Re: [DNSOP] Expiration impending: <draft-jabley-dnssec-trust-anchor-11.txt>

["Paul Hoffman" <[e-mail]>]

On 5 Oct 2015, at 16:12, Joe Abley wrote:

> Hi Paul,
>
> On 5 Oct 2015, at 15:35, Paul Hoffman wrote:
>
>> A document called "DNSSEC Trust Anchor Publication for the Root Zone" 
>> that says nothing about the most common KSK publication practice, 
>> that is, by resolver software developers, is woefully incomplete.
>
> I am confused by that. The KSK maintainer publishes trust anchors for 
> the root zone. Software developers produce code that consumes those 
> trust anchors. Perhaps we are missing a shared understanding of the 
> word "publish" here, but I don't see what common KSK publication 
> practice you're referring to.

Hrm. I'm pretty sure that most people would agree that software is 
published, and that config comes with that published software. The KSK 
is often part of that config.

Of course "the KSK maintainer publishes trust anchors for the root 
zone". So do other organizations. It seems like many people who say they 
want this document published want this document to be how ICANN/IANA 
publishes the trust anchors.

>
>> If instead the document is supposed to be about current ICANN 
>> publication only, then the document should be retitled, given a 
>> better abstract, and give the actual URLs for the current KSK and 
>> describe the formats used for the current data. It should not make 
>> speculation about other URLs nor about other format options.
>
> I don't understand the comment about the title or the abstract (see 
> above).

Maybe you are thinking that only ICANN can publish the trust anchor? If 
so, I would certainly disagree. Anyone can publish it, and that's a 
feature.

> I fully agree that the document should use actual URLs for the current 
> KSK. As far as I can see, all the URLs mentioned in the document are 
> URLs that work today, and have been stable since 2010. I don't see any 
> speculation about other URLs.

>
> Can you explain more fully what problem you see?

    The URL for retrieving the CSR is 
<http://data.iana.org/root-anchors/
    key-label.csr>, with "key-label" replaced by the key label of the
    corresponding KSK.

    The URL for retrieving a signed X.509 certificate is <http://
    data.iana.org/root-anchors/key-label.crt>, with "key-label" again
    replaced as described above.

Those are templates, not URLs. ICANN does not publish anything at 
http://data.iana.org/root-anchors/key-label.csr (unless you consider 
giving a 404 to be publishing...).

Templates are speculative: you can plug in different values that change 
over time. That is not what ICANN publishes. Yes, you designed it to be 
a template, but that is not what ICANN publishes.

If this document is going to be published by anyone, it should state 
exactly how ICANN publishes things, not how it might it different future 
circumstances.


>> It should not talk about the publication of possible future KSKs 
>> because that is not what ICANN is doing now.
>
> I don't understand that, either. The scheme developed at ICANN in 
> 2009/2010 was designed to facilitate publication of multiple trust 
> anchors, specifically to allow future KSK rolls. You're saying we 
> shouldn't document that because a KSK roll hasn't happened, yet?

There is a difference between "how ICANN publishes the KSK" and "how 
ICANN might publish the KSK". Please pick the one you want so that the 
WG can decide if that's what they want you to publish. Mixing those two 
ideas up will not help anyone who is reading the published document.

--Paul Hoffman