[WIP] Multi User server with session management

[echarles]

Fixes https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/issues/122

This is WIP and aims to provide foundation session management for a multiuser jupyter server.

This would allow to build applications with authentication like the following example in the screencast.

[pierrotsmnrd]

Following up the Jupyter Server Weekly Dev Meeting :

• General feedback has been positive on the need for session and the demo with the authentication has been well received
• There were questions about the use of torndsession, which is seen “old”. One solution is to import their code and maintain it, as it’s a MIT licence.
• Another question was the trust . My understanding is that anyone connected can run code, which was the main problem. Solutions like a authorization layer could be a way to answer that question : https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/pull/165

cc @kevin-bates @vidartf @Zsailer

[echarles]

Thx a lot @pierrotsmnrd for the participation to today meeting which I was not able to attend. I am adding @blink1073 to this PR. I guess this is a pretty important move we have discussed some time ago in https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/issues/122 and I hope we can get back on this next week during next meeting. Authorization model is key this is why the work @Zsailer has done in https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/pull/165 could be used in conjunction to this proposal to make Jupyter Server more "auth".

[ellisonbg]

The single user notebook server has a base class for handlers that be be overridden to provide customer authenticators and session management. JupyterHub is doing this for its variant of the single user notebook server here:

https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/blob/master/jupyterhub/singleuser/mixins.py#L676

Currently this is a bit monkey-patchy as it requires overriding base classes for the handlers with mixins. If we want to add auth/sessions/identify to the single user server I believe we should do so in a way that Jupyterhub can also use and leverage to simplify this logic and make it less monkey-patchy.

I don't think the jupyter-server needs to be able to reuse all of the JupyterHub authenticators, just that we build it in a manner that addresses JupyterHub's usage cases as well.

@echarles can you comment on how the proposal in this PR helps or interferes with this direction?

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

Merging #391 (3bf4ce3) into master (c9ee2a4) will decrease coverage by 1.80%. The diff coverage is 30.98%.

:exclamation: Current head 3bf4ce3 differs from pull request most recent head 5d14708. Consider uploading reports for the commit 5d14708 to get more accurate results

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master     #391      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   77.04%   75.23%   -1.81%     
==========================================
  Files         109      115       +6     
  Lines        9945    10068     +123     
  Branches     1078     1100      +22     
==========================================
- Hits         7662     7575      -87     
- Misses       1907     2114     +207     
- Partials      376      379       +3     

Impacted Files	Coverage Δ
jupyter_server/serverapp.py	64.88% <ø> (-1.22%)	:arrow_down:
jupyter_server/torndsession/memorysession.py	0.00% <0.00%> (ø)
jupyter_server/torndsession/session.py	31.61% <31.61%> (ø)
jupyter_server/torndsession/compat.py	37.83% <37.83%> (ø)
jupyter_server/torndsession/driver.py	52.17% <52.17%> (ø)
jupyter_server/base/handlers.py	63.76% <60.00%> (-0.16%)	:arrow_down:
jupyter_server/torndsession/__init__.py	100.00% <100.00%> (ø)
jupyter_server/__main__.py	66.66% <0.00%> (-33.34%)	:arrow_down:
jupyter_server/auth/__main__.py	0.00% <0.00%> (-25.00%)	:arrow_down:
jupyter_server/traittypes.py	55.35% <0.00%> (-8.34%)	:arrow_down:
... and 22 more

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[echarles]

Referring @Zsailer on https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/pull/165#issuecomment-1033945818 who has waited 2 years to see the Authorization feature merged, I still have hope in this one 1 year later :)

In this multi-user case, the additional issue I think is that the use-case/usage/need for this is not well understood, prolly also not well surfaced/explained.

@echarles can you comment on how the proposal in this PR helps or interferes with this direction?

@ellisonbg I can comment a lot in the thread, but I think a conversation during e.g. the server community meeting would allow easier interactions.

There are ramifications in the work being done by @minrk in https://github.com/jupyter-server/jupyter_server/pull/671 and in the whole RTC stories.

[echarles]

@fcollonval