Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know I have been doing a little research around generating id's on the client side. I have found a little JS utility lib that I am thinking about using that generates RFC4122 compliant UUIDs.

That library is here http://www.broofa.com/Tools/Math.uuid.js if you are interested. Bruno thought it would be a good idea that I send this out for everyone as it may be a good idea to see what is available in the Android and iOS world in terms of generating similar id's. I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to get people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill.

The reason I say that is that really the only reason you would need such a unique id is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, server, etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with this one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync time. As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status of that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you can rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at the server and you have one point of id generation.

Would really appreciate others' thoughts on this. Kris _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

On Sep 11, 2012, at 3:33 PM, Douglas Campos <qmx(a)qmx.me&gt; wrote: > > On Sep 11, 2012, at 5:20 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: > >> Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know I have been doing a little research around generating id's on the client side. I have found a little JS utility lib that I am thinking about using that generates RFC4122 compliant UUIDs. > +9001 > >> That library is here http://www.broofa.com/Tools/Math.uuid.js if you are interested. Bruno thought it would be a good idea that I send this out for everyone as it may be a good idea to see what is available in the Android and iOS world in terms of generating similar id's. >> >> I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to get people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill. > It's not overkill at all, it's standard practice when you don't have 100% server uptime (which is easily to see over a 3G connection) > >> The reason I say that is that really the only reason you would need such a unique id is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, server, etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with this one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync time. As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status of that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you can rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at the server and you have one point of id generation. > Using UUID's will save us a lot of headaches on the long run - even having sync statuses for our data I guess I am just not sure what a UUID gets us that epoch time doesn't. If I assign an id based on epoch time in milliseconds, that will be unique client side. Then when I sync, I can change that id to what ever the server is using, which may not be a UUID, it could just be in integer in which case trying to assign an id server side based on a UUID generated client side would fail. Maybe I'm missing some point though.

> >> >> Would really appreciate others' thoughts on this. >> >> Kris >> _______________________________________________ >> aerogear-dev mailing list >> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev > > -- qmx > > > _______________________________________________ > aerogear-dev mailing list > aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

Hi All! I don't know if UUID is the "best" solution or it will solve all problems. However working with states is complicated. Mainly when we have conflicts. About this on Android, it's so easy :) 2012/9/11 Douglas Campos <qmx(a)qmx.me&gt; On Sep 11, 2012, at 5:39 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: > > On Sep 11, 2012, at 3:33 PM, Douglas Campos <qmx(a)qmx.me&gt; wrote: > >> >> On Sep 11, 2012, at 5:20 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: >> >>> Hey everyone, I just wanted to let you know I have been doing a little research around generating id's on the client side. I have found a little JS utility lib that I am thinking about using that generates RFC4122 compliant UUIDs. >> +9001 >> >>> That library is here http://www.broofa.com/Tools/Math.uuid.js if you are interested. Bruno thought it would be a good idea that I send this out for everyone as it may be a good idea to see what is available in the Android and iOS world in terms of generating similar id's. >>> >>> I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to get people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill. >> It's not overkill at all, it's standard practice when you don't have 100% server uptime (which is easily to see over a 3G connection) >> >>> The reason I say that is that really the only reason you would need such a unique id is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, server, etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with this one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync time. As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status of that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you can rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at the server and you have one point of id generation. >> Using UUID's will save us a lot of headaches on the long run - even having sync statuses for our data > > I guess I am just not sure what a UUID gets us that epoch time doesn't. If I assign an id based on epoch time in milliseconds, that will be unique client side. Then when I sync, I can change that id to what ever the server is using, which may not be a UUID, it could just be in integer in which case trying to assign an id server side based on a UUID generated client side would fail. Maybe I'm missing some point though. Tons of advantages of using UUIDs as ids - except that we should provision compatibility for server-generated ids too >> >>> >>> Would really appreciate others' thoughts on this. >>> >>> Kris >>> _______________________________________________ >>> aerogear-dev mailing list >>> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev >> >> -- qmx >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> aerogear-dev mailing list >> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev > > > _______________________________________________ > aerogear-dev mailing list > aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev -- qmx _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

Hey Kris, On 9/11/12 4:20 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: > I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to > get > people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill. The > reason I > say that is that really the only reason you would need such a > unique id > is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, > server, > etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with > this > one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync > time. > As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status > of > that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you > can > rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at > the > server and you have one point of id generation. I've always been a fan of server-side ID generation, just because I always tend to think about malicious or badly-written clients. It's possible for someone to pollute the ID pool such that a real ID that a later client generates for a new object is rejected as a duplicate - and so we'd need to account for that possibility and have the UUID regenerated in that case. Edge case, to be sure, but those are often where the problems lie.

