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IETF RFC 6091
Using OpenPGP Keys for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Authentication
Last modified on Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) N. Mavrogiannopoulos
Request for Comments: 6091 KUL
Obsoletes: 5081 D. Gillmor
Category: Informational Independent
ISSN: 2070-1721 February 2011
Using OpenPGP Keys for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Authentication
 Abstract
This memo defines Transport Layer Security (TLS) extensions and
associated semantics that allow clients and servers to negotiate the
use of OpenPGP certificates for a TLS session, and specifies how to
transport OpenPGP certificates via TLS. It also defines the registry
for non-X.509 certificate types.
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 6091.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 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.
Mavrogiannopoulos & Gillmor Informational PAGE 1 
RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. Terminology .....................................................2
3. Changes to the Handshake Message Contents .......................3
3.1. Client Hello ...............................................3
3.2. Server Hello ...............................................4
3.3. Server Certificate .........................................4
3.4. Certificate Request ........................................6
3.5. Client Certificate .........................................6
3.6. Other Handshake Messages ...................................7
4. Security Considerations .........................................7
5. IANA Considerations .............................................7
6. Acknowledgements ................................................8
7. References ......................................................8
7.1. Normative References .......................................8
7.2. Informative References .....................................8
Appendix A. Changes from RFC 5081 .................................9
1. Introduction
The IETF has two sets of standards for public key certificates: one
set for the use of X.509 certificates [RFC 5280], and one for OpenPGP
certificates [RFC 4880]. At the time of this writing, TLS [RFC 5246]
standards are defined to use X.509 certificates. This document
specifies a way to negotiate the use of OpenPGP certificates for a
TLS session, and specifies how to transport OpenPGP certificates via
TLS. The proposed extensions are backward-compatible with the
current TLS specification, so that existing client and server
implementations that make use of X.509 certificates are not affected.
These extensions are not backward-compatible with [RFC 5081], and the
major differences are summarized in Appendix A. Although the OpenPGP
CertificateType value is being reused by this memo with the same
number as that specified in [RFC 5081] but with different semantics,
we believe that this causes no interoperability issues because the
latter was not widely deployed.
2. Terminology
The term "OpenPGP key" is used in this document as in the OpenPGP
specification [RFC 4880]. We use the term "OpenPGP certificate" to
refer to OpenPGP keys that are enabled for authentication.
This document uses the same notation and terminology used in the TLS
Protocol specification [RFC 5246].
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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. Changes to the Handshake Message Contents
This section describes the changes to the TLS handshake message
contents when OpenPGP certificates are to be used for authentication.
3.1. Client Hello
In order to indicate the support of multiple certificate types,
clients MUST include an extension of type "cert_type" to the extended
client hello message. The "cert_type" TLS extension is assigned the
value of 9 from the TLS ExtensionType registry. This value is used
as the extension number for the extensions in both the client hello
message and the server hello message. The hello extension mechanism
is described in [RFC 5246].
This extension carries a list of supported certificate types the
client can use, sorted by client preference. This extension MUST be
omitted if the client only supports X.509 certificates. The
"extension_data" field of this extension contains a
CertificateTypeExtension structure. Note that the
CertificateTypeExtension structure is being used both by the client
and the server, even though the structure is only specified once in
this document. Reusing a single specification for both client and
server is common in other specifications, such as the TLS protocol
itself [RFC 5246].
enum { client, server } ClientOrServerExtension;
enum { X.509(0), OpenPGP(1), (255) } CertificateType;
struct {
select(ClientOrServerExtension) {
case client:
CertificateType certificate_types<1..2^8-1>;
case server:
CertificateType certificate_type;
}
} CertificateTypeExtension;
No new cipher suites are required to use OpenPGP certificates. All
existing cipher suites that support a key exchange method compatible
with the key in the certificate can be used in combination with
OpenPGP certificates.
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RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
3.2. Server Hello
If the server receives a client hello that contains the "cert_type"
extension and chooses a cipher suite that requires a certificate,
then two outcomes are possible. The server MUST either select a
certificate type from the certificate_types field in the extended
client hello or terminate the session with a fatal alert of type
"unsupported_certificate".
