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Security: HPCNow/confluent

Security

SECURITY

Try to forbid running as root.  If started as root, require a username to
switch to.  The latter will probably be required for operations involving
privileged ports or multicast.  Additionally, be SELinux friendly. 

Things that tend to require root try to do without or handle in other ways:
    -writing new dhcpd config and/or dns config
        -DNS updates keep DDNS scheme, have a helper script to create an
         amenable named config structure for common case on deploy.  Dynamic
         zone creation would require something more.
        -dhcp - require less precise dhcp configuration.  Have a script to
         generate things with dynamic range and such.  May not be viable
         for appliance-style deployment.
        -perhaps implement sudo type escalation for key utilities as required
    -copycds mount
        -switch to libguestfs
    -xdsh/xdcp
        -Try to get by with psh/pscp style usage where that relationship is
         entirely outside the daemon.
    -binding low ports like SLP or bootps or setting multicast/broadcast
        -bind early, then drop privilege


Some experiments were tried with capabilities, but the logistics of meaningful
restriction in the context of running under an interpreter like python has not
been figured out.  Once python is exec()ed, pythons setcap attributes take
over.  This would require a much less secure python or a private python
interpreter copy.  So we will have to at least start as root and drop privelege
after setting only the things we care about up (binding socket, setting
multicast).

Should the time come for arbitrary executable invocation as described in config
comes about, such facilities will be part of a feature that would be disabled
by default.  Two examples would be template fill in feature and script backend
for consoles.

When starting to service PXE, PXE and http support by default.  However, for
more strict environments, allow https-only mode and disabling PXE.  The two
might make sense to be tied together, since https bootstrap in the midst of a
PXE boot is not really benefitting from absolute security.

Auto-actuation of SLP detected entities might be enabled by default, but again
having it locked down for environments that want hard assurance that every
operation is meaningfully authenticated may make sense.

There aren’t any published security advisories