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https://github.com/latchset/tang

Tang binding daemon
https://github.com/latchset/tang

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Tang binding daemon

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# Tang



## Welcome to Tang!

Tang is a server for binding data to network presence.



This sounds fancy, but the concept is simple. You have some data, but you only

want it to be available when the system containing the data is on a certain,

usually secure, network. This is where Tang comes in.



First, the client gets a list of the Tang server's advertised asymmetric keys.

This can happen online by a simple HTTP GET. Alternatively, since the keys are

asymmetric, the public key list can be distributed out of band.



Second, the client uses one of these public keys to generate a unique,

cryptographically strong encryption key. The data is then encrypted using this

key. Once the data is encrypted, the key is discarded. Some small metadata is

produced as part of this operation which the client should store in a

convenient location. This process of encrypting data is the provisioning step.



Third, when the client is ready to access its data, it simply loads the

metadata produced in the provisioning step and performs an HTTP POST in order

to recover the encryption key. This process is the recovery step.



#### Tang Versus Key Escrow: Ease of Use and Simple Security



Tang provides an easy and secure alternative to key escrows.



Before Tang, automated decryption usually took the form of generating a key,

encrypting data with it and then storing the key in a remote server. This

remote server is called a key escrow.



The concept of key escrow is simple, but managing it can be complex.



Key escrows are stateful by nature. And since they store live data (the

encryption keys), they must be surrounded by a sophisticated backup policy.

This backup policy also needs to be carefully secured, otherwise improper

access to the keys could be obtained. Further, since keys are transferred over

the wire, typically SSL/TLS is used. SSL/TLS is a large protocol, with a

corresponding large attack surface; resulting in attacks like Heartbleed. Even

further, escrows require a comprehensive authentication policy. Without this

any user on the network can fetch any key. Often this is deployed using X.509

certificates, which bring their own complexity.



In contrast, Tang is stateless and doesn't require TLS or authentication. Tang

also has limited knowledge. Unlike escrows, where the server has knowledge of

every key ever used, Tang never sees a single client key. Tang never gains any

identifying information from the client.



|                |   Escrow   |   Tang   |

|---------------:|:----------:|:--------:|

|      Stateless |     No     |    Yes   |

|          X.509 |  Required  | Optional |

|        SSL/TLS |  Required  | Optional |

| Authentication |  Required  | Optional |

|      Anonymous |     No     |    Yes   |



## Getting Started

### Dependencies



Tang requires two other software libraries:



1. jose >= 8 - https://github.com/latchset/jose

2. Either:

   - llhttp - https://github.com/nodejs/llhttp

   - http_parser >= 2.8 - https://github.com/nodejs/http-parser



http_parser is unmaintained, but llhttp is not availalbe in all

distributions - notably Debian and CentOS.



#### Fedora



Tang is packaged for Fedora. This package should be used as it contains

additional settings (such as SETGID directories) out of the box. To install it:



    $ sudo dnf install tang



If you really want to build from source on Fedora, you will need the following

packages:



1. llhttp - ``llhttp-devel``

2. systemd - ``systemd`` (desirable but not strictly required)

3. jose - ``jose``, ``libjose-devel``

4. curl - ``curl`` (only needed for running tests)

5. socat - ``socat`` (only needed for running tests)



#### OpenWrt



Tang is also capable of running on devices without systemd even for example

OpenWrt (see: [this PR](https://github.com/openwrt/packages/pull/5447)).

Instead of using systemd for socket activation you can use another daemon for

spawning services like xinetd. As of version 12 tang can also be run as a

standalone server without a separate socket listener.



An example of configuration file for Tang using xinetd can be found in the

`units/` directory as 'tangdx'.  Using that will also require installing the

wrapper from the 'units/' directroy 'tangdw' in '/usr/libexec/tangdw'.



