A fundamental JGSS-API bug?

[Weijun Wang]

On 6/7/13 11:49 PM, Sean Mullan wrote:
>>          try {
>>              send(initSecContext(inToken));
>>          } catch (GSSException e) {
>>              if (e.getResidue() != null) {
>>                  send(e.getResidue());
>>              }
>>              throw e;
>>          }
>
> That doesn't seem too complicated to me, all things considered. I think
> this would be a reasonable solution. I would simply name the method
> getToken instead of getResidue.

Or getOutputToken()? If the incoming token is a KRB_ERROR, 
initSecContext(token) will also throw a GSSException. Although I don't 
plan to provide a method to retrieve the incoming token, getToken() 
might be confusing.

>
>> As for the overloaded initSecContext(InputStream, OutputStream) style,
>> it looks easier to update this method to do the correct thing without
>> any new API. However, the change will be very confusing because there is
>> no more number of written bytes to return. More importantly, if it's
>> just a silent behavior change, we'll have to care about compatibility
>> (Maybe someone already added his/her own KRB-ERROR sending codes?),
>> which makes the situation much tougher.
>
> Can you describe how the application code would use this method like you
> did above for the other initSecContext method?

The recommended way was

   while (!context.isEstablished()) {
      context.initSecContext(is, os);
      os.flush();
   }

When I say "easier", I mean it looks like there is no need to make any 
application change and this method can just write KRB_ERROR into os and 
*then* throw the exception.

But this is a behavior change and can be quite dangerous. I'd rather 
also write

   while (!context.isEstablished()) {
      try {
         context.initSecContext(is, os);
      } catch (GSSException e) {
         if (e.getOutputToken() != null) {
            os.write(e.getOutputToken());
            os.flush();  // in finally? not sure.
            throw e;
         }
      }
      os.flush();
   }

and add a clarification to the method saying no bytes will be written to 
os if there is a GSSException.

Thanks
Max

>
> --Sean
>
>>
>> Thanks
>> Max
>>
>> [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2743#page-46
>