Network Working Group O. Friel
Internet-Draft R. Barnes
Intended status: Standards Track M. Pritikin
Expires: August 4, 2018 Cisco
H. Tschofenig
ARM Limited
M. Baugher
Consultant
January 31, 2018
Application-Layer TLS (ATLS)
draft-friel-tls-atls-00
Abstract
This document specifies how TLS sessions can be established at the
application layer over untrusted transport between clients and
services for the purposes of establishing secure end-to-end encrypted
communications channels. Transport layer encodings for application
layer TLS records are specified for HTTP and CoAP transport.
Explicit identification of application layer TLS packets enables
middleboxes to provide transport services and enforce suitable
transport policies for these payloads, without requiring access to
the unencrypted payload content. Multiple scenarios are presented
identifying the need for end-to-end application layer encryption
between clients and services, and the benefits of reusing the well-
defined TLS protocol, and a standard TLS stack, to accomplish this
are described. Application software architectures for building, and
network architectures for deploying application layer TLS are
outlined.
Status of This Memo
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provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 4, 2018.
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Copyright Notice
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Application Layer End-to-End Security Use Cases . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Bootstrapping Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2. Constrained Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.1. Constrained Device Connecting over a Closed Network . 5
3.2.2. Constrained Device Connecting over the Internet . . . 6
4. Current Approaches to Application Layer End-to-End Security 7
4.1. Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2. Signal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.3. Google ALTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.4. Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. ATLS Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
6. Architecture Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.1. Application Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6.1.1. Application Architecture Benefits . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.1.2. ATLS Packet Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1.3. ATLS Session Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1.4. ATLS Record Inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.1.5. Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.2. Functional Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6.3. Network Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. Key Exporting and Application Data Encryption . . . . . . . . 15
7.1. Key Exporter Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.2. Cipher Suite Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.3. Key Derivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
8. ATLS Session Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. ATLS over HTTP Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.1. Protocol Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.2. Content-Type Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.3. HTTP Status Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
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9.4. ATLS Session Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9.5. Session Establishment and Key Exporting . . . . . . . . . 19
9.6. Application Data Encryption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
9.7. Illustrative ATLS over HTTP Session Establishment . . . . 19
9.8. ATLS and HTTP CONNECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
10. ATLS over CoAP Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
11. RTT Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
14. Appendix A. TLS Software Stack Configuration . . . . . . . . 24
15. Appendix B. Pseudo Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
15.1. B.1 OpenSSL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
15.2. B.2 Java JSSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
16. Appendix C. Example ATLS Handshake . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
17. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1. Introduction
There are multiple scenarios where there is a need for application
layer end-to-end security between clients and application services.
Two examples include:
o Bootstrapping devices that must connect to HTTP application
services across untrusted TLS interception middleboxes
o Constrained devices connecting via gateways to application
services, where different transport layer protocols may be in use
on either side of the gateway, with the gateway transcoding
between the different transport layer protocols.
These two scenarios are described in more detail in Section 3.
Related to this document, there is ongoing work across the industry
to define requirements for end-to-end security.
[I-D.hartke-core-e2e-security-reqs] documents requirements for CoAP
[RFC7252] End-to-End Security. The Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) has
published a candidate standard Lightweight Machine to Machine
Requirements [LwM2M] which defines multiple requirements for end-to-
end security.
This document describes how clients and applications can leverage
standard TLS software stacks to establish secure end-to-end encrypted
connections at the application layer. The connections may establish
TLS [RFC5246] [I-D.ietf-tls-tls13] or DTLS [RFC6347]
[I-D.ietf-tls-dtls13] sessions. There are multiple advantages to
reuse of existing TLS software stacks for establishment of
application layer secure connections. These include:
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o many clients and application services already include a TLS
software stack, so there is no need to include yet another
software stack in the software build
o no need to define a new cryptographic negotiation, authentication,
and key exchange protocol between clients and services
o provides standards based PKI mutual authentication between clients
and services
o no need to train software developers on how to use a new
cryptographic protocols or libraries
o automatically benefit from new cipher suites by simply upgrading
the TLS software stack
o automatically benefit from new features, bugfixes, etc. in TLS
software stack upgrades
This document also explicitly defines how application layer TLS
connections can be established using HTTP [RFC7230] [RFC7540] or CoAP
as transport layers. This document does not preclude the user of
other transport layers, however defining how application layer TLS
connections can be established over other transport layers such as
[ZigBee] or [Bluetooth] is beyond the scope of this document.
Explicitly identifying application layer TLS packets enables
transport layer middleboxes to provide transport capabilities and
enforce suitable transport policies for these payloads, without
requiring access to unencrypted application data.
2. Terminology
Application layer TLS is referred to as ATLS throughout this
document.
3. Application Layer End-to-End Security Use Cases
This section describes in more detail the bootstrapping and
constrained device use cases mentioned in the introduction.
3.1. Bootstrapping Devices
There are far more classes of clients being deployed on today's
networks than at any time previously. This poses challenges for
network administrators who need to mange their network and the
clients connecting to their network, and poses challenges for client
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vendors and client software developers who must ensure that their
clients can connect to all required services.
One common example is where a client is deployed on a local domain
TCP/IP network that protects its perimeter using a TLS terminating
middlebox, and the client needs to establish a secure connection to a
service in a different network via the middlebox. This is
illustrated in Figure 1.
