PKIX Working Group A. Arsenault
INTERNET DRAFT DOD
S. Turner
IECA
Expires in six months from 22 March 1999
Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
PKIX Roadmap
<draft-ietf-pkix-roadmap-01.txt>
Status of this Memo
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Abstract
This document provides an overview or 'roadmap' of the work done by
the IETF PKIX working group. It describes some of the terminology
used in the working group's documents, and the theory behind an
X.509-based PKI. It identifies each document developed by the PKIX
working group, and describes the relationships among the various
documents. It also provides advice to would-be PKIX implementors
about some of the issues discussed at length during PKIX development,
in hopes of making it easier to build implementations that will
actually interoperate.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Introduction.................................................2
1.1 This Document................................................2
1.2 Changes Since the Last Version...............................3
2 Terminology..................................................3
3 PKIX Theory..................................................4
3.1 Certificate-using Systems and PKIs...........................4
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3.2 PKIX History.................................................5
3.3 Overview of the PKIX Approach................................5
3.4 X.509 certificates...........................................6
3.5 Functions of a PKI...........................................7
3.5.1 Registration.................................................7
3.5.2 Initialization...............................................7
3.5.3 Certification................................................7
3.5.4 Key Pair Recovery............................................7
3.5.5 Key Generation...............................................8
3.5.6 Key Update...................................................8
3.5.7 Cross-certification..........................................9
3.5.8 Revocation...................................................9
3.5.9 Certificate and Revocation Notice Distribution/Publication..10
3.6 Parts of PKIX...............................................10
3.6.1 Profile.....................................................11
3.6.2 Operational Protocols.......................................11
3.6.3 Management Protocols........................................11
3.6.4 Policy Outline..............................................12
3.6.5 Time-Stamp and Data Certification Services..................12
4 PKIX Documents..............................................13
4.1 Profile.....................................................13
4.2 Operational Protocols.......................................14
4.3 Management Protocols........................................16
4.4 Policy Outline..............................................17
4.5 Time-Stamp and Data Certification Services..................17
5 Advice to Implementors......................................19
5.1 Names.......................................................19
5.1.1 Name Forms..................................................19
5.1.2 Scope of Names..............................................21
5.1.3 Certificate Path Construction...............................22
5.1.4 Name Constraints............................................22
5.1.5 Wildcards in Name Forms.....................................23
5.1.6 Name Encoding...............................................23
5.2 POP.........................................................23
5.3 Key Usage Bits..............................................25
5.4 Trust Models................................................27
6 Acknowledgements............................................28
7 References..................................................28
8 Security Considerations.....................................30
9 Editor's Address............................................30
10 Disclaimer..................................................30
1 Introduction
1.1 This Document
This document is an informational Internet draft that provides a
"roadmap" to the documents produced by the PKIX working group. It is
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intended to provide information; there are no requirements or
specifications in this document.
Section 2 of this document defines key terms used in this document.
Section 3 covers "PKIX theory"; it explains what the PKIX working
group's basic assumptions were. Section 4 provides an overview of
the various PKIX documents. It identifies which documents address
which areas, and describes the relationships among the various
documents. Section 5 contains "Advice to implementors". Its primary
purpose is to capture some of the major issues discussed by the PKIX
working group, as a way of explaining WHY some of the requirements
and specifications say what they say. This should cut down on the
number of misinterpretations of the documents, and help developers
build interoperable implementations. Section 6 contains a list of
references. Section 7 discusses security considerations, and Section
8 provides contact information for the editors.
1.2 Changes Since the Last Version
The major changes in this document since version -00 include:
inclusion of a section on "PKIX History" the definition and usage of
"root CA" were changed to be consistent with CMP, in line with the
discussion on the PKIX mailing list updates on the status of all
major documents addition of descriptions of documents covering work
items that are new to PKIX since September 1998 a number of sections
that had been left unspecified have now been completed (e.g., the
Proof of Possession (POP) section; rules on name constraints for
different name types) The old section 4.5, which attempted to
graphically depict document relationships, has been deleted because
it didn't seem to add any value.
2 Terminology
There are a number of terms used and misused throughout PKI-related
literature. To limit confusion caused by some of those terms,
throughout this document, we will use the following terms in the
following ways:
- Certification Authority (CA) - an authority trusted by one or more
users to create and assign certificates. Optionally the
certification authority may create the user's keys. (It is important
to note that the CA is responsible for the certificates during their
whole lifetime, not just for issuing them.)
- Certificate policy - a named set of rules that indicates the
applicability of a certificate to a particular community and/or class
of application with common security requirements. For example, a
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particular certificate policy might indicate applicability of a type
of certificate to the authentication of electronic data interchange
transaction s for the trading of goods within a given price range.
- Root CA - a CA that is directly trusted by an end entity; that is,
securely acquiring the value of a root CA public key requires some
out-of-band step(s). This term is not meant to imply that a root CA
is necessarily at the top of any hierarchy, simply that the CA in
question is trusted directly.
- Top CA - a CA that is at the top of a PKI hierarchy.
Note that this is often also called a "root CA", from since in
data structures terms and in graph theory, the node at the top
of a tree is the "root". However, to minimize confusion in this
document, we elect to call this node a "Top CA," and reserve
"root CA" for the CA directly trusted by the user. Readers new
to PKIX should be aware that these terms are not used
consistently throughout the PKIX documents, as [RFC2459] uses
"root CA" to refer to what this and other documents call a "top
CA", and "most-trusted CA" to refer to what this and other
documents call a "root CA".
- Subordinate CA - A "subordinate CA" is one that is not a root CA
for the end entity in question. Often, a subordinate CA will not
be a root CA for any entity but this is not mandatory
- Registration Authority (RA) - an optional entity given
responsibility for performing some of the administrative tasks
necessary in the registration of subjects, such as: confirming
the subject's identity; validating that the subject is entitled
to have the attributes requested in a certificate; and verifying
that the subject has possession of the private key associated
with the public key requested for a certificate.
- End-entity - a subject of a certificate who is not a CA.
- Relying party - a user or agent (e.g., a client or server) who
relies on the data in a certificate in making decisions.
- Subject - a subject is the entity (CA or end-entity) named in a
certificate. Subjects can be human users, computers (as
represented by DNS names or IP addresses), or even software
agents.
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3 PKIX Theory
3.1 Certificate-using Systems and PKIs
At the heart of recent efforts to improve Internet security are a
group of security protocols such as S/MIME, TLS, and IPSec. All of
these protocols rely on public-key cryptography to provide services
such as confidentiality, data integrity, data origin authentication,
and non-repudiation. The purpose of a PKI is to provide trusted and
efficient key- and certificate management, thus enabling the use of
authentication, non-repudiation, and confidentiality.
Users of public key-based systems must be confident that, any time
they rely on a public key, the associated private key is owned by the
subject with which they are communicating. (This applies whether an
encryption or digital signature mechanism is used.) This confidence
is obtained through the use of public key certificates, which are
data structures that bind public key values to subjects. The binding
is achieved by having a trusted CA verify the subject's identity and
digitally sign each certificate.
A certificate has a limited valid lifetime which is indicated in its
signed contents. Because a certificate's signature and timeliness
can be independently checked by a certificate-using client,
certificates can be distributed via untrusted communications and
server systems, and can be cached in unsecured storage in
certificate-using systems.
Certificates are used in the process of validating signed data.
Specifics vary according to which algorithm is used, but the general
process works as follows:
(Note: there is no specific order in which the checks listed
below must be made; implementers are free to implement them in the
most efficient way for their systems)
- the recipient of signed data verifies that the claimed identity of
the user is in accordance wit the identity contained in the
certificate;
- the recipient validates that no certificate in the path has been
revoked (e.g., by retrieving a suitably-current Certificate
Revocation List (CRL) or querying an on-line certificate status
responder), and that all certificates were within their validity
periods at the time the data were signed;
- the recipient verifies that the data are not claimed to have any
attributes for which the certificate indicates that the signer is
not authorized;
- the recipient verifies that the data have not been altered since
signing, by using the public key in the certificate.
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If all of these checks pass, the recipient can accept that the data
were signed by the purported signer. The process for keys used for
encryption is similar.
