One document matched: draft-ietf-radext-dtls-04.txt
Differences from draft-ietf-radext-dtls-03.txt
Network Working Group Alan DeKok
INTERNET-DRAFT FreeRADIUS
Category: Experimental
<draft-ietf-radext-dtls-04.txt>
Expires: October 2, 2013
2 April 2013
DTLS as a Transport Layer for RADIUS
draft-ietf-radext-dtls-04
Abstract
The RADIUS protocol [RFC2865] has limited support for authentication
and encryption of RADIUS packets. The protocol transports data "in
the clear", although some parts of the packets can have "obfuscated"
content. Packets may be replayed verbatim by an attacker, and
client-server authentication is based on fixed shared secrets. This
document specifies how the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
protocol may be used as a fix for these problems. It also describes
how implementations of this proposal can co-exist with current RADIUS
systems.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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.
This Internet-Draft will expire on July 28, 2013
Copyright Notice
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Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info/) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction ............................................. 4
1.1. Terminology ......................................... 4
1.2. Requirements Language ............................... 5
2. Building on Existing Foundations ......................... 6
2.1. Changes to RADIUS ................................... 6
2.2. Similarities with RADIUS/TLS ........................ 7
2.2.1. Changes from RADIUS/TLS to RADIUS/DTLS ......... 7
2.2.2. Reinforcement of RADIUS/TLS .................... 8
3. Transition Path .......................................... 8
3.1. Server Transition to DTLS ........................... 8
4. Client Transition ........................................ 9
5. Connection Management .................................... 10
5.1. Server Connection Management ........................ 11
5.1.1. Session Management ............................. 11
5.1.2. Protocol Disambiguation ........................ 13
5.1.3. Processing Algorithm ........................... 14
5.2. Client Connection Management ........................ 15
6. Implementation Guidelines ................................ 16
6.1. Client Implementations .............................. 17
6.2. Server Implementations .............................. 17
7. Implementation Experience ................................ 18
8. Diameter Considerations .................................. 18
9. IANA Considerations ...................................... 18
10. Security Considerations ................................. 18
10.1. Legacy RADIUS Security ............................. 19
10.2. Resource Exhaustion ................................ 20
10.3. Network Address Translation ........................ 20
10.4. Wildcard Clients ................................... 21
10.5. Session Closing .................................... 21
10.6. Clients Subsystems ................................. 22
11. References .............................................. 22
11.1. Normative references ............................... 22
11.2. Informative references ............................. 23
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1. Introduction
The RADIUS protocol as described in [RFC2865], [RFC2866], [RFC5176],
and others has traditionally used methods based on MD5 [RFC1321] for
per-packet authentication and integrity checks. However, the MD5
algorithm has known weaknesses such as [MD5Attack] and [MD5Break].
As a result, some specifications such as [RFC5176] have recommended
using IPSec to secure RADIUS traffic.
While RADIUS over IPSec has been widely deployed, there are
difficulties with this approach. The simplest point against IPSec is
that there is no straightforward way for a RADIUS application to
control or monitor the network security policies. That is, the
requirement that the RADIUS traffic be encrypted and/or authenticated
is implicit in the network configuration, and is not enforced by the
RADIUS application.
This specification takes a different approach. We define a method
for using DTLS [RFC6347] as a RADIUS transport protocol. This
approach has the benefit that the RADIUS application can directly
monitor and control the security policies associated with the traffic
that it processes.
Another benefit is that RADIUS over DTLS continues to be a User
Datagram Protocol (UDP) based protocol. This continuity ensures that
existing network-layer infrastructure (firewall rules, etc.) does not
need to be changed when RADIUS clients and servers are upgraded to
support RADIUS over DTLS.
This specification does not, however, solve all of the problems
associated with RADIUS. The DTLS protocol does not add reliable or
in-order transport to RADIUS. DTLS also does not support
fragmentation of application-layer messages, or of the DTLS messages
themselves. This specification therefore shares with traditional
RADIUS the issues of order, reliability, and fragmentation.
1.1. Terminology
This document uses the following terms:
RADIUS/DTLS
This term is a short-hand for "RADIUS over DTLS".
RADIUS/DTLS client
This term refers both to RADIUS clients as defined in [RFC2865],
and to Dynamic Authorization clients as defined in [RFC5176], that
implement RADIUS/DTLS.
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RADIUS/DTLS server
This term refers both to RADIUS servers as defined in [RFC2865],
and to Dynamic Authorization servers as defined in [RFC5176], that
implement RADIUS/DTLS.
RADIUS/UDP
RADIUS over UDP, as defined in [RFC2865].
RADIUS/TLS
RADIUS over TLS, as defined in [RFC6614].
silently discard
This means that the implementation discards the packet without
further processing.
1.2. Requirements Language
In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements
of the specification. The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
"SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC2119].
