Internet DRAFT - draft-bortzmeyer-dns-qname-minimisation
draft-bortzmeyer-dns-qname-minimisation
Network Working Group S. Bortzmeyer
Internet-Draft AFNIC
Intended status: Informational May 19, 2014
Expires: November 20, 2014
DNS query name minimisation to improve privacy
draft-bortzmeyer-dns-qname-minimisation-02
Abstract
This document describes one of the techniques that could be used to
improve DNS privacy (see [I-D.bortzmeyer-dnsop-dns-privacy]), a
technique called "qname minimisation".
Discussions of the document should currently take place on the dns-
privacy mailing list [dns-privacy].
Status of This Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction and background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Qname minimisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. Operational considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Other advantages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix A. An algorithm to find the zone cut . . . . . . . . . 5
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction and background
The problem statement is exposed in
[I-D.bortzmeyer-dnsop-dns-privacy]. The terminology ("qname",
"resolver", etc) is also defined in this companion document. This
specific solution is not intended to completely solve the problem,
far from it. It is better to see it as one tool among a toolbox.
It follows the principle explained in section 6.1 of [RFC6973]: the
less data you send out, the less privacy problems you'll get.
2. Qname minimisation
The idea is to minimise the amount of data sent from the DNS
resolver. When a resolver receives the query "What is the AAAA
record for www.example.com?", it sends to the root (assuming a cold
resolver, whose cache is empty) the very same question. Sending
"What are the NS records for .com?" would be sufficient (since it
will be the answer from the root anyway). To do so would be
compatible with the current DNS system and therefore could be easily
deployable, since it is an unilateral change to the resolvers.
If "minimisation" is too long, you can write it "m12n".
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To do such minimisation, the resolver needs to know the zone cut
[RFC2181]. There is not a zone cut at every label boundary. If we
take the name www.foo.bar.example, it is possible that there is a
zone cut between "foo" and "bar" but not between "bar" and "example".
So, assuming the resolver already knows the name servers of .example,
when it receives the query "What is the AAAA record of
www.foo.bar.example", it does not always know if the request should
be sent to the name servers of bar.example or to those of example.
[RFC2181] suggests a method to find the zone cut (section 6), so
resolvers may try it.
Note that DNSSEC-validating resolvers already have access to this
information, since they have to find the zone cut (the DNSKEY record
set is just below, the DS record set just above).
It can be noted that minimising the amount of data sent also
partially addresses the case of a wire sniffer, not just the case of
privacy invasion by the servers.
One should note that the behaviour suggested here (minimising the
amount of data sent in qnames) is NOT forbidden by the [RFC1034]
(section 5.3.3) or [RFC1035] (section 7.2). Sending the full qname
to the authoritative name server is a tradition, not a protocol
requirment.
3. Operational considerations
The administrators of the forwarders, and of the authoritative name
servers, will get less data, which will reduce the utility of the
statistics they can produce (such as the percentage of the various
qtypes). On the other hand, it will decrease their legal
responsability, in many cases.
Some broken name servers do not react properly to qtype=NS requests.
As an example, look at www.ratp.fr (not ratp.fr), which is delegated
to two name servers that reply properly to "A www.ratp.fr" queries
but send REFUSED to queries "NS www.ratp.fr". This behaviour is a
gross protocol violation and there is no need to stop improving the
DNS because of such brokenness. However, qname minimisation may
still work with such domains since they are only leaf domains (no
need to send them NS requests).
Another way to deal with such broken name servers would be to try
with A requests (A being choosen because it is the most common and
hence the least revealing qtype). Instead of querying name servers
with a query "NS example.com", we could use "A _.example.com" and see
if we get a referral.
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4. Other advantages
The main goal of qname minimisation is to improve privacy, by sending
less data. However, it may have other advantages. For instance, if
a root name server receives a query from some resolver for A.CORP
followed by B.CORP followed by C.CORP, the result will be three
NXDOMAINs, since .CORP does not exist in the root zone. Under query
minimization, the root name servers would hear only one question (for
.CORP itself) to which they could answer NXDOMAIN, thus opening up a
negative caching opportunity in which the full resolver could know a
priori that neither B.CORP or C.CORP could exist. Thus in this
common case the total number of upstream queries under query
minimisation would be counter-intuitively less than the number of
queries under the traditional iteration (as described in the DNS
standard).
5. Security considerations
Under study. TODO: better handling of phantom domains?
6. Acknowledgments
Thanks to Olaf Kolkman, Mark Andrews and Francis Dupont for the
interesting discussions on this qname minimisation. Thanks to Mohsen
Souissi for proofreading. Thanks to Tony Finch for the zone cut
algorithm in Appendix A. Thanks to Paul Vixie for pointing out that
there are practical advantages (besides privacy) to qname m12n.
Thanks to Phillip Hallam-Baker for the fallback on A queries, to deal
with broken servers.
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, November 1987.
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC6973] Cooper, A., Tschofenig, H., Aboba, B., Peterson, J.,
Morris, J., Hansen, M., and R. Smith, "Privacy
Considerations for Internet Protocols", RFC 6973, July
2013.
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[I-D.bortzmeyer-dnsop-dns-privacy]
Bortzmeyer, S., "DNS privacy problem statement", draft-
bortzmeyer-dnsop-dns-privacy-01 (work in progress),
December 2013.
7.2. Informative References
[RFC2181] Elz, R. and R. Bush, "Clarifications to the DNS
Specification", RFC 2181, July 1997.
[dns-privacy]
IETF, , "The dns-privacy mailing list", March 2014.
Appendix A. An algorithm to find the zone cut
Although a validating resolver already has the logic to find the zone
cut, other resolvers may be interested by this algorithm to follow in
order to locate this cut:
(0) If the query can be answered from the cache, do so, otherwise
iterate as follows:
(1) Find closest enclosing NS RRset in your cache. The owner of
this NS RRset will be a suffix of the QNAME - the longest suffix
of any NS RRset in the cache. Call this PARENT.
(2) Initialize CHILD to the same as PARENT.
(3) If CHILD is the same as the QNAME, resolve the original query
using PARENT's name servers, and finish.
(4) Otherwise, add a label from the QNAME to the start of CHILD.
(5) If you have a negative cache entry for the NS RRset at CHILD,
go back to step 3.
(6) Query for CHILD IN NS using PARENT's name servers. The
response can be:
(6a) A referral. Cache the NS RRset from the authority section
and go back to step 1.
(6b) An authoritative answer. Cache the NS RRset from the
answer section and go back to step 1.
(6c) An NXDOMAIN answer. Return an NXDOMAIN answer in response
to the original query and stop.
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(6d) A NOERROR/NODATA answer. Cache this negative answer and
go back to step 3.
Author's Address
Stephane Bortzmeyer
AFNIC
1, rue Stephenson
Montigny-le-Bretonneux 78180
France
Phone: +33 1 39 30 83 46
Email: bortzmeyer+ietf@nic.fr
URI: http://www.afnic.fr/
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