Storing user passwords other than in clear

• Key: DIRSERVER-261
• Type: New Feature
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Blocker
• Assignee: Stefan Zoerner
• Reporter: Stefan Zoerner
• Affects Version/s: pre-1.0
• Fix Version/s: 1.0-RC1

Description

Because the admin user is allowed to see everything, I suggest to store the attribute values for user password other than in clear. I nice solution would be to make this configurable (other server products allow comparable functionality):

* Configure a hash function to use for password storage (e.g. MD5, SSHA, ...)
* Allow clients to store the value as a hashed value on their own as well (calculated with a function other than the configured one, if they like)
* Enable simple bind with value in clear text (hash value calculated within the server and compared against the stored value)
* Still allow clear passwords, because some authentication mechanisms need this (e.g. DIGEST-MD5)

Hashed values does not add that much security, but at least is is harder for admin to catch a password and commit it to his/her memory.
Some products even allow to encrypt the password (two-way), but I think the features above should do for the first run.