Note: it is of course possible that the data were signed by
someone very different from the signer, if for example the
purported signer's private key was compromised. Security depends
on all parts of the certificate-using SYSTEM, including but not
limited to: physical security of the place the computer resides;
personnel security (i.e., the trustworthiness of the people who
actually develop, install, run, and maintain the system); the
security provided by the operating system on which the private key
is used; and the security provided the CA. A failure in any one
of these areas can cause the entire system security to fail. PKIX
is limited in scope, however, and only directly addresses issues
related to the operation of the PKI subsystem. For guidance in
many of the other areas, see [PKIX-4].
A collection of certificates, with their issuing CA's, subjects,
relying parties, RA's, and repositories, is referred to as a Public
Key Infrastructure, or PKI.
3.2 PKIX History
[This still needs more work.]
In the beginning there was ITU-T Recommendation X.509. It defines a
widely accepted basis for a public-key infrastructure, including data
formats and procedures related to distribution of public keys via
certificates digitally signed by CAs. X.509 does not however include
a profile to specify the support requirements for many of the
certificate data structure's sub-fields, for any of the extensions,
nor for certain data values. PKIX was formed in October 1995 to
deliver a profile for the Internet PKI of X.509 version 3
certificates and version 2 CRLs. The Internet PKI profile [RFC 2459]
went through eleven draft versions before becoming an RFC. Other
profiles have been developed in PKIX for particular algorithms to
make use of [RFC 2459]. There has been no sense of conflict between
the groups that developed these profiles as they are seen as
complimentary.
The development of the management protocols has not been so
straightforward. [CMP] was developed to define a message protocol
that is used between entities in a PKI. The demand for an enrollment
protocol and the desire to use PKCS-10 message format as the
certificate request syntax lead to the development of two different
documents in two different groups. The Certificate Request Syntax
[CRS] draft was developed in the SMIME WG which used PKCS10 [PKCS10]
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as the certification request message format. Certificate Request
Message Format [CRMF] draft was also developed but in the PKIX WG.
It was to define a simple enrollment protocol that would subsume both
the [CMP] and [CRS] enrollment protocols, but it did not use PKCS10
as the certificate request message format. Then, [CMMF] was
developed to define an extended set of management messages that flow
between the components of the Internet PKI. CMMF over CMS [CMC] was
developed to allow the use of an existing protocol (S/MIME) as a PKI
management protocol, without requiring the development of an entirely
new protocol such as CMP [CMP]. It also included [PKCS10] as the
certificate request syntax, which caused work on [CRS] to stop.
Information from [CMMF] has been moved into [CMP] and [CMC] so [CMMF]
is being discontinued.
Development of the operational protocols has been slightly more
straightforward. Two documents for LDAPv2 have been developed one
for defining LDAPv2 as an access protocol to repositories [LDAP] and
one for storing PKI information in an LDAP directory [SCHEMA]. Using
FTP and HTTP to retrieve certificates and CRL from PKI repositories
was documented without a fight in [FTP]. Likewise, methods, headers,
and content-types ancillary to HTTP/1.1 to publish and retrieve X.509
certificates and CRLs was documented in [WEB] without much argument.
[Need to add text about OpenCDP vs DistributionPoints, Why DCP was
started, information on TSP, and OCSP, and caching OCSP.]
3.3 Overview of the PKIX Approach
PKIX is an effort to develop specifications for a Public Key
Infrastructure for the Internet using X.509 certificates. The PKIX
working group was initially chartered in 1995. A Public Key
Infrastructure, or PKI, is defined as:
The set of hardware, software, people, policies and procedures needed
to create, manage, store, distribute, and revoke certificates based
on public-key cryptography.
A PKI consists of five types of components [MISPC]:
- Certification Authorities (CAs) that issue and revoke certificates;
- Organizational Registration Authorities (ORAs) that vouch for the
binding between public keys and certificate holder identities and
other attributes; - Certificate holders that are issued certificates
and can sign digital documents; - Clients that validate digital
signatures and their certification paths from a known public key of a
trusted CA; - Repositories that store and make available certificates
and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs).
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Figure 1 is a simplified view of the architectural model assumed by
the PKIX Working Group.
+---+
| C | +------------+
| e | <-------------------->| End entity |
| r | Operational +------------+
| t | transactions ^
| | and management | Management
| / | transactions | transactions
| | | PKI users
| C | v
| R | -------------------+--+-----------+----------------
| L | ^ ^
| | | | PKI management
| | v | entities
| R | +------+ |
| e | <---------------------| RA | <---+ |
| p | Publish certificate +------+ | |
| o | | |
| s | | |
| I | v v
| t | +------------+
| o | <------------------------------| CA |
| r | Publish certificate +------------+
| y | Publish CRL ^
| | |
+---+ Management |
transactions |
v
+------+
| CA |
+------+
Figure 1 - PKI Entities
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3.4 X.509 certificates
ITU-T X.509 (formerly CCITT X.509) or ISO/IEC/ITU 9594-8, which was
first published in 1988 as part of the X.500 Directory
recommendations, defines a standard certificate format [X.509]. The
certificate format in the 1988 standard is called the version 1 (v1)
format.
When X.500 was revised in 1993, two more fields were added, resulting
in the version 2 (v2) format. These two fields may be used to support
directory access control.
The Internet Privacy Enhanced Mail (PEM) RFCs, published in 1993,
include specifications for a public key infrastructure based on
X.509v1 certificates [RFC 1422]. The experience gained in attempts
to deploy RFC 1422 made it clear that the v1 and v2 certificate
formats are deficient in several respects. Most importantly, more
fields were needed to carry information which PEM design and
implementation experience has proven necessary. In response to these
new requirements, ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI X9 developed the X.509 version
3 (v3) certificate format. The v3 format extends the v2 format by
adding provision for additional extension fields. Particular
extension field types may be specified in standards or may be defined
and registered by any organization or community. In June 1996,
standardization of the basic v3 format was completed [X.509].
ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI X9 have also developed standard extensions for
use in the v3 extensions field [X.509][X9.55]. These extensions can
convey such data as additional subject identification information,
key attribute information, policy information, and certification path
constraints. However, the ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI X9 standard
extensions are very broad in their applicability. In order to
develop interoperable implementations of X.509 v3 systems for
Internet use, it is necessary to specify a profile for use of the
X.509 v3 extensions tailored for the Internet. It is one goal of
PKIX to specify a profile for Internet WWW, electronic mail, and
IPsec applications. Environments with additional requirements may
build on this profile or may replace it.
3.5 Functions of a PKI
This section describes the major functions of a PKI. In some cases,
PKIs may provide extra functions.
3.5.1 Registration
This is the process whereby a subject first makes itself known to a
CA (directly, or through an RA), prior to that CA issuing a
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certificate or certificates for that subject. Registration involves
the subject providing its name (e.g., common name, fully-qualified
domain name, IP address), and other attributes to be put in the
certificate, followed by the CA (possibly with help from the RA)
verifying in accordance with its CPS that the name and other
attributes are correct.
3.5.2 Initialization
Initialization is when the subject - e.g., the user or client system
- gets the values needed to begin communicating with the PKI. For
example, initialization can involve providing the client system with
the public key and/or certificate of a CA, or generating the client
system's own public/private key pair.
3.5.3 Certification
This is the process in which a CA issues a certificate for a
subject's public key, and returns that certificate to the subject
and/or posts that certificate in a repository.
3.5.4 Key Pair Recovery
In some implementations, key exchange or encryption keys will be
required by local policy to be "backed up", or recoverable in case
the key is lost and access to previously-encrypted information is
needed. Such implementations can include those where the private key
exchange key is stored on a hardware token which can be lost or
broken, or when a private key file is protected by a password which
can be forgotten. Often, a company is concerned about being able to
read mail encrypted by or for a particular employee when that
employee is no longer available because she is ill or no longer works
for the company.
In these cases, the user's private key can be backed up by a CA or by
a separate key backup system. If a user or her employer needs to
recover these backed up key materials, the PKI must provide a system
that permits the recovery WITHOUT providing an unacceptable risk of
compromise of the private key.
3.5.5 Key Generation
Depending on the CA's policy, the private/public key pair can either
be generated by the user in his local environment, or generated by
the CA. In the latter case, the key material may be distributed to
the user in an encrypted file or on a physical token - e.g., a smart
card or PCMCIA card.
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3.5.6 Key Update
All key pairs need to be updated regularly, i.e., replaced with a new
key pair, and new certificates issued. This will happen in two
cases: normally, when a key has passed its maximum usable lifetime;
and exceptionally, when a key has been compromised and must be
replaced.
