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Updated Transport Layer Security (TLS) Server Identity Check Procedure for Email-Related Protocols
draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-09

Revision differences

Document history

Date Rev. By Action
2016-03-24
09 (System) RFC Editor state changed to AUTH48-DONE from AUTH48
2016-03-14
09 (System) RFC Editor state changed to AUTH48 from RFC-EDITOR
2016-03-07
09 (System) RFC Editor state changed to RFC-EDITOR from EDIT
2016-02-22
09 Jean Mahoney Closed request for Telechat review by GENART with state 'No Response'
2016-01-25
09 (System) RFC Editor state changed to EDIT
2016-01-25
09 (System) IESG state changed to RFC Ed Queue from Approved-announcement sent
2016-01-25
09 (System) Announcement was received by RFC Editor
2016-01-25
09 (System) IANA Action state changed to No IC
2016-01-25
09 Amy Vezza IESG state changed to Approved-announcement sent from Approved-announcement to be sent::Point Raised - writeup needed
2016-01-25
09 Amy Vezza IESG has approved the document
2016-01-25
09 Amy Vezza Closed "Approve" ballot
2016-01-25
09 Amy Vezza Ballot approval text was generated
2016-01-25
09 Amy Vezza Ballot writeup was changed
2016-01-22
09 Stephen Farrell Ballot writeup was changed
2015-12-29
09 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-09.txt
2015-12-22
08 Gunter Van de Velde Request for Last Call review by OPSDIR Completed: Has Nits. Reviewer: Bert Wijnen.
2015-12-17
08 Cindy Morgan IESG state changed to Approved-announcement to be sent::Point Raised - writeup needed from IESG Evaluation
2015-12-17
08 Kathleen Moriarty [Ballot Position Update] New position, Yes, has been recorded for Kathleen Moriarty
2015-12-17
08 Alvaro Retana
[Ballot comment]
Maybe it's just me..

This document starts very specifically saying what it's updating/replacing, but then I didn't find references in the text that …
[Ballot comment]
Maybe it's just me..

This document starts very specifically saying what it's updating/replacing, but then I didn't find references in the text that said things like "this section replaces..." -- this made it hard to clearly figure out the changes.
2015-12-17
08 Alvaro Retana [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Alvaro Retana
2015-12-17
08 Alexey Melnikov IANA Review state changed to Version Changed - Review Needed from IANA OK - No Actions Needed
2015-12-17
08 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-08.txt
2015-12-17
07 Spencer Dawkins [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Spencer Dawkins
2015-12-17
07 Jari Arkko [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Jari Arkko
2015-12-17
07 Brian Haberman [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Brian Haberman
2015-12-16
07 Deborah Brungard [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Deborah Brungard
2015-12-16
07 Alia Atlas [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Alia Atlas
2015-12-16
07 Ben Campbell
[Ballot comment]
- section 3, first paragraph:
MiTM prevention is just one of many reasons to match the reference identifier, right?

-5.1:
It might be …
[Ballot comment]
- section 3, first paragraph:
MiTM prevention is just one of many reasons to match the reference identifier, right?

-5.1:
It might be worth mentioning that the methods in this draft require the provider to manage private keys for the tenant domains.

- Informative References:
Please consider whether 2595, 5234, and 6066 should be normative references.

Editorial and Nits:
-2, Reference Identifier:
I agree with Barry's comments. Additionally, do you need the 2119 MUST in the definition? It seems like that belongs in the related requirements/procedures section.

-4.1: This section needs more proofreading\. Here's some things I found, but I may have missed stuff.
-- "manual confirm exception" -> "manually confirm exceptions"
-- "because TLS server certificate verification" - Missing "the" before TLS
-- "failure to match TLS server certificate against the expected domains" - missing "the" before TLS. Should "domains" be singular?
-- "for example.org domain" - missing "the" before "example.org"
-- "this solution depends reliance of DNSSEC " - I don't understand the phrase
-- "The ability of issuing certificates that contain SRV-ID implies..." - I don't understand the phrase.

