Internet DRAFT - draft-pala-prqp
draft-pala-prqp
PKIX Working Group M. Pala
Internet-Draft Dartmouth College
Intended status: Experimental June 30, 2008
Expires: January 1, 2009
PKI Resource Query Protocol (PRQP)
draft-pala-prqp-02
Status of this Memo
By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any
applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware
have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes
aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt.
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
This Internet-Draft will expire on January 1, 2009.
Abstract
One of the most strategic problems still open in PKIX is locating
public data and services associated with a Certification Authority
(CA). This issue impacts interoperability and usability in PKIX.
This draft describes the PKI Resource Query Protocol (PRQP), its
design, definition, and its impact in already deployed PKIX
protocols.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
Table of Contents
1. Requirements notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Overview of existing solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.1. Certificate Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1.2. DNS SRV records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.3. Local Network Oriented Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Protocol Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. The Resource Query Authority (RQA) . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. PRQP Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.1. PRQP Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.1.1. Request Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2.2. PRQP Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2.2.1. Response Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4. PRQP Design Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1. Response Complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.2. RQA's URL distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.3. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4.4. Time Validity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.5. Message Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6.2. Non-Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Appendix A. Distribution of PRQP Responses . . . . . . . . . . . 16
A.1. PRQP over HTTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
A.1.1. Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A.1.2. Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A.1.3. Message Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
A.2. PRQP over Peer-to-Peer Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix B. PRQP ASN1.1 Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . . . 24
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
1. Requirements notation
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].
2. Introduction
An increasing number of services and protocols are being defined to
address different needs of users and administrators of PKIs. With
the deployment of new applications and services, the need to access
information and services provided by Certificate Service Providers
(CSPs) is critical. Currently Certification Authorities (CAs) barely
publish access details on their official web sites, this includes URL
of provided services and repositories.
Using the PRQP, resources provided by a CA can be automatically and
securely discovered by an application.
2.1. Overview of existing solutions
Currently there are three options to find URLs providing access to
PKI data:
o by including such data in certificate extensions
o by searching easily accessible repositories (e.g. DNS, local
database, etc.)
o by adapting existing protocols (e.g. SLP)
2.1.1. Certificate Extensions
To provide pointers to published data it is possible to use the
Authority Information Access (AIA) Subject Information Access (SIA)
extensions defined by PKIX [RFC3280].
The former can provide information about services associated with the
issuer of the certificate, while the latter carries information
(inside a CA certificate) about offered CA services.
AIA and SIA extensions are static, i.e. not modifiable unless the
certificate is re-issued. If a CA inserts the AIA extension into
every certificate it issues, e.g., to identify the location of an
OCSP responder, then changing that location would require re-issuance
of all these certificates, a substantial barrier to such a change.
If a CA certificate is self-signed and used as a trust anchor, then
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
re-issuing the certificate to change the content of the SIA
extension, e.g., to reflect a change in the location of a time
stamping server would be very disruptive. In closed PKIs, e.g.,
enterprises, use of these extensions may be replaced by manual
configuration and management of this data via ad hoc means. Because
of the centrally controlled nature of such environments, the static
nature of SIA and AIA extensions is not a concern.
However in order to promote interoperability between PKIs, PRQP
enables dynamic management of pointers to such services (e.g.,
adding/removing or moving) without requiring changes in the
certificate contents or third parties to manually configure services
in their applications. Even in closed environments, PRQP could help
manage PKI services analogous the way DHCP facilitates network
management.
2.1.2. DNS SRV records
The SRV record technique provides pointers to servers via the DNS
[RFC1035].
As defined in [RFC2782], the introduction of this type of record
allows administrators to perform operations similar to what we
require in order to solve the problem we are addressing in this
draft, i.e., to provide URLs to services.
The problem in the adoption of this mechanism is that, in contrast to
the DNS environment, usually in PKIX there is no fixed mapping
between certificates and the DNS name space. The only exception is
when the Domain Component (DC) attributes are used in the
certificate's Subject.
Currently this approach is not widely adopted. Moreover, it is not
always easy to identify the right DNS to query to, when trying to
find a particular service provided by a CA, because of the lack of
such information in certificates.
2.1.3. Local Network Oriented Solutions
Another approach to provide reliable information is to use existing
protocols for service location such as Jini, Universal Plug and Play
protocol (UPnP) or Service Location Protocol (SLP) [RFC2608]
[RFC2609].
