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rfc:rfc6614

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) S. Winter Request for Comments: 6614 RESTENA Category: Experimental M. McCauley ISSN: 2070-1721 OSC

                                                             S. Venaas
                                                           K. Wierenga
                                                                 Cisco
                                                              May 2012
        Transport Layer Security (TLS) Encryption for RADIUS

Abstract

 This document specifies a transport profile for RADIUS using
 Transport Layer Security (TLS) over TCP as the transport protocol.
 This enables dynamic trust relationships between RADIUS servers.

Status of This Memo

 This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
 published for examination, experimental implementation, and
 evaluation.
 This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
 community.  This document is a product of the Internet Engineering
 Task Force (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF
 community.  It has received public review and has been approved for
 publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not
 all documents approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of
 Internet Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.
 Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
 and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
 http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6614.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 1] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

Copyright Notice

 Copyright (c) 2012 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 ....................................................3
    1.1. Requirements Language ......................................3
    1.2. Terminology ................................................4
    1.3. Document Status ............................................4
 2. Normative: Transport Layer Security for RADIUS/TCP ..............5
    2.1. TCP port and Packet Types ..................................5
    2.2. TLS Negotiation ............................................5
    2.3. Connection Setup ...........................................5
    2.4. Connecting Client Identity .................................7
    2.5. RADIUS Datagrams ...........................................8
 3. Informative: Design Decisions ..................................10
    3.1. Implications of Dynamic Peer Discovery ....................10
    3.2. X.509 Certificate Considerations ..........................10
    3.3. Ciphersuites and Compression Negotiation Considerations ...11
    3.4. RADIUS Datagram Considerations ............................11
 4. Compatibility with Other RADIUS Transports .....................12
 5. Diameter Compatibility .........................................13
 6. Security Considerations ........................................13
 7. IANA Considerations ............................................14
 8. Acknowledgements ...............................................15
 9. References .....................................................15
    9.1. Normative References ......................................15
    9.2. Informative References ....................................16
 Appendix A. Implementation Overview: Radiator .....................18
 Appendix B. Implementation Overview: radsecproxy ..................19
 Appendix C. Assessment of Crypto-Agility Requirements .............20

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 2] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

1. Introduction

 The RADIUS protocol [RFC2865] is a widely deployed authentication and
 authorization protocol.  The supplementary RADIUS Accounting
 specification [RFC2866] provides accounting mechanisms, thus
 delivering a full Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA)
 solution.  However, RADIUS is experiencing several shortcomings, such
 as its dependency on the unreliable transport protocol UDP and the
 lack of security for large parts of its packet payload.  RADIUS
 security is based on the MD5 algorithm, which has been proven to be
 insecure.
 The main focus of RADIUS over TLS is to provide a means to secure the
 communication between RADIUS/TCP peers using TLS.  The most important
 use of this specification lies in roaming environments where RADIUS
 packets need to be transferred through different administrative
 domains and untrusted, potentially hostile networks.  An example for
 a worldwide roaming environment that uses RADIUS over TLS to secure
 communication is "eduroam", see [eduroam].
 There are multiple known attacks on the MD5 algorithm that is used in
 RADIUS to provide integrity protection and a limited confidentiality
 protection (see [MD5-attacks]).  RADIUS over TLS wraps the entire
 RADIUS packet payload into a TLS stream and thus mitigates the risk
 of attacks on MD5.
 Because of the static trust establishment between RADIUS peers (IP
 address and shared secret), the only scalable way of creating a
 massive deployment of RADIUS servers under the control of different
 administrative entities is to introduce some form of a proxy chain to
 route the access requests to their home server.  This creates a lot
 of overhead in terms of possible points of failure, longer
 transmission times, as well as middleboxes through which
 authentication traffic flows.  These middleboxes may learn privacy-
 relevant data while forwarding requests.  The new features in RADIUS
 over TLS obsolete the use of IP addresses and shared MD5 secrets to
 identify other peers and thus allow the use of more contemporary
 trust models, e.g., checking a certificate by inspecting the issuer
 and other certificate properties.

