[anonsec] comments on the BTNS core I-D

[Nicolas.Williams at sun.com (Nicolas Williams)]

On Mon, Jul 30, 2007 at 09:26:51AM -0700, Derrell Piper wrote:
> Overall:
> 
> 'system' 'host' and 'node' are intermingled.  'node' in particular  
> implies
> cluster to some of us and could easily be replaced with 'host' or  
> 'system'.

I'm not sure we want to do that.  For one, nothing says that you can't
cluster BTNS hosts.  It is about as difficult to cluster BTNS hosts as
it is to cluster hosts using IPsec in general (a little worse once you
add connection latching if you use the dynamic IPsec policy editing
implementation approach).

> You need to specify exactly what happens for every failure mode and
> you ought to be sending IKE informational or Notify payloads for all
> error cases.

Failure is handled as specified in RFC4301 and RFC4306.  There is a
separate I-D adding an IKE notify payload to indicate to the peer that
it has matched a BTNS PAD entry.

> Your bracketed notation is confusing.  The brackets aren't adding  
> anything.

In the examples?

> I generally don't like the idea of sending self-signed certificates for
> ephemeral keys.  If the point is solely to maintain IKEv2 semantics, you
> should say that.  Otherwise, there's little reason to require the extra
> overhead of the certificate processing (and parsing) when all you're
> really doing is extracting the public key anyway.

Sending such certs is an option, not a requirement.

> pg 6, Figure 1
> 
> "In this diagram, there are six end-nodes: A, B, C and D."
> 
> That's four, not six.  Do you mean "...nodes: A, B, C, D, Q and R."?

Yes.

> "Node [D] has a non-fixed address."  "non-fixed" meaning what  
> exactly?  Why is that relevant?

That it uses DHCP.  Michael?

> pg 6, "The machine that we will care in this example is [SG-A]"
> 
> Grammar.  "Let's first examine [SG-A], a firewall..."

A word was missing ("about").

> pg 8, first bullet, maching PAD #3 but no Child SAs
> 
> Is there an IKE informational generated in this case?  I think maybe you

There can be (it's an option specified in a separate I-D).

> should show exactly what you intend the IKE exchange to look like in
> this case.

Why?

> pg 8, second bullet
> 
> "...a rogue BTNS nodes..." -> "...a rogue BTNS node..."
> 
> I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.  If you're
> authenticating on C's address with BTNS, you're C.  In essence, aren't
> all BTNS nodes rogue  nodes?

Yes, they are.  The point is to illustrate that [C] gets no protection
from other BTNS nodes (unless PAD entries are added to its regular
peers' PADs that match on [C]'s public key).

> I think your use of the term 'rogue node' is confusing throughout
> because using it at all sort of implies that there's some protection
> when  there's not.

I don't see the implication, particularly when the text is explicit
about [C] not being protected from other BTNS nodes.

> Alternatively, perhaps this whole discussion belongs in the Security
> Considerations section.

They are examples.  The security considerations section already has text
about the weaknesses of BTNS.

> pg 9, "As [Q] has no formal relationship with [SG-B], rogues can  
> impersonate [B] (i.e., assert [B]'s addresses)."
> 
> You need to specify what should happen if a second [B] or [SG-B]  
> comes along.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

> pg. 11, "Leap of faith can work in a similar way for BTNS nodes, but  
> it is currently still being designed and specified b y the IETF BNTS  
> WG."
> 
> This statement is close to useless.  Either say something substantive  
> or remove it.

There are RFCs with similar statements (e.g., RFC2743, in relation to
"channel binding").  These kinds of statements are informative, not
normative, and inform the reader about concurrent efforts at the time
that the document was being progressed.  Such information can become
stale, and therefore useless, but this is generally true for all RFCs.

Nico
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