To minimize the work, would folks object if we started
with one profile, such as symmetric key management, in v1 of the
standard?
Larry H
From: Bruce Rich [mailto:]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 2:02 PM
To: Robert
Lockhart
Cc:
Subject: RE: [kmip]
First stab at a conformance profile
Bob,
I like the idea of the 3 profiles that you mention, at
least in the abstract. However, since the devil is in the details, we'd
have to hammer out a consensus on "bare minimum" for these cases.
I like the idea of the profiles being
separate from the spec, but since the spec itself has some language about what
things are required, there would have to be some surgery done to it before
finalizing.
I am fine with NOT
continuing to hammer out a conformance profile for the proof of concept,
although such a beast may serve well as an interop guide for the F2F in
September.
I guess I'm unconvinced
about the utility of client conformance, but perhaps the presentation that you
mentioned below would motivate that in sufficient detail to convince me.
Absent that motivation, it seems like (except in the Server To Client Only
profile) the client only needs to be able to deal with responses to whatever
requests it has made, and thus just a breakout of necessary datatypes per
request/response is needed. The only exceptions to that rule would be if
the server does other than exactly what the client requested.
Bruce A Rich
brich at-sign us dot ibm dot
com
From:
Robert Lockhart
<>
To:
Bruce Rich/Austin/IBM@IBMUS,
"" <>
Date:
07/26/2009 12:57 PM
Subject:
RE: [kmip] First stab at a conformance
profile
After doing a lot of thinking on this I
personally don't see any conformance profiles belonging within the standard
itself. There is no reason we couldn't establish guidelines that are
published as a separate document and referenced by the specification.
This would allow
anyone who wants to use the standard to define a conformance profile without too
many limitations. It also allows them to use KMIP in other standards so
that a basic definition can be in a profile and the detailed usage resides in
their primary document which they may charge for (it is anyones choice whether
or not to use something they have to pay for).
This doesn't mean that we
leave all conformance profiles to external organizations. The way I see it
is we define 2 or 3 basic conformance profiles such as:
1. Symmetric Key Management Profile - bare minimum for
managing symmetric keys
2. Assymetric
Key Management Profile - bare minimum for managing assymetic keys
3. Server to Client Only profile (e.g. as
mentioned before thermostats, utility meters, etc...)
This leaves the standard open enough for anyone that wants
to, to create their own profile and potentially have it posted on the OASIS web
site once approved by the TC or the appropriate subcommittee if created.
My original concept
of the table was just an at a glance table for people who knew basically what
they needed to be able to look at. They could then determine if they
needed to look deeper into the specific requirements of the profile.
Specifics were not meant to be defined in the table. It would get
very ugly very fast as Bruce found out. And no Bruce, whily you may have
personal problems (I don't know of any but I can't speak for anyone else) I
think you were right that the table doesn't suit the overall definition required
in a profile. That is why detailed definition should be listed in the
follow on sections for server & client.
It might be good to have a PoC
Profile which defined what is tested in the PoC but I don't think it is required
unless Bruce or someone else wants to continue to figure out the specific
requirements (see his email below).
Things that could be covered by a profile include:
* Required objects, attributes, operations
and messaging
* Required elements of each
required or optional object, attribute or operation
* Minimum and maximum number of repeatable elements supported
* Transport requirements (including physical
connectivity, protocols, default ports, etc...)
* Authentication mechanism (e.g. certificates, device id & password,
etc...)
* Server mutatable elements of
objects and attributes
The profile should contain all of this information or should
document where this information can be found if in external documents (e.g. IEEE
Std 1619.3-20xx, ASC X9f, etc...).
I would be glad to put together a presentation on
how we could use templates to our benefit and to help ensure that KMIP is widely
accepted. The presentation would also contain information on why each of
the above would be good to include in the profiles and not in the specification
itself.
Also
just because we allow things to be defined in a profile doesn't mean we can not
set minimum requirements for how it is used (e.g. Transport must be secured
using a protocol such as TLS or HTTPS with minimum level of authentication &
security). This would allow KMIP to be used on other transports that have
no concept of HTTPS or TLS but have security built in that meets or exceeds the
minimum requirements we set.
Bob L.
Robert A. (Bob) Lockhart
Senior Solutions Architect
THALES Information Systems
Security
From: Bruce Rich
[]
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2009 7:24 AM
To:
Subject: [kmip] First stab at a conformance
profile
Dear
TC,
I took a
pass at trying to take the Proof-Of-Concept and represent it as a conformance
profile. You should find this in the KMIP document repository as
Conformance_Clause_Proposal_V3_POC_Profile_V1.pdf
I thought I'd be presenting a
simpler profile than the POC profile, but before I propose a simpler profile,
I'd like to see if it's even possible to take the conformance proposal as it
currently stands and see how one would express the POC.
This way, people can see the
conformance implications of something that's at least vaguely familiar before I
venture into something more controversial.
Although you can read the document and see comments
inserted at various spots, the summary is that I found I had several
problems:
1) The
difference between NOT SUPPORTED and OPTIONAL is vague, at least in my head.
I seem to be doing a mental coin toss every time I try to decide which
flavor of (!(REQUIRED)) I want. This may be a personal problem, or might
be a conformance proposal problem. I think it's the latter (but that may
be another symptom of my personal problem :-).
2) The conformance profile is still too
coarse-grained. I think we need visibility into the enumerations on what
types are supported by implementations. For example it's too
coarse-grained to say I support Derive Key or I don't. I could have an
implementation that supported only HASH-derived keys, and not the other types of
key derivation. The conformance profile should allow this kind of
expressiveness.
3) I
really don't understand the client conformance column. If the client
doesn't make requests of particular types, then it is not going to have to
handle the responses that deal with those particular types. It almost
seems that the client column is a requester library and not an actor in the
scenario.
Bruce
A Rich
brich at-sign us dot ibm dot com
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