DSHub towards ADC Secure
Posted: 03 Oct 2008, 16:06
After a long await, here it comes, DSHub ADCS extensions is almost complete. The next release will have it. While working on ADCS my plans changed a lot about the "look and feel " of this feature in DSHub. What I mean is that I tried to have DSHub more user-friendly, and not make ADCS some obscure setting in some obscure file that nobody finds or it looks like it's very well hidden.
As a result, I modified the main GUI page ( the footer of the page, the one that remains fixed during tab navigation ) to show the current status of the ADCS settings. If ADCS is disabled, a red exclamation warning message is shown. Why ? Because in the future, my guess is that all hubs will be running ADCS, and plain ADC will be something more rare than a monkey in a mall. After ADCS is enabled, a green check icon shows that you are secured (at least in some way, I guess...).
If the user clicks the status text or icon, an information message is displayed on what ADCS is about and how it can be enabled. Although there is nothing "wrong" about running your hub in plain ADC, I've chosen this way of representation to encourage ADCS.
The new ADCS tab is a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to enable ADCS on your hub. In a first step , after some explanations and setting up, you get to choose between creating new keys and certificate for your hub or loading old ones ( Toast wanted an option to load them in an universal format , so that third parties may create them... this has to be considered for the future; currently dshub uses java KeyStore format ). After one of this options is chosen, the user may opt to use certificate based logins only ( instead of passwords ) , which is not functional yet . Finally , the user has only to click Enable to restart the hub in secure mode. This tab is also a simple way to enable/disable ADCS at any convenient moment.
The adcs command that is available to a registered user is also a way of configuring your ADC secure hub. Although it has significantly less information about the phenomena, it does basically the same thing. My idea is that a new user will use the GUI first and after that the command. This means that he already has some knowledge about it.
I want to thank people that helped in creating this extension for DSHub, among them is Cyb which helped in fixing an error that was killing me ( he was unsuccessful, but he is worth thanking ), also all my betatesters and people using DSHub
Attached some screenshots with the GUI changes.
Ah, and not to forget I want some feedback about it before the release, maybe comments and ideas. You can get the current svn with a checkout from here
As a result, I modified the main GUI page ( the footer of the page, the one that remains fixed during tab navigation ) to show the current status of the ADCS settings. If ADCS is disabled, a red exclamation warning message is shown. Why ? Because in the future, my guess is that all hubs will be running ADCS, and plain ADC will be something more rare than a monkey in a mall. After ADCS is enabled, a green check icon shows that you are secured (at least in some way, I guess...).
If the user clicks the status text or icon, an information message is displayed on what ADCS is about and how it can be enabled. Although there is nothing "wrong" about running your hub in plain ADC, I've chosen this way of representation to encourage ADCS.
The new ADCS tab is a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to enable ADCS on your hub. In a first step , after some explanations and setting up, you get to choose between creating new keys and certificate for your hub or loading old ones ( Toast wanted an option to load them in an universal format , so that third parties may create them... this has to be considered for the future; currently dshub uses java KeyStore format ). After one of this options is chosen, the user may opt to use certificate based logins only ( instead of passwords ) , which is not functional yet . Finally , the user has only to click Enable to restart the hub in secure mode. This tab is also a simple way to enable/disable ADCS at any convenient moment.
The adcs command that is available to a registered user is also a way of configuring your ADC secure hub. Although it has significantly less information about the phenomena, it does basically the same thing. My idea is that a new user will use the GUI first and after that the command. This means that he already has some knowledge about it.
I want to thank people that helped in creating this extension for DSHub, among them is Cyb which helped in fixing an error that was killing me ( he was unsuccessful, but he is worth thanking ), also all my betatesters and people using DSHub
Attached some screenshots with the GUI changes.
Ah, and not to forget I want some feedback about it before the release, maybe comments and ideas. You can get the current svn with a checkout from here