Project-SDE-WP-Suite/docs/waves/wave-10.md

Wave 10 — Domain authentication over LDAPS

Items: D13 Depends on: wave 9 merged (it is — a8e28bf)

One item, eight tasks. The item is stated in docs/waves/decisions-2026-08-21.md; read it before starting, particularly the Non-negotiables section, which is where this change goes wrong if it goes wrong.

This wave is field-visible in one direction only. Nobody gains a screen. People sign in with their Windows password instead of an app password, the "Forgot password?" link disappears, and admins stop issuing passwords. Everything else is invisible — which means the done-when checks are the only evidence the wave worked.

Build order is task order for once. T10.1 is a standalone module with no callers and should merge first; nothing else can be tested until it exists.

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T10.1 — The LDAPS client

• Items: D13 (1)
• Depends on: nothing
• Blocks: T10.2, T10.4, T10.5, T10.7
• Surface: server/
• Files: new server/ldap_auth.py, server/requirements.txt, docker-compose.yml, Dockerfile, server/.env.example

Problem: There is no directory client in the repo. ldap3 is not a dependency, the API container has no CA bundle, and the api service sits on the internal network, which has no default gateway and therefore no route to 192.168.3.x at all.

Do: Add ldap3 (pinned, per the convention at the top of requirements.txt). Write server/ldap_auth.py exposing two functions and nothing else:

• verify(username, password) -> LdapResult | None — simple bind as f"{username}@{domain}" against ldaps://{host}:636.
• member_of(conn, group) -> bool — nested-group aware, via LDAP_MATCHING_RULE_IN_CHAIN (1.2.840.113556.1.4.1941). memberOf alone is direct membership only and will wrongly refuse anyone in a nested group.

Configuration by environment: LDAP_HOST (default prime.local), LDAP_DOMAIN (default prime.local), LDAP_CA_FILE, LDAP_REQUIRED_GROUP, LDAP_TIMEOUT_SECONDS. Attach the outbound network to api in docker-compose.yml — the same reason assets_db.py needed it, and the comment there already explains the gateway-less internal network. Mount or COPY the PEM bundle and point LDAP_CA_FILE at it.

Connect to prime.local, never a DC hostname and never an IP. See the decision doc for why: SAN coverage plus round-robin across six DCs in one move. Wrap the bind in a retry across resolved addresses, because round-robin will hand out a rebooting DC's address.

Done when:

• ldap3 is pinned to an exact version in requirements.txt
• an empty or whitespace-only password returns failure without calling bind()
• an empty username returns failure without calling bind()
• Tls is constructed with validate=ssl.CERT_REQUIRED and an explicit ca_certs_file
• no code path sets CERT_NONE, and none falls back to the system trust store
• member_of returns true for an account in a nested child of the required group
• a bind against 192.168.3.37 (raw IP) fails hostname validation rather than silently passing
• docker compose exec api openssl s_client -connect prime.local:636 -CAfile $LDAP_CA_FILE reports Verify return code: 0 (ok)
• the module imports cleanly with no LDAP env set (unconfigured is a first-class state, as with MICRON_DB_URL)

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T10.2 — The login path binds instead of hashing

• Items: D13 (1)
• Depends on: T10.1
• Blocks: T10.3, T10.4
• Surface: server/
• Files: server/app.py (login), server/auth.py

Problem: login() at server/app.py:681 calls auth.verify_password against user.password_hash. The lockout counter it maintains is about to start counting domain bind failures, which changes what that counter is for.

Do: Replace the credential check with ldap_auth.verify. Keep the surrounding shape — the deliberate timing equalisation, the generic 401, the 403 for a disabled local account, last_login_at, the session cookie. Rework the throttle so the local counter trips before the domain policy is reached and short-circuits without calling the DC: the failure mode to avoid is this endpoint being usable to lock domain accounts out of Windows. Log directory error-49 sub-codes for diagnosis; return the same generic message regardless.

Break-glass: none — decided Aug 21, see the decision doc. LDAPS is the only way in, so this task adds no fallback path. What it must add instead is visibility: a startup log line stating whether LDAP is configured and whether the DC answered, because with no fallback a misconfigured deploy is indistinguishable from a forgotten password at the login box.

