DHC Working Group S. Jiang, Ed.
Internet-Draft Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Intended status: Standards Track S. Shen
Expires: April 2, 2015 CNNIC
D. Zhang
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
T. Jinmei
Infoblox Inc.
September 29, 2014
Secure DHCPv6
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-04
Abstract
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6) enables
DHCPv6 servers to pass configuration parameters. It offers
configuration flexibility. If not being secured, DHCPv6 is
vulnerable to various attacks, particularly spoofing attacks. This
document analyzes the security issues of DHCPv6 and specifies a
Secure DHCPv6 mechanism for communications between DHCPv6 clients and
DHCPv6 servers. This document provides a DHCPv6 client/server
authentication mechanism based on server's public/private key pairs
and client's certificates. The DHCPv6 message exchanges are
protected by the signature option and the timestamp option newly
defined in this document.
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on April 2, 2015.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Requirements Language and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Security Overview of DHCPv6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. Overview of Secure DHCPv6 Mechanism with Public Key . . . . . 4
4.1. New Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2. Support for Algorithm Agility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.3. Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Extensions for Secure DHCPv6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.1. Public Key Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.2. Certificate Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5.3. Signature Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5.4. Timestamp Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.5. Status Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Processing Rules and Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.1. Processing Rules of Sender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2. Processing Rules of Recipient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
6.3. Processing Rules of Relay Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6.4. Timestamp Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7. Deployment Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1. Authentication on a client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.2. Authentication on a server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
10. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11. Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove] . . . . . . . . . . . 20
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
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1. Introduction
The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6 (DHCPv6, [RFC3315])
enables DHCPv6 servers to pass configuration parameters and offers
configuration flexibility. If not being secured, DHCPv6 is
vulnerable to various attacks, particularly spoofing attacks.
This document analyzes the security issues of DHCPv6 in details.
This document provides mechanisms for improving the security of
DHCPv6 between client and server:
o the identity of a DHCPv6 message sender, which can be a DHCPv6
server or a client, can be verified by a recipient.
o the integrity of DHCPv6 messages can be checked by the recipient
of the message.
o anti-replay protection based on timestamps.
Note: this secure mechanism in this document does not protect the
relay-relevant options, either added by a relay agent toward a server
or added by a server toward a relay agent, are considered less
vulnerable, because they are only transported within operator
networks. Communication between a server and a relay agent, and
communications between relay agents, may be secured through the use
of IPsec, as described in section 21.1 in [RFC3315].
The security mechanisms specified in this document is based on
server's public/private key pairs and client's certificates. The
reason for such design and deployment consideration are discussed in
Section 7. It also integrates message signatures for the integrity
and timestamps for anti-replay. The client authentication on server
procedure defined in this document depends on deployed Public Key
Infrastructure (PKI, [RFC5280]). However, the deployment of PKI is
out of the scope.
Secure DHCPv6 is applicable in environments where physical security
on the link is not assured (such as over wireless) and attacks on
DHCPv6 are a concern.
2. Requirements Language and Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC2119] when they appear in ALL CAPS. When these words are not in
ALL CAPS (such as "should" or "Should"), they have their usual
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English meanings, and are not to be interpreted as [RFC2119] key
words.
3. Security Overview of DHCPv6
DHCPv6 is a client/server protocol that provides managed
configuration of devices. It enables a DHCPv6 server to
automatically configure relevant network parameters on clients. In
the basic DHCPv6 specification [RFC3315], security of DHCPv6 messages
can be improved.
The basic DHCPv6 specifications can optionally authenticate the
origin of messages and validate the integrity of messages using an
authentication option with a symmetric key pair. [RFC3315] relies on
pre-established secret keys. For any kind of meaningful security,
each DHCPv6 client would need to be configured with its own secret
key; [RFC3315] provides no mechanism for doing this.
For the key of the hash function, there are two key management
mechanisms. Firstly, the key management is done out of band, usually
through some manual process. For example, operators can set up a key
database for both servers and clients which the client obtains a key
before running DHCPv6.
Manual key distribution runs counter to the goal of minimizing the
configuration data needed at each host.
[RFC3315] provides an additional mechanism for preventing off-network
timing attacks using the Reconfigure message: the Reconfigure Key
authentication method. However, this method provides no message
integrity or source integrity check. This key is transmitted in
plaintext.
