Re: [nfsv4] Sending a stronger message in rpc-tls

[Chuck Lever <[e-mail]>]

> On Apr 5, 2020, at 12:54 PM, David Noveck <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 10:38 AM Chuck Lever <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Apr 4, 2020, at 9:40 AM, David Noveck <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
> > 
> > One possibility to consider is replacing the penultimate paragraph of the Introduction by the following two paragraphs.
> > 
> > The current document assumes policies in line with [RFC7435]
> > in order to enable RPC-on-TLS to be deployed opportunistically in
> > environments that contain RPC implementations that do not support 
> > TLS.  Specifications for RPC-based upper-layer protocols will often
> > choose to require stricter policies in order to guarantee that encryption 
> > or host authentication is in use on every connection.   
> > 
> > Imposition of such stricter policies is of particular importance with regard to 
> > protocols for which the within-protocol  security infrastrucure is weak, 
> > allowing common deployments without encryption of request and response 
> > data or providing attackers the opportunity to easily obtain server execution 
> > of substantively unauthenticated requests, with authentication presumptively
> > provided by the clients (e.g. using AUTH_SYS), which themselves have not 
> > been authenticated.
> 
> Forgive me, Dave. You removed the context, so I'm not certain which of
> Magnus' comments you're responding to. Can you clarify?
> 
> --
> Chuck Lever
> 
> Hope so.
> 
> I was referring back to the following text from one of Magnus's followup message sent Apr 1.
> 
>  > > The mechanism is clearly opportunistic in its establishment, however the
> > > goal here needs to be to get support in as many places is as possible.
> >
> > Yes.
> >
> > > Thus, sending a clearer signal that NFS 4.x servers and client are expected
> > > to support this should be sent.
> >
> > I think we can figure out how to send a clearer signal.
> 
> I guess I mixed up "stronger" and "clearer" but I think my proposed text does send a clearer signal.

As part of addressing the recent AD review of rpc-tls, I've merged your proposed text into the
Introduction, and updated Section 7.1 to make a stronger statement about the enforcement of
the use of TLS authentication and encryption.

A diff of a working copy of this document with the -06 revision highlights these changes:

https://tools.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url1=https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpc-tls.txt&url2=https://chucklever.github.io/i-d-rpc-tls/draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpc-tls.txt

As mentioned in another thread, there's more work pending on this document, but please do have
a look and send your comments. Thank you!


--
Chuck Lever