Re: [Gen-art] Gen-ART last call review of draft-ietf-mile-rfc6046-bis-05

[Alexey Melnikov <[e-mail]>]

On 24/01/2012 16:45, Peter Saint-Andre wrote:
> On 1/24/12 2:25 AM, Brian Trammell wrote:
>> Hi, Alexey,
>>
>> So far only one voice on the WG list, stating no need for CN-ID. However, on thinking about it a bit further, if you happen to have an older PKI built out, and you're still using it, you've probably got a large investment in it, and it probably makes sense to allow you to use it for RID too...
>>
>> So, I'd suggest the following language to grudgingly allow such a thing:
>>
>> The use of CN-ID identifiers in certificates identifying RID systems
>> is NOT RECOMMENDED, and CN-ID identifiers MUST be ignored by PKI
>> implementations which can use DNS-ID identifiers. However, CN-ID
>> identifiers MAY be used when the RID consortium to which the system
>> belongs uses an older, existing PKI implementation.
> Brian, first of all, thanks for working with us on this topic. As you
> can see from the length of RFC 6125 (which didn't start out that big!),
> there's more complexity here than meets the eye.
>
> I think the mix of "NOT RECOMMENDED, MUST be ignored by some, but MAY be
> used by others" might be a bit confusing to those who implement and
> deploy RID. Also, RFC 6125 makes a distinction between cert generation
> and cert checking, which gets obscured by the word "use". Thus I might
> make the following suggestion:
>
>     The inclusion of Common Names (CN-IDs) in certificates identifying
>     RID systems is NOT RECOMMENDED.  A PKI implementation that
>     understands DNS-IDs SHOULD ignore CN-IDs when checking server
>     certificates.
I thought RFC 6125 has a rule saying that CN-IDs are ignored in presence 
of DNS-IDs? I would just rather reference RFC 6125, or at least be clear 
that this is defined there (using "as specified in RFC 6125").

The rest of your proposal looks fine.
> However, because many existing PKI implementations
>     still include CN-IDs when generating certificates, RID consortiums
>     might want to continue supporting them during certificate checking.
>
> This removes the normative force from the text about existing PKI
> implementations, while still encouraging use of DNS-IDs.
>
> Let us know what you think.
>
> Peter
>