March 2022 Summaries

Authentication and authorization, often referred to collectively as "auth," are crucial yet complex components of software development that involve verifying user identities and determining access permissions. The complexity of implementing these processes often arises from the multitude of available methods and technologies, such as JWT tokens, OAuth2, and cookies, which each have their own advantages and limitations depending on the application type. Single-page applications (SPAs), server-side rendering (SSR), and native applications each require specific strategies for handling sessions, with storage options like cookies and Web Workers offering different levels of security and accessibility. For browser-based applications, cookies with the httpOnly attribute are often preferred due to their secure and efficient management of session data, while server-side and native applications can rely on tokens stored in memory or secure storage. Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, and developers must carefully evaluate their specific requirements and security practices to choose the most appropriate authentication method for their application, with resources like OWASP providing valuable guidance.

Hermes, currently in its prototype phase, is an audit logs service utilizing a Go REST API server to ingest logs and send them to Loki, with the goal of finding scalable solutions for high traffic without data loss. Various combinations of ingesters like Vector and Fluentd, and storage tools such as MongoDB and ClickHouse were benchmarked to determine their suitability for Hermes. Testing was conducted on a MacBook Pro with dockerized tools, revealing that Fluent Bit, despite its fast log ingestion capabilities, does not natively support ClickHouse, necessitating custom plugins. ClickHouse demonstrated exceptional querying performance, efficiently managing both short-term high loads and long-term light loads. The benchmarks indicated Fluent Bit's capability to handle up to 2000 requests per second, although performance declines with larger batches. Future blogs will provide further insights as Hermes and other development tools evolve.