1.1. Requirements Language

 In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements
 of the specification.  The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
 "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT
 RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be
 interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 3] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

1.2. Terminology

 RADIUS/TLS node:  a RADIUS-over-TLS client or server
 RADIUS/TLS Client:  a RADIUS-over-TLS instance that initiates a new
                     connection.
 RADIUS/TLS Server:  a RADIUS-over-TLS instance that listens on a
                     RADIUS-over-TLS port and accepts new connections
 RADIUS/UDP: a classic RADIUS transport over UDP as defined in
             [RFC2865]

1.3. Document Status

 This document is an Experimental RFC.
 It is one out of several approaches to address known cryptographic
 weaknesses of the RADIUS protocol (see also Section 4).  The
 specification does not fulfill all recommendations on a AAA transport
 profile as per [RFC3539]; in particular, by being based on TCP as a
 transport layer, it does not prevent head-of-line blocking issues.
 If this specification is indeed selected for advancement to Standards
 Track, certificate verification options (Section 2.3, point 2) need
 to be refined.
 Another experimental characteristic of this specification is the
 question of key management between RADIUS/TLS peers.  RADIUS/UDP only
 allowed for manual key management, i.e., distribution of a shared
 secret between a client and a server.  RADIUS/TLS allows manual
 distribution of long-term proofs of peer identity as well (by using
 TLS-PSK ciphersuites, or identifying clients by a certificate
 fingerprint), but as a new feature enables use of X.509 certificates
 in a PKIX infrastructure.  It remains to be seen if one of these
 methods will prevail or if both will find their place in real-life
 deployments.  The authors can imagine pre-shared keys (PSK) to be
 popular in small-scale deployments (Small Office, Home Office (SOHO)
 or isolated enterprise deployments) where scalability is not an issue
 and the deployment of a Certification Authority (CA) is considered
 too much of a hassle; however, the authors can also imagine large
 roaming consortia to make use of PKIX.  Readers of this specification
 are encouraged to read the discussion of key management issues within
 [RFC6421] as well as [RFC4107].

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 4] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 It has yet to be decided whether this approach is to be chosen for
 Standards Track.  One key aspect to judge whether the approach is
 usable on a large scale is by observing the uptake, usability, and
 operational behavior of the protocol in large-scale, real-life
 deployments.
 An example for a worldwide roaming environment that uses RADIUS over
 TLS to secure communication is "eduroam", see [eduroam].

2. Normative: Transport Layer Security for RADIUS/TCP

2.1. TCP port and Packet Types

 The default destination port number for RADIUS over TLS is TCP/2083.
 There are no separate ports for authentication, accounting, and
 dynamic authorization changes.  The source port is arbitrary.  See
 Section 3.4 for considerations regarding the separation of
 authentication, accounting, and dynamic authorization traffic.

2.2. TLS Negotiation

 RADIUS/TLS has no notion of negotiating TLS in an established
 connection.  Servers and clients need to be preconfigured to use
 RADIUS/TLS for a given endpoint.

2.3. Connection Setup

 RADIUS/TLS nodes
 1.  establish TCP connections as per [RFC6613].  Failure to connect
     leads to continuous retries, with exponentially growing intervals
     between every try.  If multiple servers are defined, the node MAY
     attempt to establish a connection to these other servers in
     parallel, in order to implement quick failover.
 2.  after completing the TCP handshake, immediately negotiate TLS
     sessions according to [RFC5246] or its predecessor TLS 1.1.  The
     following restrictions apply:
  • Support for TLS v1.1 [RFC4346] or later (e.g., TLS 1.2

[RFC5246]) is REQUIRED. To prevent known attacks on TLS

        versions prior to 1.1, implementations MUST NOT negotiate TLS
        versions prior to 1.1.
  • Support for certificate-based mutual authentication is

REQUIRED.

  • Negotiation of mutual authentication is REQUIRED.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 5] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

  • Negotiation of a ciphersuite providing for confidentiality as

well as integrity protection is REQUIRED. Failure to comply

        with this requirement can lead to severe security problems,
        like user passwords being recoverable by third parties.  See
        Section 6 for details.
  • Support for and negotiation of compression is OPTIONAL.
  • Support for TLS-PSK mutual authentication [RFC4279] is

OPTIONAL.

  • RADIUS/TLS implementations MUST, at a minimum, support

negotiation of the TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA, and SHOULD

        support TLS_RSA_WITH_RC4_128_SHA and
        TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA as well (see Section 3.3.
  • In addition, RADIUS/TLS implementations MUST support

negotiation of the mandatory-to-implement ciphersuites

        required by the versions of TLS that they support.
 3.  Peer authentication can be performed in any of the following
     three operation models:
  • TLS with X.509 certificates using PKIX trust models (this

model is mandatory to implement):

