Internet DRAFT - draft-dai-quic-netconf
draft-dai-quic-netconf
Network Working Group J. Dai
INTERNET-DRAFT X. Wang
Intended Status: Proposed Standard Y. Kou
Expires: April 26, 2021 L. Zhou
China Information Communication Technologies Group
October 26, 2020
Using NETCONF over QUIC connection
draft-dai-quic-netconf-03
Abstract
The Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) provides mechanisms to
install, manipulate, and delete the configuration of network devices.
At present, almost all implementations of NETCONF are based on TCP
based protocol. QUIC, a new UDP-based transport protocol, can
facilitate to improve the transportation performance, information
security and resource utility when being used as an infrastructure layer
of NETCONF. This document describes how to use the QUIC protocol as the
transport protocol of NETCONF(It is so called NETCONFoQUIC).
Status of this Memo
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Copyright and License Notice
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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
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1 Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Connection management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Draft Version Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Connection setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3. Connection Closure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Stream mapping and usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Bidirectional stream between manager and agent . . . . . . 8
3.2. Unidirectional stream from agent to manager . . . . . . . . 8
4 Endpoint Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1 using QUIC handshake authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.1. Server Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.1.2. Client Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2 using third-party authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6 IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
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1. Introduction
The Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) [RFC6241] defines a
mechanism through which the configuration of network devices can be
installed, manipulated, and deleted.
NETCONF can be conceptually partitioned into four layers: Content
layer, operation layer, message layer and security transport layer.
The Secure Transport layer provides a communication path between the
client and server. NETCONF can be layered over any transport
protocol that provides a set of basic requirements, the requirements
include the following aspects:
(1). NETCONF is connection-oriented, requiring a persistent
connection between peers. This connection MUST provide reliable,
sequenced data delivery. NETCONF connections are long-lived,
persisting between protocol operations.
(2). NETCONF connections MUST provide authentication, data integrity,
confidentiality, and replay protection. NETCONF depends on the
transport protocol for this capability.
So, the NETCONF protocol is not bound to any particular transport
protocol, but allows a mapping to define how it can be implemented
over any specific protocol. At the present, there are a few secure
transport protocols that can be used to carry NETCONF:
(1). [RFC6242] specifies how to use secure shell(SSH) as the secure
transport layer of NETCONF.
(2). [RFC5539] specifies how to use transport layer security(TLS) as
the secure transport layer of NETCONF.
(3). [RFC4743] specifies how to use simple object access
protocol(SOAP)as the secure transport layer of NETCONF.
(4). [RFC4744] specifies how to use blocks extensible exchange
protocol(BEEP) as the secure transport layer of NETCONF.
However, because of the connection-oriented feature, almost all of
the current secure transport protocols used by NETCONF is TCP based.
As is well known, TCP has some shortcomings such as head-of-line
blocking.
[I-D.ietf-quic-transport] specifies a new transport protocol that has
the following features:
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(1). UDP based
(2).Stream multiplexing
(3). Stream and connection-level flow control
(4). Low-latency connection establishment
(5). Authenticated and encrypted header and payload
It can be learned from the afore-mentioned information that QUIC is
also a proper candidate transport protocol for the secure transport
layer of NETCONF. In addition, QUIC can perfectly fix the shortcoming
such as head of line blocking of TCP. This document specifies how to use
QUIC as the secure transport protocol for QUIC.
In this document, the terms "client" and "server" are used to refer
to the two ends of the QUIC connection. The client actively
initiates the QUIC connection. The terms "manager" and "agent" are
used to refer to the two ends of the NETCONF protocol session. The
manager issues NETCONF remote procedure call (RPC) commands, and
the agent replies to those commands. Generally, a "manager" is a
"client" meanwhile an "agent" is a "server".
1.1 Terminology
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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
2. Connection management
2.1. Draft Version Identification
*RFC Editor's Note:* Please remove this section prior to
publication of a final version of this document.
NETCONFoQUIC uses the token "NoQ" to identify itself in ALPN and Alt-
Svc. Only implementations of the final, published RFC can identify
themselves as "NoQ". Until such an RFC exists, implementations MUST
NOT identify themselves using this string.
