[PATCH] Enabling ECDSA in PKCS#11 support for ssh-agent

[Thomas Calderon]

Hi Simon,

Agreed, ecParameters are not suitable but namedCurve should do the trick.

Did you mean: 1.3.6.1.4.1.11591.15.1 which seems reserved by GNU for Ed25519
(https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/OID-Allocations.html)?

As for putting it into the standard, not sure this is even needed.

Cheers,

Thomas

On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 3:17 PM, Simon Josefsson <simon at josefsson.org> wrote:

> Thomas Calderon <calderon.thomas at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > There is no need to add new mechanism identifiers to use specific curves.
> >
> > This can be done already using the CKM_ECDSA mechanism parameters (see
> > CKA_ECDSA_PARAMS
> > in the standard).
> > Given that the underlying HW or SW tokens supports Ed25519 curves, then
> you
> > could leverage it even with version 2.20 of the PKCS#11 standard.
>
> I think you need an OID to put in the namedCurve field of EC Parameters
> structure, right?  The structure is:
>
> Parameters:: = CHOICE {
>     ecParametersECParameters,
>     namedCurveCURVES. & id( { CurveNames}),
>     implicitlyCANULL}
>
> The ecParametersECParameters approach doesn't work, I believe, for
> EdDSA, but a namedCurve would probably do.  But what OID to use?  I'm
> happy to reserve 1.3.6.1.4.1.11591.9 to mean a namedCurve value for
> Ed25519 in PKCS#11.
>
> I'm not sure this approach works out -- but let's try.
>
> /Simon
>
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Thomas
> >
> > On Thu, Oct 8, 2015 at 2:00 PM, Douglas E Engert <deengert at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >> On 10/8/2015 4:49 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> >>
> >>> Mathias Brossard <mathias at brossard.org> writes:
> >>>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> I have made a patch for enabling the use of ECDSA keys in the PKCS#11
> >>>> support of ssh-agent which will be of interest to other users.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> Nice!  What would it take to add support for Ed25519 too?  Do we need
> to
> >>> allocate any new PKCS#11 identifiers?
> >>>
> >>
> >> Yes, and PKCS#11 allows for *_VENDOR_SUPPLIED identifiers. But using
> these
> >> can
> >> get out of hand. Best to try and get them in the standard. OASIS
> controls
> >> the
> >> standard From 14 April 2015:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> http://docs.oasis-open.org/pkcs11/pkcs11-curr/v2.40/pkcs11-curr-v2.40.html
> >>
> >> 2.40 does not define Ed25519.
> >>
> >> The Gnuk smartcard supports
> >>> Ed25519 but I don't know if it is common to use it with OpenSSH through
> >>> PKCS#11 (I would expect it to be used with OpenSSH through GnuPG's
> >>> gpg-agent).  At least it might be useful as a test case.
> >>>
> >>> /Simon
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> openssh-unix-dev mailing list
> >>> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
> >>> https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >>
> >>  Douglas E. Engert  <DEEngert at gmail.com>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> openssh-unix-dev mailing list
> >> openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
> >> https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev
> >>
>