        +  Implementations MUST allow the configuration of a list of
           trusted Certification Authorities for incoming connections.
        +  Certificate validation MUST include the verification rules
           as per [RFC5280].
        +  Implementations SHOULD indicate their trusted Certification
           Authorities (CAs).  For TLS 1.2, this is done using
           [RFC5246], Section 7.4.4, "certificate_authorities" (server
           side) and [RFC6066], Section 6 "Trusted CA Indication"
           (client side).  See also Section 3.2.
        +  Peer validation always includes a check on whether the
           locally configured expected DNS name or IP address of the
           server that is contacted matches its presented certificate.
           DNS names and IP addresses can be contained in the Common
           Name (CN) or subjectAltName entries.  For verification,
           only one of these entries is to be considered.  The
           following precedence applies: for DNS name validation,
           subjectAltName:DNS has precedence over CN; for IP address
           validation, subjectAltName:iPAddr has precedence over CN.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 6] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

           Implementors of this specification are advised to read
           [RFC6125], Section 6, for more details on DNS name
           validation.
        +  Implementations MAY allow the configuration of a set of
           additional properties of the certificate to check for a
           peer's authorization to communicate (e.g., a set of allowed
           values in subjectAltName:URI or a set of allowed X509v3
           Certificate Policies).
        +  When the configured trust base changes (e.g., removal of a
           CA from the list of trusted CAs; issuance of a new CRL for
           a given CA), implementations MAY renegotiate the TLS
           session to reassess the connecting peer's continued
           authorization.
  • TLS with X.509 certificates using certificate fingerprints

(this model is optional to implement): Implementations SHOULD

        allow the configuration of a list of trusted certificates,
        identified via fingerprint of the DER encoded certificate
        octets.  Implementations MUST support SHA-1 as the hash
        algorithm for the fingerprint.  To prevent attacks based on
        hash collisions, support for a more contemporary hash function
        such as SHA-256 is RECOMMENDED.
  • TLS using TLS-PSK (this model is optional to implement).
 4.  start exchanging RADIUS datagrams (note Section 3.4 (1)).  The
     shared secret to compute the (obsolete) MD5 integrity checks and
     attribute encryption MUST be "radsec" (see Section 3.4 (2)).

2.4. Connecting Client Identity

 In RADIUS/UDP, clients are uniquely identified by their IP address.
 Since the shared secret is associated with the origin IP address, if
 more than one RADIUS client is associated with the same IP address,
 then those clients also must utilize the same shared secret, a
 practice that is inherently insecure, as noted in [RFC5247].
 RADIUS/TLS supports multiple operation modes.
 In TLS-PSK operation, a client is uniquely identified by its TLS
 identifier.
 In TLS-X.509 mode using fingerprints, a client is uniquely identified
 by the fingerprint of the presented client certificate.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 7] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 In TLS-X.509 mode using PKIX trust models, a client is uniquely
 identified by the tuple (serial number of presented client
 certificate;Issuer).
 Note well: having identified a connecting entity does not mean the
 server necessarily wants to communicate with that client.  For
 example, if the Issuer is not in a trusted set of Issuers, the server
 may decline to perform RADIUS transactions with this client.
 There are numerous trust models in PKIX environments, and it is
 beyond the scope of this document to define how a particular
 deployment determines whether a client is trustworthy.
 Implementations that want to support a wide variety of trust models
 should expose as many details of the presented certificate to the
 administrator as possible so that the trust model can be implemented
 by the administrator.  As a suggestion, at least the following
 parameters of the X.509 client certificate should be exposed:
 o  Originating IP address
 o  Certificate Fingerprint
 o  Issuer
 o  Subject
 o  all X509v3 Extended Key Usage
 o  all X509v3 Subject Alternative Name
 o  all X509v3 Certificate Policies
 In TLS-PSK operation, at least the following parameters of the TLS
 connection should be exposed:
 o  Originating IP address
 o  TLS Identifier

2.5. RADIUS Datagrams

 Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting packets are sent
 according to the following rules:
 RADIUS/TLS clients transmit the same packet types on the connection
 they initiated as a RADIUS/UDP client would (see Section 3.4 (3) and
 (4)).  For example, they send

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 8] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 o  Access-Request
 o  Accounting-Request
 o  Status-Server
 o  Disconnect-ACK
 o  Disconnect-NAK
 o  ...
 and they receive
 o  Access-Accept
 o  Accounting-Response
 o  Disconnect-Request
 o  ...
 RADIUS/TLS servers transmit the same packet types on connections they
 have accepted as a RADIUS/UDP server would.  For example, they send
 o  Access-Challenge
 o  Access-Accept
 o  Access-Reject
 o  Accounting-Response
 o  Disconnect-Request
 o  ...
 and they receive
 o  Access-Request
 o  Accounting-Request
 o  Status-Server
 o  Disconnect-ACK
 o  ...