The IETF defined the SLP to provide a service location mechanism that
is language and technology independent. Some issues, however, make
it not the right choice to solve our problem, e.g., the protocol is
quite complex to implement when considering the scope of the problem
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
we are addressing.
The definition of a specific and simple protocol for PKI service and
resource location is needed to ease PKI integration into existing and
future applications, especially for mobile devices which have limited
computational power and communication bandwidth.
3. Protocol Details
The PRQP protocol is a request-response protocol, formed by the
exchanging of two messages, i.e., a request and a response between a
client and a server, called the Resource Query Authority (RQA).
The requesting entity (the client) may be any entity that needs to
access information about repositories and services related to a
certificate.
The RQA is the authority entitled to answer for a particular CA or to
act as a PRQP Trusted Authority (PTA) for a set of users, e.g., users
in an enterprise environment.
In the first case the RQA is directly designated by a CA to act as an
RQA, by having the CA issue a certificate to the RQA with a specific
value set in the extendedKeyUsage extension. In this case the RQA
provides authoritative responses for requests regarding the CA that
issued the RQA's certificate.
When operating as a PTA, the RQA may provide responses about multiple
CAs, without the need to have been directly certified by them. To
operate as such, a specific extension (prqpTrustedAuthority) should
be present in RQA's certificate and its value should be set to TRUE.
3.1. The Resource Query Authority (RQA)
The Resource Query Authority is the designated authority to act as
PRQP responder. The RQA's signing key needs not to be the same as
that of the CA that designated it.
The CA may designate an RQA by issuing a certificate containing a
unique value for the extendedKeyUsage in RQA's certificate. The RQA
may also act as a trusted responder. PRQP signing delegation SHALL
be designated by the inclusion of id-kp-PRQPSigning in the
extendedKeyUsage extension within the PRQP response signer's
certificate.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
id-kp-PRQPSigning OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-kp 10}
When operating as a PTA, the RQA may provide responses about multiple
CAs, without the need to have been directly certified by them. To
operate as a PTA a specific extension (prqpTrustedAuthority) should
be present in RQA's certificate and its value should be set to TRUE.
prqpTrustedAuthority ::= BOOLEAN DEFAULT TRUE
We also define two new OIDs to identify the PRQP protocol and the PTA
extension as follows:
id-prqp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-pkix 23 }
id-prqp-pta OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-prqp 1 }
3.2. PRQP Overview
The protocol encompasses the exchange of a single round of messages
between a client and an RQA:
1. the client requests a resource token by sending a request to the
RQA
2. the RQA replies by sending a response to the client
Upon receiving the response the client MUST verify the status error
returned in the response. If no error is present, the client MUST
verify the various fields contained in the ResourceResponseToken and
the validity of the associated digital signature (if present). A
nonce MAY be used to guarantee that the response is associated with a
specific request in order to avoid reply attacks.
The client also SHOULD check the validity period of the response. It
SHOULD NOT, in order to minimize the load on an RQA, request again
the location of the same resource within this interval to the same
RQA.
If the response is signed, the client SHOULD check the RQA's
certificate validity.
3.2.1. PRQP Request
A PRQP request contains the following data:
o protocol version
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
o nonce
o MaxResponse
o ResourceRequestToken
o Extensions
The ASN.1 syntax imports terms defined in [RFC4210]. For signature
calculation, the data to be signed is encoded by using the DER
format. ASN.1 EXPLICIT tagging is used as a default unless specified
otherwise. The terms imported from [RFC3280] are: Extensions,
Certificate, CertificateSerialNumber, SubjectPublicKeyInfo, Name,
AlgorithmIdentifier.
3.2.1.1. Request Syntax
The PRQP request syntax is as follows:
PRQPRequest ::= SEQUENCE {
requestData TBSReqData,
signature [0] EXPLICIT Signature OPTIONAL }
TBSReqData ::= SEQUENCE {
version INTEGER { v(1) },
nonce INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- very large number
maxRespEntries INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- maximum number of accepted entries in
-- corresponding response
serviceToken ResourceRequestToken,
-- token identifying the requested service
extensions [0] IMPLICIT Extensions OPTIONAL }
The version field (currently v1) describes the version of the PRQP
request. The nonce field, if present, is an integer between 80 bits
and 256 bit in length.
The MaxResponse identifier is used to tell the RQA the maximum number
of ResourceResponseToken that presenting can include in the response.
