Manual Pages  — OPIEACCESS

/etc/opieaccess - OPIE database of trusted networks

DEPRECATION NOTICE DESCRIPTION SEE ALSO AUTHOR CONTACT

OPIE is deprecated, and may not be available in FreeBSD 14.0 and later.

The opieaccess file contains a list of networks that are considered trusted by the system as far as security against passive attacks is concerned. Users from networks so trusted will be able to log in using OPIE responses, but not be required to do so, while users from networks that are not trusted will always be required to use OPIE responses (the default behavior). This trust allows a site to have a more gentle migration to OPIE by allowing it to be non-mandatory for "inside" networks while allowing users to choose whether they with to use OPIE to protect their passwords or not.

The entire notion of trust implemented in the opieaccess file is a major security hole because it opens your system back up to the same passive attacks that the OPIE system is designed to protect you against. The opieaccess support in this version of OPIE exists solely because we believe that it is better to have it so that users who don't want their accounts broken into can use OPIE than to have them prevented from doing so by users who don't want to use OPIE. In any environment, it should be considered a transition tool and not a permanent fixture. When it is not being used as a transition tool, a version of OPIE that has been built without support for the opieaccess file should be built to prevent the possibility of an attacker using this file as a means to circumvent the OPIE software.

The opieaccess file consists of lines containing three fields separated by spaces (tabs are properly interpreted, but spaces should be used instead) as follows:

FieldDescription
action"permit" or "deny" non-OPIE logins
addressAddress of the network to match
maskMask of the network to match

Subnets can be controlled by using the appropriate address and mask. Individual hosts can be controlled by using the appropriate address and a mask of 255.255.255.255. If no rules are matched, the default is to deny non-OPIE logins.

Bellcore's S/Key was written by Phil Karn, Neil M. Haller, and John S. Walden of Bellcore. OPIE was created at NRL by Randall Atkinson, Dan McDonald, and Craig Metz.

S/Key is a trademark of Bell Communications Research (Bellcore).

OPIE is discussed on the Bellcore "S/Key Users" mailing list. To join, send an email request to:

skey-users-request@thumper.bellcore.com