Reverse Tunnel over HTTP
draft-kazuho-httpbis-reverse-tunnel-00
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Kazuho Oku | ||
| Last updated | 2024-02-19 | ||
| RFC stream | (None) | ||
| Intended RFC status | (None) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Stream | Stream state | (No stream defined) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| RFC Editor Note | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
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| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-kazuho-httpbis-reverse-tunnel-00
httpbis K. Oku
Internet-Draft Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track 20 February 2024
Expires: 23 August 2024
Reverse Tunnel over HTTP
draft-kazuho-httpbis-reverse-tunnel-00
Abstract
This document specifies an HTTP extension to establish bi-directional
byte streams in the direction from servers to their clients,
utilizing HTTP as a tunneling mechanism. This approach not only
facilitates communication between servers located behind firewalls
and their known clients but also introduces the potential for these
known clients to serve as relays. In such configurations, clients
can forward application protocol messages or relay TCP connections,
allowing servers to interact with any client on the Internet without
direct exposure.
Discussion Venues
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/kazuho/draft-kazuho-httpbis-reverse-tunnel.
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 23 August 2024.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 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. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. The Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3.1. HTTP/1.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5.1. Indicating Protocols Available for Use . . . . . . . . . 5
5.2. Indicating the Chosen Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. Relaying Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.1. Signalling Client Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6.2. Specifying the Listening Address and Port . . . . . . . . 8
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
In typical application protocols operating on top of TCP, clients
initiate TCP connections by specifying the server's IP address and
the port number. However, not all servers can accept incoming TCP
connections directly.
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Presently, servers situated behind firewalls that block incoming TCP
connections often rely on virtual private networks (VPNs). These
VPNs enable the passage of packets initiating TCP connections to
servers through encapsulation, effectively bypassing firewall
restrictions. This approach, however, compromises network
manageability and incurs performance penalties due to the additional
routing and encapsulation involved.
This document proposes an alternative to utilizing VPNs by defining a
method for servers to establish connections to clients over HTTP,
thereby creating bi-directional byte streams for application
protocols. Specifically, this extension employs HTTP upgrades in
HTTP/1.1 ([HTTP-SEMANTICS] Section 7.8) and the "extended CONNECT"
method in HTTP/2 [EXTENDED-CONNECT-H2] and HTTP/3
[EXTENDED-CONNECT-H3] for the establishment of these byte streams.
Beyond better manageability and reduced performance overhead in
comparison to VPNs, this method of employing HTTP for tunnel
establishment provides additional advantages. It enables endpoints
to utilize a variety of authentication schemes that are native to
HTTP, such as HTTP authentication and cookies. Furthermore, it
shifts client identification from relying on IP addresses and port
numbers to using URIs, thereby enhancing flexibility and integration
with web technologies.
As servers specify their clients using URIs, only clients known to a
server can communicate directly with it. Nevertheless, clients have
the capability to forward application protocol-level messages (e.g.,
HTTP requests) or relay TCP connections they receive or accept from
the Internet. Through such relay mechanisms, servers hidden behind
firewalls can effectively receive requests from any client on the
Internet, bridging the gap between restricted access and global
connectivity.
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. The Protocol
To setup a reverse tunnel, a server connects to the client as
specified by the URI and issues an HTTP request.
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To signal the intent to establish a reverse tunnel, an upgrade token
named "reverse" is used.
The method and the conveyor of the upgrade token are different
between the HTTP versions.
3.1. HTTP/1.1
In HTTP/1.1, the HTTP upgrade mechanism ([HTTP-SEMANTICS]
Section 7.8) is used.
The method of the issued request SHALL be "GET".
The upgrade token is conveyed by the "Upgrade" header field, and once
the reverse tunnel is established successfully, the client responds
with a 101 (Swithing Protocols) response.
Figure 1 shows an exchange of HTTP/1.1 request and response
establishing a reverse tunnel. In this example, the Basic HTTP
Authentication Scheme [BASIC-AUTH] is used to authenticate the
server.
GET /reverse-endpoint HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Authorization: Basic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Figure 1: Establishing Reverse Tunnel over HTTP/1.1
3.2. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3
In HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, extended CONNECT is used; see
[EXTENDED-CONNECT-H2] and [EXTENDED-CONNECT-H3].
In both HTTP versions, the method being used is "CONNECT" and the
upgrade token is conveyed by the ":protocol" pseudo header. Once the
reverse tunnel is established successfully, the client responds with
a 200 (OK) response.
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4. Authentication
When HTTPS is used for establishing the tunnel, clients (i.e., the
nodes acting as TLS [TLS] servers) SHOULD use one of the TLS-based
authentication schemes to identify themselves.
