Subject: KEX-specific and USERAUTH-specific message numbers

From: Ben Harris <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2005 23:55:09 +0000 (GMT)

Another possible problem I noticed while writing rsa-kex: 
draft-ietf-secsh-assignednumbers-10.txt says:

    Requests for assignments of new message numbers in the range of 1 to
    127 MUST be done through the STANDARDS ACTION method as described in
    [RFC2434].

This seems slightly wrong to me, in that message numbers in the ranges 
30-49 and 60-79 are effectively assigned by whoever owns the KEX or 
USERAUTH method in use, not by IANA (thought of course some KEX and 
USERAUTH names are assigned by IANA.  I'd suggest the following text:

    Requests for assignments of new message numbers in the range of 1 to
    29, 50 to 59, and 80 to 127 MUST be done through the STANDARDS ACTION
    method as described in [RFC2434].

    The meanings of message numbers in the range of 30 to 49 are specific
    to the key exchange method in use, and their meaning will be specified
    by the definition of that method.

    The meanings of message numbers in the range of 60 to 79 are specific
    to the user authentication method in use, and their meaning will be
    specified by the definition of that method.

I don't think the "Initial Assignments" table for message numbers should 
mention SSH_MSG_KEXDH_INIT, SSH_MSG_KEXDH_REPLY, or 
SSH_MSG_USERAUTH_PK_OK, since those fall into the ranges not managed by 
IANA.

-- 
Ben Harris