The certificate type selected by the server is encoded in a
CertificateTypeExtension structure, which is included in the extended
server hello message using an extension of type "cert_type". Servers
that only support X.509 certificates MAY omit including the
"cert_type" extension in the extended server hello.
3.3. Server Certificate
The contents of the certificate message sent from server to client
and vice versa are determined by the negotiated certificate type and
the selected cipher suite's key exchange algorithm.
If the OpenPGP certificate type is negotiated, then it is required to
present an OpenPGP certificate in the certificate message. The
certificate must contain a public key that matches the selected key
exchange algorithm, as shown below.
Key Exchange Algorithm OpenPGP Certificate Type
RSA RSA public key that can be used for
encryption.
DHE_DSS DSA public key that can be used for
authentication.
DHE_RSA RSA public key that can be used for
authentication.
An OpenPGP certificate appearing in the certificate message is sent
using the binary OpenPGP format. The certificate MUST contain all
the elements required by Section 11.1 of [RFC 4880].
OpenPGP certificates to be transferred are placed in the Certificate
structure and tagged with the OpenPGPCertDescriptorType
"subkey_cert". Since those certificates might contain several
subkeys, the subkey ID to be used for this session is explicitly
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RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
specified in the OpenPGPKeyID field. The key ID must be specified
even if the certificate has only a primary key. The peer, upon
receiving this type, has to either use the specified subkey or
terminate the session with a fatal alert of
"unsupported_certificate".
The option is also available to send an OpenPGP fingerprint, instead
of sending the entire certificate, by using the
"subkey_cert_fingerprint" tag. This tag uses the
OpenPGPSubKeyFingerprint structure and requires the primary key
fingerprint to be specified, as well as the subkey ID to be used for
this session. The peer shall respond with a
"certificate_unobtainable" fatal alert if the certificate with the
given fingerprint cannot be found. The "certificate_unobtainable"
fatal alert is defined in Section 5 of [RFC 6066].
Implementations of this protocol MUST ensure that the sizes of key
IDs and fingerprints in the OpenPGPSubKeyCert and
OpenPGPSubKeyFingerprint structures comply with [RFC 4880]. Moreover,
it is RECOMMENDED that the keys to be used with this protocol have
the authentication flag (0x20) set.
The process of fingerprint generation is described in Section 12.2 of
[RFC 4880].
The enumerated types "cert_fingerprint" and "cert" of
OpenPGPCertDescriptorType that were defined in [RFC 5081] are not used
and are marked as obsolete by this document. The "empty_cert" type
has replaced "cert" and is a backward-compatible way to specify an
empty certificate; "cert_fingerprint" MUST NOT be used with this
updated specification, and hence that old alternative has been
removed from the Certificate struct description.
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RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
enum {
empty_cert(1),
subkey_cert(2),
subkey_cert_fingerprint(3),
(255)
} OpenPGPCertDescriptorType;
uint24 OpenPGPEmptyCert = 0;
struct {
opaque OpenPGPKeyID<8..255>;
opaque OpenPGPCert<0..2^24-1>;
} OpenPGPSubKeyCert;
struct {
opaque OpenPGPKeyID<8..255>;
opaque OpenPGPCertFingerprint<20..255>;
} OpenPGPSubKeyFingerprint;
struct {
OpenPGPCertDescriptorType descriptorType;
select (descriptorType) {
case empty_cert: OpenPGPEmptyCert;
case subkey_cert: OpenPGPSubKeyCert;
case subkey_cert_fingerprint:
OpenPGPSubKeyCertFingerprint;
}
} Certificate;
3.4. Certificate Request
The semantics of this message remain the same as in the TLS
specification. However, if this message is sent, and the negotiated
certificate type is OpenPGP, the "certificate_authorities" list MUST
be empty.
