DKIM E. Allman
Internet-Draft Sendmail, Inc.
Expires: April 26, 2006 J. Callas
PGP Corporation
M. Delany
M. Libbey
Yahoo! Inc
J. Fenton
M. Thomas
Cisco Systems, Inc.
October 23, 2005
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
draft-allman-dkim-base-01
Status of this Memo
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
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have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
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This Internet-Draft will expire on April 26, 2006.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) defines a domain-level
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authentication framework for email using public-key cryptography and
key server technology to permit verification of the source and
contents of messages by either Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) or Mail
User Agents (MUAs). The ultimate goal of this framework is to permit
a signing domain to assert responsibility for a message, thus proving
and protecting message sender identity and the integrity of the
messages they convey while retaining the functionality of Internet
email as it is known today. Proof and protection of email identity,
including repudiation and non-repudiation, may assist in the global
control of "spam" and "phishing".
Requirements Language
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].
(Unresolved Issues/To Be Done)
Security Considerations needs further work.
Need to add new and check existing ABNF.
Need to resolve remaining cross references (XINDX and XREF).
Need to clean up or eliminate appendices.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1 Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 Signing Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Simple Key Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Terminology and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.1 Signers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Verifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 White Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Imported ABNF tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Protocol Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1 Selectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2 Tag=Value Format for DKIM header fields . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3 Signing and Verification Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.4 Canonicalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.5 The DKIM-Signature header field . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.6 The Authentication-Results header field . . . . . . . . . 21
3.7 Key Management and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.8 Computing the Message Hash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4. Semantics of Multiple Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5. Signer Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.1 Determine if the Email Should be Signed and by Whom . . . 25
5.2 Select a private-key and corresponding selector
information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
5.3 Normalize the Message to Prevent Transport Conversions . . 26
5.4 Determine the header fields to Sign . . . . . . . . . . . 27
5.5 Compute the Message Hash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5.6 Insert the DKIM-Signature header field . . . . . . . . . . 30
6. Verifier Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.2 Extract the Signature from the Message . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.3 Get the Public Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6.4 Compute the Verification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6.5 Apply Sender Signing Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.6 Interpret Results/Apply Local Policy . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7. Compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
9. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
9.1 Misuse of Body Length Limits ("l=" Tag) . . . . . . . . . 36
9.2 Misappropriated Private Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9.3 Key Server Denial-of-Service Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.4 Attacks Against DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
9.5 Replay Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.6 Limits on Revoking Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.7 Intentionally malformed Key Records . . . . . . . . . . . 39
9.8 Intentionally Malformed DKIM-Signature header fields . . . 40
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10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
10.1 References -- Normative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
10.2 References -- Informative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
A. Usage Examples (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
A.1 Simple message transfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
A.2 Outsourced business functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
A.3 PDAs and Similar Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A.4 Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A.5 Affinity Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
A.6 Third-party Message Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
B. Example of Use (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
B.1 The user composes an email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
B.2 The email is signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
B.3 The email signature is verified . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
C. Creating a public key (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
D. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
E. Edit History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
E.1 Changes since -00 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 51
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1. Introduction
1.1 Overview
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) defines a simple, low cost, and
effective mechanism by which email messages can be cryptographically
signed, permitting a signing domain to claim responsibility for the
use of a given email address. Message recipients can verify the
signature by querying the signer's domain directly to retrieve the
appropriate public key, and thereby confirm that the message was
attested to by a party in possession of the private key for the
signing domain.
The approach taken by DKIM differs from previous approaches to
message signing (e.g. S/MIME [RFC1847], OpenPGP [RFC2440]) in that:
o the message signature is written to the message header fields so
that neither human recipients nor existing MUA (Mail User Agent)
software are confused by signature-related content appearing in
the message body,
o there is no dependency on public and private key pairs being
issued by well-known, trusted certificate authorities,
o there is no dependency on the deployment of any new Internet
protocols or services for public key distribution or revocation,
o it makes no attempt to include encryption as part of the
mechanism.
DKIM:
o is transparent and compatible with the existing email
infrastructure
o requires minimal new infrastructure
o can be implemented independently of clients in order to reduce
deployment time
o does not require the use of a trusted third party (such as a
certificate authority or other entity) which might impose
significant costs or introduce delays to deployment
o can be deployed incrementally
o allows delegation of signing to third parties.
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A "selector" mechanism allows multiple keys per domain, including
delegation of the right to authenticate a portion of the namespace to
a trusted third party.
1.2 Signing Identity
DKIM separates the question of the signer of the message from the
purported author of the message. In particular, a signature includes
the identity of the signer. Recipients can use the signing
information to decide how they want to process the message.
INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: The signing address associated with a DKIM
signature is not required to match a particular header field
because of the broad methods of interpretation by recipient mail
systems, including MUAs.
1.3 Scalability
The email identification problem is characterized by extreme
scalability requirements. There are currently over 70 million
domains and a much larger number of individual addresses. It is
important to preserve the positive aspects of the current email
infrastructure, such as the ability for anyone to communicate with
anyone else without introduction.
1.4 Simple Key Management
DKIM differs from traditional hierarchical public-key systems in that
no key signing infrastructure is required; the verifier requests the
public key from the claimed signer directly.
The DNS is proposed as the initial mechanism for publishing public
keys. DKIM is designed to be extensible to other key fetching
services as they become available.
2. Terminology and Definitions
2.1 Signers
Elements in the mail system that sign messages are referred to as
signers. These may be MUAs (Mail User Agents), MSAs (Mail Submission
Agents), MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents), or other agents such as mailing
list exploders. In general any signer will be involved in the
injection of a message into the message system in some way. The key
issue is that a message must be signed before it leaves the
administrative domain of the signer.
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2.2 Verifiers
Elements in the mail system that verify signatures are referred to as
verifiers. These may be MTAs, Mail Delivery Agents (MDAs), or MUAs.
In most cases it is expected that verifiers will be close to an end
user (reader) of the message or some consuming agent such as a
mailing list exploder.
2.3 White Space
There are three forms of white space:
o WSP represents simple white space, i.e., a space or a tab
character, and is inherited from [RFC2822].
o SWSP is streaming white space; it adds the CR and LF characters.
o FWS, also from [RFC2822], is folding white space. It allows
multiple lines separated by CRLF followed by at least one white
space, to be joined.
Using the syntax of [RFC4234], the formal ABNF for SWSP is:
SWSP = CR / LF / WSP ; streaming white space
Other terminology is based on [ID-MAIL-ARCH].
2.4 Imported ABNF tokens
The following tokens are imported from other RFCs as noted. Those
RFCs should be considered definitive. However, all tokens having
names beginning with "obs-" should be excluded from this import.
The following tokens are imported from [RFC2821]:
o Local-part (implementation warning: this permits quoted strings)
o Domain (implementation warning: this permits address-literals)
o sub-domain
The following definitions are imported from [RFC2822]:
o WSP (space or tab)
o FWS (folding white space)
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o field-name (name of a header field)
Other tokens not defined herein are imported from [RFC4234]. These
are mostly intuitive primitives such as SP, ALPHA, CRLF, etc.
3. Protocol Elements
Protocol Elements are conceptual parts of the protocol that are not
specific to either signers or verifiers. The protocol descriptions
for signers and verifiers are described in later sections.
3.1 Selectors
To support multiple concurrent public keys per signing domain, the
key namespace is subdivided using "selectors". For example,
selectors might indicate the names of office locations (e.g.,
"sanfrancisco", "coolumbeach", and "reykjavik"), the signing date
(e.g., "january2005", "february2005", etc.), or even the individual
user.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTERS' NOTE: reusing a selector with a new key
(for example, changing the key associated with a user's name)
makes it impossible to tell the difference between a message that
didn't verify because the key is no longer valid versus a message
that is actually forged. Signers SHOULD NOT change the key
associated with a selector. When creating a new key, signers
SHOULD associate it with a new selector.
Selectors are needed to support some important use cases. For
example:
o Domains which want to delegate signing capability for a specific
address for a given duration to a partner, such as an advertising
provider or other outsourced function.
o Domains which want to allow frequent travelers to send messages
locally without the need to connect with a particular MSA.
o "Affinity" domains (e.g., college alumni associations) which
provide forwarding of incoming mail but which do not operate a
mail submission agent for outgoing mail.
Periods are allowed in selectors and are component separators. If
keys are stored in DNS, the period defines sub-domain boundaries.
Sub-selectors might be used to combine dates with locations; for
example, "march2005.reykjavik". This can be used to allow delegation
of a portion of the selector name-space.
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ABNF:
selector = sub-domain *( "." sub-domain )
The number of public keys and corresponding selectors for each domain
are determined by the domain owner. Many domain owners will be
satisfied with just one selector whereas administratively distributed
organizations may choose to manage disparate selectors and key pairs
in different regions or on different email servers.
Beyond administrative convenience, selectors make it possible to
seamlessly replace public keys on a routine basis. If a domain
wishes to change from using a public key associated with selector
"january2005" to a public key associated with selector
"february2005", it merely makes sure that both public keys are
advertised in the public-key repository concurrently for the
transition period during which email may be in transit prior to
verification. At the start of the transition period, the outbound
email servers are configured to sign with the "february2005" private-
key. At the end of the transition period, the "january2005" public
key is removed from the public-key repository.
While some domains may wish to make selector values well known,
others will want to take care not to allocate selector names in a way
that allows harvesting of data by outside parties. E.g., if per-user
keys are issued, the domain owner will need to make the decision as
to whether to make this selector associated directly with the user
name, or make it some unassociated random value, such as the
fingerprint of the public key.
