Code change:
Empty Authenticator, as described in Section 5 of I-D.ietf-tls- exported-authenticator, in a "CERTIFICATE" frame in response to the request, followed by a "USE_CERTIFICATE" frame for stream zero which <del> references the Empty Authenticator.  In this case, or if the server has not advertised support for HTTP-layer certificates, the client MUST NOT send any requests for resources in that origin on the current connection. </del> <ins> references the Empty Authenticator. If a server has not advertised support for HTTP-layer certificates, fails to provide a requested certificate, or provides a certificate which is unacceptable to the client, the client MUST NOT send any requests for resources in that origin on the current connection.  The client MAY open a new connection in an effort to reach an authoritative server. </ins> If a client receives a "PUSH_PROMISE" referencing an origin for which <del> it has not yet received the server's certificate, this is a fatal connection error (see section 8.2 of RFC7540).  To avoid this, servers MUST supply the associated certificates before pushing resources from a different origin. </del> <ins> it has not yet received the server's certificate, this is a stream error (see section 8.2 of RFC7540).  To avoid this, servers MUST supply the associated certificates before pushing resources from a different origin. </ins> 2.3.2.

Related discussion:
text: though I'm not sure it's yet precise enough. There are three general classes of errors: The peer did something wrong. There are relatively few of these possible -- indicating more certificates to use than were requested, or more than one unsolicited certificate; sending CERTIFICATE_NEEDED to a peer that didn't indicate support for this extension. The authenticator is corrupt. This might indicate a problem with the TLS connection. The certificate isn't acceptable. There are lots of reasons this might happen. The first two should be at least stream and possibly connection errors. The latter should be handled at the HTTP layer, but previously had error codes defined for them. This PR removes several error codes and recommends handling at the HTTP layer if the certificate isn't accepted.
It is very unclear from the draft how exactly the client should handle a secondary server certificate it rejects. Presumably a bad secondary certificate should not be fatal to streams which don't use it. The draft seems to handwaive at this (though not very clearly, which means uncertainty for the server) in section 4. At the same time, the draft says: This is inconsistent with that idea. Suppose the server pushes some CERTIFICATE frame along with some resources it thinks the client would want. If the client rejects that certificate, this text implies the client must tear down the entire connection, interrupting unrelated requests. A useful heuristic for reasoning through all this would be to consider a client which blindly rejects every secondary certificate. This is especially relevant if the draft does not act on .
The restriction on the server is that it not push unless it has first sent the certificate. If the client rejects the certificate, clearly it will discard the push; the question is whether the client will be able to differentiate failure-to-send from cert-not-accepted. That depends on whether you assume that clients will look at the certificates, even if they aren't accepted; otherwise, I suspect that it can't. However, I think you're right that this is an overreaction. RFC7540 requires that a PUSH_PROMISE for an unproven origin be treated as a stream error, but doesn't specify on which stream. The parent stream still seems excessive, since the server can't know for which origins the client considers it authoritative.