Password Manager

This package provides a password manager mechanism. Password manager is an utility object that can encode and check encoded passwords. Beyond the generic interface, this package also provides four implementations:

PlainTextPasswordManager - the most simple and the less secure one. It does not do any password encoding and simply checks password by string equality. It's useful in tests or as a base class for more secure implementations.
MD5PasswordManager - a password manager that uses MD5 algorithm to encode passwords. It adds salt to the encoded password, but the salt is not used for encoding the password itself, so the use of salt in it is purely cosmetical. It's generally weak against dictionary attacks.
SHA1PasswordManager - a password manager that uses SHA1 algorithm to encode passwords. It has the same salt weakness as the MD5PasswordManager.
SSHAPasswordManager - the most secure password manager that is strong against dictionary attacks. It's basically SHA1-encoding password manager which also incorporates a salt into the password when encoding it. This password manager is compatible with passwords used in LDAP databases.

It is strongly recommended to use SSHAPasswordManager, as it's the most secure.

The package also provides a script zpasswd to generate principal entries in typical site.zcml files.

Usage

It's very easy to use password managers. The zope.password.interfaces.IPasswordManager interface defines only two methods:

def encodePassword(password):
    """Return encoded data for the given password"""

def checkPassword(encoded_password, password):
    """Return whether the given encoded data coincide with the given password"""

The implementations mentioned above are in the zope.password.password module.

Password Manager Names Vocabulary

The zope.password.vocabulary module provides a vocabulary of registered password manager utility names. It is typically registered as an IVocabularyFactory utility named "Password Manager Names".

It's intended to be used with zope.component and zope.schema, so you need to have them installed and the utility registrations needs to be done properly. The configure.zcml file, contained in zope.password does the registrations, as well as in setUpPasswordManagers function in zope.password.testing module.

zpasswd script

zpasswd is a script to generate principal entries in typical site.zcml files.

You can create a zpasswd script in your package by adding a section like this to your buildout.cfg:

[zpasswd]
recipe = z3c.recipe.dev:script
eggs = zope.password
module = zope.password.zpasswd
method = main

This will generate a script zpasswd next time you run buildout.

When run, the script will ask you for all parameters needed to create a typical principal entry, including the encrypted password.

Use:

$ bin/zpasswd --help

to get a list of options.

Using

$ bin/zpasswd -c some/site.zcml

the script will try to lookup any password manager you defined and registered in your environment. This is lookup is not necessary if you go with the standard password managers defined in zope.password.

A typical zpasswd session:

$ ./bin/zpasswd

Please choose an id for the principal.

Id: foo


Please choose a title for the principal.

Title: The Foo


Please choose a login for the principal.

Login: foo

Password manager:

 1. Plain Text
 2. MD5
 3. SHA1
 4. SSHA

Password Manager Number [4]:
SSHA password manager selected


Please provide a password for the principal.

Password:
Verify password:

Please provide an optional description for the principal.

Description: The main foo

============================================
Principal information for inclusion in ZCML:

  <principal
    id="foo"
    title="The Foo"
    login="foo"
    password="{SSHA}Zi_Lsz7Na3bS5rz4Aer-9TbqomXD2f3T"
    description="The main foo"
    password_manager="SSHA"
    />

CHANGES

3.6.2 (unreleased)

Nothing changed yet.

3.6.1 (2010-05-27)

The SSHAPasswordManager.checkPassword() would not handle unicode input (even if the string would only contain ascii characters). Now, the encoded_password input will be encoded to ascii, which is deemed safe as it should not contain non-ascii characters anyway.

3.6.0 (2010-05-07)

Removed zope.testing dependency for tests.
Updated some copyright headers to comply to repository policy.
Added zpasswd script formerly hold in zope.app.server. Contrary to former zpasswd script, which used "Plain Text" as default password manager, now SSHA is used as default.

3.5.1 (2009-03-14)

Make security protection directives in configure.zcml execute only if zope.security is installed. This will allow reuse of the configure.zcml file in environments without zope.security, for example with repoze.zcml.
Add "Password Manager Names" vocabulary for use with zope.schema and zope.component, like it was in zope.app.authentication. It's an optional feature so it doesn't add hard dependency. We use "vocabulary" extra to list dependencies needed for vocabulary functionality.

3.5.0 (2009-03-06)

First release. This package was splitted off from zope.app.authentication to separate password manager functionality that is greatly re-usable without any bit of zope.app.authentication and to reduce its dependencies.