Internet DRAFT - draft-bittau-tcpinc-api

draft-bittau-tcpinc-api







Network Working Group                                          A. Bittau
Internet-Draft                                                  D. Boneh
Intended status: Informational                                 D. Giffin
Expires: September 3, 2016                           Stanford University
                                                              M. Handley
                                               University College London
                                                             D. Mazieres
                                                     Stanford University
                                                                E. Smith
                                                       Kestrel Institute
                                                           March 2, 2016


                    Interface Extensions for TCP-ENO
                       draft-bittau-tcpinc-api-01

Abstract

   TCP-ENO negotiates encryption at the transport layer.  It also
   defines a few parameters that are intended to be used or configured
   by applications.  This document specifies operating system interfaces
   for access to these TCP-ENO parameters.  We describe the interfaces
   in terms of socket options, the de facto standard API for adjusting
   per-connection behavior in TCP/IP, and sysctl, a popular mechanism
   for setting global defaults.  Operating systems that lack socket or
   sysctl functionality can implement similar interfaces in their native
   frameworks, but should ideally adapt their interfaces from those
   presented in this document.

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
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on September 3, 2016.






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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 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
   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
   2.  API extensions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Per-connection options  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.2.  System-wide options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   3.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.1.  Cookie-based authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     3.2.  Signature-based authentication  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   4.  Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   The TCP Encryption Negotiation Option (TCP-ENO)
   [I-D.ietf-tcpinc-tcpeno] permits hosts to negotiate encryption of a
   TCP connection.  One of TCP-ENO's use cases is to encrypt traffic
   transparently, unbeknownst to legacy applications.  Transparent
   encryption requires no changes to existing APIs.  However, other use
   cases require applications to interact with TCP-ENO.  In particular:

   o  Transparent encryption protects only against passive
      eavesdroppers.  Stronger security requires applications to
      authenticate a _Session ID_ value associated with each encrypted
      connection.

   o  Applications that have been updated to authenticate Session IDs
      must somehow advertise this fact to peers in a backward-compatible
      way.  TCP-ENO carries a two-bit "application-aware" status for



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      this purpose, but this status is not accessible through existing
      interfaces.

   o  Applications employing TCP's simultaneous open feature need a way
      to supply a symmetry-breaking "role-override" bit to TCP-ENO.

   o  System administrators and applications may wish to set and examine
      negotiation preferences, such as which encryption schemes (and
      perhaps versions) to enable and disable.

   o  Applications that perform their own encryption may wish to disable
      TCP-ENO entirely.

   The remainder of this document describes an API through which systems
   can meet the above needs.  The API extensions relate back to
   quantities defined by TCP-ENO.

2.  API extensions

   This section describes an API for per-connection options, followed by
   a discussion of system-wide configuration options.

2.1.  Per-connection options

   Application should access TCP-ENO options through the same mechanism
   they use to access other TCP configuration options, such as
   "TCP_NODELAY" [RFC0896].  With the popular sockets API, this
   mechanism consists of two socket options, "getsockopt" and
   "setsockopt", shown in Figure 1.  Socket-based TCP-ENO
   implementations should define a set of new "option_name" values
   accessible at "level" "IPPROTO_TCP" (generally defined as 6, to match
   the IP protocol field).

      int getsockopt(int socket, int level, int option_name,
                     void *option_value, socklen_t *option_len);

      int setsockopt(int socket, int level, int option_name,
                     const void *option_value, socklen_t option_len);

                        Figure 1: Socket option API

   Table 1 summarizes the new "option_name" arguments that TCP-ENO
   introduces to the socket option (or equivalent) system calls.  For
   each option, the table lists whether it is read-only (R) or read-
   write (RW), as well as the type of the option's value.  Read-write
   options, when read, always return the previously successfully written
   value or the default if they have not been written.  Options of type
   "bytes" consist of a variable-length array of bytes, while options of



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   type "int" consist of a small integer with the exact range indicated
   in parentheses.  We discuss each option in more detail below.

