E. Rescorla
RTFM, Inc.
N. Modadugu
INTERNET-DRAFT Stanford University
<draft-rescorla-dtls-04.txt> April 2004 (Expires October 2005)
Datagram Transport Layer Security
Status of this Memo
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Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999-2004). All Rights Reserved.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 1]
Abstract
This document specifies Version 1.0 of the Datagram Transport
Layer Security (DTLS) protocol. The DTLS protocol provides
communications privacy for datagram protocols. The protocol
allows client/server applications to communicate in a way that
is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, or message
forgery. The DTLS protocol is based on the TLS protocol and
provides equivalent security guarantees. Datagram semantics of
the underlying transport are preserved by the DTLS protocol.
Contents
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Requirements Terminology 3
2 Usage Model 4
3 Overview of DTLS 4
3.1 Loss-insensitive messaging 4
3.2 Providing Reliability for Handshake 5
3.2.1 Packet Loss 5
3.2.2 Reordering 6
3.2.3 Message Size 6
3.3 Replay Detection 6
4 Differences from TLS 6
4.1 Record Layer 7
4.1.1 Transport Layer Mapping 8
4.1.1.1 PMTU Discovery 8
4.1.2 Record payload protection 9
4.1.2.1 MAC 9
4.1.2.2 Null or standard stream cipher 9
4.1.2.3 Block Cipher 10
4.1.2.4 New Cipher Suites 10
4.1.2.5 Anti-Replay 10
4.2 The DTLS Handshake Protocol 11
4.2.1 Denial of Service Countermeasures 11
4.2.2 Handshake Message Format 13
4.2.3 Message Fragmentation and Reassembly 15
4.2.4 Timeout and Retransmission 16
4.2.4.1 Timer Values 19
4.2.5 ChangeCipherSpec 20
4.2.6 Finished messages 20
4.2.7 Alert Messages 20
4.2 Record Layer 20
4.3 Handshake Protocol 21
5 Security Considerations 22
6 IANA Considerations 22
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 2]
1. Introduction
TLS [TLS] is the most widely deployed protocol for securing
network traffic. It is widely used for protecting Web traffic
and for e-mail protocols such as IMAP [IMAP] and POP [POP].
The primary advantage of TLS is that it provides a transparent
connection-oriented channel. Thus, it is easy to secure an
application protocol by inserting TLS between the application
layer and the transport layer. However, TLS must run over a
reliable transport channel--typically TCP [TCP]. It therefore
cannot be used to secure unreliable datagram traffic.
However, over the past few years an increasing number of
application layer protocols have been designed which UDP
transport. In particular such protocols as the Session
Initiation Protocol (SIP) [SIP], and electronic gaming
protocols are increasingly popular. (Note that SIP can run
over both TCP and UDP, but that there are situations in which
UDP is preferable). Currently, designers of these applications
are faced with a number of unsatisfactory choices. First, they
can use IPsec [RFC2401]. However, for a number of reasons
detailed in [WHYIPSEC], this is only suitable for some
applications. Second, they can design a custom application
layer security protocol. SIP, for instance, uses a subsert of
S/MIME to secure its traffic. Unfortunately, while application
layer security protocols generally provide superior security
properties (e.g., end-to-end security in the case of S/MIME)
it typically require a large amount of effort to design--by
contrast to the relatively small amount of effort required to
run the protocol over TLS.
In many cases, the most desirable way to secure client/server
applications would be to use TLS; however the requirement for
datagram semantics automatically prohibits use of TLS. Thus, a
datagram-compatible variant of TLS would be very desirable.
This memo describes such a protocol: Datagram Transport Layer
Security (DTLS). DTLS is deliberately designed to be as
similar to to TLS as possible, both to minimize new security
invention and to maximize the amount of code and
infrastructure reuse.
1.1. Requirements Terminology
Keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHOULD", "SHOULD
NOT" and "MAY" that appear in this document are to be
interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [REQ].
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 3]
2. Usage Model
The DTLS protocol is designed to secure data between
communicating applications. It is designed to run in
application space, without requiring any kernel modifications.
