[keycloak-dev] usability vs. security

[Stian Thorgersen]

We could auto-generate the application password by default. Then there's an option to either reset the password to a new generated password, or to manually enter one. If it's a generated password the password is stored in plain text, and is also added to the config files. If it's not a generated password it's stored salted/hashed in DB, and hence not available in the config files. Personally I think that's a nice compromise between convenience and security.

BTW Others I've come across so far (Google, Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, Kinvey, StackMob, etc, etc.) all just provides a generated client id and secret, which are available in plain-text through the respective dev consoles.

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marek Posolda" <mposolda at redhat.com>
> To: "Bill Burke" <bburke at redhat.com>
> Cc: keycloak-dev at lists.jboss.org
> Sent: Tuesday, 8 October, 2013 8:50:01 AM
> Subject: Re: [keycloak-dev] usability vs. security
> 
> On 7.10.2013 16:14, Bill Burke wrote:
> > I'd like to have it that when an application is created in the admin
> > console, the admin can view the exact configuration files needed to
> > install in their application to enable security.
> >
> > Unfortunately, this would involve populating application credentials in
> > the config file which would require exposing the application credentials
> > through a REST interface albeit secure REST interface.
> Security is one thing and another important thing is that application
> credentials are actually saved in Picketlink DB (and I am doing
> similarly for Mongo impl) in the form of salted hash and it's not
> possible to restore original plain-text password from DB. Maybe we can
> fill all things into configuration file except the password/totp and
> this will be only thing which would need to be manually added into
> configuration file by user himself? So generated config files could
> possibly look like this:
> 
> {
>    "realm" : "demo",
>    "resource" : "customer-portal",
>    "realm-public-key" :
> "MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCrVrCuTtArbgaZzL1hvh0xtL5mc7o0NqPVnYXkLvgcwiC3BjLGw1tGEGoJaXDuSaRllobm53JBhjx33UNv+5z/UMG4kytBWxheNVKnL6GgqlNabMaFfPLPCF8kAgKnsi79NMo+n6KnSY8YeUmec/p2vjO2NjsSAVcWEQMVhJ31LwIDAQAB",
>    "auth-url" :
> "http://localhost:8080/auth-server/rest/realms/demo/tokens/login",
>    "code-url" :
> "http://localhost:8080/auth-server/rest/realms/demo/tokens/access/codes",
>     "ssl-not-required" : true,
>     "credentials" : {
>        "password" : "<REPLACE WITH YOUR PASSWORD>"
>     }
> }
> 
> I think that auto-generation of credentials through the Admin UI would
> be also nice feature. After triggering auto-generation from admin UI,
> password could be saved into underlying storage and displayed to user in
> plain-text just once so that he can fill it into configuration file.
> 
> Marek
> >
> > Do you think it is such a big security hole to allow for this?  I've
> > been trying to keep the mantra to not expose credentials anywhere if
> > possible, yet this is a very nice security usability feature.  We could
> > even have it that an application password, totp, and/or cert is auto
> > generated.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> 
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