Re: slot attributes & last call

Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> Thu, 18 December 2014 00:07 UTC

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Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 18:07:42 -0600
From: Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
To: Jaroslav Imrich <jaroslav.imrich@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: slot attributes & last call
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Cc: Darren J Moffat <Darren.Moffat@oracle.com>, Stef Walter <stef@thewalter.net>, ietf@ietf.org, saag@ietf.org, Jan Pechanec <Jan.Pechanec@oracle.com>, Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos <n.mavrogiannopoulos@gmail.com>
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On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 12:57:16AM +0100, Jaroslav Imrich wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 12:01 AM, Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
> wrote:
> > If the provider includes access to slots/token types like: software
> > tokens, TPMs, and removable user tokens, and if any of the tokens
> > require login even to be able to list public objects[*], then picking a
> > slot and token carefully becomes critical to providing a user-friendly
> > experience, and even to avoiding accidental token lockout (which would
> > be really user-unfriendly).
> >
> > [*] I know, that would be rather surprising behavior, but there's at
> >     least one such non-removable token in use, as I recall.
> 
> OK but I still don't understand the role of slot-id attribute here. Could
> you please be more specific about the use case?
> 
> Are you trying to say there exists PKCS#11 implementation that always
> presents i.e. TPM as slot 0, OS wide software token as slot 1 and whatever
> removable token you can connect as slot 2? And that you need to access that

Yes.

> removable token and you cannot use slot-description, slot-manufacturer and
> neither of token attributes? So the only option left is: pkcs11:slot-id=2
> ???

I think so.  This is really for Jan to answer.  Maybe the Solaris
libpkcs11 should just ensure a meaningful (stable and distinct) slot
label.  If that could be done then slot-id could be excluded here.

Jan?

> > I agree that slot IDs are not reliable in general.  But specific
> > PKCS#11 provider libraries can arrange for them to be reliable.
> 
> Well exactly the same thing can be said about object IDs (i.e. signature
> key is always presented with objectId 1, encryption key with objectId 2)
> and yet they are not present in the I-D.

Yes, and it should be said (or object ID attribute not included).

Nico
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