Secure XML-RPC

More secure wrapper for the WordPress XML-RPC interface.

Description

Rather than sending usernames and passwords in plain text with every request, we're going to use a set of public/secret keys to hash data and authenticate instead.

On your WordPress profile, you will see a new "Remote Publishing Permissions" section listing out the applications that have permission to publish, along with their public and secret keys.

New applications can be added whenever you want. You can also change the names of applications, or revoke publishing permission by deleting them.

Installation

Manual Installation

Upload the entire /secure-xml-rpc directory to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate Secure XML-RPC through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
Make sure that either the .httaccess or the httpd.conf (under <VirtualHost>) contains SetEnvIf Authorization "(.*)" HTTP_AUTHORIZATION=$1.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I use the new authorization?

The old username/password paradigm can still be used, but will result in a X-Deprecated header being returned by the server.

From now on, you will send an Authorization header. This header will be the publishing application's public key, two pipe (|) characters, and a base64-encoded sha256 hash of the application's secret key concatenated with the body of the request.

Example

Say your application has the following information:

Public Key: b730db0864b0d4453ba6a26ad6613cd4
Secret Key: 7647a19f5bf3e9fd001419900ad48a54

And you want to make the following request (whitespace/indentation added for readability):

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<methodCall>
  <methodName>wp.getPosts</methodName>
  <params>
    <param>
      <value><i4>1</i4></value>
    </param>
    <param>
      <value><string></string></value>
    </param>
    <param>
      <value><string></string></value>
    </param>
  </params>
</methodCall>

Note that the second and third parameters (traditionally username and password) are empty. Usernames and passwords can still be specified, but will result in the server returning an X-Deprecated header.

Your Authorization header would thus become:

b730db0864b0d4453ba6a26ad6613cd4||f0b73fddf91b2358bc28faa745c8c25d3b0d9a36f5456e8181154c54874d81e5

The second part of the header is generated by calculating:

base64( sha256( '7647a19f5bf3e9fd001419900ad48a54' + {request_body} ) )

WordPress will read the header and log you in as usual, but you never need to send your password across the wire.

In this paradigm, application secret keys should also be treated as passwords - they are sensitive information!

Screenshots

The new Remote Publishing Permissions area of the user profile.

Changelog

0.1.0

First release

Upgrade Notice

0.1.0

First Release

Additional Information

Contributors: ericmann, skreutzer Donate link: http://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-xmlrpc Tags: xmlrpc, security, oauth, authentication Requires at least: 3.8 Tested up to: 3.8 Stable tag: 0.1.0 License: GPLv2 or later License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

publishing-systems/secure-xmlrpc