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Storage Node Protocol ("Great Black Swamp", "GBS")

The target audience for this document is developers working on Tahoe-LAFS or on an alternate implementation intended to be interoperable. After reading this document, one should expect to understand how Tahoe-LAFS clients interact over the network with Tahoe-LAFS storage nodes.

The primary goal of the introduction of this protocol is to simplify the task of implementing a Tahoe-LAFS storage server. Specifically, it should be possible to implement a Tahoe-LAFS storage server without a Foolscap implementation (substituting a simpler GBS server implementation). The Tahoe-LAFS client will also need to change but it is not expected that it will be noticably simplified by this change (though this may be the first step towards simplifying it).

Glossary

Foolscap

an RPC/RMI (Remote Procedure Call / Remote Method Invocation) protocol for use with Twisted

storage server

a Tahoe-LAFS process configured to offer storage and reachable over the network for store and retrieve operations

storage service

a Python object held in memory in the storage server which provides the implementation of the storage protocol

introducer

a Tahoe-LAFS process at a known location configured to re-publish announcements about the location of storage servers

fURLs <fURLs>

a self-authenticating URL-like string which can be used to locate a remote object using the Foolscap protocol (the storage service is an example of such an object)

NURLs <NURLs>

a self-authenticating URL-like string almost exactly like a fURL but without being tied to Foolscap

swissnum

a short random string which is part of a fURL/NURL and which acts as a shared secret to authorize clients to use a storage service

lease

state associated with a share informing a storage server of the duration of storage desired by a client

share

a single unit of client-provided arbitrary data to be stored by a storage server (in practice, one of the outputs of applying ZFEC encoding to some ciphertext with some additional metadata attached)

bucket

a group of one or more immutable shares held by a storage server and having a common storage index

slot

a group of one or more mutable shares held by a storage server and having a common storage index (sometimes "slot" is considered a synonym for "storage index of a slot")

storage index

a 16 byte string which can address a slot or a bucket (in practice, derived by hashing the encryption key associated with contents of that slot or bucket)

write enabler

a short secret string which storage servers require to be presented before allowing mutation of any mutable share

lease renew secret

a short secret string which storage servers required to be presented before allowing a particular lease to be renewed

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.

Motivation

Foolscap

Foolscap is a remote method invocation protocol with several distinctive features. At its core it allows separate processes to refer each other's objects and methods using a capability-based model. This allows for extremely fine-grained access control in a system that remains highly securable without becoming overwhelmingly complicated. Supporting this is a flexible and extensible serialization system which allows data to be exchanged between processes in carefully controlled ways.

Tahoe-LAFS avails itself of only a small portion of these features. A Tahoe-LAFS storage server typically only exposes one object with a fixed set of methods to clients. A Tahoe-LAFS introducer node does roughly the same. Tahoe-LAFS exchanges simple data structures that have many common, standard serialized representations.

In exchange for this slight use of Foolscap's sophisticated mechanisms, Tahoe-LAFS pays a substantial price:

  • Foolscap is implemented only for Python. Tahoe-LAFS is thus limited to being implemented only in Python.
  • There is only one Python implementation of Foolscap. The implementation is therefore the de facto standard and understanding of the protocol often relies on understanding that implementation.
  • The Foolscap developer community is very small. The implementation therefore advances very little and some non-trivial part of the maintenance cost falls on the Tahoe-LAFS project.
  • The extensible serialization system imposes substantial complexity compared to the simple data structures Tahoe-LAFS actually exchanges.

HTTP

HTTP is a request/response protocol that has become the lingua franca of the internet. Combined with the principles of Representational State Transfer (REST) it is widely employed to create, update, and delete data in collections on the internet. HTTP itself provides only modest functionality in comparison to Foolscap. However its simplicity and widespread use have led to a diverse and almost overwhelming ecosystem of libraries, frameworks, toolkits, and so on.

By adopting HTTP in place of Foolscap Tahoe-LAFS can realize the following concrete benefits:

  • Practically every language or runtime has an HTTP protocol implementation (or a dozen of them) available. This change paves the way for new Tahoe-LAFS implementations using tools better suited for certain situations (mobile client implementations, high-performance server implementations, easily distributed desktop clients, etc).
  • The simplicity of and vast quantity of resources about HTTP make it a very easy protocol to learn and use. This change reduces the barrier to entry for developers to contribute improvements to Tahoe-LAFS's network interactions.
  • For any given language there is very likely an HTTP implementation with a large and active developer community. Tahoe-LAFS can therefore benefit from the large effort being put into making better libraries for using HTTP.
  • One of the core features of HTTP is the mundane transfer of bulk data and implementions are often capable of doing this with extreme efficiency. The alignment of this core feature with a core activity of Tahoe-LAFS of transferring bulk data means that a substantial barrier to improved Tahoe-LAFS runtime performance will be eliminated.