In the normal case, a PKI needs to provide a facility to gracefully
transition from a certificate with an existing key to a new
certificate with a new key. This is particularly true when the key
to be updated is that of a CA. Users will know in advance that the
key will expire on a certain date; the PKI, working together with
certificate-using applications, should allow for appropriate keys to
work before and after the transition. There are a number of ways to
do this; see [insert appropriate reference here] for an example of
one. In the case of a key compromise, the transition will not be
"graceful" in that there will be an unplanned switch of certificates
and keys; users will not have known in advance what was about to
happen. Still, the PKI must support the ability to declare that the
previous certificate is now invalid and shall not be used, and to
announce the validity and availability of the new certificate.
Note that compromise of a private key associated with a rootCA is
catastrophic for users relying on that rootCA. If a rootCA's
private key is compromised, that CA must be taken down and brought
up again with a new key. Until such time as the rootCA is brought
back up, though, users relying on that rootCA are cut off from the
rest of the system, as there is no way to develop a valid
certification path back to a trusted node.
Further, users will likely have to be notified by out-of-band
mechanisms about the change in CA keys. If the old key is
compromised, any "update" message telling subordinates to switch to a
new key could have come from an attacker in possession of the old
key, and could point to a new public key for which the attacker
already has the private key. It is possible to have anticipated this
event, and "pre-placed" replacement rootCA keys with all relying
parties, but some secure, out-of-band mechanism will have to be used
to tell users to make the switch, and this will only help if the
replacement key has not been compromised.
Additionally, once the rootCA is brought back up with a new key, it
will likely be necessary to re-issue certificates, signed with the
new key, to all subordinate users, since their current certificate
would be signed with a now-revoked key.
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3.5.7 Cross-certification
A cross-certificate is a certificate issued by one CA to another CA
which contains a public CA key associated with the private CA
signature key used for issuing certificates. Typically, a cross-
certificate is used to allow client systems/end entities in one
administrative domain to communicate security with client systems/end
users in another administrative domain. Use of a cross-certificate
issued from CA_1 to CA_2 allows user Alice, who trusts CA_1, to
accept a certificate used by Bob, which was issued by CA_2.
Note: cross-certificates can also be issued from one CA to another
CA in the same administrative domain, if required.
Cross-certificates can be issued in only one direction, or in both
directions, between two CA's. That is, just because CA_1 issues a
cross-certificate for CA_2 does not require CA_2 to issue a cross-
certificate for CA_1.
3.5.8 Revocation
When a certificate is issued, it is expected to be in use for its
entire validity period. However, various circumstances may cause a
certificate to become invalid prior to the expiration of the validity
period. Such circumstances include change of name, change of
association between subject and CA (e.g., an employee terminates
employment with an organization), and compromise or suspected
compromise of the corresponding private key. Under such
circumstances, the CA needs to revoke the certificate.
X.509 defines one method of certificate revocation. This method
involves each CA periodically issuing a signed data structure called
a certificate revocation list (CRL). A CRL is a time stamped list
identifying revoked certificates which is signed by a CA and made
freely available in a public repository. Each revoked certificate is
identified in a CRL by its certificate serial number. When a
certificate-using system uses a certificate (e.g., for verifying a
remote user's digital signature), that system not only checks the
certificate signature and validity but also acquires a suitably-
recent CRL and checks that the certificate serial number is not on
that CRL. The meaning of "suitably-recent" may vary with local
policy, but it usually means the most recently-issued CRL. A CA
issues a new CRL on a regular periodic basis (e.g., hourly, daily, or
weekly). CA's may also issue CRLs aperiodically; e.g., if an
important key is deemed compromised, the CA may issue a new CRL to
expedite notification of that fact, even if the next CRL does not
have to be issued for some time. (A problem of aperiodic CRL issuance
is that end-entities may not know that a new CRL has been issued, and
thus may not retrieve it from a repository.)
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An entry is added to the CRL as part of the next update following
notification of revocation. An entry may be removed from the CRL
after appearing on one regularly scheduled CRL issued beyond the
revoked certificate's validity period.
An advantage of the CRL revocation method is that CRLs may be
distributed by exactly the same means as certificates themselves,
namely, via untrusted communications and server systems.
One limitation of the CRL revocation method, using untrusted
communications and servers, is that the time granularity of
revocation is limited to the CRL issue period. For example, if a
revocation is reported now, that revocation will not be reliably
notified to certificate-using systems until the next CRL is issued --
this may be up to one hour, one day, or one week depending on the
frequency that the CA issues CRLs.
As with the X.509 v3 certificate format, in order to facilitate
interoperable implementations from multiple vendors, the X.509 v2 CRL
format needed to be profiled for Internet use. This was done as part
of [RFC 2459]. However, PKIX does not require CAs to issue CRLs. On-
line methods of revocation notification may be applicable in some
environments as an alternative to the X.509 CRL. PKIX defines a
protocol known as OCSP [OCSP] to facilitate on-line checking of the
status of certificates.
On-line revocation checking may significantly reduce the latency
between a revocation report and the distribution of the information
to relying parties. Once the CA accepts the report as authentic and
valid, any query to the on-line service will correctly reflect the
certificate validation impacts of the revocation. However, these
methods impose new security requirements; the certificate validator
must trust the on-line validation service while the repository does
not need to be trusted.
3.5.9 Certificate and Revocation Notice Distribution/Publication
As alluded to in sections x and y above, the PKI is responsible for
the distribution of certificates and certificate revocation notices
(whether in CRL form or in some other form) in the system.
"Distribution" of certificates includes transmission of the
certificate to its owner, and may also include publication of the
certificate in a repository. "Distribution" of revocation notices
may involve posting CRLs in a repository, transmitting them to end-
entities, and/or forwarding them to on-line responders.
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3.6 Parts of PKIX
This section identifies the five different areas in which the PKIX
working group has developed documents. The first area involves
profiles of the X.509 v3 certificate standards and the X.509v2 CRL
standards for the Internet. The second area involves operational
protocols, in which relying parties can obtain information such as
certificates or certificate status. The third area covers management
protocols, in which different entities in the system exchange
information needed for proper management of the PKI. The fourth area
provides information about certificate policies and certificate
practice statements, covering the areas of PKI security not directly
addressed in the rest of PKIX. The fifth area deals with providing
time stamping and data certification services, which can be used to
build such services as non-repudiation.
3.6.1 Profile
An X.509v3 certificate is a very complex data structure. It consists
of basic information fields, plus a number of optional certificate
extensions. Many of the fields and numerous extensions can take on a
wide range of options. This provides an enormous degree of
flexibility, which allows the X.509v3 certificate format to be used
with a wide range of applications in a wide range of environments.
Unfortunately, this same flexibility makes it extremely difficult to
produce independent implementations that will actually interoperate
with one another. In order to build an Internet PKI based on X.509v3
certificates, the PKIX working group had to develop a profile of the
X.509v3 specification.
A profile of the X.509v3 specification is a description of the
contents of the certificate and which certificate extensions must be
supported, which extensions may be supported, and which extensions
may not be supported. [RFC 2459] provides such a profile of X.509v3
for the Internet PKI. In addition, [RFC 2459] suggests ranges of
values for many of the extensions.
[RFC 2459] also provides a profile for Version 2 CRLs for use in the
Internet PKI. CRLs, like certificates, have a number of optional
extensions. In order to promote interoperability, it is necessary to
constrain the choices an implementor supports.
In addition to profiling the certificate and CRL formats, it is
necessary to specify particular Object Identifiers (OIDs) for certain
encryption algorithms, because there are a variety of OIDs registered
for some algorithm suites. Thus, PKIX has produced two documents
([ECDSA] and [KEA]) which provide guidance on the proper
implementation of specific algorithms.
Certain organizations, such as countries, have recently mandated
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certain restrictions on certificates (such as that the subject of a
certificate must be a natural person, or that the country of
citizenship and/or country of residence of the subject must be
included in the certificate). A certificate which meets these
restrictions is deemed a "qualified certificate." In December 1998,
PKIX adopted as a work item the development of a refinement of
[RFC2459] that further profiles PKIX certificates into qualified
certificates. This work is reflected in [QC].
3.6.2 Operational Protocols
Operational protocols are required to deliver certificates and CRLs
(or other certificate status information) to certificate using
systems. Provision is needed for a variety of different means of
certificate and CRL delivery, including distribution procedures based
on LDAP, HTTP, FTP, and X.500. Operational protocols supporting
these functions are defined in [FTP], [OCSP], [LDAP], and [WEB].
