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IETF RFC 5803
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Schema for Storing Salted Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism (SCRAM) Secrets
Last modified on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) A. Melnikov
Request for Comments: 5803 Isode Limited
Category: Informational July 2010
ISSN: 2070-1721
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Schema for Storing Salted
Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism (SCRAM) Secrets
 Abstract
This memo describes how the "authPassword" Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (LDAP) attribute can be used for storing secrets used
by the Salted Challenge Response Authentication Message (SCRAM)
mechanism in the Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)
framework.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
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/RFC 5803.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 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.
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RFC 5803 LDAP Schema for Storing SCRAM Secrets July 2010
Table of Contents
1. Overview ........................................................2
2. Conventions Used in This Document ...............................3
3. Security Considerations .........................................3
4. Acknowledgements ................................................4
5. Normative References ............................................4
1. Overview
This document describes how the authPassword LDAP attribute
[AUTHPASS] can be used for storing secrets used by [SCRAM] Simple
Authentication and Security Layer [RFC 4422] Mechanisms.
The "scheme" part of the authPassword attribute is the SCRAM
mechanism name (always without the "-PLUS" suffix), e.g., "SCRAM-
SHA-1". See [SCRAM] for the exact syntax of SCRAM mechanism
names.
The "authInfo" part of the authPassword attribute is the iteration
count (iter-count in the ABNF below), followed by ":" and base64-
encoded [BASE64] salt.
The "authValue" part of the authPassword attribute is the base64-
encoded [BASE64] StoredKey [SCRAM], followed by ":" and base64-
encoded [BASE64] ServerKey [SCRAM].
Syntax of the attribute can be expressed using ABNF [RFC 5234]. Non-
terminal references in the following ABNF are defined in either
[AUTHPASS], [RFC 4422], or [RFC 5234].
scram-mech = "SCRAM-SHA-1" / scram-mech-ext
; Complies with ABNF for <scheme>
; defined in [AUTHPASS].
scram-authInfo = iter-count ":" salt
; Complies with ABNF for <authInfo>
; defined in [AUTHPASS].
scram-authValue = stored-key ":" server-key
; Complies with ABNF for <authValue>
; defined in [AUTHPASS].
iter-count = %x31-39 *DIGIT
; SCRAM iteration count.
; A positive number without leading zeros.
salt = <base64-encoded value>
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RFC 5803 LDAP Schema for Storing SCRAM Secrets July 2010
stored-key = <base64-encoded value>
; See definition in [SCRAM].
server-key = <base64-encoded value>
; See definition in [SCRAM].
scram-mech-ext = "SCRAM-" 1*9mech-char
; Other SCRAM mechanisms registered
; in the IANA registry for SASL
; mechanism names.
mech-char = <Defined in RFC 4422>
Note that the authPassword attribute is multivalued. For example, it
may contain multiple SCRAM hashes for different hashing algorithms.
2. 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].
3. Security Considerations
This document defines how the authPassword attribute can be used to
store SCRAM secrets. Therefore, security considerations relevant to
[SCRAM] and hash functions used with it are also relevant to this
document.
General security considerations related to the authPassword attribute
(as specified in [AUTHPASS]) also apply to the use of authPassword as
specified in this document. In particular, the values of
authPassword SHOULD be protected as if they were cleartext passwords.
A read operation on this attribute that is not protected by a privacy
layer (such as IPsec or TLS) can expose this attribute to an attacker
who a) would be able to use the intercepted value to impersonate the
user to all servers providing SCRAM access using the same hash
function, password, iteration count, and salt or b) would be able to
perform an offline dictionary or brute-force attack in order to
recover the user's password.
Servers MUST validate the format of the authPassword attribute before
using it for performing a SCRAM authentication exchange. It is
possible that an attacker compromised the LDAP server or got access
to the entry containing the attribute in order to exploit a
vulnerability in the subsystem performing the SCRAM authentication
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RFC 5803 LDAP Schema for Storing SCRAM Secrets July 2010
exchange. Big iteration counts and invalid base64 encoding are two
possible (but not the only) exploits in the format specified in the
document.
4. Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges the feedback provided by Chris
Newman, Kurt Zeilenga, Chris Lonvick, Peter Saint-Andre, Barry Leiba,
and Chris Ridd.
5. Normative References
[AUTHPASS] Zeilenga, K., "LDAP Authentication Password Schema",
RFC 3112, May 2001.
[BASE64] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data
Encodings", RFC 4648, October 2006.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 4422] Melnikov, A. and K. Zeilenga, "Simple Authentication and
Security Layer (SASL)", RFC 4422, June 2006.
[RFC 5234] Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.
[SCRAM] Menon-Sen, A., Newman, C., Melnikov, A., and N. Williams,
"Salted Challenge Response Authentication Message (SCRAM)
SASL Mechanisms", RFC 5802, July 2010.
Author's Address
Alexey Melnikov
Isode Limited
5 Castle Business Village
36 Station Road
Hampton, Middlesex TW12 2BX
UK
EMail: alexey.melnikov@isode.com
URI: http://www.melnikov.ca/
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Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Schema for Storing Salted Challenge Response Authentication Mechanism (SCRAM) Secrets
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 8195 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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