Traditionally, this has been enabled by the network administrator
deploying the necessary certificate authority trusted roots on the
client. This can be achieved at scale using standard tools that
enable the administrator to automatically push trusted roots out to
all client machines in the network from a centralized domain
controller. This works for for personal computers, laptops and
servers running standard Operating Systems that can be centrally
managed. This client management process breaks for multiple classes
of clients that are being deployed today, there is no standard
mechanism for configuring trusted roots on these clients, and there
is no standard mechanism for these clients to securely traverse
middleboxes.
+--------+ C->M TLS +-----------+ M->S TLS +---------+
| Client |--------------->| Middlebox |------------->| Service |
+--------+ +-----------+ +---------+
^ ^
| |
+-----------Client to Service ATLS Connection---------+
Figure 1: Bootstrapping Devices
The ATLS mechanism defined in this document enables clients to
traverse middleboxes and establish secure connections to services
across network domain boundaries. The purpose of this connection may
simply be to facilitate a bootstrapping process, for example
[I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra], whereby the client securely
discovers the local domain certificate authorities required to
establish a trusted network layer TLS connection to the middlebox.
3.2. Constrained Devices
Two constrained device use cases are outlined here.
3.2.1. Constrained Device Connecting over a Closed Network
There are industry examples of home smart lighting systems where the
smart light bulbs connect using ZigBee to a gateway device. A
controller application running on a mobile device connects to the
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gateway using CoAP over DTLS. The controller can then control the
light bulbs by sending messages and commands via the gateway. The
gateway device has full access to all messages sent between the light
bulbs and the controller application.
A generic use case similar to the smart lighting system outlined
above has an IoT device talking ZigBee to a gateway, with the gateway
in turn talking CoAP over DTLS to a controller application running on
a mobile device. This is illustrated in Figure 2.
There are scenarios where the messages sent between the IoT device
and the controller application must not be exposed to the gateway
function. Additionally, the end devices (the IoT device and the
controller application service) have no visibility to and no
guarantees about what transport layer security and encryption is
enforced across all hops end-to-end as they only have visibility to
their immediate next hop. ATLS addresses these concerns.
+--------+ ZigBee +---------+ CoAP/DTLS +------------+
| Device |-------------->| Gateway |------------->| Mobile App |
+--------+ +---------+ +------------+
^ ^
| |
+--------Device to Mobile App ATLS Connection-------+
Figure 2: IoT Closed Network Gateway
3.2.2. Constrained Device Connecting over the Internet
A somewhat similar example has an IoT device connecting to a gateway
using a suitable transport mechanism such as ZigBee, CoAP, MQTT, etc.
The gateway function in turn talks HTTP over TLS (or, for example,
HTTP over QUIC) to an application service over the Internet. This is
illustrated in Figure 3.
The gateway may not be trusted and all messages between the IoT
device and the application service must be end-to-end encrypted.
Similar to the previous use case, the endpoints have no guarantees
about what level of transport layer security is enforced across all
hops. Again, ATLS addresses these concerns.
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+--------+ CoAP/DTLS +------------------+ HTTP/TLS +---------+
| Device |-------------->| Internet Gateway |------------>| Service |
+--------+ +------------------+ +---------+
^ ^
| |
+---------Device to Cloud Service ATLS Connection----------+
Figure 3: IoT Internet Gateway
4. Current Approaches to Application Layer End-to-End Security
End-to-end security at the application layer is increasing seen as a
key requirement across multiple applications and services. Some
examples of end-to-end security mechanisms are outlined here. All
the solutions outlined here have some common characteristics. The
solutions:
o do not rely on transport layer security
o define a new handshake protocol for establishment of a secure end-
to-end session
4.1. Noise
[Noise] is a framework for cryptographic protocols based on Elliptic
Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key agreement, AEAD encryption, and
BLAKE2 and SHA2 hash functions. Noise is currently used by WhatsApp,
WireGuard, and Lightning.
The current Noise protocol framework defines mechanisms for proving
possession of a private key, but does not define authentication
mechanisms. Section 14 "Security Considerations" of Noise states:
~~~ it's up to the application to determine whether the remote
party's static public key is acceptable ~~~
4.2. Signal
The [Signal] protocol provides end-to-end encryption and uses EdDSA
signatures, Triple Diffie-Hellman handshake for shared secret
establishment, and the Double Ratchet Algorithm for key management.
It is used by Open Whisper Systems, WhatsApp and Google.
Similar to Noise, Signal does not define an authentication mechanism.
The current [X3DH] specification states in section 4.1
"Authentication":
Methods for doing this are outside the scope of this document
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4.3. Google ALTS
Google's Application Layer Transport Security [ALTS] is a mutual
authentication and transport encryption system used for securing
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) communications within Google's
infrastructure. ALTS uses an ECDH handshake protocol and a record
protocol containing AES encrypted payloads.
4.4. Ephemeral Diffie-Hellman Over COSE
There is ongoing work to standardise [I-D.selander-ace-cose-ecdhe].
This defines a ECDH SIGMA based authenticated key exchange algorithm
using COSE and COBR objects.
