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RFC 5660
NETWORK WORKING GROUP N. Williams
Internet-Draft Sun
Intended status: Standards Track April 9, 2009
Expires: October 11, 2009
IPsec Channels: Connection Latching
draft-ietf-btns-connection-latching-10.txt
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Abstract
This document specifies, abstractly, how to interface applications
and transport protocols with IPsec so as to create "channels" by
latching "connections" (packet flows) to certain IPsec Security
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Association (SA) parameters for the lifetime of the connections.
Connection latching is layered on top of IPsec and does not modify
the underlying IPsec architecture.
Connection latching can be used to protect applications against
accidentally exposing live packet flows to unintended peers, whether
as the result of a reconfiguration of IPsec or as the result of using
weak peer identity to peer address associations. Weak association of
peer ID and peer addresses is at the core of Better Than Nothing
Security (BTNS), thus connection latching can add a significant
measure of protection to BTNS IPsec nodes.
Finally, the availability of IPsec channels will make it possible to
use channel binding to IPsec channels.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Connection Latching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. Latching of Quality of Protection Parameters . . . . . . . 8
2.2. Connection latch state machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.3. Normative Model: ULP interfaces to the key manager . . . . 11
2.3.1. Race Conditions and Corner Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.2. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4. Informative model: local packet tagging . . . . . . . . . 19
2.5. Non-native mode IPsec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.6. Implementation Note Regarding Peer IDs . . . . . . . . . . 21
3. Optional Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1. Optional Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4. Simulataneous latch establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
5. Connection Latching to IPsec for Various ULPs . . . . . . 22
5.1. Connection Latching to IPsec for TCP . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.2. Connection Latching to IPsec for UDP with Simulated
Connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.3. Connection Latching to IPsec for UDP with
Datagram-Tagging APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.4. Connection Latching to IPsec for SCTP . . . . . . . . . . 24
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.1. Impact on IPsec . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6.2. Impact on IPsec of Optional Features . . . . . . . . . . . 26
6.3. Security Considerations for Applications . . . . . . . . . 26
6.4. Channel Binding and IPsec APIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
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9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
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1. Introduction
IPsec protects packets with little or no regard for stateful packet
flows associated with upper layer protocols (ULPs). This exposes
applications that rely on IPsec for session protection to risks
associated with changing IPsec configurations, configurations that
allow multiple peers access to the same addresses, and/or weak
association of peer IDs and their addresses. The latter can occur as
a result of "wildcard" matching in the IPsec Peer Authorization
Database (PAD), particularly when Better Than Nothing Security (BTNS)
[RFC5387] is used.
Applications that wish to use IPsec may have to ensure that local
policy on the various end-points is configured appropriately
[I-D.bellovin-useipsec] [I-D.dondeti-useipsec-430x]. There are no
standard Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to do this -- a
major consequence of which, for example, is that applications must
still use hostnames (and, e.g., the Domain Name System [RFC1034]) and
IP addresses in existing APIs and must depend on an IPsec
configuration that they may not be able to verify. In addition to
specifying aspects of required Security Policy Database (SPD)
configuration, application specifications must also address PAD/SPD
configuration to strongly bind individual addresses to individual
IPsec identities and credentials (certificates, public keys, ...).
IPsec is, then, quite cumbersome for use by applications. To address
this we need APIs to IPsec. Not merely APIs for configuring IPsec,
but also APIs that are similar to the existing IP APIs (e.g., "BSD
sockets"), so that typical applications making use of UDP [RFC0768],
TCP [RFC0793] and SCTP [RFC4960] can make use of IPsec with minimal
changes.
This document describes the foundation for IPsec APIs that UDP and
TCP applications can use: a way to bind the traffic flows for, e.g.,
TCP connections to security properties desired by the application.
We call these "connection latches" (and, in some contexts, "IPsec
channels"). The methods outlined below achieve this by interfacing
ULPs and applications to IPsec.
If widely adopted, connection latching could make application use of
IPsec much simpler, at least for certain classes of applications.
Connection latching, as specified herein, is primarily about watching
updates to the SPD and Security Association Database (SAD) to detect
changes that are adverse to an application's requirements for any
given packet flow, and to react accordingly (such as by synchronously
alerting the ULP and application before packets can be sent or
received under the new policy). Under no circumstance are IPsec
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policy databases to be modified by connection latching in any way
that can persist beyond the lifetime of the related packet flows, nor
reboots. Under no circumstance is the PAD to be modified at all by
connection latching. If all optional features of connection latching
are excluded then connection latching can be implemented as a monitor
of SPD and SAD changes that intrudes in their workings no more than
is needed to provide synchronous alerts to ULPs and applications.
We assume the reader is familiar with the IPsec architecture
[RFC4301] and IKEv2 [RFC4306].
Note: the terms "connection latch" and "IPsec channel" are used
interchangeably below. The latter term relates to "channel binding"
[RFC5056]. Connection latching is suitable for use in channel
binding applications, or will be, at any rate, when the channel
bindings for IPsec channels are defined (the specification of IPsec
channel bindings is out of scope for this document).
Note: where this document mentions IPsec peer "ID" it refers to the
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) peer ID (e.g., the ID derived from a
peer's cert, as well as the cert), not the peer's IP address.
1.1. 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].
Abstract function names are all capitalized and denoted by a pair of
parenthesis. In their descriptions the arguments appear within the
parenthesis, with optional argument surrounded by square brackets.
Return values, if any, are indicated by following the function
argument list with "->" and a description of the return value. For
example, "FOO(3-tuple, [message])" would be a function named "FOO"
with two arguments, one of them optional, and returning nothing,
whereas "FOOBAR(handle) -> state" would be a function with a single,
required argument that returns a value. The values' types are
described in the surrounding text.
