On Sun, 10 Mar 2002, Mike Stilson wrote: > Hideously unsafe, actually. Why? Which of your coders would you not want to have access to the SQL database? Why did you give them shell access if you didn't trust them? > Why not just do something simple like this? How does this stop anyone that has access to your code from getting the password? If they have been granted read-write access to the code, a simple syllogism illustrates that they still have access to your sql_cnf file regardless of file permissions: The Mud can read the sql_cnf file to get its configuration. User A has read-write access to the Mud's code. Therefore, User A can read the sql_cnf file. He need only add a single line of code to the bottom of the load_sql() function to log() the DB, user, password, et al. The Mud is setuid to have the permissions to read the file, but he can read the logged output when he runs the Mud. Game over. If they only have read access to the code, you've clearly mismanaged your file permissions. You've given someone access to something they don't need access to. In that case, introducing more permissions to (mis)manage is probably not the best solution. It's a cliche for a good reason: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Your security policies form a chain. No matter how much indirection and newer, stronger links you add onto the end, if there's one that's chipped through, your security isn't improving. If you've given someone you don't trust access to the Mud's account, you can forget about security. In fact, at that point, you already have forgotten. I think you should be more worried about why you're giving people you don't trust more access than they merit than you are about trying to hide information from said priveleged people. All of that said, the separate configuration file is probably still worth doing for (no other reason than) flexibility. It's nice to be able to change things without having to recompile and having different executables for different configurations. -dak -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | | Newbie List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/circle-newbies/ | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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