Datagram transport does not require or provide reliable or in-
order delivery of data. The DTLS protocol preserves this
property for payload data. Applications such as media
streaming, Internet telephony and online gaming use datagram
transport for communication due to the delay-sensitive nature
of transported data. The behavior of such applications is
unchanged when the DTLS protocol is used to secure
communication, since the DTLS protocol does not compensate for
lost or re-ordered data traffic.
3. Overview of DTLS
The basic design philosophy of DTLS is to construct "TLS over
datagram". The reason that TLS cannot be used directly in
datagram environments is simply that packets may be lost or
reordered. TLS has no internal facilities to handle this kind
of unreliability and therefore TLS implementations break when
rehosted on datagram transport. The purpose of DTLS is to make
only the minimal changes to TLS required to fix this problem.
To the greatest extent possible, DTLS is identical to TLS.
Whenever we need to invent new mechanisms, we attempt to do so
in such a way that it preserves the style of TLS.
Unreliability creates problems for TLS at two levels:
1. TLS's traffic encryption layer does not allow
independent decryption of individual records. If record N
is not received, then record N+1 cannot be decrypted.
2. The TLS handshake layer assumes that handshake messages
are delivered reliably and breaks if those messages are
lost.
The rest of this section describes the approach that DTLS uses
to solve these problems.
3.1. Loss-insensitive messaging
In TLS's traffic encryption layer (called the TLS Record
Layer), records are not independent. There are two kinds of
inter-record dependency:
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 4]
1. Cryptographic context (CBC state, stream cipher key
stream) is chained between records.
2. Anti-replay and message reordering protection are
provided by a MAC which includes a sequence number, but the
sequence numbers are implicit in the records.
The fix for both of these problems is straightforward and
well-known from IPsec ESP [ESP]: add explicit state to the
records. TLS 1.1 [TLS11] is already adding explicit CBC state
to TLS records. DTLS borrows that mechanism and adds explicit
sequence numbers.
3.2. Providing Reliability for Handshake
The TLS handshake is a lockstep cryptographic handshake.
Messages must be transmitted and received in a defined order
and any other order is an error. Clearly, this is incompatible
with reordering and message loss. In addition, TLS handshake
messages are potentially larger than any given datagram, thus
creating the problem of fragmentation. DTLS must provide fixes
for both these problems.
3.2.1. Packet Loss
DTLS uses a simple retransmission timer to handle packet loss.
The following figure demonstrates the basic concept using the
first phase of the DTLS handshake:
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello ------>
X<-- HelloVerifyRequest
(lost)
[Timer Expires]
ClientHello ------>
(retransmit)
Once the client has transmitted the ClientHello message, it
expects to see a HelloVerifyRequest from the server. However,
if the server's message is lost the client knows that either
the ClientHello or the HelloVerifyRequest has been lost and
retransmits. When the server receives the retransmission, it
knows to retransmit. The server also maintains a
retransmission timer and retransmits when that timer expires.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 5]
Note: timeout and retransmission do not apply to the
HelloVerifyRequest, because this requires creating state on
the server.
3.2.2. Reordering
In DTLS, each handshake message is assigned a specific
sequence number within that handshake. When a peer receives a
handshake message, it can quickly determine whether that
message is the next message it expects. If it is, then it
processes it. If not, it queues it up for future handling once
all previous messages have been received.
3.2.3. Message Size
TLS and DTLS handshake messages can be quite large (in theory
up to 2^24-1 bytes, in practice many kilobytes). By contrast,
UDP datagrams are often limited to <1500 bytes if
fragmentation is not desired. In order to compensate for this
limitation, each DTLS handshake message may be fragmented over
several DTLS records. Each DTLS handshake message contains
both a fragment offset and a fragment length. Thus, a
recipient in possession of all bytes of a handshake message
can reassemble the original unfragmented message.
3.3. Replay Detection
DTLS optionally supports record replay detection. The
technique used is the same as in IPsec AH/ESP, by maintaining
a bitmap window of received records. Records that are too old
to fit in the window and records that have been previously
received are silently discarded. The replay detection feature
is optional, since packet duplication is not always malicious,
but can also occur due to routing errors. Applications may
conceivably detect duplicate packets and accordingly modify
their data transmission strategy.
