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IETF RFC 6506
Last modified on Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Bhatia
Request for Comments: 6506 Alcatel-Lucent
Category: Standards Track V. Manral
ISSN: 2070-1721 Hewlett Packard
A. Lindem
Ericsson
February 2012
Supporting Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3
 Abstract
Currently, OSPF for IPv6 (OSPFv3) uses IPsec as the only mechanism
for authenticating protocol packets. This behavior is different from
authentication mechanisms present in other routing protocols (OSPFv2,
Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS), RIP, and Routing
Information Protocol Next Generation (RIPng)). In some environments,
it has been found that IPsec is difficult to configure and maintain
and thus cannot be used. This document defines an alternative
mechanism to authenticate OSPFv3 protocol packets so that OSPFv3 does
not only depend upon IPsec for authentication.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
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). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in 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 6506.
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
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Requirements ...............................................3
2. Proposed Solution ...............................................4
2.1. AT-Bit in Options Field ....................................4
2.2. Basic Operation ............................................5
2.3. IPv6 Source Address Protection .............................5
3. OSPFv3 Security Association .....................................6
4. Authentication Procedure ........................................8
4.1. Authentication Trailer .....................................8
4.1.1. Sequence Number Wrap ...............................10
4.2. OSPFv3 Header Checksum ....................................10
4.3. Cryptographic Authentication Procedure ....................10
4.4. Cross-Protocol Attack Mitigation ..........................11
4.5. Cryptographic Aspects .....................................11
4.6. Message Verification ......................................13
5. Migration and Backward Compatibility ...........................15
6. Security Considerations ........................................15
7. IANA Considerations ............................................16
8. References .....................................................17
8.1. Normative References ......................................17
8.2. Informative References ....................................17
Appendix A. Acknowledgments ......................................19
1. Introduction
Unlike Open Shortest Path First version 2 (OSPFv2) [RFC 2328], OSPF
for IPv6 (OSPFv3) [RFC 5340] does not include the AuType and
Authentication fields in its headers for authenticating protocol
packets. Instead, OSPFv3 relies on the IPsec protocols
Authentication Header (AH) [RFC 4302] and Encapsulating Security
Payload (ESP) [RFC 4303] to provide integrity, authentication, and/or
confidentiality.
[RFC 4552] describes how IPv6 AH and ESP extension headers can be used
to provide authentication and/or confidentiality to OSPFv3.
However, there are some environments, e.g., Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
(MANETs), where IPsec is difficult to configure and maintain, and
this mechanism cannot be used.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
[RFC 4552] discusses, at length, the reasoning behind using manually
configured keys, rather than some automated key management protocol
such as Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) [RFC 5996]. The
primary problem is the lack of a suitable key management mechanism,
as OSPFv3 adjacencies are formed on a one-to-many basis and most key
management mechanisms are designed for a one-to-one communication
model. This forces the system administrator to use manually
configured security associations (SAs) and cryptographic keys to
provide the authentication and, if desired, confidentiality services.
Regarding replay protection, [RFC 4552] states that:
Since it is not possible using the current standards to provide
complete replay protection while using manual keying, the proposed
solution will not provide protection against replay attacks.
Since there is no replay protection provided there are a number of
vulnerabilities in OSPFv3 that have been discussed in [RFC 6039].
Since there is no deterministic way to differentiate between
encrypted and unencrypted ESP packets by simply examining the packet,
it could be difficult for some implementations to prioritize certain
OSPFv3 packet types, e.g., Hello packets, over the other types.
This document defines a new mechanism that works similarly to OSPFv2
[RFC 5709] to provide authentication to the OSPFv3 packets and
attempts to solve the problems related to replay protection and
deterministically disambiguating different OSPFv3 packets as
described above.
This document adds support for the Secure Hash Algorithms (SHAs)
defined in the US NIST Secure Hash Standard (SHS), which is specified
by NIST FIPS 180-3. [FIPS-180-3] includes SHA-1, SHA-224, SHA-256,
SHA-384, and SHA-512. The Hashed Message Authentication Code (HMAC)
authentication mode defined in NIST FIPS 198-1 [FIPS-198-1] is used.
It is believed that HMAC as defined in [RFC 2104] is mathematically
identical to [FIPS-198-1]; it is also believed that algorithms in
[RFC 6234] are mathematically identical to [FIPS-198-1].
