jsr356-experts@websocket-spec.java.net

[jsr356-experts] Summary: relationship of WebSocket Session/HttpSession/Identity/web logout

From: Danny Coward <danny.coward_at_oracle.com>
Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:56:34 -0800

OK, so in the spirit of trying to close out this discussion and find
what is reasonable to require in the specification, what it looks like
to me we are left with is this:-

1) The only association between websocket session and HttpSession is at
opening handshake time. The API gives developers a convenient access to
the HttpSession object at that point in time.
2) The user identity associated with the websocket Session is the user
identity that was established at the opening handshake.
2) If the server decides that authorization for this websocket resource
by this user identity has ended (it expired, or some logout mechanism
was invoked) then the websocket implementation must immediately close
the connection.

(from my read of the websocket spec, the most suitable close code for
the latter is 1008).

Is there anything else that we need to specify ?

Thanks,

- Danny



On 11/28/12 11:49 PM, Greg Wilkins wrote:
> Unfortunately even form authentication does not have the same
> lifecycle as HTTP Session.
>
> Sure if the HTTPSession is invalidated then then a form Auth user is
> logged out. But a users authentication/authorization can be revoked
> during the life of a HttpSession (eg their credit expires in some
> central JAAS server). For that reason Form auth will often store the
> credentials in the session and revalidate them on every request.
> Basic/Digest authentication revalidate on each request by their
> nature.
>
> I really don't think we want to get into that situation for websocket,
> as it could be a considerable burden to validate credentials on every
> message received before calling any handlers. If we don't validate
> on every message, then we are essentially saying that the identity
> associated with every message is the identity as it was established
> during the handshake - in which case I don't think we should be
> associating with the HTTPsession (unless the application does so
> explicitly).
>
> Or maybe we do want to validate the identity on every message and just
> warn users that constraint protected messages can be very expensive?
>
> cheers
>
>


-- 
<http://www.oracle.com> 	*Danny Coward *
Java EE
Oracle Corporation