Perform Load Testing and Security Audits for ECS Deployment with JWT Authentication

[AliSMAmin]

Discovery:

With the recent addition of JWT authentication to LibreChat, it's important to verify that the system can handle high traffic while maintaining performance and stability. This includes conducting load testing to simulate heavy traffic, stress testing the ECS service, and performing security audits to ensure JWT tokens are handled securely and that the system is resilient to attacks under load.

Problem Definition:

The current deployment of LibreChat on ECS has not been stress-tested to ensure that JWT authentication functions correctly under heavy traffic. Without load testing and security audits, there may be performance bottlenecks, token validation issues, or security vulnerabilities that could compromise system reliability and user experience during periods of high demand.

Motivations:

By conducting thorough load testing and security audits, we can:

• Ensure that ECS can handle JWT authentication correctly at scale.
• Identify any performance bottlenecks or system failures under heavy traffic.
• Verify the security of JWT handling, especially during high traffic, to prevent unauthorized access or token misuse.
• Ensure system stability and resilience during peak loads, maintaining a high-quality user experience.

Proposed Solution:

1. Perform Load Testing:

   • Use load testing tools (e.g., Apache JMeter, k6, or Gatling) to simulate heavy traffic and test the performance of JWT authentication under load.
   • Simulate a range of scenarios, including:
     • High frequency of authentication requests.
     • Users logging in and authenticating with valid JWT tokens.
     • Invalid or expired tokens being rejected.
     • Simultaneous creation of new users when JWT user.id is not found in the database.
   • Test how the system handles varying traffic levels, from normal operation to extreme traffic spikes.

2. Stress Testing:

   • Stress test the ECS service to identify any limitations, such as CPU or memory constraints, that could affect JWT authentication during high traffic.
   • Measure how ECS scales under load and whether the auto-scaling policies are sufficient to handle the increased demand without affecting authentication performance.
   • Monitor ECS task health and behavior under stress to identify potential issues like task crashes, slowdowns, or failure to validate tokens.

3. Security Audits:

   • Conduct security audits to ensure that JWT tokens are handled securely during load testing. This includes:
     • Ensuring that the JWT_SECRET_KEY is not exposed or vulnerable during high traffic.
     • Verifying that invalid tokens are rejected consistently, even under heavy load.
     • Checking for any potential vulnerabilities in token expiration, token renewal, or replay attacks.
     • Auditing logs for any security anomalies or suspicious activity related to token validation or user authentication.

4. Monitor System Performance:

   • Use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor key metrics during load testing, such as CPU utilization, memory usage, ECS task health, request latency, and error rates.
   • Set up CloudWatch alarms for performance thresholds (e.g., CPU > 80%, high error rates) to identify potential problems during testing.
   • Monitor logs for JWT-specific errors, such as validation failures or missing environment variables.

5. Optimize Based on Findings:

   • Analyze the results of the load and stress tests to identify any performance bottlenecks or system limitations.
   • Make necessary adjustments to ECS configurations (e.g., scaling policies, resource allocation) or application code (e.g., optimizing token validation processes) based on the findings.
   • Ensure that security vulnerabilities identified during the audit are addressed and that token handling is secure under all traffic conditions.

Definition of Done:

• [ ] Load testing is performed, simulating various traffic levels and scenarios to verify that JWT authentication works correctly under heavy load.
• [ ] Stress testing is conducted on the ECS deployment to identify performance bottlenecks and ensure system stability.
• [ ] Security audits are completed, verifying that JWT tokens are handled securely under load and that there are no vulnerabilities in the authentication process.
• [ ] Monitoring and logging are configured to track performance and security during testing.
• [ ] Findings from the load tests and security audits are analyzed, and necessary optimizations are made to the ECS deployment and application code.

Additional Information:

• Load Testing Tools: Consider using tools like Apache JMeter, k6, or Gatling for load testing.
• Monitoring Tools: Use Amazon CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray to monitor system performance and trace authentication requests during load testing.
• Security Auditing: Consider using security scanning tools like OWASP ZAP or manual code reviews to verify the security of JWT handling.

[tomasvalererealms]

The execution of the tests resulted into this results:

• Success Rate: 100% of requests returned a 200 OK.
• Response Time: Average between 2-3.5 seconds per request.
• Latency: Consistently between 250ms and 450ms.
• Concurrency: The plan handled 5 concurrent users during an scenario of 20 messages in a conversation without failures or performance degradation.