Re: [wsrp] What is the symetrical method for initCookie?

From
Rich Thompson <>
Date
2004-07-14T19:19:36+00:00
ID
Thread
Re: [wsrp] What is the symetrical method for initCookie?
If you are going to use the cookie in
such a manner, I would suggest architecting the system such that the cookie
is also reflected as a WSRP session. This raises it to the protocol level
and the releaseSessions() operation can be used to trigger the desired
cleanup.

Rich



07/14/2004 03:13 PM

To



cc

Subject

Re: [wsrp] What is the symetrical
method for initCookie?

1) producer will not know when to throw away the session cookie.  In
the

absence of a releaseCookies operation, the only time a producer knows when

to kill the user session is when a logged in user's http session expires.

This, in my opinion, is a problem.  We have seen cases where customers
bump

up the session expiry times to large periods.  This happens mostly
in

non-shared machine environments and there are valid reasons for it.  In

such situations, if the system just depends on the session expiry times
and

not the user logging out, the webserver runs out of memory due to the

orphaned sessions.

Essentially, we need someway for the consumer to tell the producer that
a

user has logged out.  It doesn't really matter that it is a releaseCookie

call or just a userLogout call -- something that can help the producer

identify and cleanup the unneeded resources.  This is needed with
or

without the initCookie i.e. even if a system doesn't set cookies but uses

url re-writing to maintain sessions.  In any non-trivial system, producers

will have resources tied up to a logged in user.  As Ricky wrote,
this

opens the system up to denial of service attacks, even without the attacks

the system can run out of memory if the expiry times are large as I stated

above.  This and security were the main reasons why logouts were invented

in the first place.

The main question is whether WSRP which is an application protocol be

handling this or should this be handled by something like WS-Security.

What are your thoughts on that?

                    
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
    

                    
 "Rich Thompson"            
                     
                     
                     
                   

                    
 <        To:    
              
                     
                  

                    
 m>                  
    cc:       (bcc: Khurram Mahmood/PeopleSoft)
                     
                     

                    
                     
    Subject:  Re: [wsrp] What is the symetrical method for
initCookie?                  
   

                    
 07/14/2004 11:37              
                     
                     
                     
                

                    
 AM                  
                     
                     
                     
                     
    

                    
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
    

                    
                     
                     
                     
                     
                     
    

When this was discussed, it was decided that a releaseCookies() was not

needed since 1) the Producer may throw cookies away at any time it desires

and 2) initCookie() was only placed into the protocol due to the unique

initialization needs of clustered servers (and viewed by most as a

pollution of the protocol!).

Rich

                    
                     
                     
          

               
                     
           

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

 07/14/2004 02:21 PM                
                     
             To 

                    
                 
           

                    
                     
                     
       cc 

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
  Subject 

                    
                 [wsrp] What
is the symetrical method 

                    
                 for initCookie?
                     

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

                    
                     
                     
          

It seems that unless there is a method like "releaseCookie" won't
the

producer be open to DoS attack, or more likely just running out of

resources on a busy server.

Thanks

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