2. Connection Latching
An "IPsec channel" is a packet flow associated with a ULP control
block, such as a TCP connection, where all the packets are protected
by IPsec SAs such that:
o the peer's identity is the same for the lifetime of the packet
flow
o the quality of IPsec protection used for the packet flow's
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individual packets is the same for all of them for the lifetime of
the packet flow
An IPsec channel is created when the associated packet flow is
created. This can be the result of a local operation (e.g., a
connect()) that causes the initial outgoing packet for that flow to
be sent, or it can be the result of receiving the first/initiating
packet for that flow (e.g., a TCP SYN packet).
An IPsec channel is destroyed when the associated packet flow ends.
An IPsec channel can also be "broken" when the connection latch
cannot be maintained for some reason (see below), in which case the
ULP and application are informed.
IPsec channels are created by "latching" various parameters listed
below to a ULP connection when the connections are created. The
REQUIRED set of parameters bound in IPsec channels is:
o Type of protection: confidentiality and/or integrity protection;
o Transport mode vs. tunnel mode;
o Quality of protection (QoP): cryptographic algorithm suites, key
lengths, and replay protection (see Section 2.1;
o Local identity: the local ID asserted to the peer, as per the
IPsec processing model [RFC4301] and BTNS [RFC5386];
o Peer identity: the peer's asserted and authorized IDs, as per the
IPsec processing model [RFC4301] and BTNS [RFC5386].
The SAs that protect a given IPsec channel's packets may change over
time in that they may expire and be replaced with equivalent SAs, or
may be re-keyed. The set of SAs that protect an IPsec channel's
packets need not be related by anything other than the fact that they
must be congruent to the channel (i.e, the SAs' parameters must match
those that are latched into the channel). In particular, it is
desirable that IPsec channels survive the expiration of IKE_SAs and
child SAs because operational considerations of the various key
exchange protocols then cannot affect the design and features of
connection latching.
When a situation arises in which the SPD is modified, or an SA is
added to the SAD, such that the new policy or SA are not congruent to
an established channel (see previous paragraph) then we consider this
a conflict. Conflict resolution is addressed below.
Requirements and recommendations:
o If an IPsec channel is desired then packets for a given connection
MUST NOT be sent until the channel is established.
o If an IPsec channel is desired then inbound packets for a given
connection MUST NOT be accepted until the channel is established.
I.e., inbound packets for a given connection arriving prior to the
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establishment of the corresponding IPsec channel must be dropped
or the channel establishment must fail.
o Once an IPsec channel is established, packets for the latched
connection MUST NOT be sent unprotected nor protected by an SA
that does not match the latched parameters.
o Once an IPsec channel is established packets for the latched
connection MUST NOT be accepted unprotected nor protected by an SA
that does not match the latched parameters. I.e., such packets
either must be dropped or must cause the channel to be terminated
and the application to be informed before data from such a packet
can be delivered to the application.
o Implementations SHOULD provide programming interfaces for
inquiring the values of the parameters latched in a connection.
o Implementations that provide such programming interfaces MUST make
available to applications all relevant and available information
about a peer's ID, including authentication information. This
includes the peer certificate, when one is used, and the trust
anchor that it was validated to (but not necessarily the whole
certificate validation chain).
o Implementations that provide such programming interfaces SHOULD
make available to applications any information about local and/or
remote public and private IP addresses, in the case of NAT-
traversal.
o Implementations that provide such programming interfaces SHOULD
make available to applications the inner and outer local and peer
addresses whenever the latched connection uses tunnel mode SAs.
o Implementations SHOULD provide programming interfaces for setting
the values of the parameters to be latched in a connection that
will be initiated or accepted, but these interfaces MUST limit
what values applications may request according to system policy
(i.e., the IPsec PAD and SPD) and the application's local
privileges.
(Typical system policy may not allow applications any choices
here. Policy extensions allowing for optional protection are
described in Section 3.1.)
o Implementations SHOULD create IPsec channels automatically by
default when the application does not explicitly request an IPsec
channel. Implemenations MAY provide a way to disable automatic
creation of connection latches.
o The parameters latched in an IPsec channel MUST remain unchanged
once the channel is established.
o Timeouts while establishing child SAs with parameters that match
those latched into an IPsec channel MUST be treated as packet loss
(as happens, for example, when a network partitions); normal ULP
and/or application timeout handling and retransmission
considerations apply.
o Implementations that have a restartable key management process (or
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"daemon") MUST arrange for existing latched connections to either
be broken and disconnected, or for them to survive the restart of
key exchange processes. (This is implied by the above
requirements.) For example, if such an implementation relies on
keeping some aspects of connection latch state in the restartable
key management process (e.g., values that potentially have large
representations, such as BTNS peer IDs), then either such state
must be restored on restart of such a process, or outstanding
connection latches must be transitioned to the CLOSED state.
o Dynamic IPsec policy (see Section 3.1) related to connection
latches, if any, MUST be torn down when latched connections are
torn down, and MUST NOT survive reboots.
We describe two models, one of them normative, of IPsec channels for
native IPsec implementations. The normative model is based on
abstract programming interfaces in the form of function calls between
ULPs and the key management component of IPsec (basically, the SAD,
augmented with a Latch Database (LD)). The second model is based on
abstract programming interfaces between ULPs and the IPsec
(Encapsulating Security Payload / Authentication Header (ESP/AH))
layer in the form of meta-data tagging of packets within the IP
stack.
The two models given below are not, however, entirely equivalent.
One model cannot be implemented with NICs that offload ESP/AH but
which do not tag incoming packets passed to the host processor with
SA information, nor allow the host processor to so tag outgoing
packets. That same model can be easily extended to support
connection latching with unconnected datagram "sockets", while the
other model is rigidly tied to a notion of "connections" and cannot
be so extended. There may be other minor differences between the two
models. Rather than seek to establish equivalency for some set of
security guarantees we instead choose one model to be the normative
one.
We also provide a model for non-native implementations, such as bump-
in-the-stack (BITS) and Security Gateway (SG) implementations. The
connection latching model for non-native implementations is not full-
featured as it depends on estimating packet flow state, which may not
always be possible. Nor can non-native IPsec implementations be
expected to provide APIs related to connection latching
(implementations that do could be said to be native). As such this
third model is not suitable for channel binding applications
[RFC5056].
