A Quick Crash Detection Method for the Internet Key Exchange Protocol (IKE)
RFC 6290

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                       Y. Nir, Ed.
Request for Comments: 6290                                   Check Point
Category: Standards Track                                  D. Wierbowski
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                      IBM
                                                             F. Detienne
                                                                P. Sethi
                                                                   Cisco
                                                               June 2011

                 A Quick Crash Detection Method for the
                  Internet Key Exchange Protocol (IKE)

Abstract

   This document describes an extension to the Internet Key Exchange
   Protocol version 2 (IKEv2) that allows for faster detection of
   Security Association (SA) desynchronization using a saved token.

   When an IPsec tunnel between two IKEv2 peers is disconnected due to a
   restart of one peer, it can take as much as several minutes for the
   other peer to discover that the reboot has occurred, thus delaying
   recovery.  In this text, we propose an extension to the protocol that
   allows for recovery immediately following the restart.

Status of This Memo

   This is an Internet Standards Track document.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Further information on
   Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6290.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents

Nir, et al.                  Standards Track                    [Page 1]
RFC 6290                  Quick Crash Detection                June 2011

   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1.  Conventions Used in This Document  . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  RFC 5996 Crash Recovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Protocol Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   4.  Formats and Exchanges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.1.  Notification Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     4.2.  Passing a Token in the AUTH Exchange . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     4.3.  Replacing Tokens after Rekey or Resumption . . . . . . . .  8
     4.4.  Replacing the Token for an Existing SA . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.5.  Presenting the Token in an Unprotected Message . . . . . .  9
   5.  Token Generation and Verification  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     5.1.  A Stateless Method of Token Generation . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.2.  A Stateless Method with IP Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.3.  Token Lifetime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   6.  Backup Gateways  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
   7.  Interaction with Session Resumption  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   8.  Operational Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     8.1.  Who Should Implement This Specification  . . . . . . . . . 14
     8.2.  Response to Unknown Child SPI  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
   9.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     9.1.  QCD Token Generation and Handling  . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     9.2.  QCD Token Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     9.3.  QCD Token Enumeration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   10. IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   11. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
     12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   Appendix A.  The Path Not Taken  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     A.1.  Initiating a New IKE SA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     A.2.  SIR  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
     A.3.  Birth Certificates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20