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Service Binding Mapping for DNS Servers
draft-ietf-add-svcb-dns-03

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9461.
Author Benjamin M. Schwartz
Last updated 2022-06-23 (Latest revision 2022-04-22)
Replaces draft-schwartz-svcb-dns
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Andrew Campling
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2022-06-14
IESG IESG state Became RFC 9461 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Yes
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Éric Vyncke
Send notices to Andrew.Campling@419.Consulting
draft-ietf-add-svcb-dns-03
add                                                          B. Schwartz
Internet-Draft                                                Google LLC
Intended status: Standards Track                           22 April 2022
Expires: 24 October 2022

                Service Binding Mapping for DNS Servers
                       draft-ietf-add-svcb-dns-03

Abstract

   The SVCB DNS record type expresses a bound collection of endpoint
   metadata, for use when establishing a connection to a named service.
   DNS itself can be such a service, when the server is identified by a
   domain name.  This document provides the SVCB mapping for named DNS
   servers, allowing them to indicate support for new transport
   protocols.

Discussion Venues

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the ADD Working Group
   mailing list (add@ietf.org), which is archived at
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/add/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/bemasc/svcb-dns.

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 24 October 2022.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2022 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 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 Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Identities and Names  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Special case: non-default ports . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Applicable existing SvcParamKeys  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  alpn  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.2.  port  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.3.  Other applicable SvcParamKeys . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   5.  New SvcParamKeys  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     5.1.  dohpath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   7.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     8.1.  Adversary on the query path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       8.1.1.  Downgrade attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       8.1.2.  Redirection attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     8.2.  Adversary on the transport path . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   9.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Appendix A.  Mapping Summary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

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1.  Introduction

   The SVCB record type [SVCB] provides clients with information about
   how to reach alternative endpoints for a service, which may have
   improved performance or privacy properties.  The service is
   identified by a "scheme" indicating the service type, a hostname, and
   optionally other information such as a port number.  A DNS server is
   often identified only by its IP address (e.g. in DHCP), but in some
   contexts it can also be identified by a hostname (e.g.  "NS" records,
   manual resolver configuration) and sometimes also a non-default port
   number.

   Use of the SVCB record type requires a mapping document for each
   service type, indicating how a client for that service can interpret
   the contents of the SVCB SvcParams.  This document provides the
   mapping for the "dns" service type, allowing DNS servers to offer
   alternative endpoints and transports, including encrypted transports
   like DNS over TLS (DoT) and DNS over HTTPS (DoH).

2.  Conventions and Definitions

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Identities and Names

   SVCB record names (i.e.  QNAMEs) for DNS services are formed using
   Port-Prefix Naming (Section 2.3 of [SVCB]), with a scheme of "dns".
   For example, SVCB records for a DNS service identified as
   "dns1.example.com" would be queried at "_dns.dns1.example.com".

   In some use cases, the name used for retrieving these DNS records is
   different from the server identity used to authenticate the secure
   transport.  To distinguish between these, this document uses the
   following terms:

   *  Binding authority - The service name (Section 1.4 of [SVCB]) and
      optional port number used as input to Port-Prefix Naming.

   *  Authentication name - The name used for secure transport
      authentication.  This MUST be a DNS hostname or a literal IP
      address.  Unless otherwise specified, this is the service name
      from the binding authority.

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3.1.  Special case: non-default ports

   Normally, a DNS service is identified by an IP address or a domain
   name.  When connecting to the service using unencrypted DNS over UDP
   or TCP, clients use the default port number for DNS (53).  However,
   in rare cases, a DNS service might be identified by both a name and a
   port number.  For example, the dns: URI scheme [DNSURI] optionally
   includes an authority, comprised of a host and a port number (with a
   default of 53).  DNS URIs normally omit the authority, or specify an
   IP address, but a hostname and non-default port number are allowed.