3.2 Tag=Value Format for DKIM header fields
DKIM uses a simple "tag=value" syntax in several contexts, including
in messages, domain signature records, and policy records.
Values are a series of strings containing either base64 text, plain
text, or quoted printable text, as defined in [RFC2045], section 6.7.
The name of the tag will determine the encoding of each value.
Formally, the syntax rules are:
tag-list = tag-spec 0*( ";" tag-spec ) [ ";" ]
tag-spec = [FWS] tag-name [FWS] ?=? [FWS] tag-value [FWS]
tag-name = ALPHA 0*ALNUMPUNC
tag-value = *VALCHAR ; SWSP prohibited at beginning and end
VALCHAR = %9 / %d32 - %d58 / %d60 - %d126
; HTAB and SP to TILDE except SEMICOLON
ALNUMPUNC = ALPHA / DIGIT / "-"
; alphanumeric plus hyphen.
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Note that WSP is allowed anywhere around tags; in particular, WSP
between the tag-name and the "=", and any WSP before the terminating
";" is not part of the value.
Tags MUST be interpreted in a case-sensitive manner. Values MUST be
processed as case sensitive unless the specific tag description of
semantics specifies case insensitivity.
Duplicate tags MUST NOT be specified within a single tag-list.
Whitespace within a value MUST be retained unless explicitly excluded
by the specific tag description.
Tag=value pairs that represent the default value MAY be included to
aid legibility.
Unrecognized tags MUST be ignored.
Tags that have an empty value are not the same as omitted tags. An
omitted tag is treated as having the default value; a tag with an
empty value explicitly designates the empty string as the value. For
example, "g=" does not mean "g=*", even though "g=*" is the default
for that tag.
3.3 Signing and Verification Algorithms
DKIM supports multiple key signing/verification algorithms. The only
algorithm defined by this specification at this time is rsa-sha1,
which is the default if no algorithm is specified and which MUST be
supported by all implementations.
3.3.1 The rsa-sha1 Signing Algorithm
The rsa-sha1 Signing Algorithm computes a SHA-1 hash of the message
header field and body as described in section Section 3.8 below.
That hash is then encrypted by the signer using the RSA algorithm
(actually PKCS#1 version 1.5 [RFC3447]) and the signer's private key.
The hash MUST NOT be truncated or converted into any form other than
the native binary form before being signed.
More formally, the algorithm for the signature using rsa-sha1 is:
RSA(SHA1(canon_message || DKIM-SIG), key)
where canon_message is the canonicalized message header and body as
defined in Section 3.4 and DKIM-SIG is the canonicalized DKIM-
Signature header field sans the signature value itself.
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3.3.2 Other algorithms
Other algorithms MAY be defined in the future. Verifiers MUST ignore
any signatures using algorithms that they do not understand.
3.3.3 Key sizes
Selecting appropriate key sizes is a trade-off between cost,
performance and risk. All implementations MUST support keys of sizes
512, 768, 1024, 1536 and 2048 bits and MAY support larger keys.
Factors that should influence the key size choice include:
o The practical constraint that a 2048 bit key is the largest key
that fits within a 512 byte DNS UDP response packet
o The security constraint that keys smaller than 1024 bits are
subject to brute force attacks.
o Larger keys impose higher CPU costs to verify and sign email
o Keys can be replaced on a regular basis, thus their lifetime can
be relatively short
o The security goals of this specification are modest compared to
typical goals of public-key systems
3.4 Canonicalization
Empirical evidence demonstrates that some mail servers and relay
systems modify email in transit, potentially invalidating a
signature. There are two competing perspectives on such
modifications. For most signers, mild modification of email is
immaterial to the authentication status of the email. For such
signers a canonicalization algorithm that survives modest in-transit
modification is preferred.
Other signers however, demand that any modification of the email --
however minor -- results in an authentication failure. These signers
prefer a canonicalization algorithm that does not tolerate in-transit
modification of the signed email.
Some signers may be willing to accept modifications to headers that
are within the bounds of email standards such as [RFC2822], but are
unwilling to accept any modification to the body of messages.
To satisfy all requirements, two canonicalization algorithms are
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defined for each of the header and the body: a "simple" algorithm
that tolerates almost no modification and a "relaxed" algorithm that
tolerates common modifications such as white-space replacement and
header field line re-wrapping. A signer MAY specify either algorithm
for header or body when signing an email. If no canonicalization
algorithm is specified by the signer, the "simple" algorithm is used
for both header and body. A verifier MUST be able to process email
using either canonicalization algorithm. Further canonicalization
algorithms MAY be defined in the future; verifiers MUST ignore any
signatures that use unrecognized canonicalization algorithms.
In all cases, the header fields of the message are presented to the
signing algorithm first in the order indicated by the signature
header field and canonicalized using the indicated algorithm. Only
header fields listed as signed in the signature header field are
included. The CRLF separating the header field from the body is then
presented, followed by the canonicalized body. Note that the header
and body may use different canonicalization algorithms.
Canonicalization simply prepares the email for presentation to the
signing or verification algorithm. It MUST NOT change the
transmitted data in any way. Canonicalization of header fields and
body are described below.
3.4.1 The "simple" Header Field Canonicalization Algorithm
The "simple" header field canonicalization algorithm does not change
the header field in any way. Header fields MUST be presented to the
signing or verification algorithm exactly as they are in the message
being signed or verified. In particular, header names MUST NOT be
case folded.
3.4.2 The "relaxed" Header Field Canonicalization Algorithm
The "relaxed" header field canonicalization algorithm should apply
the following steps in order:
o Convert all header field names (not the header field values) to
lower case. For example, convert "SUBJect: AbC" to "subject:
AbC".
o Unwrap all header field continuation lines as described in
[RFC2822]; in particular, line terminators embedded in continued
header field values (that is, CRLF sequences followed by WSP) MUST
be interpreted without the CRLF. Implementations MUST NOT remove
the CRLF at the end of the header field value.
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o Convert all sequences of one or more WSP characters to a single SP
character. WSP characters here include those before and after a
line wrapping boundary.
o Delete all WSP characters at the end of each unwrapped header
field value.
o Delete any WSP character remaining after the colon separating the
header field name from the header field value. The colon
separator MUST be retained.
[NON-NORMATIVE DOCUMENTATION NOTE: The only difference between
"relaxed" header field canonicalization and "nowsp" listed in the
previous version of this draft is that nowsp reduces all strings
of white space to zero characters while "relaxed" reduces strings
of white space to one space.]
3.4.3 The "simple" Body Canonicalization Algorithm
The "simple" body canonicalization algorithm ignores all empty lines
at the end of the message body. An empty line is a line of zero
length after removal of the line terminator. It makes no other
changes to the message body.
3.4.4 The "relaxed" Body Canonicalization Algorithm
[[This section may be deleted; see discussion below.]] The "relaxed"
body canonicalization algorithm:
o Ignores all white space at the end of lines.
o Reduces all sequences of WSP within a line to a single SP
character.
o Ignores all empty lines at the end of the message body. "Empty
line" is defined in Section 3.4.3.
NON-NORMATIVE DISCUSSION: The authors are undecided whether to
leave the "relaxed" body canonicalization algorithm in to the
specification or delete it entirely. We believe that for the vast
majority of cases, the "simple" body canonicalization algorithm
should be sufficient. We simply do not have enough data to know
whether retain the "relaxed" body canonicalization algorithm or
not.
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3.4.5 Body Length Limits
A body length count MAY be specified to limit the signature
calculation to an initial prefix of the body text. If the body
length count is not specified then the entire message body is signed
and verified.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: The l= tag could be useful in
increasing signature robustness when sending to a mailing list
that both appends to content sent to it and does not sign its
messages. However, using the l= tag enables an attack in which a
sender with malicious intent modifies a message to include content
that solely benefits the attacker. It is possible for the
appended content to completely replace the original content in the
end recipient's eyes and to defeat duplicate message detection
algorithms. To avoid this attack, signers should be wary of using
this tag, and verifiers might wish to ignore the tag or remove
text that appears after the specified content length.
The body length count allows the signer of a message to permit data
to be appended to the end of the body of a signed message. The body
length count is made following the canonicalization algorithm; for
example, any white space ignored by a canonicalization algorithm is
not included as part of the body length count.
INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: This capability is provided because it is
very common for mailing lists to add trailers to messages (e.g.,
instructions how to get off the list). Until those messages are
also signed, the body length count is a useful tool for the
verifier since it MAY as a matter of policy accept messages having
valid signatures with extraneous data.
Signers of MIME messages that include a body length count SHOULD be
sure that the length extends to the closing MIME boundary string.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: A signer wishing to ensure that
the only acceptable modifications are to add to the MIME postlude
would use a body length count encompassing the entire final MIME
boundary string, including the final "--CRLF". A signer wishing
to allow additional MIME parts but not modification of existing
parts would use a body length count extending through the final
MIME boundary string, omitting the final "--CRLF".
A body length count of zero means that the body is completely
unsigned.
Note that verifiers MAY choose to reject or truncate messages that
have body content beyond that specified by the body length count.
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INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION ADVICE: Signers wishing to ensure that
no modification of any sort can occur SHOULD specify the "simple"
algorthm and no body length count.
Despite the measures described above, some messages, particularly
those containing 8-bit data, could be subject to modification in
transit invalidating the signature. Messages containing 8-bit data
SHOULD be converted to MIME format prior to signing, using a suitable
content transfer-encoding such as quoted-printable or base64. Such
conversion is outside the scope of DKIM; the actual message SHOULD be
converted to 7-bit MIME by an MUA or MSA prior to presentation to the
DKIM algorithm.