Servers SHOULD authenticate themselves either by using one of the
HTTP-based authentication schemes; e.g., HTTP Authentication
([HTTP-SEMANTICS] Section 11), or, when HTTPS is used, by using one
of the TLS-based authentication schemes.
5. Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation
While TLS [TLS] can be used on top of an established tunnel, doing so
might not be necessary for ensuring the security of communication if
the tunnel is established via HTTPS, and the client side of the
reverse tunnel also functions as the client side of the application
protocol in use. A typical scenario involves an HTTPS reverse proxy
serving as the client of a reverse tunnel. This proxy terminates
incoming TLS connections and decrypts the HTTP requests before
forwarding them through the reverse tunnel, which is secured by a
separate TLS connection.
In these deployments, foregoing the use of TLS above the established
tunnel can yield performance benefits without compromising security.
However, this approach requires that endpoints negotiate the
application protocol without relying on the Application-Layer
Protocol Negotiation [ALPN] performed during the TLS handshake.
To address this need, this document introduces an HTTP header-based
mechanism for negotiating the application protocol. It employs ALPN
identifiers for naming the application protocols, allowing for the
selection of existing application protocols without depending on TLS-
based negotiation.
5.1. Indicating Protocols Available for Use
To indicate the application protocols that the server is willing to
utilize, a server MAY include an "ALPN" header field [ALPN-HEADER] in
the HTTP request that it issues. The "ALPN" header field carries a
list of application-protocol identifies that the server is willing to
use.
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5.2. Indicating the Chosen Protocol
When a client receives an HTTP request with an "ALPN" header field,
and if the client decides to select one of the application protocols
being offered, the client includes a "Selected-ALPN" header field in
the HTTP response.
If the HTTP request does not include an "ALPN" header field, the
client MUST NOT send a "Selected-ALPN" header field.
Syntax of the "Selected-ALPN" header field is as follows. The syntax
reuses the encoding of the "ALPN" header field, but always includes
exactly one application-protocol identifier that is being chosen.
Selected-ALPN = ALPN
Figure 2 shows an exchange of HTTP/1.1 response and response that
sets up a tunnel for forwarding HTTP requests using HTTP/2, where
tunnel server is the origin and the tunnel client is the reverse
proxy.
GET /reverse-http-for-service/X HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Authorization: Basic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==
ALPN: h2, http%2F1.1
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Selected-ALPN: h2
Figure 2: Setting up a HTTP/2 Tunnel for forwarding HTTP Requests
When a server sends an HTTP request with an "ALPN" header field but
receives a successful response without a "Selected-ALPN" header
field, it could either be an indication that the client chose an
application protocol that the server did not offer, or that the
server could not determine which application protocol has been
chosen. Therefore, the client SHOULD NOT assume that an application
protocol other than the ones being offered has been selected.
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6. Relaying Connections
When a client is forwarding at the application protocol layer, it can
utilize mechanisms provided by the application protocol in use to
convey the identity of the actual client from which messages were
received. For example, HTTP intermediaries acting as reverse tunnel
clients can add the "Forwarded" header field [FORWARDED] to each
request they relay.
However, when the client acts as a transport-layer protocol relay
(i.e., relaying TCP connections), it becomes the responsibility of
the reverse tunnel protocol to convey the 4 tuple of the TCP
connection being relayed.
6.1. Signalling Client Address
Upon receiving a request to establish a reverse tunnel, a client
acting as a relay SHOULD match a connection to be relayed before
sending a successful response (i.e., 101 Switching Protocols or 200
OK, depending on the HTTP protocol version in use). Once a
connection has been matched, the client SHOULD send a successful
response with a "Forwarded" header field [FORWARDED] carrying the
identity of the TCP connection being relayed. After that, the client
begins relaying the bytes being sent and received between the tunnel
and the matched connection.
The "Forwarded" header field SHOULD include the "by" parameter and
the "for" parameter to convey the 4 tuple of the TCP connection being
relayed.
If the client cannot immediately match a connection to be relayed,
the client MAY send an informational response of 100 (Continue) to
acknowledge that it has received the request but it is not yet ready
to send a final response.
This informational response MAY be sent more than once.
When the client gives up waiting for a matching connection to become
available, the client SHOULD send a 204 (No Content) response to
indicate that it successfully processed the request, but a matching
connection was not available.
Figure 3 illustrates an exchange of HTTP/1.1 messages to establish a
reverse TCP relay.
