Streamlining Test Account Management with Go Under Tight Deadlines

#security #automation #go

Managing Test Accounts Efficiently in Go When Time Is Short

In the fast-paced world of security research and application testing, managing multiple test accounts can quickly become a logistical challenge. Especially when working under tight deadlines, manually creating, updating, and cleaning test accounts is not viable. This post explores a practical solution leveraging Go's robust standard library to automate the management of test accounts efficiently.

The Challenge

Security researchers often need realistic and isolated test environments. Managing test accounts manually can lead to errors, inconsistent states, and wasted time. The primary goals are:

Automate account creation and deletion.
Ensure reproducibility and consistency.
Handle concurrent operations safely.
Integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.

Approach Overview

Using Go, we can build a lightweight CLI tool that manages test accounts via REST API calls to the application's user service. The core components include:

HTTP client for API interactions.
Concurrency control to manage multiple accounts.
Data validation and error handling.
Configurable parameters for flexibility.

Let's walk through the implementation.

Implementation Details

Configuration and Setup

We start by defining a configuration structure to specify API endpoints and credentials:

type Config struct {
    ApiBaseUrl string
    ApiKey     string
    AccountCount int
}

Creating Accounts

A function to create accounts using POST requests:

func createAccount(client *http.Client, cfg Config, username string) error {
    payload := map[string]string{
        "username": username,
        "password": "TestPassword123",
        "role": "test",
    }
    jsonData, err := json.Marshal(payload)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", cfg.ApiBaseUrl+"/users", bytes.NewBuffer(jsonData))
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
    req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer " + cfg.ApiKey)

    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusCreated {
        body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
        return fmt.Errorf("Failed to create user: %s", string(body))
    }
    return nil
}

Deleting Accounts

Similarly, for cleanup:

func deleteAccount(client *http.Client, cfg Config, username string) error {
    req, err := http.NewRequest("DELETE", cfg.ApiBaseUrl+"/users/"+username, nil)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer " + cfg.ApiKey)

    resp, err := client.Do(req)
    if err != nil {
        return err
    }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    if resp.StatusCode != http.StatusOK {
        body, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
        return fmt.Errorf("Failed to delete user: %s", string(body))
    }
    return nil
}

Managing Multiple Accounts Concurrently

Go's concurrency model makes it straightforward to handle multiple operations:

func manageAccounts(cfg Config) {
    client := &http.Client{Timeout: 10 * time.Second}
    var wg sync.WaitGroup

    for i := 0; i < cfg.AccountCount; i++ {
        wg.Add(1)
        go func(i int) {
            defer wg.Done()
            username := fmt.Sprintf("testuser_%d", i+1)
            if err := createAccount(client, cfg, username); err != nil {
                log.Printf("Error creating account %s: %v", username, err)
            } else {
                log.Printf("Successfully created account %s", username)
            }
        }(i)
    }
    wg.Wait()
    // Optionally, implement cleanup logic here.
}

Final Thoughts

By automating test account management with Go, security researchers can focus more on testing and analysis rather than manual setup. The concurrency and error handling features of Go streamline the process, ensuring consistent and reliable operations—even under tight deadlines.

In a real-world scenario, extend this framework with better error recovery, dynamic configuration loading, and integration into CI/CD pipelines for scalable testing environments. The simplicity and speed of Go make it an ideal choice for such automation tasks in security and testing workflows.