In comparison, the security mechanism defined in this document allows
the public key database on the client to be populated
opportunistically or manually, depending on the degree of confidence
desired in a specific application. PKI security mechanism is simpler
in the local key management respect.
4. Overview of Secure DHCPv6 Mechanism with Public Key
This document introduces a Secure DHCPv6 mechanism that uses
signatures to secure the DHCPv6 protocol. In order to enable DHCPv6
clients and DHCPv6 servers to perform mutual authentication without
previous key deployment, this solution provides a DHCPv6 client/
server authentication mechanism based on server's public/private key
pairs and client's certificates: the server only accept the client
messages that are protected by the client certificate that is signed
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by a trusted CA; a client can build up trust relationship with a
server for subsequent message exchanges based on leap of faith (LoF)
mechanism. This purpose of this design is to simplify the
precondition of deploying DHCPv6 authentication and provides limited
protection of DHCPv6 message.
In this document, we introduce a public key option (only sent by
servers), a certificate option (only sent by clients), a signature
option and a timestamp with corresponding verification mechanisms. A
DHCPv6 message from a server is attached with a public key option,
and carrying a digital signature and a timestamp option. It can be
verified by the client. The client processes the payload of the
DHCPv6 message only if the validation is successful. Reversely, a
DHCPv6 message from a client is attached with a certificate option,
and also carrying a digital signature and a timestamp option. It can
be verified by the server. The server processes the payload of the
DHCPv6 message only if the validation is successful. The end-to-end
security protection is bidirection that covers both from DHCPv6
servers to clients and from clients to DHCPv6 servers. Additionally,
the optional timestamp mechanism provides anti-replay protection.
By recording the public key that was used by the DHCPv6 server, when
the first time it is seen, the DHCPv6 client can make a leap of faith
that the server is trustworthy. If no evidence to the contrary
surfaces, the client can then validate the server as trustworthy when
it subsequently sees the same public key used to sign messages from
the same server. In opposite, once the client has determined that it
is being attacked, it can either forget that server, or remember that
server in a blacklist and drop further packets associated with that
server.
On the server DHCPv6 side, upon receiving the client's certificate,
the server asserts the validity of the certificate, for example
through PKI.
Secure DHCPv6 messages are commonly large. IPv6 fragments [RFC2460]
are highly possible. Hence, deployment of Secure DHCPv6 should also
consider the issues of IP fragment, PMTU, etc. Also, if there are
firewalls between secure DHCPv6 clients and secure DHCPv6 servers, it
is RECOMMENDED that the firewalls are configured to pass ICMP Packet
Too Big messages [RFC4443].
4.1. New Components
The components of the solution specified in this document are as
follows:
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o The server generates a public/private key pair. A DHCPv6 option
that carries the public key is defined.
o The client obtains a certificate from a Certificate Authority that
can be used to establish the trustworthiness with the server.
Another option is defined to carry the certificate.
o A signature generated using the private key which is used by the
receiver to verify the integrity of the DHCPv6 messages and then
the identity of the sender.
o A timestamp, to detect replayed packet. The secure DHCPv6 nodes
need to meet some accuracy requirements and be synced to global
time, while the timestamp checking mechanism allows a configurable
time value for clock drift. The real time provision is out of
scope.
4.2. Support for Algorithm Agility
Hash functions are used to provide message integrity checks. In
order to provide a means of addressing problems that may emerge in
the future with existing hash algorithms, as recommended in
[RFC4270], this document provides a mechanism for negotiating the use
of more secure hashes in the future.
In addition to hash algorithm agility, this document also provides a
mechanism for signature algorithm agility.
The support for algorithm agility in this document is mainly a
unilateral notification mechanism from sender to recipient. A
recipient MAY support various algorithms simultaneously, and the
different senders in a same administrative domain may be allowed to
use various algorithms simultaneously.
If the recipient does not support the algorithm used by the sender,
it cannot authenticate the message. In the client-to-server case,
the server SHOULD reply with an AlgorithmNotSupported status code
(defined in Section 5.5). Upon receiving this status code, the
client MAY resend the message protected with the mandatory algorithm
(defined in Section 5.3).
4.3. Applicability
By default, a secure DHCPv6 enabled client SHOULD start with secure
mode by sending secure DHCPv6 messages. If the recipient is secure
DHCPv6 enabled server, their communication would be in secure mode.
