|  | Posted by Mark Haase on 06/11/53 11:19 
In article <11bm9s5sv0kjnec@corp.supernews.com>,gordonb.3v3t0@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote:
 
 > Session IDs are normally stored in cookies.  A cookie in the XYZ
 > domain shouldn't be passed to you in the DEF domain.  However, you
 > can't count on users not manually inserting cookies into their
 > browsers.
 
 I didn't make it clear: other users are able to post websites on our
 intranet server (in other directories, of course). Thus they would be
 writing cookies on the same domain.
 
 > You can make the name of the "authenticated" flag configurable.
 > That's not a very good or secure solution.
 >
 > This is a problem.  It is possible to write a session handler which
 > stores session variables in your database rather than in a common
 > directory of files.  Now, how do you keep your DB password secret
 > in such an environment, such that YOUR scripts can use it, but the
 > other guy's scripts can't, both running on the same instance of
 > Apache and PHP?  The DB password issue is relevant even if you
 > don't use sessions or don't put sessions in the DB - anyone who
 > can write to your DB can add themselves to the user list.
 
 Youch, sounds rough. I guess the real answer is that one must administer
 one's own server if they want airtight security? Although this isn't
 possible for the project I'm working on I think the level of security I
 have reached already is good enough.
 
 > If you were concerned before, you should be really frightened now.
 >
 > About the only semi-good answer I've heard for multiple potentially
 > mutually-hostile customers on the same box involves (a) you have
 
 
 Hopefully nobody in our IT department will be hostile towards me!
 
 Thanks for the advice, Gordon.
 
 --
 |\/|  /|  |2  |<
 mehaase(at)sas(dot)upenn(dot)edu
  Navigation: [Reply to this message] |