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IETF RFC 9482
Last modified on Sunday, November 5th, 2023
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) M. Sahni, Ed.
Request for Comments: 9482 S. Tripathi, Ed.
Category: Standards Track Palo Alto Networks
ISSN: 2070-1721 November 2023
Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) Transfer for the Certificate
Management Protocol
 Abstract
This document specifies the use of the Constrained Application
Protocol (CoAP) as a transfer mechanism for the Certificate
Management Protocol (CMP). CMP defines the interaction between
various PKI entities for the purpose of certificate creation and
management. CoAP is an HTTP-like client-server protocol used by
various constrained devices in the Internet of Things space.
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 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 9482.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2023 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
(https://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 Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Requirements Language
2. CoAP Transfer Mechanism for CMP
2.1. CoAP URI Format
2.2. Discovery of CMP RA/CA
2.3. CoAP Request Format
2.4. CoAP Block-Wise Transfer Mode
2.5. Multicast CoAP
2.6. Announcement PKIMessage
3. Proxy Support
4. Security Considerations
5. IANA Considerations
6. References
6.1. Normative References
6.2. Informative References
Acknowledgements
Authors' Addresses
1. Introduction
The Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) [RFC 4210] is used by the
PKI entities for the generation and management of certificates. One
of the requirements of CMP is to be independent of the transport
protocol in use. CMP has mechanisms to take care of required
transactions, error reporting, and protection of messages.
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) defined in [RFC 7252],
[RFC 7959], and [RFC 8323] is a client-server protocol like HTTP. It
is designed to be used by constrained devices over constrained
networks. The recommended transport for CoAP is UDP; however,
[RFC 8323] specifies the support of CoAP over TCP, TLS, and
WebSockets.
This document specifies the use of CoAP over UDP as a transport
medium for CMP version 2 [RFC 4210], CMP version 3 [RFC 9480]
(designated as CMP in this document), and the Lightweight CMP Profile
[RFC 9483]. In general, this document follows the HTTP transfer for
CMP specifications defined in [RFC 6712] and specifies the
requirements for using CoAP as a transfer mechanism for CMP.
This document also provides guidance on how to use a "CoAP-to-HTTP"
proxy to ease adoption of a CoAP transfer mechanism by enabling the
interconnection with existing PKI entities already providing CMP over
HTTP.
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC 2119] [RFC 8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
2. CoAP Transfer Mechanism for CMP
A CMP transaction consists of exchanging PKIMessages [RFC 4210]
between PKI end entities (EEs), registration authorities (RAs), and
certification authorities (CAs). If the EEs are constrained devices,
then they may prefer, as a CMP client, the use of CoAP instead of
HTTP as the transfer mechanism. In general, the RAs and CAs are not
constrained and can support both CoAP and HTTP client and server
implementations. This section specifies how to use CoAP as the
transfer mechanism for CMP.
2.1. CoAP URI Format
The CoAP URI format is described in Section 6 of [RFC 7252]. The CoAP
endpoints MUST support use of the path prefix "/.well-known/" as
defined in [RFC 8615] and the registered name "cmp" to help with
endpoint discovery and interoperability. Optional path segments MAY
be added after the registered application name (i.e., after "/.well-
known/cmp") to provide distinction. The path segment 'p' followed by
an arbitraryLabel <name> could, for example, support the
differentiation of specific CAs or certificate profiles. Further
path segments, for example, as specified in Lightweight CMP Profile
[RFC 9483], could indicate PKI management operations using an
operationLabel <operation>. A valid full CMP URI can look like this:
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp/<operation>
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp/p/<profileLabel>
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp/p/<profileLabel>/<operation>
2.2. Discovery of CMP RA/CA
The EEs can be configured with enough information to form the CMP
server URI. The minimum information that can be configured is the
scheme, i.e., "coap:" or "coaps:", and the authority portion of the
URI, e.g., "example.com:5683". If the port number is not specified
in the authority, then the default port numbers MUST be assumed for
the "coap:" and "coaps:" scheme URIs. The default port for "coap:"
scheme URIs is 5683 and the default port for "coaps:" scheme URIs is
5684 [RFC 7252].
Optionally, in the environments where a Local RA or CA is deployed,
EEs can also use the CoAP service discovery mechanism [RFC 7252] to
discover the URI of the Local RA or CA. The CoAP CMP endpoints
supporting service discovery MUST also support resource discovery in
the Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format, as described
in [RFC 6690]. The link MUST include the 'ct' attribute defined in
Section 7.2.1 of [RFC 7252] with the value of "application/pkixcmp",
as defined in the "CoAP Content-Formats" IANA registry.