1.1. Requirements
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 [RFC 2119].
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 3
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
2. Proposed Solution
To perform non-IPsec Cryptographic Authentication, OSPFv3 routers
append a special data block, henceforth referred to as the
Authentication Trailer, to the end of the OSPFv3 packets. The length
of the Authentication Trailer is not included in the length of the
OSPFv3 packet but is included in the IPv6 payload length, as shown in
Figure 1.
+---------------------+ -- -- +----------------------+
| IPv6 Payload Length | ^ ^ | IPv6 Payload Length |
| PL = OL + LL | | | | PL = OL + LL + AL |
| | v v | |
+---------------------+ -- -- +----------------------+
| OSPFv3 Header | ^ ^ | OSPFv3 Header |
| Length = OL | | | | Length = OL |
| | | OSPFv3 | | |
|.....................| | Packet | |......................|
| | | Length | | |
| OSPFv3 Packet | | | | OSPFv3 Packet |
| | v v | |
+---------------------+ -- -- +----------------------+
| | ^ ^ | |
| Optional LLS | | LLS Data | | Optional LLS |
| LLS Block Len = LL | | Block | | LLS Block Len = LL |
| | v Length v | |
+---------------------+ -- -- +----------------------+
^ | |
AL = PL - (OL + LL) | | Authentication |
| | AL = Fixed Trailer + |
v | Digest Length |
-- +----------------------+
Figure 1: Authentication Trailer in OSPFv3
The presence of the Link-Local Signaling (LLS) [RFC 5613] block is
determined by the L-bit setting in the OSPFv3 Options field in OSPFv3
Hello and Database Description packets. If present, the LLS data
block is included along with the OSPFv3 packet in the Cryptographic
Authentication computation.
2.1. AT-Bit in Options Field
A new AT-bit (AT stands for Authentication Trailer) is introduced
into the OSPFv3 Options field. OSPFv3 routers MUST set the AT-bit in
OSPFv3 Hello and Database Description packets to indicate that all
the packets on this link will include an Authentication Trailer. For
OSPFv3 Hello and Database Description packets, the AT-bit indicates
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
the AT is present. For other OSPFv3 packet types, the OSPFv3 AT-bit
setting from the OSPFv3 Hello/Database Description setting is
preserved in the OSPFv3 neighbor data structure. OSPFv3 packet types
that don't include an OSPFv3 Options field will use the setting from
the neighbor data structure to determine whether or not the AT is
expected.
0 1 2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+--+-+-+--+-+-+--+-+--+
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |AT|L|AF|*|*|DC|R|N|MC|E|V6|
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+-+--+-+-+--+-+-+--+-+--+
Figure 2: OSPFv3 Options Field
The AT-bit, as shown in the figure above, MUST be set in all OSPFv3
Hello and Database Description packets that contain an Authentication
Trailer.
2.2. Basic Operation
The procedure followed for computing the Authentication Trailer is
much the same as described in [RFC 5709] and [RFC 2328]. One
difference is that the LLS data block, if present, is included in the
Cryptographic Authentication computation.
The way the authentication data is carried in the Authentication
Trailer is very similar to how it is done in case of [RFC 2328]. The
only difference between the OSPFv2 Authentication Trailer and the
OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer is that information in addition to the
message digest is included. The additional information in the OSPFv3
Authentication Trailer is included in the message digest computation
and is therefore protected by OSPFv3 Cryptographic Authentication as
described herein.
Consistent with OSPFv2 Cryptographic Authentication [RFC 2328], both
OSPFv3 header checksum calculation and verification are omitted when
the OSPFv3 authentication mechanism described in this specification
is used.
2.3. IPv6 Source Address Protection
While OSPFv3 always uses the Router ID to identify OSPFv3 neighbors,
the IPv6 source address is learned from OSPFv3 Hello packets and
copied into the neighbor data structure [RFC 5340]. Hence, OSPFv3 is
susceptible to Man-in-the-Middle attacks where the IPv6 source
address is modified. To thwart such attacks, the IPv6 source address
will be included in the message digest calculation and protected by
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 5
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
OSPFv3 authentication. Refer to Section 4.5 for details. This is
different than the procedure specified in [RFC 5709] but consistent
with [MANUAL-KEY].
