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author | Job Snijders <job@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2024-12-18 16:38:41 +0000 |
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committer | Job Snijders <job@cvs.openbsd.org> | 2024-12-18 16:38:41 +0000 |
commit | ea4774bc291ab58ee3d66cf39808fcc589b2304d (patch) | |
tree | c3c1993d6a921aab0a7ba49aa7a059969b22bc07 /lib/libc/net | |
parent | 341d201dd4dd3b785f8f27ca632f5218927b6993 (diff) |
The RPKI ecosystem suffers from a partially unmitigated risk related to
long-lived Trust Anchor certificate issuances.
Issues could arise when a on-path attackers (or, operational errors such
as restoring a super old backup of a webserver) bring back into
circulation old (but still valid) TA certificate. Older certificates
remain valid for the duration of their validity period, because TA
certificates - being top of the chain - cannot be revoked.
Real world examples of old potential replayable certificates that today
still would pass validation are here:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/sidrops/NxzvSFH0sPXEmyfOS99cLApFKqM/
The trouble with these replayable TA certificates is that when an
on-path entity ends up presenting such an outdated-but-still-valid
certificate to the RP, accepting such a cert will damage the RP's local
validated cache. Parts of the validated output will disappear, in an
unpredictably manner.
Periodic reissuance of TA certs is important because TA certificates are
not entirely static, which of course is why replay might even be an issue
in the first place!. There are 3 'dynamic' fields in TA certificates:
- the validity period (notBefore, notAfter)
- the SubjectInfoAccess (where can the RP find the first repository?)
- the extensions for IP addresses & AS identifiers (RFC 3779 INRs)
(the RFC 3779 extensions are of critical importance to the
RPKI's chain validation algorithm)
RIRs will want RPs to validate using the 'latest' issuance of the TA
certificate, because a TA cert from 10 years ago obviously will be 10
years behind on operational decisions, potential SIA migrations,
resource transfers, new IANA assignments, or any other updates to the
RIR's current holdings.
How to repair this situation?
The plan to overcome this risk has three steps:
step 1) RPs to prefer shorter-lived Trust Anchor certificates over
longer-lived ones. (rpki-client already implemented this)
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-sidrops-rpki-ta-tiebreaker
step 2) RPs ship with scheduled future refusal of ultra long-lived Trust
Anchor certificates (that's the below diff).
step 3) Consequently, RIRs have to reissue shorter-lived TA certificates
to avoid being rejected by RPs.
The end result is that after anno 2026 / 2027, if 100 year or 10 year
certs somehow be brought back into circulation, RPs will simply refuse
such long-lived certs, despite them technically being 'valid'.
Why this works:
The ta-tiebreaker mechanism provides an incentive for TA operators to
reissue with reasonable (1 or 2 year) validity periods, as those certs
will be preferred. In turn, RPs scheduling refusal of long-lived certs
at a predetermined future point in time, relieves TA operators from
worrying about previously issued certs with ultra long lifetimes. It is
a win win for everyone in the ecosystem.
Scheduling details:
- February 2nd 2026 for phase 1, because 02-02-2026 is an unambiguous
date both in the US and elsewhere.
- March 3rd 2027 for phase 2, because 03-03-2027 also is unambiguous and
visually is very distinct from the phase 1 date.
The hope is that with this schedule global coordination less will be less
error-prone, and everyone should get adequate preparation time.
Discussed with various RIRs
with & OK tb@
Diffstat (limited to 'lib/libc/net')
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