3.4.6 Example
Assuming a "c=relaxed/relaxed" canonification algorithm,
INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE: A message reading:
A: <SP> X <CRLF>
B: <SP> Y <CRLF>
<SP> Z <CRLF>
<CRLF>
<SP> C <SP><CRLF>
D <SP><TAB><SP> E <CRLF>
when canonicalized using "relaxed" for both header and body
results in:
a:X<CRLF>
b:Y<SP>Z<CRLF>
<CRLF>
<SP>C<CRLF>
D<SP>E<CRLF>
3.5 The DKIM-Signature header field
The signature of the email is stored in the "DKIM-Signature:" header
field. This header field contains all of the signature and key-
fetching data. The DKIM-Signature value is a tag-list as described
in Section 3.2.
The "DKIM-Signature:" header field SHOULD be treated as though it
were a trace header field as defined in section 3.6 of [RFC2822], and
hence SHOULD NOT be reordered and SHOULD be kept in blocks prepended
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to the message. In particular, the "DKIM-Signature" header field
SHOULD precede the original email header fields presented to the
canonicalization and signature algorithms.
The "DKIM-Signature:" header field is included in the signature
calculation, after the body of the message; however, when calculating
or verifying the signature, the b= (signature value) value MUST be
treated as though it were the null string. Unknown tags MUST be
signed but MUST be otherwise ignored by verifiers.
The encodings for each field type are listed below. Tags described
as quoted-printable are as described in section 6.7 of [RFC2045],
with the additional conversion of semicolon and vertical bar
characters to =3B and =7C, respectively.
Tags on the DKIM-Signature header field along with their type and
requirement status are shown below. Valid tags are:
v= Version (MUST NOT be included). This tag is reserved for future
use to indicate a possible new, incompatible version of the
specification. It MUST NOT be included in the DKIM-Signature
header field.
a= The algorithm used to generate the signature (plain-text;
REQUIRED). Signers and verifiers MUST support "rsa-sha1", an RSA-
signed SHA-1 digest. See Section 3.3 for a description of
algorithms.
INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: The authors understand that SHA-1 has
been theoretically compromised. However, viable attacks
require the attacker to choose both sets of input text; given a
preexisting input (a "preimaging" attack), it is still hard to
determine another input that produces an SHA-1 collision, and
the chance that such input would be of value to an attacker is
minimal. Also, there is broad library for SHA-1, whereas
alternatives such as SHA-256 are just emerging. Finally, DKIM
is not intended to have legal- or military-grade requirements.
There is nothing inherent in using SHA-1 here other than
implementer convenience. See
<http://www3.ietf.org/proceedings/05mar/slides/saag-3.pdf> for
a discussion of the security issues.
b= The signature data (base64; REQUIRED). Whitespace is ignored in
this value and MUST be ignored when re-assembling the original
signature. This is another way of saying that the signing process
can safely insert FWS in this value in arbitrary places to conform
to line-length limits. See section Section 5 for how the
signature is computed.
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c= Body canonicalization (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "simple/
simple"). This tag informs the verifier of the type of
canonicalization used to prepare the message for signing. It
consists of two names separated by a "slash" (%d47) character,
corresponding to the header and body canonicalization algorithms
respectively. These algorithms are described in section
Section 3.4. If only one algorithm is named, that algorithm is
used for the header and "simple" is used for the body. For
example, "relaxed" is treated the same as "relaxed/simple".
d= The domain of the signing entity (plain-text; REQUIRED). This
is the domain that will be queried for the public key. This
domain MUST be the same as or a parent domain of the "i=" tag.
When presented with a signature that does not meet this
requirement, verifiers MUST either ignore the signature or reject
the message..
h= Signed header fields (plain-text, but see description;
REQUIRED). A colon-separated list of header field names that
identify the header fields presented to the signing algorithm.
The field MUST contain the complete list of header fields in the
order presented to the signing algorithm. The field MAY contain
names of header fields that do not exist when signed; nonexistent
header fields do not contribute to the signature computation (that
is, they are treated as the null input, including the header field
name, the separating colon, the header field value, and any CRLF
terminator), and when verified non-existent header fields MUST be
treated in the same way. The field MUST NOT include the DKIM-
Signature header field that is being created or verified. Folding
white space (FWS) MAY be included on either side of the colon
separator. Header field names MUST be compared against actual
header field names in a case insensitive manner.
ABNF:
sig-h-tag = "h=" *FWS hdr-name 0*( *FWS ":" *FWS hdr-name )
hdr-name = field-name
INFORMATIVE EXPLANATION: By "signing" header fields that do
not actually exist, a signer can prevent insertion of those
header fields before verification. However, since a sender
cannot possibly know what header fields might be created in the
future, and that some MUAs might present header fields that are
embedded inside a message (e.g., as a message/rfc822 content
type), the security of this solution is not total.
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INFORMATIVE EXPLANATION: The exclusion of the header field
name and colon as well as the header field value for non-
existent header fields prevents an attacker from inserting an
actual header field with a null value.
i= Identity of the user or agent (e.g., a mailing list manager) on
behalf of which this message is signed (quoted-printable;
OPTIONAL, default is an empty local-part followed by an "@"
followed by the domain from the "d=" tag). The syntax is a
standard email address where the local-part is optional. If the
signing domain is unable or unwilling to commit to an individual
user name within their domain, the local-part of the address MUST
be omitted. If the local-part of the address is omitted or the
"i=" tag is not present, the key used to sign MUST be valid for
any address in the domain. The domain part of the address MUST be
the same as or a subdomain of the value of the "d=" tag.
ABNF:
sig-i-tag = "i=" [ Local-part ] "@" Domain
INFORMATIVE DISCUSSION: This document does not require the
value of the "i=" tag to match the identity in any message
header field fields. This is considered to be a verifier
policy issue, described in another document [XREF-TBD].
Constraints between the value of the "i=" tag and other
identities in other header fields seek to apply basic
authentication into the semantics of trust associated with a
role such as content author. Trust is a broad and complex
topic and trust mechanisms are subject to highly creative
attacks. The real-world efficacy of any but the most basic
bindings between the "i=" value and other identities is not
well established, nor is its vulnerability to subversion by an
attacker. Hence reliance on the use of these options SHOULD be
strictly limited. In particular it is not at all clear to what
extent a typical end-user recipient can rely on any assurances
that might be made by successful use of the "i=" options.
l= Body count (plain-text decimal integer; OPTIONAL, default is
entire body). This tag informs the verifier of the number of
bytes in the body of the email included in the cryptographic hash,
starting from 0 immediately following the CRLF preceding the body.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION WARNING: Use of the l= tag might
allow display of fraudulent content without appropriate warning
to end users. The l= tag is intended for increasing signature
robustness when sending to mailing lists that both modify their
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content and do not sign their messages. However, using the l=
tag enables man-in-the-middle attacks in which an intermediary
with malicious intent modifies a message to include content
that solely benefits the attacker. It is possible for the
appended content to completely replace the original content in
the end recipient's eyes and to defeat duplicate message
detection algorithms. Examples are described in Security
Considerations Section 9.
To avoid this attack, signers should be extremely wary of using
this tag, and verifiers might wish to ignore the tag or remove
text that appears after the specified content length.
q= A colon-separated list of query methods used to retrieve the
public key (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "dns"). Each query
method is of the form "type[/options]", where the syntax and
semantics of the options depends on the type. If there are
multiple query mechanisms listed, the choice of query mechanism
MUST NOT change the interpretation of the signature. Currently
the only valid value is "dns" which defines the DNS lookup
algorithm described elsewhere in this document. No options are
defined for the "dns" query type, but the string "dns" MAY have a
trailing "/" character. Verifiers and signers MUST support "dns".
INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: Explicitly allowing a trailing "/" on
"dns" allows for the possibility of adding options later and
makes it clear that matching of the query type must terminate
on either "/" or end of string.
s= The selector subdividing the namespace for the "d=" (domain) tag
(plain-text; REQUIRED).
t= Signature Timestamp (plain-text; RECOMMENDED, default is an
unknown creation time). The time that this signature was created.
The format is the standard Unix seconds-since-1970. The value is
expressed as an unsigned integer in decimal ASCII.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: This value is not constrained
to fit into a 31- or 32-bit integer. Implementations SHOULD be
prepared to handle values up to at least 10^12 (until
approximately AD 200,000; this fits into 40 bits). To avoid
denial of service attacks, implementations MAY consider any
value longer than 12 digits to be infinite.
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x= Signature Expiration (plain-text; RECOMMENDED, default is no
expiration). Signature expiration in seconds-since-1970 format as
an absolute date, not as a time delta from the signing timestamp.
Signatures MUST NOT be considered valid if the current time at the
verifier is past the expiration date. The value is expressed as
an unsigned integer in decimal ASCII.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: See above.
INFORMATIVE NOTE: The x= tag is not intended as an anti-replay
defense.
z= Copied header fields (plain-text, but see description; OPTIONAL,
default is null). A vertical-bar-separated list of header field
names and copies of header field values that identify the header
fields presented to the signing algorithm. The field MUST contain
the complete list of header fields in the order presented to the
signing algorithm. Copied header field values MUST immediately
follow the header field name with a colon separator (no white
space permitted). Header field values MUST be represented as
Quoted-Printable [RFC2045] with vertical bars, colons, semicolons,
and white space encoded in addition to the usual requirements.
