I find that some websites have sort of authentication even though no user is logged in. Taking plunker for example, even a non-logged in user can freeze a snippet such that other users cannot modify; whereas the user himself could always modify the snippet even though he opens the link in another browser tab.
My current solution is adding a type field (ie, anonym and normal) in the user model. Then, each time there is no normal user logged in, I systematically generate a unique random ID, register and login as an anonym user. It works, but the shortcoming is there are lots of anonym users in my database.
Does anyone have a better solution? Is there any "standard" way to realize this kind of hidden authentication?
I think method you are looking for is called session id. When you save as anonymous user web app creates a session with a session id which is used to identify the user by link. For example on plnkr it'll be something like https://plnkr.co/edit/session_id?p=catalogue where session_id is some sort of hash.
To freeze the snippet the session id is written into cookies with the flag, saying, for example, that the state is frozen. If you freeze it in Chrome and open in a Chrome's private window or in Firefox on the same computer, you wouldn't be able to unfreeze it. It'll behave the same way as for other users which have no cookies. In fact using session hash for cookies, rather than any user identification is better for security reasons.
Now this approach in a sense isn't any better, than creating anonymous users - you still have to save session records into the database to be able to open session context by link. In fact, it might happen to be simpler in your case to do exactly what you did if user is assumed to be present in lots of use cases and places in the code.
In many cases, however, separation of session from user makes lots of sense as it simplifies keeping session state after login or registration. Say some web stores would empty your basket after you register, causing quite a bit of frustration, especially if you put several small items into it which you now have to find again and put back. Those don't have sessions or don't use them correctly on registration or login.
Otherwise, as I wrote it's pretty much the same and you have to deal with many anonymous sessions which pollute the database unless you have some sort of wise retention policy, depending on you use case. Say, for example, a web site similar to plnkr.co which is used to share code snippets, and post them on sites such as stackoverflow should better keep those sessions while there are users accessing those say at least once a year. So sessions should have access date and policy would be that it's older than 1 year.
Hope it helps.
I have done similar using Local Storage. It allows you to store data on the browser. A user can then open tabs, close browser completely and reopen etc and the data is still there. It would then appear to be saved for them but actually it's just stored on their browser.
This wouldn't allow others to see what they have done though, so not sure if this is quite what you're after.
I wrapped them in functions in case I chose to change them out later, something like this
StoreLocalVariable: function (key, value) {
localStorage.setItem(key, value);
},
GetLocalVariable: function (key) {
return localStorage.getItem(key);
},
Some info including compatibility
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Storage_API/Using_the_Web_Storage_API
Related
I am using Community-Auth with Codeingniter V3 to do authentication and to store authorization levels, etc.
The problem I am having is that my users are sometimes being redirected to the login page, even though they have not been inactive. I cannot seem to isolate a particular behavior or pattern to duplicate the problem.
The problem occurs when a controller calls the verify_min_level routine which should just verify that they are logged on. But it returns FALSE, which means Community-Auth believes they are not logged in, and the code redirects to the login screen.
Since it seems to happen randomly and for no apparent reason (the user was not inactive for a while, etc) it is driving my users crazy.
Has anyone else seen this kind of behavior?
I seem to have identified the problem. This particular client wanted sessions that would only end when they logged out or closed their browser window. So I set the session expiration to zero (0).
I thought that the garbage collection would only delete sessions occasionally (given that in codeigniter I understand that 0 means the session ends in two years) and that I would catch up with it with my own garbage collection. However I started noticing that the ci_sessions table (I moved session data to database from file system to help debug this issue) would have multiple sessions removed frequently, even though none of the sessions were anywhere near two years old.
What seems to have solved the problem is to turn off the garbage collection completely by setting the PHP parameter sessions.gc_probability to 0.
No garbage collection, no premature deletion of session variables.
I am implementing a nightly CRON job to do garbage collection of the ci_sessions table.
I'm trying to create simple web-app using grails.
Now, I need create new session when user opens same page in different tabs to avoid displaying same data in all opened tabs.
is it possible to define that page was opened in new tab? if it possible how create new session in controller action?.
or maybe there is a way to get something like browser tab-id?
You seem to misunderstand how a session works and they are assigned.
A session is per browser (and domain/host).
So, even though you can create a new session in a controller action it won't help because that will become the session for all the tabs of the browser and the previous session(s) will be invalidated/abandoned.
There is no such thing as a browser tab id.
You'll need to address the root issue which is causing your data affinity to be based on a browser session. Make it based on something else. (Just a general suggestion since this isn't part of your questions and you haven't provided any details.)
Here is my thoughts on this.
What you are trying to accomplish may appear simple but you will need some mechanism to capture who each session be whether it be a spring security username or actual http session id and to then store with that what controller actions they have visited so far and to keep this consistently updated whilst checking it over and over again.
Something as simple as
[
['10001':[controller:'someController', 'someAction'],[controller:'someController1', 'someAction1'],
],
['10002':[controller:'someController', 'someAction'],[controller:'someController1', 'someAction1']
]
Where '10001' is your key of your map and is your session id then it contains a list of internal maps of places visited that you capture and try to work out if they been there already - basically the question here is....