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2. Building on Existing Foundations
Adding DTLS as a RADIUS transport protocol requires a number of
changes to systems implementing standard RADIUS. This section
outlines those changes, and defines new behaviors necessary to
implement DTLS.
2.1. Changes to RADIUS
The RADIUS packet format is unchanged from [RFC2865], [RFC2866], and
[RFC5176]. Specifically, all of the following portions of RADIUS
MUST be unchanged when using RADIUS/DTLS:
* Packet format
* Permitted codes
* Request Authenticator calculation
* Response Authenticator calculation
* Minimum packet length
* Maximum packet length
* Attribute format
* Vendor-Specific Attribute (VSA) format
* Permitted data types
* Calculations of dynamic attributes such as CHAP-Challenge,
or Message-Authenticator.
* Calculation of "obfuscated" attributes such as User-Password
and Tunnel-Password.
* UDP port numbering and relationship between code and port
In short, the application creates a RADIUS packet via the usual
methods, and then instead of sending it over a UDP socket, sends the
packet to a DTLS layer for encapsulation. DTLS then acts as a
transport layer for RADIUS, hence the names "RADIUS/UDP" and
"RADIUS/DTLS".
The requirement that RADIUS remain largely unchanged ensures the
simplest possible implementation and widest interoperability of this
specification.
We note that the DTLS encapsulation of RADIUS means that RADIUS
packets have an additional overhead due to DTLS. Implementations
MUST support DTLS packets totalling 4096 octets in length, with a
corrsponding decrease in the maximum size of the encapsulated
packets. Implementations SHOULD support encapsulated RADIUS packets
of 4096 in length, with a corresponding increase in the maximum size
of the encapsulated DTLS packets.
The only changes made from RADIUS/UDP to RADIUS/DTLS are the
following two items:
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(1) The Length checks defined in [RFC2865] Section 3 MUST use the
length of the decrypted DTLS data instead of the UDP packet
length.
(2) The shared secret secret used to compute the MD5 integrity
checks and the attribute encryption MUST be "radius/dtls".
All other aspects of RADIUS are unchanged.
2.2. Similarities with RADIUS/TLS
While this specification can be thought of as RADIUS/TLS over UDP
instead of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), there are some
differences between the two methods. The bulk of [RFC6614] applies
to this specification, so we do not repeat it here.
This section explains the differences between RADIUS/TLS and
RADIUS/DTLS, as semantic "patches" to [RFC6614]. The changes are as
follows:
* We replace references to "TCP" with "UDP"
* We replace references to "RADIUS/TLS" with "RADIUS/DTLS"
* We replace references to "TLS" with "DTLS"
Those changes are sufficient to cover the majority of the differences
between the two specifications. The next section reviews some more
detailed changes from [RFC6614], giving additional commentary only
where necessary.
2.2.1. Changes from RADIUS/TLS to RADIUS/DTLS
This section describes where this specification is similar to
[RFC6614], and where it differs.
Section 2.1 does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. The relationship between
RADIUS packet codes and UDP ports in RADIUS/DTLS is unchanged from
RADIUS/UDP.
Section 2.2 applies to RADIUS/DTLS. Servers and clients need to be
preconfigured to use RADIUS/DTLS for a given endpoint.
Most of Section 2.3 applies also to RADIUS/DTLS. Item (1) should be
interpreted as applying to DTLS session initiation, instead of TCP
connection establishment. Item (2) applies, except for the
recommendation that implementations "SHOULD" support
TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA. This recommendation is a historical
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artifact of RADIUS/TLS, and does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. Item (3)
applies to RADIUS/DTLS. Item (4) applies, except that the fixed
shared secret is "radius/dtls", as described above.
Section 2.4 does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS.
Section 2.5 does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. The relationship between
RADIUS packet codes and UDP ports in RADIUS/DTLS is unchanged from
RADIUS/UDP.
Sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3 apply to RADIUS/DTLS.
Section 3.4 item (1) does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. Each RADIUS
packet is encapsulated in one DTLS packet, and there is no "stream"
of RADIUS packets inside of a TLS session. Implementors MUST enforce
the requirements of [RFC2865] Section 3 for the RADIUS Length field,
using the length of the decrypted DTLS data for the checks. This
check replaces the RADIUS method of using the length field from the
UDP packet.
Section 3.4 item (3) does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. The relationship
between RADIUS packet codes and UDP ports in RADIUS/DTLS is unchanged
from RADIUS.
Section 3.4 item (4) does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. As RADIUS/DTLS
still uses UDP for a transport, the use of negative ICMP responses is
unchanged from RADIUS.
Section 4 does not apply to RADIUS/DTLS. Protocol compatibility
considerations are defined in this document.
2.2.2. Reinforcement of RADIUS/TLS
We re-iterate that much of [RFC6614] applies to this document.
