[libvirt] [PATCH 0/4] virsh: secret: Improve handling of secret value

[Peter Krempa]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2020 at 09:57:22 -0300, Daniel Henrique Barboza wrote:
> 
> 
> On 1/10/20 12:42 PM, Peter Krempa wrote:
> > The currently existing virsh APIs for secrets are awful for human use
> > and don't promote security.
> > 
> > Peter Krempa (4):
> >    virsh: secret: Add 'secret-passwd' command
> >    virsh: secret: Allow getting secret's value without base64 encoding
> >    virsh: secret: Allow setting secrets from file
> >    docs: secret: Unify and sanitize examples on how to set secret value
> > 
> >   docs/formatsecret.html.in |  86 ++++++++++++++++++----------
> >   docs/manpages/virsh.rst   |  26 ++++++++-
> >   tools/virsh-secret.c      | 116 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
> >   3 files changed, 189 insertions(+), 39 deletions(-)
> > 
> 
> 
> Code-wise LGTM. I have a question about the design though.
> 
> Shouldn't we ask for a password confirmation when setting the secret
> via secret-passwd? This would be more on par with how 'passwd' works
> in Linux, and can also help to prevent user typos when setting a
> secret.

I don't really think that it's necessary. When you mess up changing of
your account password you won't be able to log in thus it's a good idea
to make more sure that you didn't miss-type it.

With libvirt secrets, it doesn't prevent you from fixing it later as you
aren't even asked for the previous value of the secret.