| ACE Working Group | S. Gerdes |
| Internet-Draft | Universität Bremen TZI |
| Intended status: Informational | J. Cuellar |
| Expires: April 21, 2016 | Siemens AG |
| O. Bergmann | |
| Universität Bremen TZI | |
| October 19, 2015 |
Solutions for the authorization in constrained environments
draft-cuellar-ace-solutions-00
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a transfer protocol that was designed to meet the special requirements of constrained environments.
This document introduces a common framework for conveying authorization information between the actors in the ACE architecture by defining classes of message types. It thus specifys a common authorization extension for CoAP.
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Resource-constrained nodes only have limited system resources such as memory, stable storage (such as disk space) and transmission capacity and often lack input/output devices such as keyboards or displays. They are often especially designed to perform a single, simple task in their application area. The various use cases (see [I-D.ietf-ace-usecases]) have varying requirements for the authentication and authorization solution. Due to the constrainedness of the devices, a single solution cannot address all these requirements.
In the Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) working group, various proposals are discussed that cover different use-cases and application scenarios. This document explains how the specific solutions in the ACE WG fit together in a common framework. It defines classes of message types to convey authenticated authorization information between the actors in the ACE architecture. [I-D.ietf-ace-actors]
The description of each message type covers the effect this message has, the actors that send and receive the message and the kind of protection it requires. Solution designer can implement the message type classes with the effect they require for their solution.
Readers are expected to be familiar with the terms and concepts defined in [I-D.ietf-ace-actors].
The ACE architecture as outlined in [I-D.ietf-ace-actors] introduces six actors - logical entities that have to perform specific security-related tasks; On the constrained level, client and server want to communicate securely. Their respective principals define authorization policies that need to be enacted. Each constrained device has a less-constrained device that can be entrusted with security-related tasks. One goal of the ACE WG is to enable entities on the constrained level to securely delegate some authorization-related tasks to an actor on the less-constrained level within the same security domain.
The ACE architecture facilitates various distinct application scenarios resulting in the following basic authorization message flows.
In all cases, the authorization policies of both the client’s principal and the server’s principal must be considered to achieve their respective security goals. Depending on the selected authorization message flow, different actors need to exchange different information.
This document is structured as follows: Section 3 specifies 11 classes of Message Types that define how this information is securely conveyed over the network. Section 4 describes CoAP content formats that can be used to control the desired authorization message flow.
In the following, the classes of message types for authorization are listed. Each class consists of the effect this message has, the actors that send and receive this message, and the kind of protection that such a message requires. Solutions can choose the message types they need to implement based on the effects they require.
Any resource request from C to S that is not covered by a valid ticket for C is treated as unauthorized request. If S decides to act upon an Unauthorized Resource Request it can reject the message and optionally inform C where it can ask for authorization, or, if S has authenticated C, S can directly ask SAM to authorize C’s request.
or, optionally,
None.
A SAM Information Message can be used by S or a gateway (GW) that serves the requested resource on behalf of an origin server S to instruct C where it may retrieve authorization for a specific type of request. S (or GW, respectively) may optionally include requested data as an encrypted object with the SAM Information Message.
or optionally,
If S/GW includes requested data with the SAM Information Message, it must provide for confidentiality and integrity of the data.
A CAM Information Message can be used by C to instruct S where it may retrieve an authorization token for C.
None.
An Access Request Message is sent by C to request CAM to retrieve authorization information for a specific request. It includes information from a SAM Information message generated by S/GW.
A Ticket Request message is sent by CAM on behalf of C to retrieve authorization from SAM for a specific action on S.
A Ticket Grant message is sent by SAM to CAM to convey authorization information and a verifier that can be used by C to access protected resources on S.
The Ticket Transfer message is used by CAM to convey the authorization information and the verifier retrieved from SAM to C.
CAM can restrict the operations C performs on S by transferring Client Authentication Information (CAI) to C. This is specifically useful if S has requested additional information from C in order to proceed with C’s initial request.
In the ACE architecture, the client may utilize an authorization manager (CAM) to contact the server-side authorization manager (SAM) and retrieve an authorization token for the intended action on a resource that SAM is responsible for. CAM needs to authenticate with SAM on behalf of C and must authenticate SAM. The message exchange between CAM and SAM establishes a security context that can be used to request authorization for CAM and transfer authorization policies for SAM.
None.
Once C has been authorized by SAM to access resources on S and by CAM to transmit data to S, both actors have a common security context that can be used to exchange further messages. The authorization information bound to this security context can be updated subsequently over a suitable interface provided by C and S.
Within the security association between C and S, request messages covered by the authorization information that is bound to the common security context are Authorized Resource Request messages that the receiver is allowed to process.
Responses to Authorized Request messages are Resource Responses.
TODO (see [I-D.gerdes-ace-dcaf-sitr])
As the ACE working group aims at an authorization solution that follows a REST architecture style, the basic message flow is controlled by the content format that is used to convey authorization-specific data. For example, S might transfer the SAM Information message in content format ‘application/cose+cbor’ to indicate its capability of handling messages that use the COSE message syntax [I-D.ietf-cose-msg], or ‘application/dcaf+cbor’ to use the DCAF messaging format specified in [I-D.gerdes-ace-dcaf-authorize].
TBD
This document has no actions for IANA.
The authors would like to thank Carsten Bormann for his valuable input and feedback.
| [I-D.gerdes-ace-dcaf-authorize] | Gerdes, S., Bergmann, O. and C. Bormann, "Delegated CoAP Authentication and Authorization Framework (DCAF)", Internet-Draft draft-gerdes-ace-dcaf-authorize-03, September 2015. |
| [I-D.gerdes-ace-dcaf-sitr] | Gerdes, S., "Server-Initiated Ticket Request", Internet-Draft draft-gerdes-ace-sitr-00, October 2015. |
| [I-D.ietf-ace-actors] | Gerdes, S., Seitz, L., Selander, G. and C. Bormann, "An architecture for authorization in constrained environments", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ace-actors-02, October 2015. |
| [I-D.ietf-ace-usecases] | Seitz, L., Gerdes, S., Selander, G., Mani, M. and S. Kumar, "ACE use cases", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-ace-usecases-09, October 2015. |
| [I-D.ietf-cose-msg] | Schaad, J., "CBOR Encoded Message Syntax", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-cose-msg-06, October 2015. |