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rfc:rfc5304

Network Working Group T. Li Request for Comments: 5304 Redback Networks, Inc. Obsoletes: 3567 R. Atkinson Updates: 1195 Extreme Networks, Inc. Category: Standards Track October 2008

                 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication

Status of This Memo

 This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
 Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
 improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
 Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
 and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

 This document describes the authentication of Intermediate System to
 Intermediate System (IS-IS) Protocol Data Units (PDUs) using the
 Hashed Message Authentication Codes - Message Digest 5 (HMAC-MD5)
 algorithm as found in RFC 2104.  IS-IS is specified in International
 Standards Organization (ISO) 10589, with extensions to support
 Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) described in RFC 1195.  The base
 specification includes an authentication mechanism that allows for
 multiple authentication algorithms.  The base specification only
 specifies the algorithm for cleartext passwords.  This document
 replaces RFC 3567.
 This document proposes an extension to that specification that allows
 the use of the HMAC-MD5 authentication algorithm to be used in
 conjunction with the existing authentication mechanisms.

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

Table of Contents

 1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
 2.  Authentication Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
   2.1.  Implementation Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
 3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   3.1.  Security Limitations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
   3.2.  Assurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   3.3.  Key Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
   3.4.  Other Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
   3.5.  Future Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
 4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
 5.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
 6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
   6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

1. Introduction

 The IS-IS protocol, as specified in [ISO-10589], provides for the
 authentication of Link State Protocol Data Units (LSPs) through the
 inclusion of authentication information as part of the LSP.  This
 authentication information is encoded as a Type-Length-Value (TLV)
 tuple.  The use of IS-IS for IPv4 networks is described in [RFC1195].
 The type of the TLV is specified as 10.  The length of the TLV is
 variable.  The value of the TLV depends on the authentication
 algorithm and related secrets being used.  The first octet of the
 value is used to specify the authentication type.  Type 0 is
 reserved, type 1 indicates a cleartext password, and type 255 is used
 for routing domain private authentication methods.  The remainder of
 the TLV value is known as the Authentication Value.
 This document extends the above situation by allocating a new
 authentication type for HMAC-MD5 and specifying the algorithms for
 the computation of the Authentication Value.  This document also
 describes modifications to the base protocol to ensure that the
 authentication mechanisms described in this document are effective.
 This document is a publication of the IS-IS Working Group within the
 IETF.  This document replaces [RFC3567], which is an Informational
 RFC.  This document is on the Standards Track.  This document has
 revised Section 3, with the significant addition of a discussion of
 recent attacks on MD5 in Section 3.2.  This document has also added a
 substantive "IANA Considerations" section to create a missing
 codepoint registry.
 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. Authentication Procedures

 The authentication type used for HMAC-MD5 is 54 (0x36).  The length
 of the Authentication Value for HMAC-MD5 is 16, and the length field
 in the TLV is 17.
 The HMAC-MD5 algorithm requires a key K and text T as input
 [RFC2104].  The key K is the password for the PDU type, as specified
 in ISO 10589.  The text T is the IS-IS PDU to be authenticated with
 the Authentication Value field (inside of the Authentication
 Information TLV) set to zero.  Note that the Authentication Type is
 set to 54 and the length of the TLV is set to 17 before
 authentication is computed.  When LSPs are authenticated, the

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 3] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

