Document that access tokens shouldn't be stored

Access tokens are sensitive key materials and shouldn't be stored, especially not on backup systems that also store the Nextcloud database and configuration backup.
This commit is contained in:
Lukas Reschke
2021-10-18 12:59:50 +02:00
committed by GitHub
parent 3d5c868b93
commit 9d458affee

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@@ -11,9 +11,21 @@ in a Linux environment.
.. note:: Nextcloud will warn you in the administration interface if some
critical security-relevant options are missing. However, it is still up to
the server administrator to review and maintain system security.
Passwords
---------
Storage of access tokens
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Upon successful authentication, Nextcloud issues an access token that clients will use for all future HTTP requests. This access token uniquely identifies a user and should not be stored on any system other than the client requesting it. The user password is also stored encrypted in the Nextcloud database. For encryption of the password, the token and an instance-specific secret is used.
Leakage of the access token can have negative security consequences. Depending on the data access by the actor, the risk here is different:
- An actor with access to only the access token can impersonate users and login as them.
- An actor with access to the access token, the Nextcloud config file, and the Nextcloud database can decrypt user passwords stored in the database.
Limit on password length
------------------------
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nextcloud uses the bcrypt algorithm, and thus for security and performance
reasons, e.g. Denial of Service as CPU demand increases exponentially, it only