Skip to main content

Transport of Incident Detection Message Exchange Format version 2 (IDMEFv2) Messages over HTTPS
draft-lehmann-idmefv2-https-transport-00

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Author Gilles Lehmann
Last updated 2023-04-16
RFC stream (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-lehmann-idmefv2-https-transport-00
Network Working Group                                         G. Lehmann
Internet-Draft                                         Telecom Sud Paris
Obsoletes: 4767 (if approved)                              14 April 2023
Intended status: Standards Track                                        
Expires: 16 October 2023

   Transport of Incident Detection Message Exchange Format version 2
                     (IDMEFv2) Messages over HTTPS
                draft-lehmann-idmefv2-https-transport-00

Abstract

   The Incident Detection Message Exchange Format version 2 (IDMEFv2)
   defines a date representation for security incidents detected on
   cyber and/or physical infrastructures.

   The format is agnostic so it can be used in standalone or combined
   cyber (SIEM), physical (PSIM) and availability (NMS) monitoring
   systems.  IDMEFv2 can also be used to represent man made or natural
   hazards threats.

   IDMEFv2 improves situational awareness by facilitating correlation of
   multiple types of events using the same base format thus enabling
   efficient detection of complex and combined cyber and physical
   attacks and incidents.

   This document defines a way to transport IDMEFv2 Alerts over HTTPs.

   If approved this document would obsolete RFC4767.

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 16 October 2023.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2023 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
     1.1.  About the transmission protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Normative sections  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Transmission of IDMEFv2 Messages over HTTPS . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  Architecture overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.2.  Listening port  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.3.  Compatibility with HTTP(S)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.4.  Compatibility with DNS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     4.5.  Compatibility with TLS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       4.5.1.  Acceptable TLS versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
       4.5.2.  Acceptable ciphersuites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.5.3.  Authentication  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.5.4.  Certificate validation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.5.5.  PKI integration and certificate issuance  . . . . . .   8
     4.6.  Locating the HTTPS endpoint using DNS . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  The JavaScript Object Notation Serialization Method . . . . .  10
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   8.  Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
   Appendix A.  HTTP Result Codes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   Appendix B.  Transmission examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     B.1.  Acknowledged IDMEFv2 message  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     B.2.  Unsupported serialization format  . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     B.3.  Content negotiation failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 2]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

1.  Introduction

   [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] defines a model for the purpose of describing
   security alerts and incidents as IDMEF version 2 (IDMEFv2) messages.
   It also defines serialization methods so that IDMEFv2 messages can be
   shared between IDMEFv2 Analyser detecting incidents and IDMEFv2
   Manager, the management systems that may need to interact with them.

1.1.  About the transmission protocol

   IDMEFv2 defines a message format, not a protocol, as the sharing of
   messages is assumed to be out of scope in order to allow Analyzers
   and Managers to exchange and store alerts in a way most suited to
   their established incident-detection processes.  However, a protocol
   specification is required so that actual exchanges can take place
   between the involved programs.  Defining a common protocol also
   ensures interoperability between otherwise concurrent
   implementations.

   This document specifies the transport of IDMEFv2 messages within
   [RFC9112] or [RFC9113] Request and Response messages over Transport
   Layer Security, a.k.a.  [RFC9110].

   This document describes a serialization method for IDMEF messages
   based on the [RFC8259].

2.  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].

3.  Normative sections

   Implementations of IDMEFv2 willing to exchange messages with other
   implementations are REQUIRED to fully implement:

   *  The transmission protocol defined in Section 4

   *  The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) serialization method defined
      in Section 5

4.  Transmission of IDMEFv2 Messages over HTTPS

   This section specifies the details of the transport of IDMEFv2
   messages [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] over HTTPS.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 3]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   [BCP56] contains a number of important considerations when using HTTP
   for application protocols.  These include the size of the payload for
   the application, whether the application will use a web browser,
   whether the protocol should be defined on a port other than the well-
   known port for HTTP/HTTPS, and if the security provided through HTTPS
   suits the needs of the new application.

