One document matched: draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-19.xml
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<rfc obsoletes="2616" updates="2617" category="std" ipr="pre5378Trust200902" docName="draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-19">
<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="Adobe">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>fielding@gbiv.com</email>
<uri>http://roy.gbiv.com/</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="March" year="2012" day="12"/>
<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.
</t>
<t>
Part 7 defines the HTTP Authentication framework.
</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), which is archived at
<eref target="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/"/>.
</t>
<t>
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.18"/>.
</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="Conformance and Error Handling" anchor="intro.conformance.and.error.handling">
<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>
This document defines conformance criteria for several roles in HTTP
communication, including Senders, Recipients, Clients, Servers, User-Agents,
Origin Servers, Intermediaries, Proxies and Gateways. See Section 2 of <xref target="Part1"/>
for definitions of these terms.
</t>
<t>
An implementation is considered conformant if it complies with all of the
requirements associated with its role(s). Note that SHOULD-level requirements
are relevant here, unless one of the documented exceptions is applicable.
</t>
<t>
This document also uses ABNF to define valid protocol elements
(<xref target="notation"/>). In addition to the prose requirements placed
upon them, Senders MUST NOT generate protocol elements that are invalid.
</t>
<t>
Unless noted otherwise, Recipients MAY take steps to recover a usable
protocol element from an invalid construct. However, HTTP does not define
specific error handling mechanisms, except in cases where it has direct
impact on security. This is because different uses of the protocol require
different error handling strategies; for example, a Web browser may wish to
transparently recover from a response where the Location header field
doesn't parse according to the ABNF, whereby in a systems control protocol
using HTTP, this type of error recovery could lead to dangerous consequences.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Syntax Notation" anchor="notation">
<t>
This specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation
of <xref target="RFC5234"/> with the list rule extension defined in
Section 1.2 of <xref target="Part1"/>. <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), and
VCHAR (any visible US-ASCII character).
</t>
<section title="Core Rules" anchor="core.rules">
<t>
The core rules below are defined in <xref target="Part1"/>:
</t>
<figure><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
BWS = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.1>
OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.1>
quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.4>
token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.4>
]]></artwork></figure>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<section title="Access Authentication Framework" anchor="access.authentication.framework">
<section title="Challenge and Response" anchor="challenge.and.response">
<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 additional information necessary for achieving authentication via that
scheme. The latter can either be a comma-separated list of parameters or a
single sequence of characters capable of holding base64-encoded
information.
</t>
<t>
Parameters are name-value pairs where the name is matched case-insensitively,
and each parameter name MUST only occur once per challenge.
</t>
<figure><iref item="auth-scheme" primary="true"/><iref item="auth-param" primary="true"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="auth-scheme"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="auth-param"/><iref item="b64token" primary="true"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="b64token"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
auth-scheme = token
auth-param = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string )
b64token = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT /
"-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" ) *"="
]]></artwork></figure>
<t>
The "b64token" syntax allows the 66 unreserved URI characters (<xref target="RFC3986"/>),
plus a few others, so that it can hold a base64, base64url (URL and filename
safe alphabet), base32, or base16 (hex) encoding, with or without padding, but
excluding whitespace (<xref target="RFC4648"/>).
</t>
<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.
</t>
<t>
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"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="challenge"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
challenge = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]
]]></artwork></figure>
<t><list>
<t>
Note: User agents will need to take special care in parsing the
WWW-Authenticate and Proxy-Authenticate header field values because they
can contain more than one challenge, or if more than one of each 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.<!-- see http://greenbytes.de/tech/tc/httpauth/#multibasicunknown2 -->
</t>
</list></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.
</t>
<t>
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.
</t>
<t>
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"/><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="credentials"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]
]]></artwork></figure>
<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.
</t>
<t>
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, such additional
mechanisms are not defined by this specification.
</t>
<t>
Proxies MUST forward the WWW-Authenticate and Authorization headers
unmodified and follow the rules found in <xref target="header.authorization"/>.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Protection Space (Realm)" anchor="protection.space">
<iref item="Protection Space"/>
<iref item="Realm"/>
<t>
The authentication parameter realm is reserved for use by authentication
schemes that wish to indicate the scope of protection.
</t>
<t>
A protection space is defined by the canonical root URI (the
scheme and authority components of the effective request URI; see
Section 5.5 of <xref target="Part1"/>) of the
server being accessed, in combination with the realm value if present.
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>
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>
For historical reasons, senders MUST only use the quoted-string syntax.
Recipients might have to support both token and quoted-string syntax for
maximum interoperability with existing clients that have been accepting both
notations for a long time.
