refstack/specs/mitaka/implemented/rsa-key-existence-check.rst

RSA Key Existence Check for Signed Data Upload

Launchpad blueprint:

RefStack recently added features to enable the uploading of data with key. Currently, RefStack accepts the uploaded data regardless of whether the public keys exist in RefStack or not. This document describes the validation process update needed to ensure that RefStack only accepts data with those keys that are previously imported into RefStack.

Problem description

Currently, the RefStack API server would accept the uploaded data regardless of whether the keys exist in RefStack or not. More importantly, those keys are used to associated the test data to the users. And, there is no enforcement that the keys used for data uploading must exist in RefStack. In addition, for security reasons, keys are expected to be updated from time to time. As a consequence of the non-existing or updated keys, some data will be inaccessible.

Proposed change

• RefStack API servers will check whether the key used to upload data exists in the 'pubkeys' table and reject the data if it does not. Note that this method of checking is possible because RefStack currently enforces a policy such that there are no duplicate public keys in the database. This implies that no two users can have the same public key uploaded, key-pairs can not be shared, and if a user creates a new openstackid account, he/she would have to use a different key or delete the public key from his/her old account.
• RefStack then associate the data to the user ID of the key owner by adding, in the "meta" table, a "meta_key" named "user" with value being the "openid" from the "user" table.

Alternatives

Alternatively, if RefStack wants to allow for key sharing among users in the future, an additional user identifier parameter such as user email is needed, besides the key, for data uploading. In this case, RefStack will check for for the existence of the key in the user's profile.

As for orphan data management, RefStack may want to implement a limited life time policy for data without owner associated to them.

Open to other suggestions.

Data model impact

None.

There is no data modal change needed.

REST API impact

None

Security impact

None

Notifications impact

None

Other end user impact

None

Performance Impact

None

Other deployer impact

None

Developer impact

None

Implementation

Assignee(s)

Primary assignee:

TBD

Other contributors:

TBD

Work Items

• RefStack API server will need to validate the existing of the key in RefStack

Dependencies

None

Testing

None

Documentation Impact

None

References

None