[Opendnssec-develop] Domain transfers under DNSSEC

[Rick van Rein]

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Hello,

I am pondering how domain transfers would take place under DNSSEC.
As expected, SIDN worries about it, and it also touches on OpenDNSSEC
(evntually) when the platform is used by a hosting provider.

We would not want to share private key material between an old and new
signer, since these will usually be different parties and because the
same key may (according to some on this list at least) be shared among
multiple zones.

A transfer is effectively a NS change in a TLD server.  Since NS and DS
records are presented at the same time, it is possible AFAIK to do a
simultaneous DS changeover, in such a way that no cache will ever hold
NS from one generation, and DS from another.

Given this, it should be possible to do a key rollover, even with a single
DS at the parent, by performing a variation on the KSK rollover procedure,
using temporary double KSK signatures:

1. Setup DNSSEC on the new signer
2. Move the old KSK to the new signer and move the new KSK to the old signer
3. Sign the zone on the old and new signer and hold off auto-resigning
4. Append old RRSig(KSK) in the new zone and new RRSig(KSK) in the old zone
5. Allow time for caches to pick up on the new zone data
6. Ask the parent to switch to the new DS+NS records simultaneously
7. Wait for the parent to publish the new DS+NS records
8. Wait for caches to pick up on the new DS+NS records and shutdown old signer
9. Remove the old DNSKEY from the new zone and resign at your leasure

I think this should work based on the following principles/assumptions:

1. DS and NS changes can be made at the same time

2. DNSKEY records should simply be added to the pre-signing zone

3. RRSig records can simply be appended to a signed zone (wow, hack!)

4. NSEC3 calculations do not have to be redone when RRSig records are added
   as long as the name of the newly added RRSig already has an RRSig on it.

5. The loosing registrar cooperates, by incorporating the new key material
   and signatures.  This has legal implications (making registrars cooperate),
   technical (making registrars synchronise on the procedure) and security
   (the old registrar must be convinced the transfer is proper, which probably
   applies to any transfer scheme without downtime).  Although cooperation
   could be enforced by registry ruling, it is probably the weak point of
   this scheme.  Note however, that the information exchanged between the
   old and new registrar is all public.


Could this be a useful aspect to take into account for v2 of OpenDNSSEC?
I think it could dramatically ease the worries of a TLD.  Also, it points
out a form of cooperation that TLDs may want to use as an obligation to
registrars who support DNSSEC.


Hope this helps,
 -Rick
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