[keycloak-dev] Improve back-button and refreshes in authenticators?

Thu Mar 16 09:43:44 EDT 2017

We should get rid of the code for sure. Maybe we can add the ID of the
current step in the flow instead though.

Before we discuss implementation though, let's figure out what the ideal
user experience would be then figure out how to implement it. What about:

* Refresh just works
* Back button will display a nicer page, something like "Page has expired.
To restart the login process click here. To continue the login process
click here.". Or Back button could just go to the start of the flow always.
* Resubmitting forms will just display the page above
* No need to do redirects. Redirects is bad for performance, but also has
twice the response time which is not good from a usability perspective

On 16 March 2017 at 12:56, Marek Posolda <mposolda at redhat.com> wrote:

> We should be able to detect that with the code in the URL too. So the
> question is, if hidden field has any advantage over keeping the code in URL?
>

> Thing is, that browsers always treat every POST request as unique even if
> it goes to the same URL. So for example, even if code is not in the URL and
> then the user submits username/password form with incorrect password 5
> times, then he needs to press browser back-button 5 times to return back to
> initial AuthorizationEndpoint request. Even if every POST request had same
> URL without code like "http://host/auth/realms/master/authenticate"
> <http://host/auth/realms/master/authenticate> .
>
> Only real advantage I see is, that code in hidden field is maybe a bit
> safer. Not sure if worth the effort, I will try to investigate how much
> effort it is to put the code to the hidden field instead of URL.
>
> Marek
>
>
>
> On 16/03/17 11:44, Stian Thorgersen wrote:
>
> I like option #3, but what about adding a hidden field on the form that
> contains the step in the flow. That way we can easily find out if the form
> is a post for the current step or not. If it's not then we simply ignore
> the post and return the current step again? That would work for
> back/forward and refresh.
>
> On 14 March 2017 at 23:47, Bill Burke <bburke at redhat.com> wrote:
>
>> Ya, similar to #3, my thought is if you combine a cookie with
>> code-in-url, you have a solution for backbutton and refresh and there's
>> no special headers you have to specify.  We used to do #2, but lot of
>> people, specifically jboss.org guys, complained about it.
>>
>>
>> On 3/14/17 4:49 PM, Marek Posolda wrote:
>> > Thanks, that looks similar to my (3) though.
>> >
>> > Besides that I wonder if we should save just the ID of loginSession in
>> > the cookie and the "current-code" keep inside the loginSession
>> > (infinispan) similarly like it is now?
>> >
>> > I am thinking about the case when potential attacker tricks Keycloak
>> > by manually sending the request, which will just use same code in the
>> > cookie and in the URL. Keycloak will then always treat this request as
>> > valid due the code in the URL and in cookie will always match.
>> > Couldn't that be an issue?
>> >
>> > Marek
>> >
>> > On 14/03/17 13:50, Bill Burke wrote:
>> >> I've got an idea.  What about
>> >>
>> >> * keep the code in the URL
>> >>
>> >> * Additionally add a "current-code" cookie
>> >>
>> >> If code in the URL doesn't match the cookie, then redirect to the URL
>> of
>> >> the current-code.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 3/14/17 6:53 AM, Marek Posolda wrote:
>> >>> When working on login sessions, I wonder if we want to improve browser
>> >>> back-button and browser refreshes.
>> >>>
>> >>> In shortcut, I can see 3 basic options:
>> >>>
>> >>> 1) Keep same like now and rely on header "Cache-Control: no-store,
>> >>> must-revalidate, max-age=0" . This works fine and users never saw
>> >>> outdated form and never submit outdated form 2 times. However the
>> >>> usability sucks a bit IMO. When you press back-button after POST
>> >>> request, you can see the ugly browser page "Web page has expired" .
>> And
>> >>> if you press F5 on this, you will see the unfriendly Keycloak error
>> >>> page
>> >>> "Error was occured. Please login again through your application"
>> >>> because
>> >>> of invalid code.
>> >>>
>> >>> 2) Use the pattern with POST followed by the redirect to GET. Since we
>> >>> will have loginSession with the ID in the cookie, the GET request
>> >>> can be
>> >>> sent to the URL without any special query parameter. Something like
>> >>> "http://localhost:8180/auth/realms/master/login-actions/authenticate"
>> .
>> >>> This will allow us that in every stage of authentication, user can
>> >>> press
>> >>> back-button and will be always redirected to the first step of the
>> >>> flow.
>> >>> When he refreshes the page, it will re-send just the GET request and
>> >>> always brings him to the current execution.
>> >>>
>> >>> This looks most user-friendly. But there is the issue with performance
>> >>> though. As we will need to followup every POST request with one
>> >>> additional GET request.
>> >>>
>> >>> 3) Don't do anything special regarding back-button or refresh. But in
>> >>> case that page is refreshed AND the post with invalid (already used)
>> >>> code will be re-submitted, we won't display the ugly page "Error was
>> >>> occured.", but we will just redirect to current step of the flow.
>> >>>
>> >>> Example:
>> >>> a) User was redirected from the application to OIDC
>> >>> AuthorizationEndpoint request. Login page is shown
>> >>> b) User confirmed invalid username and password with POST request.
>> >>> Login
>> >>> form with error page "Invalid password" is shown
>> >>> c) User confirmed valid username and password with POST request. TOTP
>> >>> page is shown.
>> >>> d) User press back-button. Now he will see again the page with
>> >>> username/password form.
>> >>> e) User press F5. The POST request will be re-sent, but it will use
>> >>> previous "code", which is outdated now. So in this case, we will
>> >>> redirect to the current execution and TOTP form will be shown. No
>> >>> re-submission of username/password form will happen.
>> >>>
>> >>> In case 3, the username/password form will be shown again, but user
>> >>> won't be able to resubmit it.
>> >>>
>> >>> In shortcut: With 2 and 3, users will never see the browser page "Web
>> >>> page is expired" or Keycloak "Error occured. Go back to the
>> >>> application". With 2, there is additional GET request needed. With 3,
>> >>> the back-button may show the authentication forms, which user already
>> >>> successfully confirmed, but he won't be able to re-submit them. Is it
>> >>> bad regarding usability? To me, it looks better than showing "Web page
>> >>> is expired".
>> >>>
>> >>> So my preference is 3,2,1. WDYT? Any other options?
>> >>>
>> >>> Marek
>> >>>
>> >>> _______________________________________________
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>> >
>> >
>>
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