RE: Please review proposal "Interfaces and Function Lists v2"

All,

 

this is a friendly reminder to review the "Interfaces and Function Lists v2" proposal since we want to finish this tomorrow. In fact, we really need to do so since I will not be available until Oct 31st.

 

So far, only Valerie provided feedback 
– thanks Valerie! Some comments:

 

For #2: The proposal in current working draft actually sets an upper limit (N). But this is unique in the PKCS#11 standard: at no other place there is a size limit for an array. This was the main motivation for my proposal, removing this
 upper limit. #2 was a question what needs to be expected at minimum.

 

For #1: Sorry for the confusion: 
„variant 0“ is the original proposal at page 5 of the document, the others alternative implementations denoted as variants 1-3 starting at page 7. Thus, your interpretation was correct.

 

Thanks,

Daniel

 

From:  [mailto:]
On Behalf Of Fenwick, Valerie

Sent: Freitag, 7. September 2018 21:33

To: pkcs11-return-2186-valerie.fenwick=; 

Subject: [pkcs11] RE: Please review proposal "Interfaces and Function Lists v2"

 

Hi Daniel –

 

I believe for #2 it could return 0 to N, where I don’t think we necessarily defined N (but it shouldn’t be an overly large number!). Initially, implementations will likely return both 2.40 & 3.0,
 but in time they may just return 3.0.

 

Returning 0 would be strange, and may be unexpected. We could define the behavior to always return 1 or more (up to N… N of 64?)

 

For #1 I am leaning toward option 3 (though in the document there seems to be 4? Variant 0, 1, 2, 3), I’m talking about 3 in this email.

 

Also, I agree, the interface names should have a max length. That should be added/used wherever referred to in the standard.

 

Thank you for doing this!

Valerie

 

From:
 [mailto:]
On Behalf Of pkcs11-return-2186-valerie.fenwick=

Sent: Thursday, September 6, 2018 1:37 AM

To: 

Subject: [pkcs11] Please review proposal "Interfaces and Function Lists v2"

 

All,

 

as per yesterday’s minutes, this is the friendly reminder to review my proposal "Interfaces and Function Lists v2".

The public download link is 
https://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/63797/interfaces_and_functions_list_v2.docx

 

There are 2 main discussion points:

 

1. I’ve provided a proposal for C_GetInterfaceList and 3 variants of it. The proposal is similar to C_GetFunctionList, i.e. a pointer to the list of interfaces inside the library is returned. This is the most simple approach.
 In Variant 1, the application has to allocate a buffer for the char pointer array, but the actual interfaces names are still in the library. This was my original proposal but I think it does not really make sense. Variant 2 follows the style of C_GetAttributeValue
 when returning a template attribute. Big drawback is that you actually have to call it three times! I won’t recommend it but added it for completeness. In Variant 3 the interface name length is fixed. Actually, this is common in PKCS#11 and it might be preferred
 anyway. Thus, we could use variant 3 where the application allocates a buffer and library copies everything to that buffer, or we could use the proposal from the main part of the document, but set a fixed name length anyway.

 

2. Must “PKCS 11 2.40” and “PKCS 11 3.0” always be returned by C_GetInterfaceList or can C_GetInterfaceList also return only additional interfaces, which could be none?

 

Thanks,

Daniel

 

 

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Utimaco IS GmbH

Germanusstr. 4, D.52080 Aachen, Germany, Tel: +49-241-1696-0, www.utimaco.com

Seat: Aachen – Registergericht Aachen HRB 18922

VAT ID No.: DE 815 496 496

Managementboard: Malte Pollmann (Chairman) CEO, Dr. Frank J. Nellissen CFO

This communication is confidential. We only send and receive email on the basis of the terms set out at https://www.utimaco.com/en/e-mail-disclaimer/