4. Differences from TLS
As mentioned in Section 3., DTLS is intentionally very similar
to TLS. Therefore, instead of presenting DTLS as a new
protocol, we instead present it as a series of deltas from TLS
1.1 [TLS11]. Where we do not explicitly call out differences,
DTLS is the same as TLS.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 6]
4.1. Record Layer
The DTLS record layer is extremely similar to that of TLS 1.1.
The only change is the inclusion of an explicit sequence
number in the record. This sequence number allows the
recipient to correctly verify the TLS MAC. The DTLS record
format is shown below:
struct {
ContentType type;
ProtocolVersion version;
uint16 epoch; // New field
uint48 sequence_number; // New field
uint16 length;
opaque fragment[DTLSPlaintext.length];
} DTLSPlaintext;
type
Equivalent to the type field in a TLS 1.1 record.
version
The version of the protocol being employed. This document
describes DTLS Version 1.0, which uses the version { 254, 255
}. The version value of 254.255 is the 1's complement of DTLS
Version 1.0. This maximal spacing between TLS and DTLS version
numbers ensures that records from the two protocols can be
easily distinguished.
epoch
A counter value that is incremented on every cipher state
change.
sequence_number
The sequence number for this record.
length
Identical to the length field in a TLS 1.1 record. As in TLS
1.1, the length should not exceed 2^14.
fragment
Identical to the fragment field of a TLS 1.1 record.
DTLS uses an explicit rather than implicit sequence number,
carried in the sequence_number field of the record. As with
TLS, the sequence number is set to zero after each
ChangeCipherSpec message is sent.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 7]
If several handshakes are performed in close succession, there
might be multiple records on the wire with the same sequence
number but from different cipher states. The epoch field
allows recipients to distinguish such packets. The epoch
number is initially zero and is incremented each time the
ChangeCipherSpec messages is sent. In order to ensure that any
given sequence/epoch pair is unique, implementations MUST NOT
allow the same epoch value to be reused within two times the
TCP maximum segment lifetime. In practice, TLS implementations
rehandshake rarely and we therefore do not expect this to be a
problem.
4.1.1. Transport Layer Mapping
Each DTLS record MUST fit within a single datagram. In order
to avoid IP fragmentation [MOGUL], DTLS implementations SHOULD
determine the MTU and send records smaller than the MTU. DTLS
implementations SHOULD provide a way for applications to
determine the value of the PMTU (or alternately the maximum
application datagram size, which is the PMTU minus the DTLS
per-record overhead). If the application attempts to send a
record larger than the MTU the DTLS implementation SHOULD
generate an error, thus avoiding sending a packet which will
be fragmented.
Note that unlike IPsec, DTLS records do not contain any
association identifiers. Applications must arrange to
multiplex between associations. With UDP, this is presumably
done with host/port number.
Multiple DTLS records may be placed in a single datagram. hey
are simply encoded consecutively. The DTLS record framing is
sufficient to determine the boundaries. Note, however, that
the first byte of the datagram payload must be the beginning
of a record. Records may not span datagrams.
4.1.1.1. PMTU Discovery
In general, DTLS's philosophy is to avoid dealing with PMTU
issues. The general strategy is to start with a conservative
MTU and then update it if events require it, but not actively
probe for MTU values. PMTU discovery is left to the
application.
The PMTU SHOULD be initialized from the interface MTU that
will be used to send packets. If the DTLS implementation
receives an RFC 1191 [RFC1191] ICMP Destination Unreachable
message with the "fragmentation needed and DF set" Code
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 8]
(otherwise known as Datagram Too Big) it should decrease its
PMTU estimate to that given in the ICMP message. A DTLS
implementation SHOULD allow the application to occasionally
reset its PMTU estimate. The DTLS implementation SHOULD also
allow applications to control the status of the DF bit. These
controls allow the application to perform PMTU discovery.
One special case is the DTLS handshake system. Handshake
messages should be set with DF set. Because some firewalls and
routers screen out ICMP messages, it is difficult for the
handshake layer to distinguish packet loss from an overlarge
PMTU estimate. In order to allow connections under these
circumstances, DTLS implementations SHOULD back off handshake
packet size during the retransmit backoff described in Section
4.2.4.. For instance, if a large packet is being sent, after 3
retransmits the handshake layer might choose to fragment the
handshake message on retransmission. In general, choice of a
conservative initial MTU will avoid this problem.
