One document matched: draft-yacine-pana-paa2ep-prot-eval-00.txt



   PANA WG                                            Yacine El Mghazli 
   Internet Draft                                               Alcatel 
   Category: Informational                                              
   Document:                                                            
   draft-yacine-pana-paa2ep-prot-eval-00.txt 
   Expires: April 2004                                     October 2003 
    
    
                                   PANA 
                      PAA-EP protocol considerations 
    
    
    
  Status of this Memo 
    
    
   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026 [STD]. 
    
   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering 
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups.  Note that 
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   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any 
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   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress". 
    
   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt 
   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
        http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
    
  Abstract 
    
   The PANA Authentication Agent (PAA) does not necessarily act as an 
   Enforcement Point (EP) to prevent unauthorized access or usage of the 
   network. When a PANA Client (PaC) successfully authenticates itself 
   to the PAA, EP(s) (e.g., access routers) will need to be suitably 
   notified. The PANA working group will identify a (preferably 
   existing) protocol solution that allows the PAA to deliver the 
   authorization information to one or more EPs when the PAA is 
   separated from EPs. 
    
   The present document aims at discussing the various protocol 
   solutions available and identifying one, which better fits the whole 
   PANA picture. 


  
  
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  Conventions used in this document 
    
   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]. 
    
  Table of Contents 
    
   1. Glossary.......................................................3 
   2. Introduction...................................................3 
      2.1. Document History..........................................4 
      2.2. Scope.....................................................4 
   3. PAA-EP Protocol Requirements...................................5 
      3.1. Push model................................................5 
      3.2. One-to-many PAA-EP relation...............................5 
      3.3. Provisioned Data..........................................5 
      3.4. Re-use of an existing protocol............................5 
      3.5. General Security Requirements.............................5 
   4. Nice-to-have functions.........................................6 
      4.1. Pull model................................................6 
      4.2. Inactive peer detection...................................6 
      4.3. Stateful approach.........................................7 
      4.4. Accounting/Feedback from the EPs..........................7 
   5. PANA framework Assumptions/Issues..............................8 
      5.1. Multiple PAAs.............................................8 
       5.1.1. PAA-PaC relation assumption............................8 
       5.1.2. PAA-EP relation issue..................................9 
      5.2. Inter-PAAs communication.................................12 
   6. PAA-EP Protocol Evaluation....................................13 
      6.1. SNMP.....................................................13 
       6.1.1. SNMP General Applicability............................13 
       6.1.2. Compliancy of SNMP against the PAA-EP reqs............14 
       6.1.3. Compliancy of SNMP against the PANA framework.........15 
      6.2. COPS-PR..................................................15 
       6.2.1. COPS General Applicability............................15 
       6.2.2. COPS extension for provisioning (COPS-PR).............16 
       6.2.3. Compliancy of COPS-PR against the PAA-EP reqs.........17 
       6.2.4. Compliancy of COPS-PR against the PANA framework......17 
      6.3. IAB notice on COPS-PR and PIBs...........................18 
   7. Conclusion....................................................19 
   Security Considerations..........................................19 
   Acknowledgements.................................................19 
   References.......................................................19 
   Author's Addresses...............................................20 
   Full Copyright Statement.........................................21 
    
    


  
  
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  1. Glossary 
    
   PANA  Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access. 
    
   PaC (PANA Client): 
      
     The client side of the protocol that resides in the host device, 
     which is responsible for providing the credentials to prove its 
     identity for network, access authorization. 
      
   DI (Device Identifier): 
      
     The identifier used by the network as a handle to control and 
     police the network access of a client. Depending on the access 
     technology, this identifier might contain any of IP address, link-
     layer address, switch port number, etc. of a connected device. 
      
   PAA (PANA Authentication Agent): 
      
     The access network side entity of the protocol whose responsibility 
     is to verify the credentials provided by a PANA client and grant 
     network access service to the device associated with the client and 
     identified by a DI. 
      
