[Freeipa-devel] [DESIGN] FreeIPA on FIPS + NSS question

[John Dennis]

On 12/19/2016 03:12 AM, Standa Laznicka wrote:
> On 12/16/2016 03:23 PM, Rob Crittenden wrote:
>> Standa Laznicka wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I started a design page for FreeIPA on FIPS-enabled systems:
>>> https://www.freeipa.org/page/V4/FreeIPA-on-FIPS
>>>
>>> Me and Tomáš are still investigating what of all things will need to
>>> change in order to have FreeIPA on FIPS-enabled RHEL. So far I managed
>>> to install and run patched FreeIPA server and client and connect them
>>> together.
>>>
>>> There are some issues with NSS when trying to create an HTTPS request
>>> (apparently, NSS requires an NSS database password to set up an SSL
>>> connection). I am actually thinking of removing NSSConnection from the
>>> client altogether.
>> Can you expand on this a bit? NSS should only need a pin when it needs
>> access to a private key. What connection(s) are you talking about, and
>> what would you replace NSSConnection with?
>>
>> rob
>
> Hello Rob,
>
> Thank you for this excellent question, in order to cut the email short I
> seem to have omitted quite a few information.
>
> One of the very first problems I had with FreeIPA with FIPS was that NSS
> was always asking for password/pin. I was discussing this with the NSS
> guys on their IRC chat last week and it turns out that NSS tries to
> create a private key every time you want to use it as a backend for an
> SSL connection on FIPS. I still don't think this is quite right so I may
> open a bugzilla for that.

I don't understand, I thought the case you were having problems with was 
the FreeIPA client, not the server. I assume when you use the term 
"backend" you mean server, and yes when NSS is in server mode it will 
access to keys. So isn't the problem NSS is not being initialized 
correctly so that it recognizes it is in client mode and not server mode?

>
> Anyway, the guys suggested me that we could try to create the database
> with an empty password and everything will work. I don't quite like
> that, too, but it's at least something if you don't want the `ipa`
> command to always bug you for password you have no way knowing if you're
> just a regular user.
>
> What I think would be a better way to go is to use
> httplib.HTTPSConnection. We have the needed certificates in
> /etc/ipa/ca.crt anyway so why not use them instead. We had a discussion
> with Honza this morning and it seems that with this approach we may get
> rid of the NSSConnection class altogether (although I still need to
> check a few spots) and start the process of moving away from NSS which
> was discussed some year ago in an internal mailing list (for some reason).
>
> Will be happy to hear thoughts on this,
> Standa

I'm not a big fan of NSS, it has it's issues. As the author of the 
Python binding I'm quite aware of all the nasty behaviors NSS has and 
needs to be worked around. I wouldn't be sad to see it go but OpenSSL 
has it's own issues too. If you remove NSS you're also removing the 
option to support smart cards, HSM's etc. Perhaps before removing 
functionality it would be good to assess what the requirements are.


-- 
John