Specifically, Section 4 and Section 6 of that document are applicable
in their entirety to RADIUS/DTLS.
3. Transition Path
Transitioning to DTLS is a process which needs to be done carefully.
A poorly handled transition is complex for administrators, and
potentially subject to security downgrade attacks. This section
describes how clients and servers should transition to DTLS.
3.1. Server Transition to DTLS
As this specification permits server implementations to accept both
RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS packets on the same port, we require a
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method to disambiguate packets between the two protocols. This
method is applicable only to RADIUS/DTLS servers.
RADIUS/DTLS servers MUST maintain a boolean "DTLS Required" flag for
each client that indicates if it requires a client to use
RADIUS/DTLS. The interpretation of this flag is as follows. If the
flag is "true" then the client supports RADIUS/DTLS, and all packets
from that client MUST be processed as RADIUS/DTLS. If the flag is
"false", then the client supports RADIUS/UDP, but may still support
RADIUS/DTLS. Packets from the client need to be examined to see if
they are RADIUS/UDP or RADIUS/DTLS.
The "DTLS Required" flag MUST be exposed to administrators of the
server. As clients are upgraded, administrators can then manually
mark them as using RADIUS/DTLS. The default value for the flag
SHOULD be "false". DTLS configuration parameters (e.g. certificates,
pre-shared keys, etc.) SHOULD be exposed to the administrator, even
if the "DTLS Required" flag is set to "false". Adding these
parameters means that the client may use DTLS, though it is not
required.
It is RECOMMENDED that the default value for the "DTLS Required" flag
be set to "true" when this specification has acheived wide-spread
adoption.
Once a RADIUS/DTLS server has established a DTLS session with a
client that previously had the flag set to "false", the server MUST
set the "DTLS Required" flag to "true". This change requires all
subsequent traffic from that client to use DTLS, and prevents
bidding-down attacks. The server SHOULD also notify the
administrator that it has successfully established the first DTLS
session with that client.
Note that this last requirement on servers can impose significant
changes for clients. These changes are discussed in the next
section.
4. Client Transition
As this specification permits client implementations to to send both
RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS packets from the same address, we require
guidelines for when to use one or the other. This method is
applicable only to RADIUS/DTLS clients.
RADIUS/DTLS clients MUST maintain a boolean "DTLS Required" flag for
each server that indicates if that server requires it to use
RADIUS/DTLS. The interpretation of this flag is as follows. If the
flag is "true" then the server supports RADIUS/DTLS, and all packets
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sent to that server MUST be RADIUS/DTLS. If the flag is "false",
then the server supports RADIUS/UDP, but may still support
RADIUS/DTLS. Packets sent to that server MUST be RADIUS/UDP.
The "DTLS Required" flag MUST be exposed to administrators of the
client. As servers are upgraded, administrators can then manually
mark them as using RADIUS/DTLS. The default value for the flag
SHOULD be "false". DTLS configuration parameters (e.g. certificates,
pre-shared keys, etc.) SHOULD be exposed to the administrator, even
if the "DTLS Required" flag is set to "false". Adding these
parameters means that the client MUST start using DTLS to the server
for all new requests. The client MUST, however, accept RADIUS/UDP
responses to any outstanding requests.
It is RECOMMENDED that the default value for the "DTLS Required" flag
be set to "true" when this specification has acheived wide-spread
adoption.
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD NOT probe servers to see if they support
DTLS transport. Doing so would cause servers to immediately require
that all new packets from the client use DTLS. This requirement may
be difficult for a client to satisfy. Instead, clients SHOULD use
DTLS as a transport layer only when administratively configured.
The requirements of this specification mean that RADIUS/DTLS clients
can no longer have multiple independent RADIUS implementations, or
processes that originate RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS packets.
Instead, clients MUST use only one transport layer to communicate
with a specific server. It is RECOMMENDED that clients use a local
proxy as described in Section 6.1, below.
5. Connection Management
Where [RFC6614] can rely on the TCP state machine to perform
connection tracking, this specification cannot. As a result,
implementations of this specification may need to perform connection
management of the DTLS session in the application layer. This
section describes logically how this tracking is done.
Implementations may choose to use the method described here, or
another, equivalent method.
We note that [RFC5080] Section 2.2.2 already mandates a duplicate
detection cache. The connection tracking described below can be seen
as an extension of that cache, where entries contain DTLS sessions
instead of RADIUS/UDP packets.
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5.1. Server Connection Management
A RADIUS/DTLS server MUST track ongoing client connections based on a
key composed of the following 4-tuple:
* source IP address
* source port
* destination IP address
* destination port
Note that this key is independent of IP address version (IPv4 or
IPv6).
Each entry associated with a key contains the following information:
Protocol Type
A flag which is either "RADIUS/UDP" for old-style RADIUS traffic,
or "RADIUS/DTLS" for RADIUS/DTLS connections.
