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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/DERBY-866?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=13232742#comment-13232742
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Rick Hillegas commented on DERBY-866:
-------------------------------------
Private discussions with Dag have suggested an improvement to the functional
spec for NATIVE authentication. This improvement would support the overriding
design goals of this feature:
1) Easy to setup.
2) Hard to subvert.
The improvement would eliminate the following weird edge case. The edge case
doesn't cause any correctness problems which we know of. It just doesn't fit
well with the design goals. Here's the edge case:
A) You can store credentials in an unsecured database using the
SYSCS_CREATE_USER() system procedure.
B) Then you can use the unsecure database as a credentials db by setting a
system property and rebooting the engine:
derby.authentication.provider=NATIVE:unsecuredDB:LOCAL
C) Because the database already exists, Derby won't automatically set
derby.authentication.provider=NATIVE::LOCAL in unsecuredDB. This means that you
can later take the database offline and use it without authentication. It seems
odd that the credentials DB itself could be so unsecure.
To eliminate this weird edge case, we propose the following:
NATIVE::LOCAL authentication is on iff the DBO's credentials are stored in
SYS.SYSUSERS.
Here's how we would enforce this rule:
i) The first user created by SYSCS_CREATE_USER() must be the DBO.
ii) When the DBO's credentials are stored in SYS.SYSUSERS, Derby will
automatically set derby.authentication.provider=NATIVE::LOCAL in the database.
This change would further the overriding design goals as follows:
1') It would now be even easier to convert a database to use NATIVE
authentication. All you would have to do is store credentials for the DBO. You
would no longer need to also set derby.authentication.provider=NATIVE::LOCAL.
2') The new rule would eliminate one more way of subverting Derby security.
> 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
> Assignee: Rick Hillegas
> Attachments: Derby_User_Enhancement.html,
> Derby_User_Enhancement_v1.1.html, DummyAuthenticator.java,
> UserManagement.html, UserManagement.html, UserManagement.html,
> UserManagement.html, UserManagement.html, UserManagement.html,
> derby-866-01-aa-sysusers.diff, derby-866-01-ab-sysusers.diff,
> derby-866-02-ag-createDropUser.diff,
> derby-866-03-aa-resetModifyPassword.diff,
> derby-866-03-ab-resetModifyPassword.diff, derby-866-04-aa-fixRolesTest.diff,
> derby-866-05-aa-grantRevoke.diff, derby-866-06-aa-upgradeFrom10.1.diff,
> derby-866-07-aa-removeSQLPassword.diff, derby-866-08-aa-passwordHasher.diff,
> derby-866-08-ab-passwordHasher.diff, derby-866-08-ad-passwordHasher.diff,
> derby-866-09-ad-nativeAuthenticationService.diff,
> derby-866-09-ae-nativeAuthenticationServiceWithTests.diff,
> derby-866-10-ac-propChanging.diff, derby-866-11-aa-upgradeTest.diff,
> derby-866-12-ac-passwordExpiration.diff,
> derby-866-13-ab-systemWideOperationTests.diff,
> derby-866-14-ac-badNativeSpec.diff,
> derby-866-15-ae-dbInJarFileOrOnClasspath.diff,
> derby-866-16-aa-credDBViaSubprotocol.diff,
> derby-866-17-aa-grantRevokeNative.diff,
> derby-866-18-aa-encryptedCredentialsDB.diff,
> derby-866-19-aa-replicationTest.diff, derby-866-20-aa-npeAndUserProbing.diff,
> derby-866-20-ab-npeAndUserProbing.diff,
> derby-866-21-aa-emptyCredentials.diff, derby-866-21-ab-emptyCredentials.diff,
> dummyCredentials.properties, releaseNote.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.
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