[secdir] secdir review of draft-ietf-lmap-information-model-17

[Leif Johansson <[e-mail]>]

Reviewer: Leif Johansson
Review result: Has issues

I have reviewed this document as part of the security directorate's
ongoing effort to review all IETF documents being processed by the
IESG.  These comments were written primarily for the benefit of the
security area directors.  Document editors and WG chairs should treat
these comments just like any other last call comments.

Review:

Section 3.8 begins "A Channel defines a bi-directional communication
channel". First of all it is probably a good idea avoid using the
term you're defining in the definition.

Also in the text a Channel is described as a URL with the cert or CA
of the endpoint but in the channel object definition there is only a
reference to the credentials which I understood to be the client authn
credential and not the server identity.

This leads me to a larger issue (which may be answered in another LMAP
document for all I know): what is the authentication model for LMAP?
Specifically, does LMAP assume the standard Web PKI for channel end-
points? If not, then you probably need to specify how to validate the
server cert which may lead you to want to represent a private CA (say)
in the channel object. In any case the authentication model should be
referenced from the Security Considerations section and clearly match
the information model for channels.

	Cheers Leif