TLS

The Foolscap-based protocol provides some of Tahoe-LAFS's confidentiality, integrity, and authentication properties by leveraging TLS. An HTTP-based protocol can make use of TLS in largely the same way to provide the same properties. Provision of these properties is dependant on implementers following Great Black Swamp's rules for x509 certificate validation (rather than the standard "web" rules for validation).

Design Requirements

Security

Summary

The storage node protocol should offer at minimum the security properties offered by the Foolscap-based protocol. The Foolscap-based protocol offers:

  • Peer authentication by way of checked x509 certificates
  • Message authentication by way of TLS
  • Message confidentiality by way of TLS
    • A careful configuration of the TLS connection parameters may also offer forward secrecy. However, Tahoe-LAFS' use of Foolscap takes no steps to ensure this is the case.
  • Storage authorization by way of a capability contained in the fURL addressing a storage service.

Discussion

A client node relies on a storage node to persist certain data until a future retrieval request is made. In this way, the client node is vulnerable to attacks which cause the data not to be persisted. Though this vulnerability can be (and typically is) mitigated by including redundancy in the share encoding parameters for stored data, it is still sensible to attempt to minimize unnecessary vulnerability to this attack.

One way to do this is for the client to be confident the storage node with which it is communicating is really the expected node. That is, for the client to perform peer authentication of the storage node it connects to. This allows it to develop a notion of that node's reputation over time. The more retrieval requests the node satisfies correctly the more it probably will satisfy correctly. Therefore, the protocol must include some means for verifying the identify of the storage node. The initialization of the client with the correct identity information is out of scope for this protocol (the system may be trust-on-first-use, there may be a third-party identity broker, etc).

With confidence that communication is proceeding with the intended storage node, it must also be possible to trust that data is exchanged without modification. That is, the protocol must include some means to perform message authentication. This is most likely done using cryptographic MACs (such as those used in TLS).

The messages which enable the mutable shares feature include secrets related to those shares. For example, the write enabler secret is used to restrict the parties with write access to mutable shares. It is exchanged over the network as part of a write operation. An attacker learning this secret can overwrite share data with garbage (lacking a separate encryption key, there is no way to write data which appears legitimate to a legitimate client). Therefore, message confidentiality is necessary when exchanging these secrets. Forward secrecy is preferred so that an attacker recording an exchange today cannot launch this attack at some future point after compromising the necessary keys.

A storage service offers service only to some clients. A client proves their authorization to use the storage service by presenting a shared secret taken from the fURL. In this way storage authorization is performed to prevent disallowed parties from consuming any storage resources.

Functionality

Tahoe-LAFS application-level information must be transferred using this protocol. This information is exchanged with a dozen or so request/response-oriented messages. Some of these messages carry large binary payloads. Others are small structured-data messages. Some facility for expansion to support new information exchanges should also be present.

Solutions

An HTTP-based protocol, dubbed "Great Black Swamp" (or "GBS"), is described below. This protocol aims to satisfy the above requirements at a lower level of complexity than the current Foolscap-based protocol.

Summary (Non-normative)

Communication with the storage node will take place using TLS. The TLS version and configuration will be dictated by an ongoing understanding of best practices. The storage node will present an x509 certificate during the TLS handshake. Storage clients will require that the certificate have a valid signature. The Subject Public Key Information (SPKI) hash of the certificate will constitute the storage node's identity. The tub id portion of the storage node fURL will be replaced with the SPKI hash.

When connecting to a storage node, the client will take the following steps to gain confidence it has reached the intended peer:

  • It will perform the usual cryptographic verification of the certificate presented by the storage server. That is, it will check that the certificate itself is well-formed, that it is currently valid1, and that the signature it carries is valid.
  • It will compare the SPKI hash of the certificate to the expected value. The specifics of the comparison are the same as for the comparison specified by RFC 7469 with "sha256"2.

To further clarify, consider this example. Alice operates a storage node. Alice generates a key pair and secures it properly. Alice generates a self-signed storage node certificate with the key pair. Alice's storage node announces (to an introducer) a NURL containing (among other information) the SPKI hash. Imagine the SPKI hash is i5xb.... This results in a NURL of pb://i5xb...@example.com:443/g3m5...#v=1. Bob creates a client node pointed at the same introducer. Bob's client node receives the announcement from Alice's storage node (indirected through the introducer).