   It is acknowledged within the scope of these concerns that HTTPS is
   not ideally suited for IDMEFv2 transport, as the former is a client-
   server protocol and the latter a message-exchange protocol; however,
   the ease of implementation over HTTPS outweighs these concerns.

4.1.  Architecture overview

   In the context of this document, it is expected that IDMEFv2
   Analyzers will act as HTTP clients, while IDMEFv2 Managers act as
   HTTP servers.

   However, due to external constraints, implementation-specific design
   decisions, etc.  these roles may sometimes be switched around.  This
   can be especially true when dealing with segmented networks such as
   demilitarized zones, where the Analyzer may be unable to contact its
   Manager, or for communications which do not rely on an Analyzer
   sending IDMEFv2 messages to a Manager (e.g. for Manager-to-Manager
   communications).  Such specific cases are outside the scope of this
   specification.

4.2.  Listening port

   Consistent with [BCP56], compatible system participating in a
   consortium and hosting a server for the purpose of receiving IDMEFv2
   message using this specification SHOULD listen for TCP connections on
   port 12345 (see in Section 7 for more information).

   The systems MAY be configurable so as to allow listening on ports
   other than the well-known port; this configuration is out of scope
   for this specification.

4.3.  Compatibility with HTTP(S)

   The implementations MUST implement all REQUIRED functionality for
   [RFC9112].  The implementations SHOULD implement all REQUIRED
   functionality for [RFC9113] in a TLS context.  In particular, the
   implementations SHOULD support HTTP/2 protocol negociation using the
   [RFC7301] as defined in [RFC9113] ch 3.3.  The "h2c" protocol
   (HTTP/2.0 over cleartext) MUST NOT be used.  HTTP over TLS (also
   known as HTTPS) is specified in [RFC9110] ch 2.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 4]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   Each IDMEFv2 message MUST be sent as a separate HTTP Request.
   However, an implementation MAY send multiple HTTP Requests in
   parallel to achieve higher message throughput.  This can be done by
   creating a separate connection to the HTTP server for each request,
   or by using any multiplexing mechanism provided by the underlying
   protocol (see for example [RFC9113] ch 5).

   All IDMEFv2 messages sent in HTTP Requests MUST be sent using the
   POST method.  In addition, the Request-URI of such requests SHOULD be
   set to '/' for interoperability, but an implementation MUST also be
   able to handle alternative paths to cope with situations where URI
   rewriting may be used (e.g. by a reverse proxy server).

   As IDMEFv2 messages MUST be sent using the POST method, a compatible
   implementation SHOULD answer with an appropriate HTTP code (405
   Method Not Allowed) to requests made using any other method.

   If a request is made to a Request-URI other than the one dedicated to
   the processing of IDMEFv2 messages, the server SHOULD return an
   appropriate HTTP code (e.g. 404 Not Found).

   The HTTP Request's body MUST be set to the serialized form of the
   IDMEFv2 message.  Since an IDMEFv2 message can be serialized in a
   variety of ways, the 'Content-Type' Request header [RFC2045] MUST be
   set to a media type [RFC2046] that reflects the mechanism used to
   perform the serialization.  If the server does not support the media
   type sent by the client, it SHOULD respond with an appropriate HTTP
   code (415 Unsupported Media Type).

   A conforming IDMEFv2 system acting as an HTTP server MUST support
   content negotiation based on the value of the 'Accept' Request header
   sent by the client.  If the client does not advertise supported media
   types (i.e. omits the 'Accept' header), the server MUST default to
   'application/json' and use the format defined in [RFC8259] to build
   the HTTP response.  If the server does not support any of the media
   types advertised by the client, it SHOULD respond with an appropriate
   HTTP code (406 Not Acceptable).

   If the Response does not contain a body, the appropriate HTTP code
   SHOULD be returned to the client (204 No Content).  In this case, the
   'Content-Type' header can be omitted from the HTTP Response entirely.

   To improve compatibility between implementations, it is RECOMMENDED
   that all IDMEFv2 systems conforming to this document support the JSON
   serialization format defined in [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2], with a media type
   set to 'application/json'.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 5]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   If an IDMEFv2 system receives an improper IDMEFv2 message in an HTTP
   Request, it MUST return an appropriate 4xx Client Error result code
   to the requesting system (e.g. 400 Bad Request).

