Re: [pve-devel] [PATCH manager] ui: storage: esxi: check 'skip certificate verification' by default

[Dominik Csapak <d.csapak@proxmox.com>]

On 3/22/24 09:46, Thomas Lamprecht wrote:
> On 22/03/2024 08:29, Dominik Csapak wrote:
>> On 3/21/24 18:07, Thomas Lamprecht wrote:
>>> On 20/03/2024 16:39, Dominik Csapak wrote:
>>>> needing one less step when adding the storage, assuming most esxi
>>>> certificates are self-signed.
>>>
>>> Well this makes it insecure by default though? Which is not something
>>> I'd just not mention in such a commit message...
>>
>> imho it is very obvious what it does from the commit subject?
>>
>> 'skipping the certificate verification'
>>
>> ?
>> but ok, i can add a sentence more in the description..
> 
> as always, the reasoning and why's count a bit more in such
> cases – making the default insecure is something where a giving
> a reason for why this is OK is rather a must...
> 

ok sorry i think i misunderstood you, yes, the reason should be clear
but i thought i did that by saying 'most esxi certs are self-signed'


>>> As that was the original reason I ticked it in the first place
>>> when pondering between security and convenience...
>>>
>>
>> the thought here was that users that make the effort of giving
>> their esxi instances valid certificates, can simply uncheck the checkbox?
> 
> So can the others?! And that would be pretty obvious if the error
> message gets passed through like I requested already off list over
> a week ago..
> 
> As again... this is making the connection completely insecure, and
> users with valid certs won't be notified of that fact "so simply check"
> it is really not something a user can be aware of if it "works" without
> enabling basic security..
>   > and i guess many of the users won't bother doing that for the
>> esxi instances? (e.g. vcenter does not make that distinction, all
>> it does is ask for hostname/ip + password, and cert management seems
>> to be non-trivial)
> 
> again, not an argument for why we should make it less secure.
> 
>>> If we do this I'd rather rename it to "Check Certificate" and have
>>> that unticked.
>>
>> ok makes sense, i'd name it 'verify certificate' though to be in line
>> with our realm/metric server wording
>>
>> also should this be only in the frontend, or do we want to reverse
>> the api/config option as well?
> 
> No, I'd keep it off there, so having the user pass the --skip- option
> makes it more clear.
> 
> But tbh. I probably won't apply this in any way, as mentioned there
> are other ways to actually improve on this, the error message would
> be a relatively easy first one.

ok fine with me