core_crypto/
ephemeral.rs

1//! Utilities for ephemeral CoreCrypto instances.
2//!
3//! Ephemeral instances are intended to support history sharing. History sharing works like this:
4//! every history-enabled conversation has a passive "history client" as a member. This client
5//! is a member of the MLS group (and can therefore decrypt messages), but it is not actively running
6//! on any device or decrypting any messages.
7//!
8//! Approximately once daily, and whenever a member is removed from the group, a new history-sharing era
9//! begins. The client submitting the commit which instantiates the new history-sharing era is responsible
10//! for ensuring that the old history client is removed from the group, and new one is added. Additionally,
11//! one of the first application messages in the new history-sharing era contains the serialized history
12//! secret.
13//!
14//! When a new client joins the history-enabled conversation, they receive a list of history secrets
15//! and their associated history-sharing eras (identified by the epoch number at which they start).
16//! For each history-sharing era, they can instantiate an ephemeral client from the history secret,
17//! and use that client to decrypt all messages in this era.
18//!
19//! Though ephemeral clients are full instances of `CoreCrypto` and contain the same API, they cannot
20//! be used to generate messages for sending, as they don't posess a credential with a signature key:
21//! Any attempt to encrypt a message will fail because the client cannot retrieve the signature key from
22//! its keystore.
23
24use std::borrow::Borrow;
25
26use core_crypto_keystore::{ConnectionType, Database};
27use mls_crypto_provider::DatabaseKey;
28use obfuscate::{Obfuscate, Obfuscated};
29use openmls::prelude::KeyPackageSecretEncapsulation;
30
31use crate::{
32    Ciphersuite, ClientId, ClientIdRef, ClientIdentifier, CoreCrypto, Credential, CredentialType, Error, MlsError,
33    RecursiveError, Result, Session,
34};
35
36/// We always instantiate history clients with this prefix in their client id, so
37/// we can use prefix testing to determine with some accuracy whether or not something is a history client.
38pub const HISTORY_CLIENT_ID_PREFIX: &str = "history-client";
39
40/// A `HistorySecret` encodes sufficient client state that it can be used to instantiate an
41/// ephemeral client.
42#[derive(serde::Serialize, serde::Deserialize)]
43pub struct HistorySecret {
44    /// Client id of the associated history client
45    pub client_id: ClientId,
46    pub(crate) key_package: KeyPackageSecretEncapsulation,
47}
48
49impl Obfuscate for HistorySecret {
50    fn obfuscate(&self, f: &mut std::fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> core::fmt::Result {
51        f.debug_struct("HistorySecret")
52            .field("client_id", &self.client_id)
53            .field("key_package", &Obfuscated::from(&self.key_package))
54            .finish()
55    }
56}
57
58/// Create a new [`CoreCrypto`] with an **uninitialized** mls session.
59///
60/// You must initialize the session yourself before using this!
61async fn in_memory_cc() -> Result<CoreCrypto> {
62    let db = Database::open(ConnectionType::InMemory, &DatabaseKey::generate())
63        .await
64        .unwrap();
65
66    let session = Session::try_new(&db)
67        .await
68        .map_err(RecursiveError::mls("creating ephemeral session"))?;
69
70    Ok(session.into())
71}
72
73/// Generate a new [`HistorySecret`].
74///
75/// This is useful when it's this client's turn to generate a new history client.
76///
77/// The generated secret is cryptographically unrelated to the current CoreCrypto client.
78///
79/// Note that this is a crate-private function; the public interface for this feature is
80/// [`Conversation::generate_history_secret`][crate::mls::conversation::Conversation::generate_history_secret].
81/// This implementation lives here instead of there for organizational reasons.