   The HTTP code serves as an acknowledgment of the message.  The
   receiving IDMEFv2 system SHOULD NOT confirm acceptance of a message
   (2xx) unless it managed to safely deal with it, e.g. by saving the
   message to disk / in a database, or by relaying it to another system
   that successfully acknowledged it for further processing.

   If an IDMEFv2 implementation cannot process an IDMEFv2 message
   received in an HTTP Request due to an error on its own side, it MUST
   return an appropriate 5xx Server Error result code to the requesting
   system.

   Note that HTTP provides no mechanism for signaling to a server that a
   Response body is not a valid IDMEFv2 response.  If an IDMEFv2 system
   receives an improper HTTP Response, or cannot process an HTTP
   Response due to an error on its own side, it MUST log the error and
   present it to the IDMEFv2 system administrator for handling; the
   error logging format is considered an implementation detail and is
   out of scope for this specification.

   Appendix A provides informative guidance on how to map various error
   conditions to an appropriate HTTP result code.

   IDMEFv2 systems relying on HTTP/1.1 MUST support and SHOULD use
   HTTP/1.1 persistent connections as described in [RFC9112].  IDMEFv2
   systems MUST support chunked transfer encoding on the HTTP server
   side to allow the implementation of clients that do not need to pre-
   calculate message sizes before constructing HTTP headers.

4.4.  Compatibility with DNS

   The use of stable DNS names to address IDMEFv2 systems is
   RECOMMENDED; this facilitates connection to IDMEFv2 systems within a
   consortium.  The protocol provides no in-band method for handling a
   change of address of an IDMEFv2 system.

4.5.  Compatibility with TLS

4.5.1.  Acceptable TLS versions

   IDMEFv2 systems SHOULD use TLS version 1.3 [RFC8446] or higher for
   confidentiality, identification, and authentication, when sending
   IDMEFv2 messages over HTTPS.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 6]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   IDMEFv2 systems MUST NOT request, offer, or use any version of SSL,
   or any version of TLS prior to 1.3, due to known weaknesses in these
   protocols; see [RFC8446] ch E for more information.

4.5.2.  Acceptable ciphersuites

   The TLS session MUST use non-NULL ciphersuites for authentication,
   integrity, and confidentiality.  IDMEFv2 systems MUST NOT use
   ciphersuites with known vulnerabilities and MUST use ciphersuites
   that provide Perfect Forward Secrecy to protect the messages'
   confidentiality in case a vulnerability is later discovered in the
   ciphersuites.

   Administrators can find guidance regarding the selection of
   acceptable ciphersuites for TLS version 1.2 in [BCP195].

4.5.3.  Authentication

   IDMEFv2 systems MUST use mutual authentication; that is, both IDMEFv2
   systems acting as HTTPS clients and IDMEFv2 systems acting as HTTPS
   servers MUST be identified by an X.509 certificate [RFC5280].  Mutual
   authentication requires full path validation on each certificate, as
   defined in [RFC5280].

   All IDMEFv2 systems SHOULD be identified by a certificate containing
   a DNS-ID identifier as in [RFC6125] ch 6.4; Common Names (CN-IDs)
   MUST NOT be included in certificates identifying IDMEFv2 systems.

4.5.4.  Certificate validation

   IDMEFv2 systems MUST verify the reference identifiers of their peers
   against those stored in the certificates presented using the methods
   defined in [RFC6125].  In addition, the following IDMEFv2-specific
   considerations apply:

   *  Wildcards MUST NOT appear in the DNS-ID of a certificate
      identifying an IDMEFv2 system.  If such a certificate is received
      by an IDMEFv2 system, the verification MUST fail and the receiving
      IDMEFv2 system MUST close the connection.

   *  An IDMEFv2 system MAY match the DNS-ID with a reverse DNS lookup
      of the connecting IDMEFv2 peer; this support SHOULD allow the
      lookup to be cached and/or done in advance in order to ensure
      verifiability during instability or compromise of DNS itself.

