One document matched: draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-12.xml


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<rfc obsoletes="2616" updates="2617" category="std" ipr="pre5378Trust200902" docName="draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-12">
<front>

  <title abbrev="HTTP/1.1, Part 7">HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication</title>

  <author initials="R." surname="Fielding" fullname="Roy T. Fielding" role="editor">
    <organization abbrev="Day Software">Day Software</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>23 Corporate Plaza DR, Suite 280</street>
        <city>Newport Beach</city>
        <region>CA</region>
        <code>92660</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <phone>+1-949-706-5300</phone>
      <facsimile>+1-949-706-5305</facsimile>
      <email>fielding@gbiv.com</email>
      <uri>http://roy.gbiv.com/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>

  <author initials="J." surname="Gettys" fullname="Jim Gettys">
    <organization abbrev="Alcatel-Lucent">Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>21 Oak Knoll Road</street>
        <city>Carlisle</city>
        <region>MA</region>
        <code>01741</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <email>jg@freedesktop.org</email>
      <uri>http://gettys.wordpress.com/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>
  
  <author initials="J." surname="Mogul" fullname="Jeffrey C. Mogul">
    <organization abbrev="HP">Hewlett-Packard Company</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>HP Labs, Large Scale Systems Group</street>
        <street>1501 Page Mill Road, MS 1177</street>
        <city>Palo Alto</city>
        <region>CA</region>
        <code>94304</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <email>JeffMogul@acm.org</email>
    </address>
  </author>

  <author initials="H." surname="Frystyk" fullname="Henrik Frystyk Nielsen">
    <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>1 Microsoft Way</street>
        <city>Redmond</city>
        <region>WA</region>
        <code>98052</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <email>henrikn@microsoft.com</email>
    </address>
  </author>

  <author initials="L." surname="Masinter" fullname="Larry Masinter">
    <organization abbrev="Adobe Systems">Adobe Systems, Incorporated</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>345 Park Ave</street>
        <city>San Jose</city>
        <region>CA</region>
        <code>95110</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <email>LMM@acm.org</email>
      <uri>http://larry.masinter.net/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>
  
  <author initials="P." surname="Leach" fullname="Paul J. Leach">
    <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>1 Microsoft Way</street>
        <city>Redmond</city>
        <region>WA</region>
        <code>98052</code>
      </postal>
      <email>paulle@microsoft.com</email>
    </address>
  </author>
   
  <author initials="T." surname="Berners-Lee" fullname="Tim Berners-Lee">
    <organization abbrev="W3C/MIT">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory</street>
        <street>The Stata Center, Building 32</street>
        <street>32 Vassar Street</street>
        <city>Cambridge</city>
        <region>MA</region>
        <code>02139</code>
        <country>USA</country>
      </postal>
      <email>timbl@w3.org</email>
      <uri>http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>

  <author initials="Y." surname="Lafon" fullname="Yves Lafon" role="editor">
    <organization abbrev="W3C">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>W3C / ERCIM</street>
        <street>2004, rte des Lucioles</street>
        <city>Sophia-Antipolis</city>
        <region>AM</region>
        <code>06902</code>
        <country>France</country>
      </postal>
      <email>ylafon@w3.org</email>
      <uri>http://www.raubacapeu.net/people/yves/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>

  <author initials="J. F." surname="Reschke" fullname="Julian F. Reschke" role="editor">
    <organization abbrev="greenbytes">greenbytes GmbH</organization>
    <address>
      <postal>
        <street>Hafenweg 16</street>
        <city>Muenster</city><region>NW</region><code>48155</code>
        <country>Germany</country>
      </postal>
      <phone>+49 251 2807760</phone>
      <facsimile>+49 251 2807761</facsimile>
      <email>julian.reschke@greenbytes.de</email>
      <uri>http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/</uri>
    </address>
  </author>

  <date month="October" year="2010" day="25"/>
  <workgroup>HTTPbis Working Group</workgroup>

<abstract>
<t>
   The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
   protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information
   systems. HTTP has been in use by the World Wide Web global information
   initiative since 1990. This document is Part 7 of the seven-part specification
   that defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1" and, taken together,
   obsoletes RFC 2616.  Part 7 defines HTTP Authentication.
</t>
</abstract>

