mahara-contributors team mailing list archive

[Aaron Wells <1566366@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jake,

Thanks for the bug report! You are correct, not only does that
"session.referer_check" kill SAML, it also means that if you navigate to
your Mahara site via a link (say, from an email), you get logged out.

We put that in there because the patch was based on the recommendations
in the PHP manual's "securing sessions" page:
http://php.net/manual/en/session.security.php

... but that page also points out that the setting is only helpful if
you've turned on session.use_trans_id. And we have always had
session.use_trans_id turned off, therefore we don't also need
session.referer_check.

So, I will push a patch to get rid of that.

Cheers,
Aaron

** Also affects: mahara/1.10
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: mahara/16.04
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: mahara/16.10
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: mahara/15.04
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Also affects: mahara/15.10
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Changed in: mahara/1.10
    Milestone: None => 1.10.10

** Changed in: mahara/15.04
    Milestone: None => 15.04.7

** Changed in: mahara/15.10
    Milestone: None => 15.10.3

** Changed in: mahara/16.04
    Milestone: None => 16.04.0

** Changed in: mahara/16.10
    Milestone: None => 16.10.0

** Changed in: mahara/1.10
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: mahara/15.04
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: mahara/15.10
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: mahara/16.04
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: mahara/16.10
   Importance: Undecided => High

** Changed in: mahara/16.10
       Status: New => In Progress

** Changed in: mahara/16.04
       Status: New => In Progress

** Changed in: mahara/15.10
       Status: New => In Progress

** Changed in: mahara/15.04
       Status: New => In Progress

** Changed in: mahara/1.10
       Status: New => In Progress

** Changed in: mahara/16.10
     Assignee: (unassigned) => Aaron Wells (u-aaronw)

** Changed in: mahara/16.10
   Importance: High => Critical

** Changed in: mahara/16.04
   Importance: High => Critical

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1566366

Title:
  Session referer check should not be set if using SAML

Status in Mahara:
  In Progress
Status in Mahara 1.10 series:
  In Progress
Status in Mahara 15.04 series:
  In Progress
Status in Mahara 15.10 series:
  In Progress
Status in Mahara 16.04 series:
  In Progress
Status in Mahara 16.10 series:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  I'm using the SAML plugin for authentication and I've noticed that
  this change: https://reviews.mahara.org/#/c/5574/ introduces some new
  settings for PHP's session handling that cause issues with the SAML
  login process.

  I believe only 16.04(rc1) is affected as that change is not present in
  15.10.2.

  The setting "session.referer_check" inteferes with the SAML login
  process and as a result the login process fails and an error is
  displayed to the user.

  The particular line from the commit mentioned above is:

   - htdocs/auth/session.php
  ini_set('session.referer_check', get_config('wwwroot'));

  This option should not be set for most users if they are using SAML as
  an authentication method (in my case I am using a custom SAML auth
  plugin). During the login process SAML will redirect the user away
  from the wwwroot and when the user returns to Mahara the session data
  is cleared. This causes the "populate" function in the "LiveUser"
  class to attempt to create a new user using the default attributes
  (empty fields for username/firstname/lastname/etc). In addition the
  "usr" table does not have not have NOT NULL set on the username
  attribute, so an entry is created in the database with a null username
  causing various issues within Mahara.

  I'd suggest adding a "session_referer_enabled" configuration option
  (just in config.php) that defaults to the referer check being enabled.
  This would allow it to easily be disabled by users who do not want it
  set without having to manually edit the htdocs/auth/session.php file.
  I'm not sure if there is a reason NOT_NULL is not set on the username
  field but maybe this should be changed as well?

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