INTERNET DRAFT                                            Pat R. Calhoun
Category: Informational                           Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Title: draft-calhoun-diameter-framework-08.txt                 Glen Zorn
Date: June 2000                                      Cisco Systems, Inc.
                                                                Ping Pan
                                                               Bell Labs
                                                           Haseeb Akhtar
                                                         Nortel Networks



                      DIAMETER Framework Document



Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.  Internet-Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
   and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   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."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at:

      http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at:

      http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This document is an individual contribution for consideration by the
   AAA Working Group of the Internet Engineering Task Force.  Comments
   should be submitted to the diameter@diameter.org mailing list.

   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

   Copyright   (C) The Internet Society 1999.  All Rights Reserved.








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Abstract

   Current Internet Service Providers (ISPs) scale their networks by
   using the RADIUS protocol, which provides user Authentication,
   Authorization and Accounting (AAA) of Dial-up PPP clients. The recent
   work done in the Roaming Operations (ROAMOPS) Working Group was to
   investigate whether RADIUS could be used in a roaming network, and
   concluded that RADIUS was ill-suited for inter-domain purposes.

   The IETF has formed a new NAS Requirements Working Group, and part of
   their charter is to document the next generation NAS' AAA
   requirements.  Recently, the Mobile-IP Working Group also documented
   their own AAA requirements that would help Mobile IP scale for
   Inter-Domain mobility.

   The DIAMETER protocol is a follow-on to the RADIUS protocol. DIAMETER
   addresses the known RADIUS deficiencies, and is intended for use with
   the NASREQ, ROAMOPS and Mobile IP application space.

































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Table of Contents

      1.0  Introduction
            1.1  Requirements language
            1.2  Terminology
      2.0  Problems to be addressed
            2.1  Strict limitation of attribute data
            2.2  No documented retransmission procedure
            2.3  Inability to control flow to servers
            2.4  End to end message acknowledgment
            2.5  No retransmission procedure
            2.6  Heavy processing cost
            2.7  Silent discarding of packets
            2.8  No fail-over server support
            2.9  client/server protocol
            2.10 No unsolicited messages
            2.11 Authentication Replay Attacks
            2.12 Hop-by-Hop security
            2.13 No support for vendor-specific commands
            2.14 No alignment requirements
      3.0  DIAMETER Architecture
            3.1  DIAMETER Base Protocol
                  3.1.1  Proxy Support
                  3.1.2  Broker Support
            3.2  Strong Security Extension
            3.3  Mobile-IP Extension
            3.4  NASREQ Extension
            3.5  Accounting Extension
            3.6  Resource Management
            3.7  DIAMETER Command Naming Conventions
                  3.7.1  Request/Answer
                  3.7.2  Query/Response
                  3.7.3  Indication
      4.0  Why not LDAP?
      5.0  References
      6.0  Acknowledgements
      7.0  Author's Addresses
      8.0  Full Copyright Statement













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1.0  Introduction

   Historically, the RADIUS protocol has been used to provide AAA
   services for dial-up PPP [17] and terminal server access. Over time,
   routers and network access servers (NAS) have increased in complexity
   and density, making the RADIUS protocol increasingly unsuitable for
   use in such networks.

   The Roaming Operations Working Group (ROAMOPS) has published a set of
   specifications [19, 20, 21] that define how a PPP user can gain
   access to the Internet without having to dial into his/her home
   service provider's modem pool. This is achieved by allowing service
   providers to cross-authenticate their users. Effectively, a user can
   dial into any service provider's point of presence (POP) that has a
   roaming agreement with his/her home Internet service provider (ISP),
   the benefit being that the user does not have to incur a long
   distance charge while traveling, which can sometimes be quite
   expensive.

   Given the number of ISPs today, ROAMOPS realized that requiring each
   ISP to set up roaming agreements with all other ISPs did not scale.
   Therefore, the working group defined a "broker", which acts as an
   intermediate server, whose sole purpose is to set up these roaming
   agreements. A collection of ISPs and a broker is called a "roaming
   consortium". There are many such brokers in existence today; many
   also provide settlement services for member ISPs.

   The Mobile-IP Working Group has recently changed its focus to inter
   administrative domain mobility, which is a requirement for cellular
   carriers wishing to deploy IETF-based mobility protocols. The current
   cellular carriers requirements [22, 23] are very similar to the
   ROAMOPS model, with the exception that the access protocol is
   Mobile-IP [2] instead of PPP.

   The DIAMETER protocol was not designed from the ground up. Instead,
   the basic RADIUS model was retained while fixing the flaws in the
   RADIUS protocol itself. DIAMETER does not share a common protocol
   data unit (PDU) with RADIUS, but does borrow sufficiently from the
   protocol to ease migration.

   The basic concept behind DIAMETER is to provide a base protocol that
   can be extended in order to provide AAA services to new access
   technologies. Currently, the protocol only concerns itself with
   Internet access, both in the traditional PPP sense as well as taking
   into account the ROAMOPS model, and Mobile-IP.

   Although DIAMETER could be used to solve a wider set of AAA problems,
   we are currently limiting the scope of the protocol in order to



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   ensure that the effort remains focussed on satisfying the
   requirements of network access. Note that a truly generic AAA
   protocol used by many applications might provide functionality not
   provided by DIAMETER. Therefore, it is imperative that the designers
   of new applications understand their requirements before using
   DIAMETER.


1.1  Requirements language

   In this document, the key words "MAY", "MUST, "MUST NOT", "optional",
   "recommended", "SHOULD", and "SHOULD NOT", are to be interpreted as
   described in [9].


1.2  Terminology

   Accounting
      The act of collecting information on resource usage for the
      purpose of trend analysis, auditing, billing, or cost allocation.

   Authentication
      The act of verifying the identity of an entity (subject).

   Authorization
      The act of determining whether a requesting entity (subject) will
      be allowed access to a resource (object).

   AVP
      The DIAMETER protocol consists of a header followed by objects.
      Each object is encapsulated in a header known as an Attribute-
      Value-Pair.

   Broker
      Although a DIAMETER proxy provides routing of DIAMETER
      authentication, authorization and accounting requests, a broker
      provides DIAMETER message routing while preserving strong
      security. A DIAMETER broker can also provide redirect services by
      providing a requesting DIAMETER server the information necessary
      to contact a target server directly.

   DIAMETER Client
      The DIAMETER Client is the device that users contact in order to
      get access to the network. An example of a client would be a
      Network Access Server (NAS) and a Foreign Agent (FA).

   DIAMETER Server
      The DIAMETER server is the device that provides for authentication



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      and authorization of a user or node requesting access to the
      network. The DIAMETER Server also collects accounting information
      for authenticated sessions.

   Home Domain
      This is the Internet service provider or corporate network with
      whom the user maintains an account relationship.

   Integrity Check Value (ICV)
      An Integrity Check Value is an unforgeable or secure hash of the
      message with a shared secret.

   Interim accounting
      An interim accounting message provides a snapshot of usage during
      a user's session. It is typically implemented in order to provide
      for partial accounting of a user's session in the event of a
      device reboot or other network problem that prevents the reception
      of a session summary message or session record.

   Session record
      A session record represents a summary of the resource consumption
      of a user over the entire session. Accounting gateways creating
      the session record may do so by processing interim accounting
      events or accounting events from several devices serving the same
      user.

