Extended DTLS Session Resumption for Constrained Network Environments
draft-hummen-dtls-extended-session-resumption-00
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| Last updated | 2013-07-15 | ||
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draft-hummen-dtls-extended-session-resumption-00
DICE R. Hummen, Ed.
Internet-Draft J. Gilger
Updates: 5077, 5246 (if approved) RWTH Aachen University
Intended status: Experimental July 15, 2013
Expires: January 16, 2014
Extended DTLS Session Resumption for Constrained Network Environments
draft-hummen-dtls-extended-session-resumption-00
Abstract
This draft defines two extensions for the existing session resumption
mechanisms of TLS that specifically apply to Datagram TLS (DTLS) in
constrained network environments. Session resumption type
negotiation enables the client and the server to explicitly agree on
the session resumption mechanism for subsequent handshakes, thus
avoiding unnecessary overheads occurring with the existing
specifications. Session resumption without client-side state
additionally enables a constrained DTLS client to resume a session
without the need to maintain state while the session is inactive.
The extensions defined in this draft update [RFC5077] and [RFC5246].
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
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Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 16, 2014.
Copyright Notice
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Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Session Resumption Type Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. ResumptionType Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Session Resumption Without Client-Side State . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Revised Recommended Ticket Construction . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Session Resumption Type Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.1. Version 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
9. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
The complex processing of DTLS handshake packets and the non-
negligible computational overhead of cryptographic handshake
operations - especially in case of public-key cryptography - render
the use of the DTLS protocol in constrained network environments
challenging. One of the main goals of the DICE WG, if approved,
therefore is to reduce computation and transmission overheads by
defining a lightweight DTLS profile that considers the special
characteristics of constrained network environments.
In addition to these efforts that mainly target the properties of the
base protocol, DTLS extensions afford a further adaptation of the
protocol to constrained network environments. Session resumption as
defined in [RFC5077] and [RFC5246] denotes one of these extensions.
However, not surprisingly, the existing session resumption
specifications have not specifically been designed with constrained
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devices (client and/or server) and networks in mind. More precisely,
the abbreviated handshake in [RFC5246] requires both communication
end-points to store session state across connections
opportunistically. As a result of this opportunism, a constrained
device may store its session state without a return on its memory
investment if the DTLS peer did not maintain session state across
connections as well. This is due to the lack of explicit session
resumption signaling during the full handshake.
[RFC5077] enables a DTLS server to offload its state to the DTLS
client for safe-keeping while the session is inactive. This
mechanism largely supports the resource asymmetry when a constrained
DTLS server communicates with an unconstrained DTLS client. However,
it falls short for the reverse resource asymmetry, i.e., when a
constrained DTLS client communicates with an unconstrained DTLS
server. To leverage the vast resource difference between the DTLS
client and the DTLS server in constrained network environments, there
is the additional need for session resumption without client-side
state.
Moreover, the roles of a DTLS client and a DTLS server may not always
be readily apparent. For example, a CoAP server [I-D.ietf-core-coap]
may not be restricted to the single role of a DTLS server, but may
need to re-establish connections to other nodes due to asynchronous
communication as provided by the CoAP Observe extension
[I-D.ietf-core-observe]. In such situations, the CoAP server would
act as a DTLS client. Hence, session resumption with state
offloading also has to cover this interchangeability in roles at the
DTLS layer. However, this is currently not possible when purely
relying on session resumption as defined in [RFC5077].
Finally, the recommended ticket structure for stored session state as
defined in [RFC5077] does not yet fully consider constrained network
environments. As a result, especially certificate-based
authentication leads to large ticket structures if the
recommendations are followed. This in turn considerably increases
transmission and memory overhead, thus requiring revised
recommendations for constrained network environments.
To overcome the above shortcomings in constrained network
environments, this document proposes two extensions for the existing
session resumption mechanisms:
1. session resumption type negotiation, and
2. session resumption without client-side state.
