nrpe and nrpe_nt development

[local.coder]

Stephen,

When coding in the encyrption the idea was to secure the data between the nagios
server and the remote client. The use of passwords and other options were
specifically removed to keep out problems with plaintext password management
and other fun. This is meant as a data protection scheme only and not an
authentication scheme. The IP Address restriction for us is enough to limit
remote hosts. With some minor changes the openssl part could be setup to use
pre-shared certs but when talking with others that went to a level of
complexity that seemed overwhelming for large server bases and updates. I
originally was working with the blowfish encryption but at Ethan's and plugin
people's request moved to openssl since it is already included in other plugins
as a requirement and there was a concern to keep external requirements to a
minimum if possible.

This also goes back to whether you are allowing check_nrpe to execute arguments.
For security we don't we only allow defined checks to run with no arguments and
most agree that is the safer option. If there is a feeling that the server
should be authenticated by the clients using a cert then that is something I
can work on putting in place without much heartache and we would just need to
automate the creation of self signed certs in the make process to simplify the
procedure.

Like I say I didn't want to have static passwords in the config files for
authentication because to me that gave a false sense of bad security.

Derrick


Quoting Stephen Strudwick <sas at pipex.net>:

>
> I also forgot to add that I've written a load of plugins for nrpe_nt in C
> such as check disk, eventlog, cpu load, mem load, services etc.
>
> I will release the source and binaries as soon as we have finished testing
> on them.
>
> -
> Stephen Strudwick
> Advanced Development Engineer
> Development Group, Product Development
> PIPEX Communications
> http://www.pipexcommunications.net/
>
> Mobile: 07906 191256
> Direct: 020 8957 1217
>
> On Thu, 18 Dec 2003, Stephen Strudwick wrote:
>
> > hello all,
> >
> > This is my first post to this list and I want to ask some questions
> > about my company (Pipex) doing some development for nrpe and nrpe_nt.
> >
> > We have been using netsaint for a while and are upgrading to nagios and
> > have decided to use nrpe for nt and unix boxes.
> >
> > I noticed the encryption using openssl is not really that secure, as far
> > as I can tell it only encrypts the session between the client and server
> > and dosnt stop anyone else with the nrpe client querying the server.
> >
> > The only protection the demon has as far as I can tell is the IP
> > restrictions.
> >
> > We have some internal code we have been using for several years here that
> > provides Blowfish encryption using shared keys, username pass
> > authentication and all kinds of handshaking and security.
> >
> > The code is in C, and we have modules for *nix and NT.
> >
> > we also have an implementation as a Perl module (with C backend code).
> >
> > I would like to add this code to nrpe as a compile time option (say
> > --use-blowfish on ./configure).
> >
> > And also to the NT version.
> >
> > If I add this code I would like if possible to be integrated into the
> > current releases of nrpe so we dont create a static fork inside our
> > company).
> >
> > Basically im looking for feedback as to whether this is neccessary/right
> > thing to do, or have I misunderstood the openssl encryption.
> >
> > I envisage the shared key encryption working like nrpep with a -s
> > <secret> option being used for a secret on the nagios server.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any feedback.
> >
> > -
> > Stephen Strudwick
> > Advanced Development Engineer
> > Development Group, Product Development
> > PIPEX Communications
> > http://www.pipexcommunications.net/
> >
> >
> >
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