Verifiers MUST NOT use the copied header field values for
verification should they be present in the h= field. Copied
header field values are for forensic use only.
Header fields with characters requiring conversion (perhaps from
legacy MTAs which are not [RFC2822] compliant) SHOULD be converted
as described in [RFC2047].
ABNF:
sig-z-tag = "z=" *FWS hdr-copy *( *FWS "|" hdr-copy )
*FWS <hdr-copy = hdr-name ":"
*FWS qp-hdr-value
qp-hdr-value = <quoted-printable text with WS,
"|", ":", and ";" encoded>
; needs to be updated with real definition
; (could be messy)
INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE of a signature header field spread across
multiple continuation lines:
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DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; d=example.net; s=brisbane
c=simple; q=dns; i=@eng.example.net; t=1117574938; x=1118006938;
h=from:to:subject:date;
z=From:foo@eng.example.net|To:joe@example.com|
Subject:demo%20run|Date:July%205,%202005%203:44:08%20PM%20-0700
b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ
VoG4ZHRNiYzR
3.6 The Authentication-Results header field
Verifiers wishing to communicate the results of verification via an
email header field SHOULD use the Authentication-Results header field
[ID-AUTH-RES].
3.7 Key Management and Representation
DKIM keys do not require third party signatures by Certificate
Authorities in order to be trusted, since the public key is retrieved
directly from the signer.
DKIM keys can potentially be stored in multiple types of key servers
and in multiple formats. The storage and format of keys are
irrelevant to the remainder of the DKIM algorithm.
Parameters to the key lookup algorithm are the domain of the
responsible signer (the "d=" tag of the DKIM-Signature header field),
the selector (the "s=" tag), and the signing identity (the "i=" tag).
The "i=" tag value could be ignored by some key services.
This document defines a single binding, using DNS to distribute the
keys.
3.7.1 Textual Representation
It is expected that many key servers will choose to present the keys
in a text format. The following definition MUST be used for any DKIM
key represented in textual form.
The overall syntax is a key-value-list as described above. The
current valid tags are:
v= Version of the DKIM key record (plain-text; RECOMMENDED, default
is "DKIM1"). If specified, this tag MUST be set to "DKIM1"
(without the quotes). This tag MUST be the first tag in the
response. Responses beginning with a "v=" tag with any other
value MUST be discarded.
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g= granularity of the key (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "*").
This value MUST match the local part of the signing address, with
a "*" character acting as a wildcard. The intent of this tag is
to constrain which signing address can legitimately use this
selector. An email with a signing address that does not match the
value of this tag constitutes a failed verification. Wildcarding
allows matching for addresses such as "user+*". An empty "g="
value never matches any addresses.
h= Acceptable hash algorithms (plain-text; OPTIONAL, defaults to
allowing all algorithms). A colon-separated list of hash
algorithms that might be used. Signers and Verifiers MUST support
the "sha1" hash algorithm.
k= Key type (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "rsa"). Signers and
verifiers MUST support the 'rsa' key type, as defined in [RFC3447]
n= Notes that might be of interest to a human (quoted-printable;
OPTIONAL, default is empty). No interpretation is made by any
program. This tag should be used sparingly in any key server
mechanism that has space limitations (notably DNS).
p= Public-key data (base64; REQUIRED). An empty value means that
this public key has been revoked. The syntax and semantics of
this tag value is defined by the k= tag.
s= Service Type (plain-text; OPTIONAL; default is "*"). A colon-
separated list of service types to which this record applies.
Verifiers for a given service type MUST ignore this record if the
appropriate type is not listed. Currently defined service types
are:
* matches all service types
email electronic mail (not necessarily limited to SMTP)
This tag is intended to permit senders to constrain the use of
delegated keys, e.g., where a company is willing to delegate the
right to send mail in their name to an outsourcer, but not to send
IM or make VoIP calls. (This of course presumes that these keys
are used in other services in the future.)
t= Flags, represented as a colon-separated list of names (plain-
text; OPTIONAL, default is no flags set). The defined flags are:
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y This domain is testing DKIM; unverified email MUST NOT be
treated differently from verified email. Verifier systems MAY
wish to track testing mode results to assist the signer.
Unrecognized flags MUST be ignored.
3.7.2 DNS binding
A binding using DNS as a key service is hereby defined. All
implementations MUST support this binding.
3.7.2.1 Name Space.
All DKIM keys are stored in a "_domainkey" subdomain. Given a DKIM-
Signature field with a "d=" tag of "domain" and an "s=" tag of
"selector", the DNS query will be for "selector._domainkey.domain".
The value of the "i=" tag is not used by the DNS binding.
3.7.2.2 Resource Record Types for Key Storage
This section needs to be fleshed out. ACTUALLY: will be addressed
in another document.
Two RR types are used: DKK and TXT.
The DKK RR is expected to be a non-text, binary representation
intended to allow the largest possible keys to be represented and
transmitted in a UDP DNS packet. Details of this RR are described in
[ID-DKIM-RR].
TXT records are encoded as described in section Section 3.7.1 above.
Verifiers SHOULD search for a DKIM RR first, if possible, followed by
a TXT RR. If the verifier is unable to search for a DKK RR or a DKK
RR is not found, the verifier MUST search for a TXT RR.
3.8 Computing the Message Hash
Both signing and verifying message signatures starts with a step of
computing a cryptographic hash of the message. Signers will choose
the parameters of the signature as described in Section 5; verifiers
will use the parameters specified in the "DKIM-Signature" header
being verified. In the following discussion, the names of the tags
in the "DKIM-Signature" header which either exists (when verifying)
or will be created (when signing) are used.
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The signer or verifier passes the following to the hash algorithm in
the indicated order. Note that canonicalization (described in
Section 3.4) is only used to prepare the email for signing or
verifying; it does not affect the transmitted email in any way.
1. The header fields chosen in as specified by the "h=" tag, in the
order specified in that tag, and canonicalized using the header
canonicalization algorithm specified in the "c=" tag.
2. A single CRLF.
3. The message body, canonicalized using the body canonicalization
algorithm specified in the "c=" tag, and truncated to the length
specified in the "l=" tag.
4. A single CRLF.
5. The "DKIM-Signature" header field that exists (verifying) or will
be inserted (signing) in the message, with the content of the
"b=" tag deleted (i.e., treated as the empty string),
canonicalized using the header canonicalization algorithm
specified in the "c=" tag, and without a trailing CRLF.
After the body is processed, a single CRLF followed by the "DKIM-
Signature" header field being created or verified is presented to the
algorithm. The value portion of the "b=" tag (that is, the portion
after the "=" sign) must be treated as though it were empty, and the
header field must be canonicalized according to the algorithm that is
specified in the "c=" tag. Any final CRLF on the "DKIM-Signature"
header field MUST NOT be included in the signature computation.
All tags and their values in the DKIM-Signature header field are
included in the cryptographic hash with the sole exception of the
value portion of the "b=" (signature) tag, which MUST be treated as
the null string. All tags MUST be included even if they might not be
understood by the verifier. The header field MUST be presented to
the hash algorithm after the body of the message rather than with the
rest of the header fields and MUST be canonicalized as specified in
the "c=" (canonicalization) tag. The DKIM-Signature header field
MUST NOT be included in its own h= tag.
When calculating the hash on values that will be transmitted using
base64 or quoted-printable encoding, signers MUST compute the hash
after the encoding. Likewise, the verifier MUST incorporate the
values into the hash before decoding the base64 or quoted-printable
text. However, the hash MUST be computed before transport level
encodings such as SMTP "dot-stuffing."
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With the exception of the canonicalization procedure described in
section Section 3.4, the DKIM signing process treats the body of
messages as simply a string of characters. DKIM messages MAY be
either in plain-text or in MIME format; no special treatment is
afforded to MIME content. Message attachments in MIME format MUST be
included in the content which is signed.
4. Semantics of Multiple Signatures
Considerable energy has been spent discussing the desirability and
semantics of multiple DKIM signatures in a single message,
particularly in a "re-sending" scenario such as a mailing list. On
the one hand, discarding existing signature header fields loses
information which could prove to be valuable in the future. On the
other hand, since header fields are known to be re-ordered in transit
by at least some MTAs, determining the most interesting signature
header field is non-trivial.
Further confusion could occur with multiple signatures added at the
same logical "depth". For example, a signer could choose to sign
using different signing or canonicalization algorithms. There is no
a priori way to determine that two signatures are alternatives versus
nested in a re-sending scenario.
Also, many agents are expected to break existing signatures (e.g., a
mailing list that modifies Subject header fields or adds unsubscribe
information to the end of the message). Retaining signature
information that is known to be bad could create more problems than
it solves.
For these reasons, multiple signatures are not prohibited but are
left undefined.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION GUIDANCE: Agents that forward mail
without modification could decide whether to add another signature
or simply retain an existing signatures. Agents that are known to
break existing signatures MAY leave the existing signature or
delete it. Agents that re-sign messages that are already signed
SHOULD verify the previous signature and should probably refuse to
sign any critical information that failed a signature
verification.
5. Signer Actions
5.1 Determine if the Email Should be Signed and by Whom
A signer can obviously only sign email for domains for which it has a
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private-key and the necessary knowledge of the corresponding public
key and selector information. However there are a number of other
reasons beyond the lack of a private key why a signer could choose
not to sign an email.
A SUBMISSION server MAY sign if the sender is authenticated by some
secure means, e.g., SMTP AUTH. Within a trusted enclave the signing
address MAY be derived from the header field according to local
signer policy. Within a trusted enclave an MTA MAY do the signing.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER ADVICE: SUBMISSION servers should not
sign Received header fields if the outgoing gateway MTA obfuscates
Received header fields, for example to hide the details of
internal topology.
