[security-dev] JPA?

[Anil Saldhana]

Bill,  we agree on the JDBC Identity Store implementation for Wildfly.

The discussion went on a tangent because I said application developers would
like to use JPA for their applications. Hence we have the JPA 
implementation also.
This is different from Wildfly domain security, which can use file or 
JDBC or ldap implementations.

On 06/11/2013 06:15 PM, Bill Burke wrote:
> I thought what we were discussing here is removing the dependency on JPA
> for the RDBMS backend plugin when deploying picketlink to Wildfly?
>
> On 6/11/2013 7:12 PM, Shane Bryzak wrote:
>> We do provide a JPA entity model, and it's already in a standalone Maven
>> module.  We're labeling it as a "sample" schema, and by no means
>> recommending it as any kind of default.  It's simply there to give
>> developers an idea of what's possible - we're also planning to give a
>> separate example as a quickstart, and on top of that the PicketLink test
>> suite will include a variety of identity schemas.
>>
>> On 12/06/13 09:05, Bill Burke wrote:
>>> JPA is completely orthogonal to what you want to do here.  Either users
>>> will want to write custom identity types that want to leverage the
>>> back-end abstraction that Picketlink provides, or they will be
>>> implementing the appropriate SPI interfaces so that the Picketlink APIs
>>> can be used on top of their own custom storage mechanisms.
>>>
>>> If you want to provide a JPA entity model, it should be a separate maven
>>> module and not something the RDBMS store should be built on top of.
>>> That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it for now.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/11/2013 6:34 PM, Shane Bryzak wrote:
>>>> Sorry Bill, but that's nonsense.  In Seam, the Identity bean (now part
>>>> of the PicketLink API) was a core component of most applications, at
>>>> least those that required any type of security.  I agree with your
>>>> statement that developers won't be using the "PicketLink data model" to
>>>> develop their applications, this is something that's largely hidden
>>>> behind more developer-friendly abstractions.  What PicketLink will do
>>>> though is work with an existing application model to enable more fluid
>>>> integration between them.  Once PLINK-130 is complete we can perhaps
>>>> give some more illuminating examples, but to summarise, you'll be able
>>>> to define your own identity classes (rather than use the ones built-in
>>>> to PicketLink) complete with custom attributes - for example, your
>>>> application might require a User class that has properties (attributes)
>>>> for addresses and contact details, which would actually be persisted via
>>>> corresponding entity beans within the application.  The changes we're
>>>> working on now will allow this and more.
>>>>
>>>> On 12/06/13 08:15, Bill Burke wrote:
>>>>> Most non-framework developers, even Seam ones, will never see the
>>>>> Picketlink API.  Most will be picking pre-made widgets and assemblying
>>>>> these widgets together  through configuration or the management console.
>>>>>        Most Framework developers will want to write plugins that are usable
>>>>> with any storage back end, this also means no JPA.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think you're fooling yourself if you think app developers are going to
>>>>> use the Picketlink data model to developer their applications.  If
>>>>> anything users are going to have existing models and security
>>>>> infrastructure they need to integrate with.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 6/11/2013 6:03 PM, Shane Bryzak wrote:
>>>>>> Of course there is, close to 100% of the developers that use/used Seam
>>>>>> would have been using JPA. Remember that the identity model will for
>>>>>> many use cases also tie into the application model, in fact the
>>>>>> refactoring that I'm working on for PLINK-130 will help to strengthen
>>>>>> this connection.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 12/06/13 07:04, Bill Burke wrote:
>>>>>>> How exactly does JPA give users more control over their data than JDBC?
>>>>>>>          Also, I'm sorry, but I just don't believe you that there is this large
>>>>>>> contingent of app deveopers that want JPA.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 6/11/2013 4:57 PM, Anil Saldhana wrote:
>>>>>>>> Bill,  application developers will care about JPA vs JDBC if they want
>>>>>>>> greater control on things like roles, groups etc. While container driven
>>>>>>>> security is good for many applications, a large contingent of app
>>>>>>>> developers just want greater control on determining the roles/groups of
>>>>>>>> users authenticating to their app.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 06/11/2013 03:53 PM, Bill Burke wrote:
>>>>>>>>> JPA vs. JDBC isn't a choice, users won't care.  Why would app developers
>>>>>>>>> care either?  They should be using management interfaces or the upcoming
>>>>>>>>> sso server to manage their domains.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 6/11/2013 4:39 PM, Anil Saldhana wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Jason - I will let others chime in their thoughts.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> We want to support as many Identity Store implementations as possible.
>>>>>>>>>> We implemented a File Store implementation mainly to aid its usage as
>>>>>>>>>> the default identity store implementation in WildFly.
>>>>>>>>>> I have no issues in providing an additional JDBC identity store
>>>>>>>>>> implementation. It just gives the users more implementations to choose from.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>            From application developers perspective, I think the balance still
>>>>>>>>>> swings toward JPA. But for Wildfly core authentication using PicketLink
>>>>>>>>>> IDM, for database backends, JDBC makes sense.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> It will be at least a couple of months before we attempt a JDBC
>>>>>>>>>> implementation due to 2.5.0 release. That is why I placed the JIRA issue
>>>>>>>>>> fix to be 2.5.1. I think this works for Wildfly roadmap.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On 06/11/2013 03:14 PM, Jason Greene wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> I thought it best to move the discussion on undertow to here.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Anil opened a JIRA to investigate:
>>>>>>>>>>> https://issues.jboss.org/browse/PLINK-190
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> My concerns are:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> - Initialization Time (JPA has always been expensive in this area)
>>>>>>>>>>> - Dependency chain problems (if this forces the app server (which at some point might not be limited to Java EE) to have a big chunk of EE just to support database auth)
>>>>>>>>>>> - Potential increase of memory usage? (in particular if we end up with hibernate using infinispan as a cache which is then double cached at the auth level)
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I guess the main reason for the switch from JDBC is to avoid supporting various DB dialects. However, the following is also true:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> - ANSI SQL-92 is supported by almost everyone, and it allows for portable DML
>>>>>>>>>>> - IDMs have very simple relational layouts and queries
>>>>>>>>>>> - It's easy to abstract queries to allow customization by a user
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>