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GET /.well-known/listen-tcp/0.0.0.0/25/ HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Authorization: Basic QWxhZGRpbjpvcGVuIHNlc2FtZQ==
HTTP/1.1 100 Continue
HTTP/1.1 101 Switching Protocols
Connection: upgrade
Upgrade: reverse
Forwarded: for=192.0.2.43
Figure 3: Establishing a TCP relay for SMTP
6.2. Specifying the Listening Address and Port
Clients acting as relays that allow servers specify the listening
address or port SHOULD use the following URI Template [TEMPLATE] to
define the target URI on which they provide the service. Adopting
this template simplifies operations by ensuring a uniform method for
configuring endpoints. Examples are shown below:
https://example.com/.well-known/reverse/tcp/{listen_host}/{listen_port}/
https://example.org/listen/to/tcp?h={listen_host}&p={listen_port}
Furthermore, the use of the default template is RECOMMENDED, which is
defined as "https://$CLIENT_HOST:$CLIENT_PORT/.well-known/reverse/
tcp/{listen_host}/{listen_port}/", where $CLIENT_HOST and
$CLIENT_PORT are the host and port of the client.
The "listen_host" variable specifies the listening address. This
variable MAY contain an wildcard address.
The "listen_port" variable specifies the listening port.
The following requirements apply to the URI Template:
* The URI Template MUST be a level 3 template or lower.
* The URI Template MUST be in absolute form and MUST include non-
empty scheme, authority, and path components.
* The path component of the URI Template MUST start with a slash
("/").
* All template variables MUST be within the path or query components
of the URI.
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* The URI template MUST contain the two variables "listen_host" and
"listen_port", and MAY contain other variables.
* The URI Template MUST NOT contain any non-ASCII Unicode characters
and MUST only contain ASCII characters in the range 0x21-0x7E
inclusive (note that percent-encoding is allowed; see [URI]
Section 2.1).
* The URI Template MUST NOT use Reserved Expansion ("+" operator),
Fragment Expansion ("#" operator), Label Expansion with Dot-
Prefix, Path Segment Expansion with Slash-Prefix, nor Path-Style
Parameter Expansion with Semicolon-Prefix.
Servers SHOULD validate the requirements above; however, servers MAY
use a general-purpose URI Template implementation that lacks this
specific validation. If a server detects that any of the
requirements above are not met by a URI Template, the server MUST
reject its configuration and abort the request without sending it to
the relaying client.
7. IANA Considerations
Once approved, this document will request IANA to register the
following entries to the respective registries.
To the "HTTP Upgrade Tokens" registry maintained at
https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-upgrade-tokens
(https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-upgrade-tokens):
Value: reverse
Description: Reverse Tunnel
Expected Version Tokens: None
Reference: this document
To the "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Field Name Registry"
maintained at https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-fields
(https://www.iana.org/assignments/http-fields):
Field Name: Selected-ALPN
Template: None
Status: permanent
Reference: this document
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Comments: None
To the "Well-Known URIs" registry maintained at
https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris
(https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris):
URI Suffix: listen-tcp
Change Controller: IETF
Reference: this document
Status: permanent
Related Information: Includes all resources identified with the path
prefix "./well-known/listen-tcp/".
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[ALPN] Friedl, S., Popov, A., Langley, A., and E. Stephan,
"Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol
Negotiation Extension", RFC 7301, DOI 10.17487/RFC7301,
July 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7301>.
[ALPN-HEADER]
Hutton, A., Uberti, J., and M. Thomson, "The ALPN HTTP
Header Field", RFC 7639, DOI 10.17487/RFC7639, August
2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7639>.
[EXTENDED-CONNECT-H2]
McManus, P., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/2",
RFC 8441, DOI 10.17487/RFC8441, September 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8441>.
[EXTENDED-CONNECT-H3]
Hamilton, R., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/3",
RFC 9220, DOI 10.17487/RFC9220, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9220>.
[FORWARDED]
Petersson, A. and M. Nilsson, "Forwarded HTTP Extension",
RFC 7239, DOI 10.17487/RFC7239, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7239>.
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[HTTP-SEMANTICS]
Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110>.
[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>.
[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>.
[TEMPLATE] 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>.
[URI] Allman, E., "An Extensible Message Format for Message
Tracking Responses", RFC 3886, DOI 10.17487/RFC3886,
September 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3886>.
8.2. Informative References
[BASIC-AUTH]
Reschke, J., "The 'Basic' HTTP Authentication Scheme",
RFC 7617, DOI 10.17487/RFC7617, September 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7617>.
[I-D.bt-httpbis-reverse-http-01]
Schwartz, B. M., Reddy.K, T., Boucadair, M., and P. S.
Tiesel, "Reverse HTTP Transport", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-bt-httpbis-reverse-http-01, 23
October 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
draft-bt-httpbis-reverse-http-01>.
[TLS] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446>.
Acknowledgments
This document is inspired by [I-D.bt-httpbis-reverse-http-01] and the
discussion at IETF 118.
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Thanks to Ben Schwartz for reviewing the initial version of the draft
and providing valuable feedback.
Author's Address
Kazuho Oku
Fastly
Email: kazuhooku@gmail.com
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