One document matched: draft-dekok-radius-status-server-01.txt
Differences from draft-dekok-radius-status-server-00.txt
Network Working Group Alan DeKok
INTERNET-DRAFT FreeRADIUS
Category: Informational
<draft-dekok-radius-status-server-01.txt>
23 February 2007
Use of Status-Server Packets in RADIUS
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Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).
Abstract
[RFC2865] defines a Status-Server code for use in RADIUS, but labels
it as "Experimental" without further discussion. This document
describes practical uses for Status-Server that have been implemented
as a method of querying the status of a RADIUS server.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ............................................. 3
1.1. Terminology ......................................... 3
1.2. Requirements Language ............................... 4
2. Problem Statement ........................................ 5
2.1. Sending Access-Request "pings" ...................... 5
2.1.1. Recommendation against Access-Request .......... 6
2.2. Sending Accounting-Request "pings" .................. 6
2.2.1. Recommendation against Accounting-Request ...... 7
2.3. Status-Server as a Solution ......................... 7
2.3.1. Status-Server instead of Access-Request ........ 7
2.3.2. Status-Server instead of Accounting-Request .... 7
3. Packet Format ............................................ 8
3.1. Consistent definition for Status-Server ............. 10
4. Implementation notes ..................................... 10
4.1. Client Requirements ................................. 11
4.2. Server Requirements ................................. 12
4.3. More Robust Fail-over with Status-Server ............ 13
4.4. Proxy Server handling of Status-Server .............. 14
4.5. MIB Considerations .................................. 14
4.5.1. Interaction with RADIUS Server MIBs ............ 14
4.5.2. Interaction with RADIUS Client MIBs ............ 15
5. Additional considerations ................................ 15
5.1. Local site testing .................................. 15
5.2. RADIUS over reliable transports ..................... 17
5.3. Other uses for Status-Server ........................ 17
5.4. Potential Uses for Status-Client .................... 17
6. Table of Attributes ...................................... 18
7. Examples ................................................. 18
7.1. Minimal Query to Authentication Port ................ 18
7.2. Minimal Query to Accounting Port .................... 19
7.3. Verbose Query and Response .......................... 20
8. IANA Considerations ...................................... 21
9. Security Considerations .................................. 21
10. References .............................................. 21
10.1. Normative references ............................... 21
10.2. Informative references ............................. 21
Intellectual Property Statement .............................. 22
Disclaimer of Validity ....................................... 24
Full Copyright Statement ..................................... 24
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1. Introduction
The RADIUS Working Group was formed in 1995 to document the protocol
of the same name, and created a number of standards surrounding the
protocol. It also defined experimental commands within the protocol,
without elaborating further on the potential uses of those commands.
This document describes how some of the current implementations on
the market are using Status-Server packets as an application-layer
method of "pinging" a RADIUS server to see if it is responding to
requests. These queries do not affect the normal operation of the
server, and do not result in any side effects other than incrementing
internal packet counters.
These "pings" are not intended to be the application-layer watchdog
messages described in [RFC3539] Section 3.4. That document describes
AAA protocols that run over reliable transports, which handle
retransmissions internally. Since RADIUS runs over UDP rather than
TCP, the full watchdog mechanism is not applicable here.
The rest of this document is laid out as follows. Section 2 contains
the problem statement, and explanations as to why some possible
solutions have unwanted side effects. Section 3 defines the Status-
Server packet format. Section 4 contains implementation notes with
detailed client and server requirements. Section 5 lists additional
considerations not covered in the other sections. The remaining text
lists the typical RADIUS table of attributes, and covers some
additional security considerations not covered in the rest of the
document.
1.1. Terminology
This document uses the following terms:
Network Access Server (NAS)
The device providing access to the network. Also known as the
Authenticator (IEEE 802.1X or EAP terminology) or RADIUS client.
Home Server
A RADIUS server that is authoritative for user authorization and
authentication.
Proxy Server
A RADIUS server that acts as a Home Server to the NAS, but in turn
proxies the request to another Proxy Server, or to a Home Server.
silently discard
This means the implementation discards the packet without further
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processing. The implementation SHOULD provide the capability of
logging the error, including the contents of the silently discarded
packet, and SHOULD record the event in a statistics counter.
1.2. Requirements Language
In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements
of the specification. 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
[RFC2119].