2.3. CoAP Request Format
The CMP PKIMessages MUST be DER encoded and sent as the body of the
CoAP POST request. A CMP client MUST send each CoAP request marked
as a Confirmable message [RFC 7252]. If the CoAP request is
successful, then the CMP RA or CA MUST return a Success 2.xx response
code; otherwise, the CMP RA or CA MUST return an appropriate Client
Error 4.xx or Server Error 5.xx response code. A CMP RA or CA may
choose to send a piggybacked response [RFC 7252] to the client, or it
MAY send a separate response [RFC 7252] in case it takes some time for
the RA or CA to process the CMP transaction.
When transferring CMP PKIMessage over CoAP, the content-format
"application/pkixcmp" MUST be used.
2.4. CoAP Block-Wise Transfer Mode
A CMP PKIMessage consists of a header, body, protection, and
extraCerts structure, which may contain many optional and potentially
large fields. Thus, a CMP message can be much larger than the
Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) of the outgoing interface of the
device. The EEs and RAs or CAs MUST use the block-wise transfer mode
[RFC 7959] to transfer such large messages instead of relying on IP
fragmentation.
If a CoAP-to-HTTP proxy is in the path between EEs and an RA or EEs
and a CA and if the server supports, then it MUST use the chunked
transfer encoding [RFC 9112] to send data over the HTTP transport.
The proxy MUST try to reduce the number of packets sent by using an
optimal chunk length for the HTTP transport.
2.5. Multicast CoAP
CMP PKIMessages sent over CoAP MUST NOT use a Multicast destination
address.
2.6. Announcement PKIMessage
A CMP server may publish announcements that can be triggered by an
event or periodically for the other PKI entities. Here is the list
of CMP announcement messages prefixed by their respective ASN.1
identifier (see Section 5.1.2 of [RFC 4210]):
[15] CA Key Update Announcement
[16] Certificate Announcement
[17] Revocation Announcement
[18] CRL Announcement
An EE MAY use the CoAP Observe Option [RFC 7641] to register itself to
get any announcement messages from the RA or CA. The EE can send a
GET request to the server's URI suffixed by "/ann". For example, a
path to register for announcement messages may look like this:
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp/ann
coap://www.example.com/.well-known/cmp/p/<profileLabel>/ann
If the server supports CMP announcement messages, then it MUST send
an appropriate Success 2.xx response code; otherwise, it MUST send an
appropriate Client Error 4.xx or Server Error 5.xx response code. If
for some reason the server cannot add the client to its list of
observers for the announcements, it can omit the Observe Option
[RFC 7641] in the response to the client. Upon receiving a Success
2.xx response without the Observe Option [RFC 7641], after some time,
a client MAY try to register again for announcements from the CMP
server. Since a server can remove the EE from the list of observers
for announcement messages, an EE SHOULD periodically reregister
itself for announcement messages.
Alternatively, an EE MAY periodically poll for the current status of
the CA via the "PKI Information Request" message; see Section 6.5 of
[RFC 4210]. If supported, EEs MAY also use "support messages" defined
in Section 4.3 of Lightweight CMP Profile [RFC 9483] to get
information about the CA status. These mechanisms will help
constrained devices that are acting as EEs to conserve resources by
eliminating the need to create an endpoint for receiving
notifications from the RA or CA. It will also simplify the
implementation of a CoAP-to-HTTP proxy.
3. Proxy Support
This section provides guidance on using a CoAP-to-HTTP proxy between
EEs and RAs or CAs in order to avoid changes to the existing PKI
implementation.
Since the CMP payload is the same over CoAP and HTTP transfer
mechanisms, a CoAP-to-HTTP cross-protocol proxy can be implemented
based on Section 10 of [RFC 7252]. The CoAP-to-HTTP proxy can either
be located closer to the EEs or closer to the RA or CA. The proxy
MAY support service discovery and resource discovery, as described in
Section 2.2. The CoAP-to-HTTP proxy MUST function as a reverse
proxy, only permitting connections to a limited set of preconfigured
servers. It is out of scope of this document to specify how a
reverse proxy can route CoAP client requests to one of the configured
servers. Some recommended mechanisms are as follows:
* Use the Uri-Path option to identify a server.
* Use separate hostnames for each of the configured servers and then
use the Uri-Host option for routing the CoAP requests.
* Use separate hostnames for each of the configured servers and then
use Server Name Indication [RFC 8446] in case of the "coaps://"
scheme for routing CoAP requests.
4. Security Considerations
* If PKIProtection is used, the PKIHeader and PKIBody of the CMP are
cryptographically protected against malicious modifications. As
such, UDP can be used without compromising the security of the
CMP. Security considerations for CoAP are defined in [RFC 7252].
* The CMP does not provide confidentiality of the CMP payloads. If
confidentiality is desired, CoAP over DTLS [RFC 9147] SHOULD be
used to provide confidentiality for the CMP payloads; although, it
cannot conceal that the CMP is used within the DTLS layer.
* Section 9.1 of [RFC 7252] defines how to use DTLS [RFC 9147] for
securing CoAP. DTLS [RFC 9147] associations SHOULD be kept alive
and reused where possible to amortize on the additional overhead
of DTLS on constrained devices.
