Reduce Rack Attack false positives by clearing out auth failure count upon

successful Git over HTTP authentication.

Add logging when a ban goes into effect for debugging.

Issue #1171

CHANGELOG

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ v 7.10.0 (unreleased)
   - Update poltergeist to version 1.6.0 to support PhantomJS 2.0 (Zeger-Jan van de Weg)
   - Fix cross references when usernames, milestones, or project names contain underscores (Stan Hu)
   - Disable reference creation for comments surrounded by code/preformatted blocks (Stan Hu)
+  - Reduce Rack Attack false positives causing 403 errors during HTTP authentication (Stan Hu)
   - enable line wrapping per default and remove the checkbox to toggle it (Hannes Rosenögger)
   - extend the commit calendar to show the actual commits made on a date (Hannes Rosenögger)
   - Fix a link in the patch update guide

config/gitlab.yml.example

@@ -285,6 +285,9 @@ production: &base
   rack_attack:
     git_basic_auth:
+      # Rack Attack IP banning enabled
+      # enabled: true
+      #
       # Whitelist requests from 127.0.0.1 for web proxies (NGINX/Apache) with incorrect headers
       # ip_whitelist: ["127.0.0.1"]
       #

config/initializers/1_settings.rb

@@ -183,6 +183,7 @@ Settings['extra'] ||= Settingslogic.new({})
 #
 Settings['rack_attack'] ||= Settingslogic.new({})
 Settings.rack_attack['git_basic_auth'] ||= Settingslogic.new({})
+Settings.rack_attack.git_basic_auth['enabled'] = true if Settings.rack_attack.git_basic_auth['enabled'].nil?
 Settings.rack_attack.git_basic_auth['ip_whitelist'] ||= %w{127.0.0.1}
 Settings.rack_attack.git_basic_auth['maxretry'] ||= 10
 Settings.rack_attack.git_basic_auth['findtime'] ||= 1.minute

lib/gitlab/backend/grack_auth.rb

+require_relative 'rack_attack_helpers'
 require_relative 'shell_env'
 module Grack
@@ -85,25 +86,41 @@ module Grack
         user = oauth_access_token_check(login, password)
       end
-      return user if user.present?
-
-      # At this point, we know the credentials were wrong. We let Rack::Attack
-      # know there was a failed authentication attempt from this IP. This
-      # information is stored in the Rails cache (Redis) and will be used by
-      # the Rack::Attack middleware to decide whether to block requests from
-      # this IP.
+      # If the user authenticated successfully, we reset the auth failure count
+      # from Rack::Attack for that IP. A client may attempt to authenticate
+      # with a username and blank password first, and only after it receives
+      # a 401 error does it present a password. Resetting the count prevents
+      # false positives from occurring.
+      #
+      # Otherwise, we let Rack::Attack know there was a failed authentication
+      # attempt from this IP. This information is stored in the Rails cache
+      # (Redis) and will be used by the Rack::Attack middleware to decide
+      # whether to block requests from this IP.
       config = Gitlab.config.rack_attack.git_basic_auth
-      Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.filter(@request.ip, config) do
-        # Unless the IP is whitelisted, return true so that Allow2Ban
-        # increments the counter (stored in Rails.cache) for the IP
-        if config.ip_whitelist.include?(@request.ip)
-          false
+
+      if config.enabled
+        if user
+          # A successful login will reset the auth failure count from this IP
+          Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.reset(@request.ip, config)
         else
-          true
+          banned = Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.filter(@request.ip, config) do
+            # Unless the IP is whitelisted, return true so that Allow2Ban
+            # increments the counter (stored in Rails.cache) for the IP
+            if config.ip_whitelist.include?(@request.ip)
+              false
+            else
+              true
+            end
+          end
+
+          if banned
+            Rails.logger.info "IP #{@request.ip} failed to login " \
+              "as #{login} but has been temporarily banned from Git auth"
+          end
         end
       end
-      nil # No user was found
+      user
     end
     def authorized_request?