   EP (Enforcement Point): 
      
     A node on the access network where per-packet enforcement policies 
     (i.e., filters) are applied on the inbound and outbound traffic of 
     client devices. Information such as DI and (optionally) 
     cryptographic keys are provided by PAA per client for constructing 
     filters on the EP. 
      
    
 2. Introduction 
    
   Client access authentication should be followed by access control to 
   make sure only authenticated and authorized clients can send and 
   receive IP packets via access network. Access control can involve 
   setting access control lists on the enforcement points. 
   Identification of clients, which are authorized to access the 
   network, is done by the PANA protocol exchange.  
    
   PANA does not assume that the PAA is always co-located with the 
   EP(s). Network access enforcement can be provided by one or more 
   nodes on the same IP subnet as the client (e.g., multiple routers), 
   or on another subnet in the access domain (e.g., gateway to the 
   Internet, depending on the network architecture). When the PAA and 
   the EP(s) are separated, there needs to be another transport for 
   client provisioning. This transport is needed to create access 
  
  
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   control lists to allow authenticated and authorized clients' traffic 
   through the EPs. PANA Working Group will preferably identify an 
   existing protocol solution that allows the PAA to deliver the 
   authorization information to one or more EPs when the PAA is 
   separated from EPs. 
    
    
 2.1. Document History 
    
   This document is based on an individual submission [PAA-EP-REQ], 
   which was used as a work basis for discussions around the PAA-EP 
   interface issues within the PANA working group. 
    
    
 2.2. Scope 
    
   First, section 3 details the requirements that the PAA-EP protocol 
   must satisfy in order to meet the needs of PANA when the PAA is 
   separated from EP(s). These are specified in [PANAREQ]. 
    
   The following section 4 presents some functions the PAA-EP protocol 
   should offer, which have already been discussed on the mailing list. 
   These are not mandatory at all, but one can consider them as "nice-
   to-have". 
    
   Then, section 5 discusses the PANA framework assumptions that are 
   being made within the PANA working group. It deals with crucial 
   issues around the authentication process, when the PAA is separated 
   from EP(s). 
    
   Finally, the last section 6 introduces and compares the various 
   protocol solutions available against the identified requirements for 
   the PAA-EP interface. 
    
   A compliancy summary of each of the proposed solutions is provided. 
    
    












  
  
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 3. PAA-EP Protocol Requirements 
    
 3.1. Push model 
    
   PAA must be able to "push" the provisioning information down to EPs, 
   without any of the EPs "pulling" it. Since PANA exchange takes place 
   between PaC and PAA, EPs are unlikely to be aware of it. 
    
   EP provisioning takes place once the PaC is authenticated and 
   authorized, hence the event triggering the EP configuration takes 
   place at the PAA. Then it's straightforward to initiate the exchange 
   at the PAA. 
    
    
 3.2. One-to-many PAA-EP relation 
    
   One PAA have to communicate with several EPs once a PaC is 
   authenticated. The PAA-EP protocol must be able to handle this 1:n 
   communication. 
    
    
 3.3. Provisioned Data 
    
   The protocol must carry DI-based filters and cryptographic keys. 
    
    
 3.4. Re-use of an existing protocol 
    
   This work hopefully will not involve any new protocol design, it may 
   involve definition of new AVPs for existing protocols. The PANA 
   working group should try to re-use one of the many protocols around 
   to do this.  
    
    
 3.5. General Security Requirements 
    
   The PAA-EP protocol must provide for message authentication, 
   confidentiality, and integrity. 
    
   The PAA-EP protocol must define mechanisms to mitigate attacks on the 
   control messages. 
    
    






  
  
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 4. Nice-to-have functions 
    
 4.1. Pull model 
    
   The PUSH model (PAA-initiated configuration) should be used for the 
   communication between PAA and EP. 
    
   However, the PULL model (EP-initiated configuration) might be 
   supported for the following purposes: 
    
   1. EP Registration/Recovery: 
      
     When a EP is newly connected to the network, it needs to register 
     itself to the PAA. 
      
