Re: [PATCH] lisp/server.el: Introduction of server-auth-key variable

[Michal Nazarewicz]

On Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:22:27 +0200, Stefan Monnier  
<address@hidden> wrote:

> > +In some situations however, it can be difficult to share randomly
> > +generated password with remote hosts (eg. no shared directory),
>
> ssh/scp work fine for me.

Yes, but you'd have to send the key every time you connect to the remote
host and every time you restart emacs.  I thought about something like
that but decided that it'd be easier to just use a single shared key.

> > +so you can set the key with this variable and then copy server
> > +file to remote host (with possible changes to IP address and/or
> > +port if that applies).
>
> IIUC this only makes sense if you want to use a shared key that you keep
> for a "long" time (since the intention is to reduce the frequency of
> key-distribution).

Yep, that's my use-case.

> Now the server keys are sent in the clear over the network, so the
> security we provide is rather minimal.

In my case it's not actually an issue since I use OpenVPN to connect
to my remote host, not to say that in general this may decrease
security for some users should they choose to use it.

> OT1H that means your patch should be OK since we don't really have
> security anyway.  OTOH it means that it makes the security threat
> more serious.

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