   Local Domain
      This is the Internet service provider whom the user uses in order
      to get access. Where roaming is implemented the local ISP may be
      different from the home ISP.

   Network Access Identifier
      In order to provide for the routing of DIAMETER authentication and
      accounting requests, the userID field used in PPP and Mobile IP
      (known as the Network Access Identifier or NAI) and in the
      subsequent DIAMETER authentication and accounting requests, can
      contain structure.  This structure provides a means by which the
      DIAMETER proxy will locate the DIAMETER server that is to receive
      the request. The NAI is defined in [3].

   Proxy Server
      In order to provide for the routing of DIAMETER authentication and
      accounting requests, a DIAMETER proxy can be employed. To the NAS,
      the DIAMETER proxy appears to act as a DIAMETER server, and to the
      DIAMETER server, the proxy appears to act as a DIAMETER client.

   Realm
      The portion of the Network Access Identifier [3] that immediately



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      follows the '@' character. As required in [3], NAI realm names are
      required to be unique, and are piggybacked on the administration
      of the DNS namespace.  DIAMETER makes use of the realm, also
      loosely refered to as domain, to determine whether messages can be
      satisfied locally, or whether they must be proxied.

   Real-time Accounting
      Real-time accounting involves the processing of information on
      resource usage within a defined time window. Time constraints are
      typically imposed in order to limit financial risk.

   Redirect Services
      A DIAMETER broker is said to provide redirect services by
      returning contact information to a requesting DIAMETER server in
      order to allow it to communicate directly with another server
      within a roaming consortium. The roaming consortium that allows
      for redirect services typically also provides certificate
      authority services in order to allow the end servers to
      communicate in a secure fashion.

   Roaming relationships
      Roaming relationships include relationships between companies and
      ISPs, relationships among peer ISPs within a roaming association,
      and relationships between an ISP and a roaming consortia.
      Together, the set of relationships forming a path between a local
      ISP's authentication proxy and the home authentication server is
      known as the roaming relationship path.

   Session
      The DIAMETER protocol is session based. When an authentication
      request is initially transmitted, it includes a session identifier
      that is used for the duration of the session. The Session-
      Identifier AVP contains the identifier and must be globally
      unique.


2.0  Problems to be addressed

   The RADIUS protocol was designed in the early 1990's as an attempt to
   solve a scaling problem associated with dial-in and telnet servers.
   Over time the networks became more complex (e.g. roaming networks)
   and the Network Access Servers (NAS) increased in complexity and
   density. These changes combined with a massive deployment of the
   protocol uncovered some fundamental issues with the protocol that
   needed to be fixed. The DIAMETER protocol was designed as a next
   generation RADIUS protocol, designed with roaming and high density
   NASes in mind.




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   This section will describe the documented, and undocumented, RADIUS
   problems known today. Further sections will describe how the DIAMETER
   protocol addresses each one of these problems.


2.1  Strict limitation of attribute data

   One of problems that RADIUS suffers from is its inherent limitation
   on the length of attribute data. This limitation is imposed by the
   fact that the protocol's attribute header only reserves one byte for
   the length field. The RADIUS protocol does specify that larger data
   can be spanned across multiple attributes, however doing so
   introduces a new set of problems. The RADIUS protocol also allows
   multiple attributes of the same type to be included within a message.
   Therefore, it is difficult for a RADIUS server, or client, to
   determine whether multiple identical attributes are in fact multiple
   independent attributes, or a single fragmented attribute.


2.2  No documented retransmission procedure

   The RADIUS protocol states that the identifier field, found within
   the header, is used to identify retransmissions. This one byte field
   imposes a strict limitation on the number of requests that can be
   pending at any given time to 255. In the early 1990's, this number
   was sufficient, but the increased density of most NASes today make
   the protocol nearly unusable. Most NASes today have fixed this
   problem by including information in other attributes to bypass this
   limitation. However, the RADIUS servers have also had to support this
   change in protocol since they must be able to properly identify
   retransmissions. The RADIUS protocol also states that the identifier
   MUST be changed if any data is changed in a request.

   For this reason, most RADIUS servers keep a cache of received RADIUS
   request (e.g. all messages received in the last 60 seconds). The
   RADIUS servers then attempt to match some attributes within the
   received requests with all attributes in all messages in the cache.
   This places a very heavy burden on the RADIUS servers, but
   unfortunately is the only method of identifying retransmissions given
   the fact that the RADIUS protocol does not have any good scheme. This
   hack has proved necessary since some NASes have had to change some
   information within requests in the retransmission queue (such as
   session length).


2.3  Inability to control flow to servers

   Given the rather bursty nature of the RADIUS protocol, current



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   servers have no way of properly managing their receive buffers. This
   is in part due to the fact that RADIUS operates over UDP, and does
   not include any windowing support.  This has been known to cause
   large bursts of requests to be directed to a server, which can burden
   a server's ability to respond in a timely manner.  This problem is
   most prevalent in cases where a server becomes unavailable and all
   requests must be sent to an alternate server, or when an ingress port
   on the NAS becomes available (e.g. T3 port on NAS).


2.4  End to end message acknowledgment

   The RADIUS protocol requires that a NAS retransmit a request until a
   successful or failed response is received, and does not permit a
   RADIUS server to retransmit a response. This is problematic since
   there are many times when a server does receive a request, but cannot
   respond before the NAS determines that the request must be
   retransmitted. This can occur for many reasons, including the fact
   that processing a RADIUS request, which includes authentication and
   authorization of the user, a database lookup and logging events, can
   be lengthy.


2.5  No retransmission procedure

   Another reason why NASes typically retransmit is when a SERVER
   receives a large number of requests, and cannot process all of them
   in a timely manner.  The side effect here is that if the NAS
   retransmits requests to the server, it simply causes further damage
   to the busy server. Since the RADIUS server cannot retransmit, some
   RADIUS servers keep a cache of responses sent in the past 60 seconds
   in order to minimize processing should a retransmission be received.
   As previously discussed, identifying a retransmission is a very CPU
   intensive tasks, but perhaps not quite as intensive as a database
   lookup.


2.6  Heavy processing cost

   The introduction of proxy RADIUS network have made this
   acknowledgement scheme even worse, since the end server must respond
   in a timely manner. Each intermediate RADIUS server adds additional
   latency to proxied requests due to the application processing cost.
   This has been known to cause unnecessary retransmission of requests
   by NASes, which impose heavy burden on the proxies, and the network.

   When a NAS retransmits a request a maximum number of times, it
   assumes that the server is no longer available and transmits the



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   message to an alternate server. If there are many messages in the
   retransmission queue, all other requests are also transmitted to the
   new server. Since a burst of requests were sent to the server, the
   chances that it can satisfy all requests before the retransmission
   period are very small, which causes unnecessary retransmissions.


2.7  Silent discarding of packets

   The RADIUS protocol states that messages that do not contain the
   expected information, or messages that have errors are silently
   discarded. Silently discarding messages can create a serious problem
   since no response is sent to the NAS, which then has to assume that
   the server is no longer reachable.  Since proxy networks are
   transparent to a NAS, should a server in a proxy chain silently
   discard a request, it will cause the NAS to assume that the local
   (first hop) server is no longer available.


