[Evergreen-general] Encrypted SIP2

[Josh Stompro]

Wendell, I just wanted to add another confirmation, we have had 100%
success requiring encrypted tunnels for sip2 access with outside vendors.
Overdrive, Hoopla, OCLC (VDX ILL), BrainFuse,  Stunnel has been the easiest
to setup, since it is just SSL one vendor was easily able to adjust their
own software to natively connect via ssl and didn't need to run stunnel on
their end at all.

We also offer SSH tunneling, but that takes a bit more work to setup, and I
don't think anyone actually is using that method right now.  I did exchange
4 emails with OCLC support where they repeatedly used the term SSH but then
finally said that what they meant was Stunnel, sigh.  I also had to quote a
library journal article from a few years ago where OCLC said "of course we
support encrypted authentication for all our products" to get them to admit
that they could do it.  That was a fun email to send.

The best thing to do is to put the encrypted sip authentication requirement
in the contract with the vendor up front, which means you have to be at the
table when negotiating with them.  I think vendors that use SIP2 are
getting much better about supporting encryption in general.  I think it is
getting hard for them to say yes to "So you don't want to protect our
patrons private personal information and allow us to comply with our state
laws about patron privacy?"

If you are going to self host an evergreen system and want notes on how to
setup stunnel just let me know.  Otherwise if you are looking at a hosted
solution then the hosting provider can provide those assurances about
stunnel being provided as an option.
Josh

On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 8:46 AM Rogan Hamby <rhamby at equinoxinitiative.org>
wrote:

> I'll just note that I have setup several Envisionware instances to use
> stunnel and encrypt the SIP2 communication back to Evergreen as Jason Boyer
> describes with no issues.  It's transparent to the clients as you would
> expect.
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 5, 2021 at 9:42 AM Jason Boyer <jboyer at equinoxinitiative.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Wendell, there isn’t really anything that can be done to SIP2 to make
>> it secure without making it not-SIP2. That said, what can be done is to
>> transfer it over an encrypted channel. I know some Evergreen and Koha
>> systems handle SIP2 this way and I suspect TLC is doing the same. This
>> tunneling can be done with stunnel (an openssl TLS tunnel) or ssh port
>> redirection and most vendors are capable of dealing with one or the other.
>>
>> There’s nothing special needed in Evergreen to handle this; you just need
>> to setup SIPServer to listen to a local IP rather than a public one and
>> coordinate with the vendor what type of tunnel to use. I realize this is
>> pretty non-specific but if you have any questions I or someone else on the
>> list should be able to help out.
>>
>> Jason
>>
>> --
>> Jason Boyer
>> Senior System Administrator
>> Equinox Open Library Initiative
>> phone:  +1 (877) Open-ILS (673-6457)
>> email:  JBoyer at EquinoxInitiative.org <JBoyer at EquinoxInitiative.org>
>> web:  https://EquinoxInitiative.org/
>>
>> On Jan 5, 2021, at 9:05 AM, Gragg, Wendell E <WGragg at bryantx.gov> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all.  I haven’t posted in a while, but we are still in the process of
>> evaluating ILS systems and our city IT department is balking at one thing,
>> SIP2 being plain text.  Apparently, one vendor, TLC claims they have an
>> encryption solution for SIP2, but I question whether it actually works or
>> not, and TLC is another proprietary system, which we are trying to avoid.
>>
>> I have been trying to research SIP2 a bit more and am not finding a lot
>> of information about security issues with it.  I’m also trying to find out
>> if anyone in the Evergreen community has worked with encrypting SIP2
>> messages, at least sensitive information like passwords and user barcodes.
>>
>> Is this even possible in Evergreen and has it caused any problems with
>> outside vendors like OCLC or Envisionware?
>>
>> I would like to find this out because I fear that our city IT is going to
>> force us into an ILS we really don’t want.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Wendell
>>
>> Wendell Gragg, MSIS
>> Automation Services Supervisor
>> Bryan+College Station Public Library System
>> Bryan, TX
>> 979-209-5613
>>
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-- 
Josh Stompro - IT Director
Lake Agassiz Regional Library
Desk: 218-233-3757 Ext 139
Cell: 218-790-2110
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