Hi Quynh, 

 

> An obvious question is that what is the performance impact from this large
KEM using the approaches above when compared with a KEM (if its public key
and ciphertext are around 1,400-1,600 bytes in total) (assuming a pq
signature algorithm has a small signature and a small public key) which
would work well in a normal IKEv2's implementation ? 

> I guess the impact is small generally because an IPsec tunnel normally
stays up for a long time. Does my guess seem ok here ?

> Would there be some noticeable impact on a high-volume connections VPN
server ?

> An obvious question is that what is the performance impact from this large
KEM using the approaches above when compared with a KEM (if its public key
and ciphertext are around 1,400-1,600 bytes in total) (assuming a pq
signature algorithm has a small signature and a small public key) which
would work well in a normal IKEv2's implementation ? 

> I guess the impact is small generally because an IPsec tunnel normally
stays up for a long time. Does my guess seem ok here ?

> Would there be some noticeable impact on a high-volume connections VPN
server ?

 

We tested this in the context of TLS in https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/071.
For a tunnel that stays up for a long time (not just a few seconds like
HTTPS) and sends Megabytes of data or more, then the larger key+signatures
size are amortized over the tunnel data. What becomes more important then is
the keygen, encap, decap, sign/verify time. 

 

In other words, servers that terminate a lot of connections at the same time
will be impacted by slower operations in the handshake (the server
throughput drops), but their tunnels that send a few more kilobytes of
handshake data and magnitudes more over the tunnel are not significantly
affected especially if we are talking about UDP and not TCP (with congestion
control slowing down the handshake). 

 

 

 

From: IPsec <ipsec-boun...@ietf.org> On Behalf Of Dang, Quynh H. (Fed)
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 12:37 PM
To: Valery Smyslov <smyslov.i...@gmail.com>; 'ipsecme mailing list'
<ipsec@ietf.org>
Subject: Re: [IPsec] Maximum sizes of IKEv2 messages and UDP messages ?

 

Thank you Valery and thank you everyone who responded to me.

 

The approaches in the drafts
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-multiple-ke-00#section-
1.1  and
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-intermediate-04 look
good to me.

 

It looks like if/when someone implements them and adds a large key and/or
ciphertext KEM, the maximum IKEv2 message size must be adjusted if the
existing implementation does not already support the corresponding message
size with the new KEM ( for an ephemeral key exchange, it contains a public
key and a ciphertext) because I don't see any mentioning of the maximum
IKEv2 message size (it is an implementation specific issue). 

 

Let's say after 10 or 15 years from now, the group trusts the security of
some PQ KEM and signature algorithms and would like to use them in normal
IKEv2 without the 2 methods above.

 

In that situation, if the KEM has large public key and/or ciphtertext would
have the IP fragmentation and packet drop issues. So, this KEM should use
the approaches in the drafts above to deal with these issues. 

 

An obvious question is that what is the performance impact from this large
KEM using the approaches above when compared with a KEM (if its public key
and ciphertext are around 1,400-1,600 bytes in total) (assuming a pq
signature algorithm has a small signature and a small public key) which
would work well in a normal IKEv2's implementation ? 

 

I guess the impact is small generally because an IPsec tunnel normally stays
up for a long time. Does my guess seem ok here ?

 

Would there be some noticeable impact on a high-volume connections VPN
server ?

 

Regards,

Quynh. 


 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-intermediate-04>
draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-intermediate-04 - Intermediate Exchange in the
IKEv2 Protocol

This documents defines a new exchange, called Intermediate Exchange, for the
Internet Key Exchange protocol Version 2 (IKEv2). This exchange can be used
for transferring large amount of data in the process of IKEv2 Security
Association (SA) establishment. Introducing Intermediate Exchange allows
re-using existing IKE Fragmentation mechanism, that helps to avoid IP
fragmentation of large IKE ...

tools.ietf.org

 

 

 

  _____  

From: Valery Smyslov <smyslov.i...@gmail.com <mailto:smyslov.i...@gmail.com>
>
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 9:57 AM
To: Dang, Quynh H. (Fed) <quynh.d...@nist.gov <mailto:quynh.d...@nist.gov>
>; 'ipsecme mailing list' <ipsec@ietf.org <mailto:ipsec@ietf.org> >
Subject: RE: [IPsec] Maximum sizes of IKEv2 messages and UDP messages ? 

 

Hi Quinh,

 

please look at the  draft-ietf-ipsecme-ikev2-multiple-ke-00.

It specifically addresses your concern about large public keys of PQ KE
methods.

 

Actually, it's generally OK to have public keys/signatures up to 64Kbytes.

If you need to deal with larger keys, then some update of the specs is
needed.

 

Regards,

Valery..

 

 

From: IPsec [mailto:ipsec-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Dang, Quynh H.
(Fed)
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 4:49 PM
To: ipsecme mailing list
Subject: [IPsec] Maximum sizes of IKEv2 messages and UDP messages ?

 

Hi everyone,

 

I am interested in knowing what are typical maximum sizes for IKEv2 messages
and UDP messages in implementations. 

 

The reason is that the IKEv2's spec has a must and a should being 1280 and
3000 bytes respectively for IKEv2 messages, but does not have a maximum
limit.

 

As you know some of the post quantum cryptographic candidates in our
standardization process have large or very large public key , signature
and/or ciphertext sizes.

 

My guess is that some updates to the spec and/or implementations would make
them work. 

 

Your data points and discussions are appreciated.

 

Regards,

Quynh. 

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