Confluence Command Line Interface security

[Ken Poulton]

We use the command line interface (CLI) a lot, but the authentication creates a big security hole.

hole 1) CLI requires the user's password for each command.
To write a script, many people embed their passwords in the script. (Really bad).
Better is to put the password in a file readable only by the user, but this is still a cleartext password.

hole 2) CLI requires the users's password to be passed on the command line, where anyone can see it with ps(1)

I think (2) is a defect in CLI.

Does anyone have a better solution than a cleartext file for part (1) ?

Thanks.

[Bob Swift]

1. Recommend customizing your CLI bat/sh (either atlassian.bat/.sh or confluence.bat/.sh) to include your password. For me, none of my scripts contain passwords, they only refer to the atlassian command. It also makes it easier to maintain. If you need to access multiple servers, strongly recommend using the atlassian.bat/sh as it is much easier to customize for multiple servers and products. It also works better in scripts. It is available as part of the Atlassian Command Line Interface distribution
2. CSOAP-153 covers a few more options - vote and comment there for what you would like to see