3:33 p.m.
I've finally sent the PR https://github.com/keycloak/keycloak/pull/4132
with the work for $subject. This includes the work by Hynek and me on
Authentication sessions and action tokens. We finally managed to sort
various kinks and have all tests passing.
Some things and concepts were already discussed in some previous threads
[1], [2], [3] and during presentations. So I won't repeat everything.
Just some highlights:
- authenticationSession replaces the old ClientSessionModel. There is
separate AuthenticationSessionProvider and separate infinispan cache
"authenticationSessions" . This cache typicaly won't be replicated over
all the datacenters, but instead it will rely on browser sticky
sessions, hence browser will be redirected by loadbalancer to correct
node in correct datacenter. So typicaly there won't be cross-dc
communication needed during authentication.
- I've added some support for sticky sessions already. In cluster
environment, the authentication session cookie is created in the format
like "sessionId.routeId" . For example
"aabf27e6-7945-4d3a-a023-c1c64f7fdab4.node1". Pretty much same format
like JSESSIONID cookie used as a cookie in classic java web
applications. One side-effect of this PR is, that it also covers the
support for running clustering tests on embedded undertow and from IDE.
- Support for browser back/forward/refresh buttons was improved since my
presentation last month. There are no browser redirects after the form
submit, but instead there is a change of browser history through the
javascript history.replaceState function. This pretty much removes all
the POST requests from the browser history and helps with having good
experience regarding browser buttons. In case that you have old browser
not supporting this, the behaviour is same like before. Hence default
browser "Page expired" page after clicking back from POST request (same
behaviour like latest master). There are no additional redirects.
- For action tokens, Hynek will likely add more. For quick summary, I
can just mention that action token is JWT signed by realm secret key.
You can generate it in your authenticator or requiredActionProvider and
send it somehow to user. Typically through email. Once user opens the
actionToken URL from the email, it is processed on LoginActionsService
endpoint, which provides most of the common basic functionality and
verifications. LoginActionsService then finds the correct implementation
of ActionTokenHandler, which is separate SPI. This allows to specify the
details how can be actionToken handled, whether it's single use or not
etc. There is support for the scenario if user opened link in the same
browser when he started authenticationSession or in different browser etc.
- Regarding PR, I've tried to squash the commits a bit. However PR still
consists of more commits to track at least what was done by me and what
by Hynek. Do you think it is the issue to have more commits in the PR?
- This is hopefully the bigest task for the cross-dc support. My hope is
that PR can be reviewed and merged soon as the work is more and more
unsynced with the latest master and rebasing is a bit of pain. But I
understand that this will require time. There is change in 324 files :)
There are still a lot things to cover for cross-dc, but I think those
can be done in smaller pieces and commit more often.
[1] http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/keycloak-dev/2017-March/009066.html
[2] http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/keycloak-dev/2017-March/009121.html
[3] http://lists.jboss.org/pipermail/keycloak-dev/2017-March/009125.html
Marek