DTLS Data
An implementation-specific variable containing information about
the active DTLS connection. For non-DTLS connections, this
variable MUST be empty.
Last Packet
A variable containing a timestamp which indicates when the last
valid packet was received for this connection. Packets which are
"silently discarded" MUST NOT update this variable.
Each entry may contain other information, such as idle timeouts,
connection lifetimes, and other implementation-specific data.
5.1.1. Session Management
Session tracking is subject to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks due to
the ability of an attacker to forge UDP traffic. RADIUS/DTLS servers
SHOULD use the stateless cookie tracking technique described in
[RFC6347] Section 4.2.1. DTLS sessions SHOULD NOT be tracked until a
ClientHello packet has been received with an appropriate Cookie
value. The requirement to accept RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS on the
same port makes this recommendation difficult to implement in
practice. Server implementation SHOULD therefore have a way of
tracking partially setup DTLS connections. Servers SHOULD limit both
the number and impact on resources of partial connections.
Sessions (both key and entry) MUST deleted when a TLS Closure Alert
([RFC5246] Section 7.2.1) or a TLS Error Alert ([RFC5246] Section
7.2.2) is received. When a session is deleted due to failed
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security, the DTLS session MUST be closed, and any TLS session
resumption parameters for that session MUST be discarded, and all
tracking information MUST be deleted.
Sessions MUST also be deleted when a RADIUS packet fails validation
due to a packet being malformed, or when it has an invalid Message-
Authenticator, or invalid Request Authenticator. There are other
cases when the specifications require that a packet received via a
DTLS session be "silently discarded". In those cases,
implementations MAY delete the underlying session as described above.
There are few reasons to communicate with a NAS which is not
implementing RADIUS.
The above paragraph can be rephrased more generically. A session
MUST be deleted when non-RADIUS traffic is received over it. This
specification is for RADIUS, and there is no reason to allow non-
RADIUS traffic over a RADIUS/DTLS connection. A session MUST be
deleted when RADIUS traffic fails to pass security checks. There is
no reason to permit insecure networks. A session SHOULD NOT be
deleted when a well-formed, but "unexpected" RADIUS packet is
received over it. Future specifications may extend RADIUS/DTLS, and
we do not want to forbid those specifications.
Once a DTLS session is established, a RADIUS/DTLS server SHOULD use
DTLS Heartbeats [RFC6520] to determine connectivity between the two
servers. A server may also use watchdog packets from the client to
determine that the connection is still active.
As UDP does not guarantee delivery of messages, RADIUS/DTLS servers
MUST also maintain a "Last Packet" timestamp per DTLS session. The
timestamp SHOULD be updated on reception of a valid RADIUS/DTLS
packet. The timestamp MUST NOT be updated in other situations. When
a session has not received a packet for a period of time, it is
labelled "idle". The server SHOULD delete idle DTLS sessions after
an "idle timeout". The server MAY cache the TLS session parameters,
in order to provide for fast session resumption.
This session "idle timeout" SHOULD be exposed to the administrator as
a configurable setting. It SHOULD NOT be set to less than 60
seconds, and SHOULD NOT be set to more than 600 seconds (10 minutes).
The minimum value useful value for this timer is determined by the
application-layer watchdog mechanism defined in the following
section.
RADIUS/DTLS servers SHOULD also monitor the total number of sessions
they are tracking. They SHOULD stop the creating of new sessions
when a large number are already being tracked. This "maximum
sessions" number SHOULD be exposed to administrators as a
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configurable setting.
RADIUS/DTLS servers SHOULD implement session resumption, preferably
stateless session resumption as given in [RFC5077]. This practice
lowers the time and effort required to start a DTLS session with a
client, and increases network responsiveness.
5.1.2. Protocol Disambiguation
When the "DTLS Required" flag for a client is set to "false", the
client may, or may not be sending DTLS packets. For existing
connections, protocol disambiguation is simple, the "Protocol Type"
field in the session tracking entry is examined. New connections
must still be disambiguated.
In order to provide a robust upgrade path, the RADIUS/DTLS server
MUST examine the packet to see if it is RADIUS/UDP or RADIUS/DTLS.
This examination method is defined here.
We justify the examination methods by analysing the packet formats
for the two protocols. We assume that the server has a buffer in
which it has received a UDP packet matching no entry based on the
4-tuple key defined above. It must then analyse this buffer to
determine which protocol is used to process the packet.
The DTLS record format ([RFC6347] Section 4.1) is shown below, in
pseudo-code:
struct {
uint8 type;
uint16 version;
uint16 epoch;
uint48 sequence_number;
uint16 length;
uint8 fragment[DTLSPlaintext.length];
} DTLSPlaintext;
The RADIUS record format ([RFC2865] Section 3) is shown below, in
pseudo-code, with AuthVector.length=16.
struct {
uint8 code;
uint8 id;
uint16 length;
uint8 vector[AuthVector.length];
uint8 data[RadiusPacket.length - 20];
} RadiusPacket;
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We can see here that a number of fields overlap between the two
protocols. At first glance, it seems difficult for an application to
accept both protocols on the same port. However, this is not the
case.
