fix: harden identity HTTP transport
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This commit is contained in:
ekklesia
2026-07-21 23:50:41 -05:00
parent c91f0c8c6d
commit d9b73fd81a
15 changed files with 967 additions and 72 deletions
+85 -12
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@@ -5,6 +5,10 @@ one Ekklesia-owned route to resolve the current principal. It does not add a Das
Mobile Surface, and it does not add roles, permissions, or a platform-owner concept — see
[ADR 0011](../architecture/decisions/0011-identity-http-transport-and-public-enrollment.md) for the
full architectural decision and [Identity](identity.md) for the identity foundation this builds on.
A follow-up corrective slice hardened this transport (sanitized Better Auth logging,
production-equivalent origin/CSRF protection under the test runner, bounded identity database
timeouts, idempotent shutdown, and pinned password-length boundaries) without changing any of the
above; see [ADR 0012](../architecture/decisions/0012-identity-origin-csrf-protection-under-test.md).
## What this is, and is not
@@ -109,8 +113,12 @@ is `null`. The caller must call `/api/auth/sign-in/email` explicitly afterward.
per the pinned Better Auth release, `autoSignIn: false` activates its built-in email-enumeration
protection, so a duplicate sign-up returns the same `200` shape (with a fresh, unrelated random id)
whether or not the email was already registered, rather than revealing which. No custom
cryptography replaces Better Auth's own password hashing, and its default password-length policy
(8–128 characters) is kept unmodified.
cryptography replaces Better Auth's own password hashing. Password length is pinned explicitly to
8–128 characters (`minPasswordLength`/`maxPasswordLength` in `core/src/identity/runtime.ts`) rather
than left on Better Auth's fallback default — the pinned release's default happens to be the same
8–128 range, but an implicit default can change silently on a future Better Auth upgrade, while an
explicit value cannot. `apps/api/tests/api-http.integration.ts` proves the exact boundary against a
real server: 7 characters rejected, 8 accepted, 128 accepted, 129 rejected.
## Origin, CORS, and cookies
@@ -121,19 +129,67 @@ since `Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *` cannot be combined with `Access-Control-A
true`); a disallowed origin never receives the header at all, though the request itself may still
be processed — CORS is a browser-enforced, response-header mechanism, not a server-side gate. A
request with no `Origin` header at all (native or server-to-server clients) is unaffected by CORS.
Note this is narrower than it sounds for `/api/auth/sign-in/email` and `/api/auth/sign-up/email`
specifically: any client built on the Fetch API — every browser, and also Node's own `fetch()` —
automatically sends a `Sec-Fetch-Mode: cors` header on every request, and Better Auth's first-login
CSRF protection treats that as "this came from a Fetch client" and requires a trusted `Origin` (or
`Referer`) on those two routes regardless of whether a cookie is present. A genuinely non-Fetch
caller (curl, or most backend HTTP client libraries, which send none of the `Sec-Fetch-*` headers)
is unaffected and needs no `Origin` header at all — see the dedicated raw-socket test in
`apps/api/tests/api-http.integration.ts` for the exact distinction proven against a real server.
Better Auth's own CSRF/origin protections are never disabled
(`advanced.disableCSRFCheck`/`advanced.disableOriginCheck` are never set). Verified directly
against the running compiled server: any non-`GET`/`HEAD`/`OPTIONS` request carrying a session
cookie must also carry a trusted `Origin` (or `Referer`), or Better Auth itself rejects it with
`403`. See ADR 0011 for the exact verification method and an important caveat about reproducing
part of this guarantee inside the automated test suite.
Better Auth's own CSRF/origin protections are explicitly kept on:
`core/src/identity/runtime.ts` sets `advanced: { disableCSRFCheck: false, disableOriginCheck:
false }`. This is deliberately explicit rather than left unset — the pinned release's own default
is environment-sensitive (`skipOriginCheck` falls back to `true`, silently disabling both origin
and CSRF checking, whenever `isTest()` is true, which Vitest's default `NODE_ENV=test` triggers),
so an unset config would mean origin/CSRF protection is silently off under the test runner and on
in production. Setting both flags explicitly removes that environment-sensitive branch entirely,
so `pnpm test:migrations:integration` now automatically proves the exact production behavior: any
non-`GET`/`HEAD`/`OPTIONS` request carrying a session cookie must also carry a trusted `Origin` (or
`Referer`), or Better Auth rejects it with `403` (and the presented session remains valid
afterward); a no-cookie first authentication attempt from an untrusted origin is rejected the same
way; a trusted origin is accepted in both cases; and a denied origin never receives a permissive
CORS header. See [ADR 0012](../architecture/decisions/0012-identity-origin-csrf-protection-under-test.md)
for the root-cause investigation and the full account of what changed.
