JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Access Tokens
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-12
OAuth Working Group V. Bertocci
Internet-Draft Auth0
Intended status: Standards Track March 17, 2021
Expires: September 18, 2021
JSON Web Token (JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Access Tokens
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-12
Abstract
This specification defines a profile for issuing OAuth 2.0 access
tokens in JSON web token (JWT) format. Authorization servers and
resource servers from different vendors can leverage this profile to
issue and consume access tokens in an interoperable manner.
Status of This Memo
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Notation and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. JWT Access Token Header and Data Structure . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Data Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2.1. Authentication Information Claims . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.2. Identity Claims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2.3. Authorization Claims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2.3.1. Claims for Authorization Outside of Delegation
Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Requesting a JWT Access Token . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Validating JWT Access Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.1. Media Type Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.1.1. Registry Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7.2. Claims Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.2.1. Registry Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Appendix B. Document History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1. Introduction
The original OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework [RFC6749]
specification does not mandate any specific format for access tokens.
While that remains perfectly appropriate for many important
scenarios, in-market use has shown that many commercial OAuth 2.0
implementations elected to issue access tokens using a format that
can be parsed and validated by resource servers directly, without
further authorization server involvement. The approach is
particularly common in topologies where the authorization server and
resource server are not co-located, are not run by the same entity,
or are otherwise separated by some boundary. At the time of writing,
many commercial implementations leverage the JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
[RFC7519] format.
Many vendor specific JWT access tokens share the same functional
layout, using JWT claims to convey the information needed to support
a common set of use cases: token validation, transporting
authorization information in forms of scopes and entitlements,
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carrying identity information about the subject, and so on. The
differences are mostly confined to the claim names and syntax used to
represent the same entities, suggesting that interoperability could
be easily achieved by standardizing on a common set of claims and
validation rules.
The assumption that access tokens are associated to specific
information doesn't appear only in commercial implementations.
Various specifications in the OAuth 2.0 family (such as resource
indicators [RFC8707], OAuth 2.0 bearer token usage [RFC6750] and
others) postulate the presence in access tokens of scoping
mechanisms, such as an audience. The family of specifications
associated to introspection also indirectly suggest a fundamental set
of information access tokens are expected to carry or at least be
associated with.
This specification aims to provide a standardized and interoperable
profile as an alternative to the proprietary JWT access token layouts
going forward. Besides defining a common set of mandatory and
optional claims, the profile provides clear indications on how
authorization request parameters determine the content of the issued
JWT access token, how an authorization server can publish metadata
relevant to the JWT access tokens it issues, and how a resource
server should validate incoming JWT access tokens.
Finally, this specification provides security and privacy
considerations meant to prevent common mistakes and anti patterns
that are likely to occur in naive use of the JWT format to represent
access tokens.
Please note: although both this document and [RFC7523] use JSON Web
Tokens in the context of the OAuth2 framework, the two specifications
differ in both intent and mechanics. Whereas [RFC7523] defines how a
JWT Bearer Token can be used to request an access token, this
documents describes how to encode access tokens in JWT format.
1.1. Requirements Notation and Conventions
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.
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1.2. Terminology
JWT access token: An OAuth 2.0 access token encoded in JWT format
and complying with the requirements described in this
specification.
This specification uses the terms "access token", "refresh token",
"authorization server", "resource server", "authorization endpoint",
"authorization request", "authorization response", "token endpoint",
"grant type", "access token request", "access token response", and
"client" defined by The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework [RFC6749].
2. JWT Access Token Header and Data Structure
2.1. Header
Although JWT access tokens can use any signing algorithm, use of
asymmetric cryptography is RECOMMENDED as it simplifies the process
of acquiring validation information for resource servers (see
Section 4). JWT access tokens MUST NOT use "none" as the signing
algorithm. See Section 4 for more details.
Authorization servers and resource servers conforming to this
specification MUST include RS256 (as defined in [RFC7518]) among
their supported signature algorithms.
This specification registers the "application/at+jwt" media type,
which can be used to indicate that the content is a JWT access token.
