Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry,
On 12/30/23 01:20, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 12/29/2023 11:22 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 12/28/23 18:33, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 12/28/2023 3:38 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry.
On 12/27/23 02:13, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
I implemented the filter as you suggested. But I guess I'm going
to need some education on sessions. Down in a user profile web
page I have a button to "Impersonate".
I'm with you so far.
I create the GenericPrincipal object and store it in the session.
I've checked several times, and every time I come back to that
code, the attribute is set in the session object.
Good. When you do that, do you remove the "real" user's
GenericPrincipal object from the session? Or are they both in there?
>
Sorry... lost you on that one. I am just setting a custom >
"GenericPrincipal" attribute named "impersonatedPrincipal" in the
session when a user clicks the "Impersonate" button on the web page.
This answers my question. I was wondering if you do this:
session.setAttribute("user", impersonatedUser); // Replace
or this:
session.setAttribut("impersonatedUser", impersonatedUser);
And it seems you are doing the second one.
In my understanding, at this point I'm just 'telling' the session
that on subsequent requests in the custom filter, here's a principal
object that I want to insert.
As long as your code agrees with you :)
I also noted in your early example that you stored a 'User' class as
the attribute in the session, not a GenericPrincipal. I couldn't
find a "User" class. So I just used GenericPrincipal, since that was
what I will insert in the request object in the filter.
We use User in our session, and essentially wrap it in a
GenericPrincipal when necessary. We are playing a lot of games, here,
in our code, so I apologize if we go down this road and it's a lot
longer than you had expected...
Remember that if Tomcat is going to enforce your authentication and
authorization constraints, your Filter will run after that, and
Tomcat and your application will disagree over which user is
currently logged-in.
>
I'm not removing the real principal from anything. Not sure how to
do that? in HttpSession? in HttpRequest? I assumed returning my
new GenericPrincipal in the RequestFacade would override any other
code asking for the principal.
It will... unless that code runs before your Filter has a chance to
pull the wool over the application's eyes. For example... Tomcat's
authentication and authorization code will run in a Valve, which runs
before all Filters.
How do I go about removing the real principal?
Let's save that for later ;)
But when I put breakpoint in my new Filter object and look in the
session, no attribute. It's a different session object from what I
can tell.
That's weird.
When you say "every time I come back to that code, the attribute is
set in the session" ... what code are you taking about?
>
The filter's 'version' of the session doesn't have the
"impersonatedPrincipal" attribute set (it doesn't have any attributes
set). But after clicking Impersonate, hitting the breakpoint, and
watching the session attribute get set, I hit F5 to refresh the page.
The filter breakpoint again doesn't have the attribute. But if I
click "Impersonate" again and hit that breakpoint the
"impersonatedPrincipal" session attribute exists in the session.
Is the session identifier changing?
I really thought I understood session objects. I thought there was
only one session object throughout the processing of a servlet.
Yes, if s/servlet/request/.
But I'm obviously missing something in the flows. Why is there a
different session object in the filter than in the main body of the
servlet? I did the getSession(false) as you suggested. The session
object is not null. It just doesn't have the attribute set. Yet if
I hit the Impersonate button again and hit the breakpoint, the
GenericPrincipal attribute is sitting in the session just as I placed
it earlier.
If the difference between when Tomcat evaluates e.g. user-roles
versus when your application does won't explain what's happening, we
might need to see some code.
Code:
Other than a loop that builds a Roles vector, these are the two lines
that create the session attribute when the "Impersonate" button is
clicked.
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal( getUserName(),
getPassword(),
roles );
getCtrl().getRequest().getSession(false).setAttribute(
"impersonatedPrincipal", newPrincipal );
Hmm. What are Ctrl and Request that you are "getting"? Usually, both
the servlet and the Filter see objects passed to them directly in the
doFilter() and service()/doGet/doPost/whatever methods in the servlet.
And this is the filter:
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
HttpSession session =
((HttpServletRequest)request).getSession(false);
if(session != null)
{
final
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Chris,
On 12/29/2023 11:22 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 12/28/23 18:33, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 12/28/2023 3:38 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry.
On 12/27/23 02:13, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
I implemented the filter as you suggested. But I guess I'm going
to need some education on sessions. Down in a user profile web
page I have a button to "Impersonate".
I'm with you so far.
