Re: [LANdb] Proposed login system

==> Regarding Re: [LANdb] Proposed login system; John Madden <weez@avenir.dhs.org> adds:

weez> Ok, so the config file then has to be stored readable only by
weez> nobody.nogroup, but it's still left vulnerable to attack from
weez> anything else running as nobody.  And I'm assuming "superuser's"

A good reason *not* to run the webserver as user/group nobody.

weez> password is also stored in the config file?  Why is the server key

Yup.  

weez> necessary if we've got super's password-- just to add something extra
weez> to the hash?

I'm not 100% sure on this one - I think it's just used to add a little
extra entropy into the resulting hash.

weez> Is using md5 more appropriate than Crypt?

Probably yes, in this case.  I haven't timed it, but I would suspect md5 to
be faster than Crypt, since md5 is allowed to be lossy - the results of
Crypt absolutelly must be lossless and capable of be decrypted, while md5
is able to get away with a non-zero but very small chance that two
different strings will return the same hash.

-- 
Frank Sweetser rasmusin at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net
Full-time WPI Network Tech, Part time Linux/Perl guy
Because . doesn't match \n.  [\0-\377] is the most efficient way to match
everything currently.  Maybe \e should match everything.  And \E would
of course match nothing.   :-)
             -- Larry Wall in <9847@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>

-------------------------------------
LANdb - Network Management through SQL
To unsubscribe, send email to landb-request@avenir.dhs.org
	and put 'unsubscribe' in the subject line
Administrative contact: weez@avenir.dhs.org
-------------------------------------