While everyone else is adding the way they do it ... I'll add mine. I don't store the password absolutely anywhere. The database I use allows (mandates) OS authentication for the database. So I can have the user that apache is running under authorised for the database, and then I don't have any password to give.

This has some drawbacks, but I'm not sure that for web apps that it's any worse than other solutions - sure, a co-hosted CGI app may be able to connect to the db as well, but then a co-hosted CGI could also grab the password from wherever I put it (encrypted or not). At least because I don't have a password to steal, no one can use the database other than as a co-hosted CGI app. (And, of course, there are no CGI apps co-hosted on any of my servers that aren't written by me or someone I trust.)

PS - the web user only has as much authority as is needed, definitely not the authority to grant authority to other users.

In reply to Re: Best practices for database passwords by Tanktalus
in thread Best practices for database passwords by Miss Brain

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.