How to initialise a session in Play - java

Well, this is from a developer newly using Play. When it came to using session, I found its not at all like I have been doing in servlets or jsps.
I have tried reading documentation and found session in Play are stored in HTTP cookies rather. I have tried importing HTTP class of play.
My problem however is I am unable to initialise a new session to set values in it.
I have obviously tried using 'new' session as in Java and that obviosly didnt work out.
Session session = new session();
Also after looking somewhere I have used:
Session session = Http.Context.current().session();
which shows me error in identifying context and current
I have tried looking at sample codes and codes on net. each of them however is different and I don't get the basic way of using sessions in Play, so that after that I can use put and get to keep and retrieve.
I know the question seems too basic but believe me there is no exact answer available anywhere to what I need. So please help me regarding this.
Any answer, any piece of code, or any Link on this will be highly appreciated.

Forget everything about the sessions from the jsp and servlets world while working with the Play's session. Play doesn't store anything on the server side and by design it's completely stateless. The Play session is just a cookie attached to every http request and it's stored on the client side. Word 'session' may be misleading in your case.
Working with the session is pretty straight forward. All you need is inherited from play.mvc.Controller which you have to extend when creating your own controller. To put a value in it you simply call the session(String key, String value) method from within a controller. For example:
public class Application extends Controller {
public static Result login() {
session("key", "example value");
return ok("Welcome!");
}
}
If there is no session cookie stored on client side this method will create new one and attach it to the HTTP response. Otherwise it will modify the existing one.
To read stored value use:
String value = session("key");
You can also remove value from the session:
session().remove("key");
or completely destroy it:
session().clear();
These are helper methods to work with the particular cookie witch in Play's terminology is called session. Nothing stops you from creating another cookie with similar purpose. But it'll require more writing. These helper methods saves your time and in many cases are more than enough.
You can specify session cookie name in your application.conf by setting session.cookieName property.

In play 2.8 the Http.Context was deprecated. This means, among other things, that the method "session()" is no longer available in a controller.
This is the updated way of doing it:
public Result info(Http.Request request) {
//This is the equivalent to the old session()
request.session() ...
}
The Http.Request needs to be passed down through the route defined in routes. More information here.

Related

Used a token to secure API without authentification

Objective
When a person creates a resource (no need to connect), she receives a unique token, which she must then transmit to each request she sends for information about her resource.
Question
There is a simple way to do that with Spring? Indeed, all tuto I found and read used an authentification with username and password.
Already tried
My first idea was to create a token at the end of POST methods (store it into database), put it into each GET requests and check if requestToken == databaseToken.
However, I don't think that's the best way to do it.
So, can you help me and advise me to solve the problem?
Thanks a lot!
There are multiple ways.
Using the #SessionAttributes annotation:
The first time our controller is accessed, Spring will instantiate an instance and place it in the Model. Since we also declare the bean in #SessionAttributes, Spring will store the instance.
You will get it inside controller's handler method thru #ModelAttribute.
Or, you can try this route:
#RequestMapping(value = "/test")
public String handler(HttpSession httpSession) {
httpSession.getId(); //this will give you unique identifier that you can set back to object that you send to front end and can share the same ID between requests.
}
https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/api/javax/servlet/http/HttpSession.html#getId--

Managing session and request attributes in Servlet

I have a very simple JSP page where it has one search box and based off the input, in the search box, it will return a response with a submit button to get the following response.
I noticed that whenever I use request.getattribute("foo") in my servlet to retrieve some request it returns null due to the request ending so I looked at the answers on here and started using session.getattribute("foo") instead. However, now I am stuck having session variables responses being set and it is causing my view to have old session data that isn't suppose to be there so now I have to use session.removeAttribute("foo"), whenever, I don't want that particular response data to be shown.
Is there a better way to go about managing this instead of having to use session.getattribute("foo"), session.removeAttribute("foo") and session.setattribute("foo")?
You should work with request.getSession()
Returns the current session associated with this request, or if the request does not have a session, creates one.
Set an attribute:
request.getSession().setAttribute("foo")
And get attribute using:
request.getSession().getAttribute("foo")
It will be used in the context of the request and not effect other requests, so you don't need to remove attribute.
Read more in Servlets tutorial
Servlets provide an outstanding technical solution: the HttpSession API. This is a high-level interface that allows the server to "remember" a set of information relevant to a particular user's on-going transaction, so that it can retrieve this information to handle any future requests from the same user.
You can go for request.getparameter("foo") or request.setparameter("foo", obj)
This can be used for every request, and it will not add to your session variables and basically will not make your "session object heavy".
Java doc:
Request parameters are extra information sent with the request. For HTTP servlets, parameters are contained in the query string or posted form data.