JWT access tokens MUST include this media type in the "typ" header
parameter to explicitly declare that the JWT represents an access
token complying with this profile. Per the definition of "typ" in
Section 4.1.9 of [RFC7515], it is RECOMMENDED that the "application/"
prefix be omitted. Therefore, the "typ" value used SHOULD be
"at+jwt". See the security considerations section for details on the
importance of preventing OpenID Connect ID Tokens (as defined by
Section 2 of [OpenID.Core]) from being accepted as access tokens by
resource servers implementing this profile.
2.2. Data Structure
The following claims are used in the JWT access token data structure.
iss REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.1 of [RFC7519].
exp REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.4 of [RFC7519].
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aud REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.3 of [RFC7519]. See
Section 3 for indications on how an authorization server should
determine the value of "aud" depending on the request.
sub REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.2 of [RFC7519]. In case of
access tokens obtained through grants where a resource owner is
involved, such as the authorization code grant, the value of "sub"
SHOULD correspond to the subject identifier of the resource owner.
In case of access tokens obtained through grants where no resource
owner is involved, such as the client credentials grant, the value
of "sub" SHOULD correspond to an identifier the authorization
server uses to indicate the client application. See Section 5 for
more details on this scenario. Also, see Section 6 for a
discussion about how different choices in assigning "sub" values
can impact privacy.
client_id REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.3 of [RFC8693].
iat REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.6 of [RFC7519]. This claim
identifies the time at which the JWT access token was issued.
jti REQUIRED - as defined in Section 4.1.7 of [RFC7519].
2.2.1. Authentication Information Claims
The claims listed in this section MAY be issued in the context of
authorization grants involving the resource owner, and reflect in the
access token the types and strength of authentication that the
authentication server enforced prior to returning the authorization
response to the client. Their values are fixed, and remain the same
across all access tokens that derive from a given authorization
response, whether the access token was obtained directly in the
response (e.g., via the implicit flow) or after one or more token
exchanges (e.g., obtaining a fresh access token using a refresh
token, or exchanging one access token for another via [RFC8693]).
auth_time OPTIONAL - as defined in Section 2 of [OpenID.Core].
acr OPTIONAL - as defined in Section 2 of [OpenID.Core].
amr OPTIONAL - as defined in Section 2 of [OpenID.Core].
2.2.2. Identity Claims
In the context of authorization grants involving the resource owner,
commercial authorization servers will often include resource owner
attributes directly in access tokens, so that resource servers can
consume them directly for authorization or other purposes without any
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further round trips to introspection ( [RFC7662]) or UserInfo (
[OpenID.Core]) endpoints. This is particularly common in scenarios
where the client and the resource server belong to the same entity
and are part of the same solution, as is the case for first party
clients invoking their own backend API.
This profile does not introduce any mechanism for a client to
directly request the presence of specific claims in JWT access
tokens, as the authorization server can determine what additional
claims are required by a particular resource server by taking in
consideration the client_id of the client, the "scope" and the
"resource" parameters included in the request.
Any additional identity attribute whose semantic is well described by
an entry in the JSON Web Token (JWT) IANA registry introduced in
[RFC7519] SHOULD be encoded using the corresponding claim name. Note
that the JWT IANA registry includes the claims found in Section 5.1
of [OpenID.Core].
Authorization servers MAY return arbitrary attributes not defined in
any existing specification, as long as the corresponding claim names
are collision resistant or the access tokens are meant to be used
only within a private subsystem. Please refer to Sections 4.2 and
4.3 of [RFC7519] for details.
Authorization servers including resource owner attributes in JWT
access tokens should exercise care and verify that all privacy
requirements are met, as discussed in Section 6.
2.2.3. Authorization Claims
If an authorization request includes a scope parameter, the
corresponding issued JWT access token SHOULD include a "scope" claim
as defined in Section 4.2 of [RFC8693].
All the individual scope strings in the "scope" claim MUST have
meaning for the resources indicated in the "aud" claim. See
Section 5 for more considerations about the relationship between
scope strings and resources indicated by the "aud" claim.
