Re: Net.Data and session management

[Bradley Stone <bvstone@xxxxxxxxx>]

We don't use Net.Data, mainly CGIDEV2 and eRPG SDK, but for session
management we use cookies.  Easy, clean, simple and effective.

Cookies are there to be used.  :)  I think the days of people being
"afraid" of cookies is over, or at least it should be.  With how easy they
are used with jQuery (or even on the server side)

Just be careful not to store any sensitive information in them.

Whenever we need to use a cookie, for example to show someone is "logged
on" we use a 256 byte random character string and have a x-reference table
on the i that we use to find out what that value "really" is.

For example, when a user signs on we generate a 256 byte string, write an
x-ref record (after making sure it's not a duplicate random string already
in use) with that 256 byte string and the real value (in this case, the
user's id) and store that 256 byte string in the cookie.

Then we have ILE subprocedures like getID() that retrieve the cookie value,
look it up in the xref, and return the real user id to our program on the
server.

Brad
www.bvstools.com

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 10:44 AM, Joe W Holt <joe.holt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I've noticed an uptick of Net.Data users posting so I wanted to push out a
> question. Back when I adopted Net.Data (when it first came out) I developed
> with it as mainly an interface to maintain session management using
> persistence and calling rpg programs. Well with the passage of time
> persistence is frowned upon even more so today. It is way too easy to
> create an error forcing the persistence to bomb out and eject the user
> data.  I'm quickly writing the replacement application and am being pushed
> by relevance of technology to use other tools such as php. Not a big
> proponent of using php on my box. I prefer CGIDEV2 and such tools that are
> relatively unknown outside of the 400 circles so that they aren't readily
> high profile attack options. As I examine my apache logs I see countless
> times the efforts being made in the public to take advantage of known
> attacks these other platforms have fallen prey.
>
>  Anyone else adopt some session management styles with Net.Data that would
> be nice to implement? I've started using CGIDEV2 and userspaces with
> cookies but it isn't a very clean approach due to my own haste and am
> rethinking my options. I'm either going to have to adopt another tool like
> php, clean up the CGIDEV2 process, or use Net.Data with??? Any thoughts
> would be great.  I'm not with great confidence that Net.Data will survive
> as an available product as technology continues to change. I was very
> surprised (and relieved) to have it on 7.1.
>
>
>
> ***
> Regards,
> Joe W Holt
> Sr Programmer/Developer
> Jack Onofrio Dog Shows, LLC
> 405.427.8181
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