Re: [TLS] Length of a variable-length vector: Could it be an odd multiple?

["Hodges, Jeff" <[e-mail]>]

On 1/20/16, 11:01 AM, "Benjamin Kaduk" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>On 01/20/2016 12:47 PM, Hodges, Jeff wrote:
>> On 1/13/16, 12:53 PM, "Benjamin Kaduk" <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>> On 01/13/2016 02:44 PM, Jong-Shian Wu wrote:
>>>> I have a question about the even-vs-odd restrictions on the length of
>>>> a valid variable-length vector defined in TLS specification after
>>>> reading the section 4.3 of RFC 5246 [1] which states that:
>>>> "The length of an encoded vector must be an even multiple of the
>>>>length
>>>> of a single element (for example, a 17-byte vector of uint16 would be
>>>> illegal)."
>>>>
>>> It means "whole-number" as opposed to fractional, i.e., there should
>>>not
>>> be unused "junk bytes" at the end.
>> In case it's helpful, here's a suggested re-write of that quoted
>>sentence
>> above..
>>
>>   The length of an encoded variable-length vector must be an
>>   exact multiple of the length of a single element. For example,
>>   an encoded 17-byte vector of uint16 would be illegal, and an
>>   encoded variable-length vector of four 32 byte elements,
>>   having a ceiling of 2^16-1, will be 130 bytes long overall
>>   (2 byte length field followed by 128 bytes of data).
>
>Wouldn't the ceiling more properly be 2^16-4 in that case?

hm, I'm not sure -- what would be the rationale?  The exact multiple
criteria?  but 2^16 / 32 = 2048

i do have further questions regarding variable-length vectors, and how
they are specified, that subsequent discussion will hopefully tease out.

thanks, 

=JeffH