Thread

1. WIP: AuthenticationMD5 protocol documentation clarification

   Cyan Ogilvie <cyan.ogilvie@gmail.com> — 2011-06-05T15:26:35Z

   This is my first patch, so I hope I've got the process right for submitting
   patches.
   
   I'm building a driver to talk version 3.0 of the protocol, and generally
   I've found the documentation to be excellent.  One are I had trouble with
   was responding to the AuthenticationMD5Password challenge.  After receiving
   help on IRC, I've attached a patch to the protocol documentation attempting
   to clarify what is expected by the backend, basically:
   
   concat(
       'md5',
       hex_encode(
           md5(
               concat(
                   hex_encode(
                       md5(
                           concat(password, username)
                       )
                   ),
                   salt
               )
           )
       )
   )
   
   My technical writing skills were not up to wording that in plain english,
   and it seems like the rest of the documentation for the protocol steers
   clear of anything that looks like code.  Is this policy in this area or is
   the code-esque description ok?
   
   No code is changed, only documentation, so I've left out the code-relevant
   patch info fields
   
   Patch info:
   
   Project name: postgresql
   Branch: master
   
   Cyan
   

2. Re: WIP: AuthenticationMD5 protocol documentation clarification

   Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> — 2011-06-06T13:58:50Z

   On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Cyan Ogilvie <cyan.ogilvie@gmail.com> wrote:
   > This is my first patch, so I hope I've got the process right for submitting
   > patches.
   
   You're doing great.  I suspect we do want to either (1) reword what
   you've done in English, rather than writing it as code, or at least
   (2) add some SGML markup to the code.  Our next CommitFest starts in
   just over a week, so you should receive some more specific feedback
   pretty soon.
   
   Also, if you'd like to help review someone else's patch, that would be great.
   
   http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-rrreviewers/2011-06/msg00000.php
   
   -- 
   Robert Haas
   EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
   The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
   
   

3. Re: WIP: AuthenticationMD5 protocol documentation clarification

   Heikki Linnakangas <heikki.linnakangas@enterprisedb.com> — 2011-06-06T15:57:46Z

   On 06.06.2011 16:58, Robert Haas wrote:
   > On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Cyan Ogilvie<cyan.ogilvie@gmail.com>  wrote:
   >> This is my first patch, so I hope I've got the process right for submitting
   >> patches.
   >
   > You're doing great.  I suspect we do want to either (1) reword what
   > you've done in English, rather than writing it as code, or at least
   > (2) add some SGML markup to the code.  Our next CommitFest starts in
   > just over a week, so you should receive some more specific feedback
   > pretty soon.
   
   That is quite complicated to explain in plain English, so some sort of 
   pseudo-code is probably a good idea. I would recommend not to formulate 
   it as a SQL expression, though. It makes you think you could execute it 
   from psql or something. Even if you know that's not how to do it, it 
   feels confusing. Maybe something like:
   
   <literal>md5</literal> hex_encode(md5(hex_encode(md5(password username) 
   salt)
   
   with some extra markup to make it look pretty.
   
   -- 
      Heikki Linnakangas
      EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com
   
   

4. Re: WIP: AuthenticationMD5 protocol documentation clarification

   Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> — 2011-10-14T00:50:05Z

   Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
   > On 06.06.2011 16:58, Robert Haas wrote:
   > > On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Cyan Ogilvie<cyan.ogilvie@gmail.com>  wrote:
   > >> This is my first patch, so I hope I've got the process right for submitting
   > >> patches.
   > >
   > > You're doing great.  I suspect we do want to either (1) reword what
   > > you've done in English, rather than writing it as code, or at least
   > > (2) add some SGML markup to the code.  Our next CommitFest starts in
   > > just over a week, so you should receive some more specific feedback
   > > pretty soon.
   > 
   > That is quite complicated to explain in plain English, so some sort of 
   > pseudo-code is probably a good idea. I would recommend not to formulate 
   > it as a SQL expression, though. It makes you think you could execute it 
   > from psql or something. Even if you know that's not how to do it, it 
   > feels confusing. Maybe something like:
   > 
   > <literal>md5</literal> hex_encode(md5(hex_encode(md5(password username) 
   > salt)
   > 
   > with some extra markup to make it look pretty.
   
   I have applied the attached doc patch to document this.  Thanks for the
   report --- it was something we certainly needed to document.
   
   -- 
     Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
     EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com
   
     + It's impossible for everything to be true. +