4.1.2. Record payload protection
Like TLS, DTLS transmits data as a series of protected
records. The rest of this section describes the details of
that format.
4.1.2.1. MAC
The DTLS MAC is the same as that of TLS 1.1. However, rather
than using TLS's implicit sequence number, the sequence number
used to compute the MAC is the 64-bit value formed by
concatenating the epoch and the sequence number in the order
they appear on the wire. Note that the DTLS epoch + sequence
number is the same length as the TLS sequence number.
Note that one important difference between DTLS and TLS MAC
handling is that in TLS MAC errors must result in connection
termination. In DTLS, the receiving implementation MAY simply
discard the offending record and continue with the connection.
This change is possible because DTLS records are not dependent
on each other the way that TLS records are.
4.1.2.2. Null or standard stream cipher
The DTLS NULL cipher is performed exactly as the TLS 1.1 NULL
cipher.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 9]
The only stream cipher described in TLS 1.1 is RC4, which
cannot be randomly accessed. RC4 MUST NOT be used with DTLS.
4.1.2.3. Block Cipher
DTLS block cipher encryption and decryption are performed
exactly as with TLS 1.1.
4.1.2.4. New Cipher Suites
Upon registration, new TLS cipher suites MUST indicate whether
they are suitable for DTLS usage and what, if any, adaptations
must be made.
4.1.2.5. Anti-Replay
DTLS records contain a sequence number to provide replay
protection. Sequence number verification SHOULD be performed
using the following sliding, window procedure, borrowed from
Section 3.4.3 of [RFC 2402]
The receiver packet counter for this session MUST be
initialized to zero when the session is established. For each
received record, the receiver MUST verify that the record
contains a Sequence Number that does not duplicate the
Sequence Number of any other record received during the life
of this session. This SHOULD be the first check applied to a
packet after it has been matched to a session, to speed
rejection of duplicate records.
Duplicates are rejected through the use of a sliding receive
window. (How the window is implemented is a local matter, but
the following text describes the functionality that the
implementation must exhibit.) A minimum window size of 32 MUST
be supported; but a window size of 64 is preferred and SHOULD
be employed as the default. Another window size (larger than
the minimum) MAY be chosen by the receiver. (The receiver does
not notify the sender of the window size.)
The "right" edge of the window represents the highest,
validated Sequence Number value received on this session.
Records that contain Sequence Numbers lower than the "left"
edge of the window are rejected. Packets falling within the
window are checked against a list of received packets within
the window. An efficient means for performing this check,
based on the use of a bit mask, is described in Appendix C of
[RFC 2401].
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 10]
If the received record falls within the window and is new, or
if the packet is to the right of the window, then the receiver
proceeds to MAC verification. If the MAC validation fails, the
receiver MUST discard the received record as invalid. The
receive window is updated only if the MAC verification
succeeds.
4.2. The DTLS Handshake Protocol
DTLS uses all of the same handshake messages and flows as TLS,
with three principal changes:
1. A stateless cookie exchange has been added to prevent
denial of service attacks.
2. Modifications to the handshake header to handle message
loss, reordering and fragmentation.
3. Retransmission timers to handle message loss.
With these exceptions, the DTLS message formats, flows, and
logic are the same as those of TLS 1.1.
4.2.1. Denial of Service Countermeasures
Datagram security protocols are extremely susceptible to a
variety of denial of service (DoS) attacks. Two attacks are of
particular concern:
1. An attacker can consume excessive resources on the
server by transmitting a series of handshake initiation
requests, causing the server to allocate state and
potentially perform expensive cryptographic operations.
2. An attacker can use the server as an amplifier by
sending connection initiation messages with a forged source
of the victim. The server then sends its next message (in
DTLS, a Certificate message, which can be quite large) to
the victim machine, thus flooding it.
