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RADIUS EXTensions
charter-ietf-radext-06-03

The information below is for an older proposed charter
Document Proposed charter RADIUS EXTensions WG (radext) Snapshot
Title RADIUS EXTensions
Last updated 2023-02-17
State External Review (Message to Community, Selected by Secretariat) Rechartering
WG State Proposed
IESG Responsible AD Paul Wouters
Charter edit AD Paul Wouters
Send notices to (None)

charter-ietf-radext-06-03

The RADIUS Extensions Working Group will focus on extensions to the
RADIUS protocol. To ensure backward compatibility with existing RADIUS
implementations, as well as compatibility between RADIUS and Diameter,
all documents produced must specify means of interoperation with legacy
RADIUS. Any non-backwards compatibility changes with existing RADIUS
RFCs, including RFCs 2865-2869, 3162, 3575, 3579, 3580, 4668-4673,4675,
5080, 5090, 5176 and 6158 must be justified. Transport profiles should
be compatible with RFC 3539, with any non-backwards compatibility changes
justified.

The WG will review its existing RFCs' document track categories and
where necessary or useful change document tracks, with minor changes in
the documents if needed.

Work Items

The immediate goals of the RADEXT working group are:

  • Deprecating the use of insecure transports outside of secure
    networks. This work updates RFC 6421.

  • Bring RFC 6614 (RADIUS/TLS), and RFC 7360 (RADIUS/DTLS) to
    Standards track.

  • Define best practices for using TLS-PSK with TLS-based transport.

  • Define best practices for RADIUS roaming, and roaming consortia
    based on experience with RADIUS/TLS.

  • Improve operations for multi-hop RADIUS networks: e.g. loop detection
    and prevention, a multi-hop Status-Server equivalent with ability to
    Trace the proxy steps a RADIUS message will follow.

  • Extend the 8-bit RADIUS ID space to allow more than 256 "in flight"
    packets across one connection.

  • Allow for CoA / Disconnect packets to be sent in "reverse" down a
    RADIUS/TLS or RADIUS/DTLS connection. This functionality assists with
    transit of NATs.

  • Defining Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) extensions for RADIUS/TLS and RADIUS/TLS
    which allow the use of those transports in a FIPS-140 compliant environment.

Timeline:

Much of this work should be completed by 2024 in order to be part of
the Wi-Fi 8 release, with products in 2026.