Done when:

• a correct domain password signs in and sets the session cookie
• a wrong password is refused with the generic message
• a blank password is refused (guards T10.1 from the caller's side too)
• a user not in the required group is refused even though the bind succeeded
• is_active = false locally still refuses, independent of the directory
• the local throttle trips below the domain lockout threshold and stops calling the DC
• no response body distinguishes "no such user" from "wrong password"
• error-49 sub-codes appear in the log and nowhere in any response

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T10.3 — Drop password_hash

• Items: D13 (1)
• Depends on: T10.2
• Blocks: T10.6, T10.8
• Surface: server/
• Files: server/models.py, new migration, server/app.py, server/auth.py, server/manage_users.py

Problem: With binds doing the work, every password code path is dead weight and a liability. It is also the criterion that makes this item irreversible, so it lands on its own commit.

Do: Remove password_hash from models.User and drop the column in a new Alembic revision with down_revision = 'a1b8c6d4e2f9' (the current head — confirm with alembic heads rather than trusting this line). Remove from auth.py: hash_password, verify_password, password_problem, MIN_PASSWORD_LEN, _COMMON_PASSWORDS, create_reset_token, decode_reset_token, RESET_MINUTES. Remove from app.py: /api/auth/forgot-password, /api/auth/reset-password, /api/auth/reset-available, /api/auth/password, /api/auth/users/{user_id}/password, and the _reset_last throttle with reset_body. Remove reset-password from manage_users.py and the password prompt from create / create-admin.

token_version stays. It is still the session-revocation mechanism — role changes and deactivation should bump it even though password changes no longer exist.

Do not remove the account-management endpoints themselves. /api/auth/users/{id}/role is criterion 4 and must keep working.

Done when:

• grep -rn "password_hash\|hash_password\|verify_password\|password_problem" server/ returns nothing outside the migration
• alembic upgrade head then downgrade -1 round-trips on SQLite and on Postgres
• the migration's downgrade() recreates the column nullable, not NOT NULL — there are no hashes to put back
• token_version still invalidates sessions, exercised by a role change
• manage_users.py list, disable, enable still work; reset-password is gone
• python -m server.manage_users create-admin <u> creates an admin with no password prompt

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T10.4 — Just-in-time provisioning, without trampling existing accounts

• Items: D13 (2, 4)
• Depends on: T10.2
• Blocks: T10.7
• Surface: server/
• Files: server/app.py (login), server/auth.py

Problem: Criteria 2 and 4 pull in opposite directions. Provisioning on first login must create accounts that do not exist, and must not touch the role of accounts that do — an existing admin signing in for the first time after this wave must still be an admin afterwards.

Do: On a successful bind that passes the group check, look the account up with auth.find_user (already case-insensitive across username and email). If it exists, update only last_login_at and — if empty locally — full_name and email from the directory. Never write role. If it does not exist, create it at ROLE_PROJECT_USER with full_name/email from the directory, honouring the existing auto_add_projects machinery so a JIT account lands in the right projects. Note the flush-order warning in the models.py docstring: create_user in app.py already handles this correctly for account + ProjectMember rows in one flush — follow it.

Write an AuditLog row for each JIT creation. An account appearing without an administrator creating it is exactly the kind of event that record exists for.

Done when:

• an unknown username with a valid bind and group membership gets a users row at project_user
• full_name and email are populated from the directory on creation
• an existing admin signing in is still admin afterwards — asserted, not assumed
• an existing account with a locally-set full_name does not have it overwritten
• a JIT account with auto_add_projects peers gets its ProjectMember rows
• each JIT creation writes an AuditLog row
• a failed bind creates no row
• a bind that succeeds but fails the group check creates no row

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T10.5 — The required group is configurable

• Items: D13 (3)
• Depends on: T10.1
• Blocks: T10.8
• Surface: server/ + html/
• Files: server/notify.py (DEFAULTS), server/app.py (SettingsIn, /api/settings), html/admin.js

Problem: The group has to be settable without a redeploy, but it gates login — a typo in a text box locks the whole company out, including whoever typed it.

Do: Add ldap_required_group to notify.DEFAULTS and SettingsIn, and a field in the Admin console's settings card next to the notification block. LDAP_REQUIRED_GROUP from the environment is the initial value and the fallback when the setting is empty.

Validate on save, not on login. Before persisting, resolve the group in the directory and confirm the saving admin is themselves a member. Refuse the save with a specific message if either check fails. That single guard is what stops the lockout scenario, so it is not optional. Do not add it to notify.PUBLIC_KEYS — an unauthenticated caller must not be able to read the group name off the login page.

