Network Working Group R. Barnes
Internet-Draft Mozilla
Intended status: Standards Track P. Eckersley
Expires: November 14, 2015 S. Schoen
EFF
A. Halderman
J. Kasten
University of Michigan
May 13, 2015
Automatic Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
draft-barnes-acme-02
Abstract
Certificates in the Web's X.509 PKI (PKIX) are used for a number of
purposes, the most significant of which is the authentication of
domain names. Thus, certificate authorities in the Web PKI are
trusted to verify that an applicant for a certificate legitimately
represents the domain name(s) in the certificate. Today, this
verification is done through a collection of ad hoc mechanisms. This
document describes a protocol that a certificate authority (CA) and
an applicant can use to automate the process of verification and
certificate issuance. The protocol also provides facilities for
other certificate management functions, such as certificate
revocation.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on November 14, 2015.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Deployment Model and Operator Experience . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Certificate Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.1. Resources and Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.2. Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.3. Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.4. Authorization Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.5. Key Authorization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.5.1. Recovery Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.6. Certificate Issuance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.7. Certificate Refresh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5.8. Certificate Revocation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6. Identifier Validation Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
6.1. Simple HTTPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.2. Domain Validation with Server Name Indication . . . . . . 26
6.3. Recovery Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
6.4. Recovery Token . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.5. Proof of Possession of a Prior Key . . . . . . . . . . . 30
6.6. DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.7. Other possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
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1. Introduction
Certificates in the Web PKI are most commonly used to authenticate
domain names. Thus, certificate authorities in the Web PKI are
trusted to verify that an applicant for a certificate legitimately
represents the domain name(s) in the certificate.
Existing Web PKI certificate authorities tend to run on a set of ad
hoc protocols for certificate issuance and identity verification. A
typical user experience is something like:
o Generate a PKCS#10 [RFC2314] Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
o Cut-and-paste the CSR into a CA web page.
o Prove ownership of the domain by one of the following methods:
* Put a CA-provided challenge at a specific place on the web
server.
* Put a CA-provided challenge at a DNS location corresponding to
the target domain.
* Receive CA challenge at a (hopefully) administrator-controlled
e-mail address corresponding to the domain and then respond to
it on the CA's web page.
o Download the issued certificate and install it on their Web
Server.
With the exception of the CSR itself and the certificates that are
issued, these are all completely ad hoc procedures and are
accomplished by getting the human user to follow interactive natural-
language instructions from the CA rather than by machine-implemented
published protocols. In many cases, the instructions are difficult
to follow and cause significant confusion. Informal usability tests
by the authors indicate that webmasters often need 1-3 hours to
obtain and install a certificate for a domain. Even in the best
case, the lack of published, standardized mechanisms presents an
obstacle to the wide deployment of HTTPS and other PKIX-dependent
systems because it inhibits mechanization of tasks related to
certificate issuance, deployment, and revocation.
This document describes an extensible framework for automating the
issuance and domain validation procedure, thereby allowing servers
and infrastructural software to obtain certificates without user
interaction. Use of this protocol should radically simplify the
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deployment of HTTPS and the practicality of PKIX authentication for
other protocols based on TLS [RFC5246].
2. Deployment Model and Operator Experience
The major guiding use case for ACME is obtaining certificates for Web
sites (HTTPS [RFC2818]). In that case, the server is intended to
speak for one or more domains, and the process of certificate
issuance is intended to verify that the server actually speaks for
the domain.
Different types of certificates reflect different kinds of CA
verification of information about the certificate subject. "Domain
Validation" (DV) certificates are by far the most common type. For
DV validation, the CA merely verifies that the requester has
effective control of the web server and/or DNS server for the domain,
but does not explicitly attempt to verify their real-world identity.
(This is as opposed to "Organization Validation" (OV) and "Extended
Validation" (EV) certificates, where the process is intended to also
verify the real-world identity of the requester.)
DV certificate validation commonly checks claims about properties
related to control of a domain name - properties that can be observed
by the issuing authority in an interactive process that can be
conducted purely online. That means that under typical
circumstances, all steps in the request, verification, and issuance
process can be represented and performed by Internet protocols with
no out-of-band human intervention.
When an operator deploys a current HTTPS server, it generally prompts
him to generate a self-signed certificate. When an operator deploys
an ACME-compatible web server, the experience would be something like
this:
o The ACME client prompts the operator for the intended domain
name(s) that the web server is to stand for.
o The ACME client presents the operator with a list of CAs from
which it could get a certificate.
(This list will change over time based on the capabilities of CAs
and updates to ACME configuration.) The ACME client might prompt
the operator for payment information at this point.
o The operator selects a CA.
o In the background, the ACME client contacts the CA and requests
that a certificate be issued for the intended domain name(s).
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o Once the CA is satisfied, the certificate is issued and the ACME
client automatically downloads and installs it, potentially
notifying the operator via e-mail, SMS, etc.
o The ACME client periodically contacts the CA to get updated
certificates, stapled OCSP responses, or whatever else would be
required to keep the server functional and its credentials up-to-
date.
The overall idea is that it's nearly as easy to deploy with a CA-
issued certificate as a self-signed certificate, and that once the
operator has done so, the process is self-sustaining with minimal
manual intervention. Close integration of ACME with HTTPS servers,
for example, can allow the immediate and automated deployment of
certificates as they are issued, optionally sparing the human
administrator from additional configuration work.
3. Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
The two main roles in ACME are "client" and "server". The ACME
client uses the protocol to request certificate management actions,
such as issuance or revocation. An ACME client therefore typically
runs on a web server, mail server, or some other server system which
requires valid TLS certificates. The ACME server runs at a
certificate authority, and responds to client requests, performing
the requested actions if the client is authorized.
For simplicity, in the HTTPS transactions used by ACME, the ACME
client is the HTTPS client and the ACME server is the HTTPS server.
In the discussion below, we will refer to three different types of
keys / key pairs:
Subject Public Key: A public key to be included in a certificate.
Account Key Pair: A key pair for which the ACME server considers the
holder of the private key authorized to manage certificates for a
given identifier. The same key pair may be authorized for
multiple identifiers.
Recovery Token: A secret value that can be used to demonstrate prior
authorization for an identifier, in a situation where all Subject
Private Keys and Account Keys are lost.