2.8  No fail-over server support

   Most NASes today support a large number of RADIUS servers in an
   attempt to provide resilience. However, the RADIUS protocol itself
   makes this very difficult due to the problems described above. Since
   a NAS does not know a priori whether a specific server is available,
   when it switches to an alternate server, it must retransmit a message
   a maximum number of times before determining that the server in
   question is down, and that the next server in the configuration chain
   must be tried. Taking an example of a NAS with 8 servers configured,
   if the next 3 servers in the configuration chain were down, it would
   take the NAS x number of seconds to reach an available server (where
   x is equal to the retransmission interval * the maximum number of
   retransmissions * 3), which is most often longer than the clients are
   willing to wait.

















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                               Local ISP              Home ISP
                               +--------+            +--------+
                               | Primary|            | Primary|
          +-------+            | Proxy  |----------->|  Home  |
          |       |----------->| Server |            | Server |
          |Network|            +--------+            +--------+
          |Access |
          |Server |            +--------+            +--------+
          |       |----------->|  2 nd  |            |  2 nd  |
          +-------+            | Proxy  |----------->|  Home  |
                               | Server |            | Server |
                               +--------+            +--------+

                      Figure 1: RADIUS Proxy Network


2.9  client/server protocol

   Given that a RADIUS server cannot know a priori whether a downstream
   RADIUS server is reachable, and the fact that the NAS must retransmit
   any messages, the RADIUS protocol is not well suited to proxy
   environments. Since servers are not aware of a peer's reachability,
   most RADIUS networks are designed by creating parallel links between
   primary and alternate servers (see figure 1). In this example the
   local ISP's primary server communicates with the home ISP's primary
   server, while the 2nd servers communicate directly.  When the NAS
   issues a request to the primary server, the first hop server attempts
   to proxy the request to the primary server at the home network. The
   NAS will attempt to retransmit the request n number of times, and the
   primary server will simply forward the request to the primary server
   at the home network.

   Should no response be received, the primary server could attempt to
   forward the request to the 2nd server at the home network, but since
   the NAS is controlling the retransmissions, it may not have the
   opportunity to do so.  Therefore, the NAS will redirect all requests
   to the local ISP's 2nd server.  Given the protocol's limitations, it
   requires a large number of RADIUS servers in order to provide
   resilient service.

   The above problem is further aggravated should the local ISP attempt
   to proxy to two different administrative network's servers. Take an
   example where the local ISP issues two authentication requests, one
   for abc.net and another for xyz.com. Let's also assume that abc.net's
   primary server is down, while xyz's 2nd server is down. Should such a
   problem occur, all requests for abc.net would cause the NAS to switch
   to the local ISP's 2nd server, while all requests to xyz.net would
   cause the NAS to switch back to the local ISP's primary server. This



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   clearly illustrates that the RADIUS protocol cannot be reliably used
   in proxy networks.


2.10  No unsolicited messages

   The RADIUS protocol does not allow a server to send unsolicited
   messages to the NAS. As network services became more complex, this
   limitation has forced manufacturers to break the RADIUS protocol in
   this area in order to allow servers to communicate with the client.
   This is widely used for accounting purposes, and to allow a server to
   inform a NAS that a session should be terminated. Unfortunately, the
   lack of a standard method of doing this has caused many non-
   interoperable implementations to be deployed.


2.11  Authentication Replay Attacks

   In today's PPP world, the NAS provides a challenge to the user, which
   is then computed by the PPP user to create the challenge response.
   This is commonly known as CHAP [26], and is a popular PPP
   authentication scheme. Before roaming networks existed, service
   providers would own both the NAS and the RADIUS server and this
   wasn't considered a problem. However, now that the NAS and the RADIUS
   server are owned by two separate administrative domains, the fact
   that the non-trusted NAS generates a challenge provides the ability
   for authentication replay attacks. A NAS, or any RADIUS server in a
   proxy chain, can have access to a valid challenge/response pair,
   which can be replayed at a later time.

   The EAP protocol [10], which will be supported as part of RADIUS
   extensions can solve this problem, but the fact that EAP is not
   widely deployed on clients, and that many EAP authentication
   transforms cannot be used within RADIUS (due to the limitation on
   attribute data size) makes it difficult to use. Furthermore, given
   the RADIUS protocol's requirement for end-to-end retransmissions,
   since some EAP authentication types involve a higher number of round
   trips than what RADIUS currently supports, RADIUS and EAP cannot be
   used on networks that exhibit data loss. This is primarily due to the
   fact that most EAP (PPP) clients timeout before the authentication
   can be completed.


2.12  Hop-by-Hop security

   The RADIUS protocol uses hop-by-hop security, which means that every
   hop in a RADIUS proxy network adds authentication data that is used
   by the next peer in the chain. RADIUS has no facility for strong



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   security, where security is maintained from the requestor and the
   responder, even though a request is handled by intermediate nodes.
   This has caused opportunities for fraud in RADIUS networks, since
   intermediate nodes can easily modify information (e.g. accounting
   information), and such events are untraceable.


2.13  No support for vendor-specific commands

   Although the RADIUS protocol does support vendor-specific attributes,
   it does not allow for vendor-specific commands. This has caused
   serious inter-operability problems since vendors simply choose
   command identifiers at random, which can collide with other
   manufacturer's implementation.


2.14  No alignment requirements

   Unlike most newer IETF protocols, the RADIUS protocol does not impose
   any alignment requirements, which adds an unnecessary burden on most
   processors. All fields within the header and attributes must be
   treated as byte aligned characters.


3.0  DIAMETER Architecture

   The DIAMETER architecture consists of a base protocol and a set of
   protocol extensions (such as strong security, NASREQ, Mobile-IP and
   accounting). Functionality common to all supported services is
   implemented in the base protocol, while application-specific
   functionality may be provided through the extension mechanism.

   The base protocol [18] must be supported for all DIAMETER
   applications, and defines the basic PDU format, a few primitives and
   the basic security services offered by the protocol. Unlike RADIUS,
   the DIAMETER protocol operates over SCTP [28], which provides
   reliability and an agressive retransmission and timeout mechanism.
   Additionally, DIAMETER defines a fail-over strategy, which is lacking
   in the RADIUS protocol. SCTP provides a windowing scheme, which
   allows the AAA servers to limit the flow of incoming packets. This
   can then be used by the AAA clients to distribute the traffic load
   across multiple servers. The transport layer's aggressive
   retransmission and timeout timers allow clients and servers to detect
   the reachability state of peers, allowing for quick transition to
   back-up servers.

   As previously discussed, the ROAMOPS model introduces the AAA broker,
   which acts as an intermediate server redirecting requests to user's



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   home ISPs. ROAMOPS also described a set of attacks that one could
   mount if such a network was built using the RADIUS protocol [21]. In
   order to provide secure broker services, strong security is required
   at the application layer, since messages traverse application
   gateways (brokers).

   The DIAMETER Strong Security Extension defines a set of extensions to
   the base protocol that provide authentication, confidentiality and
   non-repudiation at the Attribute-Value-Pair (AVP) level. With these
   extensions, it is possible to secure portions of a DIAMETER message,
   while other parts of the message are not secured. Secured objects are
   called protected AVPs; non-secured objects are called unprotected
   AVPs.  Using DIAMETER, brokers can add, delete or modify unprotected
   AVPs in a message.

