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The extent of a protection space is unknowable #786

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merged 2 commits into from
Feb 26, 2021

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martinthomson
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When the text suggests that credentials can be automatically applied to all
requests made within a protection space, that begs the question: how do I know
what requests are in the same protection space?

The answer is "well, you don't really". Authentication schemes might define
something, but otherwise you are left to guess. This PR says that as directly
as I could manage.

I considered adding another sentence here that says "In the absence of
specific information about the extent of a protection space, clients &MAY;
assume that the protection space extent is the origin of the server." I'd
like thoughts on whether that is helpful. I think that it might be, as otherwise
this isn't really implementable.

Closes #710.

@mnot
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mnot commented Feb 25, 2021

Please factor out whitespace changes...

When the text suggests that credentials can be automatically applied to all
requests made within a protection space, that begs the question: how do I know
what requests are in the same protection space?

The answer is "well, you don't really".  Authentication schemes might define
something, but otherwise you are left to guess.  This PR says that as directly
as I could manage.

I considered adding another sentence here that says "In the absence of
specific information about the extent of a protection space, clients &MAY;
assume that the protection space extent is the origin of the server."  I'd
like thoughts on whether that is helpful.

Closes httpwg#710.
@martinthomson
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Ugh, it's like picking up toys after children.

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(but should be added to change log)

@martinthomson
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Neither of you have comments about saying what the extent of the protection scope is in the absence of information?

@mnot
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mnot commented Feb 25, 2021

I'd rather leave that out.

@@ -13459,6 +13465,7 @@ Content-Type: text/plain
<li>In <xref target="field.content-length"/>, be more explicit about invalid and incorrect values (<eref target="https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/748"/> and <eref target="https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/749"/>)</li>
<li>Move discussion of statelessness from <xref target="intermediaries"/> to <xref target="connections"/> (<eref target="https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/753"/>)</li>
<li>In <xref target="status.101"/>, clarify that the upgraded protocol is in effect after the 101 response (<eref target="https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/776"/>)</li>
<li>In <xref target="protection.scope"/>, explain that the protection scope is not defined without additional information (<eref target="https://github.com/httpwg/http-core/issues/710"/>)</li>
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...please move up (these are sorted by github issue #)

@reschke
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reschke commented Feb 25, 2021

Neither of you have comments about saying what the extent of the protection scope is in the absence of information?

AFAIU, it depends on the authentication scheme.

At the end of the day, we can only document here what we inherited from earlier specs, and what is actually done in practice. If you have information on the latter which helps us making this better, great. Do you?

@martinthomson
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I proposed maybe adding:

In the absence of specific information about the extent of a protection space, clients &MAY; assume that the protection space extent is the origin of the server.

Which I believe matches what clients do when they produce credentials and the authentication scheme doesn't define a clear scope. Do you think that helps?

@reschke
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reschke commented Feb 25, 2021

Not sure. What problem are we trying to solve here? Auth scheme definitions that fail to define the protection space? In which case, shouldn't we say something about this in the "Considerations for new schemes" section?

@reschke reschke merged commit f788db4 into httpwg:master Feb 26, 2021
triple-underscore added a commit to triple-underscore/triple-underscore.github.io that referenced this pull request Feb 28, 2021
Change semantic conformance requirement to an explanation and permision to workaround
httpwg/http-core#787

The extent of a protection space is unknowable
httpwg/http-core#786

Be consistent about content[- ]coding
httpwg/http-core#785

Mention relaxation of reqs for parsing Expires
httpwg/http-core#782

Refine Referer
httpwg/http-core#784

Adjust handling of invalid Age values
(cache)
httpwg/http-core#781
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