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2. Problem Statement
It is often useful to know if a RADIUS server is alive and responding
to requests. The most accurate way to obtain this information is to
query the server via normal protocol traffic, as other methods are
either less accurate, or cannot be performed remotely.
The reasons for wanting to know the status of a server are many. The
administrator may simply be curious if the server is responding, and
may not have access to NAS or traffic data that would give him that
information. The queries may also be performed automatically by a
NAS or proxy server, which is configured to send packets to a RADIUS
server, and where that server may not be responding. That is, while
[RFC2865] Section 2.6 indicates that sending Keep-Alives is harmful,
it is useful to send "Are you Alive" queries to a server once it has
been marked "dead" due to unresponsiveness.
The occasional query to a "dead" server has little impact on the
network or server load, and permits clients to more quickly discover
when the server returns to a responsive state. In all, status
queries are a useful part of a network server deployment.
2.1. Sending Access-Request "pings"
One possible solution to the problem of querying server status is to
send Access-Request packets as a kind of application-level "ping" to
the RADIUS port (1812), and then to look for an Access-Accept
response. However, the server may then conclude that a real user has
logged onto a NAS, and perform local site actions that are
undesirable for a simple status query.
The server may otherwise respond with an Access-Challenge, indicating
that it believes that it is engaging in an extended RADIUS
authentication conversation with a user via the NAS. This side
effect is also unwanted, as the request was intended as a simple
status query, rather than a desire to start a longer protocol
conversation.
Or, the server may respond with an Access-Reject, indicating that the
user is not authorized to gain access to network. As above, the
server may also perform local site actions, such as warning an
administrator of failed login attempts. The server may also delay
the Access-Reject response, in the traditional manner of rate-
limiting failed authentication attempts. This delay in response to
the "ping" means that for a period of time, the querying
administrator is unsure as to whether or not the server is down, is
slow to respond, or is intentionally delaying its response to the
query.
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In addition, using Access-Request packets as "pings" may mean that
the server has to have local users configured whose sole reason for
existence is to enable the "ping" requests. Unless the server policy
is carefully designed for those users, it may be possible for an
attacker to use that users credentials to gain unauthorized network
access.
We note that some NAS implementations currently use Access-Request
packets as described above, with fixed (and non configurable) user
name and password. Issues with those implementations sometimes mean
that if a RADIUS server does not respond to those "ping" request, the
server may be marked as unresponsive, even though it is actively
responding to other Access-Requests. This behavior is confusing to
administrators who have to understand why a live server is marked
"unresponsive".
2.1.1. Recommendation against Access-Request
For the reasons outlined above, NAS implementors SHOULD NOT use
Access-Request packets as "pings" to see if a server is alive.
Similarly, site administrators SHOULD NOT configure test users whose
sole reason for existence is to enable "pings" via Access-Request
packets.
Note that it still may be useful to configure test users for the
purpose of performing end-to-end or in-depth testing of a servers
policy. We do not recommend against this practice, though we do warn
administrators to use it with caution.
2.2. Sending Accounting-Request "pings"
A similar solution for the problem of querying server status may be
to send Accounting-Request packets as a kind of application-level
"ping" to the RADIUS accounting port (1813), and then to look for an
Accounting-Response packet. As above, the server may then conclude
that a real user has logged onto a NAS, and perform local site
actions that are an undesirable for a simple status query.
In addition, some attributes are mandatory to include in an
Accounting-Request. This requirement forces the administrator who
desires to query the server to create "fake" values for those
attributes in a test packet. These "fake" values increase the work
required to perform a simple query, and may pollute the servers
accounting database with invalid data.
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2.2.1. Recommendation against Accounting-Request
For the reasons outlined above, NAS implementors SHOULD NOT use
Accounting-Request packets as "pings" to see if a server is alive.
Similarly, site administrators SHOULD NOT configure accounting
policies whose sole reason for existence is to enable "pings" via
Accounting-Request packets.
Note that it still may be useful to configure test users for the
purpose of performing end-to-end or in-depth testing of a servers
policy. We do not recommend against this practice, though we do warn
administrators to use it with caution.
2.3. Status-Server as a Solution
A better solution to the problem is to use Status-Server. The name
appears to be intended for packets that query the status of a server,
the packets are previously undefined, and the problem statement
outlined in Section 3 indicates that administrators need the ability
to query the a servers status. The difficulty before now has been an
inter-operable method of performing these queries.
