[Pgi-wg] TLS : OpenSSL and GSI implementations - gLite 3.2 released today

[Etienne URBAH]

To all,

Concerning various implementations of TLS to handle X509 certificates 
and proxies, it seems that :

-  DEISA (Unicore) uses the OpenSSL implementation of TLS to process 
X509 certificates,

-  EGEE (gLite) and NorduGrid (ARC) use the GSI (Globus Security 
Infrastructure) implementation of TLS to process X509 proxies,

-  The OpenSSL and GSI implementations of TLS seem to be INCOMPATIBLE 
(see mails below of Weizhong QIANG and Duane MERRIL).

This would make any interoperability very difficult.


But the situation is perhaps NOT so desperate :

-  EGEE has just released gLite version 3.2 today 23 March 2009.

-  In slide 3 of the presentation 'Middleware update' performed at CERN 
GDB on 11 March 2009 and which is available at 
http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?sessionId=7&resId=1&materialId=0&confId=45473
    Andreas UNTERKIRCHER explains that gLite 3.2 uses VDT 1.10, which 
uses 'system OpenSSL'.


==>  Can Andreas UNTERKIRCHER provide more precisions, and confirm that 
this permits interoperability at the X509 level ?

==>  Can the PGI chairs plan an interoperability test ASAP to check if 
this really work ?


In hope that the above informations and suggestions are useful.

Best regards.

----------------------------------
Etienne URBAH          IN2P3 - LAL
Bat 200     91898 ORSAY     France
Tel: +33 1 64 46 84 87
Mob: +33 6 22 30 53 27
Skype: etienne.urbah
mailto:urbah at lal.in2p3.fr
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On Mon, 23 Mar 200, Jens Jensen wrote:
> 2009/3/20 weizhong qiang <weizhongqiang at gmail.com>:
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 3:00 PM, <m.riedel at fz-juelich.de> wrote:
>> Basically the globus implementation if GSSAPI is about a specific
>> context-initiation negotiation, and some data-padding for initiation and
>> data-transferring. Also you can accomplish proxy-delegation via it.
>> What is for sure is that you can not use client based on normal TLS to talk
>> with service which is based on GSSAPI, or vice versa.
>> AFAIK, There is some grid service (WS compliant) such as some SRM service
>> which uses GSSAPI. (SOAP + HTTP + GSS).
> 
> Some years since I last looked at it in detail but IIRC GSSAPI (RFC2743) is just
> a mechanism for establishing security contexts - if you get these
> bytes then send
> this, etc.  Presumably normal TLS can be implemented via GSSAPI as well, see
> eg section 5.3 of the RFC
> Someone once told me Globus had to deviate from the standard GSSAPI
> to implement GSI. If this is true then it's worth documenting, no?
> Again long time ago I experimented with the Globus module for GSI and
> the lower level Globus GSSAPI.  At the time they did not interoperate :-)
> Had some discussions with Aleksandr at the time.
> 
> Regards
> --jens



On Fri, 20 Mar 2009, Duane Merrill wrote:
> In theory, rfc-3820 proxy certs should not have any effect on TLS wire 
> protocol. For various reasons, different versions of GSI-OpenSSH *have* 
> changed the wire format in different ways. (Shame on them.) Out of 
> curiosity, are there any published/publicly-availabe descriptions of 
> these deltas?
> 
> Duane
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