   *  IDMEFv2 systems MUST support the verification of certificates
      against an explicit list of approved peer certificates.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 7]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   *  IDMEFv2 systems MAY apply additional security measures such as IP
      filtering to further restrict the list of authorized peers.  Such
      additional defenses are outside of the scope of this
      specification.

4.5.5.  PKI integration and certificate issuance

   This document makes no provision on whether the security consortium
   implementing IDMEFv2 is responsible or not for issuing the
   certificates used by the systems.

   In a PKIX certificate to be presented by an IDMEFv2 system, the
   certificate MUST include one or more identifiers associated with the
   IDMEFv2 system.

   The following IDMEFv2-specific considerations apply:

   *  Support for the DNS-ID identifier type [RFC5280] is REQUIRED in
      both IDMEFv2 Analyzers and Managers.  Certification authorities
      that issue IDMEFv2-specific certificates MUST support the DNS-ID
      identifier type.  IDMEFv2 service providers SHOULD include the
      DNS-ID identifier type in certificate requests.

   *  Support for the SRV-ID identifier type [RFC4985] is REQUIRED in
      both IDMEFv2 Analyzers and Managers implementations using the
      "_idmef" application service type.  Certificate authorities that
      issue IDMEFv2-specific certificates SHOULD support the SRV-ID
      identifier type.  IDMEFv2 service providers SHOULD include the
      SRV-ID identifier type in certificate requests.

   *  Support for the URI-ID identifier type ([RFC5280] and [RFC3986])
      is OPTIONAL for both IDMEFv2 Analyzers and Managers.
      Certification authorities that issue IDMEFv2-specific certificates
      SHOULD support the URI-ID identifier type.  IDMEFv2 service
      providers MAY include the URI-ID identifier type in certificate
      requests.

   *  Support for the CN-ID identifier type [RFC5280] is discouraged.
      Certification authorities that issue IDMEFv2-specific certificates
      SHOULD NOT support the CN-ID identifier type.  IDMEFv2 service
      providers MUST NOT include the CN-ID identifier type in
      certificate requests.

   *  DNS domain names in IDMEFv2-specific certificates MUST NOT contain
      the wildcard character '*'.  Certification authorities that issue
      IDMEFv2-specific certificates MUST refuse to issue certificates
      containing a wildcard character.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 8]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   Great care must be taken by administrators when selecting the PKI to
   use, as trusting a rogue PKI could have dramatic results on the
   integrity, confidentiality and authentication mechanisms provided by
   TLS; and hence, result in the compromise of the protocol defined in
   this specification.

4.6.  Locating the HTTPS endpoint using DNS

   Information about an organization's IDMEFv2 over HTTPS endpoint's
   location may be stored using DNS Service Location Records (SRV)
   [RFC2782].  The data in a SRV record contains the DNS name of the
   server that provides the IDMEFv2 over HTTPS server, the corresponding
   Port number, and parameters that enable the client to choose an
   appropriate server from multiple servers according to the algorithm
   described in [RFC2782].  The name of this record has the following
   format:

   _<Service>._<Proto>.<Domain>

   where <Service> is always "idmef", and <Proto> is always "tcp".
   <Domain> is the domain name of the entity exposing the endpoint.
   Note that "idmef" is the symbolic name for the IDMEFv2 over HTTPS
   service in Assigned Numbers [RFC3232], as required by [RFC2782].

   Presence of such records enables clients to find the IDMEFv2 over
   HTTPS endpoints using standard DNS query.  An IDMEFv2 system seeking
   the endpoint for a particular entity, does a SRV record query using
   the DNS name formed as described in the preceding paragraph, and
   interprets the response as described in [RFC2782] to determine a host
   (or set of hosts) to contact.  As an example, a client that searches
   for the IDMEFv2 over HTTPS endpoint for "example.net" will submit a
   DNS query for a set of SRV records with owner name:

   _idmef._tcp.example.net.

   The requesting system will receive the list of SRV records published
   in DNS that satisfy the requested criteria.  The following is an
   example of such a record:

   _idmef._tcp.example.net.  IN  SRV  0  0  12345  soc.example.net.