Bob's client node recognizes the NURL as referring to an HTTP-dialect server due to the v=1 fragment. Bob's client node can now perform a TLS handshake with a server at the address in the NURL location hints (example.com:443 in this example). Following the above described validation procedures, Bob's client node can determine whether it has reached Alice's storage node or not. If and only if the validation procedure is successful does Bob's client node conclude it has reached Alice's storage node. Peer authentication has been achieved.

Additionally, by continuing to interact using TLS, Bob's client and Alice's storage node are assured of both message authentication and message confidentiality.

Bob's client further inspects the NURL for the swissnum. When Bob's client issues HTTP requests to Alice's storage node it includes the swissnum in its requests. Storage authorization has been achieved.

Note

Foolscap TubIDs are 20 bytes (SHA1 digest of the certificate). They are encoded with Base32 for a length of 32 bytes. SPKI information discussed here is 32 bytes (SHA256 digest). They would be encoded in Base32 for a length of 52 bytes. unpadded base64url provides a more compact encoding of the information while remaining URL-compatible. This would encode the SPKI information for a length of merely 43 bytes. SHA1, the current Foolscap hash function, is not a practical choice at this time due to advances made in attacking SHA1. The selection of a safe hash function with output smaller than SHA256 could be the subject of future improvements. A 224 bit hash function (SHA3-224, for example) might be suitable -improving the encoded length to 38 bytes.

Transition

To provide a seamless user experience during this protocol transition, there should be a period during which both protocols are supported by storage nodes. The GBS announcement will be introduced in a way that updated client software can recognize. Its introduction will also be made in such a way that non-updated client software disregards the new information (of which it cannot make any use).

Storage nodes will begin to operate a new GBS server. They may re-use their existing x509 certificate or generate a new one. Generation of a new certificate allows for certain non-optimal conditions to be addressed:

  • The commonName of newpb_thingy may be changed to a more descriptive value.
  • A notValidAfter field with a timestamp in the past may be updated.

Storage nodes will announce a new NURL for this new HTTP-based server. This NURL will be announced alongside their existing Foolscap-based server's fURL. Such an announcement will resemble this:

{
    "anonymous-storage-FURL": "pb://...",          # The old key
    "gbs-anonymous-storage-url": "pb://...#v=1"    # The new key
}

The transition process will proceed in three stages:

  1. The first stage represents the starting conditions in which clients and servers can speak only Foolscap.
  2. The intermediate stage represents a condition in which some clients and servers can both speak Foolscap and GBS.
  3. The final stage represents the desired condition in which all clients and servers speak only GBS.

During the first stage only one client/server interaction is possible: the storage server announces only Foolscap and speaks only Foolscap. During the final stage there is only one supported interaction: the client and server are both updated and speak GBS to each other.

During the intermediate stage there are four supported interactions:

  1. Both the client and server are non-updated. The interaction is just as it would be during the first stage.
  2. The client is updated and the server is non-updated. The client will see the Foolscap announcement and the lack of a GBS announcement. It will speak to the server using Foolscap.
  3. The client is non-updated and the server is updated. The client will see the Foolscap announcement. It will speak Foolscap to the storage server.
  4. Both the client and server are updated. The client will see the GBS announcement and disregard the Foolscap announcement. It will speak GBS to the server.

There is one further complication: the client maintains a cache of storage server information (to avoid continuing to rely on the introducer after it has been introduced). The follow sequence of events is likely:

  1. The client connects to an introducer.
  2. It receives an announcement for a non-updated storage server (Foolscap only).
  3. It caches this announcement.
  4. At some point, the storage server is updated.
  5. The client uses the information in its cache to open a Foolscap connection to the storage server.

Ideally, the client would not rely on an update from the introducer to give it the GBS NURL for the updated storage server. Therefore, when an updated client connects to a storage server using Foolscap, it should request the server's version information. If this information indicates that GBS is supported then the client should cache this GBS information. On subsequent connection attempts, it should make use of this GBS information.

Server Details

The protocol primarily enables interaction with "resources" of two types: storage indexes and shares. A particular resource is addressed by the HTTP request path. Details about the interface are encoded in the HTTP message body.

String Encoding

Base32

Where the specification refers to Base32 the meaning is unpadded Base32 encoding as specified by RFC 4648 using a lowercase variation of the alphabet from Section 6.

