[jira] [Commented] (CB-12232) [cordova-android] Skipping HTTPS certificate validation should be hidden behind a flag, and not a default in debug builds

["jcesarmobile (JIRA)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-12232?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=16154493#comment-16154493 ] 

jcesarmobile commented on CB-12232:
-----------------------------------

Increasing priority to Critical

I think we shouldn't ignore ssl certs by default, there should be a flag to disable them, but default should be to not work and show the error.
 
We should change the behavior for next major release

I have seen a lot of people not understanding why their apps don't work once they upload them to Google Play

> [cordova-android] Skipping HTTPS certificate validation should be hidden behind a flag, and not a default in debug builds
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: CB-12232
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-12232
>             Project: Apache Cordova
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>          Components: cordova-android
>    Affects Versions: 6.2.0
>            Reporter: jakub-g
>            Priority: Critical
>              Labels: android
>
> Right now, when you create a debuggable Cordova build (default behavior for commands like `cordova run android` etc.), it by default ignores all HTTPS certificate errors, as you can see in the code below:
> https://github.com/apache/cordova-android/blob/23fd0982b0faa6b7e169c2946eab07930f1f4d16/framework/src/org/apache/cordova/engine/SystemWebViewClient.java#L232-L239
> HTTPS certs are only validated when you create a release build, explicitly passing a flag, e.g. 
> {{cordova run android --release}}
> This behavior is IMO harmful, and let me tell you why (see below for two real-life stories)
> *TL;DR I believe it would be better to not bind the lax HTTPS behavior to {{\-\-debug}} vs {{\-\-release}} build type, but hide it behind a special flag (to follow Chrome's naming convention, that would be {{\-\-ignore-certificate-errors}}, but we can name it whatever we like). This would expose developers to HTTPS errors much earlier in the dev process, which IMO is beneficial; it will also make it easier to understand and debug the problems, and avoid last-minute surprises.*
> _Question: do we have a portion of code already that makes runtime behavior depend on build-time flag? i.e. would it be easy to add a new flag in a similar way, without herculean effort?_
> So, the promised real-life stories:
> 1) Consider, that you have an HTTPS website and your HTTPS certificate is somehow invalid (but you don't know about that). You develop your stuff _for weeks and weeks_ in debug builds and everything is great. You prepare for grand APK upload to Play Store, do a {{\-\-release}} build, and... stuff doesn't work! You want to debug it, but you can't - because {{\-\-release}} build is non-debuggable! This looks super mysterious and you're totally baffled.
> Doing black-box debugging on --release build ain't easy, but you give it a try.
> You're thinking about all possible things that could go wrong (code minification? some issue with signing keys? Cordova/Chrome/Android are broken?), finally after a while you reach to google and you figure out the issue is due to cordova only checking HTTPS certs in {{\-\-release}} mode.
> People tell about self-signed certs, but your cert looks legit, after all, it works on all desktop client. But at least you know where to look.
> Luckily for you, the staging platform has a publicly accessible domain name. You test your cert with SSLLabs and it tells you that your server doesn't send all intermediary certs. It's still not sure if this is the issue, but you ask the ops team to update the server.
> They get a better cert and update server config to send the intermediary cert. You're saved! This was the missing piece to make the app work.
> 2) Suppose you never had the issue 1), you built an app, it works in production, all is well. One day, you change the HTTPS cert in production (because an old one expired etc.), you do quick tests, all is well (or, even worse: when in big corporation, ops guys change the HTTPS cert without telling you). You forget about it, and continue developing your app. You're a dev and you're constantly in the Chrome DevTools, so naturally you always build debuggable builds. You keep adding features for weeks, all works great in your debuggable builds. Your QAs do tests and most often stuff works great, but sometimes they're getting weird connection issues. First they think it's some weird connectivity issue (poor WiFi etc.), but the issues happen more often. Turns out the issue happens _only with --release builds_ and _only on production server_. There's a fire in production, but no one noticed for quite a while since the QA test features mostly on staging servers, and devs work with staging servers too, and use debuggable builds most of the time - and the --release sanity targeting production happens only every N weeks before loading to production.
> But finally someone connects the dots that only --release builds targeting production server do not work. You want to investigate the issue, and obviously, in debug mode it doesn't happen, whereas in --release mode, you can't connect to DevTools to see what's going on and test some hypotheses.
> Finally you dig hard into the topic and learn about {{onReceivedSslError}} and change it to never ignore the errors, and redo the build. Issue is reproducible in debuggable build now, so now that you know it's HTTPS, you look again at your cert (and here the dragons just start: turns our your cert was issued by Symantec, and there's a webview bug in versions 53, 54 and early 55 which rejects Symantec-issued certs: http://android.stackexchange.com/q/164066/165570 !)
> As you can see, quite a lot of those hassles would have been avoided if strict HTTPS was the default rule.
> Ok, to be honest, if the default is strict HTTPS, the developer will still be baffled if stuff doesn't work when connecting to his platform in debug build (particularly if the issue is with missing intermediary certs), and we should think about how to make this more discoverable, but, being at least able to observe request failure in devtools is already a major step forward!



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