ACME Challenges Using an Authority Token
draft-ietf-acme-authority-token-04

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Network Working Group                                        J. Peterson
Internet-Draft                                                   Neustar
Intended status: Informational                                 M. Barnes
Expires: May 7, 2020                                         Independent
                                                              D. Hancock
                                                                C. Wendt
                                                                 Comcast
                                                        November 4, 2019

                ACME Challenges Using an Authority Token
                 draft-ietf-acme-authority-token-04.txt

Abstract

   Some proposed extensions to the Automated Certificate Management
   Environment (ACME) rely on proving eligibility for certificates
   through consulting an external authority that issues a token
   according to a particular policy.  This document specifies a generic
   Authority Token challenge for ACME which supports subtype claims for
   different identifiers or namespaces that can be defined separately
   for specific applications.

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
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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 May 7, 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 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
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of

Peterson, et al.           Expires May 7, 2020                  [Page 1]
Internet-Draft            ACME Authority Token             November 2019

   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Challenges for an Authority Token . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Token Type Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  Authority Token Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.3.  Binding Challenges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  ATC tkauth-type Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Acquiring a Token . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.1.  Basic REST Interface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Using an Authority Token in a Challenge . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   10. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   ACME [I-D.ietf-acme-acme] is a mechanism for automating certificate
   management on the Internet.  It enables administrative entities to
   prove effective control over resources like domain names, and
   automates the process of generating and issuing certificates.

   In some cases, proving effective control over an identifier requires
   an attestation from a third party who has authority over the
   resource, for example, an external policy administrator for a
   namespace other than the DNS application ACME was originally designed
   to support.  In order to automate the process of issuing certificates
   for those resources, this specification defines a generic Authority
   Token challenge that ACME servers can issue in order to require
   clients to return such a token.  The challenge contains a type
   indication that tells the client what sort of token it needs to
   acquire.  It is expected that the Authority Token challenge will be
   usable for a variety of identifier types.

   For example, the system of [I-D.ietf-acme-authority-token-tnauthlist]
   provides a mechanism that allows service providers to acquire