2.1. Latching of Quality of Protection Parameters
In IPsec the assumption of IKE initiator/responder roles is non-
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deterministic. That is, sometimes an IKE SA and child SAs will be
initiated by the "client" (e.g., the caller of the connect() BSD
sockets function) and sometimes by the "server" (e.g., the caller of
the accept() BSD sockets function). This means that the negotiation
of quality of protection is also non-deterministic unless one of the
peers offers a single cryptographic suite in the IKE negotiation.
When creating narrow child SAs with traffic selectors matching the
connection latch's 5-tuple it is possible to constrain the IKE
Quality of Protection negotiation to a single cryptographic suite.
Therefore implementations SHOULD provide an API for requesting the
use of such child SAs. Implementors SHOULD consider an application
request for a specific QoP to imply a request for narrow child SAs.
When using SAs with traffic selectors encompassing more than just a
single flow then the system may only be able to latch a set of
cryptographic suites, rather than a single cryptographic suite. In
such a case an implementation MUST report the QoP being used as
indeterminate.
2.2. Connection latch state machine
Connection latches can exist in any of the following five states:
o LISTENER
o ESTABLISHED
o BROKEN (there exist SAs which conflict with the given connection
latch)
o CLOSED (by the ULP, the application or administratively)
and always have an associated owner, or holder, such as a ULP
transmission control block (TCB).
A connection latch can be born in the LISTENER state, which can
transition only to the CLOSED state. The LISTENER state corresponds
to LISTEN state of TCP (and other ULPs) and is associated with IP
3-tuples, and can give rise to new connection latches in the
ESTABLISHED state.
A connection latch can also be born in the ESTABLISHED and BROKEN
states, either through the direct initiative of a ULP or when an
event occurs that causes a LISTENER latch to create a new latch (in
either ESTABLISHED or BROKEN states). These states represents an
active connection latch for a traffic flow's 5-tuple. Connection
latches in these two states can transition to the other of the two
states, as well as to the CLOSED state.
Connection latches remain in the CLOSED state until their owners are
informed except where the owner caused the transition, in which case
this state is fleeting. Transitions from ESTABLISHED or BROKEN
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states to the CLOSED state should typically be initiated by latch
owners, but implementations SHOULD provide administrative interfaces
through which to close active latches.
Connection latches transition to the BROKEN state when there exist
SAs in the SAD whose traffic selectors encompass the 5-tuple bound by
the latch, and whose peer and/or parameters conflict with those bound
by the latch. Transitions to the BROKEN state always cause the
associated owner to be informed. Connection latches in the BROKEN
state transition back to ESTABLISHED when the conflict is cleared.
Most state transitions are the result of local actions of the latch
owners (ULPs). The only exceptions are: birth into the ESTABLISHED
state from latches in the LISTENER state, transitions to the BROKEN
state, transitions from the BROKEN state to ESTABLISHED, and
administrative transitions to the CLOSED state. (Additionally, see
the implementation note about restartable key management processes in
Section 2.)
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The state diagram below makes use of conventions described in
Section 1.1 and state transition events described in Section 2.3.
<CREATE_LISTENER_LATCH(3-tuple, ...)>
:
v <CREATE_CONNECTION_LATCH(5-tuple, ...)>
/--------\ : :
+------|LISTENER|...... : :
| \--------/ : : : +--------------------+
| : : : : |Legend: |
| : : : : | dotted lines denote|
| <conn. trigger event> : : | latch creation |
| (e.g., TCP SYN : : : | |
| received, : : : | solid lines denote |
| connect() : : : | state transition|
| called, ...) v v : | |
| : /-----------\ : | semi-solid lines |
| : |ESTABLISHED| : | denote async |
| <conflict> \-----------/ : | notification |
| : ^ | : +--------------------+
| : | <conflict>
| : <conflict | :
| : cleared> | :
| : | | :
| : | v v
| : /----------------\
| :.....>| BROKEN |.-.-.-.-.-> <ALERT()>
| \----------------/
| |
<RELEASE_LATCH()> <RELEASE_LATCH()>
| |
| v
| /------\
+------------------->|CLOSED|
\------/
Figure 1: Connection Latching State Machine
The details of the transitions depend on the model of connection
latching followed by any given implementation. See the following
sections.
2.3. Normative Model: ULP interfaces to the key manager
This section describes the NORMATIVE model of connection latching.
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In this section we describe connection latching in terms of a
function call interface between ULPs and the "key manager" component
of a native IPsec implementation. Abstract interfaces for creating,
inquiring about, and releasing IPsec channels are described.
This model adds a service to the IPsec key manager (i.e., the
component that manages the SAD and interfaces with separate
implementations of, or directly implements, key exchange protocols):
management of connection latches. There is also a new IPsec
database, the Latch Database (LD), that contains all connection latch
objects. The LD does not persist across system reboots.
The traditional IPsec processing model allows the concurrent
existence of SAs with different peers but overlapping traffic
selectors. Such behaviour, in this model, directly violates the
requirements for connection latching (see Section 2). We address
this problem by requiring that connection latches be broken (and
holders informed) when such conflicts arise.
