Kea

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 Basics 13/13

  • Identification

    KEA is an open source DHCPv4/DHCPv6 server being developed and maintained by ​Internet Systems Consortium. The objective of this project is to provide a very high-performance, extensible DHCP server engine for use by enterprises and service providers, either as is or with extensions and modifications.

    What programming language(s) are used to implement the project?
  • Basic project website content


    The project website MUST succinctly describe what the software does (what problem does it solve?). [description_good]

    KEA is an open source DHCPv4/DHCPv6 server developed and maintained by ​Internet Systems Consortium. The objective of this project is to provide a very high-performance, extensible DHCP server engine for use by enterprises and service providers, either as is or with extensions and modifications.



    The project website MUST provide information on how to: obtain, provide feedback (as bug reports or enhancements), and contribute to the software. [interact]

    There is an open issue tracker databaseat https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues that is read/writeable. Contributor guidelines are here: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md.



    The information on how to contribute MUST explain the contribution process (e.g., are pull requests used?) (URL required) [contribution]

    Contributor guidelines are here: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md. We ask contributors to create an account on our Gitlab repository and request a project allocation. Then they can create a merge request with their contribution. They will have to follow our code review and unit testing guidelines as well as our coding standards. We recommend anyone contemplating a large contribution open an issue first to discuss their proposed design.



    The information on how to contribute SHOULD include the requirements for acceptable contributions (e.g., a reference to any required coding standard). (URL required) [contribution_requirements]

    Contributor guidelines are here: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md. Coding standards are covered there, including this excerpt: "Placed in the root of the repository are files that formally describe the coding guidelines above as close as possible. They are .clang-format and .uncrustify.cfg used by clang-format and uncrustify respectively. If you want to format code automatically, you will need to have at least one of these tools installed. Since by default, these tools look for the closest style file located in one of the parent directories or, otherwise, in a default location, there are a a couple of helpful scripts i.e. ./tools/clang-format.sh and ./tools/uncrustify.sh to assure you that the Kea-owned file is used. They accept any number of customized parameters that would be passed to the underlying tool followed by any number of files and/or directories. Passing directories will have all non-generated C++ files under it formatted."


  • FLOSS license

    What license(s) is the project released under?



    The software produced by the project MUST be released as FLOSS. [floss_license]

    It is SUGGESTED that any required license(s) for the software produced by the project be approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). [floss_license_osi]


    The project MUST post the license(s) of its results in a standard location in their source repository. (URL required) [license_location]
  • Documentation


    The project MUST provide basic documentation for the software produced by the project. [documentation_basics]

    The project MUST provide reference documentation that describes the external interface (both input and output) of the software produced by the project. [documentation_interface]
  • Other


    The project sites (website, repository, and download URLs) MUST support HTTPS using TLS. [sites_https]

    The project MUST have one or more mechanisms for discussion (including proposed changes and issues) that are searchable, allow messages and topics to be addressed by URL, enable new people to participate in some of the discussions, and do not require client-side installation of proprietary software. [discussion]

    https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues, https://lists.isc.org/pipermail/kea-users/, also a clone on github: https://github.com/isc-projects/kea/ (although a great majority of discussions happens on our hosted instance of gitlab).



    The project SHOULD provide documentation in English and be able to accept bug reports and comments about code in English. [english]

    The project MUST be maintained. [maintained]


(Advanced) What other users have additional rights to edit this badge entry? Currently: [9656]



  • Public version-controlled source repository


    The project MUST have a version-controlled source repository that is publicly readable and has a URL. [repo_public]

    The project's source repository MUST track what changes were made, who made the changes, and when the changes were made. [repo_track]

    To enable collaborative review, the project's source repository MUST include interim versions for review between releases; it MUST NOT include only final releases. [repo_interim]


    It is SUGGESTED that common distributed version control software be used (e.g., git) for the project's source repository. [repo_distributed]

    We use git - our primary repository is a self-hosted instance of Gitlab, with a mirror on Github. https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea


  • Unique version numbering


    The project results MUST have a unique version identifier for each release intended to be used by users. [version_unique]


    It is SUGGESTED that the Semantic Versioning (SemVer) or Calendar Versioning (CalVer) version numbering format be used for releases. It is SUGGESTED that those who use CalVer include a micro level value. [version_semver]

    We have only issued a few versions so far. Those are consistent with the SemVer format.