2.3.1. Status-Server instead of Access-Request
Status-Server SHOULD be used instead of Access-Request to query the
responsiveness of a server. In this use-case, the protocol exchange
between client and server is similar to the normal exchange of
Access-Request and Access-Accept, as diagrammed below.
NAS RADIUS server
--- -------------
Status-Server/
Message-Authenticator ->
<- Access-Accept/
Reply-Message
With this design, the Status-Server packet replaces an Access-Request
packet, without the previously mentioned side effects.
2.3.2. Status-Server instead of Accounting-Request
Status-Server may be used instead of Accounting-Request to query the
responsiveness of a server. In this use-case, the protocol exchange
between client and server is similar to the normal exchange of
Accounting-Request and Accounting-Response, as diagrammed below.
NAS RADIUS server
--- -------------
Status-Server/
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Message-Authenticator ->
<- Accounting-Response
With this design, the Status-Server packet replaces an
Accounting-Request packet, without the previously mentioned side
effects.
3. Packet Format
Status-Server packets have the normal RADIUS packet form, with the
fields and values for those fields as defined [RFC2865] Section 3.
We do not include all of the text or diagrams of that section here,
but instead document the details specific to implementing Status-
Server.
The Authenticator field of Status-Server packets MUST be generated
using the same method as that used for the Request Authenticator
field of Access-Request packets. In more detail, the definition of
Request Authenticator for Status-Server packets is given below.
The role of the Identifier field is the same for Status-Server as for
other packets. However, as Status-Server is taking the role of
Access-Request or Accounting-Request packets, there is the potential
for Status-Server requests to be in conflict with Access-Request or
Accounting-Request packets with the same Identifier. In Section 4.2,
below, we describe how these problems can be avoided.
Request Authenticator
In Status-Server Packets, the Authenticator value is a 16 octet
random number, called the Request Authenticator. The value
SHOULD be unpredictable and unique over the lifetime of a
secret (the password shared between the client and the RADIUS
server), since repetition of a request value in conjunction
with the same secret would permit an attacker to reply with a
previously intercepted response. Since it is expected that the
same secret MAY be used to authenticate with servers in
disparate geographic regions, the Request Authenticator field
SHOULD exhibit global and temporal uniqueness.
The Request Authenticator value in a Status-Server packet
SHOULD also be unpredictable, lest an attacker trick a server
into responding to a predicted future request, and then use the
response to masquerade as that server to a future Status-
Server.
Although protocols such as RADIUS are incapable of protecting
against theft of an authenticated session via real-time active
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wiretapping attacks, generation of unique unpredictable
requests can protect against a wide range of active attacks
against authentication.
Similarly, the Response Authenticator field of Access-Accept packets
sent in response to Status-Server queries MUST be generated using the
normal method for calculating the Response Authenticator of the
Access-Accept, with the Status-Server Request Authenticator taking
the place of the Access-Request Request Authenticator.
The Response Authenticator field of Accounting-Response packets sent
in response to Status-Server queries MUST be generated using the
normal method for calculating the Response Authenticator of the
Accounting-Response, with the Status-Server Request Authenticator
taking the place of the Accounting-Request Request Authenticator.
In more detail, the definition of Response Authenticator is given
below.
Response Authenticator
The value of the Authenticator field in Access-Accept, or
Accounting-Response packets is called the Response
Authenticator, and contains a one-way MD5 hash calculated over
a stream of octets consisting of: the RADIUS packet, beginning
with the Code field, including the Identifier, the Length, the
Request Authenticator field from the Status-Server packet, and
the response Attributes (if any), followed by the shared
secret. That is, ResponseAuth =
MD5(Code+ID+Length+RequestAuth+Attributes+Secret) where +
denotes concatenation.
In addition to the above requirements, all Status-Server packets MUST
include a Message-Authenticator attribute. Failure to do so would
mean that the packets could be trivially spoofed.
Status-Server packets MAY include NAS-Identifier, and/or NAS-IP-
Address or NAS-IPv6-Address. These attributes are not necessary for
the operation of Status-Server, but may be useful information to a
server that receives those packets.
Other attributes SHOULD NOT be included in a Status-Server packet.
User authentication or authorization credentials such as User-Name,
User-Password, CHAP-Password, etc. MUST NOT appear in a Status-Server
packet sent to a server authentication port. User or NAS accounting
attributes such as User-Name, Acct-Session-Id, or Acct-Status-Type
MUST NOT appear in a Status-Server packet sent to a server accounting
port.