</t>
</section>
<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>
<t>Notes (optional)</t>
</list>
</t>
<t>
Values to be added to this name space require IETF Review
(see <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 title="Considerations for New Authentication Schemes" anchor="considerations.for.new.authentication.schemes">
<t>
There are certain aspects of the HTTP Authentication Framework that put
constraints on how new authentication schemes can work:
</t>
<t>
<list style="symbols">
<t>
HTTP authentication is presumed to be stateless: all of the information
necessary to authenticate a request MUST be provided in the request,
rather than be dependent on the server remembering prior requests.
Authentication based on, or bound to, the underlying connection is
outside the scope of this specification and inherently flawed unless
steps are taken to ensure that the connection cannot be used by any
party other than the authenticated user
(see Section 2.3 of <xref target="Part1"/>).
</t>
<t>
The authentication parameter "realm" is reserved for defining Protection
Spaces as defined in <xref target="protection.space"/>. New schemes
MUST NOT use it in a way incompatible with that definition.
</t>
<t>
The "b64token" notation was introduced for compatibility with existing
authentication schemes and can only be used once per challenge/credentials.
New schemes thus ought to use the "auth-param" syntax instead, because
otherwise future extensions will be impossible.
</t>
<t>
The parsing of challenges and credentials is defined by this specification,
and cannot be modified by new authentication schemes. When the auth-param
syntax is used, all parameters ought to support both token and
quoted-string syntax, and syntactical constraints ought to be defined on
the field value after parsing (i.e., quoted-string processing). This is
necessary so that recipients can use a generic parser that applies to
all authentication schemes.
<vspace blankLines="1"/>
Note: the fact that the value syntax for the "realm" parameter
is restricted to quoted-string was a bad design choice not to be repeated
for new parameters.
</t>
<t>
Definitions of new schemes ought to define the treatment of unknown
extension parameters. In general, a "must-ignore" rule is preferable
over "must-understand", because otherwise it will be hard to introduce
new parameters in the presence of legacy recipients. Furthermore,
it's good to describe the policy for defining new parameters (such
as "update the specification", or "use this registry").
</t>
<t>
Authentication schemes need to document whether they are usable in
origin-server authentication (i.e., using WWW-Authenticate), and/or
proxy authentication (i.e., using Proxy-Authenticate).
</t>
<t>
The credentials carried in an Authorization header field are specific to
the User Agent, and therefore have the same effect on HTTP caches as the
"private" Cache-Control response directive, within the scope of the
request they appear in.
<vspace blankLines="1"/>
Therefore, new authentication schemes which choose not to carry
credentials in the Authorization header (e.g., using a newly defined
header) will need to explicitly disallow caching, by mandating the use of
either Cache-Control request directives (e.g., "no-store") or response
directives (e.g., "private").
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
</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.field.definitions">
<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 field"/>
<iref primary="true" item="Header Fields" subitem="Authorization"/>
<t>
The "Authorization" 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"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
Authorization = 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 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
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 field"/>
<iref primary="true" item="Header Fields" subitem="Proxy-Authenticate"/>
<t>
The "Proxy-Authenticate" header field consists of a challenge that
indicates the authentication scheme and parameters applicable to the proxy
for this effective request URI (Section 5.5 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"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
Proxy-Authenticate = 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>
<t>
Note that the parsing considerations for WWW-Authenticate apply to this
header field as well; see <xref target="header.www-authenticate"/> for
details.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Proxy-Authorization" anchor="header.proxy-authorization">
<iref primary="true" item="Proxy-Authorization header field"/>
<iref primary="true" item="Header Fields" subitem="Proxy-Authorization"/>
<t>
The "Proxy-Authorization" 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"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
Proxy-Authorization = 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 field"/>
<iref primary="true" item="Header Fields" subitem="WWW-Authenticate"/>
<t>
The "WWW-Authenticate" header field consists of at least one
challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) and parameters
applicable to the effective request URI (Section 5.5 of <xref target="Part1"/>).
</t>
<t>
It MUST be included in 401 (Unauthorized) response messages and MAY be
included in other response messages to indicate that supplying credentials
(or different credentials) might affect the response.
</t>
<figure><iref primary="true" item="Grammar" subitem="WWW-Authenticate"/><artwork type="abnf2616"><![CDATA[
WWW-Authenticate = 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>
<figure>
<preamble>For instance:</preamble>
<artwork type="example"><![CDATA[
WWW-Authenticate: Newauth realm="apps", type=1,
title="Login to \"apps\"", Basic realm="simple"
]]></artwork>
<postamble>
This header field contains two challenges; one for the "Newauth" scheme
with a realm value of "apps", and two additional parameters "type" and
"title", and another one for the "Basic" scheme with a realm value of
"simple".
