[ZODB-Dev] ZEO and Security

[Jim Fulton]

Bill Anderson wrote:
> 
(snip)
> It occurs to me that in the zrpc may be _one_ place to put at least a
> ZEO Client authentication. If it was done such that one could use a
> basic authentication token, rather like a license key, you could at
> least get basic auth, such that the client is authenticated to connect.

I think I've been too terse.  I'll expand a little.  A ZEO/ZODB security
model would need (at least) two things:

  - A mechanism for authenticating connections.  I agree that this
    is something that ZEO should be involved with.  This should use
    some proven 3rd party crypto mechanism.  This could, as a minimum
    provide a very course-grained security, in that you could assure
    that only trusted clients connected.

  - An authorization model that controlled access to individal objects
    (really object ids and records).This control would have to be pretty
    course, maybe controlling read, write, and security-setting
    operations. I suggest that this might be thought of as a storage plug
    in of some kind. Maybe it's a special storage, or maybe it's something
    that wraps a standard storage, sitting between the storage server
    and some standard storage. 


(snip)

 
> Anyway, it seems that if teh estimated timeframe for a "SecureZEO" is
> this fall, now would be a good time to start generating and discussing
> ideas. perhaps with that, some of us could start toying with various
> ideas.

I have no estimated time frame, as I (or DC) are not working on it. :)
While I think that this is a worthwhile project, DC has higher priorities
at this time.  Fortunately, this *is* an open-source project, so we need
not be a bottle neck. :)

Jim

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