From: David Groep info@eugridpma.org Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2005 15:00:00 +0100 Subject: EUGridPMA (IGTF) CA distribution 1.1 and updates
Dear CAs, Relying Parties, Users, and all others interested,
In this announcement of the EUGridPMA:
1. Release frequency increase 2. New distribution 1.1 available with new authorities 3. Distribution changes and improved deployability 4. Namespace constraints policies 5. Informational services experiments from the EUGridPMA
We hope that you find this update useful and welcome any comments you may have. Also, feel free to redistribute this information widely as you see appropriate.
Regards, David Groep
For more information about this newsletter and the mailing list, please refer to the EUGridPMA web site at https://www.eugridpma.org/
========================================================================= 1. Release frequency increase =========================================================================
On the request of the relying parties expressed in the IGTF and CA-OPS meetings during GGF16 in Athens, Greece, there will be more frequent releases of the IGTF distribution. In this way, changes such as CRL location changes, and newly accredited CAs, will be available to relying parties faster.
In the new scheme, the maximum delay for a new distribution will be two (2) weeks after all technical information has been made available. The time to deployment of any such regular update release is left to the descretion of the relying parties.
Specific security updates will be released more frequently as necessary, and should preferably be implemented as soon as possible. Such security updates will be clearly marked as such.
========================================================================= 2. New distribution (1.1) with new authorities =========================================================================
A new distribution of Accredited Authorities by the EUGridPMA, based on the IGTF Common Source, is now available. It includes the newly accredited Authorities by all IGTF Members. This is version 1.1, release 1, and it is now available for download from the Repository at
https://www.eugridpma.org/distribution/igtf/1.1/ or https://www.eugridpma.org/distribution/igtf/current/
You can download the new packages and install them at your convenience. If you part of a coordinated-deployment project (such as OSG, EGEE, LCG, DEISA, NAREGI or others) you may want to await your project announcement before installing this release.
New Authorities: APAC Australian Partnership for Advanced Computing KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (Japan) NAREGI National Research Grid Initiative (Japan) pkIRISGrid IRISGrid PKI (RedIRIS, Spain)
Modified: GridCanada added new root certificate SWITCH new Personal and Server CA certificates SWITCH-CA2 new CA hierarchy based off the SwissSign Silver Root
Discontinued: Datagrid-FR no longer contains valid end-entity certs CyGrid-old expired and replaces by "CyGrid"
This release also contains various updates and corrections to the CRL download locations and the CA contact information. A detailed summary of changes can be found in the distribution.
Notice on directory structure ----------------------------- *** *ONLY* CAs IN THE "accredited/" DIRECTORY and THE CAs INSTALLED USING THE ca_policy_igtf-classic-1.0-1.noarch.rpm ARE ACCREDITED
Do *not* install certificates from the "worthless/" or "experimental/", directories, except if you yourself review and accept their policy and practice statement. The EUGridPMA provides these certificates in this format for your convenience only, and to allow graceful changeover for legacy installations.
*** The Fermilab Kerberized CA, although not an accredited CA according to the "classic" profile, has been available from the EUGridPMA repository before in the "others/" directory. Due to the reorganization, this authority has moved to the "experimental/" area. When the KCA has been accepted by the TAGPMA, the location of this authority will change.
*** All individual CAs packages, as well as the bundles, have the same (common) version number "1.1" and release "1".
========================================================================= 3. Distribution changes and improved deployability =========================================================================
We warmly welcome your comments and suggestions to improve deployability of the CA distribution. Based on some suggestions received, some changes have been implemented in this release.
The distribution traditionally contained a set of RPMs and tar-balls per accredited authorities, as well as meta-RPMs that depends on the RPMs of those accredited.
In this release, we add several new components.
* the "tar-bundle" that can be used to install the authorities in a local trust directory using the "./configure && make install" mechanism has been renamed to avoid confusion. It is called: igtf-policy-installation-bundle-1.1.tar.gz It has the same functionality and can still be found in the "accredited/" subdirectory.
* the accredited directory now contains two additional tar-balls that contain, respectively, *all* "classic" and "slcs" accredited CAs: igtf-preinstalled-bundle-classic-1.1.tar.gz igtf-preinstalled-bundle-slcs-1.1.tar.gz (note there are no SLCS-accredited authorities at this time)
* those CAs whose key-length is less than 4095 bits are also available in a Java KeyStore (JKS), whose password is "eugridpma". These is both a JKS for each individual CA, as well as a "igtf-policy-accredited-classic-1.1.jks" in the "accredited/jks/" sub-directory.
APT and Yum ----------- As always, the repository is suitable for "yum" based automatic updates, by adding to the yum.conf file:
[eugridpma] name=EUGridPMA baseurl=http://www.eugridpma.org/distribution/igtf/current/ gpgcheck=1
and also "apt" is supported. For details, see http://www.eugridpma.org/distribution/igtf/current/apt/README.txt
Large deployment projects are kindly requested to mirror these directories in their own distribution repositories.
RPM GPG signing --------------- Also this new RPM distribution is distributed with GPG-signed RPMs. The key (ID 3CDBBC71) has been uploaded to the public key servers, along with my signature as the EUGridPMA Chair (keyID 6F298418). The key is also contained in the repository. You will need this key if you enable GPG checking for automatic updates in "yum" or "apt".
Please remember to validate this distribution against the TACAR trusted repository (https://www.tacar.org/) where possible.
========================================================================= 4. Namespace constraints policies =========================================================================
The assertions by the IGTF on the compliance of the authorities only extend within the namespaces as accredited by the PMAs. This ensures that any certificate subject name corresponds to one and only one entity, and allows you to rely on this subject name for subsequent decisions. This uniqueness applies only *within the namespace constraints* set by the PMAs.
For this reason, the distribution has, since its conception, contained a set of "signing_policy" files that specify exactly what subject names of each CA are subject to the IGTF assertions. On request of several middleware development projects, this very same set of namespace constraints is now also specified in a new format in a separate ".namespaces" file.
There is no difference in content between these two files, but the format and interpreting semantics are different.
For information regarding the new ".namespaces" file, please see http://www.eugridpma.org/documentation/
In the future, this format may yet again be extended or replaced by another format, as discussions within the Global Grid Forum continue. Your participation, via the CA-OPS Working Group, is of course welcome.
========================================================================= 5. Informational Services from the EUGridPMA =========================================================================
To better service the community, contact information of the members is made available from the EUGridPMA web site. Look under "membership" and find the web site and a link to the Policy and Practice Statements.
Experimentally, the following services are also available: * a "subject locator" - given a DN, find out which Authority manages that namespace: http://www.eugridpma.org/showca.php * Status News - short notices by the PMA that do not warrant issuing a newsletter because of their transient nature. http://www.eugridpma.org/statusnews/ In the near future, this system will be enhanced with a more detailed monitoring page that contains notices posted by the member authorities, such as scheduled web site maintenance. This service will be kindly provided by SiGNET.
========================================================================= Next Release =========================================================================
The next release of the CA RPMs is to be expected around mid-March 2006, (of course barring special circumstances). If you have suggestions or improvements for the distribution format, to have it better suit your needs, please contact the PMA at info@eugridpma.org. There will be a common distribution format across the entire IGTF (i.e. all three PMAs).