In the scenario where the secure DHCPv6 enabled client and server
fail to build up secure communication between them, the secure DHCPv6
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enabled client MAY choose to send unsecured DHCPv6 message towards
the server according to its local policies.
In the scenario where the recipient is a legacy DHCPv6 server that
does not support secure mechanism, the DHCPv6 server (for all of
known DHCPv6 implementations) would just omit or disregard unknown
options (secure options defined in this document) and still process
the known options. The reply message would be unsecured, of course.
It is up to the local policy of the client whether to accept the
messages. If the client accepts the unsecured messages from the
DHCPv6 server, the subsequent exchanges will be in the unsecured
mode.
In the scenario where a legacy client sends an unsecured message to a
secure DHCPv6 enabled server, there are two possibilities depending
on the server policy. If the server's policy requires the
authentication, an UnspecFail (value 1, [RFC3315]) error status code,
SHOULD be returned. In such case, the client cannot build up the
connection with the server. If the server has been configured to
support unsecured clients, the server MAY fall back to the unsecured
DHCPv6 mode, and reply unsecured messages toward the client;
depending on the local policy, the server MAY continue to send the
secured reply messages with the consumption of computing resource.
The resources allocated for unsecured clients SHOULD be separated and
restricted.
5. Extensions for Secure DHCPv6
This section describes the extensions to DHCPv6. Four new options
have been defined. The new options MUST be supported in the Secure
DHCPv6 message exchange.
5.1. Public Key Option
The Public Key option carries the public key of the server. The
format of the Public Key option is described as follows:
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0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| OPTION_PK_PARAMETER | option-len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
. Public Key (variable length) .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
option-code OPTION_PK_PARAMETER (TBA1).
option-len Length of public key in octets.
Public Key A variable-length field containing public key and
identify the algorithm with which the key is used
(e.g., RSA, DSA, or Diffie-Hellman). The algorithm
is identified using the AlgorithmIdentifier structure
specified in section 4.1.1.2, [RFC5280]. The object
identifiers for the supported algorithms and the
methods for encoding the public key materials
(public key and parameters) are specified in
[RFC3279], [RFC4055], and [RFC4491].
5.2. Certificate Option
The Certificate option carries the certificate of the client. The
format of the Certificate option is described as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| OPTION_CERT_PARAMETER | option-len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
. Certificate (variable length) .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
option-code OPTION_CERT_PARAMETER (TBA2).
option-len Length of certificate in octets.
Certificate A variable-length field containing certificate. The
encoding of certificate and certificate data MUST
be in format as defined in Section 3.6, [RFC5996].
The support of X.509 certificate is mandatory.
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5.3. Signature Option
The Signature option allows a signature that is signed by the private
key to be attached to a DHCPv6 message. The Signature option could
be any place within the DHCPv6 message while it is logically created
after the entire DHCPv6 header and options, except for the
Authentication Option. It protects the entire DHCPv6 header and
options, including itself, except for the Authentication Option. The
format of the Signature option is described as follows:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| OPTION_SIGNATURE | option-len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| HA-id | SA-id | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |
| |
. Signature (variable length) .
. .
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
option-code OPTION_SIGNATURE (TBA3).
option-len 2 + Length of Signature field in octets.
HA-id Hash Algorithm id. The hash algorithm is used for
computing the signature result. This design is
adopted in order to provide hash algorithm agility.
The value is from the Hash Algorithm for Secure
DHCPv6 registry in IANA. The support of SHA-256 is
mandatory. A registry of the initial assigned values
is defined in Section 8.
SA-id Signature Algorithm id. The signature algorithm is
used for computing the signature result. This
design is adopted in order to provide signature
algorithm agility. The value is from the Signature
Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6 registry in IANA. The
support of RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 is mandatory. A
registry of the initial assigned values is defined
in Section 8.
Signature A variable-length field containing a digital
signature. The signature value is computed with
the hash algorithm and the signature algorithm,
as described in HA-id and SA-id. The signature
constructed by using the sender's private key
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protects the following sequence of octets:
1. The DHCPv6 message header.
2. All DHCPv6 options including the Signature
option (fill the signature field with zeroes)
except for the Authentication Option.
The signature field MUST be padded, with all 0, to
the next octet boundary if its size is not a
multiple of 8 bits. The padding length depends on
the signature algorithm, which is indicated in the
SA-id field.
