Hello Etienne,

thank you for this detailed information and idea.
I guess I will setup a test environment for this.

Armin

On 03.09.2016 20:06, Etienne Dechamps wrote:
If you're using StrictSubnets, you will still be fine. StrictSubnets
means that A will only use B's key (which C does not know) to send
packets to B's statically configured subnets. C cannot impersonate B (as
in, take its node name) because it would have to know B's private key to
do so, and it cannot impersonate B's subnets because A is using
StrictSubnets. The worst that C can do is to stop relaying (i.e. denial
of service), but that's somewhat obvious.

(There is a caveat though: A will refuse to *send* packets using C's
key, but it will *accept* any packet that uses any known key - including
C's key - no matter which subnet it's coming from. This is a known
limitation which I think can easily be fixed through some simple code
changes. Arguably that's not a big deal anyway, because there's not much
an attacker can do if they are unable to control both sides of the
conversation.)

Note that all this assumes you're using StrictSubnets (both on A and B).
If you're not using StrictSubnets, C would be able to intercept B's
ADD_SUBNET messages and reroute subnets to itself instead, resulting in
a an extremely simple and devastating man-in-the-middle attack.
Currently the only way to prevent that is to use StrictSubnets, but I
believe Guus has plans to introduce more sophisticated mechanisms in the
future.

In any case, I should probably mention that, to the best of my knowledge
(Guus might be able to confirm), right now tinc is mostly designed to
protect from attacks coming from *outside* the VPN (as in, outside the
web of metaconnections). Protecting against insider attacks (from inside
the metagraph) doesn't get anywhere near as much attention. This means
it is more likely that there are vulnerabilities lurking in the code
that we're not aware of. Compared to an outside attacker, an inside
attacker has a much larger attack surface to exploit because they can
send arbitrary messages through a fully authenticated metaconnection,
which tinc might or might not be prepared for. If you really, deeply
care about the integrity of the link between A and B and you want to
protect against a full compromise of C by a determined hostile party, I
would not recommend such a setup.

On 3 September 2016 at 16:14, Armin Schindler <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

    On 09/03/2016 10:56 AM, Etienne Dechamps wrote:
    > C will still need keys in order to establish metaconnections with A and B 
(as
    > well as a few other things). However there is no need for C to own any
    > "Subnets" at all.

    If somebody breaks into C, he could get access to the vpn network,
    right?
    Because the keys are there, it will be possible to use them to get
    access.
    Even if A-B connections via C are not decrypted, connection A-C and
    B-C are
    still possible, right?

    Armin


    > On 3 September 2016 at 06:21, Armin <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]>
    > <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>> wrote:
    >
    >     On 09/02/2016 08:51 PM, Etienne Dechamps wrote:
    >     > What version of tinc are you using? tinc 1.1 already does what you 
want out of
    >     > the box: packets sent from node A to node B through node C will use 
a key that
    >     > A and B will negotiate between themselves. C doesn't have the key, 
and will
    >     > act as a blind relay. C will not be able to decipher the packets 
flowing
    >     > between A and B.
    >     >
    >     > This is different from tinc 1.0, where C would have to decipher the 
packet in
    >     > order to determine what its final destination is. In tinc 1.1 that 
routing
    >     > information is sent in cleartext so that C can forward the packet 
without
    >     > having to decipher it.
    >
    >     I am using tinc 1.0.
    >     Switching to 1.1 makes sense then.
    >     Can C then be completely without keys, forwarder only with not access 
to the
    >     network at all?
    >
    >     Armin
    >
    >     > On 2 September 2016 at 09:40, Armin <[email protected] 
<mailto:[email protected]> <mailto:[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>>
    >     > <mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> 
<mailto:[email protected]
    <mailto:[email protected]>>>> wrote:
    >     >
    >     >     Hello all,
    >     >
    >     >     as written in my other posts, I have a setup of about seven
    >     >     hosts. Two of them (A and B) use StrictSubnets and an own 
routing via
    >     >     a special host (C), because C has better connection to the A 
and B than a
    >     >     direct A-B connection.
    >     >
    >     >     Host C is in a place where I need to create special security 
settings.
    >     >     The VPN encrypted data shall not be available on host C.
    >     >     There is no need for host C be in routing of tinc vpn, it just 
shall
    >     >     forward the encrypted packets to another host when needed.
    >     >
    >     >     Is it possible to setup a host as part of a tinc network 
without the
    >     >     access to the packets (decrypted)?
    >     >     Or do I need to setup some other kind of tunnel for this?
    >     >
    >     >     Armin
    >     >
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