Re: [thredds] Proposal for handling authorization credentials in thredds....

thanks Benno, we'll check out OAuth. are you currently implementing it?

On 3/10/2011 3:23 PM, Benno Blumenthal wrote:
I am pretty sure the essential scheme is OAuth -- authorizing a third party to access data on the user's behalf -- though the primary implementation would be OpenID with OAuth extensions. Unfortunately OAuth 2.0 is still being hammered out, so we are stuck with OAuth 1.0, which does not have any real discovery in it, i.e. you cannot figure out from the denial what to do, but that will get fixed in 2.0. At least, they are arguing about it. But at least you (we) can get the pieces into place.

Benno

On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 4:53 PM, Dennis Heimbigner <dmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dmh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

    I am in the process of refactoring the
    remote data access functionality for
    thredds. This currently will affect
    opendap, but others may occur in the future.

    My goal for this initial message is to solicit
    comments about the following proposal to make
    sure I am not missing any. Please post comments
    on this newsgroup or send them directly to me
    (dmh@xxxxxxxx <mailto:dmh@xxxxxxxx>).

    Additionally, I do not have access to
    servers that use the auth mechanisms
    listed below. I have ESG, but not the others.
    If you are game, and can provide me with an
    account on your server, so I can do testing,
    it would be much appreciated.

    =Dennis Heimbigner
     Unidata

    ------------------------------
    Proposal:

    The primary issue here is providing various kinds of authorization
    credentials (broadly construed) to servers by clients.

    Currently, I have identified the following scenarios that must be
    supported (pardon me if I am a bit loose with terminology).

    1. client-side credentials:
       - basic password credentials
       - java keystore for ESG credentials
       - OPEN-ID credentials (probably restricted
         to web-browser access only).

    2. server-side credentials support:
      - currently basic and keystore are already supported
        in apache httpclient-3.
      - OPEN-ID support will require additional server-side code.

    3. Proxy support
       - providing password access to get through proxies.

    There is an additional factor.  It is desirable to support both
    "global"
    and "dynamic" credentialing.

    Global - this means that a single set of credentials is set
    globally and
            is adequate for all code running within a single program
            (i.e. linux or windows process).

    Dynamic - this means that each connection to a server may have a
             separate set of credentials. Further, it must be guaranteed
             that no connection is re-used to avoid inadvertent access to
             some other set of credentials.

    My refactoring involves the following changes:

    1. wrap the HttpClient class within a new class called HTTPSession to
      give better control over the parameters for the HttpClient objects.
      Methods are also wrapped using an HTTPMethod class.

    2. Remove all static HttpClient (HTTPSession) class variables.
     This so
      far is affecting NetcdfDataset.java, HttpClientManager.java
      HTTPRandomAccessFile.java, and NetcdfFile.java.

    3. Modify the api's of the above classes to provide an extra parameter
      to pass in authorization information.  The authorization information
      is passed using an instance of the HttpConnectionParams class so
    that
      it can hold arbitrary (key,value) pairs.

    4. The authorization information is passed along ultimately into where
      it is needed, namely the HTTPSession object, the HTTPMethod object
      and into the SSLProtocolFactory.




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--
Dr. M. Benno Blumenthal benno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:benno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
International Research Institute for climate and society
The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Lamont Campus, Palisades NY 10964-8000   (845) 680-4450


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