The following INFORMATIVE figure illustrates this model and API in
terms that are familiar to many implementors, though not applicable
to all:
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+--------------------------------------------+
| +--------------+ |
| |Administrator | |
| |apps | |
| +--------------+ |
| ^ ^ |
| | | | user mode
| v v |
| +--------------+ +-------++--------+ |
| |App | |IKEv2 || | |
| | | | +---+ || +----+ | |
| | | | |PAD| || |SPD | | |
| | | | +---+ || +--^-+ | |
| +--------------+ +-+-----++----+---+ |
| ^ | | |
+---|---------------------|-----------|------+ user/kernel mode
| |syscalls | PF_KEY | | interface
+---|---------------------|-----------|------+
| v | | |
|+-------+ +------------|-----------|-----+|
||ULP | | IPsec key|manager | ||
|+-------+ | | +--------v----+||
| ^ ^ | | | Logical SPD |||
| | | | | +-----------^-+||
| | | | +-------+ | || kernel mode
| | | | | | ||
| | | | +----------+ +--v--+ | ||
| | +-------->| Latch DB |<-->| SAD | | ||
| | | +----------+ +--^--+ | ||
| | +--------------------|------|--+|
+-|-------------------------------v------v---+
| | IPsec Layer (ESP/AH) |
| | |
+-v------------------------------------------+
| IP Layer |
+--------------------------------------------+
Figure 2: Informative Implementation Architecture Diagram
The ULP interfaces to the IPsec LD database are as follows:
o CREATE_LISTENER_LATCH(3-tuple, [type and quality of protection
parameters]) -> latch handle | error
If there is no conflicting connection latch object in the
LISTENER state for the given 3-tuple (local address, protocol
and local port number), and local policy permits it, then this
operation atomically creates a connection latch object in the
LISTENER state for the given 3-tuple.
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When a child SA is created that matches a listener latch's
3-tuple, but not any ESTABLISHED connection latch's 5-tuple
(local address, remote address, protocol, local port number and
remote port number), then the key manager creates a new
connection latch object in the ESTABLISHED state. The key
manager MUST inform the holder of the listener latch of
connection latches created as a result of the listener latch;
see the "ALERT()" interface below.
o CREATE_CONNECTION_LATCH(5-tuple, [type and quality of protection
parameters], [peer ID], [local ID]) -> latch handle | error
If no connection latch exists in the ESTABLISHED states with
the same 5-tuple, and if there exist no child SAs that match
the given 5-tuple, and if local policy permits it, then the
system MUST initiate an IKE exchange to setup child SAs for
this 5-tuple. Otherwise an error is returned to the ULP. Once
one or more applicable SAs exist in the SAD and all such SAs
share the same type and quality of protection parameters and
the same peer then this operation creates a connection latch
object in the ESTABLISHED state for the given 5-tuple. If the
caller provided all the optional arguments to this operation
then the resulting connection latch can be created in the
ESTABLISHED state directly.
If there exist no child SAs matching the given 5-tuple then the
key manager SHOULD try to create a pair of child SAs for that
5-tuple. In any case, the key manager can expect that the ULP
will send a packet that would trigger the creation of such SAs.
o RELEASE_LATCH(latch object handle)
Changes the state of the given connection latch to CLOSED; the
connection latch is then deleted.
The key manager MAY delete any existing child SAs that match
the given latch if it had been in the ESTABLISHED states. If
the key manager does delete such SAs then it SHOULD inform the
peer with an informational Delete payload (see IKEv2
[RFC4306]).
o FIND_LATCH(5-tuple) -> latch handle | error
Given a 5-tuple returns a latch handle (or an error).
o INQUIRE_LATCH(latch object handle) -> {latch state, latched
parameters} | error
Returns all available information about the given latch,
including its current state (or an error).
The IPsec LD interface to the ULP is as follows:
o ALERT(latch object handle, 5-tuple, new state, [reason])
Alerts a ULP as to an asynchronous state change for the given
connection latch and, optionally, provides a reason for the
change.
This interface is to be provided by each ULP to the key manager.
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The specific details of how this interface is provided are
implementation details, thus not specified here (for example, this
could be a "callback" function or "closure" registered as part of
the CREATE_LISTENER_LATCH() interface, or it could be provided
when the ULP is loaded onto the running system via a registration
interface provided by the key manager.
Needless to say, the LD is updated whenever a connection latch object
is created, deleted or broken.
The API described above is a new service of the IPsec key manager.
In particular the IPsec key manager MUST prevent conflicts amongst
latches, and it MUST prevent conflicts between any latch and existing
or proposed child SAs as follows:
o Non-listener connection latches MUST NOT be created if there exist
conflicting SAs in the SAD at the time the connection latch is
requested or would be created (from a listener latch). A child SA
conflicts with another, in view of a latch, if and only if: a) its
traffic selectors and the conflicting SA's match the given
latch's, and b) its peer, type of protection, or quality of
protection parameters differ from the conflicting SA.
o Child SA proposals that would conflict with an extant connection
latch and whose traffic selectors can be narrowed to avoid the
conflict SHOULD be narrowed (see section 2.9 of [RFC4306]),
otherwise the latch MUST be transitioned to the BROKEN state.
o Where child SA proposals that would conflict with an extant
connection latch cannot be narrowed to avoid the conflict the key
manager MUST break the connection latch and inform the holder
(i.e., the ULP) prior to accepting the conflicting SAs.
Finally, the key manager MUST protect latched connections against SPD
changes that would change the quality of protection afforded to a
latched connection's traffic, or which would bypass it. When such a
configuration change takes place the key manager MUST respond in
either of the following ways. The REQUIRED to implement behaviour is
to transition into the BROKEN state all connection latches that
conflict with the given SPD change. An OPTIONAL behaviour is to
logically update the SPD as if a PROTECT entry had been added at the
head of the SPD-S with traffic selectors matching only the latched
connection's 5-tuple, and with processing information taken from the
connection latch. Such updates of the SPD MUST NOT survive system
crashes or reboots.
ULPs create latched connections by interfacing with IPsec below as
follows:
o For listening end-points the ULP will request a connection latch
listener object for the ULP listener's 3-tuple. Any latching
parameters requested by the application MUST be passed along.
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o When the ULP receives a packet initiating a connection for a
5-tuple matching a 3-tuple listener latch, then the ULP will ask
the key manager whether a 5-tuple connection latch was created.