The ResourceRequestToken is used to identify the requested services.
It carries information about the requested services. It contains a
CA identifier and optionally one or more service identifiers.
ResourceRequestToken ::= SEQUENCE {
ca CertIdentifier,
servicesList [0] SET OF ResourceIdentifier OPTIONAL }
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
The ca field is of type CertIdentifier. This is used to identify the
certificate of the CA whose services are requested.
The CertIdentifier syntax is as follows:
BasicCertIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
issuerNameHash OCTET STRING,
serialNumber CertificateSerialNumber }
ExtenderCertInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
certificateHash OCTET STRING,
subjectKeyHash OCTET STRING,
subjectKeyIdentifier [0] KeyIdentifier OPTIONAL,
issuerKeyIdentifier [1] KeyIdentifier OPTIONAL }
CertIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
hashAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
basicCertIdentifier BasicCertIdentifier,
extInfo [0] ExtendedCertInfo OPTIONAL,
caCertificate [1] Certificate OPTIONAL,
issuedCertificate [2] Certificate OPTIONAL }
The resourceList specifies the resources or services being requested.
ResourceIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
resourceId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
version [0] INTEGER OPTIONAL
--- version of the protocol or data format (if applicable) }
The ResourceIdentifier is formed by an OID that identifies the
service or the data being requested (e.g. OCSP, LDAP, CRL, etc... )
and an optional version number that may be used to better identify
the requested resource. All fields SHOULD be used whenever
applicable.
If one or more ResourceIdentifier are provided in the request, the
RQA should report back the location for each of the requested
services. If no ResourceIdentifier is present in the request, the
response should carry all the available service locations for the
specified CA (with respect to the MaxResponse and optional parameters
constrain).
The signature field is of type Signature and it is defined in
[RFC2560]:
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
Signature ::= SEQUENCE {
signatureAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
signature BIT STRING,
certs [0] EXPLICIT SEQUENCE OF Certificate
OPTIONAL }
Extensions can be used for future protocol enhancement.
3.2.2. PRQP Response
The PRQP response contains the following data:
o protocol version
o nonce
o status
o CA identifier
o ResourceResponseToken
o Extensions
3.2.2.1. Response Syntax
The response syntax is as follows:
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
PRQPResponse ::= SEQUENCE {
respData TBSRespData,
signature [0] EXPLICIT Signature OPTIONAL }
TBSRespData ::= SEQUENCE {
version INTEGER { v(1)},
nonce INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- as duplicated from the request
producedAt GeneralizedTime,
-- time when the response has been generated
nextUpdate [0] GeneralizedTime OPTIONAL,
-- time till when the response should be considered valid
pkiStatus PKIStatusInfo,
-- status of the response
caCertId CertIdentifier,
-- identifier of the CA certificate that issued the
-- targeted certificate
responseToken SEQUENCE OF ResourceResponseToken
OPTIONAL,
-- token carrying informations about
-- requested services
extensions [0] EXPLICIT Extensions OPTIONAL }
The version field (currently v1) describes the version of the used
PRQP response. The nonce, if present, binds the response to a
specific request. The usage of the nonce is meaningful only in
signed responses and its value must be copied directly from the
corresponding request. If not present in the request, the nonce MUST
be omitted.
The pkiStatus field is based on the definition of status in section
3.2.3 of [RFC4210]. However, to limit the complexity of the field,
the statusString field is of type UTF8String instead of PKIFreeText.
PKIStatusInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
status PKIStatus,
statusString [0] UTF8String OPTIONAL,
failInfo [1] PKIFailureInfo OPTIONAL }
If status has value zero, a responseToken MUST be present in the
response. When the status value is non zero, the responseToken MUST
be omitted and the reason code MUST be one of the values in
PKIStatus.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
PKIStatus ::= INTEGER {
ok (0),
-- when the PKIStatus contains the value zero one or
more responseToken is present
badRequest (1),
-- the request is badly formatted
caNotPresent (2),
-- the requested CA is not present
systemFailure (3)
-- a system failure has occourred }
The signature field is of type Signature and it is defined in
[RFC2560]:
Signature ::= SEQUENCE {
signatureAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
signature BIT STRING,
certs [0] EXPLICIT SEQUENCE OF Certificate
OPTIONAL }
The responseToken carries information about the services requested by
the client. For each of the requested service, the RQA should
include a ResourceResponseToken which bears the OID of the service
and the corresponding URI.