   The RADIUS protocol provides dial-up PPP AAA services by providing
   three commands and many Attributes. Attributes in RADIUS are
   analogous to AVPs in DIAMETER. In order to ease migration from RADIUS
   to DIAMETER, the first 256 AVPs in the DIAMETER AVP space are
   reserved for RADIUS compatibility.  This allows both protocols to
   share a common dictionary and policy rules for PPP user profiles.
   Recently, the RADIUS protocol adopted support for the Extensible
   Authentication Protocol (EAP) [10], but RADIUS' lack of support for
   large attributes and its inherent unreliability has made the
   integration of the protocols very difficult.

   The DIAMETER NASREQ Extension defines a set of
   authentication/authorization commands, which can be used for CHAP,
   PAP and EAP. DIAMETER's support for larger AVPs and the SCTP
   transport properties have made the use of EAP much more palatable,
   allowing for end-to-end user authentication, which reduces many of
   authentication replay attacks currently documented.

   Unlike PPP, Mobile-IP hosts do not have a long-lived "nailed-up"
   connection to a PPP server, but rather get service from routers that
   provide service in a particular cell. In the Mobile-IP world, the
   router is known as a Foreign Agent, while the moving hosts are known
   as Mobile Nodes. The mobile node's home network has a host that
   forwards all messages destined to the mobile node through the Foreign
   Agent. This router is commonly referred to as the Home Agent.

   Mobile-IP [7] allows the mobile nodes to move from one cell (subnet)
   to another while retaining the same IP address, minimizing the impact
   to applications. Although the Mobile-IP protocol could be deployed in
   a small network with any AAA services, a larger network suffers from
   many scaling issues such as:

      - Static mobile node home address



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      - Static mobile node home agent
      - Requirement to pre-configure mobile node profile on home agents
      - No inter-domain mobility

   Both PPP and Mobile-IP require that usage data be collected for uses
   such as capacity planning and for accounting purposes. The current
   standard protocol for accounting is SNMP [12], but experience
   indicates that SNMP often is not the correct protocol for service
   accounting. Today many applications and services use RADIUS
   accounting [4] as their accounting protocol, however the RADIUS
   accounting protocol is not an IETF standard; in addition, it suffers
   from similar scaling and security problems. The DIAMETER accounting
   extension [11] is designed to allow accounting information to be sent
   across administrative domains (optionally through brokers), and has
   been derived from an accounting requirements document [6, 8].

                       +-----------+
                       | Mobile-IP |
                       |           |
                       | Extension |
                       +-----------+
           +-----------+     ^     +------------+
           |  NASREQ   |     |     | Accounting |
           |           |     |     |            |
           | Extension |     |     | Extension  |
           +-----------+     |     +------------+
                  ^          |           ^
                  |          |           |
                  v          v           v
           +----------------------------------+---------------------+
           |                                  |                     |
           |    DIAMETER Base Protocol        |   Strong Security   |
           |                                  |                     |
           +----------------------------------+---------------------+
                 Figure 2: DIAMETER Protocol Architecture


3.1  DIAMETER Base Protocol

   The Base Protocol defines the DIAMETER message format, a set of
   primitives and how the messages are transmitted in a secure fashion.
   The Base Protocol assumes a peer-to-peer communication model, as
   opposed to a client-server model. The following goals motivated the
   design of the base protocol:

      - lightweight and simple to implement protocol
      - Large AVP space
      - Efficient encoding of attributes, similar to RADIUS



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      - Support for vendor specific AVPs and Commands
      - Support for large number of simultaneous pending requests
      - Reliability provided by underlying SCTP
      - Well-defined fail-over scheme
      - Ability to quickly detect unreachable peers
      - No silent message discards
      - Support of unsolicited messages to "clients"
      - integrity and confidentiality at the AVP level
      - Hop-by-Hop security
      - One session per authentication/authorization flow
      - Provide redirect (referal) services, to allow bypassing of
        broker

   The DIAMETER base protocol is intended to simply provide a secure
   transport for the messages defined in the various application-
   specific extensions.  It is therefore imperative that the base be
   lightweight and simple to implement.

   In the DIAMETER protocol, data objects are encapsulated within the
   Attribute Value Pair (AVP). An AVP consists of three parts: the
   Identifier, Length and Data. A unique AVP Identifier is assigned to
   all data objects in order to be able to distinguish the data
   contained. The AVP Identifier namespace must be sufficiently large to
   ensure that future protocol extensibility is not limited by the size
   of the namespace, as in the RADIUS protocol. Furthermore, vendors
   wishing to add "proprietary" extensions must be allowed to do so by
   using a vendor-specific namespace, managed by IANA.

   For many years the question as to whether RADIUS should operate over
   UDP or TCP has led to heated discussion. It must be determined
   whether the benefits that UDP provides are worth the implementation
   complexities. Over time, it has become clear that these benefits are
   well worth the cost. The issue with TCP is that an AAA protocol
   requires a quick retransmission and fail-over scheme, which TCP
   cannot provide. The DIAMETER protocol must be able to operate over a
   transport that has an aggressive retransmission strategy in order to
   efficiently switch to an alternate host when the peer in question is
   no longer reachable.

   Contrary to RADIUS, the DIAMETER protocol requires that each node in
   a proxy chain acknowledge a request, or response, at the "transport"
   layer.  Since DIAMETER operates over SCTP, which provides a reliable
   transport, each node in a proxy chain is responsible for
   retransmission of unacknowledged messages.

   The SCTP transport provides retransmission detection, which greatly
   simplifies server implementations, and consequently allows a given
   server to support a much larger number of transactions per second.



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   SCTP also provides windowing, which allows the flow of packets to a
   specific server to be controlled.  Clever implementations can then
   decide to send the packets to an alternate server that can handle the
   load.

   With the exception of a few security related errors, the DIAMETER
   protocol requires that all messages be acknowledged, either with a
   successful response or one that contains an error code.

   Where the RADIUS protocol is client-server, the DIAMETER protocol is
   peer to peer, allowing unsolicited messages to be sent to NASes.
   There are many benefits to peer-to-peer AAA protocols. One example is
   the on-demand retrieval of accounting data; another, server-initiated
   session termination.

   The Base DIAMETER protocol provides for hop-by-hop security, similar
   to the scheme employed by RADIUS today. However, the DIAMETER
   protocol also provides for replay protection through a timestamp
   mechanism. This security scheme requires a long lived security
   association to be established by peers, or can make use of keying
   material negotiated out of band. The Base Protocol also allows the
   built-in security measure to be turned off, (i.e., in cases where
   IPSec is in use).

   The DIAMETER protocol is a session-oriented protocol, meaning that
   for each user being authenticated, there exists a session between the
   initiator of the authentication/authorization request and the home
   DIAMETER server. Sessions are identified through a session
   identifier, which is globally unique at any given time. All
   subsequent DIAMETER transactions (e.g. accounting) must include the
   session identifier to reference the session.  A Session termination
   message exists in order to end a DIAMETER session, and all sessions
   have a timeout value in order to ensure that they can be cleaned up
   properly.

   Since today's processors work more efficiently when objects are
   aligned on a 32-bit boundary, the DIAMETER protocol requires 32-bit
   alignment of all headers and the data. This has recently become a
   common requirement for many new protocols at the IETF.


