RE: [squid-users] POST method when using squid_kerb_auth and sending Yahoo mail attachment

I think I see what may be going on. In Windows 7 with IE9, when you configure a proxy server it seems to use it for more than just IE. It would seem it's sending any HTTP traffic from the LAN interface, whether from the browser or not, through the proxy server.

If I set IE to no proxy, and manually set Firefox to use a proxy, Firefox will only send it's own traffic to the proxy server. So when the Yahoo Mail attach file mechanism is activated, it uses Shockwave Flash as user-agent, not Firefox...so the connection is established directly with Yahoo server - not via the proxy. When a proxy is configured in IE, it will seem to send *all* HTTP traffic to it, regardless of user-agent (browser, flash, some other app etc).

So we're back to the initial suspicion that the Yahoo flash agent does not support Proxy Authentication.

Hank

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> From: gourmetcisco_at_hotmail.com
> To: squid3_at_treenet.co.nz; squid-users_at_squid-cache.org
> Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2012 09:33:31 -0500
> Subject: RE: [squid-users] POST method when using squid_kerb_auth and sending Yahoo mail attachment
>
>
>
> Ok, to add yet another dimension to this...
>
>
> When I use IE with the configured proxy settings, and I run a packet
> capture at the moment I select "Attach File" in the Yahoo Mail compose
> message window, I capture the aforementioned POST method, which
> eventually fails or hangs etc.
>
>
> When I use Firefox with manually configured proxy settings (NOT the "use
> system settings" option) and I perform the same packet capture at the
> same point, I capture nothing to/from squid and the file is attached
> successfully.
>
>
> When I use Firefox with the "use system settings" proxy config, it behaves like IE above and fails.
>
>
> I know this is significant, but at this point I'm not sure what it means.
>
>
> Hank
>
> > Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2012 20:00:24 +1300
> > From: squid3_at_treenet.co.nz
> > To: squid-users_at_squid-cache.org
> > Subject: Re: [squid-users] POST method when using squid_kerb_auth and sending Yahoo mail attachment
> >
> > On 6/02/2012 5:31 p.m., Hank Disuko wrote:
> > > Thanks Amos,
> > >
> > > What's happening is quite similar to the details described in the aforementioned Firefox bug filing.
> >
> > Of course. Authentication in HTTP has a flow of 4+ steps:
> > 1) --> client request
> > 2) <-- server challenge 401 or 407 response
> > 3) --> client request w/ credentials
> > 4) <-- server success/fail response
> > ...
> >
> > This is the same for all authentication protocols. Possibly with a loop
> > repeating 3 & 4 until a suitable set of credentials are agreed on or the
> > client gives up.
> >
> > * The firefox bug was about firefox not sending "Basic" auth protocol
> > credentials properly when challenged.
> > * So far you have been talking around the edges of something that sounds
> > like a client not sending "Kerberos" auth protocol credentials correctly
> > when challenged,
> > or possibly you misconfiguring a Kerberos helper to validate
> > non-Kerberos credentials.
> >
> > The user watching gets to see only that the auth worked, a popup
> > appeared, or the forbidden error page appeared. They are not forced to
> > see what protocols are in use or how many retries were made.
> >
> > >
> > > When the "attach file" function is started in the Yahoo Mail compose message window and a file is selected from the user's desktop filesystem, a new HTTP POST operation is initiated to squid. This is a new tcp session entirely.
> >
> > This would be step (1) above.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > The POST operation is a form served by host sp1.attach.mail.yahoo.com using a Shockwave Flash user-agent - so I'm assuming the browser itself sits this one out. Here's the first little bit of the request, it's followed by form-data such as "filename" and "content-type" etc.
> >
> > Aha. Now we are getting places. First item is to check whether Shockwave
> > Flash supports Kerberos protocol which you are requiring of it. Chances