<note title="Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor)">
  <t>
    Discussion of this draft should take place on the HTTPBIS working group
    mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org). The current issues list is
    at <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/report/3"/>
    and related documents (including fancy diffs) can be found at
    <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/"/>.
  </t>
  <t>
    The changes in this draft are summarized in <xref target="changes.since.11"/>.
  </t>
</note>
</front>
<middle>
<section title="Introduction" anchor="introduction">
<t>
   This document defines HTTP/1.1 access control and authentication. It
   includes the relevant parts of RFC 2616
   with only minor changes, plus the general framework for HTTP authentication,
   as previously defined in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access
   Authentication" (<xref target="RFC2617"/>).
</t>
<t>
   HTTP provides several OPTIONAL challenge-response authentication
   mechanisms which can be used by a server to challenge a client request and
   by a client to provide authentication information. The "basic" and "digest"
   authentication schemes continue to be specified in
   RFC 2617.
</t>

<section title="Requirements" anchor="intro.requirements">
<t>
   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 <xref target="RFC2119"/>.
</t>
<t>
   An implementation is not compliant if it fails to satisfy one or more
   of the "MUST" or "REQUIRED" level requirements for the protocols it
   implements. An implementation that satisfies all the "MUST" or "REQUIRED"
   level and all the "SHOULD" level requirements for its protocols is said
   to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that satisfies all the "MUST"
   level requirements but not all the "SHOULD" level requirements for its
   protocols is said to be "conditionally compliant".
</t>
</section>

<section title="Syntax Notation" anchor="notation">
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
<t>
  This specification uses the ABNF syntax defined in Section 1.2 of <xref target="Part1"/> (which
  extends the syntax defined in <xref target="RFC5234"/> with a list rule).
  <xref target="collected.abnf"/> shows the collected ABNF, with the list
  rule expanded.
</t>
<t>
  The following core rules are included by
  reference, as defined in <xref target="RFC5234"/>, Appendix B.1:
  ALPHA (letters), CR (carriage return), CRLF (CR LF), CTL (controls),
  DIGIT (decimal 0-9), DQUOTE (double quote),
  HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f), LF (line feed),
  OCTET (any 8-bit sequence of data), SP (space),
  VCHAR (any visible USASCII character),
  and WSP (whitespace).
</t>

<section title="Core Rules" anchor="core.rules">
   
   
   
<t>
   The core rules below are defined in Section 1.2.2 of <xref target="Part1"/>:
</t>
<figure><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
  token         = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
  OWS           = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
</section>
</section>

<section title="Access Authentication Framework" anchor="access.authentication.framework">
  
  
  
