This can be updated later to allow users with cookies enabled to use a
key that is unique to their session (if they want, not mandatory), but
for now it makes more sense to just use a single key for all queries
from all users. This should eliminate a lot of issues that users have
reported where they are unable to decrypt queries or page elements due
to an expired/renewed session key.
This introduces a new approach to handling user sessions, which should
allow for users to set more reliable config settings on public instances.
Previously, when a user with cookies disabled would update their config,
this would modify the app's default config file, which would in turn
cause new users to inherit these settings when visiting the app for the
first time and cause users to inherit these settings when their current
session cookie expired (which was after 30 days by default I believe).
There was also some half-baked logic for determining on the backend
whether or not a user had cookies disabled, which lead to some issues
with out of control session file creation by Flask.
Now, when a user visits the site, their initial request is forwarded to
a session/<session id> endpoint, and during that subsequent request
their current session id is matched against the one found in the url. If
the ids match, the user has cookies enabled. If not, their original
request is modified with a 'cookies_disabled' query param that tells
Flask not to bother trying to set up a new session for that user, and
instead just use the app's fallback Fernet key for encryption and the
default config.
Since attempting to create a session for a user with cookies disabled
creates a new session file, there is now also a clean-up routine included
in the new session decorator, which will remove all sessions that don't
include a valid key in the dict. NOTE!!! This means that current user
sessions on public instances will be cleared once this update is merged
in. In the long run that's a good thing though, since this will allow session
mgmt to be a lot more reliable overall for users regardless of their cookie
preference.
Individual user sessions still use a unique Fernet key for encrypting queries,
but users with cookies disabled will use the default app key for encryption
and decryption.
Sessions are also now (semi)permanent and have a lifetime of 1 year.
This moves away from the previous (messy) approach of using two separate
keys for decrypting text and element URLs separately and regenerating
them for new searches. The current implementation of sessions is not very
reliable, which lead to keys being regenerated too soon, which would
break page navigation. Until that can be addressed, the single
key per session approach should work a lot better.
Fixes#250Fixes#90
The app/utils/*_utils weren't named very well, and all have been updated
to have more accurate names.
Function and class documention for the utils have been updated as well,
as part of the effort to improve overall documentation for the project.
Ben Busby
Ben Busby
Ben Busby