5. ATLS Goals
The high level goals driving the design of this mechanism are:
o enable authenticated key exchange at the application layer by
reusing existing technologies
o ensure that ATLS packets are explicitly identified thus ensuring
that any middleboxes or gateways at the transport layer are
content aware
o leverage existing TLS stacks and handshake protocols thus avoiding
introducing new software or protocol dependencies in clients and
applications
o reuse existing TLS [RFC5246] [I-D.ietf-tls-tls13] and DTLS
[RFC6347] [I-D.ietf-tls-dtls13] specifications as is without
requiring any protocol changes or software stack changes
o do not mandate constraints on how the TLS stack is configured or
used
o be forward compatible with future TLS versions
o avoid introducing TLS protocol handling logic or semantics into
the application layer i.e. TLS protocol knowledge and logic is
handled by the TLS stack, not the application
o ensure the client and server software implementations are as
simple as possible
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6. Architecture Overview
6.1. Application Architecture
TLS software stacks allow application developers to 'unplug' the
default network socket transport layer and read and write TLS records
directly from byte buffers. This enables application developers to
create application layer TLS sessions, extract the raw TLS record
bytes from the bottom of the TLS stack, and transport these bytes
over any suitable transport. The TLS software stacks can generate
byte streams of full TLS flights which may include multiple TLS
records. Additionally, TLS software stacks support Keying Material
Exporters [RFC5705] and allow applications to export keying material
from established TLS sessions. This keying material can then be used
by the application for encryption of data outside the context of the
TLS session. This is illustrated in Figure 4 below.
+------------+ +---------+
Handshake Records | | Handshake Records | |
------------------->| |------------------->| |
| | | Byte |
Unencrypted Data | TLS | Encrypted Data | |
------------------->| |------------------->| Buffers |
| Software | | |
Encrypted Data | | Unencrypted Data | |
------------------->| Stack |------------------->| |
| | +---------+
Keying Material | |
<-------------------| |
+ -----------+
Figure 4: TLS Stack Interfaces
These TLS software stack APIs enable application developers to build
the software architectures illustrated in Figure 5 and Figure 6.
In both architectures, the application creates and interacts with an
application layer TLS session in order to generate and consume raw
TLS records. The application transports these raw TLS records inside
transport layer message bodies using whatever standard transport
layer stack is suitable for the application or architecture. This
document does not place any restrictions on the choice of transport
layer and any suitable protocol such as HTTP, TCP, CoAP, ZigBee,
Bluetooth, etc. could be used.
The transport layer will typically encrypt data, and this encryption
is completely independent from any application layer encryption. The
transport stack may create a transport layer TLS session. The
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application layer TLS session and transport layer TLS session can
both leverage a shared, common TLS software stack. This high level
architecture is applicable to both clients and application services.
The key differences between the architectures are as follows.
In the model illustrated in Figure 5, the application sends all
sensitive data that needs to be securely exchanged with the peer
application through the Application TLS session in order to be
encrypted and decrypted. All sensitive application data is thus
encoded within TLS records by the TLS stack, and these TLS records
are transmitted over the transport layer.
+-------------+
| | App
| | Data +---------+
| Application |<---------->| App | +---------+
| | TLS | TLS |----->| TLS |
| | Records | Session | | Stack |
| +--->|<---------->| | +---------+
| | | +---------+ ^
| | | |?
| | | Transport +-----------+ +------------+
| | | Payload | Transport | | Transport |
| +--->|<--------->| Stack |--->| Encryption |-->Packets
+-------------+ +-----------+ +------------+
Figure 5: TLS Stack used for all data encryption
In the model illustrated in Figure 6, the application establishes an
application layer TLS session purely for the purposes of key
exchange. Therefore, the only TLS records that are sent or received
by the application layer are TLS handshake records. Once the
application layer TLS session is established, the application uses
Keying Material Exporter [RFC5705] APIs to export keying material
from the TLS stack from this application layer TLS session. The
application can then use these exported keys to derive suitable
shared encryption keys with its peer for exchange of encrypted data.
The application encrypts and decrypts sensitive data using these
shared encryption keys using any suitable cryptographic library
(which may be part of the same library that provides the TLS stack),
and transports the encrypted data directly over the transport layer.
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+--------------+
| |
| Application |
| |
| +-------+ | +---------+
| | App | | Key Export | |
| | Data |<---|<-----------| |
| | Crypto| | | App |
| +-------+ | TLS | TLS | +---------+
| ^ | Handshake | Session |----->| TLS |
| | | Records | | | Stack |
| | +--->|<---------->| | +---------+
| | | | +---------+ ^
| | | | |?
| | | | Transport +-----------+ +------------+
| | | | Payload | Transport | | Transport |
| +----+--->|<--------->| Stack |--->| Encryption |-->Packets
+--------------+ +-----------+ +------------+
Figure 6: TLS stack used for key agreement and exporting
The choice of which application architecture to use will depend on
the overall solution architecture, and the underlying transport layer
or layers in use. While the choice of application architecture is
outside the scope of this document, some considerations are outlined
here.
o for constrained devices, every single byte of payload is
important. [I-D.mattsson-core-security-overhead] analyses the
overhead of TLS headers compared with OSCORE
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security] illustrating the additional
overhead associated with TLS headers. It may be more appropriate
to use the architecture defined in Figure 6 in order to establish
shared encryption keys, and then transport encrypted data directly
without the overhead of unwanted TLS record headers.
o when using HTTP as a transport layer, it may be more appropriate
to use the architecture defined in Figure 6 in order to avoid any
TLS session vs. HTTP session affinity issues.