- 5: Lots of sentence fragments in the numbered list items. That's not necessarily wrong, but mixing them up like this makes it harder to read. (At least for me.)
2015-12-16
07 Ben Campbell [Ballot Position Update] New position, Yes, has been recorded for Ben Campbell
2015-12-16
07 Benoît Claise
[Ballot comment]
Bert Wijnen's OPS DIR review, on which Alexey promised to act:
> Hi I did the OPS-Directorate review fordraft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-07
>
> In general, …
[Ballot comment]
Bert Wijnen's OPS DIR review, on which Alexey promised to act:
> Hi I did the OPS-Directorate review fordraft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-07
>
> In general, I think this document is more or less ready to be published.
>
> I do believe that section 5 does touch on a number of operational
> aspects (and specifically about scaling). The title of that section
> however is:
>    Compliance Checklist for Mail Service Providers and Certificate
>    Signing Request generation tools
> So it may not immediately attract attention from operators so that
> they can see operational aspects. Maybe that could be pointed out
> somewhere in the document.
>
> Section 5 also states that this document and its predecessors
> "don't address scaling issues caused by use of TLS in multi-tenanted
> environments." And it states that further work is needed in that space.
> That is another operational aspect that may need to be pointed out
> specifically to operators.
>
> So maybe these 2 points can be highlighted in a saparate small sectoin
> titled "Operational Considerations".
> Just thinking aloud here. The point s have been made, but such a small
> section qould quickly point operators to the proper places for info.

Sounds like a good idea, I will add.
2015-12-16
07 Benoît Claise [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Benoit Claise
2015-12-16
07 Barry Leiba [Ballot Position Update] Position for Barry Leiba has been changed to Yes from Discuss
2015-12-15
07 Joel Jaeggli [Ballot comment]
Bert Wijnen performed the opsdir review.
2015-12-15
07 Joel Jaeggli [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Joel Jaeggli
2015-12-15
07 Terry Manderson [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Terry Manderson
2015-12-15
07 Barry Leiba
[Ballot discuss]
A small question before I go to "Yes":

RFC 2595 Section 2.4 says:

  - Matching is case-insensitive.

This document does not.  Was …
[Ballot discuss]
A small question before I go to "Yes":

RFC 2595 Section 2.4 says:

  - Matching is case-insensitive.

This document does not.  Was that dropped intentionally?
2015-12-15
07 Barry Leiba
[Ballot comment]
In the Introduction, you say that ths document replaces Section 2.4 of RFC 2595.  It appears that it's specifically Section 3 that …
[Ballot comment]
In the Introduction, you say that ths document replaces Section 2.4 of RFC 2595.  It appears that it's specifically Section 3 that replaces that section.  Maybe it's best to say that?

-- Section 2 --

  reference identifier:  (as defined in [RFC6125]) One of the domain
      names associated by the email (i.e., an SMTP, IMAP, POP3 or
      ManageSieve) client with the target email server and optionally an
      application service type for performing name checks on the server
      certificate.

1. You refer to the definition in 6125 as though you're repeating it here, but you're not: you're giving a different definition.  Maybe if you said "formally defined in RFC 6125" instead, it'd be clearer that this explanation is applying that formal definition to this specific situation (email).

2. It's usually bad to put a parenthesized explanation in the middle of a unit, and "email client" is a unit here.  (And, as almost always, I think "i.e." is unnecessary and further distracting.)

3. The sentence is long and awkward, saying "associated by... with... and optionally...," and it's easy to get lost.

Here's a suggestion:
NEW
  reference identifier:  (formally defined in [RFC6125]) One of the
      domain names that the email client (SMTP, IMAP, POP3 or ManageSieve)
      associates with the target email server.  The identifier can also
      include an application service type for performing name checks on
      the server certificate.
END
2015-12-15
07 Barry Leiba [Ballot Position Update] New position, Discuss, has been recorded for Barry Leiba
2015-12-14
07 Martin Stiemerling [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Martin Stiemerling
2015-12-14
07 (System) IANA Review state changed to IANA OK - No Actions Needed from Version Changed - Review Needed
2015-12-13
07 Alissa Cooper [Ballot Position Update] New position, No Objection, has been recorded for Alissa Cooper
2015-12-10
07 Jean Mahoney Request for Telechat review by GENART is assigned to Joel Halpern
2015-12-10
07 Jean Mahoney Request for Telechat review by GENART is assigned to Joel Halpern
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Ballot has been issued
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Ballot writeup was changed
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Ballot has been issued
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell [Ballot Position Update] New position, Yes, has been recorded for Stephen Farrell
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Created "Approve" ballot
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Ballot writeup was changed
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell IESG state changed to IESG Evaluation from Waiting for Writeup
2015-12-10
07 Stephen Farrell Changed consensus to Yes from Unknown
2015-12-09
07 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-07.txt
2015-12-04
06 Alexey Melnikov IANA Review state changed to Version Changed - Review Needed from IANA OK - No Actions Needed
2015-12-04
06 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-06.txt
2015-12-04
05 (System) IESG state changed to Waiting for Writeup from In Last Call
2015-12-03
05 Tero Kivinen Request for Last Call review by SECDIR Completed: Has Nits. Reviewer: Adam Montville.
2015-11-29
05 Gunter Van de Velde Request for Last Call review by OPSDIR is assigned to Bert Wijnen
2015-11-29
05 Gunter Van de Velde Request for Last Call review by OPSDIR is assigned to Bert Wijnen
2015-11-26
05 Tero Kivinen Request for Last Call review by SECDIR is assigned to Adam Montville
2015-11-26
05 Tero Kivinen Request for Last Call review by SECDIR is assigned to Adam Montville
2015-11-24
05 Stephen Farrell Placed on agenda for telechat - 2015-12-17
2015-11-23
05 Jean Mahoney Request for Last Call review by GENART is assigned to Joel Halpern
2015-11-23
05 Jean Mahoney Request for Last Call review by GENART is assigned to Joel Halpern
2015-11-23
05 Jean Mahoney Closed request for Last Call review by GENART with state 'Withdrawn'
2015-11-23
05 Jean Mahoney Request for Last Call review by GENART is assigned to Elwyn Davies
2015-11-23
05 Jean Mahoney Request for Last Call review by GENART is assigned to Elwyn Davies
2015-11-23
05 (System) IANA Review state changed to IANA OK - No Actions Needed from IANA - Review Needed
2015-11-23
05 Sabrina Tanamal
(Via drafts-lastcall-comment@iana.org): IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