Note: if both signature and authentication option are presented,
signature option does not protect the Authentication Option. It
allows the Authentication Option be created after signature has been
calculated and filled with the valid signature. It is because both
options need to apply hash algorithm to whole message, so there must
be a clear order and there could be only one last-created option. In
order to avoid update [RFC3315] because of changing auth option, the
authors chose not include authentication option in the signature.
5.4. Timestamp Option
The Timestamp option carries the current time on the sender. It adds
the anti-replay protection to the DHCPv6 messages. It is optional.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| OPTION_TIMESTAMP | option-len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Timestamp (64-bit) |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
option-code OPTION_TIMESTAMP (TBA4).
option-len 8, in octets.
Timestamp The current time of day (NTP-format timestamp
[RFC5905] in UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), a
64-bit unsigned fixed-point number, in seconds
relative to 0h on 1 January 1900.). It can reduce
the danger of replay attacks.
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5.5. Status Codes
o AlgorithmNotSupported (TBD5): indicates that the DHCPv6 server
does not support algorithms that sender used.
o AuthenticationFail (TBD6): indicates that the DHCPv6 client fails
authentication check.
o TimestampFail (TBD7): indicates the message from DHCPv6 client
fails the timestamp check.
o SignatureFail (TBD8): indicates the message from DHCPv6 client
fails the signature check.
6. Processing Rules and Behaviors
This section only covers the scenario where both DHCPv6 client and
DHCPv6 server are secure enabled.
6.1. Processing Rules of Sender
The sender of a Secure DHCPv6 message could be a DHCPv6 server or a
DHCPv6 client.
The server must have a public/private key pair in order to create
Secure DHCPv6 messages. The client must have a certificate which is
signed by a CA trusted by both server and client.
To support secure DHCPv6, the secure DHCPv6 enabled sender MUST
construct the DHCPv6 message following the rules defined in
[RFC3315].
A Secure DHCPv6 message, except for Relay-forward and Relay-reply
messages, MUST contain either a Public Key or a Certificate option,
which MUST be constructed as explained in Section 5.1 or Section 5.2.
A Secure DHCPv6 message, except for Relay-forward and Relay-reply
messages, MUST contain one and only one Signature option, which MUST
be constructed as explained in Section 5.3. It protects the message
header and all DHCPv6 options except for the Authentication Option.
A Secure DHCPv6 message, except for Relay-forward and Relay-reply
messages, MAY contain one and only one Timestamp option. The
Timestamp field SHOULD be set to the current time, according to
sender's real time clock.
A Relay-forward and relay-reply message MUST NOT contain any
additional Public Key or Certificate option or Signature Option or
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Timestamp Option, aside from those present in the innermost
encapsulated messages from the client or server.
If the sender is a DHCPv6 client, in the failure cases, it receives a
Reply message with an error status code. The error status code
indicates the failure reason on the server side. According to the
received status code, the client MAY take follow-up action:
o Upon receiving an AlgorithmNotSupported error status code, the
client SHOULD resend the message protected with the mandatory
algorithms.
o Upon receiving an AuthenticationFail error status code, the client
is not able to build up the secure communication with the
recipient. The client MAY switch to other certificate if it has.
But it SHOULD NOT retry with the same certificate. It MAY retry
with the same certificate following normal retransmission routines
defined in [RFC3315].
o Upon receiving a TimestampFail error status code, the client MAY
fall back to unsecured mode, or resend the message without a
Timestamp option. However, the DHCP server MAY not accept the
message without a Timestamp option.
o Upon receiving a SignatureFail error status code, the client MAY
resend the message following normal retransmission routines
defined in [RFC3315].
6.2. Processing Rules of Recipient
The recipient of a Secure DHCPv6 message could be a DHCPv6 server or
a DHCPv6 client. In the failure cases, either DHCPv6 server or
client SHOULD NOT process received message, and the server SHOULD
reply a correspondent error status code, while the client does
nothing. The specific behavior depends on the configured local
policy.
When receiving a DHCPv6 message, except for Relay-Forward and Relay-
Reply messages, a secure DHCPv6 enabled recipient SHOULD discard any
DHCPv6 messages that meet any of the following conditions:
o the Signature option is absent,
o multiple Signature option is presented,
o the Public Key option is absent in the server-to-client message,
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o the Certificate option is presented in the server-to-client
message,
o the Certificate option is absent in the client-to-server message,
o the Public Key option is presented in the client-to-server
message.
