Re: [Anima] [lamps] Long-lived certificates, but frequently renewed certificates

[Nico Williams <[e-mail]>]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2021 at 11:49:23AM -0400, Michael Richardson wrote:
> Nico Williams <[e-mail]> wrote:
>     > End entities send a validation chain for their EE certs, but not the
>     > root CA's cert, and anyways, RPs need to know trust anchors a priori.
>     > Therefore rolling out new TAs is tricky.
> 
> TLS discourages sending the root CA cert.
> I prefer to send it for a number of reasons, and this is one of them.

You can only send them when they are available as certificates (which
TAs are not required to be).  But +1.

>     > TA rollover needs a device update protocol.  Which is a pain in large
>     > part because it's completely unstandardized and anyways implies a
>     > separate trust structure for update signing (e.g., a package signer
>     > PKI).
> 
> EST includes includes updating the CA trust anchors as a protocol item.
> We don't have to have to replace the firmware.

Yeah, I know, but in the enterprise we still use packages, though not
necessarily packages with software, just configuration.

>     > So I think we're talking about the server indicating a refreshAfter time
>     > or a doNotRefreshBefore time rather than a refreshAt time.  An
>     > informative "you can refresh after this $time" and maybe a normative "do
>     > not even think of refreshing before this $time".
> 
> Yes, that's exactly what I'm after.
> We can, as you suggest, do this as an HTTP header in EST.
> It could also go into some new certificate extension, although it's rather
> more meta data, and it isn't clear it should get shared with peers.

Well, I suppose there one more way.  I asked about the semantics of URI
issuerAltNames, and maybe the right answer is that /.well-known for the
base URI should let you discover... lots of things, like EST, and...
this.

>     > Michael tells me maybe the CA software gets upgraded and other
>     > changes sneak in that one did not expect.
> 
> So, I was thinking of a hypothetical that could result in a surprising change
> in the field during what should be a non-event renewal.

I agree it's possible, likely even.

Nico
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