3.6.3 Management Protocols
Management protocols are required to support on-line interactions
between PKI user and management entities. For example, a management
protocol might be used between a CA and a client system with which a
key pair is associated, or between two CAs which cross-certify each
other. A management protocol can be used to carry user or client
system registration information, or a request for revocation of a
certificate.
There are two parts to a "management protocol". The first is the
format of the messages that will be sent, and the second is the
actual protocol that governs the transmission of those messages.
Originally, the PKIX working group developed two documents ([CRMF]
and [CMMF]) that together described the necessary set of message
formats, and two other documents ([CMP] and [CMC]) that described
protocols for exchanging those messages. However, the message
formats defined in [CMMF] were inserted into both [CMP] and [CMC],
and thus [CMMF] will be dropped as a PKIX document.
3.6.4 Policy Outline
As mentioned before, profiling certificates and specifying
operational and management protocols only addresses a part of the
problem of actually developing and implementing a secure PKI. What is
also needed is the development of a certificate policy and
certification practice statement, and then following those documents.
The CP and CPS should address physical and personnel security,
subject identification requirements, revocation policy, and a number
of other topics. [PKIX-4] provides a framework for certification
practice statements.
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3.6.5 Time-Stamp and Data Certification Services
In late 1998, the PKIX working group began two efforts that were not
in the original working group charter, but were deemed to be
appropriate because they described infrastructure services that could
be used to provide desired security services. The first of these is
time stamping, described in [TSP]. Time stamping is a service in
which a trusted third party - a Time Stamp Authority, or TSA - signs
a message, in order to provide evidence that it existed prior to a
given time. Time stamping provides some support for non-repudiation,
in that a user cannot claim that a transaction was later forged after
compromise of a private key, because the existence of the signed time
stamp indicates that the transaction in question could not have been
created after the indicated time.
[TSP] also defines the role of a Temporal Data Authority, or TDA. A
TDA is a TTP that creates a temporal data token. This temporal data
token associates a message with a particular event and provides
supplementary evidence for the time included in the time stamp token.
For example, a TDA could associate the message with the most recent
closing value of the Dow Jones Average. The temporal data with which
the message is associated should be unpredictable in order to prevent
forward dating of tokens.
The second new effort is the definition of a Data Certification
Server, or DCS, protocol [DCS]. A DCS is a Trusted Third Party that
verifies the correctness of specific data submitted to it.
This is different from the TSP service in that a TSA will not attempt
to parse and/or verify a message sent to it for certification;
instead, it will merely append a reliable indication of the current
time, and sign the resulting string-of-bits. This offers an
indication that the given string-of-bits existed at a specified time;
it does not offer any indication of the correctness or relevance of
that string of bits. By contrast, the DCS certifies possession of
data or the validity of another entity's signature. As part of this,
the DCS verifies the mathematical correctness of the actual signature
value contained in the request and also checks the full certification
path from the signing entity to a trusted point (e.g., the DCS's CA,
or the root CA in a hierarchy).
The DCS supports non-repudiation in two ways. First, it provides
evidence that a signature or public key certificate was valid at the
time indicated in the token. The token can be used even after the
corresponding public key certificate expires and its revocation
information is no longer available on CRLs (for example). Second, the
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production of a data certification token in response to a signed
request for certification of another signature or public key
certificate also provides evidence that due diligence was performed
by the requester in validating the signature or public key
certificate.
4 PKIX Documents
This section describes each of the documents written by the PKIX
working group. As PKIX progresses, this section will need to be
continually updated to reflect the status of each document (e.g.,
Proposed Standard, Draft Standard, Standard, Informational Draft,
Informational RFC, something-that-was-just-thrown-out-for-
consideration, etc.)
4.1 Profile
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
and CRL Profile (RFC 2459)
DESCRIPTION: This document describes the profiles to be used for
X.509v3 certificates and version2 CRLs by Internet PKI participants.
The profiles include the identification of ISO/IEC/ITU and ANSI
extensions which may be useful in the Internet PKI. The profiles are
presented in the 1988 Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) rather
than the 1994 syntax used in the ISO/IEC/ITU standards. Would-be
PKIX implementors and developers of certificate-using applications
should start with [RFC 2459] to ensure that their systems will be
able to interoperate with other users of the PKI.
[RFC 2459] also includes path validation procedures. The procedures
presented are based upon the ISO/IEC/ITU definition, but the
presentation assumes one or more self-signed trusted CA certificates.
The procedures are provided as examples only. Implementations are
not required to use the procedures provided; they may implement
whichever procedures are efficient for their situation. However,
implementations are required to derive the same results as the
example procedures.
STATUS: Proposed Standard; approved 29 September 1998.
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure:
Representation of Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)
Keys and Signatures in Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
Certificates <draft-ietf-pkix-ipki-ecdsa-01.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document provides Object Identifiers (OIDs) and
other guidance for IPKI users who use the Elliptic Curve Digital
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Signature Algorithm (ECDSA). It profiles the format and semantics of
the subjectPublicKeyInfo field and the keyUsage extension in X.509 V3
certificates containing ECDSA keys. This document should be used by
anyone wishing to support ECDSA; others who do not support ECDSA are
not required to comply with it.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure
Representation of Key Exchange Algorithm (KEA) Keys in Internet X.509
Public Key Infrastructure Certificates (RFC ####)
DESCRIPTION: This document provides Object Identifiers (OIDs) and
other guidance for IPKI users who use the Key Exchange Algorithm
(KEA). It profiles the format and semantics of the
subjectPublicKeyInfo field and the keyUsage extension in X.509 V3
certificates containing KEA keys. This document should be used by
anyone wishing to support KEA; others who do not support ECDSA are
not required to comply with it.
STATUS: Informational RFC; approved 22 January 1999.
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Enhanced CRL
Distribution Options (OpenCDP) <draft-ietf-pkix-ocdp-01.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document proposes an alternative to the CRL
Distribution Point (CDP) approach documented in [RFC 2459]. OCDP
separates the CRL location function from the process of certificate
and CRL validation, and thus claims some benefits over the CDP
approach.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Qualified
Certificates <draft-ietf-pkix-qc-00.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document profiles the format for and defines
requirements on information content in a specific type of
certificates called Qualified Certificates. A "Qualified Certificate"
is a certificate that is issued to a natural person (i.e., a living
human being); contains an unmistakable identity based on a real name
or a pseudonym of the subject; exclusively indicates non-repudiation
as the key usage for the certificate's public key; and meets a number
of requirements.
STATUS:
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4.2 Operational Protocols
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Operational
Protocols - LDAPv2 <draft-ietf-pkix-ipki2opp-08.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document describes the use of LDAPv2 as a protocol
for PKI elements to publish and retrieve certificates and CRLs from a
certificate repository. LDAPv2 [RFC 1777] is a protocol that allows
publishing and retrieving of information.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure LDAPv2
Schema <draft-ietf-pkix-ldapv2-schema-02.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document defines a minimal schema necessary to
support the use of LDAPv2 for certificate and CRL retrieval and
related functions for PKIX. This document supplements [LDAP] by
identifying the PKIX-related attributes that must be present.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online
Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP <draft-ietf-pkix-ocsp-07.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document specifies a protocol useful in
determining the current status of a certificate without the use of
CRLs. A major complaint about certificate-based systems is the need
for a relying party to retrieve a current CRL as part of the
certificate validation process. Depending on the size of the CRL,
this can cause severe problems for bandwidth-challenged devices.
Depending on the frequency of CRL issuance, this can also cause
timeliness problems. (E.g., if CRLs are only published weekly, with
no interim releases, a certificate could actually have been revoked
for just short of one week without it being on the current CRL, and
thus improper use of that certificate could still be occurring.)
OCSP attempts to address those problems. It provides a mechanism
whereby a relying party identifies one or more certificates to an
approved OCSP "responder", and the responder sends back the current
status of the certificate(s) - e.g., "revoked", "notRevoked",
"unknown". This can dramatically reduce the bandwidth required to
transmit revocation status - a relying party does not have to
retrieve a CRL of many entries to check the status of one
certificate. It can (although it is not guaranteed to) improve the
timeliness of revocation notification, and thus reduce the window of
opportunity for someone trying to use a revoked certificate.