     In a similar manner, when an EP crashes and comes up again, it 
     needs to re-connect its PAA. In general, when a failure is 
     detected, the EP must try to reconnect to the remote PAA or 
     attempt to connect to PAA. 
      
      
   2. Traffic-driven configuration (a.k.a. new PAC notification): 
      
     As stated in [PANA], PaC may also choose to start sending packets 
     before getting authenticated. In that case, the network should 
     detect this and send an unsolicited PANA_start message to PaC. EP 
     is the node that can detect such activity. If EP and PAA are co-
     located, then an internal mechanism (e.g. API) between the EP 
     module and the PAA module on the same host can prompt PAA to start 
     PANA. In case they are separate, there needs an explicit message 
     to prompt PAA. 
      
     Upon detecting the need to authenticate a client, EP can send a 
     trigger message to the PAA on behalf of the PaC. This can be one 
     of the messages provided by the PAA-EP protocol, or, in the 
     absence of such a facility, PAC_discovery can be used as well. 
     This message MUST carry the device identifier of the PaC. So that, 
     PAA can send the unsolicited PANA_start message directly to the 
     PaC. 
    
    
 4.2. Inactive peer detection 
    
   The protocol used between PAA and EP should be able to detect 
   inactive peer within an appropriate time period. 
    
   This can be achieved by having both the EP and remote PAA constantly 
   verify their connection to each other via keep-alive messages: a 
   heartbeat in fact. 
  
  
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 4.3. Stateful approach 
    
   The protocol must allow to maintain some states in the PAA in order 
   for an EP that went down and came back up, or an EP that is being 
   introduced in the network to (re-)synchronize with the PAA. 
    
   In general terms, the PAA-EP protocol needs to support the stateful 
   model between the PAA and the EP(s) and some other mechanism for the 
   EP to learn the policies currently in effect on that access network. 
    
    
 4.4. Accounting/Feedback from the EPs 
    
   The PAA must have an efficient way to to get the accounting 
   information of PaC from EP since the PAA may be a client of the AAA 
   backend infrastructure. 
    






























  
  
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 5. PANA framework Assumptions/Issues 
    
 5.1. Multiple PAAs 
    
   Multiple PAAs may be used for redundancy, load sharing, distributed 
   authentication, or other purposes: 
    
     a) Redundancy is the case where one or more PAAs are prepared to 
        take over if an active PAA fails.  
    
     b) Load sharing is the case where two or more PAAs are concurrently 
        active and any PaC that can be authenticated by one of the PAAs 
        can also be authenticated by any of the other PAA. 
    
   For both redundancy and load sharing, the PAAs involved are 
   equivalently capable. The only difference between these two cases a) 
   and b) is in terms of how many active PAAs there are. 
    
     c) Distributed authentication is the case where two or more PAAs 
        are concurrently active but certain PANA requests using PANA can 
        only be serviced by certain PAAs. The logical separation can be 
        based on: 
      
         . Topology: One given PAA is in charge of authenticating a 
           pool of PaCs belonging to the same topological area. 
          
         . The ISP: One given PAA is in charge of authenticating the 
           PaCs clients to a given ISP. Then it forwards the PANA 
           requests based on the NAI or other identifier. 
          
         . Etc. 
    
   Clearly stating the motivation for having multiples PAAs 
   authenticating PaCs and provisioning EPs in an access network has 
   direct consequences on both PAA-PaC and PAA-EP relations. 
    
 5.1.1. 
       PAA-PaC relation assumption 
    
   According to [PANA] (section "Discovery and Initial Handshake 
   Phase"), "There can be multiple PAAs on the link. The result does not 
   depend on which PAA PaC chooses. By default PaC chooses the PAA that 
   sent the first response." 
   Then, it is straightforward that the assumption that is being made 
   here is that two or more PAAs are concurrently active and any PaC 
   that can be authenticated by one of the PAAs can also be 
   authenticated by any of the other PAAs. We are clearly in the case 
   where the PaCs load is shared between the multiple PAAs (b). 
    