Done when:

• the field appears in the Admin console and persists across a restart
• saving a group that does not exist is refused, with a message naming the group
• saving a group the current admin is not in is refused
• an empty setting falls back to LDAP_REQUIRED_GROUP, and empty-with-no-env means no group gate (documented, logged at startup)
• the group name is absent from /api/settings for a non-admin and from any pre-login response
• the field is reachable by keyboard, labelled, and announces its save state through the existing aria-live region (C1)

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T10.6 — Strip the password UI

• Items: D13 (1)
• Depends on: T10.3
• Blocks: nothing
• Surface: html/
• Files: html/login.html, html/login.js, html/admin.js, html/users.js, html/auth-guard.js

Problem: login.html has three views — sign-in, forgot-password, set-new-password — and two of them now point at endpoints that no longer exist. auth-guard.js has a change-password dialog, and the user-admin UI has a "reset password" action per row.

Do: Remove the #view-forgot and #view-reset sections, the #forgot-link, and the reset-token handling in login.js. Remove the change-password dialog from auth-guard.js (backlog.md:180 refers to it) and the per-row password reset from the users UI. Keep the sign-in form, and relabel the password field's hint to say it is the Windows/domain password — people need to know which password to type.

Keep the role-granting controls exactly as they are. That is criterion 4.

Done when:

• grep -rn "forgot\|reset-password\|new-password" html/ returns nothing but unrelated matches
• the sign-in form still submits, and a failure still announces through role="alert" (login.html already does this correctly — do not regress it)
• the password field says which password to enter
• no dead <a href="#"> or handler remains for a removed view
• granting admin to an existing user still works from the console
• exercised at 390px and at 1440px, screenshots in the PR
• no raw hex added to any stylesheet (the token rule)

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T10.7 — Make the suite testable without a domain controller

• Items: D13 (1, 2, 3)
• Depends on: T10.1, T10.4
• Blocks: T10.8
• Surface: tests/ + server/
• Files: server/ldap_auth.py, tests/browser_check.py, tests/launcher_check.py, tests/console_dialogs_check.py, tests/url_state_check.py, server/smoketest.py, server/seed_demo.py, new tests/ldap_auth_check.py

Problem: This is the task most likely to be underestimated. Four existing checks build users with password_hash=auth.hash_password(PW) and sign in over HTTP; console_dialogs_check.py drives the password-reset prompt specifically. smoketest.py and seed_demo.py both sign in. None of them can reach a DC, and CI has no domain.

Do: Make the bind injectable — a module-level seam in ldap_auth.py that a test can substitute (a fake directory: usernames, passwords, groups, full names), selected by an env var that is refused when a real DATABASE_URL is configured, mirroring how auth._load_secret refuses an ephemeral key in production. Port the four checks onto it. Delete the password-reset half of console_dialogs_check.py — the flow it covers no longer exists — and say so in the PR rather than leaving a skipped test.

Add tests/ldap_auth_check.py covering the non-negotiables from the decision doc: empty password, empty username, CERT_REQUIRED asserted by inspecting the constructed Tls, nested group membership, group-check refusal creating no user, and existing-admin role preservation.

Done when:

• the full tests/ suite passes with no DC reachable
• the stub backend cannot be selected when a non-SQLite DATABASE_URL is set — asserted by a test
• tests/ldap_auth_check.py covers all six cases above
• the empty-password case fails loudly if the guard is removed (verified by removing it)
• smoketest.py and seed_demo.py document which credentials they now need
• the removed password-reset checks are called out in the PR, not silently dropped

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T10.8 — Documentation and the deploy runbook

• Items: D13
• Depends on: T10.3, T10.5, T10.7
• Blocks: nothing
• Surface: docs
• Files: DEPLOYMENT.md, server/README.md, DEPLOY-login-portal.md, CLAUDE.md, IMPLEMENTATION.md

Problem: DEPLOY-login-portal.md documents creating the first admin with a password and is the page an admin will reach for. DEPLOYMENT.md describes AUTH_SECRET_KEY and SMTP but knows nothing about a directory. CLAUDE.md's verification section tells anyone touching the frontend to run the smoke test, which changes here.

Do: Document the LDAP variables, how to produce the CA bundle from the two thumbprints in the decision doc, and the prime.local-not-an-IP rule with the reason. Add the openssl s_client -CAfile check as the first-line diagnostic. Rewrite the DEPLOY-login-portal.md bootstrap step: the first admin is now an existing directory account promoted with manage_users.py, not an account created with a password. State plainly what happens when the DC is unreachable, whatever T10.2 decides.

Done when:

• every new env var is documented in server/.env.example and DEPLOYMENT.md
• the CA bundle procedure is reproducible by an admin who has not read this thread
• DEPLOY-login-portal.md no longer instructs anyone to set a password
• the DC-unreachable behaviour is stated explicitly
• IMPLEMENTATION.md section 4 lists wave 10
• no doc still claims passwords are stored as bcrypt hashes