 Checksum and Remaining Lifetime fields are set to zero (0) before
 authentication is computed.  The result of the algorithm is placed in
 the Authentication Value field.
 When calculating the HMAC-MD5 result for Sequence Number PDUs, Level
 1 Sequence Number PDUs SHALL use the Area Authentication string as in
 Level 1 Link State PDUs.  Level 2 Sequence Number PDUs SHALL use the
 domain authentication string as in Level 2 Link State PDUs.  IS-IS
 Hello PDUs SHALL use the Link Level Authentication String, which MAY
 be different from that of Link State PDUs.  The HMAC-MD5 result for
 the IS-IS Hello PDUs SHALL be calculated after the packet is padded
 to the MTU size, if padding is not disabled.  Implementations that
 support the optional checksum for the Sequence Number PDUs and IS-IS
 Hello PDUs MUST NOT include the Checksum TLV.
 To authenticate an incoming PDU, a system should save the values of
 the Authentication Value field, the Checksum field, and the Remaining
 Lifetime field, set these fields to zero, compute authentication, and
 then restore the values of these fields.
 An implementation that implements HMAC-MD5 authentication and
 receives HMAC-MD5 Authentication Information MUST discard the PDU if
 the Authentication Value is incorrect.
 An implementation MAY have a transition mode where it includes HMAC-
 MD5 Authentication Information in PDUs but does not verify the HMAC-
 MD5 Authentication Information.  This is a transition aid for
 networks in the process of deploying authentication.
 An implementation MAY check a set of passwords when verifying the
 Authentication Value.  This provides a mechanism for incrementally
 changing passwords in a network.
 An implementation that does not implement HMAC-MD5 authentication MAY
 accept a PDU that contains the HMAC-MD5 Authentication Type.  ISes
 (routers) that implement HMAC-MD5 authentication and initiate LSP
 purges MUST remove the body of the LSP and add the authentication
 TLV.  ISes implementing HMAC-MD5 authentication MUST NOT accept
 unauthenticated purges.  ISes MUST NOT accept purges that contain
 TLVs other than the authentication TLV.  These restrictions are
 necessary to prevent a hostile system from receiving an LSP, setting
 the Remaining Lifetime field to zero, and flooding it, thereby
 initiating a purge without knowing the authentication password.

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 4] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

2.1. Implementation Considerations

 There is an implementation issue that occurs just after password
 rollover on an IS-IS router and that might benefit from additional
 commentary.  Immediately after password rollover on the router, the
 router or IS-IS process may restart.  If this happens, this causes
 the LSP Sequence Number to restart from the value 1 using the new
 password.  However, neighbors will reject those new LSPs because the
 Sequence Number is smaller.  The router cannot increase its own LSP
 Sequence Number because it fails to authenticate its own old LSP that
 neighbors keep sending to it.  So the router cannot update its LSP
 Sequence Number to its neighbors until all the neighbors time out all
 of the original LSPs.  One possible solution to this problem is for
 the IS-IS process to detect if any inbound LSP with an authentication
 failure has the local System ID and also has a higher Sequence Number
 than the IS-IS process has.  In this event, the IS-IS process SHOULD
 increase its own LSP Sequence Number accordingly and re-flood the
 LSPs.  However, as this scenario could also be triggered by an active
 attack by an adversary, it is recommended that a counter be kept on
 this case to mitigate the risk from such an attack.

3. Security Considerations

 This document enhances the security of the IS-IS routing protocol.
 Because a routing protocol contains information that need not be kept
 secret, privacy is not a requirement.  However, authentication of the
 messages within the protocol is of interest in order to reduce the
 risk of an adversary compromising the routing system by deliberately
 injecting false information into that system.

3.1. Security Limitations

 The technology in this document provides an authentication mechanism
 for IS-IS.  The mechanism described here is not perfect and does not
 need to be perfect.  Instead, this mechanism represents a significant
 increase in the work function of an adversary attacking the IS-IS
 protocol, while not causing undue implementation, deployment, or
 operational complexity.  It provides improved security against
 passive attacks, as defined in [RFC1704], when compared to cleartext
 password authentication.
 This mechanism does not prevent replay attacks; however, in most
 cases, such attacks would trigger existing mechanisms in the IS-IS
 protocol that would effectively reject old information.  Denial-of-
 service attacks are not generally preventable in a useful networking
 protocol [DoS].

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 5] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

 The mechanisms in this document do not provide protection against
 compromised, malfunctioning, or misconfigured routers.  Such routers
 can, either accidentally or deliberately, cause malfunctions that
 affect the whole routing domain.  The reader is encouraged to consult
 [RFC4593] for a more comprehensive description of threats to routing
 protocols.

