Re: [hybi] About authentication mechanism

[Iñaki Baz Castillo <[e-mail]>]

Hi, any comment about this please? IMHO this topic is important. If
I'm wrong I would like to know it :)


2011/6/20 Iñaki Baz Castillo <[e-mail]>:
> Hi, I would like to start a new thread for this topic as it seems that
> the draft does not cover it at all (just suggests that an HTTP
> response code other than 101 should be threated as RFC 2616 states:
>
>
>  "1.  If the status code received from the server is not 101, the
>        client handles the response per HTTP procedures." (p. 30)
>
>
> The question is: should the browser prompt the human user for
> user/pass as when a 401 is received in the WS handshake attemp?
>
> Imagine this case:
>
> - www.domain.org => 1.1.1.1:80
>
> - ws.domain.org => 1.1.1.2:443
>
> - I open http://www.domain.org in my browser, fill some login form and
> retrieve websocket connection data, including an user and pass (for
> Digest).
>
> - My JavaScript is then provisioned (via JavaScript WebSocket API
> ????) with ws connection data: server ip, port, Digest user/passwd.
>
> - My web browser starts the ws connection with ws.domain.org:443. It
> receives 401 with Digest (so I need a nonce from the server before
> using my user/passwd).
>
> - JavaScript code automatically accepts the Digest chanllenge,
> generates a Digest response with the provided user/passwd and the
> retrieved Digest nonce, and re-send the HTTP GET request (all of this
> without prompting the user) with the Authorization header.
>
> - If the JavaScript code would not be proviosioned with user/pass,
> then upon receipt of the 401 it should prompt the user (like a
> JavaScript alert?).
>
>
>
> So, if all this stuff is not clearly specified (and I think passing
> user/pass to the JavaScript WebSocket connection API does not exist)
> then using HTTP Digest (or Basic) will be not useful or feasible, and
> I expect than using cookies and all that "pure just-web stuff" will be
> the only way. Please, take into account that a websocket server could
> run in a separate server, so using cookies mechanism is not so
> feasible (it could or not depending the case). Neither I think that
> cookies (a workaround to simulate
> sessions in HTTP protocol) are the best way to go.
>
> IMHO the draft should do much more effort in authentication process.
> Please don't let the door open to ugly and/or propietary
> authentication solutions.
>
>
> My proposal is that the JavaScript WebSocket API should include a
> method to pass authentication 'user' and 'password' (and optionally
> 'realm' so it would ignore the realm para in the 401 response when
> using Digest rather than Basic auth).
>
> In this way, I could open a webpage, perform usual login (maybe via a
> HTML form as commonly extended) and then retrieve WS connection data
> (WS URI), including user/pass/[realm].
> So my JavaScript client would open a WS connection with the given
> destination and in case of receiving a 401 it would re-send the HTTP
> GET request with the appropriate Authorization header without
> prompting the user.
>
> This wouldn't be the only authentication mechanism, of course, but
> IMHO it should be documented (and covered by the JS WebSocket API).
>
> Regards.
>
> --
> Iñaki Baz Castillo
> <[e-mail]>
>



-- 
Iñaki Baz Castillo
<[e-mail]>