Simplify management of policies with ACL policy templating

19min
|
Vault
Video
Interactive

Vault operates on a secure by default standard, and as such, an empty policy grants no permissions in the system. Therefore, policies must be created to govern the behavior of clients and instrument Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) by specifying access privileges (authorization).

Since everything in Vault is path based, policy authors must be aware of all existing paths as well as paths to be created.

The Policies tutorial walks you through the creation of ACL policies in Vault.

This tutorial highlights the use of ACL templating which was introduced in Vault 0.11.

Challenge

The only way to specify non-static paths in ACL policies was to use globs (*) at the end of paths. Or, use plus-sign (+) for a single directory wildcard matching.

path "transit/keys/*" {  capabilities = [ "read" ]} path "secret/+/apikey" {  capabilities = [ "create", "read", "update", "delete", "list" ]}

This makes many management and delegation tasks challenging. For example, allowing a user to change their own password by invoking the auth/userpass/users/<user_name>/password endpoint can require either a policy for every user or requires the use of Sentinel which is a part of Vault Enterprise.

Solution

As of Vault 0.11, ACL templating capability is available to allow a subset of user information to be used within ACL policy paths.

Note

This feature leverages Vault Identities to inject values into ACL policy paths.

Prerequisites

To perform the tasks described in this tutorial, you need to have an environment with Vault 0.11 or later. Refer to the Vault install guide to install Vault.

Launch Terminal

This tutorial includes a free interactive command-line lab that lets you follow along on actual cloud infrastructure.

Scenario Introduction

Assume that the following policy requirements were given:

Each user can perform all operations on their allocated key/value secret path (user-kv/data/<user_name>)
The education group has a dedicated key/value secret store for each region where all operations can be performed by the group members (group-kv/data/education/<region>)
The group members can update the group information such as metadata about the group (identity/group/id/<group_id>)

In this tutorial, you are going to perform the following steps:

Lab setup

Open a terminal and start a Vault dev server with root as the root token.
```
$ vault server -dev -dev-root-token-id=root
```
The Vault dev server defaults to running at 127.0.0.1:8200. The server is also initialized and unsealed.
Insecure operation
Do not run a Vault dev server in production. This approach is only used here to simplify the unsealing process for this demonstration.
Export an environment variable for the vault CLI to address the Vault server.
```
$ export VAULT_ADDR=http://127.0.0.1:8200
```
Export an environment variable for the vault CLI to authenticate with the Vault server.
```
$ export VAULT_TOKEN=root
```

Note

For these tasks, you can use Vault's root token. However, it is recommended that root tokens are only used for enough initial setup or in emergencies. As a best practice, use tokens with an appropriate set of policies based on your role in the organization.

The Vault server is ready.

Note

If you do not have access to an HCP Vault Dedicated cluster, visit the Create a Vault Cluster on HCP tutorial.

Launch the HCP Portal and login.
Click Vault in the left navigation pane.
In the Vault clusters pane, click vault-cluster.
Under Cluster URLs, click Public Cluster URL.
In a terminal, set the VAULT_ADDR environment variable to the copied address.
```
$ export VAULT_ADDR=<Public_Cluster_URL>
```
Return to the Overview page and click Generate token.
Within a few moments, a new token will be generated.
Copy the Admin Token.
Return to the terminal and set the VAULT_TOKEN environment variable.
```
$ export VAULT_TOKEN=<token>
```
Set the VAULT_NAMESPACE environment variable to admin.
```
$ export VAULT_NAMESPACE=admin
```
The admin namespace is the top-level namespace automatically created by HCP Vault. All CLI operations default to use the namespace defined in this environment variable.

Type vault status to verify your connectivity to the Vault cluster.

$ vault status Key                      Value---                      -----Recovery Seal Type       shamirInitialized              trueSealed                   falseTotal Recovery Shares    1Threshold                1Version                  1.9.2+entStorage Type             raft...snipped...

The Vault Dedicated server is ready.

Policy requirements

Since this tutorial demonstrates the creation of an admin policy, log in with the root token if possible. Otherwise, refer to the policy requirement in the Policies tutorial.

Create templated ACL policies

Policy authors can pass in a policy path containing double curly braces as templating delimiters: {{<parameter>}}.

