ietf-openpgp
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Re: PGP Keyserver Synchronization Protocol

1999-06-23 08:51:07
In 
<Pine(_dot_)GSO(_dot_)4(_dot_)02A(_dot_)9906222239500(_dot_)23439-100000(_at_)hardees(_dot_)rutgers(_dot_)edu>,
 on
06/22/99 
   at 10:46 PM, Tony Mione <mione(_at_)hardees(_dot_)Rutgers(_dot_)EDU> said:

Overview:

     The synchronization process involves several steps:

     Generation of Hash Tables
     Exchange of Hash Tables
     Comparison of Hash Tables
     Exchange of Keys

In this process one database is initiating the synchronization (client)
while the other is the receiver of a synchronization request (server). To
start the process the client will create a hash table of his database then
he will request a hash table from the server. When the client receives the
server's hash table he will compair it with his own and generate 3 lists:

     #1 All Keys that are on the server but not on the client
     #2 All Keys that are on the client but not the server
     #3 All Keys that are on both client & server but have different hashes

The client will then request from the server all the keys in list #1 & #2
and add thoses keys to it's database. Once this is done the client will

I'm a bit confused here. List #2 contains all keys on the client that are
NOT on the server. How can the server send such a list? 

The server sends the entire hash list of all it's keys. The client, by
comparing the hash list it has generated locally, generates list #1, #2,
#3.


IF you meant list #3, how can you tell which keys from the server are
actually newer than the client keys. Just because they are different
does not mean that the server (rather than the requester) has the most
up-to-date copy of the key.

Yes, that text should have read: "all the keys in list #1 & #3"

There is no efficient way to determine who has the most up to date version
of a key. Hopefully, with periodic server synchronization, #3 should be a
small list.


generate a new hash table for his database and compair it to the hash
table he has from the server. He should now only have 2 lists:

     #1 All Keys on the client but not on the server
     #2 All Keys on the client & server but have different hashes

The client should then send the server all keys that are in the 2 lists.


Same comment about who really has the most up-to-date key.

Once the client has downloaded a key from the server and updated it's data
base, if the hashes are still different then the client must have the
"newer" data.

Calculating Hashes:

     It is important that when calculating the hash of a key that it be done
in a specific order as to guarentee that the identical key in two
different databases has the same hash. The following order of operation
for calculating the hash is:

     Primary Key
     SubKeys Sorted by KeyID
     Signatures Sorted by Signing KeyID
     UserID's Sorted Alphabeticaly

PhotoID's & X509 signatures are 2 issues that need to be looked into.
Unfortunatally the specs for neither of these packets have been released
by NAI. For right now I recomend that any propritary packets *not* be used
in the key hash calculations.


Does it really matter if you do not know the internal packet format as
long as you know where the packet ends? Hashing is simply mixing together
a stream of octets and so I do not believe the 'format' makes much of a
difference.

Well the problem of unknown and/or undocumented packet formats is that of
sorting. For two different systems to come up with the same hash for an
identical key, they must calculate the hash in the same manner. I have
outlined above how to do this with known OpenPGP packets. It is difficult
to set up similar procedures for packets who's format are unknown.


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Hi Jeff!! :)
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