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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 11/08/2012 04:08 AM, Jason Porter
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAF9TksMz7tvx41r8w7rhmxeFFzoffE1wkGAkvfoGC6HHpJLX=w@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">Replies inline
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 3:54 AM, Shane
Bryzak <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:sbryzak@redhat.com" target="_blank">sbryzak@redhat.com</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hey guys,<br>
<br>
I spent some time reviewing the IdentityManager API today to
identify<br>
any redundancies and also locate any holes where we might
not properly<br>
support required features, as well as a general "sanity"
check to ensure<br>
that what we're exposing via this API makes sense and is
intuitive for<br>
consumers. As Anil has pointed out already, our short term
priority for<br>
the project is to stabilize the API - this is extremely
important as<br>
PicketLink will provide the security foundation for many
other<br>
projects. With that in mind I'd like to strongly encourage
everyone<br>
with a stake in this to carefully review the API and provide
feedback,<br>
as once we release it it will be essentially set in stone.<br>
<br>
To try and avoid a wall of text (and make this post easier
to reply to),<br>
I'm going to break this post up into sub-sections, one for
each feature<br>
group. For each section, I'll include the API as it
currently exists,<br>
followed by a brief summary of my thoughts and any
recommendations I may<br>
have - this is especially where I want to hear any feedback
indicating<br>
whether you agree or disagree with my assessment. Let's
start with the<br>
user-related methods:<br>
<br>
User management<br>
-------------------------<br>
<br>
User createUser(String name);<br>
<br>
void createUser(User user);<br>
<br>
void removeUser(User user);<br>
<br>
void removeUser(String name);<br>
<br>
User getUser(String name);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. I'm wondering if we should remove the createUser(String)
method and<br>
just have createUser(User). This would make sense in a way
because I<br>
can't think of many use cases where you might want to create
a User with<br>
just a username and not any of the other typical information
(such as<br>
first name, last name, e-mail address, etc). Creating a User
via<br>
createUser(String) when you actually want to set the other
details after<br>
the initial User creation is also horribly inefficient,
requiring<br>
multiple round trips to the database (or whatever identity
store backend<br>
you use). To add to that, the actual parameter name is a
little<br>
unintuitive - "name" could refer to any number of things -
is it the<br>
username or the user's actual name that you need to provide
here? My +1<br>
goes to removing createUser(String).<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I like removing the strings. For most of the rest of this
API we have a very type safe idea here. Maybe I'm thinking a
little overboard on things, but I really like the idea of
having wrappers around things (simple wrappers for our API
so people could implement an interface or use a base class
or something to be able to interact with our API but still
easily get to the information they need). </div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
2. Similar to point 1), having two removeUser() methods
seems equally<br>
redundant. The User object that needs to be provided to the<br>
removeUser(User) method can be easily looked up by calling
getUser(), as<br>
per this example:<br>
<br>
identityManager.removeUser(identityManager.getUser("jsmith"));<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
3. As I also pointed out in point 1), the "name" parameter
is a little<br>
unintuitive. In regard to the getUser() method I think we
should rename<br>
the "name" parameter to "username" just so it's perfectly
clear what the<br>
method expects.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
4. We don't currently have any way to update User details.
I recommend<br>
that we add an updateUser() method as follows:<br>
<br>
void updateUser(User user);<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I like this idea. I've seen on a few sites where you
start with a basic username and password, then your
confirmation is to complete their identity for yourself, so
it's not completely out there that people wouldn't do this.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
This will allow User details such as their first and last
name, e-mail<br>
address etc to be updated without having to delete and
re-create the<br>
User. Extending on this a little further, I'm wondering if
we should<br>
think about adding an audit API that logs these changes.
