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Re: SVN 1.10 AuthZ file parsing too strict?!

From: Branko Čibej <brane_at_apache.org>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 15:39:25 +0100

On 19.01.2019 21:12, Branko Čibej wrote:
> On 19.01.2019 17:17, Branko Čibej wrote:
>> Hi Doug!
>>
>> On 18.01.2019 23:07, Doug Robinson wrote:
>>> Honored committers (and the rest of us):
>>>
>>> It's come to my attention that if a group is defined in an AuthZ
>>> file without an associated account that SVN is, as of 1.10, generating
>>> an error and failing to allow the use of that AuthZ file.
>>>
>>> Example:
>>>
>>>     [groups]
>>>     goodGroup = acct1
>>>     goodGroup2 = acct1, acct2
>>>     badGroup =
>>>
>>>     [repoName:/someplace]
>>>     @badGroup = rw
>>>
>>>     svnauthz: E220003: Error while parsing authz file: ...
>>>     svnauthz: E220003: Access entry refers to undefined group ...
>>
>>
>> Thanks for bringing this up. It's most definitely a bug ... the group
>> is defined, it's just empty. If the parser accepts an empty group
>> definition, it should also allow its use in rules. That ACE should
>> just be ignored, since it has no effect.
>>
>> Emitting a warning from svnauthz would be a bonus, but I'm not sure
>> offhand how to do that, as I don't think we have a warning callback
>> in the parser; it might involve some API changes, but nothing drastic.
>>
>> Can you please write this up as a Jira issue and assign it to me?
>>
>>> My thoughts:
>>>
>>> 1. From a compatibility standpoint it really should be a Warning,
>>> not an Error.  If there's no accounts then certainly it can have
>>> no impact on the security of the repository/ies.
>>
>> And further, if one generates the 'groups' file from LDAP, for
>> example, some unintentional intermediate state could break Subversion
>> authz even though there's nothing specifically wrong with it.
>>
>>> 2. From a usability standpoint it really should simply be supported.
>>> The AuthZ file is a representation of a team structure.  There are
>>> times when teams will get reduced headcount down to zero and then
>>> back up again.  To deal with that use case with SVN 1.10 means
>>> either:
>>>
>>> a) stripping out all references to the team and losing all of the
>>>    places where that team requires access
>>>
>>> b) configuring a dummy account for the team and hoping that the
>>>    account will never be created
>>>
>>> c) leaving the team around and fixing SVN to allow an empty team
>>>
>>> My preference would be first 2c and, if not, then 1.  But that's
>>> me.
>>>
>>> Not sure about the history of why this change was made?  I'd like
>>> to better understand.
>>
>> It's an unintentional consequence of the parser rewrite. It appears
>> that we don't have a test for this case, and code inspection didn't
>> catch the change in semantics ... and so it landed in released code.
>>
>> This is about to change. :)
>
> Fixed in r1851687; I'll nominate this for backport to 1.10.x and 1.11.x.
>
> Emitting a warning from svnauthz requires a public API change that
> can't be released before 1.12, so please do write that Jira issue.

r1851823
Received on 2019-01-22 15:39:36 CET

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