Directories and Certificates

1. Directories and Certificates Renee Woodten Frost Project Manager, Internet2 Middleware Initiative I2 Middleware Liaison, University of Michigan ………………. And an ensemble of hundreds

2. Topics • Acknowledgements • What is Middleware? • Core middleware: the basic technologies • Directories • Issues, architecture, good practices • Current activities - LDAP Recipe, eduPerson, MACE-Dir, Directory of Directories, Metadirectories • Certificates • PKI fundamentals • Current events in PKI • Shibboleth • Where to watch ACUTA August 1, 2001

3. Internet2 • Mission: • Develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow’s Internet. • Goals: • Enable new generation of applications • Re-create leading edge Research and Education network capability • Transfer technology and experience to the global production Internet ACUTA August 1, 2001

4. MACE and the working groups Early Harvest - NSF catalytic grant and meeting Early Adopters – testbed campuses Higher Education partners - campuses, EDUCAUSE, CREN, AACRAO, NACUA, etc. Corporate partners - IBM, ATT, Sun, et al. Government partners - including NSF and the fPKI TWG Middleware Initiatives Acknowledgements ACUTA August 1, 2001

5. MACE (Middleware Architecture Committee for Education) • Purpose - to provide advice, create experiments, foster standards, etc. on key technical issues for core middleware within higher education • Membership - Bob Morgan (UW) Chair, Steven Carmody (Brown), Michael Gettes (Georgetown), Keith Hazelton (Wisconsin), Paul Hill (MIT), Jim Jokl (Virginia), Mark Poepping (CMU), David Wasley (California), Von Welch (Grid) • Creates working groups in major areas, including directories, inter-realm authentication, PKI, medical issues, video, etc. • Works via conference calls, emails, occasional serendipitous in-person meetings... ACUTA August 1, 2001

6. Early Harvest • NSF funded workshop in Fall 99 and subsequent activities • Defined the territory and established a work plan • Best practices in identifiers, authentication, and directories (http://middleware.internet2.edu/best-practices.html) • http://middleware.internet2.edu/earlyharvest/ ACUTA August 1, 2001

7. Early Adopters: The Campus Testbed Phase • A variety of roles and missions • Commitment to move implementation forward • Provided some training and facilitated support • Develop national models of deployment alternatives • Address policy standards • Profiles and plans are on Internet2 middleware site ACUTA August 1, 2001

8. Dartmouth U. of Hawaii Johns Hopkins U. of Maryland, BC U. of Memphis U. of Michigan Michigan Tech U. U. of Pittsburgh U. of Southern Cal U. of Tennessee, Memphis Tufts U. Early Adopter Participants ACUTA August 1, 2001

9. Partnerships • EDUCAUSE • CREN • Grids, JA-SIG, OKI • Campuses • Higher education professional associations - AACRAO, NACUA, CUMREC, etc. • Increasing international interactions • Corporate - IBM, Sun, ATT, etc. ACUTA August 1, 2001

10. The proliferation of customizable applications requires a centralization of “customizations” The increase in power and complexity of the network requires access to user profiles Electronic personal security services is now an impediment to the next-generation computing grids Inter-institutional applications require interoperational deployments of institutional directories and authentication Remedial IT architecture ACUTA August 1, 2001

11. What is Middleware? • Specialized networked services that are shared by applications and users • A set of core software components that permit scaling of applications and networks • Tools that take the complexity out of application integration • A second layer of the IT infrastructure, sitting above the network • A land where technology meets policy • The intersection of what networks designers and applications developers each do not want to do ACUTA August 1, 2001

12. Specifically… • Digital libraries need scalable, interoperable authentication and authorization. • The Grid is a new paradigm for a computational resource; Globus provides middleware, including security, location and allocation of resources, and scheduling. This relies on campus-based services and inter-institutional standards. • Instructional Management Systems need authentication and directories. • Next-generation portals want common authentication and storage. • Academic collaboration requires restricted sharing of materials between institutions. • What Internet1 did with communication, Internet2 may do with collaboration. ACUTA August 1, 2001