3.1.1  Proxy Support

   The DIAMETER protocol was designed from the beginning to support
   roaming networks. This means that every node in the network is
   responsible for it's own retransmissions, and the protocol does allow
   each node to know a priori the reachability state of each peer. This
   allows for a resilient network, and efficient retransmission scheme.



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   Figure 3 depicts a network where each DIAMETER server can communicate
   with all other servers.

   Figure 3 depicts an example of a DIAMETER network that includes two
   proxy servers in the local network for resilience. Once a message has
   been sent from the NAS to one of its local proxy servers, they are
   responsible for any retransmissions of the message to one of the home
   servers. Since the underlying transport provides quick peer failure
   detection, upon such notification, the local proxies can quickly
   transmit the message to the alternate peer in the home network.

   Figure 3 depicts an example of a proxy network that includes
   alternate servers for resilience. Each node in the proxy chain is
   responsible for its own retransmissions and fail-over detection.
   This provides the following benefits:

      - The number of DIAMETER nodes in the network is greatly reduced
      - The latency involved in switch-over to an alternate peer is
        greatly reduced
      - Reliability is increased

                               local ISP               Home ISP
                               +--------+             +--------+
                               | Primary|             | Primary|
          +-------+            | Proxy  |------------>|  Home  |
          |       |----------->| Server |<-----+----->| Server |
          |Network|            +--------+      |      +--------+
          |Access |                            |
          |Server |            +--------+      |      +--------+
          |       |----------->|  2 nd  |<-----+----->|  2 nd  |
          +-------+            | Proxy  |------------>|  Home  |
                               | Server |             | Server |
                               +--------+             +--------+

                     Figure 3: DIAMETER Proxy Network


3.1.2  Broker Support

   A broker is a proxy server that provides simple DIAMETER message
   "routing" functions. Brokers are generally deployed in order to
   reduce the configuration information that would otherwise be
   necessary on all servers owned by ISPs within a roaming consortium.
   Brokers can provide two separate functions depending upon the
   business model.






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                              +------------------+
                              |     DIAMETER     |
                              |      Broker      |
                              +------------------+
                               ^                ^
                               |                |
                               v                v
                     +----------+              +----------+
                     |  Local   |              |   Home   |
                     | DIAMETER |              | DIAMETER |
                     |  Server  |              |  Server  |
                     +----------+              +----------+

                   Figure 4: DIAMETER Roaming Consortium

   The first where the broker forwards messages to the proper
   destination based on the NAI information (figure 4). In such a
   network, when the broker receives a request from a DIAMETER server,
   it determines the message's destination and can optionally perform
   some authorization decisions based on local policy.

   The DIAMETER broker's organization can also provide Certificate
   Authority services, by issuing certificates to all DIAMETER servers
   within the consortium, or use existing certificates owned by DIAMETER
   servers. This allows the broker and the DIAMETER servers to
   communicate in a secure fashion, without the need for long-lived
   secrets. Protocols such as IP Security [8] can allow for short-lived
   session keys to be generated and periodically refreshed.

   The second broker model allows the end DIAMETER servers to directly
   communicate (figure 5). In this model the broker simply provides
   redirect services,  which is aimed at reducing the amount of
   configuration that would otherwise be necessary on all end DIAMETER
   servers. When a DIAMETER servers sends a request the broker, the
   broker returns contact information that is then used by the
   requesting server to re-issue the request directly to the home
   DIAMETER server. In order for the end DIAMETER servers to be able to
   communicate in a secure fashion, a pre-established security
   association is required. This can be in the form of a long-lived
   shared secret, which has scaling problems, or via certificates when
   the broker's organization provides CA services. In the event that the
   broker also provides settlement services, it is possible for the
   accounting information, signed by both parties, to be transmitted to
   the broker by the server providing service to the user.

   When the broker provides the message forwarding functions, it can
   validate that the source and destination DIAMETER servers are in



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   "good standing", which reduces the processing on the end servers.
   This can be done by having the broker check the server's certificates
   against a CRL, via an online certificate status protocol [25], or
   through local configuration. The broker can optionally attach the
   source server's certificate if it isn't already present in the
   message. When a broker receives a request from or destined to a realm
   that is either unrecognized or no longer part of the roaming
   consortium, an error will be returned to the requesting server.


   The very fact that the DIAMETER servers in the roaming network do not
   have to burden themselves with validating certificates against a CRL,
   or some other certificate validation infrastructure, is a huge
   advantage. In cases of inter-consortium roaming, the brokers involved
   can be responsible for validating any certificates involved. Note
   that it is also possible for the broker to periodically issue new
   certificates to the roaming consortium members out-of-band in order
   to eliminate the need to add certificates to each message, decreasing
   the message size and the per-message processing penalty.

                              +------------------+ +---------+
                              |     DIAMETER     | | CRL DB/ |
                              |      Broker      | |  OCSP   |
                              +------------------+ +---------+
                               ^
                       Request |  Response with
                               |  Result Code =
                               |  Redirect
                               v
                     +----------+              +----------+
                     |  Local   |              |   Home   |
                     | DIAMETER |<------------>| DIAMETER |
                     |  Server  |              |  Server  |
                     +----------+    Direct    +----------+
                                 Communication
          Figure 5: DIAMETER Broker Returning Redirect Indication

   When the broker provides redirect services, the broker can return
   both the source and the destination server's certificates. The
   certificates are encapsulated within a DIAMETER attribute, and
   include a timestamp, an expiration time all signed by the broker.
   Should the end server's policy be setup such that they will trust the
   certificate returned by the broker, they do not have to make any
   additional certificate validation checks. However, local policy may
   require that the end DIAMETER servers validate periodically.

   Note that even though some broker's do allow direct communication,
   some will require that all accounting messages be forwarded by the



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   broker. This is typically required when the broker also provides
   settlement services.  In such a network, the broker normally requires
   some reassurances that the user was in fact authenticated and
   authorized by the home DIAMETER server prior to accepting accounting
   records. This can be achieved by requiring that both DIAMETER servers
   sign the Accounting data in a serial fashion [27].


3.2  Strong Security Extension

   The DIAMETER base protocol allows DIAMETER servers to communicate
   securely, using hop-by-hop authentication. Hop-by-hop authentication
   means that the requesting server has secure communication with the
   broker, and the broker has secure communicate with the destination
   server.

   The Strong Security extension [27] provides strong authentication of
   selective AVPs, which MAY be used for repudiation purposes. This
   extension also allows for secure communication through intermediate
   DIAMETER proxies.

   The extension achieves this functionality by allowing the
   Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) S/MIME object to be encapsulated
   within a DIAMETER AVP. The CMS object MAY be used for authentication,
   confidentiality and to carry certificates and certificate revocation
   lists (CRLs). The extension also provides for multi-party signatures,
   which is useful in environments where two or more parties must sign
   information, such as an accounting record.

   DIAMETER clients, such as NASes and routers, aren't expected to
   implement strong security. This specification is targeted for the
   first hop proxy servers, and this functionality is normally only
   required when requests must traverse administrative domain
   boundaries.

   The strong security extension MUST only be used in networks that
   include a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).


