The page source contains comments providing guidance to fill out each section. They are invisible when viewing this page. To read it, choose the "edit" link.
Copy the source to a new page before making changes! DO NOT EDIT THIS TEMPLATE FOR YOUR FEATURE.
Feature Name
Split Softoken off from NSS
Summary
The softokn cryptographic module of NSS should be split off as nss-softokn package. The utilities library which is a common library required by softokn and the rest of nss utils should also be packaged separately as nss-utils.
Owner
- Name: emaldonado
- email: emaldona@redhat.com
Current status
- Targeted release: Fedora 42
- Last updated: (DATE)
- Percentage of completion: 50%
Detailed Description
The softkn cryptographic module of NSS should be split off as the nss-softkn pacakage. A set of utilities with is called by both softkn and the rest of NSS would also need to be packaged as its own package.
NSS is FIPS 140 validated but what is really submitted for FIPS validation is the cryptographic module, that is softkn. This split is to enable users and packagers to upgrade to the current version of NSS while preserving the last FIPS validated version of the cryptographic module if they so require. Fedora based distributions such as, but not limited to, RHEL would greatly benefit from this feature in terms of maintenance.
Benefit to Fedora
It will make Fedora a convenient Linux distribution to use when trying to be FIPS compliant.
Scope
This will not affect developers as it is a packaging change only ans changes in the NSS API are required nor changes to their build systems. The same libraries are shipped as before. They just get distributed among three packages.
How To Test
Separately package nss, nss-softkn, and nss-util all having the same version numbers. Separately package nss, and nss-util as the very latest release while keeping nss-softn at an earlier release such as the current release which gor FIPS validated. There should not be any conflicts at installation time. There should be no regressions for components that depend on NSS such as: glibc, pimod_nss, nss_compat_nss, crypto-utils, openswan, and Pidgin's libpurple.
User Experience
Neither developers nor end users should notice any difference with the exception seeing more packages being installed if they look closely at their yum installs or upgrades.
Dependencies
glibc, pmod_nss, nss_compat_nss, crypto-utils, openswan, and libpurple are some packages that depend on NSS. NSSS has no significant dependencies except for NSPR and this would have no effect on this relationship.
Contingency Plan
There are two contingency plans in case this split cannot be accomplished in time. 1) Make softkn and util subpacakes of nss instead of separte packages. 2) Revert to the current monolithic approach.
Documentation
- A proof of concept implementation of this proposal can be obtained by executing
git clone git://fedorapeople.org/~emaldonado/splitnss.git
Release Notes
- The Fedora Release Notes should describe the new packaging.
Comments and Discussion