Re: Rejecting weak passwords

From: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
To: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
Cc: Kevin Grittner <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov>, Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)org>, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net>, Marko Kreen <markokr(at)gmail(dot)com>, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net>, Greg Stark <gsstark(at)mit(dot)edu>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>, mlortiz <mlortiz(at)uci(dot)cu>, Albe Laurenz <laurenz(dot)albe(at)wien(dot)gv(dot)at>
Subject: Re: Rejecting weak passwords
Date: 2009-10-14 22:07:45
Message-ID: 200910142207.n9EM7kq08104@momjian.us
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Tom Lane wrote:
> "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin(dot)Grittner(at)wicourts(dot)gov> writes:
> > And, perhaps slightly off topic: if the login password is sent over a
> > non-encrypted stream, md5sum or not, can't someone use it to log in if
> > they're generating their own stream to connect?
>
> Not if they only capture a login exchange --- the password is doubly
> encrypted during that. If they see the md5'd password in a CREATE USER
> command, then yeah, they could pass a subsequent md5 challenge, using
> suitably modified client software that doesn't try to re-encrypt the
> given password.
>
> But the main point is to hide the cleartext password, in any case.

What if we added a GUC that only allowed password changes via an SSL
connection. You could say that is a security enhancement, and
administrators could set up their systems to use 'password'
authentication for SSL and check the password strength on the server
because they come in clear-text.

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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