STATUS:
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DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet Public Key Infrastructure: Caching the
Online Certificate Status Protocol <draft-ietf-pkix-ocsp-
caching-00.txt>
DESCRIPTION: To improve the degree to which it can scale, OCSP
allows caching of responses - e.g., at intermediary servers, or even
at the relying party's end system. This document describes how to
support OCSP caching at intermediary servers.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Operational
Protocols: FTP and HTTP <draft-ietf-pkix-opp-ftp-http-04.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document describes the use of the File Transfer
Protocol (FTP) and the Hyper-text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to obtain
certificates and CRLs from PKI repositories.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: WEB based Certificate Access Protocol-- WebCAP/1.0
DESCRIPTION: This document specifies a set of methods, headers, and
content-types ancillary to HTTP/1.1 to publish, retrieve X.509
certificates and Certificate Revocation Lists. This protocol also
facilitates determining current status of a digital certificate
without the use of CRLs. This protocol defines new methods, request
and response bodies, error codes to HTTP/1.1 protocol for securely
publishing, retrieving, and validating certificates across a
firewall.
STATUS:
4.3 Management Protocols
DOCUMENT TITLE: Certificate Management Messages over CMS <draft-ietf-
pkix-cmc-02.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document defines the means by which PKI clients and
servers may exchange PKI messages when using S/MIME's Cryptographic
Message Syntax [CMS]as a transaction envelope. CMC supports the
certificate request message body specified in the Certificate Request
Message Format [CRMF] documents, as well as a variety of other
certificate management messages. The primary purpose of this
specification is to allow the use of an existing protocol (S/MIME)as
a PKI management protocol, without requiring the development of an
entirely new protocol such as CMP. A secondary purpose is to codify
in IETF standards the current industry practice of using PKCS 10
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messages [PKCS10] for certificate requests. DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate Management Message
Formats <draft-ietf-pkix-cmmf-02.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document contains the formats for a series of
messages important in certificate/PKI management. These messages let
CA's, RA's, and relying parties communicate with each other. Note
that this document only specifies message formats; it does not
specify a protocol for transferring messages. That protocol can be
either CMP or CMC, or perhaps another custom protocol.
STATUS: Will be discontinued, as all useful information from it has
been moved into [CMP] and [CMC].
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Certificate Request Message Format
(RFC####)
DESCRIPTION: CRMF specifies a format recommended for use whenever a
relying party is requesting a certificate from a CA or requesting
that an RA help it get a certificate. This document is distinct from
CMMF for historical reasons - the request message format was needed
before many of the other message formats had to be finalized, and so
it was put into a separate document. Like CMMF, this document only
specifies the format of a message. Specification of a protocol to
transport that message is beyond the scope of CRMF.
STATUS: Proposed Standard; approved 22 January 1999.
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
Management Protocols (RFC ####)
DESCRIPTION: This document specifies a new protocol specifically
developed for the purpose of transporting messages like those
specified in CMMF and CRMF among PKI elements. In general, CMP will
be used in conjunction with CMMF and CRMF, and will then be run over
a transfer service (e.g., S/MIME, HTTP) to provide a complete PKI
management service.
STATUS: Proposed Standard; approved 22 January 1999.
4.4 Policy Outline
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
Policy and Certification Practices Framework (RFC ####)
DESCRIPTION: As noted before, the specification and implementation of
certificate profiles, operational protocols, and management protocols
is only part of building a PKI. Equally as important - if not more
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important - is the development and enforcement of a certificate
security policy, and a Certification Practice Statement (CPS). The
purpose of this document (PKIX-4) is to establish a clear
relationship between certificate policies and(CPSs), and to present a
framework to assist the writers of certificate policies or CPSs with
their tasks. In particular, the framework identifies the elements
that may need to be considered in formulating a certificate policy or
a CPS. The purpose is not to define particular certificate policies
or CPSs, per se.
STATUS: Informational RFC, approved 22 January 1999.
4.5 Time-Stamp and Data Certification Services
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Time Stamp
Protocols <draft-ietf-pkix-time-stamp-00.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document defines the specification for a time stamp
service. It defines a Time Stamp Authority, or TSA, a trusted third
party who maintains a reliable time service. When the TSA receives a
time stamp request, it appends the current time to the request and
signs it into a token to certify that the original request existed
prior to the indicated time. This helps provide non-repudiation by
preventing someone (either a legitimate user or an attacker who has
successfully compromised a key) from "back-dating" a transaction. It
also makes it more difficult to challenge a transaction by asserting
that it has been back-dated. Note that the TSA does not provide any
data parsing service; that is, the TSA does not attempt to validate
that which it signs; it merely regards it as a string of bits whose
meaning is unimportant, but existence is vital.
STATUS:
DOCUMENT TITLE: Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Data
Certification Server Protocols <draft-ietf-pkix-dcs-00.txt>
DESCRIPTION: This document defines a data certification service, or
DCS, which can be used to certify both the existence and correctness
of a message or signature. In contrast to the time stamp service
described above, the DCS certifies possession of data or the validity
of another entity's signature. As part of this, the DCS verifies the
mathematical correctness of the actual signature value contained in
the request and also checks the full certification path from the
signing entity to a trusted point (e.g., the DCS's CA, or the root CA
in a hierarchy).
The DCS supports non-repudiation in two ways. First, it provides
evidence that a signature or public key certificate was valid at the
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time indicated in the token. The token can be used even after the
corresponding public key certificate expires and its revocation
information is no longer available on CRLs (for example). Second, the
production of a data certification token in response to a signed
request for certification of another signature or public key
certificate also provides evidence that due diligence was performed
by the requester in validating the signature or public key
certificate.
STATUS:
5 Advice to Implementors
This section provides guidance to those who would implement various
parts of the PKIX suite of documents. The topics discussed in this
section engendered significant discussion in the working group, and
there was at times either widespread disagreement or widespread
misunderstanding of them. Thus, this discussion is provided to help
readers of the PKIX document set understand these issues, in the hope
of fostering greater interoperability among eventual PKIX
implementations.
5.1 Names
PKIX has been referred to as a "name-centric" PKI because the
certificates associate public keys with names of entities. Each
certificate contains at least one name for the owner of a particular
public key. The name can be an X.500 distinguished name, contained
in the subjectDN field of the certificate. There can also be names
such as RFC822 e-mail addresses, DNS domain names, and URIs
associated with the key; these attributes are kept in the
subjectAltName extension of the certificate. A certificate must
contain at least one of these name forms, it may contain multiple
forms if deemed appropriate by the CA based on the intended usage of
the certificate.
5.1.1 Name Forms
There are two possible places to put a name in an X.509v3
certificate. One is the subject field in the base certificate (often
called the "Distinguished Name" or "DN" field), and the other is in
the subjectAltName extension.
5.1.1.1 Distinguished Names
According to [RFC 2459], a PKIX certificate must have a non-null
value in the Subject field, except for an end-entity certificate,
which is permitted to have an empty subject field. Furthermore, if a
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certificate has a non-null Subject field, it MUST contain an X.500
Distinguished Name.
5.1.1.2 SubjectAltName Forms
In addition to the DN, a PKIX certificate may have one or more values
in the subjectAltName extension.
The subjectAltName extension allows additional identities to be bound
to the subject of the certificate - e.g., it allows "umbc.edu" and
"130.85.1.3" to be associated with a particular subject, as well as
"C=US, O=University of Maryland, L=Baltimore, CN=UMBC".
X.509-defined options for this extension include: Internet
electronic mail addresses; DNS names; IP addresses; and uniform
resource indentifiers (URIs). Other options can exist, including
locally-defined name forms.
A single subjectAltName extension can include multiple name forms,
and multiple instances of each name form.
Whenever such Alternate Name forms are to be bound into a
certificate, the subject alternative name (or issuer alternative
name) extension must be used. It is technically possible to embed an
Alternate Name Form in the subject field. For example, one could
make a DN contain an IP address via a kludge such as "C=US,
L=Baltimore, CN=130.85.1.3". However, this usage is deprecated; the
alternative name extension is the preferred location for finding such
information. As another example, some legacy implementations exist
where an RFC822 name is embedded in the subject distinguished name as
an EmailAddress attribute. Per [RFC 2459], PKIX-compliant
implementations generating new certificates with electronic mail
addresses MUST use the rfc822Name in the subject alternative name
field to describe such entities. Simultaneous inclusion of the
EmailAddress attribute in the subject distinguished name to support
legacy implementation is deprecated but permitted.
