Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01.txt: keyring format definition

Petr Spacek <pspacek@redhat.com> Mon, 12 January 2015 15:38 UTC

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Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:37:58 +0100
From: Petr Spacek <pspacek@redhat.com>
Organization: Red Hat
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To: Paul Wouters <paul@nohats.ca>
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Subject: Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01.txt: keyring format definition
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On 12.1.2015 16:06, Paul Wouters wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2015, Petr Spacek wrote:
> 
>> I would like to see a clarification for section:
>>
>> http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01#section-2.1
>> 2.1. The OPENPGPKEY RDATA component
>>   The RDATA (or RHS) of an OPENPGPKEY Resource Record contains a single
>>   value consisting of a [RFC4880] formatted OpenPGP public keyring.
>>
>>
>> I'm struggling with definition of "formatted OpenPGP public keyring". After a
>> quick glance I have found only this:
>>
>> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-3.6
>> 3.6. Keyrings
>>   A keyring is a collection of one or more keys in a file or database.
>>   Traditionally, a keyring is simply a sequential list of keys, but may
>>   be any suitable database.  It is beyond the scope of this standard to
>>   discuss the details of keyrings or other databases.
>>
>> I did not read whole RFC 4880 so it is possible that I have missed some
>> related definitions but IMHO this reference deserves clarification.
>>
>> Where is the actual keyring format defined?
> 
> That's it. You're looking at it. There is not a better reference that
> I'm aware of. I have been looking for it myself as well.

Ooooh, that is bad. I would say too bad for any implementation which wants to
be interoperable.

So, what do we do next? I can see three ways:
1) Write a new RFC to standardize keyring format. Is it worth the effort? I'm
not sure.

2) We could move forward with some simplified single-purpose definition of
keyring based on
- Key Material Packet
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.5
- User ID Packet
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.11

3) Do something in between first two approaches:
It seems that it should be relatively simple to define totally simple
universal keyring simply as sequence of OpenPGP packets defined on:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.5

That definition would allow us to add revocation data in future or possibly
add other extensions. I assume that RFC written today would say: A application
MUST ignore all packet types except A,B,C,D.

Later, when a new packet format is standardized and new tag assigned to it, we
can add this new tag to list of non-ignored tags (and define meaning of it) in
separate RFC.

-- 
Petr^2 Spacek

[dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01.… internet-drafts
Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey… Petr Spacek
Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey… Paul Wouters
Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey… Petr Spacek
Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey… Paul Hoffman