[wildfly-dev] Enhancing the HTTP Management Interface Configuration - WFLY-2635

[Darran Lofthouse]

On 01/05/14 22:45, Jason Greene wrote:
> We also should look at automating SSL setup, although maybe thats a different topic.

+1 That is a separate topic I will start on shortly where I am going to 
pull together the 'backlog' of SSL related enhancements including the 
unification of SSL configuration across WildFly.

That will in turn lead to the point where we can simplify the enablement 
and also other items that we have discussed such as strongly encouraging 
it is enabled.

> On May 1, 2014, at 1:05 PM, Darran Lofthouse <darran.lofthouse at jboss.com> wrote:
>
>> I am just about to work on the outstanding task to enhance the
>> configuration to the HTTP management interface and add some additional
>> capabilities to it so this mail is really a FYI for those interested as
>> numerous teams have interest in this area.
>>
>> The parent Jira issue is here: -
>>    https://issues.jboss.org/browse/WFLY-2635
>>
>> At the moment there are not many configuration options for the HTTP
>> interface and we make a lot of decisions ourselves as to how it is
>> assembled, we now need some additional flexibility.
>>
>> For the admin console there is a desire to enable alternative
>> distribution mechanisms so that the console can be served up from
>> elsewhere.  There are no plans to remove the admin console from the
>> WildFly distribution but users may want to switch to a different
>> version.  For this reason I plan to add configuration for the /console
>> context to make it possible to either disable the bundles console or to
>> respond to requests for the console with a redirect.
>>
>> When we first authentication approaches for the HTTP management
>> operations we decided to use standard HTTP authentication mechanisms so
>> that clients could be written in many languages without imposing a
>> requirement other than the support of standard mechanisms.  This in turn
>> has some problems with web browsers calling the management interface so
>> cross origin resource sharing has been completely disabled to protect
>> against malicious cross site scripting attacks.  My intention is that
>> this /management context will remain as a legacy context (not
>> deprecated) so that clients written to use it can still do so - we may
>> choose to have it switched off by default but enabling this context will
>> be a config item.
>>
>> The next step will be the introduction of a new management context with
>> a new name, at this stage I am only looking at configuration but this
>> new context will be updated to support new authentication mechanisms
>> which will be used directly by the console instead of by the web
>> browser.  By moving credential handling from the web browser to the
>> console itself we will be able to relax our cross resource sharing
>> restrictions for this context maybe with configuration of allowed
>> origins.  This will also allow us to remove the current 'Logout' hack
>> that we have in the console and HTTP interface as the console will be
>> able to control exactly how long credentials are cached for.  This will
>> also have a useful side effect of allowing a user to open the admin
>> console multiple times with each instance authenticated as a different user.
>>
>> At that point it will be possible for the console to be used with
>> alternative distribution approaches and also will provide a path where
>> additional SSO mechanisms can be used as these also have a requirement
>> on CORS.
>>
>> I will send round some design ideas / config examples next week but if
>> there are any additional demands on the HTTP management interface in
>> addition to a path to enabling alternative distribution approaches and
>> the enablement of SSO not is the time to speak up ;-)
>>
>> Regards,
>> Darran Lofthouse.
>>
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>
> --
> Jason T. Greene
> WildFly Lead / JBoss EAP Platform Architect
> JBoss, a division of Red Hat
>