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Bug #4579

closed

getpass is obsolete

Added by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago. Updated about 6 years ago.

Status:
Rejected
Priority:
Normal
Assignee:
Category:
Tools
Target version:
Start date:
Due date:
% Done:

50%

Estimated time:
3.00 h

Description

ndnsec uses getpass.

getpass(3) manpage says:

This function is obsolete. Do not use it. If you want to read input without terminal echoing enabled, see the description of the ECHO flag in termios(3).

Related issues 1 (1 open0 closed)

Related to ndn-cxx - Bug #4157: ndnsec-export: confusing error message when getpass is unavailableNew

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Actions #1

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

  • Related to Bug #4157: ndnsec-export: confusing error message when getpass is unavailable added
Actions #2

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

  • Status changed from New to In Progress
  • Assignee set to Junxiao Shi
  • Estimated time set to 3.00 h

I'll give it a try in hope of solving #4379-8 passphrase issue.

Actions #3

Updated by Davide Pesavento about 6 years ago

This is one of those deprecation warnings that stay there forever. Rolling our own version of getpass is non-trivial and requires some rather low-level handling of signals and the terminal. It's considered obsolete because it is not thread-safe and it manipulates global signal state, and we don't really care about thread safety in ndnsec.

Therefore I think this is a non-issue and should be rejected. We'll reconsider it when getpass really gets removed (if it ever happens).

Actions #4

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

  • % Done changed from 0 to 50

https://gerrit.named-data.net/4677 patchset2 has the solution but no unit tests yet.

I manually tested on Ubuntu 14.04.
The following works:

  • When running in a console, there's no echo when operator types in a password.
  • Empty password is rejected.
  • When confirmation is requested, mismatched inputs are rejected.
  • When calling from a script, passwords can be provided via stdin. This is essential for NFD integration tests.

The following does not work properly:

  • When input is longer than buffer size (currently 255 excluding NUL), std::cin.getline picks up enough characters for the first input, and the second input picks up the rest and newline character, so the confirmation step seems incorrect.

    vagrant@m0212:~/ndn-cxx-dev$ build/bin/ndnsec export /id1
    Passphrase for the private key: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    Passphrase for the private key: Confirm: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
    Passphrase for the private key: Confirm:
    

I do not have macOS box for testing, but I saw macOS also has termios API.

Actions #5

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

I think this is a non-issue

How else do you propose to solve #4379-8, and other use cases where it's necessary to export/import a private key from scripting?

Actions #6

Updated by Davide Pesavento about 6 years ago

Junxiao Shi wrote:

I think this is a non-issue

How else do you propose to solve #4379-8, and other use cases where it's necessary to export/import a private key from scripting?

I don't understand how that is related to getpass being obsolete. Please elaborate.

Actions #7

Updated by Davide Pesavento about 6 years ago

Junxiao Shi wrote:

  • Empty password is rejected.

Why? It should be up to the caller to decide whether empty secrets are accepted or not.

  • When calling from a script, passwords can be provided via stdin. This is essential for NFD integration tests.

Whether you're running a script or not is irrelevant. What is important is whether the sessions is interactive or not, or whether stdin is connected to a tty.

  • When input is longer than buffer size (currently 255 excluding NUL), std::cin.getline picks up enough characters for the first input, and the second input picks up the rest and newline character, so the confirmation step seems incorrect.

I don't understand this sentence.

Actions #8

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

I'm pointed out that reading password from stdin would not work with ndnsec-import - (reading SafeBag from stdin). I'm thinking about a solution.

Actions #9

Updated by Davide Pesavento about 6 years ago

Junxiao Shi wrote:

I'm pointed out that reading password from stdin would not work with ndnsec-import - (reading SafeBag from stdin). I'm thinking about a solution.

I already (verbally) suggested a solution: add a command-line option. Alex suggested the exact same thing during yesterday's call. We also both agreed that this has nothing to do with getpass being obsolete.

Actions #10

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

  • Status changed from In Progress to Rejected

I'm pointed out that reading password from stdin would not work with ndnsec-import - (reading SafeBag from stdin). I'm thinking about a solution.

I already suggested a solution: add a command-line option.

I'll create another issue for that.

Actions #11

Updated by Junxiao Shi about 6 years ago

  • Category changed from Utils to Tools
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