Re: [tcpinc] Quick review of draft-rescorla-tcpinc-tls-option-04

[David Mazieres <[e-mail]>]

Eric Rescorla <[e-mail]> writes:

> I don't think this follows at all. The charter doesn't say anything
> about kernel implementations. It says "The protocol must be usable by
> unmodified applications"...

> Another concrete scenario (which is attractive for a TLS
> implementation) is to use a minimal kernel component (or a divert
> socket) to do the ENO options with a modified libc to actually do the
> TLS negotiation and data handling.  This would also provide
> system-wide support but would not be in the kernel.  I don't see
> anything in the charter which prohibits this.

The libc implementation won't work with unmodified applications, because
it will break when sharing/passing/inheriting file descriptors across
processes, a common pattern for Unix servers.

It will probably be best to take a two-pronged strategy, where a
rock-solid user-level daemon implementation gets us deployment in places
where people want to secure network storage protocols, database
connections, etc.  But then that adoption creates pressure to upstream
the kernel implementation.  My experience from tcpcrypt is that cloud
providers are interested in the functionality but very skittish about
any kernel mods.

David