Internet DRAFT - draft-ietf-httpauth-digest-update

draft-ietf-httpauth-digest-update



 



HTTPAuth Working Group                                    R. Shekh-Yusef
Internet-Draft                                                 D. Ahrens
Updates: 2617 (if approved)                                        Avaya
Intended Status: Standards Track                       September 2, 2013
Expires: March 6, 2014                                                  


                           HTTP Digest Update
                  draft-ietf-httpauth-digest-update-05


Abstract

   This documents specifies extensions to the HTTP Digest Authentication
   mechanism to add support for new digest algorithms to the HTTP Digest
   Access Authentication scheme. 

   This document also defines an extension to the HTTP Digest
   Authentication mechanism to allow the server to indicate its support
   for the UTF-8 character encoding scheme.



Status of this Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF 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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Copyright and License Notice

   Copyright (c) 2013 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
 


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   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
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   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  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2 Syntax Convention  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3  Digest Access Authentication Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       3.1.1 Representation of digest values  . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
       3.1.2 Limitations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     3.2 Specification of Digest Headers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.2.1 The WWW-Authenticate Response Header . . . . . . . . . .  5
       3.2.2 The Authorization Request Header . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.3 Digest Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.4 Security Protocol Operation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.5 Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   4  Internationalization  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   5  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   6  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
   7  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     7.1  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
     7.2  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
   8  Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11












 


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1  Introduction

   This document specifies extensions to the HTTP Digest Access
   Authentication scheme by adding support for SHA2-256 [FIPS 180-3] and
   SHA2-512/256 [FIPS 180-3] hash algorithms.  RFC2617 specifies the MD5
   algorithm as the default hash algorithm used in the digest access
   authentication scheme.  Since RFC2617 was first proposed, the MD5
   algorithm has been broken.  In 2008 the US-CERT issued a note that
   MD5 "should be considered cryptographically broken and unsuitable for
   further use" [CERT-VU].

   RFC2617 does not define how to treat Unicode characters [UNICODE]
   outside the ASCII range [RFC20] with the "Digest" scheme.  This
   document also defines an extension to the HTTP Digest Authentication
   mechanism to allow the server to indicate its support for the UTF-8
   character encoding scheme.


1.1  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [RFC2119].


2 Syntax Convention

   In the interest of clarity and readability, the extended parameters
   or the headers and parameters in the examples in this document might
   be broken into multiple lines. Any line that is indented in this
   document is a continuation of the preceding line.


3  Digest Access Authentication Scheme

   The Digest Access Authentication scheme is based on a simple
   challenge-response paradigm.  The Digest scheme challenges using a
   nonce value.  A valid response contains a checksum of the username,
   the password, the given nonce value and the requested URI. In this
   way the password is never sent in the clear.








 


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3.1 Introduction


3.1.1 Representation of digest values

   An optional header allows the server to specify the algorithm used to
   create the checksum or digest.  By default the SHA2-256 algorithm is
   used, with SHA2-512/256 being used as a backup algorithm.  To
   maintain backwards compatibility, the MD5 algorithm is still
   supported but not recommended. 


   The size of the digest depends on the algorithm used.  The bits in
   the digest are converted from the most significant to the least
   significant bit, four bits at a time to the ASCII representation as
   follows. Each four bits is represented by its familiar hexadecimal
   notation from the characters 0123456789abcdef, that is binary 0000 is
   represented by the character '0', 0001 by '1' and so on up to the
   representation of 1111 as 'f'. If the MD5 algorithm is used to
   calculate the digest, then the digest will be represented as 32
   hexadecimal characters, SHA2-256 and SHA2-512/256 by 64 hexadecimal
   characters.


3.1.2 Limitations

   The Digest authentication scheme suffers from many known limitations
   as specified in RFC2617, section 3.1.4.  The update in this document
   does not address those limitations.

   HTTP Digest authentication, when used with human-memorable passwords,
   is vulnerable to dictionary attacks. Such attacks are much easier
   than cryptographic attacks on any widely used algorithm, including
   those that are no longer considered secure. In other words, algorithm
   agility does not make this usage any more secure.

   As a result, Digest authentication SHOULD be used only with passwords
   that have a reasonable amount of entropy, e.g. 128-bit or more. Such
   passwords typically cannot be memorized by humans but can be used for
   automated web services.