6.1.1. Application Architecture Benefits
There are several benefits to using a standard TLS software stack to
establish an application layer secure communications channel between
a client and a service. These include:
o no need to define a new cryptographic negotiation and exchange
protocol between client and service
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o automatically benefit from new cipher suites by simply upgrading
the TLS software stack
o automatically benefit from new features, bugfixes, etc. in TLS
software stack upgrades
6.1.2. ATLS Packet Identification
It is recommended that ATLS packets are explicitly identified by a
standardized, transport-specific identifier enabling any gateways and
middleboxes to identify ATLS packets. Middleboxes have to contend
with a vast number of applications and network operators have
difficulty configuring middleboxes to distinguish unencrypted but not
explicitly identified application data from end-to-end encrypted
data. This specification aims to assist network operators by
explicitly identifyng ATLS packets. The HTTP and CoAP encodings
documented in Section 9 and Section 10 explicitly identify ATLS
packets.
6.1.3. ATLS Session Tracking
The ATLS application service establishes multiple ATLS sessions with
multiple clients. As TLS sessions are stateful, the application
service must be able to correlate ATLS records from different clients
across the relevant ATLS sessions. The details of how session
tracking is implemented are outside the scope of this document.
Recommendations are given in Section 9 and Section 10, but session
tracking is application and implementation specific.
6.1.4. ATLS Record Inspection
It should not be necessary for the application layer to have to
inspect, parse or understand the contents of ATLS records. No
constraints are placed on the ContentType contained within the
transported TLS records. The TLS records may contain handshake,
application_data, alert or change_cipher_spec messages. If new
ContentType messages are defined in future TLS versions, these may
also be transported using this protocol.
6.1.5. Implementation
Pseudo code illustrating how to read and write TLS records directly
from byte buffers using both OpenSSL BIO functions and Java JSSE
SSLEngine is given in the appendices. A blog post by [Norrell]
outlines a similar approach to leveraging OpenSSL BIO functions, and
Oracle publish example code for leveraging [SSLEngine].
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6.2. Functional Design
[ todo: insert Hannes functional design section here including the
policy layers ]
Policy examples:
Mention that the app layer policy could be to not do ATLS if the
transport layer establishes an e2e session with the peer. e.g. for
HTTP use cases where there is no middlebox and cert validation
passes.
Mention that the client could report in the ATLS session any
middlebox cert seen at the transport layer.
6.3. Network Architecture
An example network deployment is illustrated in Figure 7. It shows a
constrained client connecting to an application service via an
internet gateway. The client uses CoAP over DTLS to communicate with
the gateway. The gateway extracts the messages the client sent over
CoAP and sends these messages inside HTTP message bodies to the
application service. It also shows a TLS terminator deployed in
front of the application service. The client establishes a transport
layer CoAP/DTLS connection with the gateway (C->G DTLS), the gateway
in turn opens a transport layer TLS connection with the TLS
terminator deployed in front of the service (G->T TLS). The client
can ignore any certificate validation errors when it connects to the
gateway. CoAP messages are transported between the client and the
gateway, and HTTP messages are transported between the client and the
service. Finally, application layer TLS messages are exchanged
inside the CoAP and HTTP message bodies in order to establish an end-
to-end TLS session between the client and the service (C->S TLS).
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+----------+ +----------+
| App Data | | App Data |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->S TLS | | C->S TLS | | App Data |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| CoAP | | HTTP | | C->S TLS |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->G DTLS| | M->T TLS | | HTTP |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| UDP | | TCP | | TCP |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
+--------+ +-----------+ +----------------+ +---------+
| Client |----->| Gateway |----->| TLS Terminator |---->| Service |
+--------+ +-----------+ +----------------+ +---------+
^ ^
| |
+-------------Client to Service ATLS Connection-------------+
Figure 7: Constrained Device Gateway Network Architecture
Another typical network deployment is illustrated in Figure 8. It
shows a client connecting to a service via a middlebox. It also
shows a TLS terminator deployed in front of the service. The client
establishes a transport layer TLS connection with the middlebox (C->M
TLS), the middlebox in turn opens a transport layer TLS connection
with the TLS terminator deployed in front of the service (M->T TLS).
The client can ignore any certificate validation errors when it
connects to the middlebox. HTTP messages are transported over this
layer between the client and the service. Finally, application layer
TLS messages are exchanged inside the HTTP message bodies in order to
establish an end-to-end TLS session between the client and the
service (C->S TLS).
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+----------+ +----------+
| App Data | | App Data |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->S TLS | | C->S TLS | | App Data |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| HTTP | | HTTP | | C->S TLS |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->M TLS | | M->T TLS | | HTTP |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| TCP | | TCP | | TCP |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
+--------+ +-----------+ +----------------+ +---------+
| Client |----->| Middlebox |----->| TLS Terminator |---->| Service |
+--------+ +-----------+ +----------------+ +---------+
^ ^
| |
+-------------Client to Service ATLS Connection-------------+
Figure 8: HTTP Middlebox Network Architecture
7. Key Exporting and Application Data Encryption
When solutions implement the architecture described in Figure 6, they
leverage [RFC5705] for key exporting from the ATLS session. The
client and service then use the exported keys to derive shared
encryption keys. The encryption keys are then used with a suitable
cipher suite to encrypt application data for exchange with the peer.
