Troubleshooting

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The logs provide insight into what DAST is doing and expecting during the authentication process. For more detailed information, configure the authentication report.

For more information about particular error messages or situations see known problems.

The browser-based analyzer is used to authenticate the user. For advanced troubleshooting, see browser-based troubleshooting.

Read the logs

The console output of the DAST CI/CD job shows information about the authentication process using the AUTH log module. For example, the following log shows failed authentication for a multi-step login form. Authentication failed because a home page should be displayed after login. Instead, the login form was still present. 

2022-11-16T13:43:02.000 INF AUTH  attempting to authenticate
2022-11-16T13:43:02.000 INF AUTH  loading login page LoginURL=https://example.com/login
2022-11-16T13:43:10.000 INF AUTH  multi-step authentication detected
2022-11-16T13:43:15.000 INF AUTH  verifying if user submit was successful true_when="HTTP status code < 400"
2022-11-16T13:43:15.000 INF AUTH  requirement is satisfied, no login HTTP message detected want="HTTP status code < 400"
2022-11-16T13:43:20.000 INF AUTH  verifying if login attempt was successful true_when="HTTP status code < 400 and has authentication token and no login form found (no element found when searching using selector css:[id=email] or css:[id=password] or css:[id=submit])"
2022-11-24T14:43:20.000 INF AUTH  requirement is satisfied, HTTP login request returned status code 200 url=https://example.com/user/login?error=invalid%20credentials want="HTTP status code < 400"
2022-11-16T13:43:21.000 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, login form was found want="no login form found (no element found when searching using selector css:[id=email] or css:[id=password] or css:[id=submit])"
2022-11-16T13:43:21.000 INF AUTH  login attempt failed error="authentication failed: failed to authenticate user"

Configure the authentication report

caution
The authentication report can contain sensitive information such as the credentials used to perform the login.

An authentication report can be saved as a CI/CD job artifact to assist with understanding the cause of an authentication failure.

The report contains steps performed during the login process, HTTP requests and responses, the Document Object Model (DOM) and screenshots.

dast-auth-report

An example configuration where the authentication debug report is exported may look like the following: 

dast:
  variables:
    DAST_WEBSITE: "https://example.com"
    DAST_AUTH_REPORT: "true"
  artifacts:
    paths: [gl-dast-debug-auth-report.html]
    when: always

Known problems

Login form not found

DAST failed to find a login form when loading the login page, often because the authentication URL could not be loaded. The log reports a fatal error such as: 

2022-12-07T12:44:02.838 INF AUTH  loading login page LoginURL=[authentication URL]
2022-12-07T12:44:11.119 FTL MAIN  authentication failed: login form not found

Suggested actions:

  • Generate the authentication report to inspect HTTP response.
  • Check the target application authentication is deployed and running.
  • Check the DAST_AUTH_URL is correct.
  • Check the GitLab Runner can access the DAST_AUTH_URL.
  • Check the DAST_AUTH_BEFORE_LOGIN_ACTIONS is valid if used.

Scan doesn’t crawl authenticated pages

If DAST captures the wrong authentication tokens during the authentication process then the scan can’t crawl authenticated pages. Names of cookies and storage authentication tokens are written to the log. For example: 

2022-11-24T14:42:31.492 INF AUTH  authentication token cookies names=["sessionID"]
2022-11-24T14:42:31.492 INF AUTH  authentication token storage events keys=["token"]

Suggested actions:

  • Generate the authentication report and look at the screenshot from the Login submit to verify that the login worked as expected.
  • Verify the logged authentication tokens are those used by your application.
  • If using cookies to store authentication tokens, set the names of the authentication token cookies using DAST_AUTH_COOKIE_NAMES.

Unable to find elements with selector

DAST failed to find the username, password, first submit button, or submit button elements. The log reports a fatal error such as: 

2022-12-07T13:14:11.545 FTL MAIN  authentication failed: unable to find elements with selector: css:#username

Suggested actions:

  • Generate the authentication report to use the screenshot from the Login page to verify that the page loaded correctly.
  • Load the login page in a browser and verify the selectors configured in DAST_AUTH_USERNAME_FIELD, DAST_AUTH_PASSWORD_FIELD, DAST_AUTH_FIRST_SUBMIT_FIELD, and DAST_AUTH_SUBMIT_FIELD are correct.