  
<t>
   HTTP provides a simple challenge-response authentication mechanism
   that can be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a
   client to provide authentication information. It uses an extensible,
   case-insensitive token to identify the authentication scheme,
   followed by a comma-separated list of attribute-value pairs which
   carry the parameters necessary for achieving authentication via that
   scheme.
</t>
<figure><iref item="auth-scheme" primary="true"/><iref item="auth-param" primary="true"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  auth-scheme    = token
  auth-param     = token "=" ( token / quoted-string )
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   The 401 (Unauthorized) response message is used by an origin server
   to challenge the authorization of a user agent. This response MUST
   include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at least one
   challenge applicable to the requested resource. The 407 (Proxy
   Authentication Required) response message is used by a proxy to
   challenge the authorization of a client and MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate
   header field containing at least one challenge
   applicable to the proxy for the requested resource.
</t>
<figure><iref item="challenge" primary="true"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  challenge   = auth-scheme 1*SP 1#auth-param
]]></artwork></figure>
<t><list>
  <t>
   Note: User agents will need to take special care in parsing the WWW-Authenticate
   or Proxy-Authenticate header field value if it contains
   more than one challenge, or if more than one WWW-Authenticate header
   field is provided, since the contents of a challenge can itself
   contain a comma-separated list of authentication parameters.
  </t>
</list></t>
<t><list>
  <t>
      Note: Many browsers fail to parse challenges containing unknown
      schemes. A workaround for this problem is to list well-supported schemes
      (such as "basic") first.
  </t>
</list></t>
<t>
   The authentication parameter realm is defined for all authentication
   schemes:
</t>
<figure><iref item="realm" primary="true"/><iref item="realm-value" primary="true"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  realm       = "realm" "=" realm-value
  realm-value = quoted-string
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   The realm directive (case-insensitive) is required for all
   authentication schemes that issue a challenge. The realm value
   (case-sensitive), in combination with the canonical root URI
   (the scheme and authority components of the effective request URI; see
   Section 4.3 of <xref target="Part1"/>) of the server being accessed, defines the protection space.
   These realms allow the protected resources on a server to be
   partitioned into a set of protection spaces, each with its own
   authentication scheme and/or authorization database. The realm value
   is a string, generally assigned by the origin server, which can have
   additional semantics specific to the authentication scheme. Note that
   there can be multiple challenges with the same auth-scheme but
   different realms.
</t>
<t>
   A user agent that wishes to authenticate itself with an origin
   server -- usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401
   (Unauthorized) -- MAY do so by including an Authorization header field
   with the request. A client that wishes to authenticate itself with a
   proxy -- usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 407 (Proxy
   Authentication Required) -- MAY do so by including a Proxy-Authorization
   header field with the request.  Both the Authorization
   field value and the Proxy-Authorization field value consist of
   credentials containing the authentication information of the client
   for the realm of the resource being requested. The user agent MUST
   choose to use one of the challenges with the strongest auth-scheme it
   understands and request credentials from the user based upon that
   challenge.
</t>
<figure><iref item="credentials" primary="true"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  credentials = auth-scheme ( token
                            / quoted-string
                            / #auth-param )
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   The protection space determines the domain over which credentials can
   be automatically applied. If a prior request has been authorized, the
   same credentials MAY be reused for all other requests within that
   protection space for a period of time determined by the
   authentication scheme, parameters, and/or user preference. Unless
   otherwise defined by the authentication scheme, a single protection
   space cannot extend outside the scope of its server.
</t>
<t>
   If the origin server does not wish to accept the credentials sent
   with a request, it SHOULD return a 401 (Unauthorized) response. The
   response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at
   least one (possibly new) challenge applicable to the requested
   resource. If a proxy does not accept the credentials sent with a
   request, it SHOULD return a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required). The
   response MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate header field containing a
   (possibly new) challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested
   resource.
</t>
<t>
   The HTTP protocol does not restrict applications to this simple
   challenge-response mechanism for access authentication. Additional
   mechanisms MAY be used, such as encryption at the transport level or
   via message encapsulation, and with additional header fields
   specifying authentication information. However, these additional
   mechanisms are not defined by this specification.
</t>
<t>
   Proxies MUST be completely transparent regarding user agent
   authentication by origin servers. That is, they MUST forward the
   WWW-Authenticate and Authorization headers untouched, and follow the
   rules found in <xref target="header.authorization"/>. Both the Proxy-Authenticate and
   the Proxy-Authorization header fields are hop-by-hop headers (see
   Section 7.1.3.1 of <xref target="Part1"/>).
</t>

<section title="Authentication Scheme Registry" anchor="authentication.scheme.registry">
<t>
  The HTTP Authentication Scheme Registry defines the name space for the
  authentication schemes in challenges and credentials.
</t>
<t>
  Registrations MUST include the following fields:
  <list style="symbols">
    <t>Authentication Scheme Name</t>
    <t>Pointer to specification text</t>
  </list>
</t>
<t>
  Values to be added to this name space are subject to IETF review
  (<xref target="RFC5226"/>, Section 4.1).
</t>
<t>
  The registry itself is maintained at <eref target="http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes"/>.
</t>
</section>

</section>

<section title="Status Code Definitions" anchor="status.code.definitions">
<section title="401 Unauthorized" anchor="status.401">
  <iref primary="true" item="401 Unauthorized (status code)"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Status Codes" subitem="401 Unauthorized"/>
<t>
   The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a
   WWW-Authenticate header field (<xref target="header.www-authenticate"/>) containing a challenge
   applicable to the target resource. The client MAY repeat the
   request with a suitable Authorization header field (<xref target="header.authorization"/>). If
   the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401
   response indicates that authorization has been refused for those
   credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the
   prior response, and the user agent has already attempted
   authentication at least once, then the user SHOULD be presented the
   representation that was given in the response, since that representation might
   include relevant diagnostic information.
</t>
</section>
<section title="407 Proxy Authentication Required" anchor="status.407">
  <iref primary="true" item="407 Proxy Authentication Required (status code)"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Status Codes" subitem="407 Proxy Authentication Required"/>
<t>
   This code is similar to 401 (Unauthorized), but indicates that the
   client ought to first authenticate itself with the proxy. The proxy MUST
   return a Proxy-Authenticate header field (<xref target="header.proxy-authenticate"/>) containing a
   challenge applicable to the proxy for the target resource. The
   client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Proxy-Authorization
   header field (<xref target="header.proxy-authorization"/>).
</t>
</section>
</section>

