One document matched: draft-ietf-aaa-roamops-auth-req-00.txt







INTERNET DRAFT                                             Pat R. Calhoun
Category: Standards Track                          Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Title: draft-ietf-aaa-roamops-auth-req-00.txt                   Glen Zorn
Date: March 1999                                    Microsoft Corporation



           Roamops Authentication/Authorization Requirements



Status of this Memo

   This document is a submission by the AAA Working Group of the
   Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).  Comments should be submitted
   to the aaa-wg@merit.edu mailing list.

   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.  Internet-Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
   and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at:

      http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt

   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at:

      http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.


Abstract

   The AAA Working Group is currently looking at defining the
   requirements for Authentication and Authorization. This document
   contains the requirements for Roaming Operations.


1.0 Introduction




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   In non-roamops environments, a typical AAA deployment would consist
   of a Policy Enforcement Point (PEP), and a Policy Decision Point
   (PDP). The PEP receives a request for service from a user or device,
   and in turn issues an Authentication/Authorization request to the
   PDP.

       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
       | user |    | PEP |                   | PDP |
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
            -------->
       Request for service
                         --------------------->
                           Authentication/Authorization (AA)
                         <---------------------
                           Reply w/ authorization info
            <--------
       Service is offered

   The PDP authenticates the user, makes some authorization decisions
   based on the user or device's profile, and issues a reply. The reply
   MAY include additional authorization information, which the PEP uses
   to perform additional authorization decisions before offering the
   service to the user/device.

   Much of the work in progress within ROAMOPS allows the AAA server to
   take a much more active role in the authentication phase. This is
   intended to increase the security, especially in roaming
   environments, where replay of previous authentication sessions is
   very easy. The unfortunate side-effect of this feature is that it
   requires more exchanges between the PEP and the PDP, as shown below.





















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       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
       | user |    | PEP |                   | PDP |
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
            -------->
       Request for service
                         --------------------->
                           AA Req w/ identity
                         <---------------------
                           AA Reply w/ Challenge
            <--------
            Challenge
            -------->
            Response
                         --------------------->
                           AA Req w/ Response
                         <---------------------
                           Reply w/ authorization info
            <--------
       Service is offered

   In the above example, when the PEP issues the initial AA request to
   the PDP, it includes the user's identity (ideally in the format
   defined by the Network Access Identifier (NAI) specification [1]).
   The PDP issues some challenge to the PEP, which is then forwarded to
   the user/device. This challenge could in fact be encapsulated within
   an EAP [2] or SASL [3] envelope, which would allow for user/device to
   PDP authentication using existing authentication frameworks. Once the
   PDP determines that the user/device has satisfactorily authenticated
   itself, access is granted which includes authorization information.

   There have been some discussions in the AAA working group to
   logically split the authentication and authorization phase, possibly
   into two different protocols. The resulting protocol would look like
   the following figure:

















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       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
       | user |    | PEP |                   | PDP |
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+
            -------->
       Request for service
                         --------------------->
                           Authen. Req w/ identity
                         <---------------------
                           Authen. Reply w/ Challenge
            <--------
            Challenge
            -------->
            Response
                         --------------------->
                           Authen. Req w/ Response
                         <---------------------
                           Authen. Reply w/ token
                         --------------------->
                           Authorization Req w/ token
                         <---------------------
                           Reply w/ authorization info
            <--------
       Service is offered

   In this instance, the PEP initially sends the authentication request
   to the PDP. Upon successful authentication, the PDP returns some form
   of signed token back in the reply. The PEP would then issue the
   authorization request to the PDP, which would look at the token (to
   ensure that authentication had already occured), authorize the
   user/device, and return a reply that contains the additional
   authorization information.

   Since it is very possible for the authentication and authorization to
   be performed by two different PDPs, each specializing in their own
   area, the above example does allow for such a logical split in
   functionality. The Authentication PDP could support a specific
   manufacturer's token card, or biometric authentication.

   In the roamops model, it is assumed that the user/device cannot be
   authenticated and authorized locally. This means that the user/device
   requests service from a provider that is not its "home" provider.
   Therefore, the visited domain must forward the request to the user's
   home domain in order to perform the Authentication and Authorization.
   A reply from the home domain may be construed as "willingness to pay"
   for the service provided to the requesting user/device.






