farisnassif / fourthyear_distributedsystemsproject

A gRPC distributed user account management system split into two parts. [1]: A gRPC Password service [2]: RESTful User Account Service

Project Details

Details
Project	Project Spec
Course	BSc (Hons) in Software Development
Module	Distributed Systems
Author	Faris Nassif
Lecturer	Dr John French

Project Outline

1. Create a gRPC Password Service which will provide Password hashing and Verification. The service will expose a gRPC API with two methods:

2. Design a REST API for a User Account web service using OpenAPI and SwaggerHub, the API definition should support multiple operations, following the REST architectural style.

3. Develop a User Account service by implementing the API in Java using the Dropwizard microservice framework. The User Account service should use the password utility methods provided by the gRPC Password Service developed in Part 1.

Running the Program

1. In your command line terminal
   git clone https://github.com/farisNassif/FourthYear_DistributedSystemsProject
2. Navigate to the User_Service directory
   cd user_service
3. Run the Password Service (Part 1)
   java -jar runnable_jars/PasswordServer.jar
4. Run the User Account Service (Part 2) along with the .yaml file
   java -jar runnable_jars/UserService.jar server userApiConfig.yaml

Both services run on port 50000 so manual input isn't needed

Working your way around the Program

1. After completing the steps above have a look at the API Definition for the User Account Service.
2. Using Postman or any other collaboration platform of your choice execute any of the operations outlined in the API Definition.

Outcomes

The User Account Service correctly intergrates with the previously developed Password Service and returns the desired functionality. Passwords are correctly Hashed and Verified via the Password Service and this is observeable via executing the relevant operations outlined in the API Definition. Appropriate Status Codes are returned based on the body of the Request. All operations outlined in the Brief are implemented and Status Code Validated.

Changes made to the Password Service

When first testing my Part 2 with my Part 1 I found it wouldn't correctly integrate, I made a change to my Part 1 by where I removed a lot of the loose coupling and tightly coupled it without changing the code, I also hardwired the Server to Listen on Port 50000 as the Client is hardwired to connect to that Port. After removing the Client testing classes from the Part 1 project folder and re-packaging it and running it, it seemed to work perfectly with Part 2. I'm positive I made no hard changes to the code, I remember messing about with the .pom which may have fixed the previous issue.

Issues with the Project

1. Password Validation is Asynchronous
   After hours spent trying to get the Validation working Synchronously with appropriate requests I found myself running into issue after issue and neglecting other parts of the Project. In the future it will be definitely something I look at since I feel it was something small I was missing, I just couldn't find what.

2. Password Validation (Again), while it works it does require two Requests
   I believe this is due to the way I have the boolean Result setup in the Client. The way I have the Boolean implemented isn't optimal and wouldn't be used in a real world scenario however for testing this project it saved me a lot of time at the cost of throwing this issue (bit of a contradiction). After several unsuccessful attempts to debug it, it remains in the final release. Again this is something I will look at in future since it's a bit of a hinderance that probably has a reasonable fix with some more debugging.

References

• https://www.baeldung.com/java-password-hashing
• https://howtodoinjava.com/security/how-to-generate-secure-password-hash-md5-sha-pbkdf2-bcrypt-examples/
• https://crackstation.net/hashing-security.htm
• https://stackabuse.com/dropwizard-develop-restful-web-services-faster/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57759714/dropwizard-how-to-add-a-custom-validation-for-get-put
• https://docs.oracle.com/javaee/7/api/javax/ws/rs/core/Response.Status.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/655891/converting-utf-8-to-iso-8859-1-in-java-how-to-keep-it-as-single-byte
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7048745/what-is-the-difference-between-utf-8-and-iso-8859-1
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38153880/dropwizard-custom-validation-annotation-not-working