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 9] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 Due to the use of one single TCP port for all packet types, it is
 required that a RADIUS/TLS server signal which types of packets are
 supported on a server to a connecting peer.  See also Section 3.4 for
 a discussion of signaling.
 o  When an unwanted packet of type 'CoA-Request' or 'Disconnect-
    Request' is received, a RADIUS/TLS server needs to respond with a
    'CoA-NAK' or 'Disconnect-NAK', respectively.  The NAK SHOULD
    contain an attribute Error-Cause with the value 406 ("Unsupported
    Extension"); see [RFC5176] for details.
 o  When an unwanted packet of type 'Accounting-Request' is received,
    the RADIUS/TLS server SHOULD reply with an Accounting-Response
    containing an Error-Cause attribute with value 406 "Unsupported
    Extension" as defined in [RFC5176].  A RADIUS/TLS accounting
    client receiving such an Accounting-Response SHOULD log the error
    and stop sending Accounting-Request packets.

3. Informative: Design Decisions

 This section explains the design decisions that led to the rules
 defined in the previous section.

3.1. Implications of Dynamic Peer Discovery

 One mechanism to discover RADIUS-over-TLS peers dynamically via DNS
 is specified in [DYNAMIC].  While this mechanism is still under
 development and therefore is not a normative dependency of RADIUS/
 TLS, the use of dynamic discovery has potential future implications
 that are important to understand.
 Readers of this document who are considering the deployment of DNS-
 based dynamic discovery are thus encouraged to read [DYNAMIC] and
 follow its future development.

3.2. X.509 Certificate Considerations

 (1)  If a RADIUS/TLS client is in possession of multiple certificates
      from different CAs (i.e., is part of multiple roaming consortia)
      and dynamic discovery is used, the discovery mechanism possibly
      does not yield sufficient information to identify the consortium
      uniquely (e.g., DNS discovery).  Subsequently, the client may
      not know by itself which client certificate to use for the TLS
      handshake.  Then, it is necessary for the server to signal to
      which consortium it belongs and which certificates it expects.
      If there is no risk of confusing multiple roaming consortia,
      providing this information in the handshake is not crucial.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 10] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 (2)  If a RADIUS/TLS server is in possession of multiple certificates
      from different CAs (i.e., is part of multiple roaming
      consortia), it will need to select one of its certificates to
      present to the RADIUS/TLS client.  If the client sends the
      Trusted CA Indication, this hint can make the server select the
      appropriate certificate and prevent a handshake failure.
      Omitting this indication makes it impossible to
      deterministically select the right certificate in this case.  If
      there is no risk of confusing multiple roaming consortia,
      providing this indication in the handshake is not crucial.

3.3. Ciphersuites and Compression Negotiation Considerations

 Not all TLS ciphersuites in [RFC5246] are supported by available TLS
 tool kits, and licenses may be required in some cases.  The existing
 implementations of RADIUS/TLS use OpenSSL as a cryptographic backend,
 which supports all of the ciphersuites listed in the rules in the
 normative section.
 The TLS ciphersuite TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA is mandatory to
 implement according to [RFC4346]; thus, it has to be supported by
 RADIUS/TLS nodes.
 The two other ciphersuites in the normative section are widely
 implemented in TLS tool kits and are considered good practice to
 implement.

3.4. RADIUS Datagram Considerations

 (1)  After the TLS session is established, RADIUS packet payloads are
      exchanged over the encrypted TLS tunnel.  In RADIUS/UDP, the
      packet size can be determined by evaluating the size of the
      datagram that arrived.  Due to the stream nature of TCP and TLS,
      this does not hold true for RADIUS/TLS packet exchange.
      Instead, packet boundaries of RADIUS packets that arrive in the
      stream are calculated by evaluating the packet's Length field.
      Special care needs to be taken on the packet sender side that
      the value of the Length field is indeed correct before sending
      it over the TLS tunnel, because incorrect packet lengths can no
      longer be detected by a differing datagram boundary.  See
      Section 2.6.4 of [RFC6613] for more details.
 (2)  Within RADIUS/UDP [RFC2865], a shared secret is used for hiding
      attributes such as User-Password, as well as in computation of
      the Response Authenticator.  In RADIUS accounting [RFC2866], the
      shared secret is used in computation of both the Request
      Authenticator and the Response Authenticator.  Since TLS
      provides integrity protection and encryption sufficient to