   The set of returned records may contain multiple records in the case
   where multiple servers can act as endpoints for the same domain.  If
   there are no matching SRV records available for the domain name, the
   client SHOULD NOT attempt to 'walk the tree' by removing the least
   significant portion of the constructed fully qualified domain name.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023                [Page 9]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

5.  The JavaScript Object Notation Serialization Method

   This serialization method aims to convert IDMEFv2 messages to a
   format that is easy to parse and process, both by software/hardware
   processors, as well as humans.

   It relies on the the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
   Interchange Format defined in [RFC8259].

   Conforming implementations MUST implement all the requirements
   specified in [RFC8259].

   In addition, the following rules MUST be observed when serializing an
   IDMEFv2 message:

   *  The top-level Alert class ([RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] ch 4.2) is
      represented as a JSON object ([RFC8259] ch 4).  This JSON object
      is returned to the calling process at the end of the serialization
      process.

   *  Aggregate classes are represented as JSON objects and stored as
      members of the top-level JSON object, using the same name as in
      the IDMEF data model.  E.g. the Analyzer aggregate class
      ([RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] ch 4.3) appears under the name "Analyzer"
      inside the top-level JSON object.

   *  Attributes are stored as members of the JSON object representing
      the class they belong to, using the same name as in the IDMEF data
      model.  E.g. the "Version" attribute of the Alert class is stored
      under the name "Version" inside the top-level JSON object.

   *  Lists from the IDMEF data model are represented as JSON arrays
      ([RFC8259] ch 5).  This also applies to aggregate classes where a
      list is expected.  E.g. the "Sensor" member inside the top-level
      JSON object contains a list of objects, where each object
      represents an instance of the Sensor aggregate class
      ([RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] ch 4.4).

   *  The various string-based data types listed in [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2] ch
      3.3 are represented as JSON strings ([RFC8259] ch 7).  Please note
      that the issues outlined in [RFC8259] ch 8 regarding strings
      processing also apply here.

   *  Since JSON does not provide a way to distinguish between an
      integer value and a floating-point (decimal) value, IDMEF
      attributes with the "INT" and "FLOAT" type annotations are both
      represented as JSON numbers ([RFC8259] ch 6).

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 10]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

6.  Security Considerations

   Most of the content in Section 4 deals with security considerations.
   Great care has been taken to protect the confidentiality,
   authentification and integrity of IDMEFv2 messages while in transit.

   In addition, to the requirements set in Section 4, all security
   considerations of related documents apply, especially the Incident
   Detection Message Exchange Format version 2 [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2].
   Implementations should also be aware of known attacks against
   Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram TLS (DTLS), and how to
   mitigate them [RFC7457].

   Specific considerations have been taken into account regarding
   certificates usage:

   *  Use of the wildcard character inside certificates lacks clear
      specifications and consistency across application technologies.
      Considering the issues outlined in [RFC6125] ch 7.2 regarding such
      certificates, the use of wildcard characters inside certificates
      is explicitly prohibited in this document.

   *  Use of the Common Name field (CN-ID) has been deprecated for a
      long time ([RFC9110] ch 3.1).  Moreover, this field does not cope
      well with multiple identifiers ([RFC6125] ch 7.4).  As such, this
      document explicitly prohibits the use of CN-IDs altogether.

   IDMEFv2 systems MAY implement additional security measures (e.g.
   confidentiality and integrity of specific data inside the message at
   the field's level).  Such additions SHOULD be designed with
   interoperability in mind, so that implementations that do not
   recognize these extensions can still process IDMEFv2 messages in a
   reasonable manner without degrading the security provided by these
   additions (e.g. by omitting the additions entirely when passing the
   message to another system, or by handling them as opaque data).  The
   design of such measures is outside the scope of this document.

7.  IANA Considerations

   Consistent with [BCP56], since IDMEFv2 over HTTP/TLS is a
   substantially new service, and should be controlled at the consortium
   member network's border differently than HTTP/TLS, it requires a new
   port number.