I create the GenericPrincipal object and store it in the session.
I've checked several times, and every time I come back to that
code, the attribute is set in the session object.
Good. When you do that, do you remove the "real" user's
GenericPrincipal object from the session? Or are they both in there?
>
Sorry... lost you on that one. I am just setting a custom >
"GenericPrincipal" attribute named "impersonatedPrincipal" in the
session when a user clicks the "Impersonate" button on the web page.
This answers my question. I was wondering if you do this:
session.setAttribute("user", impersonatedUser); // Replace
or this:
session.setAttribut("impersonatedUser", impersonatedUser);
And it seems you are doing the second one.
In my understanding, at this point I'm just 'telling' the session
that on subsequent requests in the custom filter, here's a principal
object that I want to insert.
As long as your code agrees with you :)
I also noted in your early example that you stored a 'User' class as
the attribute in the session, not a GenericPrincipal. I couldn't
find a "User" class. So I just used GenericPrincipal, since that was
what I will insert in the request object in the filter.
We use User in our session, and essentially wrap it in a
GenericPrincipal when necessary. We are playing a lot of games, here,
in our code, so I apologize if we go down this road and it's a lot
longer than you had expected...
Remember that if Tomcat is going to enforce your authentication and
authorization constraints, your Filter will run after that, and
Tomcat and your application will disagree over which user is
currently logged-in.
>
I'm not removing the real principal from anything. Not sure how to
do that? in HttpSession? in HttpRequest? I assumed returning my
new GenericPrincipal in the RequestFacade would override any other
code asking for the principal.
It will... unless that code runs before your Filter has a chance to
pull the wool over the application's eyes. For example... Tomcat's
authentication and authorization code will run in a Valve, which runs
before all Filters.
How do I go about removing the real principal?
Let's save that for later ;)
But when I put breakpoint in my new Filter object and look in the
session, no attribute. It's a different session object from what I
can tell.
That's weird.
When you say "every time I come back to that code, the attribute is
set in the session" ... what code are you taking about?
>
The filter's 'version' of the session doesn't have the
"impersonatedPrincipal" attribute set (it doesn't have any attributes
set). But after clicking Impersonate, hitting the breakpoint, and
watching the session attribute get set, I hit F5 to refresh the page.
The filter breakpoint again doesn't have the attribute. But if I
click "Impersonate" again and hit that breakpoint the
"impersonatedPrincipal" session attribute exists in the session.
Is the session identifier changing?
I really thought I understood session objects. I thought there was
only one session object throughout the processing of a servlet.
Yes, if s/servlet/request/.
But I'm obviously missing something in the flows. Why is there a
different session object in the filter than in the main body of the
servlet? I did the getSession(false) as you suggested. The session
object is not null. It just doesn't have the attribute set. Yet if
I hit the Impersonate button again and hit the breakpoint, the
GenericPrincipal attribute is sitting in the session just as I placed
it earlier.
If the difference between when Tomcat evaluates e.g. user-roles
versus when your application does won't explain what's happening, we
might need to see some code.
Code:
Other than a loop that builds a Roles vector, these are the two lines
that create the session attribute when the "Impersonate" button is
clicked.
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal( getUserName(),
getPassword(),
roles );
getCtrl().getRequest().getSession(false).setAttribute(
"impersonatedPrincipal", newPrincipal );
Hmm. What are Ctrl and Request that you are "getting"? Usually, both
the servlet and the Filter see objects passed to them directly in the
doFilter() and service()/doGet/doPost/whatever methods in the servlet.
And this is the filter:
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
HttpSession session =
((HttpServletRequest)request).getSession(false);
if(session != null)
{
final GenericPrincipal impersonatedPrincipal =
(GenericPrincipal)
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry,
On 12/28/23 18:33, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 12/28/2023 3:38 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry.
On 12/27/23 02:13, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
I implemented the filter as you suggested. But I guess I'm going to
need some education on sessions. Down in a user profile web page I
have a button to "Impersonate".
I'm with you so far.
I create the GenericPrincipal object and store it in the session.
I've checked several times, and every time I come back to that code,
the attribute is set in the session object.
Good. When you do that, do you remove the "real" user's
GenericPrincipal object from the session? Or are they both in there?
