I realise that this thread has moved on to a question of what RFC4985 means (and I agree with the conclusions) but I thought that this post was about to raise a quite different point, that may still need clarifying. see inline Tom Petch ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bernard Aboba" <bernard_aboba@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <ietf@xxxxxxxx>; <stefan@xxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 2:38 AM I reviewed draft-saintandre-tls-server-id-check. In a number of instances, this document is vague on the verification of an SRV-ID, and in one instance, it appears to contradict RFC 4985, even though it does not update that document. Section 2.1 states: o An SRV-ID can be either direct (provided by a user) or more typically indirect (resolved by a client) and is restricted (can be used for only a single application). This is consistent with RFC 4985 Section 2.1 which states: The SRVName, if present, MUST contain a service name and a domain name in the following form: _Service.Name Yet, Section 5.1 states: When the connecting application is an interactive client, the source domain name and service type MUST be provided by a human user (e.g. when specifying the server portion of the user's account name on the server or when explicitly configuring the client to connect to a particular host or URI as in [SIP-LOC]) and MUST NOT be derived from the user inputs in an automated fashion (e.g., a host name or domain name discovered through DNS resolution of the source domain). This rule is important because only a match between the user inputs (in the form of a reference identifier) and a presented identifier enables the client to be sure that the certificate can legitimately be used to secure the connection. However, an interactive client MAY provide a configuration setting that enables a human user to explicitly specify a particular host name or domain name (called a "target domain") to be checked for connection purposes. [BA] As I understand RFC 4985, the SRV-ID provided in the target certificate is to be matched against components (service name and domain name) of the SRV RR obtained via lookup within the source domain. As a result, I don't believe that RFC 4985 is consistent with this advice (e.g. the reference identifier is not matched against the SRV-ID). [TP] what I thought was about to be raised here was a contradiction that RFC4985 is all about information gotten from a DNS retrieval whereas the wording of s5.1 in this I-D "the source domain name and service type ... MUST NOT be derived from the user inputs in an automated fashion (e.g., ... discovered through DNS resolution ... " would appear to exclude DNS resolution. If DNS resolution is off limits, then RFC4985 would appear not to apply. Does s5.1 of the I-D mean what it appears to say? Tom Petch Section 4.1 is not as clear as it could be on this point, given that it talks about both matching of the source domain and the target domain: 4. When checking a reference identifier against a presented identifier, the client (a) MUST match the source domain (or, in some cases, target domain) of the identifiers and (b) MAY also match the service type of the identifiers. Implementation Note: Naturally, in addition to checking identifiers, a client might complete further checks to ensure that the server is authorized to provide the requested service. However, such checking is not a matter of verifying the application service identity presented in a certificate, and therefore methods for doing so (e.g., consulting local policy information) are out of scope for this document. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf