Internet-Draft | RPKI signed object for TAL | May 2024 |
Martinez, et al. | Expires 17 November 2024 | [Page] |
A Trust Anchor Locator (TAL) is used by Relying Parties (RPs) in the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to locate and validate a Trust Anchor (TA) Certification Authority (CA) certificate used in RPKI validation. This document defines an RPKI signed object for a Trust Anchor Key (TAK), that can be used by a TA to signal the location(s) of the accompanying CA certificate for the current public key to RPs, as well as the successor public key and the location(s) of its CA certificate. This object helps to support planned key rollovers without impacting RPKI validation.¶
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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 BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.¶
A Trust Anchor Locator (TAL) [RFC8630] is used by Relying Parties (RPs) in the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to locate and validate Trust Anchor (TA) Certification Authority (CA) certificates used in RPKI validation. However, until now, there has been no in-band way of notifying RPs of updates to a TAL. In-band notification means that TA operators can be more confident of RPs being aware of key rollover operations.¶
This document defines a new RPKI signed object that can be used to document the location(s) of the TA CA certificate for the current TA public key, as well as the value of the successor public key and the location(s) of its TA CA certificate. This allows RPs to be notified automatically of such changes, and enables TAs to stage a successor public key so that planned key rollovers can be performed without risking the invalidation of the RPKI tree under the TA. We call this object the Trust Anchor Key (TAK) object.¶
When RPs are first bootstrapped, they use a TAL to discover the public key and location(s) of the CA certificate for a TA. The RP can then retrieve and validate the CA certificate, and subsequently validate the manifest [RFC9286] and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) published by that TA (section 5 of [RFC6487]). However, before processing any other objects, it will first validate the TAK object, if present. If the TAK object lists only the current public key, then the RP continues processing as it would in the absence of a TAK object. If the TAK object includes a successor public key, the RP starts a 30-day acceptance timer for that key, and then continues standard top-down validation with the current public key. If, during the following validation runs up until the expiry of the acceptance timer, the RP has not observed any changes to the public keys and certificate URLs listed in the TAK object, then the RP will fetch the successor public key, update its local state with that public key and its associated certification location(s), and continue processing using that public key.¶
The primary motivation for this work is being able to migrate from a Hardware Security Module (HSM) produced by one vendor to one produced by another, where the first vendor does not support exporting private keys for use by the second. There may be other scenarios in which key rollover is useful, though.¶
The TAK object makes use of the template for RPKI digitally signed objects [RFC6488], which defines a Cryptographic Message Syntax (CMS) [RFC5652] wrapper for the content as well as a generic validation procedure for RPKI signed objects. Therefore, to complete the specification of the TAK object (see Section 4 of [RFC6488]), this document defines:¶
This document specifies an OID for the TAK object as follows:¶
id-ct-signedTAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs9(9) smime(16) ct(1) 50 }¶
This OID MUST appear in both the eContentType in the encapContentInfo object and the content-type signed attribute in the signerInfo object (see [RFC6488]).¶
The content of a TAK object is ASN.1 encoded using the Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER) [X.690], and is defined per the module in Appendix A.¶
This structure defines a TA public key, similar to that from [RFC8630]. It contains a sequence of zero or more comments, one or more certificate URIs, and a SubjectPublicKeyInfo.¶
To determine whether a TAK object is valid, the RP MUST perform the following checks in addition to those specified in [RFC6488]:¶
If any of these checks does not succeed, the RP MUST ignore the TAK object and proceed as though it were not listed on the manifest.¶
The RP is not required to compare its current set of certificateURIs for the current public key with those listed in the TAK object. The RP MAY alert the user that these sets of certificateURIs do not match, with a view to the user manually updating the set of certificateURIs in their configuration. The RP MUST NOT automatically update its configuration to use these certificateURIs in the event of inconsistency, though, because the migration of users to new certificateURIs should happen by way of the successor public key process.¶
A non-normative guideline for naming this object is that the filename chosen for the TAK object in the publication repository be a value derived from the public key part of the entity's key pair, using the algorithm described for CRLs in section 2.2 of [RFC6481] for generation of filenames. The filename extension of ".tak" MUST be used to denote the object as a TAK.¶
In order to generate a TAK object, the TA MUST perform the following actions:¶
In distribution contexts that support media types, the "application/rpki-signed-tal" media type can be used for TAK objects.¶
Relying Parties MUST keep a record of the current public key for each configured TA, as well as the URI(s) where the CA certificate for this public key may be retrieved. This record is typically bootstrapped by the use of a pre-configured (and unsigned) TAL file [RFC8630].¶
When performing top-down validation, RPs MUST first validate and process the TAK object for its current known public key, by performing the following steps:¶
If the TAK object includes a successor public key, then the RP must verify the successor public key by doing the following:¶
If any of these steps fails, then the successor public key has failed verification.¶
If the successor public key passes verification, and the RP has not seen that successor public key on the previous successful validation run for this TA, then the RP:¶
If the successor public key passes verification, and the RP has seen that successor public key on the previous successful validation run for this TA:¶
If the successor public key does not pass verification, or if the TAK object does not include a successor public key, the RP cancels the existing acceptance timer for this TA (if applicable).¶
An RP MUST NOT use a successor public key for top-down validation outside of the process described above, except for the purpose of testing that the new public key is working correctly. This allows a TA to publish a successor public key for a period of time, allowing RPs to test it, while still being able to rely on RPs using the current public key for their production RPKI operations.¶
A successor public key may have the same SubjectPublicKeyInfo value as the current public key: this will be the case where a TA is updating the certificateURIs for that public key.¶
A Relying Party may opt not to support the automatic transition of TA public key data, as defined in the previous section. An alternative approach is for the Relying Party to alert the user when a new successor public key is seen, and also when the relevant acceptance timer has expired. The user can then manually transition to the new TA public key data. This process ensures that the benefits of the acceptance timer period are still realised, as compared with TA public key update based on a TAL distributed out-of-band by a TA.¶
Although an RP that can process TAK objects will only ever use one public key for validation (either the current public key, or the successor public key, once the relevant acceptance timer has expired), an RP that cannot process TAK objects will continue to use the public key details per its TAL (or equivalent manual configuration) indefinitely. As a result, even when a TA is using a TAK object in order to migrate clients to a new public key, the TA may have to maintain the previous key pair for a period of time alongside the new key pair in order to ensure continuity of service for older clients.¶
For each TA key pair that a TA maintains, the signed material for these key pairs MUST be published under different directories in the context of the 'id-ad-caRepository' and 'id-ad-rpkiManifest' Subject Information Access descriptions contained on the CA certificates [RFC6487]. Publishing objects under the same directory is potentially confusing for RPs, and could lead to object invalidity in the event of file name collisions.¶
Also, the CA certificates for each maintained key pair, and the content published for each key pair, MUST be equivalent (except for the TAK object). In other words, for the purposes of RPKI validation, it MUST NOT make a difference which of the public keys is used as a starting point.¶
This means that the IP and Autonomous System (AS) resources contained on all current CA certificates for the maintained TA key pairs MUST be the same. Furthermore, for any delegation of IP and AS resources to a child, the TA MUST have an equivalent CA certificate published under each of its key pairs. Any updates in delegations MUST be reflected under each of its key pairs. A TA SHOULD NOT publish any other objects besides a CRL, a Manifest, a single TAK object, and any number of CA certificates for delegation to child CAs.¶
If a TA uses a single remote publication server for its key pairs, per [RFC8181], then it MUST include all <publish/> and <withdraw/> Protocol Data Units (PDUs) for the products of each of its key pairs in a single query, in order to reduce the risk of RPs seeing inconsistent data in the TA's RPKI repositories.¶
If a TA uses multiple publication servers, then the content for different key pairs will be out of sync at times. The TA SHOULD ensure that the duration of these moments is limited to the shortest possible time. Furthermore, the following should be observed:¶