   When the binding authority specifies a non-default port number, Port-
   Prefix Naming places the port number in an additional a prefix on the
   name.  For example, if the binding authority is
   "dns1.example.com:9953", the client would query for SVCB records at
   "_9953._dns.dns1.example.com".  If two DNS services operating on
   different port numbers provide different behaviors, this arrangement
   allows them to preserve the distinction when specifying alternative
   endpoints.

4.  Applicable existing SvcParamKeys

4.1.  alpn

   This key indicates the set of supported protocols (Section 6.1 of
   [SVCB]).  There is no default protocol, so the no-default-alpn key
   does not apply, and the alpn key MUST be present.

   If the protocol set contains any HTTP versions (e.g. "h2", "h3"),
   then the record indicates support for DNS over HTTPS [DOH], and the
   "dohpath" key MUST be present (Section 5.1).  All keys specified for
   use with the HTTPS record are also permissible, and apply to the
   resulting HTTP connection.

   If the protocol set contains protocols with different default ports,
   and no port key is specified, then protocols are contacted separately
   on their default ports.  Note that in this configuration, ALPN
   negotiation does not defend against cross-protocol downgrade attacks.

4.2.  port

   This key is used to indicate the target port for connection
   (Section 6.2 of [SVCB]).  If omitted, the client SHALL use the
   default port for each transport protocol (853 for DNS over TLS [DOT],
   443 for DNS over HTTPS).

   This key is automatically mandatory if present.  (See Section 7 of
   [SVCB] for the definition of "automatically mandatory".)

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   Support for the port key can be unsafe if the client has implicit
   elevated access to some network service (e.g. a local service that is
   inaccessible to remote parties) and that service uses a TCP-based
   protocol other than TLS.  A hostile DNS server might be able to
   manipulate this service by causing the client to send a specially
   crafted TLS SNI or session ticket that can be misparsed as a command
   or exploit.  To avoid such attacks, clients SHOULD NOT support the
   port key unless one of the following conditions applies:

   *  The client is being used with a DNS server that it trusts not
      attempt this attack.

   *  The client is being used in a context where implicit elevated
      access cannot apply.

   *  The client restricts the set of allowed TCP port values to exclude
      any ports where a confusion attack is likely to be possible (e.g.
      the "bad ports" list from the "Port blocking" section of [FETCH]).

4.3.  Other applicable SvcParamKeys

   These SvcParamKeys from [SVCB] apply to the "dns" scheme without
   modification:

   *  mandatory

   *  ech

   *  ipv4hint

   *  ipv6hint

   Future SvcParamKeys may also be applicable.

5.  New SvcParamKeys

5.1.  dohpath

   "dohpath" is a single-valued SvcParamKey whose value (both in
   presentation and wire format) MUST be a URI Template [RFC6570]
   encoded in UTF-8 [RFC3629].  If the "alpn" SvcParam indicates support
   for HTTP, "dohpath" MUST be present.  The URI Template MUST contain a
   "dns" variable, and MUST be chosen such that the result after DoH
   template expansion (Section 6 of [RFC8484]) is always a valid and
   functional ":path" value ([RFC7540], Section 8.1.2.3).

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   When using this SVCB record, the client MUST send any DoH requests to
   the HTTP origin identified by the "https" scheme, the authentication
   name, and the port from the "port" SvcParam (if present).  HTTP
   requests MUST be directed to the resource resulting from DoH template
   expansion of the "dohpath" value.

   Clients SHOULD NOT query for any "HTTPS" RRs when using "dohpath".
   Instead, the SvcParams and address records associated with this SVCB
   record SHOULD be used for the HTTPS connection, with the same
   semantics as an HTTPS RR.  However, for consistency, service
   operators SHOULD publish an equivalent HTTPS RR, especially if
   clients might learn about this DoH service through a different
   channel.

6.  Limitations

   This document is concerned exclusively with the DNS transport, and
   does not affect or inform the construction or interpretation of DNS
   messages.  For example, nothing in this document indicates whether
   the service is intended for use as a recursive or authoritative DNS
   server.  Clients need to know the intended use of services based on
   their context.

