github.com/0xJacky/Nginx-UI: Nginx UI: Standalone short tokens survive administrative revocation in cache and authenticate again after account re-enable

Summary

Standalone short tokens issued for WebSocket and explicit-token authentication can survive administrative revocation in cache. If the same account is later re-enabled before the cache entry expires, the deleted short token becomes valid again.

Details

GenerateShortToken() creates an AuthToken row that contains only ShortToken and no long Token. DeleteUserTokens() removes database rows, but when clearing caches it only invalidates entries where authToken.Token != "". This leaves standalone short-token cache entries behind. GetTokenUserByShortToken() checks that cache first and then loads the user by ID, so the stale short token becomes usable again if the account status is restored to true.

Relevant code paths:

• [internal/user/user.go](/home/kali/Desktop/bounty/nginx-ui/internal/user/user.go:43)
• [internal/user/user.go](/home/kali/Desktop/bounty/nginx-ui/internal/user/user.go:118)
• [internal/user/user.go](/home/kali/Desktop/bounty/nginx-ui/internal/user/user.go:204)
• [api/user/short_token.go](/home/kali/Desktop/bounty/nginx-ui/api/user/short_token.go:13)
• [internal/middleware/middleware.go](/home/kali/Desktop/bounty/nginx-ui/internal/middleware/middleware.go:82)

PoC

This was verfied locally in an isolated environment with a temporary package-level harness that exercised the real token issuance, revocation, cache, and re-authentication paths.

What the executed test did:

1. Created an enabled user in a temporary SQLite database.
2. Called the real GenerateShortToken(user.ID) function to issue a standalone short token.
3. Verified that the token authenticated successfully and was present in the short-token cache.
4. Disabled the user and called the real DeleteUserTokens(user.ID) function.
5. Verified that the database token rows were removed.
6. Verified that the short-token cache entry still existed after DeleteUserTokens.
7. Re-enabled the same user.
8. Reused the previously deleted short token via the real GetTokenUserByShortToken() path and observed successful authentication.

Observed result from the actual local verification:

• The database token rows were removed during revocation.
• The short-token cache entry remained present.
• Re-enabling the user restored successful authentication through the stale short token.

Impact

Any deployment using standalone short tokens is affected. If a short token is stolen, administrative disable/delete-token handling may not fully revoke it. Re-enabling the account within the cache lifetime restores access for the stale token to any HTTP or WebSocket routes that accept short-token authentication.