Security

How do I report a possible security vulnerability of PmWiki?

Pm wrote about this in a post to pmwiki-users from September 2006. In a nutshell he differentiates two cases:

1. The possible vulnerability isn't already known publicly: In this case please contact Pm by private mail.
2. The possible vulnerability is already known publicly: In this case feel free to discuss the vulnerability in public (e.g. on pmwiki-users).

See his post mentioned above for details and rationals.

What about the botnet security advisory at http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1672?

Sites that are running with PHP's register_globals setting set to "On" and versions of PmWiki prior to 2.1.21 may be vulnerable to a botnet exploit that is taking advantage of a bug in PHP. The vulnerability can be closed by turning register_globals off, upgrading to PmWiki 2.1.21 or later, or upgrading to PHP versions 4.4.3 or 5.1.4.
In addition, there is a test at PmWiki:SiteAnalyzer that can be used to determine if your site is vulnerable.

Wiki Vandalism

Assumptions

you are using a Blocklist and Url approvals.

You don't want to resort to password protecting the entire wiki, that's not the point after all.

Ideally these protections will be invoked in config.php

How do I stop pages being deleted, eg password protect a page from deletion?

Use Cookbook:DeleteAction and password protect the page deletion action by adding $DefaultPasswords['delete'] = '*'; to config.php or password protect the action with $HandleAuth['delete'] = 'edit';

How do I stop pages being replaced with an empty (all spaces) page?

Add block: /^\s*$/ to your blocklist.

how do I stop pages being completely replaced by an inane comment such as excellent site, great information, where the content cannot be blocked?

Try using the newer automatic blocklists that pull information and IP addresses about known wiki defacers.

(OR) Try using Cookbook:Captchas or Cookbook:Captcha (note these are different).

(OR) Set an edit password, but make it publicly available on the Site.AuthForm template.

How do I password protect all common pages in all groups such as recent changes, search, group header, group footer, and so on?

Insert the following lines into your local/config.php file. Editing these pages then requires the admin password.

## Require admin password to edit RecentChanges (etc.) pages.
if ($action=='edit'
    && preg_match('/\\.(Search|Group(Header|Footer)|(All)?RecentChanges)$/', $pagename))
  { $DefaultPasswords['edit'] = crypt('secret phrase'); }

Note that all GroupAttributes pages are protected by the attr password.

Alternative: you can require 'admin' authentication for these pages:

## Require admin password to edit RecentChanges (etc.) pages.
if ($action=='edit' 
    && preg_match('(Search|Group(Header|Footer)|(All)?RecentChanges)', $pagename))
  { $HandleAuth['edit'] = 'admin'; }

How do I password protect the creation of new groups?

See Cookbook:Limit Wiki Groups

How do I password protect the creation of new pages?

See Cookbook:Limit new pages in Wiki Groups

How do I take a whitelist approach where users from known or trusted IP addresses can edit, and others require a password?

Put these lines to local/config.php:

## Allow passwordless editing from own turf, pass for others.
if ($action=='edit'
 && !preg_match("/^90\\.68\\./", $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']) )    
 { $DefaultPasswords['edit'] = crypt('foobar'); }

Replace 90.68. with the preferred network prefix and foobar with the default password for others.

How do I password protect page actions?

See Passwords for setting in config.php

or

How to make a rule that allows only authors to edit their own wiki page in Profiles? group?

Add this to your local/config.php

How do I moderate all postings?

Enable PmWiki.Drafts

• Set $EnableDrafts, this relabels the "Save" button to "Publish" and a "Save draft" button appears.
• Set $EnablePublish, this adds a new "publish" authorization level to distinguish editing from publishing.

How do I make a read only wiki?

In config.php set an "edit" password.

How do I restrict access to uploaded attachments?

See

• instructions for denying public access to the uploads directory
• see Cookbook:Secure attachments