Requirements for Labeled NFS
draft-ietf-nfsv4-labreqs-05

Comments from mehmet during the ops dir review.

** The document lacks an IANA Considerations section.
http://www.ietf.org/id-info/checklist#anchor4 says: “If there is no action for IANA, the section should say that, e.g., including something like "This document has no actions for IANA."
 
== Outdated reference: A later version (-20) exists of draft-ietf-nfsv4-minorversion2-19
 
Mehmet

0) Note RFC 4949 has a definition for MAC that you might refer to.

1) In s3.1, there is a discussion about the security attribute of the subject.  Isn't this more commonly referred to as the client's privileges?  And it might make sense to add this to the Definitions section.

2) s3.1 #4: Ever heard of a SPIF or looked at ISO 15816?  The were attempts to do just that.

3) s4: Reads a little awkward:

  Labeled NFS SHOULD support that the following security services are
  provided for all NFSv4.2 messaging. These services may be provided
   by lower layers even if NFS has to be aware of and leverage them:

maybe:

  Labeled NFS or the underlying system on which the Labeled NFS operates
  SHOULD provide the following security services for all
  NFSv4.2 messaging:

4) s3.2: Could you better define strong mutual authentication - is that certificate-based mutual authentication?  Or is it that MD5-based security shouldn't be used ;)

Also: r/will be required/is required

5) s3.3: Instead of:

  MAC models base access decisions on security attributes bound to
  subjects and objects. 

I would have said:

  MAC models base access decisions on security attributes and privileges
  bound to objects and subjects, respectively. 

6) s3.3: I'd probably add the following to the end of this sentence:

  With a given MAC model, all systems have
  semantically coherent labeling - a security label MUST always mean
  exactly the same thing on every system.

add:

  because otherwise the label cannot be properly interpreted.

7) s3.3: What does the "this" in this sentence refer to the binding of stuff to objects/subjects or to having labels mean the same thing:

  While this may not be
  necessary for simple MAC models it is recommended that most label
  formats assigned an LFS incorporate this concept into their label
  format.

8) (no action required) s3.3: I think you're more likely to get weighed down by corner cases than a global scheme :)

- general: some systems have a requirement that some
labels are visible in clear, whereas others are
encrypted, when passed over the network at least. Is
that a requirement you want to impose/meet here?  Either
way, it might be good to say.

- 3.2: s/Privacy/Confidentiality/ would be better here
and elsewhere.

- 4.3: the term foreign label is not used in 3.3

- 5.3: Whis is a US-specific section included here?
Surely this ought be more international? This section
should really be generalised or deleted.

- 5.4: You could explain what "legal hold" means. I
assume its where someone is suing someone and a court
says "don't you go changing X" - is that right?

The case is well made without cases

     5.3.  International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) . . . . . 12
     5.4.  Legal Hold/eDiscovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Traditionally the IETF stays well away from such areas, are we sure we want to make any comment on them in this text?