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ACME messaging is based on HTTPS [RFC2818] and JSON [RFC7159]. Since
JSON is a text-based format, binary fields are Base64-encoded. For
Base64 encoding, we use the variant defined in
[I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-signature]. The important features of this
encoding are (1) that it uses the URL-safe character set, and (2)
that "=" padding characters are stripped.
Some HTTPS bodies in ACME are authenticated and integrity-protected
by being encapsulated in a JSON Web Signature (JWS) object
[I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-signature]. ACME uses a profile of JWS, with
the following restrictions:
o The JWS MUST use the JSON or Flattened JSON Serialization
o If the JWS is in the JSON Serialization, it MUST NOT include more
than one signature in the "signatures" array
o The JWS Header MUST include "alg" and "jwk" fields
4. Protocol Overview
ACME allows a client to request certificate management actions using
a set of JSON messages carried over HTTPS. In some ways, ACME
functions much like a traditional CA, in which a user creates an
account, adds identifiers to that account (proving control of the
domains), and requests certificate issuance for those domains while
logged in to the account.
In ACME, the account is represented by an account key pair. The "add
a domain" function is accomplished by authorizing the key pair for a
given domain. Certificate issuance and revocation are authorized by
a signature with the key pair.
The first phase of ACME is for the client to register with the ACME
server. The client generates an asymmetric key pair and associates
this key pair with a set of contact information by signing the
contact information. The server acknowledges the registration by
replying with a recovery token that the client can provide later to
associate a new account key pair in the event that the first account
key pair is lost.
Client Server
Contact Information
Signature ------->
<------- Recovery Token
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Before a client can issue certificates, it must establish an
authorization with the server for an account key pair to act for the
identifier(s) that it wishes to include in the certificate. To do
this, the client must demonstrate to the server both (1) that it
holds the private key of the account key pair, and (2) that it has
authority over the identifier being claimed.
Proof of possession of the account key is built into the ACME
protocol. All messages from the client to the server are signed by
the client, and the server verifies them using the public key of the
account key pair.
To verify that the client controls the identifier being claimed, the
server issues the client a set of challenges. Because there are many
different ways to validate possession of different types of
identifiers, the server will choose from an extensible set of
challenges that are appropriate for the identifier being claimed.
The client responds with a set of responses that tell the server
which challenges the client has completed. The server then validates
the challenges to check that the client has accomplished the
challenge.
For example, if the client requests a domain name, the server might
challenge the client to provision a record in the DNS under that
name, or to provision a file on a web server referenced by an A or
AAAA record under that name. The server would then query the DNS for
the record in question, or send an HTTP request for the file. If the
client provisioned the DNS or the web server as expected, then the
server considers the client authorized for the domain name.
Client Server
Identifier
Signature ------->
<------- Challenges
Responses
Signature ------->
<------- Updated Challenge
Poll ------->
<------- Authorization
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Once the client has authorized an account key pair for an identifier,
it can use the key pair to authorize the issuance of certificates for
the identifier. To do this, the client sends a PKCS#10 Certificate
Signing Request (CSR) to the server (indicating the identifier(s) to
be included in the issued certificate), a set of links to any
required authorizations, and a signature over the CSR by the private
key of the account key pair.
If the server agrees to issue the certificate, then it creates the
certificate and provides it in its response. The certificate is
assigned a URI, which the client can use to fetch updated versions of
the certificate.
Client Server
CSR
Authorization URI(s)
Signature -------->
<-------- Certificate
To revoke a certificate, the client simply sends a revocation
request, signed with an authorized key pair, and the server indicates
whether the request has succeeded.
Client Server
Revocation request
Signature -------->
<-------- Result
Note that while ACME is defined with enough flexibility to handle
different types of identifiers in principle, the primary use case
addressed by this document is the case where domain names are used as
identifiers. For example, all of the identifier validation
challenges described in Section {identifier-validation-challenges}
below address validation of domain names. The use of ACME for other
protocols will require further specification, in order to describe
how these identifiers are encoded in the protocol, and what types of
validation challenges the server might require.
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5. Certificate Management
In this section, we describe the certificate management functions
that ACME enables:
o Registration
o Key Authorization
o Certificate Issuance
o Certificate Revocation
Each of these functions is accomplished by the client sending a
sequence of HTTPS requests to the server, carrying JSON messages.
Each subsection below describes the message formats used by the
function, and the order in which messages are sent.
5.1. Resources and Requests
ACME is structured as a REST application with a few types of
resources:
o Registration resources, representing information about an account
key
o Authorization resources, representing an account key's
authorization to act for an identifier
o Challenge resources, representing a challenge to prove control of
an identifier
o Certificate resources, representing issued certificates
o A "new-registration" resource
o A "new-authorization" resource
o A "new-certificate" resource
In general, the intent is for authorization and certificate resources
to contain only public information, so that CAs may publish these
resources to document what certificates have been issued and how they
were authorized. Non-public information, such as contact
information, is stored in registration resources.
In order to accomplish ACME transactions, a client needs to have the
server's new-registration, new-authorization, and new-certificate
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URIs; the remaining URIs are provided to the client as a result of
requests to these URIs. To simplify configuration, ACME uses the
"next" link relation to indicate URI to contact for the next step in
processing: From registration to authorization, and from
authorization to certificate issuance. In this way, a client need
only be configured with the registration URI.
The "up" link relation is used with challenge resources to indicate
the authorization resource to which a challenge belongs. It is also
used from certificate resources to indicate a resource from which the
client may fetch a chain of CA certificates that could be used to
validate the certificate in the original resource.
The following diagram illustrates the relations between resources on
an ACME server. The solid lines indicate link relations, and the
dotted lines correspond to relationships expressed in other ways,
e.g., the Location header in a 201 (Created) response.
"next" "next"
new-reg ---+----> new-authz ---+----> new-cert cert-chain
. | . | . ^
. | . | . | "up"
V | V | V |
reg* ----+ authz -----+ cert-----------+
. ^
. | "up"
V |
challenge
The remainder of this section provides the details of how these
resources are structured and how the ACME protocol makes use of them.
All ACME requests with a non-empty body MUST encapsulate the body in
a JWS object, signed using the account key pair. The server MUST
verify the JWS before processing the request. (For readability,
however, the examples below omit this encapsulation.) Encapsulating
request bodies in JWS provides a simple authentication of requests by
way of key continuity.