<section title="Header Field Definitions" anchor="header.fields">
<t>
   This section defines the syntax and semantics of HTTP/1.1 header fields
   related to authentication.
</t>

<section title="Authorization" anchor="header.authorization">
  <iref primary="true" item="Authorization header"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Headers" subitem="Authorization"/>
  
  
<t>
   The "Authorization" request-header field allows a user agent to authenticate
   itself with a server -- usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401
   (Unauthorized) response. Its value consists of credentials containing 
   information of the user agent for the realm of the resource being
   requested.
</t>
<figure><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Authorization"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Authorization-v"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  Authorization   = "Authorization" ":" OWS Authorization-v
  Authorization-v = credentials
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   If a request is
   authenticated and a realm specified, the same credentials SHOULD
   be valid for all other requests within this realm (assuming that
   the authentication scheme itself does not require otherwise, such
   as credentials that vary according to a challenge value or using
   synchronized clocks).
</t>
<t>
      When a shared cache (see Section 1.2 of <xref target="Part6"/>) receives a request
      containing an Authorization field, it MUST NOT return the
      corresponding response as a reply to any other request, unless one
      of the following specific exceptions holds:
</t>
<t>
  <list style="numbers">
      <t>If the response includes the "s-maxage" cache-control
         directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a
         subsequent request. But (if the specified maximum age has
         passed) a proxy cache MUST first revalidate it with the origin
         server, using the request-header fields from the new request to allow
         the origin server to authenticate the new request. (This is the
         defined behavior for s-maxage.) If the response includes "s-maxage=0",
         the proxy MUST always revalidate it before re-using
         it.</t>

      <t>If the response includes the "must-revalidate" cache-control
         directive, the cache MAY use that response in replying to a
         subsequent request. But if the response is stale, all caches
         MUST first revalidate it with the origin server, using the
         request-header fields from the new request to allow the origin server
         to authenticate the new request.</t>

      <t>If the response includes the "public" cache-control directive,
         it MAY be returned in reply to any subsequent request.</t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Proxy-Authenticate" anchor="header.proxy-authenticate">
  <iref primary="true" item="Proxy-Authenticate header"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Headers" subitem="Proxy-Authenticate"/>
  
  
<t>
   The "Proxy-Authenticate" response-header field consists of a challenge that
   indicates the authentication scheme and parameters applicable to the proxy
   for this effective request URI (Section 4.3 of <xref target="Part1"/>). It MUST be included as part
   of a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) response.
</t>
<figure><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Proxy-Authenticate"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Proxy-Authenticate-v"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  Proxy-Authenticate   = "Proxy-Authenticate" ":" OWS
                         Proxy-Authenticate-v
  Proxy-Authenticate-v = 1#challenge
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   Unlike WWW-Authenticate, the Proxy-Authenticate header field applies only to
   the current connection and SHOULD NOT  be passed on to downstream
   clients. However, an intermediate proxy might need to obtain its own
   credentials by requesting them from the downstream client, which in
   some circumstances will appear as if the proxy is forwarding the
   Proxy-Authenticate header field.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Proxy-Authorization" anchor="header.proxy-authorization">
  <iref primary="true" item="Proxy-Authorization header"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Headers" subitem="Proxy-Authorization"/>
  
  
<t>
   The "Proxy-Authorization" request-header field allows the client to
   identify itself (or its user) to a proxy which requires
   authentication. Its value consists of
   credentials containing the authentication information of the user
   agent for the proxy and/or realm of the resource being requested.
</t>
<figure><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Proxy-Authorization"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="Proxy-Authorization-v"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  Proxy-Authorization   = "Proxy-Authorization" ":" OWS
                          Proxy-Authorization-v
  Proxy-Authorization-v = credentials
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   Unlike Authorization, the Proxy-Authorization header field applies only to
   the next outbound proxy that demanded authentication using the Proxy-Authenticate
   field. When multiple proxies are used in a chain, the
   Proxy-Authorization header field is consumed by the first outbound
   proxy that was expecting to receive credentials. A proxy MAY relay
   the credentials from the client request to the next proxy if that is
   the mechanism by which the proxies cooperatively authenticate a given
   request.
</t>
</section>