Finally, note that the publication locations of CA certificates for delegations to child CAs under each key pair will be different, and therefore the Authority Information Access 'id-ad-caIssuers' values (section 4.8.7 of [RFC6487]) on certificates issued by the child CAs may not be as expected when performing top-down validation, depending on the TA public key that is used. However, these values are not critical to top-down validation, so RPs performing such validation MUST NOT reject a certificate simply because this value is not as expected.¶
In this section we describe how present-day RPKI TAs that use only one key pair, and that do not use TAK objects, can use a TAK object to perform a planned key rollover.¶
Before adding a successor public key, a TA may want to confirm that it can maintain a TAK object for its current key pair only. We will refer to this key pair as key pair 'A' throughout this section.¶
The TA can now generate a new key pair, called 'B'. The private key of this key pair MUST now be used to create a new CA certificate for the associated public key, and to issue equivalent CA certificates for delegations to child CAs, as described in Section 6.¶
At this point, the TA can also construct a new TAL file [RFC8630] for the public key of key pair 'B', and test locally that the validation outcome for the new public key is equivalent to that of the other current public key(s).¶
When the TA is certain that the content for both public keys is equivalent, and wants to initiate the migration from 'A' to 'B', it issues a new TAK object under key pair 'A', with the public key from that key pair as the current public key for that object, the public key from key pair 'B' as the successor public key, and no predecessor public key. It also issues a TAK object under key pair 'B', with the public key from that key pair as the current public key for that object, the public key from key pair 'A' as the predecessor public key, and no successor public key.¶
Once this has happened, RP clients will start seeing the new public key and setting acceptance timers accordingly.¶
At about the time that the TA expects clients to start setting the public key from key pair 'B' as the current public key, the TA must release a new TAL file for that public key. It SHOULD use a different set of URIs in the TAL compared to the TAK file, so that the TA can learn the proportion of RPs that can successfully validate and use the updated TAK objects.¶
To support RPs that do not take account of TAK objects, the TA should continue operating key pair 'A' for a period of time after the expected migration of clients to the public key from 'B'. The length of that period of time is a local policy matter for that TA: it might operate the key pair until no clients are attempting to validate using the associated public key, for example.¶
The TA SHOULD now remove all content from the repository used by key pair 'A', and destroy the private key for that key pair. RPs attempting to rely on a TAL for the public key from key pair 'A' from this point will not be able to perform RPKI validation for the TA, and will have to update their local state manually, by way of a new TAL file.¶
Relying Parties must be configured with RPKI Trust Anchor data in order to function correctly. This Trust Anchor data is typically distributed in the Trust Anchor Locator (TAL) format defined in RFC 8630. A TAK object can also serve as a format for distribution of this data, though, because the TAKey data stored in the TAK object contains the same data that would appear in a TAL for the associated Trust Anchor.¶
Relying Parties may support conversion of TAK objects into TAL files. Relying Parties that support conversion MUST validate the TAK object using the process from section 3.3. One exception to the standard validation process in this context is that a Relying Party MAY treat a TAK object as valid, even though it is associated with a Trust Anchor that the Relying Party is not currently configured to trust. If the Relying Party is relying on this exception when converting a given TAK object, the Relying Party MUST communicate that fact to the user.¶
When converting a TAK object, a Relying Party MUST default to producing a TAL file based on the 'current' TAKey in the TAK object, though it MAY optionally support producing TAL files based on the 'predecessor' and 'successor' TAKeys.¶
When converting a TAK object, a Relying Party MUST include in the TAL file any comments from the corresponding TAKey.¶
If TAK object validation fails, then the Relying Party MUST NOT produce a TAL file based on the TAK object.¶
Users should be aware that TAK objects distributed out-of-band have similar security properties to TAL files (i.e. there is no authentication). In particular, TAK objects that are not signed by TAs with which the Relying Party is currently configured should only be used if the source that distributes them is one the user trusts to distribute TAL files.¶
If a Relying Party is not transitioning to new Trust Anchor data using the automatic process described in section 5 or the partially-manual process described in section 5.1, then the user will have to rely on an out-of-band mechanism for validating and updating the Trust Anchor data for the Relying Party. Users in this situation should take similar care when updating a trust anchor using a TAK object file as when using a TAL file to update TA data.¶