The ResourceResponseToken syntax is described below:
ResourceInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
resourceUri IA5String,
--- resource locator
version [0] INTEGER OPTIONAL,
--- version of the protocol or data format (if applicable)
}
ResourceResponseToken ::= SEQUENCE {
serviceId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
resourceLocator [0] EXPLICIT SEQUENCE OF ResourceInfo }
The serviceId field value is copied from the corresponding request
and it bears the OID of the service about which the client inquired.
We define the following OIDs that SHOULD be used to identify the
specified PKI services:
id-ad-prqp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad 12 }
id-ad-prqp-ocsp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 1}
id-ad-prqp-caIssuers OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 2}
id-ad-prqp-timestamping OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 3}
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
id-ad-prqp-dvcs OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 4}
id-ad-prqp-caRepository OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 5}
id-ad-prqp-http-certs OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 6}
--- HTTP certificate repository
id-ad-prqp-http-crls OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 7}
--- HTTP CRL download URL
id-ad-prqp-xkmsGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 10}
--- XKMS Gateway
id-ad-prqp-cmsGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 11}
--- CMS Gateway
id-ad-prqp-scepGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 12}
--- SCEP Gateway
--- Certificate Policies
id-ad-prqp-certPolicy OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 20}
--- Certificate Policy (CP) URL
id-ad-prqp-certPracticesStatement
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 21}
--- Certification Practices Statement (CPS) URL
--- Level Of Assurance
id-ad-prqp-certLOAPolicy OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 25}
--- LOA Policy URL
id-ad-prqp-certLOALevel OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 26}
--- Certificate LOA Modifier URL
--- HTTP (Browsers) based services
id-ad-prqp-httpRevokeCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 30}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Revocation Service
id-ad-prqp-httpRequestCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 31}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Request Service
id-ad-prqp-httpRenewCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 32}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Renewal Service
id-ad-prqp-httpSuspendCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 33}
--- Certificate Suspension Service
--- Webdav Services
id-ad-prqp-webdavCert OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 40}
--- Webdav Certificate Validation
id-ad-prqp-webdavRev OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 41}
--- Webdav Certificate Revocation
--- Grid Specific Services
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationBody
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 50}
--- CA Accreditation Body(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationPolicy
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 51}
--- CA Accreditation Policy Document(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationStatus
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 52}
--- CA Accreditation Status Document(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-commonDistributionUpdate
OBJECT_IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 53}
--- Grid Distribution Package(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditedCACerts
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 54}
--- Certificates of Currently Accredited CAs
The producedAt and nextUpdate define the time-frame when the response
data is to be considered valid. Within the defined period, the
client SHOULD NOT request for the same service. Use of wider time-
frames values can help the RQA avoid duplication of requests from the
same client thus potentially lowering the load of the responder.
However, providing this data to a client does not ensure a lower
query rate, as a server cannot rely on clients to obey the advice
provided in the rersponse.
The resourceLocator bears access information for the service
identified by the serviceId. The name MUST be an absolute URL, and
it MUST follow the URL syntax and encoding rules specified in
[RFC4248] and [RFC4266]. The resourceLocator includes both a scheme
(e.g., HTTP or FTP) and a scheme specific part. The scheme specific
part is supposed to carry information on how to reach the requested
service, this is, for example, a fully qualified domain name or IP
address as the host. If the requested service is not available or it
is unknown by the server, the resourceLocator value should be empty.
Optional Extensions may be added if requested.
3.3. IANA Considerations
This document has no actions for IANA.
4. PRQP Design Rationale
In this section we provide some considerations about the protocol
design and its details.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
4.1. Response Complexity
An important design consideration is the complexity of messages.
Some type of services, e.g. delta CRLs, can be directly detected upon
data downloading. On the contrary if a client is looking for a
specific version of a protocol or data type, the definition of a
fine-grained query system would allow for data downloading only when
it is actually supported by the requesting client, thus reducing the
server's load.
At present we think that keeping the protocol simple will encourage
its adoption in current environments because the flexibility
introduced by PRQP is a big enhancement over the current options.
Moreover, without requiring changes to the protocol, extensions could
be defined to provide more fine grained options.
Future versions of the protocol may implement extended request and
response types if required by applications.
