Re: [VANILLA-LIST:2764] www.netrek.org down for Y2K upgrades

[Tom Holub <doosh@best.com>]

On Mon, Dec 27, 1999 at 09:25:39PM -0800, Carlos Y. Villalpando wrote:
> Quoting Tom Holub <doosh@best.com>:
> > On Mon, Dec 27, 1999 at 07:23:28PM -0500, Dave Ahn wrote:
> > > All this talk of authentication begs the question, do we want to revisit
> > > the topic of the current RSA scheme?  I remember a while back where we
> > > were thinking about a slightly more robust system.
> > 
> > Unless it will be more transparent than the current system, it's a waste
> > of time; the current system is already too cumbersome for server gods to
> > implement (which is why it's implemented on only one active server). 
> 
> How is it difficult? Seriously, I'm not trying to argue, this can be
> fixed.
> 
> The server gods ask us for the crypt key, they un-tar the source into
> the netrek tree, run configure, run make, and presto!, server god has
> RSA verification available in the server. They just need to run
> updated either by hand, in cron, or with the -d option.
> 
> For the clients, I agree, its a pain in the ass.
> 
> And we really only have 1 active bronco server.

We have at least three active INL servers and two active hockey servers,
none of which use RSA authentication.

If you already have the right MP libraries, and if the version of the
RSA utilities you have works with the current vanilla release (which
does not seem to be the case with the ones I have), and your machine
has "crypt" (which is not the case with Linux or FreeBSD), and if you
can figure out on your own how to generate your first key list (which
does not appear to be documented anywhere), maybe it's not too bad.
I think for the common cases it's a big pain in the ass.
 -Tom