Security

This page describes the current status of security in AAGRINDER.

Authentication

In AAGRINDER, users authenticate with their passwords. The password is chosen when the account is created and needs to be at least 1 character long. The password may contain any characters.

The password is transmitted to the server in plaintext. However, if you are using a https connection, this transmission will be encrypted.

On the server, the password is hashed and salted using bcryptjs and then saved in a json file. The plaintext password does not persist in memory on neither the client nor the server.

Users can change their passwords by using the /passwd command in-game. It is also possible to change the password with a direct api call. In both cases, the current password is required in order to set a new one.

The server administrator can change any user's password using the passwd command in the server console. If you lost your current password, you should contact the server administrator.

The server administrator is able to remove a password from an account, allowing this account to instantly log in without needing to type a password. This is recommended only for testing.

Older versions of AAGRINDER have an "insecure_mode" setting, which can be used to disable checking passwords. This setting was on 8th July 2022 renamed to "check_passwords" and 6 days later removed.

Authorization

Additional privileges may be granted to specific users at login.

Among the in-game commands that get executed on the server, some are in the group of admin commands, which prevents users from accessing these commands unless they have the admin role. The names of users with the admin role are specified in the file admins.txt in the server directory. This file needs to be edited manually and reloaded using the admin command in the server console, or by restarting the server.

Older versions of AAGRINDER have a /sudo command, which allows a user to run a command as any other user, and requires additional privileges (an entry in sudo.txt). The /sudo command was removed on September 4, 2022.