IQSS / IQSS/dataverse

Feature Request: Default superuser email points to a public mailbox (security risk) + request for admin email API

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Type: Feature
Dominant language
Java
Stars
1.1k
Forks
564
Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description:
When creating the Dataverse superuser during the initial setup, the system automatically assigns the following email address: dataverse@mailinator.com.

This is a potential security vulnerability, because mailinator.com is a public mailbox service — anyone can access emails sent to that address without authentication.

As a result, an attacker who knows this default email could easily initiate a password reset and take over the Dataverse superuser account on instances where the administrator didn’t change the default email after installation.

Expected Behavior:
The superuser email should either:

  • Require a custom email to be provided during setup, or
  • Default to a placeholder that is clearly invalid (e.g. changeme@example.com) to prompt immediate replacement.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Change the default superuser email to a non-functional placeholder, or enforce a prompt during setup to specify a valid administrator email address.
  • Add an API endpoint to allow administrators to securely change the superuser/admin email address via curl.

This would improve automation and security management, by enabling scripted rotation or correction of the admin email without relying on manual UI operations.

See also https://groups.google.com/g/dataverse-community/c/mLEdP8p24RM/m/KIIrqE-4BAAJ

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the initial setup flow that assigns dataverse@mailinator.com and trace the existing administrator email and password-reset handling. Decide how setup should require or mark a non-functional address, and define the secure API behavior for changing it; done means the public mailbox is no longer used and the change path is covered by appropriate tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
api, authentication, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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