3.3 Mobile-IP Extension

   The Mobile-IP protocol is used to manage mobility of an IP host
   across IP subnets [7].  Recent activity within the Mobile-IP Working
   Group has defined the interaction between Mobile-IP and AAA in order
   to provide:

      - Better scaling of security associations
      - Mobility across administrative domain boundaries



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      - Dynamic home agent assignment

   The Mobile IP protocol [7] works well when all mobile nodes belong to
   the same administrative domain.  Some of the current work within the
   Mobile IP Working Group is to allow Mobile IP to scale across
   administrative domains.  This work requires modifications to the
   existing Mobile IP trust model.

   Figure 6 depicts the DIAMETER trust model for Mobile-IP.  In this
   model each network contains mobile nodes (MN) and a DIAMETER server.
   Each mobility device shares a security association (SA) with the
   DIAMETER server within its own home network.  This means that none of
   the mobility devices initially share a security association. The
   DIAMETER servers in both administrative domains can either share a
   direct security association, or can have a security association with
   an intermediate broker.

                            Broker AAA
                            +--------+
                            |        |
                            |DIAMETER|
                   +------->|        |<-----+
                   |        +--------+      |
            Local  | SA                  SA |   Home
             AAA   v                        v  AAA
           +--------+                      +--------+
           |        |          SA4         |        |
           |DIAMETER|======================|DIAMETER|
           |        |(in lieu of broker or)|        |
           +--------+(in direct comm model)+--------+
               ^                            ^      ^
               |                            |      |
           SA1 |                        SA2 |      | SA3
               |                            |      |
               v                            v      v
           +--------+                +--------+  +--------+
           |        |                |        |  |        |
           |   FA   |                |   MN   |  |   HA   |
           |        |                |        |  |        |
           +--------+                +--------+  +--------+
                   Figure 6 - Mobile-IP AAA Trust Model

   Figure 7 provides an example of a Mobile-IP network that includes
   DIAMETER. In the integrated Mobile-IP/DIAMETER Network, it is assumed
   that each mobility agent shares a security association between itself
   and its local DIAMETER server.  Further, the Home and Local DIAMETER
   servers both share a security association with the broker's DIAMETER
   server. Lastly, it is assumed that each mobile node shares a trust



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   relationship with its home DIAMETER Server.


            Local Access      Broker          Home IP
          Provider Network    Network         Network
            +--------+      +--------+      +--------+
            |        |      |        |      |        |
            |DIAMETER|<---->|DIAMETER|<---->|DIAMETER|
            |        |      |        |      |        |
            +--------+      +--------+      +--------+
                 ^                              ^
                 |                              |
             AAA |                              | AAA
                 |                              |
                 v                              v
            +---------+                    +---------+
            |         |                    |         |
            |   FA    |                    |   HA    |
            |         |                    |         |
            +---------+                    +---------+
                 ^
                 |                       Home Network
                 |                         -Private Network
          Mobile |                         -Home Provider
            IP   |                         -Home ISP
                 v
            +--------+
            | Mobile |
            | Node   |
            +--------+
       Figure 7 - General Wireless IP Architecture for Mobile-IP AAA

   In this example, a Mobile Node appears within a local network and
   issues a registration to the Foreign Agent.  Since the Foreign Agent
   does not share any security association with the Home Agent, it sends
   a DIAMETER request to its local DIAMETER server, which includes the
   authentication information and the Mobile-IP registration request.
   The Mobile Node cannot communicate directly with the home DIAMETER
   Server for two reasons:

      - It does not have access to the network.  The registration
        request is sent by the Mobile Node to request access to the
        network.
      - The Mobile Node may not have an IP address, and may be
        requesting that one be assigned to it by its home provider.

   The Local DIAMETER Server will determine whether the request can be
   satisfied locally through the use of the Network Access Identifier



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   [3] provided by the Mobile Node.  The NAI has the form of user@realm
   and the DIAMETER Server uses the realm portion of the NAI to identify
   the Mobile Node's home DIAMETER Server. If the Local DIAMETER Server
   does not share any security association with the Mobile Node's home
   DIAMETER Server, it may forward the request to its broker. If the
   broker has a relationship with the home network, it can forward the
   request, otherwise a failure indication is sent back to the Local
   DIAMETER Server.

   When the home DIAMETER Server receives the DIAMETER Request, it
   authenticates the user and begins the authorization phase.  The
   authorization phase includes the generation of:

      - Dynamic session keys to be distributed among all mobility agents
      - Optional dynamic assignment of a home agent
      - Optional dynamic assignment of a home address (note this could
        be done by the home agent).
      - Optional assignment of QOS parameters for the mobile node [22]

   Once authorization is complete, the home DIAMETER Server issues an
   unsolicited DIAMETER request to the Home Agent, which includes the
   information in the original DIAMETER request as well as the
   authorization information generated by the home DIAMETER server. The
   Home Agent retrieves the Registration Request from the DIAMETER
   request and processes it, then generates a Registration Reply that is
   sent back to the home DIAMETER server in a DIAMETER response. The
   message is forwarded through the broker back to the Local DIAMETER
   server, and finally to the Foreign Agent.

   The DIAMETER servers maintain session state information based on the
   authorization information. If a Mobile Node moves to another Foreign
   Agent within the local administrative domain, a request to the local
   DIAMETER server can be done in order to immediately return the keys
   that were issued to the previous Foreign Agent. This eliminates an
   additional round trip through the internet when micro mobility is
   involved, and enables smooth hand-off. In order for the DIAMETER
   server to be able to provide the keying information to the new
   Foreign Agent, they must have a pre-existing security association.

   Note that smooth hand-off is really a mobility function, and it is
   not clear that DIAMETER should be involved. However, this example is
   provided for completeness.

   If the Mobile Node enters a service area owned by a new service
   provider, the authentication and authorization request will have to
   be sent back to the home DIAMETER server, which will create new
   keying information.




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3.3.1.  Minimized Internet Traversal

   Although it would have been possible for the DIAMETER interactions to
   be performed for basic authentication and authorization, and the
   Registration flow to be sent directly to the Home Agent from the
   Foreign Agent, one of the key Mobile-IP DIAMETER requirements is to
   minimize Internet traversals. Including the Registration Request and
   Replies in the DIAMETER messages allows for a single traversal to
   authenticate the user, perform authorization and process the
   Registration Request. This streamlined approach is required in order
   to minimize the latency involved in getting wireless (cellular)
   devices access to the network. New registrations should not increase
   the connect time more than what the current cellular networks
   provide.


3.3.2.  Key Distribution

   In order to allow the scaling of wireless data access across
   administrative domains, it is necessary to minimize the security
   associations required.  This means that each Foreign Agent does not
   share a security association with each Home Agent on the Internet.
   The Mobility Agents share a security association with their local
   DIAMETER server, which in turn shares a security association with
   other DIAMETER servers. Again, the use of brokers (as defined by
   ROAMOPS) allows such services to scale by allowing the number of
   relationships established by the providers to be reduced.

