linkerd / linkerd/website

Enhance TLS / Encryption / mTLS related documentation

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docs
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JavaScript
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4h 32m
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Description

## Feature Request

Enhance TLS / Encryption / mTLS related documentation

### What problem are you trying to solve?

I'm currently trying to find information regarding the state of TLS & mTLS support in Linkerd2.x.

- How is TLS implemeneted?
- Whats the lifetime of keys / certificates? How are they distributed?
- Which TLS versions are used / supported?
- Is mutual TLS implemeted, so that only valid services are able to communicate inside the mesh? Or is it just server side TLS to encrypt the traffic, but anyone can make requests?
- ...

I have found some information on 3rd party websites. For example this [reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/comments/9h7h70/linkerd2_went_ga_so_i_updated_the_comparison_blog/), links a nice [google docs](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OBaKrwR030G39i0n_47i-hzcFJ966bJjGArXVKX39_k/edit#gid=0) with Linkerd features, but with the [official docs](https://linkerd.io/2/features/automatic-tls/) I am not even able to verify the information that mTLS (host-2-host) auth is supported experimentally.

### How should the problem be solved?

The official Linkerd2.x documentation should be extended to answer these security related questions.

I would also be happy to help out with the creation of this documentation, but some pointers in the right direction would be helpful, e.g., what are future plans regarding mTLS / TLS support, and what is the current implementation. Some documents surely have to exist before implementing this stuff. I hope :p

### Any alternatives you've considered?

No

### How would users interact with this feature?

They read the docs :)

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the official automatic TLS documentation linked in the issue and review the listed questions about TLS, mTLS, key and certificate lifetimes, distribution, and supported versions. Update the official documentation so users can verify the current TLS and mTLS behavior and understand how services are authenticated.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
documentation, security
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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