* An EE might not witness all of the announcement messages when
using the CoAP Observe Option [RFC 7641], since the Observe Option
is a "best-effort" approach and the server might lose its state
for subscribers to its announcement messages. The EEs may use an
alternate method described in Section 2.6 to obtain time critical
changes, such as Certificate Revocation List (CRL) [RFC 5280]
updates.
* Implementations SHOULD use the available datagram size and avoid
sending small datagrams containing partial CMP PKIMessage data in
order to reduce memory usage for packet buffering.
* A CoAP-to-HTTP proxy can also protect the PKI entities by handling
UDP and CoAP messages. The proxy can mitigate attacks, like
denial-of-service attacks, replay attacks, and resource-exhaustion
attacks, by enforcing basic checks, like validating that the ASN.1
syntax is compliant to CMP messages and validating the PKIMessage
protection before sending them to PKI entities.
* Since the proxy may have access to the CMP-level metadata and
control over the flow of CMP messages, proper role-based access
control should be in place. The proxy can be deployed at the edge
of the "end entities" network or in front of an RA and CA to
protect them. However, the proxy may itself be vulnerable to
resource-exhaustion attacks as it's required to buffer the CMP
messages received over CoAP transport before sending it to the
HTTP endpoint. This can be mitigated by using short timers for
discarding the buffered messages and rate limiting clients based
on the resource usage.
5. IANA Considerations
IANA has registered "application/pkixcmp" (ID 259) in the "CoAP
Content-Formats" registry <https://www.iana.org/assignments/core-
parameters> to transfer CMP transactions over CoAP.
Type name: application
Subtype name: pkixcmp
Reference: RFC 9482 [RFC 4210]
IANA has also registered a new path segment "ann" in the "CMP Well-
Known URI Path Segments" registry <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
cmp> for the EEs to register themselves for the announcement
messages.
Path Segment: ann
Description: The path to send a GET request with the CoAP Observe
Option to register for CMP announcement messages.
Reference: RFC 9482
IANA has added this document as a reference for the "cmp" entry in
the "Well-Known URIs" registry <https://www.iana.org/assignments/
well-known-uris>.
IANA has also added this document as a reference for the "p" entry in
the "CMP Well-Known URI Path Segments" registry
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/cmp/>.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 4210] Adams, C., Farrell, S., Kause, T., and T. Mononen,
"Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
Management Protocol (CMP)", RFC 4210,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 4210, September 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4210>.
[RFC 6690] Shelby, Z., "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link
Format", RFC 6690, DOI 10.17487/RFC 6690, August 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6690>.
[RFC 6712] Kause, T. and M. Peylo, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure -- HTTP Transfer for the Certificate
Management Protocol (CMP)", RFC 6712,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6712, September 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6712>.
[RFC 7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7252, June 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7252>.
[RFC 7641] Hartke, K., "Observing Resources in the Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7641,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7641, September 2015,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7641>.
[RFC 7959] Bormann, C. and Z. Shelby, Ed., "Block-Wise Transfers in
the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7959,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 7959, August 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7959>.
[RFC 8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8174>.
[RFC 8615] Nottingham, M., "Well-Known Uniform Resource Identifiers
(URIs)", RFC 8615, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8615, May 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8615>.
[RFC 9112] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP/1.1", STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC 9112,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 9112>.
[RFC 9147] Rescorla, E., Tschofenig, H., and N. Modadugu, "The
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version
1.3", RFC 9147, DOI 10.17487/RFC 9147, April 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 9147>.
[RFC 9480] Brockhaus, H., von Oheimb, D., and J. Gray, "Certificate
Management Protocol (CMP) Updates", RFC 9480,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 9480, November 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 9480>.
[RFC 9483] Brockhaus, H., von Oheimb, D., and S. Fries, "Lightweight
Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) Profile", RFC 9483,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 9483, November 2023,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 9483>.
6.2. Informative References
[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, DOI 10.17487/RFC 5280, May 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5280>.
[RFC 8323] Bormann, C., Lemay, S., Tschofenig, H., Hartke, K.,
Silverajan, B., and B. Raymor, Ed., "CoAP (Constrained
Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets",
RFC 8323, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8323, February 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8323>.
[RFC 8446] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC 8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 8446>.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Hendrik Brockhaus, David von Oheimb,
and Andreas Kretschmer for their guidance in writing the content of
this document and providing valuable feedback.
Authors' Addresses
Mohit Sahni (editor)
Palo Alto Networks
3000 Tannery Way
Santa Clara, CA 95054
United States of America
Email: msahni@paloaltonetworks.com
Saurabh Tripathi (editor)
Palo Alto Networks
3000 Tannery Way
Santa Clara, CA 95054
United States of America
Email: stripathi@paloaltonetworks.com
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 20153 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Sunday, November 5th, 2023
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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