4.2. RQA's URL distribution
The AIA and SIA extensions in certificates can be used to carry the
pointer to the RQA. If no RQA address is present in the certificate,
a client application could use a default configured URL.
Although this approach seems to contraddict the criticism of
Certificate extensions use in Section 2.1.1, using only one extension
to locate the RQA would provide an easy way to distribute the RQA's
URL.
The usage of PRQP will provide a gateway for all the other services
and data URLs.
4.3. Security Considerations
The PRQP provides URLs for PKI resources. This means that it
provides locators to data and services, not the data per se. It
still remains the client's job to access the provided URLs to gather
the needed data.
Both NONCEs and signatures are optional in order to provide
flexibility in how requests and responses are generated.
It is possible to provide pre-computed responses in case the NONCE is
not provided by the client. This allows the RQA to generate off-line
signatures for responses, an optimization used in OCSP.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
Moreover if an authenticated secure channel is used at the transport
level between the client and the RQA (e.g. HTTPS or SFTP) signatures
in requests and responses can be safely omitted.
4.4. Time Validity
The time validity should reflect the frequency of updates in
configured URLs. An interesting aspect to be considered is how often
would users execute the protocol for a given set of data.
If the clients query the server often it could be a serious burden on
the server but, if executed rarely, clients would not be able to
discover changes in provided resources.
As described in more detail in Appendix A, the adoption of a validity
time frame for responses can be used as a mean to balance the trade
off between this two aspects, but this is merely advisory data for
clients and thus not a guarantee against DoS attacks by clients.
4.5. Message Format
Two different candidates have been considered. The first one is the
Extensible Markup Language (XML), while the second one is the
Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER).
The adoption of the Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) to describe the
data structures allows a software developer to provide either DER or
XML based implementations of the protocol.
However we think that a DER based implementation of PRQP is the best
choice because of compatibility considerations with existing
applications and APIs. Moreover DER encoded messages are smaller in
size then XML encoded ones and almost all PKI aware applications
already support it.
5. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Stephen Kent for his insightful
comments about PRQP and his help in writing this document.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2560] Myers, M., Ankney, R., Malpani, A., Galperin, S., and C.
Adams, "X.509 Internet Public Key Infrastructure Online
Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP", RFC 2560, June 1999.
[RFC2608] Guttman, E., Perkins, C., Veizades, J., and M. Day,
"Service Location Protocol, Version 2", RFC 2608,
June 1999.
[RFC2609] Guttman, E., Perkins, C., and J. Kempf, "Service Templates
and Service: Schemes", RFC 2609, June 1999.
[RFC2782] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P., and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for
specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782,
February 2000.
[RFC3280] Housley, R., Polk, W., Ford, W., and D. Solo, "Internet
X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and
Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 3280,
April 2002.
[RFC4210] Adams, C., Farrell, S., Kause, T., and T. Mononen,
"Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate
Management Protocol (CMP)", RFC 4210, September 2005.
[RFC4248] Hoffman, P., "The telnet URI Scheme", RFC 4248,
October 2005.
[RFC4266] Hoffman, P., "The gopher URI Scheme", RFC 4266,
November 2005.
6.2. Non-Normative References
[PEACH] Pala, M. and S. Smith, "Peaches and Peers", LNCS 5057,
June 2008.
Appendix A. Distribution of PRQP Responses
A.1. PRQP over HTTP
This section describes the formatting needed in order to route PRQP
request and response over HTTP.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
A.1.1. Request
HTTP based PRQP requests SHOULD use the POST method to submit their
requests. Where privacy is a requirement, PRQP transactions
exchanged using HTTP MAY be protected using either TLS/SSL or some
other lower layer protocol.
The required HTTP headers for the request are:
o Content-Type
o Content-Transfer-Encoding
o Content-Length
The Content-Type header SHOULD be set to "application/prqp-request".
The Content-Transfer-Encoding SHOULD be set to "Binary", while the
Content-Length SHOULD be set to the length (in bytes) of the body of
the request. The body of the HTTP message MUST carry the binary
value of the DER encoding of the PRQPRequest.
A.1.2. Response
An HTTP-based PRQP response is composed of the appropriate HTTP
headers, followed by the binary value of the DER encoding of the
PRQPPResponse.
The required HTTP headers for the response are:
o Content-Type
o Content-Transfer-Encoding
o Content-Length
The Content-Type header SHOULD be set to "application/prqp-response".
