Pb with case sensitivity for attributes

• Key: DIRSERVER-334
• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Blocker
• Assignee: Alex Karasulu
• Reporter: Emmanuel Lecharny

Description

There is a huge problem with attributes. They are supposed to be case insensitive (RFC 2251, par. 2.5.1: "... they must be IA5 (ASCII) strings, and they are case insensitive (e.g. "[e-mail]" will match "[e-mail]")")

If we use the BasicAttribute class (javax.naming.directory.BasicAttribute) without lowercasing the attribute's name, there is no way to guarantee that we could do a attributes.get( <name>.toLowerCase() ) with a correct response.

This usage is spreaded all over the code and need to be fixed.

As an example, here is a snapshot of a working code :

        /*
         * create objectClass=top, objectClass=organizationalUnit
         */
        Attributes attributes = new BasicAttributes();
        Attribute attribute = new BasicAttribute( "objectClass".toLowerCase() ); // we MUST lowercase the attribute's name
        attribute.add( "top" );
        attribute.add( "organizationalUnit" );
        attributes.put( attribute );
        
        Attribute attr = attributes.get("objectclass".toLowerCase());
        Attribute attr2 = attributes.get("objectClass".toLowerCase());
        Assert.assertTrue( attr == attr2 ); // no problem, they are equal.

        /*
         * The same piece of code, without the lowerCase()
         */
        Attributes attributes = new BasicAttributes();
        Attribute attribute = new BasicAttribute( "objectClass");
        attribute.add( "top" );
        attribute.add( "organizationalUnit" );
        attributes.put( attribute );
        
        Attribute attr = attributes.get("objectclass");
        Attribute attr2 = attributes.get("objectClass");
        Assert.assertTrue( attr == attr2 ); // they are different, as attr is null.

Comments

[Emmanuel Lecharny]

I have found 177 reference to BasicAttribute through the code, but many of them ar imports.

org.apache.dns.store.DnsRecordStateFactory.getStateToBind(),
org.apache.kerberos.store.operations.ChangePassword.execute()
org.apache.kerberos.store.operations.GetPrincipal.execute()
org.apache.ldap.common.ldif.LdifEntry.addModificationItem()
org.apache.ldap.server.exception.ExceptionServiceTest.testFailAddOnAlias()
...

[Emmanuel Lecharny]

The fact is that when creating a BasicAttribute and adding it to a BasicAttributes, the latter MUST have been created using the constructor that declares it as case insensitive :
        /*
         * create objectClass=top, objectClass=organizationalUnit
         */
        boolean IGNORE_CASE = true;
        Attributes attributes = new BasicAttributes( IGNORE_CASE ); // Declares the BasicAttributes as case insensitive
        
        Attribute attribute = new BasicAttribute( "objectClass" );
        attribute.add( "top" );
        attribute.add( "organizationalUnit" );
        attributes.put( attribute );
        
        Attribute attr = attributes.get("objectclass");
        Attribute attr2 = attributes.get("objectClass");
        Assert.assertTrue( attr == attr2 ); // They now are equal

There are places in the code where this is done, othere where it's not :
org.apache.ldap.server.configuration.ContextPartitionConfiguration :
     private Attributes contextEntry = new BasicAttributes(); // Should be new BasicAttributes( true );

[Alex Karasulu]

Committed changes that correct all misuses of BasicAttributes here:

http://svn.apache.org/viewcvs?rev=232433&view=rev

Now all BasicAttriubtes are case insensitive for attribute Ids. This is consistent across the board.

[Emmanuel Lecharny]

done