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Session resumption type negotiation enables the DTLS peers to
explicitly negotiate the use and the type of the session resumption
mechanism for the subsequent DTLS handshakes. As a result,
opportunistic storing of session state is no longer required and an
agreement for a specific state offloading type becomes possible.
Moreover, this document specifies the required handshake signaling
for session resumption without client-side state. This enables
unconstrained DTLS servers to store session state on behalf of
constrained DTLS clients. In combination with the existing session
resumption extension specified in [RFC5077], this also allows for
session resumption when the client and server roles change at the
DTLS layer.
Regarding the proposed protocol extensions, this document aims at
keeping the changes to [RFC5077] minimal. To this end, the existing
SessionTicket extension and the NewSessionTicket message are reused.
Moreover, while this document only refers to the DTLS protocol, the
defined extensions are similarly applicable to the TLS protocol.
Future versions of this document will additionally address revised
recommendations for the ticket construction that specifically
consider constrained network environments.
2. Session Resumption Type Negotiation
Regarding session resumption with an abbreviated DTLS handshake as
defined in [RFC5246], i.e., when both peers maintain session state
across connections, DTLS currently neither provides a guarantee to
the client nor to the server during the full handshake that the peer
is in fact willing to store session state beyond the lifetime of the
current connection. Specifically, the DTLS peers only discover
during the subsequent handshake if both of them kept their session
state for session resumption. However, this delayed signaling may
lead to a constrained device needlessly occupying its constrained
memory resources with state information while the session is
inactive.
In case of session resumption without server-side state [RFC5077],
the client already signals its support for this extension early
during the initial full handshake by including the SessionTicket
extension in the ClientHello message. The server acknowledges its
own support by including the SessionTicket in the ServerHello
message. Towards the end of the full handshake, the server then
offloads its state to the client by means of the NewSessionTicket
message. Due to this explicit negotiation in the current handshake,
the client and the server do not store session state unnecessarily.
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With the introduction of a third session resumption type in this
document, i.e., session resumption without client-side state (see
Section 3), this simple signaling mechanism introduced in [RFC5077]
no longer suffices to clearly differentiate between the available
session resumption types early during the Hello-phase of the DTLS
handshake. Hence, additional signaling is required when reusing the
SessionTicket extension for the signaling of session resumption
without client-side state.
To explicitly signal the use of session resumption and to
differentiate between the different state offloading types, this
document defines a new session resumption type negotiation extension
for the ClientHello and ServerHello messages, i.e., the
ResumptionType extension. This ResumptionType extension enables the
DTLS peers to clearly indicate which of the three available
resumption types they support:
1. The regular abbreviated handshake (with client & server state),
2. session resumption without client-side state, and
3. session resumption without server-side state.
The integration of this extension in the DTLS handshake and the
extension structure are defined in the following sections.
2.1. Protocol
The DTLS client and server use the ResumptionType extension in order
to negotiate the session resumption type for the subsequent
handshakes. The remaining handshake concludes as originally
specified for the negotiated session resumption type. Hence, the
session resumption type negotiation extends, but does not modify
existing DTLS session resumption mechanisms.
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello
(ResumptionType extension) -------->
<-------- HelloVerifyRequest
ClientHello
(ResumptionType extension) -------->
ServerHello
(ResumptionType extension)
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<-------- ...
...
Figure 1: Message Flow for Negotiating the Session Resumption Type
during a DTLS Handshake
The client adds the ResumptionType extension to its ClientHello
message and indicates its supported session resumption types in the
order of preference. The server concludes the negotiation by
selecting its preferred session resumption type considering the
preference of the client. It signals the chosen session resumption
type in the ResumptionType extension of the ServerHello message.
Each ResumptionType negotiation refers to the subsequent session
resumptions. Hence, a session resumption handshake MAY omit the
session resumption type negotiation. In this case, both client and
server simply keep using the previously negotiated session resumption
type, as long as the client and server roles have not changed.