2.2.3.1. Claims for Authorization Outside of Delegation Scenarios
Many authorization servers embed in the access tokens they issue
authorization attributes that go beyond the delegated scenarios
described by [RFC7519]. Typical examples include resource owner
memberships in roles and groups that are relevant to the resource
being accessed, entitlements assigned to the resource owner for the
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targeted resource that the authorization server knows about, and so
on.
An authorization server wanting to include such attributes in a JWT
access token SHOULD use as claim types the "groups","roles" and
"entitlements" attributes of the "User" resource schema defined by
Section 4.1.2 of [RFC7643]).
Authorization servers SHOULD encode the corresponding claim values
according to the guidance defined in [RFC7643]. In particular, a
non-normative example of "groups" attribute can be found in
Section 8.2 of [RFC7643]. No specific vocabulary is provided for
"roles" and "entitlements".
Section 7 of this document provides entries for registering "groups",
"roles" and "entitlements" attributes from [RFC7643] as claim types
to be used in this profile.
3. Requesting a JWT Access Token
An authorization server can issue a JWT access token in response to
any authorization grant defined by [RFC6749] and subsequent
extensions meant to result in an access token.
If the request includes a "resource" parameter (as defined in
[RFC8707]), the resulting JWT access token "aud" claim SHOULD have
the same value as the "resource" parameter in the request.
Example request below:
GET /as/authorization.oauth2?response_type=code
&client_id=s6BhdRkqt3
&state=laeb
&scope=openid%20profile%20reademail
&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fclient%2Eexample%2Ecom%2Fcb
&resource=https%3A%2F%2Frs.example.com%2F HTTP/1.1
Host: authorization-server.example.com
Figure 1: Authorization Request with Resource and Scope Parameters
Once redeemed, the code obtained from the request above will result
in a JWT access token in the form shown below:
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Header:
{"typ":"at+JWT","alg":"RS256","kid":"RjEwOwOA"}
Claims:
{
"iss": "https://authorization-server.example.com/",
"sub": " 5ba552d67",
"aud": "https://rs.example.com/",
"exp": 1544645174,
"client_id": "s6BhdRkqt3",
"scope": "openid profile reademail"
}
Figure 2: The Header and JWT Claims Set of a JWT Access Token
The authorization server MUST NOT issue a JWT access token if the
authorization granted by the token would be ambiguous. See Section 5
for more details about common cases that might lead to ambiguity and
strategies an authorization server can enact to prevent them.
If the request does not include a "resource" parameter, the
authorization server MUST use in the "aud" claim a default resource
indicator. If a "scope" parameter is present in the request, the
authorization server SHOULD use it to infer the value of the default
resource indicator to be used in the "aud" claim. The mechanism
through which scopes are associated to default resource indicator
values is outside the scope of this specification. If the values in
the "scope" parameter refer to different default resource indicator
values, the authorization server SHOULD reject the request with
"invalid_scope" as described in Section 4.1.2.1 of [RFC6749].
4. Validating JWT Access Tokens
For the purpose of facilitating validation data retrieval, it is here
RECOMMENDED that authorization servers sign JWT access tokens with an
asymmetric algorithm.
Authorization servers SHOULD use OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server
Metadata [RFC8414] to advertise to resource servers their signing
keys via "jwks_uri" and what "iss" claim value to expect via the
issuer metadata value. Alternatively, authorization servers
implementing OpenID Connect MAY use the "OpenID Connect discovery
[OpenID.Discovery] document for the same purpose. If an
authorization server supports both OAuth 2.0 Authorization Server
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Metadata and OpenID Connect discovery, the values provided MUST be
consistent across the two publication methods.
An authorization server MAY elect to use different keys to sign
OpenID Connect ID Tokens and JWT access tokens. This specification
does not provide a mechanism for identifying a specific key as the
one used to sign JWT access tokens. An authorization server can sign
JWT access tokens with any of the keys advertised via AS metadata or
OpenID Connect discovery. See Section 5 for further guidance on
security implications.