>
Sorry... lost you on that one. I am just setting a custom > "GenericPrincipal"
attribute named "impersonatedPrincipal" in the
session when a user clicks the "Impersonate" button on the web page.
This answers my question. I was wondering if you do this:
session.setAttribute("user", impersonatedUser); // Replace
or this:
session.setAttribut("impersonatedUser", impersonatedUser);
And it seems you are doing the second one.
In my understanding, at this point I'm just 'telling' the session
that on subsequent requests in the custom filter, here's a principal
object that I want to insert.
As long as your code agrees with you :)
I also noted in your early example that you stored a
'User' class as the attribute in the session, not a GenericPrincipal. I
couldn't find a "User" class. So I just used GenericPrincipal, since
that was what I will insert in the request object in the filter.
We use User in our session, and essentially wrap it in a
GenericPrincipal when necessary. We are playing a lot of games, here, in
our code, so I apologize if we go down this road and it's a lot longer
than you had expected...
Remember that if Tomcat is going to enforce your authentication and
authorization constraints, your Filter will run after that, and Tomcat
and your application will disagree over which user is currently
logged-in.
>
I'm not removing the real principal from anything. Not sure how to do
that? in HttpSession? in HttpRequest? I assumed returning my new
GenericPrincipal in the RequestFacade would override any other code
asking for the principal.
It will... unless that code runs before your Filter has a chance to pull
the wool over the application's eyes. For example... Tomcat's
authentication and authorization code will run in a Valve, which runs
before all Filters.
How do I go about removing the real principal?
Let's save that for later ;)
But when I put breakpoint in my new Filter object and look in the
session, no attribute. It's a different session object from what I
can tell.
That's weird.
When you say "every time I come back to that code, the attribute is
set in the session" ... what code are you taking about?
>
The filter's 'version' of the session doesn't have the
"impersonatedPrincipal" attribute set (it doesn't have any attributes
set). But after clicking Impersonate, hitting the breakpoint, and
watching the session attribute get set, I hit F5 to refresh the page.
The filter breakpoint again doesn't have the attribute. But if I click
"Impersonate" again and hit that breakpoint the "impersonatedPrincipal"
session attribute exists in the session.
Is the session identifier changing?
I really thought I understood session objects. I thought there was
only one session object throughout the processing of a servlet.
Yes, if s/servlet/request/.
But I'm obviously missing something in the flows. Why is there a
different session object in the filter than in the main body of the
servlet? I did the getSession(false) as you suggested. The session
object is not null. It just doesn't have the attribute set. Yet if
I hit the Impersonate button again and hit the breakpoint, the
GenericPrincipal attribute is sitting in the session just as I placed
it earlier.
If the difference between when Tomcat evaluates e.g. user-roles versus
when your application does won't explain what's happening, we might
need to see some code.
Code:
Other than a loop that builds a Roles vector, these are the two lines
that create the session attribute when the "Impersonate" button is clicked.
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal( getUserName(),
getPassword(),
roles );
getCtrl().getRequest().getSession(false).setAttribute(
"impersonatedPrincipal", newPrincipal );
Hmm. What are Ctrl and Request that you are "getting"? Usually, both the
servlet and the Filter see objects passed to them directly in the
doFilter() and service()/doGet/doPost/whatever methods in the servlet.
And this is the filter:
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
HttpSession session =
((HttpServletRequest)request).getSession(false);
if(session != null)
{
final GenericPrincipal impersonatedPrincipal =
(GenericPrincipal) session.getAttribute("impersonatedPrincipal");
if
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Chris,
On 12/28/2023 3:38 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry.
On 12/27/23 02:13, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
I implemented the filter as you suggested. But I guess I'm going to
need some education on sessions. Down in a user profile web page I
have a button to "Impersonate".
I'm with you so far.
I create the GenericPrincipal object and store it in the session.
I've checked several times, and every time I come back to that code,
the attribute is set in the session object.
Good. When you do that, do you remove the "real" user's
GenericPrincipal object from the session? Or are they both in there?
Sorry... lost you on that one. I am just setting a custom
"GenericPrincipal" attribute named "impersonatedPrincipal" in the
session when a user clicks the "Impersonate" button on the web page. In
my understanding, at this point I'm just 'telling' the session that on
subsequent requests in the custom filter, here's a principal object that
I want to insert. I also noted in your early example that you stored a
'User' class as the attribute in the session, not a GenericPrincipal. I
couldn't find a "User" class. So I just used GenericPrincipal, since
that was what I will insert in the request object in the filter.
