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IETF RFC 5386
Better-Than-Nothing Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec
Last modified on Friday, November 14th, 2008
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Network Working Group N. Williams
Request for Comments: 5386 Sun
Category: Standards Track M. Richardson
SSW
November 2008
Better-Than-Nothing Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec
 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 (c) 2008 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.
Abstract
This document specifies how to use the Internet Key Exchange (IKE)
protocols, such as IKEv1 and IKEv2, to setup "unauthenticated"
security associations (SAs) for use with the IPsec Encapsulating
Security Payload (ESP) and the IPsec Authentication Header (AH). No
changes to IKEv2 bits-on-the-wire are required, but Peer
Authorization Database (PAD) and Security Policy Database (SPD)
extensions are specified. Unauthenticated IPsec is herein referred
to by its popular acronym, "BTNS" (Better-Than-Nothing Security).
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Usage Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Example #1: A Security Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Example #2: A Mixed End-System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Example #3: A BTNS-Only System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4. Miscellaneous Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1. Connection Latching and Channel Binding . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2. Leap-of-Faith (LoF) for BTNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1. Introduction
Here we describe how to establish unauthenticated IPsec SAs using
IKEv2 [RFC 4306] and unauthenticated public keys. No new on-the-wire
protocol elements are added to IKEv2.
The [RFC 4301] processing model is assumed.
This document does not define an opportunistic BTNS mode of IPsec
whereby nodes may fall back to unprotected IP when their peers do not
support IKEv2, nor does it describe "leap-of-faith" modes or
"connection latching".
See [RFC 5387] for the applicability and uses of BTNS and definitions
of these terms.
This document describes BTNS in terms of IKEv2 and [RFC 4301]'s
concepts. There is no reason why the same methods cannot be used
with IKEv1 [RFC 2408], [RFC 2409], and [RFC 2401]; however, those
specifications do not include the PAD concepts, and therefore it may
not be possible to implement BTNS on all compliant RFC 2401
implementations.
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC 2119].
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
2. BTNS
The IPsec processing model is hereby modified as follows:
o A new ID type is added: 'PUBLICKEY'. IDs of this type have public
keys as values. This ID type is not used on the wire.
o PAD entries that match on PUBLICKEY IDs are referred to as "BTNS
PAD entries". All other PAD entries are referred to as "non-BTNS
PAD entries".
o BTNS PAD entries may match on specific peer PUBLICKEY IDs (or
public key fingerprints) or on all peer public keys. The latter
is referred to as the "wildcard BTNS PAD entry".
o BTNS PAD entries MUST logically (see below) follow all other PAD
entries (the PAD being an ordered list).
o At most one wildcard BTNS PAD entry may appear in the PAD, and, if
present, MUST be the last entry in the PAD (see below).
o Any peer that uses an IKEv2 AUTH method involving a digital
signature (made with a private key to a public key cryptosystem)
may match a BTNS PAD entry, provided that it matches no non-BTNS
PAD entries. Suitable AUTH methods as of August 2007 are: RSA
Digital Signature (method #1) and DSS Digital Signature (method
#3); see [RFC 4306], Section 3.8.
o A BTNS-capable implementation of IPsec will first search the PAD
for non-BTNS entries matching a peer's ID. If no matching
non-BTNS PAD entries are found, then the peer's ID MUST be coerced
to be of 'PUBLICKEY' type with the peer's public key as its value.
The PAD is then searched again for matching BTNS PAD entries.
This ensures that BTNS PAD entries logically follow non-BTNS PAD
entries. A single PAD search that preserves these semantics is
allowed.
o A peer that matches a BTNS PAD entry is referred to as a "BTNS
peer". Such a peer is "authenticated" by verifying the signature
in its IKEv2 AUTH payload with the public key from the peer's CERT
payload.
o Of course, if no matching PAD entry is found, then the IKE SA is
rejected as usual.