  
  
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   Do note that discovery issues are raised with allowing muliples PAAs 
   to authenticate the various PaCs. [PANA] solves the problem simply 
   stating that the chosen PAA corresponds to the first response. It is 
   consistent with case b). 
    
   From the PaC perspective, multiple PAAs are concurrently active and 
   any PaC that can be authenticated by one of the PAAs can also be 
   authenticated by any of the other PAA. 
    
    
 5.1.2. 
       PAA-EP relation issue 
    
   In a similar manner, it is crucial for identifying the various PAA-EP 
   protocol requirements to clearly identify the context for having 
   multiples PAAs with respect to the EPs provisioning. 
    
   One PAA have to communicate with several EPs once a PaC is 
   authenticated is a requirement for the PAA-EP protocol (see section 
   3.2). In the case where there is a single PAA, the assumption being 
   made is that the PAA will provision all the EPs. However, it remains 
   an issue in case we have multiple PAAs. 
    
   When multiple PAAs authenticates the PaCs, a given PAA can either: 
    
     a) Redundancy: 
      provision all the EPs of the underlying access network and each EP 
      has a single active PAA. A back-up PAA is ready to take over if 
      the first one fails.  
       
       
                            +----------------+ 
                          +-|---------+      | 
                          v v         |      |        
                         +----+     +-+----+ |         +-----+ 
               PaC  -----| EPa|     | PAA1 +-|---------+(AAA)| 
               [D1]      +----+     |active|-+-+       +-+---+ 
                                    +-+----+   |         | 
                                      | | PAA2 +---------+   
                                      | +----+-+      
                         +----+       |      | 
               PaC  -----| EPb|       |      | 
               [D2]      +----+       |      |  
                          ^ ^         |      |         
                          +-|---------+      | 
                            +----------------+ 
       
          Figure 1. One single active PAA provisioning all the EPs 
       
       
  
  
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     b) Load sharing: 
      provision all the EPs of the underlying access network and each EP 
      can be controlled by another active PAA.  
       
       
                            +---------------+ 
                          +-|---------+     | 
                          v v         |     |        
                         +----+     +-+----+|         
               PaC  -----| EPa|     | PAA1 +------------+ 
               [D1]      +----+     |      ||           | 
                                    +-+----+|        +--+--+ 
                                      |     |        |(AAA)| 
                                      |+----+-+      +--+--+ 
                         +----+       || PAA2 |         | 
               PaC  -----| EPb|       ||      +---------+ 
               [D2]      +----+       |+----+-+      
                          ^ ^         |     |         
                          +-|---------+     | 
                            +---------------+ 
       
          Figure 2. Multiple active PAAs provisioning all the EPs 
       
       
      Such a deployment option can prove to be very well adapted to 
      situations where there are multiple PAAs belonging to multiple 
      ISPs. A given PAA belonging to a certain ISP can configure all the 
      EPs of the Access Network. 
       
                            +---------------+ 
                          +-|---------+     | 
                          v v         |     |        +------+ 
                         +----+     +-+----+|        | AAA1 | 
               PaC  -----| EPa|     | PAA1 +---------+(ISP1)| 
               [D1]      +----+     |(ISP1)||        +------+ 
                                    +-+----+|         
                                      |     |         
                                      |+----+-+       
                         +----+       || PAA2 |      +------+ 
               PaC  -----| EPb|       ||(ISP2)+------+ AAA2 | 
               [D2]      +----+       |+----+-+      |(ISP2)| 
                          ^ ^         |     |        +------+ 
                          +-|---------+     | 
                            +---------------+ 
       
           Figure 3. Multiple PAAs belonging to multiple ISPs 
       
       
  
  
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     c) Distributed control: 
      provision a pool of EPs within a given area. The pool can be 
      identified based on topological criteria for instance.  
       