In such failure, if the recipient is a DHCPv6 server, the server
SHOULD reply an UnspecFail (value 1, [RFC3315]) error status code.
If neither of the Signature, Public Key or Certificate options is
presented, the sender MAY be a legacy node or in unsecured mode,
then, the recipient MAY fall back to the unsecured DHCPv6 mode if its
local policy allows.
The recipient SHOULD first check the support of algorithms that
sender used. If not pass, the message is dropped. In such failure,
if the recipient is a DHCPv6 server, the server SHOULD reply an
AlgorithmNotSupported error status code, defined in Section 5.5, back
to the client. If all algorithms are supported, the recipient then
checks the authority of this sender.
The DHCPv6 server SHOULD validate the client's certificate following
the rules defined in [RFC5280]. An implementation may create a local
trust certificate record for verified certificates in order to avoid
repeated verification procedure in the future. A client certificate
that finds a match in the local trust certificate list is treated as
verified. A fast search index may be created for this list.
The DHCPv6 client SHOULD validate it by finding a matching public key
from the local trust public key list, which is pre-configured or
recorded from previous communications. A local trust public key list
is a data table maintained by the recipient. It restores public keys
from all trustworthy senders. A fast search index may be created for
this list. The message that fails authentication check MUST be
dropped. In such failure, the DHCPv6 server SHOULD reply an
AuthenticationFail error status code, defined in Section 5.5, back to
the client.
The client MAY choose to further process messages from a server for
which there is no matched public key. By recording the public key,
when the first time it is seen, the client can make a leap of faith
(LoF) that the server is trustworthy. If no evidence to the contrary
surfaces, the client can then validate the server as trustworthy for
subsequent message exchanges. In opposite, once the client has
determined that it is being attacked, it can either forget that
public key, or remember that public key in a blacklist and drop
further packets associated with that public key.
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At this point, the recipient has either recognized the authentication
of the sender, or decided to drop the message. The recipient MUST
now authenticate the sender by verifying the signature and checking
timestamp (see details in Section 6.4), if there is a Timestamp
option. The order of two procedures is left as an implementation
decision. It is RECOMMENDED to check timestamp first, because
signature verification is much more computationally expensive.
Depending on server's local policy, the message without a Timestamp
option MAY be acceptable or rejected. If the server rejects such a
message, a TimestampFail error status code, defined in Section 5.5,
should be sent back to the client.
The signature field verification MUST show that the signature has
been calculated as specified in Section 5.3. Only the messages that
get through both the signature verifications and timestamp check (if
there is a Timestamp option) are accepted as secured DHCPv6 messages
and continue to be handled for their contained DHCPv6 options as
defined in [RFC3315]. Messages that do not pass the above tests MUST
be discarded or treated as unsecured messages. In the case the
recipient is DHCPv6 server, the DHCPv6 server SHOULD reply a
SignatureFail error status code, defined in Section 5.5, for the
signature verification failure; or a TimestampFail error status code,
defined in Section 5.5, for the timestamp check failure, back to the
client.
Furthermore, the node that supports the verification of the Secure
DHCPv6 messages MAY record the following information:
Minbits The minimum acceptable key length for public keys. An upper
limit MAY also be set for the amount of computation needed when
verifying packets that use these security associations. The
appropriate lengths SHOULD be set according to the signature
algorithm and also following prudent cryptographic practice. For
example, minimum length 1024 and upper limit 2048 may be used for
RSA [RSA].
A Relay-forward or Relay-reply message with any Public Key,
Certificate or the Signature option is invalid. The message MUST be
discarded silently.
6.3. Processing Rules of Relay Agent
To support Secure DHCPv6, relay agents just need to follow the same
processing rules defined in [RFC3315]. There is nothing more the
relay agents have to do, either verify the messages from client or
server, or add any secure DHCPv6 options. Actually, by definition in
this document, relay agents SHOULD NOT add any secure DHCPv6 options.
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6.4. Timestamp Check
In order to check the Timestamp option, defined in Section 5.4,
recipients SHOULD be configured with an allowed timestamp Delta
value, a "fuzz factor" for comparisons, and an allowed clock drift
parameter. The recommended default value for the allowed Delta is
300 seconds (5 minutes); for fuzz factor 1 second; and for clock
drift, 0.01 second.