<section title="WWW-Authenticate" anchor="header.www-authenticate">
  <iref primary="true" item="WWW-Authenticate header"/>
  <iref primary="true" item="Headers" subitem="WWW-Authenticate"/>
  
  
<t>
   The "WWW-Authenticate" response-header field consists of at least one
   challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) and parameters
   applicable to the effective request URI (Section 4.3 of <xref target="Part1"/>). It MUST be included in 401
   (Unauthorized) response messages.
</t>
<figure><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="WWW-Authenticate"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="WWW-Authenticate-v"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
  WWW-Authenticate   = "WWW-Authenticate" ":" OWS WWW-Authenticate-v
  WWW-Authenticate-v = 1#challenge
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
   User agents are advised to take special care in parsing the WWW-Authenticate
   field value as it might contain more than one challenge,
   or if more than one WWW-Authenticate header field is provided, the
   contents of a challenge itself can contain a comma-separated list of
   authentication parameters.
</t>
</section>

</section>

<section title="IANA Considerations" anchor="IANA.considerations">

<section title="Authenticaton Scheme Registry" anchor="authentication.scheme.registration">
<t>
  The registration procedure for HTTP Authentication Schemes is defined by 
  <xref target="authentication.scheme.registry"/> of this document.
</t>
<t>
   The HTTP Method Authentication Scheme shall be created at <eref target="http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes"/>.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Status Code Registration" anchor="status.code.registration">
<t>
   The HTTP Status Code Registry located at <eref target="http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes"/>
   shall be updated with the registrations below:
</t>

<!--AUTOGENERATED FROM extract-status-code-defs.xslt, do not edit manually-->
<texttable align="left" suppress-title="true" anchor="iana.status.code.registration.table">
   <ttcol>Value</ttcol>
   <ttcol>Description</ttcol>
   <ttcol>Reference</ttcol>
   <c>401</c>
   <c>Unauthorized</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="status.401"/>
   </c>
   <c>407</c>
   <c>Proxy Authentication Required</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="status.407"/>
   </c>
</texttable>
<!--(END)-->

</section>

<section title="Header Field Registration" anchor="header.field.registration">
<t>
   The Message Header Field Registry located at <eref target="http://www.iana.org/assignments/message-headers/message-header-index.html"/> shall be updated
   with the permanent registrations below (see <xref target="RFC3864"/>):
</t>

<!--AUTOGENERATED FROM extract-header-defs.xslt, do not edit manually-->
<texttable align="left" suppress-title="true" anchor="iana.header.registration.table">
   <ttcol>Header Field Name</ttcol>
   <ttcol>Protocol</ttcol>
   <ttcol>Status</ttcol>
   <ttcol>Reference</ttcol>

   <c>Authorization</c>
   <c>http</c>
   <c>standard</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="header.authorization"/>
   </c>
   <c>Proxy-Authenticate</c>
   <c>http</c>
   <c>standard</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="header.proxy-authenticate"/>
   </c>
   <c>Proxy-Authorization</c>
   <c>http</c>
   <c>standard</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="header.proxy-authorization"/>
   </c>
   <c>WWW-Authenticate</c>
   <c>http</c>
   <c>standard</c>
   <c>
      <xref target="header.www-authenticate"/>
   </c>
</texttable>
<!--(END)-->

<t>
   The change controller is: "IETF (iesg@ietf.org) - Internet Engineering Task Force".
</t>
</section>
</section>

<section title="Security Considerations" anchor="security.considerations">
<t>
   This section is meant to inform application developers, information
   providers, and users of the security limitations in HTTP/1.1 as
   described by this document. The discussion does not include
   definitive solutions to the problems revealed, though it does make
   some suggestions for reducing security risks.
</t>

<section title="Authentication Credentials and Idle Clients" anchor="auth.credentials.and.idle.clients">
<t>
   Existing HTTP clients and user agents typically retain authentication
   information indefinitely. HTTP/1.1 does not provide a method for a
   server to direct clients to discard these cached credentials. This is
   a significant defect that requires further extensions to HTTP.
   Circumstances under which credential caching can interfere with the
   application's security model include but are not limited to:
  <list style="symbols">
     <t>Clients which have been idle for an extended period following
        which the server might wish to cause the client to reprompt the
        user for credentials.</t>

