Re: [stellation-res] why doesn't stellationd require a "password" argume

["Mark C. Chu-Carroll" <mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 20 July 2002 01:09 pm, Florin Iucha wrote:
> I am confused about the authentication mechanisms in stellation
> regarding the postgres database.
>
> When I start a stellation server using "stellationd", I cannot specify a
> password because there is no command line option. That means that I have to
> set the pg_hba.conf like this
>    host    stellation      127.0.0.1   255.255.255.0  ident sameuser
>
> Then I have created a "stellation" user without password and a "stellation"
> database. I have initialized the database and started up the server.
>
> The only way to get a succesfull connection is to change the username to
> "stellation" and the password to "" (by hand-editing the .svcrc).

So far, our approach has been to not use postgres authentication.
We want an authentication distinct from the auth mechanism used
by the database system. 

We run postgres in the mode where it accepts connections from
localhost without passwords, but does not ever accept any connections
from anywhere else. The default installation of postgresql from RPMs on 
RedHat installs this way.

Then Stellation uses its own, DB neutral authentication mechanism. With
the server, it's a challenge mechanism, where the password is never
actually transmitted.

When you do an "svc config database", Stellation initializes a
repository, and inserts a username and password from your
.svcrc file. (I'm not sure about what the default is if you didn't
put anything into the .svcrc file; that's the area of code that
Dave Shields is primarily responsible for.)

> With stellation/'' the command line client works but the Eclipse plugin
> requires that some password be filled in!

That's the *stellation* password, not the *postgres* password. From
the command line, it's using your .svcrc file. From the Eclipse plugin,
it wants a Stellation username and password.

> Also the plugin repository configurator doesn't properly save the dialog
> contents when the "remote" type is used.
>
> Could you please put a document with step-by-step description on how to
> set the users and passwords?

We're working on it. There's a lot that we really need to get done,
and there are only three of us at IBM working on it. We really appreciate
the work you've been doing trying it out; getting an outside user to
try things like this helps us to find out what most needs doing.

> PS. Which is the prefferred way to discuss stellation issues? The
> newsgroup or the mailing list? And why are two ways?

I prefer the mailing list.

I don't entirely understand the motivation of the Eclipse folks for the 
overlapping newsgroups and mailing lists. I tend to look at the newsgroup
as a place for people to post general questions without making the
commitment to actually follow a mailing list. 

	-Mark

-- 
Mark Craig Chu-Carroll,  IBM T.J. Watson Research Center  
*** The Stellation project: Advanced SCM for Collaboration
***		http://www.eclipse.org/stellation
*** Work Email: mcc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx  ------- Personal Email: markcc@xxxxxxxxxxx