7.1. Key Exporter Label
A new TLS Exporter Label is defined for ATLS key exporting. Its
value is:
TLS Exporter Label: application-layer-tls
7.2. Cipher Suite Selection
Application layer encryption performed outside the context of the
ATLS session using exported keys should use the cipher suite
negotiated during ATLS session establishment.
7.3. Key Derivation
[RFC5705] key exporting functions allow specification of the number
of bytes of keying material that should be exported from the TLS
session. The application should export the exact number of bytes
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required to generate the necessary client and server cipher suite
encryption key and IV values.
Maybe need to reference the relevant sections from
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tls-tls13-23#section-7 and
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5246#section-6.3.
8. ATLS Session Establishment
Figure 9 illustrates how an ATLS session is established using the key
exporting architectural model shown in Figure 6. The outline is as
follows:
o the client creates an ATLS session object
o the client initiates a TLS handshake on the session
o the client extracts the TLS records for the first TLS flight (the
first RTT)
o the client sends the TLS records over the transport layer to the
server
o on receipt of the TLS flight, the server creates an ATLS session
object
o the server injects the received TLS flight into the session
o the server extracts the TLS records for the first TLS flight
response
o the server sends the TLS response records over the transport layer
to the client
o the client injects the received TLS records into its TLS session
completing the first full RTT
o the client and server repeat the above process and complete the
second RTT
o once the ATLS session is up, both sides export keying material
o both sides now can exchange data encrypted using shared keys
derived from the keying material
+-------------------------------+ +-------------------------------+
| Client | | ATLS Server |
+---------+---+-----+---+-------+ +-------+---+-----+---+---------+
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| ATLS | | App | |Transport| |Transport| | App | | ATLS |
| Session | +-----+ | Stack | | Stack | +-----+ | Session |
+---------+ | +---------+ +---------+ | +---------+
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| Create | | | | |
| Session | | | | |
+ |<---------| | | | |
| | Start | | | | |
| | Handshake| | | | |
| |<---------| | | | |
| | TLS | | | | |
| | Records | Pack | | | |
| |--------->| Records | | | |
| |-------->| send packet | Unpack | |
R | | |------------>| Records | Create |
T | | | |--------->| Session |
T | | | | |--------->|
| | | | | TLS |
1 | | | | | Records |
| | | | |--------->|
| | | | | | TLS |
| | | | | Pack | Records |
| | | | | Records |<---------|
| | | Unpack |send response|<---------| |
| | TLS | Records |<------------| | |
| | Records |<--------| | | |
+ |<---------| | | | |
| TLS | | | | |
| Records | | | | |
+ |--------->|-------->|------------>|--------->|--------->|
| | | | | | |
| | | | | Session |
R | | | | | Up |
T | | | | |<---------|
T | | | | | TLS |
| | | | | Records |
2 |<---------|<--------|<------------|<---------|<---------|
| Session | | | | |
| | Up | | | | |
+ |--------->| | | | |
| Export | | | | Export |
| Keys | | | | Keys |
|--------->| | E2E Session | |<---------|
| |<--------|-------------|--------->| |
Figure 9: ATLS Session Establishment
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9. ATLS over HTTP Transport
The assumption is that the client will establish a transport layer
connection to the server for exchange of HTTP messages. The
underlying transport layer connection could be over TCP or TLS. The
client will then establish an application layer TLS connection with
the server by exchanging TLS records with the server inside HTTP
message request and response bodies.
9.1. Protocol Summary
All ATLS records are transported unmodified as binary data within
HTTP message bodies. The application simply extracts the TLS records
from the TLS stack and inserts them directly into HTTP message
bodies. Each message body contains a full TLS flight, which may
contain multiple TLS records.
The client sends all ATLS records to the server in the bodies of POST
requests.
The server sends all ATLS records to the client in the bodies of 200
OK responses to the POST requests.
9.2. Content-Type Header
A new Content-Type header value is defined:
Content-type: application/atls+octet-stream
All message bodies containing ATLS records must set this Content-
Type. This enables middleboxes to readily identify ATLS payloads.
9.3. HTTP Status Codes
Thsi document does not define any new HTTP status codes, and does not
specify additional semantics or refine existing semantics for status
codes. This is the best current practice as outlined in
[I-D.ietf-httpbis-bcp56bis].
9.4. ATLS Session Tracking
The application service needs to track multiple client application
layer TLS sessions so that it can collerate TLS records received in
HTTP message bodies with the appropriate TLS session. The
application service should use stateful cookies [RFC6265] in order to
achieve this as recommended in [I-D.ietf-httpbis-bcp56bis].
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9.5. Session Establishment and Key Exporting
It is recommended that applications using ATLS over HTTP transport
only use ATLS for session establishment and key exchange, resulting
in only 2 ATLS RTTs between the client and the application service.
Key exporting must be carried out as described in Section 7.3.
