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IETF RFC 4347
Datagram Transport Layer Security
Last modified on Tuesday, April 25th, 2006
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Network Working Group E. Rescorla
Request for Comments: 4347 RTFM, Inc.
Category: Standards Track N. Modadugu
Stanford University
April 2006
Datagram Transport Layer Security
 Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright © The Internet Society (2006).
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 Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol and provides
equivalent security guarantees. Datagram semantics of the underlying
transport are preserved by the DTLS protocol.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Requirements Terminology ...................................3
2. Usage Model .....................................................3
3. Overview of DTLS ................................................4
3.1. Loss-Insensitive Messaging .................................4
3.2. Providing Reliability for Handshake ........................4
3.2.1. Packet Loss .........................................5
3.2.2. Reordering ..........................................5
3.2.3. Message Size ........................................5
3.3. Replay Detection ...........................................6
4. Differences from TLS ............................................6
4.1. Record Layer ...............................................6
4.1.1. Transport Layer Mapping .............................7
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
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 .........................15
4.2.4.1. Timer Values ..............................18
4.2.5. ChangeCipherSpec ...................................19
4.2.6. Finished Messages ..................................19
4.2.7. Alert Messages .....................................19
4.3. Summary of new syntax .....................................19
4.3.1. Record Layer .......................................20
4.3.2. Handshake Protocol .................................20
5. Security Considerations ........................................21
6. Acknowledgements ...............................................22
7. IANA Considerations ............................................22
8. References .....................................................22
8.1. Normative References ......................................22
8.2. Informative References ....................................23
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 that use UDP transport. In
particular protocols such 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 [RFC 2401]. 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 subset of S/MIME to
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
secure its traffic. Unfortunately, although application layer
security protocols generally provide superior security properties
(e.g., end-to-end security in the case of S/MIME), they typically
requires a large amount of effort to design -- in 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 TLS as
possible, both to minimize new security invention and to maximize the
amount of code and infrastructure reuse.
1.1. Requirements Terminology
In this document, the keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", and "MAY" are to be interpreted as described
in RFC 2119 [REQ].
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.
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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 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:
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 that 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
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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 of 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.
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
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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 previously been 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 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 in [TLS11].
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
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numbers ensures that records from the two protocols can be
easily distinguished. It should be noted that future on-the-wire
version numbers of DTLS are decreasing in value (while the true
version number is increasing in value.)
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 sequence number, rather than an implicit one,
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.
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 rarely rehandshake 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.
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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. They 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.
Some transports, such as DCCP [DCCP] provide their own sequence
numbers. When carried over those transports, both the DTLS and the
transport sequence numbers will be present. Although this introduces
a small amount of inefficiency, the transport layer and DTLS sequence
numbers serve different purposes, and therefore for conceptual
simplicity it is superior to use both sequence numbers. In the
future, extensions to DTLS may be specified that allow the use of
only one set of sequence numbers for deployment in constrained
environments.
Some transports, such as DCCP, provide congestion control for traffic
carried over them. If the congestion window is sufficiently narrow,
DTLS handshake retransmissions may be held rather than transmitted
immediately, potentially leading to timeouts and spurious
retransmission. When DTLS is used over such transports, care should
be taken not to overrun the likely congestion window. In the future,
a DTLS-DCCP mapping may be specified to provide optimal behavior for
this interaction.
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 during the handshake or actual application data
transport phase require it.
The PMTU SHOULD be initialized from the interface MTU that will be
used to send packets. If the DTLS implementation receives an RFC
1191 [RFC 1191] ICMP Destination Unreachable message with the
"fragmentation needed and DF set" Code (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. RFC 1981
[RFC 1981] procedures SHOULD be followed for IPv6.
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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.
TLS MAC calculation is parameterized on the protocol version number,
which, in the case of DTLS, is the on-the-wire version, i.e., {254,
255 } for DTLS 1.0.
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 in the way that
TLS records are.
In general, DTLS implementations SHOULD silently discard data with
bad MACs. If a DTLS implementation chooses to generate an alert when
it receives a message with an invalid MAC, it MUST generate
bad_record_mac alert with level fatal and terminate its connection
state.
4.1.2.2. Null or Standard Stream Cipher
The DTLS NULL cipher is performed exactly as the TLS 1.1 NULL cipher.
The only stream cipher described in TLS 1.1 is RC4, which cannot be
randomly accessed. RC4 MUST NOT be used with DTLS.
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
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].
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.
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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 to 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 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.
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
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 {
ProtocolVersion server_version;
opaque cookie<0..32>;
} HelloVerifyRequest;
The HelloVerifyRequest message type is hello_verify_request(3).
The server_version field is defined as in TLS.
When responding to a HelloVerifyRequest the client MUST use the same
parameter values (version, random, session_id, cipher_suites,
compression_method) as it did in the original ClientHello. The
server SHOULD use those values to generate its cookie and verify that
they are correct upon cookie receipt. The server MUST use the same
version number in the HelloVerifyRequest that it would use when
sending a ServerHello. Upon receipt of the ServerHello, the client
MUST verify that the server version values match.
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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 that legitimate clients 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.
DTLS servers SHOULD perform a cookie exchange whenever a new
handshake is being performed. If the server is being operated in an
environment where amplification is not a problem, the server MAY be
configured not to perform a cookie exchange. The default SHOULD be
that the exchange is performed, however. In addition, the server MAY
choose not to do 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) {
case hello_request: HelloRequest;
case client_hello: ClientHello;
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
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.