       
                          +-----------+       
                          v           | 
                         +----+     +-+----+             
               PaC  -----| EPa|     | PAA1 +-------------+  
               [D1]      +----+     |      |             | 
                                    +------+          +--+--+  
                                         ^            |(AAA)| 
                                         |            +--+--+ 
                                         v               |  
                                       +------+          | 
                         +----+        | PAA2 |          | 
               PaC  -----| EPb|        |      +----------+ 
               [D2]      +----+        +----+-+       
                            ^               |         
                            +---------------+ 
       
                Figure 4. Distributed control of the EPs 
       
      Such a deployment option can prove to be very well adapted to 
      Access Network with a large number of EP nodes. In such a 
      situation, a single PAA cannot deal with so many EPs, then the NAP 
      can use a given PAA for a given pool of EPs. Do note that this 
      certainly imply inter-PAA communication for synchronization 
      purposes (see next section). 
       
      Another reason for using this deployment scheme would be to 
      configure only the EPs concerned by the traffic of the 
      authenticated PaC. But this brings up other issues (e.g. mobility 
      case) and it's out of the scope of the present document. 
       
    
   The choice between these various deployment options is motivated by 
   PANA-specific considerations. Typically, these can be: 
    
      . Scalability: How many EPs are managed by the PAA(s)? 
       
      . Symmetry: Does all the EPs need to be configured with the same 
        rules?  

      . Dynamicity: How often does the EP configuration has to be 
        refreshed? 
    
    

  
  
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 5.2. Inter-PAAs communication 
    
   When multiple PAAs are employed, their internal organization is 
   considered an implementation issue that is beyond the scope of PANA. 
   PAAs are wholly responsible for coordinating amongst themselves to 
   provide consistency and synchronization. However, PANA does not 
   define the implementation or protocols used between PAAs, nor does it 
   define how to distribute functionality among PAAs. Nevertheless, PANA 
   will support mechanisms for PAA redundancy or fail over, and it is 
   expected that vendors will provide redundancy or fail over solutions 
   within the PANA framework.  
    
    




































  
  
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 6. PAA-EP Protocol Evaluation 
    
   The previous sections described the functions required or simply 
   wished for the PAA-to-EP communication. Do note that the so-called 
   requirements are general enough to allow a large amount of possible 
   solutions for this interface, namely: SNMP, COPS-PR, Diameter, 
   Radius, ForCES, NetConf, directory-based solutions, etc. 
    
   However, the PANA working group does not wish to choose a disruptive 
   solution for this PAA-EP management interface. In a similar manner, 
   the PANA working group does not wish to bet on premature solutions, 
   whose design is on-going. Hence, the working group will consider the 
   classical configuration protocols available and consequently, only 
   the following protocols were mentioned for final consideration: 
    
     . SNMP [SNMP] 
     . COPS-PR [COPS-PR] 
    
   The following sections provide an overview of each of these protocols 
   and its applicability to the PAA-EP interface. 
    
    
 6.1. SNMP 
    
   This section provides a general statement with regards to the 
   applicability of SNMP as the PAA-EP protocol. This evaluation of SNMP 
   is specific to SNMPv3, which provides the security required for PANA 
   usage. SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c would be inappropriate for PANA since they 
   have been declared Historic, and because their messages have only 
   trivial security. 
    
    
 6.1.1. 
       SNMP General Applicability 
    
   The primary advantages of SNMPv3 are that it is a mature, well 
   understood protocol, currently deployed in various scenarios, with 
   mature toolsets available for SNMP managers and agents.  
    
   Application intelligence is captured in MIB modules, rather than in 
   the messaging protocol. MIB modules define a data model of the 
   information that can be collected and configured for a managed 
   functionality. The SNMP messaging protocol transports the data in a 
   standardized format without needing to understand the semantics of 
   the data being transferred. The endpoints of the communication 
   understand the semantics of the data.  
    
   Partly due to the lack of security in SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c, and partly 
   due to variations in configuration requirements across vendors, few 
   MIB modules have been developed that enable standardized 
  
  
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   configuration of managed devices across vendors. Since monitoring can 
   be done using only a least-common-denominator subset of information 
   across vendors, many MIB modules have been developed to provide 
   standardized monitoring of managed devices. As a result, SNMP has 
   been used primarily for monitoring rather than for configuring 
   network nodes.  
    