That said, as long as we're careful I'm fine with client-gen'ed UUIDs. +0 from me. --Glen _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

Hi my friends, we have a great discussion here and we can't miss it, for this reason I've created this document https://github.com/aerogear/beta.aerogear.org/blob/master/docs/reference/... feel free to tweak, change, delete sections as needed. I'd like to have UUID generation details there, in this way we don't lose it. Probably the server will handle this UUID generation, but assuming that it will affect all platforms would be nice to start a minimum description. -- "The measure of a man is what he does with power" - Plato - @abstractj - Volenti Nihil Difficile On Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Marko Strukelj wrote: > >> Hey Kris, >> >> On 9/11/12 4:20 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: >>> I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to >>> get >>> people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill. The >>> reason I >>> say that is that really the only reason you would need such a >>> unique id >>> is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, >>> server, >>> etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with >>> this >>> one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync >>> time. >>> As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status >>> of >>> that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you >>> can >>> rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at >>> the >>> server and you have one point of id generation. >> >> I've always been a fan of server-side ID generation, just because I >> always tend to think about malicious or badly-written clients. It's >> possible for someone to pollute the ID pool such that a real ID that >> a >> later client generates for a new object is rejected as a duplicate - >> and >> so we'd need to account for that possibility and have the UUID >> regenerated in that case. Edge case, to be sure, but those are often >> where the problems lie. > > ID generation only happens upon create operation. And it's a UNIQUE constraint on relational DB that can be used, or a simple EXISTS check to see if an entity with the ID exists already. And if it does, that's an error that cancels the operation. So, if you can guess a UUID about to be produced by someone else, and use it before they do (sync your entity to the server, before they do theirs) you can cause theirs to fail to sync - be rejected. > > I can imagine such a denial of service attack possible if there is an issue with UUID generator used. > > I can also imagine a duplicate UUIDs generated if there is an issue with UUID generator or the way it is used. > > Adding a autorecovery that would automatically regenerate UUIDs on the client and perform updates would add to reliability, but adds bloat. > > It's an interesting issue for sure. > >> >> That said, as long as we're careful I'm fine with client-gen'ed >> UUIDs. >> >> +0 from me. >> >> --Glen >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> aerogear-dev mailing list >> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev > _______________________________________________ > aerogear-dev mailing list > aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev

Agreed! Let's move forward with kborchers document and think about the same problem guys. Sorry, I didn't notice that. -- "The measure of a man is what he does with power" - Plato - @abstractj - Volenti Nihil Difficile On Thursday, September 13, 2012 at 11:10 AM, Kris Borchers wrote: > Should these documents be merged? https://github.com/aerogear/beta.aerogear.org/blob/master/docs/planning/1... > > On Sep 13, 2012, at 9:08 AM, Bruno Oliveira <bruno(a)abstractj.org&gt; wrote: > >> Hi my friends, we have a great discussion here and we can't miss it, for this reason I've created this document https://github.com/aerogear/beta.aerogear.org/blob/master/docs/reference/... feel free to tweak, change, delete sections as needed. >> >> I'd like to have UUID generation details there, in this way we don't lose it. Probably the server will handle this UUID generation, but assuming that it will affect all platforms would be nice to start a minimum description. >> >> >> -- >> "The measure of a man is what he does with power" - Plato >> - >> @abstractj >> - >> Volenti Nihil Difficile >> On Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 10:39 AM, Marko Strukelj wrote: >> >>> >>>> Hey Kris, >>>> >>>> On 9/11/12 4:20 PM, Kris Borchers wrote: >>>>> I have been thinking about this a bit lately and am also hoping to >>>>> get >>>>> people's thoughts on whether or not this may be overkill. The >>>>> reason I >>>>> say that is that really the only reason you would need such a >>>>> unique id >>>>> is if there will be a chance of something else (another client, >>>>> server, >>>>> etc.) generating an id for a piece of data that would conflict with >>>>> this >>>>> one. What I was thinking though is that is only an issue at sync >>>>> time. >>>>> As long as you know the id is unique in the client, and the status >>>>> of >>>>> that piece of data (new, modified, removed), then at sync time, you >>>>> can >>>>> rectify those id's that are out of sync with what is generated at >>>>> the >>>>> server and you have one point of id generation. >>>> >>>> I've always been a fan of server-side ID generation, just because I >>>> always tend to think about malicious or badly-written clients. It's >>>> possible for someone to pollute the ID pool such that a real ID that >>>> a >>>> later client generates for a new object is rejected as a duplicate - >>>> and >>>> so we'd need to account for that possibility and have the UUID >>>> regenerated in that case. Edge case, to be sure, but those are often >>>> where the problems lie. >>> >>> ID generation only happens upon create operation. And it's a UNIQUE constraint on relational DB that can be used, or a simple EXISTS check to see if an entity with the ID exists already. And if it does, that's an error that cancels the operation. So, if you can guess a UUID about to be produced by someone else, and use it before they do (sync your entity to the server, before they do theirs) you can cause theirs to fail to sync - be rejected. >>> >>> I can imagine such a denial of service attack possible if there is an issue with UUID generator used. >>> >>> I can also imagine a duplicate UUIDs generated if there is an issue with UUID generator or the way it is used. >>> >>> Adding a autorecovery that would automatically regenerate UUIDs on the client and perform updates would add to reliability, but adds bloat. >>> >>> It's an interesting issue for sure. >>> >>>> >>>> That said, as long as we're careful I'm fine with client-gen'ed >>>> UUIDs. >>>> >>>> +0 from me. >>>> >>>> --Glen >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> aerogear-dev mailing list >>>> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >>>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev >>> _______________________________________________ >>> aerogear-dev mailing list >>> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >>> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev >> >> _______________________________________________ >> aerogear-dev mailing list >> aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org >> https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev > > _______________________________________________ > aerogear-dev mailing list > aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org > https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev _______________________________________________ aerogear-dev mailing list aerogear-dev(a)lists.jboss.org https://lists.jboss.org/mailman/listinfo/aerogear-dev