However, it is important to note that both, server and client, can
resume the same DTLS session. Hence, if the roles of the client and
the server have changed when the session is resumed, the
ResumptionType implicitly adapts accordingly in order to keep storing
session state at the same communication end-point as negotiated
before. More precisely, in case of a negotiated session resumption
without client-side state, state offloading follows the specified
signaling of session resumption without server-side state. A
negotiated session resumption without server-side state adapts vice
versa. If both peers maintain session state with the regular
abbreviated handshake, the change in roles does not impact this
resumption type.
2.2. ResumptionType Extension
The ResumptionType extension is based on [RFC6066]. The
"extension_data" field of this extension SHALL contain
"ResumptionTypeList" where:
enum {
abbreviated(0),
without_client_state(1),
without_server_state(2), (255)
} ResumptionType;
struct {
ResumptionType resumption_type_list<1..3>
} ResumptionTypeList;
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The ResumptionType extension may be sent in the ClientHello and
ServerHello messages. The client adds the ResumptionType extension
to the ClientHello message. It thereby orders the resumption types
by preference. When receiving the ResumptionType extension, the
server select its preferred session resumption type considering the
indicated preference of the client. The server then signals the
chosen session resumption type in the ResumptionType extension of the
ServerHello message. Thus, the ResumptionType extension in the
ServerHello message MUST only contain a single session resumption
type.
The ResumptionType extension has been assigned the number of "TBD".
3. Session Resumption Without Client-Side State
Traditional client-server communication protocols and architectures
typically make the assumption of a number of clients opening
connections to a single more powerful server. Scaling the system
means to ensure that the server can handle the load of additional
clients. With this mindset, [RFC5077] enables a DTLS server to
remain stateless while the session is inactive by offloading its
session state to the DTLS client.
However, in the domain of constrained network environments, not only
do some devices have vastly different capabilities and resources,
they regularly take the role of both client and server. In terms of
higher-layer protocols such as CoAP, the distinction between client
and server may still be intact while on the lower layers a device
will have to accept inbound as well as establish outbound
connections. This fact blurs the distinction between client and
server roles at the DTLS layer.
For the communication of two devices with highly differing
capabilities and resources, e.g., an unconstrained Internet host and
a constrained device, enabling the constrained device to save scarce
memory resources may actually help the overall system, regardless of
whether it is acting as a server or a client. For example, a memory-
constrained client may be able to maintain several connections
sequentially, but not in parallel. Likewise, a CoAP server may take
the role of a DTLS server during the initial session establishment,
but re-establish the session as a DTLS client due to the asynchronous
communication with CoAP Observe. To support these and other
scenarios, this document introduces session resumption without
client-side state in addition to the session resumption mechanisms
defined in [RFC5077] and [RFC5246].
3.1. Protocol
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For session resumption without client-side state, the DTLS client and
server first agree on this session resumption type with a mandatory
session resumption type negotiation in the full handshake. The
client then sends its encrypted session state to the server.
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello
(ResumptionType extension)
(empty SessionTicket extension) -------->
<-------- HelloVerifyRequest
ClientHello
(ResumptionType extension)
(empty SessionTicket extension) -------->
ServerHello
(ResumptionType extension)
(empty SessionTicket extension)
ServerKeyExchange*
CertificateRequest*
<-------- ServerHelloDone
Certificate*
ClientKeyExchange
CertificateVerify*
NewSessionTicket
[ChangeCipherSpec]
Finished -------->
[ChangeCipherSpec]
<-------- Finished
Application Data <-------> Application Data
Figure 2: Message Flow for Full Handshake Issuing New Session Ticket
In the full DTLS handshake, the ClientHello message contains a
ResumptionType extension indicating the willingness of the client to
perform session resumption without client-side state. The
ClientHello message additionally contains an empty SessionTicket
extension. This extension is defined in Section 3.2 of [RFC5077].
