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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-16983?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=17503792#comment-17503792
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Bowen Song commented on CASSANDRA-16983:
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[~bschoeni] May I ask how is cqlshrc file involved in the test? I don't see any 
test creating the cqlshrc file. I ran the test in a machine without the cqlshrc 
file or the credential file, and all tests in the test/test_cqlsh_output.py 
were successful. The tests in the test/test_unicode.py are failing, but I 
believe it has more to do with the runtime environment than the code.

Are you using your own cqlshrc/credentials file to run the test? We might need 
to make the test ignore existing cqlshrc/credentials file if this is the case, 
because according to the content in the README.asc file, the environment 
variables CQL_TEST_USER and CQL_TEST_PWD should be used, not the 
cqlshrc/credentials file. 

> Separating CQLSH credentials from the cqlshrc file
> --------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: CASSANDRA-16983
>                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA-16983
>             Project: Cassandra
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>          Components: Tool/cqlsh
>            Reporter: Bowen Song
>            Assignee: Bowen Song
>            Priority: Normal
>              Labels: lhf
>             Fix For: 4.1
>
>          Time Spent: 1h 50m
>  Remaining Estimate: 0h
>
> Currently, the CQLSH tool accepts credentials (username & password) from the 
> following 3 places:
> 1. the command line parameter "-p"
> 2. the cqlshrc file
> 3. prompt the user
> This is not ideal.
> Credentials in the command line is a security risk, because it could be see 
> by other users on a shared system.
> The cqlshrc file is better, but still not good enough. Because the cqlshrc 
> file is a config file,  it's often acceptable to have it as a world readable 
> file, and share it with other users. It also prevents user from having 
> multiple sets of credentials, either for the same Cassandra cluster or 
> different clusters.
> To improve the security of CQLSH and make it secure by design, I purpose the 
> following changes:
> * Warn the user if a password is giving in the command line, and recommend 
> them to use a credential file instead
> * Warn the user if credentials are present in the cqlshrc file and the 
> cqlshrc file is not secure (e.g.: world readable or owned by a different user)
> * Deprecate credentials in the cqlshrc, and recommend the user to move them 
> to a separate credential file. The aim is to not break anything at the 
> moment, but eventually stop accepting credentials from the cqlshrc file.
> * Reject the credentials file if it's not secure, and tell the user how to 
> secure it. Optionally, prompt the user for password if it's an interactive 
> session. (Think how does OpenSSH handle insecure credential files)



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