              +----------------------+----+----------------+
              | Option name          | RW | Type           |
              +----------------------+----+----------------+
              | TCP_ENO_ENABLED      | RW | int (-1 - 1)   |
              | TCP_ENO_SESSID       | R  | bytes          |
              | TCP_ENO_NEGSPEC      | R  | int (32 - 127) |
              | TCP_ENO_SPECS        | RW | bytes          |
              | TCP_ENO_SELF_AWARE   | RW | int (0 - 3)    |
              | TCP_ENO_PEER_AWARE   | R  | int (0 - 3)    |
              | TCP_ENO_ROLEOVERRIDE | RW | int (0 - 1)    |
              | TCP_ENO_ROLE         | R  | int (0 - 1)    |
              | TCP_ENO_LOCAL_NAME   | R  | bytes          |
              | TCP_ENO_PEER_NAME    | R  | bytes          |
              | TCP_ENO_RAW          | RW | bytes          |
              | TCP_ENO_TRANSCRIPT   | R  | bytes          |
              +----------------------+----+----------------+

             Table 1: Suggested new IPPROTO_TCP socket options

   The socket options must return errors under certain circumstances.
   These errors are mapped to three suggested error codes shown in
   Table 2.  Most socket-based systems will already have constants for
   these errors.  Non-socket systems should use existing error codes
   corresponding to the same conditions.  "EINVAL" is the existing error
   returned when setting options on a closed socket.  "EISCONN"
   corresponds to calling connect a second time, while "ENOTCONN"
   corresponds to requesting the peer address of an unconnected socket.

    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
    | Symbol   | Description                                         |
    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+
    | EINVAL   | General error signifying bad parameters             |
    | EISCONN  | Option no longer valid because socket is connected  |
    | ENOTCONN | Option not (yet) valid because socket not connected |
    +----------+-----------------------------------------------------+

                      Table 2: Suggested error codes

   TCP_ENO_ENABLED  When set to 0, completely disables TCP-ENO
      regardless of any other socket option settings except
      "TCP_ENO_RAW".  When set to 1, enables TCP-ENO.  If set to -1, use
      a system-wide default determined at the time of an "accept" or
      "connect" system call, as described in Section 2.2.  This option
      must return an error ("EISCONN") after a SYN segment has already
      been sent.



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   TCP_ENO_SESSID  Returns the session ID of the connection, as defined
      by the encryption spec in use.  This option must return an error
      if encryption is disabled ("EINVAL"), the connection is not yet
      established ("ENOTCONN"), or the transport layer does not
      implement the negotiated spec ("EINVAL").

   TCP_ENO_NEGSPEC  Returns the 7-bit code point of the negotiated
      encryption spec for the current connection.  As defined by TCP-
      ENO, the negotiated spec is the last valid suboption in the "B"
      host's SYN segment.  This option must return an error if
      encryption is disabled ("EINVAL") or the connection is not yet
      established ("ENOTCONN").

   TCP_ENO_SPECS  Allows the application to specify an ordered list of
      encryption specs different from the system default list.  If the
      list is empty, TCP-ENO is disabled for the connection.  Each byte
      in the list specifies one suboption type from 0x20-0xff.  The list
      contains no suboption data for variable-length suboptions, only
      the one-byte spec identifier.  The high bit ("v") in these bytes
      is ignored unless future implementations of encryption specs
      assign it special meaning.  The order of the list matters only for
      the host playing the "B" role.  Implementations must return an
      error ("EISCONN") if an application attempts to set this option
      after the SYN segment has been sent.  Implementations should
      return an error ("EINVAL") if any of the bytes are below 0x20 or
      are not implemented by the TCP stack.

   TCP_ENO_SELF_AWARE  The value is an integer from 0-3, allowing
      applications to specify the "aa" bits in the general suboption
      sent by the host.  When listening on a socket, the value of this
      option applies to each accepted connection.  The default value
      should be 0.  Implementations must return an error ("EISCONN") if
      an application attempts to set this option after a SYN segment has
      been sent.

   TCP_ENO_PEER_AWARE  The value is an integer from 0-3 reporting the
      "aa" bits in the general suboption of the peer's segment.
      Implementations must return an error ("ENOTCONN") if an
      application attempts to read this value before the connection is
      established.

   TCP_ENO_ROLEOVERRIDE  The value is a bit (0 or 1), indicating the
      value of the "b" bit to set in the host's general suboption.  The
      "b" bit breaks the symmetry of simultaneous open to assign a
      unique role "A" or "B" to each end of the connection.  The host
      that sets the "b" bit assumes the "B" role (which in non-
      simultaneous open is by default assigned to the passive opener).
      Implementations must return an error ("EISCONN") for attempts to



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      set this option after the SYN segment has already been sent.  The
      default value should be 0.

   TCP_ENO_ROLE  The value is a bit (0 or 1).  TCP-ENO defines two
      roles, "A" and "B", for the two ends of a connection.  After a
      normal three-way handshake, the active opener is "A" and the
      passive opener is "B".  Simultaneous open uses the role-override
      bit to assign unique roles.  This option returns 0 when the local
      host has the "A" role, and 1 when the local host has the "B" role.
      This call must return an error before the connection is
      established ("ENOTCONN") or if TCP-ENO has failed ("EINVAL").

