nodeSolidServer / nodeSolidServer/node-solid-server

Cookie not set with SameSite attribute

Open
#1,463 8 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
JavaScript
Stars
1.8k
Forks
308
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

As noted on solid-auth-client https://github.com/solid/solid-auth-client/issues/151, Chrome is requiring third party cookies to be set with SameSite=None and Secure. While this setting is not yet active on desktop, it is active on Android and therefore breaks all Solid apps using the nssidp.sid cookie from .solid.community.
This can still be bypassed by disabling chrome://flags/#same-site-by-default-cookies.
Presumably non-cookie based authentication doesn't have this issue but I'm not sure it's possible to turn off cookie-based authentication at the moment (https://github.com/solid/node-solid-server/issues/672)

I'm not an expert, but it appears the change required is in the definition of the express-session settings
https://github.com/solid/node-solid-server/blob/master/lib/create-app.js#L305
https://www.npmjs.com/package/express-session#cookiesamesite

It may be sufficient to simply use:

    cookie: {
      maxAge: 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000,
      sameSite:'None'
    }

It seems that http connections should also be completely dropped for authenticated sessions because the third party cookie won't be sent without cookie.secure=true anyway.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in lib/create-app.js around line 305 and review the express-session cookie settings alongside the express-session documentation. Reproduce the nssidp.sid behavior in Android Chrome with SameSite cookie enforcement, then verify that authenticated Solid apps can establish and use the session without breaking the supported connection modes.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
express, javascript
Domain
authentication, backend
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.