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).
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`.
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.
* `src/node/server.js` can now be run as a script (for normal
operation) or imported as a module (for tests).
* Move shutdown actions to `src/node/server.js` to be close to the
startup actions.
* Put startup and shutdown in functions so that tests can call them.
* Use `await` instead of callbacks.
* Block until the HTTP server is listening to avoid races during
test startup.
* Add a new `shutdown` hook.
* Use the `shutdown` hook to:
* close the HTTP server
* call `end()` on the stats collection to cancel its timers
* call `terminate()` on the Threads.Pool to stop the workers
* Exit with exit code 0 (instead of 1) on SIGTERM.
* Export the HTTP server so that tests can get the HTTP server's
port via `server.address().port` when `settings.port` is 0.
Before, a malicious user could bypass authorization restrictions
imposed by the authorize hook:
* Step 1: Fetch any resource that the malicious user is authorized to
access (e.g., static content).
* Step 2: Use the signed express_sid cookie generated in step 1 to
create a socket.io connection.
* Step 3: Perform the CLIENT_READY handshake for the desired pad.
* Step 4: Profit!
Now the authorization decision made by the authorize hook is
propagated to SecurityManager so that it can approve or reject
socket.io messages as appropriate.
This also sets up future support for per-user read-only and
modify-only (no create) authorization levels.
Richard Hansen