Note that this implies that GET requests are not authenticated.
Servers MUST NOT respond to GET requests for resources that might be
considered sensitive.
The following table illustrates a typical sequence of requests
required to establish a new account with the server, prove control of
an identifier, issue a certificate, and fetch an updated certificate
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some time after issuance. The "->" is a mnemonic for a Location
header pointing to a created resource.
+--------------------+----------------+--------------+
| Action | Request | Response |
+--------------------+----------------+--------------+
| Register | POST new-reg | 201 -> reg |
| | | |
| Request challenges | POST new-authz | 201 -> authz |
| | | |
| Answer challenges | POST challenge | 200 |
| | | |
| Poll for status | GET authz | 200 |
| | | |
| Request issuance | POST new-cert | 201 -> cert |
| | | |
| Check for new cert | GET cert | 200 |
+--------------------+----------------+--------------+
5.2. Errors
Errors can be reported in ACME both at the HTTP layer and within ACME
payloads. ACME servers can return responses with an HTTP error
response code (4XX or 5XX). For example: If the client submits a
request using a method not allowed in this document, then the server
MAY return status code 405 (Method Not Allowed).
When the server responds with an error status, it SHOULD provide
additional information using problem document
[I-D.ietf-appsawg-http-problem]. The "type" and "detail" fields MUST
be populated. To facilitate automatic response to errors, this
document defines the following standard tokens for use in the "type"
field (within the "urn:acme:" namespace):
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| Code | Semantic |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
| malformed | The request message was malformed |
| | |
| unauthorized | The client lacks sufficient authorization |
| | |
| serverInternal | The server experienced an internal error |
| | |
| badCSR | The CSR is unacceptable (e.g., due to a short |
| | key) |
+----------------+--------------------------------------------------+
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Authorization and challenge objects can also contain error
information to indicate why the server was unable to validate
authorization.
TODO: Flesh out errors and syntax for them
5.3. Registration
An ACME registration resource represents a set of metadata associated
to an account key pair, most importantly contact information and a
recovery token. Registration resources have the following structure:
key (required, dictionary): The public key of the account key pair,
encoded as a JSON Web Key object [I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-key].
contact (optional, array of string): An array of URIs that the
server can use to contact the client for issues related to this
authorization. For example, the server may wish to notify the
client about server-initiated revocation, or check with the client
on future authorizations (see the "recoveryContact" challenge
type).
recoveryToken (optional, string): An opaque token that the client
can present to demonstrate that it participated in a prior
authorization transaction.
agreement (optional, string): A URI referring to a subscriber
agreement or terms of service provided by the server (see below).
Including this field indicates the client's agreement with these
terms.
A client creates a new account with the server by sending a POST
request to the server's new-registration URI. The body of the
request is a registration object containing only the "contact" field.
POST /acme/new-registration HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
{
"contact": [
"mailto:cert-admin@example.com",
"tel:+12025551212"
],
}
/* Signed as JWS */
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The server MUST ignore any values provided in the "key" or
"recoveryToken" fields, as well as any other fields that it does not
recognize. If new fields are specified in the future, the
specification of those fields MUST describe whether they may be
provided by the client.
The server creates a registration object with the included contact
information. The "key" element of the registration is set to the
public key used to verify the JWS (i.e., the "jwk" element of the JWS
header). The server also provides a random recovery token. The
server returns this registration object in a 201 (Created) response,
with the registration URI in a Location header field. The server
MUST also indicate its new-authorization URI using the "next" link
relation.
If the server wishes to present the client with terms under which the
ACME service is to be used, it may indicate the URI where such terms
can be accessed in a Link header with link relation "terms-of-
service". As noted above, the client may indicate its agreement with
these terms by updating its registration to include the "agreement"
field, with the terms URI as its value.
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/json
Location: https://example.com/reg/asdf
Link: <https://example.com/acme/new-authz>;rel="next"
Link: <https://example.com/acme/terms>;rel="terms-of-service"
{
"key": { /* JWK from JWS header */ },
"contact": [
"mailto:cert-admin@example.com",
"tel:+12025551212"
],
"recoveryToken": "uV2Aph7-sghuCcFVmvsiZw"
}
If the client wishes to update this information in the future, it
sends a POST request with updated information to the registration
URI. The server MUST ignore any updates to the "key" or
"recoveryToken" fields, and MUST verify that the request is signed
with the private key corresponding to the "key" field of the request
before updating the registration.
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Servers SHOULD NOT respond to GET requests for registration resources
as these requests are not authenticated.
5.4. Authorization Resources
An ACME authorization resource represents server's authorization for
an account key pair to represent an identifier. In addition to a
public key and identifier, an authorization includes several metadata
fields, such as the status of the authorization (e.g., "pending",
"valid", or "revoked") and which challenges were used to validate
possession of the identifier.
The structure of an ACME authorization resource is as follows:
identifier (required, dictionary of string): The identifier that the
account key is authorized to represent
type (required, string): The type of identifier.
value (required, string): The identifier itself.
key (required, dictionary): The public key of the account key pair,
encoded as a JSON Web Key object [I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-key].
status (optional, string): The status of this authorization.
Possible values are: "unknown", "pending", "processing", "valid",
"invalid" and "revoked". If this field is missing, then the
default value is "pending".
expires (optional, string): The date after which the server will
consider this authorization invalid, encoded in the format
specified in RFC 3339 [RFC3339].
challenges (required, array): The challenges that the client needs
to fulfill in order to prove possession of the identifier (for
pending authorizations). For final authorizations, the challenges
that were used. Each array entry is a dictionary with parameters
required to validate the challenge, as specified in Section
{identifier-validation-challenges}.
combinations (optional, array of arrays of integers): A collection
of sets of challenges, each of which would be sufficient to prove
possession of the identifier. Clients complete a set of
challenges that that covers at least one set in this array.
Challenges are identified by their indices in the challenges
array. If no "combinations" element is included in an
authorization object, the client completes all challenges.
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The only type of identifier defined by this specification is a fully-
qualified domain name (type: "dns"). The value of the identifier
MUST be the ASCII representation of the domain name.