In line with this, if the only subject identity included in a
certificate is an alternative name form, then the subject
distinguished name must be empty (technically, an empty sequence),
and the subjectAltName extension must be present. If the subject
field contains an empty sequence, the subjectAltName extension must
be marked critical.
If the subjectAltName extension is present, the sequence must contain
at least one entry. Unlike the subject field, conforming CAs shall
not issue certificates with subjectAltNames containing empty
GeneralName fields. For example, an rfc822Name is represented as an
IA5String. While an empty string is a valid IA5String, such an
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rfc822Name is not permitted by PKIX. The behavior of clients that
encounter such a certificate when processing a certification path is
not defined by this working group.
Because the subject alternative name is considered to be definitively
bound to the public key, all parts of the subject alternative name
must be verified by the CA.
5.1.1.2.1 Internet e-mail addresses
When the subjectAltName extension contains an Internet mail address,
the adress is included as an rfc822Name. The format of an rfc822Name
is an "addr-spec" as defined in RFC 822 [RFC 822]. An addr-spec has
the form local-part@domain; it does not have a phrase (such as a
common name) before it, or a comment (text surrounded in parentheses)
after it, and it is not surrounded by "<" and ">".
5.1.1.2.2 DNS Names
When the subjectAltName extension contains a domain name service
label, the domain name is stored in the dNSName attribute(an
IA5String). The string shall be in the "preferred name syntax," as
specified by RFC 1034 [RFC 1034]. Note that while upper and lower
case letters are allowed in domain names, no signifigance is attached
to the case. In addition, while the string " " is a legal domain
name, subjectAltName extensions with a dNSName " " are not permitted.
Finally, the use of the DNS representation for Internet mail
addresses (wpolk.nist.gov instead of wpolk@nist.gov) is not
permitted; such identities are to be encoded as rfc822Name.
5.1.1.2.3 IP addresses
When the subjectAltName extension contains an iPAddress, the address
shall be stored in the octet string in "network byte order," as
specified in RFC 791 [RFC 791]. The least significant bit (LSB) of
each octet is the LSB of the corresponding byte in the network
address. For IP Version 4, as specified in RFC 791, the octet string
must contain exactly four octets. For IP Version 6, as specified in
RFC 1883, the octet string must contain exactly sixteen octets
[RFC1883].
5.1.1.2.4 URIs
[RFC 2459] notes "When the subjectAltName extension contains a URI,
the name MUST be stored in the uniformResourceIdentifier (an
IA5String). The name MUST be a non-relative URL, and MUST follow the
URL syntax and encoding rules specified in [RFC 1738]. The name must
include both a scheme (e.g., "http" or "ftp") and a scheme-specific-
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part. The scheme-specific-part must include a fully qualified domain
name or IP address as the host. As specified in [RFC 1738], the
scheme name is not case-sensitive (e.g., "http" is equivalent to
"HTTP"). The host part is also not case-sensitive, but other
components of the scheme-specific-part may be case-sensitive. When
comparing URIs, conforming implementations MUST compare the scheme
and host without regard to case, but assume the remainder of the
scheme-specific-part is case sensitive."
5.1.2 Scope of Names
The original X.500 work presumed that every subject in the world
would have a globally-unique distinguished name. Thus, every subject
could be easily located, and there would never be a conflict. All
that would be needed is a sufficiently-large name space, and rules
for constructing names based on subordination and location.
Obviously, that is not practical in the real world, for a variety of
reasons. There is no single entity in the world trusted by everybody
to reside at the top of the name space, and there is no way to
enforce uniqueness on names for all entities. (These were among the
reasons for the failure of PEM to be widely implemented.)
This does not mean, however, that a name-based PKI cannot work. It
is important to recognize that the scope of names in PKIX is local;
they need to be defined and unique only within their own domain.
Suppose for example that a rootCA is established with DN "O=IETF,
OU=PKIX, CN=PKIX_CA". That CA will then issue certificates for users
subordinate to it. The only requirement - and this can be enforced
procedurally - is that no two distinct entities beneath this rootCA
have the same name. We can't prevent somebody else in the world from
creating her own CA, called "O=IETF, OU=PKIX, CN=PKIX_CA", and it is
not necessary to do so. Within the domain of the original rootCA,
there will be no conflict, and the fact that there is another CA of
the same name in some other domain is irrelevant.
This is analogous to the current DNS or IP address situations. On
the Internet, there is only one node called www.ietf.org. The fact
that there might be 10 different intranets, each with a host given
the DNS name www.ieft.org, is irrelevant and causes no
interoperability problems - those are different domains. However, if
there were to be another node on the Internet with domain name
www.ietf.org, then there would be a problem due to name duplication.
The same applies for IP addresses. As long as only one node on the
Internet responds to the IP address 130.85.1.3, there is no problem,
despite the fact that there are 100 different corporate Intranets,
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each using that same IP address. However, if two different nodes on
the Internet each responded to the IP address 130.85.1.3, there would
be a problem.
5.1.3 Certificate Path Construction
Path construction - make point that there is no single best way to
construct a path. Implementors can pick the way that is most
efficient for them. Discuss some of the issues being hashed out in
the "ldap" discussion on the mail list. If there is ever a
resolution, include it in this section.
5.1.4 Name Constraints
(Note: this section still needs a lot of work.)
A question that has arisen a number of times is "how does one enforce
Name constraints when there is more than one name form in a
certificate?" That is, [RFC 2459] states that:
Subject alternative names may be constrained in the same manner as
subject distinguished names using the name constraints extension as
described in section 4.2.1.11.
What does this mean? Suppose that there is a CA with DN "O=IETF,
OU=PKIX, CN=PKIX_CA", with the subjectAltName extension having
dNSName "PKIX_CA.IETF.ORG". Suppose that that CA has issued a
certificate with an empty DN, with subjectAltName extension having
dNSName set to "PKIX_CA.IETF.ORG", and rfc822Name set to
Steve@PKIX_CA.IETF.ORG. The question is, are name constraints
enforced on these two certificates - is the name of the end-entity
certificate considered to be properly subordinate to the name of the
CA?
The answer is "yes". The general rules for deciding whether a
certificate meets name constraints are:
If a certificate complies with name constraints in any one of its
name forms, then the certificate is deemed to comply with name
constraints.
If a certificate contains a name form that its issuer does not,
the certificate is deemed to comply with name constraints for that
name form.
In deciding whether a name form meets name constraints, the following
rules apply:
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- for DNs: - for rfc822Names: - for dNSNames: Name A is subordinate
to Name B (in B's subtree) if Name A contains all of Name B's name,
with the addition of zero or more additional domain names to the left
of Name B's name. That is, www.mit.edu is subordinate to mit.edu, as
is larry.cs.mit.edu. However, www.mit.edu is not subordinate to
web.mit.edu. - for URIs: - for iPaddresses: Name A is subordinate to
Name B if...
5.1.5 Wildcards in Name Forms
A "wildcard" in a name form is a placeholder for a set of names; e.g.
"*.mit.edu" meaning "any domain name ending in .mit.edu", and
*@aol.com meaning "email address that uses aol.com". There are many
people who believe that allowing wildcards in name forms in PKIX
certificates would be a useful thing to do, because it would allow a
single certificate to be used by all members of a group. These
members would presumably have attributes in common; e.g., access
rights to some set of resources, and so issuance of a certificate
with a wildcard for the group would simplify management.
After much discussion, the PKIX working group decided to permit the
use of wildcards in certificates. That is, it is permissible for a
PKIX-conformant CA to issue a certificate with a wildcard. However,
the semantics of subject alternative names that include wildcard
characters are not addressed by PKIX. Applications with specific
requirements may use such names but must define the semantics.
5.1.6 Name Encoding
(insert a section on encoding non-ASCII names. Key points to make:)
- UTF8 is the long-term goal for IETF, and is mandatory in 2003 and
later - BMPString is presently supported by most vendors -
Teletexstring containing ISO 8859-1 is also used by many CA's
5.2 POP
Proof of Possession, or POP, means that the CA is adequately
convinced that the entity requesting a certificate containing a
public key Y has access to the private key X corresponding to that
public key.