A signer MUST NOT sign an email if it is unwilling to be held
responsible for the message; in particular, the signer SHOULD ensure
that the submitter has a bona fide relationship with the signer and
that the submitter has the right to use the address being claimed.
A signer SHOULD NOT remove an existing "DKIM-Signature:" header field
unless that signature was added by an entity under the same domain.
That is, DKIM-Signature header fields SHOULD NOT be removed unless
the d= tag of that existing DKIM-Signature header field is the same
as or a subdomain of the d= tag of the new DKIM-Signature header
field that is being added.
If an email cannot be signed for some reason, it is a local policy
decision as to what to do with that email.
5.2 Select a private-key and corresponding selector information
This specification does not define the basis by which a signer should
choose which private-key and selector information to use. Currently,
all selectors are equal as far as this specification is concerned, so
the decision should largely be a matter of administrative
convenience.
A signer SHOULD NOT sign with a key that is expected to expire within
seven days; that is, when rotating to a new key, signing should
immediately commence with the new key and the old key SHOULD be
retained for at least seven days before being removed from the key
server.
5.3 Normalize the Message to Prevent Transport Conversions
Some messages, notably those using 8-bit characters, are subject to
conversion to 7-bit during transmission. Such conversions will break
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DKIM signatures. In order to minimize the chances of such breakage,
signers SHOULD convert the message to MIME-encoded 7-bit form as
described in [RFC2045] before signing.
Should the message be submitted to the signer with any local encoding
that will be modified before transmission, such conversion to
canonical form MUST be done before signing. In particular, some
systems use local line separator conventions (such as the Unix
newline character) internally rather than the SMTP-standard CRLF
sequence. All such local conventions MUST be converted to canonical
format before signing.
More generally, the signer MUST sign the message as it will be
emitted on the wire rather than in some local or internal form.
5.4 Determine the header fields to Sign
The From header field MUST be signed (that is, included in the h= tag
of the resulting DKIM-Signature header field); any header field that
describes the role of the signer (for example, the Sender or Resent-
From header field if the signature is on behalf of the corresponding
address and that address is different from the From address) MUST
also be included. The signed header fields SHOULD also include the
Subject and Date header fields as well as all MIME header fields.
Signers SHOULD NOT sign an existing header field likely to be
legitimately modified or removed in transit. In particular,
[RFC2821] explicitly permits modification or removal of the "Return-
Path" header field in transit. Signers MAY include any other header
fields present at the time of signing at the discretion of the
signer. It is RECOMMENDED that all other existing, non-repeatable
header fields be signed.
The DKIM-Signature header field is always implicitly signed and MUST
NOT be included in the h= tag except to indicate that other
preexisting signatures are also signed.
Signers MUST sign any header fields that the signers wish to have the
verifiers treat as trusted. Put another way, verifiers MAY treat
unsigned header fields with extreme skepticism, up to and including
refusing to display them to the end user.
Signers MAY claim to have signed header fields that do not exist
(that is, signers MAY include the header field name in the h= tag
even if that header field does not exist in the message). When
computing the signature, the non-existing header field MUST be
treated as the null string (including the header field name, header
field value, all punctuation, and the trailing CRLF).
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INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: This allows signers to explicitly assert
the absence of a header field; if that header field should be
added later the signature will fail.
Signers choosing to sign an existing replicated header field (such as
Received) MUST sign the physically last instance of that header field
in the header field block. Signers wishing to sign multiple
instances of an existing replicated header field MUST include the
header field name multiple times in the h= tag of the DKIM-Signature
header field, and MUST sign such header fields in order from the
bottom of the header field block to the top. The signer MAY include
more header field names than there are actual corresponding header
fields to indicate that additional header fields of that name SHOULD
NOT be added. (However, header fields that can be replicated should
not be signed; see below.)
INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE:
If the signer wishes to sign two existing Received header fields,
and the existing header contains: then the resulting DKIM-
Signature header field should read:
Received: <A>
Received: <B>
Received: <C>
DKIM-Signature: ... h=Received : Received : ...
and Received header fields <C> and <B> will be signed in that
order.
Signers SHOULD NOT sign header fields that might be replicated
(either at the time of signing or potentially in the future), with
the exception of trace header fields such as Received. Comment and
non standard header fields (including X-* header fields) are
permitted by [RFC2822] to be replicated; however, many such header
fields are, by convention, not replicated. Signers need to
understand the implications of signing header field fields that might
later be replicated, especially in the face of header field
reordering. In particular, [RFC2822] only requires that trace header
fields retain the original order.
INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: Received: is allowed because these header
fields, as well as Resent-* header fields, are already order-
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sensitive.
INFORMATIVE ADMONITION: Despite the fact that [RFC2822] permits
header field blocks to be reordered (with the exception of
Received header fields), reordering of signed replicated header
fields by intermediate MTAs will cause DKIM signatures to be
broken; such anti-social behavior should be avoided.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER'S NOTE: Although not required by this
specification, all end-user visible header fields should be signed
to avoid possible "indirect spamming." For example, if the
"Subject" header field is not signed, a spammer can resend a
previously signed mail, replacing the legitimate subject with a
one-line spam.
INFORMATIVE NOTE: There has been some discussion that a Sender
Signing Policy include the list of header fields that the signer
always signs. N.B. In theory this is unnecessary, since as long
as the signer really always signs the indicated header fields
there is no possibility of an attacker replaying an existing
message that has such an unsigned header field.
5.5 Compute the Message Hash
The signer MUST compute the message hash as described in Section 3.8
and then sign it using the selected public-key algorithm.
To avoid possible ambiguity, a signer SHOULD either sign or remove
any preexisting "Authentication-Results:" header fields from the
email prior to preparation for signing and transmission.
"Authentication-Results" header fields MUST only be signed if the
signer is certain of the authenticity of the preexisting header
field, for example, if it is locally generated or signed by a
previous DKIM-Signature line that the current signer has verified.
Signers MUST NOT sign Authentication-Results header fields that could
be forgeries.
Entities such as mailing list managers that implement DKIM and which
modify the message or the header field (for example, inserting
unsubscribe information) before retransmitting the message SHOULD
check any existing signature on input and MUST make such
modifications before re-signing the message; such signing SHOULD
include the Authentication-Results header field, if any, inserted
upon message receipt.
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5.6 Insert the DKIM-Signature header field
The final step in the signing process is that the signer MUST insert
the "DKIM-Signature:" header field prior to transmitting the email.
The "DKIM-Signature" header MUST be the same as used to compute the
hash as described above, except that the value of the "b=" tag MUST
be the appropriately signed hash computed in the previous step,
signed using the algorithm specified in the "a=" tag of the "DKIM-
Signature" header and using the private key corresponding to the
selector given in the "s=" tag of the "DKIM-Signature" header field,
as chosen above in section Section 5.2
The "DKIM-Signature" SHOULD be inserted before any header fields that
it signs in the header field block.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: The easiest way to achieve this
is to insert the "DKIM-Signature" header field at the beginning of
the header field block.
6. Verifier Actions
6.1 Introduction
Since a signer MAY expire a public key at any time, it is recommended
that verification occur in a timely manner with the most timely place
being during acceptance by the border MTA.
A border or intermediate MTA MAY verify the message signatures and
add a verification header field to incoming messages. This
considerably simplifies things for the user, who can now use an
existing mail user agent. Most MUAs have the ability to filter
messages based on message header fields or content; these filters
would be used to implement whatever policy the user wishes with
respect to unsigned mail.
A verifying MTA MAY implement a policy with respect to unverifiable
mail, regardless of whether or not it applies the verification header
field to signed messages. Separate policies MAY be defined for
unsigned messages, messages with incorrect signatures, and when the
signature cannot be verified. Treatment of unsigned messages MUST be
based on the results of the Sender Signing Policy check described in
[ID-DKIM-SSP].
6.2 Extract the Signature from the Message
The signature and associated signing identity is included in the
value of the DKIM-Signature header field.
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Verifiers MUST ignore DKIM-Signature header fields with a "v=" tag.
Existence of such a tag indicates a new, incompatible version of the
DKIM-Signature header field.
If the "DKIM-Signature" header field does not contain the "i=" tag,
the verifier MUST behave as though the value of that tag were "@d",
where "d" is the value from the "d=" tag (which MUST exist).
Verifiers MUST confirm that the domain specified in the "d=" tag is
the same as or a superdomain of the domain part of the "i=" tag. If
not, the DKIM-Signature header field MUST be ignored.
Implementers MUST meticulously validate the format and values in the
"DKIM-Signature:" header field; any inconsistency or unexpected
values MUST result in an unverified email. Being "liberal in what
you accept" is definitely a bad strategy in this security context.
Note however that this does not include the existence of unknown tags
in a "DKIM-Signature" header field, which are explicitly permitted.
Verifiers MUST NOT attribute ultimate meaning to the order of
multiple DKIM-Signature header fields. In particular, there is
reason to believe that some relays will reorder the header field in
potentially arbitrary ways.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: Verifiers might use the order as
a clue to signing order in the absence of any other information.
However, other clues as to the semantics of multiple signatures
must be considered before using ordering.
Since there can be multiple signatures in a message, a verifier
SHOULD ignore an invalid signature (regardless if caused by a
syntactic or semantic problem) and try other signatures. A verifier
MAY choose to treat a message with one or more invalid signatures
with more suspicion than a message with no signature at all.