     <t>Applications which include a session termination indication
        (such as a "logout" or "commit" button on a page) after which
        the server side of the application "knows" that there is no
        further reason for the client to retain the credentials.</t>
  </list>
</t>
<t>
   This is currently under separate study. There are a number of work-arounds
   to parts of this problem, and we encourage the use of
   password protection in screen savers, idle time-outs, and other
   methods which mitigate the security problems inherent in this
   problem. In particular, user agents which cache credentials are
   encouraged to provide a readily accessible mechanism for discarding
   cached credentials under user control.
</t>
</section>
</section>

<section title="Acknowledgments" anchor="ack">
<t>
  This specification takes over the definition of the HTTP Authentication
  Framework, previously defined in RFC 2617. We thank to John Franks,
  Phillip M. Hallam-Baker, Jeffery L. Hostetler, Scott D. Lawrence,
  Paul J. Leach, Ari Luotonen, and Lawrence C. Stewart for their work
  on that specification.
</t>
<t>
  <cref anchor="acks">HTTPbis acknowledgements.</cref>
</t>
</section>
</middle>

<back>

<references title="Normative References">

<reference anchor="Part1">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="HTTP/1.1">HTTP/1.1, part 1: URIs, Connections, and Message Parsing</title>
    <author initials="R." surname="Fielding" fullname="Roy T. Fielding" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="Day Software">Day Software</organization>
      <address><email>fielding@gbiv.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Gettys" fullname="Jim Gettys">
      <organization abbrev="Alcatel-Lucent">Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs</organization>
      <address><email>jg@freedesktop.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Mogul" fullname="Jeffrey C. Mogul">
      <organization abbrev="HP">Hewlett-Packard Company</organization>
      <address><email>JeffMogul@acm.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="H." surname="Frystyk" fullname="Henrik Frystyk Nielsen">
      <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>henrikn@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="L." surname="Masinter" fullname="Larry Masinter">
      <organization abbrev="Adobe Systems">Adobe Systems, Incorporated</organization>
      <address><email>LMM@acm.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="P." surname="Leach" fullname="Paul J. Leach">
      <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>paulle@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="T." surname="Berners-Lee" fullname="Tim Berners-Lee">
      <organization abbrev="W3C/MIT">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
      <address><email>timbl@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="Y." surname="Lafon" fullname="Yves Lafon" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="W3C">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
      <address><email>ylafon@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J. F." surname="Reschke" fullname="Julian F. Reschke" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="greenbytes">greenbytes GmbH</organization>
      <address><email>julian.reschke@greenbytes.de</email></address>
    </author>
    <date month="October" year="2010"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-12"/>
  
</reference>

<reference anchor="Part6">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="HTTP/1.1">HTTP/1.1, part 6: Caching</title>
    <author initials="R." surname="Fielding" fullname="Roy T. Fielding" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="Day Software">Day Software</organization>
      <address><email>fielding@gbiv.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Gettys" fullname="Jim Gettys">
      <organization abbrev="Alcatel-Lucent">Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs</organization>
      <address><email>jg@freedesktop.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Mogul" fullname="Jeffrey C. Mogul">
      <organization abbrev="HP">Hewlett-Packard Company</organization>
      <address><email>JeffMogul@acm.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="H." surname="Frystyk" fullname="Henrik Frystyk Nielsen">
      <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>henrikn@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="L." surname="Masinter" fullname="Larry Masinter">
      <organization abbrev="Adobe Systems">Adobe Systems, Incorporated</organization>
      <address><email>LMM@acm.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="P." surname="Leach" fullname="Paul J. Leach">
      <organization abbrev="Microsoft">Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>paulle@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="T." surname="Berners-Lee" fullname="Tim Berners-Lee">
      <organization abbrev="W3C/MIT">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
      <address><email>timbl@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="Y." surname="Lafon" fullname="Yves Lafon" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="W3C">World Wide Web Consortium</organization>
      <address><email>ylafon@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="M." surname="Nottingham" fullname="Mark Nottingham" role="editor">
      <address><email>mnot@mnot.net</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J. F." surname="Reschke" fullname="Julian F. Reschke" role="editor">
      <organization abbrev="greenbytes">greenbytes GmbH</organization>
      <address><email>julian.reschke@greenbytes.de</email></address>
    </author>
    <date month="October" year="2010"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-12"/>
  