Implementations of draft versions of the protocol MUST add the string
"-" and the corresponding draft number to the identifier.
2.2. Connection setup
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2.2.1. Version negotiation
QUIC versions are identified using a 32-bit unsigned number, and the
version 0x00000000 is reserved to represent version negotiation.
Version negotiation ensures that client and server agree to a QUIC
version that is mutually supported.
A server sends a Version Negotiation packet where multiple QUIC
versions are listed to the client, the order of the values reflects
the server's preference (with the first value being the most
preferred version). Reserved versions MAY be listed, but unreserved
versions which are not supported by the alternative SHOULD NOT be
present in the list.
When received the Version Negotiation packet, Clients MUST ignore any
included versions which they do not support.
If both of the server and the client support the QUIC version that
uses TLS version 1.3 or greater as its handshake protocol, the afore-
mentioned QUIC version should be the preferred QUIC version of the
server and the client.
2.2.2. Connection establishment
QUIC connections are established as described in [I-D.ietf-quic-
transport]. During connection establishment, NETCONFoQUIC support is
indicated by selecting the ALPN token "NoQ" in the crypto handshake.
The peer acting as the NETCONF manager MUST also act as the client
meanwhile the peen acting as the NETCONF agent must also act as the
server.
The manager should the initiator of the QUIC connection to the agent
meanwhile the agent act as a connection acceptor.
2.3. Connection Closure
2.3.1. QUIC connection termination mode
There are following methods to terminate a QUIC connection:
(1) idle timeout: If the idle timeout is enabled, a connection is
silently closed and the state is discarded when it remains idle for
longer than both the advertised idle timeout and three times the
current Probe Timeout (PTO).
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(2) immediate close: An endpoint sends a CONNECTION_CLOSE frame
(Section 19.19 of [I-D.ietf-quic-transport]) to terminate the
connection immediately.
(3) stateless reset: A stateless reset is provided as an option of
last resort for an endpoint that does not have access to the state
of a connection.
2.3.2. NETCONFoQUIC consideration for connection termination
When a NETCONF session is implemented based on a QUIC connection, the
idle timeout should be disabled in order to keep the QUIC connection
persistent even if the NETCONF session is idle.
When a NETCONF server receives a <close-session> request, it will
gracefully close the NETCONF session. The server must close the
associated QUIC connection.
When a NETCONF entity receives a <kill-session> request for an
open session, it should close the associated QUIC connection.
When a NETCONF entity detects any QUIC connection interrupt status,
it should send a <close-session> request to the peer NETCONF entity.
When a stateless reset event occurs, nothing needs to be done by
either the manager or the agent.
3 Stream mapping and usage
[RFC6241] specifies protocol layers of NETCONF, the protocol layers
structure can also be seen from figure 1 of this document, it is
noted that this figure is just a citation from [RFC6241].
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Layer Example
+-------------+ +-----------------+ +----------------+
(4) | Content | | Configuration | | Notification |
| | | data | | data |
+-------------+ +-----------------+ +----------------+
| | |
+-------------+ +-----------------+ |
(3) | Operations | | <edit-config> | |
| | | | |
+-------------+ +-----------------+ |
| | |
+-------------+ +-----------------+ +----------------+
(2) | Messages | | <rpc>, | | <notification> |
| | | <rpc-reply> | | |
+-------------+ +-----------------+ +----------------+
| | |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------------------+
(1) | Secure | | SSH, TLS, BEEP/TLS, SOAP/HTTP/TLS, ... |
| Transport | | |
+-------------+ +-----------------------------------------+
Figure 1: NETCONF Protocol Layers
It can be learned from figure 1 that there are two kinds of main data
flow exchanged between manager and agent:
(1) Configuration data from manager to agent.
(2) Notification data from agent to manager.
The two kinds of data flow should be mapped into QUIC streams.
QUIC Streams provide a lightweight, ordered byte-stream abstraction
to an application. Streams can be unidirectional or bidirectional
meanwhile streams can be initiated by either the client or the
server. Unidirectional streams carry data in one direction: from
the initiator of the stream to its peer. Bidirectional streams
allow for data to be sent in both directions.