Remember that if Tomcat is going to enforce your authentication and
authorization constraints, your Filter will run after that, and Tomcat
and your application will disagree over which user is currently
logged-in.
I'm not removing the real principal from anything. Not sure how to do
that? in HttpSession? in HttpRequest? I assumed returning my new
GenericPrincipal in the RequestFacade would override any other code
asking for the principal. How do I go about removing the real principal?
But when I put breakpoint in my new Filter object and look in the
session, no attribute. It's a different session object from what I
can tell.
That's weird.
When you say "every time I come back to that code, the attribute is
set in the session" ... what code are you taking about?
The filter's 'version' of the session doesn't have the
"impersonatedPrincipal" attribute set (it doesn't have any attributes
set). But after clicking Impersonate, hitting the breakpoint, and
watching the session attribute get set, I hit F5 to refresh the page.
The filter breakpoint again doesn't have the attribute. But if I click
"Impersonate" again and hit that breakpoint the "impersonatedPrincipal"
session attribute exists in the session.
I really thought I understood session objects. I thought there was
only one session object throughout the processing of a servlet.
Yes, if s/servlet/request/.
But I'm obviously missing something in the flows. Why is there a
different session object in the filter than in the main body of the
servlet? I did the getSession(false) as you suggested. The session
object is not null. It just doesn't have the attribute set. Yet if
I hit the Impersonate button again and hit the breakpoint, the
GenericPrincipal attribute is sitting in the session just as I placed
it earlier.
If the difference between when Tomcat evaluates e.g. user-roles versus
when your application does won't explain what's happening, we might
need to see some code.
Code:
Other than a loop that builds a Roles vector, these are the two lines
that create the session attribute when the "Impersonate" button is clicked.
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal( getUserName(),
getPassword(),
roles );
getCtrl().getRequest().getSession(false).setAttribute(
"impersonatedPrincipal", newPrincipal );
And this is the filter:
PrintWriter out = response.getWriter();
HttpSession session =
((HttpServletRequest)request).getSession(false);
if(session != null)
{
final GenericPrincipal impersonatedPrincipal =
(GenericPrincipal) session.getAttribute("impersonatedPrincipal");
if (impersonatedPrincipal != null)
{
System.out.println( "Impersonating");
request = new
HttpServletRequestWrapper((HttpServletRequest)request)
{
public Principal getUserPrincipal()
{
return impersonatedPrincipal;
}
};
}
}
chain.doFilter(request, response);
I feel like I'm right on top of the solution. But I just can't seem to
get over the finish line. Thanks for you help.
-chris
-
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Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry. On 12/27/23 02:13, Jerry Malcolm wrote: I implemented the filter as you suggested. But I guess I'm going to need some education on sessions. Down in a user profile web page I have a button to "Impersonate". I'm with you so far. I create the GenericPrincipal object and store it in the session. I've checked several times, and every time I come back to that code, the attribute is set in the session object. Good. When you do that, do you remove the "real" user's GenericPrincipal object from the session? Or are they both in there? Remember that if Tomcat is going to enforce your authentication and authorization constraints, your Filter will run after that, and Tomcat and your application will disagree over which user is currently logged-in. But when I put breakpoint in my new Filter object and look in the session, no attribute. It's a different session object from what I can tell. That's weird. When you say "every time I come back to that code, the attribute is set in the session" ... what code are you taking about? I really thought I understood session objects. I thought there was only one session object throughout the processing of a servlet. Yes, if s/servlet/request/. But I'm obviously missing something in the flows. Why is there a different session object in the filter than in the main body of the servlet? I did the getSession(false) as you suggested. The session object is not null. It just doesn't have the attribute set. Yet if I hit the Impersonate button again and hit the breakpoint, the GenericPrincipal attribute is sitting in the session just as I placed it earlier. If the difference between when Tomcat evaluates e.g. user-roles versus when your application does won't explain what's happening, we might need to see some code. -chris - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Chris,
On 12/26/2023 11:35 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 12/24/23 19:18, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 11/8/2023 2:43 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 11/6/23 23:22, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
On 11/5/2023 11:54 AM, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as
various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what
they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different
for different users. I would like to implement an admin password
where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally
realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling
the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply
need to make every user have two passwords... their real
personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative
I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the
USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the
user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with
that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and
also because the user can no longer log in while their password
is replaced with my password.
