Hi Julien, thanks for your reply, much appreciated. Coments inline below...
On May 20, 10:18 pm, Julien R Pierre - Sun Microsystems <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Rainer, > > my apologies for not reading through all the docs. I have a hopefully > > quick question and would like some short feedback before I go down > > into all the specifics. I am working on the implementation of an > > upcoming TLS protected syslog standard. I currently implement with > > GnuTLS, but I have a driver layer which supports any stream-oriented > > transport and NSS is on my TODO list as the next task when I finished > > GnutTLS (I opted to start with GnuTLS because it has a smoother > > learning curve for a project interested in TLS only, as discussed in > > this group some time ago). This work is part of rsyslog, a GPLed > > syslogd (http://www.rsyslog.com). > > > My question is about authentication. I would like to authenticate > > remote peers via custom authentication layed out in the standard. This > > is fingerprint-based, very similar to SSHs leap of faith auth. I would > > like to do this inside the TLS handshake, to be precisely after I > > received the remote peer's Certificate but before the Finished message > > is sent back. I am looking for something like a callback that calls me > > at this point and permits me to do a binary permitted/not permitted > > decision on the remote peer. This callback code must be able to > > examine the remote certificate. > > > Please note that I am specifically asking for a callback inside the > > handshake. For technical reasons inside syslog, I would ideally need > > to authenticate the peer during the handshake procedure, NOT after it > > has completed. > > > Is there any such functionality in NSS? If so, would it possible to > > point me to the relevant part of the documentation? > > > All feedback is deeply appreciated. > > Right now there is no such callback available in NSS' lbissl to do what > you want. > > Why do you want to use non-standard authentication ? SSL/TLS client > authentication is already available and standard. The simple answer is because the upcoming standard requires it: http://ietfreport.isoc.org/all-ids/draft-ietf-syslog-transport-tls-12.txt The more elaborate answer can be found in this post: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/syslog/current/msg01896.html To sum it up, fingerprints are used because the cost of PKI is considered too high for many use cases with syslog. To make matters worse, I may even have problems with standard authentication. Let me ask a question first: when we use standard, certificate based authentication (remote peer name in dNSName subject alt name), is it possible for my application to authorize this peer before the TLS handshake completes? Or must I wait until the handshake is completed and can then examine the certificate. Thanks, Rainer _______________________________________________ dev-tech-crypto mailing list dev-tech-crypto@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-tech-crypto