13. A Map of Middleware ACUTA August 1, 2001

14. The Grid • A model for a distributed computing environment, addressing diverse computational resources, distributed databases, network bandwidth, object brokering, security, etc. • Globus (www.globus.org) is the software that implements most of these components; Legion is another such software environment • Needs to integrate with campus infrastructure • Gridforum (www.gridforum.org) umbrella activity of agencies and academics • Look for grids to occur locally and nationally, in physics, earthquake engineering, etc. ACUTA August 1, 2001

15. Core Middleware • Identity - unique markers of who you (person, machine, service, group) are • Authentication - how you prove or establish that you are that identity • Directories - where an identity’s basic characteristics are kept • Authorization - what an identity is permitted to do • PKI, etc - emerging tools for security services ACUTA August 1, 2001

16. What is the nature of the work? • Technological • Establish campus-wide services: name space, authentication • Build an enterprise directory service • Populate the directory from source systems • Enable applications to use the directory • Policies and Politics • Clarify relationships between individuals and institution • Determine who manages, who can update and who can see common data • Structure information access and use rules between departments and central administrative units • Reconcile business rules and practices ACUTA August 1, 2001

17. What are the benefits to the institution? • Economies for central IT - reduced account management, better web site access controls, tighter network security... • Economies for distributed IT - reduced administration, access to better information feeds, easier integration of departmental applications into campus-wide use... • Improved services for students and faculty - access to scholarly information, control of personal data, reduced legal exposures... • Participation in future research environments - Grids, videoconferencing, etc. • Participation in new collaborative initiatives – Directory of Directories, Shibboleth, etc. ACUTA August 1, 2001

18. What are the costs to the institution? • Modest increases in capital equipment and staffing requirements for central IT • Considerable time and effort to conduct campus wide planning and vetting processes • One-time costs to retrofit some applications to new central infrastructure • One-time costs to build feeds from legacy source systems to central directory services • The political wounds from the reduction of duchies in data and policies ACUTA August 1, 2001

19. OIDs to reference identifiers • Numeric coding to uniquely define many middleware elements, such as directory attributes and certificate policies • Numbering is only for identification (are two OIDs equal? If so, the associated objects are the same) - no ordering, search, hierarchy, etc. • Distributed management; each campus typically obtains an “arc”, e.g. 1.3.4.1.16.602.1, and then creates OIDs by extending the arc, e.g 1.3.4.1.16.602.1.0, 1.3.4.1.16.602.1.1, 1.3.4.1.16.602.1.1.1 ACUTA August 1, 2001

20. Getting an OID • Apply at IANA at • http://www.iana.org/cgi-bin/enterprise.pl • Apply at ANSI at http://web.ansi.org/public/services/reg_org.html • More info at • http://middleware.internet2.edu/a-brief-guide-to-OIDs.doc ACUTA August 1, 2001

21. UUID Student and/or emplid Person registry ID Account login ID Enterprise-LAN ID Student ID card Net ID Email address Library/departmental ID Publicly visible ID (and pseudo-SSN) Pseudonymous ID Major campus identifiers ACUTA August 1, 2001

22. General Identifier Characteristics • Uniqueness (within a given context) • Dumb vs intelligent (i.e. whether subfields have meaning) • Readability (machine vs human vs device) • Affordance (centrally versus locally provided) • Resolver approach (how identifier is mapped to its associated object) • Metadata (both associated with the assignment and resolution of an identifier) • Persistence (permanence of relationship between identifier and specific object) • Granularity (degree to which an identifier denotes a collection or component) • Format (checkdigits) • Versions (can the defining characteristics of an identifier change over time) • Capacity (size limitations imposed on the domain or object range) • Extensibility (the capability to intelligently extend one identifier to be the basis for another identifier). ACUTA August 1, 2001

23. Important Characteristics • Semantics and syntax- what it names and how does it name it • Domain - who issues and over what space is identifier unique • Revocation - can the subject ever be given a different value for the identifier • Reassignment - can the identifier ever be given to another subject • Opacity - is the real world subject easily deduced from the identifier - privacy and use issues ACUTA August 1, 2001