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 11] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

      substitute for RADIUS application-layer security, it is not
      necessary to configure a RADIUS shared secret.  The use of a
      fixed string for the obsolete shared secret eliminates possible
      node misconfigurations.
 (3)  RADIUS/UDP [RFC2865] uses different UDP ports for
      authentication, accounting, and dynamic authorization changes.
      RADIUS/TLS allocates a single port for all RADIUS packet types.
      Nevertheless, in RADIUS/TLS, the notion of a client that sends
      authentication requests and processes replies associated with
      its users' sessions and the notion of a server that receives
      requests, processes them, and sends the appropriate replies is
      to be preserved.  The normative rules about acceptable packet
      types for clients and servers mirror the packet flow behavior
      from RADIUS/UDP.
 (4)  RADIUS/UDP [RFC2865] uses negative ICMP responses to a newly
      allocated UDP port to signal that a peer RADIUS server does not
      support the reception and processing of the packet types in
      [RFC5176].  These packet types are listed as to be received in
      RADIUS/TLS implementations.  Note well: it is not required for
      an implementation to actually process these packet types; it is
      only required that the NAK be sent as defined above.
 (5)  RADIUS/UDP [RFC2865] uses negative ICMP responses to a newly
      allocated UDP port to signal that a peer RADIUS server does not
      support the reception and processing of RADIUS Accounting
      packets.  There is no RADIUS datagram to signal an Accounting
      NAK.  Clients may be misconfigured for sending Accounting
      packets to a RADIUS/TLS server that does not wish to process
      their Accounting packet.  To prevent a regression of
      detectability of this situation, the Accounting-Response +
      Error-Cause signaling was introduced.

4. Compatibility with Other RADIUS Transports

 The IETF defines multiple alternative transports to the classic UDP
 transport model as defined in [RFC2865], namely RADIUS over TCP
 [RFC6613] and the present document on RADIUS over TLS.  The IETF also
 proposed RADIUS over Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS)
 [RADEXT-DTLS].
 RADIUS/TLS does not specify any inherent backward compatibility to
 RADIUS/UDP or cross compatibility to the other transports, i.e., an
 implementation that utilizes RADIUS/TLS only will not be able to
 receive or send RADIUS packet payloads over other transports.  An
 implementation wishing to be backward or cross compatible (i.e.,
 wishes to serve clients using other transports than RADIUS/TLS) will

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 12] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 need to implement these other transports along with the RADIUS/TLS
 transport and be prepared to send and receive on all implemented
 transports, which is called a "multi-stack implementation".
 If a given IP device is able to receive RADIUS payloads on multiple
 transports, this may or may not be the same instance of software, and
 it may or may not serve the same purposes.  It is not safe to assume
 that both ports are interchangeable.  In particular, it cannot be
 assumed that state is maintained for the packet payloads between the
 transports.  Two such instances MUST be considered separate RADIUS
 server entities.

5. Diameter Compatibility

 Since RADIUS/TLS is only a new transport profile for RADIUS, the
 compatibility of RADIUS/TLS - Diameter [RFC3588] and RADIUS/UDP
 [RFC2865] - Diameter [RFC3588] is identical.  The considerations
 regarding payload size in [RFC6613] apply.

6. Security Considerations

 The computational resources to establish a TLS tunnel are
 significantly higher than simply sending mostly unencrypted UDP
 datagrams.  Therefore, clients connecting to a RADIUS/TLS node will
 more easily create high load conditions and a malicious client might
 create a Denial-of-Service attack more easily.
 Some TLS ciphersuites only provide integrity validation of their
 payload, and provide no encryption.  This specification forbids the
 use of such ciphersuites.  Since the RADIUS payload's shared secret
 is fixed to the well-known term "radsec" (see Section 2.3 (4)),
 failure to comply with this requirement will expose the entire
 datagram payload in plaintext, including User-Password, to
 intermediate IP nodes.
 By virtue of being based on TCP, there are several generic attack
 vectors to slow down or prevent the TCP connection from being
 established; see [RFC4953] for details.  If a TCP connection is not
 up when a packet is to be processed, it gets re-established, so such
 attacks in general lead only to a minor performance degradation (the
 time it takes to re-establish the connection).  There is one notable
 exception where an attacker might create a bidding-down attack
 though.  If peer communication between two devices is configured for
 both RADIUS/TLS (i.e., TLS security over TCP as a transport, shared
 secret fixed to "radsec") and RADIUS/UDP (i.e., shared secret
 security with a secret manually configured by the administrator), and
 the RADIUS/UDP transport is the failover option if the TLS session
 cannot be established, a bidding-down attack can occur if an

