Netgate Discussion Forum
    • Categories
    • Recent
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Search
    • Register
    • Login

    2.2 Upgrade brakes admin password with German Umlaut ö

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Problems Installing or Upgrading pfSense Software
    30 Posts 7 Posters 3.2k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • N Offline
      new2bsd
      last edited by

      I had to reset the admin password after Upgrade to 2.2, because of the International character ö.
      Weirdly enough the same password gets accepted and works fine when I created a new user on pfsense 2.2.

      Does anybody else have this issue?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S Offline
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        What version did you upgrade from?

        https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/UpgradeGuide#International.2FSpecial_Characters_in_1.2.x_Configurations

        Steve

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • N Offline
          new2bsd
          last edited by

          I don't think this is a XML problem as admin passwords are not stored in clear.
          I upgraded from 2.1.5.
          I believe I changed the password in 2.1.2, so It was in any way time to change it :-).

          I will try to upgrade again from a clean 2.1.5 install, with the same password, to see if I can reproduce the problem.

          I suspect the problem is caused due to changes in locale in pfsense 2.2.
          Does that make any sense to you?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • stephenw10S Offline
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            What makes you think this was caused by the umlaut? Did you see an error?

            The only locale error I've seen threw out a load of PHP errors in the webgui.

            Steve

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • N Offline
              new2bsd
              last edited by

              I created yesterday a new admin on another pfsense 2.1.5, with the ö Umlaut and reproduced the same problem after upgrading.
              The only special character in comparison to my other admin password was ö.

              php-fpm[92108]: /index.php: webConfigurator authentication error

              As I said, I will try to reproduce this as soon as possible on a default 2.1.5 install.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • N Offline
                new2bsd
                last edited by

                Definitely a Bug in pfsense 2.2 upgrade!

                I was able to reproduce the problem by using a default 2.1.5 install and adding Umlaut ö in the password.
                As soon you upgrade to 2.2 your password is no more valid.
                As said before, in pfsense 2.2 you can create a working password with the character ö.

                Could this be an encoding problem (UTF-8) in PHP?

                This is now far out of my comfort zone but is it possible that the character ö, ASCII code page layout position 246, gets not correctly translated in pfsense 2.2?

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-1#Codepage_layout

                http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • R Offline
                  robi
                  last edited by

                  OK - just to see clear:

                  • ö in a password works fine in a fresh v2.1.5
                  • ö in a password works fine in a fresh v2.2
                  • ö in a password breaks when upgrading from v2.1.5 to v2.2
                    ???

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • N Offline
                    new2bsd
                    last edited by

                    Yes.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • N Offline
                      new2bsd
                      last edited by

                      In case my suspicion is correct following characters should also pose a problem :

                      õ ; ÷ ; ø ; ù ; ú ; û ; ü ; ý ; þ ; ÿ

                      And maybe :

                      À ; Á

                      Will try this as soon I have the time…

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S Offline
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Hmm, that's odd. The password is stored as a hash and I can't see how that could be changed across an update. My best guess is that the hashing algorithm changed between pfSense/FreeBSD versions so the old hash no longer matches.

                        Steve

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • Raul RamosR Offline
                          Raul Ramos
                          last edited by

                          The problem could be before hashing, probably utf-8 encoder changes.

                          pfSense:
                          ASRock -> Wolfdale1333-D667 (2GB TeamElite Ram)
                          Marvell 88SA8040 Sata to CF(Sandisk 4GB) Controller
                          NIC's: RTL8100E (Internal ) and Intel® PRO/1000 PT Dual (Intel 82571GB)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • N Offline
                            new2bsd
                            last edited by

                            I was able to reproduce the same problem with : õ ; ÷ ; ø ; ù ; ú ; û ; ü.
                            As well as : ä and è.

                            I did not test further, but I presume this is the same behavior for all International/Special Characters.

                            Can somebody else confirm that this is a bug?

                            I was aware that International/Special Characters caused problems with user names, LDAP authentication server, XML config and maybe others but not in user passwords.

                            I get this log in 2.1.5 after creating admin users (Also admin users where there are no International/Special Characters):

                            Feb 8 00:42:05 php: /system_usermanager.php: The command '/usr/sbin/pw groupmod admins -g 1999 -M 0,2000 2>&1' returned exit code '67', the output was 'pw: user `2000' does not exist'
                            Feb 8 00:42:05 php: /system_usermanager.php: Tried to remove user but got user pw instead. Bailing.

                            Log for non admin user:

                            Feb 8 00:52:43 php: /system_usermanager.php: Tried to remove user but got user pw instead. Bailing.

                            Users with no International/Special Characters do work after upgrade!

                            I compared the XML files (2.1.5 and 2.2) and did not see any problem there.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • D Offline
                              doktornotor Banned
                              last edited by

                              mutters something about shooting yourself in foot and moves on

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • R Offline
                                robi
                                last edited by

                                @doktornotor:

                                mutters something about shooting yourself in foot and moves on

                                ???

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • N Offline
                                  new2bsd
                                  last edited by

                                  @doktornotor:

                                  mutters something about shooting yourself in foot and moves on

                                  Not helpful :-(

                                  As I said I get this log in 2.1.5 also with passwords that work after the upgrade!
                                  Please enlighten me.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • D Offline
                                    doktornotor Banned
                                    last edited by

                                    Yes. Do not use stupid characters in passwords. Do not use stupid characters in usernames that are supposed to be used across platforms either. Stuff like these funny POSIX portable filename character set or POSIX user name restrictions exist for a reason. Beyond that, typing these characters somewhere is internet cafe with a keyboard missing those characters is a huge "fun" as well.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • N Offline
                                      new2bsd
                                      last edited by

                                      Weirdly enough I partially agree with you.
                                      So let’s state in the manual we allow only these characters to be used.

                                      But the real world works different, as you can see from Chris Buechlers answer here:

                                      https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/4201

                                      I did hope somebody else could confirm this problem.

                                      Nobody there but me?

                                      So maybe you are right and I’m the only idiot who shoot himself in the foot but at least I learned something.

                                      Thought it was worth to share my pain in this forum.  ;)

                                      P.S.: Using a PC in an Internet Cafe, you are joking, now you shoot yourself in the foot.  :D

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • stephenw10S Offline
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        I agree with you. If those characters are not allowed then fine just declare that and reject them. The issue here is that only are they allowed but that also they appear to work fine, in both versions. Somewhere in the chain the method by which the password hash in generated from the entered password has subtly changed. This seems like a bug to me, have you created a bug report on redmine?

                                        Steve

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • N Offline
                                          new2bsd
                                          last edited by

                                          No.
                                          I'm waiting for someone to confirm it.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • stephenw10S Offline
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            Ok, I'll try to do that this evening.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • First post
                                              Last post
                                            Copyright 2025 Rubicon Communications LLC (Netgate). All rights reserved.