   It is recommended that Digest authentication be used over a secure
   channel like HTTPS.





 


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3.2 Specification of Digest Headers

   The modifications to the formats of the WWW-Authenticate Header line
   and the Authorization header line are specified below.


3.2.1 The WWW-Authenticate Response Header

   If a server receives a request for an access protected object, and an
   acceptable Authorization header is not sent, the server responds with
   a "401 Unauthorized" status code, and a WWW-Authenticate header.  The
   server MAY include multiple WWW-Authenticate headers to allow the
   server to utilize the best available algorithm supported by the
   client.     

   The algorithm directive is extended as follows:

      algorithm = "algorithm" "=" (
                        "MD5" | "MD5-sess" |
                        "SHA2-256" | "SHA2-256-sess" |
                        "SHA2-512-256" | "SHA2-512-256-sess" | 
                        token)


   Algorithm
        A string indicating a pair of algorithms used to produce the
        digest and a checksum. If the algorithm parameter is not present
        it is assumed to be "MD5" to maintain backwards compatibility
        with existing implementations.  If the algorithm is not
        understood, the challenge should be ignored and a different
        challenge used if there is more than one.

        The string obtained by applying the digest algorithm to the data
        "data" with "secret" will be denoted KD(secret, data) and the
        string obtained by applying the checksum algorithm to the data
        "data" will be denoted H(data). The notation unq(x) means the
        value of the quoted string X without the surrounding quotes. 


        For the  "MD5 and "MD5-sess" algorithms
            H(data) = MD5(data)

        For the "SHA2-256" and "SHA2-256-sess" algorithms
            H(data) = SHA2-256(data)

        For the "SHA2-512-256" and "SHA2-512-256-sess" algorithms 
            H(data) = SHA2-512-256(data)

 


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        and
            KD(secret, data) = H(concat(secret, ":", data))

        i.e the digest is the hash of the secret concatenated with a
        colon concatenated with the data. The " -sess" algorithm is
        intended to allow efficient 3rd party authentication servers;
        for the difference in usage see the description in section
        RFC2617, Section 3.2.2.2.


3.2.2 The Authorization Request Header

   The client is expected to retry the request, passing an Authorization
   Request Header line.  The Authorization Request Header line is
   modified as follows:


   request-digest	= <"> digest-size LHEX <">
   digest-size       = "32" | "64" 


   The values of the opaque and algorithm fields must match those
   supplied in the WWW-Authenticate response header for the entity being
   requested.

        response
            A string of hex digits as defined in RFC2617 which proves
            that the user knows a password.




3.3 Digest Operation 

   The modifications specified in this document does not introduce any
   change to the digest operation specified in RFC2617.


3.4 Security Protocol Operation

   When a server receives a request to access a resource, the server
   might challenge the client by responding with "401 Unauthorized"
   status code, and include one or more WWW-Authenticate headers. If the
   server challenges with multiple Digest headers, then each one of
   these headers MUST use a different digest algorithm. The server MUST
   add these Digest headers to the response in order of preference,
   starting with the most preferred header, followed by the less
   preferred headers.
 


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   This specification defines the following preference list, starting
   with the most preferred algorithm:

     * SHA2-256 as the default algorithm.
     * SHA2-512/256 as a backup algorithm.
     * MD5 for backward compatibility.

   A future version of this document might add SHA3 [SHA3] as a backup
   algorithm, once its definition has been finalized and published.

   When the client receives the response it SHOULD use the topmost
   header that it supports, unless a local policy dictates otherwise.
   The client should ignore any challenge it does not understand.   

   NOTE: There is some concern around the support for the SHA2-512/256
   algorithm in the common implementation of SHA2.


3.5 Example

   The following example is borrowed from RFC2617 and assumes that an
   access protected document is being requested from the server via a
   GET request.  The URI of the document is
   http://www.nowhere.org/dir/index.html". Both client and server know
   that the username for this document is "Mufasa" and the password is
   "Circle of Life" ( with one space between each of the three words). 

