Re: [i2rs] Alissa Cooper's Discuss on draft-ietf-i2rs-protocol-security-requirements-06: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

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Hiya, 

I'm on vacation so won't be balloting this week and I only had a quick flick of this, but if I'd had time for a proper read I think I'd be asking how realistic are these requirements, possibly as a discuss ballot. If someone wanted to hit defer and blame me (sorry I don't have the right devices with me to do that) that'd be good. But if this draft is  time-critical for the WG then please ignore the above. 

S. 

On Wed Aug 17 19:02:09 2016 GMT+0200, Alissa Cooper wrote:
> Hi Alia,
> 
> > On Aug 17, 2016, at 11:07 AM, Alia Atlas <[e-mail]> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Alissa,
> > 
> > On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 10:54 AM, Alissa Cooper <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> > Alissa Cooper has entered the following ballot position for
> > draft-ietf-i2rs-protocol-security-requirements-06: Discuss
> > 
> > When responding, please keep the subject line intact and reply to all
> > email addresses included in the To and CC lines. (Feel free to cut this
> > introductory paragraph, however.)
> > 
> > 
> > Please refer to https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html <https://www.ietf.org/iesg/statement/discuss-criteria.html>
> > for more information about IESG DISCUSS and COMMENT positions.
> > 
> > 
> > The document, along with other ballot positions, can be found here:
> > https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-i2rs-protocol-security-requirements/ <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-i2rs-protocol-security-requirements/>
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > DISCUSS:
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > == Section 3.2 ==
> > 
> > "A non-secure transport can be can be used for publishing telemetry
> >    data or other operational state that was specifically indicated to
> >    non-confidential in the data model in the Yang syntax."
> > 
> > What kind of telemetry data is it that is of no potential interest to any
> > eavesdropper? This is not my area of expertise so I'm having a hard time
> > conceiving of what that could be. I'm also wondering, since I2RS agents
> > and clients will have to support secure transports anyway (and RESTCONF
> > can only be used over a secure transport), why can't they be used for all
> > transfers, instead of allowing this loophole in the name of telemetry,
> > which undoubtedly will end up being used or exploited for other data
> > transfers?
> > 
> > If the argument was that this loophole is needed for backwards
> > compatibility with insecure deployments of NETCONF or something like that
> > I think it would make more sense, but my impression from the text is that
> > those will have to be updated anyway to conform to the requirements in
> > this document.
> > 
> > Data coming from a router can come from many different line-cards and processors.
> > The line-cards that may be providing the data are not going to be supporting the 
> > secure transports anyway. 
> 
> Will they also not be supporting the I2RS protocol then, given the requirement for support of a secure transport?
> 
> 
> > A goal is to allow easy distribution of streaming data
> > and event notifications.  As for what type of data, as far as I know, currently IPFIX 
> > streams telemetry data without integrity much less authorization protection.
> 
> What I’m questioning is the choice to extend that model to cases where a third-party controller or application is one endpoint of the data exchange, which is what I thought was part of the motivation for I2RS (happy to be corrected though).
> 
> > 
> > There are existing deployments that use gRPC now for streaming telemetry data.
> 
> Ok. So is the implication that the requirements here are needed for backwards compatability with those deployments?
> 
> Thanks,
> Alissa
> 
> > 
> >  Regards,
> > Alia
> >  
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > COMMENT:
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > In general I agree with Mirja that where other documents already provide
> > definitions, they should be referenced, not copied or summarized, in this
> > document.
> > 
> > == Section 2.1 ==
> > 
> > Using "privacy" as a synonym for "confidentiality" is outmoded, I think,
> > given current understanding of the many other facets of privacy (see,
> > e.g., RFC 6793). I would suggest dropping the definition of data privacy
> > and just using the word confidentiality when that is what you mean.
> > 
> > == Section 2.2 ==
> > 
> > "The I2RS protocol exists as a higher-level protocol which may
> >       combine other protocols (NETCONF, RESTCONF, IPFIX and others)
> >       within a specific I2RS client-agent relationship with a specific
> >       trust for ephemeral configurations, event, tracing, actions, and
> >       data flow interactions."
> > 
> > Reading the provided definition of "trust," I'm not sure what "with a
> > specific trust for" means in the sentence above.
> > 
> > "The I2RS architecture document [I-D.ietf-i2rs-architecture]
> >       defines a secondary identity as the entity of some non-I2RS entity
> >       (e.g. application) which has requested a particular I2RS client
> >       perform an operation."
> > 
> > Per my comment above, I would suggest just referencing the definition
> > from the architecture document. The text above is circular ("the entity
> > of some ... entity") and conflates an identity with an identifier.
> > 
> > == Section 3.1 ==
> > 
> > Agree with Mirja that this section is superfluous.
> > 
> > == Section 3.3 ==
> > 
> > Since the normative recommendation here isn't to be enforced by the
> > protocol, why is it SHOULD rather than MUST? Same question applies to
> > SEC-REQ-17.
> > 
> > == Section 3.5 ==
> > 
> > Is the omission of normative language from Sec-REQ-20 purposeful?
> 
>