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 13] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 adversary can maliciously close the TCP connection or prevent it from
 being established.  Situations where clients are configured in such a
 way are likely to occur during a migration phase from RADIUS/UDP to
 RADIUS/TLS.  By preventing the TLS session setup, the attacker can
 reduce the security of the packet payload from the selected TLS
 ciphersuite packet encryption to the classic MD5 per-attribute
 encryption.  The situation should be avoided by disabling the weaker
 RADIUS/UDP transport as soon as the new RADIUS/TLS connection is
 established and tested.  Disabling can happen at either the RADIUS
 client or server side:
 o  Client side: de-configure the failover setup, leaving RADIUS/TLS
    as the only communication option
 o  Server side: de-configure the RADIUS/UDP client from the list of
    valid RADIUS clients
 RADIUS/TLS provides authentication and encryption between RADIUS
 peers.  In the presence of proxies, the intermediate proxies can
 still inspect the individual RADIUS packets, i.e., "end-to-end"
 encryption is not provided.  Where intermediate proxies are
 untrusted, it is desirable to use other RADIUS mechanisms to prevent
 RADIUS packet payload from inspection by such proxies.  One common
 method to protect passwords is the use of the Extensible
 Authentication Protocol (EAP) and EAP methods that utilize TLS.
 When using certificate fingerprints to identify RADIUS/TLS peers, any
 two certificates that produce the same hash value (i.e., that have a
 hash collision) will be considered the same client.  Therefore, it is
 important to make sure that the hash function used is
 cryptographically uncompromised so that an attacker is very unlikely
 to be able to produce a hash collision with a certificate of his
 choice.  While this specification mandates support for SHA-1, a later
 revision will likely demand support for more contemporary hash
 functions because as of issuance of this document, there are already
 attacks on SHA-1.

7. IANA Considerations

 No new RADIUS attributes or packet codes are defined.  IANA has
 updated the already assigned TCP port number 2083 to reflect the
 following:
 o  Reference: [RFC6614]

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 14] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 o  Assignment Notes: The TCP port 2083 was already previously
    assigned by IANA for "RadSec", an early implementation of RADIUS/
    TLS, prior to issuance of this RFC.  This early implementation can
    be configured to be compatible to RADIUS/TLS as specified by the
    IETF.  See RFC 6614, Appendix A for details.

8. Acknowledgements

 RADIUS/TLS was first implemented as "RADSec" by Open Systems
 Consultants, Currumbin Waters, Australia, for their "Radiator" RADIUS
 server product (see [radsec-whitepaper]).
 Funding and input for the development of this document was provided
 by the European Commission co-funded project "GEANT2" [geant2] and
 further feedback was provided by the TERENA Task Force on Mobility
 and Network Middleware [terena].

9. References

9.1. Normative References

 [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
            Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
 [RFC2865]  Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
            "Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
            RFC 2865, June 2000.
 [RFC2866]  Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", RFC 2866, June 2000.
 [RFC4279]  Eronen, P. and H. Tschofenig, "Pre-Shared Key Ciphersuites
            for Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 4279,
            December 2005.
 [RFC5176]  Chiba, M., Dommety, G., Eklund, M., Mitton, D., and B.
            Aboba, "Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote
            Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 5176,
            January 2008.
 [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
            (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008.
 [RFC5247]  Aboba, B., Simon, D., and P. Eronen, "Extensible
            Authentication Protocol (EAP) Key Management Framework",
            RFC 5247, August 2008.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 15] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 [RFC5280]  Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
            Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
            Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
            (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, May 2008.
 [RFC6066]  Eastlake, D., "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions:
            Extension Definitions", RFC 6066, January 2011.
 [RFC6613]  DeKok, A., "RADIUS over TCP", RFC 6613, May 2012.

9.2. Informative References

 [DYNAMIC]  Winter, S. and M. McCauley, "NAI-based Dynamic Peer
            Discovery for RADIUS/TLS and RADIUS/DTLS", Work
            in Progress, July 2011.
 [MD5-attacks]
            Black, J., Cochran, M., and T. Highland, "A Study of the
            MD5 Attacks: Insights and Improvements", October 2006,
            <http://www.springerlink.com/content/40867l85727r7084/>.
 [RADEXT-DTLS]
            DeKok, A., "DTLS as a Transport Layer for RADIUS", Work
            in Progress, October 2010.
 [RFC3539]  Aboba, B. and J. Wood, "Authentication, Authorization and
            Accounting (AAA) Transport Profile", RFC 3539, June 2003.
 [RFC3588]  Calhoun, P., Loughney, J., Guttman, E., Zorn, G., and J.
            Arkko, "Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 3588, September 2003.
 [RFC4107]  Bellovin, S. and R. Housley, "Guidelines for Cryptographic
            Key Management", BCP 107, RFC 4107, June 2005.
 [RFC4346]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
            (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346, April 2006.
 [RFC4953]  Touch, J., "Defending TCP Against Spoofing Attacks",
            RFC 4953, July 2007.
 [RFC6125]  Saint-Andre, P. and J. Hodges, "Representation and
            Verification of Domain-Based Application Service Identity
            within Internet Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509
            (PKIX) Certificates in the Context of Transport Layer
            Security (TLS)", RFC 6125, March 2011.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 16] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 [RFC6421]  Nelson, D., "Crypto-Agility Requirements for Remote
            Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC 6421,
            November 2011.
 [eduroam]  Trans-European Research and Education Networking
            Association, "eduroam Homepage", 2007,
            <http://www.eduroam.org/>.
 [geant2]   Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe,
            "European Commission Information Society and Media:
            GEANT2", 2008, <http://www.geant2.net/>.
 [radsec-whitepaper]
            Open System Consultants, "RadSec - a secure, reliable
            RADIUS Protocol", May 2005,
            <http://www.open.com.au/radiator/radsec-whitepaper.pdf>.
 [radsecproxy-impl]
            Venaas, S., "radsecproxy Project Homepage", 2007,
            <http://software.uninett.no/radsecproxy/>.
 [terena]   Trans-European Research and Education Networking
            Association (TERENA), "Task Force on Mobility and Network
            Middleware", 2008,
            <http://www.terena.org/activities/tf-mobility/>.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 17] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