Resource servers receiving a JWT access token MUST validate it in the
following manner.
o The resource server MUST verify that the typ header value is
"at+jwt" or "application/at+jwt" and reject tokens carrying any
other value.
o If the JWT access token is encrypted, decrypt it using the keys
and algorithms that the resource server specified during
registration. If encryption was negotiated with the authorization
server at registration time and the incoming JWT access token is
not encrypted, the resource server SHOULD reject it.
o The Issuer Identifier for the authorization server (which is
typically obtained during discovery) MUST exactly match the value
of the "iss" claim.
o The resource server MUST validate that the "aud" claim contains a
resource indicator value corresponding to an identifier the
resource server expects for itself. The JWT access token MUST be
rejected if "aud" does not contain a resource indicator of the
current resource server as a valid audience.
o The resource server MUST validate the signature of all incoming
JWT access tokens according to [RFC7515] using the algorithm
specified in the JWT alg Header Parameter. The resource server
MUST reject any JWT in which the value of "alg" is "none". The
resource server MUST use the keys provided by the authorization
server.
o The current time MUST be before the time represented by the "exp"
claim.
The resource server MUST handle errors as described in Section 3.1 of
[RFC6750]. In particular, in case of any failure in the validation
checks listed above the authorization server response MUST include
the error code "invalid_token".
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If the JWT access token includes authorization claims as described in
Section 2.2.3, the resource server SHOULD use them in combination
with any other contextual information available to determine whether
the current call should be authorized or rejected. Details about how
a resource server performs those checks is beyond the scope of this
profile specification.
5. Security Considerations
The JWT access token data layout described here is very similar to
the one of the id_token as defined by [OpenID.Core]. The explicit
typing required in this profile, in line with the recommendations in
[RFC8725] helps the resource server to distinguish between JWT access
tokens and OpenID Connect ID Tokens.
Authorization servers should prevent scenarios where clients can
affect the value of the "sub" claim in ways that could confuse
resource servers. For example, if the authorization server elects to
use the client_id as the "sub" value for access tokens issued client
credentials grant, the authorization server should prevent clients to
register an arbitrary client_id value, as this would allow malicious
clients to select the sub of a high privilege resource owner and
confuse any authorization logic on the resource server relying on the
"sub" value. For more details please refer to Section 4.14 of
[OAuth2.Security.BestPractices].
To preventing cross-JWT confusion, authorization servers MUST use a
distinct identifier as "aud" claim value to uniquely identify access
tokens issued by the same issuer for distinct resources. For more
details on cross-JWT confusion please refer to Section 2.8 of
[RFC8725].
Authorization servers should use particular care when handling
requests that might lead to ambiguous authorization grants. For
example: if a request includes multiple resource indicators, the
authorization server should ensure that each scope string included in
the resulting JWT access token, if any, can be unambiguously
correlated to a specific resource among the ones listed in the "aud"
claim. The details on how to recognize and mitigate this and other
ambiguous situations is highly scenario-dependent, hence out of scope
for this profile.
Authorization servers should not rely on the use of different keys
for signing OpenID Connect ID Tokens and JWT tokens as a method to
safeguard against the consequences of leaking specific keys. Given
that resource servers have no way of knowing what key should be used
to validate JWT access tokens in particular, they have to accept
signatures performed with any of the keys published in AS metadata or
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OpenID Connect discovery: consequently, an attacker just needs to
compromise any key among the ones published to be able to generate
and sign JWTs that will be accepted as valid by the resource server.
6. Privacy Considerations
As JWT access tokens carry information by value, it now becomes
possible for clients and potentially even end users to directly peek
inside the token claims collection.
The client MUST NOT inspect the content of the access token: the
authorization server and the resource server might decide to change
token format at any time (for example by switching from this profile
to opaque tokens) hence any logic in the client relying on the
ability to read the access token content would break without
recourse. The OAuth 2.0 framework assumes that access tokens are
treated as opaque by clients. Administrators of authorization
servers should also take into account that the content of an access
token is visible to the client. Whenever client access to the access
token content presents privacy issues for a given scenario, the
authorization server should take explicit steps to prevent it.