7.  Examples

   *  A resolver at "simple.example" that supports DNS over TLS on port
      853 (implicitly, as this is its default port):

      _dns.simple.example. 7200 IN SVCB 1 simple.example. alpn=dot

   *  A DoH-only resolver at https://doh.example/dns-query{?dns}. (DNS
      over TLS is not supported.):

      _dns.doh.example. 7200 IN SVCB 1 doh.example. (
            alpn=h2 dohpath=/dns-query{?dns} )

   *  A resolver at "resolver.example" that supports:

      -  DoT on "resolver.example" ports 853 (implicit in record 1) and
         8530 (explicit in record 2), with "resolver.example" as the
         Authentication Domain Name,

      -  DoH at https://resolver.example/dns-query{?dns} (record 1), and

      -  an experimental protocol on fooexp.resolver.example:5353
         (record 3):

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         _dns.resolver.example.  7200 IN SVCB 1 resolver.example. (
             alpn=dot,h2,h3 dohpath=/dns-query{?dns} )
         _dns.resolver.example.  7200 IN SVCB 2 resolver.example. (
             alpn=dot port=8530 )
         _dns.resolver.example.  7200 IN SVCB 3 fooexp (
               port=5353 alpn=foo foo-info=... )

   *  A nameserver at "ns.example" whose service configuration is
      published on a different domain:

      _dns.ns.example. 7200 IN SVCB 0 _dns.ns.nic.example.

8.  Security Considerations

8.1.  Adversary on the query path

   This section considers an adversary who can add or remove responses
   to the SVCB query.

   During secure transport establishment, clients MUST authenticate the
   server to its authentication name, which is not influenced by the
   SVCB record contents.  Accordingly, this draft does not mandate the
   use of DNSSEC.  This draft also does not specify how clients
   authenticate the name (e.g. selection of roots of trust), which might
   vary according to the context.

8.1.1.  Downgrade attacks

   This attacker cannot impersonate the secure endpoint, but it can
   forge a response indicating that the requested SVCB records do not
   exist.  For a SVCB-reliant client ([SVCB], Section 3) this only
   results in a denial of service.  However, SVCB-optional clients will
   generally fall back to insecure DNS in this case, exposing all DNS
   traffic to attacks.

8.1.2.  Redirection attacks

   SVCB-reliant clients always enforce the authentication domain name,
   but they are still subject to attacks using the transport, port
   number, and "dohpath" value, which are controlled by this adversary.
   By changing these values in the SVCB answers, the adversary can
   direct DNS queries for $HOSTNAME to any port on $HOSTNAME, and any
   path on "https://$HOSTNAME".  If the DNS client uses shared TLS or
   HTTP state, the client could be correctly authenticated (e.g. using a
   TLS client certificate or HTTP cookie).

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   This behavior creates a number of possible attacks for certain server
   configurations.  For example, if "https://$HOSTNAME/upload" accepts
   any POST request as a public file upload, the adversary could forge a
   SVCB record containing dohpath=/upload{?dns}.  This would cause the
   client to upload and publish every query, resulting in unexpected
   storage costs for the server and privacy loss for the client.
   Similarly, if two DoH endpoints are available on the same origin, and
   the service has designated one of them for use with this
   specification, this adversary can cause clients to use the other
   endpoint instead.

   To mitigate redirection attacks, a client of this SVCB mapping MUST
   NOT identify or authenticate itself when performing DNS queries,
   except to servers that it specifically knows are not vulnerable to
   such attacks.  If an endpoint sends an invalid response to a DNS
   query, the client SHOULD NOT send more queries to that endpoint.
   Multiple DNS services MUST NOT share a hostname identifier
   (Section 3) unless they are so similar that it is safe to allow an
   attacker to choose which one is used.

8.2.  Adversary on the transport path

   This section considers an adversary who can modify network traffic
   between the client and the alternative service (identified by the
   TargetName).