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Similarly, the Access-Accept MAY include a Reply-Message attribute.
The Access-Accept or Accounting-Response packets sent in response to
a Status-Server query SHOULD NOT contain any attributes. As the
intent is to implement a simple "ping" instead of user authentication
or accounting, there is no reason to include other attributes in
either the query or the corresponding response.
Detailed examples are given in Section 7, below.
3.1. Consistent definition for Status-Server
When sent to a RADIUS accounting port, Status-Server packets are
calculated as described above. That is, even though the packets are
being sent to an accounting port, they are not created via the same
method as Accounting-Request packets. This difference from the
normal Accounting-Request handling has a number of benefits.
Having one definition for Status-Server is simpler than defining the
packet differently when it is sent to different ports. In addition,
if we were to define Status-Server as a similar to Accounting-
Request, but containing no attributes, then the packets could be
trivially spoofed.
We therefore define Status-Server consistently, and vary the response
packets depending on the port to which the request is sent. When
sent to an authentication port, the response to a Status-Server query
is an Access-Accept packet. When sent to an accounting port, the
response to a Status-Server query is an Accounting-Response packet.
4. Implementation notes
There are a number of considerations to take into account when
implementing support for Status-Server. This section describes
implementation details and requirements for RADIUS clients and
servers that support Status-Server.
The following text applies to both authentication and accounting
ports. We use the generic term "request packets" to mean "Access-
Request packets sent to an authentication port, or Accounting-Request
packets sent to an accounting port." We also use the generic term
"response packets" to mean "Access-Accept, Access-Challenge, or
Access-Reject packets sent from an authentication port, or
Accounting-Response packets sent from an accounting port."
Using generic terms to describe the Status-Server conversations is
simpler than duplicating the text for both authentication and
accounting ports.
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4.1. Client Requirements
Clients SHOULD permit administrators to globally enable or disable
the generation of Status-Server packets. The default SHOULD be to
globally disable it. As it is undesirable to send queries to servers
that do not support Status-Server, clients SHOULD also have a per-
server configuration indicating whether or not the server support
Status-Server. The default SHOULD be that the server does not
support Status-Server.
The client SHOULD also have a configurable global timer (Tw) that is
used when sending periodic Status-Server queries during server fail-
over. The default value SHOULD be 30 seconds, and the value MUST NOT
be permitted to be set below 6 seconds. If a response has not been
received within the timeout period, the request is deemed to have no
response, and MUST be discarded.
When Status-Server packets are sent from a client, they MUST NOT be
retransmitted. Instead, the Identity field MUST be changed for every
Status-Server packet. The old request should be discarded, and a new
Status-Server packet should be generated and sent, with new Identity
and Authenticator fields.
Clients MUST include the Message-Authenticator attribute in all
Status-Server packets. Failure to do so would mean that the packets
could be trivially spoofed, leading to potential denial of service
(DoS) attacks. Other attributes SHOULD NOT appear in a Status-Server
packet. As the intent of the packet is a simple status query, there
is no reason for any additional attributes to appear in Status-Server
packets.
The client MAY increment packet counters as a result of sending a
Status-Server, or receiving a response packet. The client MUST NOT
perform any other action that is normally performed when it receives
a response packet, such as permitting a user login access to a port.
When a client sends Status-Server packets, those requests MUST NOT be
sent from a source port that is used to send Access-Request or
Accounting-Request packets. Clients SHOULD dedicate a source port
solely for sending Status-Server requests. Clients MAY send Status-
Server requests to both authentication and accounting destination
ports from the same source port.
The above requirement for a unique source port aids in matching
responses to requests. Since the response to a Status-Server packet
is an Access-Accept or Accounting-Response packet, those responses
are indistinguishable from normal packets sent in response to an
Access-Request or Accounting-Request. Therefore, the best way to
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distinguish them from normal traffic is to have a unique port.
When the client receives a response to a Status-Server query, the
response may be either an Access-Accept packet or an Accounting-
Response packet, depending on the behavior of the server, and the
port to which the query was sent. It may be difficult for the client
to know which response packet to expect, so the client SHOULD accept
either packet code as an acceptable response to a Status-Server
query, subject to the validation requirements for the Response
Authenticator.