Appendix A. Implementation Overview: Radiator

 Radiator implements the RadSec protocol for proxying requests with
 the <Authby RADSEC> and <ServerRADSEC> clauses in the Radiator
 configuration file.
 The <AuthBy RADSEC> clause defines a RadSec client, and causes
 Radiator to send RADIUS requests to the configured RadSec server
 using the RadSec protocol.
 The <ServerRADSEC> clause defines a RadSec server, and causes
 Radiator to listen on the configured port and address(es) for
 connections from <Authby RADSEC> clients.  When an <Authby RADSEC>
 client connects to a <ServerRADSEC> server, the client sends RADIUS
 requests through the stream to the server.  The server then handles
 the request in the same way as if the request had been received from
 a conventional UDP RADIUS client.
 Radiator is compliant to RADIUS/TLS if the following options are
 used:
    <AuthBy RADSEC>
  • Protocol tcp
  • UseTLS
  • TLS_CertificateFile
  • Secret radsec
    <ServerRADSEC>
  • Protocol tcp
  • UseTLS
  • TLS_RequireClientCert
  • Secret radsec
 As of Radiator 3.15, the default shared secret for RadSec connections
 is configurable and defaults to "mysecret" (without quotes).  For
 compliance with this document, this setting needs to be configured
 for the shared secret "radsec".  The implementation uses TCP
 keepalive socket options, but does not send Status-Server packets.
 Once established, TLS connections are kept open throughout the server
 instance lifetime.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 18] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

Appendix B. Implementation Overview: radsecproxy

 The RADIUS proxy named radsecproxy was written in order to allow use
 of RadSec in current RADIUS deployments.  This is a generic proxy
 that supports any number and combination of clients and servers,
 supporting RADIUS over UDP and RadSec.  The main idea is that it can
 be used on the same host as a non-RadSec client or server to ensure
 RadSec is used on the wire; however, as a generic proxy, it can be
 used in other circumstances as well.
 The configuration file consists of client and server clauses, where
 there is one such clause for each client or server.  In such a
 clause, one specifies either "type tls" or "type udp" for TLS or UDP
 transport.  Versions prior to 1.6 used "mysecret" as a default shared
 secret for RADIUS/TLS; version 1.6 and onwards uses "radsec".  For
 backwards compatibility with older versions, the secret can be
 changed (which makes the configuration not compliant with this
 specification).
 In order to use TLS for clients and/or servers, one must also specify
 where to locate CA certificates, as well as certificate and key for
 the client or server.  This is done in a TLS clause.  There may be
 one or several TLS clauses.  A client or server clause may reference
 a particular TLS clause, or just use a default one.  One use for
 multiple TLS clauses may be to present one certificate to clients and
 another to servers.
 If any RadSec (TLS) clients are configured, the proxy will, at
 startup, listen on port 2083, as assigned by IANA for the OSC RadSec
 implementation.  An alternative port may be specified.  When a client
 connects, the client certificate will be verified, including checking
 that the configured Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) or IP address
 matches what is in the certificate.  Requests coming from a RadSec
 client are treated exactly like requests from UDP clients.
 At startup, the proxy will try to establish a TLS connection to each
 (if any) of the configured RadSec (TLS) servers.  If it fails to
 connect to a server, it will retry regularly.  There is some back-off
 where it will retry quickly at first, and with longer intervals
 later.  If a connection to a server goes down, it will also start
 retrying regularly.  When setting up the TLS connection, the server
 certificate will be verified, including checking that the configured
 FQDN or IP address matches what is in the certificate.  Requests are
 sent to a RadSec server, just like they would be to a UDP server.
 The proxy supports Status-Server messages.  They are only sent to a
 server if enabled for that particular server.  Status-Server requests
 are always responded to.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 19] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

 This RadSec implementation has been successfully tested together with
 Radiator.  It is a freely available, open-source implementation.  For
 source code and documentation, see [radsecproxy-impl].