9.6. Application Data Encryption
[editors note: I am on the fence about using [RFC8188] as this
hardcodes the ciphersuite to aes128gcm. It would be nice to use the
cipher suite negotiated as part of ATLS session establishment. ]
9.7. Illustrative ATLS over HTTP Session Establishment
A client initiates an ATLS session by sending the first TLS flight in
a POST request message body to the ATLS server.
POST /atls
Content-Type: application/atls+octet-stream
<binary TLS client flight 1 records>
The server handles the request, creates an ATLS session object, and
replies by including its first TLS flight in a 200 OK message body.
The server also sets a suitable cookie for session tracking purposes.
200 OK
Content-Type: application/atls+octet-stream
Set-Cookie: my-atls-cookie=my-cookie-value
<binary TLS server flight 1 records>
The client handles the server first flight TLS records and replies
with its second flight.
POST /atls
Content-Type: application/atls+octet-stream
Cookie: my-atls-cookie=my-cookie-value
<binary TLS client flight 2 records>
The server handles the second flight, establishes the ATLS session,
and replies with its second flight.
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200 OK
Content-Type: application/atls+octet-stream
<binary TLS server flight 2 records>
9.8. ATLS and HTTP CONNECT
It is worthwhile comparing and contrasting ATLS with HTTP CONNECT
tunneling.
First, let us introduce some terminology:
o HTTP Proxy: A HTTP Proxy operates at the application layer,
handles HTTP CONNECT messages from clients, and opens tunnels to
remote origin servers on behalf of clients. If a client
establishes a tunneled TLS connection to the origin server, the
HTTP Proxy does not attempt to intercept or inspect the HTTP
messages exchanged between the client and the server
o middlebox: A middlebox operates at the transport layer, terminates
TLS connections from clients, and originates new TLS connections
to services. A middlebox inspects all messages sent between
clients and services. Middleboxes are generally completely
transparent to applications, provided that the necessary PKI root
Certificate Authority is installed in the client's trust store.
HTTP Proxies and middleboxes are logically separate entities and one
or both of these may be deployed in a network.
HTTP CONNECT is used by clients to instruct a HTTP Forward Proxy
deployed in the local domain to open up a tunnel to a remote origin
server that is typically deployed in a different domain. Assuming
that TLS transport is used between both client and proxy, and proxy
and origin server, the network architecture is as illustrated in
Figure 10. Once the proxy opens the transport tunnel to the service,
the client establishes an end-to-end TLS session with the service,
and the proxy is blindly transporting TLS records (the C->S TLS
session records) between the client and the service. From the client
perspective, it is tunneling a TLS session to the service inside the
TLS session it has established to the proxy (the C->P TLS session).
No middlebox is attempting to intercept or inspect the HTTP messages
between the client and the service.
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+----------+ +----------+
| C->S HTTP| | C->S HTTP|
+----------+ +----------+
| C->S TLS | | C->S TLS |
+----------+ +----------+
| C->P TLS | | P->S TCP |
+----------+ +----------+
| C->P TCP |
+----------+
+--------+ +------------+ +---------+
| Client |----->| HTTP Proxy |----->| Service |
+--------+ +------------+ +---------+
Figure 10: HTTP Proxy transport layers
A more complex network topology where the network operator has both a
HTTP Proxy and a middlebox deployed is illustrated in Figure 11. In
this scenario, the proxy has tunneled the TLS session from the client
towards the origin server, however the middlebox is intercepting and
terminating this TLS session. A TLS session is established between
the client and the middlebox (C->M TLS), and not end-to-end between
the client and the server. It can clearly be seen that HTTP CONNECT
and HTTP Proxies serve completely different functions than
middleboxes.
Additionally, the fact that the TLS session is established between
the client and the middlebox can be problematic for two reasons:
o the middle box is inspecting traffic that is sent between the
client and the service
o the client may not have the necessary PKI root Certificate
Authority installed that would enable it to validate the TLS
connection to the middlebox. This is the scenario outlined in
Section 3.1.
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+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->S HTTP| | C->S HTTP| | C->S HTTP|
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->M TLS | | C->M TLS | | M->S TLS |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->P TLS | | P->M TCP | | M->S TCP |
+----------+ +----------+ +----------+
| C->P TCP |
+----------+
+--------+ +------------+ +-----------+ +---------+
| Client |----->| HTTP Proxy |----->| Middlebox |----->| Service |
+--------+ +------------+ +-----------+ +---------+
Figure 11: HTTP Proxy and middlebox transport layers
As HTTP CONNECT can be used to establish a tunneled TLS connection,
one hypothetical solution to this middlebox issue is for the client
to issue a HTTP CONNECT command to a HTTP Reverse Proxy deployed in
front of the origin server. This solution is not practical for
several reasons:
o if there is a local domain HTTP Forward Proxy deployed, this would
result in the client doing a first HTTP CONNECT to get past the
Forward Proxy, and then a second HTTP CONNECT to get past the
Reverse Proxy. No client or client library supports the concept
of HTTP CONNECT inside HTTP CONNECT.
o if there is no local domain HTTP Proxy deployed, the client still
has to do a HTTP CONNECT to the HTTP Reverse Proxy. This breaks
with standard and expected HTTP CONNECT operation, as HTTP CONNECT
is only ever called if there is a local domain proxy.
o clients cannot generate CONNECT from XHR in web applications.
o this would require the deployment of a Reverse Proxy in front of
the origin server, or else support of the HTTP CONNECT method in
standard web frameworks. This is not an elegant design.
o using HTTP CONNECT with HTTP 1.1 to a Reverse Proxy will break
middleboxes inspecting HTTP traffic, as the middlebox would see
TLS records when it expects to see HTTP payloads.
