First round of my stupid questions about NTS

[Gary E. Miller]

Yo Hal!

On Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:11:42 -0800
Hal Murray via devel <devel at ntpsec.org> wrote:

> >> We could restart
> >> NTP-server or NTS-KE-server as long as the other end stayed up and
> >> we arranged to send the keys in both directions.  
> 
> > well, you sorta need a key to do that, right?  Seems circular...  
> 
> When they are up and running, both the NTP server and the NTS-KE
> server know the master key.  If you restart one end, it can ask the
> other for the key.

Assuming they are both up.  Everything has to be up before anything
can run.  This adds serious delays, and traffic, when a data center
restarts.

> Do both NTP-server and NTS-KE-server have to know the new-cookie
> recipe?

Yes, and they share the same library that does it.

> Does NTS-KE-server need the master key for anything other
> than generating cookies?

Minimally, no.  I'm not gonna say never.

> Does it work if only the NTP-server has the
> master key and the NTS-KE-server gets cookies and S2C and C2S from
> the NTP server?

Nope.  And storing plaintext S2C and C2S for thousands of clients is
problematic...

RGDS
GARY
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gary E. Miller Rellim 109 NW Wilmington Ave., Suite E, Bend, OR 97703
	gem at rellim.com  Tel:+1 541 382 8588

	    Veritas liberabit vos. -- Quid est veritas?
    "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it." - Lord Kelvin
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