Subject: [Trans] Errata for RFC6962 - precertificates_chain

From: Eran Messeri <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2015 15:06:09 +0000

I'm proposing that the reported errata for RFC6962 (here
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/errata_search.php?rfc=6962>) would be accepted.
The new text:

   "precertificate_chain" is a chain of additional certificates required
   to verify the Precertificate submission.  The first certificate MAY
   be a valid Precertificate Signing Certificate and MUST certify the
   *Precertificate*.  Each following certificate MUST directly certify
   the one preceding it.  The final certificate MUST be a root
   certificate accepted by the log.

Has 'precertificate' in it rather than 'first certificate' as the first
certificate in the precertificate_chain should certify the submitted
precertificate, not any other certificate.

Any questions, let me know.
Eran

---

From: Stephen Kent <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2015 11:58:15 -0500

Eran,

I don't understand the 2nd sentence below. If the first cert is
a pre-cert, then it does not "certify" a pre-cert. Did you mean to say 
something like:

"The first certificate in the chain MAY be a Precertificate. If it is a 
Precertificate,
then it MUST be used to validate the signature on the submission. If the 
first certificate
is not a  Precertificate, then that certificate MUST be used to validate 
the Precertificate
being submitted."

also, the original text required the last cert to be a root known by the 
log,
or a cert that is (transitively) issued under a root known to the log. 
The new
text changes this require that the last cert in the chain be a root. 
This goes
beyond what the errata reported as an issue. Is that intentional? if so, 
then this
is a change to the spec and probably does not qualify as just an errata.

Steve

> Has 'precertificate' in it rather than 'first certificate' as the 
> first certificate in the precertificate_chain should certify the 
> submitted precertificate, not any other certificate.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Trans mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans

---

From: Eran Messeri <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2015 17:14:32 +0000

> is not a  Precertificate, then that certificate MUST be used to validate
Conceptually you're right - this errata applies particularly to the
"precertificate_chain" field of the PrecertChainEntry structure which has
the actual Precertificate in a separate field (pre_certificate), not in the
precertificate_chain field - so none of the items in the
precertificate_chain field may be a precertificate - they should all be
certificates, with the first one certifying the Precertificate in the
pre_certificate field, then each element certifying its predecessor in the
precertificate_chain field.

> or a cert that is (transitively) issued under a root known to the log. The
> new
> text changes this require that the last cert in the chain be a root. This
> goes
Good catch - when looking into that I found a confusing difference between
the end of section 3.1 and the parameters to add-pre-chain detailed in
section 4.2.. In section 4.2. the last element in the 'chain' argument is
required to be the root certificate or a certificate that chains directly
to a known root. However in section 3.1. the precertificate_chain field
must contain all certificates including the root certificate.
My interpretation is that logs, when creating and logging the
PrecertChainEntry object must ensure that the last element in the
 precertificate_chain field is the root certificate and add it if necessary.

> Trans mailing [email-masked]://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/trans
>
>
>