path: root/doc/source/faq.rst

FAQ
===

General
-------

What is Snuffleupagus?
""""""""""""""""""""""

Snuffleupagus is a `PHP7+ <http://php.net/manual/en/migration70.php>`_
module designed to drastically raising the cost of attacks against website,
by killing entire bug classes, and also providing a powerful virtual-patching system,
allowing administrator to fix specific vulnerabilities without having to touch the PHP code.


Where does the name *Snuffeupagus* comes from?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

  Aloysius Snuffleupagus, more commonly known as Mr. Snuffleupagus, Snuffleupagus
  or Snuffy for short, is one of the characters on Sesame Street,
  the educational television program for young children.

  He was created as a woolly mammoth, without tusks or (visible) ears,
  and has a long thick pointed tail, similar in shape to that of a dinosaur
  or other reptile. He has long thick brown hair and a trunk, or "snuffle",
  that drags along the ground. He is Big Bird's best friend and
  has a baby sister named Alice. He also attends "Snufflegarten".

  --- `Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Snuffleupagus>`_


Why is Snuffleupagus called Snuffleupagus?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Like PHP's `ElePHPant <https://secure.php.net/elephpant.php>`_,
we thought that using an elephant as a mascot would be a great idea.


Why did you write Snuffleupagus?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

We're working for `NBS System <https://nbs-system.com/en/>`__,
a web hosting company (meaning that we're dealing with PHP code all day long),
with a strong focus on security. We do have hardening
(kernel, `WAF <https://naxsi.org>`_, `IDS <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusion_detection_system>`_, …)
below the web stack, but most of the time, when a website is compromised,
it's either to send ads, spam, deface it, steal data, …
This is why we need to harden the website itself too, but we can't touch its
source code.

Why not Suhosin?
""""""""""""""""

We're huge fans of `Suhosin <https://suhosin.org>`_, unfortunately:

- it doesn't work very well on PHP 7
- it has some oudated features and misses new ones
- it doesn't cope very well with our various industrialization needs
- it has some shortcomings by design

We're using the `disable_function <https://secure.php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.disable-functions>`_
directive, but unfortunately, it doesn't provide enough usable granularity (guess how many CMS are using
``system`` to do various mandatory maintenance tasks…).

This is why we decided to write our own hardening module, in the spirit of Suhosin,
via virtual-patching support, and other cool new features.

What license is Snuffleupagus under and why?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Snuffleupagus is licensed under the `LGPL <https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html>`_,
and is developed by the fine people from `NBS System <https://nbs-system.com/>`__.

We chose the LGPL because we don't care that much how you're using Snuffleupagus,
but we'd like to force people to make their improvements/contributions
available to everyone.

Should I use Snuffleupagus?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Yes.

Even if you're not using the virtual-patching capabilities, Snuffleupagus comes
with various passive features that won't break your website while killing numerous vulnerabilities.

Please keep in mind that you are not only protecting yourself and your users/customers,
but also other people on the internet that might be attacked by your server if
it becomes compromised.

How mature is this project?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""

This project was floating around since early 2016, and we did the first commit
the 28ᵗʰ of December of the same year. We're currently in a private alpha phase,
finding and fixing as much bugs as possible with the help of friends.

Are you saying that PHP isn't secure?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

We don't like PHP's approach of security; namely (sometimes) adding warnings
in the documentation and trusting the developer to not do any mistake,
instead of focusing on the root cause, and killing the
bug class one for all.

Moreover, it seems that the current attitude toward security in the PHP world
is to `blame the user <https://externals.io/message/100147>`_ instead of acknowledging
issues, as stated in their `documentation <https://wiki.php.net/security#not_a_security_issue>`_.
We do think that an security issue that "requires the use of code or settings known to be insecure"
is still a security issue, and should be treated as such.

Installation and configuration
------------------------------

Can snuffleupagus break my application?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Yes.

Some options won't break anything, like ``harden_rand``, but some like ``global_strict``
or overly-restrictives virtual-patching rules might pretty well break your website.
It's up to you to configure Snuffleupaggus accordingly to your needs.

You can also enable the ``simulation`` mode on features that you're not sure about,
to see what would snuffleupagus do to your application, before activating them for good.

How can I find out the problem when my application breaks?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

By checking the logs; Snuffleupagus systematically prefix them with ``[snuffleupagus]``.


Does Snuffleupagus run on Windows?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
No idea.


Will Snuffleupagus run on my old PHP 5?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
No.

Since PHP5 `will be deprecated at the end of 2018 <http://php.net/supported-versions.php>`_,
you should think about moving to PHP7 anyway. You can (and should) use
`Suhosin <https://suhosin.org>`_ in the meantime.

Help and support
----------------

I found a security issue
""""""""""""""""""""""""
If you believe you have found a security issue affecting Snuffleupagus,
then we would be more than happy to hear from you!

We promise to treat any reported issue seriously and,
if the investigation confirms it affects Snuffleupagus,
to patch it within a reasonable time,
release a public announcement that describes the issue,
discuss potential impact of the vulnerability,
reference applicable patches or workarounds,
and credit the discoverer.

Please send it us a mail to the ``snuffleupagus`` user,
on ``nbs-system.com``.

I found a bug. How can I report it?
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
We do have an issue tracker on `Github <https://github.com/nbs-system/snuffleupagus/issues>`_.
Please make sure to include as much information as possible when reporting your issue,
such as your operating system, your version of PHP 7, your version of snuffleupagus,
your logs, the problematic php code, the request, a brief description, … long story short,
give us everything that you can.

Where can I find even more help?
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
The :doc:`configuration page <config>` might be what you're looking for.
If you're adventurous, you can also check the `issue tracker <https://github.com/nbs-system/snuffleupagus/issues/?q=is%3Aissue>`_
(make sure to check the closed issues too).

I need professional support for my company.
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Contact `NBS System <https://nbs-system.com>`_.

Unimplemented mitigations and abandoned ideas
---------------------------------------------

Contant time comparisons
""""""""""""""""""""""""
We didn't manage to perform time-based side-channel attacks on strings 
against real world PHP application, and the results that we gathered on
tailored test cases weren't concluding: for simplicity's sake, we chose
to not implement a mitigation against this class of attacks.

We would be happy to be proven wrong, and reconsider implementing this feature,
if someone can manage to get better results than us.

The possibility of having this natively in PHP has
`been discussed <https://marc.info/?l=php-internals&m=141692988212413&w=2>`_,
but as 2017, nothing has been merged yet.