If not then the ULP will either reject the new connection or
accept it and inform the application that the new connection is
not latched.
o When initiating a connection the ULP will request a connection
latch object for the connection's 5-tuple. Any latching
parameters requested by the application MUST be passed along. If
no latch can be created then the ULP MUST either return an error
to the application or continue with the new connection and inform
the application that the new connection is not latched.
o When a connection is torn down and no further packets are expected
for it then the ULP MUST request that the connection latch object
be destroyed.
o When tearing down a listener the ULP MUST request that the
connection latch listener object be destroyed.
o When a ULP listener rejects connections the ULP will request the
destruction of any connection latch objects that may have been
created as a result of the peer's attempt to open the connection.
o When the key manager informs a ULP that a connection latch has
transitioned to the BROKEN state then the ULP MUST stop sending
packets and MUST drop all subsequent incoming packets for the
affected connection until it transitions back to ESTABLISHED.
Connection-oriented ULPs SHOULD act as though the connection is
experiencing packet loss.
o When the key manager informs a ULP that a connection latch has
been administratively transitioned to the CLOSED state then
connection-oriented ULPs MUST act as though the connection has
been reset by the peer. Implementations of ULPs which are not
connection-oriented, and which have no API by which to simulate a
reset, MUST drop all inbound packets for that connection and MUST
NOT send any further packets -- the application is expected to
detect timeouts and act accordingly.
The main benefit of this model of connection latching is that it
accommodates IPsec implementations where ESP/AH handling is
implemented in hardware (for all or a subset of the host's SAD), but
where the hardware does not support tagging inbound packets with the
indexes of SAD entries corresponding to the SAs that protected them.
2.3.1. Race Conditions and Corner Cases
ULPs MUST drop inbound packets and stop sending packets immediately
upon receipt of a connection latch break message. Otherwise the ULP
will not be able to distinguish inbound packets that were protected
consistently with the connection's latch from inbound packets that
were not. This may include dropping inbound packets that were
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protected by a suitable SA; dropping such packets is no different,
from the ULP's point of view, than packet loss elsewhere on the
network at the IP layer or below -- harmless, from a security point
of view as the connection fails safe, but it can result in
retransmits.
Another race condition is as follows. A PROTECTed TCP SYN packet may
be received and decapsulated but the SA that protected it could have
expired before the key manager creates the connection latch that
would be created by that packet. In this case the key manager will
have to initiate new child SAs so as to determine what the sender's
peer ID is so it can be included in the connection latch. Here there
is no guarantee that the peer ID for the new SAs will be the same as
those of the peer that sent the TCP SYN packet. This race condition
is harmless: TCP will send a SYN+ACK to the wrong peer, which will
then respond with an RST -- the connection latch will reflect the new
peer however, so if the new peer is malicious it will not be able to
appear to be the old peer. Therefore this race condition is
harmless.
2.3.2. Example
Consider several systems with a very simple PAD containing a single
entry like so:
Child SA
Rule Remote ID IDs allowed SPD Search by
---- --------- ----------- -------------
1 <any valid to trust anchor X> 192.0.2/24 by-IP
Figure 3: Example PAD
And a simple SPD like so:
Rule Local Remote Next Action
TS TS Proto
---- ----- ------ ----- ----------------
1 192.0.2/24:ANY 192.0.2/24:1-5000 TCP PROTECT(ESP,...)
1 192.0.2/24:1-5000 192.0.2/24:ANY TCP PROTECT(ESP,...)
1 ANY ANY ANY BYPASS
Figure 4: [SG-A] SPD table
Effectively this says: for TCP ports 1-5000 in our network allow only
peers that have credentials issued by CA X and PROTECT that traffic
with ESP, otherwise bypass all other traffic.
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Now let's consider two hosts, A and B, in this network that wish to
communicate using port 4000, and a third host, C, that is also in the
same network and wishes to attack A and/or B. All three hosts have
credentials and certificates issued by CA X. Let's also imagine that
A is connected to its network via a wireless link and is dynamically
address.
B is listening on port 4000. A initiates a connection from port
32800 to B on port 4000.
We'll assume no IPsec APIs, but that TCP creates latches where
possible.
We'll consider three cases: a) A and B both support connection
latching, b) only A does, c) only B does. For the purposes of this
example the SAD is empty on all three hosts when A initiates its TCP
connection to B on port 4000.
When an application running on A initiates a TCP connection to B on
port 4000, A will begin by creating a connection latch. Since the
SAD is empty A will initiate an IKEv2 exchange to create an IKE_SA
with B and a pair of CHILD SAs for the 5-tuple {TCP, A, 32800, B,
4000}, then a new latch will be created in ESTABLISHED state.
Sometime later TCP will send a SYN packet protected by the A-to-B
child SA, per the SPD.
When an application running on B creates a TCP listener "socket" on
port 4000, B will create a LISTENER connection latch for the 3-tuple
{TCP, B, 4000}. When B receives A's TCP SYN packet it will then
create a connection latch for {TCP, B, 4000, A, 32800}. Since by
this point CHILD SAs have been created whose traffic selectors
encompass this 5-tuple and there are no other conflicting SAs in the
SAD, this connection latch will be created in the ESTABLISHED state.
If C attempts to mount a man-in-the-middle attack on A (i.e., pretend
to have B's address(es)) any time after A created its connection
latch then C's SAs with A will cause the connection latch to break,
and the TCP connection to be reset (since we assume no APIs by which
TCP could notify the application of the connection latch break). If
C attempts to impersonate A to B then the same thing will happen on
B.
If A does not support connection latching then C will be able to
impersonate B to A at any time, but without having seen the cleartext
of traffic between A and B, C will be limited by the TCP sequence
numbers to attacks such as RST attacks. Similarly if B does not
support connection latching.
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2.4. Informative model: local packet tagging
In this section we describe connection latching in terms of
interfaces between ULPs and IPsec based on tagging packets as they go
up and down the IP stack.
This section is INFORMATIVE.
In this model the ULPs maintain connection latch objects and state,
rather than the IPsec key manager, as well as effectively caching a
subset of the decorrelated SPD in ULP TCBs. Local tagging of packets
as they move up and down the stack with SA identifiers then allows
the ULPs to enforce connection latching semantics. These tags, of
course, don't appear on the wire.