That is, the alphabet is:

Base32 Alphabet
Value Encoding Value Encoding Value Encoding Value Encoding
0 a 9 j 18 s 27 3
1 b 10 k 19 t 28 4
2 c 11 l 20 u 29 5
3 d 12 m 21 v 30 6
4 e 13 n 22 w 31 7
5 f 14 o 23 x
6 g 15 p 24 y
7 h 16 q 25 z
8 i 17 r 26 2

Message Encoding

Clients and servers MUST use the Content-Type and Accept header fields as specified in RFC 9110 for message body negotiation.

The encoding for HTTP message bodies SHOULD be CBOR. Clients submitting requests using this encoding MUST include a Content-Type: application/cbor request header field. A request MAY be submitted using an alternate encoding by declaring this in the Content-Type header field. A request MAY indicate its preference for an alternate encoding in the response using the Accept header field. A request which includes no Accept header field MUST be interpreted in the same way as a request including a Accept: application/cbor header field.

Clients and servers MAY support additional request and response message body encodings.

Clients and servers SHOULD support application/json request and response message body encoding. For HTTP messages carrying binary share data, this is expected to be a particularly poor encoding. However, for HTTP messages carrying small payloads of strings, numbers, and containers it is expected that JSON will be more convenient than CBOR for ad hoc testing and manual interaction.

For this same reason, JSON is used throughout for the examples presented here. Because of the simple types used throughout and the equivalence described in RFC 7049 these examples should be representative regardless of which of these two encodings is chosen.

There are two exceptions to this rule.

1. Sets

For CBOR messages, any sequence that is semantically a set (i.e. no repeated values allowed, order doesn't matter, and elements are hashable in Python) should be sent as a set. Tag 6.258 is used to indicate sets in CBOR; see the CBOR registry for more details. The JSON encoding does not support sets. Sets MUST be represented as arrays in JSON-encoded messages.

2. Bytes

The CBOR encoding natively supports a bytes type while the JSON encoding does not. Bytes MUST be represented as strings giving the Base64 representation of the original bytes value.

HTTP Design

The HTTP interface described here is informed by the ideas of REST (Representational State Transfer). For GET requests query parameters are preferred over values encoded in the request body. For other requests query parameters are encoded into the message body.

Many branches of the resource tree are conceived as homogenous containers: one branch contains all of the share data; another branch contains all of the lease data; etc.

Clients and servers MUST use the Authorization header field, as specified in RFC 9110, for authorization of all requests to all endpoints specified here. The authentication type MUST be Tahoe-LAFS. Clients MUST present the Base64-encoded representation of the swissnum from the NURL used to locate the storage service as the credentials.

If credentials are not presented or the swissnum is not associated with a storage service then the server MUST issue a 401 UNAUTHORIZED response and perform no other processing of the message.

Requests to certain endpoints MUST include additional secrets in the X-Tahoe-Authorization headers field. The endpoints which require these secrets are:

  • PUT /storage/v1/lease/:storage_index: The secrets included MUST be lease-renew-secret and lease-cancel-secret.
  • POST /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index: The secrets included MUST be lease-renew-secret, lease-cancel-secret, and upload-secret.
  • PATCH /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number: The secrets included MUST be upload-secret.
  • PUT /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number/abort: The secrets included MUST be upload-secret.
  • POST /storage/v1/mutable/:storage_index/read-test-write: The secrets included MUST be lease-renew-secret, lease-cancel-secret, and write-enabler.

If these secrets are:

  1. Missing.
  2. The wrong length.
  3. Not the expected kind of secret.
  4. They are otherwise unparseable before they are actually semantically used.

the server MUST respond with 400 BAD REQUEST and perform no other processing of the message. 401 is not used because this isn't an authorization problem, this is a "you sent garbage and should know better" bug.

If authorization using the secret fails, then the server MUST send a 401 UNAUTHORIZED response and perform no other processing of the message.

Encoding

  • storage_index MUST be Base32 encoded in URLs.
  • share_number MUST be a decimal representation

General

GET /storage/v1/version

This endpoint allows clients to retrieve some basic metadata about a storage server from the storage service. The response MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{'http://allmydata.org/tahoe/protocols/storage/v1' => {
    'maximum-immutable-share-size' => uint
    'maximum-mutable-share-size' => uint
    'available-space' => uint
    }
 'application-version' => bstr
}

The server SHOULD populate as many fields as possible with accurate information about its behavior.

For fields which relate to a specific API the semantics are documented below in the section for that API. For fields that are more general than a single API the semantics are as follows:

  • available-space: The server SHOULD use this field to advertise the amount of space that it currently considers unused and is willing to allocate for client requests. The value is a number of bytes.

