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Status Future consideration
Workspace IBM TS4500 Tape Library
Created by Guest
Created on Feb 10, 2022

RELATED IDEAS

Security enhancement to the TS4500 CLI tool

I would like to request a security enhancement to the TS4500 CLI tool to support authentication credentials to be read from a file on disk of the workstation.

Today, typical TS4500 CLI usage is something like this:
# java -jar /opt/TS4500/TS4500CLI.jar -ip <TS4500-IP> -u <our-username-here> -p <our-pw-is-here> --viewDriveSummary

The problem with how the tool works is that it will run sometimes for tens of seconds or even minutes, depending on the task. While the CLI tool is running, any unprivileged (non-root) user can run 'PS' and see the password in clear text. Here's an example:

[operator@swift ~]$ ps faux | grep TS4500
root 3302 1.7 0.0 35760408 70372 pts/3 Sl+ 10:50 0:00 | \_ java -jar /opt/TS4500/TS4500CLI.jar -ip 192.168.128.73 -u admin -p <our-pw-is-here-in-cleartext> --downloadResources MountHistory

Idea priority High
  • Admin
    CARLOS SANDOVAL CASTRO
    Reply
    |     Oct 29, 2024

    IBM has re-assesed this request and has determined to implement this security enhancement on a future release.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 3, 2022

    From what I see in the CLI encryption topic referenced, this is just specific to encrypting/scrambling a clear-text password via --encrypt <Encrypt a Password> .


    However, anyone on the machine can still run ps and see the encrypted password while a CLI task or command is running. While it does not reveal the original password used, anyone who captures the encrypted password will still have full administrative access to the TS4500.


    For example:

    $ java -jar /opt/TS4500/TS4500CLI.jar -ip 192.168.128.73 -u admin -p <our-pw-is-here-in-cleartext> --encrypt "blah"

    yRgW


    $ ps faux | grep TS4500

    root 48278 62.0 0.0 35760036 74012 pts/0 Sl+ 11:53 0:00 | \_ java -jar /opt/TS4500/TS4500CLI.jar -ip 192.168.128.73 -u admin -ep yRgW --downloadResources MountHistory


    Please note that I can see what the encrypted "admin" password is, even as non-privileged user on this machine.


    The other part of the request is to be able to specify the CLI credentials from a file on disk. So for example:

    java -jar /opt/TS4500/TS4500CLI.jar -ip 192.168.128.73 -u admin -p ~/.my_ts4500_pw --downloadResources MountHistory


  • Admin
    CARLOS SANDOVAL CASTRO
    Reply
    |     Mar 24, 2022

    This is already supported, please see the following reference:

    https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/ts4500-tape-library?topic=alphabetically-encrypt

    1 reply

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