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IETF RFC 6483
Last modified on Saturday, February 4th, 2012
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) G. Huston
Request for Comments: 6483 G. Michaelson
Category: Informational APNIC
ISSN: 2070-1721 February 2012
Validation of Route Origination Using
the Resource Certificate Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and
Route Origin Authorizations (ROAs)
 Abstract
This document defines the semantics of a Route Origin Authorization
(ROA) in terms of the context of an application of the Resource
Public Key Infrastructure to validate the origination of routes
advertised in the Border Gateway Protocol.
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 6483.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2012 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.
Huston & Michaelson Informational PAGE 1 
RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
2. ROA Validation Outcomes for a Route .............................3
3. Applying Validation Outcomes to Route Selection .................5
4. Disavowal of Routing Origination ................................6
5. Route Validation Lifetime .......................................6
6. Security Considerations .........................................7
7. Acknowledgements ................................................7
8. References ......................................................8
8.1. Normative References .......................................8
8.2. Informative References .....................................8
1. Introduction
This document defines the semantics of a Route Origin Authorization
(ROA) in terms of the context of an application of the Resource
Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) [RFC 6480] to validate the
origination of routes advertised in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)
[RFC 4271].
The RPKI is based on a hierarchy of resource certificates that are
aligned to the Internet Number Resource allocation structure.
Resource certificates are X.509 certificates that conform to the PKIX
profile [RFC 5280], and to the extensions for IP addresses and AS
identifiers [RFC 3779]. A resource certificate describes an action by
an issuer that binds a list of IP address blocks and Autonomous
System (AS) numbers to the subject of a certificate, identified by
the unique association of the subject's private key with the public
key contained in the resource certificate. The RPKI is structured
such that each current resource certificate matches a current
resource allocation or assignment. This is further described in
[RFC 6480].
ROAs are digitally signed objects that bind an address to an AS
number, and are signed by the address holder. A ROA provides a means
of verifying that an IP address block holder has authorized a
particular AS to originate routes in the inter-domain routing
environment for that address block. ROAs are described in [RFC 6482].
ROAs are intended to fit within the requirements for adding security
to inter-domain routing.
This document describes the semantic interpretation of a ROA, with
particular reference to application in inter-domain routing relating
to the origination of routes, and the intended scope of the authority
that is conveyed in the ROA.
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
2. ROA Validation Outcomes for a Route
A "route" is unit of information that associates a set of
destinations described by an IP address prefix with a set of
attributes of a path to those destinations, as defined in Section 1.1
of [RFC 4271].
A route's "origin AS" is defined as follows: If the final path
segment of the AS_PATH is of type AS_SEQUENCE, the origin AS is the
first element of the sequence (i.e., the AS in the rightmost position
with respect to the position of octets in the protocol message). If
the AS_PATH contains a path segment of type AS_SET, indicating that
the route is an aggregate, then the origin AS cannot be determined.
In terms of validation of a route in the context of a routing
environment, the address prefix value and the origin AS are used in
the ROA validation operation.
It is assumed here that a relying party (RP) has access to a local
cache of the complete set of valid ROAs when performing validation of
a route. (Valid ROAs are defined as ROAs that are determined to be
syntactically correct and are signed using a signature that can be
verified using the RPKI, as described in [RFC 6482].) The RP needs to
match a route to one or more valid candidate ROAs in order to
determine a validation outcome, which, in turn, can be used to
determine the appropriate local actions to perform on the route.
This approach to route origination validation uses a generic model of
"positive" attestation that has an associated inference that routes
that cannot be validated within the RPKI framework would
conventionally be interpreted by an RP as "invalid". However, the
considerations of accommodating environments of partial adoption of
the use of ROAs, where only a subset of validly advertised address
prefixes have associated published ROAs within the structure of the
RPKI, imply some modification to this model of positive attestation.
In the context of route validation, it is assumed that once an
address prefix is described in a ROA, then this ROA specifically
encompasses all address prefixes that are more specific than that
described in the ROA. Thus, any route for a more specific address
prefix than that described by any valid ROA that does not itself have
a matching valid ROA can be considered "invalid". However, routes
for address prefixes that are not fully described by any single ROA
(i.e., those routes whose address prefixes may be an aggregate of
address prefixes described in a valid ROA, or have address prefixes
where there is no intersection with any valid ROA), and are not
matched by any valid ROA and do not have an address prefix that is a
more specific address prefix described in any valid ROA, cannot be
reliably classified as "invalid" in a partial deployment scenario.
