Re: [TLS] DTLS HelloVerifyRequest.server_version

Hi again,

I'm sorry to insist (cc-ing authors of RFC 6347) but unless these statements are
clarified, as an implementer I'll have to just pick whatever behaviour looks
most reasonable to me, a situation that standards are supposed to avoid.

Manuel.

On 21/07/2014 19:17, Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Sorry if I'm just being dense and fail to understand something very
> obvious, but I have trouble understanding how the server_version field
> of HelloVerifyRequest should be handled, according to section 4.2.1 of
> RFC 6347.
> 
> More precisely, I'm under the impression that the last paragraph of page
> 15 and the first of page 16 contain contradictory statements:
> 
>                       DTLS 1.2 server implementations SHOULD use DTLS
>    version 1.0 regardless of the version of TLS that is expected to be
>    negotiated.
> 
>                                           The server MUST use the same
>    version number in the HelloVerifyRequest that it would use when
>    sending a ServerHello.
> 
> It seems to me that if a server obeys the MUST of the second sentence,
> it cannot obey the SHOULD of the first one (unless of course it never
> negotiates DTLS 1.2, which I assume is not the intention of the RFC).
> 
>                 DTLS 1.2 and 1.0 clients MUST use the version solely to
>    indicate packet formatting (which is the same in both DTLS 1.2 and
>    1.0) and not as part of version negotiation.  In particular, DTLS 1.2
>    clients MUST NOT assume that because the server uses version 1.0 in
>    the HelloVerifyRequest that the server is not DTLS 1.2 or that it
>    will eventually negotiate DTLS 1.0 rather than DTLS 1.2.
> 
>                            Upon receipt of the ServerHello, the client
>    MUST verify that the server version values match.
> 
> It seems to me that verifying the server version values match (between
> HelloVerifyRequest and ServerHello) is actually using the version for
> another goal that "to indicate packet formatting", something that seems
> to be forbidden.
> 
> Am I misinterpreting the text?
> 
> Thanks,
> Manuel
> 
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