202482 - Proxy: multiple retries of failed HTTP authentication

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 201986

(Core :: Networking: HTTP, defect)

Description

[Greg Tassone]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.4a) Gecko/20030401

At our company we have a transparent proxy server (MS Proxy) using Basic
Authentication to allow connections to the Internet out of the network (on port
80).  We have no problems using Mozilla to browse the Internet -- we are able to
authenticate to the proxy and get out on the Internet just fine.

However, sometimes when authenticating to the Basic Auth, if we accidentally
type in the wrong password, Mozilla repeatedly retries the authentication MANY
TIMES without re-prompting us again for our authentication information
(username/password).  I'm not sure how many times it retries before finally
giving up, but my guess is that it tries at least 5 to 10 times (too fast to
tell).  In any case, this has the effect of locking us out of our network due to
failed authentication retries against our proxy server.

Using a browser such as Internet Explorer works just fine and correctly
re-prompts us for our authentication information.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Attempt to access the Internet from within our company network
2. This causes our Basic Authentication prompt to be displayed (by the proxy)
3. Enter the wrong password in the dialog box


Actual Results:  
Mozilla retries the authentication with the wrong credentials over and over
until if finally gives up at some point.  Then I am summarily locked out of our
company network (due to the multiple, failed authentication attempts against the
proxy).

Expected Results:  
Mozilla should have re-displayed the authentication dialog box so that I could
enter the correct username/password

This could be solved by either using the expected condition (e.g. re-displaying
the dialog prompt) or by specifying a retry-amount/level in the preferences.

Comment 1

[Greg Tassone]

Additional information on this:
We are able to reproduce this bug on all versions of Mozilla on our company
network (including the 1.4a release).  All test systems thus far have been
running Microsoft Windows 2000.

Comment 2

[benc]

We should probably start by having you get a telnet log of the proxy server's
response (which would contain the 401 result that triggers the auth dialog).

I'll try to get some steps together and put the info here.

Comment 3

[Darin Fisher]

better than that.  can you please enable some built in mozilla HTTP logging? 
here's how:

open a DOS prompt and type:

C:\> set NSPR_LOG_MODULES=nsHttp:5
C:\> set NSPR_LOG_FILE=C:\log.txt

now run mozilla from within the same DOS prompt:

C:\> cd \path\to\mozilla
C:\path\to\mozilla\> .\mozilla.exe

now reproduce the problem, and when done exit mozilla.  finally, upload log.txt
to this bug report or feel free to send it directly to me.  thx!!

Comment 4

[Greg Tassone]

Attachment: Reproduced the error with Mozilla network logging enabled. This is the log dump (compressed)

I recreated the error and locked myself out of our network :-)	 I have
attached the compressed log file you requested.  Thanks for the assistance!

Comment 5

[Greg Tassone]

FYI regarding the uploaded log dump:
When I first opened my browser it goes to the home page which is on our internal
nework (i.e. not on the Internet and not going through the firewall/proxy).  To
access the outside world I tried accessing "http://www.foxnews.com".  You should
see these log entries start on about line 2493 of the dump.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Comment 6

[benc]

darin, would your fix of bug 201986 help here?

Comment 7

[Darin Fisher]

in fact it is a duplicate.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 201986 ***

Comment 8

[Greg Tassone]

We saw that the duplicate had already been fixed.  Therefore we downloaded your
latest daily build and ran some tests.  We have confirmed that the issue is now
resolved.

Thank you very much for fixing this, and making our favorite browser even
better.  Our entire development team sends their support and well-wishes. :-)