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                                             Visited      Home
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+     +-----+
       | user |    | PEP |                   | PDP |     | PDP |
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+     +-----+
            -------->
       Request for service
                         --------------------->
                           Authen. Req Req (includes identity)
                                                ------------->
                                                 Authen. Req w/ identity
                                                <-------------
                                               Authen. Rep. w/ Challenge
                         <---------------------
                           Authen. Reply w/ Challenge
            <--------
            Challenge
            -------->
            Response
                         --------------------->
                           Authen. Req w/ Response
                                                ------------->
                                                 Authen. Req w/ Response
                                                <-------------
                                                 Authen. Reply w/ token
                         <---------------------
                           Authen. Reply w/ token
                         --------------------->
                           Autho. Req w/ token
                                                ------------->
                                                Autho. Req w/ token
                                                <-------------
                                                Reply  w/  authorization
      info
                         <---------------------
                           Reply w/ authorization info
            <--------
       Service is offered

   In the above diagram, the Visited PDP forwards the request to the
   home PDP. The Home PDP is known using the identity, which is some
   cases is the NAI. It is equally possible for the visited PDP to
   simply forward the request to a broker, which it shares a trust
   relationship with, which in turn forwards the request to the home
   PDP.







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                                      Visited      Broker     Home
       +------+    +-----+            +-----+     +-----+    +-----+
       | user |    | PEP |            | PDP |     | PDP |    | PDP |
       +------+    +-----+            +-----+     +-----+    +-----+

   Here each message will traverse the internet, possibly twice for each
   message if a broker is involved. Many of the services which will be
   using AAA stated that one of their requirement was to be able to use
   AAA and not impose an additional long latency. Therefore, it is
   paramount that we attempt to limit the number of messages required
   for the authentication and authorization phase. Ideally, the
   authentication request *should* include a request for authorization.
   This also has the advantange of reducing the Inter-Domain trust
   relationships to one (instead of one for authentication and one for
   authorization).

   When brokers are involved, it is necessary that a end-to-end (Visited
   to Home PDP) trust relationship be established in order to prevent
   from fraudulent broker activity. Otherwise, it would be possible for
   the broker to modify authorization information that was returned by
   the home domain's PDP. It should therefore be possible for the broker
   to return a forwarding address to the visited network's PDP, and
   allow the local PDP to contact the "home" PDP directly, using the
   end-to-end trust relationship for authentication and authorization.
   However, accounting messages MUST flow through the broker. This
   decision is up to the broker's policy on whether a forwarding address
   is returned, or the request is proxied to the home domain.

   Note that the PDP can still interface with a specialized
   authentication server for support of token cards or biometrics, as
   shown below. In this case, the interface between the PDP and the
   specialized Authentication server MAY use the AAA protocol, or may
   use a proprietary protocol. However, this is clearly outside this
   scope of this document. If the Authentication server is required,
   this should exist within the home domain, and should not be exposed
   to the visited domain, especially if the interface to the
   authentiation server is proprietary.

       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+    +------+
       | user |    | PEP |                   | PDP |    | Auth |
       +------+    +-----+                   +-----+    +------+


3.0 Conclusion

   The ROAMOPS working group has the following requirements:

      - Allow existing Authentication Frameworks (EAP, SASL) to be



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        transported over the AAA protocol for user/device
        authentication.

      - Allow for separate authorization when necessary, but the
        AAA protocol MUST allow for a single message to request both
        authentication and authorization.

      - The AAA protocol MUST be "proxyable", meaning that a PDP
        MUST be able to forward the request to another PDP, which
        may or may not be within the same administrative domain.

      - The AAA protocol MUST allow for intermediate brokers to
        add their own local Authorization information to a request
        or response.

      - When a broker is involved, the protocol MUST provide end to
        end security.

      - The broker MUST be able to return a forwarding address to
        a requestor, allowing two nodes to communicate together.

   Furthermore, the protocol MUST provide the following features (per
   user session):

      - One Authentication, One Authorization

      - One Authentication, Multiple Authorization

      - Multiple Authentication, Multiple Authorization


4.0 References

   [1] L. Blunk, J. Vollbrecht, "PPP Extensible Authentication
       Protocol (EAP)", RFC 2284, March 1998.
   [2] B. Aboba, M. Beadles, "The Network Access Identifier",
       RFC 2486, January 1999.
   [3] J. Myers, "Simple Authentication and Security Layer
       (SASL)", RFC 2222, October 1997.












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5.0 Author's Address

   Questions about this memo can be directed to:

   Pat R. Calhoun
   Network and Security Research Center
   Sun Microsystems, Inc.
   15 Network Circle
   Menlo Park, California, 94025
   USA

   Phone:  1-650-786-7733
     Fax:  1-650-786-6445
   E-mail:  pat.calhoun@eng.sun.com


   Glen Zorn
   Microsoft Corporation
   One Microsoft Way
   Redmond, Washington 98052

    Phone:  +1 425 703 1559
   E-Mail: glennz@microsoft.com




























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