James Carlson wrote:
> Girish Moodalbail writes:
>   
>> Are we talking of providing a socket option to turn on/off the feature.
>> Basically a flag. So that there is a way to override the weaker system
>> policy?
>>     
>
> If the system doesn't have the keys configured, then you can't
> meaningfully turn it "on."  The only thing you can do is fail if it
> isn't available.
>
> If the system does have keys, and is configured to use TCP-MD5, then
> allowing the application to turn it off seems silly to me.
>   
I meant, if the system is not configured to use TCP-MD5 and the 
application wants to use
TCP-MD5 then this flag will be useful (Case of overriding a weaker 
system policy).

On the other hand, as you said, if the system does have keys, and is 
configured to
use TCP-MD5 then the application should be disallowed from overriding the
stronger system policy.

> I don't see a real point to an on/off switch.
>
>   
>> Are we talking of providing a socket option to push the password/keys to
>> be used for computing MD5 digest?
>>     
>
> Yes, I think that's what they're asking for, but that gets the client
> into the tricky business of handling sensitive key material (including
> all the configuration file problems this causes), and doesn't seem to
> be necessary.
>
>   
Well, if this is what is being asked for, then the application could as 
well use
the PF_KEY(7P)  socket to push the keys to kernel using SADB messages.
Why do we need a separate set of API's?

~Girish
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