Majordomo2 Admin Passwords
The Majordomo2 system implements most of its security through the use
of passwords. Providing a password causes the system to bypass the normal
access checks; if the password is valid and carries the proper authorizations,
the action will be carried out. This enables a list owner to administer
the list from various addresses and to give others administration duties
simply by giving out passwords.
There are various overlapping classes of passwords:
| Global passwords |
These passwords are authorized to perform actions on all lists at
a site. |
| List passwords |
These can affect only a single list. |
| Master passwords |
These are authorized to perform any action on the list. The global
master password is allowed to perform every action on every list. |
| Subsidiary passwords |
The list owner (actually anyone who has the list's master password
or the global master password) can create an unlimited number of passwords
and authorize each to do different things. |
| User passwords |
A unique password is given to each user at registration time which
can be used to verify identity without the usual confirmations. The
only purpose of these passwords is to bypass the confirmation process;
when a confirmation token is to be generated, this passwords is checked.
If valid, the operation will continue as if it had been confirmed.
This grants no additional access priviliges. |
The concept of subsidiary passwords is powerful. One (or, perhaps, more
than one) password can be authorized to perform subscriptions while another
can bypass access restrictions on posting messages. Passwords can be authorized
to do more than one thing, or to do anything except see or change any of
the password. (Only the master passwords are authorized to do that.)
In addition, subsidiary passwords can be bound to email addresses. This
is not intended to give a large amount of additional security; email can
be forged trivially and a user with a password authorized to carry out
the 'alias' action can simply equate his address to one which is authorized
to do some other action. Still, since the passwords themselves are hidden
from view, it prevents casual password guessing.
Note that master passwords cannot be bound to addresses. If this is desired,
it is best to create a subsidiary password authorized to do 'ALL'. Some
sites may even choose not to give master passwords to list owners.
For information on how to actually set up and change passwords, see the
help topics
- config master_password
- config passwords
and for information on how to apply passwords, see the 'admin approve'
and 'admin default' help topics.
Last modified on
June 15, 2005
by dlschmid
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