Note: This bug is displayed in read-only format because the product is no longer active in Red Hat Bugzilla.
For bugs related to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 product line. The current stable release is 5.10. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 and above, please visit Red Hat JIRA https://issues.redhat.com/secure/CreateIssue!default.jspa?pid=12332745 to report new issues.

Bug 475745

Summary: Cannot change Master Password after enable FIPS
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Reporter: Yolkfull Chow <yzhou>
Component: firefoxAssignee: Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) <kengert>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: desktop-bugs <desktop-bugs>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 5.2CC: caillon, desktop-bugs, gecko-bugs-nobody
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-01-06 18:16:42 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Yolkfull Chow 2008-12-10 09:12:24 UTC
Description of problem:
After setting a master password and enable FIPS, cannot change master password any longer.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
firefox-3.0.5-1.el5_2

How reproducible:
Everytime

Steps to Reproduce:
1. go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Encryption
2. click "Security Devices", select "Software Security Device", and click "Change Password", set a password and click "OK"
3. Click "Enable FIPS"
4. Click "Change Password" to change master password
  
Actual results:
Get warning message "Unable to change Master Password"

Expected results:
User should be able to change master password periodically.

Additional info:

Comment 1 Yolkfull Chow 2008-12-11 01:46:23 UTC
Get a workaround:
After enable FIPS, for the purpose of changing master password,user need restart firefox and disable FIPS at this time (can NOT disable FIPS as soon as enable it, but can enable it after disable, problem? ) and change password will succeed. 

In my option, user should be able to enable/disable FIPS and change master password without restarting firefox. Please correct me if I am wrong or software is designed as it is.

Comment 2 Matěj Cepl 2008-12-15 15:01:44 UTC
Can reproduce with firefox-3.0.4-1.fc10.i386 on Fedora 10. Not sure, however, whether this behavior is not intentional in compliance with FIPS.

Comment 3 Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) 2008-12-15 17:57:42 UTC
When FIPS is enabled, there are strict requirements for the "quality" of a password.

I found an older description of the restrictions, I suspect they are still the same, from http://markmail.org/message/a73ia7tsos5e2ysq :

---------------------
In FIPS mode, the NSS cryptographic module imposes the following requirements on the password.

* The password must be at least seven characters long. * The password must consist of characters from three or more character classes. We define five character classes: digits (0-9), ASCII lowercase letters, ASCII uppercase letters, ASCII non-alphanumeric characters (such as space and punctuation marks), and non-ASCII characters. If an ASCII uppercase letter is the first character of the password, the uppercase letter is not counted toward its character class. Similarly, if a digit is the last character of the password, the digit is not counted toward its character class. 
--------------------

Yes, the user interface should inform the user WHY changing the password failed, this is a known issue.

Can you please try with such a "better" password and let us know if it allows you to change the password?

Comment 4 Yolkfull Chow 2008-12-16 02:33:10 UTC
Yes, after setting a _better_ password it worked fine. So it is the problem that user should be informed why "Unable to change the master password". 

And another problem, after disable FIPS and remove master password, and then reset a pwd, cannot enable FIPS at this time since the button "Enable FIPS" is gray, it is not activated after user setting a pwd again. But restart firefox will be ok. Any idea?

Comment 6 Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) 2008-12-17 18:11:18 UTC
(In reply to comment #4)
> after disable FIPS and remove master password, and then
> reset a pwd, cannot enable FIPS at this time since the button "Enable FIPS" is
> gray, it is not activated after user setting a pwd again. But restart firefox
> will be ok. Any idea?

Yes, you must restart Firefox in order to change the FIPS modus twice.

Comment 7 Matěj Cepl 2008-12-19 00:55:45 UTC
So, Kai, what is the status of this bug?

Comment 8 Kai Engert (:kaie) (inactive account) 2009-01-06 18:16:42 UTC
The status is "not a bug" and "usability issue tracked upstream".