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Civi\Cxn\Rpc

Civi\Cxn\Rpc implements an RPC mechanism based on X.509 and JSON. Generally, it is based on an asymmetric business relationship between three parties:

• "Sites" are online properties owned by end-user organizations. They represent an organization's canonical data-store. There are many sites. In the tests and comments, we will refer to an example site called SaveTheWhales.org.
• "Applications" are online properties with value-added services. They supplement the sites. There are only a few applications, and they must be certified to go live. In the tests and comments, we will refer to an example service called AddressCleanup.com.
• An arbiter ("Directory Service" and "Certificate Authority") which publishes and certifies a list of available applications. In the comments, we will refer to a service called cxn.civicrm.org.

There is no pre-existing trust between sites and applications, and no data-exchange can be established until a site opts-in by registering with an application. The arbiter facilitates registration (by advertising and certifying the application's public-key) and revocation (by revoking the application's public-key) but cannot participate in any other data-exchanges.

Test suite

The test suite for civicrm-cxn-rpc is implemented in PHPUnit. It is generallly executed with PHPUnit 4, e.g.

Protocol v0.2

CiviConnect Protocol v0.2 defines the major use-cases and message-exchanges among sites, applications, and arbiters. The use-cases are:

• Registration Use-Case: A site (SaveTheWhales.org) creates a new connection to an application (AddressCleanup.com) by POSTing a RegistrationMessage. AddressCleanup.com responds with a StdMessage.
• CiviCRM API Use-Case: An application (AddressCleanup.com) reads or writes records on a CiviCRM site (SaveTheWhales.org) by POSTing a StdMessage. SaveTheWhales.org responds with a StdMessage.
  • Service Discovery Use-Case: A site (SaveTheWhales.org) gets a list of available applications by sending a basic HTTP GET request to the arbiter's directory service (https://cxn.civicrm.org/cxn/apps). The arbiter responds with an AppMetasMessage.

The most important message types are:

• RegistrationMessage (SaveTheWhales.org => AddressCleanup.com)
  • Use-Case: Registration Use-Case
  • Payload: The registration includes a unique identifer for the connection, a shared secret, and a callback URL. (More discussion below.)
  • Crypto: A temporary secret is generated and encrypted with the application's public key (RSA-2048). The payload is encrypted (AES-CBC), dated (ttl), and signed (HMAC-SHA256) using the secret. (See also: AesHelper, StdMessage)
  • Note: The registration request uses RegistrationMessage, but the acknowledgement uses StdMessage.
• StdMessage (AddressCleanup.com => SaveTheWhales.org)
  • Use-Case: Registration Use-Case, CiviCRM API Use-Case
  • Payload: Varies
  • Payload (CiviCRM API Request): An entity+action+params tuple (as in Civi APIv3).
  • Crypto: The shared-secret is used to generate an AES encryption key and HMAC signing key. The payload and ttl are encrypted with AES-CBC (256-bit), and the ciphertext is signed with HMAC-SHA256. (See also: AesHelper) The same scheme is used for requests and responses.
  • Note: When an application POSTs a StdMessage, it includes a copy of the latest cert. It is validated by the recipient to ensure that the application is still trusted by the arbiter.
• AppMetasMessage (cxn.civicrm.org => SaveTheWhales.org)
  • Use-Case: Service Discovery Use-Case
  • Payload: The list of applications includes the title, description, registration URL, and X.509 certificate for each.
  • Crypto: The payload and ttl are signed by cxn.civicrm.org (RSA, 2048-bit key) and transferred in plaintext.

Additionally, there are two non-substantive message types. They should not be used for major activity but may assist in advisory error-reports:

• InsecureMessage
  • Use-Case: A server (RegistrationServer or ApiServer) receives an incoming message but cannot authenticate or decrypt it. The server must respond with a NACK, but it lacks sufficient information to securely communicate it. It sends an InsecureMessage.
  • Payload: An error message.
  • Crypto: Unencrypted and unsigned.
• GarbledMessage
  • Use-Case: A client (RegistrationClient or ApiClient) receives a response but cannot decode it.
    • (Ex: The server was buggy or badly configured, and PHP error messages were dumped into the ciphertext.)
    • (Ex: A man-in-the-middle interfered with the message transmission.)
  • Payload: Unknown
  • Crypto: Unknown

Some considerations:

• Messages can be passed over HTTP, HTTPS, or any other medium. Passing messages over HTTPS is preferrable (because HTTPS supports more sophisticated cryptography), but even with HTTP all interctions will be encrypted.
• Application certificates are validated using the CiviCRM CA. This seems better than trusting a hundred random CA's around the world -- there's one point of failure rather than a hundred points of failure.
• If the CA were compromised and if an attacker could execute man-in-the-middle attacks against sites or applications, then it could compromise new connections. However, it cannot compromise existing connections because the CA lacks knowledge or means to manipulate the shared-secret.
• Sites do not need certificates. Only applications need certificates, and the number of applications is relatively small. Therefore, we don't need automated certificate enrollment. This significantly simplifies the technology and riskness of operating the CA.

Protocol v0.2: RegistrationMessage

The RegistrationMessage format is used whenever a site (SaveTheWhales.org) sends a message to an application (AddressCleanup.com). The most common case is to send a Cxn.register request.

The message data includes the following keys:

• entity: string. Currently, only "Cxn" is used.
• action: string.
• cxn: array. See Cxn.php.
• params: array. Varies depending on entity/action.

The following entity/actions are supported:

• Cxn.register (mandatory): Establish a new connection or update an existing connection.
  • cxn: For updates, both cxnId and secret must match the previous registration.
  • params: none
  • Note: RegistrationServer provides a standard implementation.
• Cxn.unregister (mandatory): Destroy an existing connection.
  • cxn: Both cxnId and secret must match the previous registration.
  • params: none
  • Note: RegistrationServer provides a standard implementation.
• Cxn.getlink (optional): Compose a link for an authenticated service.
  • cxn: Both cxnId and secret must match the previous registration.
  • params:
    • page: string. The name of the page to load (e.g. "settings").
  • Note: Applications have discretion to define links in AppMeta. If there are links in AppMeta, they will be resolved using getlink. To support this, one may extend RegistrationServer and define function onCxnGetlink(...).

Protocol v0.1

Never published or completed. Broadly, the v0.1 protocol relied on certificates for both client and server, and used RSA to encrypt all messages. v0.1 had a few issues:

• If the certificate authority were compromised, then the high trust placed in the CA could be abused to compromise existing connections.
• Using RSA for everything meant that the crypto was slower for typical API calls.

Base Classes

When creating a new agent, one should use one of these four helper classes:

• RegistrationClient: A site uses this to establish a connection to a an application.
• RegistrationServer: An application uses this to accept registrations from sites.
• ApiClient: An application uses this to send API calls to the site.
• ApiServer: A site uses this to accept API calls from an application.

Policy Recommendations

• Applications should accept new registrations. If a registration is attempted with an existing cxnId, then use the shared-secret as client authentication -- if the shared-secret matches, then accept the updated registration; otherwise, reject it.
• Applications should periodically validate their connections -- i.e. issue an API call for "System.get" to ensure that the connection corresponds to an active Civi installation running a compatible version.
• Applications should be deployed on HTTPS to provide additional security (e.g. forward-secrecy). However, this could impact compatibility/reach, and the protocol encrypts all messages regardless, so HTTP may still be used.