[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#11971) Use encrypted passwords where possible

["Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa" <vasc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=11971 >

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, Mike Kaufman wrote:

>
> <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=11971 >
>
> On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 11:46:18AM -0800, Ed Overton wrote:
> >
> > <URL: http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=11971 >
> >
> > Opening ticket based on part of the discussion in ticket 11851:
> >
> >    http://bugs.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=11851
> >
> > In terms of password management, there are (at least) two types of
> > security that can be applied.  First, there is securing the
> > communication method.  Second, there is the use of encryption for any
> > password storage.  This ticket solely deals with the second issue.
>
> > The server should keep encrypted passwords in memory and in the user
> > database.  When the client sends a password, the server first would
> > encrypt the plaintext and then overwrite the plaintext memory.  At that
> > point, the server works with (retains / compares / saves) the encrypted
> > version.
>
> Once the server is done with authentication, the server does indeed
> overwrite the memory location where the password is saved.
>
> > One mechanism to use would be something based on md5, such as what's
> > done for crypt_md5 in freebsd:
>
> for the simpleton "database" in CVS, there is no point in saving passwords
> encrypted. After all, that database is simply a flat file in freeciv
> registry format.
>
> For the pubserver servers, the libuserdb.a is replaced with one that uses
> mysql. Here we do md5 hash the passwords, compare the hashes, and store them
> as such.
>
>
> Speaking to the first issue, I spent a bit of time looking at
> possible solutions to this, namely finding some GPLed public key encryption
> code I could rip off. It's actually not as easy to come by as I had
> expected. I am not competent to write my own or do a substantial rewrite of
> someone elses. I consider an acceptable solution to this problem as:
>
> o code must be GPL (obvious)
> o code I could put in a single subdirectory (of say utility/)
> o code that is small (not more that 10k or 20k or so)
> o no external libraries needed to link to (like libgmp)
> o keys could be generated by an external program (like ssh-key-gen)
> o simple to use (make of that as you will)
>
> coders welcome. Such a solution would be an easy in into the codebase I
> should think.

If all we want is simple password encryption, just use "man -s 3c crypt".

Most unixes have a crypt function.

---
Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa @ Instituto Superior Tecnico, Lisboa