3. OSPFv3 Security Association
An OSPFv3 Security Association (SA) contains a set of parameters
shared between any two legitimate OSPFv3 speakers.
Parameters associated with an OSPFv3 SA are as follows:
o Security Association Identifier (SA ID)
This is a 16-bit unsigned integer used to uniquely identify an
OSPFv3 SA, as manually configured by the network operator.
The receiver determines the active SA by looking at the SA ID
field in the incoming protocol packet.
The sender, based on the active configuration, selects an SA to
use and puts the correct Key ID value associated with the SA in
the OSPFv3 protocol packet. If multiple valid and active OSPFv3
SAs exist for a given interface, the sender may use any of those
SAs to protect the packet.
Using SA IDs makes changing keys while maintaining protocol
operation convenient. Each SA ID specifies two independent parts,
the authentication algorithm and the Authentication Key, as
explained below.
Normally, an implementation would allow the network operator to
configure a set of keys in a key chain, with each key in the chain
having a fixed lifetime. The actual operation of these mechanisms
is outside the scope of this document.
Note that each SA ID can indicate a key with a different
authentication algorithm. This allows the introduction of new
authentication mechanisms without disrupting existing OSPFv3
adjacencies.
o Authentication Algorithm
This signifies the authentication algorithm to be used with this
OSPFv3 SA. This information is never sent in clear text over the
wire. Because this information is not sent on the wire, the
implementer chooses an implementation-specific representation for
this information.
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Currently, the following algorithms are supported:
* HMAC-SHA-1,
* HMAC-SHA-256,
* HMAC-SHA-384, and
* HMAC-SHA-512.
o Authentication Key
This value denotes the Cryptographic Authentication Key associated
with this OSPFv3 SA. The length of this key is variable and
depends upon the authentication algorithm specified by the OSPFv3
SA.
o KeyStartAccept
The time that this OSPFv3 router will accept packets that have
been created with this OSPFv3 SA.
o KeyStartGenerate
The time that this OSPFv3 router will begin using this OSPFv3 SA
for OSPFv3 packet generation.
o KeyStopGenerate
The time that this OSPFv3 router will stop using this OSPFv3 SA
for OSPFv3 packet generation.
o KeyStopAccept
The time that this OSPFv3 router will stop accepting packets
generated with this OSPFv3 SA.
In order to achieve smooth key transition, KeyStartAccept SHOULD be
less than KeyStartGenerate, and KeyStopGenerate SHOULD be less than
KeyStopAccept. If KeyStartGenerate or KeyStartAccept are left
unspecified, the time will default to 0, and the key will be used
immediately. If KeyStopGenerate or KeyStopAccept are left
unspecified, the time will default to infinity, and the key's
lifetime will be infinite. When a new key replaces an old, the
KeyStartGenerate time for the new key MUST be less than or equal to
the KeyStopGenerate time of the old key.
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Key storage SHOULD persist across a system restart, warm or cold, to
avoid operational issues. In the event that the last key associated
with an interface expires, it is unacceptable to revert to an
unauthenticated condition and not advisable to disrupt routing.
Therefore, the router SHOULD send a "last Authentication Key
expiration" notification to the network operator and treat the key as
having an infinite lifetime until the lifetime is extended, the key
is deleted by the network operator, or a new key is configured.
4. Authentication Procedure
4.1. Authentication Trailer
The Authentication Trailer that is appended to the OSPFv3 protocol
packet is described below:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Authentication Type | Auth Data Len |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Reserved | Security Association ID |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Cryptographic Sequence Number (High-Order 32 Bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Cryptographic Sequence Number (Low-Order 32 Bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| Authentication Data (Variable) |
~ ~
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: Authentication Trailer Format
The various fields in the Authentication Trailer are:
o Authentication Type
16-bit field identifying the type of authentication. The
following values are defined in this specification:
0 - Reserved.
1 - HMAC Cryptographic Authentication as described herein.
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
o Auth Data Len
The length in octets of the Authentication Trailer (AT) including
both the 16-octet fixed header and the variable length message
digest.
o Reserved
This field is reserved. It SHOULD be set to 0 when sending
protocol packets and MUST be ignored when receiving protocol
packets.
o Security Association Identifier (SA ID)
16-bit field that maps to the authentication algorithm and the
secret key used to create the message digest appended to the
OSPFv3 protocol packet.
