Subject: Re: [dane] I-D Action: draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01.txt: keyring format definition

From: Petr Spacek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 14:52:23 +0100

On 28.10.2014 00:36, [email-masked] wrote:
>         Title           : Using DANE to Associate OpenPGP public keys with email addresses
>         Author          : Paul Wouters
> 	Filename        : draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01.txt

I would like to see a clarification for section:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dane-openpgpkey-01#section-2.1
2.1. The OPENPGPKEY RDATA component
   The RDATA (or RHS) of an OPENPGPKEY Resource Record contains a single
   value consisting of a [RFC4880] formatted OpenPGP public keyring.

I'm struggling with definition of "formatted OpenPGP public keyring". After a
quick glance I have found only this:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-3.6
3.6. Keyrings
   A keyring is a collection of one or more keys in a file or database.
   Traditionally, a keyring is simply a sequential list of keys, but may
   be any suitable database.  It is beyond the scope of this standard to
   discuss the details of keyrings or other databases.

I did not read whole RFC 4880 so it is possible that I have missed some
related definitions but IMHO this reference deserves clarification.

Where is the actual keyring format defined?

-- 
Petr Spacek  @  Red Hat

---

From: Paul Wouters <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 10:06:07 -0500 (EST)

> Where is the actual keyring format defined?

That's it. You're looking at it. There is not a better reference that
I'm aware of. I have been looking for it myself as well.

Paul

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From: Petr Spacek <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 16:37:58 +0100

> I'm aware of. I have been looking for it myself as well.

Ooooh, that is bad. I would say too bad for any implementation which wants to
be interoperable.

So, what do we do next? I can see three ways:
1) Write a new RFC to standardize keyring format. Is it worth the effort? I'm
not sure.

2) We could move forward with some simplified single-purpose definition of
keyring based on
- Key Material Packet
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.5
- User ID Packet
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.11

3) Do something in between first two approaches:
It seems that it should be relatively simple to define totally simple
universal keyring simply as sequence of OpenPGP packets defined on:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4880#section-5.5

That definition would allow us to add revocation data in future or possibly
add other extensions. I assume that RFC written today would say: A application
MUST ignore all packet types except A,B,C,D.

Later, when a new packet format is standardized and new tag assigned to it, we
can add this new tag to list of non-ignored tags (and define meaning of it) in
separate RFC.

-- 
Petr^2 Spacek

---

From: Paul Hoffman <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 07:46:33 -0800

On Jan 12, 2015, at 7:37 AM, Petr Spacek <[email-masked]> wrote:
> So, what do we do next?

Discuss this on the closed but still active OpenPGP WG mailing list: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/openpgp

--Paul Hoffman