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HomeHomeUsing DNN Platf...Using DNN Platf...Skins, Themes, ...Skins, Themes, ...Why add a "dnn_" prefix to all idWhy add a "dnn_" prefix to all id's?
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11/25/2008 3:18 AM
 

Just curious why DNN is adding a "dnn_" previx to all id's?

EXAMPLE: <div id="dnn_LeftNav" class="LeftNav">

I am a bit hesident in showing DNN stuff though out the source code as hackers can easily find out that the site is using DNN & then look around for exploits.

Is this done for a particular reason or is it just a branding thing?

 
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11/25/2008 4:08 AM
 

i am not completly sure, but i think you can change that by changing the prefixes in the skin's ascx files


Erik van Ballegoij, Former DNN Corp. Employee and DNN Expert

DNN Blog | Twitter: @erikvb | LinkedIn: Erik van Ballegoij on LinkedIn

 
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11/25/2008 10:13 AM
 

Good programming.  Identifies controls quickly as DNN or not.  Hackers don't care if your site is running DNN, can find out in many other ways and whether or not it's running DNN doesn't introduce any specific security issues.

Jeff

 
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11/25/2008 11:12 AM
 

Thanks Erik & Jeff for your answers :)

Jeff can you please explain why this is considered good programming? To me it makes skinning harder (as only some id's are prefixed with dnn_) & I really don't like the idea of the general public knowing what software is being used because all software is prone to exploits.

I know if I was trying to hack a website the first thing I would do is try to identify the software being used so I could look for expolits in it. If I found the software had not been patched to resolve known exploits I would then try to take advantage of the exploit.

One good example of this was when Joomla 1.5 had a serious exploit & everyones Joomla website got hacked if they were not smart enough to patch it straight away - see: http://milw0rm.com/exploits/6234

Now I have to also say that DNN has a great security policy where they do not talk publicly about known exploits, but as most people saw/read not so long ago sometimes people can do the wrong thing & release details of the exploit to the public. Now if I were running older versions of DNN I would be worried that people could find my unpatched DNN site (just like they did with Joomla sites not so long ago) - they could then take advantage of any previous exploits that they know about.

I have also checked these sites & they seem to limit branding thier code:

http://www.umbraco.org

http://www.kentico.com

http://www.ektron.com

http://www.adxstudio.com

http://www.sitefinity.com

I know DNN takes their security very seriously (thats why we use it) but would be interested to know other peoples thoughts on this matter are.

 
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11/25/2008 11:38 AM
 

As Jeff said, there are plenty of ways to determine if a site is running DNN.  I would not worry at all about having "DNN" appear within my page's code.

PREFIX = NAMESPACE
Addding the prefix helps to create a DNN "namespace" for the DNN elements so that the DNN elements' ID values don't step on (or get stepped on by) other user-added elements.

Example: If there was a DNN element with ID "menu" it would become "DNN_menu" which would be very helpful in a case where you added your own javascript menu inside of a TEXT/HTML module and gave your javascript menu an ID value of "menu".


Also I presonally like adding prefixes for the reason Jeff mentioned:  it makes it very easy to identify what elements belong to what system/subsystem.  By making system/element association identification easy, you make it easy to troubleshoot issues and easy for future development.


esmamlin atxgeek.me
 
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