View Issue Details

IDProjectCategoryView StatusLast Update
0006944Talerdocumentationpublic2021-08-24 16:22
ReporterChristian Grothoff Assigned Tottn  
PrioritynormalSeveritytextReproducibilityN/A
Status closedResolutionfixed 
Platformi7OSDebian GNU/LinuxOS Versionsqueeze
Product Versiongit (master) 
Target Version0.8Fixed in Version0.8 
Summary0006944: document that API leaks instance existence
DescriptionThe merchant backend manual (somewhere around instance management) should explain that the API does leak the _existence_ of instances, that is unauthorized users can tell an instance does not exist (HTTP 404) vs. they do not have access (HTTP 403). This information leak was deemed acceptable (by the team in the security workshop) to allow users to diagnose errors, but should be stated explicitly somewhere in the manual.
TagsNo tags attached.

Activities

ttn

2021-08-11 05:08

developer   ~0018094

Are the security workshop proceedings online?
It would be nice to link to it saying that this concern is deemed minor.

ttn

2021-08-11 05:09

developer   ~0018095

(See also: <https://git.taler.net/docs.git/commit/?id=ea3a137a097c03c8b4877a855197797d61c882d4>.)

Christian Grothoff

2021-08-11 09:15

manager   ~0018097

There is no really usable report from the workshop, but the participants clearly concluded that while we should make users aware that this bit of information is leaked, this is still a good trade-off as in general the diagnostic value of the distinction for trouble-shooting outweighs the information leak. Furthermore, it should be noted that a reverse proxy could be easily used to plug the information leak by changing 404s to 403 in deployments where this is found to be an issue.

ttn

2021-08-11 12:02

developer   ~0018100

See <https://git.taler.net/docs.git/commit/?id=552ceeb3e5fef9f50d0d8f1173f8d0c80636288d>.
I suppose a lame way out would be to link to generic nginx or apache documentation.
I would prefer that we add a small bit to each server's config example.
We can always add more links once there is more text supporting those links.

ttn

2021-08-11 12:06

developer   ~0018101

Rats. Mantis has trouble w/ trailing close-angle-bracket in hyperlinks, it seems.
Here it is DIRECT! :-D

https://git.taler.net/docs.git/commit/?id=552ceeb3e5fef9f50d0d8f1173f8d0c80636288d

ttn

2021-08-11 12:25

developer   ~0018102

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/41560084/how-to-change-the-status-code-of-a-proxied-server-response-in-nginx

ttn

2021-08-11 12:28

developer   ~0018103

https://www.nginx.com/blog/creating-nginx-rewrite-rules/

ttn

2021-08-11 12:47

developer   ~0018104

https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_core_module.html#error_page#content

ttn

2021-08-11 13:05

developer   ~0018105

Recent commit: https://git.taler.net/docs.git/commit/?id=247fb8bc2d639b6d9361c58639fd855acf861393

ttn

2021-08-11 13:17

developer   ~0018106

https://docs.trafficserver.apache.org/en/latest/admin-guide/plugin/header_rewrite.en.html?highlight=connection%20close%20drain

ttn

2021-08-11 13:26

developer   ~0018107

Nginx and Apache experts, please take a look:

https://git.taler.net/docs.git/commit/?id=c9d5fdc5c70091c88134536435553bb5a0f3743f

Christian Grothoff

2021-08-11 14:18

manager   ~0018108

Fix looks good to me. ;-)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2021-07-23 13:26 Christian Grothoff New Issue
2021-07-23 13:26 Christian Grothoff Status new => assigned
2021-07-23 13:26 Christian Grothoff Assigned To => ttn
2021-08-11 05:08 ttn Note Added: 0018094
2021-08-11 05:09 ttn Note Added: 0018095
2021-08-11 09:15 Christian Grothoff Note Added: 0018097
2021-08-11 12:02 ttn Note Added: 0018100
2021-08-11 12:06 ttn Note Added: 0018101
2021-08-11 12:25 ttn Note Added: 0018102
2021-08-11 12:28 ttn Note Added: 0018103
2021-08-11 12:47 ttn Note Added: 0018104
2021-08-11 13:05 ttn Note Added: 0018105
2021-08-11 13:17 ttn Note Added: 0018106
2021-08-11 13:26 ttn Note Added: 0018107
2021-08-11 13:27 ttn Status assigned => confirmed
2021-08-11 14:18 Christian Grothoff Note Added: 0018108
2021-08-11 14:18 Christian Grothoff Status confirmed => resolved
2021-08-11 14:18 Christian Grothoff Resolution open => fixed
2021-08-11 14:18 Christian Grothoff Fixed in Version => 0.8
2021-08-11 14:18 Christian Grothoff Target Version => 0.8
2021-08-24 16:22 Christian Grothoff Status resolved => closed