Subject: [bfcpbis] TCP/TLS and UDP/DTLS comments on 4582bis and 4583bis

From: Christer Holmberg <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 19:39:12 +0000

Hi,

Section 7 in 4582bis, which says:

"7.  Lower-Layer Security

   BFCP relies on lower-layer security mechanisms to provide replay and
   integrity protection and confidentiality.  BFCP floor control servers
   and clients (which include both floor participants and floor chairs)

   MUST support TLS for transport over TCP [6] and MUST support DTLS [7]
   for transport over UDP.  Any BFCP entity MAY support other security
   mechanisms.

   BFCP entities MUST support, at a minimum, the
   TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA ciphersuite [6].

   Which party, the client or the floor control server, acts as the TLS/
   DTLS server depends on how the underlying TLS/DTLS connection is
   established.  For a TCP/TLS connection established using an SDP
   offer/answer exchange [9], the answerer (which may be the client or
   the floor control server) always acts as the TLS server.  If the TCP
   connection is lost, the active endpoint, i.e., the current TLS
   client, is responsible for re-establishing the TCP connection.
   Unless a new TLS session is negotiated, subsequent SDP offers and
   answers will not impact the previously negotiated TLS roles.

   For a UDP/DTLS connection established using the an SDP offer/answer
   exchange, either party can be the DTLS server depending on the setup
   attributes exchanged; examples can be found in [23]."

First, we already earlier discussed that the active TCP endpoint is responsible for re-establishing the TCP connection, and that will be corrected in the next version of the draft.

However, we have discussed a similar topic in CLUE, and we were wondering whether it would be good that, whoever detects a connection failure, sends a new offer in order to re-establish the connection. It does not matter if both endpoints send an offer - the offer/answer race condition rules will take care of that.

Second, Section 8.1 in 4583bis says:

   "When the existing TCP connection is reset following the rules in [8],

   the client MUST generate an offer towards the floor control server in

   order to reestablish the connection.  If a TCP connection cannot

   deliver a BFCP message and times out, the entity that attempted to

   send the message (i.e., the one that detected the TCP timeout) MUST

   generate an offer in order to reestablish the TCP connection."

I am not sure what is meant by "TCP connection is reset following the rules in [8]". Which rules are you referring to?

Then, the text says that the client always re-established the TCP connection. Is that aligned with the text in 4582bis, saying that the active party does the reestablishment? Is the client always active?

I think it is a little confusing that both 4582bis and 4583bis defines SDP Offer/Answer procedures. Shouldn't they only be in 4583bis?

Third, the last paragraph, talking about UDP/DTLS, says that either party can be DTLS server depending on the setup attributes exchanged. But, nowhere is it described how the setup attribute is used to determine the DTLS server role :)

I assume it is done in the same way as for TCP/TLS, but that is not written anywhere.

Regards,

Christer