I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code
somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done
anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in
the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to
need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication
use my updated class instead of the default.
Suggestions?
This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be
done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem
above, then might I suggest the following?
Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user,
what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume
the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by
changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different
username.
Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own
application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)?
-chris
Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly
what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal
could be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do
that?
Chris, I'm not having any luck googling info on how to replace the
user principal object in the session object. This is exactly what I
need to do. But looks like I'm going to need a little bit of
guidance to figure out how to implement it.
I forgot that "we" are using our own custom principal and actually
not using Tomcat's authentication and authorization. So we do things
differently.
If you are using FORM authentication, then I think this is a little
easier.
You may have to do a nasty bit of casting to internal Tomcat classes
and/or use reflection, but you can simply call:
org.apache.catalina.Session.setPrincipal(java.security.Principal)
The StandardSession class you probably are already getting from
Tomcat implements that interface, so you should be able to call that.
I think while Tomcat will accept any java.security.Principal, in
practice, you'll want to use
org.apache.catalina.realm.GenericPrincipal.
-chris
I finally had a minute to try to implement your suggestion from a few
weeks ago. I got everything coded. But I'm getting a
ClassCastException when trying to retrieve StandardSession. I'm
getting a StandardSessionFacade object instead of StandardSession. I
looked at the javaDoc hoping to find a way to get the StandardSession
from the facade object. But no luck. Am I not going about this
correctly in my code? How can get access to the StandardSession
object instead of the StandardSessionFacade object? Thx
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal(
getUserName(), getPassword(), roles );
((StandardSession)getCtrl().getRequest().getSession()).setPrincipal(
newPrincipal );
Hmm. It seems that StandardSessionFacade is used to prevent the kind
of thing you are trying to do, probably as a protection against
potentially malicious applications.
If you are willing to get messier, you can use reflection to get the
value of the StandardSessionFacade.session member, which will be a
StandardSession object.
Another option is to do what my application does, which is to store
the user in a session attribute and then wrap each request in a Filter
making it available:
doFilter(...) {
HttpSession s = request.getSession(false);
if(null != s) {
final User u = s.getAttribute("user");
if(null != u) {
// Wrap request
request = new HttpServletRequestWrapper(request) {
public Principal getUserPrincipal() {
return u;
}
};
}
}
chain.doFilter(request, response);
}
The above is psuedocode
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry,
On 12/24/23 19:18, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
Chris,
On 11/8/2023 2:43 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 11/6/23 23:22, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
On 11/5/2023 11:54 AM, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote:
Jerry,
On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote:
My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various
users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are
seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for
different users. I would like to implement an admin password where
I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize
the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the
security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to
make every user have two passwords... their real personal
password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have
right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS
table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's
original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that
solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also
because the user can no longer log in while their password is
replaced with my password.
I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code
somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything
like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right
direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to
modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my
updated class instead of the default.
Suggestions?
This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done
differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above,
then might I suggest the following?
Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user,
what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume
the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by
changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different
username.
Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own
application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)?
-chris
Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly
what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal could
be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do that?
Chris, I'm not having any luck googling info on how to replace the
user principal object in the session object. This is exactly what I
need to do. But looks like I'm going to need a little bit of
guidance to figure out how to implement it.
I forgot that "we" are using our own custom principal and actually not
using Tomcat's authentication and authorization. So we do things
differently.
If you are using FORM authentication, then I think this is a little
easier.
You may have to do a nasty bit of casting to internal Tomcat classes
and/or use reflection, but you can simply call:
org.apache.catalina.Session.setPrincipal(java.security.Principal)
The StandardSession class you probably are already getting from Tomcat
implements that interface, so you should be able to call that.
I think while Tomcat will accept any java.security.Principal, in
practice, you'll want to use org.apache.catalina.realm.GenericPrincipal.
