Tor design proposals

Filename: 230-rsa1024-relay-id-migration.txt
Title: How to change RSA1024 relay identity keys
Authors: Nick Mathewson
Created: 7 April 2014
Target: 0.2.?
Status: Obsolete

Note: Obsoleted by Ed25519 ID keys; superseded by 240 and 256.

1. Intro and motivation

   Some times, a relay would like to migrate from one RSA1024
   identity key to another without losing its previous status.

   This is especially important because proposal 220 ("Migrate
   server identity keys to Ed25519") is not yet implemented, and so
   server identity keys are not kept offline.  So when an OpenSSL
   bug like CVE-2014-0160 makes memory-reading attacks a threat to
   identity keys, we need a way for routers to migrate ASAP.

   This proposal does not cover migrating RSA1024 OR identity keys
   for authorities.

2. Design

   I propose that when a relay changes its identity key, it should
   include a "old-identity" field in its server descriptor for 60 days
   after the migration.  This old-identity would include the
   old RSA1024 identity, a signature of the new identity key
   with the old one, and the date when the migration occurred.

   This field would appear as an "old-id" field in microdescriptors,
   containing a SHA1 fingerprint of the old identity key, if the
   signature turned out to be value.

   Authorities would store old-identity => new-identity mappings,
   and:

      * Treat history information (wfu, mtbf, [and what else?]) from
        old identities as applying to new identities instead.

      * No longer accept any routers descriptors signed by the old
        identity.

   Clients would migrate any guard entries for the old identity to
   the new identity.

   (This will break clients connections for clients who try to
   connect to the old identity key before learning about the new
   one, but the window there won't be large for any single router.)

3. Descriptor format details

   Router descriptors may contain these new elements:

      "old-rsa1024-id-key" NL RSA_KEY NL

        Contains an old RSA1024 identity key. If this appears,
        old-rsa1024-id-migration must also appear. [At most once]

      "old-rsa1024-id-migration" SP ISO-TIME NL SIGNATURE NL

        Contains a signature of:
         The bytes "RSA1024 ID MIGRATION"               [20 bytes]
         The ISO-TIME field above as an 8 byte field    [8 bytes]
         A SHA256 hash of the new identity              [32 bytes]

        If this appears, "old-rsa1024-id-key" must also appear.
        [At most once].

4. Interface

   To use this feature, a router should rename its secret_id_key
   file to secret_id_key_OLD.  The first time that Tor starts and
   finds a secret_id_key_OLD file, it generates a new ID key if one
   is not present, and generates the text of the old-rsa-1024-id-key
   and old-rsa1024-id-migration fields above.  It stores them in a
   new "old_id_key_migration" file, and deletes the
   secret_id_key_OLD file.  It includes them in its desecriptors.

   Sixty days after the stored timestamp, the router deletes the
   "old_id_key_migration" file and stops including its contents in
   the descriptor.