POP is important because it provides an appropriate level of
assurance in the correct operation of the PKI as a whole. At its
lowest level, POP counters the "self-inflicted denial of service";
that is, an entity voluntarily getting a certificate that cannot be
used to sign or encrypt/decrypt information. However, as the
following two examples demonstrate, POP also counters less direct,
but more severe, threats:
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POP for signing keys: it is important to provide POP for keys used
to sign material, in order to provide non-repudiation of
transactions. For example, suppose Alice legitimately has private
key X and its corresponding public key Y. Alice has a certificate
from Charlie, a CA, containing Y. Alice uses X to sign a
transaction T. Without POP, Mal could also get a certificate from
Charlie containing the same public key, Y. Now, there are two
possible threats: Mal could claim to have been the real signer of
T; or Alice can falsely deny signing T, claiming that it was
instead Mal. Since no one can reliably prove that Mal did or did
not ever possess X, neither of these claims can be refuted, and
thus the service provided by and the confidence in the PKI has
been defeated. (Of course, if Mal really did possess X, Alice's
private key, then no POP mechanism in the world will help, but
that is a different problem.)
Note that one level of protection can be gained by having Alice,
as the true signer of the transaction, include in the signed
information her certificate or an identifier of her certificate
(e.g., a hash of her certificate). This might make it more
difficult for Mal to claim authorship - he would have to assert
that he incorrectly included Alice's certificate, rather than his
own. However, it would not stop Alice from falsely repudiating
her actions. Since the certificate itself is a public item, Mal
indeed could have inserted Alice's certificate into the signed
transaction, and thus its presence does not indicate that Alice
was the one who participated in the now-repudiated transaction.
The only reliable way to stop this attack is to require that Mal
prove he possesses X before his certificate is issued.
For signing keys used only for authentication, and not for non-
repudiation, the threat is lower because users may not care about
Alice's after-the-fact repudiation, and thus POP becomes less
important. However, POP SHOULD still be done wherever feasible in
this environment, by either off-line or on-line means.
POP for key management keys: Similarly, POP for key management keys
(that is, keys used for either key agreement or key exchange) can
help to prevent undermining confidence in the PKI. Suppose that Al
is a new instructor in the Computer Science Department of a local
University. Al has created a draft final exam for the Introduction
to Networking course he is teaching. He wants to send a copy of the
draft final to Dorothy, the Department Head, for her review prior to
giving the exam. This exam will of course be encrypted, as several
students have access to the computer system. However, a quick search
of the certificate repository (e.g., search the repository for all
records with subjectPublicKey=Dorothy's-value) turns up the fact that
several students have certificates containing the same public key
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management key as Dorothy. At this point, if no POP has been done by
the CA, Al has no way of knowing whether all of the students have
simply created these certificates without knowing the corresponding
private key (and thus it is safe to send the encrypted exam to
Dorothy), or whether the students have somehow acquired Dorothy's
private key (and thus it is certainly not safe to send the exam).
Thus, the service to be provided by the PKI - allowing users to
communicate with one another, with confidence in who they are
communicating with - has been totally defeated. If the CA is
providing POP, then either no students will have such certificates,
or Al can know with certainty that the students do indeed know
Dorothy's private key, and act accordingly.
CMP requires that POP be provided for all keys, either through on-
line or out-of-band means. There are any number of ways to provide
POP, and the choice of which to use is a local matter. Additionally,
a certificate requester can provide POP to either a CA or to an RA,
if the RA can adequately assure the CA that POP has been performed.
Some of the acceptable ways to provide POP include:
Out-of-band means:
For keys generated by the CA or an RA (e.g., on a token such as a
smart card or PCMCIA card), possession of the token can provide
adequate proof of possession of the private key.
For user-generated keys, another approach can be used in
environments where "key recovery" requirements force the requester
to provide a copy of the private key to the CA or an RA. In this
case, the CA will not issue the requested certificate until such
time as the requester has provided the private key. This approach
is in general not recommended, as it is extremely risky (e.g., the
system designers need to figure out a way to protect the private
keys from compromise while they are being sent to the CA/RA/other
authority, and how to protect them there), but it can be used.
On-line means:
For signature keys that are generated by an end-entity, the
requester of a certificate can be required to sign some piece of
data (typically, the certificate request itself) using the private
key. The CA will then use the requested public key to verify the
signature. If the signature verification works, the CA can safely
conclude that the requester had access to the private key. If the
signature verification process fails, the CA can conclude that the
requester did not have access to the correct private key, and
reject the request.
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For key management keys that are generated by the requester, the
CA can send the user the requested public key, along with the CA's
own private key, to encrypt some piece of data, and send it to the
requester to be decrypted. For example, the CA can generate some
random challenge, and require some action to be taken after
decryption (e.g., "decrypt this encrypted random number and send
it back to me"). If the requester does not take the requested
action, the CA concludes that the requester did not possess the
private key, and the certificate is not issued.
Another method of providing POP for key management keys is for the
CA to generate the requested certificate, and then send it to the
requester in encrypted form. If the requester does not have
access to the appropriate private key, the requester cannot
decrypt the certificate, and thus cannot use it. After some period
of time in which the certificate is not used, the CA will revoke
the certificate. (This only works if the certificate is not made
available to any untrusted entities until after the requester has
successfully decrypted it.)
5.3 Key Usage Bits
The key usage extension defines the purpose (e.g., encipherment,
signature, certificate signing) of the key contained in the
certificate. This extension is used when a key that could be used for
more than one operation is to be restricted. For example, when an
RSA key should be used only for signing, the digitalSignature and/or
nonRepudiation bits would be asserted. Likewise, when an RSA key
should be used only for key management, the keyEncipherment bit would
be asserted. When used, this extension should be marked critical.
The eight bits defined for this extension identify seven mechanisms
and one service, namely:
- digitalSignature - nonRepudiation - keyEncipherment -
dataEncipherment - keyAgreement - keyCertSign - cRLSign -
encipherOnly - decipherOnly
According to [RFC 2459], bits in the KeyUsage type are used as
follows:
The digitalSignature bit is asserted when the subject public key
is used to verify digital signatures that have purposes other than
non-repudiation, certificate signature, and CRL signature. For
example, the digitalSignature bit is asserted when the subject
public key is used to provide authentication via the signing of
ephemeral data.
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The nonRepudiation bit is asserted when the subject public key is
used to verify digital signatures used to provide a non-
repudiation service which protects against the signing entity
falsely denying some action, excluding certificate or CRL signing.
The keyEncipherment bit is asserted when the subject public key is
used for key transport. For example, when an RSA key is to be
used for key management, this bit must asserted.
The dataEncipherment bit is asserted when the subject public key
is used for enciphering user data, other than cryptographic keys.
The keyAgreement bit is asserted when the subject public key is
used for key agreement. For example, when a Diffie-Hellman key is
to be used for key management, this bit must asserted.
The keyCertSign bit is asserted when the subject public key is
used for verifying a signature on certificates. This bit may only
be asserted in CA certificates.
The cRLSign bit is asserted when the subject public key is used
for verifying a signature on revocation information (e.g., a CRL).
The meaning of the encipherOnly bit is undefined in the absence of
the keyAgreement bit. When the encipherOnly bit is asserted and
the keyAgreement bit is also set, the subject public key may be
used only for enciphering data while performing key agreement.
The meaning of the decipherOnly bit is undefined in the absence of
the keyAgreement bit. When the decipherOnly bit is asserted and
the keyAgreement bit is also set, the subject public key may be
used only for deciphering data while performing key agreement.
PKIX does not restrict the combinations of bits that may be set in an
instantiation of the keyUsage extension.
The discussion on the PKIX mailing list has centered on the
digitalSignature bit and the nonRepudiation bit. The question has
come down to something like: When support for the service of non-
repudiation is desired, should both the digitalSignature and
nonRepudiation bits be set, or just the nonRepudiation bit?
(It is noted that provision of the service of non-repudiation
requires more than a single bit set in a certificate. It requires an
entire infrastructure of components to preserve for some period of
time the keys, certificates, revocation status, signed material,
etc., as well as a trusted source of time. However, the
nonRepudiation key usage bit is provided as an indicator that such
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keys should not be used as a component of a system providing a non-
repudiation service.)
According to [SIMONETTI], the intent is that the digitalSignature bit
should be set when what is desired is the ability to sign ephemeral
transactions; e.g., for a single session authentication. These
transactions are "ephemeral" in the sense that they are important
only while they are in existence; after the session is terminated,
there is no long-term record of the digital signature and its
properties kept. When something is intended to be kept for some
period of time, the nonRepudiation bit should be set. This generally
implies that an application will digitally sign something; thus, some
implementors turn on the digitalSignature bit as well. Other
implementors, however, keep the two bits mutually exclusive, to
prevent a single key from being used for both ephemeral and long-term
signing.