QUIC uses Stream ID to identify the stream. The least significant bit
(0x1) of the stream ID identifies the initiator of the stream. The
second least significant bit (0x2) of the stream ID distinguishes
between bidirectional streams (with the bit set to 0) and
unidirectional streams. Table 1 describes the four types of streams
and this table can also be seen from [I-D.ietf-quic-transport].
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+------+----------------------------------+
| Bits | Stream Type |
+------+----------------------------------+
| 0x0 | Client-Initiated, Bidirectional |
| | |
| 0x1 | Server-Initiated, Bidirectional |
| | |
| 0x2 | Client-Initiated, Unidirectional |
| | |
| 0x3 | Server-Initiated, Unidirectional |
+------+----------------------------------+
Table 1: Stream ID Types
3.1. Bidirectional stream between manager and agent
The NETCONF protocol uses an RPC-based communication model. So, the
configuration data from manager to agent is exchanged based on
'<RPC>' (the manager initiating) and '<RPC-Reply>' (sent by the
agent) and so on. So the messages used to exchange configuration data
should be mapped into one or more bidirectional stream whose stream
type is 0.
3.2. Unidirectional stream from agent to manager
There are some notification data exchanged between the agent and the
manager. Notification is a server-initiated message indicating that
a certain event has been recognized by the server.
Notification messages are initiated by the agent and no reply is
needed from the manager. So the messages used to exchange
configuration data should be mapped into one unidirectional stream
whose stream type is 3.
4 Endpoint Authentication
4.1 using QUIC handshake authentication
NETCONFoQUIC is recommended to use the QUIC version uses TLS version
1.3 or greater. Then, the TLS handshake process can be used for
endpoint authentication.
4.1.1. Server Identity
During the TLS negotiation, the client MUST carefully examine the
certificate presented by the server to determine if it meets the
client's expectations. Particularly, the client MUST check its
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understanding of the server hostname against the server's identity as
presented in the server Certificate message, in order to prevent
man- in-the-middle attacks.
Matching is performed according to the rules below (following the
example of [RFC4642]):
o The client MUST use the server hostname it used to open the
connection (or the hostname specified in the TLS "server_name"
extension [RFC5246]) as the value to compare against the server
name as expressed in the server certificate. The client MUST NOT
use any form of the server hostname derived from an insecure
remote source.
o If a subjectAltName extension of type dNSName is present in the
certificate, it MUST be used as the source of the server's
identity.
o Matching is case-insensitive.
o A "*" wildcard character MAY be used as the leftmost name
component in the certificate. For example, *.example.com would
match a.example.com, foo.example.com, etc., but would not match
example.com.
o If the certificate contains multiple names then a match with
any one of the fields is considered acceptable.
If the match fails, the client MUST either ask for explicit user
confirmation or terminate the connection and indicate the server's
identity is suspect.
Additionally, clients MUST verify the binding between the identity
of the servers to which they connect and the public keys presented
by those servers. Clients SHOULD implement the algorithm in
Section 6 of [RFC5280] for general certificate validation, but MAY
supplement that algorithm with other validation methods that
achieve equivalent levels of verification (such as comparing the
server certificate against a local store of already-verified
certificates and identity bindings).
If the client has external information as to the expected identity
of the server, the hostname check MAY be omitted.
4.1.2. Client Identity
The server MUST verify the identity of the client with
certificate- based authentication according to local policy to
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ensure that the incoming client request is legitimate before any
configuration or state data is sent to or received from the client.
4.2 using third-party authentication
A third-party authentication mechanism can also be used for
NETCONFoQUIC endpoint authentication. for example, a SASL profile
based authentication method can be used.
5. Security Considerations
The security considerations described throughout [RFC5246] and
[RFC4741] apply here as well.
This document in its current version does not support third-party
authentication (e.g., backend Authentication, Authorization, and
Accounting (AAA) servers) due to the fact that TLS does not specify
this way of authentication and that NETCONF depends on the transport
protocol for the authentication service. If third-party
authentication is needed, BEEP or SSH transport can be used.