6.3 Get the Public Key
The public key is needed to complete the verification process. The
process of retrieving the public key depends on the query type as
defined by the "q=" tag in the "DKIM-Signature:" header field line.
Obviously, a public key should only be retrieved if the process of
extracting the signature information is completely successful.
Details of key management and representation are described in section
Section 3.7. The verifier MUST validate the key record and MUST
ignore any public key records that are malformed.
When validating a message, a verifier MUST:
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1. Retrieve the public key as described under Key Management
(Section 3.7) using the domain from the "d=" tag and the selector
from the "s=" tag.
2. If the query for the public key fails to respond, the verifier
SHOULD defer acceptance of this email (normally this will be
achieved with a 451/4.7.5 SMTP response code).
3. If the query for the public key fails because the corresponding
RR does not exist, the verifier MUST ignore the signature.
4. If the result returned from the query does not adhere to the
format defined in this specification, the verifier MUST ignore
the signature.
5. If the "g=" tag in the public key does not match the local part
of the "i=" tag on the message signature, the verifier MUST treat
the signature as invalid. If the local part of the "i=" tag on
the message signature is not present, the g= tag must be * (valid
for all addresses in the domain) or not present (which defaults
to *), otherwise the verifier MUST ignore the signature. Other
than this test, verifiers MUST NOT treat a message signed with a
key record having a g= tag any differently than one without; in
particular, verifiers MUST NOT prefer messages that seem to have
an individual signature by virtue of a g= tag vs. a domain
signature.
6. If the "h=" tag exists in the public key record and the hash
algorithm implied by the a= tag in the DKIM-Signature header is
not included in the "h=" tag, the verifier MUST ignore the
signature.
7. If the public key data is not suitable for use with the algorithm
type defined by the "a=" tag in the "DKIM-Signature" header
field, the verifier MUST ignore the signature.
If the public key data (the "p=" tag) is empty then this key has been
revoked and the verifier MUST treat this as a failed signature check.
6.4 Compute the Verification
Given a signer and a public key, verifying a signature consists of
the following steps.
o Based on the algorithm defined in the "c=" tag, the body length
specified in the "l=" tag, and the header field names in the "h="
tag, create a canonicalized copy of the email as is described in
section Section 3.8. When matching header field names in the "h="
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tag against the actual message header field, comparisons MUST be
case-insensitive.
o Based on the algorithm indicated in the "a=" tag,
* Compute the message hash from the canonical copy as described
in section Section 3.8.
* Decrypt the signature using the signer's public key.
o Compare the decrypted signature to the message hash. If they are
identical, the hash computed by the signer must be the same as the
hash computed by the verifier, and hence the two messages are
identical.
INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER'S NOTE: Implementations might wish to
initiate the public-key query in parallel with calculating the
hash as the public key is not needed until the final decryption is
calculated.
Verifiers MUST ignore any DKIM-Signature header fields where the
signature does not validate. Verifiers that are prepared to validate
multiple signature header fields SHOULD proceed to the next signature
header field, should it exist. However, verifiers MAY make note of
the fact that an invalid signature was present for consideration at a
later step.
INFORMATIVE NOTE: The rationale of this requirement is to permit
messages that have invalid signatures but also a valid signature
to work. For example, a mailing list exploder might opt to leave
the original submitter signature in place even though the exploder
knows that it is modifying the message in some way that will break
that signature, and the exploder inserts its own signature. In
this case the message should succeed even in the presence of the
known-broken signature.
If a body length is specified in the "l=" tag of the signature,
verifiers MUST only verify the number of bytes indicated in the body
length. Verifiers MAY decide that a message containing bytes beyond
the indicated body length MAY still treat such a message as
suspicious. Verifiers MAY truncate the message at the indicated body
length or reject the message outright. MUAs MAY visually mark the
unverified part of the body in a distinctive font or color to the end
user.
6.5 Apply Sender Signing Policy
Verifiers MUST consult the Sender Signing Policy as described in [ID-
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DKIM-SSP] and act accordingly. The range of possibilities is up to
the verifier, but it MAY include rejecting the email.
6.6 Interpret Results/Apply Local Policy
It is beyond the scope of this specification to describe what actions
a verifier system should make, but an authenticated email presents an
opportunity to a receiving system that unauthenticated email cannot.
Specifically, an authenticated email creates a predictable identifier
by which other decisions can reliably be managed, such as trust and
reputation. Conversely, unauthenticated email lacks a reliable
identifier that can be used to assign trust and reputation. It is
reasonable to treat unauthenticated email as lacking any trust and
having no positive reputation.
If the verifying MTA is capable of verifying the public key of the
signer and check the signature on the message synchronously with the
SMTP session and such signature is missing or does not verify the MTA
MAY reject the message with an error such as:
550 5.7.1 Unsigned messages not accepted
550 5.7.5 Message signature incorrect
If it is not possible to fetch the public key, perhaps because the
key server is not available, a temporary failure message MAY be
generated, such as:
451 4.7.5 Unable to verify signature - key server unavailable
Once the signature has been verified, that information MUST be
conveyed to higher level systems (such as explicit allow/white lists
and reputation systems) and/or to the end user. If the
authentication status is to be stored in the message header field,
the Authentication-Results header field [ID-AUTH-RES] SHOULD be used
to convey this information. If the message is signed on behalf of
any address other than that in the From: header field, the mail
system SHOULD take pains to ensure that the actual signing identity
is clear to the reader.
The verifier MAY treat unsigned header fields with extreme
skepticism, including marking them as untrusted or even deleting them
before display to the end user.
While the symptoms of a failed verification are obvious -- the
signature doesn't verify -- establishing the exact cause can be more
difficult. If a selector cannot be found, is that because the
selector has been removed or was the value changed somehow in
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transit? If the signature line is missing is that because it was
never there, or was it removed by an over-zealous filter? For
diagnostic purposes, the exact reason why the verification fails
SHOULD be recorded in the "Authentication-Results" header field and
possibly the system logs. However in terms of presentation to the
end user, the result SHOULD be presented as a simple binary result:
either the email is verified or it is not. If the email cannot be
verified, then it SHOULD be rendered the same as all unverified email
regardless of whether it looks like it was signed or not.
Insert the Authentication-Results header field. That header field is
described in [ID-AUTH-RES]. The Authentication-Results header field
SHOULD be inserted before any existing DKIM-Signature or
Authentication-Results header fields in the header field block.
INFORMATIVE ADVICE to MUA filter writers:
Patterns intended to search for Authentication-Results header
fields to visibly mark authenticated mail for end users should
verify that the Authentication-Results header field was added by
the appropriate verifying domain and that the verified identity
matches the sender identity that will be displayed by the MUA. In
particular, MUA patterns should not be influenced by bogus
Authentication-Results header fields added by attackers.
In order to retain the current semantics and visibility of the From
header field, verifying mail agents SHOULD take steps to ensure that
the signing address is prominently visible to the user if it is
different from the From address. If MUA implementations that
highlight the signed address are not available, this MAY be done by
the validating MTA or MDA by rewriting the From address in a manner
which remains compliant with [RFC2822]. Such modifications MUST be
performed after the final verification step since they will break the
signature. If performed, the rewriting SHOULD include the name of
the signer in the address. For example:
From: John Q. User <user@example.com>
might be converted to
From: "John Q. User via <asrg-admin@ietf.org>" <user@example.com>
This sort of address inconsistency is expected for mailing lists, but
might be otherwise used to mislead the verifier, for example if a
message supposedly from administration@your-bank.com had a Sender
address of fraud@badguy.com.
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Under no circumstances should an unsigned header field be displayed
in any context that might be construed by the end user as having been
signed. Notably, unsigned header fields SHOULD be hidden from the
end user to the extent possible.
7. Compliance
[The issues to be described here have been redirected to the SSP
document. This section will be deleted in the next draft.]
8. IANA Considerations
Use of the _domainkey prefix in DNS records will require registration
by IANA.
To avoid conflicts, tag names for the DKIM-Signature header and key
records should be registered with IANA.
Tag values for the "a=", "c=", and "q=" tags in the DKIM-Signature
header, and the "h=", "k=", "s=", and "t" tags in key records should
be registered with IANA for the same reason.
The DKK and DKP RR types must be registered by IANA.
9. Security Considerations
It has been observed that any mechanism that is introduced which
attempts to stem the flow of spam is subject to intensive attack.
DKIM needs to be carefully scrutinized to identify potential attack
vectors and the vulnerability to each.
9.1 Misuse of Body Length Limits ("l=" Tag)
Body length limits (in the form of the "l=" tag) are subject to
several potential attacks.
9.1.1 Addition of new MIME parts to multipart/*
If the body length limit does not cover a closing MIME multipart
header field (including the trailing "--CRLF" portion), then it is
possible for an attacker to intercept a properly signed multipart
message and add a new body part. Depending on the details of the
MIME type and the implementation of the verifying MTA and the
receiving MUA, this could allow an attacker to change the information
displayed to an end user from an apparently trusted source.
*** Example appropriate here ***
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9.1.2 Addition of new HTML content to existing content
Several receiving MUA implementations do not cease display after a
"</html>" tag. In particular, this allows attacks involving
overlaying images on top of existing text.
INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE: Appending the following text to an existing,
properly closed message will in many MUAs result in inappropriate
data being rendered on top of existing, correct data:
<div style="position: relative; bottom: 350px; z-index: 2;">
<img src="http://www.ietf.org/images/ietflogo2e.gif"
width=578 height=370>
</div>
9.2 Misappropriated Private Key
If the private key for a user is resident on their computer and is
not protected by an appropriately secure passphrase, it is possible
for malware to send mail as that user and any other user sharing the
same private key. The malware would, however, not be able to
generate signed spoofs of other signers' addresses, which would aid
in identification of the infected user and would limit the
possibilities for certain types of attacks involving socially-
engineered messages.
