Cookie is not set when secure option is enabled in rails session_store configuration?

Question

Below is my code in session_store.rb

Rails.application.config.session_store :active_record_store ,  key: '_test_key', secure: :true

Browser receiving below response headers when requests rails application with above configuration:

Cache-Control:no-cache
Content-Type:text/html; charset=utf-8
Date:Fri, 10 Aug 2018 10:46:51 GMT
Location:https://xxxxx-xxxx.com/home
Server:nginx/1.12.2 + Phusion Passenger 5.2.3
Status:302 Found
Transfer-Encoding:chunked
X-Content-Type-Options:nosniff
X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN
X-Powered-By:Phusion Passenger 5.2.3
X-Request-Id:xxxxxxxxxxxe5-7f1a2bb20b23
X-Runtime:1.191833
X-XSS-Protection:1; mode=block

Issue is "Set-Cookie" header is missing in response which will be sent to the application in the next request to validate as it is 302 status code.

when I remove "secure" from configuration as below "cookie" is sent

Rails.application.config.session_store :active_record_store ,  key: '_test_key'

And response is:

Cache-Control:no-cache
Content-Type:text/html; charset=utf-8
Date:Fri, 10 Aug 2018 10:38:05 GMT
Location:https://xxxxxx-wspbx.com/home
Server:nginx/1.12.2 + Phusion Passenger 5.2.3
SetCookie-:_test_key=06b1bd1397fa64af1eb9c9ed4d2e0b0b; path=/; HttpOnly
Status:302 Found
Transfer-Encoding:chunked
X-Content-Type-Options:nosniff
X-Frame-Options:SAMEORIGIN
X-Powered-By:Phusion Passenger 5.2.3
X-Request-Id:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx7-58e1baab7dc8
X-Runtime:1.207210
X-XSS-Protection:1; mode=block 

what makes the "Set-Cookie" not to be sent to browser when "secure" option is provided for session_store.?

Answer 1

I solved it by this monkey patch, instead of specifying the secure: :true :

require 'rack/utils'
module Rack
  module Utils
    def self.set_cookie_header!(header, key, value)
      case value
      when Hash
        domain  = "; domain="  + value[:domain] if value[:domain]
        path    = "; path="    + value[:path]   if value[:path]
        max_age = "; max-age=" + value[:max_age] if value[:max_age]
        expires = "; expires=" +
            rfc2822(value[:expires].clone.gmtime) if value[:expires]

        # Make always secure
        # secure = "; secure"  if value[:secure]
        secure = "; secure"

        httponly = "; HttpOnly" if value[:httponly]
        same_site =
            case value[:same_site]
            when false, nil
              nil
            when :none, 'None', :None
              '; SameSite=None'
            when :lax, 'Lax', :Lax
              '; SameSite=Lax'
            when true, :strict, 'Strict', :Strict
              '; SameSite=Strict'
            else
              raise ArgumentError, "Invalid SameSite value: #{value[:same_site].inspect}"
            end
        value = value[:value]
      end
      value = [value] unless Array === value
      cookie = escape(key) + "=" +
          value.map { |v| escape v }.join("&") +
          "#{domain}#{path}#{max_age}#{expires}#{secure}#{httponly}#{same_site}"

      case header["Set-Cookie"]
      when nil, ''
        header["Set-Cookie"] = cookie
      when String
        header["Set-Cookie"] = [header["Set-Cookie"], cookie].join("\n")
      when Array
        header["Set-Cookie"] = (header["Set-Cookie"] + [cookie]).join("\n")
      end

      nil
    end
  end
end

Answer 2

You've probably figured it out by now but just in case, the secure: true will only allow the cookie to be sent trough an encrypted HTTPS (SSL/TLS) connection which you most likely don't have locally.

You could do something like:

Rails.application.config.session_store :active_record_store ,  key: '_test_key', secure: !(Rails.env.development? || Rails.env.test?)

And it will work as long as production is using ssl, you might need to add: config.force_ssl = true to your production.rb

https://github.com/OWASP/CheatSheetSeries/blob/master/cheatsheets/Session_Management_Cheat_Sheet.md#secure-attribute