fix(auth): carry a generated secret in the session cookie, not the row id

The cookie was the Session row's cuid. cuid is built for collision-
resistant identity across distributed writers, not for unguessability —
it encodes a millisecond timestamp and a process-local counter and never
touches a CSPRNG. A session cookie is a bearer credential and has to be
unguessable, so it now carries 32 random bytes and only the HMAC of that
value is stored, matching how api_tokens and refresh_tokens already hold
their secrets.

Compatibility is passive, and deliberately so. A backfill cannot help:
the cookie already sitting in a browser is the cuid, and nothing we
generate server-side can be pushed into it — backfilling would sign
everyone out at deploy. Upgrading a row in place on first use loses to
the parallel requests a single page load fires: each mints its own
secret, one write wins, and the losers cannot re-emit the winner's
secret because only a hash is stored, so the browser can end up holding
a value the row does not honour. Instead, rows minted before the column
keep a NULL token_hash and stay resolvable by id, and are denied the
sliding-expiry extension so they drain within the 30-day session
lifetime. Every login from this release forward is on a secret at once,
and an id stops authenticating the moment its row holds one.

Note for operators: API_TOKEN_HMAC_KEY now also keys session cookies, so
rotating it signs browser sessions out as well as invalidating tokens.
It is already Core-required, so no deployment gains a new prerequisite.
This commit is contained in:
Marc-André Bombeck committed 2026-07-19 11:40:56 +02:00
1 parent fd6a80a921
commit a8b0365ca5
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@@ -47,11 +47,11 @@ echo "ENCRYPTION_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" >> .env
echo "API_TOKEN_HMAC_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)" >> .env
```
| Variable | Purpose | Rotation cost |
| -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ |
| `POSTGRES_PASSWORD` | Bundled Postgres password — used by both the `db` service and `DATABASE_URL` | Database restart + connection-string update |
| `ENCRYPTION_KEY` | AES-256-GCM key for at-rest secrets (Withings tokens, AI provider keys, VAPID secrets) | Coordinated; see `docs/ops/encryption-key-rotation.md` |
| `API_TOKEN_HMAC_KEY` | HMAC-SHA256 key for hashing Bearer API tokens before storage | Invalidates every issued `hlk_*` token |
| Variable | Purpose | Rotation cost |
| -------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `POSTGRES_PASSWORD` | Bundled Postgres password — used by both the `db` service and `DATABASE_URL` | Database restart + connection-string update |
| `ENCRYPTION_KEY` | AES-256-GCM key for at-rest secrets (Withings tokens, AI provider keys, VAPID secrets) | Coordinated; see `docs/ops/encryption-key-rotation.md` |
| `API_TOKEN_HMAC_KEY` | HMAC-SHA256 key for hashing Bearer API tokens and web session cookies before storage | Invalidates every issued `hlk_*` token and signs out every browser session |
You do **not** edit `DATABASE_URL` on the bundled `docker-compose.yml`
stack: compose constructs the connection string inside the `app`