A larger problem occurs if malware on many users' computers obtains
the private keys for those users and transmits them via a covert
channel to a site where they can be shared. The compromised users
would likely not know of the misappropriation until they receive
"bounce" messages from messages they are supposed to have sent. Many
users might not understand the significance of these bounce messages
and would not take action.
One countermeasure is to use a user-entered passphrase to encrypt the
private key, although users tend to choose weak passphrases and often
reuse them for different purposes, possibly allowing an attack
against DKIM to be extended into other domains. Nevertheless, the
decoded private key might be briefly available to compromise by
malware when it is entered, or might be discovered via keystroke
logging. The added complexity of entering a passphrase each time one
sends a message would also tend to discourage the use of a secure
passphrase.
A somewhat more effective countermeasure is to send messages through
an outgoing MTA that can authenticate the submitter using existing
techniques (e.g., SMTP Authentication), possibly validate the message
itself (e.g., verify that the header is legitimate and that the
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content passes a spam content check), and sign the message using a
key appropriate for the submitter address. Such an MTA can also
apply controls on the volume of outgoing mail each user is permitted
to originate in order to further limit the ability of malware to
generate bulk email.
9.3 Key Server Denial-of-Service Attacks
Since the key servers are distributed (potentially separate for each
domain), the number of servers that would need to be attacked to
defeat this mechanism on an Internet-wide basis is very large.
Nevertheless, key servers for individual domains could be attacked,
impeding the verification of messages from that domain. This is not
significantly different from the ability of an attacker to deny
service to the mail exchangers for a given domain, although it
affects outgoing, not incoming, mail.
A variation on this attack is that if a very large amount of mail
were to be sent using spoofed addresses from a given domain, the key
servers for that domain could be overwhelmed with requests. However,
given the low overhead of verification compared with handling of the
email message itself, such an attack would be difficult to mount.
9.4 Attacks Against DNS
Since DNS is a required binding for key services, specific attacks
against DNS must be considered.
While the DNS is currently insecure [RFC3833], it is expected that
the security problems should and will be solved by DNSSEC [RFC4033],
and all users of the DNS will reap the benefit of that work.
Secondly, the types of DNS attacks relevant to DKIM are very costly
and are far less rewarding than DNS attacks on other Internet
applications.
To systematically thwart the intent of DKIM, an attacker must conduct
a very costly and very extensive attack on many parts of the DNS over
an extended period. No one knows for sure how attackers will
respond, however the cost/benefit of conducting prolonged DNS attacks
of this nature is expected to be uneconomical.
Finally, DKIM is only intended as a "sufficient" method of proving
authenticity. It is not intended to provide strong cryptographic
proof about authorship or contents. Other technologies such as
OpenPGP [RFC2440] and S/MIME [RFC2633] address those requirements.
A second security issue related to the DNS revolves around the
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increased DNS traffic as a consequence of fetching Selector-based
data as well as fetching signing domain policy. Widespread
deployment of DKIM will result in a significant increase in DNS
queries to the claimed signing domain. In the case of forgeries on a
large scale, DNS servers could see a substantial increase in queries.
9.5 Replay Attacks
In this attack, a spammer sends a message to be spammed to an
accomplice, which results in the message being signed by the
originating MTA. The accomplice resends the message, including the
original signature, to a large number of recipients, possibly by
sending the message to many compromised machines that act as MTAs.
The messages, not having been modified by the accomplice, have valid
signatures.
Partial solutions to this problem involve the use of reputation
services to convey the fact that the specific email address is being
used for spam, and that messages from that signer are likely to be
spam. This requires a real-time detection mechanism in order to
react quickly enough. However, such measures might be prone to
abuse, if for example an attacker resent a large number of messages
received from a victim in order to make them appear to be a spammer.
Large verifiers might be able to detect unusually large volumes of
mails with the same signature in a short time period. Smaller
verifiers can get substantially the same volume information via
existing collaborative systems.
9.6 Limits on Revoking Keys
When a large domain detects undesirable behavior on the part of one
of its users, it might wish to revoke the key used to sign that
user's messages in order to disavow responsibility for messages which
have not yet been verified or which are the subject of a replay
attack. However, the ability of the domain to do so can be limited
if the same key, for scalability reasons, is used to sign messages
for many other users. Mechanisms for explicitly revoking keys on a
per-address basis have been proposed but require further study as to
their utility and the DNS load they represent.
9.7 Intentionally malformed Key Records
It is possible for an attacker to publish key records in DNS which
are intentionally malformed, with the intent of causing a denial-of-
service attack on a non-robust verifier implementation. The attacker
could then cause a verifier to read the malformed key record by
sending a message to one of its users referencing the malformed
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record in a (not necessarily valid) signature. Verifiers MUST
thoroughly verify all key records retrieved from DNS and be robust
against intentionally as well as unintentionally malformed key
records.
9.8 Intentionally Malformed DKIM-Signature header fields
Verifiers MUST be prepared to receive messages with malformed DKIM-
Signature header fields, and thoroughly verify the header field
before depending on any of its contents.
10. References
10.1 References -- Normative
[ID-AUTH-RES]
Kucherawy, M., "Message header field for Indicating Sender
Authentication Status", draft-kucherawy-sender-auth-header
field-02 (work in progress), 2005.
[ID-DKIM-RR]
"[*] dk rr", draft-dkk-rr-xx (work in progress), 2005.
[ID-DKIM-SSP]
Allman, E., "DKIM Sender Signing Policy",
draft-allman-dkim-ssp-XX (work in progress), 2005.
[ID-MAIL-ARCH]
Crocker, D., "Internet Mail Architecture",
draft-crocker-email-arch-02 (work in progress),
April 2005.
[OPENSSL] Team, C&D., "", WEB http://www.openssl.org/docs/,
June 2005.
[RFC1421] Linn, J., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic
Mail: Part I: Message Encryption and Authentication
Procedures", RFC 1421, February 1993.
[RFC2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.
[RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)
Part Three: Message header field Extensions for Non-ASCII
Text", RFC 2047, November 1996.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
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Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2821] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 2821,
April 2001.
[RFC2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822,
April 2001.
[RFC3447] Jonsson, J. and B. Kaliski, "Public-Key Cryptography
Standards (PKCS) #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications
Version 2.1", RFC 3447, February 2003.
[RFC3491] Hoffman, P. and M. Blanchet, "Nameprep: A Stringprep
Profile for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)",
RFC 3491, March 2003.
[RFC4234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005.
10.2 References -- Informative
[ID-DKIM-THREATS]
Fenton, J., "Analysis of Threats Motivating DomainKeys
Identified Mail (DKIM)", draft-fenton-dkim-threats-00
(work in progress), September 2005.
[RFC1847] Galvin, J., Murphy, S., Crocker, S., and N. Freed,
"Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and
Multipart/Encrypted", RFC 1847, October 1995.
[RFC2440] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., and R. Thayer,
"OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 2440, November 1998.
[RFC2633] Ramsdell, B., "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification",
RFC 2633, June 1999.
[RFC3833] Atkins, D. and R. Austein, "Threat Analysis of the Domain
Name System (DNS)", RFC 3833, August 2004.
[RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements",
RFC 4033, March 2005.
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Authors' Addresses
Eric Allman
Sendmail, Inc.
6425 Christie Ave, Suite 400
Emeryville, CA 94608
USA
Phone: +1 510 594 5501
Email: eric+dkim@sendmail.org
URI:
Jon Callas
PGP Corporation
3460 West Bayshore
Palo Alto, CA 94303
USA
Phone: +1 650 319 9016
Email: jon@pgp.com
Mark Delany
Yahoo! Inc
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 95087
USA
Phone: +1 408 349 6831
Email: markd+dkim@yahoo-inc.com
URI:
Miles Libbey
Yahoo! Inc
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 95087
USA
Email: mlibbeymail-mailsig@yahoo.com
URI:
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Jim Fenton
Cisco Systems, Inc.
MS SJ-24/2
170 W. Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
USA
Phone: +1 408 526 5914
Email: fenton@cisco.com
URI:
Michael Thomas
Cisco Systems, Inc.
MS SJ-9/2
170 W. Tasman Drive
San Jose, CA 95134-1706
Phone: +1 408 525 5386
Email: mat@cisco.com
Appendix A. Usage Examples (INFORMATIVE)
This section taken directly from IIM without serious editing; it
should be updated or deleted before publication. In no case should
these examples be used as guidance when creating an implementation.
A.1 Simple message transfer
The above sections largely describe the process of signing and
verifying a message which goes directly from one user to another.
One special case is where the recipient has requested forwarding of
the email message from the original address to another, through the
use of a Unix .forward file or equivalent. In this case the message
is typically forwarded without modification, except for the addition
of a Received header field to the message and a change in the
Envelope-to address. In this case, the eventual recipient should be
able to verify the original signature since the signed content has
not changed, and attribute the message correctly.
A.2 Outsourced business functions
Outsourced business functions represent a use case that motivates the
need for user-level keying. Examples of outsourced business
functions are legitimate email marketing providers and corporate
benefits providers. In either case, the outsourced function would
like to be able to send messages using the email domain of the client
company. At the same time, the client may be reluctant to register a
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key for the provider that grants the ability to send messages for any
address in the domain.
