[Cerowrt-devel] making cerowrt chattier

[Dave Taht]

My intent was to limit it to the "secure" interfaces only, but on by default,
not running as root, and requiring a username/password to use regardless.

(I am similarly blocking port 81 and the samba ports to the secure
interfaces on my next attempt at a release)

Other suggestions as to improving security overall - while still
improving end to end connectivity greatly appreciated!  One of the
more controversial ideas discussed on this list earlier was the
concept of making the guest network a nearly default free zone, and
allowing advanced protocols such as hip, sctp, etc, through on ipv6 by
default.

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 3:49 PM,  <dpreed at reed.com> wrote:
> Can we clarify what this is to be used for? I assume it will be defaulted
> off.  Not sure I want my router to send messages to people I don't know, or
> be reachable by people I don't know.
>
>
>
> Anyway, just a personal reaction.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Dave Taht" <dave.taht at gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 11:09pm
> To: "Jim Gettys" <jg at freedesktop.org>
> Cc: dpreed at reed.com, cerowrt-devel at lists.bufferbloat.net
> Subject: Re: [Cerowrt-devel] making cerowrt chattier
>
> On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 10:28 PM, Jim Gettys <jg at freedesktop.org> wrote:
>> On 06/12/2012 10:22 PM, dpreed at reed.com wrote:
>>>
>>> I have an awkward worry that the functionality here is expanding to
>>> fill all possible space on the machine, so it is less a router than a
>>> complete "home appliance".
>
> I guess I'm way ahead of you guys, and should have just deployed the
> thing and awaited feedback. The jabber server I have working runs out
> of xinetd (so no memory use when not used), and eats less than 100k of
> ram per invocation. For more details on in.jabberd and related tools
> see:
>
> http://inetdxtra.sourceforge.net/
>
> There is of course an old aphorism that all programs expand until they
> can send mail (which ssmtp can do, btw). While I miss the days where
> email was the one constant in the universe, lacking secure
> authentication and verification as well as direct p2p access in the
> current standards is a real problem that has too many overlapping
> means to solve at the present time.
>
> I miss email direct to my machine. And netnews for that matter.
> (cerowrt has leafnode as an optional package btw), but I wasn't
> planning to solve that problem this year.
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On a machine that has almost no internal isolation capabilities,
>>> lurking potential alignment bugs whenever the kernel is updated by the
>>> x86 maintainers, vulnerable to the first compromised service, it may
>>> be a bit risky to load on to the system every app except the kitchen
>>> sink.
>
> I am concerned about most embedded appliances (not just routers)
> running nearly every service as root. While cerowrt takes more steps
> than most to remedy this (named is in a jail, the web server doesn't
> run as root, etc), more work is needed on the configuration web server
> among other subsystems. I wish certs weren't such a PITA, for example.
>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> My personal bias would be to make a darn good router, and leave the
>>> other stuff entirely out of the picture.
>
> My personal bias is toward making a darn good router that *stays one*
> and better, improves over time, and that is one motivation towards
> making it chattier in some form. Other ideas include adopting a
> hip-like protocol to allow remote access to a user selected
> independent provider of security services.
>
> In the time we've been working on cerowrt (well over a year now) there
> have been over 8 major CVEs to deal with that I can think of off the
> top of my head. Some means of pushing out security updates in
> particular, in a sane manner, is needed, and a little user
> intervention required now and then.
>
>>
>> I mostly agree with you, particularly when it comes to running a chat
>> server.
>>
>> But we've identified a number of situations where having the router be
>> able to inform you of goings ons/events is needed. One other low tech
>> solution is sending email, but you also have a configuration problem
>> then (as you will for a chat service too, of course, unless you run via
>> multicast, and I doubt if anything but a Linux system will receive those
>> without fuss).
>>
>> That's why I sent a pointer to telepathy; it allows you to send messages
>> to a bunch of different back ends, and stays out of the server
>> business.  And it's being used on embedded systems (though I don't know
>> if they go as small as what a typical home router is today).
>>                    - Jim
>
> I will look over telepathy. IRC, as the other major chat standard, would
> be nice to support. As well as bonjour.
>
>
> --
> Dave Täht
> SKYPE: davetaht
> http://ronsravings.blogspot.com/



-- 
Dave Täht
SKYPE: davetaht
http://ronsravings.blogspot.com/