An attacker might be able to inject arbitrary NETCONF messages via
some application that does not carefully check exchanged messages
or deliberately insert the delimiter sequence in a NETCONF message
to create a DoS attack. Hence, applications and NETCONF APIs MUST
ensure that the delimiter sequence defined in Section 2.1 never
appears in NETCONF messages; otherwise, those messages can be
dropped, garbled, or misinterpreted. If the delimiter sequence is
found in a NETCONF message by the sender side, a robust
implementation of this document should warn the user that illegal
characters have been discovered. If the delimiter sequence is found
in a NETCONF message by the receiver side (including any XML
attribute values, XML comments, or processing instructions), a robust
implementation of this document must silently discard the message
without further processing and then stop the NETCONF session.
Finally, this document does not introduce any new security
considerations compared to [RFC4742].
6 IANA Considerations
This document creates a new registration for the identification of
NETCONFoQUIC in the "Application Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN)
Protocol IDs" registry established in [RFC7301].
The "noq" string identifies NETCONFoQUIC:
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Protocol: NETCONFoQUIC
Identification Sequence: 0x6e 0x6f 0x71 ("noq")
Specification: This document
In addition, it is requested for IANA to reserve a UDP port TBD for
'NETCONF over QUIC'.
7 Acknowledgements
This document is written by referring [I-D.ietf-quic-transport]
edited by Jana Iyengar and Martin Thomson and [I-D.ietf-quic-http]
edited by Mike Bishop, and from [RFC7858] authored by Zi Hu, Liang
Zhu, John Heidemann, Allison Mankin, Duane Wessels, and Paul
Hoffman.
Many thanks to all the afore-mentioned editors and authors.
8 References
8.1 Normative References
[I-D.ietf-quic-transport] Iyengar, J. and M. Thomson,
"QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport",
draft-ietf-quic-transport-27 (work in progress),
Fegruary 2019.
[I-D.ietf-quic-tls] M. Thomson. and S. Turner.,
" Using TLS to Secure QUIC",
draft-ietf-quic-tls-27 (work in progress),
February 2019.
[RFC4741] Enns, R., "NETCONF Configuration Protocol", RFC
4741, December 2006.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport
Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2",
RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC6241] Enns, R., "NETCONF Configuration Protocol", RFC
6241, December 2011.
[RFC6242] M. Wasserman., "Using the NETCONF Protocol over
Secure Shell (SSH)", RFC 6242, June 2011.
[RFC5539] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "NETCONF over
Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 5539, May 2009.
[RFC4743] T. Garddard, "Using NETCONF over the Simple
Object Access Protocol (SOAP)", RFC 4743, December 2006.
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[RFC4744] E. Lear, "Using the NETCONF Protocol over the
Blocks Extensible Exchange Protocol (BEEP)", RFC 4743,
December 2006.
[I-D.ietf-quic-http] Bishop, M., "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol Version 3 (HTTP/3)", draft-
ietf-quic-http-18 (work in progress), January
2019.
8.2 Informative References
[RFC5246] M. Badra, "The Transport Layer
Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2",
RFC 5246, August 2008.
[RFC6101] M. Rose, "The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
Protocol Version 3.0", RFC 6101, August 2011.
[RFC3080] M. Rose, "The Blocks Extensible Exchange
Protocol Core", RFC 3080, March 2001.
Authors' Addresses
Jinyou Dai
China Information Communication Technologies Group.
Gaoxin 4th Road 6#
Wuhan, Hubei 430079
China
Email: djy@fiberhome.com
Xueshun Wang
China Information Communication Technologies Group.
Gaoxin 4th Road 6#
Wuhan, Hubei 430079
China
Email: xswang@fiberhome.com
Yang Kou
China Information Communication Technologies Group.
Gaoxin 4th Road 6#
Wuhan, Hubei 430079
China
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Email: ykou@fiberhome.com
Lifen Zhou
China Information Communication Technologies Group.
Gaoxin 4th Road 6#
Wuhan, Hubei 430079
China
Email: lfzhou@fiberhome.com
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