Re: prompting for secure data during startup.pl
Or simply unpack() which can also read directly from memory (demonstrated at http://www.greentechnologist.org/wiki/wiki?PerlSvInternals). Josh Perrin Harkins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/03/2003 01:05 PM To: "Aaron J. Mackey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: prompting for secure data during startup.pl Aaron J Mackey wrote: > I need to make some secure data available to mod_perl handlers, without > having it physically stored in a file, database, or "named" shared memory > (since if someone can read the handlers' code, then they could read the > sensitive data as well). So I need to prompt for it during server > (re)start-up, and stuff it away into a lexical variable that only the > handler can get at (i.e. another piece of code, or even another handler, > that blesses itself into my handler's package still cannot access the > data). Every httpd child process should have their own copy of the data. > Is there a solution or cookbook recipe for this yet? What you're doing looks fine, as far as it goes. By making these variables part of a closure, you are making it impossible for people to read it directly with Perl code. Of course there is nothing you can do to prevent someone with full access to your server from running C code that will walk Perl's variables until it finds $secret. They could probably do this with creative of some of the B:: modules. - Perrin
Re: prompting for secure data during startup.pl
Aaron J Mackey wrote: I need to make some secure data available to mod_perl handlers, without having it physically stored in a file, database, or "named" shared memory (since if someone can read the handlers' code, then they could read the sensitive data as well). So I need to prompt for it during server (re)start-up, and stuff it away into a lexical variable that only the handler can get at (i.e. another piece of code, or even another handler, that blesses itself into my handler's package still cannot access the data). Every httpd child process should have their own copy of the data. Is there a solution or cookbook recipe for this yet? What you're doing looks fine, as far as it goes. By making these variables part of a closure, you are making it impossible for people to read it directly with Perl code. Of course there is nothing you can do to prevent someone with full access to your server from running C code that will walk Perl's variables until it finds $secret. They could probably do this with creative of some of the B:: modules. - Perrin
prompting for secure data during startup.pl
I need to make some secure data available to mod_perl handlers, without
having it physically stored in a file, database, or "named" shared memory
(since if someone can read the handlers' code, then they could read the
sensitive data as well). So I need to prompt for it during server
(re)start-up, and stuff it away into a lexical variable that only the
handler can get at (i.e. another piece of code, or even another handler,
that blesses itself into my handler's package still cannot access the
data). Every httpd child process should have their own copy of the data.
Is there a solution or cookbook recipe for this yet?
Said another way, here's my basic handler code:
package MyHandler;
use Apache::Constants qw(OK DECLINED);
my $SECRET = "secret";
my $SECRETSET = 0;
# only allow the secret to be set once, by startup.pl
sub set_secret { $SECRET = shift unless $SECRETSET++; }
sub handler($$) {
if ($SECRET eq "secret") {
return DECLINED;
} else {
# go ahead, make use of $SECRET
# ...
return OK;
}
}
1;
__END__
And I want startup.pl to do this:
use Term::ReadPassword;
use MyHandler;
MyHandler::set_secret(read_password("Enter secret:"));
__END__
Does this make sense? Will this work? Will this be secure? (as long as
no one intercepts my call to set_secret() in startup.pl by installing a
bogus MyHandler.pm in my lib search path ...).
Thanks,
-Aaron
--
Aaron J Mackey
Pearson Laboratory
University of Virginia
(434) 924-2821
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