   After a Mobile Node is authenticated, the authorization phase
   includes the generation of Sessions Keys.  Specifically, three keys
   are generated:

      - K1 Key to be shared between the Mobile Node and the Home Agent
      - K2 Key to be shared between the Mobile Node and the Foreign
        Agent
      - K3 Key to be shared between the Foreign Agent and the Home Agent

   Each key is encrypted in two separate methods. K1 is encrypted using
   SA3 (for the Home Agent), and using SA2 (for the Mobile Node). K2 is
   encrypted using SA4 (for the Foreign Agent) and using SA2 (for the
   Mobile Node). Lastly, K3 is encrypted using SA4 (for the Foreign
   Agent), and using SA3 (for the Home Agent). When the Foreign DIAMETER
   Server receives the keys, they are decrypted and re-encrypted using
   SA1.  All of the Security Associations (SAx) are shown in figure 6.
   The keys destined for the foreign and home agent are propagated to
   the mobility nodes via the DIAMETER protocol, while the keys destined
   for the Mobile Node are sent via the Mobile-IP protocol.




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   Figure 8 depicts the new security associations used for Mobile-IP
   message integrity using the keys derived by the DIAMETER server.

          +--------+                      +--------+
          |        |          K3          |        |
          |   FA   |<-------------------->|   HA   |
          |        |                      |        |
          +--------+                      +--------+
                  ^                        ^
                  | K2                  K1 |
                  |       +--------+       |
                  |       |        |       |
                  +------>|   MN   |<------+
                          |        |
                          +--------+
          Figure 8 - Security Association after Key Distribution

   Once the session keys have been established and propagated, the
   mobility devices can exchange registration information directly
   without the need of the DIAMETER infrastructure.  However the session
   keys have a lifetime, after which the DIAMETER infrastructure must be
   used in order to acquire new session keys.


3.4  NASREQ Extension

   The NASREQ extension provides authentication and authorization for
   dial-in PPP users, terminal server access and tunneling applications,
   such as L2TP. The extension makes use of the attributes defined in
   the RADIUS protocol to carry the data objects. This was intended to
   ease migration of existing RADIUS servers to DIAMETER since they
   could share a single dictionary and user profile. Furthermore, this
   would reduce the amount of processing required for an inter-working
   system that acts as a RADIUS/DIAMETER bridge.

   DIAMETER has native EAP support that solves known problems in the
   RADIUS protocol. Furthermore, DIAMETER takes end-to-end
   authentication one step further by providing for end-to-end
   authentication via PPP's CHAP. This allows for a more secure
   authentication infrastructure without having to replace or modify the
   installed base of clients.

   If end-to-end CHAP is used in bridged DIAMETER/RADIUS environments,
   the bridge host is responsible for generating the challenge to the
   user.

   The remaining authentication and authorization logic found in RADIUS
   implementations can then be re-used. The basic changes are the



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   message formats and the transmission mechanism as defined in the
   DIAMETER base protocol.  This section does not detail RADIUS
   authentication and authorization. The interested reader should refer
   to RFC 2138.


3.5  Accounting Extension

   The Accounting extension provides usage collection to both the
   Mobile-IP and the NASREQ extensions. The accounting requirements
   specifications [6, 8] define that an accounting protocol must provide
   the following functionality:

      - Negotiable transfer mechanism.
      - Provide general purpose AVPs.
      - Flexible to allows new extensions to use the accounting
        extension.
      - Scalable to allows millions to users and thousands of sites.
      - Secure accounting data transfer.

   The DIAMETER protocol encodes the actual accounting information using
   the Accounting Data Interchange Format (ADIF) [24]. ADIF was intended
   to allow a uniform encoding of accounting data to be transferred over
   virtually any transport (e.g. DIAMETER, SMTP, HTTP, etc).

   The DIAMETER Accounting Extension allows accounting information to be
   sent in two modes; real-time and batched. Real-time accounting
   transfers are useful in environments where timely arrival of the
   information is required, such as when debit cards are used. Batched
   accounting transfers are useful in environments that do not need up
   to the minute accounting records. However, it is possible that in
   inter-domain networks, real-time accounting data delivery will be
   more popular since the ISPs involved will want to receive some
   guarantees of payment prior to providing service.

   The DIAMETER protocol is session oriented, and each session typically
   has a finite lifetime. Prior to the timeout of a session, a user
   typically needs to be re-authentication and/or re-authorized in order
   to extend the life of the session. In the Mobile-IP world, this
   equates to the mobility registration lifetime, while in PPP this
   means that the PPP authentication must be re-opened. When a re-
   authentication and/or re-authorization occurs, a new token is
   generated, which is used in the corresponding accounting message.

   The DIAMETER Accounting extension combined with the Strong Security
   [27] extension (see section 3.2), provides strong authentication of
   accounting data, which MAY be used for repudiation purposes. The
   strong security extension also allows multiple parties to sign the



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   accounting information, which is beneficial in environments that
   include a referral broker. The foreign and home servers can both
   sequentially sign the accounting record, and submit the result to the
   broker. The broker can then use the signatures to ensure that both
   parties agreed to the contents of the accounting record.


3.6  Resource Management

   Many network access services requiring AAA support have a requirement
   for servers that maintain session state information. An example of
   such a requirement is in the dial-up PPP world. With the introduction
   of flat-rate internet access, there has been a surge in fraud where a
   user provides his username/password pair to other people. The end
   result is that a single username (account) can have simultaneous
   concurrent sessions.

   Internet Service Providers have had to implement proprietary
   extensions to protocol, such as RADIUS, in order to attempt to
   identify when such fraud occurs. Unfortunately, since the protocol
   does not provide the necessary functionality required to maintain
   state information, these solutions have been unreliable.

   The DIAMETER Base Protocol [18], the Accounting extension [11], the
   Mobile IP [13] and NASREQ [23] extensions provide some of the
   functionality that is required for servers to maintain state
   information, such as:

      - Reliable Transport
      - Indication of the termination of a session
      - A Reboot message
      - Interim Accounting
      - Accounting On/Off message
      - Ability to re-authorize an existing session

   Although the above features do allow nodes to maintain state
   information, it is necessary for a DIAMETER node to request a
   snapshot of active sessions from a peer. This may be used when state
   information is lost, which could occur after a device failure, or
   this may be done periodically in order to ensure that the state is
   current.

   The DIAMETER Resource Management extension [5] provides the messages
   that are required for a node to request a snapshot of active sessions
   from a peer. State information is exchange via the Resource-Token
   AVP, which is used to encapsulate a set of AVPs that describe the
   session and resources used. There is one Resource-Token AVP for each
   active session.



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3.7  DIAMETER Command Naming Conventions

   The following conventions are proposed for the naming of Diameter
   messages. Diameter commands typically start with an object name, and
   end with one of the following verbs:


3.7.1  Request/Answer

   Request is used when the command is asking the peer to do something
   for it, for example, set up a session, or reconfigure some
   parameters.  The Answer MUST contain either a positive or negative
   result code, telling the requester whether or not the request
   successfully occurred. Other information can also be returned in the
   Answer.

   For example, AA-Request asks the peer device to authorize and/or
   authenticate a user in order to set up a session. The request may
   fail, thus the answer may be positive or negative.


3.7.2  Query/Response

   Query is used when the command is asking for information that it
   expects the peer to have. An example would be querying for current
   configuration information, or querying for information on resources
   or sessions in use. The Response usually contains a positive result
   code and the information, or a negative result code with the reason
   for not answering the query.

   For example, Resource-Query requests the peer device to return
   specific information about one or more resources. The answer is
   returned in a Resource-Response.


