There is no reasoning mentioned in AWS, but they do allow re-encryption.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/ElasticLoadBalancing/latest/DeveloperGuide/config-backend-auth.html

For reasons I don’t understand, the workflow allows to configure backend-server 
certificates to be trusted and it doesn’t accept client certificates or CA 
certificates.

Thanks,
Vijay V.


From: Stephen Balukoff [mailto:sbaluk...@bluebox.net]
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 11:06 PM
To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Subject: Re: [openstack-dev] [Neutron][LBaaS] SSL re-encryption scenario 
question

Dang.  I was hoping this wasn't the case.  (I personally think it's a little 
silly not to trust your service provider to secure a network when they have 
root access to all the machines powering your cloud... but I digress.)

Part of the reason I was hoping this wasn't the case, isn't just because it 
consumes a lot more CPU on the load balancers, but because now we potentially 
have to manage client certificates and CA certificates (for authenticating from 
the proxy to back-end app servers). And we also have to decide whether we allow 
the proxy to use a different client cert / CA per pool, or per member.

Yes, I realize one could potentially use no client cert or CA (ie. encryption 
but no auth)...  but that actually provides almost no extra security over the 
unencrypted case:  If you can sniff the traffic between proxy and back-end 
server, it's not much more of a stretch to assume you can figure out how to be 
a man-in-the-middle.

Do any of you have a use case where some back-end members require SSL 
authentication from the proxy and some don't? (Again, deciding whether client 
cert / CA usage should attach to a "pool" or to a "member.")

It's a bit of a rabbit hole, eh.

Stephen


On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Eichberger, German 
<german.eichber...@hp.com<mailto:german.eichber...@hp.com>> wrote:
Hi Stephen,

The use case is that the Load Balancer needs to look at the HTTP requests be it 
to add an X-Forward field or change the timeout – but the network between the 
load balancer and the nodes is not completely private and the sensitive 
information needs to be again transmitted encrypted. This is admittedly an edge 
case but we had to implement a similar scheme for HP Cloud’s swift storage.

German

From: Stephen Balukoff 
[mailto:sbaluk...@bluebox.net<mailto:sbaluk...@bluebox.net>]
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2014 8:22 AM

To: OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
Subject: [openstack-dev] [Neutron][LBaaS] SSL re-encryption scenario question

Howdy, folks!

Could someone explain to me the SSL usage scenario where it makes sense to 
re-encrypt traffic traffic destined for members of a back-end pool?  SSL 
termination on the load balancer makes sense to me, but I'm having trouble 
understanding why one would be concerned about then re-encrypting the traffic 
headed toward a back-end app server. (Why not just use straight TCP load 
balancing in this case, and save the CPU cycles on the load balancer?)

We terminate a lot of SSL connections on our load balancers, but have yet to 
have a customer use this kind of functionality.  (We've had a few ask about it, 
usually because they didn't understand what a load balancer is supposed to do-- 
and with a bit of explanation they went either with SSL termination on the load 
balancer + clear text on the back-end, or just straight TCP load balancing.)

Thanks,
Stephen


--
Stephen Balukoff
Blue Box Group, LLC
(800)613-4305 x807<tel:%28800%29613-4305%20x807>

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--
Stephen Balukoff
Blue Box Group, LLC
(800)613-4305 x807
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