143071 - Disable immediate FIPS switching

Status: VERIFIED WONTFIX

(Core Graveyard :: Security: UI, defect, P2)

Description

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Because of the arguments stated in bug 142659, I recommend that switching FIPS
mode during runtime should no longer be supported.

I suggest we remember the switch somewhere internally, and do the switch the
next time we start up. We should inform the user that a complete application
exit is required to do the switch.

Comment 1

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

I suggest this should block bug 133584.

Comment 2

[Stephane Saux]

We should implement this for RTM.

Comment 3

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Situation has changed since my last comments.

Bob provided patches in bug 142659, that allowed me to produce a fix in bug
143532. With those patches, we might be safe already.

However, Bob said, we are not sure. Even with those patches, after having
toggled FIPS mode, we have still objects in memory, and their presence could
cause side effects we are not yet aware about.

Bob suggested, if we want to be really safe, we should implement this bug and
ask the user to restart.

Comment 4

[Kai Engert [:KaiE:]]

Because we are now avoiding immediate crashes, and the approach suggested in
this bug is a bit more work to implement, I had a chat with Stephane, and he
suggested that a release note might be sufficient.

Thinking more about it, I'd say instead of a release note, we also could just
display a restart recommendation message to the user.

I'm marking this bug as WONTFIX and have filed bug 148305 for adding the message.

Comment 5

[John Unruh]

Verified