Using Raw Public Keys in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
RFC 7250
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) P. Wouters, Ed.
Request for Comments: 7250 Red Hat
Category: Standards Track H. Tschofenig, Ed.
ISSN: 2070-1721 ARM Ltd.
J. Gilmore
Electronic Frontier Foundation
S. Weiler
Parsons
T. Kivinen
INSIDE Secure
June 2014
Using Raw Public Keys in Transport Layer Security (TLS)
and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
Abstract
This document specifies a new certificate type and two TLS extensions
for exchanging raw public keys in Transport Layer Security (TLS) and
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS). The new certificate type
allows raw public keys to be used for authentication.
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/rfc7250.
Wouters, et al. Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 7250 Using Raw Public Keys in TLS/DTLS June 2014
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
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
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Structure of the Raw Public Key Extension . . . . . . . . . . 4
4. TLS Client and Server Handshake Behavior . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. Client Hello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2. Server Hello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.3. Client Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4. Server Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. TLS Server Uses a Raw Public Key . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. TLS Client and Server Use Raw Public Keys . . . . . . . . 11
5.3. Combined Usage of Raw Public Keys and X.509 Certificates 12
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendix A. Example Encoding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Wouters, et al. Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 7250 Using Raw Public Keys in TLS/DTLS June 2014
1. Introduction
Traditionally, TLS client and server public keys are obtained in PKIX
containers in-band as part of the TLS handshake procedure and are
validated using trust anchors based on a [PKIX] certification
authority (CA). This method can add a complicated trust relationship
that is difficult to validate. Examples of such complexity can be
seen in [Defeating-SSL]. TLS is, however, also commonly used with
self-signed certificates in smaller deployments where the self-signed
certificates are distributed to all involved protocol endpoints out-
of-band. This practice does, however, still require the overhead of
the certificate generation even though none of the information found
in the certificate is actually used.
Alternative methods are available that allow a TLS client/server to
Show full document text