Updating the NTP Registries
draft-ietf-ntp-update-registries-17
The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 9748.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Rich Salz | ||
| Last updated | 2025-02-28 (Latest revision 2025-01-06) | ||
| Replaces | draft-rsalz-update-registries | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Intended RFC status | Proposed Standard | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews | |||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | Submitted to IESG for Publication | |
| Document shepherd | Dieter Sibold | ||
| Shepherd write-up | Show Last changed 2022-10-21 | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 9748 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Action Holders |
(None)
|
||
| Consensus boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | Erik Kline | ||
| Send notices to | dsibold.ietf@gmail.com, odonoghue@isoc.org | ||
| IANA | IANA review state | Version Changed - Review Needed | |
| IANA action state | RFC-Ed-Ack |
draft-ietf-ntp-update-registries-17
ntp R. Salz
Internet-Draft Akamai Technologies
Updates: 5905, 5906, 8573, 7822, 7821 (if 6 January 2025
approved)
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: 10 July 2025
Updating the NTP Registries
draft-ietf-ntp-update-registries-17
Abstract
The Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Network Time Security (NTS)
documents define a number of assigned number registries, collectively
called the NTP registries.
Some registries have wrong values, some registries do not follow
current common practice, and some are just right. For the sake of
completeness, this document reviews all NTP and NTS registries, and
makes updates where necessary.
This document updates RFC 5905, RFC 5906, RFC 8573, RFC 7822, and RFC
7821.
Notes
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
This document is a product of the NTP Working Group
(https://dt.ietf.org/wg/ntp). Source for this draft and an issue
tracker can be found at https://github.com/richsalz/draft-rsalz-
update-registries.
RFC Editor: Please update 'this RFC' to refer to this document, once
its RFC number is known, through the document.
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/.
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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 10 July 2025.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2025 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
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provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Existing Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Reference ID, Kiss-o'-Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Extension Field Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Network Time Security Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Updated Registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Guidance to Designated Experts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.1. NTP Reference Identifier Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2. NTP Kiss-o'-Death Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. NTP Extension Field Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1. Introduction
The Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Network Time Security (NTS)
documents define a number of assigned number registries, collectively
called the NTP registries. The NTP registries can all be found at
https://www.iana.org/assignments/ntp-parameters/ntp-parameters.xhtml
(https://www.iana.org/assignments/ntp-parameters/ntp-
parameters.xhtml) and the NTS registries can all be found at
https://www.iana.org/assignments/nts/nts.xhtml
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(https://www.iana.org/assignments/nts/nts.xhtml).
Some registries have wrong values, some registries do not follow
current common practice, and some are just right. For the sake of
completeness, this document reviews all NTP and NTS registries, and
makes updates where necessary.
The bulk of this document can be divided into two parts:
* First, each registry, its defining document, and a summary of its
syntax is defined.
* Second, the revised format and entries for each registry that is
being modified is specified.
2. Existing Registries
This section describes the registries and the rules for them. It is
intended to be a short summary of the syntax and registration
requirements for each registry. The semantics and protocol
processing rules for each registry -- that is, how an implementation
acts when sending or receiving any of the fields -- are not described
here.
2.1. Reference ID, Kiss-o'-Death
[RFC5905] defined two registries; the Reference ID in Section 7.3,
and the Kiss-o'-Death in Section 7.4. Both of these are allowed to
be four ASCII characters; padded on the right with all-bits-zero if
necessary. Entries that start with 0x58, the ASCII letter uppercase
X, are reserved for Private or Experimental Use. Both registries are
first-come first-served. The formal request to define the registries
is in [RFC5905], Section 16.
2.2. Extension Field Types
[RFC5905], Section 7.5 defined the on-the-wire format of extension
fields but did not create a registry for them.
[RFC5906], Section 13 mentioned the Extension Field Types registry,
and defined it indirectly by defining 30 extensions (10 each for
request, response, and error response). It did not provide a formal
definition of the columns in the registry. [RFC5906], Section 10
splits the Field Type into four subfields, only for use within the
Autokey extensions.
