
A typical workflow involves a user requesting a token from Keystone, which, after successful authentication, can be used to perform operations in the OpenStack cloud, with authorization scopes determined by the user's role. This ensures that users have appropriate access to resources and that operations are performed in a secure manner.