From ueno at gnu.org  Fri Nov  7 01:59:02 2025
From: ueno at gnu.org (Daiki Ueno)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 09:59:02 +0900
Subject: [gnutls-help] Shall we update Nettle version requirement?
Message-ID: <87y0oislnt.fsf-ueno@gnu.org>

Hello,

Provoked by this issue[1], I started thinking about updating the minimum
version of Nettle required by GnuTLS.  Currently it's 3.6, while 3.10
was released 1.5 years ago.  By updating it, we can eliminate the
bundled copies of RSA-OAEP, AES-GCM-SIV, and SHAKE implementations, as
well as the CVE-2021-4209 fix.  Given Nettle 3.10.2 is ABI compatible
with 3.6, I'm assuming that there is little impact to downstreams.

Any thoughts?

Footnotes:
[1]  https://gitlab.com/gnutls/gnutls/-/issues/1759

-- 
Daiki Ueno


From ueno at gnu.org  Fri Nov  7 02:12:17 2025
From: ueno at gnu.org (Daiki Ueno)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 10:12:17 +0900
Subject: [gnutls-help] Set up FIPS with gnutls 3.8.9
In-Reply-To: <aOzykbuh3mksEZCN@t480> (akendo@akendo.eu's message of "Mon, 13
 Oct 2025 14:37:37 +0200")
References: <aOzykbuh3mksEZCN@t480>
Message-ID: <87tsz6sl1q.fsf-ueno@gnu.org>

Hello,

Sorry for the late reply.

akendo <akendo at akendo.eu> writes:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I tried to enable the fips mode with gnutls 3.8.9 and failed to get it
> started. My compiler flags
> are the default compiler flags for Debian. Since I use the Debian
> packages for Trixie as a sample
> build process.
>
> All I do is adding the parameter:
>
> --enable-fips140-mode
>
> The package build is going well, and I receive a package. However,
> after the installation of the
> package, I get the following error message:
>
>     gnutls-cli github.com -p443
>     Error in GnuTLS initialization: Error while performing self checks.
>     global_init: Error while performing self checks
>
> By setting GNUTLS_NO_IMPLICIT_INIT the global_init error message goes
> away. When I check for the
> fips-mode, gnutls-cli reports that this is working.
>
>     export GNUTLS_NO_IMPLICIT_INIT=1; gnutls-cli --fips140-mode
>     library is in FIPS140-2 mode
>
>     gnutls-cli github.com -p443
>     |<1>| FIPS140-2 self testing part 2 failed
>
>
> Reading through the documentation, I noticed that there is the
> statement regarding the self-test
> that it's possible to provide a ?-with-fips140-key for the
> self-test. Does this key have to be of
> special length since it It should be an HMAC key, correct?
>
> I'm just not sure if that's going to help here, anyone has some suggestion?
>
> My workaround is as of now to set GNUTLS_SKIP_FIPS_INTEGRITY_CHECKS=1

To get the FIPS integrity check work, you would need ".hmac" files
installed alongside the GnuTLS and the dependent libraries. The file can
be generated with the "fipshmac" utility which should be built under
lib/.

For example, if you have installed the library as
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnutls.so.30, you can calculate the content
of the .hmac file with:

  lib/fipshmac /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgnutls.so.30

Then save it to /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/.libgnutls.so.30.hmac.

Regards,
-- 
Daiki Ueno




From simon at josefsson.org  Fri Nov  7 12:58:21 2025
From: simon at josefsson.org (Simon Josefsson)
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2025 12:58:21 +0100
Subject: [gnutls-help] Shall we update Nettle version requirement?
In-Reply-To: <87y0oislnt.fsf-ueno@gnu.org> (Daiki Ueno's message of "Fri, 07
 Nov 2025 09:59:02 +0900")
References: <87y0oislnt.fsf-ueno@gnu.org>
Message-ID: <87bjleyrz6.fsf@josefsson.org>

+1

We'll never fully know if this is a real deal-breaker for anyone until
we try, so I suggest just bumping the requirement in a soonish GnuTLS
release, and then wait for people to package it, and only later start to
remove the duplicate code that is no longer needed.

/Simon

Daiki Ueno <ueno at gnu.org> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Provoked by this issue[1], I started thinking about updating the minimum
> version of Nettle required by GnuTLS.  Currently it's 3.6, while 3.10
> was released 1.5 years ago.  By updating it, we can eliminate the
> bundled copies of RSA-OAEP, AES-GCM-SIV, and SHAKE implementations, as
> well as the CVE-2021-4209 fix.  Given Nettle 3.10.2 is ABI compatible
> with 3.6, I'm assuming that there is little impact to downstreams.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Footnotes:
> [1]  https://gitlab.com/gnutls/gnutls/-/issues/1759
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