Note: the Timestamp mechanism is based on the assumption that
communication peers have roughly synchronized clocks, with certain
allowed clock drift. So, accurate clock is not necessary. If one
has a clock too far from the current time, the timestamp mechanism
would not work.
To facilitate timestamp checking, each recipient SHOULD store the
following information for each sender, from which at least one
accepted secure DHCPv6 message is successfully verified (for both
timestamp check and signature verification):
o The receive time of the last received and accepted DHCPv6 message.
This is called RDlast.
o The timestamp in the last received and accepted DHCPv6 message.
This is called TSlast.
A verified (for both timestamp check and signature verification)
secure DHCPv6 message initiates the update of the above variables in
the recipient's record.
Recipients MUST check the Timestamp field as follows:
o When a message is received from a new peer (i.e., one that is not
stored in the cache), the received timestamp, TSnew, is checked,
and the message is accepted if the timestamp is recent enough to
the reception time of the packet, RDnew:
-Delta < (RDnew - TSnew) < +Delta
After the signature verification also successes, the RDnew and
TSnew values SHOULD be stored in the cache as RDlast and TSlast.
o When a message is received from a known peer (i.e., one that
already has an entry in the cache), the timestamp is checked
against the previously received Secure DHCPv6 message:
TSnew + fuzz > TSlast + (RDnew - RDlast) x (1 - drift) - fuzz
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If this inequality does not hold or RDnew < RDlast, the recipient
SHOULD silently discard the message. If, on the other hand, the
inequality holds, the recipient SHOULD process the message.
Moreover, if the above inequality holds and TSnew > TSlast, the
recipient SHOULD update RDlast and TSlast after the signature
verification also successes. Otherwise, the recipient MUST NOT
update RDlast or TSlast.
An implementation MAY use some mechanism such as a timestamp cache to
strengthen resistance to replay attacks. When there is a very large
number of nodes on the same link, or when a cache filling attack is
in progress, it is possible that the cache holding the most recent
timestamp per sender will become full. In this case, the node MUST
remove some entries from the cache or refuse some new requested
entries. The specific policy as to which entries are preferred over
others is left as an implementation decision.
7. Deployment Consideration
This document defines two directions of authentication:
authentication based on client's certificate and authentication based
on leap-of-faith (LoF) to server's public key.
7.1. Authentication on a client
For clients, DHCPv6 authentication generally means verifying whether
the sender of DHCP messages is a legal DHCPv6 server and verifying
whether the message has been modified during transmission. Because
the client may have to validate the authentication in the condition
of without connectivity wider than link-local, authentication with
certificates may not always be feasible. So, this document only
sticks on Leaf of Faith model, to make sure the client talks to the
same previous server.
Message integrity is provided. But there is a chance for the client
to incorrectly trust a malicious server at the beginning of the first
session with the server (and therefore keep trusting it thereafter).
But LoF guarantees the subsequent messages are sent by the same
previous server, and therefore narrows the attack scope. This may
make sense if the network can be reasonably considered secure and
requesting pre-configuration is deemed to be infeasible. A small
home network would be an example of such cases.
For environments that are neither controlled nor really trustworthy,
such as a network cafe, while LoF model, i.e. silently trusting the
server at the first time, would be too insecure. But some middle
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ground might be justified, such as requiring human intervention at
the point of LoF.
7.2. Authentication on a server
As for authentication on a server, there are several different
scenarios to consider, each of which has different applicability
issues. If the server allows LoF any malicious user can pretend to
be a new legitimate client. While the server can always be
considered to have connectivity to validate certificate, it is
feasible to check client certificates.
Network administrators may wish to constrain the allocation of
addresses to authorized hosts to avoid denial of service attacks in
"hostile" environments where the network medium is not physically
secured, such as wireless networks or college residence halls. A
server may have to selectively serve a specific client or deny
specific clients depending on the identity of the client in a
controlled environment, like a corporate intranet. But the support
from skilled staff or administrator may be required to set up the
clients.
8. Security Considerations
This document provides new security features to the DHCPv6 protocol.
Using public key based security mechanism and its verification
mechanism in DHCPv6 message exchanging provides the authentication
and data integrity protection. Timestamp mechanism provides anti-
replay function.