In order to counter both of these attacks, DTLS borrows the
stateless cookie technique used by Photuris [PHOTURIS] and IKE
[IKE]. When the client sends its ClientHello message to the
server, the server MAY respond with a HelloVerifyRequest
message. This message contains a stateless cookie generated
using the technique of [PHOTURIS]. The client MUST retransmit
the ClientHello with the cookie added. The server then
verifies the cookie and proceeds with the handshake only if it
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 11]
is valid. This mechanism forces the attacker/client to be able
to receive the cookie, which makes DoS attacks with spoofed IP
addresses difficult. This mechanism does not provide any
defense against DoS attacks mounted from valid IP addresses.
The exchange is shown below:
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello ------>
<----- HelloVerifyRequest
(contains cookie)
ClientHello ------>
(with cookie)
[Rest of handshake]
DTLS therefore modifies the ClientHello message to add the
cookie value.
struct {
ProtocolVersion client_version;
Random random;
SessionID session_id;
opaque cookie<0..32>; // New field
CipherSuite cipher_suites<2..2^16-1>;
CompressionMethod compression_methods<1..2^8-1>;
} ClientHello;
When sending the first ClientHello, the client does not have a
cookie yet; in this case, the Cookie field is left empty (zero
length).
The definition of HelloVerifyRequest is as follows:
struct {
Cookie cookie<0..32>;
} HelloVerifyRequest;
The HelloVerifyRequest message type is
hello_verify_request(3).
When responding to a HelloVerifyRequest the client MUST use
the same parameter values (version, random, session_id,
cipher_suites, compression_method) as in the original
ClientHello. The server SHOULD use those values to generate
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 12]
its cookie and verify that they are correct upon cookie
receipt. The DTLS server SHOULD generate cookies in such a way
that they can be verified without retaining any per-client
state on the server. One technique is to have a randomly
generated secret and generate cookies as:
Cookie = HMAC(Secret, Client-IP, Client-Parameters)
When the second ClientHello is received, the server can verify
that the Cookie is valid and that the client can receive
packets at the given IP address.
One potential attack on this scheme is for the attacker to
collect a number of cookies from different addresses and then
reuse them to attack the server. The server can defend against
this attack by changing the Secret value frequently, thus
invalidating those cookies. If the server wishes legitimate
clients to be able to handshake through the transition (e.g.,
they received a cookie with Secret 1 and then sent the second
ClientHello after the server has changed to Secret 2), the
server can have a limited window during which it accepts both
secrets. [IKEv2] suggests adding a version number to cookies
to detect this case. An alternative approach is simply to try
verifying with both secrets.
Although DTLS servers are not required to do a cookie
exchange, they SHOULD do so whenever a new handshake is
performed in order to avoid being used as amplifiers. If the
server is being operated in an environment where amplification
is not a problem, the server MAY choose not to perform a
cookie exchange. In addition, the server MAY choose not do to
a cookie exchange when a session is resumed. Clients MUST be
prepared to do a cookie exchange with every handshake.
If HelloVerifyRequest is used, the initial ClientHello and
HelloVerifyRequest are not included in the calculation of the
verify_data for the Finished message.
4.2.2. Handshake Message Format
In order to support message loss, reordering, and
fragmentation DTLS modifies the TLS 1.1 handshake header:
struct {
HandshakeType msg_type;
uint24 length;
uint16 message_seq; // New field
uint24 fragment_offset; // New field
uint24 fragment_length; // New field
select (HandshakeType) {
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 13]
case hello_request: HelloRequest;
case client_hello: ClientHello;
case hello_verify_request: HelloVerifyRequest; // New type
case server_hello: ServerHello;
case certificate:Certificate;
case server_key_exchange: ServerKeyExchange;
case certificate_request: CertificateRequest;
case server_hello_done:ServerHelloDone;
case certificate_verify: CertificateVerify;
case client_key_exchange: ClientKeyExchange;
case finished:Finished;
} body;
} Handshake;
The first message each side transmits in each handshake always
has message_seq = 0. Whenever each new message is generated,
the message_seq value is incremented by one. When a message is
retransmitted, the same message_seq value is used. For
example.
