Easier to use

These changes should make authentication easier to use for engineers.

• IN PROGRESS ARCHBOM-1218 - Getting issue details... STATUS

  • A fresh ticket is probably in order here. I’m not clear on the final proposed solution, and where we need monitoring along the way, but this definitely adds complexity to our authentication, and I think there is a simpler way.

  • ARCHBOM-1181 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

    • Not sure if this has any additional useful context, or is redundant and should be forgotten.

• IN FC-18 ARCHBOM-107 - Getting issue details... STATUS

  • AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES is a default setting for DRF endpoints.

  • This would enable the use of JwtAuthentication from most edx-platform DRF endpoints.

  • DRF endpoints that override the default should be reviewed to see if the override can be deleted, once there is a sane default.

  • Order is an open question: JwtAuthentication before or after SessionAuthentication?

    • Unfortunately, due to differences noted in DEPR(#165), order matters.

    • Also, order matters until ARCHBOM-1218 is implemented.

  • For rollout, propose to add a custom version of BasicAuthentication in edx-platform that adds some monitoring to see how and if it is used in Production.

    • It would be good to drop BasicAuthentication from the defaults if we don’t actually want it.

• IN FC-18 https://github.com/openedx/edx-drf-extensions/issues/332

• IN FC-18 ARCHBOM-1183 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

• https://github.com/openedx/public-engineering/issues/165

  • This may be complicated without further product input, but maybe the solution can be readied regardless.

• https://github.com/openedx/edx-drf-extensions/issues/328

• ARCHBOM-1074 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

• Adding an endpoint to LMS to expose the public signing keys. (Unticketed)

  • This would simplify key rotation. It came up at 2U for non-Open edX platform applications that may use the JWT cookie for SSO.

Simpler authentication

These changes should simplify authentication, which may affect engineers in certain cases, but possibly not as directly as the “Easier to use” category.

• IN FC-18 https://github.com/openedx/edx-drf-extensions/issues/333

  • New implementation ticket for https://github.com/openedx/public-engineering/issues/83

  • This would simplify authentication and maintenance, but wouldn’t necessarily add functionality.

• IN FC-18 https://github.com/openedx/edx-drf-extensions/issues/327

• https://github.com/openedx/public-engineering/issues/189

  • Related: For some of the past removal work, the new api client wasn’t used, and instead a straight requests object was used and worked with the user’s JWT for service-to-service calls.

    • The intention was not to add this functionality to the new client, because it was thought that the client credentials token should be used instead.

    • If feels like we should have an ADR that clarifies what should be used where, and potentially enhances the client if we wish to allow for other ways of using it.

    • The client also provided shared observability, but that only works when it is used.

• https://github.com/openedx/edx-drf-extensions/issues/284

  • To be considered.

• https://github.com/openedx/public-engineering/issues/190

• https://github.com/openedx/public-engineering/issues/82

• https://github.com/openedx/edx-platform/issues/32343

  • Requires working in Prospectus, edx.org’s private marketing site, so this is not a good candidate for community work.

• ARCHBOM-1077 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

  • Related? ARCHBOM-1168 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

Authorization

The following tickets may be authorization related, and not really authentication related.

• ARCHBOM-1170 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

  • This is unblocked, because we no longer return expired JWTs for restricted applications.

• ARCHBOM-1162 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

  • Note: The code has since been updated to use, but override, the shared JwtAuthentication class to update global staff role during login.

Observability

Changes that might help with observability while monitoring other fixes. These should be kept in mind as we consider other dangerous changes that we with to monitor.

• ARCHBOM-545 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

  • I have since realized that MonitoringCustomMetricsMiddleware isn’t deployed by enough services, so might be better to just keep calling set_custom_attribute and hopefully the final call wins.

• ARCHBOM-142 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

• ARCHBOM-158 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

• (Unticketed) It would be nice to have a failed_jwt_unauthenticated_user_id to know who may have been trying to authenticate.

Bugs?

• ARCHBOM-2028 - Getting issue details... STATUS

• ARCHBOM-2031 - Getting issue details... STATUS

• ARCHBOM-1262 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

• ARCHBOM-543 - Getting issue details... STATUS (“unfinished”)

  • It is possible this may pass now that we are using a different library under the covers?

• ARCHBOM-1152 - Getting issue details... STATUS

Resources

Above tickets were curated from the following:

• Arch and Engineering Challenges (2020+)

• ARCHBOM-12 - Getting issue details... STATUS

• https://github.com/orgs/openedx/projects/9/views/4