{
"status": "valid",
"expires": "2015-03-01",
"identifier": {
"type": "dns",
"value": "example.org"
},
"key": { /* JWK */ },
"challenges": [
{
"type": "simpleHttps",
"status": "valid",
"validated": "2014-12-01T12:05Z",
"token": "IlirfxKKXAsHtmzK29Pj8A"
"path": "Hf5GrX4Q7EBax9hc2jJnfw"
},
{
"type": "recoveryToken",
"status": "valid",
"validated": "2014-12-01T12:07Z",
"token": "23029d88d9e123e"
}
],
}
5.5. Key Authorization
The key authorization process establishes the authorization of an
account key pair to manage certificates for a given identifier. This
process must assure the server of two things: First, that the client
controls the private key of the key pair, and second, that the client
holds the identifier in question. This process may be repeated to
associate multiple identifiers to a key pair (e.g., to request
certificates with multiple identifiers), or to associate multiple key
pairs with an identifier (e.g., to allow multiple entities to manage
certificates).
As illustrated by the figure in the overview section above, the
authorization process proceeds in two phases. The client first
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requests a new authorization, and then the server issues challenges
that the client responds to.
To begin the key authorization process, the client sends a POST
request to the server's new-authorization resource. The body of the
POST request MUST contain a JWS object, whose payload is a partial
authorization object. This JWS object MUST contain only the
"identifier" field, so that the server knows what identifier is being
authorized. The client MAY provide contact information in the
"contact" field in this or any subsequent request.
POST /acme/new-authorization HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
{
"identifier": {
"type": "dns",
"value": "example.org"
}
}
/* Signed as JWS */
Before processing the authorization further, the server SHOULD
determine whether it is willing to issue certificates for the
identifier. For example, the server should check that the identifier
is of a supported type. Servers might also check names against a
blacklist of known high-value identifiers. If the server is
unwilling to issue for the identifier, it SHOULD return a 403
(Forbidden) error, with a problem document describing the reason for
the rejection.
If the server is willing to proceed, it builds a pending
authorization object from the initial authorization object submitted
by the client.
o "identifier" the identifier submitted by the client.
o "key": the key used to verify the client's JWS request (i.e., the
contents of the "jwk" field in the JWS header)
o "status": SHOULD be "pending" (MAY be omitted)
o "challenges" and "combinations": As selected by the server's
policy for this identifier
o The "expires" field MUST be absent.
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The server allocates a new URI for this authorization, and returns a
201 (Created) response, with the authorization URI in a Location
header field, and the JSON authorization object in the body.
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/json
Location: https://example.com/authz/asdf
Link: <https://example.com/acme/new-cert>;rel="next"
{
"status": "pending",
"identifier": {
"type": "dns",
"value": "example.org"
},
"key": { /* JWK from JWS header */ },
"challenges": [
{
"type": "simpleHttps",
"uri": "https://example.com/authz/asdf/0",
"token": "IlirfxKKXAsHtmzK29Pj8A"
},
{
"type": "dns",
"uri": "https://example.com/authz/asdf/1"
"token": "DGyRejmCefe7v4NfDGDKfA"
},
{
"type": "recoveryToken",
"uri": "https://example.com/authz/asdf/2"
}
},
"combinations": [
[0, 2],
[1, 2]
]
}
The client needs to respond with information to complete the
challenges. To do this, the client updates the authorization object
received from the server by filling in any required information in
the elements of the "challenges" dictionary. For example, if the
client wishes to complete the "simpleHttps" challenge, it needs to
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provide the "path" component. (This is also the stage where the
client should perform any actions required by the challenge.)
The client sends these updates back to the server in the form of a
JSON object with the response fields required by the challenge type,
carried in a POST request to the challenge URI (not authorization URI
or the new-authorization URI). This allows the client to send
information only for challenges it is responding to.
For example, if the client were to respond to the "simpleHttps"
challenge in the above authorization, it would send the following
request:
POST /acme/authz/asdf/0 HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
{
"path": "Hf5GrX4Q7EBax9hc2jJnfw"
}
/* Signed as JWS */
The server updates the authorization document by updating its
representation of the challenge with the response fields provided by
the client. The server MUST ignore any fields in the response object
that are not specified as response fields for this type of challenge.
The server provides a 200 response including the updated challenge.
Presumably, the client's responses provide the server with enough
information to validate one or more challenges. The server is said
to "finalize" the authorization when it has completed all the
validations it is going to complete, and assigns the authorization a
status of "valid" or "invalid", corresponding to whether it considers
the account key authorized for the identifier. If the final state is
"valid", the server MUST add an "expires" field to the authorization.
When finalizing an authorization, the server MAY remove the
"combinations" field (if present), remove any unfulfilled challenges,
or add a "recoveryToken" field.
Usually, the validation process will take some time, so the client
will need to poll the authorization resource to see when it is
finalized. For challenges where the client can tell when the server
has validated the challenge (e.g., by seeing an HTTP or DNS request
from the server), the client SHOULD NOT begin polling until it has
seen the validation request from the server.
To check on the status of an authorization, the client sends a GET
request to the authorization URI, and the server responds with the
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current authorization object. To provide some degree of control over
polling, the server MAY provide a Retry-After header field to
indicate how long it expect to take in finalizing the response.
GET /acme/authz/asdf HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
{
"status": "valid",
"expires": "2015-03-01",
"identifier": {
"type": "dns",
"value": "example.org"
},
"key": { /* JWK */ },
"contact": [
"mailto:cert-admin@example.com",
"tel:+12025551212"
],
"challenges": [
{
"type": "simpleHttps"
"status": "valid",
"validated": "2014-12-01T12:05Z",
"token": "IlirfxKKXAsHtmzK29Pj8A"
"path": "Hf5GrX4Q7EBax9hc2jJnfw"
},
{
"type": "recoveryToken",
"status": "valid",
"validated": "2014-12-01T12:07Z",
"token": "23029d88d9e123e"
}
]
}
5.5.1. Recovery Tokens
A recovery token is a fallback authentication mechanism. In the
event that a client loses all other state, including authorized key
pairs and key pairs bound to certificates, the client can use the
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recovery token to prove that it was previously authorized for the
identifier in question.