    It is SUGGESTED that projects identify each release within their version control system. For example, it is SUGGESTED that those using git identify each release using git tags. [version_tags]
  • Release notes


    The project MUST provide, in each release, release notes that are a human-readable summary of major changes in that release to help users determine if they should upgrade and what the upgrade impact will be. The release notes MUST NOT be the raw output of a version control log (e.g., the "git log" command results are not release notes). Projects whose results are not intended for reuse in multiple locations (such as the software for a single website or service) AND employ continuous delivery MAY select "N/A". (URL required) [release_notes]

    We issue release notes with every release, which include the changelog for changes since the prior version. https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/releases



    The release notes MUST identify every publicly known run-time vulnerability fixed in this release that already had a CVE assignment or similar when the release was created. This criterion may be marked as not applicable (N/A) if users typically cannot practically update the software themselves (e.g., as is often true for kernel updates). This criterion applies only to the project results, not to its dependencies. If there are no release notes or there have been no publicly known vulnerabilities, choose N/A. [release_notes_vulns]

    We have a pretty mature system for vulnerability handling, documented here: https://kb.isc.org/docs/aa-00861 We have had very few reportable CVEs in Kea, but they are well documented, in the Mitre Database as well as in our own release notes and knowledgebase. ISC is a CNA. Example CVE for Kea: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2019-6474


  • Bug-reporting process


    The project MUST provide a process for users to submit bug reports (e.g., using an issue tracker or a mailing list). (URL required) [report_process]

    The project SHOULD use an issue tracker for tracking individual issues. [report_tracker]

    The project MUST acknowledge a majority of bug reports submitted in the last 2-12 months (inclusive); the response need not include a fix. [report_responses]

    We address the majority of relevant bug reports much faster than 12 months. We do include a lot of 'to do' items in our issue tracker, it is not only bugs, and some of those linger for a while. We have some reports on the time taken in the various steps in the process here: https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/value_stream_analytics



    The project SHOULD respond to a majority (>50%) of enhancement requests in the last 2-12 months (inclusive). [enhancement_responses]

    We address the majority of relevant enhancement requests much faster than 12 months. The project is quite active. We do include a lot of 'to do' items in our issue tracker, it is not only bugs, and some of those linger for a while.



    The project MUST have a publicly available archive for reports and responses for later searching. (URL required) [report_archive]

    Our repository is open, if this means issue reports. The following link will give you all the closed issue reports. https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/issues?scope=all&utf8=✓&state=closed


  • Vulnerability report process


    The project MUST publish the process for reporting vulnerabilities on the project site. (URL required) [vulnerability_report_process]

    If private vulnerability reports are supported, the project MUST include how to send the information in a way that is kept private. (URL required) [vulnerability_report_private]

    https://www.isc.org/security-report/

    You can email us at security-officer@isc.org, ideally using encrypted email. Reports to this alias are responded to immediately by a member of our security incident team. We would then create an issue in Gitlab, and make that issue 'confidential' until it is published and the issue disclosed as a CVE (if the report turns out to be accurate).



    The project's initial response time for any vulnerability report received in the last 6 months MUST be less than or equal to 14 days. [vulnerability_report_response]

    Our process is well with this - normally we respond to security issues within the hour. Kea has not had any security reports in the past 6 months however.


  • Working build system


    If the software produced by the project requires building for use, the project MUST provide a working build system that can automatically rebuild the software from source code. [build]

    https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/pipelines

    Our CI build system is integrated with our repo.



