SKIP Source Release is out!
Hi, Check out http://skip.incog.com. We've released the source to the SKIP key management and IP layer encryption package for SunOs 4.x. Here's a piece of the README file: ALPHA 1 Release of SKIP Reference Source for SunOS 4.1.3 -------------------------------------------------------- SKIP is a Key-management protocol for IP based protocols. It is an acronym for Simple Key-management for Internet Protocols. SKIP is documented in the SKIP IETF IPSEC draft included in this directory as draft-ietf-ipsec-skip-05.txt. The most recent SKIP draft is always available at http://skip.incog.com and the Internet-Drafts directories.
From this public domain source release, you can build a fully functional IP-layer encryption package which supports DES and Triple-DES for SunOS 4.1.3. This means that every IP networked application can have it's network traffic encrypted. Unlike application level encryption packages, this package encrypts IP packets. Thus, applications do not need to be recompiled or modified to take advantage of encryption.
The SKIP source is possible through the efforts of engineers in Sun Microsystems Internet Commerce Group. The developers and designers are Ashar Aziz, Tom Markson, Martin Patterson, Hemma Prafullchandra and Joseph Reveane. Linda Cavanaugh worked on the documentation. The package compiles under both the SunPro compiler and GCC. We expect that this release should port without too much pain to any operating system which uses BSD style networking (mbufs). A legal warning: Because this package contains strong encryption, the Software must not be transferred to persons who are not US citizens or permanent residents of the US, or exported outside the US (except Canada) in any form (including by electronic transmission) without prior written approval from the US Government. Non-compliance with these restrictions constitutes a violation of the U.S. Export Control Laws. This source release may be used for both commercial and noncommercial purposes, subject to the restrictions described in the software and patent license statements. Furthermore, Sun Microsystems has licensed the Stanford public key patents from Cylink Corp. which are available to users of this package on a royalty free basis. The patent statement is in README.PATENT. Be sure to read this, as it contains some restrictions and other important information. Also included in this release is a high speed Big Number package written by Colin Plumb. bnlib/legal.c contains Colin's software license statement. Features -------- 1. SKIP V2 compliant implementation using ESP encapsulation. 2. Support for DES/3DES for traffic and key encryption. 3. Diffie-Hellman Public Key Agreement based system. 4. Full Support for manual establishment of master keys. 5. Support for multiple NSIDs and multiple local certificates. 6. GUI tool for user friendly manipulation of access control lists and key statistics. 7. Command line tools for manipulating access control lists, etc. 8. Implementation of the Certificate Discovery protocol fully integrated into SKIP. 9 Implementation of X.509 public key certificates. 10. Implementation of DSA signature algorithm for certificate signatures. 11. Implementation for MD2, MD5 and SHA message digest algorithms. 12. Implementation of ASN.1 DER encoding/decoding. 13. SunScreen(tm) SKIP compatibility mode. 14. Implementation of hashed public keys as defined in the SKIP draft. Implementation of programs to generate hashed public keys. 15. Certificate utilities to convert X.509 Certificates to hashed keys and print both X.509 and Hashed certificates. 16. High performance Big Number library for Diffie-Hellman calculations. 17. Implementation is effectively "public domain" and may be used both commercially and non-commercially. 18. Patent Agreement with Cylink allows roylaty-free use of the Diffie-Hellman and other Stanford patents with this package for commercial and non-commercial use. Read README.PATENT for some restrictions. 19. Inclusion of prime generation program used to generate the primes in SKIP draft.
Tom Markson writes:
Check out http://skip.incog.com. We've released the source to the SKIP key management and IP layer encryption package for SunOs 4.x.
SKIP is a non-standard being pushed by Sun. Admittedly, it is available for FTP. However, thats just because I don't have an FTP site for the NRL IPsec + IPv6 stuff. Anyone who'd like to help me put the sources to the NRL IPsec + IPv6 implementation up for FTP is invited to get in touch. It will runs on 4.4BSD machines (i.e. BSDI, NetBSD, FreeBSD, etc) and should be pretty portable to other similar Berkeley based machines. It won't "run out of the box" on NetBSD as it stands -- I should have it nicely packaged up to do that before the end of the week. Perry
Perry sez:
Tom Markson writes:
Check out http://skip.incog.com. We've released the source to the SKIP key management and IP layer encryption package for SunOs 4.x.
