Wider feedback requested on two changes to our base/core defaults

[Miloslav Trmač]

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 8:45 PM, "Jóhann B. Guðmundsson"
<johannbg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Now for those that are not familiar with our default using the short fqdn it
> cuts the fqdn at the highest level domain as in the first "dot"  so in the
> sample case the login and command line promt is shown as "container01".
>
> That scalability problem comes immediately apparent when you would create
> the next container01 for the next second level domain like
> container01.ackme.com you as an ISP would be hosting, it would be also
> showing "container01" at the login and command line prompt just begging for
> administrative mistake and headaches.

It's not obvious to me that optimizing the default setup for ISPs (who
have server management as their core business, and will likely do much
more customization to get a competitive edge) is a good idea, but I'll
defer to people who actually do such things with containers.


> The other issue I would like to get some comments on is that we default to
> setting an empty root password which will allow administrators to log into
> containers as root and set the root password as well as removing few line
> from spin kickstarts as well being beneficial to the arm community.

* If the container is supposed to resemble an ordinary operating
system, with user accounts and ability to use it "from the outside"
(whether using the console or over the network), then it should also
not allow just anyone who knows the IP address to connect.  (per
systemd-nspawn(1), --private-network is not default.)
* If the container only sandboxes a separate service, there shouldn't
be a login process (or, an user session, really) running inside in the
first place; the tools should just launch a shell (or other tool)
running within the container, with the authentication happening
outside the container.
So, "no".

> we leave the users anyway open to bruteforce attacks out of the box without them even knowing that it's happening so it comes as bit of security through obscurity not allowing this in the first place.
That's equivalent to saying that all passwords are security through
obscurity, and equally incorrect.
    Mirek