Re: [pkix] Amendment to CABF Baseline Requirements

[Michael StJohns <[e-mail]>]

Hi Ben -

IETF 5280 et al are profiles of the X.509 documents.  The upper length 
bounds for orgnaizationName and commonName fields in 5280 is no 
different than the upper bounds specified in X.509 (at least as of the 
2014 document).  I would suggest that you will pretty much break any and 
all implementations of X.509 clients that rely or enforce this limit as 
well as any code that generates certificate requests.

I will note that overloading text fields with structured data is 
generally not a good idea - as you've found.

Mike



On 4/6/2017 12:24 PM, Ben Wilson wrote:
>
> Does anyone want to comment on my draft amendment to the CA/Browser 
> Forum’s Baseline Requirements for SSL/TLS Certificates which would 
> remove the 64-character limit on the commonName and organizationName,  
> as an exception to RFC 5280?  The text of the relevant Baseline 
> Requirement provision is found below with the proposed additional 
> language in ALL CAPS.  The reason for the first change (commonName) is 
> there are FQDNs (in Subject Alternative Names) that are longer than 64 
> characters.  The reason for the second change (organizationName) is 
> that there are organizations with names longer than 64 characters.
>
> 7.1.4.2.2.             Subject Distinguished Name Fields
>
> a.            Certificate Field: subject:commonName (OID 2.5.4.3)
>
> Required/Optional: Deprecated (Discouraged, but not prohibited)
>
> Contents: If present, this field MUST contain a single IP address or 
> Fully-Qualified Domain Name that is one of the values contained in the 
> Certificate’s subjectAltName extension (see Section 7.1.4.2.1).
>
> MAXIMUM LENGTH:  NO STIPULATION.  (THIS IS AN EXCEPTION TO RFC 5280 
> WHICH SPECIFIES AN UPPER BOUND OF 64 CHARACTERS.)
>
> b.            Certificate Field: subject:organizationName (OID 2.5.4.10)
>
> Optional.
>
> Contents: If present, the subject:organizationName field MUST contain 
> either the Subject’s name or DBA as verified under Section 3.2.2.2. 
> The CA may include information in this field that differs slightly 
> from the verified name, such as common variations or abbreviations, 
> provided that the CA documents the difference and any abbreviations 
> used are locally accepted abbreviations; e.g., if the official record 
> shows “Company Name Incorporated”, the CA MAY use “Company Name Inc.” 
> or “Company Name”.  Because Subject name attributes for individuals 
> (e.g. givenName (2.5.4.42) and surname (2.5.4.4)) are not broadly 
> supported by application software, the CA MAY use the 
> subject:organizationName field to convey a natural person Subject’s 
> name or DBA.
>
> MAXIMUM LENGTH:  256 CHARACTERS (THIS IS AN EXCEPTION TO RFC 5280 
> WHICH SPECIFIES AN UPPER BOUND OF 64 CHARACTERS.)
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ben Wilson
>
>
>
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