PUT /storage/v1/lease/:storage_index

Either renew or create a new lease on the bucket addressed by storage_index.

The renew secret and cancellation secret should be included as X-Tahoe-Authorization headers. For example:

X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret <base64-lease-renew-secret>
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret <base64-lease-cancel-secret>

If the lease-renew-secret value matches an existing lease then the expiration time of that lease will be changed to 31 days after the time of this operation. If it does not match an existing lease then a new lease will be created with this lease-renew-secret which expires 31 days after the time of this operation.

lease-renew-secret and lease-cancel-secret values must be 32 bytes long. The server treats them as opaque values. Share Leases gives details about how the Tahoe-LAFS storage client constructs these values.

In these cases the response is NO CONTENT with an empty body.

It is possible that the storage server will have no shares for the given storage_index because:

  • no such shares have ever been uploaded.
  • a previous lease expired and the storage server reclaimed the storage by deleting the shares.

In these cases the server takes no action and returns NOT FOUND.

Discussion

We considered an alternative where lease-renew-secret and lease-cancel-secret are placed in query arguments on the request path. This increases chances of leaking secrets in logs. Putting the secrets in the body reduces the chances of leaking secrets, but eventually we chose headers as the least likely information to be logged.

Several behaviors here are blindly copied from the Foolscap-based storage server protocol.

  • There is a cancel secret but there is no API to use it to cancel a lease (see ticket:3768).
  • The lease period is hard-coded at 31 days.

These are not necessarily ideal behaviors but they are adopted to avoid any semantic changes between the Foolscap- and HTTP-based protocols. It is expected that some or all of these behaviors may change in a future revision of the HTTP-based protocol.

Immutable

Writing

POST /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index

Initialize an immutable storage index with some buckets. The server MUST allow share data to be written to the buckets at most one time. The server MAY create a lease for the buckets. Details of the buckets to create are encoded in the request body. The request body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{
  share-numbers: #6.258([0*256 uint])
  allocated-size: uint
}

For example:

{"share-numbers": [1, 7, ...], "allocated-size": 12345}

The server SHOULD accept a value for allocated-size that is less than or equal to the lesser of the values of the server's version message's maximum-immutable-share-size or available-space values.

The request MUST include X-Tahoe-Authorization HTTP headers that set the various secrets—upload, lease renewal, lease cancellation—that will be later used to authorize various operations. For example:

X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret <base64-lease-renew-secret>
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret <base64-lease-cancel-secret>
X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret <base64-upload-secret>

The response body MUST include encoded information about the created buckets. The response body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{
  already-have: #6.258([0*256 uint])
  allocated: #6.258([0*256 uint])
}

For example:

{"already-have": [1, ...], "allocated": [7, ...]}

The upload secret is an opaque _byte string.

Handling repeat calls:

  • If the same API call is repeated with the same upload secret, the response is the same and no change is made to server state. This is necessary to ensure retries work in the face of lost responses from the server.
  • If the API calls is with a different upload secret, this implies a new client, perhaps because the old client died. Or it may happen because the client wants to upload a different share number than a previous client. New shares will be created, existing shares will be unchanged, regardless of whether the upload secret matches or not.
Discussion

We considered making this POST /storage/v1/immutable instead. The motivation was to keep storage index out of the request URL. Request URLs have an elevated chance of being logged by something. We were concerned that having the storage index logged may increase some risks. However, we decided this does not matter because:

  • the storage index can only be used to retrieve (not decrypt) the ciphertext-bearing share.
  • the storage index is already persistently present on the storage node in the form of directory names in the storage servers shares directory.
  • the request is made via HTTPS and so only Tahoe-LAFS can see the contents, therefore no proxy servers can perform any extra logging.
  • Tahoe-LAFS itself does not currently log HTTP request URLs.

The response includes already-have and allocated for two reasons:

  • If an upload is interrupted and the client loses its local state that lets it know it already uploaded some shares then this allows it to discover this fact (by inspecting already-have) and only upload the missing shares (indicated by allocated).
  • If an upload has completed a client may still choose to re-balance storage by moving shares between servers. This might be because a server has become unavailable and a remaining server needs to store more shares for the upload. It could also just be that the client's preferred servers have changed.

Regarding upload secrets, the goal is for uploading and aborting (see next sections) to be authenticated by more than just the storage index. In the future, we may want to generate them in a way that allows resuming/canceling when the client has issues. In the short term, they can just be a random byte string. The primary security constraint is that each upload to each server has its own unique upload key, tied to uploading that particular storage index to this particular server.

