Show remembered arguments for packages #1310

CWempe · 2017-05-24T07:20:16Z

Like @ivanatpr posted here (#797), there should be a way to see wich arguments are remembered by choco.

ferventcoder · 2017-05-24T11:45:42Z

Thanks for filing - we just need some way of having folks opt into this, some arguments could contain sensitive data and we need to ensure that is not exposed.

CWempe · 2017-05-24T12:42:48Z

I understand.
Nobody wants their "-P mySecretPassword" to be exposed via a simple command. 😄

I am not sure how you can solve this.

Maybe a second "remember-function".

Like:

choco install app1 -x86 -rememberPlain
choco install app1 -P mySecretPassword -rememberEncrypt

And an option to define with function should be default.

bcurran3 · 2018-01-08T11:54:33Z

An option to encrypt or not encrypt seems a reasonable solution to me.

choco feature enable -n useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades (Default=not encrypted)
choco feature enable -n useRememberedArgumentsForUpgradesEncrypted

(That's already long to type!)

jacktose · 2018-02-08T20:21:44Z

This would be necessary to do something like this, to exactly replicate a chocolatey setup from one profile/computer to another.

bcurran3 · 2018-02-08T22:59:53Z

@jacktose - you could copy and paste that or save a lot of time and effort by using my package for that purpose :)
https://chocolatey.org/packages/choco-package-list-backup

(Which is why I have interest in this issue.)

stippingerm · 2018-11-14T13:41:35Z

Has this issue been solved? I have useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades turned on with no effect on export.

some arguments could contain sensitive data

@ferventcoder I don't see no direct security concerns for hindering the export of remembered arguments.
Either these arguments are stored in a cryptographically secure way (thus preventing any unauthorized user from properly upgrading packages) or this information is already exposed to all users.

heldchen · 2018-11-14T21:06:52Z

I also would appreciate the ability to show the arguments throug choco.

the security concerns raised in this issues are kind of moot when NugetEncryptionUtility uses the machine key for encrypting the arguments. anyone on the local computer who can read C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\.chocolatey\foo\.arguments (in a default installation this is everyone in the Users group) can also fully decrypt it.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;

namespace ChocoDecrypt
{
    public class Program
    {
        private static readonly byte[] _entropyBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("Chocolatey");
        
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var encryptedByteArray = Convert.FromBase64String(File.ReadAllText(args[0]));
            var decryptedByteArray = ProtectedData.Unprotect(encryptedByteArray, _entropyBytes, DataProtectionScope.LocalMachine);

            Console.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(decryptedByteArray));
        }
    }
}

D:\>C:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\csc.exe /nologo ChocoDecrypt.cs

D:\>ChocoDecrypt.exe C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\.chocolatey\git.2.19.0\.arguments
 --package-parameters="'/GitOnlyOnPath /NoAutoCrLf /NoShellIntegration /NoGitLfs'" --cache-location="'C:\Users\Heldchen\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey'" --use-system-powershell

stippingerm · 2018-11-15T21:06:34Z

@heldchen Thank you for the valuable input. Me too, would appreciate the ability to show the arguments through choco. Here, I confirm your method works.

@ferventcoder the way to opt in with useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades looks nice to me. Its default is False, so everything OK.

Conclusion (edited): administrators should be aware that in the current open source version the encryption does not protect their remembered installation secrets therefore they should set up access control to prevents users from reading them.

See bcurran3/ChocolateyPackages#7 too.

ferventcoder · 2018-11-16T10:22:18Z

@stippingerm @heldchen That ability to unencrypt knowing a few bits is exactly why we're adding double encryption in C4B so that someone would not be able to decrypt the data at rest. ~~It's less of a concern to do so when it's a person's personal computer.~~ It's a security concern on a personal computer, but someone having access is going to typically have more avenues for doing bad things. It's typically much more of a concern to do so when we are talking about organizational use. So maybe only a moot point of obfuscation at best with open source Chocolatey, not with C4B.

ferventcoder · 2018-11-16T10:25:03Z

Updated that last statement for clarification.

heldchen · 2018-11-16T10:26:51Z

so in other words, Chocolatey in the open source version could easily add a parameter to show the arguments, without any of the aforementioned concerns raised.

personally, I doubt that this feature is relevant in a organizational use case anyway, as one expects things as "parameters used" to be documented in such a setting anyway.

ferventcoder · 2018-11-16T10:27:36Z

@heldchen fair statement

ferventcoder · 2018-11-16T10:29:15Z

I don't think there was argument that this feature was not valuable. There are loads of valuable feature adds in our backlog here (lots of tickets), being a year or more old doesn't mean we don't plan to address. Typically if we have a milestone on something, it's considered in our backlog.

musm · 2019-01-16T15:25:24Z

Maybe there doesn't need further motivation on why this is useful, but here's mine:

Backing up installed packages, which are then exported and installed on a fresh computer with the same optional parameters.

akaleeroy · 2019-03-24T12:16:17Z

Another motivation: in trying to make upgrade actually upgrade – not re-install packages – one would have to pass arguments to packages to not create a desktop shortcut again.

