[security-dev] PicketLink IDM JPA Identity Store

Tue Oct 9 15:49:19 EDT 2012

If the goal is to make available a simple schema for just some 
developers that wanted it, the best way to do this is to provide an 
additional, optional jar file containing just the simple schema entity 
beans (call it picketlink-idm-defaultschema or something like this) 
rather than provide an entirely new implementation.  This way we avoid 
the burden of having to maintain two implementations, and also avoid the 
aforementioned problem of having unwanted entity beans in the 
distribution for developers that don't want to use the simple schema.

On 09/10/12 23:25, Anil Saldhana wrote:
> I think we really need 2 implementations based on JPA and ldap each.
> One implementation supports the simple/fixed schema approach and the
> other implementation should be fully configurable/customizable schema
> driven implementation.  The configuration builders define the
> implementation that is returned to the user.
>
> I am not game for one size fits all implementation that will send brains
> in a roller coaster for simple usecases.
>
> On 10/08/2012 07:06 PM, Shane Bryzak wrote:
>> On 09/10/12 09:54, Douglas Campos wrote:
>>> On Oct 8, 2012, at 8:24 PM, Shane Bryzak wrote:
>>>
>>>> The reason I advised that we base the JPA implementation on Seam's
>>>> JpaIdentityStore was not one to do with pride, but because its design
>>>> has been shaped by many years of developer feedback.  I've got no
>>>> problem with Pedro's code (I think it's quite good actually) however the
>>>> design fails to address a number of requirements.  Let's go through a
>>>> few of them in more detail:
>>>>
>>>> 1. Hard coded entities
>>>>
>>>> This is a problem for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, it
>>>> doesn't allow a developer to BYO schema.  Many projects share user
>>>> databases, or are based on legacy systems that cannot be modified.
>>>> There may be strict naming conventions in place for table and column
>>>> names.  It might be simply the case that the developer needs to model
>>>> their schema in a particular way to meet certain business requirements.
>>>> Whatever the reason, it is very clear that we cannot dictate the
>>>> database schema to the developer.  We can certainly make
>>>> recommendations, however this should be done via documentation, and
>>>> possibly in an example.
>>> I'd like to see actual numbers on greenfield vs BYO - because if flexibility means complexity, we need to assure that we're not hurting 95% because of the 5%
>>>
>>> from my **anedoctal experience**, when adopting a framework, ppl allow for some small changes to accomodate, granted they are small.
>> This flexibility actually allows us to *simplify* the schema, believe it
>> or not.  A developer who wants the absolute most basic features is able
>> to create a single database table to store just user, credential and
>> attribute information, something they cannot do if we dictate the schema
>> to them.
>>
>>>> 2. Partitioning
>>>>
>>>> This also stems from having a hard coded schema.  Many projects may
>>>> require users to authenticate against an LDAP directory, but authorize
>>>> against a database.  One of the great ideas from Bolek's original PLIDM
>>>> implementation was that of FeatureSets, basically metadata which
>>>> reflects which identity management capabilities a particular
>>>> IdentityStore implementation supports.  It allows us to store users in
>>>> one identity store, and group and role memberships in another.  Also,
>>>> what happens when an application wants to be purely LDAP based, does
>>>> Hibernate still try to create (or expect the existence of) the
>>>> corresponding tables for the hard coded entity beans?  What if there is
>>>> no database?
>>>>
>>>> 3. Caching
>>>>
>>>> This particular feature isn't present in Seam, however the intent is to
>>>> support it in PicketLink.  To summarise, rather than creating a new
>>>> User, Group or Role instance (or their various memberships) every single
>>>> time the IdentityStore would normally need to do this, we use a single
>>>> cache (distributed in the case of clustered applications) to store these
>>>> identity objects and perform the lookup from the cache instead.  This
>>>> isn't possible to achieve when we have hard coded entities that
>>>> implement the identity model interfaces.  This feature requires an
>>>> intricate coupling between IdentityManager, IdentityStore and the cache
>>>> implementation.
>>>>
>>>> 4. CDI awareness
>>>>
>>>> We need to develop this module so that it will run in an SE environment
>>>> so that the AS team (and others) can use it, however we need to also
>>>> keep in mind that we need to integrate it with CDI, and the design
>>>> should reflect that.  JPACallback and JPATemplate seem to add
>>>> unnecessary complexity which in the end still boils down to one
>>>> EntityManager instance per JPAIdentityStore.  I honestly think the
>>>> JPAIdentityStore implementation should be stateless, in that one
>>>> instance can service multiple (concurrent) requests (not to mention that
>>>> configuration is an expensive operation).  We also need to also keep in
>>>> mind that the EntityManager could have any type of scope, with the most
>>>> obvious ones being request or conversation scoped.
>>>>
>>>> I'm happy to discuss these further, however I hope that it's convinced
>>>> everyone that we need to reconsider the current design.
>>>>
>>>> Shane
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 09/10/12 02:30, Anil Saldhana wrote:
>>>>> I want to offer continued discussion on the JPA implementation in the
>>>>> IDM project.
>>>>>
>>>>> The work that Pedro did is restored here in the following workspace:
>>>>> https://github.com/picketlink/picketlink-idm-restored
>>>>>
>>>>> A testcase that is useful for JPA implementation in IDM is:
>>>>> https://github.com/picketlink/picketlink-idm-restored/blob/master/impl/src/test/java/org/picketlink/test/idm/internal/mgr/DefaultJPAIdentityManagerTestCase.java
>>>>>
>>>>> It is the exact mirror of the LDAP implementation:
>>>>> https://github.com/picketlink/picketlink-idm-restored/blob/master/impl/src/test/java/org/picketlink/test/idm/internal/mgr/DefaultLDAPIdentityManagerTestCase.java
>>>>>
>>>>> These two implementations have very minimal user configuration.
>>>>>
>>>>> The challenge is when users bring in complex database schemas and LDAP
>>>>> DITs into operation.  But the goal of balancing complexity with
>>>>> usability is a tough one.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 09/06/2012 10:13 AM, Anil Saldhana wrote:
>>>>>> Similar challenges exist for LDAP bindings also, since user LDAP DITs
>>>>>> may be different.  But we have to balance complexity with usability. :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 09/06/2012 07:37 AM, Pedro Igor Silva wrote:
>>>>>>> Ok. I'll take a look how he took care of that.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards.
>>>>>>> Pedro Igor
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>>>> From: "Anil Saldhana" <Anil.Saldhana at redhat.com>
>>>>>>> To: security-dev at lists.jboss.org
>>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 5, 2012 6:52:35 PM
>>>>>>> Subject: [security-dev] PicketLink IDM JPA Identity Store
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Pedro,
>>>>>>>         Shane just referred me to the following:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://github.com/seam/security/blob/develop/impl/src/main/java/org/jboss/seam/security/management/picketlink/JpaIdentityStore.java
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Can you adapt your work to incorporate all facets of this Seam work?
>>>>>>> Shane says users have varying db schema structures and the JPA
>>>>>>> implementation in seam3 took care of the nuances.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Anil
>>>>>>>
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>>> -- qmx
>>>
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