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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:sbalukoff at 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.eichberger at hp.com<mailto:german.eichberger at 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:sbalukoff at bluebox.net<mailto:sbalukoff at 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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