And in order not to break the ability to upgrade with choco upgrade -y somepackage that NoDesktopIcon install argument could be saved using useRememberedArgumentsForUpgrades

tylerszabo · 2019-11-09T08:19:16Z

Here's a PowerShell one-liner based on @heldchen's solution

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Security
Get-ChildItem -Filter ".arguments" -Path "C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\.chocolatey" -Recurse | ForEach-Object { Write-Output ("{0}: {1}" -f $_.Directory.BaseName, [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Security.Cryptography.ProtectedData]::Unprotect([System.Convert]::FromBase64String(($_ | Get-Content -Encoding UTF8)), [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes("Chocolatey"), [System.Security.Cryptography.DataProtectionScope]::LocalMachine))) }

marcinsmialek · 2019-11-25T06:40:29Z

This is especially important when one wants to find out, which packages were installed with --prerelease, and remove that parameter.

This adds the listing of remembered arguments to the list/info commands It only grabs the arguments when --local-only is specified, then decrypts and outputs them. Requires --verbose to be listed on the command line.

Adds the ability for implementations of uninstall_run to reset the config in ChocolateyPackageService via the resetConfigAction. This will be required to prevent an issue similar to chocolatey#1443 for uninstall, once useRememberedArgumentsForUninstall is added in.

This renames the set_package_config_for_upgrade to a more generic name, and adds in another parameter to prepare for setting remembered args for uninstall as well as upgrade

This adds the listing of remembered arguments to the list/info commands It only grabs the arguments when --local-only is specified, then decrypts and outputs them. Requires --verbose to be listed on the command line.

This commit makes sure that no potentially sensitive arguments are displayed to the end user. This makes use of the same code that is currently being used in Chocolatey GUI, for providing the same function. Now that this code exists in Chocolatey CLI, at some point in the future, Chocolatey GUI can be updated to use it, rather than maintaining the code in two places. This new code makes use of the existing SensitiveArgumentsProvided method to establish whether the argument is deemed as sensitive, and if it is, "[REDACTED ARGUMENT]" is output, rather than the value itself. This new function has been created as a static method, so that it can be used easily in the Chocolatey GUI codebase.

(#1310) List remembered arguments

heldchen · 2024-05-20T14:22:56Z

nice, thanks everyone involved in getting this feature added!

Remembered arguments can now be displayed when running the choco info command, using the --local-only option. This commit adds a test to verify that this is correctly shown.

ferventcoder added 0 - Backlog 0 - _Triaging Improvement labels May 24, 2017

ferventcoder added this to the 0.10.x milestone May 24, 2017

ferventcoder added the Security label May 24, 2017

ferventcoder removed the 0 - _Triaging label Nov 16, 2018

ferventcoder mentioned this issue Jul 2, 2019

List install arguments #1855

Closed

gep13 mentioned this issue Apr 27, 2020

Provide ability to "see" persisted arguments for installed package chocolatey/ChocolateyGUI#770

Closed

TheCakeIsNaOH mentioned this issue Mar 6, 2022

(#1310) List remembered arguments #2619

Merged

7 tasks

gep13 modified the milestones: Future, 2.3.0 Dec 14, 2023

gep13 closed this as completed in #2619 May 20, 2024

gep13 added a commit that referenced this issue May 20, 2024

Merge pull request #2619 from TheCakeIsNaOH/list-args

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(#1310) List remembered arguments

gep13 added 4 - Done and removed 3 - Review labels May 20, 2024

corbob added a commit to gep13/choco that referenced this issue May 28, 2024

fixup! (chocolatey#1310) Add Pester test to validate output

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corbob added a commit to gep13/choco that referenced this issue May 29, 2024

fixup! (chocolatey#1310) Add Pester test to validate output

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Show remembered arguments for packages #1310

Show remembered arguments for packages #1310

CWempe commented May 24, 2017

ferventcoder commented May 24, 2017

CWempe commented May 24, 2017

bcurran3 commented Jan 8, 2018

jacktose commented Feb 8, 2018

bcurran3 commented Feb 8, 2018 •

edited

stippingerm commented Nov 14, 2018

heldchen commented Nov 14, 2018 •

edited

stippingerm commented Nov 15, 2018 •

edited

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018 •

edited

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

heldchen commented Nov 16, 2018

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

musm commented Jan 16, 2019 •

edited

akaleeroy commented Mar 24, 2019

tylerszabo commented Nov 9, 2019 •

edited

marcinsmialek commented Nov 25, 2019

heldchen commented May 20, 2024

Show remembered arguments for packages #1310

Show remembered arguments for packages #1310

Comments

CWempe commented May 24, 2017

ferventcoder commented May 24, 2017

CWempe commented May 24, 2017

bcurran3 commented Jan 8, 2018

jacktose commented Feb 8, 2018

bcurran3 commented Feb 8, 2018 • edited

stippingerm commented Nov 14, 2018

heldchen commented Nov 14, 2018 • edited

stippingerm commented Nov 15, 2018 • edited

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018 • edited

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

heldchen commented Nov 16, 2018

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018

musm commented Jan 16, 2019 • edited

akaleeroy commented Mar 24, 2019

tylerszabo commented Nov 9, 2019 • edited

marcinsmialek commented Nov 25, 2019

heldchen commented May 20, 2024

bcurran3 commented Feb 8, 2018 •

edited

heldchen commented Nov 14, 2018 •

edited

stippingerm commented Nov 15, 2018 •

edited

ferventcoder commented Nov 16, 2018 •

edited

musm commented Jan 16, 2019 •

edited

tylerszabo commented Nov 9, 2019 •

edited