In contrast to trying to force HTTP CONNECT to address a problem for
which it was not designed to address, and having to address all the
issues just outlined; ATLS is specifically designed to address the
middlebox issue in a simple, easy to develop, and easy to deploy
fashion.
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o ATLS works seamlessly with HTTP Proxy deployments
o no changes are required to HTTP CONNECT semantics
o no changes are required to HTTP libraries or stacks
o no additional Reverse Proxy is required to be deployed in front of
origin servers
It is also worth noting that if HTTP CONNECT to a Reverse Proxy were
a conceptually sound solution, the solution still ultimately results
in encrypted traffic traversing the middlebox that the middlebox
cannot intercept and inspect. That is ultimately what ATLS results
in - traffic traversing the middle box that the middlebox cannot
intercept and inspect. Therefore, from a middlebox perspective, the
differences between the two solutions are in the areas of solution
complexity and protocol semantics. It is clear that ATLS is a
simpler, more elegant solution that HTTP CONNECT.
10. ATLS over CoAP Transport
[ todo: Help needed Hannes ]
11. RTT Considerations
The number of RTTs that take place when establishing a TLS session
depends on the version of TLS and what capabilities are enabled on
the TLS software stack. For example, a 0-RTT exchange is possible
with TLS1.3.
If applications wish to ensure a predictable number of RTTs when
establishing an application layer TLS connection, this may be
achieved by configuring the TLS software stack appropriately.
Relevant configuration parameters for OpenSSL and Java SunJSSE stacks
are outlined in the appendix.
12. IANA Considerations
[[ TODO - New Content-Type and TLS Exporter Label must be registered.
]]
13. Security Considerations
[[ TODO ]]
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14. Appendix A. TLS Software Stack Configuration
[[ EDITOR'S NOTE: We could include details here on how TLS stack
configuration items control the number of round trips between the
client and server.
And just give two examples: OpenSSL and Java SunJSSE]]
15. Appendix B. Pseudo Code
This appendix gives both C and Java pseudo code illustrating how to
inject and extract raw TLS records from a TLS software stack. Please
not that this is illustrative, non-functional pseudo code that does
not compile. Functioning proof-of-concept code is available on the
following public repository [[ EDITOR'S NOTE: Add the URL here ]].
15.1. B.1 OpenSSL
OpenSSL provides a set of Basic Input/Output (BIO) APIs that can be
used to build a custom transport layer for TLS connections. This
appendix gives pseudo code on how BIO APIs could be used to build a
client application that completes a TLS handshake and exchanges
application data with a service.
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char inbound[MAX];
char outbound[MAX];
int rx_bytes;
SSL_CTX *ctx = SSL_CTX_new();
SSL *ssl = SSL_new(ctx);
// Create in-memory BIOs and plug in to the SSL session
BOI* bio_in = BIO_new(BIO_s_mem());
BOI* bio_out = BIO_new(BIO_s_mem());
SSL_set_bio(ssl, bio_in, bio_out);
// We are a client
SSL_set_connect_state(ssl);
// Loop through TLS flights until we are done
do {
// Calling SSL_do_handshake() will result in a full
// TLS flight being written to the BIO buffer
SSL_do_handshake(ssl);
// Read the client flight that the TLS session
// has written to memory
BIO_read(bio_out, outbound, MAX);
// POST the outbound bytes to the server using a suitable
// function. Lets assume that the server response will be
// written to the 'inbound' buffer
num_bytes = postTlsRecords(outbound, inbound);
// Write the server flight to the memory BIO so the TLS session
// can read it. The next call to SSL_do_handshake() will handle
// this received server flight
BIO_write(bio_in, inbound, num_bytes);
} while (!SSL_is_init_finished(ssl));
// Send a message to the server. Calling SSL_write() will run the
// plaintext through the TLS session and write the encrypted TLS
// records to the BIO buffer
SSL_write(ssl, "Hello World", strlen("Hello World"));
// Read the TLS records from the BIO buffer and
// POST them to the server
BIO_read(bio_out, outbound, MAX);
num_bytes = postTlsRecords(outbound, inbound);
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15.2. B.2 Java JSSE
The Java SSLEngine class "enables secure communications using
protocols such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or IETF RFC 2246
"Transport Layer Security" (TLS) protocols, but is transport
independent". This pseudo code illustrates how a server could use
the SSLEngine class to handle an inbound client TLS flight and
generate an outbound server TLS flight response.
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SSLEngine sslEngine = SSLContext.getDefault().createSSLEngine();
sslEngine.setUseClientMode(false);
sslEngine.beginHandshake();
// Lets assume 'inbound' has been populated with
// the Client 1st Flight
ByteBuffer inbound;
// 'outbound' will be populated with the
// Server 1st Flight response
ByteBuffer outbound;
// SSLEngine handles one TLS Record per call to unwrap().