Though the SA ID implicitly implies the algorithm, the HMAC output
size should not be used by implementers as an implicit hint
because additional algorithms may be defined in the future that
have the same output size.
o Cryptographic Sequence Number
64-bit strictly increasing sequence number that is used to guard
against replay attacks. The 64-bit sequence number MUST be
incremented for every OSPFv3 packet sent by the OSPFv3 router.
Upon reception, the sequence number MUST be greater than the
sequence number in the last OSPFv3 packet accepted from the
sending OSPFv3 neighbor. Otherwise, the OSPFv3 packet is
considered a replayed packet and dropped.
OSPFv3 routers implementing this specification MUST use available
mechanisms to preserve the sequence number's strictly increasing
property for the deployed life of the OSPFv3 router (including
cold restarts). One mechanism for accomplishing this would be to
use the high-order 32 bits of the sequence number as a wrap/boot
count that is incremented anytime the OSPFv3 router loses its
sequence number state. Sequence number wrap is described in
Section 4.1.1.
o Authentication Data
Variable data that is carrying the digest for the protocol packet
and optional LLS data block.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
4.1.1. Sequence Number Wrap
When incrementing the sequence number for each transmitted OSPFv3
packet, the sequence number should be treated as an unsigned 64-bit
value. If the lower-order 32-bit value wraps, the higher-order
32-bit value should be incremented and saved in non-volatile storage.
If by some chance the OSPFv3 router is deployed long enough that
there is a possibility that the 64-bit sequence number may wrap, all
keys, independent of their key distribution mechanism, MUST be reset
to avoid the possibility of replay attacks. Once the keys have been
changed, the higher-order sequence number can be reset to 0 and saved
to non-volatile storage.
4.2. OSPFv3 Header Checksum
Both OSPFv3 header checksum calculation and verification are omitted
when the OSPFv3 authentication mechanism described in this
specification is used. This implies:
o For OSPFv3 packets to be transmitted, the OSPFv3 header checksum
computation is omitted, and the OSPFv3 header checksum SHOULD be
set to 0 prior to computation of the OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer
message digest.
o For received OSPFv3 packets including an OSPFv3 Authentication
Trailer, OSPFv3 header checksum verification MUST be omitted.
However, if the OSPFv3 packet does include a non-zero OSPFv3
header checksum, it will not be modified by the receiver and will
simply be included in the OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer message
digest verification.
4.3. Cryptographic Authentication Procedure
As noted earlier, the SA ID maps to the authentication algorithm and
the secret key used to generate and verify the message digest. This
specification discusses the computation of OSPFv3 Cryptographic
Authentication data when any of the NIST SHS family of algorithms is
used in the Hashed Message Authentication Code (HMAC) mode.
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
The currently valid algorithms (including mode) for OSPFv3
Cryptographic Authentication include:
o HMAC-SHA-1,
o HMAC-SHA-256,
o HMAC-SHA-384, and
o HMAC-SHA-512.
Of the above, implementations of this specification MUST include
support for at least HMAC-SHA-256 and SHOULD include support for
HMAC-SHA-1 and MAY also include support for HMAC-SHA-384 and
HMAC-SHA-512.
Implementations of this specification MUST use HMAC-SHA-256 as the
default authentication algorithm.
4.4. Cross-Protocol Attack Mitigation
In order to prevent cross-protocol replay attacks for protocols
sharing common keys, the two-octet OSPFv3 Cryptographic Protocol ID
is appended to the Authentication Key prior to use. Other protocols
using Cryptographic Authentication as specified herein MUST similarly
append their respective Cryptographic Protocol IDs to their keys in
this step. Refer to the IANA Considerations (Section 7).
4.5. Cryptographic Aspects
In the algorithm description below, the following nomenclature, which
is consistent with [FIPS-198-1], is used:
H is the specific hashing algorithm (e.g., SHA-256).
K is the Authentication Key from the OSPFv3 Security Association.
Ks is a Protocol-Specific Authentication Key obtained by appending
Authentication Key (K) with the two-octet OSPFv3 Cryptographic
Protocol ID.