</reference>

<reference anchor="RFC2119">
  <front>
    <title>Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels</title>
    <author initials="S." surname="Bradner" fullname="Scott Bradner">
      <organization>Harvard University</organization>
      <address><email>sob@harvard.edu</email></address>
    </author>
    <date month="March" year="1997"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="14"/>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="2119"/>
</reference>

<reference anchor="RFC5234">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="ABNF for Syntax Specifications">Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF</title>
    <author initials="D." surname="Crocker" fullname="Dave Crocker" role="editor">
      <organization>Brandenburg InternetWorking</organization>
      <address>
        <email>dcrocker@bbiw.net</email>
      </address>  
    </author>
    <author initials="P." surname="Overell" fullname="Paul Overell">
      <organization>THUS plc.</organization>
      <address>
        <email>paul.overell@thus.net</email>
      </address>
    </author>
    <date month="January" year="2008"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="STD" value="68"/>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="5234"/>
</reference>

</references>

<references title="Informative References">

<reference anchor="RFC2616">
  <front>
    <title>Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1</title>
    <author initials="R." surname="Fielding" fullname="R. Fielding">
      <organization>University of California, Irvine</organization>
      <address><email>fielding@ics.uci.edu</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Gettys" fullname="J. Gettys">
      <organization>W3C</organization>
      <address><email>jg@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Mogul" fullname="J. Mogul">
      <organization>Compaq Computer Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>mogul@wrl.dec.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="H." surname="Frystyk" fullname="H. Frystyk">
      <organization>MIT Laboratory for Computer Science</organization>
      <address><email>frystyk@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="L." surname="Masinter" fullname="L. Masinter">
      <organization>Xerox Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>masinter@parc.xerox.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="P." surname="Leach" fullname="P. Leach">
      <organization>Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>paulle@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="T." surname="Berners-Lee" fullname="T. Berners-Lee">
      <organization>W3C</organization>
      <address><email>timbl@w3.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <date month="June" year="1999"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="2616"/>
</reference>

<reference anchor="RFC2617">
  <front>
    <title abbrev="HTTP Authentication">HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication</title>
    <author initials="J." surname="Franks" fullname="John Franks">
      <organization>Northwestern University, Department of Mathematics</organization>
      <address><email>john@math.nwu.edu</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="P.M." surname="Hallam-Baker" fullname="Phillip M. Hallam-Baker">
      <organization>Verisign Inc.</organization>
      <address><email>pbaker@verisign.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J.L." surname="Hostetler" fullname="Jeffery L. Hostetler">
      <organization>AbiSource, Inc.</organization>
      <address><email>jeff@AbiSource.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="S.D." surname="Lawrence" fullname="Scott D. Lawrence">
      <organization>Agranat Systems, Inc.</organization>
      <address><email>lawrence@agranat.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="P.J." surname="Leach" fullname="Paul J. Leach">
      <organization>Microsoft Corporation</organization>
      <address><email>paulle@microsoft.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="A." surname="Luotonen" fullname="Ari Luotonen">
      <organization>Netscape Communications Corporation</organization>
    </author>
    <author initials="L." surname="Stewart" fullname="Lawrence C. Stewart">
      <organization>Open Market, Inc.</organization>
      <address><email>stewart@OpenMarket.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <date month="June" year="1999"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="2617"/>
</reference>

<reference anchor="RFC3864">
  <front>
    <title>Registration Procedures for Message Header Fields</title>
    <author initials="G." surname="Klyne" fullname="G. Klyne">
      <organization>Nine by Nine</organization>
      <address><email>GK-IETF@ninebynine.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="M." surname="Nottingham" fullname="M. Nottingham">
      <organization>BEA Systems</organization>
      <address><email>mnot@pobox.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="J." surname="Mogul" fullname="J. Mogul">
      <organization>HP Labs</organization>
      <address><email>JeffMogul@acm.org</email></address>
    </author>
    <date year="2004" month="September"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="90"/>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="3864"/>
</reference>

