[cabfpub] [Ext] BR Authorized Ports, add 8443

[Phillip]

To clarify what Paul said, 

We need to distinguish between the use of a port for certificate validation
and the use of a port for delivery of an Internet service. The fact that we
use SSL on every port to provide a service does not mean that we should
allow that use for validation.

I do think we should consider adding a DNS prefix for certificate validation
though because ports are the old way to advertise services and does not
scale. We ran out of ports a long time ago and now use DNS prefixes and
.well-known HTTP services to extend the port numbers. 


-----Original Message-----
From: Public [mailto:public-bounces at cabforum.org] On Behalf Of Paul Hoffman
via Public
Sent: Friday, March 2, 2018 10:08 AM
To: Ben Wilson <ben.wilson at digicert.com>; CA/Browser Forum Public Discussion
List <public at cabforum.org>
Subject: Re: [cabfpub] [Ext] BR Authorized Ports, add 8443

On Mar 1, 2018, at 7:51 AM, Ben Wilson via Public <public at cabforum.org>
wrote:
> 
> Forwarding from Richard Wang:
> 
> The current BRs say:
> 
> Authorized Ports: One of the following ports: 80 (http), 443 (http), 25
(smtp), 22 (ssh).
> 
> But many internal networks use the port 8443, broadly used in Apache
server, today, one of our customers uses this port and can't change to use
another port, I wish you can help to add this port 8443 to be allowed in the
BRs, thanks.

It appears that the BRs currently are talking about authorizing *services*,
not ports. That is, I would not expect to be able to put a HTTP server on
port 22 on my system and have that considered authorized by the BRs.

Any Internet service can be run on any port. Every web, SMTP, and SSH server
software configuration allows you to run on the standard ports or any port
you choose.

Two suggestions:

- Clarify the BRs to say "Authorized Services and Ports"

- Add text that says only the authorized ports may be used

If CABF folks want to allow issuance of certificates for services on ports
other than the standard ports, you will have to decide what it means to
initially offer a service on one part and then move it to another port. The
PKIX standard does not allow encoding of port numbers for services in
certificates.

--Paul Hoffman
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