Re: Problem with Formbean validate method forwarding to input pag e

[Paul Barry]

The form bean is populated by the RequestProcessor, but you can put your 
logic to validate the session where ever you want.  The easiest way to 
understand it is to just look at the source code for 
org.apache.struts.action.RequestProcessor.  It has a number of 
processXXX methods, one being processPreprocess.  You might want to put 
your session validation there, which does it before the bean is 
instatiated, populated and validated and before processActionPerform is 
called.



Todd Bryant wrote:

Interesting. I have never looked at the request processor before. The main
question I have is - is the formbean populated BEFORE the request processor
runs or after? If the form bean is populated before the method you mention,
then the request process will still be circumvented by the formbean. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Barry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 4:47 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: Problem with Formbean validate method forwarding to input page

Maybe you should be handling your security in the request processor. 
Have a method like this:

protected ActionForward processActionPerform(
         HttpServletRequest request,
         HttpServletResponse response,
         Action action,
         ActionForm form,
         ActionMapping mapping)
         throws IOException, ServletException {
     try {
         validSession(request);
         return (action.execute(mapping, form, request, response));
     } catch (SecurityException e) {
         return (processException(request, response,e, form, mapping));
     }
}
Where validateSession throws a SecurityException if the user is not 
logged in and processException knows where to send the user to log in. 
There are different ways to do it, but the basic principle is to 
authenticate the user's session before the Action executes, so you don't 
have to worry about that in the Action.

Todd Bryant wrote:


That is a good suggestion, and I had thought of that, but the problem is
that a user would have to go from the error page back to the page they
were

on. This would make it prohibitively difficult to interact with this
particular app (too many clicks). 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Barry [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 4:07 PM
To: Struts Users Mailing List
Subject: Re: Problem with Formbean validate method forwarding to input
page

Make your input action an error page, which just has the error and no 
sensitive data and make a success forward that you only send the user to 
if everything checks out.

Todd Bryant wrote:



I have need for every page in my web app to be secure. What I originally
did


was extend the Action class to make a secure action class. The
SecureAction's perform method validates that the user is logged in and if
not, sends them to the login page. All actions in my app extend
SecureAction. To protect my jsp's, I put them in a subfolder of WEB-INF,
WEB-INF/jsp. This way a user cannot directly access any jsp. They can only
be accessed through a forward in an action. This completely secures all
resources in my application. 



This is where I run into a problem. If I use the validate() method of the
formbean and it returns a non-empty ActionErrors object, then the request
is


diverted to resource that is set as the "input", in this case a jsp.
Because


of this, if a user were to put in some bogus field values in the url, she
would be able to cause the formbean to no validate and get the jsp to
display, bypassing the secure action. I can secure each jsp, but this is
redundant if I have them in the WEB-INF folder in the first place. I would
rather avoid this "fix". 



I know that overriding the default action class is a common way to secure
your app as I have read about it more than one place, however, I have
never


seen this problem addressed. Has anyone else ran across this problem
before


and come up with a solution? Thanks in advance. 



Todd Bryant

Programmer/Analyst

University of Nebraska Foundation

402-472-0107








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