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello (seq=0) ------>
X<-- HelloVerifyRequest (seq=0)
(lost)
[Timer Expires]
ClientHello (seq=0) ------>
(retransmit)
<------ HelloVerifyRequest (seq=0)
ClientHello (seq=1) ------>
(with cookie)
<------ ServerHello (seq=1)
<------ Certificate (seq=2)
<------ ServerHelloDone (seq=3)
[Rest of handshake]
Note, however, that from the perspective of the DTLS record
layer, the retransmission is a new record. This record will
have a new DTLSPlaintext.sequence_number value.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 14]
DTLS implementations maintain (at least notionally) a
next_receive_seq counter. This counter is initially set to
zero. When a message is received, if its sequence number
matches next_receive_seq, next_receive_seq is incremented and
the message is processed. If the sequence number is less than
next_receive_seq the message MUST be discarded. If the
sequence number is greater than next_receive_seq, the
implementation SHOULD queue the message but MAY discard it.
(This is a simple space/bandwidth tradeoff).
4.2.3. Message Fragmentation and Reassembly
As noted in Section 4.1.1., each DTLS message MUST fit within
a single transport layer datagram. However, handshake messages
are potentially bigger than the maximum record size. Therefore
DTLS provides a mechanism for fragmenting a handshake message
over a number of records.
When transmitting the handshake message, the sender divides
the message into a series of N contiguous data ranges. These
range MUST NOT be larger than the maximum handshake fragment
size and MUST jointly contain the entire handshake message.
The ranges SHOULD NOT overlap. The sender then creates N
handshake messages, all with the same message_seq value as the
original handshake message. Each new message is labelled with
the fragment_offset (the number of bytes contained in previous
fragments) and the fragment_length (the length of this
fragment). The length field in all messages is the same as the
length field of the original message. An unfragmented message
is a degenerate case with fragment_offset=0 and
fragment_length=length.
When a DTLS implementation receives a handshake message
fragment, it MUST buffer it until it has the entire handshake
message. DTLS implementations MUST be able to handle
overlapping fragment ranges. This allows senders to retransmit
handshake messages with smaller fragment sizes during path MTU
discovery.
Note that as with TLS, multiple handshake messages may be
placed in the same DTLS record, provided that there is room
and that they are part of the same flight. Thus, there are two
acceptable ways to pack two DTLS messages into the same
datagram: in the same record or in separate records.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 15]
4.2.4. Timeout and Retransmission
DTLS messages are grouped into a series of message flights,
according the diagrams below. Although each flight of messages
may consist of a number of messages, they should be viewed as
monolithic for the purpose of timeout and retransmission.
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello --------> Flight 1
<------- HelloVerifyRequest Flight 2
ClientHello --------> Flight 3
ServerHello \
Certificate* \
ServerKeyExchange* Flight 4
CertificateRequest* /
<-------- ServerHelloDone /
Certificate* \
ClientKeyExchange \
CertificateVerify* Flight 5
[ChangeCipherSpec] /
Finished --------> /
[ChangeCipherSpec] \ Flight 6
<-------- Finished /
Figure 1: Message flights for full handshake
Client Server
------ ------
ClientHello --------> Flight 1
ServerHello \
[ChangeCipherSpec] Flight 2
<-------- Finished /
[ChangeCipherSpec] \Flight 3
Finished --------> /
Figure 2: Message flights for session resuming handshake (no
cookie exchange)
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 16]
DTLS uses a simple timeout and retransmission scheme with the
following state machine. Because DTLS clients send the first
message (ClientHello) they start in the PREPARING state. DTLS
servers start in the WAITING state, but with empty buffers and
no retransmit timer.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 17]
+-----------+
| PREPARING |
+---> | |
| | |
| +-----------+
| |
| |
| | Buffer next flight
| |
| \|/
| +-----------+
| | |
| | SENDING |<------------------+
| | | |
| +-----------+ |
Receive | | |
next | | Send flight |
flight | +--------+ |
| | | Set retransmit timer |
| | \|/ |
| | +-----------+ |
| | | | |
+--)--| WAITING |-------------------+
| | | | Timer expires |
| | +-----------+ |
| | | |
| | | |
| | +------------------------+
| | Read retransmit
Receive | |
last | |
flight | |
| |
\|/\|/
+-----------+
| |
| FINISHED |
| |
+-----------+
Figure 3: DTLS timeout and retransmission state machine
The state machine has three basic states.
In the PREPARING state the implementation does whatever
computations are necessary to prepare the next flight of
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 18]
messages. It then buffers them up for transmission (emptying
the buffer first) and enters the SENDING state.