The initial DTLS packet of a connection requires that the type field
(first octet) has value 22 (handshake). The first octet of a RADIUS
packet is the code field. The code value of 22 has been assigned as
Resource-Free-Response. That code is intended to be a response from
a server to a client, and will therefore never be sent by a client to
a server.
As a result, protocol disambiguation for new connections to a server
is straightforward. Only the first octet of the packet needs to be
examined to disambiguate RADIUS/DTLS from RADIUS/UDP. If that octet
has value 22, then the packet is likely to be RADIUS/DTLS.
Otherwise, the packet is likely to be RADIUS/UDP.
5.1.3. Processing Algorithm
When a RADIUS/DTLS server recieves a packet, it uses the following
algorithm to process that packet. As with RADIUS/UDP, packets from
unknown clients MUST be silently discarded.
The "DTLS Required" flag for that client is examined. If it is set
to "true", then the packet MUST be processed as RADIUS/DTLS.
If the "DTLS Required" flag is set to "false", the session is looked
up using the 4-tuple key defined above. Packets matching an existing
entry MUST be processed as defined by the "Protocol Type" field of
that entry.
If the "DTLS Required" flag is set to "false" and no matching entry
has been found, then the first octet of the packet is examined. If
it has value 22, then the packet MUST be processed as RADIUS/DTLS.
Otherwise, the packet MUST be processed as RADIUS/UDP.
In all cases, the packet MUST be checked for correctness. For
RADIUS/UDP, any packets which are silently discarded MUST NOT affect
the state of any variable in session tracking entry. For
RADIUS/DTLS, any packets which are discarded by the DTLS layer MUST
NOT affect the state of any variable in the session tracking entry.
For RADIUS/DTLS, any RADIUS packets which are subsequently silently
discarded MUST result in the removal of the associated entry and key.
When the packet matches an existing key, and is accepted for
processing by the server, the "Last Packet" timestamp is updated in
that entry. Where the packet does not match an existing key, a new
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entry is created for that key. The "Protocol Type" flag for that
entry is set to "RADIUS/DTLS", or "RADIUS/UDP", as determined by
examining the first octet of the packet.
When a server has the clients "DTLS Required" flag set to "false", it
MUST set the flag to "true" after establishing a DTLS session with
that client. It MUST NOT set the flag to "true" until a DTLS session
has been fully established. Doing so would mean that attackers could
perform a DoS attack by sending forged DTLS ClientHello packets to a
server.
Since UDP is stateless, the potential exists for the client to
initiate a new DTLS session using a particular 4-tuple, before the
server has closed the old session. For security reasons, the server
must keep the old session active until it has received secure
notification from the client that the session is closed. Or, when
the server has decided for itself that the session is closed. Taking
any other action would permit unauthenticated clients to perform a
DoS attack, by closing active DTLS session.
As a result, servers MUST ignore any attempts to re-use an existing
4-tuple from an active session. This requirement can likely be
reached by simply processing the packet through the existing session,
as with any other packet received via that 4-tuple. Non-compliant,
or unexpected packets will be ignored by the DTLS layer.
The above requirement is mitigated by the suggestion in Section 6.1,
below, that the client use a local proxy for all RADIUS traffic.
That proxy can then track the ports which it uses, and ensure that
re-use of 4-tuples is avoided. The exact process by which this
tracking is done is outside of the scope of this document.
5.2. Client Connection Management
Clients SHOULD use Path MTU (PMTU) discovery [RFC6520] to determine
the PMTU between the client and server, prior to sending any RADIUS
traffic. Once a DTLS session is established, a RADIUS/DTLS client
SHOULD use DTLS Heartbeats [RFC6520] to determine connectivity
between the two servers. Alternatively, RADIUS/DTLS clients may use
the application-layer watchdog algorithm defined in [RFC3539] to
determine server responsiveness. The Status-Server packet defined in
[RFC5997] SHOULD be used as the "watchdog packet" in any application-
layer watchdog algorithm.
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD pro-actively close sessions when they have
been idle for a period of time. Clients SHOULD close a session when
the DTLS Heartbeat algorithm indicates that the session is no longer
active. Clients SHOULD close a session when no traffic other than
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watchdog packets and (possibly) watchdog responses have been sent for
three watchdog timeouts. This behavior ensures that clients do not
waste resources on the server by causing it to track idle sessions.
DTLS sessions MUST also be deleted when a RADIUS packet fails
validation due to a packet being malformed, or when it has an invalid
Message-Authenticator, or invalid Response Authenticator. There are
other cases when the specifications require that a packet received
via a DTLS session be "silently discarded". In those cases,
implementations MAY delete the underlying DTLS session.