How to maintain user object throughout the application using session in java

I am writing one application, on that i am setting user object into a session and i cannot able to get that session into another controller. And i want to maintain that session throughout the application(Until the user logout). So how can i get the session object into another controller and throughout the application. And what are the steps that i need to follow to maintain the session throughout the application.
Setting into session:
public ResponseEntity<Object> getCustMenus(HttpSession session){
UserInformation userInformationSession = luser.getRolesData();
session.setAttribute("userInfo", userInformationSession);
}
Getting the session:
UserInformation userInformation=(UserInformation) session.getAttribute("userInfo");
System.out.println("-----"+userInformation.getUserName()+"----------username");
I came across your question, because I'm also facing the same problem.
I think we can rely on Tomcat's request handling mechanism - each request is running in a single thread.
So I can have
Static map where key is the request Thread object and value is the Httpsession or even HTTpRequest object. Map
Filter with url set to /* which means each request passes through this filter. The filter will add the current thread and request object to the static map.
map.put(Thread.currentThread(), httpRequest);
As the map is a static field of some class it will be accessible to all threads and if you need to share an object between different controllers though lifecycle of a request you can put it in this map, e.g. put in httpsession as an attribute and get it anywhere you want.
In filter remove the thread from map when request is done.
map.remove(Thread.currentThread());
In case we use WeakHashMap I suppose we can skip step 3.
I haven't tried this approach yet, but I think it should work. I will share results when I try it.
I found complete answers in another discussion. Get the HttpServletRequest (request) object from Java code
The most useful part of the discussion for me was posted by skaffman. Please find it below.
Spring provides the RequestContextFilter for just this purpose. It uses ThreadLocal, and allows the code to fetch the current request via RequestContextHolder. Note that this filter does not require you to use any other part of Spring:

How can I force the session id in the Authentication object to be updated after a successful authentication when protecting against session fixation?

I need to record user login and logout events using the new session id generated after a successful authentication when protecting against session fixation. I noticed the sessionId value in the Details object of the Authentication object does not get updated after the new session is created. I've spent the last two days reading a lot of the javadoc and searching for answers on the web. I found this old post by Luke Taylor. I tried his suggestion but it did not seem to work, so I tried creating a CustomWebAuthenticationDetails that allowed me to set the sessionId to the new value (I couldn't extend WebAuthenticationDetails because instance variable sessionId is final) and then using a CustomSessionAuthenticationStrategy that extended SessionFixationProtectionStrategy and overrode method onSessionChange. In this method, I updated the Details object in the Authentication object with an instance of CustomWebAuthenticationDetails that contained the new sessionId. This seemed to work, but once I logged out and logged back in, I got a java.lang.ClassCastException: org.springframework.security.web.authentication.WebAuthenticationDetails cannot be cast to org...CustomWebAuthenticationDetails. I understood why I got the exception, so after searching some more, I tried creating a CustomWebAuthenticationDetailsSource and injecting it into an instance of UsernamePasswordAuthenticationFilter, but got an error saying "authenticationManager must be specified". When I tried to also inject the AuthenticationManager, I realized I couldn't because I'm using a RemoteAuthenticationManager with my application. At this point, I don't know what else to to try, so any suggestions will be much appreciated.
I would also like to know the reason why the sessionId is not updated in the Authentication object after a new session is created to protect against session fixation. Would doing this make the application less secure? If so, how?
Thanks,
Pat

How do I create a new HttpSession in a RESTful webapp?

I have a need to create a HttpSession (via cookie) whenever a client invokes a particular UI.
Assumptions:
Let's assuming that I'm not going to worry about any deep oAuth-like authentication dance. JESSIONSID cookie impersonation is not an issue for now.
The server is tomcat, thus a JSESSIONID cookie is sent down to the client if a new session is created.
Design issues:
I'm grappling with how to design the URI. What is actually the REST resource ? I already have /users and /users/{someuserid}. I wanted to use /auth/login but in one previous SO question, one cited article says that we should not have verbs in the url. I've noticed that even Google makes the same mistake by having https://www.google.com/accounts/OAuthGetRequestToken. So in your opinion, are /auth/login/johndoe (login) and /auth/logout/johndoe (logout) good options ?
UPDATE:
I've changed my design. I'm now thinking of using the URIs /session/johndoe (PUT for login, DELETE for logout). It should still be within the limits of the REST ethos ?
Aren't sessions irrelevant in REST Style Architecture?
http://www.prescod.net/rest/mistakes/
I am in the midst of creating a REST endpoint that recognizes sessions. I've standardized on:
POST /sessions => returns Location: http://server/api/sessions/1qazwsxcvdf
DELETE /sessions/1qazwsxcvdf => invalidates session
It is working well.

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