    It is SUGGESTED that common tools be used for building the software. [build_common_tools]

    https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/pipelines

    Our CI build system is integrated with our repo. We do still use an older Jenkins-based system for some testing as well. https://jenkins.isc.org



    The project SHOULD be buildable using only FLOSS tools. [build_floss_tools]

  • Automated test suite


    The project MUST use at least one automated test suite that is publicly released as FLOSS (this test suite may be maintained as a separate FLOSS project). The project MUST clearly show or document how to run the test suite(s) (e.g., via a continuous integration (CI) script or via documentation in files such as BUILD.md, README.md, or CONTRIBUTING.md). [test]

    Unit tests are part of the main project repo. https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md



    A test suite SHOULD be invocable in a standard way for that language. [test_invocation]

    We document how to run tests here https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#running-unit-tests We use "make check". We also developed a system/conformance test suite called ISC Forge, available here: github.com/isc-projects/forge. It is being run as part of our CI system, after each commit. We also have automated perfomance tests using perfdhcp (part of the Kea source tree).



    It is SUGGESTED that the test suite cover most (or ideally all) the code branches, input fields, and functionality. [test_most]

    This is of course a goal. We also have system-level tests, compliance and performance tests. We have developed and published tools for performance tests and protocol compliance testing.



    It is SUGGESTED that the project implement continuous integration (where new or changed code is frequently integrated into a central code repository and automated tests are run on the result). [test_continuous_integration]

    We use GitlabCI (https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/pipelines) and also have internal Jenkins system that runs additional tests, such as coverage, conformance, negative, performance and other test types.


  • New functionality testing


    The project MUST have a general policy (formal or not) that as major new functionality is added to the software produced by the project, tests of that functionality should be added to an automated test suite. [test_policy]

    We adhere to this strictly, as explained in our Contribution guidelines. (https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/kea/-/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md)



    The project MUST have evidence that the test_policy for adding tests has been adhered to in the most recent major changes to the software produced by the project. [tests_are_added]

    If you look at any major merge request you can see the results of the CI tests. We use danger and other standard tools to check for compliance to our commit requirements.



    It is SUGGESTED that this policy on adding tests (see test_policy) be documented in the instructions for change proposals. [tests_documented_added]
  • Warning flags


    The project MUST enable one or more compiler warning flags, a "safe" language mode, or use a separate "linter" tool to look for code quality errors or common simple mistakes, if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can implement this criterion in the selected language. [warnings]

    Yes, our standard CI process includes linter tools.



    The project MUST address warnings. [warnings_fixed]

    We are a bit behind in addressing some of our static analysis results (https://scan.coverity.com/projects/kea?tab=overview).



    It is SUGGESTED that projects be maximally strict with warnings in the software produced by the project, where practical. [warnings_strict]

    By default, our configure script enables the following extra switches in g++: -Wall -Wextra -Wnon-virtual-dtor -Wwrite-strings -Woverloaded-virtual -Wno-sign-compare -pthread -Wno-missing-field-initializers -fPIC. Note the -Wall and -Wextra. Many of our builds are run with -Werror. We do experiments with -Wpedantic sometimes, but we're not fully committed to that idea yet.


  • Secure development knowledge


    The project MUST have at least one primary developer who knows how to design secure software. (See ‘details’ for the exact requirements.) [know_secure_design]


    At least one of the project's primary developers MUST know of common kinds of errors that lead to vulnerabilities in this kind of software, as well as at least one method to counter or mitigate each of them. [know_common_errors]

  • Use basic good cryptographic practices

    Note that some software does not need to use cryptographic mechanisms. If your project produces software that (1) includes, activates, or enables encryption functionality, and (2) might be released from the United States (US) to outside the US or to a non-US-citizen, you may be legally required to take a few extra steps. Typically this just involves sending an email. For more information, see the encryption section of Understanding Open Source Technology & US Export Controls.