IANA has reviewed draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-05.txt, which is currently in Last Call, and has the following comments:

We understand that this …
(Via drafts-lastcall-comment@iana.org): IESG/Authors/WG Chairs:

IANA has reviewed draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-05.txt, which is currently in Last Call, and has the following comments:

We understand that this document doesn't require any IANA actions.

While it's often helpful for a document's IANA Considerations section to remain in place upon publication even if there are no actions, if the authors strongly prefer to remove it, IANA does not object.

If this assessment is not accurate, please respond as soon as possible.
2015-11-20
05 Amy Vezza IANA Review state changed to IANA - Review Needed
2015-11-20
05 Amy Vezza
The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: "IETF-Announce"
CC: uta-chairs@ietf.org, uta@ietf.org, draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs@ietf.org, "Leif Johansson" , leifj@sunet.se, …
The following Last Call announcement was sent out:

From: The IESG
To: "IETF-Announce"
CC: uta-chairs@ietf.org, uta@ietf.org, draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs@ietf.org, "Leif Johansson" , leifj@sunet.se, stephen.farrell@cs.tcd.ie
Reply-To: ietf@ietf.org
Sender:
Subject: Last Call:  (Updated TLS Server Identity Check Procedure for Email Related Protocols) to Proposed Standard


The IESG has received a request from the Using TLS in Applications WG
(uta) to consider the following document:
- 'Updated TLS Server Identity Check Procedure for Email Related
  Protocols'
  as Proposed Standard

The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
ietf@ietf.org mailing lists by 2015-12-04. Exceptionally, comments may be
sent to iesg@ietf.org instead. In either case, please retain the
beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

Abstract


  This document describes TLS server identity verification procedure
  for SMTP Submission, IMAP, POP and ManageSieve clients.  It replaces
  Section 2.4 of RFC 2595, updates Section 4.1 of RFC 3207, updates
  Section 11.1 of RFC 3501, updates Section 2.2.1 of RFC 5804.




The file can be obtained via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs/

IESG discussion can be tracked via
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs/ballot/


No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.


2015-11-20
05 Amy Vezza IESG state changed to In Last Call from Last Call Requested
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell Last call was requested
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell Ballot approval text was generated
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell Ballot writeup was generated
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell IESG state changed to Last Call Requested from AD Evaluation
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell Last call announcement was generated
2015-11-20
05 Stephen Farrell IESG state changed to AD Evaluation from Publication Requested
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson
As required by RFC 4858, this is the current template for the Document
Shepherd Write-Up.

Changes are expected over time. This version is dated …
As required by RFC 4858, this is the current template for the Document
Shepherd Write-Up.

Changes are expected over time. This version is dated 24 February 2012.

(1) What type of RFC is being requested (BCP, Proposed Standard,
Internet Standard, Informational, Experimental, or Historic)?  Why
is this the proper type of RFC?  Is this type of RFC indicated in the
title page header?

Proposed Standard


(2) The IESG approval announcement includes a Document Announcement
Write-Up. Please provide such a Document Announcement Write-Up. Recent
examples can be found in the "Action" announcements for approved
documents. The approval announcement contains the following sections:

Technical Summary

This document describes TLS server identity verification procedure for SMTP Submission, IMAP, POP and ManageSieve clients.  It
replaces Section 2.4 of RFC 2595, updates Section 4.1 of RFC 3207, updates Section 11.1 of RFC 3501, updates Section 2.2.1 of RFC 5804.