The interface between the ULPs and IPsec interface is as follows:
o The IPsec layer tags all inbound protected packets addressed to
the host with the index of the SAD entry corresponding to the SA
that protected the packet.
o The IPsec layer understands two types of tags on outbound packets:
* a tag specifying a set of latched parameters (peer ID, quality
of protection, etc...) that the IPsec layer will use to find or
acquire an appropriate SA for protecting the outbound packet
(else IPsec will inform the ULP and drop the packet);
* a tag requesting feedback about the SA used to protect the
outgoing packet, if any.
ULPs create latched connections by interfacing with IPsec below as
follows:
o When the ULP passes a connection's initiating packet to IP the ULP
requests feedback about the SA used to protect the outgoing
packet, if any, and may specify latching parameters requested by
the application. If the packet is protected by IPsec then the ULP
records certain parameters of the SA used to protect it in the
connection's TCB.
o When a ULP receives a connection's initiating packet it processes
the IPsec tag of the packet, and it records in the connection's
TCB the parameters of the SA that should be latched.
Once SA parameters are recorded in a connection's TCB the ULP
enforces the connection's latch, or binding, to these parameters as
follows:
o The ULP processes the IPsec tag of all inbound packets for a given
connection and checks that the SAs used to protect input packets
match the connection latches recorded in the TCBs. Packets which
are not so protected are dropped (this corresponds to
transitioning the connection latch to the BROKEN state until the
next acceptable packet arrives, but in this model this transition
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is imaginary), or cause the ULP to break the connection latch and
inform the application.
o The ULP always requests that outgoing packets be protected by SAs
that match the latched connection by appropriately tagging
outbound packets.
By effectively caching a subset of the decorrelated SPD in ULP TCBs
and through its packet tagging nature, this method of connection
latching can also optimize processing of the SPD by obviating the
need to search it, both, on input and output, for packets intended
for the host or originated by the host. This makes implementation of
the OPTIONAL "logical SPD" updates described in Section 2.3 and
Section 3.1 an incidental side effect of this approach.
This model of connection latching may not be workable with ESP/AH
offload hardware that does not support the packet tagging scheme
described above.
Note that this model has no BROKEN connection latch state.
Extending the ULP/IPsec packet-tagging interface to the application
for use with connection-less datagram transports should enable
applications to use such transports and implement connection latching
at the application layer.
2.5. Non-native mode IPsec
This section is INFORMATIVE.
Non-native IPsec implementations, primarily BITS and SG, can
implement connection latching too. One major distinction between
native IPsec and BITS/BITW/SG IPsec is the lack of APIs for
applications at the end-points in the case of the latter. As a
result there can be no uses of the latch management interfaces as
described in Section 2.3, not at the ULP end-points. Therefore BITS/
BITW/SG implementations must discern ULP connection state from packet
inspection (which many firewalls can do) and emulate calls to the key
manager accordingly.
When a connection latch is broken a BITS/BITW/SG implementation may
have to fake a connection reset by sending appropriate packets (e.g.,
TCP RST packets), for the affected connections.
As with all stateful middle-boxes this scheme suffers from the
inability of the middle-box to interact with the applications. For
example, connection death may be difficult to ascertain. Nor can
channel binding applications work with channels maintained by proxy
without being able to communicate (securely) about it with the
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middle-box.
2.6. Implementation Note Regarding Peer IDs
One of the recommendations for connection latching implementators is
to make available peer CERT payloads (certificates) to the
applications.
Additionally, raw public keys are likely to be used in the
construction of channel bindings for IPsec channels; see
[I-D.williams-ipsec-channel-binding], and must be available, in any
case, in order to implement leap-of-faith at the application layer
(see [RFC5386] and [RFC5387]).
Certificates and raw public keys are large bit strings, too large to
be reasonably kept in kernel-mode implementations of connection
latching (which will likely be the typical case). Such
implementations should intern peer IDs in a user-mode database and
use small integers to refer to them from the kernel-mode SAD and LD.
Corruption of such a database is akin to corruption of the SAD/LD; in
the event of corruption the implementation MUST act as though all
ESTABLISHED and BROKEN connection latches are administratively
transitioned to the CLOSED state. Implemenations without IPsec APIs
MAY hash peer IDs and use the hash to refer to them, preferably using
a strong hash algorithm.
3. Optional Features
At its bare minimum connection latching is a passive layer atop IPsec
that warn ULPs of SPD and SAD changes that are incompatible with the
SPD/SAD state that was applicable to a connection when it was
established.
There are some optional features, such as (abstract) APIs. Some of
these features make connection latching a somewhat more active
feature. Specifically, the optional logical SPD updates described in
Section 2.3 and the optional protection/bypass feature described in
the following sub-section.
3.1. Optional Protection
Given IPsec APIs an application could request that a connection's
packets be protected where they would otherwise be bypassed; that is,
applications could override BYPASS policy. Locally privileged
applications could request that their connections' packets be
bypassed rather than protected; that is, privileged applications
could override PROTECT policy. We call this "optional protection."
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Both native IPsec models of connection latching can be extended to
support optional protection. With the model described in Section 2.4
optional protection comes naturally: the IPsec layer need only check
that the protection requested for outbound packets meets or exceeds
(as determined by local or system policy) the quality of protection,
if any, required by the SPD. Similarly, for the model described in
Section 2.3 the check that requested protection meets or exceeds that
required by the SPD is performed by the IPsec key manager when
creating connection latch and connection latch listener objects.
When an application requests, and local policy permits, either
additional protection or bypassing protection, then the SPD MUST be
logically updated such that there exists a suitable SPD entry
protecting or bypassing the exact 5-tuple recorded by the
corresponding connection latch. Such logical SPD updates MUST be
made at connection latch creation time, and MUST be made atomically
(see the note about race conditions in Section 2.3). Such updates of
the SPD MUST NOT survive system crashes or reboots.
4. Simulataneous latch establishment
Some connection-oriented ULPs, specifically TCP, support simulaneous
connections (where two clients connect to each other, using the same
5-tuple, at the same time). Connection latching supports
simultaneous latching as well, provided that the key exchange
protocol does not make it impossible.