    The software produced by the project MUST use, by default, only cryptographic protocols and algorithms that are publicly published and reviewed by experts (if cryptographic protocols and algorithms are used). [crypto_published]

    We use external libraries for our cryptographic requirements. (Botan or OpenSSL)



    If the software produced by the project is an application or library, and its primary purpose is not to implement cryptography, then it SHOULD only call on software specifically designed to implement cryptographic functions; it SHOULD NOT re-implement its own. [crypto_call]

    We use external libraries for our cryptographic requirements. (Botan or OpenSSL)



    All functionality in the software produced by the project that depends on cryptography MUST be implementable using FLOSS. [crypto_floss]

    We use external libraries for our cryptographic requirements. (Botan or OpenSSL)



    The security mechanisms within the software produced by the project MUST use default keylengths that at least meet the NIST minimum requirements through the year 2030 (as stated in 2012). It MUST be possible to configure the software so that smaller keylengths are completely disabled. [crypto_keylength]

    We use external libraries for our cryptographic requirements. (Botan or OpenSSL)



    The default security mechanisms within the software produced by the project MUST NOT depend on broken cryptographic algorithms (e.g., MD4, MD5, single DES, RC4, Dual_EC_DRBG), or use cipher modes that are inappropriate to the context, unless they are necessary to implement an interoperable protocol (where the protocol implemented is the most recent version of that standard broadly supported by the network ecosystem, that ecosystem requires the use of such an algorithm or mode, and that ecosystem does not offer any more secure alternative). The documentation MUST describe any relevant security risks and any known mitigations if these broken algorithms or modes are necessary for an interoperable protocol. [crypto_working]

    We may MD5 for generating pseudo random numbers, but this is really not a crypto function.



    The default security mechanisms within the software produced by the project SHOULD NOT depend on cryptographic algorithms or modes with known serious weaknesses (e.g., the SHA-1 cryptographic hash algorithm or the CBC mode in SSH). [crypto_weaknesses]

    We use security for TSIG, but there is no default algorithm, it must be positively specified.



    The security mechanisms within the software produced by the project SHOULD implement perfect forward secrecy for key agreement protocols so a session key derived from a set of long-term keys cannot be compromised if one of the long-term keys is compromised in the future. [crypto_pfs]


    If the software produced by the project causes the storing of passwords for authentication of external users, the passwords MUST be stored as iterated hashes with a per-user salt by using a key stretching (iterated) algorithm (e.g., Argon2id, Bcrypt, Scrypt, or PBKDF2). See also OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet. [crypto_password_storage]

    This mainly applies to the authentication of Kea to external database backends. It is possible to build the software so that it does not store the credentials for Kea to authenticate with the external database (it stores an empty password). The result is the user is prompted to enter the password when Kea boots up and connects to the database.



    The security mechanisms within the software produced by the project MUST generate all cryptographic keys and nonces using a cryptographically secure random number generator, and MUST NOT do so using generators that are cryptographically insecure. [crypto_random]

  • Secured delivery against man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks


    The project MUST use a delivery mechanism that counters MITM attacks. Using https or ssh+scp is acceptable. [delivery_mitm]

    We sign the tarballs distributed on the web site and the packages distributed from our package repository and our web site is https.



    A cryptographic hash (e.g., a sha1sum) MUST NOT be retrieved over http and used without checking for a cryptographic signature. [delivery_unsigned]

    our signatures are stored on our ftp site, they are signed by our private/public key pair https://www.isc.org/pgpkey/


  • Publicly known vulnerabilities fixed


    There MUST be no unpatched vulnerabilities of medium or higher severity that have been publicly known for more than 60 days. [vulnerabilities_fixed_60_days]

    Projects SHOULD fix all critical vulnerabilities rapidly after they are reported. [vulnerabilities_critical_fixed]

    I am not sure how to prove this, given how extremely rare CVES are in this project.


