NETWORK WORKING GROUP N. Williams
Internet-Draft Sun
Intended status: Standards Track M. Richardson
Expires: January 27, 2008 SSW
July 26, 2007
Better-Than-Nothing-Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec
draft-ietf-btns-core-04.txt
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Abstract
This document specifies how to use the Internet Key Exchange (IKE)
protocols, such as IKEv1 and IKEv2, to setup "unauthenticated"
security associations (SAs) for use with the IPsec Encapsulating
Security Payload (ESP) and the IPsec Authentication Header (AH). No
changes to IKEv2 bits-on-the-wire are required, but Peer
Authorization Database (PAD) and Security Policy Database (SPD)
extensions are specified. Unauthenticated IPsec is herein referred
to by its popular acronym, "BTNS" (Better Than Nothing Security).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Usage Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Example #1: A security gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2. Example #2: A mixed end-system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.3. Example #3: A BTNS-only system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4. Miscellaneous comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1. Connection-Latching and Channel Binding . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.2. Leap-of-Faith (LoF) for BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 16
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1. Introduction
Here we describe how to establish unauthenticated IPsec SAs using
IKEv2 [RFC4306] and unauthenticated public keys. No new on-the-wire
protocol elements are added to IKEv2.
The [RFC4301] processing model is assumed.
This document does not define an opportunistic BTNS mode of IPsec
whereby nodes may fallback to unprotected IP when their peers do not
support IKEv2, nor does it describe "leap-of-faith" modes, or
"connection latching."
See [I-D.ietf-btns-prob-and-applic] for the applicability and uses of
BTNS and definitions of these terms.
This document describes BTNS in terms of IKEv2 and [RFC4301]'s
concepts. There is no reason why the same methods cannot be used
with IKEv1 [RFC2408] [RFC2409] and [RFC2401], however, those
specifications do not include the PAD concepts, and therefore it may
not be possible to implement BTNS on all compliant RFC2401
implementations.
1.1. Conventions used in this document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
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2. BTNS
The IPsec processing model is hereby modified as follows:
o A new ID type is added, 'PUBLICKEY'; IDs of this type have public
keys as values. This ID type is not used on the wire.
o A BTNS-specific PAD entry. This entry MUST be the last entry in
the PAD when BTNS is enabled. A peer that matches no other PAD
entries is to be "authenticated" by verifying that the signature
in its AUTH payload in the IKEv2 exchange with the public key from
the peer's CERT payload. The peer's ID MUST then be coerced to be
of 'PUBLICKEY' type with the peer's public key as its value.
o To accomplish the above, search the PAD as normal, with the ID
provided by the peer. If it matches do normal processing. If the
ID asserted by a peer does not match any PAD entry, then a BTNS-
enabled IPsec implementation replaces the ID with into the new ID
of type "PUBLICKEY" that is created by extracting the public key
from the IKE CERT payload.
o The PAD is searched again, using this new ID type and value. If
there is a match, the associated PAD entry (which will be a BTNS
entry) is used to control the SPD search.
o If there is no match, the IKE SA is rejected
o A new flag for SPD entries: 'BTNS_OK'. Traffic to/from peers that
match the BTNS PAD entry will match only SPD entries that have the
BTNS_OK flag set. The SPD may be searched by address or by ID (of
type PUBLICKEY, for BTNS peers), as per the IPsec processing model
[RFC4301]; searching by ID in this case requires creation of SPD
entries that are bound to public key values (this could be used to
build "leap-of-faith" [I-D.ietf-btns-prob-and-applic] Section 4.2
behaviour, for example).
Nodes MUST reject IKE_SA proposals from peers that match non-BTNS PAD
entries but fail to authenticate properly.
Nodes wishing to be treated as BTNS nodes by their peers MUST include
bare RSA key CERT payloads. Nodes MAY also include any number of
certificates that bind the same public key. These certificates need
not to have been pre-shared with their peers (e.g., because ephermal,
self-signed). RSA keys for use in BTNS may be generated at any time,
but "connection latching" [I-D.ietf-btns-connection-latching]
requires that they remain constant between IKEv2 exchanges that are
used to establish SAs for latched connections.
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To preserve standard IPsec access control semantics the BTNS PAD
entry MUST be last (lowest priority), and it MUST have ID constraints
that do not overlap those of other PAD entries.
This can easily be implemented by searching the PAD twice. Once when
BTNS peers authenticate and a second time when BTNS peers negotiate
child SAs. In the first pass the PAD is searched for a matching PAD
entry as usual, and in the second it is searched to make sure that
BTNS peers' asserted child SA traffic selectors do not conflict with
non-BTNS PAD entries.