Rejected designs for upload secrets:

  • Upload secret per share number. In order to make the secret unguessable by attackers, which includes other servers, it must contain randomness. Randomness means there is no need to have a secret per share, since adding share-specific content to randomness doesn't actually make the secret any better.

PATCH /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number

Write data for the indicated share. The share number MUST belong to the storage index. The request body MUST be the raw share data (i.e., application/octet-stream). The request MUST include a Content-Range header field; for large transfers this allows partially complete uploads to be resumed.

For example, a 1MiB share can be divided in to eight separate 128KiB chunks. Each chunk can be uploaded in a separate request. Each request can include a Content-Range value indicating its placement within the complete share. If any one of these requests fails then at most 128KiB of upload work needs to be retried.

The server MUST recognize when all of the data has been received and mark the share as complete (which it can do because it was informed of the size when the storage index was initialized).

The request MUST include a X-Tahoe-Authorization header that includes the upload secret:

X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret <base64-upload-secret>

Responses:

  • When a chunk that does not complete the share is successfully uploaded the response MUST be OK. The response body MUST indicate the range of share data that has yet to be uploaded. The response body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

    {
  required: [0* {begin: uint, end: uint}]
}

    For example:

    { "required":
  [ { "begin": <byte position, inclusive>
    , "end":   <byte position, exclusive>
    }
  ,
  ...
  ]
}

  • When the chunk that completes the share is successfully uploaded the response MUST be CREATED.

  • If the Content-Range for a request covers part of the share that has already, and the data does not match already written data, the response MUST be CONFLICT. In this case the client MUST abort the upload. The client MAY then restart the upload from scratch.

Discussion

PUT verbs are only supposed to be used to replace the whole resource, thus the use of PATCH. From RFC 7231:

An origin server that allows PUT on a given target resource MUST send
a 400 (Bad Request) response to a PUT request that contains a
Content-Range header field (Section 4.2 of [RFC7233]), since the
payload is likely to be partial content that has been mistakenly PUT
as a full representation.  Partial content updates are possible by
targeting a separately identified resource with state that overlaps a
portion of the larger resource, or by using a different method that
has been specifically defined for partial updates (for example, the
PATCH method defined in [RFC5789]).

PUT /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number/abort

This cancels an in-progress upload.

The request MUST include a X-Tahoe-Authorization header that includes the upload secret:

X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret <base64-upload-secret>

If there is an incomplete upload with a matching upload-secret then the server MUST consider the abort to have succeeded. In this case the response MUST be OK. The server MUST respond to all future requests as if the operations related to this upload did not take place.

If there is no incomplete upload with a matching upload-secret then the server MUST respond with Method Not Allowed (405). The server MUST make no client-visible changes to its state in this case.

POST /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number/corrupt

Advise the server the data read from the indicated share was corrupt. The request body includes an human-meaningful text string with details about the corruption. It also includes potentially important details about the share. The request body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{
  reason: tstr .size (1..32765)
}

For example:

{"reason": "expected hash abcd, got hash efgh"}

The report pertains to the immutable share with a storage index and share number given in the request path. If the identified storage index and share number are known to the server then the response SHOULD be accepted and made available to server administrators. In this case the response SHOULD be OK. If the response is not accepted then the response SHOULD be Not Found (404).

Discussion

The seemingly odd length limit on reason is chosen so that the encoded representation of the message is limited to 32768.

Reading

GET /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/shares

Retrieve a list (semantically, a set) indicating all shares available for the indicated storage index. The response body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

#6.258([0*256 uint])

For example:

[1, 5]

If the storage index in the request path is not known to the server then the response MUST include an empty list.

GET /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index/:share_number

Read a contiguous sequence of bytes from one share in one bucket. The response body MUST be the raw share data (i.e., application/octet-stream). The Range header MAY be used to request exactly one bytes range, in which case the response code MUST be Partial Content (206). Interpretation and response behavior MUST be as specified in RFC 7233 § 4.1. Multiple ranges in a single request are not supported; open-ended ranges are also not supported. Clients MUST NOT send requests using these features.

If the response reads beyond the end of the data, the response MUST be shorter than the requested range. It MUST contain all data up to the end of the share and then end. The resulting Content-Range header MUST be consistent with the returned data.

If the response to a query is an empty range, the server MUST send a No Content (204) response.