Publishing TAK objects while RPs do not support this standard will result in those RPs rejecting these objects. It is not expected that this will result in the invalidation of any other object under a Trust Anchor.¶
Some RPs may purposefully not support this mechanism: for example, they may be implemented or configured such that they are unable to update local current public key data. TA operators should take this into consideration when planning key rollover. However, these RPs would ideally still notify their operators of planned key rollovers, so that the operator could update the relevant configuration manually.¶
Alternate models of TAL update exist and are complementary to this mechanism. For example, TAs can liaise directly with RP software developers to include updated and reissued TAL files in new code releases, and use existing code update mechanisms in the RP community to distribute the changes.¶
Additionally, these non-TA channels for distributing TAL data may themselves rely on monitoring for TAK objects and then updating the TAL data in their distributions or packages accordingly. In this way, TAK objects may be useful even for RPs that don't implement in-band support for the protocol.¶
Non-TA channels for distributing TAL data should ensure, so far as is possible, that their update mechanisms take account of any changes that a user has made to their local TA public key configuration. For example, if a new public key is published for a TA, but the non-TA channel's mechanism is able to detect that a user had removed the TA's previous public key from their local TA public key configuration such that the user no longer relies on it, then the mechanism should not by default add the new public key to the user's TA public key configuration.¶
Acceptance timers are used in TAK objects in order to permit RPs to test that the new public key is working correctly. This in turn means that the TA operator will be able to gain confidence in the correct functioning of the new public key before RPs are relying on that in their production RPKI operations. If a successor public key is not working correctly, a TA may remove that public key from the current TAK object.¶
A TA that removes a successor public key from a TAK object SHOULD NOT add the same successor public key back into the TAK object for that TA. This is because there may be an RP that has fetched the TAK object while the successor public key was listed in it, and has started an acceptance timer accordingly, but has not fetched the TAK object during the period when the successor public key was not listed in it. If the unchanged successor public key is added back into the TA, such an RP will transition to using the new TA public key more quickly than other RPs, which may, in turn, make debugging and similar more complicated. A simple way of addressing this problem in a situation where the TA operator doesn't want to reissue the SubjectPublicKeyInfo content for the successor public key that was withdrawn is to update the URL set for the successor public key, since RPs must take that URL set into account for the purposes of initiating and cancelling acceptance timers.¶
A TA needs to consider the length of time for which it will maintain previously-current key pairs and their associated repositories. An RP that is seeded with old TAL data will run for 30 days using the previous public key before migrating to the next public key, due to the acceptance timer requirements, and this 30-day delay applies to each new key pair that has been issued since the old TAL data was initially published. It may be better in these instances for the TA to send error responses when receiving requests for the old publication URLs, so that the RP reports an error to its operator and the operator seeds it with up-to-date TAL data immediately.¶
Once a TA has decided not to maintain a previously-current key pair and its associated repository, the TA SHOULD destroy the associated private key. The TA SHOULD also reuse the TA CA certificate URLs from the previous TAL data for the next TAL that it generates. These measures will help to mitigate the risk of an adversary gaining access to the private key and its associated publication points in order to send invalid/incorrect data to RPs seeded with the TAL data for the corresponding public key.¶
TAK objects do not offer protection against compromise of the current TA private key or the successor TA private key. TA private key compromise in general is out of scope for this document.¶
While it is possible for a malicious actor to use TAK objects to cause RPs to transition from the current TA public key to a successor TA public key, such action is predicated on the malicious actor having compromised the current TA private key in the first place, so TAK objects do not alter the security considerations relevant to this scenario.¶
Section 9.2 describes other ways in which a TA may transition from one key pair to another. Transition by way of an in-band process reliant on TAK objects is not mandatory for TAs or RPs, though the fact that the TAK objects are verifiable by way of the currently-trusted TA public key is a benefit compared with existing out-of-band mechanisms for TA public key distribution.¶
