[OpenStack-Infra] Wiki.o.o sustaining spam attack

Marton Kiss marton.kiss at gmail.com
Fri Feb 26 17:56:39 UTC 2016


I'm going to get a dinner, but I'll be on irc after, so if I can help
somehow, I will be here. #openstack-infra mrmartin

M.

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:51 PM Paul Belanger <pbelange at redhat.com> wrote:

> On phone but patch puppet-mediawiki and enable captcha for all pages. We
> only did edit and create
> On Feb 26, 2016 10:38 AM, Marton Kiss <marton.kiss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I see a ton of incoming post requests:
>
> POST
> /w/index.php?title=Special%3ARunJobs&tasks=jobs&maxjobs=1&sigexpiry=1456508270&signature=571cfb216f944b15d2eee1c0253d08b77003328e
>
> M.
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:35 PM Marton Kiss <marton.kiss at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Oh, I can login. So what we need?
>>
>> M.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 6:33 PM JP Maxwell <jp at tipit.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I think what Jimmy is referring to is what I was suggesting by removing
>>> the extensions / making the question impossible to answer.  Basically a
>>> series of rapid fire changes while tailing the logs and seeing what stops
>>> the spam.  Once you know what worked then you can submit as an official
>>> patch.  But being able to quickly try these things on a server actually
>>> under attack is the fastest path toward identifying the fix.
>>>
>>> *J.P. Maxwell* | tipit.net | fibercove.com <http://www.fibercove.com>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Paul Belanger <pabelanger at redhat.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 11:08:18AM -0600, Jimmy McArthur wrote:
>>> > Given the state of the wiki a the moment, I think taking the quickest
>>> path
>>> > to get it fixed would be prudent. Is there a way we can get JP root
>>> access
>>> > to this server, even temporarily? We get 25% of our website traffic (2
>>> > million visitors) to the wiki. I realize we're all after the same
>>> thing, but
>>> > spammers are not going to hit the dev environment, so there's really
>>> no way
>>> > to tell if teh problem is fixed without actually working directly on
>>> the
>>> > production machine. This should be a 30 minute fix.
>>> >
>>> I am still unclear what the 30min fix is. If really 30mins, then it
>>> shouldn't be
>>> hard to get the fix into our workflow. Could somebody please elaborate.
>>>
>>> If we are talking about deploying new versions of php or mediawiki
>>> manually, I
>>> not be in-favor of this. To me, while the attack sucks, we should be
>>> working on
>>> 2 fronts. Getting the help needed to mitigate the attack, then adding the
>>> changes into -infra workflow in parallel.
>>>
>>> > I realize there is a lot of risk in giving ssh access to infra
>>> machines, but
>>> > I think it's worth taking a look at either putting this machine in a
>>> place
>>> > where a different level of admin could access it without giving away
>>> the
>>> > keys to the entire OpenStack infrastructure or figuring out a way to
>>> set up
>>> > credentials with varying levels of access.
>>> >
>>> As a note, all the work I've been doing to help with the attack hasn't
>>> require
>>> SSH access for me to wiki.o.o. I did need infra-root help to expose our
>>> configuration safely. I'd rather take some time to see what the fixes
>>> are,
>>> having infra-root apply changes, then move them into puppet.
>>>
>>> It also has been discussed to simply disable write access to the wiki if
>>> we
>>> really want spamming to stop, obviously that will affect normal usage.
>>>
>>> > Jimmy
>>> >
>>> > Paul Belanger wrote:
>>> > >On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 10:12:12AM -0600, JP Maxwell wrote:
>>> > >>But if you wanted to upgrade everything, remove the mobile view
>>> extension,
>>> > >>test in a dev/staging environment then deploy to production fingers
>>> > >>crossed, I think that would be a valid approach as well.
>>> > >>
>>> > >Current review up[1]. I'll launch a node tonight / tomorrow locally
>>> to see how
>>> > >puppet reacts. I suspect there will be some issues.
>>> > >
>>> > >If infra-roots are fine with this approach, we can use that box to
>>> test against.
>>> > >
>>> > >[1] https://review.openstack.org/#/c/285405/
>>> > >