   SNMPv3 builds upon the design of widely-deployed SNMPv1 and SNMPv2c 
   versions. Specifically, SNMPv3 shares the separation of data modeling 
   (MIBs) from the protocol to transfer data, so all existing MIBs can 
   be used with SNMPv3. SNMPv3 also uses the SMIv2 standard, and it 
   shares operations and transport with SNMPv2c. The major difference 
   between SNMPv3 and earlier versions is the addition of strong message 
   security and controlled access to data.  
    
   SNMPv3 uses the architecture detailed in RFC2571, where all SNMP 
   entities are capable of performing certain functions, such as the 
   generation of requests, response to requests, the generation of 
   asynchronous notifications, the receipt of notifications, and the 
   proxy-forwarding of SNMP messages. SNMP is used to read and 
   manipulate virtual databases of managed-application-specific 
   operational parameters and statistics, which are defined in MIB 
   modules. 
    
    
 6.1.2. 
       Compliancy of SNMP against the PAA-EP reqs 
    
   All the requirements as described in section 3 are fully supported by 
   SNMP: 
    
     a) The protocol must carry DI and keys 
          Already defined MIBs (for filters, IPSec policy, etc.) can 
           be re-used. if not sufficient, PANA-specific MIBs can be 
           designed.  
    
     b) There might be multiple EPs per PAA.  
          An SNMP manager (PAA) can communicate simultaneously with 
           several agents (EPs).  
    
     c) The protocol must be secured 
          SNMPv3 includes the User-based Security Model (USM, 
           [RFC2574]), which defines three standardized methods for 
           providing authentication, confidentiality, and integrity.  
           Additionally, USM has specific built-in mechanisms for 
           preventing replay attacks including unique protocol engine 
           IDs, timers and counters per engine and time windows for the 
           validity of messages.  
    
     d) The protocol may allow the EP to notify a new PaC 
  
  
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          Using SMI notifications 
      
      
 6.1.3. 
        Compliancy of SNMP against the PANA framework 
    
   When multiple PAAs, since SNMP allow multiple managers (PAAs) per 
   agent (EP), it fits better deployments where the multiple PAAs are 
   configuring all the access network EPs (section 5.1.2, option b, load 
   sharing). SNMP is the very usual Internet Management protocol. 
    
   SNMP does not provide heartbeat mechanisms, nor a stateful model (see 
   section 2), but this is not required by PANA. 
    
    
 6.2. COPS-PR 
    
   The Common Open Policy Service (COPS) [RFC2748] protocol has been 
   extended to provision configuration information on devices (COPS-PR) 
   [RFC3084]. Work is underway to define data definitions for specific 
   services such as Differentiated Services (DiffServ). 
    
    
 6.2.1. 
       COPS General Applicability 
    
   IETF has defined the COPS protocol [COPS] as a scalable protocol that 
   allows policy servers (PDPs) to communicate policy decisions to 
   network devices (PEPs). COPS was designed to support multiple types 
   of policy clients. 
    
   The main characteristics of the COPS base protocol include the 
   following: 
    
      1. The protocol employs a client/server model. The PEP sends 
        requests, updates, and deletions to the remote PDP and the PDP 
        returns decisions back to the PEP. 
       
      2. The protocol uses TCP as its transport protocol for reliable 
        exchange of messages between policy clients and a server. 
       
      3. The protocol is extensible in that it is designed to leverage 
        self-identifying objects and can support diverse client 
        specific information without requiring modification of the COPS 
        protocol. 
       
      4. The protocol was created for the general administration, 
        configuration, and enforcement of policies. 
       
      5. COPS provides message level security for authentication, replay 
        protection, and message integrity. COPS can make use of 
  
  
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        existing protocols for security such as IPSEC or TLS to 
        authenticate and secure the channel between the PEP and the 
        PDP. 
       