This mechanism is necessary because once an ACME server has issued an
Authorization Key for a given identifier, that identifier enters a
higher-security state, at least with respect to the ACME server.
That state exists to protect against attacks such as DNS hijacking
and router compromise which tend to inherently defeat all forms of
Domain Validation. So once a domain has begun using ACME, new DV-
only authorization will not be performed without proof of continuity
via possession of an Authorized Private Key or potentially a Subject
Private Key for that domain.
This higher state of security poses some risks. From time to time,
the administrators and owners of domains may lose access to keys they
have previously had issued or certified, including Authorized private
keys and Subject private keys. For instance, the disks on which this
key material is stored may suffer failures, or passphrases for these
keys may be forgotten. In some cases, the security measures that are
taken to protect this sensitive data may contribute to its loss.
Recovery Tokens and Recovery Challenges exist to provide a fallback
mechanism to restore the state of the domain to the server-side
administrative security state it was in prior to the use of ACME,
such that fresh Domain Validation is sufficient for reauthorization.
Recovery tokens are therefore only useful to an attacker who can also
perform Domain Validation against a target domain, and as a result
client administrators may choose to handle them with somewhat fewer
security precautions than Authorized and Subject private keys,
decreasing the risk of their loss.
Recovery tokens come in several types, including high-entropy
passcodes (which need to be safely preserved by the client admin) and
email addresses (which are inherently hard to lose, and which can be
used for verification, though they may be a little less secure).
Recovery tokens are employed in response to Recovery Challenges.
Such challenges will be available if the server has issued Recovery
Tokens for a given domain, and the combination of a Recovery
Challenge and a domain validation Challenge is a plausible
alternative to other challenge sets for domains that already have
extant Authorized keys.
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5.6. Certificate Issuance
The holder of an authorized key pair for an identifier may use ACME
to request that a certificate be issued for that identifier. The
client makes this request by sending a POST request to the server's
new-certificate resource. The body of the POST is a JWS object whose
JSON payload contains a Certificate Signing Request (CSR) [RFC2986]
and set of authorization URIs. The CSR encodes the parameters of the
requested certificate; authority to issue is demonstrated by the JWS
signature and the linked authorizations.
csr (required, string): A CSR encoding the parameters for the
certificate being requested. The CSR is sent in Base64-encoded
version of the DER format. (Note: This field uses the same
modified Base64-encoding rules used elsewhere in this document, so
it is different from PEM.)
authorizations (required, array of string): An array of URIs for
authorization resources.
POST /acme/new-cert HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
Accept: application/pkix-cert
{
"csr": "5jNudRx6Ye4HzKEqT5...FS6aKdZeGsysoCo4H9P",
"authorizations": [
"https://example.com/acme/authz/asdf"
]
}
/* Signed as JWS */
The CSR encodes the client's requests with regard to the content of
the certificate to be issued. The CSR MUST contain at least one
extensionRequest attribute [RFC2985] requesting a subjectAltName
extension, containing the requested identifiers.
The values provided in the CSR are only a request, and are not
guaranteed. The server or CA may alter any fields in the certificate
before issuance. For example, the CA may remove identifiers that are
not authorized for the key indicated in the "authorization" field.
If the CA decides to issue a certificate, then the server returns the
certificate in a response with status code 201 (Created). The server
MUST indicate a URL for this certificate in a Location header field.
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The default format of the certificate is DER (application/pkix-cert).
The client may request other formats by including an Accept header in
its request.
The server can provide metadata about the certificate in HTTP
headers. For example, the server can include a Link relation header
field [RFC5988] with relation "up" to provide a certificate under
which this certificate was issued. Or the server can include an
Expires header as a hint to the client about when to re-query to
refresh the certificate. (Of course, the real expiration of the
certificate is controlled by the notAfter time in the certificate
itself.)
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Content-Type: application/pkix-cert
Link: <https://example.com/acme/ca-cert>;rel="up";title="issuer"
Location: https://example.com/acme/cert/asdf
[DER-encoded certificate]
5.7. Certificate Refresh
The certificate URL (provided in the Location header of the server's
response) is used to refresh or revoke the certificate. To refresh
the certificate, the client simply sends a GET request to the
certificate URL. This allows the server to provide the client with
updated certificates with the same content and different validity
intervals, for as long as all of the authorization objects underlying
the certificate are valid.
If a client sends a refresh request and the server is not willing to
refresh the certificate, the server MUST respond with status code 403
(Forbidden). If the client still wishes to obtain a certificate, it
can re-initiate the authorization process for any expired
authorizations related to the certificate.
5.8. Certificate Revocation
To request that a certificate be revoked, the client sends a POST
request to the certificate URL. The body of the POST is a JWS object
whose JSON payload contains an indication when the client would like
the certificate to be revoked:
revoke (required, string): The time at which the certificate should
be revoked. The value of this field MUST be either the literal
string "now", or a date in RFC 3339 format [RFC3339].
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authorizations (required, array of string): An array of URIs for
authorization resources.
POST /acme/cert/asdf HTTP/1.1
Host: example.com
{
"revoke": "now",
"authorizations": [
"https://example.com/acme/authz/asdf"
]
}
/* Signed as JWS */
Before revoking a certificate, the server MUST verify that the
account key pair used to sign the request is authorized to act for
all of the identifier(s) in the certificate. The server MAY also
accept a signature by the private key corresponding to the public key
in the certificate.
If the revocation succeeds, the server responds with status code 200
(OK). If the revocation fails, the server returns an error.
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 0
--- or ---
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Content-Type: application/problem+json
Content-Language: en
{
"type": "urn:acme:error:unauthorized"
"detail": "No authorization provided for name example.net"
"instance": "http://example.com/doc/unauthorized"
}
6. Identifier Validation Challenges
There are few types of identifier in the world for which there is a
standardized mechanism to prove possession of a given identifier. In
all practical cases, CAs rely on a variety of means to test whether
an entity applying for a certificate with a given identifier actually
controls that identifier.
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To accommodate this reality, ACME includes an extensible challenge/
response framework for identifier validation. This section describes
an initial set of Challenge types. Each challenge must describe:
o Content of Challenge payloads (in Challenge messages)
o Content of Response payloads (in authorizationRequest messages)
o How the server uses the Challenge and Response to verify control
of an identifier
The only general requirement for Challenge and Response payloads is
that they MUST be structured as a JSON object, and they MUST contain
a parameter "type" that specifies the type of Challenge or Response
encoded in the object.
