Realm Crossover for SASL via Diameter
draft-vanrein-diameter-sasl-01

Abstract

SASL is used for authentication in many application protocols. This specification extends it to allow credentials from a home realm to be used against external services. To this end, it introduces a secure end-to-end wrapper for SASL traffic and a link back from to the home realm based on Diameter.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

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."

This Internet-Draft will expire on October 12, 2019.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2019 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 (https://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.

Table of Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. The SASL crossover mechanism SXOVER
• 2.1. SXOVER initial response
• 2.2. SXOVER initial challenge
• 2.3. SXOVER responses
• 2.4. SXOVER challenges
• 3. Embedding SASL in Diameter
• 3.1. AVP Definitions for SASL
• 3.1.1. SASL-Mechanism
• 3.1.2. SASL-Token
• 3.1.3. SASL-Channel-Binding
• 4. Running Diameter as a SASL Backend
• 4.1. Diameter is an SCTP service
• 4.2. Reliance on DANE and DNSSEC
• 4.3. Foreign Service SASL Mechanisms
• 5. Security Considerations
• 6. IANA Considerations
• 7. References
• 7.1. Normative References
• 7.2. Informative References
• Appendix A. Acknowledgements
• Author's Address

1. Introduction

It is common for Internet users to combine services from a varierity of providers. Along with this, an ad hoc practice has arisen of using the local identity schemes of these providers. These are not integrated, and the practice tends to reduce the control of users over their online identity. A solution to this is generic support for realm crossover, where an externally acquired service can make a callback to a home realm to authenticate a user's identity and use that for service-specific authorisation.

SASL [RFC4422] is instrumental in authentication across a wide range of application protocols; it allows those protocols to abstract from the actual authentication mechanisms, and at the same time it allows authentication mechanisms to not be concerned about the application protocol. SASL can easily be funneled from one protocol into another, modulo a number of security concerns.

Diameter and its Network Access application are instrumental in authenticating a user under a realm, while not providing the resources that an application protocol would imply. Moreover, Diameter service can be declared under a domain name in a manner that is standardised, scalable and secure.

   +--------+    SASL     +--------+    SASL    +---------+
   | Client |-----------> | Server | ---------> |  Realm  |
   +--------+  AppProto   +--------+  Diameter  +---------+
       ||                     ||                    ||
john@example.com        find SRV, TLSA          example.com
  & credential            relay SASL           authentication

This allows a foreign server to authenticate a client to authenticate with its home realm:

Diameter can send a mere notification of authentication, and the foreign server can use DANE [RFC6698] to validate the origin of these notification. Diameter in the foreign server will authenticate to the home realm, which may then decide to add resources beyond the basic notification of authentication.

SASL mechanisms are not generally protected against attacks by men in the middle named Eve. This is usually compensated for by wrapping the application protocol in TLS, but since that would only protect one leg of the intended realm crossover, this raises a need for end-to-end encryption. This can be established along with other credentials for the home realm, but an end-to-end mechanism needs to be defined. This specification introduces a wrapper for that pupose, and nests a SASL exchange with the home realm under its cloak.

Finally, to avoid the use of one authentication exchange to validate another, it is advisable to incorporate channel binding [RFC5056] [RFC5801] when making use of backends. When passing SASL tokens between application protocol and Diameter backend, the channel binding information from the application protocol would be supplied as a side-note to the Diameter backcall.

2. The SASL crossover mechanism SXOVER

SXOVER is a SASL authentication mechanism that encrypts all information between a SASL client and SASL server, except for the realm name to which they direct the authentication. The realm can be used by an foreign server to redirect SXOVER to a home realm, for instance using Diameter. SXOVER does not reveal success or failure to this foreign server, but Diameter would release this information in a manner that requires no knowledge of the SASL exchange.

The first SXOVER message supplies a session key to the SASL server. The server responds with a list of SASL mechanisms to be used under the cloak of the session key. Then, the client selects a mechanism and the customary exchange follows, but under protection of the session key.

All multi-byte integer values in SXOVER are represented in network byte order. When these values represent a counter, then it is a 32-bit unsigned integer whose increment may wrap around from the highest value to zero. A NUL byte is a single byte whose bits are all zero; a NUL-terminated string is a string with no inner NUL and an additional NUL following it. Length-prefixed byte strings consist of a 16 bit unsigned integer up to 65534 with the length followed by that number of bytes with the value. Optional length-prefixed byte strings can take all values of length-prefix byte strings or, if they are opted out from, then their value consists of a 16-but unsigned integere valued 65535. Certain information in SXOVER is encrypted with the encrypt operation [Section 3 of [RFC3961]] with default initial state and key usage TODO; this always includes integrity protection.

TODO: The number for key usage is KIP_KEYUSAGE_MAPPING and comes from the Keyful Identity Protocol.