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
o A new flag for SPD entries: 'BTNS_OK'. Traffic to/from peers that
match the BTNS PAD entry will match only SPD entries that have the
BTNS_OK flag set. The SPD may be searched by address or by ID (of
type PUBLICKEY for BTNS peers), as per the IPsec processing model
[RFC 4301]. Searching by ID in this case requires creation of SPD
entries that are bound to public key values. This could be used
to build "leap-of-faith" [RFC 5387] behavior (see Section 4.2), for
example.
Nodes MUST reject IKE_SA proposals from peers that match non-BTNS PAD
entries but fail to authenticate properly.
Nodes wishing to be treated as BTNS nodes by their peers MUST include
bare public key CERT payloads. Currently only bare RSA public key
CERT payloads are defined, which means that BTNS works only with RSA
public keys at this time (see "Raw RSA Key" in Section 3.6 of
[RFC 4306]). Nodes MAY also include any number of certificates that
bind the same public key. These certificates do not need to be
pre-shared with their peers (e.g., because ephemeral, self-signed).
RSA keys for use in BTNS may be generated at any time, but connection
latching [ConnLatch] requires that they remain constant between IKEv2
exchanges that are used to establish SAs for latched connections.
To preserve standard IPsec access control semantics:
o BTNS PAD entries MUST logically follow all non-BTNS PAD entries,
o the wildcard BTNS PAD entry MUST be the last entry in the PAD,
logically, and
o the wildcard BTNS PAD entry MUST have ID constraints that do not
logically overlap those of other PAD entries.
As described above, the logical PAD ordering requirements can easily
be implemented by searching the PAD twice at peer authentication
time: once using the peer-asserted ID, and if that fails, once using
the peer's public key as a PUBLICKEY ID. A single pass
implementation that meets this requirement is permitted.
The BTNS entry ID constraint non-overlap requirement can easily be
implemented by searching the PAD twice: once when BTNS peers
authenticate, and again when BTNS peers negotiate child SAs. In the
first pass, the PAD is searched for a matching PAD entry as described
above. In the second, it is searched to make sure that BTNS peers'
asserted child SA traffic selectors do not conflict with non-BTNS PAD
entries. Single pass implementations that preserve these semantics
are feasible.
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
3. Usage Scenarios
In order to explain the above rules, a number of scenarios will be
examined. The goal here is to persuade the reader that the above
rules are both sufficient and necessary.
This section is informative only.
To explain the scenarios, a reference diagram describing an example
network will be used. It is as follows:
[Q] [R]
AS1 . . AS2
[A]----+----[SG-A].......+....+.......[SG-B]-------[B]
...... \
..PI.. ----[btns-B]
......
[btns-C].....+....+.......[btns-D]
Figure 1: Reference Network Diagram
In this diagram, there are eight systems. Six systems are end-nodes
(A, B, C, D, Q, and R). Two are security gateways (SG-A, SG-B)
protecting networks on which [A] and [B] reside. Node [Q] is IPsec
and BTNS capable. Node [R] is a simple node, with no IPsec or BTNS
capability. Nodes [C] and [D] are BTNS capable.
Nodes [C] and [Q] have fixed addresses. Node [D] has a non-fixed
address.
We will examine how these various nodes communicate with node [SG-A]
and/or how [SG-A] rejects communications with some such nodes. In
the first example, we examine [SG-A]'s point of view. In the second
example, we look at [Q]'s point of view. In the third example, we
look at [C]'s point of view.
PI is the Public Internet ("The Wild").
3.1. Example #1: A Security Gateway
The machine that we will focus on in this example is [SG-A], a
firewall device of some kind that we wish to configure to respond to
BTNS connections from [C].
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
[SG-A] has the following PAD and SPD entries:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 <B's ID> <B's network> by-IP
2 <Q's ID> <Q's host> by-IP
3 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 2: [SG-A] PAD Table
Note that [SG-A]'s PAD entry has one and only one wildcard PAD entry:
the BTNS catch-all PAD entry as the last entry, as described in
Section 2.
<Child SA IDs allowed> and <SPD Search by> are from [RFC 4301],
Section 4.4.3.
