[Babel-users] key rotation take #2

[Toke Høiland-Jørgensen]

Dave Taht <dave.taht at gmail.com> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 12:23 PM Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke at toke.dk> wrote:
>>
>> Dave Taht <dave at taht.net> writes:
>>
>> > Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <toke at toke.dk> writes:
>> >
>> >> Dave Taht <dave at taht.net> writes:
>> >>
>> >>> so we invent a new keyword "serial".
>> >>
>> >> So what you're trying to express here is the notion of a "receive-only"
>> >> key that is not used for signing outgoing packets, right?
>> >
>> >
>> > No... the old key is retired from active use in the protocol after
>> > concensus is achieved on the new key by the protocol, and not used
>> > again unless a router comes up with an unreadable hmac. In that case
>> > we go back to at least trying to verify (periodically?) that it's not
>> > using the old key (if we still have it around) and if it's using the
>> > old key, we go back to signing stuff with that key.
>> >
>> > Does that concept need to be in the protocol spec?
>>
>> This reads to me like a specific operational procedure for deployment;
>> don't think that should go into the spec, no.
>>
>> >> it would be better to express that explicitly as a property of the key
>> >> config that can be changed on a per-key basis. For one thing, 'serial'
>> >> is misleading as it sounds like something that affects the wire
>> >> format,
>> >
>> > OK. how about "new" and "old" as keywords? That implies two states and
>> > two states only. I liked 0 and X as numbers, so long as the ascending
>> > property is maintained. As for why not 0 and 1, see below.
>> >
>> > Totally open to bikeshedding the name. :) babeltowerno?
>>
>> Don't care what they are called. My point is just that it's a property
>> of a particular key.
>>
>> Bird already has this, BTW: each key can be set to "generate" signatures
>> and "accept" signatures, where the former puts them on the wire, and the
>> latter will accept packets signed with that key. You can set time ranges
>> for each or both. See
>> https://bird.network.cz/?get_doc&v=20&f=bird-3.html (search for
>> "password option"). The Babel HMAC implementation inherits this.
>
> That is essentially my first proposal... in bird syntax. :) Aside from
> needing good time, there are really good reasons to stage key
> rotations that way....
>
> while the odds are much better that a boot/bootstrapping bird router
> has a working rtc, your typical home router doesn't.

No, but you can use the mechanism without the timeouts to mark keys as
active/passive using whatever provisioning system you are using to
distribute the keys (just use "{generate,accept} from 1970-01-01").

-Toke