Where is the AI to say if they have seen someAction1 they should see action2 and what happens when they seen action1 and action2 and so on an ever ending loop of and what next ?
Either way you could do all that as a session variable that contains a map like above - the issue you will hit will be concurrent map (where it gets updated and read at the same time).
So you will then need to look over and into using concurrent hashmaps to get around such issues.
Either way the problem with all of above is the consistent logic to figure out if they have seen all possible options then what next ?
I think you are far better off thinking of it from a different point of view as in base it on timestamp and move the query or whatever it is to randomly generate a different output based on that timestamp since that is always going to change regardless of the user
Our API is built on parse (parseplatform.org).
I have a background job which needs to run queries on behalf of users; it needs to ensure that the queries only find/update objects that the user's ACL allows.
For most users, I can query the Parse.Session class to get the sessionToken for the given user, and then use that on all requests, e.g. query.find({sessionToken: "r:xxx"}).
But for some users, the only session object available have expired, and for many, there are no session objects at all.
As far as I'm aware, creating Parse.Session instances is not possible; the only way to generate a session is by calling Parse.User.logIn; but this is not an option for us, mainly because we would need the user's password (which we do not have), but also because it results in memory leaks on parse-server environments.
Has anyone come across a solution for this?
For background jobs where there is no user you should use the following
query.find({useMasterKey: true});
useMasterKey will bypass any ACL security restrictions. Perfect for Batch jobs.
Just be careful that anything else that calls this code will also use the masterKey. Sometimes I will add the following code before to ensure that the correct access is used
var findOptions={};
if (request.user){
findOptions = {sessionToken:request.user.getSessionToken()};
} else {
findOptions = {useMasterKey:true};
}
query.find(findOptions);
Depending on what you're trying to do, you might just need to run the code when they log in (and therefore you have a session token).
You could also try running the code with the master keys but that comes with its own problems.
I'm confused by the way that Mixpanel alias() is supposed to work, despite the fact that Mixpanel have multiple pages attempting to explain it.
According to this page, I should call alias() only once per user, because it will create a one-time mapping from their user ID to the device's generated ID. But shouldn't that mapping be the other way around? Let's say Bob starts my app on his phone and logs in, at which point I call alias() to map all his actions so far to his account. He then goes through the same process on his tablet - I would expect that I can then call alias() on that machine to do the same thing. But the page I mentioned specifically says not to do that, because it will map his user ID to that device's ID now.
I can call identify() on the multiple devices, but that does not link his previous events to his user ID.
I feel like I'm misunderstanding how this whole thing works, but I've now spent a few hours pondering this so I'm hoping it's confused someone else in the past too...
I always understood alias() as mapping the identifiers both ways. I've had a similar case as you. I'm almost sure that it does not matter how many times you alias and in which direction you alias the identifiers.
This is not authoritative though, but rather based on past usage and possibly-flawed understanding.
As they explain on their help documentation:
https://mixpanel.com/help/questions/articles/how-should-i-handle-my-user-identity-with-the-mixpanel-javascript-library
Ideal implementation
The ideal integration that will allow you to track users from anonymous browsing all the way through signup and subsequent logins:
When a new user signs up, call (once)
mixpanel.alias("YOUR_USER_ID")
When a user logs in, call
mixpanel.identify("YOUR_USER_ID")
Applying this to your question, you need to use identify when the user do login with the mobile and another time when he do it with the tablet.
I am curious about the value of PHPSESSID because, I created a simple login-type web app. When I try to login with different accounts, the value of the PHPSESSID is not changing. I got curious if it does okay or not. Because I tried to login in youtube with different account too. But their SID's differ on each user.
My question is:
1) Is what happening on my web app okay ?
2) Is yes, how can I make a session ids per account/user ?
3) If no, how can I fix it ?
I would really appreciate your suggestions.
It partly depends on exactly how you implemented "login." One way to do it is simply to change the user-identity (which, by definition, is part of the data that is stored in the session), while keeping the same session.
Another equally-valid way to do it is to first update the existing session (to show that the user, in that session, is now "logged off") (maybe...), and then to coin a completely new session-id, thus starting an entirely new session, in which you now "log on."
One advantage of the second approach ... and probably the reason why so many sites do it this way ... has to do with the possibility that the user might wish to open a new browser-window, and to log-in to the application a second time, intending to keep both logins alive at the same time. If the session-id token is part of the URL, or maybe is part of a hidden form or what-have-you, such that both session-id's can be retained independently, it becomes possible for the user to do what he has done without conflict. Two parallel sessions exist. In one, he is logged on as "joe," and in the second, he is logged on as "jeff." And so on. One set of browser-windows (somehow ...) carries the "jeff session" token; others carry the "joe session" token.
Fundamentally, a "session" is just a pool of server-side values, identified by the (PHPSESSID ...) token furnished each time by the client. Exactly how you choose to manage it, is at your discretion. It's a design-decision with no "correct" approach.