RE: iSCSI: Login Proposal

["Wheat, Stephen R" <stephen.r.wheat@intel.com>]

Marjorie,

I agree with your premise that the target must be allowed to not just let
anyone in.

But why isn't this already covered by the ability of the sys admin to
configure the target to only agree to certain offerings?  Quoting from
1.2.4, with my
emphasis,
   "The responding party answers with the first value from the list it
supports and
    is **allowed** to use for the specific initiator."


For some network interfaces,
the sys admin could rely upon physical security and other means inherent to
the
environment.  In such cases, the admin could configure the target to follow
the
initiator's preferences, including "none".

For other network interfaces where the environment is not inherently
trusted,
the sysadmin would be motivated to not allow the target to
connect without any authentication; so they'd set it up to not accept
"none", even
though the initiator may prefer "none".

Yes?

Stephen

-----Original Message-----
From: KRUEGER,MARJORIE (HP-Roseville,ex1)
[mailto:marjorie_krueger@hp.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 10:47 AM
To: 'Rod Harrison'; ietf-ips
Subject: RE: iSCSI: Login Proposal


I'm thinking a little differently regarding which party has priority in
chosing security parameters - while it *may* be the initiators data, this
can't be established until the initiator is authenticated.  Since the target
is the "server" side, I think the burden is on the target to ensure that
this is the intended initiator.  Therefore, the target must dictate the
authentication method used, since it has the security responsibility and the
"contact point" for potentially malicious entities.  Consider the example
where an initiator was previously authenticated using Kerberos, the session
was ended, and a new session is requested by what appears to be the same
initiator, but the authmethod requested is now "none".  Looks pretty
suspicious to me.  It seems to me like the target has the responsibility of
maintaining a consistent authmethod with all initiators that access it,
therefore the target MUST force the minimum level authorization it requires
or reject the login request.

Marjorie Krueger
Networked Storage Architecture
Networked Storage Solutions Org.
Hewlett-Packard
tel: +1 916 785 2656
fax: +1 916 785 0391
email: marjorie_krueger@hp.com 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rod Harrison [mailto:rod.harrison@windriver.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 4:58 AM
> To: Wheat, Stephen R; 'Steve Senum'; ietf-ips
> Subject: RE: iSCSI: Login Proposal
> 
> 
> 
> 	I think we should view this as the order indicates the
> initiators preference and the target SHOULD pick the first
> item from the list it supports. Note that SHOULD allows the
> target to do something other than pick the first item it
> supports if it has a good reason to do so, e.g. If it would
> otherwise terminate the session. The initiator can always
> terminate the session if it doesn't like what the target
> chooses.
> 
> 	So, to extend your example, as an initiator if I didn't
> want to do CHAP at all I would send ...
> 
> AuthMethod=none
> 
> 	if I preferred not to do CHAP but I could tolerate it I
> would send ...
> 
> AuthMethod=none,CHAP
> 
> 	and if I would prefer CHAP I would send ...
> 
> AuthMethod=CHAP,none
> 
> 	I expect this to be under the control of the sys admin
> through some kind of config at the initiator side. I think a
> good guide to keep in mind with all this is that it is the
> initiator's data, and so it seems reasonable to let the
> initiator control connection security and integrity.
> 
> 	- Rod
>