The Content-Transfer-Encoding SHOULD be set to "Binary", while the
Content-Length SHOULD be set to the length (in bytes) of the body of
the request. The body of the HTTP message MUST carry the binary
value of the DER encoding of the PRQPResponse.
A.1.3. Message Caching
To minimize bandwidth usage, clients MUST locally cache authoritative
PRQP responses for the validity period of the request. To enable
proxy servers to be able to cache responses as well, additional HTTP
headers MAY be used in the response.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
The PRQP responder MAY ease caching by setting the following headers:
o date
o last-modified
o expires
In particular, the date field SHOULD carry the date at which the HTTP
response has been generated. The last-modified, instead, SHOULD bear
the date at which the response has been modified. This field SHOULD
carry the same date as the producedAt field of the PRQPResponse. The
expires field SHOULD carry the date till when the response is to be
considered valid. This field SHOULD carry the same date as in the
nextUpdate field of the PRQPResponse.
An example HTTP response would look like:
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Content-Type: application/prqp-response
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary
Content-Length: 860
Date: Thu, 03 May 2007 04:43:43 GMT
Last-Modified: Thu, 03 May 2007 04:43:42 GMT
Expires: Thu, 04 May 2007 04:43:42 GMT
<...response data...>
PRQP clients SUOULD NOT included a no-cache header in PRQP request
messages, unless the client encounters an expired response which may
be a result of an intermediate proxy caching stale data.
A.2. PRQP over Peer-to-Peer Network
PRQP offers a starting point for the development of a PKI Resource
Discovery Architecture where different RQAs cooperate to access data
not locally available.
One technology that already provides good results in data sharing is
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networking.
Signed PRQP requests and responses can be routed also on existing P2P
networks or a PRQP-specific network can be setup to provide a World
Wide PKI Resources Discovery Architecture (PRDA), the definition of
which is out of the scope of this document. An example of such an
architecture is PEACH [PEACH]
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
Appendix B. PRQP ASN1.1 Specification
PRQP DEFINITIONS EXPLICIT TAGS ::=
BEGIN
-- EXPORTS ALL --
IMPORTS
-- Directory Authentication Framework (X.509)
Certificate, AlgorithmIdentifier
FROM AuthenticationFramework { joint-iso-itu-t ds(5)
module(1) authenticationFramework(7) 3 }
-- PKIX Certificate Extensions
AuthorityKeyIdentifier, SubjectKeyIdentifier, KeyIdentifier,
FROM PKIX1Implicit88 {iso(1) identified-organization(3)
dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7)
id-mod(0) id-pkix1-implicit-88(2)}
CertificateSerialNumber, Extensions, id-kp, id-ad-prqp
FROM PKIX1Explicit88 {iso(1) identified-organization(3)
dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7)
id-mod(0) id-pkix1-explicit-88(1)};
PRQPRequest ::= SEQUENCE {
requestData TBSReqData,
signature [0] EXPLICIT Signature OPTIONAL }
TBSReqData ::= SEQUENCE {
version INTEGER { v(1) },
nonce INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- very large number
maxRespEntries INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- maximum number of accepted entries in
-- corresponding response
serviceToken ResourceRequestToken,
-- token identifying the requested service
extensions [0] IMPLICIT Extensions OPTIONAL }
ResourceRequestToken ::= SEQUENCE {
ca CertIdentifier,
servicesList [0] SET OF ResourceIdentifier OPTIONAL }
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
BasicCertIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
issuerNameHash OCTET STRING,
serialNumber CertificateSerialNumber }
ExtenderCertInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
certificateHash OCTET STRING,
subjectKeyHash OCTET STRING,
subjectKeyIdentifier [0] KeyIdentifier OPTIONAL,
issuerKeyIdentifier [1] KeyIdentifier OPTIONAL }
CertIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
hashAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
basicCertIdentifier BasicCertIdentifier,
extInfo [0] ExtendedCertInfo OPTIONAL,
caCertificate [1] Certificate OPTIONAL,
issuedCertificate [2] Certificate OPTIONAL }
ResourceIdentifier ::= SEQUENCE {
resourceId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
version [0] INTEGER OPTIONAL
--- version of the protocol or data format (if applicable) }
PRQPResponse ::= SEQUENCE {
respData TBSRespData,
signature [0] EXPLICIT Signature OPTIONAL }
TBSRespData ::= SEQUENCE {
version INTEGER { v(1)},
nonce INTEGER OPTIONAL,
-- as duplicated from the request
producedAt GeneralizedTime,
-- time when the response has been generated
nextUpdate [0] GeneralizedTime OPTIONAL,
-- time till when the response should be considered
-- valid
pkiStatus PKIStatusInfo,
-- status of the response
caCertId CertIdentifier,
-- identifier of the CA the targeted certificate is
-- issued from
responseToken SEQUENCE OF ResourceResponseToken
OPTIONAL,