      6. The protocol is stateful in two main aspects: 
          a. Request/Decision state is shared and kept synchronized in a 
             transactional manner between client and server. Requests 
             from the client PEP are installed or remembered by the 
             remote PDP until they are explicitly deleted by the PEP. At 
             the same time, Decisions from the remote PDP can be 
             generated asynchronously at any time for a currently 
             installed request state. 
          b. State from various events (Request/Decision pairs) may be 
             inter-associated. The server may respond to new queries 
             differently because of previously installed, related 
             Request/Decision state(s). 
           
      7. The protocol is also stateful in that it allows the server to 
        push configuration information to the client, and then allows 
        the server to remove such state from the client when it is no 
        longer applicable.  
    
    
 6.2.2. 
       COPS extension for provisioning (COPS-PR) 
    
   In COPS-PR, the PDP may proactively provision the PEP reacting to 
   external events, such as successful client authentication. This model 
   is also known as the push/configuration model. Provisioning may be 
   performed in bulk (e.g., entire EP configuration) or in portions 
   (e.g., updating a filter). 
    
   The COPS-PR specification [COPS-PR] is independent of the type of 
   policy being provisioned (QoS, Security, etc.). Rather, it focuses on 
   the mechanisms and conventions used to communicate provisioned 
   information between the PDP and its PEPs. The data model assumed in 
   [COPS-PR] is based on the concept of Policy Information Bases (PIBs) 
   that define the policy data. There may be one or more PIBs for given 
   area of policy and different areas of policy may have different sets 
   of PIBs. 
    
   COPS-PR has been designed within a framework that is optimized for 
   efficiently provisioning policies across devices: 
    
     . First, COPS-PR allows for efficient transport of attributes, 
        large atomic transactions of data, and efficient and flexible 
        error reporting. 
    
     . Second, as it has a single connection between the policy client 
        and server per area of policy control identified by a COPS 
  
  
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        Client-Type, it guarantees only one server updates a particular 
        policy configuration at any given time. Such a policy 
        configuration is effectively locked, even from local console 
        configuration, while the PEP is connected to a PDP via COPS. 
        COPS uses reliable TCP transport and, thus, uses a state 
        sharing/synchronization mechanism and exchanges differential 
        updates only. If either the server or client are rebooted (or 
        restarted) the other would know about it quickly. 
    
     . Last, it is defined as a real-time event-driven communications 
        mechanism, never requiring polling between the PEP and PDP. 
    
    
 6.2.3. 
       Compliancy of COPS-PR against the PAA-EP reqs 
    
   All the requirements as described in section 3 are fully supported by 
   COPS-PR: 
    
     a) The protocol must carry DI-based filters and keys: 
          Already defined PIBs (for filters, IPSec policy, etc.) can 
           be re-used. if not sufficient, PANA-specific PIBs can be 
           designed. 
    
     b) There might be multiple EPs per PAA: 
          COPS-PR PDPs (PAAs) are designed to communicate with several 
           PEPs (EPs). 
    
     c) The protocol must be secured: 
          COPS-PR has built-in message level security for 
           authentication, replay protection, and message integrity. 
           COPS-PR can also use TLS or IPSec, thus reusing existing 
           security mechanisms that have interoperated in the markets. 
    
     d) The protocol may allow the EP to notify a new PaC:  
          COPS-PR outsourcing allowed (3GPP-like)  
      
      
 6.2.4. 
        Compliancy of COPS-PR against the PANA framework 
    
   When multiple PAAs, since the COPS-PR framework allow only a single 
   PDP (PAA) to configure a given PEP (EP), it fits better deployments 
   where the multiple PAAs are configuring pools of EPs (section 5.1.2, 
   option c, distributed control). 
    
   COPS-PR naturally provides heartbeat mechanisms, a stateful model, 
   accounting facilities and nicely supports dynamic configuration (see 
   section 2), but this is not required by PANA. 
    
   A little more detailed information can be found in [COPS-PANA]. 
  
