[IPython-dev] "Unsigned Message" error in a forking kernel manager

[Fernando Perez]

Hi Jason,

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Jason Grout
<jason-sage at creativetrax.com> wrote:
> Is there a key or something that I should be
> doing to "sign" my messages?  If someone could give this a quick
> look-over and see if there are any obvious problems, that would be great.

Yes, kernels sign their messages, to make it harder for other
processes in the same machine to send them arbitrary commands
(remember, our protocol is openly explained, so without this any
ipython process would basically be a user shell listening on a  port
for the first clown to say 'rm -rf $HOME').  See the code in
zmq/session.py around line 423 for the signing, and the key is a
member of the Session class which you can change/reassign (which will
trigger a recomputation of the auth field used to sign the messages,
see line 298).

HTH,

f