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [A] [R] ANY N/A BYPASS
2 [A] [Q] ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
3 [A] B-net ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
4 [A] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
integr+conf)
Figure 3: [SG-A] SPD Table
The processing by [SG-A] of SA establishment attempts by various
peers is as follows:
o [Q] does not match PAD entry #1 but does match PAD entry #2. PAD
processing stops, then the SPD is searched by [Q]'s ID to find
entry #2. CHILD SAs are then allowed that have [SG-A]'s and [Q]'s
addresses as the end-point addresses.
o [SG-B] matches PAD entry #1. PAD processing stops, then the SPD
is searched by [SG-B]'s ID to find SPD entry #3. CHILD SAs are
then allowed that have [SG-A]'s address and any addresses from B's
network as the end-point addresses.
o [R] does not initiate any IKE SAs; its traffic to [A] is bypassed
by SPD entry #1.
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
o [C] does not match PAD entries #1 or #2 but does match entry #3,
the BTNS wildcard PAD entry. The SPD is searched by [C]'s
address, and SPD entry #4 is matched. CHILD SAs are then allowed
that have [SG-A]'s address and [C]'s address as the end-point
addresses, provided that [C]'s address is neither [Q]'s nor any of
[B]'s (see Section 2). See the last bullet item below.
o A rogue BTNS node attempting to assert [Q]'s or [B]'s addresses
will either match the PAD entries for [Q] or [B] and fail to
authenticate as [Q] or [B], in which case they are rejected, or
they will match PAD entry #3 but will not be allowed to create
CHILD SAs with [Q]'s or [B]'s addresses as traffic selectors.
o A rogue BTNS node attempting to establish an SA whereby the rogue
node asserts [C]'s address will succeed at establishing such an
SA. Protection for [C] requires additional bindings of [C]'s
specific BTNS ID (that is, its public key) to its traffic flows
through connection latching and channel binding or through leap-
of-faith, none of which are described here.
3.2. Example #2: A Mixed End-System
[Q] is an NFSv4 server.
[Q] is a native IPsec implementation, and its NFSv4 implementation is
IPsec-aware.
[Q] wants to protect all traffic with [A]. [Q] also wants to protect
NFSv4 traffic with all peers. Its PAD and SPD are configured as
follows:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 <[A]'s ID> <[A]'s address> by-IP
2 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 4: [Q] PAD Table
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [Q] [A] ANY no PROTECT(ESP,tunnel,AES,
SHA256)
2 [Q] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
with integr+conf)
port 2049
Figure 5: [Q] SPD Table
The same analysis shown above in Section 3.1 applies here with
respect to [SG-A], [C], and rogue peers. The second SPD entry
permits any BTNS-capable node to negotiate a port-specific SA to port
2049, the port on which NFSv4 runs. Additionally, [SG-B] is treated
as a BTNS peer as it is not known to [Q], and therefore any host
behind [SG-B] can access the NFSv4 service on [Q]. As [Q] has no
formal relationship with [SG-B], rogues can impersonate [B] (i.e.,
assert [B]'s addresses).
3.3. Example #3: A BTNS-Only System
[C] supports only BTNS and wants to use BTNS to protect NFSv4
traffic. Its PAD and SPD are configured as follows:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 PUBLICKEY:any ANY by-IP
The last (and only) entry is the BTNS entry.
Figure 6: [Q] PAD Table
Rule Local Remote Next Layer BTNS Action
addr addr Protocol ok
---- ----- ------ ---------- ---- -----------------------
1 [C] ANY ANY yes PROTECT(ESP,transport,
with integr+conf)
port
2049
2 [C] ANY ANY N/A BYPASS
Figure 7: [SG-A] SPD Table
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RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
The analysis from Section 3.1 applies as follows:
o Communication with [Q] on port 2049 matches SPD entry number 1.
This causes [C] to initiate an IKEv2 exchange with [Q]. The PAD
entry on [C] causes it to not care what identity [Q] asserts.