   IANA has assigned port 12345/tcp to IDMEFv2 over HTTP/TLS with
   service name "IDMEFv2 over HTTP/TLS".

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 11]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

8.  Acknowledgement

   The following groups and individuals contributed to the creation of
   this document and should be recognized for their efforts.

   *  Thomas Andrejak & François Poirotte (Co-authors of the first
      version of this document)

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [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>.

   [RFC-DEV-IDMEFv2]
              Lehmann, G., Andrejak, T., and F. Poirotte, "The Incident
              Detection Message Exchange Format (IDMEF) version 2", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-lehmann-idmefv2-00, 14
              April 2023, <https://github.com/IDMEFv2/>.

   [RFC9112]  Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
              Ed., "HTTP/1.1", STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC9112,
              June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9112>.

   [RFC3986]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
              Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
              RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.

   [RFC9113]  Thomson, M., Ed. and C. Benfield, Ed., "HTTP/2", RFC 9113,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9113, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9113>.

   [RFC9110]  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/info/rfc9110>.

   [RFC8446]  Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 12]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   [RFC5280]  Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
              Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
              Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
              (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5280>.

   [RFC4985]  Santesson, S., "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
              Subject Alternative Name for Expression of Service Name",
              RFC 4985, DOI 10.17487/RFC4985, August 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4985>.

   [RFC6125]  Saint-Andre, P. and J. Hodges, "Representation and
              Verification of Domain-Based Application Service Identity
              within Internet Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509
              (PKIX) Certificates in the Context of Transport Layer
              Security (TLS)", RFC 6125, DOI 10.17487/RFC6125, March
              2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6125>.

   [RFC8259]  Bray, T., Ed., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
              Interchange Format", STD 90, RFC 8259,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8259, December 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8259>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3232]  Reynolds, J., Ed., "Assigned Numbers: RFC 1700 is Replaced
              by an On-line Database", RFC 3232, DOI 10.17487/RFC3232,
              January 2002, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3232>.

   [RFC2045]  Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
              Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
              Bodies", RFC 2045, DOI 10.17487/RFC2045, November 1996,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2045>.

   [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>.

   [RFC2782]  Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P., and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for
              specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2782, February 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2782>.

   [RFC7301]  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/info/rfc7301>.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 13]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   [RFC7457]  Sheffer, Y., Holz, R., and P. Saint-Andre, "Summarizing
              Known Attacks on Transport Layer Security (TLS) and
              Datagram TLS (DTLS)", RFC 7457, DOI 10.17487/RFC7457,
              February 2015, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7457>.

   [BCP56]    Nottingham, M., "Building Protocols with HTTP", BCP 56,
              RFC 9205, June 2022.

   [BCP195]   Sheffer, Y., Holz, R., and P. Saint-Andre,
              "Recommendations for Secure Use of Transport Layer
              Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security
              (DTLS)", BCP 195, RFC 7525, May 2015.

              Moriarty, K. and S. Farrell, "Deprecating TLS 1.0 and TLS
              1.1", BCP 195, RFC 8996, March 2021.

Appendix A.  HTTP Result Codes

   The following table MAY be used as general guidance by IDMEFv2
   systems acting as HTTP servers when mapping various error conditions
   to an appropriate HTTP result code.

   Result codes other than the ones listed below MAY still be used, so
   long as their semantics match the requirements set in Section 4.

      +==============================+=============================+
      | Error condition              | HTTP result code            |
      +==============================+=============================+
      | No error                     | 2xx, usually 200 (OK) or    |
      |                              | 204 (No content)            |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Malformed HTTP request (e.g. | 400 (Bad request)           |
      | the HTTP request's body is   |                             |
      | not a valid IDMEFv2 message) |                             |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Unauthorized request (e.g. a | 403 (Forbidden)             |
      | request from an unauthorized |                             |
      | IP address)                  |                             |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | The HTTP request uses a      | 405 (Method Not Allowed).   |
      | method other than 'POST'     | In addition, the "Allow"    |
      |                              | HTTP response header MUST   |
      |                              | be set accordingly when     |
      |                              | this code is used.          |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Failure to negotiate the     | 406 (Not Acceptable)        |
      | response's media type based  |                             |
      | on the "Accept" HTTP request |                             |