Discussion

Multiple bytes ranges are not supported. HTTP requires that the Content-Type of the response in that case be multipart/.... The multipart major type brings along string sentinel delimiting as a means to frame the different response parts. There are many drawbacks to this framing technique:

  1. It is resource-intensive to generate.
  2. It is resource-intensive to parse.
  3. It is complex to parse safely3456.

A previous revision of this specification allowed requesting one or more contiguous sequences from one or more shares. This superficially mirrored the Foolscap based interface somewhat closely. The interface was simplified to this version because this version is all that is required to let clients retrieve any desired information. It only requires that the client issue multiple requests. This can be done with pipelining or parallel requests to avoid an additional latency penalty. In the future, if there are performance goals, benchmarks can demonstrate whether they are achieved by a more complicated interface or some other change.

Mutable

Writing

POST /storage/v1/mutable/:storage_index/read-test-write

General purpose read-test-and-write operation for mutable storage indexes. A mutable storage index is also called a "slot" (particularly by the existing Tahoe-LAFS codebase). The first write operation on a mutable storage index creates it (that is, there is no separate "create this storage index" operation as there is for the immutable storage index type).

The request MUST include X-Tahoe-Authorization headers with write enabler and lease secrets:

X-Tahoe-Authorization: write-enabler <base64-write-enabler-secret>
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret <base64-lease-cancel-secret>
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret <base64-lease-renew-secret>

The request body MUST include test, read, and write vectors for the operation. The request body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{
  "test-write-vectors": {
    0*256 share_number : {
      "test": [0*30 {"offset": uint, "size": uint, "specimen": bstr}]
      "write": [* {"offset": uint, "data": bstr}]
      "new-length": uint / null
    }
  }
  "read-vector": [0*30 {"offset": uint, "size": uint}]
}
share_number = uint

For example:

{
    "test-write-vectors": {
        0: {
            "test": [{
                "offset": 3,
                "size": 5,
                "specimen": "hello"
            }, ...],
            "write": [{
                "offset": 9,
                "data": "world"
            }, ...],
            "new-length": 5
        }
    },
    "read-vector": [{"offset": 3, "size": 12}, ...]
}

The response body contains a boolean indicating whether the tests all succeed (and writes were applied) and a mapping giving read data (pre-write). The response body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

{
  "success": bool,
  "data": {0*256 share_number: [0* bstr]}
}
share_number = uint

For example:

{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        0: ["foo"],
        5: ["bar"],
        ...
    }
}

A client MAY send a test vector or read vector to bytes beyond the end of existing data. In this case a server MUST behave as if the test or read vector referred to exactly as much data exists.

For example, consider the case where the server has 5 bytes of data for a particular share. If a client sends a read vector with an offset of 1 and a size of 4 then the server MUST respond with all of the data except the first byte. If a client sends a read vector with the same offset and a size of 5 (or any larger value) then the server MUST respond in the same way.

Similarly, if there is no data at all, an empty byte string is returned no matter what the offset or length.

Reading

GET /storage/v1/mutable/:storage_index/shares

Retrieve a set indicating all shares available for the indicated storage index. The response body MUST validate against this CDDL schema:

#6.258([0*256 uint])

For example:

[1, 5]

GET /storage/v1/mutable/:storage_index/:share_number

Read data from the indicated mutable shares, just like GET /storage/v1/immutable/:storage_index.

The response body MUST be the raw share data (i.e., application/octet-stream). The Range header MAY be used to request exactly one bytes range, in which case the response code MUST be Partial Content (206). Interpretation and response behavior MUST be specified in RFC 7233 § 4.1. Multiple ranges in a single request are not supported; open-ended ranges are also not supported. Clients MUST NOT send requests using these features.

If the response reads beyond the end of the data, the response MUST be shorter than the requested range. It MUST contain all data up to the end of the share and then end. The resulting Content-Range header MUST be consistent with the returned data.

If the response to a query is an empty range, the server MUST send a No Content (204) response.

POST /storage/v1/mutable/:storage_index/:share_number/corrupt

Advise the server the data read from the indicated share was corrupt. Just like the immutable version.

Sample Interactions

This section contains examples of client/server interactions to help illuminate the above specification. This section is non-normative.

