[COUCHDB-969] Basic Auth fails when : is present in password

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 1.0.1
• Fix Version/s: 1.0.3, 1.1
• Component/s: HTTP Interface
• Assignee: Robert Newson
• Reporter: Isaac Z. Schlueter
• Created: 28/Nov/10 22:28
• Updated: 28/Jan/11 20:16
• Resolved: 28/Jan/11 20:16

Description

To reproduce:

1. Create a new user "testfunkychars" with password "12:12"
2. Logging in as this user in futon works, and will show up as "testfunkychars" in the userCtx in a validate_doc_update function.
3. Presenting a header of "Authorization: Basic dGVzdGZ1bmt5Y2hhcnM6MTI6MTI=" does not work, and shows up as "null" in userCtx.

According to the RFC 2617, the proper way to supply a Basic authorization header is:

Authorization: Basic [basic-credentials]

where [basic-credentials] is the base64 of userid + ":" + pass, where userid is *<TEXT except ":"> and pass is *<TEXT>.

Thus, the proper way to construct this header is:

echo -n "testfunkychars:12:12" | base64

which outputs: dGVzdGZ1bmt5Y2hhcnM6MTI6MTI=.

The only way to log in, however, is to POST the data to /_session, and then supply the cookie.

For now, rather than add the complexity of cookie and session management to my application, I will simply not allow : characters in passwords. It would be better if couchdb handled : characters in passwords.