Working Group Summary

No notable issues.

Document Quality

The document aligns standards for certificate verification for email protocols with current implementations and practice. The document is well written

Personnel

  Leif Johasson (WG co-chair) is the shepherd

(3) Briefly describe the review of this document that was performed by
the Document Shepherd.  If this version of the document is not ready
for publication, please explain why the document is being forwarded to
the IESG.

The document was reviewed by a small number of  individuals on the UTA list. The reviews only identified minor issues. Consensus in the WG seems clear and uncontroversial.

(4) Does the document Shepherd have any concerns about the depth or
breadth of the reviews that have been performed?

No

(5) Do portions of the document need review from a particular or from
broader perspective, e.g., security, operational complexity, AAA, DNS,
DHCP, XML, or internationalization? If so, describe the review that
took place.

No

(6) Describe any specific concerns or issues that the Document Shepherd
has with this document that the Responsible Area Director and/or the
IESG should be aware of? For example, perhaps he or she is uncomfortable
with certain parts of the document, or has concerns whether there really
is a need for it. In any event, if the WG has discussed those issues and
has indicated that it still wishes to advance the document, detail those
concerns here.

No concerns

(7) Has each author confirmed that any and all appropriate IPR
disclosures required for full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78
and BCP 79 have already been filed. If not, explain why.

Yes

(8) Has an IPR disclosure been filed that references this document?
If so, summarize any WG discussion and conclusion regarding the IPR
disclosures.

None

(9) How solid is the WG consensus behind this document? Does it
represent the strong concurrence of a few individuals, with others
being silent, or does the WG as a whole understand and agree with it? 

Consensus in the WG appears solid and uncomplicated.

(10) Has anyone threatened an appeal or otherwise indicated extreme
discontent? If so, please summarise the areas of conflict in separate
email messages to the Responsible Area Director. (It should be in a
separate email because this questionnaire is publicly available.)

No

(11) Identify any ID nits the Document Shepherd has found in this
document. (See https://www.ietf.org/tools/idnits/ and the Internet-Drafts
Checklist). Boilerplate checks are not enough; this check needs to be
thorough.

No issues

(12) Describe how the document meets any required formal review
criteria, such as the MIB Doctor, media type, and URI type reviews.

None required

(13) Have all references within this document been identified as
either normative or informative?

Yes

(14) Are there normative references to documents that are not ready for
advancement or are otherwise in an unclear state? If such normative
references exist, what is the plan for their completion?

No

(15) Are there downward normative references references (see RFC 3967)?
If so, list these downward references to support the Area Director in
the Last Call procedure.

No

(16) Will publication of this document change the status of any
existing RFCs? Are those RFCs listed on the title page header, listed
in the abstract, and discussed in the introduction? If the RFCs are not
listed in the Abstract and Introduction, explain why, and point to the
part of the document where the relationship of this document to the
other RFCs is discussed. If this information is not in the document,
explain why the WG considers it unnecessary.

There are updates to several RFCs and they are all listed in the abstract.

(17) Describe the Document Shepherd's review of the IANA considerations
section, especially with regard to its consistency with the body of the
document. Confirm that all protocol extensions that the document makes
are associated with the appropriate reservations in IANA registries.
Confirm that any referenced IANA registries have been clearly
identified. Confirm that newly created IANA registries include a
detailed specification of the initial contents for the registry, that
allocations procedures for future registrations are defined, and a
reasonable name for the new registry has been suggested (see RFC 5226).

No IANA actions required

(18) List any new IANA registries that require Expert Review for future
allocations. Provide any public guidance that the IESG would find
useful in selecting the IANA Experts for these new registries.

None

(19) Describe reviews and automated checks performed by the Document
Shepherd to validate sections of the document written in a formal
language, such as XML code, BNF rules, MIB definitions, etc.

None required
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson Responsible AD changed to Stephen Farrell
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson IETF WG state changed to Submitted to IESG for Publication from WG Document
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson IESG state changed to Publication Requested
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson IESG process started in state Publication Requested
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson Changed document writeup
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson Intended Status changed to Proposed Standard from None
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson Notification list changed to "Leif Johansson" <leifj@sunet.se>
2015-11-02
05 Leif Johansson Document shepherd changed to Leif Johansson
2015-09-20
05 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-05.txt
2015-08-06
04 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-04.txt
2015-06-17
03 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-03.txt
2015-03-23
02 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-02.txt
2015-03-05
01 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-01.txt
2014-09-15
00 Alexey Melnikov New version available: draft-ietf-uta-email-tls-certs-00.txt