  
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 6.3. IAB notice on COPS-PR and PIBs 
    
    
   On the one hand, purely technically speaking, when compared to both 
   the whished (section 4) and required (section 3) functions, COPS-PR 
   seems to offer a slightly better solution for the EP configuration.  
    
   On the other hand, [RFC3535] provides an overview of a workshop held 
   recently by the IAB on Network Management. In the recommendations 
   section, one can read the following: 
    
   "2. The workshop had rough consensus from the protocol developers 
   that the IETF should not spend resources on COPS-PR development. So 
   far, the operators have only very limited experience with COPS-PR. In 
   general, however, they felt that further development of COPS-PR might 
   be a waste of resources as they assume that COPS-PR does not really 
   address their requirements. 
    
   3. The workshop had rough consensus from the protocol developers that 
   the IETF should not spend resources on SPPI PIB definitions. The 
   operators had rough consensus that they do not care about SPPI PIBs." 
    
    
    























  
  
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 7. Conclusion 
    
   The main output of this evaluation paper is that the PANA 
   requirements for the PAA-EP interface are soft enough to allow almost 
   any of the protocol solutions available. Nevertheless, the PANA 
   working group restrict its choice to the 'classical' and available 
   device configuration protocols, namely SNMP and COPS-PR. 
    
   Moreover and according the operators will (via the IAB 
   recommendations), today COPS-PR is not promised to a nice future. It 
   could prove to be hazardous to bet on this protocol, however 
   efficient it is. In addition, COPS-PR is maybe too heavy for small 
   configuration sets like those needed in PANA. 
    
   Hence, since the PAA-EP requirements are well validated by SNMP, it 
   seems better for the PANA working group to mandate this latest 
   solution and take advantage of its widely deployed framework. 
    
    
    
    
 Security Considerations 
    
   See section 3.5 
    
    
 Acknowledgements 
    
   This evaluation draft leverages on similar works done in the MIDCOM 
   working group. Thanks to the authors of those IDs.  
    
    
 References 
    
                    
   [STD] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", 
      BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 
    
   [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate 
      Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. 
    
   [PANAREQ] R. Penno, et al., "Protocol for Carrying Authentication for 
      Network Access (PANA) Requirements and Terminology" (draft-ietf-
      pana-requirements-07.txt). 
    
   [RADIUS] C. Rigney et. al, "Remote Authentication Dial In User 
      Service", RFC2865, June 2000.  
    

  
  
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   [COPS-PR] K. Chan, D. Durham, S. Gai, S. Herzog, K. McCloghrie, F. 
      Reichmeyer, J. Seligson, A. Smith, R. Yavatkar, "COPS Usage for 
      Policy Provisioning,", RFC 3084, March 2001  
    
   [COPS] Boyle, J., Cohen, R., Durham, D., Herzog, S., Rajan, R., and 
      A. Sastry, "The COPS (Common Open Policy Service) Protocol" RFC 
      2748, January 2000. 
    
   [PANA] D. Forsberg, Y. Ohba, B. Pati, H. Tschofenig, A. Yegin, 
      "Protocol for Carrying Authentication for Network Access 
      (PANA)"(draft-ietf-pana-pana-01.txt). 
    
   [DIAMETER] P. Calhoun, J. Arkko, E. Guttman, G. Zorn, J. Loughney, 
      "Diameter Base Protocol" (draft-ietf-aaa-diameter-15.txt). 
    
   [PAA-EP-REQ] Y. El Mghazli , "PANA PAA-EP Protocol Requirements" 
      (draft-yacine-pana-paa-ep-reqs-00.txt). 
    
   [COPS-PANA] Y. El Mghazli, " Enforcement Point(s) Provisioning and 
      Accounting using COPS-PR" (draft-yacine-pana-cops-ep-00.txt). 
    
 Author's Addresses 
    
   Yacine El Mghazli 
   Alcatel 
   Route de Nozay 
   91460 Marcoussis cedex 
   Phone: +33 (0)1 69 63 41 87 
   Email: yacine.el_mghazli@alcatel.fr 
    
    

















  
  
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