Available Templating Parameters

Name	Description
`identity.entity.id`	The entity's ID
`identity.entity.name`	The entity's name
`identity.entity.metadata.<metadata key>`	Metadata associated with the entity for the given key
`identity.entity.aliases.<mount accessor>.id`	Entity alias ID for the given mount
`identity.entity.aliases.<mount accessor>.name`	Entity alias name for the given mount
`identity.entity.aliases.<mount accessor>.metadata.<metadata key>`	Metadata associated with the alias for the given mount and metadata key
`identity.entity.aliases.<mount accessor>.custom_metadata.<custom metadata key>`	Custom metadata associated with the entity alias
`identity.groups.ids.<group id>.name`	The group name for the given group ID
`identity.groups.names.<group name>.id`	The group ID for the given group name
`identity.groups.ids.<group id>.metadata.<metadata key>`	Metadata associated with the group for the given key
`identity.groups.names.<group name>.metadata.<metadata key>`	Metadata associated with the group for the given key

Note

Identity groups are not directly attached to a token and an entity can be associated with multiple groups. Therefore, in order to reference a group, the group ID or group name must be provided (e.g. identity.groups.ids.59f001d5-dd49-6d63-51e4-357c1e7a4d44.name).

Example:

This policy allows users to change their own password given that the username and password are defined in the userpass auth method. The mount accessor value (auth_userpass_6671d643 in this example) can be read from the sys/auth endpoint.

path "auth/userpass/users/{{identity.entity.aliases.auth_userpass_6671d643.name}}" {  capabilities = [ "update" ]  allowed_parameters = {    "password" = []  }}

Write user template policy (user-tmpl.hcl).

$ tee user-tmpl.hcl <<EOF# Grant permissions on user specific pathpath "user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*" {    capabilities = [ "create", "update", "read", "delete", "list" ]} # For Web UI usagepath "user-kv/metadata" {  capabilities = ["list"]}EOF

Write group template policy (group-tmpl.hcl).

$ tee group-tmpl.hcl <<EOF# Grant permissions on the group specific path# The region is specified in the group metadatapath "group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*" {    capabilities = [ "create", "update", "read", "delete", "list" ]} # Group member can update the group informationpath "identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}" {  capabilities = [ "update", "read" ]} # For Web UI usagepath "group-kv/metadata" {  capabilities = ["list"]} path "identity/group/id" {  capabilities = [ "list" ]}EOF

Create a new policy called user-tmpl.

$ vault policy write user-tmpl user-tmpl.hcl

Create a new policy called group-tmpl.

$ vault policy write group-tmpl group-tmpl.hcl

To create a policy, use the /sys/policies/acl endpoint:

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: <TOKEN>" \       --request PUT \       --data <PAYLOAD> \       <VAULT_ADDRESS>/v1/sys/policies/acl/<POLICY_NAME>

Where <TOKEN> is your valid token, and <PAYLOAD> includes the policy name and stringified policy.

Create an API request payload containing the stringified policy for user-tmpl.

$ tee payload_user.json <<EOF{  "policy": "# Grant permissions on user specific path\npath \"user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*\" {\n    capabilities = [ \"create\", \"update\", \"read\", \"delete\", \"list\" ]\n}\n\n# For Web UI usage\npath \"user-kv/\" {\n  capabilities = [\"list\"]\n}"}EOF

Create user-tmpl policy.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \       --request PUT \       --data @payload_user.json \       $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/policies/acl/user-tmpl

Create an API request payload containing the stringified policy for group-tmpl.

$ tee payload_group.json <<EOF{   "policy": "# Grant permissions on the group specific path\npath \"group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*\" {\n    capabilities = [ \"create\", \"update\", \"read\", \"delete\", \"list\" ]\n}\n\n# Group member can update the group information\npath \"identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}\" {\n  capabilities = [ \"update\", \"read\" ]\n}\n\n# For Web UI usage\npath \"group-kv/\" {\n  capabilities = [\"list\"]\n}\n\npath \"identity/group/id\" {\n  capabilities = [ \"list\" ]\n}"}EOF

Create group-tmpl policy.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \       --request PUT \       --data @payload_group.json \       $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/policies/acl/group-tmpl

Create an API request payload containing the stringified policy for user-tmpl.