Different challenges allow the server to obtain proof of different
aspects of control over an identifier. In some challenges, like
Simple HTTPS and DVSNI, the client directly proves control of an
identifier. In other challenges, such as Recovery or Proof of
Possession, the client proves historical control of the identifier,
by reference to a prior authorization transaction or certificate.
The choice of which Challenges to offer to a client under which
circumstances is a matter of server policy. A server may choose
different sets of challenges depending on whether it has interacted
with a domain before, and how. For example:
+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Domain status | Challenges typically sufficient |
| | for (re)Authorization |
+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| No known prior certificates | Domain Validation (DVSNI or |
| or ACME usage | Simple HTTPS) |
| | |
| Existing valid certs, first | DV + Proof of Possession of |
| use of ACME | previous CA-signed key |
| | |
| Ongoing ACME usage | PoP of previous Authorized key |
| | |
| Ongoing ACME usage, lost | DV + (Recovery or PoP of ACME- |
| Authorized key | certified Subject key) |
| | |
| ACME usage, all keys and | Recertification by another CA + |
| recovery tokens lost | PoP of that key |
+-------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
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The identifier validation challenges described in this section all
relate to validation of domain names. If ACME is extended in the
future to support other types of identifier, there will need to be
new Challenge types, and they will need to specify which types of
identifier they apply to.
6.1. Simple HTTPS
With Simple HTTPS validation, the client in an ACME transaction
proves its control over a domain name by proving that it can
provision resources on an HTTPS server that responds for that domain
name. The ACME server challenges the client to provision a file with
a specific string as its contents.
As a domain may resolve to multiple IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, the
server will connect to at least one of the hosts found in A and AAAA
records, at its discretion. Simple HTTPS validation of IPv6-only
domains may not be supported by all servers.
type (required, string): The string "simpleHttps"
token (required, string): The value to be provisioned in the file.
This value MUST have at least 128 bits of entropy, in order to
prevent an attacker from guessing it. It MUST NOT contain any
non-ASCII characters.
{
"type": "simpleHttps",
"token": "evaGxfADs6pSRb2LAv9IZf17Dt3juxGJ+PCt92wr+oA"
}
A client responds to this Challenge by provisioning the nonce as a
resource on the HTTPS server for the domain in question. The path at
which the resource is provisioned is determined by the client, but
MUST begin with ".well-known/acme-challenge/". The content type of
the resource MUST be "text/plain". The client returns the part of
the path coming after that prefix in its Response message.
type (required, string): The string "simpleHttps"
path (required, string): The string to be appended to the standard
prefix ".well-known/acme-challenge/" in order to form the path at
which the nonce resource is provisioned. The result of
concatenating the prefix with this value MUST match the "path"
production in the standard URI format [RFC3986]
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{
"type": "simpleHttps",
"path": "6tbIMBC5Anhl5bOlWT5ZFA"
}
Given a Challenge/Response pair, the server verifies the client's
control of the domain by verifying that the resource was provisioned
as expected.
1. Form a URI by populating the URI template
"https://{domain}/.well-known/acme-challenge/{path}", where the
domain field is set to the domain name being verified and the
path field is the path provided in the challenge [RFC6570].
2. Verify that the resulting URI is well-formed.
3. Dereference the URI using an HTTPS GET request.
4. Verify that the certificate presented by the HTTPS server is a
valid self-signed certificate, and contains the domain name being
validated as well as the public key of the key pair being
authorized.
5. Verify that the Content-Type header of the response is either
absent, or has the value "text/plain"
6. Compare the entity body of the response with the nonce. This
comparison MUST be performed in terms of Unicode code points,
taking into account the encodings of the stored nonce and the
body of the request.
If the GET request succeeds and the entity body is equal to the
nonce, then the validation is successful. If the request fails, or
the body does not match the nonce, then it has failed.
6.2. Domain Validation with Server Name Indication
The Domain Validation with Server Name Indication (DVSNI) validation
method aims to ensure that the ACME client has administrative access
to the web server at the domain name being validated, and possession
of the private key being authorized. The ACME server verifies that
the operator can reconfigure the web server by having the client
create a new self-signed challenge certificate and respond to TLS
connections from the ACME server with it.
The challenge proceeds as follows: The ACME server sends the client a
random value R and a nonce used to identify the transaction. The
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client responds with another random value S. The server initiates a
TLS connection on port 443 to one or more of the IPv4 or IPv6 hosts
with the domain name being validated. In the handshake, the ACME
server sets the Server Name Indication extension set to
"<nonce>.acme.invalid". The TLS server (i.e., the ACME client)
should respond with a valid self-signed certificate containing both
the domain name being validated and the domain name
"<Z>.acme.invalid", where Z = SHA-256(R || S).
The ACME server's Challenge provides its random value R, and a random
nonce used to identify the transaction:
type (required, string): The string "dvsni"
r (required, string): A random 32-byte octet, Base64-encoded
nonce (required, string): A random 16-byte octet string, hex-encoded
(so that it can be used as a DNS label)
{
"type": "dvsni",
"r": "Tyq0La3slT7tqQ0wlOiXnCY2vyez7Zo5blgPJ1xt5xI",
"nonce": "a82d5ff8ef740d12881f6d3c2277ab2e"
}
The client responds to this Challenge by configuring a TLS server on
port 443 of a server with the domain name being validated:
1. Decode the server's random value R
2. Generate a random 32-byte octet string S
3. Compute Z = SHA-256(R || S) (where || denotes concatenation of
octet strings)
4. Generate a self-signed certificate with a subjectAltName
extension containing two dNSName values:
5. The domain name being validated
6. A name formed by hex-encoding Z and appending the suffix
".acme.invalid"
7. Compute a nonce domain name by appending the suffix
".acme.invalid" to the nonce provided by the server.
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8. Configure the TLS server such that when a client presents the
nonce domain name in the SNI field, the server presents the
generated certificate.