#### FreeBSD



Tang is also capable of running on FreeBSD Unix variants. It is available in

the ports tree and package system.  As root you can install it with:



    # pkg install tang

    # service tangd enable

    # service tangd start



#### OPNsense



Tang can be installed on OPNsense by enabling the FreeBSD package repositories

and then installing. There are some extra steps to minimize the installation.



As root enable the FreeBSD repository, download tang, jose, and llhttp.

Then disable the FreeBSD repository to prevent installing extraneous

dependencies not needed by tang. And finally install the downloaded packages

and start the server:



    # vi /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf (set enabled to yes)

    # pkg download tang jose llhttp

    # vi /usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf (set enabled back to no)

    # pkg install /var/cache/pkg/tang-*.pkg /var/cache/pkg/jose-*.pkg /var/cache/pkg/llhttp-*.pkg

    # service tangd enable

    # service tangd start



#### Docker Container



Tang is also available as a [Docker

Container](https://gitlab.com/AdrianKoshka/tang-docker-container/).



Care should be taken to ensure that, when deploying in a container cluster,

that the Tang keys are not stored on the same physical medium that you wish to

protect.



### Building and Installing from Source



Building Tang is fairly straightforward:



    $ mkdir build && cd build

    $ meson setup .. --prefix=/usr

    $ ninja

    $ sudo ninja install



You can even run the tests if you'd like:



    $ meson test



#### FreeBSD



The build is simple and differs only sligtly from the general instructions.



    (as root) # pkg install jose git meson pkgconf jansson asciidoc llhttp socat

    $ mkdir build && cd build

    $ meson setup .. --prefix=/usr/local

    $ ninja

    $ meson test # if you want to run the tests

    (as root) # ninja install

    (as root) # mkdir -m 0700 /var/db/tang



Once built it does not require the many packages above, but still requires

jose and llhttp. 



### Server Enablement



Once installed, starting a Tang server is simple:



    $ sudo systemctl enable tangd.socket --now



This command will enable Tang for startup at boot and will additionally start

it immediately. During the first startup, your initial signing and exchange

keys will be generated automatically.



That's it! You're up and running!



### Key Rotation



It is important to periodically rotate your keys. This is a simple three step

process. In this example, we will rotate only a signing key; but all key types

should be rotated.



First, generate the new keys (see jose documentation for more options):



    $ sudo jose jwk gen -i '{"alg":"ES512"}' -o /var/db/tang/newsig.jwk

    $ sudo jose jwk gen -i '{"alg":"ECMR"}' -o /var/db/tang/newexc.jwk



Second, disable advertisement of the previous key:



    $ sudo mv /var/db/tang/oldsig.jwk /var/db/tang/.oldsig.jwk



Third, after some reasonable period of time you may delete the old keys. You

should only delete the old keys when you are sure that no client require them

anymore. You have been warned.



## Tang Protocol



Tang relies on the JSON Object Signing and Encryption (JOSE) standards.

All messages in the Tang protocol are valid JOSE objects. Because of this,

you can easily write your own trivial Tang clients using off-the-shelf JOSE

libraries and/or command-line utilities. However, this also implies that

comprehending the Tang protocol will require a basic understanding of JOSE

objects.



All Tang messages are transported using a simple HTTP REST API.



| Method   | Path         | Operation                                     |

|---------:|:-------------|:----------------------------------------------|

|    `GET` | `/adv`       | Fetch public keys                             |

|    `GET` | `/adv/{kid}` | Fetch public keys using specified signing key |

|   `POST` | `/rec/{kid}` | Perform recovery using specified exchange key |



### Advertisement



The advertisement reply message contains a JWS-signed JWKSet.



The (outer) JWS contains signatures using all of the advertised signing JWKs.



The (inner) JWKSet contains all of the advertised public JWKs. This includes

all advertised signing, encryption and exchange JWKs.



Typically, a client will perform "Trust On First Use" in order to trust the

server's advertisement. However, once the client trusts at least one signing

JWK, further advertisements can be requested using that signing JWK. This

allows clients to upgrade their chain of trust.