> > are shockwave does but the applet it is running does not. It is very
> > common to find web apps which cannot do auth even when SDK like Flash
> > and Java have long provided API to do all the difficult parts.
> >
> > >
> > > POST http://sp1.attach.mail.yahoo.com/ca.f431.mail.yahoo.com/ya/upload_with_cred?-- HTTP/1.1
> > > Accept: text/*
> > > Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----------cH2ae0gL6KM7ei4ei4ei4Ij5Ij5KM7
> > > User-Agent: Shockwave Flash
> > > Host: sp1.attach.mail.yahoo.com
> > > Content-Length: 719794
> > > Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
> > > Pragma: no-cache
> > > Cookie: B=dgrausd7a344r&b=4&d=vku6LippYFR6PRpZokl3s5qyCUJklnhtfiFf&s=pt&i=A6MbHqjIfHzX9QIh5CDC;
> >
> > Yes definitely a step (1) client request with no credentials.
> >
> > However the thing to note here is that this POST request is using a
> > simple HTTP format without the HTTP/1.1 chunked encoding or Expect
> > features. That is fine but it means that Content-Length bytes of data
> > MUST be transmitted for the body, regardess of what the server rsponds with.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > Squid responds to this initial POST operation with the predictable TCP_DENIED/407 "Cache Access Denied" message:
> > >
> > > from access.log:
> > >
> > > Sun Feb 5 22:29:16 2012 3 172.16.130.22 TCP_DENIED/407 5626 POST http://sp1.attach.mail.yahoo.com/ca.f431.mail.yahoo.com/ya/upload_with_cred? - NONE/- text/html
> > >
> > > HTTP/1.0 407 Proxy Authentication Required
> > >
> > > Server: squid/3.1.11
> > >
> > > Mime-Version: 1.0
> > >
> > > Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2012 03:29:16 GMT
> > >
> > > Content-Type: text/html
> > >
> > > Content-Length: 5206
> > >
> > > X-Squid-Error: ERR_CACHE_ACCESS_DENIED 0
> > >
> > > Vary: Accept-Language
> > >
> > > Content-Language: en
> > >
> > > Proxy-Authenticate: Negotiate
> > >
> > > X-Cache: MISS from localhost
> > >
> > > X-Cache-Lookup: NONE from localhost:3128
> > >
> > > Via: 1.0 localhost (squid/3.1.11)
> > >
> > > Connection: keep-alive
> > >
> >
> > So far everything is perfectly correct.
> >
> >
> > >
> > > Squid actually serves up the full "407 Denied" webpage, but it's not presented to the user.
> > That is correct. Displaying the error page is optional. Being kerberos
> > authentication it SHOULD be able to locate the Kerberos credentials
> > silently in the background without bothering the user at all.
> >
> > > Instead, the Yahoo Flash user-agent seems to trample on instead and attempts to send the attachment anyway, without first re-sending the request with the credentials required to access squid.
> >
> > This is correct. It MUST do so. It has instructed Squid that
> > "Content-Length: 719794" bytes are following the headers. Squid will
> > read and discarded it all then the connection will become free for the
> > keep-alive features to re-use.
> >
> > > I can see the pdf being uploaded to the squid server, but squid just ignores it.
> >
> > Good. That means Squid is working.
> >
> > > This manifests as a "hanging" upload window to the user.
> >
> > Maybe, maybe not. Flash is expected to locate credentials after the 407
> > and repeat the POST request with them attached.
> > If it cannot locate credentials it is expected to produce some form of
> > error about that failure.
> >
> > A non-changing upload window could just mean the app is waiting while
> > the first POST is transmitted and discarded and the Kerberos credentials
> > are being located. It may start to display things if it ever gets to the
> > point of doing a POST with credentials.
> >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I guess I need to know where to look in order to find out why the request is not re-sent using the proper credentials. Is it the Yahoo user-agent? is it the browser?
> >
> > The Shockwave player or the application running inside it. If either one
> > does not support your required Negotiate/Kerberos auth (or even auth in
> > general) it will fail.
> >
> > Amos
> >
>
                                               
Received on Wed Feb 08 2012 - 15:14:42 MST