-- token carrying informations about
-- requested services
extensions [0] EXPLICIT Extensions OPTIONAL }
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 20]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
PKIStatusInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
status PKIStatus,
statusString [0] UTF8String OPTIONAL,
failInfo [1] PKIFailureInfo OPTIONAL }
PKIStatus ::= INTEGER {
ok (0),
-- when the PKIStatus contains the value zero one or
more responseToken is present
badRequest (1),
-- the request is badly formatted
caNotPresent (2),
-- the requested CA is not present
systemFailure (3)
-- a system failure has occourred }
Signature ::= SEQUENCE {
signatureAlgorithm AlgorithmIdentifier,
signature BIT STRING,
certs [0] EXPLICIT SEQUENCE OF Certificate
OPTIONAL }
ResourceInfo ::= SEQUENCE {
resourceUri IA5String,
--- resource locator
version [0] INTEGER OPTIONAL,
--- version of the protocol or data format (if applicable)}
ResourceResponseToken ::= SEQUENCE {
serviceId OBJECT IDENTIFIER,
resourceLocator [0] EXPLICIT SEQUENCE OF ResourceInfo }
-- Object Identifiers
id-kp-PRQPSigning OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-kp 10 }
id-prqp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-pkix 23 }
id-prqp-pta OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { id-prqp 1 }
id-ad-prqp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad 12 }
id-ad-prqp-ocsp OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 1}
id-ad-prqp-caIssuers OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 2}
id-ad-prqp-timestamping OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 3}
id-ad-prqp-dvcs OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 4}
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 21]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
id-ad-prqp-caRepository OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 5}
id-ad-prqp-http-certs OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 6}
--- HTTP certificate repository
id-ad-prqp-http-crls OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 7}
--- HTTP CRL download URL
id-ad-prqp-xkmsGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 10}
--- XKMS Gateway
id-ad-prqp-cmsGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 11}
--- CMS Gateway
id-ad-prqp-scepGateway OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 12}
--- SCEP Gateway
--- Certificate Policies
id-ad-prqp-certPolicy OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 20}
--- Certificate Policy (CP) URL
id-ad-prqp-certPracticesStatement
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 21}
--- Certification Practices Statement (CPS) URL
--- Level Of Assurance
id-ad-prqp-certLOAPolicy OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 25}
--- LOA Policy URL
id-ad-prqp-certLOALevel OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 26}
--- Certificate LOA Modifier URL
--- HTTP (Browsers) based services
id-ad-prqp-httpRevokeCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 30}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Revocation Service
id-ad-prqp-httpRequestCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 31}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Request Service
id-ad-prqp-httpRenewCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 32}
--- HTTP Based Certificate Renewal Service
id-ad-prqp-httpSuspendCertificate
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 33}
--- Certificate Suspension Service
--- Webdav Services
id-ad-prqp-webdavCert OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 40}
--- Webdav Certificate Validation
id-ad-prqp-webdavRev OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 41}
--- Webdav Certificate Revocation
--- Grid Specific Services
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationBody
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 22]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 50}
--- CA Accreditation Body(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationPolicy
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 51}
--- CA Accreditation Policy Document(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditationStatus
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 52}
--- CA Accreditation Status Document(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-commonDistributionUpdate
OBJECT_IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 53}
--- Grid Distribution Package(s)
id-ad-prqp-grid-accreditedCACerts
OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {id-ad-prqp 54}
--- Certificates of Currently Accredited CAs
Author's Address
Massimiliano Pala
Dartmouth College
6211 Sudikoff PKI/Trust Lab
Hanover, NH 03755
US
Email: pala@cs.dartmouth.edu
URI: http://www.openca.org
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 23]
Internet-Draft PRQP June 2008
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2008).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Intellectual Property
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at
ietf-ipr@ietf.org.
Pala Expires January 1, 2009 [Page 24]