   For a SVCB-reliant client, this adversary can only cause a denial of
   service.  However, because DNS is unencrypted by default, this
   adversary can execute a downgrade attack against SVCB-optional
   clients.  Accordingly, when use of this specification is optional,
   clients SHOULD switch to SVCB-reliant behavior if SVCB resolution
   succeeds.  Specifications making using of this mapping MAY adjust
   this fallback behavior to suit their requirements.

9.  IANA Considerations

   Per [SVCB] IANA is directed to add the following entry to the SVCB
   Service Parameters registry.

   +========+=========+==============================+=================+
   | Number | Name    | Meaning                      | Reference       |
   +========+=========+==============================+=================+
   | 7      | dohpath | DNS over HTTPS path template | (This           |
   |        |         |                              | document)       |
   +--------+---------+------------------------------+-----------------+

                                  Table 1

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   Per [Attrleaf], IANA is directed to add the following entry to the
   DNS Underscore Global Scoped Entry Registry:

        +=========+============+===============+=================+
        | RR TYPE | _NODE NAME | Meaning       | Reference       |
        +=========+============+===============+=================+
        | SVCB    | _dns       | DNS SVCB info | (This document) |
        +---------+------------+---------------+-----------------+

                                 Table 2

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [DOH]      Hoffman, P. and P. McManus, "DNS Queries over HTTPS
              (DoH)", RFC 8484, DOI 10.17487/RFC8484, October 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8484>.

   [DOT]      Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
              and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
              Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
              2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7858>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3629>.

   [RFC6570]  Gregorio, J., Fielding, R., Hadley, M., Nottingham, M.,
              and D. Orchard, "URI Template", RFC 6570,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6570, March 2012,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6570>.

   [RFC7540]  Belshe, M., Peon, R., and M. Thomson, Ed., "Hypertext
              Transfer Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)", RFC 7540,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7540, May 2015,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7540>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

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   [RFC8484]  Hoffman, P. and P. McManus, "DNS Queries over HTTPS
              (DoH)", RFC 8484, DOI 10.17487/RFC8484, October 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8484>.

   [SVCB]     Schwartz, B., Bishop, M., and E. Nygren, "Service binding
              and parameter specification via the DNS (DNS SVCB and
              HTTPS RRs)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              dnsop-svcb-https-08, 12 October 2021,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-
              svcb-https-08>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [Attrleaf] Crocker, D., "Scoped Interpretation of DNS Resource
              Records through "Underscored" Naming of Attribute Leaves",
              BCP 222, RFC 8552, DOI 10.17487/RFC8552, March 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8552>.

   [DNSURI]   Josefsson, S., "Domain Name System Uniform Resource
              Identifiers", RFC 4501, DOI 10.17487/RFC4501, May 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4501>.

   [FETCH]    "Fetch Living Standard", February 2022,
              <https://fetch.spec.whatwg.org/>.

Appendix A.  Mapping Summary

   This table serves as a non-normative summary of the DNS mapping for
   SVCB.

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         +=================+====================================+
         +=================+====================================+
         | *Mapped scheme* | "dns"                              |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         | *RR type*       | SVCB (64)                          |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         | *Name prefix*   | _dns for port 53, else _$PORT._dns |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         | *Required keys* | alpn                               |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         | *Automatically  | port                               |
         | Mandatory Keys* |                                    |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         | *Special        | Supports all HTTPS RR SvcParamKeys |
         | behaviors*      |                                    |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         |                 | Overrides the HTTPS RR for DoH     |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         |                 | Default port is per-transport      |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+
         |                 | No encrypted -> cleartext fallback |
         +-----------------+------------------------------------+

                                 Table 3

Acknowledgments

   Thanks to the many reviewers and contributors, including Daniel
   Migault, Paul Hoffman, Matt Norhoff, Peter van Dijk, Eric Rescorla,
   and Andreas Schulze.

Author's Address

   Benjamin Schwartz
   Google LLC
   Email: bemasc@google.com

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