nextcloud / nextcloud/server

Allow low-level decryption of files (without signature check)

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#6,202 9 comments 4 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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1. to develop enhancement feature: encryption (server-side)
Dominant language
PHP
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Description

We had several reports of people having problems to restore encrypted files due to a failing signatrue check. It was added to enhance file integrity. However, if this options prevents you from recovering encrypted files, this is a serious problem. Here just a few github issues related to this problem:
https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/2206
https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/5359
https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/3958
and the forum: https://help.nextcloud.com/search?q=bad%20signature

Nobody seems to really care how to fix this problem. In some cases, this could be related to restoring data or with versioning??

So I propose to provide a low-level decryption tool, where you need only the encrypted file, the encryption key, and the user's password. Or the occ-decryption command with an option to ignore bad signatures, or even on the web-interface.

@schiessle

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

No source file, entry point, or test is named. Start by reviewing the linked Nextcloud issues and forum results, then trace the existing encryption and signature-check behavior to define the recovery requirements. Done means an agreed low-level recovery path is specified and its behavior is covered by tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
20/100

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