With user-level keying, the outsourcing company can generate a
keypair and the client company can register the public key for a
specific address such as promotions@example.com. This would enable
the provider to send messages using that specific address and have
them verify properly. The client company retains control over the
email address because it retains the ability to revoke the key at any
time.
A.3 PDAs and Similar Devices
PDAs are one example of the use of multiple keys per user. Suppose
that John Doe wanted to be able to send messages using his corporate
email address, jdoe@example.com, and the device did not have the
ability to make a VPN connection to the corporate network. If the
device was equipped with a private key registered for
jdoe@example.com by the administrator of that domain, and appropriate
software to sign messages, John could send IIM messages through the
outgoing network of the PDA service provider.
A.4 Mailing Lists
There is a wide range of behavior in forwarders and mailing lists
(collectively called "forwarders" below), ranging from those which
make no modification to the message itself (other than to add a
Received header field and change the envelope information) to those
which may add header fields, change the Subject header field, add
content to the body (typically at the end), or reformat the body in
some manner.
Forwarders which do not modify the body or signed header fields of a
message with a valid signature MAY re-sign the message as described
below.
Forwarders which make any modification to a message that could result
in its signature becoming invalid SHOULD sign or re-sign using an
appropriate identification (e.g., mailing-list-name@example.net).
Since in so doing the (re-)signer is taking responsibility for the
content of the message, modifying forwarders MAY elect to forward or
re-sign only for messages which were received with valid signatures
or other indications that the messages being signed are not spoofed.
Forwarders which wish to re-sign a message MUST apply a Sender header
field to the message to identify the address being used to sign the
message and MUST remove any preexisting Sender header field as
required by [RFC2822]. The forwarder applies a new IIM-Sig header
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field with the signature, public key, and related information of the
forwarder. Previously existing IIM-Sig header fields SHOULD NOT be
removed.
A.5 Affinity Addresses
"Affinity addresses" are email addresses that users employ to have an
email address that is independent of any changes in email service
provider they may choose to make. They are typically associated with
college alumni associations, professional organizations, and
recreational organizations with which they expect to have a long-term
relationship. These domains usually provide forwarding of incoming
email, but (currently) usually depend on the user to send outgoing
messages through their own service provider's MTA. They usually have
an associated Web application which authenticates the user and allows
the forwarding address to be changed.
With DKIM, affinity domains could use the Web application to allow
users to register their own public keys to be used to sign messages
on behalf of their affinity address. This is another application
that takes advantage of user-level keying, and domains used for
affinity addresses would typically have a very large number of user-
level keys. Alternatively, the affinity domain could decide to start
handling outgoing mail, and could operate a mail submission agent
that authenticates users before accepting and signing messages for
them. This is of course dependent on the user's service provider not
blocking the relevant TCP ports used for mail submission.
A.6 Third-party Message Transmission
Third-party message transmission refers to the authorized sending of
mail by an Internet application on behalf of a user. For example, a
website providing news may allow the reader to forward a copy of the
message to a friend; this is typically done using the reader's email
address. This is sometimes referred to as the "Evite problem", named
after the website of the same name that allows a user to send
invitations to friends.
One way this can be handled is to continue to put the reader's email
address in the From field of the message, but put an address owned by
the site into the Sender field, and sign the message on behalf of the
Sender. A verifying MTA SHOULD accept this and rewrite the From
field to indicate the address that was verified, i.e., From: John
Doe via news@news-site.com <jdoe@example.com>.
Appendix B. Example of Use (INFORMATIVE)
This section taken directly from DK without serious editing; it
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should be updated or deleted before publication. In no case should
these examples be used as guidance when creating an implementation.
This section shows the complete flow of an email from submission to
final delivery, demonstrating how the various components fit
together.
B.1 The user composes an email
From: Joe SixPack <joe@football.example.com>
To: Suzie Q <suzie@shopping.example.net>
Subject: Is dinner ready?
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com>
Hi.
We lost the game. Are you hungry yet?
Joe.
B.2 The email is signed
This email is signed by the example.com outbound email server and now
looks like this:
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DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; s=brisbane; d=example.com;
c=simple; q=dns; i=joe@football.example.com;
h=Received : From : To : Subject : Date : Message-ID;
b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ
VoG4ZHRNiYzR;
Received: from dsl-10.2.3.4.football.example.com [10.2.3.4]
by submitserver.example.com with SUBMISSION;
Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joe SixPack <joe@football.example.com>
To: Suzie Q <suzie@shopping.example.net>
Subject: Is dinner ready?
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com>
Hi.
We lost the game. Are you hungry yet?
Joe.
The signing email server requires access to the private-key
associated with the "brisbane" selector to generate this signature.
Distribution and management of private-keys is outside the scope of
this document.
B.3 The email signature is verified
The signature is normally verified by an inbound SMTP server or
possibly the final delivery agent. However, intervening MTAs can
also perform this verification if they choose to do so. The
verification process uses the domain "example.com" extracted from the
"d=" header field and the selector "brisbane" from the "s=" tag in
the "DKIM-Signature" header field to form the DNS DKIM query for:
brisbane._dkim.example.com
Signature verification starts with the physically last "Received"
header field, the "From" header field, and so forth, in the order
listed in the "h=" tag. Verification follows with a single CRLF
followed by the body (starting with "Hi."). The email is canonically
prepared for verifying with the "simple" method. The result of the
query and subsequent verification of the signature is stored in the
"Authentication-Results" header field line. After successful
verification, the email looks like this:
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Authentication-Status: XXX
Received: from mout23.football.example.com (192.168.1.1)
by shopping.example.net with SMTP;
Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:59 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; s=brisbane; d=example.net;
c=simple; q=dns; i=joe@football.example.com;
h=Received : From : To : Subject : Date : Message-ID;
b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ
VoG4ZHRNiYzR
Received: from dsl-10.2.3.4.network.example.com [10.2.3.4]
by submitserver.example.com with SUBMISSION;
Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joe SixPack <joe@football.example.com>
To: Suzie Q <suzie@shopping.example.net>
Subject: Is dinner ready?
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com>
Hi.
We lost the game. Are you hungry yet?
Joe.
Appendix C. Creating a public key (INFORMATIVE)
Drop this section? It seems like this could clarify things for some
people.
The default signature is an RSA signed SHA1 digest of the complete
email. For ease of explanation, the openssl command is used to
describe the mechanism by which keys and signatures are managed. One
way to generate a 768 bit private-key suitable for DKIM, is to use
openssl like this:
$ openssl genrsa ?out rsa.private 768
This results in the file rsa.private containing the key information
similar to this:
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-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----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-----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
Once a private-key has been generated, the openssl command can be
used to sign an appropriately prepared email, like this:
$ openssl dgst -sign rsa.private -sha1 <input.file
This results in signature data similar to this when represented in
Base64 [MIME] format:
aoiDeX42BB/gP4ScqTdIQJcpAObYr+54yvctqc4rSEFYby9+omKD3pJ/TVxATeTz
msybuW3WZiamb+mvn7f3rhmnozHJ0yORQbnn4qJQhPbbPbWEQKW09AMJbyz/0lsl
How this signature is added to the email is discussed later in this
document. To extract the public-key component from the private-key,
use openssl like this:
$ openssl rsa -in rsa.private -out rsa.public -pubout -outform PEM
This results in the file rsa.public containing the key information
similar to this:
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MHwwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADawAwaAJhAKJ2lzDLZ8XlVambQfMXn3LRGKOD5o6l
MIgulclWjZwP56LRqdg5ZX15bhc/GsvW8xW/R5Sh1NnkJNyL/cqY1a+GzzL47t7E
XzVc+nRLWT1kwTvFNGIoAUsFUq+J6+OprwIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----
This public-key data (without the BEGIN and END tags) is placed in
the DNS. With the signature, canonical email contents and public
key, a verifying system can test the validity of the signature. The
openssl invocation to verify a signature looks like this: openssl
dgst -verify rsa.public -sha1 -signature signature.file <input.file
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Appendix D. Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Russ Allbery, Edwin Aoki, Claus Assmann,
Steve Atkins, Fred Baker, Mark Baugher, Nathaniel Borenstein, Dave
Crocker, Michael Cudahy, Dennis Dayman, Jutta Degener, Patrik
Faltstrom, Duncan Findlay, Elliot Gillum, Phillip Hallam-Baker, Tony
Hansen, Arvel Hathcock, Amir Herzberg, Don Johnsen, Harry Katz,
Murray S. Kucherawy, Barry Leiba, John Levine, Simon Longsdale, David
Margrave, Justin Mason, David Mayne, Steve Murphy, Russell Nelson,
Dave Oran, Shamim Pirzada, Juan Altmayer Pizzorno, Sanjay Pol, Blake
Ramsdell, Christian Renaud, Scott Renfro, Dave Rossetti, the
Spamhaus.org team, Malte S. Stretz, Robert Sanders, Rand Wacker, and
Dan Wing for their valuable suggestions and constructive criticism.
The DomainKeys specification was a primary source from which this
specification has been derived. Further information about DomainKeys
is at
<http://domainkeys.sourceforge.net/license/patentlicense1-1.html>.
Appendix E. Edit History
E.1 Changes since -00 version
o Changed "c=" tag to separate out header from body
canonicalization.
o Eliminated "nowsp" canonicalization in favor of "relaxed", which
is somewhat less relaxed (but more secure) than "nowsp".
o Moved the (empty) Compliance section to the Sender Signing Policy
document.
o Added several IANA Considerations.
o Fixed a number of grammar and formatting errors.
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