Operational Considerations for BRSKI Registrar
draft-richardson-anima-registrar-considerations-05
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (individual) | |
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| Authors | Michael Richardson , Wei Pan | ||
| Last updated | 2022-03-06 | ||
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draft-richardson-anima-registrar-considerations-05
Network Working Group M. Richardson
Internet-Draft Sandelman Software Works
Intended status: Best Current Practice W. Pan
Expires: 7 September 2022 Huawei Technologies
6 March 2022
Operational Considerations for BRSKI Registrar
draft-richardson-anima-registrar-considerations-05
Abstract
This document describes a number of operational modes that a BRSKI
Registration Authority (Registrar) may take on.
Each mode is defined, and then each mode is given a relevance within
an over applicability of what kind of organization the Registrar is
deployed into. This document does not change any protocol
mechanisms.
This document includes operational advice about avoiding unwanted
consequences.
About This Document
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Status information for this document may be found at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-richardson-anima-registrar-
considerations/.
Discussion of this document takes place on the anima Working Group
mailing list (mailto:anima@ietf.org), which is archived at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/anima/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/mcr/registrar-operational-considerations.git.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 September 2022.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. Reference Network and Diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.1. Tier-1 Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.2. Enterprise Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2.3. Home Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3. Internal architectural view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.1. Pledge Interface (Southbound Interface) . . . . . . . 6
1.3.2. MASA client (Northbound Interface) . . . . . . . . . 7
1.3.3. Join Proxy (Southbound Interface) . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.4. EST and BRSKI GRASP announcements . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3.5. Certification Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3.6. Management Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2. Connecting the Autonomic Control Plane to the Network
Operations Center (NOC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3. Public Key Infrastructure Recommendations for the
Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1. PKI recommendations for Tier-1/ISP Networks . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Enterprise Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3. Home Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4. Architecture Considerations for the Registrar . . . . . . . . 13
4.1. Completely Synchronous Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2. Partially Synchronous Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.3. Asynchronous Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. Certificates needed for the Registrar . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
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5.1. TLS Server Certificate for BRSKI-EST . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.2. TLS Client Certificate for BRSKI-MASA . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.2.1. Use of Publically Anchored TLS Client Certificate with
BRSKI-MASA connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.3. Certificate for signing of Voucher-Requests . . . . . . . 16
6. Autonomic Control Plane Addressing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8.1. Denial of Service Attacks against the Registrar . . . . . 18
8.2. Loss of Keys/Corruption of Infrastructure . . . . . . . . 18
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1. Introduction
[RFC8995] introduces a mechanism for new devices (called pledges) to
be onboarded into a network without intervention from an expert
operator.
A key aspect of this is that there has to be a thing for the pledge
to join! [RFC8995] refers to this thing as the "Domain", identified
technically by the "DomainID". The Registrar component embodies the
identity, membership and trust anchor of the domain. Membership in
the domain is proven by possession of a valid Local DeviceID, a form
of [ieee802-1AR] certificate.
The Registrar is the component that implements the domain,
authorizing new devices (pledges) to join. Proper and efficient
operation of the Registrar is key aspect for the Autonomic
mechanisms, and for enabling secure onboarding.
This document provides implementation, deployment and operational
guidance for the BRSKI Registrar.
There are however several classes of operator of a local domain: ISP
and large managed multi-side Enterprises are the primary target for
this document. Medium sized single site Enterprises and Industrial
Plant users are a secondary target for this document. Unmanaged
small enterprises and home users are addressed in a separate section
at the end as special case.
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This document first introduces the different scales of deployment as
a reference for further discussion and contrasts, and then provides
analyses some consequences of architectural choices that may be
appropriate for different scales of deployments.
The document includes security best practices for the management of
the certificates and the certification authorities.
1.1. Terminology
Although this document is not an IETF Standards Track publication, it
adopts the conventions for normative language to provide clarity of
instructions to the implementer. 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.
1.2. Reference Network and Diagrams
In order to deal with the full complexity and generality of
operations, the reference network described herein is a bit more
complicated than many networks actually are.
XXX-some of these diagrams as more complex than the document
currently justifies.
1.2.1. Tier-1 Network
In this guide one target is a world-wide Tier-1 ISP. It has three
network operations centers (NOC), the two major ones in Frankfurt and
Denver, with an secondary center located in Perth, Australia. The
exact location of these NOCs is not important: the locations have
been chosen to have an hour overlap in their 8-6 daytime shift,
typical of world-wide operations. This overlap is also not
important, it just adds a degree of realism to this discussion. The
use of actual names makes subsequent discussion about failures
easier.