Appendix C. Assessment of Crypto-Agility Requirements

 The RADIUS Crypto-Agility Requirements document [RFC6421] defines
 numerous classification criteria for protocols that strive to enhance
 the security of RADIUS.  It contains mandatory (M) and recommended
 (R) criteria that crypto-agile protocols have to fulfill.  The
 authors believe that the following assessment about the crypto-
 agility properties of RADIUS/TLS are true.
 By virtue of being a transport profile using TLS over TCP as a
 transport protocol, the cryptographically agile properties of TLS are
 inherited, and RADIUS/TLS subsequently meets the following points:
    (M) negotiation of cryptographic algorithms for integrity and auth
    (M) negotiation of cryptographic algorithms for encryption
    (M) replay protection
    (M) define mandatory-to-implement cryptographic algorithms
    (M) generate fresh session keys for use between client and server
    (R) support for Perfect Forward Secrecy in session keys
    (R) support X.509 certificate-based operation
    (R) support Pre-Shared keys
    (R) support for confidentiality of the entire packet
    (M/R) support Automated Key Management
 The remainder of the requirements is discussed individually below in
 more detail:
    (M) "...avoid security compromise, even in situations where the
    existing cryptographic algorithms utilized by RADIUS
    implementations are shown to be weak enough to provide little or
    no security" [RFC6421].  The existing algorithm, based on MD5, is
    not of any significance in RADIUS/TLS; its compromise does not
    compromise the outer transport security.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 20] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

    (R) mandatory-to-implement algorithms are to be NIST-Acceptable
    with no deprecation date - The mandatory-to-implement algorithm is
    TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_SHA.  This ciphersuite supports three-
    key 3DES operation, which is classified as Acceptable with no
    known deprecation date by NIST.
    (M) demonstrate backward compatibility with RADIUS - There are
    multiple implementations supporting both RADIUS and RADIUS/TLS,
    and the translation between them.
    (M) After legacy mechanisms have been compromised, secure
    algorithms MUST be used, so that backward compatibility is no
    longer possible - In RADIUS, communication between client and
    server is always a manual configuration; after a compromise, the
    legacy client in question can be de-configured by the same manual
    configuration.
    (M) indicate a willingness to cede change control to the IETF -
    Change control of this protocol is with the IETF.
    (M) be interoperable between implementations based purely on the
    information in the specification - At least one implementation was
    created exclusively based on this specification and is
    interoperable with other RADIUS/TLS implementations.
    (M) apply to all packet types - RADIUS/TLS operates on the
    transport layer, and can carry all packet types.
    (R) message data exchanged with Diameter SHOULD NOT be affected -
    The solution is Diameter-agnostic.
    (M) discuss any inherent assumptions - The authors are not aware
    of any implicit assumptions that would be yet-unarticulated in the
    document.
    (R) provide recommendations for transition - The Security
    Considerations section contains a transition path.
    (R) discuss legacy interoperability and potential for bidding-down
    attacks - The Security Considerations section contains a
    corresponding discussion.
 Summarizing, it is believed that this specification fulfills all the
 mandatory and all the recommended requirements for a crypto-agile
 solution and should thus be considered UNCONDITIONALLY COMPLIANT.

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 21] RFC 6614 RADIUS over TLS May 2012

Authors' Addresses

 Stefan Winter
 Fondation RESTENA
 6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
 Luxembourg  1359
 Luxembourg
 Phone: +352 424409 1
 Fax:   +352 422473
 EMail: stefan.winter@restena.lu
 URI:   http://www.restena.lu.
 Mike McCauley
 Open Systems Consultants
 9 Bulbul Place
 Currumbin Waters  QLD 4223
 Australia
 Phone: +61 7 5598 7474
 Fax:   +61 7 5598 7070
 EMail: mikem@open.com.au
 URI:   http://www.open.com.au.
 Stig Venaas
 Cisco Systems
 Tasman Drive
 San Jose, CA  95134
 USA
 EMail: stig@cisco.com
 Klaas Wierenga
 Cisco Systems International BV
 Haarlerbergweg 13-19
 Amsterdam  1101 CH
 The Netherlands
 Phone: +31 (0)20 3571752
 EMail: klaas@cisco.com
 URI:   http://www.cisco.com

Winter, et al. Experimental [Page 22]

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