[keycloak-dev] Remove seconds for token timeouts

Mon Jan 25 05:01:30 EST 2016

On 25/01/16 10:05, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
>
>
> On 25 January 2016 at 09:54, Marek Posolda <mposolda at redhat.com 
> <mailto:mposolda at redhat.com>> wrote:
>
>     Not sure about that. IMO seconds are good to have more fine
>     grained timeout values. For example in some deployment the "Access
>     token timeout" value 1 minute might be too short, but 2 minutes
>     are too long, so they prefer to use 90 seconds as compromise.
>
>
> I disagree, I really don't see anyone needing to set timeouts in 
> second granularity,
Hmm... Don't you think the 90 seconds example is not realistic for any 
deployment?

Another thing is "Client login timeout" . This is limited just by 
network performance and doesn't require any action from user. Usually it 
will take around 1-2 seconds to complete. So shouldn't we decrease the 
current default value 1 minute to something lower (10 seconds?). Having 
bigger value theoretically decreases login security as attacker have 
more time to exchange stolen code for token.
>
>
>     Also seconds are good for development. For example, I am sometimes
>     using seconds for testing (IE. setting timeout to 10 seconds to
>     quickly enforce refresh etc)
>
>     Skip seconds to address KEYCLOAK-1341 looks to me like workaround
>     rather than real solution. The question is if we should address
>     KEYCLOAK-1341 at all? There are probably many possibilities how
>     can admin breaks the login to admin console itself or break the
>     keycloak entirely. Few examples, which come to my mind (there are
>     likely much more):
>     - Delete or disable security-admin-console client
>
>
> We're going to prevent users from deleting internal clients and roles, 
> so that won't be a problem anymore
>
>     - delete or disable himself
>
>
> Can be recovered by adding new user using add-user script
>
>     - remove roles from himself
>
>
> Same as above
>
>     - remove scopes from security-admin-console client
>
>
> We haven't covered that one
>
>     - configure authentication flow in some way that it's not possible
>     login anymore
>
>
> Not covered either
>
>     - Timeouts
>
>     I don't think that we should try to prevent all of these
>     situations. I didn't see any real support questions related to
>     this. And for example in linux if you do "rm -rf /home" the system
>     is broken as well. Isn't this kind of similar? IMO admins should
>     do backup of database, so they can revert if they accidentally
>     mis-configure things.
>
>
> What you are saying makes no sense whatsoever. It's like saying 
> validation in user interfaces is a waste of time.
I am not saying validation is lack of time. Agree we should have them. 
But IMO validations are not always sufficient and I don't think that we 
can handle every "bad" situation. So would recommend people to do backup 
of database to prevent mis-configure things.

Also not sure if it's always good approach to restrict functionality 
from admin console just to prevent people from break things. Likely yes 
in some cases (builtin objects), however in some other it may be better 
to use cofirmation warnings (Do you really want to set timeout just to 
10 seconds? Do you really want to re-configure browser authentication 
flow of master realm? etc). I suppose admins are technical people and 
they know what they're doing.
>
> Validation in user interfaces are there to help people, and to prevent 
> people doing things that will screw things up. This is an really good 
> example of where lack of validation on inputs allows users to set 
> stupid values. 1 second timeouts never makes any sense, so why should 
> we let users set it. It could also be a mistake as someone wanted to 
> set 1 minute, but selected second by mistake.
How about use the confirmation dialog if any timeout is set to smaller 
value than 10 seconds as I mentioned above?

There are likely much more things, which we should handle regarding 
timeouts. And likely disallow some of them. For example:
- If someone sets "Session Idle timeout" smaller than "Access token 
timeout", the refreshes will be broken. This config should be probably 
restricted
- Same for "Session max lifespan" . Maybe we should prevent people from 
set "Session max lifespan" to be shorter than any other timeout at all 
(despite "Offline session idle" )

Marek
>
> Arguing against preventing people from screwing things up for 
> themselves by coming with another example where they can screw things 
> up is just not good argumentation. We should do as much as we can, and 
> in this case it's a very simple fix that could prevent a rather 
> annoying issue.
>
>
>     Marek
>
>     On 21/01/16 20:45, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
>>     Do we need to have seconds at all for token timeouts? Removing
>>     seconds from token would make it simpler, but also make sure no
>>     one sets timeouts that are to short (see
>>     https://issues.jboss.org/browse/KEYCLOAK-1341)
>>
>>
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>
>

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