Living Without Sessions

http://www.peej.co.uk/articles/no-sessions.html

by rams • 18 years ago

26 28 18 years ago

peej.co.uk

an interesting read but one thing I didn't understand, how is one meant to save the plaintext username & password client side (so as to be able to send them with each request) without putting them in a cookie or requiring that the user's browser is set to 'remember this password' - anyone got any ideas?

mtts• 18 years ago

I think the point is not that no session state at all should be stored client side, but that most session state should not be.

alan• 18 years ago

Actually, Peej is a REST fan. He's saying that if there's session state it should be on the client side. There should be none on the server side.

shutter• 18 years ago

That's authentication/authorization info; it should/must be stored on the client.

DougBTX• 18 years ago

In theory by using a cookie which can be verified by any server, but which can only be generated with the user's password (which is never stored in clear text).

There is an article here, http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2008/05/16/hardened-state... but the PDF link seems dead.

briansmith• 18 years ago

Browsers have that functionality built in as long as you are using RFC 2617 authentication.

newt03113• 18 years ago

In theory. What about in practice?

greenagain• 18 years ago

"Some Web frameworks use session state to track and hold information about the user throughout their journey through the site, however they go against the RESTful principles and should really be treated as a bug."

I'll bet this guy's not fun to be in design meetings with.

nuclear_eclipse2• 18 years ago

How do you prevent against CSRF attacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-site_request_forgery) if you don't maintain any state server-side?

The classic (and best) method for foiling these attacks is to store a special/randomized token in a server-side session, and require that token to be submitted from the client via a standard form, essentially making forged attacks impossible. Take away the ability to store these tokens in some sort of server-side session, and you open your site to attack?

sfg• 18 years ago

In his example, where the server maintains the state of the basket, all the requests from the user require a user name and password which will be used to authenticate the user and thus prevent identity forging.

JulianMorrison5• 18 years ago

Give a ticket with each response, require a ticket with each request. Tickets are signed with HMAC, dated, and individualized to the user login. Creating a ticket, the server forgets it. Receiving a ticket, the server checks it, creates another, and forgets that.

nuclear_eclipse2• 18 years ago

I don't quite understand how the server would validate the ticket if it's been forgotten. Wouldn't that just allow any forged request to generate a seemingly valid ticket and submit a request like that. Further, excuse my ignorance, but can you explain how HMAC would help in a more user-friendly language than what Wikipedia provides?

newt03113• 18 years ago

What about MITM attacks?

Seriously, if you want security, use SSL.

run4yourlives3• 18 years ago

I'm in full agreement with him within the frames of the shopping cart analogy/function. I'm trying to think though, of things I currently use a session state for that would suffer under this process.

The cart on client scares me when it has to do with data that isn't trivial. (ie, personal data etc) I don't have these concerns with the "cart on the server" idea, but it does create some interesting issues where devs need to be explicitly aware of who is accessing this data at any given time.

newt03113• 18 years ago

No kidding. Preventing forgery would be a nightmare.

jgrahamc2• 18 years ago

No it isn't. You just sign the data that's on the client and check the signature when it is returned. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=325551.

jwilliams• 18 years ago

I read this and thought - why not just use sessions?

His client example is riddled with security and integrity issues. People don't like accidentally closing a tab and losing everything.

His server example is just another way of doing sessions.

snorkel• 18 years ago

Also the user loses their entire state if they switch web browsers or sit down at a different terminal. Granted they'd have to log back into your site to restore their state but at least there's something there to be restored.

njharman• 18 years ago

What if you need state for users without username and password?

For instance let them add things to their cart and only require registraton/login once they buy.

What if you want more than one basket?

What if baskets are shared among users.

Replace "basket" with "state" for above.

How is http://example.org/shop/users/johndoe/basket different/better than http://example.org/shop/users/johndoe/?sessionkey=123456 or http://example.org/shop/baskets/123456/

"differ from storing the cart in a user session" I never store anything but sessions in user sessions, carts go in the cart table/whatever. Carts may have a session_id they are associated with, but they are probably keyed to user instead(depends). Probably stored in a cookie(state on the client).

Not saying author is wrong, I just don't get it.

And how come rest folks don't end their resources with a '/'. like http://example.com/users/bob/ The "root" resource ends in a slash. http://example.com/ Having that be inconsistent with other resources always bugs me. I tend to have verbs not end in slash. http://example.com/users/bob/delete Very consistent and orderly to my obcom mind.

jgrahamc2• 18 years ago

Old, old, old idea. Even I was writing about this in 2006.

http://www.jgc.org/blog/2006/04/stateless-web-pages-with-has...

When I wrote that Matt Sergeant posted that this idea had been around since at least 1999.

Living Without Sessions

Related Stories