   TCP_ENO_LOCAL_NAME  Returns the concatenation of the TCP_ENO_ROLE
      byte and the TCP_ENO_SESSID.  This provides a unique name for the
      local end of the connection.

   TCP_ENO_PEER_NAME  Returns the concatenation of the negation of the
      TCP_ENO_ROLE byte and the TCP_ENO_SESSID.  This is the same value
      as returned by TCP_ENO_LOCAL_NAME on the other host, and hence
      provides a unique name for the remote end of the connection.

   TCP_ENO_RAW  This option is for use by library-level implementations
      of encryption specs.  It allows applications to make use of the
      TCP-ENO option, potentially including encryption specs not
      supported by the transport layer, and then entirely bypass any
      TCP-level encryption so as to encrypt above the transport layer.
      The default value of this option is a 0-byte vector, which
      disables RAW mode.  If the option is set to any other value, it
      disables all other socket options described in this section except
      for TCP_ENO_TRANSCRIPT.

      The value of the option is a raw ENO option contents (without the
      kind and length) to be included in the host's SYN segment.  In raw
      mode, the TCP layer considers negotiation successful when the two
      SYN segments both contain a suboption with the same encryption
      spec value "cs" >= 0x20.  For an active opener in raw mode, the
      TCP layer automatically sends a two-byte minimal ENO option when
      negotiation is successful.  Note that raw mode performs no sanity
      checking on the "v" bits or any suboption data, and hence provides
      slightly less flexibility than a true TCP-level implementation.

   TCP_ENO_TRANSCRIPT  Returns the negotiation transcript as specified
      by TCP-ENO.  Implementations must return an error if negotiation
      failed ("EINVAL") or has not yet completed ("ENOTCONN").







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2.2.  System-wide options

   In addition to these per-socket options, implementations should use
   "sysctl" or an equivalent mechanism to allow administrators to
   configure a default value for "TCP_ENO_SPECS", as well as default
   behavior for when "TCP_ENO_ENABLED" is -1.  Table 3 provides a table
   of suggested parameters.  The type "words" corresponds to a list of
   16-bit unsigned words representing TCP port numbers (similar to the
   "baddynamic" sysctls that, on some operating systems, blacklist
   automatic assignment of particular ports).  These parameters should
   be placed alongside most TCP parameters.  For example, on BSD derived
   systems a suitable name would be "net.inet.tcp.eno_specs", while on
   Linux a more appropriate name would be "net.ipv4.tcp_eno_specs".

                  +-----------------------+-------------+
                  | Name                  | Type        |
                  +-----------------------+-------------+
                  | eno_specs             | bytes       |
                  | eno_enable_connect    | int (0 - 1) |
                  | eno_enable_listen     | int (0 - 1) |
                  | eno_bad_connect_ports | words       |
                  | eno_bad_listen_ports  | words       |
                  +-----------------------+-------------+

                     Table 3: Suggested sysctl values

   "eno_specs" is simply a string of bytes, and provides the default
   value for the "TCP_ENO_SPECS" socket option.  If "TCP_ENO_SPECS" is
   non-empty, the remaining sysctls determine whether to attempt TCP-ENO
   negotiation when the "TCP_ENO_ENABLED" option is -1 (the default),
   using the following rules.

   o  On active openers: If "eno_enable_connect" is 0, then TCP-ENO is
      disabled.  If the remote port number is in
      "eno_bad_connect_ports", then TCP-ENO is disabled.  Otherwise, the
      host attempts to use TCP-ENO.

   o  On passive openers: If "eno_enable_listen" is 0, then TCP-ENO is
      disabled.  Otherwise, if the local port is in
      "eno_bad_listen_ports", then TCP-ENO is disabled.  Otherwise, if
      the host receives an SYN segment with an ENO option containing
      compatible encryption specs, it attempts negotiation.

   Because initial deployment may run into issues with middleboxes or
   incur slowdown for unnecessary double-encryption, sites may wish to
   blacklist particular ports.  For example the following command:

             sysctl net.inet.tcp.eno_bad_connect_ports=443,993



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   would disable ENO encryption on outgoing connections to ports 443 and
   993 (which use application-layer encryption for HTTP and IMAP,
   respectively).  If the per-socket "TCP_ENO_ENABLED" is not -1, it
   overrides the sysctl values.

   On a server, running:

               sysctl net.inet.tcp.eno_bad_listen_ports=443

   makes it possible to disable TCP-ENO for incoming HTTPS connection
   without modifying the web server to set "TCP_ENO_ENABLED" to 0.

