294006 - digest auth spreads across multiple instances of the browser

Status: RESOLVED EXPIRED

(Firefox :: Security, defect)

Description

[mozillabugs]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041110 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-GB; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041110 Firefox/1.0

Not sure if this is a "bug" or a "feature" - its just different to Internet
Explorer and I don't know which is the "correct" behaviour.

In IE, on sites with digest authentication (DA), I can log on to the site as two
different users at the same time as long as I use two instances of the browser -
one for each log on. In FF the second instance presumes I must want to use the
credentials I used in the first instance so you don't get asked for them again
it just lets you right in! I do this a lot while developing sites which use DA
and it bugs me that I have to use IE all the time!

It would be OK if FF did this for tabs in the same instance but not across
instances. (For clarity: by "instance" I mean a new window entirely not just a
tab in an existing window.)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a site with DA
2. Hit the site and log in to it in IE
3. Open a new IE window (new instance)
4. Hit the same site (you get prompted for credentials again) and log into it
with different credentials
5. Try the same thing with FF - the second window (instance) just lets you right in!

Actual Results:  
See "Steps to Reproduce"

Expected Results:  
IE lets you log in as two different users. It separates the instances for the
purpose of DA. FF does not. You can only log in as one user over multiple instances.

I have marked this as minor - however depending on what the "correct" behaviour
of DA should be it could be major. It is certainly more usefull the IE way.

Comment 1

[Wolf [:wolf]]

Keep in mind, a new firefox window is not a new process. so. its likely this is
intentional. and that IE's behavior is a bit weird.

Comment 2

[Jo Hermans]

Internet Exploder considers each browser window a separate session, it
session-related stuff (cookies, authentication, history, ...) only applies to a
single window. Mozilla/Firefox considers the entire process as a single session,
so that cookies and authentications can be shared among windows.

There are advantages and disadvantages for each approach, but it's not a bug. In
Internet Exploder, you can "log out" by closing a window. That can be seen as as
an advantage, until it happens by accident. Another result is that a
popup-window won't share the same 'session' as its parent window. Again, an
advantage when you're looking at advertising popups, but a disadvantage if you
have to log in twice.

Comment 3

[Jo Hermans]

This is basically a dupe of bug 117222, although that only speaks about cookies.

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This is an automated message, with ID "auto-resolve01".

This bug has had no comments for a long time. Statistically, we have found that
bug reports that have not been confirmed by a second user after three months are
highly unlikely to be the source of a fix to the code.

While your input is very important to us, our resources are limited and so we
are asking for your help in focussing our efforts. If you can still reproduce
this problem in the latest version of the product (see below for how to obtain a
copy) or, for feature requests, if it's not present in the latest version and
you still believe we should implement it, please visit the URL of this bug
(given at the top of this mail) and add a comment to that effect, giving more
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If it is not a problem any longer, you need take no action. If this bug is not
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Thank you for your help in this matter.

The latest beta releases can be obtained from:
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Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This bug has been automatically resolved after a period of inactivity (see above
comment). If anyone thinks this is incorrect, they should feel free to reopen it.