Ko is the cryptographic key used with the hash algorithm.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
B is the block size of H, measured in octets rather than bits. Note
that B is the internal block size, not the hash size.
For SHA-1 and SHA-256: B == 64
For SHA-384 and SHA-512: B == 128
L is the length of the hash, measured in octets rather than bits.
XOR is the exclusive-or operation.
Opad is the hexadecimal value 0x5c repeated B times.
Ipad is the hexadecimal value 0x36 repeated B times.
Apad is a value that is the same length as the hash output or message
digest. The first 16 octets contain the IPv6 source address followed
by the hexadecimal value 0x878FE1F3 repeated (L-16)/4 times. This
implies that hash output is always a length of at least 16 octets.
1. Preparation of the Key
The OSPFv3 Cryptographic Protocol ID is appended to the
Authentication Key (K) yielding a Protocol-Specific
Authentication Key (Ks). In this application, Ko is always L
octets long and is computed as follows:
If the Protocol-Specific Authentication Key (Ks) is L octets
long, then Ko is equal to K. If the Protocol-Specific
Authentication Key (Ks) is more than L octets long, then Ko is
set to H(Ks). If the Protocol-Specific Authentication Key
(Ks) is less than L octets long, then Ko is set to the
Protocol-Specific Authentication Key (Ks) with zeros appended
to the end of the Protocol-Specific Authentication Key (Ks)
such that Ko is L octets long.
2. First-Hash
First, the OSPFv3 packet's Authentication Data field in the
Authentication Trailer is filled with the value Apad. This is
very similar to the appendage described in [RFC 2328], Section
D.4.3, Items (6)(a) and (6)(d)).
Then, a First-Hash, also known as the inner hash, is computed as
follows:
First-Hash = H(Ko XOR Ipad || (OSPFv3 Packet))
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Implementation Note: The First-Hash above includes the
Authentication Trailer, as well as the OSPFv3 packet, as per
[RFC 2328], Section D.4.3, and, if present, the LLS data block
[RFC 5613].
The definition of Apad (above) ensures it is always the same
length as the hash output. This is consistent with RFC 2328.
Note that the "(OSPFv3 Packet)" referenced in the First-Hash
function above includes both the optional LLS data block and the
OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer.
The digest length for SHA-1 is 20 octets; for SHA-256, 32 octets;
for SHA-384, 48 octets; and for SHA-512, 64 octets.
3. Second-Hash
Then a Second-Hash, also known as the outer hash, is computed as
follows:
Second-Hash = H(Ko XOR Opad || First-Hash)
4. Result
The resulting Second-Hash becomes the authentication data that is
sent in the Authentication Trailer of the OSPFv3 packet. The
length of the authentication data is always identical to the
message digest size of the specific hash function H that is being
used.
This also means that the use of hash functions with larger output
sizes will also increase the size of the OSPFv3 packet as
transmitted on the wire.
Implementation Note: [RFC 2328], Appendix D specifies that the
Authentication Trailer is not counted in the OSPF packet's own
Length field but is included in the packet's IP Length field.
Similar to this, the Authentication Trailer is not included in
the OSPFv3 header length but is included in the IPv6 header
payload length.
4.6. Message Verification
A router would determine that OSPFv3 is using an Authentication
trailer by examining the AT-bit in the Options field in the OSPFv3
header for Hello and Database Description packets. The specification
in the Hello and Database Description options indicates that other
OSPFv3 packets will include the Authentication Trailer.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 13
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
The Authentication Trailer (AT) is accessed using the OSPFv3 packet
header length to access the data after the OSPFv3 packet and, if an
LLS data block [RFC 5613] is present, using the LLS data block length
to access the data after the LLS data block. The L-bit in the OSPFv3
options in Hello and Database Description packets is examined to
determine if an LLS data block is present. If an LLS data block is
present (as specified by the L-bit), it is included along with the
OSPFv3 Hello or Database Description packet in the cryptographic
authentication computation.
Due to the placement of the AT following the LLS data block and the
fact that the LLS data block is included in the Cryptographic
Authentication computation, OSPFv3 routers supporting this
specification MUST minimally support examining the L-bit in the
OSPFv3 options and using the length in the LLS data block to access
the AT. It is RECOMMENDED that OSPFv3 routers supporting this
specification fully support OSPFv3 Link-Local Signaling [RFC 5613].