Perhaps it's<br>
something to think about for a later release.<br>
<br>
Group management<br>
--------------------------<br>
<br>
Group createGroup(String id);<br>
<br>
Group createGroup(String id, Group parent);<br>
<br>
Group createGroup(String id, String parent);<br>
<br>
void removeGroup(Group group);<br>
<br>
void removeGroup(String groupId);<br>
<br>
Group getGroup(String groupId);<br>
<br>
Group getGroup(String groupId, Group parent);<br>
<br>
void addToGroup(IdentityType identityType, Group
group);<br>
<br>
void removeFromGroup(IdentityType identityType, Group
group);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. I think there is a little bit of ambiguity here in regard
to the<br>
differences between a Group's ID and name. To assist in
understanding<br>
the differences, here's the JavaDoc pasted from the Group
interface:<br>
<br>
/**<br>
* Groups are stored in tree hierarchy and therefore ID
represents<br>
a path. ID string always begins with "/" element that<br>
* represents root of the tree<br>
* <p/><br>
* Example: Valid IDs are
"/acme/departments/marketing",<br>
"/security/administrator" or "/administrator". Where "acme",<br>
* "departments", "marketing", "security" and
"administrator" are<br>
group names.<br>
*<br>
* @return Group Id in String representation.<br>
*/<br>
String getId();<br>
<br>
/**<br>
* Group name is unique identifier in specific group
tree branch.<br>
For example group with id "/acme/departments/marketing"<br>
* will have name "marketing" and parent group of id<br>
"/acme/departments"<br>
*<br>
* @return name<br>
*/<br>
String getName();<br>
<br>
Taking the above JavaDoc into account, it seems that where
we are<br>
specifying "id" as a method parameter we should be
specifying "name"<br>
instead. If we are indeed providing a "fully qualified"
path to the<br>
createGroup() method, then there is no need to also specify
the parent<br>
as it can be easily derived from the path. More on this in
the<br>
following points.<br>
<br>
2. We currently have three createGroup() methods for
creating a new<br>
Group. I think we should remove the (String, String)
variant, as the<br>
parent parameter is ambiguous (is it the parent's ID or name
we need to<br>
specify here?), and rename the "id" parameter of the
(String, Group)<br>
variant to "name", leaving us with the following:<br>
<br>
Group createGroup(String id);<br>
<br>
Group createGroup(String name, Group parent);<br>
<br>
This then gives us two ways of creating a group. We can
either specify<br>
the fully qualified group ID:<br>
<br>
Group employees = identityManager.createGroup("/employees");<br>
<br>
Or we can specify a subgroup name and parent Group:<br>
<br>
Group managers = identityManager.createGroup("managers",
employees);<br>
<br>
We can also use this second form to create a "root" group by
just<br>
specifying null for the parent:<br>
<br>
Group admins = identityManager.createGroup("admins", null);<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I mentioned this earlier, but I don't see why we need the
Strings. We could simply use Group and have a basic
constructor that would take a String for the name and
possibly another one with a String and a parent group.</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
My only reservation here is that the createGroup() method (this is
true of createRole() also) sets some additional state during Group
(or Role) creation, such as the created date and enabled status.
I'm not a big fan of mutating the object that's passed in like this,
which is why I kept the String variants of these methods, as a Group
(and Role also) is little more than its name. Of course, User
breaks this rule but I see it as being an exception as it requires a
whole bunch of extended information beyond just the username
itself. I could make this clearer with an example if it helps.<br>
<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CAF9TksMz7tvx41r8w7rhmxeFFzoffE1wkGAkvfoGC6HHpJLX=w@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_extra">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
3. For the removeGroup() methods, I think what we have is
fine.<br>
<br>
4. For the getGroup() methods, I'm happy with the first one
(String<br>
groupId) but I think the second one (String groupId, Group
parent) needs<br>
to be (String name, Group parent) instead. The first method
would be<br>
used when the fully qualified group ID is known, and the
second one<br>
would be used when you already have the parent Group and
know the name<br>
of the subgroup.<br>
<br>
5. The addToGroup() and removeFromGroup() methods seem fine
to me.<br>
<br>
6. One thing we don't have is a method to test whether an
IdentityType<br>
is a member of a Group. I suggest we add another method to
support this:<br>
<br>
boolean inGroup(IdentityType identityType, Group group);<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1 for the above (with the type idea for #4).</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Roles<br>
----------<br>
<br>
Role createRole(String name);<br>
<br>
void removeRole(Role role);<br>
<br>
void removeRole(String name);<br>
<br>
Role getRole(String name);<br>
<br>
boolean hasRole(Role role, IdentityType identityType,
Group group);<br>
<br>
void grantRole(Role role, IdentityType identityType,
Group group);<br>
<br>
void revokeRole(Role role, IdentityType identityType,
Group group);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. I would remove the removeRole(String) method as the same
thing can be<br>
achieved with removeRole(getRole(String)).<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
2. I would swap the order of the Role and IdentityType
parameters within<br>
the hasRole(), grantRole() and revokeRole() methods. As the<br>
IdentityType is the primary artifact in these operations it
makes sense<br>
to have it listed first.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">3. We
don't have any explicit support for application roles, which
are<br>
roles where there is no Group component (for example, an<br>
application-wide "admin" role). We could support this by
just allowing<br>
hasRole(), grantRole() etc to accept null values for the
Group<br>
parameter, however I feel it would be more semantically
correct to<br>
provide a distinct set of methods for the purpose of
supporting<br>
application roles, as follows:<br>
<br>
boolean hasApplicationRole(IdentityType identityType,
Role role);<br>
<br>
void grantApplicationRole(IdentityType identityType,
Role role);<br>
<br>
void revokeApplicationRole(IdentityType identityType,
Role role);<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>+1</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Query API<br>
--------------<br>
<br>
<T extends IdentityType> IdentityQuery<T>
createQuery();<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. After our recent rewrite of the Query API I'm satisfied
with what we<br>
have now.<br>
<br>
Credential management<br>
-------------------------------<br>
<br>
boolean validateCredential(User user, Credential
credential);<br>
<br>
void updateCredential(User user, Credential
credential);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. I'm satisfied with what we currently have, however we
still need to<br>
review the mechanism that we provide for encoding passwords.