[RFC7821] added a new entry, Checksum Complement, to the Extension
Field Types registry.
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[RFC7822] clarified the processing rules for Extension Field Types,
particularly around the interaction with the Message Authentication
Code (MAC) field. NTPv4 packets may contain a MAC that appears where
one would expect the next extension field header.
[RFC8573] changed the cryptography used in the MAC field.
[RFC8915] added four new entries to the Extension Field Types
registry.
The following problems exist with the current registry:
* Many of the entries in the Extension Field Types registry have
swapped some of the nibbles; 0x1234 is listed as 0x1432 for
example. This was due to documentation errors with the original
implementation of Autokey. This document marks the erroneous
values as reserved, in case there is an implementation that used
the registered values instead of what the original implementation
used. Applications that might have used those values would have
realized that they did not interoperate with the dominant (if not
only) implementation at the time. Marking the values as reserved
ensures that any such applications would still be able to work as-
is.
* Some values were mistakenly re-used.
2.3. Network Time Security Registries
[RFC8915] defines the NTS protocol. Its registries are listed here
for completeness, but no changes to them are specified in this
document.
Sections 7.1 through 7.5 (inclusive) added entries to existing
registries.
Section 7.6 created a new registry, NTS Key Establishment Record
Types, that partitions the assigned numbers into three different
registration policies: IETF Review, Specification Required, and
Private or Experimental Use.
Section 7.7 created a new registry, NTS Next Protocols, that
similarly partitions the assigned numbers.
Section 7.8 created two new registries, NTS Error Codes and NTS
Warning Codes. Both registries are also partitioned the same way.
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3. Updated Registries
The following general guidelines apply to all registries updated
here:
* Every registry reserves a partition for Private or Experimental
Use.
* Entries with ASCII fields are now limited to uppercase letters or
digits; fields starting with 0x58, the uppercase letter "X", are
reserved for Private or Experimental Use.
* The policy for every registry is now Specification Required, as
defined in [RFC8126], Section 4.6.
The IESG is requested to choose three designated experts, with two
being required to approve a registry change. Guidance for such
experts is given below.
Each entry described in the sub-sections below is intended to
completely replace the existing entry with the same name.
3.1. Guidance to Designated Experts
The designated experts (DE) should be familiar with [RFC8126],
particularly Section 5. As that reference suggests, the DE should
ascertain the existence of a suitable specification, and verify that
it is publicly available. The DE is also expected to check the
clarity of purpose and use of the requested code points.
In addition, the DE is expected to be familiar with this document,
specifically the history documented here.
4. IANA Considerations
4.1. NTP Reference Identifier Codes
The registration procedure is changed to Specification Required.
The Note is changed to read as follows:
* Codes beginning with the character "X" are reserved for
experimentation and development. IANA cannot assign them.
The columns are defined as follows:
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* ID (required): a four-byte value padded on the right with all-
bits-zero. Each byte other than padding must be an ASCII
uppercase letter or digits.
* Clock source (required): A brief text description of the ID.
* Reference (required): the publication defining the ID.
The existing entries are left unchanged.
4.2. NTP Kiss-o'-Death Codes
The registration procedure is changed to Specification Required.
The Note is changed to read as follows:
* Codes beginning with the character "X" are reserved for
experimentation and development. IANA cannot assign them.
The columns are defined as follows:
* ID (required): a four-byte value padded on the right with all-
bits-zero. Each byte other than padding must be an ASCII
uppercase letter or digits.
* Meaning source (required): A brief text description of the ID.
* Reference (required): the publication defining the ID.
The existing entries are left unchanged.
4.3. NTP Extension Field Types
The registration procedure is changed to Specification Required.
The reference [RFC5906] should be added, if possible.
The following two Notes are added:
* Field Types in the range 0xF000 through 0xFFFF, inclusive, are
reserved for experimentation and development. IANA cannot assign
them. Both NTS Cookie and Autokey Message Request have the same
Field Type; in practice this is not a problem as the field
semantics will be determined by other parts of the message.