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.---------. .------.
| Denver | | NYC |
.----|---------|---|router|-. .-----------.
/ | NOC/JRC | '------' \ | Frankfurt |
' '---------' '|-----------|
.---------. | NOC/JRC |
| SanJose | '-----------'
| router | .
'---------' /
| /
| /
.-----------. /
| Perth | .-------. /
|-----------| | Tokyo | /
| NOC/EST |--------------|router |-----'
| | '-------'
'-----------'
Figure 1: Reference Tier-1 ISP network
1.2.2. Enterprise Network
A second target is a medium Enterprise that has a single (probably
on-premise) data center. The Enterprise has Information Technology
(IT) operations that include the routers and systems supporting it's
office staff in it's buildings. It has Building Operations which
integrates the IoT devices found in the buildings that it owns, and
it has Operations Technology (OT) that manages the automated systems
in it's on-site manufacturing facilities.
.-------------.
| Data Center |
.----|-------------|------.
/ | NOC/JRC | \
/ '-------------' \
/ \
/ \
/ \
.--------------. .-------------.
| Office Staff | | building |
| routers | | automation |
| switches | | IoT |
| servers | | sensors |
'--------------' '-------------'
Figure 2: Reference Enterprise network
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1.2.3. Home Network
A third target is a resident with a single CPE device. The home
owner has a few medium sized devices (a home NAS) as well as a few
IoT devices (light bulbs, clothes washing machine).
1.3. Internal architectural view
A Registrar will have four major interfaces, connected together by a
common database.
.------------.
| MASA |
| Interface |
| BRSKI-MASA |
'------------'
^
|
.------------. | .---------------.
| management | .----------. | certification |
| interface |<---| database |----->| authority |
'------------' '----------' '---------------'
|
|
v
.------------. .-----------. .------------.
| Join Proxy | | Pledge |--. | EST/BRSKI |
|------------| | Interface | | |------------|
| GRASP | | BRSKI-EST |e | | GRASP |
| (DULL) | '-----------'T | '------------'
'------------' '-----------'
Figure 3: Reference Internal Architecture for Registrar
1.3.1. Pledge Interface (Southbound Interface)
The pledge interface is the southbound interface. This interface
runs the BRSKI-EST protocol. This interface faces into the
operator's network, receiving requests from devices to join the
network.
For [RFC8995] use, the pledge interface is an HTTPS interface. Due
to the use of provinsional trust state in the BRSKI-EST interface the
pledge never verifies the contents of the TLS server certificate. As
a result, the registrar may run on arbitrary port numbers. The
voucher pins the associated certificate, so the Registrar does not
need to have any specific (subjectAltName) dnsName.
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When a constrained onboarding mechanism is supported via
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher], then CoAP is used.
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy] describes a mechanism to
provide a stateless proxy of CoAPS connections, in which case DTLS
traffic will be proxied by the Join Proxy to the port that the
Registrar announces via GRASP within the ACP. In this case, then
there is DTLS layer below the CoAP layer.
[RFC9031] describes a proxy mechanism that can be used with
[I-D.selander-ace-ake-authz] to pass CoAP traffic. In this case,
depending upon the chosen AKE, the key agreement protocol would be
above CoAP.
[I-D.richardson-anima-state-for-joinrouter] offers some additional
mechanisms, one of which involves dynamically created IPIP tunnels.
If these mechanisms are in use, then the southbound interface would
need to support these options as well.
The Pledge Interface requires a TLS ServerCertificate, and
Section 5.1 discusses option for creating this certificate.
The Pledge Inteface does not require a public IP address, nor does it
have have to run on port 443. The address and port of the Pledge
interface to the Registrar is advertised by the Registrar using
GRASP, according to [RFC8995] section 4.1.1. The service may run on
any available port. The HTTPS, CoAP and CoAPS port numbers do not
need to be coordinated.
In an ACP application ([RFC8994]), the Pledge Interface SHOULD have
an IPv6 Unique Local Address (ULA) address from the prefix allocated
to the ACP. Section 2 provides some options for how the Pledge
Interface can be best connected to the ACP.