Such routes have a validation outcome of "unknown".
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
An abstract attribute of a route can be determined as the outcome of
this validation procedure, namely a "validity state" [BGP-PFX]. The
validity state of a route, with a prefix and an origin AS as defined
above, when using single ROA for determining this validity state, is
summarized in the following table:
Route matching non-matching
Prefix AS-> AS AS
V +---------+---------+
Non- | unknown | unknown |
Intersecting | | |
+---------+---------+
Covering | unknown | unknown |
Aggregate | | |
+---------+---------+
match ROA | valid | invalid |
prefix | | |
+---------+---------+
More | | |
Specific | invalid | invalid |
than ROA | | |
+---------+---------+
Route's Validity State
In an environment of a collection of valid ROAs, a route's validity
state is considered to be "valid" if any ROA provides a "valid"
outcome. It's validity state is considered to be "invalid" if one
(or more) ROAs provide an "invalid" outcome and no ROAs provide a
"valid" outcome. Its validity state is considered to be "unknown"
(or, synonymously, "not found" [BGP-PFX]) when no valid ROA can
produce either a "valid" or an "invalid" validity state outcome.
A route validity state is defined by the following procedure:
1. Select all valid ROAs that include a ROAIPAddress value that
either matches, or is a covering aggregate of, the address
prefix in the route. This selection forms the set of
"candidate ROAs".
2. If the set of candidate ROAs is empty, then the procedure stops
with an outcome of "unknown" (or, synonymously, "not found", as
used in [BGP-PFX]).
3. If the route's origin AS can be determined and any of the set
of candidate ROAs has an asID value that matches the origin AS
in the route, and the route's address prefix matches a
ROAIPAddress in the ROA (where "match" is defined as where the
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
route's address precisely matches the ROAIPAddress, or where
the ROAIPAddress includes a maxLength element, and the route's
address prefix is a more specific prefix of the ROAIPAddress,
and the route's address prefix length value is less than or
equal to the ROAIPAddress maxLength value), then the procedure
halts with an outcome of "valid".
4. Otherwise, the procedure halts with an outcome of "invalid".
3. Applying Validation Outcomes to Route Selection
Within the framework of the abstract model of the operation of inter-
domain routing using BGP [RFC 4271], a received prefix announcement
from a routing peer is compared to all announcements for this prefix
received from other routing peers, and a route selection procedure is
used to select the "best" route from this candidate set.
The route's validity state, described in Section 2, of "valid",
"invalid", or "unknown" may be used as part of the determination of
the local degree of preference, in which case the local order of
preference is as follows:
"valid" is to be preferred over
"unknown", which is to be preferred over
"invalid".
It is a matter of local routing policy as to the actions to be
undertaken by a routing entity in processing those routes with
"unknown" validity states. Due to considerations of partial use of
ROAs in heterogeneous environments, such as in the public Internet,
it is advised that local policy settings should not result in
"unknown" validity state outcomes being considered as sufficient
grounds to reject a route outright from further consideration as a
local best route.
It is a matter of local routing policy as to whether routes with an
"invalid" validity state are considered to be ineligible for further
consideration in a route selection process. Potential circular
dependence is a consideration here: if the authoritative publication
point of the repository of ROAs, or that of any certificate used in
relation to an address prefix, is located at an address that lies
within the address prefix described in a ROA, then the repository can
only be accessed by the RP once a route for the prefix has been
accepted by the RP's local routing domain. It is also noted that the
propagation time of RPKI objects may be different to the propagation
time of routes, and that routes may be learned by an RP's routing
system before the RP's local RPKI repository cache picks up the
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
associated ROAs and recognizes them as having a validity state of
"valid" within the RPKI.
4. Disavowal of Routing Origination
A ROA is a positive attestation that a prefix holder has authorized
an AS to originate a route for this prefix into the inter-domain
routing system. It is possible for a prefix holder to construct an
authorization where no valid AS has been granted any such authority
to originate a route for an address prefix. This is achieved by
using a ROA where the ROA's subject AS is one that must not be used
in any routing context. Specifically, AS 0 is reserved by the IANA
such that it may be used to identify non-routed networks [IANA-AS].
A ROA with a subject of AS 0 (AS 0 ROA) is an attestation by the
holder of a prefix that the prefix described in the ROA, and any more
specific prefix, should not be used in a routing context.