2.1. SXOVER initial response

The SXOVER exchange starts with an initial response message, traveling along the selection of SXOVER as the SASL mechanism. This initial response contains the following:

realm

the domain name, in lowercase ASCII and no trailing dot, under which the client wants to authenticate. This is a NUL-terminated string.

inictr

is an initial counter value for this SXOVER session. It can be used by the client to keep sessions separated for replay prevention.

kvno

is a 32-bit unsigned integer, holding a key version number [RFC4120] for a long-term key established between the client and its home realm. To complete the identity of the key, the following field is also needed.

enctype

is a 32-bit signed integer, holding an encryption type following the IANA registry for Kerberos encryption types. This field and kvno together identify a long-term key shared between the client and its realm.

seskey

provides a random seed from which a session key can be formed, encrypted with the long-term key for the client and its realm. The session key will use the same enctype, which defines a random-to-key function with a required key-generation seed-length [Section 3 of [RFC3961]]. Once derived, the session key is used for encryption in the remaining SXOVER session.

When this arrives at the foreign server, the domain name can be tested to see if a session to the realm already exiss; if not, a lookup of _diameter._sctp SRV records under the realm (which is a domain name) is used to locate a home realm server to connect to. Once a session to the domain's Diameter server is established, the SXOVER token can be forwarded in whole, including the domain name.

2.2. SXOVER initial challenge

The initial SXOVER challenge is a server's response in which it presents the choice of mechanism names to use under the cloak of SXOVER. It does not present any other information. The following information is sent as one block under protection of the seskey:

ctr

is a counter that is incremented from the inictr in the initial response.

realm

repeats the NUL-terminated string with the domain name from the initial response.

mechlist

is a NUL-terminated string with a space-separated SASL mechanism names.

chanbindmth

is a NUL-terminated string with the name of a channel binding method. TODO:REALLY?

chanbindval

is a length-prefixed string with the value of the channel binding. TODO:REALLY?

2.3. SXOVER responses

Further SXOVER responses are essentially SASL responses and initial responses, encrypted under the seskey, but there is one exception; the first response must select a SASL mechanism. There is a separate provision for sending no data, distinguishable from empty data, if this is desired by the SASL mechanism:

ctr

is a counter, incremented from the prior message in this SXOVER session.

opt_mechsel

is an optional NUL-terminated string. In the first SXOVER response after the initial response, it MUST be present. When present, it mentions a SASL mechanism name to start under the cloak of SXOVER.

opt_token

is an optional length-prefixed token for the SASL mechanism selected with the most recently provided opt_mechsel.

2.4. SXOVER challenges

Further SXOVER challenges are essentially SASL challenges and initial challenges, encrypted under the seskey. There is a separate provision for sending no data, distinguishable from empty data, if this is desired by the SASL mechanism:

ctr

is a new 32-bit counter value, 1 more than the prior message in the SXOVER session.

opt_token

is an optional length-prefixed token for the selected SASL mechanism that is protected by SXOVER.

opt_extra

is an optional length-prefixed byte string with extra information, as provided by SASL alongside a successful response.

3. Embedding SASL in Diameter

SASL messages in Diameter use a number of AVPs [RFC6733] that are defined for this purposes. They occur in those combinations that are defined for SASL.

SASL over Diameter can only be used to relay the SXOVER mechanism to a home realm. This means that no negotiation of mechanisms is needed at the Diameter level; this is handled under the SXOVER cloak. The same holds for any negotation of channel binding; it is part of the cloacked SASL exchange.

3.1. AVP Definitions for SASL

These AVPs are added to the set that is used with the Network Access application, and can therefore be used in AA-Request and AA-Answer messages. On top of that, the SASL-Mechanisms AVP may also occur in a Capabilities Exchange Answer. The User-Name AVP MUST be supplied in the AA-Answer to inform the server about the user name that the backend decided on; the server MAY send a hint requesting a value in the User-Name AVP in the AA-Request.

3.1.1. SASL-Mechanism

The SASL-Mechanism AVP has AVP Code TBD0. This specification only uses the mechanism name SXOVER as a value for this AVP. It MUST be included in the first message of an SXOVER exchange sent to the home realm, and it SHOULD be verified by the home realm upon reception. Its purpose is mostly to distinguish this specification from potential future specifications to encapsulate SASL in Diameter.

Though not used in this specification, this AVP may also be supplied from the home realm to the Diameter client to hold a space-separated list of SASL mechanisms.

3.1.2. SASL-Token

The SASL-Token AVP has AVP Code TBD1. Note that SASL requires distinction between empty and absent tokens; absent SASL tokens are represented by absence of the SASL-Token AVP and empty SASL tokens are represented as a present SASL-Token AVP with zero content bytes.

3.1.3. SASL-Channel-Binding

The SASL-Channel-Binding AVP has AVP Code TBD2. It SHOULD appear along the first SASL-Token AVP for a Network Access session. The AVP may occur more than once, to indicate support of multiple forms of channel binding.

When the client connects to the foreign service over TLS, the tls-unique form [RFC5929] of channel binding is RECOMMENDED. Specific foreign servers may however be exempted by the home realm.