Cookies keep Better Auth's defaults: `HttpOnly` always, `SameSite=Lax` always, `Secure` when the
configured base URL is `https://`. Cross-subdomain cookies are not enabled and no cookie `Domain`
attribute is set, so every cookie is host-only. Trusted proxy headers are not configured in this
slice — a deployment behind a reverse proxy is future work.
## Logging
Two independent, complementary layers, both configured explicitly in `core/src/identity/runtime.ts`
rather than left on any environment-sensitive default:
1. **`logger`.** Better Auth's own default (`level: "warn"`, plain `console.*` output) is replaced.
The pinned release's log call sites are not a stable, fully-audited contract — several pass a
raw internal exception, and at least one (the origin-check middleware) interpolates a
user-controlled `Origin` header directly into the message text. Rather than sanitize each call
site's message and arguments individually, Core's logger configuration drops the message and
every argument entirely and emits only a fixed, generic string
(`"[identity] Better Auth reported an error."`) via `console.error`, and only for error-level
events — nothing is ever emitted for warn/info/debug.
2. **`onAPIError: { throw: true }`.** Discovered while testing (1) above: the pinned release's own
HTTP transport dependency, `better-call`'s router, has an *unconditional*
`console.error("# SERVER_ERROR: ", error)` fallback for any thrown value it does not recognize
as one of Better Auth's own `APIError`s — this fires before Better Auth's `logger` option is
ever consulted, so no `logger` configuration can reach it. `onAPIError.throw: true` closes that
gap: Better Auth's own deliberate `APIError`s (wrong password, invalid origin, disabled sign-up,
password out of bounds, ...) still resolve to their normal, correct HTTP response completely
unaffected, but a genuinely unexpected failure (for example a database outage mid-request) now
propagates out of `auth.handler()` instead of being caught and printed raw internally by
`better-call`, reaching `handleAuthRequest`'s own try/catch and becoming a sanitized
`IdentityRuntimeError` like any other unexpected failure — and nothing is logged at all.
Both apply in every environment, including under Vitest: neither is a `NODE_ENV=test` special case.
A focused unit test (`core/tests/identity-runtime.test.ts`) simulates a hostile log call (a raw
exception carrying a password, a host, a port, a filesystem path, and a rejected origin) and asserts
none of it reaches `console.error`, and separately asserts `onAPIError` is configured; a live
integration test forces a real identity-database failure through Better Auth's own sign-in handler
and asserts nothing at all reaches `console.error`/`warn`/`log` in the real process.
## Rate limiting
Better Auth's built-in rate limiting is always enabled, including by the executable entry point —
@@ -146,13 +202,30 @@ trusted-proxy IP policy is configured, Better Auth may fall back to a single sha
rather than a genuine per-client bucket. This is not yet the final, distributed, production-grade
abuse-control design.
## Database connection limits
`apps/api/src/server.ts` configures the identity PostgreSQL pool (`createIdentityDrizzleDatabase`,
`core/src/identity/database.ts`) with both a connection timeout and an operation timeout (10
seconds each), the same bounded, validated pattern `core/src/migrations/postgres-database.ts`
already uses. `connectionTimeoutMillis` alone only bounds *establishing* a connection; it does
nothing once a query is already running on one. The operation timeout additionally sets `pg`'s
`query_timeout` and `statement_timeout`, so a hung or unexpectedly slow query is aborted rather than
holding a pool connection (and its caller) indefinitely. An invalid timeout (non-integer, zero,
negative, or larger than PostgreSQL's own maximum) is rejected as configuration error before any
pool is constructed, sanitized the same way an invalid connection string already is.
## Graceful shutdown
`startApi()` (the composition function `apps/api/src/server.ts` exports, used by both the
executable entry point and tests) returns `{app, server, shutdown}`. `shutdown()` is idempotent: it
stops the HTTP listener from accepting new connections and lets in-flight requests finish, then
closes the PostgreSQL pool. The executable entry point wires `SIGINT`/`SIGTERM` to call it and
exits afterward; a startup failure after the database pool was already created (identity
executable entry point and tests) returns `{app, server, shutdown}`. `shutdown()` memoizes one
shared promise the first time it is called: every caller, concurrent or sequential, awaits the
exact same listener-drain-then-pool-close operation, and that operation runs exactly once no matter
how many times `shutdown()` is called. It stops the HTTP listener from accepting new connections and
lets in-flight requests finish, then closes the PostgreSQL pool. The executable entry point's
`SIGINT`/`SIGTERM` wiring is extracted into `installShutdownSignalHandlers(running, exit)` — the
same function production composition uses, but independently testable with a fake `running`/`exit`
so a test can trigger "a signal arrived" without sending a real process signal or invoking the real
`process.exit`. A startup failure after the database pool was already created (identity
construction failure, or the server failing to bind its listen address) always closes that pool
before the failure propagates.