82pub(crate) async fn generate_history_secret(ciphersuite: Ciphersuite) -> Result<HistorySecret> {
83    // generate a new completely arbitrary client id
84    let client_id = uuid::Uuid::new_v4();
85    let client_id = format!("{HISTORY_CLIENT_ID_PREFIX}-{client_id}");
86    let client_id = ClientId::from(client_id.into_bytes());
87    let identifier = ClientIdentifier::Basic(client_id.clone());
88
89    let cc = in_memory_cc().await?;
90    let tx = cc
91        .new_transaction()
92        .await
93        .map_err(RecursiveError::transaction("creating new transaction"))?;
94    cc.init(identifier, &[ciphersuite.signature_algorithm()])
95        .await
96        .map_err(RecursiveError::mls_client("initializing ephemeral cc"))?;
97
98    let credential = Credential::basic(
99        ciphersuite.signature_algorithm(),
100        client_id.clone(),
101        &cc.mls.crypto_provider,
102    )
103    .map_err(RecursiveError::mls_credential(
104        "generating basic credential for ephemeral client",
105    ))?;
106    cc.add_credential(credential).await.map_err(RecursiveError::mls_client(
107        "adding basic credential to ephemeral client",
108    ))?;
109
110    // we can generate a key package from the ephemeral cc and ciphersutite
111    let [key_package] = tx
112        .get_or_create_client_keypackages(ciphersuite, CredentialType::Basic, 1)
113        .await
114        .map_err(RecursiveError::transaction("generating keypackages"))?
115        .try_into()
116        .expect("generating 1 keypackage returns 1 keypackage");
117    let key_package = KeyPackageSecretEncapsulation::load(&cc.crypto_provider, key_package)
118        .await
119        .map_err(MlsError::wrap("encapsulating key package"))?;
120
121    // we don't need to finish the transaction here--the point of the ephemeral CC was that no mutations would be saved
122    // there
123
124    Ok(HistorySecret { client_id, key_package })
125}
126
127pub(crate) fn is_history_client(client_id: impl Borrow<ClientIdRef>) -> bool {
128    client_id.borrow().starts_with(HISTORY_CLIENT_ID_PREFIX.as_bytes())
129}
130
131impl CoreCrypto {
132    /// Instantiate a history client.
133    ///
134    /// This client exposes the full interface of `CoreCrypto`, but it should only be used to decrypt messages.
135    /// Other use is a logic error.
136    pub async fn history_client(history_secret: HistorySecret) -> Result<Self> {
137        if !history_secret
138            .client_id
139            .starts_with(HISTORY_CLIENT_ID_PREFIX.as_bytes())
140        {
141            return Err(Error::InvalidHistorySecret("client id has invalid format"));
142        }
143
144        let session = in_memory_cc().await?;
145        let tx = session
146            .new_transaction()
147            .await
148            .map_err(RecursiveError::transaction("creating new transaction"))?;
149
150        session
151            .restore_from_history_secret(history_secret)
152            .await
153            .map_err(RecursiveError::mls_client(
154                "restoring ephemeral session from history secret",
155            ))?;
156
157        tx.finish()
158            .await
159            .map_err(RecursiveError::transaction("finishing transaction"))?;
160
161        Ok(session)
162    }
163}
164
165#[cfg(test)]
166mod tests {
167    use rstest::rstest;
168    use rstest_reuse::apply;
169
170    use crate::test_utils::{TestContext, all_cred_cipher};
171
172    /// Create a history secret, and restore it into a CoreCrypto instance
173    #[apply(all_cred_cipher)]
174    async fn can_create_ephemeral_client(case: TestContext) {
175        let [alice] = case.sessions().await;
176        let conversation = case.create_conversation([&alice]).await;
177        let conversation = conversation.enable_history_sharing_notify().await;
178
179        assert_eq!(
180            conversation.member_count().await,
181            2,
182            "the conversation should now magically have a second member"
183        );
184
185        let ephemeral_client = conversation.members().nth(1).unwrap();
186        assert!(
187            conversation.can_one_way_communicate(&alice, ephemeral_client).await,
188            "alice can send messages to the history client"
189        );
190        assert!(
191            !conversation.can_one_way_communicate(ephemeral_client, &alice).await,
192            "the history client cannot send messages"
193        );
194    }
195}