In the SENDING state, the implementation transmits the
buffered flight of messages. Once the messages have been sent,
the implementation then enters the FINISHED state if this is
the last flight in the handshake, or, if the implementation
expects to receive more messages, sets a retransmit timer and
then enters the WAITING state.
There are three ways to exit the WAITING state:
1. The retransmit timer expires: the implementation
transitions to the SENDING state, where it retransmits the
flight, resets the retransmit timer, and returns to the
WAITING state.
2. The implementation reads a retransmitted flight from the
peer: the implementation transitions to the SENDING state,
where it retransmits the flight, resets the retransmit
timer, and returns to the WAITING state. The rationale here
is that the receipt of a duplicate message is the likely
result of timer expiry on the peer and therefore suggests
that part of one's previous flight was lost.
3. The implementation receives the next flight of messages:
if this is the final flight of messages the implementation
transitions to FINISHED. If the implementation needs to
send a new flight, it transitions to the PREPARING state.
Partial reads (whether partial messages or only some of the
messages in the flight) do not cause state transitions or
timer resets.
Because DTLS clients send the first message (ClientHello) they
start in the PREPARING state. DTLS servers start in the
WAITING state, but with empty buffers and no retransmit timer.
4.2.4.1. Timer Values
Timer value choices are a local matter. Implementations SHOULD
use an initial timer value of 500 ms and double the value at
each retransmission, up to twice the TCP maximum segment
lifetime [TCP] (if the recommendations in [TCP] are followed,
this will be 240 seconds). Implementations SHOULD start the
timer value at the initial value with each new flight of
messages.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 19]
4.2.5. ChangeCipherSpec
As with TLS, the ChangeCipherSpec message is not technically a
handshake message but MUST be treated as part of the same
flight as the associated Finished message for the purposes of
timeout and retransmission.
4.2.6. Finished messages
Finished messages have the same format as in TLS. However, in
order to remove sensitivity to fragmentation, the Finished MAC
MUST be computed as if each handshake message had been sent as
a single fragment. Note that in cases where the cookie
exchange is used, the initial ClientHello and
HelloVerifyRequest MUST BE included in the Finished MAC.
4.2.7. Alert Messages
Note that Alert messages are not retransmitted at all, even
when they occur in the context of a handshake. However, a DTLS
implementation SHOULD generate a new alert message if the
offending record is received again (e.g., as a retransmitted
handshake message).
A.1Summary of new syntax
This section includes specifications for the data structures
that have changed between TLS 1.1 and DTLS.
4.2. Record Layer
struct {
ContentType type;
ProtocolVersion version;
uint16 epoch; // New field
uint48 sequence_number; // New field
uint16 length;
opaque fragment[DTLSPlaintext.length];
} DTLSPlaintext;
struct {
ContentType type;
ProtocolVersion version;
uint16 epoch; // New field
uint48 sequence_number; // New field
uint16 length;
opaque fragment[DTLSCompressed.length];
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 20]
} DTLSCompressed;
struct {
ContentType type;
ProtocolVersion version;
uint16 epoch; // New field
uint48 sequence_number; // New field
uint16 length;
select (CipherSpec.cipher_type) {
case block: GenericBlockCipher;
} fragment;
} DTLSCiphertext;
4.3. Handshake Protocol
enum {
hello_request(0), client_hello(1), server_hello(2),
hello_verify_request(3), // New field
certificate(11), server_key_exchange (12),
certificate_request(13), server_hello_done(14),
certificate_verify(15), client_key_exchange(16),
finished(20), (255)
} HandshakeType;
struct {
HandshakeType msg_type;
uint24 length;
uint16 message_seq; // New field
uint24 fragment_offset; // New field
uint24 fragment_length; // New field
select (HandshakeType) {
case hello_request: HelloRequest;
case client_hello: ClientHello;
case server_hello: ServerHello;
case hello_verify_request: HelloVerifyRequest; // New field
case certificate:Certificate;
case server_key_exchange: ServerKeyExchange;
case certificate_request: CertificateRequest;
case server_hello_done:ServerHelloDone;
case certificate_verify: CertificateVerify;
case client_key_exchange: ClientKeyExchange;
case finished:Finished;
} body;
} Handshake;
struct {
ProtocolVersion client_version;
Random random;
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 21]
SessionID session_id;
opaque cookie<0..32>; // New field
CipherSuite cipher_suites<2..2^16-1>;
CompressionMethod compression_methods<1..2^8-1>;
} ClientHello;
struct {
Cookie cookie<0..32>;
} HelloVerifyRequest;
5. Security Considerations
This document describes a variant of TLS 1.1 and therefore
most of the security considerations are the same as those of
TLS 1.1 [TLS11], described in Appendices D, E, and F.