RADIUS/DTLS clients MUST NOT send both RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS
packets over the same key of (source IP, source port, destination IP,
destination port) as defined in Section 4.1, above . Doing so would
make it impossible to correctly process either kind of packet.
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD NOT send both RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS
packets to different servers from the same source socket. This
practice causes increased complexity in the client application, and
increases the potential for security breaches due to implementation
issues.
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD implement session resumption, preferably
stateless session resumption as given in [RFC5077]. This practice
lowers the time and effort required to start a DTLS session with a
server, and increases network responsiveness.
6. Implementation Guidelines
The text above describes the protocol. In this section, we give
additional implementation guidelines. These guidelines are not part
of the protocol, but may help implementors create simple, secure, and
inter-operable implementations.
Where a TLS pre-shared key (PSK) method is used, implementations MUST
support keys of at least 16 octets in length. Implementations SHOULD
support key lengths of 32 octets, and SHOULD allow for longer keys.
The key data MUST be capable of being any value (0 through 255,
inclusive). Implementations MUST NOT limit themselves to using
textual keys. It is RECOMMENDED that the administration interface
allows for the keys to be entered as hex strings.
It is RECOMMENDED that keys be derived from a cryptographically
secure pseudo-random number generator (CSPRNG). If managing keys is
too complicated, a certificate-based TLS method SHOULD be used
instead.
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6.1. Client Implementations
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD use connected sockets where possible. Use
of connected sockets means that the underlying kernel tracks the
sessions, so that the client subsystem does not need to. It is a
good idea to leverage existing functionality.
RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD use one source when sending packets to a
particular RADIUS/DTLS server. Doing so minimizes the number of DTLS
session setups. It also ensures that information about the home
server state is discovered only once.
In practive, this means that RADIUS/DTLS clients SHOULD use a local
proxy which arbitrates all RADIUS traffic between the client and all
servers. The proxy SHOULD accept traffic only from the authorized
subsystems on the client machine, and SHOULD proxy that traffic to
known servers. Each authorized subsystem SHOULD include an attribute
which uniquely identifies that subsystem to the proxy, so that the
proxy can apply origin-specific proxy rules and security policies.
We suggest using NAS-Identifier for this purpose.
The local proxy SHOULD be able to interact with multiple servers at
the same time. There is no requirement that each server have its own
unique proxy on the client, as that would be inefficient.
Each client subsystem can include a subsystem-specific NAS-Identifier
in each request. The format of this attribute is implementation-
specific. The proxy SHOULD verify that the request originated from
the local system, ideally via a loopback address. The proxy MUST
then re-write any subsystem-specific NAS-Identifier to a NAS-
Identifier which identifies the client as a whole. Or, remove NAS-
Identifier entirely and replace it with NAS-IP-Address or NAS-
IPv6-Address.
In traditional RADIUS, the cost to set up a new "session" between a
client and server was minimal. The client subsystem could simply
open a port, send a packet, wait for the response, and the close the
port. With RADIUS/DTLS, the connection setup is significantly more
expensive. In addition, there may be a requirement to use DTLS in
order to communicate with a server, so that traditional RADIUS would
be ignored by that server. The knowledge of what protocol to use is
best managed by a dedicated RADIUS subsystem, rather than by each
individual subsystem on the client.
6.2. Server Implementations
RADIUS/DTLS servers SHOULD NOT use connected sockets to read DTLS
packets from a client. This recommendation is because a connected
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UDP socket will accept packets only from one source IP address and
port. This limitation would prevent the server from accepting
packets from multiple clients on the same port.
7. Implementation Experience
Two implementations of RADIUS/DTLS exist, Radsecproxy, and jradius
(http://www.coova.org/JRadius). Some experimental tests have been
performed, but there are at this time no production implementations
using RADIUS/DTLS.
Section 4.2 of [RFC6421] makes a number of recommendations about
security properties of new RADIUS proposals. All of those
recommendations are satisfied by using DTLS as the transport layer.
Section 4.3 of [RFC6421] makes a number of recommendations about
backwards compatibility with RADIUS. Section 3, above, addresses
these concerns in detail.
Section 4.4 of [RFC6421] recommends that change control be ceded to
the IETF, and that interoperability is possible. Both requirements
are satisfied.
Section 4.5 of [RFC6421] requires that the new security methods apply
to all packet types. This requirement is satisfied by allowing DTLS
to be used for all RADIUS traffic. In addition, Section 3, above,
addresses concerns about documenting the transition from legacy
RADIUS to crypto-agile RADIUS.
Section 4.6 of [RFC6421] requires automated key management. This
requirement is satisfied by leveraging DTLS.
