Details
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Improvement
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Status: Reopened
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Major
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Resolution: Unresolved
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3.1.1
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None
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Any multi-user environment, especially Unix/Linux environments.
Description
Maven supports dependency resolution through HTTPS with client-authentication (documented MNG-1560), via JSSE system properties on the java command-line. These can be configured in the environment of the process that launches Maven as MAVEN_OPTS, which can be made relatively secure.
However, eventually, when the mvn bootstrap script starts Maven's java process, these options are placed on the command line for java. This is extremely problematic, because it means that any JSSE properties with sensitive information (javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword, for example) are visible in the process list to any user of the system. This is explicitly advised against by Java, but appears to be the only way to pass this information to Maven.
Maven can do a better job of prompting for, or configuring, passphrases for keyStores and trustStores. It already has the ability to configure server credentials in the settings.xml file, protected with a master passphrase read from a different file (~/.m2/settings-security.xml). This would work for JKS and PKCS12 keystores today, if there were a way to configure the passphrases there instead of in MAVEN_OPTS.
Another option would be to support PKCS11 keystores, configured via the current JSSE system properties. However, to do this, Maven needs to instantiate the SSL configuration in the http client with an AuthProvider and a callback handler which prompts for the PKCS11 pin/passphrase.