-chris
I finally had a minute to try to implement your suggestion from a few
weeks ago. I got everything coded. But I'm getting a
ClassCastException when trying to retrieve StandardSession. I'm
getting a StandardSessionFacade object instead of StandardSession. I
looked at the javaDoc hoping to find a way to get the StandardSession
from the facade object. But no luck. Am I not going about this
correctly in my code? How can get access to the StandardSession object
instead of the StandardSessionFacade object? Thx
GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal(
getUserName(), getPassword(), roles );
((StandardSession)getCtrl().getRequest().getSession()).setPrincipal(
newPrincipal );
Hmm. It seems that StandardSessionFacade is used to prevent the kind of
thing you are trying to do, probably as a protection against potentially
malicious applications.
If you are willing to get messier, you can use reflection to get the
value of the StandardSessionFacade.session member, which will be a
StandardSession object.
Another option is to do what my application does, which is to store the
user in a session attribute and then wrap each request in a Filter
making it available:
doFilter(...) {
HttpSession s = request.getSession(false);
if(null != s) {
final User u = s.getAttribute("user");
if(null != u) {
// Wrap request
request = new HttpServletRequestWrapper(request) {
public Principal getUserPrincipal() {
return u;
}
};
}
}
chain.doFilter(request, response);
}
The above is psuedocode typed from memory. I'm fairly sure we create a
new
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Chris, On 11/8/2023 2:43 PM, Christopher Schultz wrote: Jerry, On 11/6/23 23:22, Jerry Malcolm wrote: On 11/5/2023 11:54 AM, Jerry Malcolm wrote: On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote: Jerry, On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote: My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above, then might I suggest the following? Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user, what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different username. Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)? -chris Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal could be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do that? Chris, I'm not having any luck googling info on how to replace the user principal object in the session object. This is exactly what I need to do. But looks like I'm going to need a little bit of guidance to figure out how to implement it. I forgot that "we" are using our own custom principal and actually not using Tomcat's authentication and authorization. So we do things differently. If you are using FORM authentication, then I think this is a little easier. You may have to do a nasty bit of casting to internal Tomcat classes and/or use reflection, but you can simply call: org.apache.catalina.Session.setPrincipal(java.security.Principal) The StandardSession class you probably are already getting from Tomcat implements that interface, so you should be able to call that. I think while Tomcat will accept any java.security.Principal, in practice, you'll want to use org.apache.catalina.realm.GenericPrincipal. -chris I finally had a minute to try to implement your suggestion from a few weeks ago. I got everything coded. But I'm getting a ClassCastException when trying to retrieve StandardSession. I'm getting a StandardSessionFacade object instead of StandardSession. I looked at the javaDoc hoping to find a way to get the StandardSession from the facade object. But no luck. Am I not going about this correctly in my code? How can get access to the StandardSession object instead of the StandardSessionFacade object? Thx GenericPrincipal newPrincipal = new GenericPrincipal( getUserName(), getPassword(), roles ); ((StandardSession)getCtrl().getRequest().getSession()).setPrincipal( newPrincipal ); - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry, On 11/6/23 23:22, Jerry Malcolm wrote: On 11/5/2023 11:54 AM, Jerry Malcolm wrote: On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote: Jerry, On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote: My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above, then might I suggest the following? Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user, what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different username. Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)? -chris Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal could be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do that? Chris, I'm not having any luck googling info on how to replace the user principal object in the session object. This is exactly what I need to do. But looks like I'm going to need a little bit of guidance to figure out how to implement it. I forgot that "we" are using our own custom principal and actually not using Tomcat's authentication and authorization. So we do things differently. If you are using FORM authentication, then I think this is a little easier. You may have to do a nasty bit of casting to internal Tomcat classes and/or use reflection, but you can simply call: org.apache.catalina.Session.setPrincipal(java.security.Principal) The StandardSession class you probably are already getting from Tomcat implements that interface, so you should be able to call that. I think while Tomcat will accept any java.security.Principal, in practice, you'll want to use org.apache.catalina.realm.GenericPrincipal. -chris - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
On 11/5/2023 11:54 AM, Jerry Malcolm wrote: On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote: Jerry, On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote: My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above, then might I suggest the following? Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user, what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different username. Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)? -chris Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal could be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do that? Chris, I'm not having any luck googling info on how to replace the user principal object in the session object. This is exactly what I need to do. But looks like I'm going to need a little bit of guidance to figure out how to implement it. Thanks. Jerry - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