Outside of the ACP context, running the Pledge interface on an IP
address that has a FQDN that resolves to that IP address (if only
internally), and operating it on port 443 may have operational
advantages. The Registrar may have additional management functions,
it may also serve as an EST end point for certificate renewal, and
[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-cloud] proposes a mechanism to bootstrap
devices which are not connected by a convex ACP, or no ACP. The
Registrar may be accessible via multiple interfaces.
1.3.2. MASA client (Northbound Interface)
The MASA client interface connects outward to the Internet to speak
to the Manufacturer Authorized Signing Authority (MASA). This is a
TLS Client interface.
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Use of a TLSClientCertificate is RECOMMENDED as this may be the best
way for a manufacturer to identify clients. Section 5.2 discusses
options for signing this certificate.
The MASA client interface is outgoing only and does not require any
special connectivity. It may be placed behind a typical enterprise
or residential NAT44 gateway. IPv6 connectivity is RECOMMENDED. It
does need access to DNS, and the DNS lookups SHOULD be validated with
DNSSEC.
The MASA client interface will need to validate the server
certificates of the MASA, and to do this it will need access to the
common public WebPKI ([WebPKI]) trust anchors to validate the MASA.
The MASA client MAY also require access to a database of pinned
certificates to validate specific manufacturers as called out for in
[RFC8995] section 2.8 and section 5.4.
1.3.3. Join Proxy (Southbound Interface)
In the ACP context, the Registrar is expected to have a Join Proxy
operating on the Southbound Interface in order to announce the
existence of the Registrar to the local network, for the benefit of
directly connected devices. This permits the systems on the LAN in
the NOC itself to autonomically join the domain.
The Join Proxy MAY announce the IP address (ULA) and port of the
actual Pledge Interface, rather than announcing a link-local address
and then performing a proxy operation.
1.3.4. EST and BRSKI GRASP announcements
As specified in [RFC8995] section 4.3, in an ACP context, the
Registrar MUST announce itself inside the ACP using GRASP. The
Registrar MUST incorporate enough of a GRASP daemon in order to
perform the M_FLOOD announcements.
As specified in [RFC8995] section 6.1.2, in an ACP context, if the
Registrar will also be providing for renewal of certificates using
EST, then it SHOULD announce itself inside the ACP using GRASP. See
[RFC8994] section 6.1.5.1 for details. Unless made impossible due to
loading concerns, it is RECOMMENDED that all Registrar instances
offer certificate renewal services in this fashion.
The use of [RFC8739] Short-Term Automatically-Renewed Certificates is
RECOMMENDED. This mandates that the EST server be highly available.
If STAR-style renewals are not used, then the Certification Authority
will need to make OCSP or CRL Distribution points available.
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1.3.5. Certification Authority
If the Enterprise/ISP has an existing certification authority system
that it wishes to use, then an interface to it has to be enabled.
This may run protocols like EST, CMP or ACME.
Smaller Enterprises and Residential uses of BRSKI are encouraged to
use an internal (private) certification authority. See Section 3 for
a discussion of securing this CA.
1.3.6. Management Interface
The Registrar will require a management interface. As is the trend,
this will often be a web-based single page application using AJAX API
calls to perform communications. This interface SHOULD be made
available on the Southbound NOC interface only, and it MUST be on a
different IP address and port number then the BRSKI-EST interface.
It should be secured with HTTPS, and use of a public ([WebPKI])
anchor is reasonable as it may be that the internal certification
authority may be unavailable or require maintenance.
An entirely separate process is justified with the only connection to
the other procesess being the database. (This does not mean it can
not share code modules)
2. Connecting the Autonomic Control Plane to the Network Operations
Center (NOC)
[RFC8994] section 8.1 describes a mechanism to connect non-ACP
capable systems to the ACP. The use of this mechanism is critical to
incremental deployment of ANIMA and BRSKI in operators.
The deployment of BRSKI capable equipment would ideally occur in an
outward wave, a concentric ring, from the NOC.
(EDNOTE: INSERT DIAGRAMS)
This would start by an upgrade of the router that connects the NOC to
the production network. This device needs to support the ACP connect
functionality.
It is possible, but beyond the scope of this document, to do initial
connectivity of the ACP and of multiple NOCs by manually configured
IPsec tunnels. This is likely an important step for incremental
initial deployment.
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The Registrar described in the next section either needs to be
connected via one of the above mentioned tunnels, or it must be
located on a network with ACP Connect, or it must itself be part of
an automatically configured ACP. It is quite reasonable for the
Registrar to be part of a larger appliance that also includes an ACP
Connect functionality.