That is, prior to accepting the response as valid, the client should
check that the response code is Access-Accept (2) or Accounting-
Response (5). If the code does not match one of those two values,
the packet MUST be silently discarded. The client MUST then validate
the Response Authenticator via the algorithm given above in Section
3. If the Response Authenticator is not valid, the packet MUST be
silently discarded. If, however, the Response Authenticator is
valid, then the packet MUST be deemed to be a valid response from the
server.
If the client instead discarded the response because the packet code
did not match what it expected, then it could erroneously discard
valid responses from a server, and mark that server as unresponsive.
This behavior would affect the stability of a RADIUS network, as
"live" servers would not be used by clients. We therefore recommend
that clients should be liberal in what they expect as responses to
Status-Server queries.
4.2. Server Requirements
Servers SHOULD permit administrators to globally enable or disable
the acceptance of Status-Server packets. The default SHOULD be to
globally enable it.
Status-Server packets originating from clients that are not permitted
to send the server request packets MUST be silently discarded. If a
server does not support Status-Server packets, or is configured to
not respond to them, then it MUST silently discard the packet.
Servers SHOULD silently discard Status-Server packets if they
determine that a client is sending too many Status-Server requests in
a particular time period. Note that the server MAY discard the
packet without first validating the Message-Authenticator attribute.
The method used by a server to make this determination is
implementation-specific, and out of scope of this document.
If a server supports Status-Server packets, and is configured to
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respond to them, and receives a packet from a known client, it MUST
validate the Message-Authenticator attribute as defined in [RFC3579]
Section 3.2. Packets failing validation MUST be silently discarded.
Servers SHOULD NOT otherwise discard Status-Server packets if they
have recently sent the client a response packet. The query may have
originated from an administrator who does not have access to the
response packet stream, or who is interested in obtaining additional
information about the server.
The server SHOULD prioritize the handling Status-Server queries over
normal request handling, subject to the rate limiting described
above. As the intent of Status-Server is to query the responsiveness
of the server, it is unhelpful for the server to queue Status-Server
packets for later handling. Such queuing may lead a client to
believe that a server is unresponsive, when it is merely slow.
Some server implementations require that Access-Request packets are
accepted only on "authentication" ports, (e.g. 1812/udp), and that
Accounting-Request packets are accepted only on "accounting" ports
(e.g. 1813/udp). Those implementations SHOULD reply to Status-Server
packets sent to an "authentication" port with an Access-Accept
packet. Those implementations SHOULD reply to Status-Server packets
sent to an "accounting" port with an Accounting-Response packet.
Some server implementations accept both Access-Request and
Accounting-Request packets on one port, and do not distinguish
between "authentication" only ports, and "accounting" only ports.
Those implements SHOULD reply to Status-Server packets with an
Access-Accept packet.
The server MAY increment packet counters as a result of receiving a
Status-Server, or sending a response packet. The server MUST NOT
perform any other action that is normally performed when it receives
a request, other than sending a response packet.
4.3. More Robust Fail-over with Status-Server
A common problem in RADIUS client implementations is the
implementation of a robust fail-over mechanism. A client may have
multiple servers configured for example, with one server marked as
primary and another marked as secondary. If the client determines
that the primary is unresponsive, it "fails over" to the secondary,
and begins to send requests to the secondary instead of the primary.
However, it is difficult to know when the client should start sending
requests to the primary again. Sending test Access-Requests or
Accounting-Requests to see if the server is alive has all of the
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issues outlined above. Clients could alternately send real traffic
to the primary, on the hope that it is responsive. If the server is
still unresponsive, however, the result may be lost accounting data
or user login failures. This problem is one that the Status-Server
solution can address.
When a client fails over from one server to another because of a lack
of responsiveness, it SHOULD send periodic Status-Server packets to
the unresponsive server, using the timer (Tw) defined above.
Once three time periods have passed where Status-Server messages have
been sent and responded to, the server should be deemed responsive
and RADIUS requests may sent to it again. This determination should
be made separately for each server that the client has a relationship
with, though the same algorithm applies to both authentication and
accounting servers.
The above behavior is modelled after [RFC3539] Section 3.4.1. We
note that if a reliable transport is used for RADIUS, then the
algorithms specified in [RFC3539] MUST be used in preference to the
ones given here.
4.4. Proxy Server handling of Status-Server
Many RADIUS servers can act as proxy servers, and forward requests to
home servers. Such servers MUST NOT proxy Status-Server packets.
