[ksk-change] Capabilities of validating systems we need to consider

[Paul Hoffman]

On Sep 22, 2014, at 12:27 AM, Olaf Kolkman <kolkman at isoc.org> wrote:

> 
>> On Sep 21, 2014, at 5:27 PM, Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Greetings again. In thinking about the question of "what would happen if we changed the KSK", but without thinking about why and when, it would be good to think about what kinds of systems are out there. My initial list came to three categories of capabilities:
>> 
>> 1) Able to automatically pull and correctly use a new KSK
>> 
>> 2) Cannot automatically pull a new KSK, or cannot correctly use an automatically-pulled KSK; however, it can correctly get and use a new KSK with operator intervention
>> 
>> 3) Even with operator intervention, cannot pull a new KSK or cannot correctly use an manually-pulled KSK
>> 
>> Are there other categories that would look operationally different to either customers of the system or to operators of signed zones?
>> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps there are instances that do leap-off fait type of configurations but I am not aware of them. 
> 
> Also the systems that have a to long off-line shelf life to be able to do a RFC5011 type rollover. They would be in (1) if they’d be on during the rollover but because of their off-lineness they might find themselves in cat. (2).

Sounds right.

> I argue that we ignore category (3). If we allow ourselves to be ossified by that type of mistake we will never be able to roll. In fact the argument for roll early and often is to make sure to weed out all existence of (3) and make category (2) aware that they will need to pay attention.

I agree that we should not cater at all to the systems in category 3, but we cannot ignore that they exist. By saying that they exist and that we do not intend to cater to them, we can possibly get them into category 2. If someone says "but my system's documentation on how to add a KSK is wrong!" we can say "yep, you're in category 3". That's better for the Internet than us saying "we don't know that you exist".

--Paul Hoffman