3.  Examples

   This section provides examples of how applications might authenticate
   session IDs.  Authentication requires exchanging messages over the
   TCP connection, and hence is not backwards compatible with existing
   application protocols.  To fall back to opportunistic encryption in
   the event that both applications have not been updated to
   authenticate the session ID, TCP-ENO provides the application-aware
   bits.  To signal it has been upgraded to support application-level
   authentication, an application should set "TCP_ENO_SELF_AWARE" to 1
   before opening a connection.  An application should then check that
   "TCP_ENO_PEER_AWARE" is non-zero before attempting to send
   authenticators that would otherwise be misinterpreted as application
   data.

3.1.  Cookie-based authentication

   In cookie-based authentication, a client and server both share a
   cryptographically strong random or pseudo-random secret known as a
   "cookie".  Such a cookie is preferably at least 128 bits long.  To
   authenticate a session ID using a cookie, each host computes and
   sends the following value to the other side:

                  authenticator = PRF(cookie, local-name)

   Here "PRF" is a pseudo-random function such as HMAC-SHA-256
   [RFC6234].  "local-name" is the result of the "TCP_ENO_LOCAL_NAME"
   socket option.  Each side must verify that the other side's
   authenticator is correct.  To do so, software obtains the remote
   host's local name via the "TCP_ENO_PEER_NAME" socket option.
   Assuming the authenticators are correct, applications can rely on the
   TCP-layer encryption for resistance against active network attackers.

   Note that if the same cookie is used in other contexts besides
   session ID authentication, appropriate domain separation must be




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   employed, such as prefixing "local-name" with a unique prefix to
   ensure "authenticator" cannot be used out of context.

3.2.  Signature-based authentication

   In signature-based authentication, one or both endpoints of a
   connection possess a private signature key the public half of which
   is known to or verifiable by the other endpoint.  To authenticate
   itself, the host with a private key computes the following signature:

                 authenticator = Sign(PrivKey, local-name)

   The other end verifies this value using the corresponding public key.
   Whichever side validates an authenticator in this way knows that the
   other side belongs to a host that possesses the appropriate signature
   key.

   Once again, if the same signature key is used in other contexts
   besides session ID authentication, appropriate domain separation
   should be employed, such as prefixing "local-name" with a unique
   prefix to ensure "authenticator" cannot be used out of context.

4.  Security considerations

   The TCP-ENO specification discusses several important security
   considerations that this document incorporates by reference.  The
   most important one, which bears reiterating, is that until and unless
   a session ID has been authenticated, TCP-ENO is vulnerable to an
   active network attacker, through either a downgrade or active man-in-
   the-middle attack.

   Because of this vulnerability to active network attackers, it is
   critical that implementations return appropriate errors for socket
   options when TCP-ENO is not enabled.  Equally critical is that
   applications must never use these socket options without checking for
   errors.

   Applications with high security requirements that rely on TCP-ENO for
   security must either fail or fall back to application-layer
   encryption if TCP-ENO fails or session IDs authentication fails.

5.  Acknowledgments

   This work was funded by DARPA CRASH under contract #N66001-10-2-4088.







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6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-tcpinc-tcpeno]
              Bittau, A., Boneh, D., Giffin, D., Handley, M., Mazieres,
              D., and E. Smith, "TCP-ENO: Encryption Negotiation
              Option", draft-ietf-tcpinc-tcpeno-01 (work in progress),
              February 2016.

6.2.  Informative References

   [RFC0896]  Nagle, J., "Congestion Control in IP/TCP Internetworks",
              RFC 896, DOI 10.17487/RFC0896, January 1984,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc896>.

   [RFC6234]  Eastlake 3rd, D. and T. Hansen, "US Secure Hash Algorithms
              (SHA and SHA-based HMAC and HKDF)", RFC 6234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6234, May 2011,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6234>.

Authors' Addresses

   Andrea Bittau
   Stanford University
   353 Serra Mall, Room 288
   Stanford, CA  94305
   US

   Email: bittau@cs.stanford.edu


   Dan Boneh
   Stanford University
   353 Serra Mall, Room 475
   Stanford, CA  94305
   US

   Email: dabo@cs.stanford.edu


   Daniel B. Giffin
   Stanford University
   353 Serra Mall, Room 288
   Stanford, CA  94305
   US

   Email: dbg@scs.stanford.edu



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   Mark Handley
   University College London
   Gower St.
   London  WC1E 6BT
   UK

   Email: M.Handley@cs.ucl.ac.uk


   David Mazieres
   Stanford University
   353 Serra Mall, Room 290
   Stanford, CA  94305
   US

   Email: dm@uun.org


   Eric W. Smith
   Kestrel Institute
   3260 Hillview Avenue
   Palo Alto, CA  94304
   US

   Email: eric.smith@kestrel.edu


























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