The primary additional security consideration raised by DTLS
is that of denial of service. DTLS includes a cookie exchange
designed to protect against denial of service. However,
implementations which do not use this cookie exchange are
still vulnerable to DoS. In particular, DTLS servers which do
not use the cookie exchange may be used as attack amplifiers
even if they themselves are not experiencing DoS. Therefore
DTLS servers SHOULD use the cookie exchange unless there is
good reason to believe that amplification is not a threat in
their environment.
6. IANA Considerations
This document uses the same identifier space as TLS [TLS11],
so no new IANA registries are required. When new identifiers
are assigned for TLS, authors MUST specify whether they are
suitable for DTLS.
This document defines a new handshake message,
hello_verify_request, whose value is to be allocated from the
TLS HandshakeType registry defined in [TLS11]. The value "3"
is suggested.
References
Normative References
[RFC1191] Mogul, J. C., Deering, S.E., "Path MTU Discovery",
RFC 1191, November 1990.
[RFC2401] Kent, S., Atkinson, R., "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC2401, November 1998.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 22]
[TCP] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol",
RFC 793, September 1981.
[TLS11] Dierks, T., Rescorla, E., "The TLS Protocol Version 1.1",
draft-ietf-tls-rfc2246-bis-05.txt, July 2003.
Informative References
[AH] Kent, S., and Atkinson, R., "IP Authentication Header",
RFC 2402, November 1998.
[DCCP] Kohler, E., Handley, M., Floyd, S., Padhye, J., "Datagram
Congestion Control Protocol", draft-ietf-dccp-spec-11.txt,
10 March 2005
[DNS] Mockapetris, P.V., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", RFC 1035, November 1987.
[DTLS] Modadugu, N., Rescorla, E., "The Design and Implementation
of Datagram TLS", Proceedings of ISOC NDSS 2004, February 2004.
[ESP] Kent, S., and Atkinson, R., "IP Encapsulating Security
Payload (ESP)", RFC 2406, November 1998.
[IKE] Harkins, D., Carrel, D., "The Internet Key Exchange (IKE)",
RFC 2409, November 1998.
[IKEv2] Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol",
draft-ietf-ipsec-ikev2-17.txt, September 2004.
[IMAP] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
[PHOTURIS] Karn, P., Simpson, W., "Photuris: Session-Key Management
Protocol", RFC 2521, March 1999.
[POP] Myers, J., and Rose, M., "Post Office Protocol -
Version 3", RFC 1939, May 1996.
[REQ] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[SIP] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, Camarillo, G., Johnston, A.,
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 23]
Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., Schooler, E.,
"SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
June 2002.
[TLS] Dierks, T., and Allen, C., "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, January 1999.
[WHYIPSEC] Bellovin, S., "Guidelines for Mandating the Use of IPsec",
draft-bellovin-useipsec-02.txt, October 2003
Authors' Address
Eric Rescorla <ekr@rtfm.com>
RTFM, Inc.
2064 Edgewood Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303
Nagendra Modadugu <nagendra@cs.stanford.edu>
Computer Science Department
353 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dan Boneh, Eu-Jin Goh, Russ
Housley, Constantine Sapuntzakis, and Hovav Shacham for
discussions and comments on the design of DTLS. Thanks to the
anonymous NDSS reviewers of our original NDSS paper on DTLS
[DTLS] for their comments. Also, thanks to Steve Kent for
feedback that helped clarify many points. The section on PMTU
was cribbed from the DCCP specification [DCCP]. Pasi Eronen
provided a detailed review of this specification.
Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 24]
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). This document is subject
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This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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Rescorla, Modadugu [Page 25]