24. Identifier Mapping Process • Map campus identifiers against a canonical set of functional needs • For each identifier, establish its key characteristics, including revocation, reassignment, privileges, and opacity • Shine a light on some of the shadowy underpinnings of middleware • A key first step towards the loftier middleware goals ACUTA August 1, 2001

25. Authentication Options • Password based • Clear text • LDAP • Kerberos (Microsoft or K5 flavors) • Certificate based • Others - challenge-response, biometrics • Inter-realm is now the interesting frontier ACUTA August 1, 2001

26. Cuttings: Authentication • User side management - crack, change, compromise • Central-side password management - change management, OS security • First password assignment - secure delivery • Policies - restrictions or requirements on use ACUTA August 1, 2001

27. Some authentication good practices • Precrack new passwords • Precrack using foreign dictionaries as well as US • Confirm new passwords are different than old • Require password change if possibly compromised • Use shared secrets or positive photo ID to reset forgotten passwords • US Mail a one-time password (time-bomb) • In-person with a photo ID (some require two) • For remote faculty or staff, an authorized departmental representative in person, coupled with a faxed photo ID • Initial identification/authentication will emerge as a critical component of PKI ACUTA August 1, 2001

28. Directory Issues • Applications • Overall architecture • chaining and referrals, redundancy and load balancing, replication, synchronization, directory discovery • The Schema and the DIT (Directory Tree) • attributes, organizational units (ou), naming, object classes, groups • Attributes and indexing • Management • clients, delegation of access control, data feeds ACUTA August 1, 2001

29. Directory-enabled applications • Email • Account management • Web access controls • Portal support • Calendaring • Grids ACUTA August 1, 2001

30. A Campus Directory Architecture border directory metadirectory enterprise directory OS directories (MS, Novell, etc) departmental directories directory database registries source systems ACUTA August 1, 2001

31. Interfaces and relationships with legacy systems Performance in searching Binding to the directory Load balancing and backups are emerging but proprietary Who can read or update what fields How much to couple the enterprise directory with an operating system http://www.georgetown.edu/giia/internet2/ldap-recipe/ Key Architectural Issues ACUTA August 1, 2001

32. Schema and DIT Good Practices • People, machines, services • Be very flat in people space • Keep accounts as attributes, not as an organizational unit (ou) • Replication and group policies should not drive schema • RDN name choices rich and critical • Other keys to index • Creating and preserving unified name spaces ACUTA August 1, 2001

33. Attribute Good Practices • inetOrgPerson, eduPerson, localPerson • Never repurpose an RFC-defined field. Add new attributes - adding attributes is easier than thought • Keep schema checking on, unless it is done in the underlying database; watch performance • Most LDAP clients do not treat multi-valued attributes well, but doing multiple fields and separate domain names (dns) is no better. ACUTA August 1, 2001

34. Management Good Practices • No trolling permitted; more search than read • LDAP client access versus web access • Give deep thought to who can update • Give deep thought to when to update • LDIF likely to be replaced by XML as exchange format • Delegation of control - scalability • “See also”, referrals, replication, synchronization in practice • Replication should not be done tree-based but should be filtered by rules and attributes ACUTA August 1, 2001

35. Current Activities in Directories • LDAP Recipe • eduPerson • MACE-DIR • Directory of Directories for Higher Education • Metadirectories ACUTA August 1, 2001

36. LDAP Recipe • How to build and operate a directory in higher education • 1 Tsp. DIT planning 1 Tbsp. schema design 3 oz. configuration 1000 lbs. of data • Good details, such as tradeoffs/recommendations on indexing, how and when to replicate, etc. • http://www.georgetown.edu/giia/internet2/ldap-recipe/ ACUTA August 1, 2001

37. LDAP Recipe Contents • Directory Information TreeSchema DesignDirectory of Directories for Higher Education (DoDHE) expectationsSchema Design (continued)Schema: How to upgrade it?Password ManagementBindingseduPerson attribute discussionsAccess ControlReplicationName PopulationLDAP filter config file for white pagestelephoneNumber formattingCHANGELOG ACUTA August 1, 2001

38. A directory object class intended to support inter-institutional applications Fills gaps in traditional directory schema For existing attributes, states good practices where known Specifies several new attributes and controlled vocabulary to use as values Provides suggestions on how to assign values, but leaves it to the institution to choose Version 1.0 standard; v 1.5 under discussion eduPerson ACUTA August 1, 2001

