Python security

[newelfik]

Hi everyone,

I'm developing a screensaver under ubuntu.
This is an dynamic screensaver which done some actions on the system in background.

So i would like to restrict right to some users, so done an access politic to the screensaver.

I have a server and some client in Python, communication in TCP/Socket. the client listen gnome-screensaver dbus.

So I would like to secure the communication and authentication.
As it is a screensaver, there is no way to login/password authentication.

Have you got any idea ?

For the moment, I get back username in client module and send it to server with a config file for the rights, but python is not a compiled language, so... users can modify source code.

[Smart Viking]

I don't really understand your problem, but if you store the file under /usr/bin with the right permissions, then normal users cannot change the source code.

Maybe you could create a group for your program to fix some other security issues, but I don't know so much about that.

[newelfik]

hmm, you right. But is it enough for a security ?

I think there is a better way to secure communication. For the moment i am only send the result of 'whoami' in a socket.

I'm looking for a folder, one file by user getting right access. And set up some config access.

[Smart Viking]

There's different kinds of security.

If something secret travels over the network, then it would be smart to encrypt it. But I know very little about network programming.

[newelfik]

I need only send START/STOP for screensaver status , and the username. So if there is no way to a user to pretending to be someone else. it's seems to be good.

I am looking for that.

[StephenF]

http://atlee.ca/software/pam/