Subject: [OAUTH-WG] review of draft-ietf-oauth-mtls-08

From: Samuel Erdtman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 13 May 2018 00:21:01 +0200

Hi

Thanks for a great document. I have some minor comments.

in Abstract
“...based on either single certificates...”
Why not write self-signed certificates, to me that is easier to understand,
and is the term that is used later in the document.

What is the rational behind writing “OAuth protected resources” or just “a
protected resource” instead of resource server? The term resource server is
user later in the document.

4.1.  Authorization Server
Is it not mandatory for the AS to not do PKI validation of self signed
certificates i.e. the following sentence, “it should configure the TLS
stack in a way”, should be changed to “it must configure the TLS stack in a
way”?

Finally it might make sense to mention the relation of this document to
RFC7521, RFC7522 and RFC7523. RFC7521 defines a client credentials
framework and the other two are examples of profiles. It also mentions
proof-of-possession. Maybe as an appendix similar to "Relationship to Token
Binding"

Best regards
//Samuel

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From: Brian Campbell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 14 May 2018 15:44:25 -0600

Thanks Samuel (even though this doc already went through WGLC!). I'll
attempt to address your comments/questions inline below.

On Sat, May 12, 2018 at 4:21 PM, Samuel Erdtman <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hi
>
> Thanks for a great document.
>

And thank you too!

I have some minor comments.
> Why not write self-signed certificates, to me that is easier to
> understand, and is the term that is used later in the document.
>

The reason why is that it was the term that Justin used in text he proposed
for the Abstract that was overall and otherwise much better than the text
I'd previously had.

But I agree that "self-signed certificates" there would be easier to
understand and more inline with the content of the document. I'll make that
change in the document source so it'll be in the next draft.

> user later in the document.

At some point many people and documents in this WG started using the
protected resource terminology rather than resource server. I don't recall
the reason why. Maybe someone on the list here can chime in? As far as I
know, they are largely interchangeable. I wrote much of the initial text of
this doc using protected resource to try be like the rest of the group. I
think Torsten added some text a bit later using resource server. That's the
extent of the rational. But I think it's probably okay with both.

> stack in a way”, should be changed to “it must configure the TLS stack in a

There are different ways one could implement it and this text shouldn't be
overly prescriptive. As one example, the TLS layer might do regular PKI
validation except for on a specific set of self-signed certificates certs
configured for  clients using that authn method.

> proof-of-possession. Maybe as an appendix similar to "Relationship to Token

RFC7521 defines a framework for using assertions as a client authentication
mechanism via the client_assertion_type and client_assertion parameters,
which this doc doesn't use. But RFC7521 is not a general client credentials
framework. So there's really not much of a relationship to this document.
And I wouldn't know what to say in a ""Relationship to ..." section other
than that there's not much of a relationship.

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