[Evergreen-general] Encrypted SIP2

[Gragg, Wendell E]

Good info.  I will pass that on!

Wendell Gragg, MSIS
Automation Services Supervisor
Bryan+College Station Public Library System
Bryan, TX
979-209-5613

From: Evergreen-general <evergreen-general-bounces at list.evergreen-ils.org> On Behalf Of Josh Stompro
Sent: Tuesday, January 5, 2021 9:45 AM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group <evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org>
Subject: Re: [Evergreen-general] Encrypted SIP2


Notice: EXTERNAL EMAIL!  Phishing = #1 threat to Cyber Security.  Is this a phishing email? – Look again!

________________________________
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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto:JBoyer at EquinoxInitiative.org>
web:  https://EquinoxInitiative.org/<https://EquinoxInitiative.org/>


On Jan 5, 2021, at 9:05 AM, Gragg, Wendell E <WGragg at bryantx.gov<mailto: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

_______________________________________________
Evergreen-general mailing list
Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org<mailto:Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org>
http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general<http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general>

_______________________________________________
Evergreen-general mailing list
Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org<mailto:Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org>
http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general<http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general>
_______________________________________________
Evergreen-general mailing list
Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org<mailto:Evergreen-general at list.evergreen-ils.org>
http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general<http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/evergreen-general>


--
Josh Stompro - IT Director
Lake Agassiz Regional Library
Desk: 218-233-3757 Ext 139
Cell: 218-790-2110
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://list.evergreen-ils.org/pipermail/evergreen-general/attachments/20210105/e69bc2a3/attachment-0001.html>