In scenarios in which JWT access tokens are accessible to the end
user, it should be evaluated whether the information can be accessed
without privacy violations (for example, if an end user would simply
access his or her own personal information) or if steps must be taken
to enforce confidentiality.
Possible measures to prevent leakage of information to clients and
end users include: encrypting the access token, encrypting the
sensitive claims, omitting the sensitive claims or not using this
profile, falling back on opaque access tokens.
In every scenario, the content of the JWT access token will
eventually be accessible to the resource server. It's important to
evaluate whether the resource server gained the proper entitlement to
have access to any content received in form of claims, for example
through user consent in some form, policies and agreements with the
organization running the authorization servers, and so on.
This profile mandates the presence of the "sub" claim in every JWT
access token, making it possible for resource servers to rely on that
information for correlating incoming requests with data stored
locally for the authenticated principal. Although the ability to
correlate requests might be required by design in many scenarios,
there are scenarios where the authorization server might want to
prevent correlation. The "sub" claim should be populated by the
authorization servers according to a privacy impact assessment. For
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instance, if a solution requires preventing tracking principal
activities across multiple resource servers, the authorization server
should ensure that JWT access tokens meant for different resource
servers have distinct "sub" values that cannot be correlated in the
event of resource servers collusion. Similarly, if a solution
requires preventing a resource server from correlating the
principal's activity within the resource itself, the authorization
server should assign different "sub" values for every JWT access
token issued. In turn, the client should obtain a new JWT access
token for every call to the resource server, to ensure that the
resource server receives different "sub" and "jti" values at every
call, thus preventing correlation between distinct requests.
7. IANA Considerations
7.1. Media Type Registration
7.1.1. Registry Content
This section registers the "application/at+jwt" media type [RFC2046]
in the "Media Types" registry [IANA.MediaTypes] in the manner
described in [RFC6838], which can be used to indicate that the
content is an access token encoded in JWT format.
o Type name: application
o Subtype name: at+jwt
o Required parameters: N/A
o Optional parameters: N/A
o Encoding considerations: binary; JWT values are encoded as a
series of base64url-encoded values (with trailing '=' characters
removed), some of which may be the empty string, separated by
period ('.') characters.
o Security considerations: See the Security Considerations
Section of [[TODO: update once there's a RFC number for the JWT AT
profile]]
o Interoperability considerations: N/A
o Published specification: [[TODO: update once there's a RFC number
for the JWT AT profile]]
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o Applications that use this media type: Applications that access
resource servers using OAuth 2.0 access tokens encoded in JWT
format
o Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
o Additional information: Magic number(s): N/A File extension(s): N/
A Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
o Person and email address to contact for further information:
Vittorio Bertocci, vittorio@auth0.com
o Intended usage: COMMON
o Restrictions on usage: none
o Author: Vittorio Bertocci, vittorio@auth0.com
o Change controller: IESG
o Provisional registration? No
7.2. Claims Registration
Section 2.2.3.1 of this specification refers to the attributes
"roles", "groups", "entitlements" defined in [RFC7643] to express
authorization information in JWT access tokens. This section
registers those attributes as claims in the JSON Web Token (JWT) IANA
registry introduced in [RFC7519].
7.2.1. Registry Contents
o Claim Name: "roles"
o Claim Description: Roles
o Change Controller: IESG
o Specification Document(s): Section 4.1.2 of [RFC7643] and
Section 2.2.3.1 of [[this specification]]
o Claim Name: "groups"
o Claim Description: Groups
o Change Controller: IESG
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o Specification Document(s): Section 4.1.2 of [RFC7643] and
Section 2.2.3.1 of [[this specification]]
o Claim Name: "entitlements"
o Claim Description: Entitlements
o Change Controller: IESG
o Specification Document(s): Section 4.1.2 of [RFC7643] and
Section 2.2.3.1 of [[this specification]]
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[OpenID.Core]
Sakimura, N., Bradley, J., Jones, M., Medeiros, B., and C.
Mortimore, "OpenID Connect Core 1.0", November 2014.
[OpenID.Discovery]
Sakimura, N., Bradley, J., Jones, M., and J. Jay, "OpenID
Connect Discovery 1.0", November 2014.
[RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2046, November 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2046>.
[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/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC6749] Hardt, D., Ed., "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework",
RFC 6749, DOI 10.17487/RFC6749, October 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6749>.
[RFC6838] Freed, N., Klensin, J., and T. Hansen, "Media Type
Specifications and Registration Procedures", BCP 13,
RFC 6838, DOI 10.17487/RFC6838, January 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6838>.
[RFC7515] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web
Signature (JWS)", RFC 7515, DOI 10.17487/RFC7515, May
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7515>.
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[RFC7518] Jones, M., "JSON Web Algorithms (JWA)", RFC 7518,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7518, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7518>.
[RFC7519] Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web Token
(JWT)", RFC 7519, DOI 10.17487/RFC7519, May 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7519>.
[RFC7523] Jones, M., Campbell, B., and C. Mortimore, "JSON Web Token
(JWT) Profile for OAuth 2.0 Client Authentication and
Authorization Grants", RFC 7523, DOI 10.17487/RFC7523, May
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7523>.
[RFC7643] Hunt, P., Ed., Grizzle, K., Wahlstroem, E., and C.
Mortimore, "System for Cross-domain Identity Management:
Core Schema", RFC 7643, DOI 10.17487/RFC7643, September
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7643>.
[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/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8414] Jones, M., Sakimura, N., and J. Bradley, "OAuth 2.0
Authorization Server Metadata", RFC 8414,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8414, June 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8414>.
[RFC8693] Jones, M., Nadalin, A., Campbell, B., Ed., Bradley, J.,
and C. Mortimore, "OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange", RFC 8693,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8693, January 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8693>.
[RFC8707] Campbell, B., Bradley, J., and H. Tschofenig, "Resource
Indicators for OAuth 2.0", RFC 8707, DOI 10.17487/RFC8707,
February 2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8707>.
[RFC8725] Sheffer, Y., Hardt, D., and M. Jones, "JSON Web Token Best
Current Practices", BCP 225, RFC 8725,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8725, February 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8725>.
8.2. Informative References
[OAuth2.Security.BestPractices]
Lodderstedt, T., Bradley, J., Labunets, A., and D. Fett,
"OAuth 2.0 Security Best Current Practice", July 2019.
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[RFC6750] Jones, M. and D. Hardt, "The OAuth 2.0 Authorization
Framework: Bearer Token Usage", RFC 6750,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6750, October 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6750>.
[RFC7662] Richer, J., Ed., "OAuth 2.0 Token Introspection",
RFC 7662, DOI 10.17487/RFC7662, October 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7662>.
Appendix A. Acknowledgements
The initial set of requirements informing this specification was
extracted by numerous examples of access tokens issued in JWT format
by production systems. Thanks to Dominick Baier (IdentityServer),
Brian Campbell (Ping Identity), Daniel Dobalian (Microsoft), Karl
Guinness (Okta) for providing sample tokens issued by their products
and services. Brian Campbell and Filip Skokan provided early
feedback that shaped the direction of the specification. This
profile was discussed at length during the OAuth Security Workshop
2019, with several individuals contributing ideas and feedback. The
author would like to acknowledge the contributions of:
John Bradley, Brian Campbell, Vladimir Dzhuvinov, Torsten
Lodderstedt, Nat Sakimura, Hannes Tschofenig and everyone who
actively participated in the unconference discussions.
The following individuals contributed useful feedback and insights on
the drafts, both on the IETF OAuth 2.0 WG DL and during the IIW28
conference:
Dale Olds, George Fletcher, David Waite, Michael Engan, Mike Jones,
Hans Zandbelt, Vladimir Dzhuvinov, Martin Schanzenbach , Aaron
Parecki, Annabelle Richard Backman, Dick Hardt, Denis Pinkas,
Benjamin Kaduk, Dominick Baier, Andrii Deinega, Mike Jones and
everyone who actively participated in the IIW28 unconference
discussions and the IETF OAuth 2.0 WG DL discussions. Thanks to
Roman Danyliw for the AD review, Joseph Salowey and Roni Even for the
SECDIR/GENART reviews.