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 14]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

      | header.                      |                             |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Missing "Content-Length"     | 411 (Length required), but  |
      | request header in case the   | please note that conforming |
      | implementation does not      | implementations are         |
      | support the chunked transfer | REQUIRED to support the     |
      | encoding                     | chunked transfer encoding   |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Exceedingly long IDMEFv2     | 413 (Request entity too     |
      | message (e.g. the message is | large)                      |
      | considered to be too big due |                             |
      | to size restrictions applied |                             |
      | by an administrator)         |                             |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Unsupported serialization    | 415 (Unsupported media      |
      | format                       | type)                       |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Internal server error        | 500 (Internal server error) |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+
      | Unavailable service (e.g.    | 503 (Service unavailable)   |
      | the IDMEFv2 system is        |                             |
      | overloaded or the next       |                             |
      | processing service is        |                             |
      | unavailable)                 |                             |
      +------------------------------+-----------------------------+

          Table 1: Mapping error conditions to HTTP result codes

Appendix B.  Transmission examples

   In the examples below, ">" denotes a request sent by the IDMEFv2
   system acting as an HTTP client to an IDMEFv2 system acting as an
   HTTP server, while "<" denotes a response to such requests.

B.1.  Acknowledged IDMEFv2 message

   In this example, the IDMEFv2 system acting as an HTTP server
   acknowledges the message sent by an IDMEFv2 system acting as an HTTP
   client.  Because the HTTP server does not wish to send any content
   back to the client, it replies with HTTP result code 204 (No
   content), and both the "Content-Type" and "Content-Length" headers
   are omitted from the response.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 15]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   > POST / HTTP/1.1\r\n
   > Host: idmefv2.example.com:12345\r\n
   > Content-Type: application/json\r\n
   > Content-Length: 1234\r\n
   > Accept: application/json
   > \r\n
   > {"Version": "..."}

   < 204 No content\r\n
   < Connection: close\r\n
   < \r\n

B.2.  Unsupported serialization format

   The following example illustrates the situation where an IDMEFv2
   system acting as an HTTP client tries to send a message using a
   serialization format (media type) that is either not recognized or
   not supported by the IDMEFv2 system acting as an HTTP server.

   > POST / HTTP/1.1\r\n
   > Host: idmefv2.example.com:12345\r\n
   > Content-Type: application/x-idmefv2\r\n
   > Content-Length: 1234\r\n
   > Accept: application/json
   > \r\n
   > ...

   < 415 Unsupported media type\r\n
   < Connection: close\r\n
   < Content-Type: application/json\r\n
   < Content-Length: 61\r\n
   < \r\n
   < {"error": "Unsupported or unrecognized serialization format"}

B.3.  Content negotiation failure

   In this example, the IDMEFv2 system acting as an HTTP client sends an
   IDMEFv2 message and requests that the server reponds using the
   "application/x-example-type" media type.

   Since the server wishes to include details in the HTTP response but
   does not know how to generate a response using that media type, it
   sends back a page using HTTP result code 406 (Not acceptable).

   The response's body may contain additional information about the
   media types the server is willing to use and the client may try to
   resend the request using one of the alternative media types presented
   inside the new HTTP request's "Accept" header.

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 16]
Internet-Draft          IDMEFv2 - HTTPS Transport             April 2023

   > POST / HTTP/1.1\r\n
   > Host: idmefv2.example.com:12345\r\n
   > Content-Type: application/json\r\n
   > Content-Length: 1234\r\n
   > Accept: application/x-example-type
   > \r\n
   > ...

   < 406 Not Acceptable\r\n
   < Connection: close\r\n
   < Content-Type: application/json\r\n
   < Content-Length: 111\r\n
   < \r\n
   < {"error": "Cannot reply using 'application/x-example-type'
     media type",\n"alternatives": ["application/json"]}\n

Author's Address

   Gilles Lehmann
   Telecom Sud Paris
   France
   Email: gilles.lehmann@telecom-sudparis.eu

Lehmann                  Expires 16 October 2023               [Page 17]