This will be a breaking change for some people.
We removed all internal password control logic. If this affects you, you have two options:
1. Use a plugin for authentication and use session based pad access (recommended).
1. Use a plugin for password setting.
The reasoning for removing this feature is to reduce the overall security footprint of Etherpad. It is unnecessary and cumbersome to keep this feature and with the thousands of available authentication methods available in the world our focus should be on supporting those and allowing more granual access based on their implementations (instead of half assed baking our own).
We could instead await the results of the hook, but then all callers
and their callers recursively would have to be converted to async, and
that's a huge change.
This currently isn't absolutely necessary because all current callers
of `userCanModify` already check for a read-only pad ID themselves.
However:
* This adds defense in depth.
* This makes it possible to simply replace the import handler's
`allowAnyoneToImport` check with a call to `userCanModify`.
There's no need to perform an authentication check in the socket.io
middleware because `PadMessageHandler.handleMessage` calls
`SecurityMananger.checkAccess` and that now performs authentication
and authorization checks.
This change also improves the user experience: Before, access denials
caused socket.io error events in the client, which `pad.js` mostly
ignores (the user doesn't see anything). Now a deny message is sent
back to the client, which causes `pad.js` to display an obvious
permission denied message.
This also fixes a minor bug: `settings.loadTest` is supposed to bypass
authentication and authorization checks, but they weren't bypassed
because `SecurityManager.checkAccess` did not check
`settings.loadTest`.
Rather than reinvent the wheel, use a well-tested library to parse and
write cookies. This should also help prevent XSS vulnerabilities
because the library handles special characters such as semicolon.
* Use the cookie functions from `pad_utils.js`.
* Delete unused methods, variables, and parameters.
* Simplify the logic.
* Use an ES6 class instead of a weird literal thingy.
* Use `const` instead of `var`.
Previously Etherpad would not pass the correct client IP address through and this caused the rate limiter to limit users behind reverse proxies. This change allows Etherpad to use a client IP passed from a reverse proxy.
Note to devs: This header can be spoofed and spoofing the header could be used in an attack. To mitigate additional *steps should be taken by Etherpad site admins IE doing rate limiting at proxy.* This only really applies to large scale deployments but it's worth noting.
Not every string was localized:
* `/admin/plugins` has some CSS magic to draw the tables of plugins
differently on narrow (mobile) screens, and the l10n library we
use does not support that particular magic. The strings that were
not localized are "Name", "Description", "Version", and "Time".
These strings are only stuck in English when the page is viewed on
a narrow screen; normal desktop users will see translated strings.
The CSS magic ought to be replaced with something more robust
(lots of nested `div`s); those remaining strings can be localized
whenever that happens.
* Strings from external sources such as plugin descriptions, error
messages, and `settings.json` comments are not localized.
Before this change, the authorize hook was invoked twice: once before
authentication and again after (if settings.requireAuthorization is
true). Now pre-authentication authorization is instead handled by a
new preAuthorize hook, and the authorize hook is only invoked after
the user has authenticated.
Rationale: Without this change it is too easy to write an
authorization plugin that is too permissive. Specifically:
* If the plugin does not check the path for /admin then a non-admin
user might be able to access /admin pages.
* If the plugin assumes that the user has already been authenticated
by the time the authorize function is called then unauthenticated
users might be able to gain access to restricted resources.
This change also avoids calling the plugin's authorize function twice
per access, which makes it easier for plugin authors to write an
authorization plugin that is easy to understand.
This change may break existing authorization plugins: After this
change, the authorize hook will no longer be able to authorize
non-admin access to /admin pages. This is intentional. Access to admin
pages should instead be controlled via the `is_admin` user setting,
which can be set in the config file or by an authentication plugin.
Also:
* Add tests for the authenticate and authorize hooks.
* Disable the authentication failure delay when testing.
This loses some of the granularity of the default HTTP basic auth
(unknown username vs. bad password), but there is considerable value
in having logging that is consistent no matter what authentication
plugins are installed.
The export request hook wasn't testing if the pad's id was from a read-only
pad before validating with the pad manager.
This includes an extra step that makes the read-only id verification and also
avoids setting the original pad's id as the file's name.
Commit 0bb8d73ba2 fixed the author ID
that is saved in the socket.io sessioninfo when the client sends a
`CLIENT_READY` with `reconnect` set to true, so it is now safe to undo
the workaround from PR #3868.
Fixes#4331.
Benefits:
* More functions are now async which makes it possible for future
changes to use await in those functions.
* This will help keep the server from drowning in too many messages
if we ever add acknowledgements or if WebSocket backpressure ever
becomes reality.
* This might make tests less flaky because changes triggered by a
message will complete before the Promise resolves.
Before, the author ID was only saved in the session info during the
initial CLIENT_READY, not when the client sent a CLIENT_READY due to a
reconnect. This caused the handling of subsequent messages to use an
undefined author ID.
This makes it possible for reverse proxies to transform 403 errors
into something like "upgrade to a premium account to access this
pad".
Also add some webaccess tests.
Move the handleMessageSecurity and handleMessage hooks after the call
to securityManager.checkAccess.
Benefits:
* A handleMessage plugin can safely assume the message will be
handled unless the plugin itself drops the message, so it doesn't
need to repeat the access checks done by the `handleMessage`
function.
* This paves the way for a future enhancement: pass the author ID to
the hooks.
Note: The handleMessageSecurity hook is broken in several ways:
* The hook result is ignored for `CLIENT_READY` and `SWITCH_TO_PAD`
messages because the `handleClientReady` function overwrites the
hook result. This causes the client to receive client vars with
`readonly` set to true, which causes the client to display an
immutable pad even though the pad is technically writable.
* The formatting toolbar buttons are removed for read-only pads
before the handleMessageSecurity hook even runs.
* It is awkwardly named: Without reading the documentation, how is
one supposed to know that "handle message security" actually means
"grant one-time write access to a read-only pad"?
* It is called for every message even though calls after a
`CLIENT_READY` or `SWITCH_TO_PAD` are mostly pointless.
* Why would anyone want to grant write access when the user visits a
read-only pad URL? The user should just visit the writable pad URL
instead.
* Why would anyone want to grant write access that only lasts for a
single socket.io connection?
* There are better ways to temporarily grant write access (e.g., the
authorize hook).
* This hook is inviting bugs because it breaks a core assumption
about `/p/r.*` URLs.
I think the hook should be deprecated and eventually removed.
A session's sessioninfo could go away asynchronously due to a
disconnect. Grab a reference once and use it throughout the function
to avoid dereferencing a null sessioninfo object.
translatewiki.net
John McLear
Richard Hansen
webzwo0i
Pedro Beschorner Marin