3.2. Assurance

 Users need to understand that the quality of the security provided by
 this mechanism depends completely on the strength of the implemented
 authentication algorithms, the strength of the key being used, and
 the correct implementation of the security mechanism in all
 communicating IS-IS implementations.  This mechanism also depends on
 the IS-IS Authentication Key being kept confidential by all parties.
 If any of these are incorrect or insufficiently secure, then no real
 security will be provided to the users of this mechanism.
 Since Dobbertin's attacks on MD5 [Dobb96a] [Dobb96b] [Dobb98] were
 first published a dozen years ago, there have been growing concerns
 about the effectiveness of the compression function within MD5.  More
 recent work by Wang and Yu [WY05] accentuates these concerns.
 However, despite these research results, there are no published
 attacks at present on either Keyed-MD5 or HMAC-MD5.  A recent paper
 by Bellare [Bell06a] [Bell06b] provides new proofs for the security
 of HMAC that require fewer assumptions than previous published proofs
 for HMAC.  Those proofs indicate that the published issues with MD5
 (and separately with SHA-1) do not create an attack on HMAC-MD5 (or
 HMAC SHA-1).  Most recently, Fouque and others [FLN07] have published
 new attacks on NMAC-MD4, HMAC-MD4, and NMAC-MD5.  However, their
 attacks are non-trivial computationally, and they have not found an
 equivalent attack on HMAC-MD5.  So, despite the published issues with
 the MD5 algorithm, there is currently no published attack that
 applies to HMAC-MD5 as used in this IS-IS specification.  As with any
 cryptographic technique, there is the possibility of the discovery of
 future attacks against this mechanism.

3.3. Key Configuration

 It should be noted that the key configuration mechanism of routers
 may restrict the possible keys that may be used between peers.  It is
 strongly recommended that an implementation be able to support, at
 minimum, a key composed of a string of printable ASCII of 80 bytes or
 less, as this is current practice.

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 6] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

3.4. Other Considerations

 Changes to the authentication mechanism described here (primarily: to
 add a Key-ID field such as that of OSPFv2 and RIPv2) were considered
 at some length, but ultimately were rejected.  The mechanism here was
 already widely implemented in 1999.  As of this writing, this
 mechanism is fairly widely deployed within the users interested in
 cryptographic authentication of IS-IS.  The improvement provided by
 the proposed revised mechanism was not large enough to justify the
 change, given the installed base and lack of operator interest in
 deploying a revised mechanism.
 If and when a key management protocol appears that is both widely
 implemented and easily deployed to secure routing protocols such as
 IS-IS, a different authentication mechanism that is designed for use
 with that key management schema could be added if desired.

3.5. Future Directions

 If a stronger authentication were believed to be required, then the
 use of a full digital signature [RFC2154] would be an approach that
 should be seriously considered.  It was rejected for this purpose at
 this time because the computational burden of full digital signatures
 is believed to be much higher than is reasonable, given the current
 threat environment in operational commercial networks.
 If and when additional authentication mechanisms are defined (for
 example, to provide a cryptographically stronger hash function), it
 will also be necessary to define mechanisms that allow graceful
 transition from the existing mechanisms (as defined in this document)
 to any future mechanism.

4. IANA Considerations

 IANA has created a new codepoint registry to administer the
 Authentication Type codepoints for TLV 10.  This registry is part of
 the existing IS-IS codepoints registry as established by [RFC3563]
 and [RFC3359].  This registry is managed using the Designated Expert
 policy as described in [RFC5226] and is called "IS-IS Authentication
 Type Codes for TLV 10".
 The values in the "IS-IS Authentication Type Codes for TLV 10"
 registry should be recorded in decimal and should only be approved
 after a designated expert, appointed by the IESG area director, has
 been consulted.  The intention is that any allocation will be
 accompanied by a published RFC.  However, the designated expert can
 approve allocations once it seems clear that an RFC will be
 published, allowing for the allocation of values prior to the

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 7] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

 document being approved for publication as an RFC.  New items should
 be documented in a publicly and freely available specification.  We
 should also allow external specifications to allocate and use the
 IS-IS Authentication Type Codes maintained by this registry.
 Initial values for the "IS-IS Authentication Type Codes for TLV 10"
 registry are given below; future assignments are to be made through
 Expert Review.  Assignments consist of an authentication type name
 and its associated value.
 +---------------------------------------------+-------+-------------+
 | Authentication Type Code                    | Value | Reference   |
 +---------------------------------------------+-------+-------------+
 | Reserved                                    | 0     | [ISO-10589] |
 | Cleartext Password                          | 1     | [ISO-10589] |
 | ISO 10589 Reserved                          | 2     | [ISO-10589] |
 | HMAC-MD5 Authentication                     | 54    | RFC 5304    |
 | Routeing Domain private authentication      | 255   | [ISO-10589] |
 | method                                      |       |             |
 +---------------------------------------------+-------+-------------+

5. Acknowledgements

 The authors would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Stephen
 Farrell, Dave Katz, Steven Luong, Tony Przygienda, Nai-Ming Shen, and
 Henk Smit for their comments and suggestions on this document.