Appendix B. Document History
[[ to be removed by the RFC Editor before publication as an RFC ]]
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-12
o Editorial changes in the abstract.
o Updated the client_id value in the figures in Section 3.
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o Added clarifying language in Section 1 positioning this
specification vs [RFC7523].
o In section Section 2.1 added a sentence that makes RS256 support
mandatory for AS and RS.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-11
o Editorial updates and typo fixes in Section 1.2, Section 2.2,
Section 2.2.1, Section 2.2.2, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5,
Appendix A
o Updated language in Section 2.2.2 to explicitly refer to the JWT
IANA registry.
o Citation added in in Section 2.1
o Added a normative reference entry for OpenID Connect Discovery 1.0
and referenced it from Section 4
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-10
o Updated Figure 2 in Section 3 to clarify that the intent of that
snippet is to describe the content rather than exact JWT AT
format.
o Updated registry references in Section 7.2.1 to point to
Section 2.2.3.1
o Modified Section 2.2.3.1 to make it easier for the reader to
understand what values and format is expected for the groups,
roles and entitlement claims. Minor formatting issues fixed.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-09
o Removed unused reference to http://www.iana.org/assignments/oauth-
parameters; moved the OAuth2 security BCP to the informative
references section.
o Restructured opening paragraphs in Section 6 for clarity.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-08
o Numerous edits for correcting typos, improving clarity and
precision of language.
o Moved RFC7519 to the normative section; eliminated unused
references RFC7644 and RFC3986.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-07
o In Section 2.1, added language that forbids use of none as alg
value, and references Section 4 where the same prohibition was
already expressed from the RS perspective.
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o In the sub definition in Section 2.2, added a sentence that
clarifies what goes in the sub in the case of grants where a
resource owner is involved.
o Updated acknowledgements.
o Updated Section 2.2.1 to clarify that acr, amr and auth_type can
occur if the AT has been obtained by grants where the resource
owner is involved.
o Updated Section 2.2.2 to clarify that identity claims can occur if
the AT has been obtained by grants where the resource owner is
involved.
o In Section 2.2.3.1 eliminated the claim that SCIM doesn't provide
a vocabulary for the attributes listed there.
o In Section 5 added reference to 8725.
o In Section 4 added application/jwt+at as accepted typ value.
o Various typos and formatting issues fixed.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-06
o In Section 2.2 and Section 6 added a discussion about how
different sub values affect the privacy properties of a solution.
o In Section 2.2.3 and Section 3 eliminated language prohibiting JWT
AT requests featuring multiple resources, substituting it with the
prohibition for the AS to emit JWT ATs expressing ambiguous
authorization grants. In Section 5, added language warning
against scope confusion and mentioned the existence of other
ambiguous authorization grant.
o In Section 2.2 promoted claims iat and jti from RECOMMENDED to
REQUIRED.
o In Section 2.1 eliminated temporary note on the lack of
authenticated encryption methods specifications.
o Updated acknowledgements.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-05
o Varios typos, grammar issues and improper abbreviations fixed.
o Reworded the definition of at+jwt in Section 2.1.
o In Section 2.2, clarified that iat refers to the issuance time of
the JWT itself.
o In Section 2.2.2, added a reference to public/private claims
definitions (Sections 4.2, 4.3) of [RFC7519].
o In Section 3, removed the paragrah stating that every JWT AT MUST
have an aud, as it is already defined in Section 2.2.
o Reworded description of the JWT AT adoption landscape in
Section 1.
o Simplified the individual descriptions of the claims list in
Section 2.2.1.
o Updated Section 4 and Section 5 to clarify that the AS can use any
of the published keys to sign JWT access tokens, and that the AS
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should not rely on use of different signing keys per token type as
a security mechanism.
o In Section 2.2 promoted claims iat and jti from OPTIONAL to
RECOMMENDED
o In Section 4, switched the validation steps list type from numbers
to bullets.
o In Section 4, eliminated the auth_time instructions from the
validation steps list.