$ tee payload_user.json <<EOF{  "policy": "# Grant permissions on user specific path\npath \"user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*\" {\n    capabilities = [ \"create\", \"update\", \"read\", \"delete\", \"list\" ]\n}\n\n# For Web UI usage\npath \"user-kv/\" {\n  capabilities = [\"list\"]\n}"}EOF

Create user-tmpl policy.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request PUT \   --data @payload_user.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/policies/acl/user-tmpl

Create an API request payload containing the stringified policy for group-tmpl.

$ tee payload_group.json <<EOF{   "policy": "# Grant permissions on the group specific path\npath \"group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*\" {\n    capabilities = [ \"create\", \"update\", \"read\", \"delete\", \"list\" ]\n}\n\n# Group member can update the group information\npath \"identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}\" {\n  capabilities = [ \"update\", \"read\" ]\n}\n\n# For Web UI usage\npath \"group-kv/\" {\n  capabilities = [\"list\"]\n}\n\npath \"identity/group/id\" {\n  capabilities = [ \"list\" ]\n}"}EOF

Create group-tmpl policy.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \      --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \      --request PUT \      --data @payload_group.json \      $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/policies/acl/group-tmpl

Setup an entity and a group

Let's create an entity, bob_smith with a user bob as its entity alias. Also, create a group, education and add the bob_smith entity as its group member.

This step only demonstrates CLI commands and Web UI to create entities and groups. Refer to the Identity - Entities and Groups tutorial if you need the full details.

The following command uses jq tool to parse JSON output.

Enable the userpass auth method.
```
$ vault auth enable userpass
```

Create a new user, bob with password, "training".

$ vault write auth/userpass/users/bob password="training"

Retrieve the userpass mount accessor and save it in a file named accessor.txt.

$ vault auth list -format=json | jq -r '.["userpass/"].accessor' > accessor.txt

Create a bob_smith entity and save the identity ID in the entity_id.txt.

$ vault write -format=json identity/entity name="bob_smith" \        policies="user-tmpl" \        metadata=team="Processor" \        | jq -r ".data.id" > entity_id.txt

Add an entity alias for the bob_smith entity.

$ vault write identity/entity-alias name="bob" \      canonical_id=$(cat entity_id.txt) \      mount_accessor=$(cat accessor.txt)

Finally, create education group and add bob_smith entity as a member. Save the generated group ID in the group_id.txt.

$ vault write -format=json identity/group name="education" \        policies="group-tmpl" \        metadata=region="us-west" \        member_entity_ids=$(cat entity_id.txt)  \        | jq -r ".data.id" > group_id.txt

Click the Access tab, and select Enable new method.
Select Username & Password from the Type drop-down menu.
Click Enable Method.
Select < userpass to return to the userpass auth page, and click Create user.
Enter bob in the Username field, and training in the Password field.
Click Save.
From the Access tab, select Entities and then Create entity.
Enter bob_smith in the Name field and enter user-tmpl in the Policies filed.
Click Create.
Select Create alias. Enter bob in the Name field and select userpass/ (userpass) from the Auth Backend drop-down list.
Click Create.
Click Groups from the left navigation, and select Create group.
Enter education in the Name, and enter group-tmpl in the Policies fields. Under Metadata, enter region as a key and us-west as the key value. In the Member Entity IDs field, enter bob_smith.
Click Create.

Test the ACL templating

Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at user-kv.
```
$ vault secrets enable -path=user-kv kv-v2
```
Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at group-kv.
```
$ vault secrets enable -path=group-kv kv-v2
```
Unset the VAULT_TOKEN environment variable so you can log in as a different user.
```
$ unset VAULT_TOKEN
```

$ vault login -method=userpass username="bob" password="training" Key                    Value---                    -----token                  5f2b2594-f0b4-0a7b-6f51-767345091dcctoken_accessor         78b652dd-4320-f18f-b882-0732b7ae9ac9token_duration         768htoken_renewable        truetoken_policies         ["default"]identity_policies      ["group-tmpl" "user-tmpl"]policies               ["default" "group-tmpl" "user-tmpl"]token_meta_username    bob