Immutable Data

  1. Create a bucket for storage index AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA to hold two immutable shares, discovering that share 1 was already uploaded:

    POST /storage/v1/immutable/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret efgh
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret jjkl
X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret xyzf

{"share-numbers": [1, 7], "allocated-size": 48}

200 OK
{"already-have": [1], "allocated": [7]}

  2. Upload the content for immutable share 7:

    PATCH /storage/v1/immutable/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/7
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
Content-Range: bytes 0-15/48
X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret xyzf
<first 16 bytes of share data>

200 OK
{ "required": [ {"begin": 16, "end": 48 } ] }

PATCH /storage/v1/immutable/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/7
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
Content-Range: bytes 16-31/48
X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret xyzf
<second 16 bytes of share data>

200 OK
{ "required": [ {"begin": 32, "end": 48 } ] }

PATCH /storage/v1/immutable/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/7
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
Content-Range: bytes 32-47/48
X-Tahoe-Authorization: upload-secret xyzf
<final 16 bytes of share data>

201 CREATED

  3. Download the content of the previously uploaded immutable share 7:

    GET /storage/v1/immutable/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA?share=7
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
Range: bytes=0-47

200 OK
Content-Range: bytes 0-47/48
<complete 48 bytes of previously uploaded data>

  4. Renew the lease on all immutable shares in bucket AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA:

    PUT /storage/v1/lease/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret jjkl
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret efgh

204 NO CONTENT

Mutable Data

1. Create mutable share number 3 with 10 bytes of data in slot BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB. The special test vector of size 1 but empty bytes will only pass if there is no existing share, otherwise it will read a byte which won't match `b""`:

POST /storage/v1/mutable/BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB/read-test-write
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
X-Tahoe-Authorization: write-enabler abcd
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret efgh
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret ijkl

{
    "test-write-vectors": {
        3: {
            "test": [{
                "offset": 0,
                "size": 1,
                "specimen": ""
            }],
            "write": [{
                "offset": 0,
                "data": "xxxxxxxxxx"
            }],
            "new-length": 10
        }
    },
    "read-vector": []
}

200 OK
{
    "success": true,
    "data": []
}

  1. Safely rewrite the contents of a known version of mutable share number 3 (or fail):

    POST /storage/v1/mutable/BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB/read-test-write
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
X-Tahoe-Authorization: write-enabler abcd
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret efgh
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret ijkl

{
    "test-write-vectors": {
        3: {
            "test": [{
                "offset": 0,
                "size": <length of checkstring>,
                "specimen": "<checkstring>"
            }],
            "write": [{
                "offset": 0,
                "data": "yyyyyyyyyy"
            }],
            "new-length": 10
        }
    },
    "read-vector": []
}

200 OK
{
    "success": true,
    "data": []
}

  2. Download the contents of share number 3:

    GET /storage/v1/mutable/BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB?share=3
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
Range: bytes=0-16

200 OK
Content-Range: bytes 0-15/16
<complete 16 bytes of previously uploaded data>

  3. Renew the lease on previously uploaded mutable share in slot BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB:

    PUT /storage/v1/lease/BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
Authorization: Tahoe-LAFS nurl-swissnum
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-cancel-secret efgh
X-Tahoe-Authorization: lease-renew-secret ijkl

204 NO CONTENT

  1. The security value of checking notValidBefore and notValidAfter is not entirely clear. The arguments which apply to web-facing certificates do not seem to apply (due to the decision for Tahoe-LAFS to operate independently of the web-oriented CA system).

    Arguably, complexity is reduced by allowing an existing TLS implementation which wants to make these checks make them (compared to including additional code to either bypass them or disregard their results). Reducing complexity, at least in general, is often good for security.

    On the other hand, checking the validity time period forces certificate regeneration (which comes with its own set of complexity).

    A possible compromise is to recommend certificates with validity periods of many years or decades. "Recommend" may be read as "provide software supporting the generation of".

    What about key theft? If certificates are valid for years then a successful attacker can pretend to be a valid storage node for years. However, short-validity-period certificates are no help in this case. The attacker can generate new, valid certificates using the stolen keys.

    Therefore, the only recourse to key theft (really identity theft) is to burn the identity and generate a new one. Burning the identity is a non-trivial task. It is worth solving but it is not solved here.↩︎

  2. More simply:

    from hashlib import sha256
from cryptography.hazmat.primitives.serialization import (
  Encoding,
  PublicFormat,
)
from pybase64 import urlsafe_b64encode

def check_tub_id(tub_id):
    spki_bytes = cert.public_key().public_bytes(Encoding.DER, PublicFormat.SubjectPublicKeyInfo)
    spki_sha256 = sha256(spki_bytes).digest()
    spki_encoded = urlsafe_b64encode(spki_sha256)
    assert spki_encoded == tub_id

    Note we use unpadded base64url rather than the Foolscap- and Tahoe-LAFS-preferred Base32.↩︎

  3. https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2017-5638/↩︎

  4. https://pivotal.io/security/cve-2018-1272↩︎

  5. https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2017-5124↩︎

  6. https://efail.de/↩︎