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Farhan
Asked: 2012-09-07 13:51:14 +0800 CST

Possible to get cleartext password?

  • 772

I have hosting service hosted on more than 20+ Plesk servers, version 11. As in the previous versions, the passwords were not encrypted, then if i had to design some tools to manage the hosting accounts, i just picked up the cleartext passwords from the Database. but as now the passwords are encrypted, is there any way i can decrypt the passwords? through API or any other way so that i can integrate my php based hosting management with plesk 11?

password

4 Answers

  1. Why not just figure out what hashing algorithm Plesk uses, and replicate that functionality in your PHP application? You don't need the un-ecrypted version of a password to authenticated against it, and you never really want to store a password in the clear, or with a reversible encryption.

    • 12
  2. Best Answer

    The code provided by Giulio isn't helpful, here's a Python script that actually works. Requires PyCrypto (python-crypto). Assumes that Plesk secret key is stored at /etc/psa/private/secret_key. Just run it and pass in encrypted passwords as arguments:

    ./deplesk.py '$AES-128-CBC$T82uDt6NSdytfhjQaOIKGg==$CMJ6FIdAD8zJ0PgwQ3DosA=='

    Script:

    #!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
import base64
from Crypto.Cipher import AES

key = open('/etc/psa/private/secret_key', 'rb').read()

for pw in sys.argv[1:]:
    lead, typ, iv, ct = pw.split('$')
    iv = base64.b64decode(iv)
    ct = base64.b64decode(ct)
    assert typ == 'AES-128-CBC'
    plain = AES.new(key, mode=AES.MODE_CBC, IV=iv).decrypt(ct).rstrip(b'\0')
    print(plain.decode('utf8'))
    • 11

  3. Theoretically, if the program can get the encryption password, yes, you can get back the password in plain text.
    EDIT: added decryption code.

    function decrypt_password($pass,$key)
{

$base64encoded_ciphertext = $pass;

$res_non = mcrypt_decrypt(MCRYPT_RIJNDAEL_128, $key, base64_decode($base64encoded_ciphertext), ‘ecb’);

$decrypted = $res_non;
$dec_s2 = strlen($decrypted);

$padding = ord($decrypted[$dec_s2-1]);
$decrypted = substr($decrypted, 0, -$padding);

return  $decrypted;
}
    • 2

  4. I needed this written in PHP, so I ported @freebobbytables' version directly over. Works a charm. Tested with PHP 8.0.

    #!/usr/bin/env php    
<?php    
$passwords = array_slice($argv, 1);    
$key = file_get_contents('/etc/psa/private/secret_key');    
    
foreach($passwords as $password) {    
  list($lead, $type, $iv, $ciphertext) = explode('$', $password);    
  $iv = base64_decode($iv);    
    
  assert($type === 'AES-128-CBC');    
  $plain = openssl_decrypt($ciphertext, 'aes-128-cbc', $key, OPENSSL_ZERO_PADDING, $iv);    
  echo utf8_decode($plain) . PHP_EOL;    
}
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