</postamble></figure>
<t><list>
<t>
Note: The challenge grammar production uses the list syntax as
well. Therefore, a sequence of comma, whitespace, and comma can be
considered both as applying to the preceding challenge, or to be an
empty entry in the list of challenges. In practice, this ambiguity
does not affect the semantics of the header field value and thus is
harmless.
</t>
</list></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="acks">
<t>
This specification takes over the definition of the HTTP Authentication
Framework, previously defined in RFC 2617.
We thank 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. See Section 6 of <xref target="RFC2617"/>
for further acknowledgements.
</t>
<t>
See Section 9 of <xref target="Part1"/> for the Acknowledgments related to this document revision.
</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="Adobe">Adobe Systems Incorporated</organization>
<address><email>fielding@gbiv.com</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="March" year="2012"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-19"/>
</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="Adobe">Adobe Systems Incorporated</organization>
<address><email>fielding@gbiv.com</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">
<organization>Rackspace</organization>
<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="March" year="2012"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo name="Internet-Draft" value="draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-19"/>
</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="RFC3986">
<front>
<title abbrev="URI Generic Syntax">Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax</title>
<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>
<uri>http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author initials="R." surname="Fielding" fullname="Roy T. Fielding">
<organization abbrev="Day Software">Day Software</organization>
<address>
<email>fielding@gbiv.com</email>
<uri>http://roy.gbiv.com/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<author initials="L." surname="Masinter" fullname="Larry Masinter">
<organization abbrev="Adobe Systems">Adobe Systems Incorporated</organization>
<address>
<email>LMM@acm.org</email>
<uri>http://larry.masinter.net/</uri>
</address>
</author>
<date month="January" year="2005"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo name="STD" value="66"/>
<seriesInfo name="RFC" value="3986"/>
</reference>
<reference anchor="RFC4648">
<front>
<title>The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings</title>
<author fullname="S. Josefsson" initials="S." surname="Josefsson"/>
<date year="2006" month="October"/>
</front>
<seriesInfo value="4648" name="RFC"/>
</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>
<section title="Changes from RFCs 2616 and 2617" anchor="changes.from.rfc.2616">
<t>
The "realm" parameter isn't required anymore in general; consequently, the
ABNF allows challenges without any auth parameters.
(<xref target="access.authentication.framework"/>)
</t>
<t>
The "b64token" alternative to auth-param lists has been added for consistency
with legacy authentication schemes such as "Basic".
(<xref target="access.authentication.framework"/>)
</t>
<t>
Change ABNF productions for header fields to only define the field value.
(<xref target="header.field.definitions"/>)
</t>
</section>
<section title="Collected ABNF" anchor="collected.abnf">
<figure>
<artwork type="abnf" name="p7-auth.parsed-abnf"><![CDATA[
Authorization = credentials
BWS = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.1>
OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.1>
Proxy-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS
challenge ] )
Proxy-Authorization = credentials
WWW-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS challenge
] )
auth-param = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string )
auth-scheme = token
b64token = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" )
*"="
challenge = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param ) *(
OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ]
credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param )
*( OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ]
quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.4>
token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.4>
]]></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
]]></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>
None.
</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.
</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/224"/>:
"Header Classification"
</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 title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-12" anchor="changes.since.12">
<t>
None.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-13" anchor="changes.since.13">
<t>
Closed issues:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/276"/>:
"untangle ABNFs for header fields"
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-14" anchor="changes.since.14">
<t>
None.
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-15" anchor="changes.since.15">
<t>
Closed issues:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/78"/>:
"Relationship between 401, Authorization and WWW-Authenticate"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/177"/>:
"Realm required on challenges"
</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/257"/>:
"Considerations for new authentications schemes"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/287"/>:
"LWS in auth-param ABNF"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/309"/>:
"credentials ABNF missing SP (still using implied LWS?)"
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-16" anchor="changes.since.16">
<t>
Closed issues:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/186"/>:
"Document HTTP's error-handling philosophy"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/320"/>:
"add advice on defining auth scheme parameters"
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-17" anchor="changes.since.17">
<t>
Closed issues:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/314"/>:
"allow unquoted realm parameters"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/321"/>:
"Repeating auth-params"
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
<section title="Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-18" anchor="changes.since.18">
<t>
Closed issues:
<list style="symbols">
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/334"/>:
"recipient behavior for new auth parameters"
</t>
<t>
<eref target="http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/342"/>:
"WWW-Authenticate ABNF slightly ambiguous"
</t>
</list>
</t>
</section>
</section>
</back>
</rfc>| PAFTECH AB 2003-2026 | 2026-04-23 08:25:29 |