gss_acquire_cred_with_password() and mech selection

Greg Hudson ghudson at mit.edu
Mon Jul 13 13:12:43 EDT 2015


On 07/10/2015 01:21 PM, Greg Hudson wrote:
> * When called with a desired_mechs of GSS_C_NO_OID_SET, we perform six
>   AS-REQs, three inside SPNEGO and three outside.

Oops, this is incorrect.  Our gss_acquire_cred_with_password() already
defaults to using just the default mech in this case.  So the majority
of my previous message is moot.

> * When called with a desired_mechs of SPNEGO, we perform three AS-REQs,
>   one for each non-IAKERB krb5 variant.

I would still like to solve this problem, and am trying to decide on the
scope of the changes I want to make right now.  Two options include:

* Omit GSS_C_MA_DEPRECATED mechs from gss_indicate_mechs().  This would
have the following secondary effects for the old and mskrb5 OIDs unless
we take additional steps:

  - gss_acquire_cred would not use them when no desired_mechs is given.
  - SPNEGO would not acquire creds for them and would not offer them,
even if specified by gss_set_neg_mechs().  They would still be accepted
as synonyms for krb5 by SPNEGO acceptors and mirrored properly in responses.
  - gss_indicate_mechs_by_attrs() would never return them, regardless of
what attributes are queried.
  - gss_inquire_mechs_for_name() would never return them.
  - gss_inquire_mech_for_saslname() would never return them.
  - OpenSSH would not try to negotiate them.

  Although not offering the mskrb5 OID in SPNEGO seems like it might be
a problem, [MS-SPNG] suggests that it is not.  Only Windows 2000 doesn't
understand the standard krb5 OID, and that release is both ancient and
client-only.

* Omit GSS_C_MA_DEPRECATED from the default gss_acquire_cred() set and
the set of mechs used by SPNEGO, probably using
gss_indicate_mechs_by_attrs().  This is a more conservative change; it
would not affect OpenSSH or hide the mechs from the other utility functions.

Either of these options create a problem for one of the test cases in
t_spnego.c which I would have to solve somehow.  One option is to make
it possible to use non-SPNEGO credentials with a SPNEGO
gss_init_sec_context().

Either of the above options could also be extended to IAKERB by giving
IAKERB the GSS_C_MA_NOT_DFLT_MECH default attribute and excluding mechs
with that attribute from the same operations.


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