Extension Negotiation in Secure Shell (SSH)
draft-ietf-curdle-ssh-ext-info-07

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Internet-Draft                                                  D. Bider
Updates: 4252, 4253, 4254 (if approved)                  Bitvise Limited
Intended status: Standards Track                             May 7, 2017
Expires: November 7, 2017

               Extension Negotiation in Secure Shell (SSH)
                  draft-ietf-curdle-ssh-ext-info-07.txt

Abstract

  This memo updates RFC 4252, RFC 4253, and RFC 4254 to define a
  mechanism for SSH clients and servers to exchange information about
  supported protocol extensions confidentially after SSH key exchange.

Status

  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), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that other
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  and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
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Copyright

  Copyright (c) 2017 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
  (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
  publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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  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.

Bider                                                           [Page 1]
Internet-Draft        Extension Negotiation in SSH              May 2017

1.  Overview and Rationale

  Secure Shell (SSH) is a common protocol for secure communication on
  the Internet. The original design of the SSH transport layer [RFC4253]
  lacks proper extension negotiation. Meanwhile, diverse implementations
  take steps to ensure that known message types contain no unrecognized
  information. This makes it difficult for implementations to signal
  capabilities and negotiate extensions without risking disconnection.
  
  This obstacle has been recognized in relationship with [SSH-RSA-SHA2],
  where the need arises for a client to discover public key algorithms a
  server accepts, to avoid authentication penalties and trial-and-error.

1.1.  Requirements Terminology

  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].
  
1.2.  Wire Encoding Terminology

  The wire encoding types in this document - "byte", "uint32", "string",
  "boolean", "name-list" - have meanings as described in [RFC4251].

2.  Extension Negotiation Mechanism
  
2.1.  Signaling of Extension Negotiation in KEXINIT
  
  Applications implementing this mechanism MUST add to the field
  "kex_algorithms", in their KEXINIT packet sent for the first key
  exchange, one of the following indicator names:
  
  - When acting as server: "ext-info-s"
  - When acting as client: "ext-info-c"

  The indicator name is added without quotes, and MAY be added at any
  position in the name-list, subject to proper separation from other
  names as per name-list conventions.
  
  The names are added to the "kex_algorithms" field because this is one
  of two name-list fields in KEXINIT that do not have a separate copy
  for each data direction.
  
  The indicator names inserted by the client and server are different to
  ensure that these names will not produce a match, and will be neutral
  with respect to key exchange algorithm negotiation.
  
  The inclusion of textual indicator names is intended to provide a clue
  for implementers to discover this mechanism.

Bider                                                           [Page 2]
Internet-Draft        Extension Negotiation in SSH              May 2017

  
2.2.  Enabling Criteria

  If a client or server offers "ext-info-c" or "ext-info-s"
  respectively, it MUST be prepared to accept an SSH_MSG_EXT_INFO
  message from the peer.
  
  Thus a server only needs to send "ext-info-s" if it intends to process
  SSH_MSG_EXT_INFO from the client.

  If a server receives an "ext-info-c", it MAY send an SSH_MSG_EXT_INFO
  message, but is not required to do so.