Consider two applications doing a simultaneous TCP connect to each
other and requesting an IPsec channel. If they request the same
connection latching parameters, then the connection and channel
should be established as usual. Even if the key exchange protocol in
use doesn't support simultaneous IKE_SA and/or child SA
establishment, provided one peer's attempt to create the necessary
child SAs succeeds then the other peer should be able to notice the
new SAs immediately upon failure of its attempts to create the same.
If, however, the two peer applications were to request different
connection latching parameters, then the connection latch must fail
on one end or on both ends.
5. Connection Latching to IPsec for Various ULPs
The following sub-sections describe connection latching for each of
three transport protocols. Note that for TCP and UDP there is
nothing in the following sections that should not already be obvious
from the remainder of this document. The section on SCTP, however,
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specifies details related to SCTP multi-homing, that may not be as
obvious.
5.1. Connection Latching to IPsec for TCP
IPsec connection latch creation/release for TCP [RFC0793] connections
is triggered when:
o A TCP listener end-point is created (e.g., when the BSD sockets
listen() function is called on a socket). This should cause the
creation of a LISTENER connection latch.
o A TCP SYN packet is received on an IP address and port number for
which there is a listener. This should cause the creation of an
ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latch.
o A TCP SYN packet is sent (e.g., as the result of a call to the BSD
sockets connect() function). This should cause the creation of an
ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latch.
o Any state transition of a TCP connection to the CLOSED state will
cause a corresponding transition for any associated connection
latch to the CLOSED state as well.
When a connection latch transitions to the BROKEN state and the
application requested (or system policy dictates it) that the
connection be broken, then TCP should inform the application, if
there is a way to do so, or else it should wait, allowing the TCP
keepalive (or application-layer keepalive strategy) to timeout the
connection, if enabled. When a connection latch is administratively
transitioned to the CLOSED state then TCP should act as though an RST
packet has been received.
5.2. Connection Latching to IPsec for UDP with Simulated Connections
UDP [RFC0768] is a connection-less transport protocol. However, some
networking APIs (e.g., the BSD sockets API) allow for emulation of
UDP connections. In this case connection latching can be supported
using either model given above. We ignore, in this section, the fact
that the connection latching model described in Section 2.4 can
support per-datagram latching by extending its packet tagging
interfaces to the application.
IPsec connection latch creation/release for UDP connections is
triggered when:
o An application creates a UDP "connection." This should cause the
creation of an ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latch.
o An application destroys a UDP "connection." This should cause the
creation of an ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latch.
When a connection latch transitions to the BROKEN state and the
application requested (or system policy dictates it) that the
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connection be broken, then UDP should inform the application, if
there is a way to do so, or else it should wait, allowing the
application-layer keepalive/timeout strategy, if any, to timeout the
connection.
What constitutes an appropriate action in the face of administrative
transitions of connection latches to the CLOSED state depends on
whether the implementation's "connected" UDP sockets API provides a
way for the socket to return an error indicating that it has been
closed.
5.3. Connection Latching to IPsec for UDP with Datagram-Tagging APIs
Implementations based on either model of connection latching can
provide applications with datagram-tagging APIs based on those
described in Section 2.4. Implementations UDP with of the normative
model of IPsec connection latching have to confirm, on output, that
the application provided 5-tuple agrees with the application-provided
connection latch; on input, UDP can derive the tag by searching for a
connection latch matching incoming datagram's 5-tuple.
5.4. Connection Latching to IPsec for SCTP
SCTP [RFC4960] a connection-oriented protocol similar, in some ways,
to TCP. The salient difference, with respect to connection latching,
between SCTP and TCP is that SCTP allows each end-point to be
identified by a set of IP addresses, though, like TCP, each end-point
of an SCTP connection (or, rather, SCTP association) can only have
one port number.
We can represent the multiplicity of SCTP association end-point
addresses as a multiplicity of 5-tuples, each of which with its own a
connection latch. Alternatively we can extend the connection latch
object to support a multiplicity of addresses for each end-point.
The first approach is used throughout this document, therefore we
will assume that representation.
Of course, this approach results in N x M connection latches for any
SCTP associations (where one end-point has N addresses and the other
has M), whereas the alternative requires one connecton latch per-SCTP
association (with N + M addresses). Implementors may choose either
approach.
IPsec connection latch creation/release for SCTP connections is
triggered when:
o An SCTP listener end-point is created (e.g., when the SCTP sockets
listen() function is called on a socket). This should cause the
creation of a LISTENER connection latch for each address of the
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listener.
o An SCTP INIT chunk is received on an IP address and port number
for which there is a listener. This should cause the creation of
one or more ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latches, one for each
distinct 5-tuple given the client and server's addresses.
o An SCTP INIT chunk is sent (e.g., as the result of a call to the
SCTP sockets connect() function). This should cause the creation
of one or more ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latches.
o An SCTP ASCONF chunk [RFC5061] adding an end-point IP address is
sent or received. This should cause the creation of one or more
ESTABLISHED or BROKEN connection latches.
o Any state transition of an SCTP association to the CLOSED state
will cause a corresponding transition for any associated
connection latches to the CLOSED state as well.
o An SCTP ASCONF chunk [RFC5061] deleting an end-point IP address is
sent or received. This should cause one or more associated
connection latches to be CLOSED.
When a connection latch transitions to the BROKEN state and the
application requested (or system policy dictates it) that the
connection be broken, then SCTP should inform the application, if
there is a way to do so, or else it should wait, allowing SCTP path/
endpoint failure detection (and/or application-layer keepalive
strategy) to timeout the connection. When a connection latch is
administratively transitioned to the CLOSED state then SCTP should
act as though an ABORT chunk has been received.
