Firebase should my user id structure include the words "simplelogin"? - javascript

When I login with simple login and use authData.uid I get the return of simplelogin:1 (with 1 being the id of my user.
My user structure is set up like this:
{
"users":
{
"1": { ... },
"2": { ... }
}
}
And my rules are set up like this:
{
"rules": {
"users": {
"$userid": {
".read": "auth.uid == $userid",
".write": "auth.uid == $userid"
}
}
}
}
So I am a little confused on how to make it so /users/1 would work. Does everyone normally make there user structure "simplelogin:1" instead of "1"?
It's saying I don't have permission to view my user since my $userid is "simplelogin:1" and not "1"
Does anyone know how I can fix this?

In your example above, the unique, cross-provider user id is simplelogin:1, not just 1. Using only the integer is problematic, because these user ids are not unique across all providers (Twitter, Facebook, Google, GitHub, etc.) and may have collisions.
It is expected and by-design that the user ids include the prefix for how the user was authenticated. Also note that the format of these user ids may change in the future, so it is not recommended that you attempt to parse them or treat them as human-readable. They are only intended to be unique alphanumeric ids for your Firebase.

Related

Firebase basic rules issues

I have a firebase realtime database that stores users information. I am creating a dashboard where I can track all of this , but I am having trouble with creating secure rules. I want to be able to read and write on this dashboard but users cannot read the database. I will be the only person on the dashboard since its local. I was thinking of like checking for an api key that I can have in the dashboard but I cannot find any information online. If you have any suggestions please let me know. These are my current rules below. I have it to where nobody can read the database but they can write to it. I want to be able to read the database from the dashboard.
{
"rules": {
".read": "false",
".write": true,
"posts": {
"$uid": {
".write": "!data.exists()"
}
}
}
}
The security rules will depend on what exactly it is that the users can read/write but if you wanted to be the only person who can do either you could set the security rules to something like,
{
"rules": {
"users": {
"$node_with_data": {
".write": "auth.uid === 'enter_your_uid_here_123' ",
".read": "auth.uid === 'enter_your_uid_here_123' "
}
}
}
}
This means that the only person who can read/write to the node specified is the the user with the uid that matches the one you enter. Obviously this would mean the users couldn't write to this node so you'll need to think about what types of users you have and what they're allowed to access.
Here's a useful link Firebase Security Rules
What I did is use firebase Authentication and what I can do is allow only authenticated users through since I don't authenticate anyone or I can only let my Gmail through which works great! Mine looks like this
{
"rules": {
".read": "auth.token.email_verified == true && auth.token.email.matches(/YOUROWNEMAIL/)",
".write": true,
"posts": {
"$uid": {
".write": "!data.exists()" // This makes it so nobody can delete anything
}
}
}
}

Firebase realtime database rules - Allow multiple user access to list all messages

I would like to give multiple users access to fetch a collection of "messages" they have access to in Firebase Realtime database. The database fetch would read "/messages" and return a collection of all messages the user has access to. Database structure looks like this:
"messages" : {
"-L123456789": {
"access": {
"author": "user-one-id-987654"
"assigned-user-id-1234": "assigned-user-id-1234"
}
"data" : {
"theData": "Hello world!"
}
}
}
I have created the following rule:
{
"rules": {
"messages": {
"$message_id": {
"data": {
".read": "
//if author or assigned user
data.parent().child('access').child('author').val() === auth.uid ||
data.parent().child('access').child(auth.uid).exists()
",
".write": "false"
}
}
}
}
However, I am not able to get a collection of all messages where I am listed as author or assigned user.
What rule would allow a user listed as "author" (user-one-id-987654) or "assigned user" (assigned-user-id-1234) to get a collection of all messages they have access to by simply reading the "/messages/" database path?
I am guessing a rule in the root of "messages" might be the answer?
I have tried the below rule - it grants access to all authenticated users - but I wish to only return a collection where the user is listed as "author" or "assigned user".
{
"rules": {
"messages": {
".read": "auth.uid !== null"
}
}
}
Kind regards
/K
Firebase server-side security rules can not be used to filter data. When you attach a listener to the database, the server checks if that listener is guaranteed to always meet the rules (no matter what the data). If it doesn't meet the rules, the listener is rejected right away.
So if you attach a listener to /messages, the server checks if you have read permission to /messages. And since you don't, it rejects the listener.
If you want to allow the user to read messages of which they're the owner you'll need two things:
A query that only retrieves the messages that the user owns.
Security rules that ensure only that query is allowed.
For more on this, see the Firebase documentation on securely querying data and the blog post introducing this feature.

