Transport Layer Security (TLS) Encryption for RADIUS
RFC 6614

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                         S. Winter
Request for Comments: 6614                                       RESTENA
Category: Experimental                                       M. McCauley
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                      OSC
                                                               S. Venaas
                                                             K. Wierenga
                                                                   Cisco
                                                                May 2012

          Transport Layer Security (TLS) Encryption for RADIUS

Abstract

   This document specifies a transport profile for RADIUS using
   Transport Layer Security (TLS) over TCP as the transport protocol.
   This enables dynamic trust relationships between RADIUS servers.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for examination, experimental implementation, and
   evaluation.

   This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
   community.  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).  Not
   all documents approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of
   Internet Standard; see 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/rfc6614.

Winter, et al.                Experimental                      [Page 1]
RFC 6614                     RADIUS over TLS                    May 2012

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2012 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
   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. Requirements Language ......................................3
      1.2. Terminology ................................................4
      1.3. Document Status ............................................4
   2. Normative: Transport Layer Security for RADIUS/TCP ..............5
      2.1. TCP port and Packet Types ..................................5
      2.2. TLS Negotiation ............................................5
      2.3. Connection Setup ...........................................5
      2.4. Connecting Client Identity .................................7
      2.5. RADIUS Datagrams ...........................................8
   3. Informative: Design Decisions ..................................10
      3.1. Implications of Dynamic Peer Discovery ....................10
      3.2. X.509 Certificate Considerations ..........................10
      3.3. Ciphersuites and Compression Negotiation Considerations ...11
      3.4. RADIUS Datagram Considerations ............................11
   4. Compatibility with Other RADIUS Transports .....................12
   5. Diameter Compatibility .........................................13
   6. Security Considerations ........................................13
   7. IANA Considerations ............................................14
   8. Acknowledgements ...............................................15
   9. References .....................................................15
      9.1. Normative References ......................................15
      9.2. Informative References ....................................16
   Appendix A. Implementation Overview: Radiator .....................18
   Appendix B. Implementation Overview: radsecproxy ..................19
   Appendix C. Assessment of Crypto-Agility Requirements .............20

Winter, et al.                Experimental                      [Page 2]
RFC 6614                     RADIUS over TLS                    May 2012

1.  Introduction

   The RADIUS protocol [RFC2865] is a widely deployed authentication and
   authorization protocol.  The supplementary RADIUS Accounting
   specification [RFC2866] provides accounting mechanisms, thus
   delivering a full Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA)
   solution.  However, RADIUS is experiencing several shortcomings, such
   as its dependency on the unreliable transport protocol UDP and the