There will be a period of time where both the current public key and the successor public key are available for use, and RPs that are initialised at different points of the transition process, or from different out-of-band sources, may be using either the current public key or the successor public key. TAs are required to ensure so far as is possible that for the purposes of RPKI validation, it makes no difference which public key is used.¶
IANA is asked to register an object identifier for one content type in the "SMI Security for S/MIME CMS Content Type (1.2.840.113549.1.9.16.1)" registry as follows:¶
Decimal | Description | References --------+--------------------------------+--------------- 50 | id-ct-signedTAL | [section 3.1]¶
IANA is asked to add the following to the "RPKI Signed Objects" registry:¶
Name | OID | Reference -----------------+----------------------------+--------------- Trust Anchor Key | 1.2.840.113549.1.9.16.1.50 | [section 3.1]¶
IANA is also asked to add the following note to the "RPKI Signed Objects" registry:¶
Objects of the types listed in this registry, as well as RPKI resource certificates and CRLs, are expected to be validated using the RPKI.¶
IANA is asked to add an item for the Signed TAL file extension to the "RPKI Repository Name Schemes" created by [RFC6481] as follows:¶
Filename Extension | RPKI Object | Reference --------------------+--------------------------+---------------- .tak | Trust Anchor Key | [this document]¶
IANA is asked to register an object identifier for one module identifier in the "SMI Security for S/MIME Module Identifier (1.2.840.113549.1.9.16.0)" registry as follows:¶
Decimal | Description | References --------+--------------------------------+--------------- 74 | RPKISignedTrustAnchorList-2021 | [this document]¶
IANA is asked to register the media type "application/rpki-signed-tal" in the "Media Types" registry as follows:¶
application¶
rpki-signed-tal¶
N/A¶
N/A¶
binary¶
Carries an RPKI Signed TAL. This media type contains no active content. See the Security Considerations section of RFC XXXX for further information.¶
N/A¶
RFC XXXX¶
RPKI operators¶
N/A¶
Person & email address to contact for further information: iesg@ietf.org¶
NOTE: Please remove this section and the reference to RFC 7942 prior to publication as an RFC.¶
This section records the status of known implementations of the protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in [RFC7942]. The description of implementations in this section is intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers are advised to note that other implementations may exist.¶
According to RFC 7942, "this will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit".¶
03 - Last draft under Tim's authorship.¶
04 - First draft with George's authorship. No substantive revisions.¶
05 - First draft with Tom's authorship. No substantive revisions.¶
06 - Rob Kisteleki's critique.¶
07 - Switch to two-key model.¶
08 - Keepalive.¶
09 - Acceptance timers, predecessor keys, no long-lived CRL/MFT.¶
10 - Using TAK objects for distribution of TAL data.¶
11 - Manual update guidance, additional security considerations, identifier updates.¶
12 - TAK object comments.¶
13 - Removal of compromise text, extra RP support text, key destruction text, media type registration, signed object registry note.¶
14 - Keepalive.¶
15 - Additional implementation notes and editorial updates.¶
16 - Updates from Secdir and IESG reviews.¶
The authors wish to thank Martin Hoffmann for a thorough review of the document, Russ Housley for multiple reviews of the ASN.1 definitions and for providing a new module for the TAK object, Job Snijders for the extensive suggestions around TAK object structure/distribution and rpki-client implementation work, and Ties de Kock for text/suggestions around TAK/TAL distribution and general security considerations.¶
This appendix includes the ASN.1 module for the TAK object.¶
<CODE BEGINS> RPKISignedTrustAnchorList-2021 { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs9(9) smime(16) mod(0) 74 } DEFINITIONS EXPLICIT TAGS ::= BEGIN IMPORTS CONTENT-TYPE FROM CryptographicMessageSyntax-2009 -- in [RFC5911] { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs-9(9) smime(16) modules(0) id-mod-cms-2004-02(41) } SubjectPublicKeyInfo FROM PKIX1Explicit-2009 -- in [RFC5912] { iso(1) identified-organization(3) dod(6) internet(1) security(5) mechanisms(5) pkix(7) id-mod(0) id-mod-pkix1-explicit-02(51) } ; ct-signedTAL CONTENT-TYPE ::= { TYPE TAK IDENTIFIED BY id-ct-signedTAL } id-ct-signedTAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= { iso(1) member-body(2) us(840) rsadsi(113549) pkcs(1) pkcs9(9) smime(16) ct(1) 50 } CertificateURI ::= IA5String TAKey ::= SEQUENCE { comments SEQUENCE SIZE (0..MAX) OF UTF8String, certificateURIs SEQUENCE SIZE (1..MAX) OF CertificateURI, subjectPublicKeyInfo SubjectPublicKeyInfo } TAK ::= SEQUENCE { version INTEGER DEFAULT 0, current TAKey, predecessor [0] TAKey OPTIONAL, successor [1] TAKey OPTIONAL } END <CODE ENDS>¶