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3. Usage Scenarios
In order to explain the above rules a number of scenarios will be
examined. The goal here is to persuade the reader that the above
rules are both sufficient and necessary.
To explain the scenarios a reference diagram describing an example
network will be used. It is as follows:
[Q] [R]
AS1 . . AS2
[A]----+----[SG-A].......+....+.......[SG-B]-------[B]
...... \
..PI.. ----[btns-B]
......
[btns-C].....+....+.......[btns-D]
Figure 1: Reference Network Diagram
In this diagram, there are six end-nodes: A, B, C and D. Two of the
systems are security gateways: SG-A, SG-B, protecting networks on
which [A] and [B] reside. There is a node [Q] which is IPsec and
BTNS capable, and node [R] is a simple node, with no IPsec or BTNS
capability. Nodes [C] and [D] are BTNS capable.
Nodes [C] and [Q] have fixed addresses. Node [D] has a non-fixed
address.
We will examine how these various nodes communicate with node SG-A,
and/or how SG-A rejects communications with some such nodes. In the
first example, we examine SG-A's point of view. In the second
example we look at Q's point of view. In the third example we look
at C's point of view.
PI is the Public Internet ("The Wild").
3.1. Example #1: A security gateway
The machine that we will care in this example is [SG-A], a firewall
device of some kind which we wish to configure to respond to BTNS
connections from [C].
SG-A has the following PAD and SPD entries:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
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1 <B's ID> <B's network> by-IP
2 <Q's ID> <Q's host> by-IP
3 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 2: SG-A PAD table
Note that [SG-A]'s PAD entry has one and only one wildcard PAD entry:
the BTNS catch-all PAD entry as the last entry, as described in
Section 2.
<Child SA IDs allowed> and <SPD Search by> are from [RFC4301] section
4.4.3
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [A] [R] ANY N/A BYPASS
2 [A] [Q] ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
3 [A] B-net ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
4 [A] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
integr+conf)
Figure 3: [SG-A] SPD table
The processing by [SG-A] of SA establishment attempts by various
peers is as follows:
o [Q] does not match PAD entry #1, but does match PAD entry #2; PAD
processing stops, then the SPD is searched by [Q]'s ID to find
entry #2; CHILD SAs are then allowed that have [SG-A]'s and [Q]'s
addresses as the end-point addresses.
o [SG-B] matches PAD entry #1; PAD processing stops, then the SPD is
searched by [SG-B]'s ID to find SPD entry #3; CHILD SAs are then
allowed that have [SG-A]'s address and any addresses from B's
network as the end-point addresses.
o [R] does not initiate any IKE SAs; its traffic to [A] is bypassed
by SPD entry #1.
o [C] does not match PAD entries #1 or #2, but does match entry #3,
the BTNS wildcard PAD entry; the SPD is searched by [C]'s address
and SPD entry #4 is matched. CHILD SAs are then allowed that have
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[SG-A]'s address and [C]'s address as the end-point addresses
provided that [C]'s address is neither [Q]'s nor any of [B]'s (see
Section 2).
o A rogue BTNS node attempting to assert [Q]'s or [B]'s addresses
will either match the PAD entries for [Q] or [B] and fail to
authenticate as [Q] or [B], in which case they are rejected, or
they will match PAD entry #3 but will not be allowed to create
CHILD SAs with [Q]'s or [B]'s addresses as traffic selectors.
o A rogue BTNS nodes attempting to assert [C]'s address will
succeed. Protection for [C] requires additional bindings of [C]'s
specific BTNS ID (that is, its public key) to its traffic flows
through connection-latching and channel binding, or leap-of-faith,
none of which are described here.
3.2. Example #2: A mixed end-system
[Q] is an NFSv4 server.
[Q] is a native IPsec implementation, and it's NFSv4 implementation
is IPsec-aware.
[Q] wants to protect all traffic with [A]. [Q] also wants to protect
NFSv4 traffice with all peers. It's PAD and SPD are configured as
follows:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 <[A]'s ID> <[A]'s address> by-IP
2 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 4: [Q] PAD table
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [Q] [A] ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
2 [Q] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
with integr+conf)
port 2049
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Figure 5: [Q] SPD table
The same analysis shown above in Section 3.1 applies here with
respect to [SG-A], [C] and rogue peers. The second SPD entry permits
any BTNS capable node to negotiate a port-specific SA to port 2049,
the port on which NFSv4 runs. Additionally [SG-B] is treated as a
BTNS peer as it is not known to [Q], and therefore any host behind
[SG-B] can access the NFSv4 service on [Q]. As [Q] has no formal
relationship with [SG-B], rogues can impersonate [B] (i.e., assert
[B]'s addresses).