   The first time the client requests the document, no Authorization
   header is sent, so the server responds with:

        HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
        WWW-Authenticate: Digest
                realm = "testrealm@host.com",
                qop="auth, auth-int",
                algorithm="SHA2-256",
                nonce="dcd98b7102dd2f0e8b11d0f600bfb0c093",
                opaque="5ccc069c403ebaf9f0171e9517f40e41"
        WWW-Authenticate: Digest
                realm="testrealm@host.com",
                qop="auth, auth-int",
                algorithm="MD5",
                nonce="dcd98b7102dd2f0e8b11d0f600bfb0c093",
                opaque="5ccc069c403ebaf9f0171e9517f40ef41"





 


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   The client may prompt the user for their username and password, after
   which it will respond with a new request, including the following
   Authorization header if the client chooses MD5 digest: 


        Authorization:Digest username="Mufasa",
                realm="testrealm@host.com",
                nonce="dcd98b7102dd2f0e8b11d0f600bfb0c093",
                uri="/dir/index.html",
                qop="auth",
                algorithm="MD5",
                nc=00000001,
                cnonce="0a4f113b",
                response="6629fae49393a05397450978507c4ef1",
                opaque="5ccc069c403ebaf9f0171e9517f40e41"


   If the client chooses to use the SHA2-256 algorithm for calculating
   the response, the client responds with a new request including the
   following Authorization header:


        Authorization:Digest username="Mufasa",
                realm="testrealm@host.com",
                nonce="dcd98b7102dd2f0e8b11d0f600bfb0c093",
                uri="/dir/index.html",
                qop="auth",
                algorithm="SHA2-256",
                nc=00000001,
                cnonce="0a4f113b",
                response="5abdd07184ba512a22c53f41470e5eea7dcaa3a93
                                a59b630c13dfe0a5dc6e38b",
                opaque="5ccc069c403ebaf9f0171e9517f40e41"















 


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4  Internationalization

   The "Digest" mechanism allows for new parameters to be defined and
   used with Authenticate and Authorization requests. This document
   defines a new optional "charset" auth-param that could be used by the
   server to indicate the encoding scheme it supports.

   In challenges, servers MAY use the "charset" authentication parameter
   (case-insensitive) to express the character encoding they expect the 
   user agent to use.

   The only allowed value is "UTF-8", to be matched case-insensitively,
   indicating that the server expects the UTF-8 character encoding to be
   used ([RFC3629]).


5  Security Considerations

   This specification updates the Digest Access Authentication scheme
   specified in RFC2617 to add support for the SHA2-256 and SHA2-512/256
   hash algorithms.  Support for these additional hash algorithms does
   not alter the security properties of the Digest Access Authentication
   scheme.


6  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Geoff Baskwill and Eric Cooper for
   their careful review and comments on the pre published version of
   this document.

   The authors would also like to thank Stephen Farrell, Yoav Nir,
   Phillip Hallam-Baker, Manu Sporny, Paul Hoffman, Julian Reschke, and
   Sean Turner for their careful review and comments on and off the
   mailing list. 

   Special thanks to Yaron Sheffer for his thorough review, comments on
   and off the list, and for the text he provided for the limitation
   section.









 


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7  References

7.1  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC2617]  Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Lawrence, S.,
              Leach, P., Luotonen, A., and L. Stewart, "HTTP
              Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication",
              RFC 2617, June 1999.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.

   [RFC6365]  Hoffman, P., Klensin, J., "Terminology Used in
              Internationalization in the IETF", BCP: 166, RFC 6365,
              September 2011.

   [UNICODE]  The Unicode Consortium, "The Unicode Standard, 
              Version 6.0".
              <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.0.0/>.

   [RFC20]    Cerf, V., "ASCII format for Network Interchange", RFC 20,
              October 1969.


7.2  Informative References


   [FIPS180-3]  National Institute of Standards and Technology
                (NIST), FIPS Publication 180-3: Digital Signature
                Standard, June 2009.

   [CERT-VU]    Vulnerability Note VU#836068, "MD5 vulnerable to  
                collision attacks", December 2008.

   [SHA3]       National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST),
                "CRYPTOGRAPHIC HASH AND SHA-3 STANDARD DEVELOPMENT".
                http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/hash/index.html








 


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8  Authors' Addresses



   Rifaat Shekh-Yusef
   Avaya
   250 Sydney Street
   Belleville, Ontario
   Canada

   Phone: +1-613-967-5267
   Email: rifaat.ietf@gmail.com



   David Ahrens
   Avaya

   EMail: ahrensdc@gmail.com
































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