o In Section 2.2.2, added a reference to the JWT claims registry as
source of claims for JWT ATs
o In Section 4, clarified that failures in JWT AT validation checks
will result in invalid_token.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-04
o Eliminated reference to resource aliases list from the aud claim
description in Section 2.
o Eliminated references to resource aliases list from the aud
validation guidance in Section 4.
o Introduced a new subsection Section 2.2.1, moved the definitions
of auth_time, acr and amr there and incorporated the language
proposed by Annabelle and Brian on the WG mailing list.
o In section Section 3 softened (from MUST to SHOULD) the
requirement that ties the resource identifier in the request to
the value in the aud claim of the issued access token.
o Updated acknowledgements.
o In the section Section 3, the example request now has
response_type=code.
o Updated text in the Privacy Consideration section to clarify what
protection steps the text refers to.
o Updated the typ header discussion in Section 2.1 to clarify that
it helps preventing resources from accepting OpenID Connect ID
Tokens as JWT access tokens.
o Updated refrences to token exchange, resource indicators and JWT
best practices to reflect their RFC status (8693,8707,8725).
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-03
o Varios typos fixed.
o In the security considerations section, relaxed the claim that the
typ header value "at+jwt" will prevent RS from misinterpreting JWT
ATs as idtokens.
o In the "Requesting JWT Access Tokens" section, added
"invalid_target" as a possible error returned for the multiple
resources request case.
o In the Validating JWT Access Tokens" section, disallowed JWTs with
"alg":"none"
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o in the IANA registration entries for the SCIM claim types,
complemented the reference to the SCIM spec with a reference to
this spec so that the eventual registration entries have better
context.
o Updated acknowledgements.
o In the section Section 3, the example request now has
response_type=code.
o Updated text in the Privacy Consideration section to clarify what
protection steps the text refers to.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-02
o In 2.2.1, opened the sources of identity attributes to any
identity related specification.
o In 2.2.2, relaxed from MUST to SHOULD the requirement that
requests including a scope always result in access tkens
containing a corresponding scope claim.
o In the security considerations setting, added a requirement for
the authorization server to assing unique identifiers for
different resources- to prevent cross JWT confusion.
o Added IANA registration for the authorization attributes borrowed
from SCIM CORE
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-01
o Added note on authenticated encryption.
o Added a mention to the 1st party clients scenarios in the identity
claims section.
o Changed the definition reference for the iss, exp, aud, sub, iat
claims from OpenID.Core to RFC7519.
o Added a mention of the client_id==sub case in the security
considerations section, added a reference to draft-ietf-oauth-
security-topics-13. Added a reference to the security
considerations from the sub claim definition section.
o Specified invalid_request as the error code the authorization
server should return in case of multiple resources in the access
token request.
o Specified invalid_scope as the error code the authorization server
should return in case it isn;t possible to determine to which
resource the requested scopes refers to.
o In the identity claims section, added a reference to introspection
as possible source of claim types and added language explicitly
stating that the AS can add arbitrary attributes as long as they
are collision resistant or private.
o Updated language for the auth_time claim to include the case in
which the AS reauthenticates the user mid-session (e.g. during
step up auth).
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o Removed note about adding a mechanism for extablishing whether the
token was obtained on behalf or the resource owner or of the
client itself (client credentials grant).
o Removed note about adding a mechanism for indicating whether the
authorization server sent the resource owner to authenticate with
a federated identity provider, and the identity of that federated
provider.
o Removed the note in the security consideration sections about
discussing the purpose of aud, iss, exp validation (redundant).
o In the authorization claims section, stated intent to register
roles, groups and entitlements as claim types in IANA
o Clarified in the privacy considerations that clients should not
inspect access tokens.
o Expanded the privacy considerations with more explicit guidance
about privacy preserving approaches.
o Added IANA registry content for the at+JWT MIME type.
o Updated acknowledgements.
draft-ietf-oauth-access-token-jwt-00
o Initial draft to define a JWTt profile for OAuth 2.0 access
tokens.
Author's Address
Vittorio Bertocci
Auth0
Email: vittorio@auth0.com
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