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* The "Reserved for historic reasons" is for differences between the
original documentation and implementation of Autokey and marks the
erroneous values as reserved, in case there is an implementation
that used the registered values instead of what the original
implementation used.
The columns are defined as follows:
* Field Type (required): A two-byte value in hexadecimal.
* Meaning (required): A brief text description of the field type.
* Reference (required): the publication defining the field type.
The table is replaced with the following entries. IANA is requested
to replace "This RFC" with the actual RFC number once assigned.
+============+====================================+=============+
| Field Type | Meaning | Reference |
+============+====================================+=============+
| 0x0000 | Crypto-NAK; authentication failure | RFC 5905 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0002 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0102 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0104 | Unique Identifier | RFC 8915, |
| | | Section 5.3 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0200 | No-Operation Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0201 | Association Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0202 | Certificate Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0203 | Cookie Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0204 | Autokey Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0204 | NTS Cookie | RFC 8915, |
| | | Section 5.4 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0205 | Leapseconds Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0206 | Sign Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0207 | IFF Identity Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
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| 0x0208 | GQ Identity Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0209 | MV Identity Message Request | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0302 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0304 | NTS Cookie Placeholder | RFC 8915, |
| | | Section 5.5 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0402 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0404 | NTS Authenticator and Encrypted | RFC 8915, |
| | Extension Fields | Section 5.6 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0502 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0602 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0702 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0802 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x0902 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x2005 | UDP Checksum Complement | RFC 7821 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8002 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8102 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8200 | No-Operation Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8201 | Association Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8202 | Certificate Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8203 | Cookie Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8204 | Autokey Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8205 | Leapseconds Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8206 | Sign Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8207 | IFF Identity Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8208 | GQ Identity Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
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| 0x8209 | MV Identity Message Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8302 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8402 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8502 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8602 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8702 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8802 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0x8902 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC002 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC102 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC200 | No-Operation Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC201 | Association Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC202 | Certificate Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC203 | Cookie Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC204 | Autokey Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC205 | Leapseconds Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC206 | Sign Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC207 | IFF Identity Message Error | RFC 5906 |
| | Response | |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC208 | GQ Identity Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC209 | MV Identity Message Error Response | RFC 5906 |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC302 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC402 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC502 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC602 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
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+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC702 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC802 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xC902 | Reserved for historic reasons | This RFC |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
| 0xF000- | Reserved for Experimental Use | This RFC |
| 0xFFFF | | |
+------------+------------------------------------+-------------+
Table 1
5. Security Considerations
This document adds no new security considerations, as they are
defined in the document that defines the extension. See the
References column of the appropriate table.
6. Acknowledgements
The members of the NTP Working Group helped a great deal. Notable
contributors include:
* Miroslav Lichvar, Red Hat
* Daniel Franke, formerly at Akamai Technologies
* Danny Mayer, Network Time Foundation
* Michelle Cotton, formerly at IANA
* Tamme Dittrich, Tweede Golf
7. Normative References
[RFC5905] Mills, D., Martin, J., Ed., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch,
"Network Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
Specification", RFC 5905, DOI 10.17487/RFC5905, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5905>.
[RFC5906] Haberman, B., Ed. and D. Mills, "Network Time Protocol
Version 4: Autokey Specification", RFC 5906,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5906, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5906>.
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[RFC7821] Mizrahi, T., "UDP Checksum Complement in the Network Time
Protocol (NTP)", RFC 7821, DOI 10.17487/RFC7821, March
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7821>.
[RFC7822] Mizrahi, T. and D. Mayer, "Network Time Protocol Version 4
(NTPv4) Extension Fields", RFC 7822, DOI 10.17487/RFC7822,
March 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7822>.
[RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8126>.
[RFC8573] Malhotra, A. and S. Goldberg, "Message Authentication Code
for the Network Time Protocol", RFC 8573,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8573, June 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8573>.
[RFC8915] Franke, D., Sibold, D., Teichel, K., Dansarie, M., and R.
Sundblad, "Network Time Security for the Network Time
Protocol", RFC 8915, DOI 10.17487/RFC8915, September 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8915>.
Author's Address
Rich Salz
Akamai Technologies
Email: rsalz@akamai.com
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