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
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RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
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 ranges 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.
4.2.4. Timeout and Retransmission
DTLS messages are grouped into a series of message flights, according
to 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.
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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)
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 Standards Track PAGE 16
RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
+-----------+
| PREPARING |
+---> | | <--------------------+
| | | |
| +-----------+ |
| | |
| | |
| | Buffer next flight |
| | |
| \|/ |
| +-----------+ |
| | | |
| | SENDING |<------------------+ |
| | | | | Send
| +-----------+ | | HelloRequest
Receive | | | |
next | | Send flight | | or
flight | +--------+ | |
| | | Set retransmit timer | | Receive
| | \|/ | | HelloRequest
| | +-----------+ | | Send
| | | | | | ClientHello
+--)--| WAITING |-------------------+ |
| | | | Timer expires | |
| | +-----------+ | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | +------------------------+ |
| | Read retransmit |
Receive | | |
last | | |
flight | | |
| | |
\|/\|/ |
|
+-----------+ |
| | |
| FINISHED | -------------------------------+
| |
+-----------+
Figure 3. DTLS timeout and retransmission state machine
The state machine has three basic states.
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In the PREPARING state the implementation does whatever computations
are necessary to prepare the next flight of 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, it 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.
When the server desires a rehandshake, it transitions from the
FINISHED state to the PREPARING state to transmit the HelloRequest.
When the client receives a HelloRequest it transitions from FINISHED
to PREPARING to transmit the ClientHello.
4.2.4.1. Timer Values
Though timer values are the choice of the implementation, mishandling
of the timer can lead to serious congestion problems; for example, if
many instances of a DTLS time out early and retransmit too quickly on
a congested link. Implementations SHOULD use an initial timer value
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 18
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of 1 second (the minimum defined in RFC 2988 [RFC 2988]) and double
the value at each retransmission, up to no less than the RFC 2988
maximum of 60 seconds. Note that we recommend a 1-second timer
rather than the 3-second RFC 2988 default in order to improve latency
for time-sensitive applications. Because DTLS only uses
retransmission for handshake and not dataflow, the effect on
congestion should be minimal.
Implementations SHOULD retain the current timer value until a
transmission without loss occurs, at which time the value may be
reset to the initial value. After a long period of idleness, no less
than 10 times the current timer value, implementations may reset the
timer to the initial value. One situation where this might occur is
when a rehandshake is used after substantial data transfer.
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 NOT 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).
Implementations SHOULD detect when a peer is persistently sending bad
messages and terminate the local connection state after such
misbehavior is detected.
4.3. Summary of new syntax
This section includes specifications for the data structures that
have changed between TLS 1.1 and DTLS.
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 19
RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
4.3.1. 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];
} 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;
4.3.2. 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
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 20
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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;
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 {
ProtocolVersion server_version;
opaque 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. Clients MUST be prepared to do a
cookie exchange with every handshake.
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 21
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6. 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. Helpful comments on the document were also received
from Mark Allman, Jari Arkko, Joel Halpern, Ted Hardie, and Allison
Mankin.
7. 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 has been allocated from the TLS HandshakeType registry
defined in [TLS11]. The value "3" has been assigned by the IANA.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC 1191] Mogul, J. and S. Deering, "Path MTU discovery", RFC 1191,
November 1990.
[RFC 1981] McCann, J., Deering, S., and J. Mogul, "Path MTU Discovery
for IP version 6", RFC 1981, August 1996.
[RFC 2401] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.
[RFC 2988] Paxson, V. and M. Allman, "Computing TCP's Retransmission
Timer", RFC 2988, November 2000.
[TCP] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC
793, September 1981.
[TLS11] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346, April 2006.
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 22
RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
8.2. Informative References
[AESCACHE] Bernstein, D.J., "Cache-timing attacks on AES"
http://cr.yp.to/antiforgery/cachetiming-20050414.pdf.
[AH] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Authentication Header", RFC
2402, November 1998.
[DCCP] Kohler, E., Handley, M., Floyd, S., Padhye, J., "Datagram
Congestion Control Protocol", Work in Progress, 10 March
2005.
[DNS] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, 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 R. Atkinson, "IP Encapsulating Security
Payload (ESP)", RFC 2406, November 1998.
[IKE] Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
(IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.
Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol", RFC 4306,
December 2005.
[IMAP] Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
[PHOTURIS] Karn, P. and W. Simpson, "ICMP Security Failures
Messages", RFC 2521, March 1999.
[POP] Myers, J. and M. Rose, "Post Office Protocol - Version 3",
STD 53, RFC 1939, May 1996.
[REQ] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[SCTP] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Morneault, K., Sharp, C.,
Schwarzbauer, H., Taylor, T., Rytina, I., Kalla, M.,
Zhang, L., and V. Paxson, "Stream Control Transmission
Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000.
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 23
RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
[SIP] Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
June 2002.
[TLS] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
RFC 2246, January 1999.
[WHYIPSEC] Bellovin, S., "Guidelines for Mandating the Use of IPsec",
Work in Progress, October 2003.
Authors' Addresses
Eric Rescorla
RTFM, Inc.
2064 Edgewood Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303
EMail: ekr@rtfm.com
Nagendra Modadugu
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
353 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
EMail: nagendra@cs.stanford.edu
Rescorla & Modadugu Standards Track PAGE 24
RFC 4347 Datagram Transport Layer Security April 2006
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright © The Internet Society (2006).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
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RFC TOTAL SIZE: 56014 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, April 25th, 2006
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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