I'm not<br>
sure that it will have any effect on these methods though
(I'm toying<br>
with the idea of integrating the password encoding
functionality via the<br>
IdentityStoreInvocationContext).<br>
<br>
Identity expiry<br>
------------------<br>
<br>
void setEnabled(IdentityType identityType, boolean
enabled);<br>
<br>
void setExpirationDate(IdentityType identityType, Date
expirationDate);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. I think these methods are fine the way they are. One
discrepancy<br>
that I've identified is that a User can be created already
being<br>
disabled or having an expiry date, while for a Role or Group
the<br>
equivalent status must be set via these methods after
creation. I'm not<br>
sure this is a big deal though.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>All good.</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Attributes<br>
-------------<br>
<br>
void setAttribute(IdentityType identityType, String
attributeName,<br>
String attributeValue);<br>
<br>
String getAttribute(IdentityType identityType, String
attributeName);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. This area poses a slight dilemma. Currently the API only
supports<br>
simple String-based attribute values, however I'm pretty
sure that<br>
people are going to want to store all sorts of things,
ranging from<br>
boolean and Date values through to large byte arrays that
store a User's<br>
photograph or other data. If everyone is in agreement that
we need to<br>
support more than just String values, then the first thing
we probably<br>
need to do is modify these methods to work with a
Serializable instead.<br>
<br>
2. If we all agree on point 1), the next thing we need to
decide is<br>
whether we want the capability to make some attribute values
"lazy<br>
loaded". If we want to do a quick lookup of a User object
for the<br>
express purpose of assigning a Role or Group membership (or
any other<br>
type of simple operation) then we probably don't want the
performance<br>
hit of having to load bulky attribute data.<br>
<br>
3. With the above two points in mind, I'm going to hold off
on surmising<br>
any further on attributes until some of you guys weigh in
with your<br>
opinions. I do have some rough ideas, however I'll wait
until we have a<br>
consensus of exactly what we want to achieve here before we
proceed further.<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Serializable works for me. Do we do have a generic
Attribute<? extends Serializable> or just forgo the
generics?</div>
<div> </div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Utility methods<br>
--------------------<br>
<br>
IdentityType lookupIdentityByKey(String key);<br>
<br>
My thoughts:<br>
<br>
1. This method is required by other features, such as the
Permissions<br>
API. I'm fine with what we have here.<br>
<br>
In summary<br>
----------------<br>
<br>
I apologise for yet another epic e-mail to the list, however
this is<br>
everyone's chance to review the API for themselves and
decide whether or<br>
not it will be suitable for addressing all of your
requirements. I'd<br>
like to get this API stable by next week so please don't be
shy about<br>
speaking up. I'm especially looking forward to hearing your
opinions<br>
about how we handle attributes (there may even be some
relevant JSR-351<br>
stuff that we should be looking at here).<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
Shane<br>
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</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br clear="all">
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
Jason Porter<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lightguard-jp.blogspot.com" target="_blank">http://lightguard-jp.blogspot.com</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://twitter.com/lightguardjp"
target="_blank">http://twitter.com/lightguardjp</a><br>
<br>
Software Engineer<br>
Open Source Advocate<br>
<br>
PGP key id: 926CCFF5<br>
PGP key available at: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://keyserver.net" target="_blank">keyserver.net</a>,
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://pgp.mit.edu"
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</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
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