Further authentication (and channel binding) could occur within
the NFSv4 protocol.
o Communication with [A], [B], or any other internet machine
(including [Q]), occurs in the clear, so long as it is not on port
2049.
o All analysis about rogue BTNS nodes applies, but they can only
assert SAs for port 2049.
3.4. Miscellaneous Comments
If [SG-A] were not BTNS capable, then it would not have PAD and SPD
entries #3 and #4, respectively, in example #1. Then [C] would be
rejected as usual under the standard IPsec model [RFC 4301].
Similarly, if [Q] were not BTNS capable, then it would not have PAD
and SPD entries #2 in example #2. Then [C] would be rejected as
usual under the standard IPsec model [RFC 4301].
4. Security Considerations
Unauthenticated security association negotiation is subject to man-
in-the-middle (MITM) attacks and should be used with care. Where
security infrastructures are lacking, this may indeed be better than
nothing.
Use with applications that bind authentication at higher network
layers to secure channels at lower layers may provide one secure way
to use unauthenticated IPsec, but this is not specified herein.
The BTNS PAD entry must be last and its child SA ID constraints must
be non-overlapping with any other PAD entry, as described in
Section 2. This will ensure that no BTNS peer can impersonate
another IPsec non-BTNS peer.
4.1. Connection Latching and Channel Binding
BTNS is subject to MITM attacks. One way to protect against MITM
attacks subsequent to initial communications is to use "connection
latching" [ConnLatch]. In connection latching, upper layer protocols
(ULPs) cooperate with IPsec to bind discrete packet flows to
Williams & Richardson Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
sequences of similar SAs. Connection latching requires native IPsec
implementations.
MITMs can be detected by using application-layer authentication
frameworks and/or mechanisms, such as the GSS-API [RFC 2743], with
channel binding [RFC 5056]. IPsec "channels" are nothing other than
latched connections.
4.2. Leap-of-Faith (LoF) for BTNS
"Leap of faith" is the term generally used when a user accepts the
assertion that a given key identifies a peer on the first
communication (despite a lack of strong evidence for that assertion),
and then remembers this association for future communications.
Specifically this is a common mode of operation for Secure Shell
[RFC 4251] clients. When a server is encountered for the first time,
the Secure Shell client may ask the user whether to accept the
server's public key. If so, the client records the server's name (as
given by the user) and public key in a database.
Leap of faith can work in a similar way for BTNS nodes, but it is
currently still being designed and specified by the IETF BTNS WG.
5. Acknowledgements
Thanks to the following reviewer: Stephen Kent.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
6.2. Informative References
[ConnLatch] Williams, N., "IPsec Channels: Connection Latching",
Work in Progress, April 2008.
[RFC 2401] Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 2401, November 1998.
[RFC 2408] Maughan, D., Schneider, M., and M. Schertler, "Internet
Security Association and Key Management Protocol
(ISAKMP)", RFC 2408, November 1998.
Williams & Richardson Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 5386 BTNS IPsec November 2008
[RFC 2409] Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
(IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.
[RFC 2743] Linn, J., "Generic Security Service Application Program
Interface Version 2, Update 1", RFC 2743, January 2000.
[RFC 4251] Ylonen, T. and C. Lonvick, "The Secure Shell (SSH)
Protocol Architecture", RFC 4251, January 2006.
[RFC 4306] Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol",
RFC 4306, December 2005.
[RFC 5056] Williams, N., "On the Use of Channel Bindings to Secure
Channels", RFC 5056, November 2007.
[RFC 5387] Touch, J., Black, D., and Y. Wang, "Problem and
Applicability Statement for Better-Than-Nothing Security
(BTNS)", RFC 5387, November 2008.
Authors' Addresses
Nicolas Williams
Sun Microsystems
5300 Riata Trace Ct
Austin, TX 78727
US
EMail: Nicolas.Williams@sun.com
Michael C. Richardson
Sandelman Software Works
470 Dawson Avenue
Ottawa, ON K1Z 5V7
CA
EMail: mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
URI: http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/
Williams & Richardson Standards Track PAGE 11
Better-Than-Nothing Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 23103 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Friday, November 14th, 2008
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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