[DISPATCH-472] Default value of authenticatePeer parameter in listener configuration

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Jakub Scholz
• Created: 11/Aug/16 19:32
• Updated: 18/Apr/19 18:05

Description

The authenticatePeer parameter in listener configuration has currently default value "no". I believe this can lead to misunderstandings causing security issues. Consider listener configured as this:

listener { 
    role: normal 
    host: 0.0.0.0 
    port: amqp 
    saslMechanisms: PLAIN DIGEST-MD5 CRAM-MD5 
} 

It has configured SASL authentication using username and password and on a first look one might believe that such listener is configured properly. However, because of missing "authenticatePeer: yes" parameter, it is still possible to connect anonymously without the SASL layer.

I believe it would be much better to have either set authenticatePeer parameter to yes by default all the time or at least when SASL is configured.

Please have a look at the related discussion from the mailing list:
http://qpid.2158936.n2.nabble.com/Dispatch-Default-value-of-authenticatePeer-td7648676.html

Issue Links

• is related to: PROTON-1354 Disable GSSAPI and GSS-SPNEGO SASL mechanisms if they are not explicitly enabled
• relates to: DISPATCH-224 Tools fail with no useful error in some SASL configurations