8. Diameter Considerations
This specification defines a transport layer for RADIUS. It makes no
other changes to the RADIUS protocol. As a result, there are no
Diameter considerations.
9. IANA Considerations
This specification does not create any new registries, nor does it
require assignment of any protocol parameters.
10. Security Considerations
This entire specification is devoted to discussing security
considerations related to RADIUS. However, we discuss a few
additional issues here.
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This specification relies on the existing DTLS, RADIUS/UDP, and
RADIUS/TLS specifications. As a result, all security considerations
for DTLS apply to the DTLS portion of RADIUS/DTLS. Similarly, the
TLS and RADIUS security issues discussed in [RFC6614] also apply to
this specification. All of the security considerations for RADIUS
apply to the RADIUS portion of the specification.
However, many security considerations raised in the RADIUS documents
are related to RADIUS encryption and authorization. Those issues are
largely mitigated when DTLS is used as a transport method. The
issues that are not mitigated by this specification are related to
the RADIUS packet format and handling, which is unchanged in this
specification.
The main portion of the specification that could have security
implications is a servers ability to accept both RADIUS and DTLS
packets on the same port. The filter that disambiguates the two
protocols is simple, and is just a check for the value of one octet.
We do not expect this check to have any security issues.
We also note that nothing prevents malicious clients from sending
DTLS packets to existing RADIUS implementations, or RADIUS packets to
existing DTLS implementations. There should therefore be no issue
with clients sending RADIUS/DTLS packets to legacy servers that do
not support the protocol. These packets will be silently discarded,
and will not change the security profile of the server.
This specification also suggests that implementations use a
connection tracking table. This table is an extension of the
duplicate detection cache mandated in [RFC5080] Section 2.2.2. The
changes given here are that DTLS-specific information is tracked for
each table entry. Section 5.1.1, above, describes steps to mitigate
any DoS issues which result from tracking additional information.
10.1. Legacy RADIUS Security
We reiterate here the poor security of the legacy RADIUS protocol.
It is RECOMMENDED that all RADIUS clients and servers implement this
specification. New attacks on MD5 have appeared over the past few
years, and there is a distinct possibility that MD5 may be completely
broken in the near future.
The existence of fast and cheap attacks on MD5 could result in a loss
of all network security which depends on RADIUS. Attackers could
obtain user passwords, and possibly gain complete network access. We
cannot overstate the disastrous consequences of a successful attack
on RADIUS.
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We also caution implementors (especially client implementors) about
using RADIUS/DTLS. It may be tempting to use the shared secret as
the basis for a TLS pre-shared key (PSK) method, and to leave the
user interface otherwise unchanged. This practice MUST NOT be used.
The administrator MUST be given the option to use DTLS. Any shared
secret used for RADIUS/UDP MUST NOT be used for DTLS. Re-using a
shared secret between RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/DTLS would negate all of
the benefits found by using DTLS.
RADIUS/DTLS client implementors MUST expose a configuration that
allows the administrator to choose the cipher suite. Where
certificates are used, RADIUS/DTLS client implementors MUST expose a
configuration which allows an administrator to configure all
certificates necessary for certificate-based authentication. These
certificates include client, server, and root certificates.
TLS-PSK methods are susceptible to dictionary attacks. Section 6,
above, recommends deriving TLS-PSK keys from a CSPRNG, which makes
dictionary attacks significantly more difficult. Servers SHOULD
track failed client connections by TLS-PSK ID, and block TLS-PSK IDs
which seem to be attempting brute-force searchs of the keyspace.
The previous RADIUS practice of using shared secrets that are minor
variations of words is NOT RECOMMENDED, as it would negate all of the
security of DTLS.
10.2. Resource Exhaustion
The use of DTLS allows DoS attacks, and resource exhaustion attacks
which were not possible in RADIUS/UDP. These attacks are the similar
to those described in [RFC6614] Section 6, for TCP.
Session tracking as described in Section 5.1 can result in resource
exhaustion. Servers MUST therefore limit the absolute number of
sessions that they track. Servers MUST limit the number of partially
open DTLS sessions. These limits SHOULD be exposed to the
administrator as configurable settings.
10.3. Network Address Translation
Network Address Translation (NAT) is fundamentally incompatible with
RADIUS/UDP. RADIUS/UDP uses the source IP address to determine the
shared secret for the client, and NAT hides many clients behind one
source IP address.
The migration flag described above in Section 3 is also tracked per
source IP address. Using a NAT in front of many RADIUS clients
negates the function of the flag, making it impossible to migrate
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multiple clients in a secure fashion.
In addition, port re-use on a NAT gateway means that packets from
different clients may appear to come from the same source port on the
NAT. That is, a RADIUS server may receive a RADIUS/DTLS packet from
a client IP/port combination, followed by the reception of a
RADIUS/UDP packet from that same client IP/port combination. If this
behavior is allowed, it would permit a downgrade attack to occur, and
would negate all of the security added by RADIUS/DTLS.