>>> > >>J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> > >>On Feb 26, 2016 10:08 AM, "JP Maxwell"<jp at tipit.net> wrote:
>>> > >>
>>> > >>>Plus one except in this case it is much easier to know if our
>>> efforts are
>>> > >>>working on production because the spam either stops or not.
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>>J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> > >>>On Feb 26, 2016 9:48 AM, "Paul Belanger"<pabelanger at redhat.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > >>>
>>> > >>>>On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 09:18:00AM -0600, JP Maxwell wrote:
>>> > >>>>>I really think you might consider the option that there is a
>>> > >>>>vulnerability
>>> > >>>>>in one of the extensions. If that is the case black listing IPs
>>> will be
>>> > >>>>an
>>> > >>>>>ongoing wild goose chase.
>>> > >>>>>
>>> > >>>>>I think this would be easily proven or disproven by making the
>>> questy
>>> > >>>>>question impossible and see if the spam continues.
>>> > >>>>>
>>> > >>>>We'll have to let an infra-root make that call. Since nobody would
>>> be
>>> > >>>>able to
>>> > >>>>use the wiki. Honestly, I'd rather spend the time standing up a
>>> mirror dev
>>> > >>>>instance for us to work on, rather then production.
>>> > >>>>
>>> > >>>>>J.P. Maxwell | tipit.net | fibercove.com
>>> > >>>>>On Feb 26, 2016 9:12 AM, "Paul Belanger"<pabelanger at redhat.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > >>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 08:10:34PM -0800, Elizabeth K. Joseph
>>> wrote:
>>> > >>>>>>>On Thu, Feb 25, 2016 at 6:35 AM, Jeremy Stanley<
>>> fungi at yuggoth.org>
>>> > >>>>>>wrote:
>>> > >>>>>>>>On 2016-02-25 02:46:13 -0600 (-0600), JP Maxwell wrote:
>>> > >>>>>>>>>Please be aware that you can now create accounts under the
>>> mobile
>>> > >>>>>>>>>view in the wiki native user table. I just created an account
>>> for
>>> > >>>>>>>>>JpMaxMan. Not sure if this matters but wanted to make sure you
>>> > >>>>>>>>>were aware.
>>> > >>>>>>>>Oh, yes I think having a random garbage question/answer was in
>>> > >>>>fact
>>> > >>>>>>>>previously preventing account creation under the mobile view.
>>> We
>>> > >>>>>>>>probably need a way to disable mobile view account creation as
>>> it
>>> > >>>>>>>>bypasses OpenID authentication entirely.
>>> > >>>>>>>So that's what it was doing! We'll have to tackle the mobile
>>> view
>>> > >>>>issue.
>>> > >>>>>>>Otherwise, quick update here:
>>> > >>>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>>The captcha didn't appear to help stem the spam tide. We'll
>>> want to
>>> > >>>>>>>explore and start implementing some of the other solutions.
>>> > >>>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>>I did some database poking around today and it does seem like
>>> all
>>> > >>>>the
>>> > >>>>>>>users do have launchpad accounts and email addresses.
>>> > >>>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>So, I have a few hours before jumping on my plane and checked
>>> into
>>> > >>>>this.
>>> > >>>>>>We are
>>> > >>>>>>using QuestyCaptcha which according to docs, should almost be
>>> > >>>>impossible
>>> > >>>>>>for
>>> > >>>>>>spammers to by pass in an automated fashion. So, either our
>>> captcha
>>> > >>>>is too
>>> > >>>>>>easy, or we didn't set it up properly. I don't have SSH on
>>> wiki.o.o
>>> > >>>>so
>>> > >>>>>>others
>>> > >>>>>>will have to check logs. I did test new pages and edits, and was
>>> > >>>>promoted
>>> > >>>>>>by
>>> > >>>>>>captcha.
>>> > >>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>As a next step, we might need to add additional apache2
>>> configuration
>>> > >>>>to
>>> > >>>>>>blacklist IPs. I am reading up on that now.
>>> > >>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>>--
>>> > >>>>>>>Elizabeth Krumbach Joseph || Lyz || pleia2
>>> > >>>>>>>
>>> > >>>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>> > >>>>>>>OpenStack-Infra mailing list
>>> > >>>>>>>OpenStack-Infra at lists.openstack.org
>>> > >>>>>>>
>>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-infra
>>> > >>>>>>_______________________________________________
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>>> > >>>>>>
>>> > >
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>>> >
>>>
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>>
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