While [RFC 2459] is silent on this specific issue, the working
group's general conclusion is that a certificate may have either or
both bits set. If only the nonRepudiation bit is set, the key should
not be used for ephemeral transactions. If only the digitalSignature
bit is set, the key should not be used for long-term signing. If
both bits are set, the key may be used for either purpose.
To actually enforce this requires that an application understands
whether it is signing ephemeral transactions or for the long-term.
The application developers will have to understand the difference,
and set up their checks on the key usage bits field accordingly. For
example, TLS implementors should check only the digitalSignature bit,
and ignore the nonRepudiation bit. S/MIME implementors, though, will
have a difficult choice to make, since their application could be
used for either purpose, and they will generally accept signing using
keys associated with certificates having either or both bits being
turned on. Certification Authorities should know what applications
they are providing certificates for, and provide certificates
according to the requirements of those applications. If CA's are
tied into non-repudiation systems, they may treat certificates
differently when the nonRepudiation bit is turned on (e.g., store
information associated with the certificate - like the user's
identification provided during certificate registration, or
certificate generation date/time stamps - for longer periods of time,
in more secure environments).
The bottom line is that this is an area where PKI implementors are
somewhat limited in what they can do. The onus is on developers of
certificate-using systems to understand their requirements and
request certificates with the appropriate bits set.
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5.4 Trust Models
(This section will describe the various trust models that PKIX can
support. It is important to note that PKIX is bound to neither a
pure hierarchical model a la PEM, nor a web of trust model a la PGP.
PKIX can support either of those models, or any flavor in between.
The implications of different trust models should be described:
- efficiency of revocation - certification path building - etc.)
6 Acknowledgements
A lot of the information in this document was taken from the PKIX
source documents; the authors of those deserve the credit for their
own words. Other good material was taken from mail posted to the
PKIX working group mail list (ietf-pkix@imc.org). Among those with
good things to say were (in alphabetical order, with apologies to
anybody we've missed): Sharon Boeyen, Santosh Chokhani, Warwick Ford,
Russ Housley, Steve Kent, Ambarish Malpani, Matt Fite, Michael Myers,
Tim Polk, Stefan Santesson, Dave Simonetti, and.
7 References
[CACHE] "Internet Public Key Infrastructure: Caching the Online
Certificate Status Protocol," <draft-ieft-pkix-ocsp-caching-00.txt>,
April 1998
[CMC] Myers, M., Liu, X., Fox, B., and Weinstein, J., "Certificate
Management Messages over CMS," <draft-ieft-pkix-cmc-02.txt>, November
1998
[CMMF] Adams, C., and Myers, M., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate Management Message Formats," <draft-ietf-
pkixx-cmmf-02.txt>, July 1998
[CRMF] Myers, M., Adams, C., Solo, D., and Kemp, D., "Internet X.509
Certificate Request Message Format," RFC 2511, March 1999
[CRS] Myers, M., Liu X., Fox B., Prafullchandra H., Weinstein J., "
Certificate Request Syntax," <draft-ietf-smime-crs-00.txt>, November
1997
[CMP] Adams, C., and Farrell, S., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate Management Protocols," RFC 2510, March
1999
[CMS] R. Housley, "Cryptographic Message Syntax," <draft-ietf-smime-
cms-10.txt>, December 1998
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[DCS] Adams, C., and Zuccherato, R., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Data Certification Server Protocols", <draft-ietf-
pkix-dcs-00.txt>, 23 September 1998.
[ECDSA] Bassham, L., Johnson, D., and Polk, W., "Internet x.509
Public Key Infrastructure: Representation of Elliptic Curve Digital
Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) Keys and Signatures in Internet X.509
Public Key Infrastructure Certificates," <draft-ietf-pkix-ipki-
ecdsa-01.txt>, November 1997
[FTP] Housley, R., and Hoffman, P., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Operational Protocols: FTP and HTTP," <draft-ietf-
pkix-opp-ftp-http-04.txt>, July 1998
[KEA] Housley, R., and Polk, W., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Representation of Key Exchange Algorithm (KEA) Keys in
Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificates," RFC ####,
date TBD.
[LDAP] Boeyen, S., Howes, T., and Richard, P., "Internet X.509 Public
Key Infrastructure Operational Protocols - LDAPv2," <draft-ietf-pkix-
ipki2opp-08.txt>, September 1998.
[MISPC] Burr, W., Dodson, D., Nazario, N., and Polk, W., "MISPC
Minimum Interoperability Specification for PKI Components, Version
1", September 3, 1997
[OCDP] Hallam-Baker, P., and Ford, W., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Enhanced CRL Distribution Options (OpenCDP)," <draft-
ietf-pkix-ocdp-01.txt>, August 7, 1998
[OCSP] Myers, M., Ankney, R., Malpani, A., Galperin, S., and Adams,
C., "X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online Certificate
Status Protocol - OCSP," <draft-ietf-pkix-ocsp-07.txt>, September
1998.
[PKCS10] "Certification Request Syntax Standard", Public Key
Cryptography Standard #10, RSA Laboratories.
[PKIX-4] Chokhani, S., and Ford, W., "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate Policy and Certification Practices
Framework," RFC 2527, March 1999.
[QC] Santesson, S., Polk, W., and Gloeckner, P., "Internet X.509
Public Key Infrastructure Qualified Certificates", <draft-ietf-pkix-
qc-00.txt>, 3 February 1999.
[RFC 791] Postel, J., "Internet Protocol", September 1981.
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INTERNET DRAFT PKIX Roadmap 26 February 1999
[RFC 822] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text
Messages", August 1982.
[RFC 1034] Mockapetris, P.V., "Domain names - concepts and
facilities", November 1987.
[RFC 1422] Kent, S., "Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic
Mail: Part II: Certificate-Based Key Management," February 1993.
[RFC 1777] Yeong, Y., Howes, T., and Kille, S., "Lightweight
Directory Access Protocol", March 1995
[RFC 1883] Deering, S., and Hinden, R., "Internet Protocol, Version 6
[IPv6] Specification", December 1995.
[RFC 2459] Housley, R., Ford, W., Polk, W., and Solo, D., "Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and CRL Profile," January
1999.
[SCHEMA] Boeyen, S., Howes, T., and Richard, P., "Internet X.509
Public Key Infrastructure LDAPv2 Schema," <draft-ietf-pkix-
ldapv2-schema-02.txt>, September 1998
[SIMONETTI] Simonetti, D., "Re: German Key Usage", posting to ietf-
pkix@imc.org mailing list, 12 August 1998
[TSP] Adams, C., Cain, P., Pinkas, D., and Zuccherato, R., "Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Time Stamp Protocols", <draft-ietf-
pkix-time-stamp-00.txt>, 23 September 1998.
[WEB] Reddy, S., "WEB based Certificate Access Protocol--
WebCAP/1.0," <draft-ietf-pkix-webcap-00.txt>, April 19, 1998
[X.509] ITU-T Recommendation X.509 (1997 E): Information Technology
- Open Systems Interconnection - The Directory: Authentication
Framework, June 1997.
[X9.42] ANSI X9.42-199x, Public Key Cryptography for The Financial
Services Industry: Agreement of Symmetric Algorithm Keys Using
Diffie-Hellman (Working Draft), December 1997.
[X9.55] ANSI X9.55-1995, Public Key Cryptography For The Financial
Services Industry: Extensions To Public Key Certificates And
Certificate Revocation Lists, 8 December, 1995.
[X9.57] ANSI X9.57-199x, Public Key Cryptography For The Financial
Services Industry: Certificate Management (Working Draft), 21 June,
1996.
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8 Security Considerations
TBSL
9 Editor's Address
Alfred Arsenault
U. S. Department of Defense
9800 Savage Road Suite
6734 Fort George G. Meade, MD 20755-6734
(410) 684-7114
awarsen@missi.ncsc.mil
Sean Turner
IECA, Inc.
9010 Edgepark Road Vienna, VA 22182
(703) 358-9113
turners@ieca.com
10 Disclaimer
This work constitutes the opinion of the editors only, and may not
reflect the opinions or policies of their employers.
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