Basic Info

• Time: Wednesday 24 January 2024 at 13:00 CEST (11:00 UTC)
• Place: #openvpn-meeting channel on LiberaChat IRC network

Topics

Current Topics

• Closed: License amendment for OpenVPN2 to solve openssl/mbedtls licensing issues

  • All work on this is now completed.

• New: security mailing list procedure can stand improvement

  • To be discussed in more detail later.

• Updated: tasks related to build processes (Mattock)

  • Buildbot can now skip builds that don't touch irrelevant files (PR #31)
    • Which file and/or directory changes should trigger the buildbot builds?
    • Do we want the skipped builds to show up on the build state page? Or to be (almost) completely invisible to buildbot?
    • We do not have answers right now to these questions but the fact that we can now skip irrelevant things is great.
  • Extending the above: Have different Builders and build steps for different types of files
    • We can have more than one Scheduler per project (e.g. openvpn)
    • Each Scheduler can have a different Change Filters for builds that are relevant for that type of build
    • Each Scheduler links to a set of Builders
    • Each Builder runs different commands on the Worker (e.g. "autoreconf -vi && ./configure ..." or "do-something-else")
    • Example Schedulers:
      • openvpn-default Scheduler (=what we have now) would:
        • Trigger normal builds on all builders
        • No build would be triggered on documentation changes
      • openvpn-rst Scheduler would:
        • Trigger RST sanity check on one builder when .rst file changes

• Updated: OpenVPN 2.6.9 release

  • There is a small security issue reported in OpenVPN for Windows installer.
  • Once this is resolved we can make the 2.6.9 release.
  • lev, selva, and d12fk, are looking into this at the moment.
  • dazo will work with lev to arrange a CVE report.

• Updated: forums topics

  • There has been a lot of spam. An antispam module had expired. We fixed that. But there's still the occasional bit of spam.
  • ecrist looked into setting up a new forum. Discovered that migrating data is not possible.
  • Suggested approach is to run both old and new side-by-side and let people finish discussions on old forums while new is up. Then after some time make the old forum read-only.
  • Regarding CloudFlare, currently not enabled on forums, but we will enable it at some point on the new VM.

• packet header order

  • plaisthos wanted to get consensus/decision on whether we do that as part of the rekeying improvements.
  • Generally in favor of adding a new negotiable packet format, so long as plaisthos and syzzer are in agreement.
  • Currently this is still in progress/discussion.

• status of trac/wiki

  • ordex wanted to discuss state of trac/wiki. Do we move to something else? Do we update existing?
  • mattock has been volunteered to look into alternatives.
  • It must be open source. Self-hosted or hosted open-source both fine.
  • There is no hard requirement for LDAP capability.
  • Should have access controls so only approved members can edit.

• status of community LDAP sign-in solution

  • We use it currently for forums, wiki, gerrit, patchwork. We are seriously considering getting rid of it.
  • The reality is that 99.99% of forums users do not interact with the other tools.
  • And that the small group of contributors to wiki and gerrit does not justify the need for an LDAP sign-in solution.
  • So we're inclined to disconnect from LDAP. For the forums we already intend to do that now.
  • No final decision reached at this time. Considering our options.

• plan to improve server side testing

  • mattock posted a plan to improve server side testing.
  • mattock would like to get eyes on this and feedback.

• TLS 1.0 PRF problem

  • Patches for this have been created and are in review, have not made it in yet.

• community funding

  • ordex has an initiative he wants to bring up regarding dev resources to be added to community.
  • This may tie into the donations topic.
  • In short ordex convinced OTF (Open Tech Fund) to provide a "test FOSS funding scheme" to OpenVPN.
  • This would for example allow to pay for allocated hours for mattock and cron2 to work on OpenVPN community tasks.
  • This is to be worked out more and in collaboration between OpenVPN Community, OpenVPN Inc., and OTF.

• Donations for OpenVPN community

  • There is currently no place to donate money to the community, and we do want to allow that.
  • We need to figure out how to deal with that legally, and what payment methods to accept and how.
  • Probably plastic-money is a must. Maybe Paypal as well. Bitcoin seems to encounter some resistance in the discussions.
  • We definitely do not want the donation thing to be forced - have a mechanism to do it, but keep it out of the way.
  • Random things yelled out (to investigate): legal entity? stripe? paypal? plastic-money? open collective? github sponsors? linux foundation? sf conservancy?
  • ordex suggested that he will take a look in January to figure out what legalities etc are involved in getting a legal entity for OpenVPN community.

• Website release process woes

  • Website team continues to report that they are on the verge of launching the new stuff.
  • But there is a release freeze planned for last weeks of December so we may not actually get it this year.

• Tunnelcrack progress

  • Current status: when mitigations start appearing we will mention them in meeting notes.
  • TunnelCrack community wiki article

• OpenVPN community meetup 2024

  • Naming: We decided to rename from 'Hackathon' to 'OpenVPN community meetup'. This has a more open spirit to it, as we want to encourage developers and those interested in contributing to feel welcome.
  • Where: Karlsruhe, Germany. It is a relatively central location in Europe and is fairly easily reachable by train. A meeting location is yet to be arranged.
  • When: At the moment tentatively set to 20-22 September 2024.
  • Who: We'll do an open invitation to openvpn-devel mailing list, but also CC: specifically past attendees and people of interest.
  • Shirts: There is plenty of time still to prepare a shirt design.

• Static-key mini how-to is outdated.

  • This page is outdated badly: Static Key Mini How-To
  • Company will send this to tech writer to redo based on example fingerprint info and also retain a link to that GitHub doc.
  • Having a simple guide online will help adoption.

• OpenVPN 2.6 performance results.

  • Tests should cover: GRE, IPsec, userland, DCO
  • Platforms: Linux, FreeBSD, Windows
  • Requires time to be dedicated to doing this
  • When time available will do it.

• What's going on with new taskbar icons?

  • matt provided icons in Issue #595
  • Last update: will be picked up by selva when he has time.

• security@openvpn.net mailing list

  • Company is trying to get to SOC2 compliance.
  • Probably will need a simple NDA to be signed by recipients of emails to security@openvpn.net
  • Company guy took standard NDA we use for contractors, suggests to use that.
  • novaflash thinks we should review that first to see if it's really suitable or not, community members are not contractors after all.

• Another key signing topic

  • Company switched EV code signing to CloudHSM, this is same cert type we use for driver signing, is also suitable for binary signing.
  • In future we could possibly switch community to that same key. Saves having to maintain 2 different keys.
  • Depends on how hard/easy it is to access company key signing thing from community infrastructure.
  • Also no high priority at the moment, we have a working solution now.

• SBOM topic

  • cron2 was asked if OpenVPN has a software bill of materials. Answer was no.
  • Coincidentally, in OpenVPN Inc a security requirement is to have an SBOM so this is on our list of things to do.
  • When we pick up this task we can coordinate on it.

• Management interface documentation on main website will be updated with info from doc/management-notes.txt

  • novaflash will pick this up at some point.