The Secure DHCPv6 mechanism is based on the pre-condition that the
client knows the public key of servers or the client's certificate
can be verified through a trust CA. It prevents DHCPv6 server
spoofing. The clients may discard the DHCPv6 messages from unknown/
unverified servers, which may be fake servers; or may prefer DHCPv6
messages from known/verified servers over unsigned messages or
messages from unknown/unverified servers. The pre-configuration
operation also needs to be protected, which is out of scope. The
deployment of PKI is also out of scope.
However, when a DHCPv6 client first encounters a new public key, it
can make a leap of faith. If the DHCPv6 server that used that public
key is in fact legitimate, then all future communication with that
DHCPv6 server can be protected by storing the public key. This does
not provide complete security, but it limits the opportunity to mount
an attack on a specific DHCPv6 client to the first time it
communicates with a new DHCPv6 server.
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Downgrade attacks cannot be avoided if nodes are configured to accept
both secured and unsecured messages. A future specification may
provide a mechanism on how to treat unsecured DHCPv6 messages.
[RFC6273] has analyzed possible threats to the hash algorithms used
in SEND. Since the Secure DHCPv6 defined in this document uses the
same hash algorithms in similar way to SEND, analysis results could
be applied as well: current attacks on hash functions do not
constitute any practical threat to the digital signatures used in the
signature algorithm in the Secure DHCPv6.
A server, whose local policy accepts messages without a Timestamp
option, may have to face the risk of replay attacks.
A window of vulnerability for replay attacks exists until the
timestamp expires. Secure DHCPv6 nodes are protected against replay
attacks as long as they cache the state created by the message
containing the timestamp. The cached state allows the node to
protect itself against replayed messages. However, once the node
flushes the state for whatever reason, an attacker can re-create the
state by replaying an old message while the timestamp is still valid.
In addition, the effectiveness of timestamps is largely dependent
upon the accuracy of synchronization between communicating nodes.
However, how the two communicating nodes can be synchronized is out
of scope of this work.
Attacks against time synchronization protocols such as NTP [RFC5905]
may cause Secure DHCPv6 nodes to have an incorrect timestamp value.
This can be used to launch replay attacks, even outside the normal
window of vulnerability. To protect against these attacks, it is
recommended that Secure DHCPv6 nodes keep independently maintained
clocks or apply suitable security measures for the time
synchronization protocols.
9. IANA Considerations
This document defines three new DHCPv6 [RFC3315] options. The IANA
is requested to assign values for these three options from the DHCPv6
Option Codes table of the DHCPv6 Parameters registry maintained in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/dhcpv6-parameters. The three options
are:
The Public Key Option (TBA1), described in Section 5.1.
The Certificate Option (TBA2), described in Section 5.2.
The Signature Option (TBA3), described in Section 5.3.
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The Timestamp Option (TBA4),described in Section 5.4.
The IANA is also requested to add two new registry tables to the
DHCPv6 Parameters registry maintained in
http://www.iana.org/assignments/dhcpv6-parameters. The two tables
are the Hash Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6 table and the Signature
Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6 table.
Initial values for these registries are given below. Future
assignments are to be made through Standards Action [RFC5226].
Assignments for each registry consist of a name, a value and a RFC
number where the registry is defined.
Hash Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6. The values in this table are 8-bit
unsigned integers. The following initial values are assigned for
Hash Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6 in this document:
Name | Value | RFCs
-------------------+---------+--------------
SHA-1 | 0x01 | this document
SHA-256 | 0x02 | this document
SHA-512 | 0x03 | this document
Signature Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6. The values in this table are
8-bit unsigned integers. The following initial values are assigned
for Signature Algorithm for Secure DHCPv6 in this document:
Name | Value | RFCs
-------------------+---------+--------------
RSASSA-PKCS1-v1_5 | 0x01 | this document
IANA is requested to assign the following new DHCPv6 Status Codes,
defined in Section 5.5, in the DHCPv6 Parameters registry maintained
in http://www.iana.org/assignments/dhcpv6-parameters:
Code | Name | Reference
---------+-----------------------+--------------
TBD5 | AlgorithmNotSupported | this document
TBD6 | AuthenticationFail | this document
TBD7 | TimestampFail | this document
TBD8 | SignatureFail | this document
10. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Bernie Volz, Ted Lemon, Ralph Droms,
Jari Arkko, Sean Turner, Stephen Kent, Thomas Huth, David Schumacher,
Francis Dupont, Tomek Mrugalski, Gang Chen, Qi Sun, Suresh Krishnan,
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Fred Templin and other members of the IETF DHC working groups for
their valuable comments.
