You would need client-side certs as well since the password server needs to be able to validate WHO is asking for the password. Currently it is based on the client's IP address. Also the current scheme is a single-use password — as soon as the password is retrieved, it is not available to anybody else (of course a MITM could sniff the first exchange).
You could eliminate a lot of MITM-style attacks by running the password server locally on each hypervisor (hard for VMW), or by attaching an ISO (containing the password) to the VM. From: John Kinsella <j...@stratosec.co<mailto:j...@stratosec.co>> Reply-To: "dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>" <dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>> Date: Tuesday, December 2, 2014 at 1:32 PM To: "dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>" <dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>> Subject: Re: A secure way to reset VMs password That password reset infrastructure has bigger issues than just SSL. The server side works, but that’s about all I can say for it. This topic comes up every 6-12 months. :) I thought there was a Jira entry but I can’t find it…personally I’d love to see the client and server sides both rewritten from scratch. John On Nov 28, 2014, at 11:33 AM, Nux! <n...@li.nux.ro<mailto:n...@li.nux.ro>> wrote: Jayapal, Not necesarily, one could run stunnel or nginx as SSL proxy on some other port (8443?), this way SSL and non-SSL connections will still work and give you plenty of time to update your templates, if you so wish. Am I missing any important bits here? Lucian -- Sent from the Delta quadrant using Borg technology! Nux! www.nux.ro ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jayapal Reddy Uradi" <jayapalreddy.ur...@citrix.com<mailto:jayapalreddy.ur...@citrix.com>> To: "<dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>>" <dev@cloudstack.apache.org<mailto:dev@cloudstack.apache.org>> Cc: "Alireza Eskandari" <astro.alir...@yahoo.com<mailto:astro.alir...@yahoo.com>> Sent: Friday, 28 November, 2014 09:34:02 Subject: Re: A secure way to reset VMs password Another point to note is all the vms in production has to update with the new cloud-set-guest-password scripts because of the new password reset method. Thanks, Jayapal On 28-Nov-2014, at 2:28 PM, Erik Weber <terbol...@gmail.com<mailto:terbol...@gmail.com>> wrote: On Thu, Nov 27, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Alireza Eskandari < astro.alir...@yahoo.com.invalid<mailto:astro.alir...@yahoo.com.invalid>> wrote: HiI viewed the bash script that resets Linux password ( http://download.cloud.com/templates/4.2/bindir/cloud-set-guest-password.in)It seems that it doesn't use a secure way for transferring password string to instance.Instances on a shared network can sniff password requests and export requested password of other instances.I suggest to use SSL (https) instead of plan text.Regards I like the idea, but there's a couple of obstacles to overcome, namely which SSL certificates to use. - certificates need a subject name, ie. IP or hostname for web pages, you could solve this by making the mgmt server a CA and have each VR get a signed certificate by it, but it's complicated - if the community bundle a pre generated certificate it is commonly known and not to be trusted, also not sure how to handle subject name - assuming everyone to supply a valid certificate is quite complicated (CA must be on VR etc), and makes it considerably harder to get a working setup - using self signed causes issues with validation Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but it's not just to flip a switch and have (proper) SSL in place. -- Erik