Off by default for the release coming out. On by default if you want at the next major release.
-----Original Message----- From: Rick Hillegas [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 19, 2011 12:39 PM To: Derby Discussion Subject: Derby secure by default The Derby developers are considering introducing a single master security property. Turning this property on will enable most Derby security mechanisms: 1) Authentication - Will be on, requiring username/password credentials at connection time. Derby will supply a default authentication mechanism. 2) SQL authorization - Will be on, hiding a user's data from other people. In addition, Derby will support more SQL Standard protections for Java routines. 3) File permissions - Will be tightened as described by DERBY-5363. 4) PUBLIC -This keyword will not be allowed as a user name. 5) SSL/TLS encryption - Will shield client/server traffic. 6) Server administration - Will require credentials. When the property is off, Derby will behave as it does today: Authentication, authorization, and network encryption will be off, file permissions will inherit defaults from the account which runs the VM, PUBLIC will be a legal user name, and server administration won't need credentials. This new master property will make it easier to configure a more secure application. We want to introduce the property in an upcoming 10.x release, where it will default to being off. That means that it won't cause compatibility problems. Later on, we might change the default for this property so that it would normally be turned on. This would make Derby more secure out of the box at the cost of breaking existing applications. Many applications would need to explicitly turn the property off in order to run as they did previously. Release notes would document this behavioral change and we would bump the major release id from 10 to 11 in order to call attention to the change. We would like your feedback on this trade-off between security out of the box versus disruption. Should this extra security be enabled by default? Thanks, -Rick
