Code review request: 7184246: Simplify Config.get() of krb5

[Xuelei Fan]

>> If you want to get a value from inside krb5.conf, you can call
>> getDefault(String). This might be good to get a value from the
>> [libdefaults] section. However, the method was designed to be so
>> smart that it can recursively search for key/value pairs no
>> matter where and how deep it is.

If you change the behaviors and want to look for the key-value pair
strictly in the exact section.  One end is the flexibility, and the
other end is strictly levered.  Krb5 configuration format is not
strictly leveled (for example, the sample section of [appdefaults] in
[1]. The format also applies to other sections.).  I can see pros and
corns on both sides. I think some serious compatibility issues might
occur if we miss something, please consider the enhancement carefully.

Based on the current implementation, I only have one comment as follow.
Otherwise, looks fine to me.

src/share/classes/sun/security/krb5/KdcComm.java
-----------------------------------------------
-   Config.getInstance().getDefault(key, realm);
+   Config.getInstance().get("realms", realm, key);

The method spec say that the value can be defined inside [libdefaults]
or [realms].  It seems that the update only able to get value from [realms].


Xuelei

[1]:
http://web.mit.edu/kerberos/krb5-1.5/krb5-1.5/doc/krb5-admin/appdefaults.html#appdefaults


On 8/15/2012 8:25 PM, Weijun Wang wrote:
> Updated at
> 
>    http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~weijun/7184246/webrev.01
> 
> Changes:
> 
> 1. String values (even if there is only one) for the same key are stored
> in a vector. Two methods are provided:
> 
>     get(String... keys) returns the last value
>     getAll(String... keys) returns all values concatenated
> 
> so if you see
> 
>   [realms]
>   R = {
>     kdc = k1
>     kdc = k2
>   }
> 
> then get("realms","R","kdc") returns k2, getAll("realms","R","kdc")
> returns "k1 k2".
> 
> 2. SCDynamicStore is updated to be consistent with above. I also break
> the getConfig() method into 2 so that I can write a test.
> 
> Thanks
> Max
> 
> On 08/02/2012 10:14 PM, Weijun Wang wrote:
>> Hi Valerie
>>
>> Please take a look at this
>>
>>    http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7184246
>>
>> The code changes include:
>>
>> 1. Config.java:
>>     a. Retrieve settings using .get(String... keys) now
>>     b. Some changes to parsing. The sub-section depth can be at any
>> level. For compatibility reasons, multiple values for the same key are
>> only for [realms] and [capaths] sections.
>>     c. Still using Hashtable and Vector because I don't want to make
>> changes to Mac's SCDynamicStoreConfig.m.
>>
>> 2. initStatic() methods in several classes that read krb5.conf settings
>> to static fields
>>
>> 3. All other old calls to getDefault() methods.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Max
>>
>>
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> 7184246: Simplify Config.get() of krb5
>> http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7184246
>>
>> === *Description*
>> ============================================================
>> This is about the internal class sun.security.krb5.Config.
>>
>> If you want to get a value from inside krb5.conf, you can call
>> getDefault(String). This might be good to get a value from the
>> [libdefaults] section. However, the method was designed to be so smart
>> that it can recursively search for key/value pairs no matter where and
>> how deep it is.
>>
>> For example, given a krb5.conf
>>
>>     [s1]
>>     a=b
>>
>>     [s2]
>>     c=d
>>
>>     [s3]
>>     e = {
>>       f = g
>>     }
>>
>> getDefault("a") = "b", getDefault("c") = "d", and astonishingly,
>> getDefault("f") = "g".
>>
>> I don't think this is a good design, for several reasons:
>>
>> 1. It depends on the order of sections if there are key/value pairs with
>> the same key in different sections.
>>
>> 2. It ignores wrong settings. For example, when doing a cross-realm
>> auth, the Realm.getRealmsList(from,to) is used to get a path which
>> should be defined in [capaths]. However, the method simply crawls
>> recursively into any subsection it found and won't notice the [capaths]
>> being mistakenly typed as [capath]
>>
>> 3. It lacks certain features. Because the function always return a
>> String (same with the getDefault(String,String) method), getDefault("e")
>> can only return a null. Therefore there is no way to find out the
>> existence of the subsection e unless we also know it contains a key f.
>>
>> 4. The current Config class needs to know what subsections contains more
>> subsections, and it hardcodes names like [capaths] and [realms].
>>
>> In short, it's just too smart and becomes unsafe to use. I suggest
>> removing all this smartness and a user must use the full paths to get a
>> value, say,
>>
>>     kdc = config.get("realms", "SUN.COM", "kdc")
>>
>> My proposed spec is:
>>
>> 1. The Config class should understand a krb5.conf without knowing any
>> specific section names. All it maintains is a Value, which can be
>> either of
>>
>>      String
>>      List<Value>
>>      TreeMap<String,Value>
>>
>> Here I use TreeMap to preserve the order (might not be necessary).
>>
>> 2. The basic retrieval method will be
>>
>>      Value get(String... key)
>>
>> 3. There are simpler methods if you already know what the type in your
>> case is
>>
>>      String getAsString(String... key)
>>      List<String> getAsStringList(String... key)
>>
>> The compatibility risk will be low, and if there really comes a
>> compatibility issue, most likely it will be because the caller had
>> written his krb5.conf wrong.
>>
>> One of the advantages of the original design is that when a key is
>> provided in both [libdefaults] and a given realm, the method can find it
>> anyway. This will be useful for keys like kdc_timeout, max_retries.
>> However, I think this automatic retrieval is confusing and error-prone,
>> I'd rather manually call the get() method twice.
>>