Re: [psg.com #460] IESG - Transport - Oakley - new proposal (fwd)

[Jeffrey Hutzelman <jhutz%cmu.edu@localhost>]

On Thursday, August 19, 2004 17:25:00 +0200 Niels Möller 
<nisse%lysator.liu.se@localhost> wrote:

> Damien Miller <djm%mindrot.org@localhost> writes:
>
> > I think that we should just change the drafts to read "RFC3526 group 14"
> > instead of "oakley group 14". The RFC isn't going to change
> > retrospectively and it seems like total overkill to set up an IANA
> > registry for a couple of groups, especially if DHGEX is going to be
> > preferred in the future.
>
> I'm sorry if I haven't been following the group closely enough
> recently, but now I'm confused. I thought the entire purpose of the
> secsh-numbers document was to specify an IANA registry for ssh-related
> names and numbers. The creation of that new registry seems totally
> orthogonal to whether or not we try to keep some of the numbers in the
> registry somehow in "sync" with the ipsec iana registry.

The numbers document _does_ create a registry for the names of key exchange 
methods.  What we are discussing is a guideline for choosing the names of a 
certain class of key exchanges; namely, those defined in the same way as 
the existing diffie-hellman-group1-sha1 but using different groups.

> As for the appropriateness of the name "oakley group 14" for our
> group, I have been assuming that the group, and the name "group 14",
> originates in some paper (outside of the RFC series), together with
> some motivation and analysis of the method by which the primes were
> selected. I would have expected a reference to such a paper in RFC
> 2412 and RFC 3526, but I can't seem to find any.

The name "group 14" does not originate in any paper; it derives from the 
fact that the group in question is identified by the constant 14 in IKE. 
See the IANA registry for IKE attributes.

> PS. And also "RFC3526 group 14" doesn't make much sense to me; the
> motivation for the "group14" naming we've been discussing have been to
> make it *easily* generalizable to new groups that appear in some well
> defined (by somebody else) series.

Yup.  The appropriate phrase would be IKE group 14, preferably with a 
reference to the aforementioned registry.

-- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <jhutz+%cmu.edu@localhost>
  Sr. Research Systems Programmer
  School of Computer Science - Research Computing Facility
  Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA