mox/webaccount/api.json
Mechiel Lukkien 0f8bf2f220
replace http basic auth for web interfaces with session cookie & csrf-based auth
the http basic auth we had was very simple to reason about, and to implement.
but it has a major downside:

there is no way to logout, browsers keep sending credentials. ideally, browsers
themselves would show a button to stop sending credentials.

a related downside: the http auth mechanism doesn't indicate for which server
paths the credentials are.

another downside: the original password is sent to the server with each
request. though sending original passwords to web servers seems to be
considered normal.

our new approach uses session cookies, along with csrf values when we can. the
sessions are server-side managed, automatically extended on each use. this
makes it easy to invalidate sessions and keeps the frontend simpler (than with
long- vs short-term sessions and refreshing). the cookies are httponly,
samesite=strict, scoped to the path of the web interface. cookies are set
"secure" when set over https. the cookie is set by a successful call to Login.
a call to Logout invalidates a session. changing a password invalidates all
sessions for a user, but keeps the session with which the password was changed
alive. the csrf value is also random, and associated with the session cookie.
the csrf must be sent as header for api calls, or as parameter for direct form
posts (where we cannot set a custom header). rest-like calls made directly by
the browser, e.g. for images, don't have a csrf protection. the csrf value is
returned by the Login api call and stored in localstorage.

api calls without credentials return code "user:noAuth", and with bad
credentials return "user:badAuth". the api client recognizes this and triggers
a login. after a login, all auth-failed api calls are automatically retried.
only for "user:badAuth" is an error message displayed in the login form (e.g.
session expired).

in an ideal world, browsers would take care of most session management. a
server would indicate authentication is needed (like http basic auth), and the
browsers uses trusted ui to request credentials for the server & path. the
browser could use safer mechanism than sending original passwords to the
server, such as scram, along with a standard way to create sessions.  for now,
web developers have to do authentication themselves: from showing the login
prompt, ensuring the right session/csrf cookies/localstorage/headers/etc are
sent with each request.

webauthn is a newer way to do authentication, perhaps we'll implement it in the
future. though hardware tokens aren't an attractive option for many users, and
it may be overkill as long as we still do old-fashioned authentication in smtp
& imap where passwords can be sent to the server.

for issue #58
2024-01-05 10:48:42 +01:00

304 lines
6 KiB
JSON

{
"Name": "Account",
"Docs": "Account exports web API functions for the account web interface. All its\nmethods are exported under api/. Function calls require valid HTTP\nAuthentication credentials of a user.",
"Functions": [
{
"Name": "LoginPrep",
"Docs": "LoginPrep returns a login token, and also sets it as cookie. Both must be\npresent in the call to Login.",
"Params": [],
"Returns": [
{
"Name": "r0",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "Login",
"Docs": "Login returns a session token for the credentials, or fails with error code\n\"user:badLogin\". Call LoginPrep to get a loginToken.",
"Params": [
{
"Name": "loginToken",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "username",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "password",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
],
"Returns": [
{
"Name": "r0",
"Typewords": [
"CSRFToken"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "Logout",
"Docs": "Logout invalidates the session token.",
"Params": [],
"Returns": []
},
{
"Name": "SetPassword",
"Docs": "SetPassword saves a new password for the account, invalidating the previous password.\nSessions are not interrupted, and will keep working. New login attempts must use the new password.\nPassword must be at least 8 characters.",
"Params": [
{
"Name": "password",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
],
"Returns": []
},
{
"Name": "Account",
"Docs": "Account returns information about the account: full name, the default domain,\nand the destinations (keys are email addresses, or localparts to the default\ndomain). todo: replace with a function that returns the whole account, when\nsherpadoc understands unnamed struct fields.",
"Params": [],
"Returns": [
{
"Name": "r0",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "r1",
"Typewords": [
"Domain"
]
},
{
"Name": "r2",
"Typewords": [
"{}",
"Destination"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "AccountSaveFullName",
"Docs": "",
"Params": [
{
"Name": "fullName",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
],
"Returns": []
},
{
"Name": "DestinationSave",
"Docs": "DestinationSave updates a destination.\nOldDest is compared against the current destination. If it does not match, an\nerror is returned. Otherwise newDest is saved and the configuration reloaded.",
"Params": [
{
"Name": "destName",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "oldDest",
"Typewords": [
"Destination"
]
},
{
"Name": "newDest",
"Typewords": [
"Destination"
]
}
],
"Returns": []
},
{
"Name": "ImportAbort",
"Docs": "ImportAbort aborts an import that is in progress. If the import exists and isn't\nfinished, no changes will have been made by the import.",
"Params": [
{
"Name": "importToken",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
],
"Returns": []
},
{
"Name": "Types",
"Docs": "Types exposes types not used in API method signatures, such as the import form upload.",
"Params": [],
"Returns": [
{
"Name": "importProgress",
"Typewords": [
"ImportProgress"
]
}
]
}
],
"Sections": [],
"Structs": [
{
"Name": "Domain",
"Docs": "Domain is a domain name, with one or more labels, with at least an ASCII\nrepresentation, and for IDNA non-ASCII domains a unicode representation.\nThe ASCII string must be used for DNS lookups. The strings do not have a\ntrailing dot. When using with StrictResolver, add the trailing dot.",
"Fields": [
{
"Name": "ASCII",
"Docs": "A non-unicode domain, e.g. with A-labels (xn--...) or NR-LDH (non-reserved letters/digits/hyphens) labels. Always in lower case. No trailing dot.",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "Unicode",
"Docs": "Name as U-labels. Empty if this is an ASCII-only domain. No trailing dot.",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "Destination",
"Docs": "",
"Fields": [
{
"Name": "Mailbox",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "Rulesets",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"[]",
"Ruleset"
]
},
{
"Name": "FullName",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "Ruleset",
"Docs": "",
"Fields": [
{
"Name": "SMTPMailFromRegexp",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "VerifiedDomain",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "HeadersRegexp",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"{}",
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "IsForward",
"Docs": "todo: once we implement ARC, we can use dkim domains that we cannot verify but that the arc-verified forwarding mail server was able to verify.",
"Typewords": [
"bool"
]
},
{
"Name": "ListAllowDomain",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "AcceptRejectsToMailbox",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "Mailbox",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
},
{
"Name": "VerifiedDNSDomain",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"Domain"
]
},
{
"Name": "ListAllowDNSDomain",
"Docs": "",
"Typewords": [
"Domain"
]
}
]
},
{
"Name": "ImportProgress",
"Docs": "ImportProgress is returned after uploading a file to import.",
"Fields": [
{
"Name": "Token",
"Docs": "For fetching progress, or cancelling an import.",
"Typewords": [
"string"
]
}
]
}
],
"Ints": [],
"Strings": [
{
"Name": "CSRFToken",
"Docs": "",
"Values": null
}
],
"SherpaVersion": 0,
"SherpadocVersion": 1
}