The purpose of Status-Server as specified here is to permit the
client to query the responsiveness of a server. Proxying Status-
Server queries negates any usefulness that may be gained by
implementing support for them.
Proxy servers MAY be configured to respond to Status-Server queries
from clients, and MAY act as clients sending Status-Server queries to
other servers. However, those operations MUST be independent of one
another.
4.5. MIB Considerations
4.5.1. Interaction with RADIUS Server MIBs
Since Status-Server packets are sent to the normal RADIUS ports, the
question arises of how these packets affect the [RFC4669] and
[RFC4671] RADIUS server MIBs. [RFC4669] defines a counter named
radiusAuthServTotalUnknownTypes, that counts "The number of RADIUS
packets of unknown type that were received". [RFC4671] defines a
similar counter named radiusAcctServTotalUnknownTypes.
Implementations not supporting Status-Server, or implementations that
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are configured to not respond to Status-Server packets MUST use these
counters to track received Status-Server packets.
If, however, Status-Server is supported and the server is configured
to respond as described above, then the counters defined in [RFC4669]
and [RFC4671] MUST NOT be used to track Status-Server requests or
responses to those requests. That is, the [RFC4669] and [RFC4671]
counters MUST be unaffected by the transmission or reception of
packets relating to Status-Server.
If an implementation supports Status-Server and the [RFC4669] or
[RFC4671] MIBs, then it SHOULD also support vendor-specific MIBs
containing similar information as those MIBs, but which are instead
dedicated solely to tracking Status-Server requests and responses.
The exact definition of the server MIBs for Status-Server is outside
of the scope of this document.
4.5.2. Interaction with RADIUS Client MIBs
Clients implementing Status-Server MUST NOT increment [RFC4668] or
[RFC4670] counters upon reception of response packets to Status-
Server queries. That is, the [RFC4668] and [RFC4670] counters MUST
be unaffected by the transmission or reception of packets relating to
Status-Server.
If an implementation supports Status-Server and the [RFC4668] or
[RFC4670] MIBs, then it SHOULD also support vendor-specific MIBs
containing similar information as those MIBs, but which are instead
dedicated solely to tracking Status-Server requests and responses.
The exact definition of the clients MIBs for Status-Server is outside
of the scope of this document.
5. Additional considerations
There are additional topics related to the use of Status-Server that
may be covered. As those topics do not fit well into the preceding
sections, they are covered in this section, below.
5.1. Local site testing
There is at least one situation where using Access-Request or
Accounting-Request packets may be useful, despite the recommendations
above in Section 2.1.1 and Section 2.2.1. That situation is local
site testing, where the RADIUS client, server, and user store are
under the control of a single administrator or administrative entity.
In that situation, administrators MAY configure a well-known "test"
user to enable local site testing.
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The advantage to creating such a local user is that it is now
possible for the administrator to send a RADIUS request that performs
end-to-end testing of the RADIUS server. As above with Status-
Server, this tesing includes RADIUS server responsiveness. It may
also include querying databases of user authentication credentials,
or storing accounting data to a billing database. The information
obtained from performing those queries is that the entire RADIUS
server infrastructure, including all dependencies, is functioning as
expected. These queries are most useful in deployments where an
administrator has internal RADIUS server that proxy to other internal
RADIUS servers, such as for load balancing or fail over.
If used, the names used for these test users SHOULD be difficult to
guess by an attacker. An Access-Request packet for a test user
otherwise should be treated as follows, depending on its origin:
o Packets from localhost (127.0.0.1 or ::1). RADIUS servers
SHOULD respond with an Access-Accept packet, subject to the
limitations outlined in the Table of Attributes in Section 6,
below.
o Packets from NASes that normally originate Access-Request
packets (i.e. not proxy servers). RADIUS servers SHOULD respond
with an Access-Reject packet, as the use of Status-Server is
preferred.
o Packets from other machines controlled by the administrator.
RADIUS servers MAY respond with an Access-Accept packet, subject
to the limitations outlined in the Table of Attributes in Section
6, below.
o Packets originating from machines not controlled by the
administrator. RADIUS servers MUST respond with an Access-Reject
packet.
If a RADIUS server is configured to support test users for
Accounting-Request packets, it MAY respond with an Accounting-
Response packet, independent of the origin of the request. However,
any subsequent analysis of the accounting data such as billing or
usage MUST NOT include the data for the test user.