This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool [RFC2629].
11. Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-04: addressed comments from mail list.
Making timestamp an independent and optional option. Reduce the
serverside authentication to base on only client's certificate.
Reduce the clientside authentication to only Leaf of Faith base on
server's public key. 2014-09-26.
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-03: addressed comments from WGLC. Added a
new section "Deployment Consideration". Corrected the Public Key
Field in the Public Key Option. Added consideration for large DHCPv6
message transmission. Added TimestampFail error code. Refined the
retransmission rules on clients. 2014-06-18.
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-02: addressed comments (applicability
statement, redesign the error codes and their logic) from IETF89 DHC
WG meeting and volunteer reviewers. 2014-04-14.
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-01: addressed comments from IETF88 DHC WG
meeting. Moved Dacheng Zhang from acknowledgement to be co-author.
2014-02-14.
draft-ietf-dhc-sedhcpv6-00: adopted by DHC WG. 2013-11-19.
draft-jiang-dhc-sedhcpv6-02: removed protection between relay agent
and server due to complexity, following the comments from Ted Lemon,
Bernie Volz. 2013-10-16.
draft-jiang-dhc-sedhcpv6-01: update according to review comments from
Ted Lemon, Bernie Volz, Ralph Droms. Separated Public Key/
Certificate option into two options. Refined many detailed
processes. 2013-10-08.
draft-jiang-dhc-sedhcpv6-00: original version, this draft is a
replacement of draft-ietf-dhc-secure-dhcpv6, which reached IESG and
dead because of consideration regarding to CGA. The authors followed
the suggestion from IESG making a general public key based mechanism.
2013-06-29.
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12. References
12.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2460] Deering, S. and R. Hinden, "Internet Protocol, Version 6
(IPv6) Specification", RFC 2460, December 1998.
[RFC3279] Bassham, L., Polk, W., and R. Housley, "Algorithms and
Identifiers for the Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 3279, April 2002.
[RFC3315] Droms, R., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins, C.,
and M. Carney, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for
IPv6 (DHCPv6)", RFC 3315, July 2003.
[RFC4055] Schaad, J., Kaliski, B., and R. Housley, "Additional
Algorithms and Identifiers for RSA Cryptography for use in
the Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 4055,
June 2005.
[RFC4443] Conta, A., Deering, S., and M. Gupta, "Internet Control
Message Protocol (ICMPv6) for the Internet Protocol
Version 6 (IPv6) Specification", RFC 4443, March 2006.
[RFC4491] Leontiev, S. and D. Shefanovski, "Using the GOST R
34.10-94, GOST R 34.10-2001, and GOST R 34.11-94
Algorithms with the Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile", RFC 4491, May
2006.
[RFC5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
[RFC5905] Mills, D., Martin, J., Burbank, J., and W. Kasch, "Network
Time Protocol Version 4: Protocol and Algorithms
Specification", RFC 5905, June 2010.
[RFC5996] Kaufman, C., Hoffman, P., Nir, Y., and P. Eronen,
"Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2)", RFC
5996, September 2010.
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12.2. Informative References
[RFC2629] Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
June 1999.
[RFC4270] Hoffman, P. and B. Schneier, "Attacks on Cryptographic
Hashes in Internet Protocols", RFC 4270, November 2005.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC6273] Kukec, A., Krishnan, S., and S. Jiang, "The Secure
Neighbor Discovery (SEND) Hash Threat Analysis", RFC 6273,
June 2011.
[RSA] RSA Laboratories, "RSA Encryption Standard, Version 2.1,
PKCS 1", November 2002.
Authors' Addresses
Sheng Jiang (editor)
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Q14, Huawei Campus, No.156 Beiqing Road
Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100095
P.R. China
Email: jiangsheng@huawei.com
Sean Shen
CNNIC
4, South 4th Street, Zhongguancun
Beijing 100190
P.R. China
Email: shenshuo@cnnic.cn
Dacheng Zhang
Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
Q14, Huawei Campus, No.156 Beiqing Road
Hai-Dian District, Beijing, 100095
P.R. China
Email: zhangdacheng@huawei.com
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Tatuya Jinmei
Infoblox Inc.
3111 Coronado Drive
Santa Clara, CA
USA
Email: jinmei@wide.ad.jp
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