SKIP is a non-standard being pushed by Sun.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sun trying to make it a standard (in competetion with Photuris) ? Can I also assume that the IPV6 stuff requires pretty extensive kernel mods? (Not bad, but a very definite consideration) -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Doug Hughes Engineering Network Services System/Net Admin Auburn University doug@eng.auburn.edu Pro is to Con as progress is to congress
Doug Hughes writes:
Tom Markson writes:
Check out http://skip.incog.com. We've released the source to the SKIP key management and IP layer encryption package for SunOs 4.x.
SKIP is a non-standard being pushed by Sun.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sun trying to make it a standard (in competetion with Photuris) ?
The IETF has many sorts of standards. It explicitly has a way to standardize things that the IETF doesn't think are a good idea but which should have the ability to interoperate if you do them. My opinion is that it is fairly clear that Photuris is the key management system people will be using, although it is going to have to evolve to work with a real network wide certificate database infrastructure. SKIP isn't going to be the standard.
Can I also assume that the IPV6 stuff requires pretty extensive kernel mods? (Not bad, but a very definite consideration)
IPSEC, SKIP, IPv6, etc., all require kernel mods. You can't help it. Its part of the IP stack, you know. BTW, IPv6 uses IPSEC, but IPSEC isn't only for IPv6 -- its also usable in IPv4. We were careful about how we architected that. The NRL code implements IPsec for both v4 and for the v6 stack it comes with. In fact, the NRL code is primarily an IPv6 implementation -- they just implemented IPSEC as a side effect. Perry
Doug Hughes writes:
Tom Markson writes:
Check out http://skip.incog.com. We've released the source to the SKIP key management and IP layer encryption package for SunOs 4.x.
SKIP is a non-standard being pushed by Sun.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't sun trying to make it a standard (in competetion with Photuris) ?
The IETF has many sorts of standards. It explicitly has a way to standardize things that the IETF doesn't think are a good idea but which should have the ability to interoperate if you do them.
My opinion is that it is fairly clear that Photuris is the key management system people will be using, although it is going to have to evolve to work with a real network wide certificate database infrastructure. SKIP isn't going to be the standard.
Can I also assume that the IPV6 stuff requires pretty extensive kernel mods? (Not bad, but a very definite consideration)
IPSEC, SKIP, IPv6, etc., all require kernel mods. You can't help it. Its part of the IP stack, you know.
I knew it was a safe assumption. :)
BTW, IPv6 uses IPSEC, but IPSEC isn't only for IPv6 -- its also usable in IPv4. We were careful about how we architected that.
The NRL code implements IPsec for both v4 and for the v6 stack it comes with. In fact, the NRL code is primarily an IPv6 implementation -- they just implemented IPSEC as a side effect.
'Tis a shame, because SKIP is available right now and will, if past history is any indication, become the defacto standard on Sun platforms because it is readily available, and the IPV6 stuff isn't, nor probably will be soon because even those with the source code are not permitted to give out mods to this source (in the case of SunOS - I believe). However, a loadable kernel module would be very nice with the IPv6 stuff in it. Unfortunately, I have very little experience with loadable kernel modules of this scope, nor the source code to use as a reference, should the loadable modules be feasible. -- ____________________________________________________________________________ Doug Hughes Engineering Network Services System/Net Admin Auburn University doug@eng.auburn.edu Pro is to Con as progress is to congress
Doug Hughes writes:
'Tis a shame, because SKIP is available right now and will, if past history is any indication, become the defacto standard on Sun platforms because it is readily available,
I suspect that no one else will use it. Morningstar is already shipping the ESP/AH stuff -- other router vendors are doubtless going to be doing so soon as well. All other hardware manufacturers will be running the normal IPSEC too. I suspect Sun is going to have a very tough sell. Perry
participants (3)
-
Doug Hughes -
marksonļ¼ osmosys.incog.com -
Perry E. Metzger