From 97cfe5fe573cebfb1a98079e9d130c83755bb210 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Phil Pennock Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2018 12:24:26 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] doc: DANE: don't claim TA can be elided from chain While technically an implementation can choose to use a public TA from DNS or elsewhere to populate a missing TA from the chain, that creates interoperability issues and the OpenSSL integration code, at least, doesn't support that and after a bit of work drilling through layers of abstraction, I've not figured out what GnuTLS does and I've decided I don't care. So I'm heeding Viktor's advice and changing the docs to just say to publish the TA in the chain sent by the server. --- doc/doc-docbook/spec.xfpt | 33 ++++++++++++++++++++------------- 1 file changed, 20 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/doc-docbook/spec.xfpt b/doc/doc-docbook/spec.xfpt index 52a26591a..8bfd7c591 100644 --- a/doc/doc-docbook/spec.xfpt +++ b/doc/doc-docbook/spec.xfpt @@ -28164,22 +28164,29 @@ Support for client-side operation of DANE can be included at compile time by def in &_Local/Makefile_&. If it has been included, the macro "_HAVE_DANE" will be defined. -The TLSA record for the server may have "certificate usage" of DANE-TA(2) or DANE-EE(3). The latter specifies -the End Entity directly, i.e. the certificate involved is that of the server (and should be the sole one transmitted -during the TLS handshake); this is appropriate for a single system, using a self-signed certificate. +The TLSA record for the server may have "certificate usage" of DANE-TA(2) or DANE-EE(3). +These are the "Trust Anchor" and "End Entity" variants. +The latter specifies the End Entity directly, i.e. the certificate involved is that of the server +(and if only DANE-EE is used then it should be the sole one transmitted during the TLS handshake); +this is appropriate for a single system, using a self-signed certificate. DANE-TA usage is effectively declaring a specific CA to be used; this might be a private CA or a public, -well-known one. A private CA at simplest is just a self-signed certificate which is used to sign -cerver certificates, but running one securely does require careful arrangement. If a private CA is used -then either all clients must be primed with it, or (probably simpler) the server TLS handshake must transmit -the entire certificate chain from CA to server-certificate. If a public CA is used then all clients must be primed with it -(losing one advantage of DANE) - but the attack surface is reduced from all public CAs to that single CA. +well-known one. +A private CA at simplest is just a self-signed certificate (with certain +attributes) which is used to sign cerver certificates, but running one securely +does require careful arrangement. +With DANE-TA, as implemented in Exim and commonly in other MTAs, +the server TLS handshake must transmit the entire certificate chain from CA to server-certificate. DANE-TA is commonly used for several services and/or servers, each having a TLSA query-domain CNAME record, all of which point to a single TLSA record. - -Another approach which should be seriously considered is to use DANE with a certificate -from a public CA, because of another technology, "MTA-STS", described below. +DANE-TA and DANE-EE can both be used together. .new +Our recommendation is to use DANE with a certificate from a public CA, +because this enables a variety of strategies for remote clients to verify +your certificate. +You can then publish information both via DANE and another technology, +"MTA-STS", described below. + When you use DANE-TA to publish trust anchor information, you ask entities outside your administrative control to trust the Certificate Authority for connections to you. @@ -28308,8 +28315,8 @@ MTA-STS to let those clients who do use that protocol derive trust information. The MTA-STS design requires a certificate from a public Certificate Authority -which is recognized by clients sending to you. That selection is outside your -control. +which is recognized by clients sending to you. +That selection of which CAs are trusted by others is outside your control. The most interoperable course of action is probably to use &url(https://letsencrypt.org/,Let's Encrypt), with automated certificate -- 2.30.2