3. Public Key Infrastructure Recommendations for the Registrar
The Registrar requires access to, or must contain a Certification
Authority (CA).
This section deals with the situation where the CA is provided
internally. [I-D.ietf-acme-integrations] deals with the case where
the CA is provided by an external service, and the CA trust anchors
are public. These use ACME ([RFC8555]) is used as the interface.
That is out of scope for this document.
There are also a number of commercial offerings where a private CA is
operated by an external entity using a wide variety of protocols,
including proprietary ones. Those are also out of scope for this
document.
The requirements for the PKI depends upon what kind of network is
being managed.
3.1. PKI recommendations for Tier-1/ISP Networks
A three-tier PKI infrastructure is appropriate for an ISP. This
entails having a root CA created with the key kept offline, and a
number of intermediate CAs that have online keys that issue "day-to-
day" certificates.
Whether the root private key is secured by applying secret-splitting,
and then storing the results on multiple USBs key kept in multiple
safes, or via Hardware Security Module is a local decision informed
by best current practices.
The root CA is then used to sign a number of intermediate entities:
this will include an intermediate CA for the Registrar that is
deployed into each redundant NOC location. Multiple intermediate CAs
with a common root provides significantly more security and
operational flexibility than attempts to share a private key among
locations.
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While the root CA should have a longevity of at least 5 years, after
which it can be re-signed rather than re-generated. (Resigning an
existing key might not require replacement of trust anchors on all
devices)
The intermediate CA keys need only have a 1-2 year duration, and
before the end of their lifetime, a new private key should be
generated and replace the old one.
Shorter periods are possible, but until there is more experience with
them, not recommended. The intermediate CA key should be regenerated
because the intermediate CA private key will need to be online,
available to the Registrar CA system. There are many more
opportunities for the key to leak, such as into backups.
The intermediate CA is then used to sign End-Entity certificates
which are returned as part of the BRSKI-EST mechanism.
The Registrar needs both of client and server certificates for it's
BRSKI-EST and BRSKI-MASA connections. It is recommended that an
additional intermediate CA can be created for manually issued
certificates such as these. This intermediate CA could be called the
NOC Infrastructure CA, and could be used to issue certificates for
all manner of infrastructure such as web-based monitoring tools. The
private root CA certificate should be installed into the browsers of
NOC personnel.
The document [I-D.moskowitz-ecdsa-pki] provides some practical
instructions on setting up this kind of system. This document
recommends the use of ECDSA keys for the root and intermediate CAs,
but there may be operational reasons why an RSA intermediate CA will
be required for some legacy equipment.
3.2. Enterprise Network
Enterprises that have multiple Network Operations Center should
consider the recommendations above for an ISP.
This section applies to Enterprises that have all NOC operations/
personel into a single location, which is probably on-premise data
center. This is not a hard rule for scaling, but the intent is that
physical security for the ACP Connect network is rather easy, that
only a single legal jurisdiction will apply, and that it is possible
to get people together easily to do things like resign keys.
A three-tier PKI infrastructure is still recommended for the reason
that it provides operational continuity options not available with a
two-level system. The recommendation is to have a root CA mechanism
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installed on a Virtual Machine which is not connected to a network.
The root CA private key is kept offline, secret split among a number
of USB keys, kept in the possession of key personnel.
The secret split should have at least five components, of which at
least three are required to reconstruct the key. See
[I-D.hallambaker-mesh-udf] section 4.5 for one such mechanism, there
are many others, and there are no interoperability requirements for
the secret split.
The essential point is that the Enterprise is able to recover the
root CA key even without some number of personnel and is able to
continue operating it's network.
As in the ISP case, the intermediate CA is then used to sign End-
Entity certificates which are returned as part of the BRSKI-EST
mechanism. One intermediate CA key suffices as there is only one NOC
location with a Registrar. Incidental certificates for internal
operations (such as internal web servers, email servers, etc.), and
for the BRSKI-EST server certificate can be done with this single
intermediate CA.
The BRSKI-MASA TLS Client Certificate key for an enterprise may not
be needed; it depends upon the policies of the manufacturers which
are involved. It may be simpler to use a certificate produced by a
public CA (such as LetsEncrypt), as this makes it easier for
manufacturers to validate the provided certificate.
