Re: Client-Cert Header draft

[David Benjamin <[e-mail]>]

This draft isn't sufficient to properly move the access checks out of the
TLS terminator. More care is needed here. There is a "distaste for client
certificates from some quarters" for a reason.

In general, connection-level authentication does not play well with HTTP.
Server identities are generally public, so there is no complex policy
around when to release them. Client identities are generally user
identities and thus sensitive, with local policies, usually involving user
prompts and selections. That interacts badly with client certificates. It
just barely works today, but moving individual components without thought
as to the overall picture will break it.

In particular, client HTTP stacks necessarily cache client certificate
decisions. Without caching, the user is potentially prompted on every HTTP
request, but a user session involves many HTTP requests. Additionally, the
decision is inherently cached by way of connection reuse and session
resumption optimizations. Short of forcing a full TLS handshake on every
HTTP request, clients could not prompt on every HTTP request if they wanted
to. That means the HTTP stacks need an explicit signal, or no amount of
reloads will allow the user to select a different identity.

Currently, the only signal for a bad client certificate is a fatal TLS
alert. If the access checks are moved, bad client certificate signals will
come out of the origin server, which cannot generate those. This draft may
need to define a suitable HTTP 4xx code to correspond with TLS client
certificate authentication. Of course, existing clients won't know to
process that, but perhaps the origin server should translate to a TLS
alert? But then the response is never delivered, which may be differently
odd. Then one must consider the interaction with HTTP/2, which multiplexes
streams and potentially multiple origins together.

There may be further problems here that I haven't thought through. The
suggestion of this enabling finer-grained access control worries me.

On Fri, Apr 17, 2020 at 3:29 PM Lucas Pardue <[e-mail]>
wrote:

> +1 to everything Mike said
>
> On Fri, 17 Apr 2020, 20:24 Mike Bishop, <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> Despite the distaste for client certificates from some quarters, they are
>> still both used and useful.  I’m certainly interested in seeing this
>> progress.
>>
>>
>>
>> In today’s situation, the intermediary checks that the cert matches the
>> rules it has been given to authenticate clients, and only forwards the
>> requests from valid clients.  Arguably, the origin is offloading less trust
>> in this draft’s model – the intermediary is responsible for validating that
>> the client possesses the claimed certificate, but might leave the origin to
>> decide what scope of access the certificate actually grants.  That allows
>> finer-grained access control, but also allows greater ability to send
>> requests back to the origin.  It also opens the door for intermediaries
>> which don’t support this header to accidentally forward requests containing
>> it.  Requiring intermediaries to drop it doesn’t get you much, since only
>> those intermediaries aware of the spec will comply by dropping the header.
>> To help address these, I’d like to see this mix in something that the
>> intermediary holds and the client doesn’t, such as an exporter from its TLS
>> connection to the server.
>>
>>
>>
>> But all that is refinement – the core concept here is beneficial, and I’d
>> like to see more engagement here.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Brian Campbell <[e-mail]>
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, April 15, 2020 5:01 PM
>> *To:* HTTP Working Group <[e-mail]>
>> *Subject:* Client-Cert Header draft
>>
>>
>>
>> Hello HTTP Working Group,
>>
>>
>>
>> I've somewhat inadvertently found myself working on this draft
>> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-bdc-something-something-certificate/,
>> which aspires to define a "Client-Cert" HTTP header field that allows a TLS
>> terminating reverse proxy to convey information about the client
>> certificate of a mutually-authenticated TLS connection to an origin server
>> in a common and predictable manner.
>>
>>
>>
>> I presented the concept
>> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/107/materials/slides-107-secdispatch-client-cert-http-header-00>
>> at the recent virtual IETF 107 secdispatch meeting
>> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/107/materials/minutes-107-secdispatch-00>
>> and the outcome from that was basically that there seems to be some
>> interest in pursuing the work and the suggestion that the conversation be
>> taken to the HTTPbis WG (and also keep TLS WG involved - presumably if the
>> work progresses). And that's what brings me here. I also hope to get a
>> little bit of time at one of the upcoming virtual interims to
>> present/discuss the draft.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Brian
>>
>>
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>