// Loop until the engine is finished unwrapping.
while (sslEngine.getHandshakeStatus() ==
HandshakeStatus.NEED_UNWRAP) {
SSLEngineResult res = sslEngine.unwrap(inbound, outbound);
// SSLEngine may need additional tasks run
if (res.getHandshakeStatus() == NEED_TASK) {
Runnable run = sslEngine.getDelegatedTask();
run.run();
}
}
// The SSLEngine has now finished handling all inbound TLS Records.
// Check if it wants to generate outbound TLS Records. SSLEngine
// generates one TLS Record per call to wrap().
// Loop until the engine is finished wrapping.
while (sslEngine.getHandshakeStatus() ==
HandshakeStatus.NEED_WRAP) {
SSLEngineResult res = sslEngine.wrap(inbound, outbound);
// SSLEngine may need additional tasks run
if (res.getHandshakeStatus() == NEED_TASK) {
Runnable run = sslEngine.getDelegatedTask();
run.run();
}
}
// outbound ByteBuffer now contains a complete server flight
// containing multiple TLS Records
// Rinse and repeat!
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16. Appendix C. Example ATLS Handshake
[[ EDITOR'S NOTE: For completeness, include a simple full TLS
handshake showing the B64 encoded flights in JSON, along with the
HTTP request/response/headers. And also the raw hex TLS records
showing protocol bits ]]
17. Informative References
[ALTS] Google, "Application Layer Transport Security", December
2017, <https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-in-
transit/application-layer-transport-security/>.
[Bluetooth]
Bluetooth, "Bluetooth Core Specification v5.0", 2016,
<https://www.bluetooth.com/>.
[I-D.hartke-core-e2e-security-reqs]
Selander, G., Palombini, F., and K. Hartke, "Requirements
for CoAP End-To-End Security", draft-hartke-core-e2e-
security-reqs-03 (work in progress), July 2017.
[I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra]
Pritikin, M., Richardson, M., Behringer, M., Bjarnason,
S., and K. Watsen, "Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key
Infrastructures (BRSKI)", draft-ietf-anima-bootstrapping-
keyinfra-09 (work in progress), October 2017.
[I-D.ietf-core-object-security]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J., Palombini, F., and L. Seitz,
"Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments
(OSCORE)", draft-ietf-core-object-security-08 (work in
progress), January 2018.
[I-D.ietf-httpbis-bcp56bis]
Nottingham, M., "On the use of HTTP as a Substrate",
draft-ietf-httpbis-bcp56bis-00 (work in progress),
December 2017.
[I-D.ietf-tls-dtls13]
Rescorla, E., Tschofenig, H., and N. Modadugu, "The
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version
1.3", draft-ietf-tls-dtls13-22 (work in progress),
November 2017.
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[I-D.ietf-tls-tls13]
Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", draft-ietf-tls-tls13-23 (work in progress),
January 2018.
[I-D.mattsson-core-security-overhead]
Mattsson, J., "Message Size Overhead of CoAP Security
Protocols", draft-mattsson-core-security-overhead-02 (work
in progress), November 2017.
[I-D.selander-ace-cose-ecdhe]
Selander, G., Mattsson, J., and F. Palombini, "Ephemeral
Diffie-Hellman Over COSE (EDHOC)", draft-selander-ace-
cose-ecdhe-07 (work in progress), July 2017.
[LwM2M] Open Mobile Alliance, "Lightweight Machine to Machine
Requirements", December 2017,
<http://www.openmobilealliance.org/>.
[Noise] Perrin, T., "Noise Protocol Framework", October 2017,
<http://noiseprotocol.org/>.
[Norrell] Norrell, ., "Use SSL/TLS within a different protocol with
BIO pairs", 2016,
<https://thekerneldiaries.com/2016/06/13/openssl-ssltls-
within-a-different-protocol/>.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc5246>.
[RFC5705] Rescorla, E., "Keying Material Exporters for Transport
Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 5705, DOI 10.17487/RFC5705,
March 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5705>.
[RFC6265] Barth, A., "HTTP State Management Mechanism", RFC 6265,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6265, April 2011, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc6265>.
[RFC6347] Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, DOI 10.17487/RFC6347,
January 2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6347>.
[RFC7230] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing",
RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7230>.
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[RFC7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7252>.
[RFC7540] Belshe, M., Peon, R., and M. Thomson, Ed., "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol Version 2 (HTTP/2)", RFC 7540,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7540, May 2015, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7540>.
[RFC8188] Thomson, M., "Encrypted Content-Encoding for HTTP",
RFC 8188, DOI 10.17487/RFC8188, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8188>.
[Signal] Open Whisper Systems, "Signal Protocol", 2016,
<https://signal.org/>.
[SSLEngine]
Oracle, "SSLEngineSimpleDemo.java", 2004, <https://docs.or
acle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/security/jsse/
samples/sslengine/SSLEngineSimpleDemo.java>.
[ZigBee] ZigBee Alliance, "ZigBee Specification", 2012,
<http://www.zigbee.org>.
Authors' Addresses
Owen Friel
Cisco
Email: ofriel@cisco.com
Richard Barnes
Cisco
Email: rlb@ipv.sx
Max Pritikin
Cisco
Email: pritikin@cisco.com
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Hannes Tschofenig
ARM Limited
Email: hannes.tschofenig@gmx.net
Mark Baugher
Consultant
Email: mark@mbaugher.com
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