The document [I-D.moskowitz-ecdsa-pki] provides some practical
instructions on setting up this kind of system. This document
recommends the use of ECDSA keys for the root and intermediate CAs.
In an Enterprise, there are likely many more legacy devices that
might need to become involved in the secure domain. It is
recommended that an RSA root and intermediate CA be more strongly
considered.
3.3. Home Network
Home networks and small offices that use residential class equipment
are the most challenging situation. The three-tier PKI architecture
is not justified because the ability to keep the root CA offline has
no operational value.
The home network registrar should be initialized with a single key
pair used as the certification authority.
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Secret splitting is useful in order to save the generated key with a
few neighbours. It is recommended that the entire PKI system
database (including CA private key) be encrypted with a symmetric key
and the results made available regularly for download to a variety of
devices. The symmetric key is split among the neighbours.
The most difficult part of the Home Network PKI and Registrar is
where to locate it. Generally it should be located on a device that
is fully owned by the home user. This is sometimes the Home Router,
but in a lot of situations the Home Router is the ISP's CPE router.
If the home has a Network Attached Storage (NAS) system, then running
it there is probably better.
A compromise for CPE devices owned by the ISP that can run containers
is for the Registrar to be located on detachable storage that is
inserted into the CPE. The detachable storage is owned by the home
owner, and can be removed from the CPE device if it is replaced.
More experience will be necessary in order to determine if this is a
workable solution.
4. Architecture Considerations for the Registrar
There are a number of ways to scale the Registrar. Web framework
three-tier mechanisms are the most obvious. See [threetier] for an
overview. This architecture is very familiar and can work well for a
Registrar. There are a few small issues that need to be addressed
relating to the TLS connections.
The BRSKI-EST connection uses TLS Client Certificate information, so
it is necessary for the presentation tier to pass the entire
certificate through to the application layer. The presentation tier
MUST accept all Client Certificates, many of which might it might not
have anchors for. Many n-tier systems provide for non-standard ways
to transmit the client certificate from presentation layer to
application layer, but [I-D.bdc-something-something-certificate] also
intends to provide a standards track mechanism.
In addition, the Registrar Voucher-Request MUST be signed using the
same key pair that is used to terminate the TLS connection, so the
application layer will need access to the same keypair that the
presentation tier uses. This can be operationally challenging if the
presentation tier is provided by a hardware-based TLS load balancer.
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For this reason, an alternate architecture where the front-end load
balancer provides TCP level load balancing, leaving the TLS
operations to software TLS implementations in the application layer
may be simpler to build. Given that the Registrar is an inward
facing system, and is not subject to the Internet-scale loads typical
of "Black Friday" web system, the same kind of extreme scaling is not
necessary.
The BRSKI-EST flow includes a back-end call to the BRSKI-MASA flow.
That is, during the BRSKI-EST /voucherrequest call, a voucher will
need to be fetched from the MASA using a BRSKI-MASA connection.
There are three ways to do this.
4.1. Completely Synchronous Registrar
In this simplest version the Registrar operates as a single thread,
processing the voucher-request from the Pledge, and then starting a
BRSKI-MASA client session, while the connection from the Pledge
waits.
This flow is very simple to implement, but requires an entire
processing thread to block while the BRSKI-MASA protocol executes.
The Pledge may timeout on this request, disconnect and retry.
Experience so far is that typical default timeouts work fine.
It is recommended that the voucher-request be recorded in a database,
and if a corresponding fresh voucher is also found in the database,
that it be returned rather than fetching a new voucher from the MASA.
This accomodates the situation where the Pledge did timeout, but the
BRSKI-MASA protocol did complete. This results in the Pledge
receiving the voucher upon retrying without having to go through the
process of getting a new voucher. This only works if the Pledge
retries with the same Nonce each time.
4.2. Partially Synchronous Registrar
A slightly more complicated version is for the Registrar to look in a
database for a matching voucher-request, and if none is found, to
return a 202 code upon the voucher-request, asking the Pledge to
retry.
In the meantime the BRSKI-MASA connection can be performed, and the
resulting voucher stored in a database. The connection can be done
in the same thread that just deferred the connection, or in another
thread kicked off for this purpose.
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4.3. Asynchronous Registrar
In the completely asynchronous architecture, things work as with the
Partially Synchronous version. The voucher request is placed into a
database as before.
