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- Security
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- As it stands, OscliD offers a very insecure system. Anyone with technical
- knowledge, or the "roscli" utility can send commands across a local network,
- or even the Internet! OscliD offers facilities to combat this, in the form
- of two lists, one called the "allow list" and one called the "deny list".
- The allow list contains computers and networks who are explicity allowed
- to execute commands on your computer. The deny list contains computers and
- networks who are denied access. The allow list takes priority over the
- deny list.
-
- The lists work like this: when a *command arrives, OscliD examines it
- before executing it. If it finds that it came from a computer covered by
- something in the allow list, it executes the command regardless of what is
- in the deny list. If it finds the computer covered by something in the deny
- list, it refuses to execute the command. If the computer is not mentioned
- in either list, it executes the command anyway.
-
- The entries stored in the allow and deny lists are *partial* IP addresses.
- If the part mentioned in the list matches up with a full IP address, then
- a match is found. For example:
-
- * "192.168.0" would match anything with 192.168.0 on the front,
- e.g. 192.168.0.1;
- * "1" would match anything with 1 on the front, e.g. 1.3.5.3;
- * "158.152.1.65" would match *only* the computer "158.152.1.65"
- as all the nibbles have been specified;
- * "*" would match any computer.
-
- To add entries to the allow and deny list, use the *commands *OscliD_Allow
- and *OscliD_Deny, followed the partial IP address you want to add. (In a
- future release you may be able to specify hosts and networks by name,
- contained in the InetDBase:Hosts and InetDBase:Networks files.)
-
- So, let's say there was a "hostile" network 12.40.20, where the computers
- on it were likely to send *commands designed to crash your computer. So,
- you deny all commands sent from this network, by typing
-
- *OscliD_Deny 12.40.20
-
- So no more *commands from that network will be executed on your computer.
- Now, let's say that you had one "trusted friend" on this network, whose
- IP address was 12.40.20.3, and you wanted to give him access. You add
- him to the allow list by typing
-
- *OscliD_Allow 12.40.20.3
-
- and because the allow list takes precedence over the deny list, he (and
- only he) would be allowed access, but anyone else in the network would be
- denied.
-
- There are a few specialities -- using "*" as the IP address includes *all*
- machines. So, a typical setup would be
-
- *OscliD_Allow 158.152.1.3 (a trusted friend)
- *OscliD_Allow 192.168.3.5 (another trusted friend)
- *OscliD_Deny * (everyone else can go stuff themselves)
-
- where all computers are denied access apart from the two mentioned in
- "Allow".
-
- Finally, if you want to see the contents of either of the allow or deny
- lists, just type on its own "*OscliD_Allow" or "*OscliD_Deny". You will
- probably want to create an obey file somewhere in your boot up sequence
- containing a series of Allow/Deny commands. My file reads thus:
-
- | OscliD security setup
- OscliD_Allow 192.168.0
- OscliD_Deny *
-