Connection to remote SurrealDB instance: problem with authentication

[tz-torchai]

Hi,

Thanks for your work on this tool!

I was trying to use a remote SurrealDB instance, but got:

=====
ResponseError: There was a problem with the database: There was a problem with authentication
    at Surreal.signin (/home/my-user/my-space/my-project/node_modules/.pnpm/surrealdb@1.3.2_tslib@2.8.1_typescript@5.4.5_ws@8.18.1/node_modules/surrealdb/dist/index.cjs:1:45358)
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)
    at async connectDb (/home/my-user/my-space/my-project/node_modules/.pnpm/@sebastianwessel+surql-gen@2.7.2_tslib@2.8.1_typescript@5.4.5_ws@8.18.1/node_modules/@sebastianwessel/surql-gen/dist/index.js:84:3)
    at async main (/home/my-user/my-space/my-project/node_modules/.pnpm/@sebastianwessel+surql-gen@2.7.2_tslib@2.8.1_typescript@5.4.5_ws@8.18.1/node_modules/@sebastianwessel/surql-gen/dist/index.js:1072:7)
===

The connection details are correct. I tried both wss with and without /rpc and https, all with same error.

Remote SurrealDB version is 2.3.0

Please let me know if you need any information. Thanks.

[hammo92]

Hi @tz-torchai did this issue persist?

[tz-torchai]

Hi @tz-torchai did this issue persist?

Hi, yes. Can we add some instructions to connect to a remote SurrealDB instance? Is anyone else able to use this tool for a remote SurrealDB instance?

[hammo92]

Can you share the command you're using to run the tool?

[tz-torchai]

Can you share the command you're using to run the tool?

Sure, it's

npx surql-gen --config surql-gen.json

I believe the logic here needs to be updated to use the auth parameter of db.connect.

[hammo92]

That shouldn't be an issue, connecting first then setting the db, ns and auth after is a valid pattern. Could you let me know the content of the surql-gen.json? Redact any sensitive information.

[tz-torchai]

That shouldn't be an issue, connecting first then setting the db, ns and auth after is a valid pattern. Could you let me know the content of the surql-gen.json? Redact any sensitive information.

Here it is:

{
    "surreal": "wss://my.domain",
    "ns": "my-namespace",
    "db": "my-db",
    "username": "my-username",
    "password": "my-password",
    "outputFolder": "./my-output"
}

[tz-torchai]

That shouldn't be an issue, connecting first then setting the db, ns and auth after is a valid pattern. Could you let me know the content of the surql-gen.json? Redact any sensitive information.

Hi @hammo92, @sebastianwessel

do we assume the user is always going to be a database user?

If so, we should just simplify the logic to just pass namespace, database, username, password parameters at the same time.

If not, we should add try catch to handle database user -> namespace user -> root user in sequence.

This reported error is easily reproducible and trivial to fix.

[hammo92]

Unfortunatly I've not been able to recreate the issue, I'm not having any problem running the utility with a remote instance so it's difficult for me to debug. The order of connect use and signin shouldn't matter.

If you clone the repo and run the utility with npx tsx src/index.ts -c path-to-config.json you can try troubleshooting locally. Sorry I can't be more helpful here.

[tz-torchai]

Unfortunatly I've not been able to recreate the issue, I'm not having any problem running the utility with a remote instance so it's difficult for me to debug. The order of connect use and signin shouldn't matter.

If you clone the repo and run the utility with npx tsx src/index.ts -c path-to-config.json you can try troubleshooting locally. Sorry I can't be more helpful here.

Alright, I spent some time debugging it and finally found the issue: when you use signin for a database user, you must pass namespace and database (yes, without database field for a database user, it will fail, even the doc didn't explicitly mentions this)

See this doc: https://surrealdb.com/docs/sdk/javascript/methods/signin

namespace "REQUIRED FOR DATABASE & SCOPE/ACCESS"

So the type of the user does matter: the required parameters are different for root, namespace, database or scoped user.

That's why I was asking in my previous message:

do we assume the user is always going to be a database user?
If not, we should add try catch to handle database user -> namespace user -> root user in sequence.

In summary, we should handle the authentication behavior differently for different types of users.

SurrealDB: 2.3.3
Tested using both latest main branch and latest release

This can be reproduced in a minimal local surrealdb.js client example without surql-gen.

cc: @hammo92 @sebastianwessel

Edit: Just to be clear, you can still use connect -> use -> signin pattern, it's just when you call signin, you must pass all required parameters based on the type of user.

[hammo92]

okay cool, I'd not tested with different user types, are you happy to create a pull request @tz-torchai?