A completely separate system, probably with different network
connectivity, but connected to the same database, performs the BRSKI-
MASA processing, then fills the database with the answer.
This version may have a noticeably higher latency as it requires a
database operation and a database trigger to invoke the process.
This architecture has the advantage, however, that the internal
facing Registrar never connects to the Internet. Furthermore, the
number of internal facing Registrar instances can be tuned
independently from the number of outward facing clients. This may be
an advantage for networks that need to deal with a high number of
malicious or lost internal clients.
5. Certificates needed for the Registrar
In addition to hosting a PKI root, the Registrar needs several other
key pairs. They are:
5.1. TLS Server Certificate for BRSKI-EST
A certificate to be used to answer TLS connections from new devices
(pledges). This must be of a type that expected pledges can
understand. Returning an RSA key to a client that can validate only
ECDSA chains is a problem. The constrained IoT ecosystem prefers
ECDSA, and often does not have code that can verify RSA. Meanwhile,
older FIPS-140 validated libraries present in many router operating
systems support only RSA!
The recommendation is to use ECDSA keys, with a sensitiviity to when
a majority of systems might support EdDSA. There are well
established mechanisms in most TLS server libraries to permit
multiple certificates to be loaded and to return an appropriate key
based upon the client capabilities. This should be used.
The certificate used for the BRSKI-EST end point is not validated by
the BRSKI pledge using public trust anchors, but rather it is pinned
by the [RFC8366] voucher. As such it can come from the private CA,
as recommended above: either signed by a specific intermediate CA or
via a root CA as appropriate for the environment.
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5.2. TLS Client Certificate for BRSKI-MASA
A certificate may optionally be used for authentication of the
Registrar to the MASA. It is recommended to always include one.
It can be the same certificate used by TLS Server Certificate above,
and this is most appropriate in small Registrars which are not
distributed, such as ones aimed as Residential/Home networks.
In larger, distributed Registrars, cryptographic hygiene dictates
that the private key not be distributed, so a unique certificate per
Registrar client is appropriate. They should all be signed by the
same intermediate CA, with the intermediate and root CA certificates
being supplied in the TLS connection.
5.2.1. Use of Publically Anchored TLS Client Certificate with BRSKI-
MASA connection
The use TLS Client Certificate which has a public anchor (such as
from LetsEncrypt) has an advantage that is makes it easier for the
MASA to reject malicious clients.
If the Registrar is not using a supply chain integration that
includes the MASA being aware of the cryptographic identity of the
Registrar, then the use of a publically anchored certificate is
RECOMMENDED.
5.3. Certificate for signing of Voucher-Requests
As part of the BRSKI voucher-request process the Pledge's Voucher-
Request is wrapped by the Registrar in another voucher-request and
signed. It is this certificate which pinned by MASA to validate the
connection.
The certificate used to sign the (parboiled) voucher-request MUST be
the same as the one that is used for the TLS Server Connection. This
implies that the signed voucher-request MUST be constructed on the
same machine that terminates the BRSKI-EST connection.
6. Autonomic Control Plane Addressing
In the Enterprise and ISP use cases, the creation of an [RFC8994]
Autonomic Control Plane is assumed. (The use of an ACP for the Home
Network of IoT devices is considered unnecessary due to HNCP)
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In these context the certificates which are returned by the Registrar
MUST contain a unique IPv6 ULA address. [RFC8994] section 6.10
outlines several addressing schemes for the ULA addresses. The use
of the ACP Vlong Addressing Sub-Scheme (6.10.5) is recommended as it
provides the most flexibility for devices.
The use of this mode limits the number of nodes in the network to
between 32768 and 8 Million. 32K routers in an ISP network seems like
quite a lot already, but use of F=0 addresses provides for up to 8
Million devices, each with 256 management end points.
It should be noted that a mix of F=0 and F=1 addresses may be used,
but the BRSKI protocol does not directly provide a way to negotiated
this. This could be done as part of the Certificate Signing Request:
the device could decide which kind of address to ask for by changing
the address that it asks for, but this is non-standardized and may
not work.
A network manager that saw that a device was running out of F=0
space, that is if 256 addresses was not enough for a device, could
allocate an F=1 address in a management interface. At the next
certificate renewal (which could be forced by a management action),
then a new certificate would be issues with the larger address space.
256 addresses for a single device may seem like a lot, but it is
increasing the case that routers may have a large number of
virtualized functions within and each may reasonably need to be
separately connected to it's SDN controller.