3.7.3  Indication

   Indication is used when the command is giving information on
   something that is about to or has already occurred. The peer
   receiving the message does not respond to the message, but a
   transport level acknowledgement must be done in order to ensure that
   the message was reliably delivered.

   For example the base draft defines a message that is used to ensure
   that a peer is still active. The Device-Watchdog-Ind message has no
   associated response, but is acknowledged by the underlying transport.





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4.0  Why not LDAP?

   One common question is whether LDAP would provide the functionality
   required.

   A Server MAY wish to access policies using LDAP, but the use of LDAP
   between the client and the server is not possible. The use of LDAP in
   this case would require that all routers have read/write access to
   the directory.  Most customers would not accept this requirements and
   it is not efficient.

   In the case of roaming, customers would have to open up their
   directory so outside routers have writable access. The security
   implications set aside, having 1000's of routers constantly
   read/write to the directory would cause some additional problems to
   the Directory Service.

   Finally, LDAP does not provide server initiated messages which is a
   requirement for an AAA protocol.


5.0  References


   [1]  Rigney, et alia, "RADIUS", RFC-2138, Livingston, April 1997

   [2]  Veizades, Guttman, Perkins, Kaplan, "Service Location Protocol",
        RFC-2165, June 1997.

   [3]  Aboba, Beadles, "The Network Access Identifier", RFC 2486, Janu-
        ary 1999.

   [4]  Rigney, "RADIUS Accounting", RFC-2139, April 1997.

   [5]  P. Calhoun, N. Greene, "DIAMETER Resource Management", draft-
        calhoun-diameter-res-mgmt-03.txt, IETF Work in Progress, April
        2000.

   [6]  B. Aboba, J. Arkko, D. Harrington. "Introduction to Accounting
        Management", draft-ietf-aaa-acct-05.txt, IETF work in progress,
        June 2000.

   [7]  C. Perkins, Editor.  IP Mobility Support.  RFC 2002, October
        1996.

   [8]  S. Kent, R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the Internet
        Protocol", RFC 1825, November 1998.




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   [9]  Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirements
        Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [10] L. Blunk, J. Vollbrecht, "Extensible Authentication Protocol
        (EAP)", RFC 2284, March 1998.

   [11] J. Arkko, P. Calhoun, P. Patel, G. Zorn, "DIAMETER Accounting
        Extension", draft-calhoun-diameter-accounting-06.txt, IETF work
        in progress, June 2000.

   [12] J. Case, D. Harrington, R. Presuhn, B. Wijnen, "Message Process-
        ing and Dispatching for the Simple Network Management Proto-
        col:", RFC 2572, April 1999.

   [13] P. Calhoun, C. Perkins, "DIAMETER Mobile IP Extensions", draft-
        calhoun-diameter-mobileip-08.txt, IETF work in progress, June
        2000.

   [14] M. Baum, H. Perritt, "Electronic Contracting, Publishing and EDI
        Law", Prentice-Hall, ISBN 0-471-53135-9.

   [15] P. Calhoun, C. Perkins "Mobile IP Foreign Agent
        Challenge/Response Extension", draft-ietf-mobileip-challenge-
        12.txt, IETF work in progress, June 2000.

   [16] D. Harkins, D. Carrell, "The Internet Key Exchange (IKE)" RFC
        1409, November 1998.

   [17] W. Simpson, "The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)", RFC 1661, STD
        51, July 1994.

   [18] P. Calhoun, A. Rubens, H. Akhtar, E. Guttman, "DIAMETER Base
        Protocol", draft-calhoun-diameter-15.txt, IETF work in progress,
        June 2000.

   [19] B. Aboba, G. Zorn, "Criteria for Evaluating Roaming Protocols",
        RFC 2477, January 1999.

   [20] B. Aboba, J. Lu, J. Alsop, J. Ding, W. Wang, "Review of Roaming
        Implementations", RFC 2194, September 1997.

   [21] B. Aboba, J. Vollbrecht, "Proxy Chaining and Policy Implementa-
        tion in Roaming", RFC 2607, June 1999.

   [22] T. Hiller and al, "CDMA2000 Wireless Data Requirements for AAA",
        draft-hiller-cdma2000-aaa-01.txt, IETF work in progress, June
        2000.




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   [23] P. Calhoun, W. Bulley, A. Rubens, J. Haag, "DIAMETER NASREQ
        Extension", draft-calhoun-diameter-nasreq-03.txt, IETF work in
        progress, April 2000.

   [24] B. Aboba, D. Lidyard, "The Accounting Data Interchange Format
        (ADIF)", draft-roamops-acctng-07.txt, IETF work in progress,
        August 1999.

   [25] Myers, Ankney, Malpani, Galperin, Adams, "X.509 Internet Public
        Key Infrastructure Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP)",
        RFC 2560, June 1999.

   [26] W. Simpson, "PPP Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol
        (CHAP)", RFC 1994, August 1996.

   [27] P. Calhoun, W. Bulley, S. Farrell, "DIAMETER Strong Security
        Extension", draft-calhoun-diameter-strong-crypto-03.txt, IETF
        work in progress, April 2000.

   [28] R. Stewart et al., "Simple Control Transmission Protocol",
        draft-ietf-sigtran-sctp-09.txt, IETF Work in Progress, April
        2000.


6.0  Acknowledgements

   The Authors would like to thanks Bernard Aboba and Jari Arkko for
   their Accounting Requirements contribution. Thanks also goes to Erik
   Guttman for some very useful comments in helping make this draft more
   readable.  The Mobile-IP Extension section was text originally writ-
   ten by Pat Calhoun for another Internet-Draft, which was subsequently
   cleaned up by Dave Spence.  The authors would like to thank Nenad
   Trifunovic, Tony Johansson and Pankaj Patel for their participation
   in the Document Reading Party.  A final thanks to Stephen Farrell for
   his security review.
















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7.0  Author's Addresses

   Questions about this memo can be directed to:

      Pat R. Calhoun
      Sun Laboratories, Network and Security
      Sun Microsystems, Inc.
      15 Network Circle
      Menlo Park, California, 94025
      USA

       Phone:  +1 650-786-7733
         Fax:  +1 650-786-6445
      E-mail:  pcalhoun@eng.sun.com


      Glen Zorn
      Cisco Systems, Inc.
      500 108th Avenue N.E., Suite 500
      Bellevue, WA 98004
      USA

       Phone:  +1 425 438 8218
      E-Mail:  gwz@cisco.com


      Ping Pan
      Bell Laboratories
      Lucent Technologies
      101 Crawfords Corner Road
      Holmdel, NJ 07733
      USA

       Phone:  +1 732-332-6744
      E-mail:  pingpan@dnrc.bell-labs.com


      Haseeb Akhtar
      Wireless Technology Labs
      Nortel Networks
      2221 Lakeside Blvd.
      Richardson, TX 75082-4399
      USA

       Phone: +1 972-684-8850
      E-Mail: haseeb@nortelnetworks.com





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8.0  Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
   others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and
   distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind,
   provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
   included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
   document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the
   copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet
   organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing
   Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined
   in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to
   translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions
   granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the
   Internet Society or its successors or assigns. This document and the
   information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE
   INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL
   WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY
   THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY
   RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
   PARTICULAR PURPOSE.



























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