On 11/5/2023 9:26 AM, Christopher Schultz wrote: Jerry, On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote: My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above, then might I suggest the following? Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user, what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different username. Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)? -chris Hi Chris, it's my own webapp. Changing user principal is exactly what I'm trying to do. I wasn't aware that the user principal could be easily swapped. Where can I learn more about how to do that? - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry, On 11/4/23 20:17, Jerry Malcolm wrote: My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? This sounds like "impersonation" to me, which, I think, can be done differently. If you are indeed describing an X-Y problem above, then might I suggest the following? Instead of figuring out how to "add" a second password to a user, what about allowing you to login as e.g. "jerry" and then assume the identity of the user "tom"? You should be able to do this by changing the UserPrincipal in the session to have a different username. Which application are you trying to do this with? Your own application, or one which ships with Tomcat (e.g. Manager)? -chris - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
Jerry, > Am 05.11.2023 um 02:34 schrieb Brian Wolfe : > > You need to build a custom realm for that if you're using tomcat to manage > your user sessions and not creating your own sessions for your application. > You can extend the existing one that you're using. I assume you're using > the JDBC Realm since you said you have an USERS table. So you could add > another field to your table and extend the JDBC class to do an additional > check on your admin pwd field if you don't want them to have a second > account. > > https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/realm-howto.html#Standard_Realm_Implementations > > You will want to look at the source of the realm implementation to see how > you need to extend it. So you shouldn't have to do too much to get the > functionality you're looking for. > >> On Sat, Nov 4, 2023 at 8:18 PM Jerry Malcolm wrote: >> >> My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users >> (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since >> roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would >> like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId >> with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in >> this. But I am handling the security risks with additional >> authorizations. Back in the days when we had this requirement, we implemented an "admin tool" where we had the admin user login as themselves and then pick the user they wanted to see. At this time the password check was simply skipped. No fiddling with the password table, no security flaws as the admin tool was not available to the public. >> I simply need to make every user have two passwords... >> their real personal password, and the admin password. The only >> alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in >> the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the >> user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that >> solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the >> user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my >> password. >> >> I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. >> But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this >> already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the >> tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's >> involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the >> default. >> >> Suggestions? >> Would that be a solution? Peter >> Thx >> >> Jerry >> >> >> - >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org >> For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org >> >> > > -- > Thanks, > Brian Wolfe > https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-wolfe-3136425a/ - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
Re: Admin password for Tomcat
You need to build a custom realm for that if you're using tomcat to manage your user sessions and not creating your own sessions for your application. You can extend the existing one that you're using. I assume you're using the JDBC Realm since you said you have an USERS table. So you could add another field to your table and extend the JDBC class to do an additional check on your admin pwd field if you don't want them to have a second account. https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-9.0-doc/realm-howto.html#Standard_Realm_Implementations You will want to look at the source of the realm implementation to see how you need to extend it. So you shouldn't have to do too much to get the functionality you're looking for. On Sat, Nov 4, 2023 at 8:18 PM Jerry Malcolm wrote: > My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users > (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since > roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would > like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId > with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in > this. But I am handling the security risks with additional > authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... > their real personal password, and the admin password. The only > alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in > the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the > user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that > solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the > user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my > password. > > I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. > But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this > already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the > tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's > involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the > default. > > Suggestions? > > Thx > > Jerry > > > - > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org > > -- Thanks, Brian Wolfe https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-wolfe-3136425a/
Admin password for Tomcat
My support team needs to be able to log in to our site as various users (on behalf of...) to be able to see exactly what they are seeing since roles, access groups, history is different for different users. I would like to implement an admin password where I can log in as any userId with this password. I totally realize the security risks involved in this. But I am handling the security risks with additional authorizations. I simply need to make every user have two passwords... their real personal password, and the admin password. The only alternative I have right now is to save off the user's password hash in the USERS table, replace it with my password hash, then restore the user's original password when I'm done. I'm not thrilled with that solution first because it's a pain and error prone, and also because the user can no longer log in while their password is replaced with my password. I figure this function is buried in the authenticator code somewhere. But I'd first like to see if anybody has done anything like this already. If not, could somebody point me in the right direction to the tomcat source file that I'm going to need to modify and also what's involved in making authentication use my updated class instead of the default. Suggestions? Thx Jerry - To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscr...@tomcat.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: users-h...@tomcat.apache.org
