After a break

Last week I was at Recombination so nothing done then.

Now I've started to wire up the logon dialog. This included a bit of shuffling of the main UI, and preparing to split the DirectoryPanel into UI (repeated) and Directory Model classes (local and FTP); and starting the process of writing an FTP client against the .Net socket APIs.

Writing the logon dialog exposed one Mono quirk. The UseSystemPasswordChar property on the text-box doesn't seem to do anything. I resorted to self.pwdTB.PasswordChar = u'\u2022' as a portable solution.

Also, you can use the Data Protection API for more safely storing passwords:

import clr
clr.AddReference("System.Security")
from System.Security.Cryptography import *
import System.Text
import System

…

  def getSecureValue(self, section, key, default):
    raw = self.getValue(section, key, None)
    if raw== None:
      return default
    try:
      array = System.Convert.FromBase64String(raw)
      chars = ProtectedData.Unprotect(array,
        None, DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser)
      result = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(chars)
      for i in range(chars.Length):
        chars[i] = 0
      return result
    except System.Exception, ex:
      print ex.ToString()
      return default

  def setSecureValue(self, section, key, value):
    bytes = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(value)
    try:
      safed = ProtectedData.Protect(bytes,
        None, DataProtectionScope.CurrentUser)
      for i in range(bytes.Length):
        bytes[i] = 0
      string = System.Convert.ToBase64String(safed)
      for i in range(safed.Length):
        safed[i] = 0
      self.setValue(section, key, string)
    except System.Exception, ex:
      print ex.ToString()

which stores the password as an encrypted Base64 blob -- and works with Mono on Win32 as well. The weak point is the password kept in memory as a string (immutable) -- if you can use it as char array, you can wipe that when done.