3.3. Example #3: A BTNS-only system
[C] supports only BTNS and wants to use BTNS to protect NFSv4
traffic. It's PAD and SPD are configured as follows:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last (and only) entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 6: Q PAD table
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [C] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
with integr+conf)
port
2049
2 [C] ANY ANY N/A BYPASS
Figure 7: SG-A SPD table
The analysis from Section 3.1 applies as follows:
o Communication with [Q] on port 2049 matches SPD entry number 1.
This causes [C] to initiate an IKEv2 exchange with [Q]. The PAD
entry on [C] causes it to not care what identity [Q] asserts.
Further authentication (and channel binding) could occur within
the NFSv4 protocol.
o Communication with [A], [B] or any other internet machine
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(including [Q]), occurs in the clear, so long as it is not on port
2049.
o All analysis about rogue BTNS nodes applies, but they can only
assert SAs for port 2049.
3.4. Miscellaneous comments
If [SG-A] were not BTNS-capable then it would not have PAD and SPD
entries #3 and #4, respectively in example #1. Then [C] would be
rejected as usual under the standard IPsec model [RFC4301].
Similarly, if [Q] were not BTNS-capable then it would not have PAD
and SPD entries #2 in example #2. Then [C] would be rejected as
usual under the standard IPsec model [RFC4301].
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4. Security Considerations
Unauthenticated security association negotiation is subject to MITM
attacks and should be used with care. Where security infrastructures
are lacking this may indeed be better than nothing.
Use with applications that bind authentication at higher network
layers to secure channels at lower layers may provide one secure way
to use unauthenticated IPsec, but this is not specified herein.
The BTNS PAD entry must be last and its child SA ID constraints must
be non-overlapping with any other PAD entry, as described in section
2, in order to ensure that no BTNS peer can impersonate another IPsec
non-BTNS peer.
4.1. Connection-Latching and Channel Binding
BTNS is subject to MITM attacks. One way to protect against MITM
attacks subsequent to initial communications is to use "connection
latching" [I-D.ietf-btns-connection-latching]. In connection
latching, ULPs cooperate with IPsec to bind discrete packet flows to
sequences of similar SAs. Connection latching requires native IPsec
implementations.
MITMs can be detected by using application-layer authentication
frameworks and/or mechanisms, such as the GSS-API [RFC2743], with
channel binding [I-D.williams-on-channel-binding]. IPsec "channels"
are nothing other than latched connnections.
4.2. Leap-of-Faith (LoF) for BTNS
"Leap of faith" is the term generally used when a user accepts the
assertion that a given key identifies a peer on the first
communication, despite a lack of strong evidence for that assertion,
and then remembers this association for future communications.
Specifically this is a common mode of operation for Secure Shell
[RFC4251] client. When a server is encountered for the first time
the Secure Shell client may ask the user whether to accept the
server's public key. If so, records the server's name (as given by
the user) and public key in a database.
Leap of faith can work in a similar way for BTNS nodes, but it is
currently still being designed and specified by the IETF BTNS WG.
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5. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA considerations, neither seeking to create
new registrations nor new registries. (The new ID type is not used
on the wire, therefore it need not be assigned a number from the IANA
IKEv2 Identification Payload ID Types registry.)
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6. Acknowledgements
Thanks for the following reviewers: Stephen Kent
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7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
7.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-btns-connection-latching]
Williams, N., "IPsec Channels: Connection Latching",
draft-ietf-btns-connection-latching-00 (work in progress),
February 2006.
[I-D.ietf-btns-prob-and-applic]
Touch, J., "Problem and Applicability Statement for Better
Than Nothing Security (BTNS)",
draft-ietf-btns-prob-and-applic-03 (work in progress),
June 2006.
[I-D.williams-on-channel-binding]
Williams, N., "On the Use of Channel Bindings to Secure
Channels", draft-williams-on-channel-binding-00 (work in
progress), August 2006.
[RFC2401] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.
[RFC2408] Maughan, D., Schneider, M., and M. Schertler, "Internet
Security Association and Key Management Protocol
(ISAKMP)", RFC 2408, November 1998.
[RFC2409] Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
(IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.
[RFC2743] Linn, J., "Generic Security Service Application Program
Interface Version 2, Update 1", RFC 2743, January 2000.
[RFC4251] Ylonen, T. and C. Lonvick, "The Secure Shell (SSH)
Protocol Architecture", RFC 4251, January 2006.
[RFC4306] Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol",
RFC 4306, December 2005.
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Authors' Addresses
Nicolas Williams
Sun Microsystems
5300 Riata Trace Ct
Austin, TX 78727
US
Email: Nicolas.Williams@sun.com
Michael C. Richardson
Sandelman Software Works
470 Dawson Avenue
Ottawa, ON K1Z 5V7
CA
Email: mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
URI: http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/
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