Hi Everyone,
I know this is sort of a controversial topic so I will try to tread
lightly. It seems that for a couple of years the idea of a password
parameter for Galaxy tools has come up a lot but has also been rejected a
lot although I believe there is a lot of merit to it. I have found at least
two other times where people have tried to implement this and it was
rejected, but there must have been a reason why they needed that parameter.
My situation currently is that I have created two tools in Galaxy which
communicate with another software called iRODS which needs authentication
from the user. In my own department, there is another tool that was created
which needed authentication from the user but the developer had to create
some other workaround for this problem.
In terms of the work I have done for this so far, I have been working off
the latest release version of Galaxy. I have implemented the field so that
it is obfuscated in the tool form view as well as on the tool info page. I
will next be looking into storing the parameter in an environment variable
so it doesn't get passed through the command line and encrypting the
password before it enters the database. Speaking with a co-worker of mine,
we discussed the possibility of implementing two option, irreversible
encryption of the password as it gets entered into the database but then
making the tool not workflow compatible, or using regular encryption and
making the tool workflow compatible. I look forward to hearing your
opinions and ideas.
Katherine