The secret-token URI Scheme
draft-nottingham-how-did-that-get-into-the-repo-01
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual in art area) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Mark Nottingham | ||
| Last updated | 2020-04-09 (Latest revision 2018-11-06) | ||
| Stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | plain text xml htmlized pdfized bibtex | ||
| Reviews |
GENART Last Call review
Ready with Nits
|
||
| Stream | WG state | (None) | |
| Document shepherd | Alexey Melnikov | ||
| Shepherd write-up | Show Last changed 2020-02-12 | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Approved-announcement to be sent::Revised I-D Needed | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | Murray Kucherawy | ||
| Send notices to | superuser@gmail.com, Alexey Melnikov <alexey.melnikov@isode.com> | ||
| IANA | IANA review state | IANA OK - Actions Needed |
draft-nottingham-how-did-that-get-into-the-repo-01
Network Working Group M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft November 7, 2018
Intended status: Informational
Expires: May 11, 2019
The secret-token URI Scheme
draft-nottingham-how-did-that-get-into-the-repo-01
Abstract
This document registers the "secret-token" URI scheme, to aid in the
identification of authentication tokens.
Note to Readers
_RFC EDITOR: please remove this section before publication_
The issues list for this draft can be found at
https://github.com/mnot/I-D/labels/how-did-that-get-into-the-repo
[1].
The most recent (often, unpublished) draft is at
https://mnot.github.io/I-D/how-did-that-get-into-the-repo/ [2].
Recent changes are listed at https://github.com/mnot/I-D/commits/gh-
pages/how-did-that-get-into-the-repo [3].
See also the draft's current status in the IETF datatracker, at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-how-did-that-get-
into-the-repo/ [4].
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 May 11, 2019.
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Internet-Draft The secret-token URI Scheme November 2018
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 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 Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. The secret-token URI scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5.2. URIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
It has become increasingly common to use bearer tokens as an
authentication mechanism.
Unfortunately, the number of security incidents involving accidental
disclosure of these tokens has also increased. For example, we now
regularly hear about a developer committing an access token to a
public source code repository, either because they didn't realise it
was included in the committed code, or because they didn't realise
the implications of its disclosure.
This specification registers the "secret-token" URI scheme to aid
prevention of such accidental disclosures. When tokens are easier to
unambiguously identify, they can trigger warnings in Continuous
Integration systems, or be used in source code repositories
themselves. They can also be scanned for separately.
For example, if cloud.example.net issues access tokens to its clients
for later use, and it does so by formatting them as secret-token
URIs, tokens that "leak" into places that they don't belong are
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easier to identify. This could be through a variety of mechanisms;
for example, if repo.example.com can be configured to refuse commits
containing secret-token URIs, it helps its customers avoid accidental
disclosures.
secret-token URIs are intended to aid in identification of generated
secrets like API keys and similar tokens. They are not intended for
use in controlled situations where ephemeral tokens are used, such as
things ike CSRF tokens.
1.1. Notational 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.
This document uses ABNF [RFC5234], including by reference the
following rules: ALPHA, DIGIT. It also uses the pchar rule from
[RFC3986].
2. The secret-token URI scheme
The secret-token URI scheme identifies a token that is intended to be
a secret.
secret-token-URI = secret-token-scheme ":" token
secret-token-scheme = "secret-token"
token = 1*pchar
See [RFC3986], Section 3.3 for a definition of pchar. Disallowed
characters - including non-ASCII characters - MUST be encoded into
UTF-8 [RFC3629] and then percent-encoded ([RFC3986], Section 2.1).
When a token is both generated and presented for authentication, the
entire URI MUST be used, without changes.
For example, given the URI:
secret-token:E92FB7EB-D882-47A4-A265-A0B6135DC842%20foo
This string (character-for-character, case-sensitive) will both be
issued by the token authority, and required for later access.
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3. IANA Considerations
This document registers the following value in the URI Scheme
registry:
o Scheme name: secret-token
o Status: provisional
o Applications / protocols that use this scheme: none yet
o Contact: iesg@iesg.org
o Change Controller: IESG
o References: [this document]
4. Security Considerations
The token ABNF rule allows tokens as small as one character. This is
not recommended practice; applications should evaluate their
requirements for entropy and issue tokens correspondingly.
This URI scheme is intended to prevent accidental disclosure; it
cannot prevent intentional disclosure.
If it is difficult to correctly handle secret material, or unclear as
to what the appropriate handling is, users might choose to obfuscate
their secret tokens in order to evade detection (for example,
removing the URI scheme for storage). Clear guidelines and helpful
tools are good mitigations here.
5. References
5.1. 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>.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.
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Internet-Draft The secret-token URI Scheme November 2018
[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>.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.
[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>.
5.2. URIs
[1] https://github.com/mnot/I-D/labels/how-did-that-get-into-the-repo
[2] https://mnot.github.io/I-D/how-did-that-get-into-the-repo/
[3] https://github.com/mnot/I-D/commits/gh-pages/how-did-that-get-
into-the-repo
[4] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-how-did-that-
get-into-the-repo/
Author's Address
Mark Nottingham
Email: mnot@mnot.net
URI: https://www.mnot.net/
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