restricting access to firebase database to users within a set

I wrote a simple chat application a while back to help me learn node and socket.io, I have recently been looking into firebase as a platform for an app/website, and I am running into an interesting problem I can't solve. Within the app there will be a chat app, there will be channels and all that good stuff, the hard part is there will be private chat, where 2 users can talk privately. The plan is to store the chat in a firebase database. Now I can easily restrict access to firebase databases based on if a user is authenticated, and even restrict user profile access to authenticated users and the user that owns that profile, but I am trying to figure out how to restrict access to the "private chat" children of the "chat" database, to only the 2 users that are in that conversation.
I am thinking the database would look something like this...
{
"chat": {
"channels": ['topics', 'current', 'blah', 'blah', 'blah'],
"{PRIVATE_CHAT_UID_GOES_HERE}": {
"users": ["{USER_ID_1}", "{USER_ID_2}"],
"messages": [{"from": "{USER_ID}", "message": "Hi there"},{...}]
"createdOn": "DATE GOES HERE"
},
"{PRIVATE_CHAT_UID_GOES_HERE}": {
"users": ["{USER_ID}", "{USER_ID}"],
"messages": [{...}, {...}],
"createdOn": "DATE GOES HERE"
}
}
}
Then I would restrict access to the child(private chat id) to only the users that are in the "users" array. That way no one can read or write to that particular chat, unless they are in that particular chat. I just have no idea how to go about it.
I know you can do things like
".read": "auth !== null && auth.uid = $uid"
But I don't think that would be applicable since it limits usage to the owner of the uid, and the uid would be automatically generated when I add a child to "chat" to start a private chat between users.
Is something like this even possible, or is there some better way to structure the data that would allow an easy restriction of access to only the 2 users that are part of the conversation?
I am trying to avoid having a node.js server sitting around just verifying if a user is in a chat, it seems like a pointless overhead, when you can list the database and handle auth directly from the database. I am more than happy to provide code samples of what I have, though I don't know that they are relevant. Thank you in advance for any help.
Your first problem is that you're storing the users in an array. An array is an ordered collection that can have duplicate values. In your scenario you don't want duplicate values, and most likely the order doesn't matter. In such cases you should use a set data structure, which in Firebase is modeled as:
"users": {
"{USER_ID_1}": true,
"{USER_ID_2}": true
}
Now you can restrict read access to the chat room to its members by:
{
"rules": {
"chat": {
"$roomid": {
".read": "data.child('members').child(auth.uid).exists()
}
}
}
}
Be careful mixing different data types in the same node. It's often best to keep each entity in its own top-level node, relating the different types by their key. For example, I'd separate the room's messages, members, and other metadata:
chat
rooms
<roomid1>
createdOn: ....
.... other metadata for the room
roomUsers
<roomid1>
user_id1: true
user_id2: true
roomMessages
<roomid1>
<message1>: { ... }
<message2>: { ... }
<message3>: { ... }

Firebase Database Rules for multi-update transactions

I’m trying to create security rules for the “Save data as transactions” blogging app example from the Firebase guide.
The user can increase or decrease the star count for a post, having his own UID being included or removed from the node at the same time.
I’ve written the following rules:
(I removed the rules for the counter increase/decrease since they are out of the scope of the question)
“stars”: {
".read": true,
"$postId”: {
".write": "auth != null && (newData.child('users').child(auth.uid).exists() || data.child('users').child(auth.uid).exists())",
"users": {
"$userId": {
".validate": "$userId === auth.uid"
}
}
}
}
And an exemple of a stars node:
“stars”: {
“postId1”: {
starCount: 2,
"users": {
“userId1”: true,
“userId2”: true
}
}
}
The rules work fine for adding an user to the “users” node, but a problem arises when removing.
It’s possible for a mean-spirited user to remove any other user from the “users” node, just update it with a empty node. Or a node with all the users from before, minus one he chose to remove.
The “.validate” rule ("$userId === auth.uid") does not work for a empty node being submited and I can't write a rule that checks if all the users that were in the database before the update are still there after.
The way I’d solve the problem if I wasn’t using transactions was to to move the “.write” rule to under “$userId”, limiting the uptate for only one user at a time and only with the same UID as the logged user.
Something like:
“stars”: {
".read": true,
"$postId”: {
"users": {
"$userId": {
".write": "auth != null && $userId === auth.uid"
}
}
}
"starCount": {
".write": true
}
But since I’m doing the database update using transactions I need the “.write” rule under the "$postId”, permitting the update of the “users” node and the “starCount” node at the same time. Something that would not be possible in my last exemple (no “.write” rule under "$postId”).
So it seem like a Catch-22. Or I use transactions but I’m not able to secure the starCount with rules, or I do it as a normal multi-update but loose the concurrency benefits for increasing the counter.
How can I correctly secure the “Save data as transactions” blogging app exemple?

Unique IP write permissions Firebase collection

Let's say I have a collection of articles:
https://example.firebaseio.com/articles/$key
And I want to add a viewCounter and currentUsersCounter children to articles.
https://example.firebaseio.com/articles/$key/viewCounter
https://example.firebaseio.com/articles/$key/currentUsersCounter
I execute a function anytime a user has scrolled into the next article:
var currentArticle = function(key){
//key == index of the article
//This is where I want to increment the `viewCounter` and `currentUsersCounter`
}
Obviously I don't want anyone writing to anything more then those two children.
How do I expand on my security rules which currently (black-lists all writes) to white-listing writes only for these specific collections?
How would I limit writes to unique IP addresses in my security rules for these white-listed collections? (if possible)
Currently black-listing all writes:
{
"rules": {
".read": true,
".write": "auth.email == 'example#gmail.com'"
}
}
You can't do this in a way that will protect the integrity of the data (i.e. ensuring that the counts are actually accurate), since if you grant write access to those fields a client can write whatever value it wants to it.
You can, however, provide granular read/write access for only those specific children by using variables in your security rules:
{
"articles": {
"$key": {
"viewCounter": {
".write": true,
".validate": "newData.isNumber() && newData.val() == data.val() + 1"
},
"$other": {
".write": "auth.email == 'example#gmail.com'"
}
}
}
}
It is not possible to do any filtering based on IP addresses. You'll want to use a secret from trusted server code to do that as suggested in the comment.

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