This is what file permissions are for. The file should be protected so that only those who are authorized may view it. For example, on a Linux machine it may be 0400 where the user is the account that the application runs under. Then only the application and root can view the file.
N On Aug 22, 2013, at 1:32 PM, Kurt Lehrke wrote: > I believe there’s a small oversight in the idea that if someone has access to > your box, that it’s game over. > > Think about a situation where a company may have a box with administrators > and users. They may still want levels of security. For example, say you > have a JDBCAppender that has a user name and password in their log4j2 > configuration. The administrator may have access to their application and > the database, but a user may only need access to the box. Therefore, having > the user name and password hashed in the configuration file would ensure that > a user (non admin) on the system can’t get to the database. This is an > interesting challenge since the password hash would have to be a symmetric > algorithm. It’s still merely only a light level of security since anyone > with bad intent could still figure out the decryption by looking at the > encryption algorithm. > > In my experience (supply chain development), some companies are pretty strict > on having any password left in plain text, even if it is just for logging. > > Just a thought. > > Thanks, > Kurt > > > From: Nick Williams [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, August 22, 2013 11:18 AM > To: Log4J Developers List > Subject: Re: Track passwords internally as char[] instead of String > > I believe it's sufficient to simply *make sure* our code doesn't let these > passwords from the configuration get into logs. I don't see it as necessary > to add special password support, IMO. But I could be missing something. > > N > > On Aug 22, 2013, at 6:28 AM, Gary Gregory wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Nick Williams > <[email protected]> wrote: > This discussion comes up on the Tomcat mailing list at least every few > months, and it always ends the same way. > > The passwords are in a configuration file. That configuration file lives with > the application. So, for example, if the application is a web app the > configuration file lives on the web app server or a server it has access to. > Either way, if a hacker gets a hold of that configuration file, it's because > they've breached your firewall/server protection systems and it's game over > anyway. > > There's really no use in making efforts to protect passwords in these > configuration files. Any effort to do so just adds a _false_ sense of > security, which is more dangerous than no security at all. > > My concern is more in the other direction. When secrets are in String > objects, they end up as plain text in log files or any kind of dump (if > Strings are dumped with toString()). At work, we get different kinds of logs > from users where the user has painstakingly blanked out certain data. Using > char[] avoids saying giving in plain text your secrets when they are in > Strings. In the case of Log4j2, this may never happen as the code stands now > (do we have passwords in toString()s?)... > > Gary > > > Nick > > On Aug 19, 2013, at 9:54 AM, Gary Gregory wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:52 AM, Gary Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:34 AM, Ralph Goers <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm not sure how this applies to what you are suggesting, but we should avoid > passwords being in clear text in the configuration. I would suggest using a > standard plugin interface similar to what I did with the secret key provider > in the Flume Appender. > > We should at the last offer something like > http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Howto/Secure_Passwords > > So perhaps we need a boolean password attribute on PluginElement and > PluginAttribute > > Gary > > > Gary > > > Ralph > > On Aug 19, 2013, at 7:29 AM, Gary Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 10:25 AM, Paul Benedict <[email protected]> wrote: > Do you need the password ever after authentication? > > I guess it depends on whether the code handles re-auth in case of a > disconnect. > > Gary > > > > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Gary Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 7:27 AM, Ralph Goers <[email protected]> wrote: > What passwords? > > For example: > > - org.apache.logging.log4j.core.net.SMTPManager.FactoryData.password > - org.apache.logging.log4j.core.net.JMSTopicManager.password > - org.apache.logging.log4j.core.net.JMSQueueManager.FactoryData.password > > Gary > > Ralph > > On Aug 19, 2013, at 4:22 AM, Gary Gregory <[email protected]> wrote: > > I've seen it done many places: Should we track passwords internally as char[] > instead of String for ivars. > > This prevents Log4j spilling your secrets by accident in a toString to > internal log call. > > Gary > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory > > > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory > > > -- > Cheers, > Paul > > > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory > > > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory > > > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory > > > > > -- > E-Mail: [email protected] | [email protected] > Java Persistence with Hibernate, Second Edition > JUnit in Action, Second Edition > Spring Batch in Action > Blog: http://garygregory.wordpress.com > Home: http://garygregory.com/ > Tweet! http://twitter.com/GaryGregory >