The client's response provides its random value S:
type (required, string): The string "dvsni"
s (required, string): A random 32-byte secret octet string,
Base64-encoded
{
"type": "dvsni",
"s": "9dbjsl3gTAtOnEtKFEmhS6Mj-ajNjDcOmRkp3Lfzm3c"
}
Given a Challenge/Response pair, the ACME server verifies the
client's control of the domain by verifying that the TLS server was
configured as expected:
1. Compute the value Z = SHA-256(R || S)
2. Open a TLS connection to the domain name being validated on port
443, presenting the value "<nonce>.acme.invalid" in the SNI
field.
3. Verify the following properties of the certificate provided by
the TLS server:
* It is a valid self-signed certificate
* The public key is the public key for the key pair being
authorized
* It contains the domain name being validated as a
subjectAltName
* It contains a subjectAltName matching the hex-encoding of Z,
with the suffix ".acme.invalid"
It is RECOMMENDED that the ACME server verify the challenge
certificate using multi-path probing techniques to reduce the risk of
DNS hijacking attacks.
If the server presents a certificate matching all of the above
criteria, then the validation is successful. Otherwise, the
validation fails.
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6.3. Recovery Contact
A server may issue a recovery contact challenge to verify that the
client is the same as the entity that previously requested
authorization, using contact information provided by the client in a
prior authorizationRequest message.
The server's message to the client may request action in-band or out-
of-band to ACME. The server can provide a token in the message that
the client provides in its response. Or the server could provide
some out-of-band response channel in its message, such as a URL to
click in an email.
type (required, string): The string "recoveryContact"
activationURL (optional, string): A URL the client can visit to
cause a recovery message to be sent to client's contact address.
successURL (optional, string): A URL the client may poll to
determine if the user has successfully clicked a link or completed
other tasks specified by the recovery message. This URL will
return a 200 success code if the required tasks have been
completed. The client SHOULD NOT poll the URL more than once
every three seconds.
contact (optional, string) A full or partly obfuscated version of
the contact URI that the server will use to contact the client.
Client software may present this to a user in order to suggest
what contact point the user should check (e.g., an email address).
{
"type": "recoveryContact",
"activationURL" : "https://example.ca/sendrecovery/a5bd99383fb0",
"successURL" : "https://example.ca/confirmrecovery/bb1b9928932",
"contact" : "c********n@example.com"
}
type (required, string): The string "recoveryContact"
token (optional, string): If the user transferred a token from a
contact email or call into the client software, the client sends
it here. If it the client has received a 200 success response
while polling the RecoveryContact Challenge's successURL, this
field SHOULD be omitted.
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{
"type": "recoveryContact",
"token": "23029d88d9e123e"
}
If the value of the "token" field matches the value provided in the
out-of-band message to the client, or if the client has completed the
required out-of-band action, then the validation succeeds.
Otherwise, the validation fails.
6.4. Recovery Token
A recovery token is a simple way for the server to verify that the
client was previously authorized for a domain. The client simply
provides the recovery token that was provided in the authorize
message.
type (required, string): The string "recoveryToken"
{
"type": "recoveryToken"
}
The response to a recovery token challenge is simple; the client
sends the requested token that it was provided by the server earlier.
type (required, string): The string "recoveryToken"
token (optional, string): The recovery token provided by the server.
{
"type": "recoveryToken",
"token": "23029d88d9e123e"
}
If the value of the "token" field matches a recovery token that the
server previously provided for this domain, then the validation
succeeds. Otherwise, the validation fails.
6.5. Proof of Possession of a Prior Key
The Proof of Possession challenge verifies that a client possesses a
private key corresponding to a server-specified public key, as
demonstrated by its ability to correctly sign server-provided data
with that key.
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This method is useful if a server policy calls for issuing a
certificate only to an entity that already possesses the subject
private key of a particular prior related certificate (perhaps issued
by a different CA). It may also help enable other kinds of server
policy that are related to authenticating a client's identity using
digital signatures.
This challenge proceeds in much the same way as the proof of
possession of the authorized key pair in the main ACME flow
(challenge + authorizationRequest). The server provides a nonce and
the client signs over the nonce. The main difference is that rather
than signing with the private key of the key pair being authorized,
the client signs with a private key specified by the server. The
server can specify which key pair(s) are acceptable directly (by
indicating a public key), or by asking for the key corresponding to a
certificate.
The server provides the following fields as part of the challenge:
type (required, string): The string "proofOfPossession"
alg (required, string): A token indicating the cryptographic
algorithm that should be used by the client to compute the
signature [I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms]. (MAC algorithms
such as "HS*" MUST NOT be used.) The client MUST verify that this
algorithm is supported for the indicated key before responding to
this challenge.
nonce (required, string): A random 16-byte octet string,
Base64-encoded
hints (required, object): A JSON object that contains various clues
for the client about what the requested key is, such that the
client can find it. Entries in the hints object may include:
jwk (required, object): A JSON Web Key object describing the public
key whose corresponding private key should be used to generate the
signature [I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-key]
certFingerprints (optional, array): An array of certificate
fingerprints, hex-encoded SHA1 hashes of DER-encoded certificates
that are known to contain this key
certs (optional, array): An array of certificates, in Base64-encoded
DER format, that contain acceptable public keys.
subjectKeyIdentifiers (optional, array): An array of hex-encoded
Subject Key Identifiers (SKIDs) from certificate(s) that contain
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the key. Because of divergences in the way that SKIDs are
calculated [RFC5280], there may conceivably be more than one of
these.
serialNumbers (optional, array of numbers): An array of serial
numbers of certificates that are known to contain the requested
key
issuers (optional, array): An array of X.509 Distinguished Names
[RFC5280] of CAs that have been observed to issue certificates for
this key, in text form [RFC4514]
authorizedFor (optional, array): An array of domain names, if any,
for which this server regards the key as an ACME Authorized key.