If usage of the Authentication Trailer (AT), as specified herein, is
configured for an OSPFv3 link, OSPFv3 Hello and Database Description
packets with the AT-bit clear in the options will be dropped. All
OSPFv3 packet types will be dropped if AT is configured for the link
and the IPv6 header length is less than the amount necessary to
include an Authentication Trailer.
If the cryptographic sequence number in the AT is less than or equal
to the last sequence number successfully received from the neighbor,
the OSPFv3 packet MUST be dropped, and an error event SHOULD be
logged.
Authentication-algorithm-dependent processing needs to be performed,
using the algorithm specified by the appropriate OSPFv3 SA for the
received packet.
Before an implementation performs any processing, it needs to save
the values of the Authentication Data field from the Authentication
Trailer appended to the OSPFv3 packet.
It should then set the Authentication Data field with Apad before the
authentication data is computed (as described in Section 4.5). The
calculated data is compared with the received authentication data in
the Authentication Trailer. If the two do not match, the packet MUST
be discarded and an error event SHOULD be logged.
After the OSPFv3 packet has been successfully authenticated,
implementations MUST store the 64-bit cryptographic sequence number
for future replay checks.
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RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
5. Migration and Backward Compatibility
All OSPFv3 routers participating on a link SHOULD be migrated to
OSPFv3 Authentication at the same time. As with OSPFv2
authentication, a mismatch in the SA ID, Authentication Type, or
message digest will result in failure to form an adjacency. For
multi-access links, communities of OSPFv3 routers could be migrated
using different Interface Instance IDs. However, at least one router
would need to form adjacencies between both the OSPFv3 routers
including and not including the Authentication Trailer. This would
result in sub-optimal routing as well as added complexity and is only
recommended in cases where authentication is desired on the link and
migrating all the routers on the link at the same time isn't
feasible.
In support of uninterrupted deployment, an OSPFv3 router implementing
this specification MAY implement a transition mode where it includes
the Authentication Trailer in transmitted packets but does not verify
this information in received packets. This is provided as a
transition aid for networks in the process of migrating to the
authentication mechanism described in this specification.
6. Security Considerations
The document proposes extensions to OSPFv3 that would make it more
secure than [RFC 5340]. It does not provide confidentiality as a
routing protocol contains information that does not need to be kept
secret. It does, however, provide means to authenticate the sender
of the packets that are of interest. It addresses all the security
issues that have been identified in [RFC 6039].
It should be noted that the authentication method described in this
document is not being used to authenticate the specific originator of
a packet but is rather being used to confirm that the packet has
indeed been issued by a router that has access to the Authentication
Key.
Deployments SHOULD use sufficiently long and random values for the
Authentication Key so that guessing and other cryptographic attacks
on the key are not feasible in their environments. Furthermore, it
is RECOMMENDED that Authentication Keys incorporate at least 128
pseudo-random bits to minimize the risk of such attacks. In support
of these recommendations, management systems SHOULD support
hexadecimal input of Authentication Keys.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 15
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
The mechanism described herein is not perfect and does not need to be
perfect. Instead, this mechanism represents a significant increase
in the effort required for an adversary to successfully attack the
OSPFv3 protocol while not causing undue implementation, deployment,
or operational complexity.
Refer to [RFC 4552] for additional considerations on manual keying.
7. IANA Considerations
IANA has allocated the AT-bit (0x000400) in the "OSPFv3 Options (24
bits)" registry as described in Section 2.1.
IANA has created the "OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer Options"
registry. This new registry initially includes the "OSPFv3
Authentication Types" registry, which defines valid values for the
Authentication Type field in the OSPFv3 Authentication Trailer. The
registration procedure is Standards Action.
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
| Value/Range | Designation |
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
| 0 | Reserved |
| | |
| 1 | HMAC Cryptographic Authentication |
| | |
| 2-65535 | Unassigned |
+-------------+-----------------------------------+
OSPFv3 Authentication Types
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 16
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Finally, IANA has created the "Keying and Authentication for Routing
Protocols (KARP) Parameters" category. This new category initially
includes the "Authentication Cryptographic Protocol ID" registry,
which provides unique protocol-specific values for cryptographic
applications, such as but not limited to, prevention of cross-
protocol replay attacks. Values can be assigned for both native
IPv4/IPv6 protocols and UDP/TCP protocols. The registration
procedure is Standards Action.