If these recommendations are implemented, it may be possible in some
situations to safely query a RADIUS server for responsiveness using
Access-Request or Accounting-Request packets.
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5.2. RADIUS over reliable transports
Although RADIUS has been assigned two TCP ports (1812/tcp and
1813/tcp) in addition to the normally used UDP ports, there has been
as yet no implementations using TCP as a reliable transport for
RADIUS. If an implementation were to be created, then the transport
issues discussed in [RFC3539] would apply.
Further, when RADIUS is run over reliable transports, the watchdog
algorithm described in [RFC3539] Section 3.4 MUST be used rather than
the algorithm described above. Status-Server SHOULD be the packet
used as the watchdog request, in preference to Access-Request or
Accounting-Request.
Clients sending Status-Server over reliable transport MUST ensure
that the Identifier field is unique for all requests on a particular
connection, independent of the packet code. That is, if a Status-
Server with a particular value in the Identifier field is sent to a
server, the client MUST NOT simultaneously send an Access-Request or
Accounting-Request packet with that same Identifier value, on that
connection. Once the client has either received a response to the
Status-Server packet, or has determined that the Status-Server packet
has timed out, it may re-use that Identifier in an Access-Request or
Accounting-Request.
5.3. Other uses for Status-Server
While other uses of Status-Server are possible, uses beyond those
specified here are beyond the scope of this document. It may be
tempting to increase the utility of Status-Server by having the
responses carry additional information, implementors are warned that
such used have not been analyzed for potential security issues or
network problems.
5.4. Potential Uses for Status-Client
RADIUS currently defines an experimental Status-Client packet type,
in addition to Status-Server. It could be possible to define Status-
Client similar to Status-Server, except that it would be applicable
to Change of Authorization, and Disconnect Request packets, currently
sent to a NAS on port 3799 [RFC3576].
We do no more than mention the possibility here. Any definition of
Status-Client is outside of the scope of this document.
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6. Table of Attributes
The following table provide a guide to which attributes may be found
in Status-Server packets, and in what quantity. No attributes other
than the ones listed below should be found in Status-Server packets.
Status- Access- Accounting-
Server Accept Response # Attribute
0-1 0 0 4 NAS-IP-Address
0 0+ 0 18 Reply-Message
0+ 0+ 0+ 26 Vendor-Specific
0-1 0 0 32 NAS-Identifier
1 0-1 0-1 80 Message-Authenticator
0-1 0 0 95 NAS-IPv6-Address
The following table defines the meaning of the above table entries.
0 This attribute MUST NOT be present in packet.
0+ Zero or more instances of this attribute MAY be present in packet.
0-1 Zero or one instance of this attribute MAY be present in packet.
1 Exactly one instance of this attribute MUST be present in packet.
7. Examples
A few examples are presented to illustrate the flow of packets to
both the authentication and accounting ports. These examples are not
intended to be exhaustive, many others are possible. Hexadecimal
dumps of the example packets are given in network byte order, using
the shared secret "xyzzy5461".
7.1. Minimal Query to Authentication Port
The NAS sends a Status-Server UDP packet with minimal content to a
RADIUS server on port 1812.
The Request Authenticator is a 16 octet random number generated by
the NAS. Message-Authenticator is included in order to authenticate
that the request came from a known client.
0c da 00 26 8a 54 f4 68 6f b3 94 c5 28 66 e3 02
18 5d 06 23 50 12 5a 66 5e 2e 1e 84 11 f3 e2 43
82 20 97 c8 4f a3
1 Code = Status-Server (12)
1 ID = 218
2 Length = 38
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16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
18 Message-Authenticator (80) = 5a665e2e1e8411f3e243822097c84fa3
The Response Authenticator is a 16-octet MD5 checksum of the code
(2), id (218), Length (20), the Request Authenticator from above, and
the shared secret.
02 da 00 14 ef 0d 55 2a 4b f2 d6 93 ec 2b 6f e8
b5 41 1d 66
1 Code = Access-Accept (2)
1 ID = 218
2 Length = 20
16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
None.
7.2. Minimal Query to Accounting Port
The NAS sends a Status-Server UDP packet with minimal content to a
RADIUS server on port 1813.
The Request Authenticator is a 16 octet random number generated by
the NAS. Message-Authenticator is included in order to authenticate
that the request came from a known client.