Remember that bob is a member of the bob_smith entity; therefore, the "user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*" expression in the user-tmpl policy translates to "user-kv/data/bob_smith/*". Let's test!
```
$ vault kv put user-kv/bob_smith/apikey webapp="12344567890"Key              Value---              -----created_time     2018-08-30T18:28:30.845345444Zdeletion_time    n/adestroyed        falseversion          1
```
NOTE: Using control loops such as for loops for dynamic path templating may increase response times.
The region was set to us-west for the education group that the bob_smith belongs to. Therefore, the "group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*" expression in the group-tmpl policy translates to "group-kv/data/education/us-west/*". Let's verify.
```
$ vault kv put group-kv/education/us-west/db_cred password="ABCDEFGHIJKLMN"Key              Value---              -----created_time     2018-08-30T18:29:02.023749491Zdeletion_time    n/adestroyed        falseversion          1
```
Verify that you can update the group information. The group-tmpl policy permits "update" and "read" on the "identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}" path. In Step 2, you saved the education group ID in the group_id.txt file.
```
$ vault write identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt) \        policies="group-tmpl" \        metadata=region="us-west" \        metadata=contact_email="james@example.com"
```

Read the group information to verify that the data has been updated.

$ vault read identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt) Key                  Value---                  -----alias                map[]creation_time        2018-08-29T20:38:49.383960564Zid                   d6ee454e-915a-4bef-9e43-4ffd7762cd4clast_update_time     2018-08-29T22:52:42.005544616Zmember_entity_ids    [1a272450-d147-c3fd-63ae-f16b65b5ee02]member_group_ids     <nil>metadata             map[contact_email:james@example.com region:us-west]modify_index         3name                 educationparent_group_ids     <nil>policies             [group-tmpl]type                 internal

Create an API request payload containing the secrets engine type.

$ tee payload.json <<EOF{  "type": "kv",  "options": {    "version": "2"  }}EOF

Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at user-kv.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \   --request POST \   --data @payload.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/mounts/user-kv

Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at group-kv.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \   --request POST \   --data @payload.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/mounts/group-kv

$ BOB_TOKEN=$(curl --request POST \   --data '{"password": "training"}' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/auth/userpass/login/bob | jq -r ".auth | .client_token")

Remember that bob is a member of the bob_smith entity; therefore, the "user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*" expression in the user-tmpl policy translates to "user-kv/data/bob_smith/*". Let's test!

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --request POST \   --data '{ "data": {"webapp": "12344567890"} }' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/user-kv/data/bob_smith/apikey | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "86f8eaa6-e651-b015-8a3a-c76ce6f23397",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "created_time": "2022-04-22T21:01:01.934079423Z",    "custom_metadata": null,    "deletion_time": "",    "destroyed": false,    "version": 2  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

The region was set to us-west for the education group that the bob_smith belongs to. Therefore, the "group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*" expression in the group-tmpl policy translates to "group-kv/data/education/us-west/*". Let's verify.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --request POST \   --data '{ "data": {"password": "ABCDEFGHIJKLMN"} }' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/group-kv/data/education/us-west/db_cred | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "0b19479c-9bf4-4386-45a9-9bd09b1b9424",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "created_time": "2022-04-22T21:05:31.296598836Z",    "custom_metadata": null,    "deletion_time": "",    "destroyed": false,    "version": 2  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

Verify that you can update the group information. The group-tmpl policy permits "update" and "read" on the "identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}" path.
First, create an API request payload containing the data you wish to write.
```
$ tee group_info.json <<EOF{  "metadata": {    "region": "us-west",    "contact_email": "james@example.com"  },  "policies": "group-tmpl"}EOF
```

Verify that you can update.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --request POST \   --data @group_info.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt)

Read the group information to verify that the data has been updated.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt) | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "cdbdc0d1-02e9-9e10-97ca-1dddbb66dc7a",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "alias": {},    "creation_time": "2022-04-22T20:38:21.030628298Z",    "id": "3bdea0a2-d5e9-a4c9-279d-f34f33def9b8",    "last_update_time": "2022-04-22T21:09:05.249710904Z",    "member_entity_ids": [      "d32795fe-08bd-6792-84cb-a63492048ff7"    ],    "member_group_ids": null,    "metadata": {      "contact_email": "james@example.com",      "region": "us-west"    },    "modify_index": 2,    "name": "education",    "namespace_id": "w6LcK",    "parent_group_ids": null,    "policies": [      "group-tmpl"    ],    "type": "internal"  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

Create an API request payload containing the secrets engine type.