7. Privacy Considerations
Section 10.2 of [RFC8995] details a number of things that are
revealed by the BRSKI-EST protocol. A multi-location Registrar with
different TLS Server Certificates will have a different privacy
profile than a Registrar that uses only a single certificate.
Section 10.3 of [RFC8995] details what is revealed by the BRSKI-MASA
protocol. The operational recommendations of this document do not
affect or mitigate things at all.
8. Security Considerations
Section 11 of [RFC8995] does not deal with any attacks against the
Registrar, as the Registrar is considered to be an internally facing
system.
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In the context of the Autonomic Control Plane ([RFC8995] section 9,
and [RFC8994]) it is expected that the majority of equipment attached
to a network are connected by wired ethernet. The opportunity for a
massive attack against the Registrar is considered low in an ISP, or
multi-side Enterprise backbone network.
8.1. Denial of Service Attacks against the Registrar
However, there are some exposures which need to be taken into
account, particular in the Enterprise or Institutional Campus
network: typically these networks have large number of access ports,
one for each desktop system. Those systems can be infected with
Malware, or may be located in student computer labs physically
accessible with minimal authorization. While an attack on the
Registrar might be part of some kind of student protest, an attack by
malware seems more likely.
The different architectures proposed in Section 4 of this document
provides some recommendations on differing scales. The use of a
fully asynchronous design is recommended for Enterprise uses of BRSKI
where there may be a large number of IoT devices that are expected to
onboard. The ability to scale the BRSKI-EST Pledge Interface without
having the scale the rest of the system provides for resiliency of
the Registrary.
It bears repeating that the use of of a stateless technology in the
Join Proxy moves the load due to attacking systems from the Join
Proxy into the Registrar. This increases the network bandwidth
required from the Join Proxy to the Registrar with the benefit of
simplifying the Join Proxy.
This is an intentional design decision to centralize the impact into
the purpose built Registrar system(s).
8.2. Loss of Keys/Corruption of Infrastructure
In Home/Residential Network ("homenet") uses of [RFC8995] the biggest
risk is likely that of loss of the Registrar's key pairs. That is,
accidental loss of the private key is more likely than loss to a
malicious entity that steals them with intent to cause damage.
This can be due to failure to backup the database followed by a CPE
device failure, but the case where a CPE device is simply thrown away
to be replaced by an uninformed technician or household member is
probably the most likely situation.
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This situation results in loss of control for all devices in the
home, and much frustration from the home owner who has to go through
an onboarding process for all the devices. The use of a standardized
onboarding protocol significantly mitigates the hassle; the current
"state of the art" proccess involves a series of appliance-specific
smartphone applications, which may or not not actually work on more
recent devices.
This is why the focus on saving of the database along with a secret
splitting process to secure it. At present there is no cross-vendor
format for this database, so the saved data is only useable with a
Registrar from the same vendor. So this protects against device
failure, where it is replaced by an identical device or an upward
compatible device from the same manufacturer, but not against changes
of vendor.
9. IANA Considerations
This document makes no IANA allocations.
10. Acknowledgements
Your name here.
11. Changelog
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-acme-star]
Sheffer, Y., Lopez, D., Dios, O. G. D., Perales, A. A. P.,
and T. Fossati, "Support for Short-Term, Automatically
Renewed (STAR) Certificates in the Automated Certificate
Management Environment (ACME)", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-acme-star-11, 24 October 2019,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-acme-star-
11.txt>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher]
Richardson, M., Stok, P. V. D., Kampanakis, P., and E.
Dijk, "Constrained Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key
Infrastructure (BRSKI)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-anima-constrained-voucher-16, 14 February 2022,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-anima-
constrained-voucher-16.txt>.
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[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>.
[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>.
[RFC8366] Watsen, K., Richardson, M., Pritikin, M., and T. Eckert,
"A Voucher Artifact for Bootstrapping Protocols",
RFC 8366, DOI 10.17487/RFC8366, May 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8366>.
[RFC8994] Eckert, T., Ed., Behringer, M., Ed., and S. Bjarnason, "An
Autonomic Control Plane (ACP)", RFC 8994,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8994, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8994>.
[RFC8995] Pritikin, M., Richardson, M., Eckert, T., Behringer, M.,
and K. Watsen, "Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key
Infrastructure (BRSKI)", RFC 8995, DOI 10.17487/RFC8995,
May 2021, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8995>.