If supported and preferred by the server, the server echoes back this
type in the ResumptionType extension of the ServerHello reply. The
client then sends its encrypted session state to the server in the
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NewSessionTicket message of the fifth message flight. The ticket
contains the necessary information for the client to resume the
session at a later point in time. The NewSessionTicket message is
defined in Section 3.3 of [RFC5077].
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello
(ResumptionType extension)
(empty SessionTicket extension) -------->
ServerHello
(ResumptionType extension)
(SessionTicket extension)
[ChangeCipherSpec]
<-------- Finished
NewSessionTicket
[ChangeCipherSpec]
Finished -------->
Application Data <-------> Application Data
Figure 3: Message Flow for Abbreviated Handshake Using New Session
Ticket
When the stateless client subsequently connects to the same server,
it is oblivious of the previous full handshake. Hence, the
ClientHello message in the abbreviated handshake is equal to the full
handshake. On receipt of the ClientHello message, the server tries
to re-identify the client (e.g. based on the source IP address or
other identifying information) and searches for a matching session
ticket. If it finds a matching ticket, it sends the stored session
ticket to the client. To this end, the server adds the SessionTicket
extension with the corresponding session ticket to its ServerHello
reply.
If the client is able to authenticate and to decrypt the
SessionTicket received by the server, it resumes the previous
session. The client can additionally send its new session state in
the NewSessionTicket message for the subsequent handshake.
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4. Revised Recommended Ticket Construction
Section 4 of [RFC5077] recommends a ticket construction that may lead
to an excessive ticket size for constrained network environments.
This recommended ticket construction, for example, includes an entire
certificate chain as the client identity in case of certificate-based
authentication. The aim of this section is to provide revised
recommendations for the ticket construction that take device and
network constraints into account. These recommendations will be
addressed in a future version of this document.
5. Security Considerations
Session resumption without client-side state as defined in this
document is strongly based on [RFC5077]. As such, the security
considerations discussed in Section 5 of [RFC5077] apply here as
well. Additional security considerations stem from the introduction
of the new ResumptionType extension.
5.1. Session Resumption Type Negotiation
The ResumptionType extension is part of the regular DTLS handshake
and thus covered by the hash in the Finished message. Hence, an on-
path attacker cannot enforce a particular session resumption type
without the peers noticing.
6. IANA Considerations
This document specifies the new ResumptionType extension for DTLS.
The corresponding IANA considerations will be addressed in a future
version of this document.
7. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Hossein Shafagh and Shahid Raza for
the discussion and comments regarding the extensions defined in this
document. We especially acknowledge the prototyping and
implementation efforts of Hossein Shafagh that confirm the
feasibility of the proposed extensions in constrained network
environments. Finally, the authors appreciate the feedback and
suggestions of Sandeep Kumar.
8. Changelog
8.1. Version 0
- Initial Version
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9. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-core-coap]
Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", draft-ietf-core-coap-18
(work in progress), June 2013.
[I-D.ietf-core-observe]
Hartke, K., "Observing Resources in CoAP", draft-ietf-
core-observe-08 (work in progress), February 2013.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC5077] Salowey, J., Zhou, H., Eronen, P., and H. Tschofenig,
"Transport Layer Security (TLS) Session Resumption without
Server-Side State", RFC 5077, January 2008.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC6066] Eastlake, D., "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions:
Extension Definitions", RFC 6066, January 2011.
Authors' Addresses
Rene Hummen (editor)
RWTH Aachen University
Ahornstrasse 55
Aachen 52074
Germany
Email: hummen@cs.rwth-aachen.de
URI: http://www.comsys.rwth-aachen.de/team/rene-hummen/
Johannes Gilger
RWTH Aachen University
Mies-van-der-Rohe Strasse 15
Aachen 52074
Germany
Email: gilger@itsec.rwth-aachen.de
URI: http://itsec.rwth-aachen.de/people/johannes-gilger/
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