The contents of this AVP are:

name

is the standard name of the channel binding information, followed by a zero-valued byte.

value

contains the bytes of the channel binding information.

Normally, channel binding information should be sourced from the underlying communications channel, but this information is not available to backend running Diameter. To enable channel binding between the end points, the foreign server incorporates the channel binding information that the client can use in its connection to the foreign server. This is useful to mitigate replay attacks, which is why its use is RECOMMENDED. Channel binding provides better guarantees than the simple inictr/ctr mechanism used in SXOVER.

4. Running Diameter as a SASL Backend

Following are a few practical considerations in relation to the Diameter connectivity for SASL.

4.1. Diameter is an SCTP service

Diameter is primarily an SCTP-based protocol [RFC6733], for reasons of scalabaility and efficiency. SASL Diameter benefits from these properties and embraces the SCTP carrier. Operating system support for SCTP is wide-spread, but parts of network infrastructure may not support it, and that may cause implementations to add a fallback to more traditional protocols. Standards offer two options for doing this.

Diameter can fallback to run over TCP, which is mostly of use to client-only machines, but it sacrifices several benefits of the SCTP carrier. Since the SASL Diameter embedding typically involves no client systems, this option is NOT RECOMMENDED.

SCTP may be run over a UDP transport using port 9899 [RFC6951], which does not sacrifice much; it only inserts a UDP header before each message. This is a reasonable expectation of foreign servers as well as home realms, so this additional option is RECOMMENDED for situations where a fallback for plain SCTP is desired. It is standardised as a socket option SCTP_REMOTE_UDP_ENCAPS_PORT, and only involves a small repetition in code, with a minor change between the attempts.

4.2. Reliance on DANE and DNSSEC

Diameter always involves the use of TLS, but there is a number of choices concerning the validation of connections through DNSSEC and DANE. It is the home realm's prerogative what level of protection it upholds for its client identities, but any foreign server can choose to raise the bar by setting a minimum standard.

DNSSEC is a useful protection mechanism for the _diameter._sctp SRV records that lead to the Diameter host and its port for the home realm. This does not protect against forged IP addresses, port mappings or routing. To protect against this as well, a TLSA record for the service host and port, along with the _sctp protocol label, should be used as specified for DANE [RFC6698].

Home realms that choose to be light on such measures risk that identities are forged, in spite of their use of TLS. Foreign servers MAY choose to reject such home realms, or alternatively be more inquisitive about the certificates used.

4.3. Foreign Service SASL Mechanisms

A foreign server MUST offer SXOVER if it wants to support realm crossover via Diameter as specified herein. In addition, it MAY offer SASL mechanisms that it resolves locally.

The ANONYMOUS method for SASL [RFC4505] may be offered for guest access. The PLAIN method [RFC4616] continues to be ill-advised, especially with modern methods such as SCRAM [RFC5802] to address the needs of local accounts with password validation.

The HTTP protocol does not yet support SASL, and it is not optimal from a security viewpoint to integrate credentials in the dynamic environment of HTML, where dynamic content from potentially undesirable origins come together in a manner not controllable to the end user. One remedy is to use HTTP and its authentication methods that match with SASL, such as SCRAM for HTTP [RFC7804]. Another remedy is to switch to generic SASL embedding in HTTP [TODO:REF:draft-vanrein-httpauth-sasl] and gain replay protection through channel binding.

Many application protocols offer richer semantics than HTTP, making them better targets for automation. Their reliance on SASL has made them less tractable as a service to third parties. One reason for introducing SXOVER is in the hope to make it possible to have those semantically rich applications as a third-party offering.

5. Security Considerations

From the perspective of the client and the home realm, the safety of the SASL credentials is paramount. Since not all SASL mechanisms are safe from inspection by the foreign server, and since TLS cannot help there either, there is a need for some caution.

The limitation of the Diameter carrier for SASL to SXOVER reduces this risk, by only authenticating SASL mechanisms under end-to-end encryption between the client and home realm. It is generally understood that clients must not send unprotected SASL authentication attempts to arbitrary parties, but SXOVER adds a facility that is safe for clients to use in this manner. The SXOVER mechanism could even be used without TLS protection.

From the perspective of the foreign server, the security concern is to be certain of an identity. The home realm sends this information back when SXOVER authentication succeeds, and the communication doing so is protected with TLS. The certificate of the Diameter server can be validated, and for cautious home realms there could be an additional check based on DANE.

6. IANA Considerations

AVP Code | Attribute Name       | Reference
---------+----------------------+------------
TBD0     | SASL-Mechanism       | (this spec)
TBD1     | SASL-Token           | (this spec)
TBD2     | SASL-Channel-Binding | (this spec)

This specification defines three AVP Codes for use with Diameter. IANA registers the following AVP Codes for them in the "Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) Parameters" registry:

7. References

7.1. Normative References

7.2. Informative References

Appendix A. Acknowledgements

Thanks go to TODO for useful discussions during the creation of this document.

Author's Address