6. References

6.1. Normative References

 [ISO-10589]  ISO, "Intermediate System to Intermediate System intra-
              domain routeing information exchange protocol for use in
              conjunction with the protocol for providing the
              connectionless-mode network service (ISO 8473)",
              International Standard 10589:2002, Second Edition, 2002.
 [RFC2104]    Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed-
              Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104,
              February 1997.
 [RFC2119]    Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 8] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

6.2. Informative References

 [Bell06a]    Bellare, M., "New Proofs for NMAC and HMAC: Security
              without Collision-Resistance", Preliminary Version, in
              Proceedings of Crypto 2006, Lecture Notes in Computer
              Science, Vol. 4117, August 2006.
 [Bell06b]    Bellare, M., "New Proofs for NMAC and HMAC: Security
              without Collision-Resistance", August 2006, <http://
              www-cse.ucsd.edu/users/mihir/papers/hmac-new.html>.
 [DoS]        Voydock, V. and S. Kent, "Security Mechanisms in High-
              level Networks", ACM Computing Surveys Vol. 15, No. 2,
              June 1983.
 [Dobb96a]    Dobbertin, H., "Cryptanalysis of MD5 Compress",
              EuroCrypt Rump Session 1996, May 1996.
 [Dobb96b]    Dobbertin, H., "The Status of MD5 After a Recent
              Attack", CryptoBytes, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1996.
 [Dobb98]     Dobbertin, H., "Cryptanalysis of MD4", Journal of
              Cryptology, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1998.
 [FLN07]      Fouque, P., Leurent, G., and P. Nguyen, "Full Key-
              Recovery Attacks on HMAC/NMAC-MD5 and NMAC-MD5",
              Proceedings of Crypto 2007, August 2007.
 [RFC1195]    Callon, R., "Use of OSI IS-IS for routing in TCP/IP and
              dual environments", RFC 1195, December 1990.
 [RFC1704]    Haller, N. and R. Atkinson, "On Internet
              Authentication", RFC 1704, October 1994.
 [RFC2154]    Murphy, S., Badger, M., and B. Wellington, "OSPF with
              Digital Signatures", RFC 2154, June 1997.
 [RFC3359]    Przygienda, T., "Reserved Type, Length and Value (TLV)
              Codepoints in Intermediate System to Intermediate
              System", RFC 3359, August 2002.
 [RFC3563]    Zinin, A., "Cooperative Agreement Between the ISOC/IETF
              and ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1/Sub Committee 6
              (JTC1/SC6) on IS-IS Routing Protocol Development",
              RFC 3563, July 2003.

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 9] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 2008

 [RFC3567]    Li, T. and R. Atkinson, "Intermediate System to
              Intermediate System (IS-IS) Cryptographic
              Authentication", RFC 3567, July 2003.
 [RFC4593]    Barbir, A., Murphy, S., and Y. Yang, "Generic Threats to
              Routing Protocols", RFC 4593, October 2006.
 [RFC5226]    Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              May 2008.
 [WY05]       Wang, X. and H. Yu, "How to Break MD5 and Other Hash
              Functions", Proceedings of EuroCrypt 2005, Lecture Notes
              in Computer Science, Vol. 3494, 2005.

Authors' Addresses

 Tony Li
 Redback Networks, Inc.
 300 Holger Way
 San Jose, CA  95134
 USA
 Phone: +1 408 750 5160
 EMail: tony.li@tony.li
 R. Atkinson
 Extreme Networks, Inc.
 3585 Monroe St.
 Santa Clara, CA  95051
 USA
 Phone: +1 408 579 2800
 EMail: rja@extremenetworks.com

Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 10] RFC 5304 IS-IS Cryptographic Authentication October 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.
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 "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
 OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST AND
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 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF
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Li & Atkinson Standards Track [Page 11]

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