lib/gitlab/backend/rack_attack_helpers.rb

+# rack-attack v4.2.0 doesn't yet support clearing of keys.
+# Taken from https://github.com/kickstarter/rack-attack/issues/113
+class Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban
+  def self.reset(discriminator, options)
+    findtime = options[:findtime] or raise ArgumentError, "Must pass findtime option"
+
+    cache.reset_count("#{key_prefix}:count:#{discriminator}", findtime)
+    cache.delete("#{key_prefix}:ban:#{discriminator}")
+  end
+end
+
+class Rack::Attack::Cache
+  def reset_count(unprefixed_key, period)
+    epoch_time = Time.now.to_i
+    # Add 1 to expires_in to avoid timing error: http://git.io/i1PHXA
+    expires_in = period - (epoch_time % period) + 1
+    key = "#{(epoch_time / period).to_i}:#{unprefixed_key}"
+    delete(key)
+  end
+
+  def delete(unprefixed_key)
+    store.delete("#{prefix}:#{unprefixed_key}")
+  end
+end
+
+class Rack::Attack::StoreProxy::RedisStoreProxy
+  def delete(key, options={})
+    self.del(key)
+    rescue Redis::BaseError
+  end
+end

spec/lib/gitlab/backend/grack_auth_spec.rb

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ describe Grack::Auth do
   let(:app)   { lambda { |env| [200, {}, "Success!"] } }
   let!(:auth) { Grack::Auth.new(app) }
-  let(:env) { 
+  let(:env) {
     {
       "rack.input" => "",
       "REQUEST_METHOD" => "GET",
@@ -85,6 +85,17 @@ describe Grack::Auth do
             it "responds with status 401" do
               expect(status).to eq(401)
             end
+
+            context "when the user is IP banned" do
+              before do
+                expect(Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban).to receive(:filter).and_return(true)
+                allow_any_instance_of(Rack::Request).to receive(:ip).and_return('1.2.3.4')
+              end
+
+              it "responds with status 401" do
+                expect(status).to eq(401)
+              end
+            end
           end
           context "when authentication succeeds" do
@@ -109,10 +120,49 @@ describe Grack::Auth do
               end
               context "when the user isn't blocked" do
+                before do
+                 expect(Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban).to receive(:reset)
+                end
+
                 it "responds with status 200" do
                   expect(status).to eq(200)
                 end
               end
+
+              context "when blank password attempts follow a valid login" do
+                let(:options) { Gitlab.config.rack_attack.git_basic_auth }
+                let(:maxretry) { options[:maxretry] - 1 }
+                let(:ip) { '1.2.3.4' }
+
+                before do
+                  allow_any_instance_of(Rack::Request).to receive(:ip).and_return(ip)
+                  Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.reset(ip, options)
+                end
+
+                after do
+                  Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.reset(ip, options)
+                end
+
+                def attempt_login(include_password)
+                  password = include_password ? user.password : ""
+                  env["HTTP_AUTHORIZATION"] = ActionController::HttpAuthentication::Basic.encode_credentials(user.username, password)
+                  Grack::Auth.new(app)
+                  auth.call(env).first
+                end
+
+                it "repeated attempts followed by successful attempt" do
+                  for n in 0..maxretry do
+                    expect(attempt_login(false)).to eq(401)
+                  end
+
+                  expect(attempt_login(true)).to eq(200)
+                  expect(Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.send(:banned?, ip)).to eq(nil)
+
+                  for n in 0..maxretry do
+                    expect(attempt_login(false)).to eq(401)
+                  end
+                end
+              end
             end
             context "when the user doesn't have access to the project" do

spec/lib/gitlab/backend/rack_attack_helpers_spec.rb

+require "spec_helper"
+
+describe 'RackAttackHelpers' do
+  describe 'reset' do
+    let(:discriminator) { 'test-key'}
+    let(:maxretry) { 5 }
+    let(:period) { 1.minute }
+    let(:options) { { findtime: period, bantime: 60, maxretry: maxretry } }
+
+    def do_filter
+      for i in 1..maxretry - 1 do
+        status = Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.filter(discriminator, options) { true }
+        expect(status).to eq(false)
+      end
+    end
+
+    def do_reset
+      Rack::Attack::Allow2Ban.reset(discriminator, options)
+    end
+
+    before do
+      do_reset
+    end
+
+    after do
+      do_reset
+    end
+
+    it 'user is not banned after n - 1 retries' do
+      do_filter
+      do_reset
+      do_filter
+    end
+  end
+end