Why do only ADMIN users in Hyperledger Fabric have the permission to install query in chaincode

Question

I read in Node SDK Tutorial the following lines:

User identities provisioned this way are only of the MEMBER role, which means it won't be able to perform certain operations reserved for the ADMIN role:

create/update channel
install/instantiate chaincode

query installed/instantiated chaincodes

For these privileged operations, the client must use an ADMIN user to submit the request.

Calling an ADMIN user only for query will cause extra latency in the network response instead of other MEMBER users ( reducing the load on one user that is ADMIN user ) in a given channel. Then why only ADMIN has the permission to query installed/instantiated chaincodes? Isn't it better if other members also had this permission?

Answer 1

It was already decided that installing chaincode on individual peers should be an "administrative action". In keeping with that, it made sense that actually querying a peer for the chaincodes which are installed and running on the peer should be administrative actions as well.

The access control model is currently being updated which will allow you to set the access control policies for these APIs.

Answer 2

The main intention of hyperledger is to provide confidential transactions. Chaincode contains sensitive information such as business logic. The main purpose of hyperledger would not be satisfied if any user could install or instantiate a query in chaincode. Hence, for now, only the Admin has the permission to install and/or instantiate queries.

Answer 3

Only the Admin has permission to install query because if every user was given this privilege, there could be misuse and compromise in the security on the Fabric. So looking from the security perspective, giving only the admin these privileges would be the best way to maintain the integrity and security.

Answer 4

Installing a query in chaincode is an important task. There are many nodes in the network and most of whose identity is not revealed. Giving such permissions to any nodes in the network would be a problem if the node is malicious. That's why only admins have the permission to do this.