0c b3 00 26 92 5f 6b 66 dd 5f ed 57 1f cb 1d b7
ad 38 82 60 80 12 e8 d6 ea bd a9 10 87 5c d9 1f
da de 26 36 78 58
1 Code = Status-Server (12)
1 ID = 179
2 Length = 38
16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
18 Message-Authenticator (80) = e8d6eabda910875cd91fdade26367858
The Response Authenticator is a 16-octet MD5 checksum of the code
(5), id (179), Length (20), the Request Authenticator from above, and
the shared secret.
02 b3 00 1a 0f 6f 92 14 5f 10 7e 2f 50 4e 86 0a
48 60 66 9c
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1 Code = Accounting-Response (5)
1 ID = 179
2 Length = 20 16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
None.
7.3. Verbose Query and Response
The NAS at 192.0.2.16 sends a Status-Server UDP packet to the RADIUS
server on port 1812.
The Request Authenticator is a 16 octet random number generated by
the NAS.
0c 47 00 2c bf 58 de 56 ae 40 8a d3 b7 0c 85 13
f9 b0 3f be 04 06 c0 00 02 10 50 12 85 2d 6f ec
61 e7 ed 74 b8 e3 2d ac 2f 2a 5f b2
1 Code = Status-Server (12)
1 ID = 71
2 Length = 44
16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
6 NAS-IP-Address (4) = 192.0.2.16
18 Message-Authenticator (80) = 852d6fec61e7ed74b8e32dac2f2a5fb2
The Response Authenticator is a 16-octet MD5 checksum of the code
(2), id (71), Length (52), the Request Authenticator from above, the
attributes in this reply, and the shared secret.
The Reply-Message is "RADIUS Server up 2 days, 18:40"
02 47 00 34 46 f4 3e 62 fd 03 54 42 4c bb eb fd
6d 21 4e 06 12 20 52 41 44 49 55 53 20 53 65 72
76 65 72 20 75 70 20 32 20 64 61 79 73 2c 20 31
38 3a 34 30
1 Code = Access-Accept (2)
1 ID = 71
2 Length = 52
16 Request Authenticator
Attributes:
32 Reply-Message (18)
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8. IANA Considerations
This specification does not create any new registries, nor does it
require assignment of any protocol parameters.
9. Security Considerations
This document defines the Status-Server packet as being similar in
treatment to the Access-Request packet, and is therefore subject to
the same security considerations as described in [RFC2865], Section
8. Status-Server packets also use the Message-Authenticator
attribute, and are therefore subject to the same security
considerations as [RFC3579], Section 4.
We reiterate that Status-Server packets MUST contain a Message-
Authenticator attribute. Early implementations supporting Status-
Server may not have enforced this requirement, and may have been
subject to DoS attacks as a result.
Where this document differs from [RFC2865] is that it defines a new
request/response method in RADIUS; the Status-Server "ping". As this
use is based on previously described and implemented standards, we
know of no additional security considerations that arise from the use
of Status-Server as defined herein.
10. References
10.1. Normative references
[RFC2865]
Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A. and W. Simpson, "Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 2865, June 2000.
[RFC3579]
Aboba, B., Calhoun, P., "RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User
Service) Support For Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)", RFC
3579, September 2003.
10.2. Informative references
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March, 1997.
[RFC3539] Aboba, B., Wood, J., "Authentication, Authorization, and
Accounting (AAA) Transport Profile", RFC 3539, June 2003.
[RFC3576] Chiba, M., Dommety, G., Eklund, M., Mitton, D., Aboba, B.,
"Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote Authentication
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Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 3576, July 2003.
[RFC4668] Nelson, D., "RADIUS Authentication Client MIB for IPv6", RFC
4668, August 2006.
[RFC4669] Nelson, D., "RADIUS Authentication Server MIB for IPv6", RFC
4669, August 2006.
[RFC4670] Nelson, D., "RADIUS Accounting Client MIB for IPv6", RFC 4670,
August 2006.
[RFC4671] Nelson, D., "RADIUS Accounting Server MIB for IPv6", RFC 4671,
August 2006.
Acknowledgments
Parts of the text in Section 3 defining the Request and Response
Authenticators were taken with minor edits from [RFC2865] Section 3.
The author would like to thank Mike McCauley of Open Systems
Consultants for making a Radiator server available for inter-
operability testing.
Authors' Addresses
Alan DeKok
The FreeRADIUS Server Project
http://freeradius.org
Email: aland@freeradius.org
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DeKok, Alan Informational [Page 24]
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