### Binding



Tang implements the McCallum-Relyea exchange as described below.



The basic idea of a McCallum-Relyea exchange is that the client performs an

ECDH key exchange in order to produce the binding key, but then discards its

own private key so that the Tang server is the only party that can reconstitute

the binding key. Additionally, a third, ephemeral key is used to blind the

client's public key and the binding key so that only the client can unblind

them. In short, blinding makes the recovery request and response

indistinguishable from random to both eavesdroppers and the Tang server itself.



The POST request and reply bodies are JWK objects.



#### Provisioning



The client selects one of the Tang server's exchange keys (`sJWK`; identified

by the use of `deriveKey` in the `sJWK`'s `key_ops` attribute). The client

generates a new (random) JWK (`cJWK`). The client performs its half of a

standard ECDH exchange producing `dJWK` which it uses to encrypt the data.

Afterwards, it discards `dJWK` and the private key from `cJWK`.



The client then stores `cJWK` for later use in the recovery step. Generally

speaking, the client may also store other data, such as the URL of the Tang

server or the trusted advertisement signing keys.



Expressed mathematically (capital = private key):



    s = g * S # sJWK (Server operation)

    c = g * C # cJWK

    K = s * C # dJWK



#### Recovery



To recover `dJWK` after discarding it, the client generates a third ephemeral

key (`eJWK`). Using `eJWK`, the client performs elliptic curve group addition

of `eJWK` and `cJWK`, producing `xJWK`. The client POSTs `xJWK` to the server.



The server then performs its half of the ECDH key exchange using `xJWK` and

`sJWK`, producing `yJWK`. The server returns `yJWK` to the client.



The client then performs half of an ECDH key exchange between `eJWK` and

`sJWK`, producing `zJWK`. Subtracting `zJWK` from `yJWK` produces `dJWK` again.



Expressed mathematically (capital = private key):



    e = g * E # eJWK

    x = c + e # xJWK

    y = x * S # yJWK (Server operation)

    z = s * E # zJWK

    K = y - z # dJWK



##### Understanding the Algorithm



To understand this algorithm, let us consider it without the ephemeral `eJWK`.

The math in this example depicts a standard ECDH.



    s = g * S # sJWK (Server advertisement)

    c = g * C # cJWK (Client provisioning)

    K = s * C # dJWK (Client provisioning)



    K = c * S # dJWK (Server recovery)



In the above case, the provisioning step is identical and the recovery step

does not use `eJWK`. Here, it becomes obvious that the client could simply send

its own public key (`cJWK`) to the server and receive back `dJWK`.



This example has a serious problem, however: both the identity of the client

(`cJWK`) and its secure decryption key (`dJWK`) are leaked to both the server

and any eavesdroppers. To overcome this problem, we use the ephemeral key

(`eJWK`) to blind both values.



#### Security Considerations



Let's think about the security of this system.



So long as the client discards its private key, the client cannot recover

`dJWK` without the Tang server. This is fundamentally the same assumption used

by Diffie-Hellman (and ECDH).



There are thus three avenues of attack which we will consider in turn:



1. Man-in-the-Middle

2. Compromise the client to gain access to `cJWK`

3. Compromise the server to gain access to `sJWK`'s private key



In the first case, the eavesdropper in this case sees the client send `xJWK`

and receive `yJWK`. Since, these packets are blinded by `eJWK`, only the party

that can unblind these values is the client itself (since only it has `eJWK`'s

private key). Thus, the MitM attack fails.



In the second case, it is of utmost importance that the client protect `cJWK`

from prying eyes. This may include device permissions, filesystem permissions,

security frameworks (such as SELinux) or even the use of hardware encryption

such as a TPM. How precisely this is accomplished is an exercise left to the

client implementation.



In the third case, the Tang server must protect the private key for `sJWK`.

In this implementation, access is controlled by filesystem permissions and

the service's policy. An alternative implementation might use hardware

cryptography (for example, an HSM) to protect the private key.