{
"type": "proofOfPossession",
"alg": "RS256",
"nonce": "eET5udtV7aoX8Xl8gYiZIA",
"hints" : {
"jwk": {
"kty": "RSA",
"e": "AQAB",
"n": "KxITJ0rNlfDMAtfDr8eAw...fSSoehDFNZKQKzTZPtQ"
},
"certFingerprints": [
"93416768eb85e33adc4277f4c9acd63e7418fcfe",
"16d95b7b63f1972b980b14c20291f3c0d1855d95",
"48b46570d9fc6358108af43ad1649484def0debf"
],
"subjectKeyIdentifiers": [
"d0083162dcc4c8a23ecb8aecbd86120e56fd24e5"
],
"serialNumbers": [34234239832, 23993939911, 17],
"issuers": [
"C=US, O=SuperT LLC, CN=SuperTrustworthy Public CA",
"O=LessTrustworthy CA Inc, CN=LessTrustworthy But StillSecure"
],
"authorizedFor": ["www.example.com", "example.net"]
}
}
In this case the server is challenging the client to prove its
control over the private key that corresponds to the public key
specified in the jwk object. The signing algorithm is specified by
the alg field. The nonce value is used by the server to identify
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this challenge and is also used, also with a client-provided
signature nonce, as part of the signature input.
signature-input = signature-nonce || server-nonce
The client's response includes the server-provided nonce, together
with a signature over that nonce by one of the private keys requested
by the server.
type (required, string): The string "proofOfPossession"
nonce (required, string): The server nonce that the server
previously associated with this challenge
signature (required, object): The ACME signature computed over the
signature-input using the server-specified algorithm
{
"type": "proofOfPossession",
"nonce": "eET5udtV7aoX8Xl8gYiZIA",
"signature": {
"alg": "RS256",
"nonce": "eET5udtV7aoX8Xl8gYiZIA",
"sig": "KxITJ0rNlfDMAtfDr8eAw...fSSoehDFNZKQKzTZPtQ",
"jwk": {
"kty": "RSA",
"e": "AQAB",
"n": "KxITJ0rNlfDMAtfDr8eAw...fSSoehDFNZKQKzTZPtQ"
}
}
}
Note that just as in the authorizationRequest message, there are two
nonces here, once provided by the client (inside the signature
object) and one provided by the server in its challenge (outside the
signature object). The signature covers the concatenation of these
two nonces (as specified in the signature-input above).
If the server is able to validate the signature and confirm that the
jwk and alg objects are unchanged from the original challenge, the
server can conclude that the client is in control of the private key
that corresponds to the specified public key. The server can use
this evidence in support of its authorization and certificate
issuance policies.
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6.6. DNS
When the identifier being validated is a domain name, the client can
prove control of that domain by provisioning records under it. The
DNS challenge requires the client to provision a TXT record
containing a validation token under a specific validation domain
name.
type (required, string): The string "dns"
token (required, string): An ASCII string that is to be provisioned
in the TXT record. This string SHOULD be randomly generated, with
at least 128 bits of entropy (e.g., a hex-encoded random octet
string).
{
"type": "dns",
"token": "17817c66b60ce2e4012dfad92657527a"
}
In response to this challenge, the client first MUST verify that the
token contains only ASCII characters. If so, the client constructs
the validation domain name by appending the label "_acme-challenge"
to the domain name being validated. For example, if the domain name
being validated is "example.com", then the client would provision the
following DNS record:
_acme-challenge.example.com. IN TXT "17817c66b60ce2e4012dfad92657527a"
The response to a DNS challenge is simply an acknowledgement that the
relevant record has been provisioned.
type (required, string): The string "dns"
{
"type": "dns"
}
To validate a DNS challenge, the server queries for TXT records under
the validation domain name. If it receives a record whose contents
match the token in the challenge, then the validation succeeds.
Otherwise, the validation fails.
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6.7. Other possibilities
For future work:
o Email
o DNSSEC
o WHOIS
7. IANA Considerations
TODO
o Register .well-known path
o Create identifier validation method registry
o Registries of syntax tokens, e.g., message types / error types?
8. Security Considerations
TODO
o General authorization story
o PoP nonce entropy
o ToC/ToU; duration of key authorization
o Clients need to protect recovery key
o CA needs to perform a very wide range of issuance policy
enforcement and sanity-check steps
o Parser safety (for JSON, JWK, ASN.1, and any other formats that
can be parsed by the ACME server)
9. Acknowledgements
This document draws on many concepts established by Eric Rescorla's
"Automated Certificate Issuance Protocol" draft. Martin Thomson
provided helpful guidance in the use of HTTP.
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10. References
10.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-appsawg-http-problem]
Nottingham, M. and E. Wilde, "Problem Details for HTTP
APIs", draft-ietf-appsawg-http-problem-00 (work in
progress), September 2014.
[I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-algorithms]
Jones, M., "JSON Web Algorithms (JWA)", draft-ietf-jose-
json-web-algorithms-40 (work in progress), January 2015.
[I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-key]
Jones, M., "JSON Web Key (JWK)", draft-ietf-jose-json-web-
key-41 (work in progress), January 2015.
[I-D.ietf-jose-json-web-signature]
Jones, M., Bradley, J., and N. Sakimura, "JSON Web
Signature (JWS)", draft-ietf-jose-json-web-signature-41
(work in progress), January 2015.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2314] Kaliski, B., "PKCS #10: Certification Request Syntax
Version 1.5", RFC 2314, March 1998.
[RFC2985] Nystrom, M. and B. Kaliski, "PKCS #9: Selected Object
Classes and Attribute Types Version 2.0", RFC 2985,
November 2000.
[RFC2986] Nystrom, M. and B. Kaliski, "PKCS #10: Certification
Request Syntax Specification Version 1.7", RFC 2986,
November 2000.
[RFC3339] Klyne, G., Ed. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the
Internet: Timestamps", RFC 3339, July 2002.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC
3986, January 2005.
[RFC4514] Zeilenga, K., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP): String Representation of Distinguished Names", RFC
4514, June 2006.
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[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
[RFC5988] Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, October 2010.
[RFC6570] Gregorio, J., Fielding, R., Hadley, M., Nottingham, M.,
and D. Orchard, "URI Template", RFC 6570, March 2012.
[RFC7159] Bray, T., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", RFC 7159, March 2014.
10.2. Informative References
[RFC2818] Rescorla, E., "HTTP Over TLS", RFC 2818, May 2000.
Authors' Addresses
Richard Barnes
Mozilla
Email: rlb@ipv.sx
Peter Eckersley
EFF
Email: pde@eff.org
Seth Schoen
EFF
Email: schoen@eff.org
Alex Halderman
University of Michigan
Email: jhalderm@eecs.umich.edu
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James Kasten
University of Michigan
Email: jdkasten@umich.edu
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