Failed to authenticate user

DAST failed to authenticate due to a failed login verification check. The log reports a fatal error such as: 

2022-12-07T06:39:49.483 INF AUTH  verifying if login attempt was successful true_when="HTTP status code < 400 and has authentication token and no login form found (no element found when searching using selector css:[name=username] or css:[name=password] or css:button[type=\"submit\"])"
2022-12-07T06:39:49.484 INF AUTH  requirement is satisfied, HTTP login request returned status code 303 url=http://auth-manual:8090/login want="HTTP status code < 400"
2022-12-07T06:39:49.513 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, login form was found want="no login form found (no element found when searching using selector css:[name=username] or css:[name=password] or css:button[type=\"submit\"])"
2022-12-07T06:39:49.589 INF AUTH  login attempt failed error="authentication failed: failed to authenticate user"
2022-12-07T06:39:53.626 FTL MAIN  authentication failed: failed to authenticate user

Suggested actions:

  • Look in the log for the requirement is unsatisfied. Respond to the appropriate error.

Requirement unsatisfied, login form was found

Applications typically display a dashboard when the user logs in and the login form with an error message when the username or password is incorrect.

This error occurs when DAST detects the login form on the page displayed after authenticating the user, indicating that the login attempt failed. 

2022-12-07T06:39:49.513 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, login form was found want="no login form found (no element found when searching using selector css:[name=username] or css:[name=password] or css:button[type=\"submit\"])"

Suggested actions:

  • Verify that the username and password/authentication credentials used are correct.
  • Generate the authentication report and verify the Request for the Login submit is correct.
  • It’s possible that the authentication report Login submit request and response are empty. This occurs when there is no request that would result in a full page reload, such as a request made when submitting a HTML form. This occurs when using websockets or AJAX to submit the login form.
  • If the page displayed following user authentication genuinely has elements matching the login form selectors, configure DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_AT_URL or DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_ELEMENT_FOUND to use an alternate method of verifying the login attempt.
  • Some applications display a “Loading…” element on a page before hiding the login form. This can confuse the analyzer. Use DAST_PAGE_IS_LOADING_ELEMENT or DAST_PAGE_IS_READY_ELEMENT variable to instruct the analyzer that the page has finished loading.

Requirement unsatisfied, selector returned no results

DAST cannot find an element matching the selector provided in DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_ELEMENT_FOUND on the page displayed following user login. 

2022-12-07T06:39:33.239 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, searching DOM using selector returned no results want="has element css:[name=welcome]"

Suggested actions:

  • Generate the authentication report and look at the screenshot from the Login submit to verify that the expected page is displayed.
  • Ensure the DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_ELEMENT_FOUND selector is correct.

Requirement unsatisfied, browser not at URL

DAST detected that the page displayed following user login has a URL different to what was expected according to DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_AT_URL. 

2022-12-07T11:28:00.241 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, browser is not at URL browser_url="https://example.com/home" want="is at url https://example.com/user/dashboard"

Suggested actions:

  • Generate the authentication report and look at the screenshot from the Login submit to verify that the expected page is displayed.
  • Ensure the DAST_AUTH_SUCCESS_IF_AT_URL is correct.

Requirement unsatisfied, HTTP login request status code

The HTTP response when loading the login form or submitting the form had a status code of 400 (client error) or 500 (server error). 

2022-12-07T06:39:53.626 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, HTTP login request returned status code 502 url="https://example.com/user/login" want="HTTP status code < 400"
  • Verify that the username and password/authentication credentials used are correct.
  • Generate the authentication report and verify the Request for the Login submit is correct.
  • Verify the target application works as expected.

Requirement unsatisfied, no authentication token

DAST could not detect an authentication token created during the authentication process. 

2022-12-07T11:25:29.010 INF AUTH  authentication token cookies names=[]
2022-12-07T11:25:29.010 INF AUTH  authentication token storage events keys=[]
2022-12-07T11:25:29.010 INF AUTH  requirement is unsatisfied, no basic authentication, cookie or storage event authentication token detected want="has authentication token"

Suggestion actions:

  • Generate the authentication report and look at the screenshot from the Login submit to verify that the login worked as expected.
  • Using the browser’s developer tools, investigate the cookies and local/session storage objects created while logging in. Ensure there is an authentication token created with sufficiently random value.
  • If using cookies to store authentication tokens, set the names of the authentication token cookies using DAST_AUTH_COOKIE_NAMES.