As a result, RADIUS clients SHOULD NOT be located behind a NAT
gateway. If clients are located behind a NAT gateway, then a secure
transport such as DTLS MUST be used. As discussed below, a method
for uniquely identifying each client MUST be used.
10.4. Wildcard Clients
Some RADIUS server implementations allow for "wildcard" clients.
That is, clients with an IPv4 netmask of other than 32, or an IPv6
netmask of other than 128. That practice is NOT RECOMMENDED for
RADIUS/UDP, as it means multiple clients use the same shared secret.
When a client is a "wildcard", then RADIUS/DTLS MUST be used.
Clients MUST be uniquely identified, and any certificate or PSK used
MUST be unique to each client.
10.5. Session Closing
Section 5.1.1 above requires that DTLS sessions be closed when the
transported RADIUS packets are malformed, or fail various
authenticator checks. This requirement is due to security
considerations.
When an implementation has a DTLS connection, it is expected that the
connection be used to transport RADIUS. Any non-RADIUS traffic on
that connection means the other party is misbehaving, and a potential
security risk. Similarly, any RADIUS traffic failing validation
means that two parties do not share the same security parameters, and
the session is therefore a security risk.
We wish to avoid the situation where a third party can send well-
formed RADIUS packets which cause a DTLS connection to close.
Therefore, in other situations, the session may remain open in the
face of non-conformant packets.
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10.6. Clients Subsystems
Many traditional clients treat RADIUS as subsystem-specific. That
is, each subsystem on the client has its own RADIUS implementation
and configuration. These independent implementations work for simple
systems, but break down for RADIUS when multiple servers, fail-over,
and load-balancing are required. They have even worse issues when
DTLS is enabled.
As noted in Section 6.1, above, clients SHOULD use a local proxy
which arbitrates all RADIUS traffic between the client and all
servers. This proxy will encapsulate all knowledge about servers,
including security policies, fail-over, and load-balancing. All
client subsystems SHOULD communicate with this local proxy, ideally
over a loopback address. The requirements on using strong shared
secrets still apply.
The benefit of this configuration is that there is one place in the
client which arbitrates all RADIUS traffic. Subsystems which do not
implement DTLS can remain unaware of DTLS. DTLS connections opened
by the proxy can remain open for long periods of time, even when
client subsystems are restarted. The proxy can do RADIUS/UDP to some
servers, and RADIUS/DTLS to others.
Delegation of responsibilities and separation of tasks are important
security principles. By moving all RADIUS/DTLS knowledge to a DTLS-
aware proxy, security analysis becomes simpler, and enforcement of
correct security becomes easier.
11. References
11.1. Normative references
[RFC2865]
Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A. and W. Simpson, "Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 2865, June 2000.
[RFC3539]
Aboba, B. et al., "Authentication, Authorization and Accounting
(AAA) Transport Profile", RFC 3539, June 2003.
[RFC5077]
Salowey, J, et al., "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Session
Resumption without Server-Side State", RFC 5077, January 2008
[RFC5080]
Nelson, D. and DeKok, A, "Common Remote Authentication Dial In User
Service (RADIUS) Implementation Issues and Suggested Fixes", RFC
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5080, December 2007.
[RFC5246]
Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC5997]
DeKok, A., "Use of Status-Server Packets in the Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) Protocol", RFC 5997,
August 2010.
[RFC6347]
Rescorla E., and Modadugu, N., "Datagram Transport Layer Security",
RFC 6347, April 2006.
[RFC6520]
Seggelmann, R., et al.,"Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram
Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Heartbeat Extension", RFC 6520,
February 2012.
[RFC6614]
Winter. S, et. al., "TLS encryption for RADIUS over TCP", RFFC
6614, May 2012
11.2. Informative references
[RFC1321]
Rivest, R. and S. Dusse, "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC
1321, April 1992.
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", RFC 2119, March, 1997.
[RFC2866]
Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", RFC 2866, June 2000.
[RFC5176]
Chiba, M. et al., "Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 5176, January
2008.
[RFC6421]
Nelson, D. (Ed), "Crypto-Agility Requirements for Remote
Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 6421, November
2011.
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[MD5Attack]
Dobbertin, H., "The Status of MD5 After a Recent Attack",
CryptoBytes Vol.2 No.2, Summer 1996.
[MD5Break]
Wang, Xiaoyun and Yu, Hongbo, "How to Break MD5 and Other Hash
Functions", EUROCRYPT. ISBN 3-540-25910-4, 2005.
Acknowledgments
Parts of the text in Section 3 defining the Request and Response
Authenticators were taken with minor edits from [RFC2865] Section 3.
Authors' Addresses
Alan DeKok
The FreeRADIUS Server Project
http://freeradius.org
Email: aland@freeradius.org
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