cross protocol redirects ( was:Re: Http client API ) (original) (raw)

Chris Hegarty chris.hegarty at oracle.com
Wed Aug 8 13:35:12 PDT 2012

Great suggestion Anthony,

This is something that comes up from time to time. With the clear distinction between java.net.HttpURLConnection and javax.net.ssl.HttpsURLConnection API's then it was a little difficult to do in the existing API, but there is a clear opportunity with the new API to avoid this issue in the future.

Kurchi just informed me (off-list) that the current prototype implementation in the java.net project [1], supports cross protocol redirects. Though, this may be by accident! We need to do some further investigating to determine if the security concerns related to 4620571 are still valid. If so, and we cannot continue with automatic cross protocol redirects, then an explicit API ( like you suggested ) should be added.

Thanks, -Chris.

[1] http://java.net/projects/http-client/

On 08/08/12 19:23, Anthony Vanelverdinghe wrote:

Hi

With the current API (java.net.HttpURLConnection) it 's not possible to follow redirects from one protocol to another (http to https & vice versa). This is a known problem ( http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/viewbug.do?bugid=4620571 ), but out of security concerns this feature was not added. Will you please reconsider this feature for the new API and possibly: add extra methods: HttpRequest#setFollowRedirectsAccrossProtocols(boolean follows) & HttpRequest#followRedirectsAcrossProtocols() which would be false by default or add a system property (like the ones at http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/net/properties.html ) ? I am not a security expert, but for example Firefox happily follows such redirects, even in a single request like: http (request) -> https -> http (response) The current behavior is also what caused a recent issue with the JavaFX installer ( http://javafx-jira.kenai.com/browse/RT-21275 ). The solution to this JavaFX issue says the fix "enhanced code to follow https redirects." So JavaFX seems to already implement this feature. Thanks for your feedback Anthony Vanelverdinghe

Op 8/08/2012 1:09, Michael McMahon schreef: Hi,

A new revision of the Http client API planned for jdk 8 can be viewed at the following link http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~michaelm/httpclient/v0.3/ We would like to review the api on this mailing list. So, all comments are welcome. Thanks Michael McMahon.

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