+-------------+----------------------+
| Value/Range | Designation |
+-------------+----------------------+
| 0 | Reserved |
| | |
| 1 | OSPFv3 |
| | |
| 2-65535 | Unassigned |
+-------------+----------------------+
Cryptographic Protocol ID
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC 2328] Moy, J., "OSPF Version 2", STD 54, RFC 2328,
April 1998.
[RFC 5340] Coltun, R., Ferguson, D., Moy, J., and A. Lindem, "OSPF
for IPv6", RFC 5340, July 2008.
[RFC 5709] Bhatia, M., Manral, V., Fanto, M., White, R., Barnes,
M., Li, T., and R. Atkinson, "OSPFv2 HMAC-SHA
Cryptographic Authentication", RFC 5709, October 2009.
8.2. Informative References
[FIPS-180-3] US National Institute of Standards and Technology,
"Secure Hash Standard (SHS)", FIPS PUB 180-3,
October 2008.
[FIPS-198-1] US National Institute of Standards and Technology, "The
Keyed-Hash Message Authentication Code (HMAC)", FIPS
PUB 198, July 2008.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 17
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
[MANUAL-KEY] Bhatia, M., Hartman, S., Zhang, D., and A. Lindem,
"Security Extension for OSPFv2 when using Manual Key
Management", Work in Progress, October 2011.
[RFC 2104] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., and R. Canetti, "HMAC:
Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104,
February 1997.
[RFC 4302] Kent, S., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 4302,
December 2005.
[RFC 4303] Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)",
RFC 4303, December 2005.
[RFC 4552] Gupta, M. and N. Melam, "Authentication/Confidentiality
for OSPFv3", RFC 4552, June 2006.
[RFC 5613] Zinin, A., Roy, A., Nguyen, L., Friedman, B., and D.
Yeung, "OSPF Link-Local Signaling", RFC 5613,
August 2009.
[RFC 5996] Kaufman, C., Hoffman, P., Nir, Y., and P. Eronen,
"Internet Key Exchange Protocol Version 2 (IKEv2)",
RFC 5996, September 2010.
[RFC 6039] Manral, V., Bhatia, M., Jaeggli, J., and R. White,
"Issues with Existing Cryptographic Protection Methods
for Routing Protocols", RFC 6039, October 2010.
[RFC 6234] Eastlake, D. and T. Hansen, "US Secure Hash Algorithms
(SHA and SHA-based HMAC and HKDF)", RFC 6234, May 2011.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 18
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Appendix A. Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thanks to the authors of RFC 5709 [RFC 5709], from
which this work was derived.
Thanks to Sam Hartman for discussions on replay mitigation and the
use of a 64-bit strictly increasing sequence number. Also, thanks to
Sam for comments during IETF last call with respect to the OSPFv3 SA
and sharing of key between protocols.
Thanks to Michael Barnes for numerous comments and strong input on
the coverage of LLS by the Authentication Trailer (AT).
Thanks to Rajesh Shetty for numerous comments, including the
suggestion to include an Authentication Type field in the
Authentication Trailer for extendibility.
Thanks to Uma Chunduri for suggesting that we may want to protect the
IPv6 source address even though OSPFv3 uses the Router ID for
neighbor identification.
Thanks to Srinivasan KL, Shraddha H, Alan Davey, Russ White, Stan
Ratliff, and Glen Kent for their support and review comments.
Thanks to Alia Atlas for comments made under the purview of the
Routing Directorate review.
Thanks to Stephen Farrell for comments during the IESG review.
Stephen was also involved in the discussion of cross-protocol
attacks.
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 19
RFC 6506 Authentication Trailer for OSPFv3 February 2012
Authors' Addresses
Manav Bhatia
Alcatel-Lucent
Bangalore
India
EMail: manav.bhatia@alcatel-lucent.com
Vishwas Manral
Hewlett Packard
USA
EMail: vishwas.manral@hp.com
Acee Lindem
Ericsson
102 Carric Bend Court
Cary, NC 27519
USA
EMail: acee.lindem@ericsson.com
Bhatia, et al. Standards Track PAGE 20
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 41992 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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