flashbots / flashbots/attested-tls
Separate appraisal from verification: verify_attestation always applies a policy, and appraisal can fetch
- Dominant language
- Rust
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Description
Another issue coming out of me thinking through the API boundaries after our discussion on #85 .
Looking a bit more into the RATS model https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9334/ I started thinking that we should aim for this library to follow its general nomenclature and roles/objects breakdown. Have you considered doing so and rejected it already for some reason?
If not, what this issue basically argues for is separation of the `Verifier` and `Relying Party` roles, and to make the RP role stateless and injectable.
## LLM SUMMARY
## The coupling
`AttestationVerifier::verify_attestation` does two jobs in one call: it verifies
the evidence, then applies the measurement policy before returning
(`crates/attestation/src/lib.rs:626`):
```rust
let verified = match attestation_type { /* … verify … */ };
// Do a measurement / attestation type policy check
self.measurement_policy.check_measurement_with_gcp_cache(
&verified.measurements,
platform_metadata.as_ref(),
Some(&self.known_gcp_firmware),
)?;
Ok(Some(verified))
```
RFC 9334 splits these across two roles: the Verifier consumes Evidence and
produces Attestation Results, and the Relying Party applies an Appraisal Policy
to those Results. The crate merges them, with two consequences:
1. **You cannot get a verified result without also passing a policy.** For a
relying party that wants to know "is this evidence genuinely signed and
fresh?" and decide acceptance separately — or later, or against several
policies — the only path also demands an accept/reject answer up front.
2. **You cannot re-appraise without re-verifying.** Re-running a policy against
an already-verified result means redoing signature verification, and on a
cache miss an outbound collateral fetch.
`MeasurementPolicy::check_measurement` is already public, so a caller *can*
appraise on its own. What is missing is the ability to ask the verifier not to.
## Appraisal is not a pure function today
Worth surfacing separately, because it surprised us. The policy step can make a
network call. On the `ExpectedMeasurements::Image` path:
```
check_measurement_with_gcp_cache
→ compare_portable_dcap_measurement (measurements.rs:763)
→ GcpFirmwareCache::get_or_fetch (gcp/firmware.rs:23)
→ fetch_firmware (gcp/firmware.rs:44) ← HTTP
```
So "check these measurements against my policy" may reach the network to resolve
GCP firmware by MRTD. Also note the asymmetry: the fetching variant is
`pub(crate)`, while the public `check_measurement` passes `None` for the cache. A
caller appraising standalone therefore gets different behaviour from the one the
verifier uses internally — it will miss the cache rather than share it.
Whatever happens to the split, it seems worth either documenting that appraisal
may fetch, or moving that resolution to the verification side where the other
network work already lives.
## Rough shape: the policy as a per-call parameter, not a field
The change that follows from the role split is that `measurement_policy` stops
being a field on `AttestationVerifier` (`crates/attestation/src/lib.rs:498`) and
becomes an argument:
```rust
// verification: no policy involved
let result = verifier.verify_attestation(evidence, binding)?;
// appraisal: the relying party names its own policy
verifier.appraise(&result, &policy)?;
```
Why a parameter rather than moving the policy out of the crate's reach entirely:
- **The handshake path still works.** `verify_attestation_binding`
(`crates/attested-tls/src/lib.rs:653`) runs inside rustls's certificate
verification callback and must return accept-or-reject, so *something* has to
hold a policy there. That something is the certificate verifier struct — which
is precisely the Relying Party in RFC 9334's terms. It holds the policy and
passes it. The roles land where the RFC puts them without the handshake losing
anything.
- **#87's early reject survives.** The call has the policy in hand, so it can
still refuse an attestation type the policy never accepts before doing any DCAP
work.
- **The GCP firmware cache stays where it belongs.** `known_gcp_firmware` is
verifier state that the policy check needs. Keeping appraisal as a method on the
verifier means the cache is still shared; a policy layer wholly outside the
crate would strand it, and every caller would re-fetch.
The benefit that isn't about our use case: **one verifier can serve several
relying parties with different policies**, sharing its PCCS cache, GCP firmware
cache and trusted-certificate cache. Today that needs one `AttestationVerifier`
per policy, and therefore one set of caches per policy.
Keep a convenience method that does both, if the common handshake path prefers one
call.
The type-level nicety is that a verified-but-unappraised result and an appraised
one could be distinct types, so a relying party cannot forget the second step.
That may be more ceremony than it's worth; mentioning it for completeness.
### Not asking for a crate split
The end state of this direction is arguably a policy crate separate from a
verification crate — `measurements.rs` is 1938 lines and drags `http`,
`attest_measure`, `attest_types` and file/URL policy loading that a pure verifier
does not need. I'm deliberately **not** asking for that:
- The dependency runs the wrong way. Policy consumes `MultiMeasurements`, which
verification produces, so a policy crate would depend on the verifier crate or
need a third shared-types crate.
- **#40** proposes moving generation and verification into the `attest` repo, so
crate boundaries are already in flux and this would be the wrong moment.
Mentioning it only so the direction is legible. The ask here is the parameter.
## Relationship to existing issues
- **#87** (verifier does full DCAP work for types the policy rejects) is
complementary, not overlapping. It wants an *early* policy consultation on the
attestation type, before verification. That check is compatible with this split
— the type-level pre-check is cheap and stays wherever you want it, while the
measurement appraisal is what moves out. If #87 lands first this issue should
adapt to it rather than the reverse.
- **#15** (make `MeasurementPolicy` swappable on a live `AttestationVerifier`) is
largely subsumed. Its use case — a measurement mismatch, fetch a newer policy,
retry the validation — becomes re-appraising a result you already hold, with no
`Arc` and no re-verification.
- **#28** (decouple platform and measurements, allow flexible policies) is
adjacent and touches the same call. If both happen, #28 changes *what* the
policy compares and this changes *when* it runs; they shouldn't conflict, but
ordering matters.
- **#79** (verifier returns matched `ExpectedMeasurements`) modifies exactly the
step this proposes moving. Whichever lands first, the other should account for
it — if appraisal moves out, "which policy matched" becomes the return value of
the appraisal call rather than of `verify_attestation`.
## Our motivation, for context
We use the crate as a relying party for a one-time event rather than a live
handshake (background in #84). Founding evidence is verified once and archived.
Being able to re-run a policy against an archived, already-verified result — with
no network and no re-verification — is the property we want. It is not a blocker;
we can call the policy ourselves. The coupling just means the verifier also
insists on appraising with the policy it was built with.
Contributor guide
No contributing guide indexed for this repository
Research direction
Start with AttestationVerifier::verify_attestation and measurement_policy in crates/attestation/src/lib.rs, then trace verify_attestation_binding in crates/attested-tls/src/lib.rs. Review the appraisal path through measurements.rs and gcp/firmware.rs, including cache use. Done means verification can produce a result without appraisal, appraisal can be rerun with a supplied policy, and the handshake path retains its policy behavior.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- cryptography, security
- Issue type
- Refactor
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Active
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 45/100