[keycloak-dev] Stateless session management pushed

[Stian Thorgersen]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marek Posolda" <mposolda at redhat.com>
> To: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> Sent: Thursday, 9 October, 2014 12:02:07 AM
> Subject: [keycloak-dev] Stateless session management pushed
> 
> Some summary of my changes:
> 
> - Added new parameter "http_session_id" to code-to-token request. It's
> not mandatory and used just for AS7/Wildfly adapters. In Keycloak, it's
> saved as note in ClientSessionModel.
> 
> - ResourceAdminManager refactored to use the IDs of httpSession, which
> are retrieved from ClientSessions. Removed username and
> keycloakSessionId from LogoutAction
> 
> - Adapter statistics removed and everything related to them.
> 
> - UndertowUserSessionManagement and CatalinaUserManagement are now fully
> stateless.
> 
> - Added new config option to adapters 'always-refresh-token' as we
> discussed. If it's true, then adapter will always send request to
> refresh accessToken during authentication (doesn't apply for bearer
> authentication, just for cookie). In the end I've used this approach
> instead of validating accessToken . It seems to be safer (no window) and
> you are always fine with 1 additional request. This option is useful in
> cluster in case that you have non-distributable sessions. With
> non-distributable it could happen that your user logged on node1, but
> logout request from KC is handled on node2 where httpSession doesn't
> exist. This is no issue with "distributable" sessions as those are
> replicated and hence logout can happen on any node.
> 
> - https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-741 -- If refreshing token
> fails from adapters, then httpSession is invalidated immediatelly
> 
> So clustering on adapters side works well now for both Wildfly & EAP 6.3
> 
> 
> Questions & remaining work:
> 
> - I am not so happy with logout for apps with non-distributable HTTP
> sessions. It can be handled with 'always-refresh-token' but it's
> performance penalty to always refresh token. The alternative might be to
> send also hostname in code-to-token request. This would help as
> ResourceAdminManager will be able to detect to which node send request
> for invalidate http session. Does it worth adding it?

Can you elaborate on the 'hostname' in code-to-token requests? I don't quite get what that would do.

I think the two options we have currently is sufficient, if properly document:

a) Logout doesn't happen until access token expires (default)
b) Access token is always refreshed (make sure we document the potential performance hit)

As an optimization I think we should do is that we should add a cookie that is invalidated when a user logs-out. The cookie would only be invalidated for the application driving the logout (retrieves the 'final' logout redirect) or for applications using the coming crazy logout redirect loop. My reasoning is that I think a) is sufficient for single-sign out, but if a user logs-out through a specific application at least that application should show a logged out state straight away.

> 
> - Is it ok to have parameter like "http_session_id" or should it be
> instead something more generic like "adapter_session_id" ? I am not sure
> if 'Http Session' is not JEE specific term? I looked at OpenID connect
> and there is no something like this mentioned (In fact OpenID Connect
> doesn't handle single-sign-out)

I don't think there's nothing JEE specific about a http session, but it leaves some confusion to which session. What about 'application_session_state'?

> 
> - Should we add https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-702 (Support
> for storing token in cookie instead of HttpSession) or is it ok to leave
> it for later? Note that for logout it will require
> 'always-refresh-token' or "hostname" stuff I mentioned above.

I think we should add it now, see my comment above (only the driving app has to be logged-out immediately IMO).

> 
> thoughts?
> 
> Marek
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