[jira] [Commented] (GUACAMOLE-1260) Provide better error messages to the user

["Nick Couchman (Jira)" <ji...@apache.org>]

    [ https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GUACAMOLE-1260?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=17262253#comment-17262253 ] 

Nick Couchman commented on GUACAMOLE-1260:
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[~user12319273]: First, I think there is likely some room for improved error messages to the user throughout Guacamole, so I'm good with this issue...

However, to balance that, one thing we are conscious about throughout the application is the balance of giving the user enough information to know what to do versus providing administrative-level information to the user. There could be security implications for exposing too much information to the user, and, while this may make it easier for an administrator looking over the shoulder of a user having issues, it could also make it easier for an attacker to exploit or attack a system if the information provided is too verbose.

So, again, not to say there aren't areas that could be improved, but just something to keep in mind in moving forward with this issue.

> Provide better error messages to the user
> -----------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: GUACAMOLE-1260
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GUACAMOLE-1260
>             Project: Guacamole
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>          Components: guacamole-client, guacamole-common, guacamole-server, guacd
>    Affects Versions: 1.3.0
>         Environment: Guacamole 1.3.0, Debian 10, Apache Tomcat 9
>            Reporter: user12319273
>            Priority: Trivial
>              Labels: error-feedback, error-handling, error_message_improvement, errorhandling, user-experience
>
> There are many possible reasons why a Guacamole connection may fail. Some of them are issues with the Guacamole server, while many of them are problems with the Remote Desktop Server the User wants to connect to. So far, the only way to find the error cause is to connect to the Server running the guacd daemon and read the logs. This gets even harder if the issue occurred in the past and isn't easily reproducible, or if the server is used by multiple users and multiple connections happen in parallel. Having no kind of error feedback to the user is suboptimal, as even some trivial cases like wrong username/password can't be recognized by the user.
> To address these issues, I think it might be helpful to provide at least the error message to the user session trying to establish a connection. Similar to the feedback a regular Remote Desktop Application would give the user. Especially for users managing their own Remote Desktop endpoints (e.g. their regular Windows computer at work) such error messages might already help the user to sort the issue out by themselves. And even if the user can't solve the problem by themselves, they can at least provide this error message to an admin to get fast assistance.
> I think this would improve error handling a lot, as many problems probably wouldn't even need to be raised to the administrator of the Guacamole Server, as users can solve them by themselves. No lengthy log-checking by the sysadmin to recognize the error cause would be needed. And for these errors that do need to be solved by an admin, the admin would already get a starting point by the error message the user got. And also for the user this is an improvement, as he doesn't have to wait for the sysadmin to get their issue sorted out in many cases.
> Please tell me if I'm missing something. Otherwise, I think this would be a a huge imrovement to this awesome project! Thanks!
> This might be related to
>  * [GUACAMOLE-1047: Notify connecting client on unrecognized connection ID|https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GUACAMOLE-1047]
>  * [GUACAMOLE-752: Include guacd connection id in error messages displayed in browser|https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/GUACAMOLE-752]
>  * And probably others, these were the ones I could find.



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