Bug 3225 - usernames and passwords aren't encoded to system locale
Summary: usernames and passwords aren't encoded to system locale
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Portable OpenSSH
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Miscellaneous (show other bugs)
Version: -current
Hardware: Other Linux
: P5 enhancement
Assignee: Assigned to nobody
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2020-10-27 20:05 AEDT by Pierre Ossman
Modified: 2020-10-27 20:05 AEDT (History)
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Description Pierre Ossman 2020-10-27 20:05:54 AEDT 
SSH uses UTF-8 on the wire for usernames and passwords, which means it can handle pretty much anything. However to make use of those sshd needs to pass them on to the system via NSS and PAM. Those APIs are unfortunately poorly specified when it comes to encoding, but are likely using the local system locale.

Unfortunately OpenSSH doesn't do any conversion, so effectively only supporting systems with a UTF-8 locale.

This bug is severely mitigated by the fact that most people stick to the ASCII subset for usernames and passwords, and that these days most systems have a UTF-8 locale.

However this is not always the case so it would be nice if those users could also use OpenSSH.


(the same bug is likely in the client when sending the data)