  • Other security issues


    The public repositories MUST NOT leak a valid private credential (e.g., a working password or private key) that is intended to limit public access. [no_leaked_credentials]

  • Static code analysis


    At least one static code analysis tool (beyond compiler warnings and "safe" language modes) MUST be applied to any proposed major production release of the software before its release, if there is at least one FLOSS tool that implements this criterion in the selected language. [static_analysis]

    We use Coverity Scan (https://scan.coverity.com/projects/kea?tab=overview), cppcheck (on internal Jenkins), clang static analyzer (internal Jenkins), shellcheck



    It is SUGGESTED that at least one of the static analysis tools used for the static_analysis criterion include rules or approaches to look for common vulnerabilities in the analyzed language or environment. [static_analysis_common_vulnerabilities]

    Coverity Scan, cppcheck, danger, clang static analyzer, shellcheck



    All medium and higher severity exploitable vulnerabilities discovered with static code analysis MUST be fixed in a timely way after they are confirmed. [static_analysis_fixed]

    We do treat all known vulnerabilities seriously. We do have security policy (https://kb.isc.org/docs/aa-00861) and depending on the severity suspend our regular schedule to work on fix asap ("all hands on deck" scenario for high severity), including fix in a monthly release, backporting fix to older stable releases, or issue operational notifications for low severity issues with easily applicable workarounds.



    It is SUGGESTED that static source code analysis occur on every commit or at least daily. [static_analysis_often]

    We do have an extensive CI environment. The static and dynamic analysis is run on each commit. While there are days without commits (holidays etc.), this approach ensures we have checks on every change.


  • Dynamic code analysis


    It is SUGGESTED that at least one dynamic analysis tool be applied to any proposed major production release of the software before its release. [dynamic_analysis]

    We do use AFL. The fuzzing could definitely be improved and expanded, but it's being conducted in an automated and continuous way (the fuzzer hardware is shared between several projects, each running a certain number of days per month). We also run unit-tests with a thread sanitizer.



    It is SUGGESTED that if the software produced by the project includes software written using a memory-unsafe language (e.g., C or C++), then at least one dynamic tool (e.g., a fuzzer or web application scanner) be routinely used in combination with a mechanism to detect memory safety problems such as buffer overwrites. If the project does not produce software written in a memory-unsafe language, choose "not applicable" (N/A). [dynamic_analysis_unsafe]

    We run valgrind tests under Jenkins, use cppcheck, and thread sanitizer from clang.



    It is SUGGESTED that the project use a configuration for at least some dynamic analysis (such as testing or fuzzing) which enables many assertions. In many cases these assertions should not be enabled in production builds. [dynamic_analysis_enable_assertions]

    Kea production code handles error situations with C++ exceptions. There's a configuration (--with-gtests or --with-gtest-source) available that validates the exceptions with massive amounts of asserts. A quick grep showed 17000+ asserts in our source code. Note we're using ASSERT_NO_THROW, ASSERT_THROW and similar macros from gtest suite.



    All medium and higher severity exploitable vulnerabilities discovered with dynamic code analysis MUST be fixed in a timely way after they are confirmed. [dynamic_analysis_fixed]

    Yes, see the answer about medium and higher severity exploitable vulnerabilities above. We use the same process, regardless of the source of the vulnerability (found by dynamic code analysis, discovered by QA team, reported externally etc).



This data is available under the Community Data License Agreement – Permissive, Version 2.0 (CDLA-Permissive-2.0). This means that a Data Recipient may share the Data, with or without modifications, so long as the Data Recipient makes available the text of this agreement with the shared Data. Please credit Vicky Risk and the OpenSSF Best Practices badge contributors.

Project badge entry owned by: Vicky Risk.
Entry created on 2016-05-03 15:46:35 UTC, last updated on 2025-02-06 12:43:24 UTC. Last achieved passing badge on 2021-03-22 15:34:49 UTC.

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