<reference anchor="RFC5226">
  <front>
    <title>Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs</title>
    <author initials="T." surname="Narten" fullname="T. Narten">
      <organization>IBM</organization>
      <address><email>narten@us.ibm.com</email></address>
    </author>
    <author initials="H." surname="Alvestrand" fullname="H. Alvestrand">
      <organization>Google</organization>
      <address><email>Harald@Alvestrand.no</email></address>
    </author>
    <date year="2008" month="May"/>
  </front>
  <seriesInfo name="BCP" value="26"/>
  <seriesInfo name="RFC" value="5226"/>
</reference>

</references>

<!-- re-add this once we have changes
<section title="Changes from RFC 2616" anchor="changes.from.rfc.2616">
</section>
 -->
 

<section title="Collected ABNF" anchor="collected.abnf">
<figure>
<artwork type="abnf" name="p7-auth.parsed-abnf"><![CDATA[
Authorization = "Authorization:" OWS Authorization-v
Authorization-v = credentials

OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

Proxy-Authenticate = "Proxy-Authenticate:" OWS Proxy-Authenticate-v
Proxy-Authenticate-v = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS
 challenge ] )
Proxy-Authorization = "Proxy-Authorization:" OWS
 Proxy-Authorization-v
Proxy-Authorization-v = credentials

WWW-Authenticate = "WWW-Authenticate:" OWS WWW-Authenticate-v
WWW-Authenticate-v = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS
 challenge ] )

auth-param = token "=" ( token / quoted-string )
auth-scheme = token

challenge = auth-scheme 1*SP *( "," OWS ) auth-param *( OWS "," [ OWS
 auth-param ] )
credentials = auth-scheme ( token / quoted-string / [ ( "," /
 auth-param ) *( OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] )

quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

realm = "realm=" realm-value
realm-value = quoted-string

token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
]]></artwork>
</figure>
<figure><preamble>ABNF diagnostics:</preamble><artwork type="inline"><![CDATA[
; Authorization defined but not used
; Proxy-Authenticate defined but not used
; Proxy-Authorization defined but not used
; WWW-Authenticate defined but not used
; realm defined but not used
]]></artwork></figure></section>


<section title="Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication)" anchor="change.log">

<section title="Since RFC 2616">
<t>
  Extracted relevant partitions from <xref target="RFC2616"/>.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-00">
<t>
  Closed issues:
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/35"/>:
      "Normative and Informative references"
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-01">
<t>
  Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36"/>):
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      Explicitly import BNF rules for "challenge" and "credentials" from RFC2617.
    </t>
    <t>
      Add explicit references to BNF syntax and rules imported from other parts of the specification.
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-02" anchor="changes.since.02">
<t>
  Ongoing work on IANA Message Header Field Registration (<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/40"/>):
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      Reference RFC 3984, and update header field registrations for header fields defined
      in this document.
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-03" anchor="changes.since.03">
<t>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-04" anchor="changes.since.04">
<t>
  Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36"/>):
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      Use "/" instead of "|" for alternatives.
    </t>
    <t>
      Introduce new ABNF rules for "bad" whitespace ("BWS"), optional
      whitespace ("OWS") and required whitespace ("RWS").
    </t>
    <t>
      Rewrite ABNFs to spell out whitespace rules, factor out
      header field value format definitions.
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-05" anchor="changes.since.05">
<t>
  Final work on ABNF conversion (<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36"/>):
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      Add appendix containing collected and expanded ABNF, reorganize ABNF introduction.
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-06" anchor="changes.since.06">
<t>
  None.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-07" anchor="changes.since.07">
<t>
  Closed issues:
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/198"/>:
      "move IANA registrations for optional status codes"
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-08" anchor="changes.since.08">
<t>
  No significant changes.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-09" anchor="changes.since.09">
<t>
  Partly resolved issues:
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/196"/>:
      "Term for the requested resource's URI"
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-10" anchor="changes.since.10">
<t>
  None yet.
</t>
</section>

<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-11" anchor="changes.since.11">
<t>
  Closed issues:
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/130"/>:
      "introduction to part 7 is work-in-progress"
    </t>
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/195"/>:
      "auth-param syntax"
    </t>
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/237"/>:
      "absorbing the auth framework from 2617"
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
<t>
  Partly resolved issues:
  <list style="symbols"> 
    <t>
      <eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/141"/>:
      "should we have an auth scheme registry"
    </t>
  </list>
</t>
</section>

</section>

</back>
</rfc>

PAFTECH AB 2003-20262026-04-23 10:03:50