Re: Mechanics of changing passwords using regular validation system
Re: Mechanics of changing passwords using regular validation system
- Subject: Re: Mechanics of changing passwords using regular validation system
- From: Ramsey Gurley <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 10:04:36 -0700
On Feb 25, 2015, at 3:07 AM, Paul Hoadley <email@hidden> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a User entity with a password attribute that contains a BCrypt-hashed password. So User has setPassword() and password() methods, and also cover methods setPlaintextPassword() that does the hashing (and then calls setPassword()) and plaintextPassword() that returns null. It works fine.
Not to get all over your case about it, but how would you ever return a plaintextPassword() from a one way hash? That indicates to me you are storing the plain password somewhere when you probably shouldn’t.
> There are a couple of things that I would normally do at the application level that I thought might be reasonably moved down to the regular validation system, but it doesn't seem straightforward.
WOComponent implements NSValidation. It’s okay to do validateKey methods in the component when that makes sense :-)
> 1. Changing the password. A method User.changePassword(String oldPassword, String newPassword, String confirmPassword) would take those form values and do the obvious: change the password if oldPassword hashes correctly and newPassword == confirmPassword.
To me, this doesn’t seem like model logic. I would implement this in a custom component especially for editing passwords.
> 2. Validate the plaintext password (say, is it long enough). This could be done in setPlaintextPassword().
Yeah, that makes sense.
> What I'd like is for it all to be part of the validation system, such that when saveChanges() is called, validateForSave() throws appropriate exceptions and messages could be sent to the view layer. But it's a bit hairy. Consider just setPlaintextPassword(). Say the supplied string is too short and it fails the password length test. My naive solution was to create the ValidationException, but hang onto it until saveChanges() is called—but, and you can see where this is leading, validateForSave() doesn't get called unless the password is actually changed (assuming nothing else on the User is changed), so I don't get to throw that exception I stashed earlier. In that case I might be able to make the change to the too-short string, and do what I was planning, but the changePassword() method is another story.
While WOComponents can have validateKey methods, what you want to do here is validate two values: newPass1, newPass2. That’s something you’d typically do in a validateFor method. But that’s EOValidation interface, and WOComponents don’t do that. In this case, what I would do (did) is compare these values in takeValuesFromRequest on the component and if they are mismatched/empty then create a validation exception and pass it to validationFailedWithException there.
> Say changePassword() is called, but oldPassword doesn't hash correctly. Now what? Do I call setPlaintextPassword(newPassword) anyway to ensure validateForSave() is called? But then in that method, I throw the exception I stashed, sure, but the password has now _changed_ even though the app reports it _hasn't_. So a subsequent call to changePassword() with the previous oldPassword value is going to fail. Again, naively, I considered maybe changing it _back_ to the snapshot value for that attribute in validateForSave() before throwing the exception, but then BAM! EOF Commandment #4:
>
>> Don't modify any EO properties in validateFor...(...) methods
>
> So I'm stumped. Does this sound possible, or should I give up and continue to handle this kind of thing outside the regular validation system?
If you’d like, have a look at my implementation:
https://github.com/nullterminated/ponder/blob/master/ERAuth/Sources/er/auth/components/ERAEditPassword.java
https://github.com/nullterminated/ponder/blob/master/ERUsers/Sources/er/users/model/ERUser.java
>
>
> --
> Paul Hoadley
> http://logicsquad.net/
>
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