[
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-866?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13117582#comment-13117582
]
Francois Orsini commented on DERBY-866:
---------------------------------------
- q5: database only properties is not default, but must be enabled. will the
new mechanism work without it? (cf. derby.database.propertiesOnly) If so, the
authentication could be overridden by specifying another value for
derby.authentication.provider.
This is a good point. It is goofy that someone can masquerade as the DBO by
disabling authentication on the boot command line and then simply asserting
"user=dbo" at connection time--even when sql authorization is enabled. This is
a security hole for all of our authentication schemes. I'm afraid it's too late
to close this hole for the other schemes, but we could close it for this new
scheme. That would be independent of turning on derby.database.propertiesOnly
as part of the master security property. Thanks.
**** derby.database.propertiesOnly property cannot be overridden by a system
property, unless things have changed :) so *no one* should be able to override
some authentication provider set at the database level as long as
derby.database.propertiesOnly is set to true in that database - unless of
course, one is able to change it to false at the file level.
- q3: should the system table be encrypted to avoid attacks? currently we
encrypt entire database which may not be what one wants(?)
This sounds like a good idea but I'm not sure how to secure the encryption key
so that the database can be booted by someone other than the dbo. Any ideas?
**** Most traditional RDBMS do not encrypt their sys.sysusers equivalent as you
would protect access to the DB files typically and passwords are
(salted)+hashed - if you want to give the files away or they get accessed by
other means, then all bets are off, meaning that no matter what and with
expensive hardware, it could be possible to decrypt most ciphered streams these
days. Of course if the salt is known, then without encryption, someone could
just go and replace an existing password in sys.sysusers, assuming they have
access to it - Database encryption seems like the way to protect sys.sysusers
(to a certain limit as mentioned above) unless one wants to introduce yet
another database access (Sesame) secret key that a user would have to enter to
get access (without encrypting the whole DB, but rather sys.sysusers). There is
probably other ways, that's the quickest I had in mind.
At the end, if you want to hand out a some Derby DB files (non client-server
topology) and you want to restrict access, Authentication and Authorization
should be enabled as well as Database encryption turned ON.
> Derby User Management Enhancements
> ----------------------------------
>
> Key: DERBY-866
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-866
> Project: Derby
> Issue Type: Improvement
> Components: Services
> Affects Versions: 10.2.1.6
> Reporter: Francois Orsini
> Attachments: Derby_User_Enhancement.html,
> Derby_User_Enhancement_v1.1.html
>
>
> Proposal to enhance Derby's Built-In DDL User Management. (See proposal spec
> attached to the JIRA).
> Abstract:
> This feature aims at improving the way BUILT-IN users are managed in Derby by
> providing a more intuitive and familiar DDL interface. Currently (in
> 10.1.2.1), Built-In users can be defined at the system and/or database level.
> Users created at the system level can be defined via JVM or/and Derby system
> properties in the derby.properties file. Built-in users created at the
> database level are defined via a call to a Derby system procedure
> (SYSCS_UTIL.SYSCS_SET_DATABASE_PROPERTY) which sets a database property.
> Defining a user at the system level is very convenient and practical during
> the development phase (EOD) of an application - However, the user's password
> is not encrypted and consequently appears in clear in the derby.properties
> file. Hence, for an application going into production, whether it is embedded
> or not, it is preferable to create users at the database level where the
> password is encrypted.
> There is no real ANSI SQL standard for managing users in SQL but by providing
> a more intuitive and known interface, it will ease Built-In User management
> at the database level as well as Derby's adoption.
--
This message is automatically generated by JIRA.
If you think it was sent incorrectly, please contact your JIRA administrators:
https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ContactAdministrators!default.jspa
For more information on JIRA, see: http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