12.2. Informative References
[I-D.bdc-something-something-certificate]
Campbell, B., "Client-Cert HTTP Header: Conveying Client
Certificate Information from TLS Terminating Reverse
Proxies to Origin Server Applications", Work in Progress,
Internet-Draft, draft-bdc-something-something-certificate-
05, 23 March 2021, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-
bdc-something-something-certificate-05.txt>.
[I-D.friel-acme-integrations]
Friel, O., Barnes, R., and R. Shekh-Yusef, "ACME
Integrations", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
friel-acme-integrations-02, 24 October 2019,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-friel-acme-
integrations-02.txt>.
[I-D.hallambaker-mesh-udf]
Hallam-Baker, P., "Mathematical Mesh 3.0 Part II: Uniform
Data Fingerprint.", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-hallambaker-mesh-udf-15, 25 October 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-hallambaker-mesh-
udf-15.txt>.
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[I-D.ietf-acme-integrations]
Friel, O., Barnes, R., Shekh-Yusef, R., and M. Richardson,
"ACME Integrations", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft,
draft-ietf-acme-integrations-06, 17 December 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-acme-
integrations-06.txt>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-cloud]
Friel, O., Shekh-Yusef, R., and M. Richardson, "BRSKI
Cloud Registrar", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
ietf-anima-brski-cloud-03, 6 March 2022,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-anima-brski-
cloud-03.txt>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy]
Richardson, M., Stok, P. V. D., and P. Kampanakis,
"Constrained Join Proxy for Bootstrapping Protocols", Work
in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-constrained-
join-proxy-06, 3 December 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-anima-
constrained-join-proxy-06.txt>.
[I-D.moskowitz-ecdsa-pki]
Moskowitz, R., Birkholz, H., Xia, L., and M. C.
Richardson, "Guide for building an ECC pki", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-moskowitz-ecdsa-pki-10, 31
January 2021, <https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-
moskowitz-ecdsa-pki-10.txt>.
[I-D.richardson-anima-state-for-joinrouter]
Richardson, M. C., "Considerations for stateful vs
stateless join router in ANIMA bootstrap", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-richardson-anima-state-
for-joinrouter-03, 22 September 2020,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-richardson-anima-
state-for-joinrouter-03.txt>.
[I-D.selander-ace-ake-authz]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J. P., Vučinić, M., Richardson,
M., and A. Schellenbaum, "Lightweight Authorization for
Authenticated Key Exchange.", Work in Progress, Internet-
Draft, draft-selander-ace-ake-authz-04, 22 October 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-selander-ace-ake-
authz-04.txt>.
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[ieee802-1AR]
IEEE Standard, ., "IEEE 802.1AR Secure Device Identifier",
2009, <http://standards.ieee.org/findstds/
standard/802.1AR-2009.html>.
[RFC7030] Pritikin, M., Ed., Yee, P., Ed., and D. Harkins, Ed.,
"Enrollment over Secure Transport", RFC 7030,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7030, October 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7030>.
[RFC8555] Barnes, R., Hoffman-Andrews, J., McCarney, D., and J.
Kasten, "Automatic Certificate Management Environment
(ACME)", RFC 8555, DOI 10.17487/RFC8555, March 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8555>.
[RFC8739] Sheffer, Y., Lopez, D., Gonzalez de Dios, O., Pastor
Perales, A., and T. Fossati, "Support for Short-Term,
Automatically Renewed (STAR) Certificates in the Automated
Certificate Management Environment (ACME)", RFC 8739,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8739, March 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8739>.
[RFC9031] Vučinić, M., Ed., Simon, J., Pister, K., and M.
Richardson, "Constrained Join Protocol (CoJP) for 6TiSCH",
RFC 9031, DOI 10.17487/RFC9031, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9031>.
[threetier]
Wikipedia, "Multitier architecture", December 2019,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitier_architecture>.
[WebPKI] CA/Browser Forum, ., "CA/Browser Forum Baseline
Requirements for the Issuance and Management of Publicly-
Trusted Certificates, v.1.2.2", October 2014,
<https://cabforum.org/wp-content/uploads/BRv1.2.2.pdf>.
Authors' Addresses
Michael Richardson
Sandelman Software Works
Email: mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca
Wei Pan
Huawei Technologies
Email: william.panwei@huawei.com
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