3.5. Client Certificate
This message is only sent in response to the certificate request
message. The client certificate message is sent using the same
formatting as the server certificate message, and it is also required
to present a certificate that matches the negotiated certificate
type. If OpenPGP certificates have been selected and no certificate
is available from the client, then a certificate structure of type
"empty_cert" that contains an OpenPGPEmptyCert value MUST be sent.
The server SHOULD respond with a "handshake_failure" fatal alert if
client authentication is required.
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RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
3.6. Other Handshake Messages
All the other handshake messages are identical to the TLS
specification.
4. Security Considerations
All security considerations discussed in [RFC 5246], [RFC 6066], and
[RFC 4880] apply to this document. Considerations about the use of
the web of trust or identity and certificate verification procedures
are outside the scope of this document. These are considered issues
to be handled by the application layer protocols.
The protocol for certificate type negotiation is identical in
operation to cipher suite negotiation as described in the TLS
specification [RFC 5246], with the addition of default values when the
extension is omitted. Since those omissions have a unique meaning
and the same protection is applied to the values as with cipher
suites, it is believed that the security properties of this
negotiation are the same as with cipher suite negotiation.
When using OpenPGP fingerprints instead of the full certificates, the
discussion in Section 5 of [RFC 6066] for "Client Certificate URLs"
applies, especially when external servers are used to retrieve keys.
However, a major difference is that although the
"client_certificate_url" extension allows identifying certificates
without including the certificate hashes, this is not possible in the
protocol proposed here. In this protocol, the certificates, when not
sent, are always identified by their fingerprint, which serves as a
cryptographic hash of the certificate (see Section 12.2 of
[RFC 4880]).
The information that is available to participating parties and
eavesdroppers (when confidentiality is not available through a
previous handshake) is the number and the types of certificates they
hold, plus the contents of the certificates.
5. IANA Considerations
This document uses a registry and the "cert_type" extension
originally defined in [RFC 5081]. Existing IANA references have been
updated to point to this document.
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In addition, the "TLS Certificate Types" registry established by
[RFC 5081] has been updated in the following ways:
1. Values 0 (X.509) and 1 (OpenPGP) are defined in this document.
2. Values from 2 through 223 decimal inclusive are assigned via "RFC
Required" [RFC 5226].
3. Values from 224 decimal through 255 decimal inclusive are
reserved for Private Use [RFC 5226].
6. Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Alfred Hoenes and Ted Hardie for their
suggestions on improving this document.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 4880] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., Shaw, D., and R.
Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 4880,
November 2007.
[RFC 5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
[RFC 5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC 6066] Eastlake 3rd, D., "Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Extensions: Extension Definitions", RFC 6066,
January 2011.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC 5081] Mavrogiannopoulos, N., "Using OpenPGP Keys for Transport
Layer Security (TLS) Authentication", RFC 5081,
November 2007.
[RFC 5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation
List (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
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RFC 6091 Using OpenPGP Keys February 2011
Appendix A. Changes from RFC 5081
This document incorporates a major change in the "Server Certificate"
and "Client Certificate" TLS messages that will make implementations
following this protocol incompatible with those following [RFC 5081].
This change requires the subkey IDs used for TLS authentication to be
marked explicitly in the handshake procedure. This was decided in
order to place no limitation on the OpenPGP certificates' contents
that can be used with this protocol.
[RFC 5081] required that an OpenPGP key or subkey be marked with the
authentication flag; thus, authentication would have failed if this
flag was not set or if this flag was set in more than one subkey.
The protocol in this memo has no such limitation.
Authors' Addresses
Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos
ESAT/COSIC Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, bus 2446
Leuven-Heverlee, B-3001
Belgium
EMail: nikos.mavrogiannopoulos@esat.kuleuven.be
Daniel Kahn Gillmor
Independent
119 Herkimer St.
Brooklyn, NY 11216-2801
US
EMail: dkg@fifthhorseman.net
Mavrogiannopoulos & Gillmor Informational PAGE 9
Using OpenPGP Keys for Transport Layer Security (TLS) Authentication
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 18529 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Thursday, February 3rd, 2011
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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