RE: ACL and lockdiscovery

> 
> For the question of why a lock token is ever sent back to the 
> client, (I assume you mean "in lock discovery" ... it of 
> course has to be sent back to the client creating the lock).  
> The reason is that there can be several locks on a resource, 
> and the client may only want to UNLOCK a particular lock.

Yes, this is important, and I'll add a bit more detail for client
considerations:

1. The client MUST remember the lock token and/or put some 
   self-identifying information in the owner field of the lock
   That's because if I'm running two WebDAV clients, possibly
   either on the same computer or two different computers but 
   both logged in as me, those two clients need to use only their
   own locks.  It would mess things up if my synchronization client
   used the lock token taken out by my authoring client and 
   overwrote all my new changes.  It's not enough to be the user
   that owns the lock, the client must also be the same client (or
   coordinating with the same client) that took out the lock.

2. If the server doesn't provide the lock token in the lock discovery
   property value, how are client supposed to know *which* locks
   are currently on the resource?   The lock token is currently the
   only way to identify a lock.  This information can help the client
   figure out what's going on -- e.g. to be confident that the lock
   that the client requested an hour ago is still valid.

Lisa

> 
> Cheers,
> Geoff
> 
> Guido wrote on 09/21/2003 05:52:24 AM:
> 
> > I dare to disagree.
> > The lock token ALLOWS clients to be written for the behaviour Geoff 
> > describes (2 clients working on behalf of the same user 
> cannot unlock 
> > each others lock).
> > 
> > But does that imply that clients acommodating the use case 
> of wanting 
> > to unlock another client's lock are not compliant? Why 
> would the lock 
> > token then be sent back to the client ever (instead of just 
> a general 
> > locking state)?
> > 
> > Guido
> > 
> > 
> > Geoffrey M Clemm <geoffrey.clemm@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > > If the client doesn't have permission to do an UNLOCK,
> > > or if the lock automatically times out
> > > (the two use cases identified where the server is likely 
> to withhold 
> > > the lock token), the client either cannot do an UNLOCK, 
> or does not 
> > > need to do an UNLOCK.
> > >
> > > WRT clients that do not store the lock tokens, but rather try to 
> > > steal any lock token that is allowed by access control, this 
> > > violates the whole point of having lock tokens instead of just a 
> > > server-side lock (i.e. preventing two clients working on 
> behalf of 
> > > the same user from stomping on each other),
> > > and such a client should be fixed, not catered to by servers.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Geoff
> > >
> > > "Lisa Dusseault" <lisa@xythos.com> wrote on 09/18/2003 
> 12:32:20 PM:
> > >
> > >> Unfortunately, withholding the locktoken from the client that 
> > >> requested that lock would break UNLOCK for some clients 
> that don't 
> > >> store their own lock tokens. Those clients might show error 
> > >> messages & cause support calls.
> > >> Thus, as a matter of interoperability, a server would at 
> least have
> > >> to be careful in providing incomplete information in 
> lockdiscovery.
> > >>
> > >> This area is murkier than I had thought.  Should there be a 
> > >> clarification in RFC2518bis? It would obviously be 
> easier to write 
> > >> interoperable clients if all servers had to behave the 
> same in this 
> > >> area.  Is there a de facto
> > >
> > >> minimum standard here that we can clarify in the next rev?
> > >>
> > >> lisa
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org 
> > >> [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]
> > >
> > >> On Behalf Of Geoffrey M Clemm
> > >> Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 5:17 AM
> > >> To: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> > >> Subject: RE: ACL and lockdiscovery
> > >
> > >>
> > >> That is not correct.  RFC-2518 explicitly states in section 13.8 
> > >> (where the DAV:lockdiscovery property is defined):
> > >>
> > >> "The server is free to withhold any or all of this 
> information if 
> > >> the requesting principal does not have sufficient access 
> rights to 
> > >> see the requested data."
> > >>
> > >> In particular, if the client does not have sufficient 
> access rights 
> > >> to UNLOCK the resource, a server could very reasonably choose to 
> > >> hide the lock-token information.
> > >>
> > >> In addition, a server for which locks have a reasonably short 
> > >> maximum expiration may chose to never expose the lock 
> tokens (i.e. 
> > >> nobody has sufficient access rights to see the lock tokens).
> > >>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >> Geoff
> > >>
> > >> w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org wrote on 09/17/2003 07:49:20 PM:
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>> I'd also point out that the lockdiscovery property MUST contain 
> > >>> all the lock tokens, regardless of access control 
> settings.  This 
> > >>> is not considered a security leak, because 
> authorization is also 
> > >>> needed to use a lock token.  So this is the server 
> logic to apply 
> > >>> whenever the client provides a lock token:
> > >>>
> > >>> Is this the same authorization context that took out the lock?
> > >>>   Yes {
> > >>>    Allow the operation normally, provided the operation is
> > >>>    allowed, and provided the lock token is correct and all
> > >>>    required lock tokens are provided, etc.
> > >>>   } No {
> > >>>    Is this an UNLOCK operation, with an authorization that
> > >>>    includes permission to delete others' locks?
> > >>>    Yes {
> > >>>       perform UNLOCK
> > >>>    } No {
> > >>>       Fail request
> > >>>    }
> > >>>   }
> > >>>
> > >>> Lisa
> > >>>
> > >>>> -----Original Message-----
> > >>>> From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org 
> > >>>> [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Eric Sedlar
> > >>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 11:17 AM
> > >>>> To: 'Horst Liermann'; w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> > >>>> Subject: RE: ACL and lockdiscovery
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> The ACL spec hasn't defined a privilege specifically 
> to control 
> > >>>> read access to the lockdiscovery property, or even a 
> privilege to 
> > >>>> control access to all the privileges in total. An individual 
> > >>>> server implementation could provide such a privilege and 
> > >>>> aggregate it under <dav:read>, but this isn't required.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> --Eric
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> -----Original Message-----
> > >>>>> From: w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org 
> > >>>>> [mailto:w3c-dist-auth-request@w3.org]
> > >>>>> On Behalf Of Horst Liermann
> > >>>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 17, 2003 10:08 AM
> > >>>>> To: 'w3c-dist-auth@w3.org'
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Hi all,
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> some questions about lockdiscovery and ACL's
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Suppose, you have a server with WebDAV ( including 
> lock) and it 
> > >>>>> support's ACL. What is the behavior for lockdiscovery, can
> > >>>> I see all
> > >>>>> lock token or am I only allowed to see the tokens where I
> > >>>> am the owner
> > >>>>> of the lock ? As far as I understand, lockdiscovery reports
> > >>>> all locks.
> > >>>>> Is this a security leak ?
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> Best Regards
> > >>>>>    Horst
> > 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 22 September 2003 12:42:16 UTC