$ tee payload.json <<EOF{  "type": "kv",  "options": {    "version": "2"  }}EOF

Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at user-kv.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data @payload.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/mounts/user-kv

Enable key/value v2 secrets engine at group-kv.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $VAULT_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data @payload.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/sys/mounts/group-kv

$ BOB_TOKEN=$(curl --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data '{"password": "training"}' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/auth/userpass/login/bob | jq -r ".auth | .client_token")

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data '{ "data": {"webapp": "12344567890"} }' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/user-kv/data/bob_smith/apikey | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "86f8eaa6-e651-b015-8a3a-c76ce6f23397",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "created_time": "2022-04-22T21:01:01.934079423Z",    "custom_metadata": null,    "deletion_time": "",    "destroyed": false,    "version": 2  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data '{ "data": {"password": "ABCDEFGHIJKLMN"} }' \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/group-kv/data/education/us-west/db_cred | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "0b19479c-9bf4-4386-45a9-9bd09b1b9424",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "created_time": "2022-04-22T21:05:31.296598836Z",    "custom_metadata": null,    "deletion_time": "",    "destroyed": false,    "version": 2  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

Verify that you can update the group information. The group-tmpl policy permits "update" and "read" on the "identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}" path.
First, create an API request payload containing the data you wish to write.
```
$ tee group_info.json <<EOF{  "metadata": {    "region": "us-west",    "contact_email": "james@example.com"  },  "policies": "group-tmpl"}EOF
```

Verify that you can update.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   --request POST \   --data @group_info.json \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt)

Read the group information to verify that the data has been updated.

$ curl --header "X-Vault-Token: $BOB_TOKEN" \   --header "X-Vault-Namespace: $VAULT_NAMESPACE" \   $VAULT_ADDR/v1/identity/group/id/$(cat group_id.txt) | jq

Example output

{  "request_id": "cdbdc0d1-02e9-9e10-97ca-1dddbb66dc7a",  "lease_id": "",  "renewable": false,  "lease_duration": 0,  "data": {    "alias": {},    "creation_time": "2022-04-22T20:38:21.030628298Z",    "id": "3bdea0a2-d5e9-a4c9-279d-f34f33def9b8",    "last_update_time": "2022-04-22T21:09:05.249710904Z",    "member_entity_ids": [      "d32795fe-08bd-6792-84cb-a63492048ff7"    ],    "member_group_ids": null,    "metadata": {      "contact_email": "james@example.com",      "region": "us-west"    },    "modify_index": 2,    "name": "education",    "namespace_id": "w6LcK",    "parent_group_ids": null,    "policies": [      "group-tmpl"    ],    "type": "internal"  },  "wrap_info": null,  "warnings": null,  "auth": null}

In Secrets tab, select Enable new engine.
Select the radio-button for KV, and then click Next.
Enter user-kv in the path field, and then select 2 for KV version.
Click Enable Engine.
Return to Secrets and then select Enable new engine again.
Select the radio-button for KV, and then click Next.
Enter group-kv in the path field, and then select 2 for KV version.
Click Enable Engine.
Now, sign out as the current user so that you can log in as bob.

Sign off

In the Vault sign in page, select Username and then enter bob in the Username field, and training in the Password field.
Click Sign in.
Remember that bob is a member of the bob_smith entity; therefore, the "user-kv/data/{{identity.entity.name}}/*" expression in the user-tmpl policy translates to "user-kv/data/bob_smith/*". Select user-kv secrets engine, and then select Create secret.
Enter bob_smith/apikey in the PATH FOR THIS SECRET field, webapp in the key field, and 12344567890 in its value field.
Click Save. You should be able to perform this successfully.
The region was set to us-west for the education group that the bob_smith belongs to. Therefore, the "group-kv/data/education/{{identity.groups.names.education.metadata.region}}/*" expression in the group-tmpl policy translates to "group-kv/data/education/us-west/*". From the Secrets tab, select group-kv secrets engine, and then select Create secret.
Enter education/us-west/db_cred in the PATH FOR THIS SECRET field. Enter password in the key field, and ABCDEFGHIJKLMN in its value field.
Click Save. You should be able to perform this successfully.
To verify that you can update the group information which is allowed by the "identity/group/id/{{identity.groups.names.education.id}}" expression in the group-tmpl policy, select the Access tab.
Select Groups, and then education.
Select Edit group. Add a new metadata where the key is contact_email and its value is james@example.com.
Click Save. The group metadata should be successfully updated.

Help and Reference

Write a policy using audit logs

Enforce access control with Sentinel policies