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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: GUI RPC password is empty. BOINC can be controlled by any user on this computer. |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 5
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Occam
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Jan 1, 2024 Post Count: 67 Status: Offline |
New install and 1st time I've ever got this warning. I'm Linux 7.18.1 and as the only user on this computer I'm not worried about it unless someone knows a reason I should be. Is there a quick fix or will it eventually go away?
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adriverhoef
Master Cruncher The Netherlands Joined: Apr 3, 2009 Post Count: 2089 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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That warning message will not go away unless you undertake action to fix it. A quick fix would be to put some valid password into the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg, then restart BOINC. Or else just let it be and accept that there will always be a warning message about an empty password.
See https://boinc.berkeley.edu/gui_rpc_passwd.php If you're the only user of your computer, that's OK. If there are other users, and you don't want them to control BOINC, do the following: sudo rm /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg This will add you to the 'boinc' group, and will create a new access control file readable only by members of that group. If you want to let other users control BOINC, add them to the group also. Adri |
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gj82854
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Sep 26, 2022 Post Count: 70 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Later releases of BOINC are going to enforce the password requirement. They will not allow an empty gui_rpc_auth.cfg file. I don't remember which release begins the enforcement.
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Occam
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Jan 1, 2024 Post Count: 67 Status: Offline |
Ok, thanks. So am I correct that as a single user of my computers this does not reflect any security or privacy issue?
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gj82854
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Sep 26, 2022 Post Count: 70 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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After reviewing the code and some of the pull requests, it looks like there may have been a reversal of policy(I think this went in with 7.20.x of the client):
----------------------------------------boinccmd: show alert messages after attach RPCs PR #3709 disallowed empty GUI RPC password files. This increased security on shared machines. But it meant that on Linux, after installing BOINC as a package, the user had to locate and change the protection and/or the ownership of the password file, which is undesirable. This change allows empty password files but tells the user that they should think about the security implications. With the Manager this is delivered as a notice. With boinccmd the message is written to stderr after an attach operation. [Edit 1 times, last edit by gj82854 at Jan 20, 2025 2:22:21 AM] |
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