Provide better error message when API authentication fails #5683
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| @@ -1207,7 +1242,16 @@ private static void addDefaultUserLoginDelay(HttpServletRequest request, String | |||
| return handleAuthentication(request, ContainerManager.getRoot()).getUser(); | |||
| } | |||
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| return null; | |||
| // Basic auth has failed so send failure response in a format that APIs can consume | |||
| // TODO: Shouldn't our client APIs set a default "respFormat" attribute? Java library doesn't... | |||
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I added respFormat years ago for a niche use case that could only consume XML. I think it's fine to default to JSON and not bother explicitly requesting it.
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This was necessary to get ClientAPITest to pass, since it sets "respFormat" to XML in a few cases, and was unhappy with hard-coded JSON response. Happy to discuss and clean this up on develop or later 24.7.x... I don't love what feels like one-off handling here.
labkey-jeckels
approved these changes
Jul 17, 2024
4 tasks
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Rationale
We want API clients to receive more helpful guidance when authentication fails. For example, password expired vs. password doesn't meet complexity requirements vs. bad credentials. https://www.labkey.org/home/Developer/issues/issues-details.view?issueId=50841
Changes
AuthenticationStatuscan now tailor error messages for web UI vs. API purposes. For example, returning a message to a piece of code that suggests checking the caps lock seems unhelpful.