6. Security Considerations
6.1. Impact on IPsec
Connection latching effectively adds a mechanism for dealing with the
existence, in the SAD, of multiple non-equivalent child SAs with
overlapping traffic selectors. This mechanism consists of, at
minimum, a local notification of transport protocols (and, through
them, applications) of the existence of such a conflict which affects
a transport layer's connections. Affected transports are also
notified when the conflict is cleared. The transports must drop
inbound packets, and must not send outbound packets for connections
which are affected by a conflict. In this minimal form connection
latching is a passive, local feature layered atop IPsec.
Connection latching achieves this by adding a new type of IPsec
database, the Latch Database (LD), containing objects which represent
a transport protocol's interest in protecting a given packet flow
from such conflicts. The LD is managed in conjunction with updates
to the SAD and the SPD, so that updates to either which conflict with
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established connection latches can be detected. For some IPsec
implementations this may imply significant changes to their
internals. However, two different models of connection laching are
given, and we hope that most native IPsec implementators will find
one model to be significantly simpler to implement than the other,
and simple enough to implement.
This notion of conflicting SAs and how to deal with the situation
does not modify the basic IPsec architecture -- the feature of IPsec
which allows such conflicts to arise remains, and it is up to the
transport protocols and applications to select whether and how to
respond to them.
There are, however, interesting corner cases in the normative model
of connection latching that implementors must be aware of. The notes
in Section 2.3.1 are particularly relevant.
6.2. Impact on IPsec of Optional Features
Section 3 describes optional features of connection latching where
the key manager takes on a somewhat more active, though still local,
role. There are two such features: optional protect/bypass, and
preservation of "logical" SPD entries to allow latched connections to
remain in the ESTABLISHED state in the face of adverse administrative
SPD (but not SAD) changes. These two features interact with
administrative interfaces to IPsec; administrators must be made aware
of these features, and SHOULD be given a way to break ESTABLISHED
connection latches. Also, given recent trends toward centralizing
parts of IPsec policy, these two features can be said to have non-
local effects where they prevent distributed policy changes from
taking effect completely.
6.3. Security Considerations for Applications
Connection latching is not negotiated. It is therefore possible for
one end of a connection to be using connection latching while the
other does not, in which case it's possible for policy changes local
to the non-latched end to cause packets to be sent unprotected. The
end doing connection latching will reject unprotected packets, but if
they bear sensitive data then the damage may already be done.
Therefore applications SHOULD check that both ends of a connection
are latched (such a check is implicit for applications that use
channel binding to IPsec).
Connection latching protects individual connections from weak peer
ID<->address binding, IPsec configuration changes, and from
configurations that allow multiple peers to assert the same
addresses. But connection latching does not ensure that any two
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connections with the same end-point addresses will have the same
latched peer IDs. In other words, applications that use multiple
concurrent connections between two given nodes may not be protected
any more or less by use of IPsec connection latching than by use of
IPsec alone without connection latching. Such multi-connection
applications can, however, examine the latched SA parameters of each
connection to ensure that all concurrent connections with the same
end-point addresses also have the same end-point IPsec IDs.
Connection latching protects against TCP RST attacks. It does not
help, however, if the original peer of a TCP connection is no longer
available (e.g., if an attacker has been able to interrupt the
network connection between the two peers).
6.4. Channel Binding and IPsec APIs
IPsec channels are a pre-requisite for channel binding [RFC5056] to
IPsec. Connection latching provides such channels, but the channel
bindings for IPsec channels (latched connections) are not specified
herein -- that is a work in progress
[I-D.williams-ipsec-channel-binding].
Without IPsec APIs connection latching provides marginal security
benefits over traditional IPsec. Such APIs are not described herein;
see [I-D.ietf-btns-abstract-api].
7. IANA Considerations
There are not IANA considerations for this document.
8. Acknowledgements
The author thanks Michael Richardson for all his help, as well as
Stephen Kent, Sam Hartman, Bill Sommerfeld, Dan McDonald, Daniel
Migault, and many others who've participated in the BTNS WG or who've
answered questions about IPsec, connection latching implementations,
etc...
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC0768] Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
August 1980.
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[RFC0793] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
RFC 793, September 1981.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
[RFC4306] Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol",
RFC 4306, December 2005.
[RFC4960] Stewart, R., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol",
RFC 4960, September 2007.
[RFC5061] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Tuexen, M., Maruyama, S., and M.
Kozuka, "Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)
Dynamic Address Reconfiguration", RFC 5061,
September 2007.
[RFC5386] Williams, N. and M. Richardson, "Better-Than-Nothing
Security: An Unauthenticated Mode of IPsec", RFC 5386,
November 2008.
9.2. Informative References
[I-D.bellovin-useipsec]
Bellovin, S., "Guidelines for Specifying the Use of IPsec
Version 2", draft-bellovin-useipsec-10 (work in progress),
August 2008.
[I-D.dondeti-useipsec-430x]
Dondeti, L. and V. Narayanan, "Guidelines for using IPsec
and IKEv2", draft-dondeti-useipsec-430x-00 (work in
progress), October 2006.
[I-D.ietf-btns-abstract-api]
Richardson, M., "An abstract interface between
applications and IPsec", draft-ietf-btns-abstract-api-02
(work in progress), November 2008.
[I-D.williams-ipsec-channel-binding]
Williams, N., "End-Point Channel Bindings for IPsec Using
IKEv2 and Public Keys",
draft-williams-ipsec-channel-binding-01 (work in
progress), April 2008.
[IP_SEC_OPT.man]
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Sun Microsystems, Inc., "Solaris ipsec(7P) manpage",
October 2006.
[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, November 1987.
[RFC5056] Williams, N., "On the Use of Channel Bindings to Secure
Channels", RFC 5056, November 2007.
[RFC5387] Touch, J., Black, D., and Y. Wang, "Problem and
Applicability Statement for Better-Than-Nothing Security
(BTNS)", RFC 5387, November 2008.
Author's Address
Nicolas Williams
Sun Microsystems
5300 Riata Trace Ct
Austin, TX 78727
US
Email: Nicolas.Williams@sun.com
Williams Expires October 11, 2009 [Page 29]
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