Hello Roman,


Thanks for your review and comments. Please see our responses inline below, 
enclosed within <Response> </Response>. Let us know if you are satisfied with 
the resolution.



Regards,

Ilango Ganga

Geneve Editor



-----Original Message-----
From: Roman Danyliw via Datatracker <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 4, 2019 6:04 PM
To: The IESG <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]; Matthew Bocci <[email protected]>; 
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Roman Danyliw's Discuss on draft-ietf-nvo3-geneve-14: (with DISCUSS 
and COMMENT)



Roman Danyliw has entered the following ballot position for

draft-ietf-nvo3-geneve-14: Discuss

----------------------------------------------------------------------

DISCUSS:

----------------------------------------------------------------------



(1) The threat model assumed by geneve appears to be expressed in conflicting 
ways.  Section 4.1 notes that RFC8085’s definition of “controlled environment”

applies.  However,



- Section 6 notes “When crossing an untrusted link, such as the public 
Internet, …”



- Section 6.1 notes “Geneve data traffic between tenant systems across such 
separated networks should be protected from threats when traversing public 
networks. Any Geneve overlay data leaving the data center network beyond the 
operator's security domain SHOULD be secured by encryption mechanisms such as 
IPsec or other VPN mechanisms to protect the communications between the NVEs 
when they are geographically separated over untrusted network links.”



The advice provided in Section 6.x is sound.  Nevertheless, it doesn’t appear 
to describe a “controlled environment”.



IG>> <Response> Geographically separated data centers does not mean Geneve 
directly goes over the general internet, whereas Geneve traffic needs to be 
carried over other VPN technologies to bridge Geneve traffic across 
geographically separated data centers. The principles described in Section 4 
regarding controlled environment still applies to Section 6.1.1 usage with 
geographically separated data centers.  We will add the following sentence to 
the end of Section 6.1.1 to clarify this point:



“The principles described in Section 4 regarding controlled environments still 
apply to the geographically separated data center usage outlined in this 
section.

</Response>





(2) Section 6.  Per “Compromised tunnel endpoints may also spoof identifiers in 
the tunnel header to gain access to networks owned by other tenants”, couldn’t 
compromised transit devices do the same?



IG>> <Response> We will update the sentence as follows:

“Compromised tunnel endpoints or transit devices may also spoof identifiers in

the tunnel header to gain access to networks owned by other tenants”

</Response>





(3) Section 6.1.  Similar to what is discussed in Section 6.2 (for integrity), 
please refer to the impact of a compromised node on confidentiality.  For 
example (not verbatim) “A compromised network node or a transit device within a 
data center may passively monitor Geneve packet data between NVEs; or route 
traffic for further inspection.”



IG>> <Response> Agreed. As suggested, we will add the following sentence before 
the last sentence of the first paragraph of section 6.1 as follows:

“A compromised network node or a transit device within a

data center may passively monitor Geneve packet data between NVEs; or route

traffic for further inspection.” A tenant may expect the overlay service 
provider….

</Response>





(4) Section 6.1.  Per “Due to the nature of multi-tenancy in such environments, 
a tenant system may expect data confidentiality to ensure its packet data is 
not tampered with (active attack) in transit or a target of unauthorized 
monitoring (passive attack).”, please provide additional precision on the 
confidentiality. It is only relative to other tenants, but not from the 
provider (who can engage in tampering and passive monitoring).



IG>> <Response> We will update the sentence as follows to provide clarity:

“Due to the nature of multi-tenancy in such environments,

a tenant system may expect data confidentiality to ensure its packet data is

not tampered with (active attack) in transit or a target of unauthorized

monitoring (passive attack) for example by other tenant systems or underlay 
service provider.”

</Response>



----------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENT:

----------------------------------------------------------------------



I support Ben Kaduk’s DISCUSS position.  To reiterate part of his write-up, the 
role of the transit device which is only permitted to inspect the geneve 
traffic isn’t clear, especially if end-to-end security is applied.  RFC7365 
didn’t provide insight into this architectural element.



IG>> <Response> Please see our response to Benjamin’s comments on transit 
devices (link below):

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/nvo3/G37hH5brjYzYPQLHAfUr54_-Fwg

</Response>



<End of Responses>




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