M100393: Encrypted passwords may fail under some circumstances

Summary

ManageSoft for Windows migration allows specification of credentials in postwork.ini for file transfers and domain joining. If an encrypted password is used for any of these operations, there are cases when the operation will fail.

The problem occurs in some scenarios when an encrypted string has a null byte and is truncated before having base64 applied. It is difficult to tell from the base64-encrypted password whether this issue has occurred.

Diagnosing the problem

To see if this problem has occurred, do the following:

1. Modify postwork.ini to turn off encryption and store the plaintext password.
2. Try a migration with the modified postwork.ini.
3. If the system works with the plaintext password but fails with the encrypted one, then you have encountered this issue.

Properties affected

The properties in postwork.ini affected by the issue are:

[Logging] UPLOADLOGPASSWORD=<PASSWORD&t; 
[PCData] DATAPASSWORD=<PASSWORD> 
[DomainJoining] JOINDOMAINPASSWORD=<PASSWORD>

For each of the properties above, there are cases where an encrypted password will fail. There are two ways to fix the problem:

• Create a new account with a different password
• Change the password for the account you are using

The first option is a lower impact option as changing an administrative password may have flow-on effects to your system.