The Challenges of Building a Sigstore Client from Scratch

Delivered at SigstoreCon 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah on November 12, 2024

Transcript

1. RubyGems.org The Challenges of Building a Sigstore Con 2024 Sigstore Implementation from Scratch Samuel Giddins
2. RubyGems.org @segiddins ▪ Samuel Giddins ▪ RubyGems, Bundler, RubyGems.org maintainer & security lead ▪ Security Engineer in Residence @ Ruby Central ▪ Developer, maintainer, debugger of sigstore-ruby Your intrepid presenter
3. RubyGems.org My preferred trip to Utah
4. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Obligatory [bd]ad joke I’ve been consuming SBOMs since before some of you were born Snack Bowls of M&Ms
5. RubyGems.org Disclaimer
6. RubyGems.org What is a Sigstore Client? Any guesses? A sigstore client can be summarized as two functions: • A function that verifies an artifact + sigstore bundle against a trusted root • A function that signs an artifact against a trusted root
7. RubyGems.org … those functions are complicated
8. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org What is a Sigstore? → A TUF repository to serve the trusted root → A service that issues signing certs based on OIDC tokens → Don’t forget the CT Log! → A service that records handwaves in a transparency log → A bundle format that has artifacts from all of the above
9. RubyGems.org Above all, Sigstore is a cryptosystem that we’re going to use to build trust for software artifacts. So it’s important we get it right.
10. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Professor ChatGPT why is writing a sigstore client from scratch so difficult Writing a Sigstore client from scratch can be quite difficult for several reasons, primarily due to the complexity of the underlying cryptographic protocols, integration with various services, and handling security concerns. Here's a breakdown of the challenges you might face: 1. Complexity of the Sigstore Protocol 2. Cryptographic Foundations 3. Interfacing with Sigstore Services 4. Security Considerations 5. Integration with Other Tools 6. API Design and Usability 7. Testing and Debugging
11. RubyGems.org sigstore-ruby implementation goals • Pure Ruby implementation of both signing & verification flows • 100% vendorable inside of RubyGems & Bundler ◦ And by extension, all Ruby distributions themselves • Don’t trust Sam to write novel cryptography code
12. RubyGems.org Why not a rust wrapper? • Dependency on compiling native code is a no-go for language-level dependency • Need to be able to update sigstore-ruby outside of ruby releases • WASM, JVM, etc. • “Rewrite it in Rust” isn’t a panacea
13. RubyGems.org First line of code: February First release: October First production usage: this week?
14. RubyGems.org An end-to-end sigstore verification flow does a lot! • TUF ◦ Repository refresh ◦ Target download • Read bundle JSON & validate bundle • Hash artifact • Establish a trusted source of time • Perform x509 path validation • Perform signed certificate timestamp validation • Verify inclusion of the log entry in the transparency log • Verify the certificate against a policy • Verify signatures against the artifact & signing certificate • Ensure consistency between DSSE payload & policy & signing cert • 󰛢
15. RubyGems.org The guarantee of all those pieces working are the responsibility of the client implementor. … me.
16. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Primitives → Protobuf (but only JSON) → RSA / ECDSA / Ed25519 → X509 → RFC3161 → Signed notes → Merkle trees → 2x JSON Canonicalization
17. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Signing Primitives → OIDC / JWTs → Key generation → More X509 → RFC3161 timestamp creation → Signature creation → Speaking hashedrekord / DSSE + intoto + SLSA + ACRONYM SOUP → Rekor & Fulcio HTTP Clients
18. RubyGems.org That’s a lot of primitives to assume every language is going to have available. & Documented. & Functioning properly. & Secure.
19. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Ruby Stdlib → openssl gem → That’s it for cryptographic primitives → JSON
20. RubyGems.org → Wrapper around openssl → Multiple openssl versions → Ed25519 support? Sometimes! → Missing functionality → Basic querying about cert properties → Mixing up extension OIDs and short names → tbs_precert bytes → SCT validation → rfc3161 validation at a given timestamp RubyGems.org openssl gem
21. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org → bouncycastle-based implementation of the openssl API → Broken X509 path validation with intermediary CAs → Missing Ed25519 support → Missing public key der export → … plus everything else missing from the C-ruby gem jruby- openssl
22. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org → X509 wrapper to allow querying cert properties & typed extension values → RFC8785 JSON Canonicalization → X509 tbs_certificate_der → SCTs in general → rfc3161 support for arbitrary validation times → DSSE validation sigstore- ruby
23. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org sigstore-ruby … TUF (it was tough)
24. RubyGems.org How did this get so complicated? Sigstore is the amalgamation of multiple different systems • X509 for PKI • TUF for trusted material distribution • Merkle trees for transparency log inclusion • Signed notes for checkpoints
25. RubyGems.org How did this get so complicated? Sigstore is the amalgamation of multiple different systems … which have a lot of configuration points
26. RubyGems.org Who is ready to talk about the 🐘 in the room?
27. RubyGems.org What does it mean to “add” sigstore? Now we’ve got a client. How do I add sigstore to RubyGems? This is our big unanswered question as a community.
28. RubyGems.org What does it mean to “add” sigstore? • Where are attestations stored? • What “policy” should the sigstore client use to verify artifacts against their attestations? • How does all this change over time?
29. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org What does it mean to “add” sigstore? → Users can specify expected mappings between packages & attestations → Attestations have agreed-upon meanings → Attestations are validated, stored, and served by package registries
30. RubyGems.org github.com/rubygems/sigstore-verification
31. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Error: rubygem "sigstore" { attestation { x509.subjectAltName "🤔" } }
32. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Error: policy.sigstore-error.kdl:0:74:error: policy failed to match rubygem "sigstore" { attestation { x509.subjectAltName "🤔" } } x509.subjectAltName "🤔": {:property=>"x509.subjectAltName", :actual=>"URI:https://github.com/sigstore/sigstor e-ruby/.github/workflows/release.yml@refs/tags/v0 .1.1", :expected=>"🤔"}
33. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org TOFU: Offline mode: using cached trusted root No policy found for rubygem sigstore-0.1.1 Proposed policy: /* Added automatically by sigstore-verification */ rubygem "sigstore" { (call)githubAttestation owner="sigstore" repository="sigstore-ruby" workflow="release.yml" } Would you like to add it to policy.empty.kdl? no ERROR: Error installing sigstore: pre-install hook at /Users/segiddins/Development/github.com/rubygems/sigstore- verification/lib/rubygems_plugin.rb:3 failed for sigstore-0.1.1
34. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org github Attestation (def)githubAttestation owner="string" repository="string" workflow="string" environment="string?" { attestation { x509 { issuerV2 "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" (var)buildConfigURI { (op)"+" "https://github.com/" (var)"owner" "/" (var)"repository" "/.github/workflows/" (var)"workflow" "@" (attr)"sourceRepositoryRef"; } (var)san { (op)"+" "URI:" (var)"buildConfigURI" ; } buildConfigURI (var)"buildConfigURI" subjectAltName (var)"san" } messageSignature (oneof)_ { messageSignature dsseEnvelope { payloadType "application/vnd.in-toto+json" payload { _type "https://in-toto.io/Statement/v1" predicateType "https://slsa.dev/provenance/v1" predicate.buildDefinition.externalParameters.workflow.repository (var)"repository" } } } } }
35. RubyGems.org The point of building these sigstore clients is to use them in our various software ecosystems.
36. RubyGems.org Multiple implementations mitigate the impact of a bug found in any one implementation.
37. RubyGems.org Multiple implementations help make our specifications more precise and portable.
38. RubyGems.org RubyGems.org Everything got a little bit better in 2024 → sigstore-conformance → tuf-conformance → Edited sigstore client doc → Convergence between different independent implementations → Mock sigstore implementations for testing → William Woodruff saved the day more times than I could count
39. RubyGems.org We’ve learned about building sigstore clients from scratch. Things will be clearer & easier as we continue evolving: Prototype⇒Early Adopters⇒Critical System
40. RubyGems.org Building sigstore-ruby in 2024 was challenging. Building sigstore-insert your language here in 2025 will be easier.
41. RubyGems.org Thank you Samuel Giddins Security Engineer in Residence at RubyGems.org Sponsored by