Re: [Ace] DTLS profile - Open points

[Olaf Bergmann <[e-mail]>]

Hi Marco,

On 2021-05-22, Marco Tiloca <[e-mail]> wrote:


> On 2021-05-21 15:21, Olaf Bergmann wrote:

>>>      a) Clarify that the elements of the structure in Figure 9 of Section
>>>      3.3.2 have to follow that exact order. This ensures that the
>>> result and
>>>      its following encoding are deterministic. This can't be taken for
>>>      granted from a CBOR implementation building a CBOR map.
>> I do not see why we would need to mandate this order. Although this
>> could help with optimized parsers, it violates Postel's theorem and
>> therefore should be avoided IMO.
>>
>> (That we indeed might have to say in the document is whether duplicate
>> keys are allowed. As we are just using data represenations from other
>> sources such as COSE and the CBOR-OAuth mappings, I would expect these
>> specs to define the restrictions on the deterministic CBOR; I did not
>> check that, though.)
>
> ==>MT
> I initially interpreted that, by using the elements retrieved from the
> received Token, the RS had to rebuild and store exactly the same 
> serialization that the client will have later built and sent on the
> wire as "psk_identity".
>
> That would have required C and RS to agree on a canonical format of
> the CBOR map in Figure 9, to be sure that the "psk_identity" in 
> ClientKeyExchange can match with the same "psk_identity" that the RS
> rebuilt and stored after receiving the Token.
>
> Now my RS is storing as local lookup-label only the "kid" (rather than
> the whole "psk_identity" to expect on the wire). If the RS does so and 
> actually relies on the "kid" only as a local lookup-label, I agree
> it's not necessary to have a fixed order of "kty" and "kid" into
> "COSE_Key".

Exactly: The kid included in cnf.COSE_Key is supposed to be the index
into your lookup table to retrieve a previously uploaded access token.

>>>      c) In Section 3.3.2, the text before Figure 9 says: "This
>>> structure then
>>>      is included as the only element in the "cnf" structure that is
>>> used as
>>>      value for "psk_identity" as shown in Figure 9."
>>>
>>>          I think it should be clarified what "is used" actually
>>> means. This
>>>      can be either:
>> Commit be8ac2c now clarifies that the serialized CBOR structure is put
>> into the psk_identity (option i).
>
> ==>MT
> I thought the CBOR serialization should refer to the most outer
> structure as the one used as value of "psk_identity", i.e. the map 
> including the "cnf" element, also called "cnf structure".
>
> Then, still following the same functional approach of option (i), I
> think the text should actually say:
>
> OLD:
> The CBOR serialization of this structure then is included ...
>
> NEW:
> This structure then is included as the only element in the `cnf`
> structure, whose CBOR serialization is used as value for
> `psk_identity` as shown in ...
>
>
> Correct? To be even more clear, it would help to include after Figure
> 9 also the actual serialization used in "psk_identity" for that, which 
> should be:
>
> 0xA1 08 A1 01 A2 01 04 02 48 3D027833FC6267CE
>
> <==

Thanks. I have updated the text as suggested and included the actual
serialization. (See [1]).

[1] https://github.com/ace-wg/ace-dtls-profile/commit/608350c6a23a563263292d8b0f94f631a162f345)

> it seems anyway possible in Californium to be compliant with the spec

Good to hear that.

Grüße
Olaf