+ more

> From: Stephen Farrell, May 17, 2016 2:24 PM
> 
> 
> Hiya,
> 
> On 17/05/16 18:45, Eric Voit (evoit) wrote:
> > Hi Stephen,
> >
> >> Stephen Farrell, May 03, 2016 8:23 PM
> >>
> >> Stephen Farrell has entered the following ballot position for
> >> draft-ietf-i2rs-pub-sub-requirements-06: Discuss
> >>
> >> When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to
> >> all email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to
> >> cut this introductory paragraph, however.)
> >>
> >>
> >> Please refer to
> >> https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html for more
> >> information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
> >>
> >>
> >> The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found
> >> here:
> >> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-i2rs-pub-sub-requirements/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> DISCUSS:
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> I have what I hope are two very easily sorted things that I'd like to
> chat about:
> >>
> >> (1) 4.2.5, para2:
> 
> It's para 3 now. Not sure if that changed in this rev or if
> I goofed. If the latter, apologies;-)

Yes.   That is what caught me too.   I was answering for Paragraph 2.
 
> >> Hang on - this is 2016 isn't it? :-) Why would we
> >> ever have a pub/sub service whose subscribers can pretend to be the
> >> service?
> >
> > I am not sure I understand.  The Subscription Service is located on
> > the Publisher.  Having the Publisher and Subscriber mutually
> > authenticate each other makes sense.
> >
> > If you mean something else and you are wondering if whether a
> > Subscriber can also be a Publisher for the information it receives,
> > yes it can.  Having a collector/controller as a middle-man is a very
> > valid implementation.  But there is nothing which binds such
> > independent subscriptions together.
> 
> The problem is that the text says "it SHOULD be possible to provide
>    cryptographic authentication in such a way that no Subscriber can
>    pose as the original Subscription Service"
> 
> I see no reason for that SHOULD. The implication I take from it
> is that someone wants to use purely symmetric keying which seems
> pretty odd. I'd say better text would be to say that "Subscribers
> MUST NOT be able to pose as the original Subscription Service"
> maybe.

Your text is better.   Changed.

> >
> >> (2) Don't you need a statement somewhere that commensurate security
> >> needs to be provided for pushed notifications as was used for the
> >> original subscription? That might be a little hard to phrase
> >> correctly but I hope we agree that the notifications ought not be
> >> significantly less secure than the subscription.
> >
> > We had some interactions with Ben Campbell on this topic.    In
> > general we are doing our best to decouple the subscription
> > establishment and maintenance from the underlying transport options.
> > This is because there are implementations (for example wholly within
> > an MSDC) which don't require payload encryption.  Still most
> > implementations should have transport encryption.  So after several
> > interactions with Ben, the text leading off Section 4.2.5 now reads:
> >
> > Some uses of this Subscription Service will push privacy-sensitive
> > updates and metadata.  Good deployment practices will bind this
> > generated information within secure, encrypted transport layer
> > mechanisms.  For example if NETCONF is used as transport, then
> > [RFC5539] would be a valid option to secure the transported
> > information.  The Subscription Service can also be used with
> > emerging deployment contexts as well.  As an example, deployments
> > based on [i2rs-usecase] can apply these requirements in conjunction
> > with those documented within [i2rs-protocol-security] to secure
> > ephemeral state information being pushed from a Network Element.
> >
> > Does this hit your objective?
> 
> Not quite, though it is related.
> 
> If you added "Commensurate strength security mechanisms MUST
> be defined (and SHOULD be used) for all of the stages of
> the pub/sub process, for example using the same algorithms
> and endpoints for keying for both subscription and publication
> stages would seem advisable."
> 
> The thing to avoid is e.g. using some really strong mechanism
> for the subscription but something much weaker or with worse
> endpoints for the publication (or vice versa).
> 
> Sorry if that wording is a bit vague, I didn't re-read the
> entire doc to get the context right.

I see what you are getting at now.   How about the requirement text:

"For any encrypted information exchanges, commensurate strength security 
mechanisms MUST be available and SHOULD be used.  This includes all stages of 
the Subscription and update push process."

Thanks,
Eric


 
> Cheers,
> S.
> 
> >
> > Eric
> >
> >>
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> COMMENT:
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> - I wondered if this was maybe of interest to more than just i2rs, and
> if so,
> >> whether any effort had been made to try figure out if these
> >> requirements work for folks who don't care about i2rs? It'd seem a
> >> shame to work on this but stop one step short of being
> >> appropriately general. (But you probably already checked that I
> >> guess.)
> >>
> >> - 4.2.2, last para: The MUST here seems like it may be quite
> >> onerous, in general. Did someone think all of that through? For
> >> example, what if the reason for declining is that the Subscriber
> >> doesn't have sufficient privilege? Saying what privilege is needed
> >> would be a breach of least-privilege. Transient errors may also
> >> make this very hard to do well. I'd suggest s/MUST/MAY/ and to also
> >> turn the information returned into a hint and not a promise.
> >>
> >> - 4.2.5, para 1: saying there "MUST be mutual authentication" is
> >> odd - the usual terms would be "MUST implement" or "MUST use" which
> >> of those does "MUST be" mean?
> >>
> >> - 4.2.8: when you say fetch... by whom? Is there an implicit
> >> requirement in the title of the subsection?
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________ i2rs mailing list
> >> [email protected] https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/i2rs

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