39. eduPerson inherits attributes from Person, inetOrgPerson Some of those attributes need conventions about controlled vocabulary (e.g. telephones) Some of those attributes need ambiguity resolved via a consistent interpretation (e.g. email address) Some of the attributes need standards around indexing and search (e.g. compound surnames) Many of those attributes need access control and privacy decisions (e.g. JPEG photo, email address, etc.) Issues about Upper Class Attributes ACUTA August 1, 2001

40. edupersonAffiliation edupersonPrimaryAffiliation edupersonOrgDN edupersonOrgUnitDN edupersonPrincipalName edupersonNickname New eduPerson Attributes ACUTA August 1, 2001

41. Multi-valued list of relationships an individual has with institution Controlled vocabulary includes: faculty, staff, student, alum, member, affiliate, employee Applications that use: Shibboleth digital libraries, DoDHE eduPersonAffiliation ACUTA August 1, 2001

42. Single-valued attribute that would be the status put on a name badge at a conference Controlled vocabulary includes: faculty, staff, student, alum, member, affiliate Applications that use: white pages, restricted access sites eduPersonPrimaryAffiliation ACUTA August 1, 2001

43. userid@securitydomain EPPN may look like an email address, but it is used by different systems One must be able to authenticate against the EPPN Used in inter-realm authentication such as Shibboleth In some situations it can be used for access control lists; if used, a site should make sure what the reassignment policy is eduPersonPrincipalName ACUTA August 1, 2001

44. eduPerson 1.0 done, along with FAQ and letter to implementers Ties closely to LDAP Recipe Version 1.5+ may include attributes for videoconferencing, additional collaboration factors, links to Grids, portals, etc. Check with web site for additional changes Participate: mace-dir@internet2.edu Next Steps ACUTA August 1, 2001

45. Revisions to eduPerson 1.0 Internationalization of eduPerson, GridPerson Affiliated Directories Groups within directories Groups between institutions Key Issues for Mace-Dir ACUTA August 1, 2001

46. A Directory of Directories (DODHE) • An experiment to build a combined directory search service • To show the power of coordination • Will highlight the inconsistencies between institutions • Technical investigation of load and scaling issues, centralized and decentralized approaches • Human-interface issues - searching large name spaces with limits by substring, location, affiliation, etc... • Sun donated server and iPlanet license (6,000,000 DN’s) • Michael Gettes of Georgetown is project manager ACUTA August 1, 2001

47. Metadirectories: Architech • www.architech.no is now Metamerge • Higher Education Contact for USA • Keith Hazelton, University of Wisconsin – Madison • hazelton@doit.wisc.edu • This product is available free of charge to Higher Ed in USA • Source code will be in escrow. See Keith for further details. ACUTA August 1, 2001

48. Metamerge Features • GUI development environment • NOT a metadirectory, but a tool to build same functionality • Various Languages: JavaScript, Java, Perl, Rexx, etc… • Various Parsers: XML, LDIF, CSV, Script Interface, etc … • for input and output • Various Connectors: COMport, Files, HTTP, HTTPserver, FTP, LDAP, JDBC, Oracle and more … • The product is ALL Java ACUTA August 1, 2001

49. Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Agenda • Fundamentals - Background and contexts; X.509v3 profiles; Certificate Issuing and Revocation Systems; Policies, practices and trust Models • The missing pieces - in the technology and in the community • Current Activities - Feds, overseas, HealthKeyPKI Forum, etc. • Previous Efforts - ANX, PKIForum • Higher Ed Activities (campuses, CREN, HEPKI-TAG, HEPKI-PAG, Net@edu, PKI Labs) ACUTA August 1, 2001

50. PKI: A few observations • Think of it as wall jack connectivity, except it’s connectivity for individuals, not for machines, and there’s no wall or jack…But it is that ubiquitous and important • Does it need to be a single infrastructure? What are the costs of multiple solutions? Subnets and ITPs... • Options breed complexity; managing complexity is essential ACUTA August 1, 2001