The route validation procedure, described in Section 2, will provide
a "valid" outcome if any ROA matches the address prefix and origin
AS, even if other valid ROAs would provide an "invalid" validation
outcome if used in isolation. Consequently, an AS 0 ROA has a lower
relative preference than any other ROA that has a routable AS as its
subject. This allows a prefix holder to use an AS 0 ROA to declare a
default condition that any route that is equal to or more specific
than the prefix to be considered "invalid", while also allowing other
concurrently issued ROAs to describe valid origination authorizations
for more specific prefixes.
By convention, an AS 0 ROA should have a maxLength value of 32 for
IPv4 addresses and a maxlength value of 128 for IPv6 addresses;
although, in terms of route validation, the same outcome would be
achieved with any valid maxLength value, or even if the maxLength
element were to be omitted from the ROA.
Also by convention, an AS 0 ROA should be the only ROA issued for a
given address prefix; although again, this is not a strict
requirement. An AS 0 ROA may coexist with ROAs that have different
subject AS values; although in such cases, the presence or lack of
presence of the AS 0 ROA does not alter the route's validity state in
any way.
5. Route Validation Lifetime
The "lifetime" of a validation outcome refers to the time period
during which the original validation outcome can be still applied.
The implicit assumption here is that when the validation lifetime
"expires", the route should be re-tested for validity.
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
The validation lifetime for a ROA is controlled by the Valid times
specified in the end-entity (EE) certificate used to sign the ROA,
and the valid times of those certificates in the certification path
used to validate the EE certificate. A ROA validation expires at the
notAfter field of the signing EE certificate, or at such a time when
there is no certification path that can validate the ROA. A ROA
issuer may elect to prematurely invalidate a ROA by revoking the EE
certificate that was used to sign the ROA.
6. Security Considerations
ROA issuers should be aware of the validation implication in issuing
a ROA, in that a ROA implicitly invalidates all routes that have more
specific prefixes with a prefix length greater than maxLength, and
all originating AS's other than the AS listed in the collection of
ROAs for this prefix.
A conservative operational practice would be to ensure the issuing of
ROAs for all more specific prefixes with distinct origination ASes
prior to the issuing of ROAs for larger encompassing address blocks,
in order to avoid inadvertent invalidation of valid routes during ROA
generation.
ROA issuers should also be aware that if they generate a ROA for one
origin AS, then if the address prefix holder authorizes multiple ASes
to originate routes for a given address prefix, then is necessary for
a ROA be generated for every such authorized AS.
7. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the helpful contributions of
John Scudder and Stephen Kent in preparing this document, and also
the contributions of many members of the SIDR working group in
response to presentations of this material in SIDR WG sessions. The
authors also acknowledge prior work undertaken by Tony Bates, Randy
Bush, Tony Li, and Yakov Rekhter as the validation outcomes described
here reflect the authentication outcomes and semantics of origin AS
verification described in [NLRI-ORIG]. A number of validation
concepts relating to a route's validity state presented in [BGP-PFX],
edited by Pradosh Mohapatra, et al., have be used in this document.
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RFC 6483 Route Validation February 2012
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC 3779] Lynn, C., Kent, S., and K. Seo, "X.509 Extensions for IP
Addresses and AS Identifiers", RFC 3779, June 2004.
[RFC 4271] Rekhter, Y., Ed., Li, T., Ed., and S. Hares, Ed., "A
Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)", RFC 4271, January
2006.
[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.
[RFC 6480] Lepinski, M. and S. Kent, "An Infrastructure to Support
Secure Internet Routing", RFC 6480, February 2012.
[RFC 6482] Lepinski, M., Kent, S., and D. Kong, "A Profile for Route
Origin Authorizations (ROAs)", RFC 6482, February 2012.
8.2. Informative References
[BGP-PFX] Mohapatra, P., Ed., Scudder, J., Ed., Ward, D., Ed.,
Bush, R., Ed., and R. Austein, Ed., "BGP Prefix Origin
Validation", Work in Progress, October 2011.
[IANA-AS] IANA, "Autonomous System (AS) Numbers",
http://http://www.iana.org/assignments/as-numbers
[NLRI-ORIG] Bates, T., Bush, R., Li, T., and Y. Rekhter, "DNS-based
NLRI origin AS verification in BGP", Work in Progress,
January 1998.
Authors' Addresses
Geoff Huston
APNIC
EMail: gih@apnic.net
George Michaelson
APNIC
EMail: ggm@apnic.net
Huston & Michaelson Informational PAGE 8
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 19811 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Saturday, February 4th, 2012
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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