Re: Chained proxies, persistent connections, authentication

With the http authentication framework, only requests are authenticated  
and
never connections. If a proxy extends authentication to the (persistent)
connection, it introduces a security hole such as you observed.

//Stefan

Am Donnerstag, 23.10.03, um 16:31 Uhr (Europe/Berlin) schrieb Rob  
Maidment:

>
>
> I am currently investigating a problem that occurs in this type of  
> scenario:
>
> browser -> proxy1 -> proxy2 -> server
>
> Proxy1 is actually a Squid proxy, it is passing though the end-user  
> authentication to proxy2.  The problem occurs because proxy1 is  
> reusing connections to proxy2 for requests from different users, but  
> proxy2 is only authenticating the first request on each new  
> connection.  This means that subsequent requests are not being  
> authenticated, and these requests are being treated as if they  
> originated from the first user to use the connection. 
>
> Which proxy is at fault?  I understood that one of the intended  
> benefits of persistent connections was that a proxy would only have to  
> authenticate the first request on each connection, which is a huge  
> performance benefit.  But ths assumes that a downstream proxy that  
> passes through user authentication will not re-use the connection for  
> different users.  Having said that, so far I have been unable to find  
> any specification that says a proxy need only authenticate the first  
> request on each connection.
>
> I'd appreciate any thoughts on the matter,
>
>
> Rob Maidment.
>
>
>
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Received on Thursday, 23 October 2003 10:40:33 UTC