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Randall Leeds commented on COUCHDB-1287: ---------------------------------------- I'm pretty sure you two won't actually hold a grudge, but try to be more civil. I'd really rather outside observers not think we all hate each other in this community. I've been super busy lately, or I'd offer a complete review myself. It sounds like you're close to reconciling your expectations, though, and that you may both be writing to the same feature. I agree with the approach of Benoit's patch more, though, re: the level at which authorisation is controlled. Benoit, can you put it on a branch along with Jason's tests? I think if you can get your patch to pass his tests we'll be a lot closer to landing this. > Inbox Database ("write-only" mode) > ---------------------------------- > > Key: COUCHDB-1287 > URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/COUCHDB-1287 > Project: CouchDB > Issue Type: New Feature > Components: HTTP Interface > Affects Versions: 1.2 > Reporter: Jason Smith > Priority: Minor > Attachments: > 0001-handle-dropbox-db.-Add-dropbox-true-to-security-obje.patch, > 0001-handle-dropbox-db.-Add-dropbox-true-to-security-obje.patch, > A_0001-Refactor-reader_acl-test-functions-into-a-loop.patch, > A_0002-Refactor-the-actual-read-check-out-of-the-member-che.patch, > A_0003-Allow-non-member-writes-if-_security.members.allow_a.patch, > B_0001-Refactor-reader_acl-test-functions-into-a-loop.patch, > B_0002-Refactor-the-actual-read-check-out-of-the-member-che.patch, > B_0003-Allow-non-member-updates-if-_security.members.allow_.patch > > > Currently, we can only grant combined read+write access in the _security > object "members" section. A user can either do both or neither. This prevents > a very common requirement for couch apps: sending private information from > less-privileged users to more-privileged users. > There is no (reasonable) way to make an "inbox" where anybody may create a > doc for me, but only I may read it. An inbox database allows user-to-user, or > user-to-admin private messages. (Not only chat messages, but asynchronous > notifications--with a per-user inbox, perhaps even service requests and > responses.) > There is no reason _security.members (formerly .readers) should control write > access. validate_doc_update() functions do this better. > I propose a boolean flag, _security.members.allow_anonymous_writes. If it is > true, then CouchDB will allow document updates from non-members, giving > validate_doc_update() the final word on accepting or rejecting the update. > Requirements: > 1. Everything about _security stays the same (backward-compatible) > 2. If members.allow_anonymous_writes === true, then most PUT and POSTs may > proceed > 3. All updates are still subject to approval by all validate_doc_update > functions, same as before. > These are the known changes to the security model. I consider these all to be > either very unlikely in practice, or worth the trade-off. > * If you write to an inbox DB, you know, for a time, a subset of its > documents (but that's the point) > * An _update function could reveal a document to the user, with or without > changing it. However, an admin must install such a misguided update function. > * You can launch timing attacks to learn information about validate_doc_update > * You might discover whether doc IDs exist in the DB or not > * You might discover a well-known open source validation function. You can > look for bugs in its source code. > * Zero or more things which Jason can't think of -- This message is automatically generated by JIRA. If you think it was sent incorrectly, please contact your JIRA administrators: https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ContactAdministrators!default.jspa For more information on JIRA, see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira