Network Working Group J. Sermersheim Internet-Draft Novell, Inc Expires: April 24, 2005 L. Poitou Sun Microsystems October 24, 2004 Password Policy for LDAP Directories draft-behera-ldap-password-policy-08.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions of section 3 of RFC 3667. By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she become aware will be disclosed, in accordance with RFC 3668. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on April 24, 2005. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). Abstract Password policy as described in this document is a set of rules that controls how passwords are used and administered in Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) based directories. In order to improve the security of LDAP directories and make it difficult for password cracking programs to break into directories, it is desirable to enforce a set of rules on password usage. These rules are made to Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 ensure that users change their passwords periodically, passwords meet construction requirements, the re-use of old password is restricted, and users are locked out after a certain number of failed attempts. Discussion Forum Technical discussion of this document will take place on the IETF LDAP Extensions mailing list . Please send editorial comments directly to the authors. Table of Contents 1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. Application of password policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Articles of password policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.1 Password Usage Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.2 Password Modification Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.3 Restriction of the Password Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 5. Schema used for Password Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5.1 The pwdPolicy Object Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 5.2 Attribute Types used in the pwdPolicy ObjectClass . . . . . . 11 5.3 Attribute Types for Password Policy State Information . . . . 16 6. Controls used for Password Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 6.1 Request Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 6.2 Response Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 7. Policy Decision Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.1 Locked Account Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.2 Password Must be Changed Now Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.3 Password Expiration Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.4 Remaining Grace AuthN Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 7.5 Time Before Expiration Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 7.6 Intruder Detection Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 7.7 Password Too Young Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 8. Server Policy Enforcement Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 8.1 Password-based Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 8.2 Password Update Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 8.3 Other Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 9. Client Policy Enforcement Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 9.1 Bind Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 9.2 Modify Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 9.3 Add Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 9.4 Compare Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 9.5 Other Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 10. Administration of the Password Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 11. Password Policy and Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 12. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 13. Acknowledgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 14. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 38 Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 1. Overview LDAP-based directory services are currently accepted by many organizations as the access protocol for directories. The ability to ensure the secure read and update access to directory information throughout the network is essential to the successful deployment. Most LDAP implementations support many authentication schemes - the most basic and widely used is the simple authentication i.e., user DN and password. In this case, many LDAP servers have implemented some kind of policy related to the password used to authenticate. Among other things, this policy includes: o Whether and when passwords expire. o Whether failed bind attempts cause the account to be locked. o If and how users are able to change their passwords. In order to achieve greater security protection and ensure interoperability in a heterogeneous environment, LDAP needs to standardize on a common password policy model. This is critical to the successful deployment of LDAP directories. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 2. Conventions Imperative keywords defined in [RFC2119] are used in this document, and carry the meanings described there. All Basic Encoding Rules (BER) [X690] encodings follow the conventions found in Section 5.1 of [RFC2251]. The term "password administrator" refers to a user that has sufficient access control privileges to modify users' passwords. The term "password policy administrator" refers to a user that has sufficient access control privileges to modify the pwdPolicy object defined in this document. The access control that is used to determine whether an identity is a password administrator or password policy administrator is beyond the scope of this document, but typically implies that the password administrator has 'write' privileges to the password attribute. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 3. Application of password policy The password policy defined in this document can be applied to any attribute holding a user's password used for an authenticated LDAP bind operation. In this document, the term "user" represents any LDAP client application that has an identity in the directory. This policy is typically applied to the userPassword attribute in the case of the LDAP simple authentication method [RFC2251] or the case of password based SASL [RFC2222] authentication such as CRAM-MD5 [RFC2195] and DIGEST-MD5 [RFC2831]. The policy described in this document assumes that the password attribute holds a single value. No considerations are made for directories or systems that allow a user to maintain multi-valued password attributes. Server implementations MAY institute internal policy whereby certain identities (such as directory administrators) are not forced to comply with any of password policy. In this case, the password for a directory administrator never expires; the account is never locked, etc. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 4. Articles of password policy The following sections explain in general terms each aspect of the password policy defined in this document as well as the need for each. These policies are subdivided into the general groups of password usage and password modification. Implementation details are presented in Section 8 and Section 9. 4.1 Password Usage Policy This section describes policy enforced when a password is used to authenticate. The general focus of this policy is to minimize the threat of intruders once a password is in use. 4.1.1 Password Guessing Limit In order to prevent intruders from guessing a user's password, a mechanism exists to track the number of failed authentication attempts, and take action when a limit is reached. This policy consists of five parts: o A configurable limit on failed authentication attempts. o A counter to track the number of failed authentication attempts. o A timeframe in which the limit of consecutive failed authentication attempts must happen before action is taken. o The action to be taken when the limit is reached. The action will either be nothing, or the account will be locked. o An amount of time the account is locked (if it is to be locked). This can be indefinite. 4.2 Password Modification Policy This section describes policy enforced while users are modifying passwords. The general focus of this policy is to ensure that when users add or change their passwords, the security and effectiveness of their passwords is maximized. In this document, the term "modify password operation" refers to any operation that is used to add or modify a password attribute. Often this is done by updating the password attribute during an add or modify operation, but MAY be done by other means such as an extended operation. 4.2.1 Password Expiration, Expiration Warning, and Grace Authentications One of the key properties of a password is the fact that it is not well known. If a password is frequently changed, the chances of that user's account being broken into are minimized. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 Password policy administrators may deploy a password policy that causes passwords to expire after a given amount of time - thus forcing users to change their passwords periodically. As a side effect, there needs to be a way in which users are made aware of this need to change their password before actually being locked out of their accounts. One or both of the following methods handle this: o A warning may be returned to the user sometime before his password is due to expire. If the user fails to heed this warning before the expiration time, his account will be locked. o The user may bind to the directory a preset number of times after her password has expired. If she fails to change her password during one of her 'grace' authentications, her account will be locked. 4.2.2 Password History When the Password Expiration policy is used, an additional mechanism may be employed to prevent users from simply re-using a previous password (as this would effectively circumvent the expiration policy). In order to do this; a history of used passwords is kept. The password policy administrator sets the number of passwords to be stored at any given time. Passwords are stored in this history whenever the password is changed. Users aren't allowed to specify any passwords that are in the history list while changing passwords. 4.2.3 Password Minimum Age Users may circumvent the Password History mechanism by quickly performing a series of password changes. If they change their password enough times, their 'favorite' password will be pushed out of the history list. This process may be made less attractive to users by employing a minimum age for passwords. If users are forced to wait 24 hours between password changes, they may be less likely to cycle through a history of 10 passwords. 4.2.4 Password Quality and Minimum length In order to prevent users from creating or updating passwords that are easy to guess, a password quality policy may be employed. This policy consists of two general mechanisms - ensuring that passwords conform to a defined quality criterion and ensuring that they are of Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 a minimum length. Forcing a password to comply with the quality policy may imply a variety of things including: o Disallowing trivial or well-known words make up the password. o Forcing a certain number of digits be used. o Disallowing anagrams of the user's name. The implementation of this policy meets with the following problems: o If the password to be added or updated is encrypted by the client before being sent, the server has no way of enforcing this policy. Therefore, the onus of enforcing this policy falls upon client implementations. o There are no specific definitions of what 'quality checking' means. This can lead to unexpected behavior in a heterogeneous environment. 4.2.5 User Defined Passwords In some cases, it is desirable to disallow users from adding and updating their own passwords. This policy makes this functionality possible. This implies that certain other policy, such as password expiration is not enforced. 4.2.6 Password Change after Reset This policy forces the user to update her password after it has been set for the first time, or has been reset by a password administrator. This is needed in scenarios where a password administrator has set or reset the password to a well-known value. 4.2.7 Safe Modification As directories become more commonly used, it will not be unusual for clients to connect to a directory and leave the connection open for an extended period. This opens up the possibility for an intruder to make modifications to a user's password while that user's computer is connected but unattended. This policy forces the user to prove his identity by specifying the old password during a password modify operation. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 {TODO: This allows a dictionary attack unless we specify that this is also subject to intruder detection} 4.3 Restriction of the Password Policy The password policy defined in this document can apply to any attribute containing a password. Password policy state information is held in the user's entry, and applies to a password attribute, not a particular password attribute value. Thus the server SHOULD enforce that the password attribute subject to password policy, contains one and only one password value. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 5. Schema used for Password Policy The schema elements defined here fall into two general categories. A password policy object class is defined which contains a set of administrative password policy attributes, and a set of operational attributes are defined that hold general password policy state information for each user. 5.1 The pwdPolicy Object Class This object class contains the attributes defining a password policy in effect for a set of users. Section 10 describes the administration of this object, and the relationship between it and particular objects. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.2.1 NAME 'pwdPolicy' SUP top AUXILIARY MUST ( pwdAttribute ) MAY ( pwdMinAge $ pwdMaxAge $ pwdInHistory $ pwdCheckQuality $ pwdMinLength $ pwdExpireWarning $ pwdGraceAuthNLimit $ pwdLockout $ pwdLockoutDuration $ pwdMaxFailure $ pwdFailureCountInterval $ pwdMustChange $ pwdAllowUserChange $ pwdSafeModify ) ) 5.2 Attribute Types used in the pwdPolicy ObjectClass Following are the attribute types used by the pwdPolicy object class. 5.2.1 pwdAttribute This holds the name of the attribute to which the password policy is applied. For example, the password policy may be applied to the userPassword attribute. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.1 NAME 'pwdAttribute' EQUALITY objectIdentifierMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.38 ) 5.2.2 pwdMinAge This attribute holds the number of seconds that must elapse between modifications to the password. If this attribute is not present, 0 seconds is assumed. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.2 Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 NAME 'pwdMinAge' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.3 pwdMaxAge This attribute holds the number of seconds after which a modified password will expire. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is 0 the password does not expire. If not 0, the value must be greater than or equal to the value of the pwdMinAge. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.3 NAME 'pwdMaxAge' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.4 pwdInHistory This attribute specifies the maximum number of used passwords stored in the pwdHistory attribute. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is 0, used passwords are not stored in the pwdHistory attribute and thus may be reused. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.4 NAME 'pwdInHistory' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.5 pwdCheckQuality {TODO: Consider changing the syntax to OID. Each OID will list a quality rule (like min len, # of special characters, etc). These rules can be specified outsid ethis document.} {TODO: Note that even though this is meant to be a check that happens during password modification, it may also be allowed to happen during authN. This is useful for situations where the password is encrypted when modified, but decrypted when used to authN.} This attribute indicates how the password quality will be verified while being modified or added. If this attribute is not present, or Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 if the value is '0', quality checking will not be enforced. A value of '1' indicates that the server will check the quality, and if the server is unable to check it (due to a hashed password or other reasons) it will be accepted. A value of '2' indicates that the server will check the quality, and if the server is unable to verify it, it will return an error refusing the password. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.5 NAME 'pwdCheckQuality' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.6 pwdMinLength When quality checking is enabled, this attribute holds the minimum number of characters that must be used in a password. If this attribute is not present, no minimum password length will be enforced. If the server is unable to check the length (due to a hashed password or otherwise), the server will, depending on the value of the pwdCheckQuality attribute, either accept the password without checking it ('0' or '1') or refuse it ('2'). ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.6 NAME 'pwdMinLength' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.7 pwdExpireWarning This attribute specifies the maximum number of seconds before a password is due to expire that expiration warning messages will be returned to an authenticating user. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is 0 no warnings will be returned. If not 0, the value must be smaller than the value of the pwdMaxAge attribute. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.7 NAME 'pwdExpireWarning' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.8 pwdGraceAuthNLimit This attribute specifies the number of times an expired password can Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 13] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 be used to authenticate. If this attribute is not present or if the value is 0, authentication will fail. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.8 NAME 'pwdGraceAuthNLimit' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.9 pwdLockout This attribute indicates, when its value is "TRUE", that the password may not be used to authenticate after a specified number of consecutive failed bind attempts. The maximum number of consecutive failed bind attempts is specified in pwdMaxFailure. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is "FALSE", the password may be used to authenticate when the number of failed bind attempts has been reached. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.9 NAME 'pwdLockout' EQUALITY booleanMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.10 pwdLockoutDuration This attribute holds the number of seconds that the password cannot be used to authenticate due to too many failed bind attempts. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is 0 the password cannot be used to authenticate until reset by a password administrator. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.10 NAME 'pwdLockoutDuration' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.11 pwdMaxFailure This attribute specifies the number of consecutive failed bind attempts after which the password may not be used to authenticate. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is 0, this policy is not checked, and the value of pwdLockout will be ignored. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 14] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.11 NAME 'pwdMaxFailure' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.12 pwdFailureCountInterval This attribute holds the number of seconds after which the password failures are purged from the failure counter, even though no successful authentication occurred. If this attribute is not present, or if its value is 0, the failure counter is only reset by a successful authentication. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.12 NAME 'pwdFailureCountInterval' EQUALITY integerMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.27 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.13 pwdMustChange This attribute specifies with a value of "TRUE" that users must change their passwords when they first bind to the directory after a password is set or reset by a password administrator. If this attribute is not present, or if the value is "FALSE", users are not required to change their password upon binding after the password administrator sets or resets the password. This attribute is not set due to any actions specified by this document, it is typically set by a password administrator after resetting a user's password. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.13 NAME 'pwdMustChange' EQUALITY booleanMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.14 pwdAllowUserChange This attribute indicates whether users can change their own passwords, although the change operation is still subject to access control. If this attribute is not present, a value of "TRUE" is assumed. This attribute is intended to be used in the absense of an access control mechanism. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.14 Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 15] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 NAME 'pwdAllowUserChange' EQUALITY booleanMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.2.15 pwdSafeModify This attribute specifies whether or not the existing password must be sent along with the new password when being changed. If this attribute is not present, a "FALSE" value is assumed. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.15 NAME 'pwdSafeModify' EQUALITY booleanMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE ) 5.3 Attribute Types for Password Policy State Information Password policy state information must be maintained for each user. The information is located in each user entry as a set of operational attributes. These operational attributes are: pwdChangedTime, pwdAccountLockedTime, pwdFailureTime, pwdHistory, pwdGraceUseTime, pwdReset, pwdPolicySubEntry. 5.3.1 Password Policy State Attribute Option Since the password policy could apply to several attributes used to store passwords, each of the above operational attributes must have an option to specify which pwdAttribute it applies to. The password policy option is defined as the following: pwd- where passwordAttribute a string following the OID syntax (1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.38). The attribute type descriptor (short name) MUST be used. For example, if the pwdPolicy object has for pwdAttribute "userPassword" then the pwdChangedTime operational attribute, in a user entry, will be: pwdChangedTime;pwd-userPassword: 20000103121520Z This attribute option follows sub-typing semantics. If a client requests a password policy state attribute to be returned in a search operation, and does not specify an option, all subtypes of that policy state attribute are returned. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 16] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 5.3.2 pwdChangedTime This attribute specifies the last time the entry's password was changed. This is used by the password expiration policy. If this attribute does not exist, the password will never expire. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.16 NAME 'pwdChangedTime' DESC 'The time the password was last changed' EQUALITY generalizedTimeMatch ORDERING generalizedTimeOrderingMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.24 SINGLE-VALUE USAGE directoryOperation ) 5.3.3 pwdAccountLockedTime This attribute holds the time that the user's account was locked. A locked account means that the password may no longer be used to authenticate. A 000001010000Z value means that the account has been locked permanently, and that only a password administrator can unlock the account. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.17 NAME 'pwdAccountLockedTime' DESC 'The time an user account was locked' EQUALITY generalizedTimeMatch ORDERING generalizedTimeOrderingMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.24 SINGLE-VALUE USAGE directoryOperation ) 5.3.4 pwdFailureTime This attribute holds the timestamps of the consecutive authentication failures. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.19 NAME 'pwdFailureTime' DESC 'The timestamps of the last consecutive authentication failures' EQUALITY generalizedTimeMatch ORDERING generalizedTimeOrderingMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.24 USAGE directoryOperation ) Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 17] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 5.3.5 pwdHistory This attribute holds a history of previously used passwords. Values of this attribute are transmitted in string format as given by the following ABNF: pwdHistory = time "#" syntaxOID "#" length "#" data time = syntaxOID = numericoid ; the string representation of the ; dotted-decimal OID that defines the ; syntax used to store the password. ; numericoid is described in 4.1 ; of [RFC2252]. length = numericstring ; the number of octets in data. ; numericstring is described in 4.1 ; of [RFC2252]. data = . This format allows the server to store, and transmit a history of passwords that have been used. In order for equality matching to function properly, the time field needs to adhere to a consistent format. For this purpose, the time field MUST be in GMT format. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.20 NAME 'pwdHistory' DESC 'The history of user s passwords' EQUALITY octetStringMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.40 USAGE directoryOperation ) 5.3.6 pwdGraceUseTime This attribute holds the timestamps of grace authentications after a password has expired. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.21 NAME 'pwdGraceUseTime' DESC 'The timestamps of the grace authentication after the password has expired' EQUALITY generalizedTimeMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.24 Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 18] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 USAGE directoryOperation ) 5.3.7 pwdReset This attribute holds a flag to indicate (when TRUE) that the password has been updated by the password administrator and must be changed by the user on first authentication. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.22 NAME 'pwdReset' DESC 'The indication that the password has been reset' EQUALITY booleanMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.7 SINGLE-VALUE USAGE directoryOperation ) 5.3.8 pwdPolicySubentry This attribute points to the pwdPolicy subentry in effect for this object. ( 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.1.23 NAME 'pwdPolicySubentry' DESC 'The pwdPolicy subentry in effect for this object' EQUALITY distinguishedNameMatch SYNTAX 1.3.6.1.4.1.1466.115.121.1.12 SINGLE-VALUE USAGE directoryOperation ) Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 19] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 6. Controls used for Password Policy This section details the controls used while enforcing password policy. A request control is defined that is sent by a client with a request operation in order to elicit a response control. The response control contains various warnings and errors associated with password policy. 6.1 Request Control This control MAY be sent with any LDAP request message in order to convey to the server that this client is aware of, and can process the response control described in this document. When a server receives this control, it will return the response control when appropriate and with the proper data. The controlType is 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.5.1 and the criticality may be TRUE or FALSE. There is no controlValue. 6.2 Response Control If the client has sent a passwordPolicyRequest control, the server (when solicited by the inclusion of the request control) sends this control with the following operation responses: bindResponse, modifyResponse, addResponse, compareResponse and possibly extendedResponse, to inform of various conditions, and MAY be sent with other operations (in the case of the changeAfterReset error). The controlType is 1.3.6.1.4.1.42.2.27.8.5.1 and the controlValue is the BER encoding of the following type: PasswordPolicyResponseValue ::= SEQUENCE { warning [0] CHOICE { timeBeforeExpiration [0] INTEGER (0 .. maxInt), graceAuthNsRemaining [1] INTEGER (0 .. maxInt) } OPTIONAL, error [1] ENUMERATED { passwordExpired (0), accountLocked (1), changeAfterReset (2), passwordModNotAllowed (3), mustSupplyOldPassword (4), insufficientPasswordQuality (5), passwordTooShort (6), passwordTooYoung (7), passwordInHistory (8) } OPTIONAL } The timeBeforeExpiration warning specifies the number of seconds before a password will expire. The graceAuthNsRemaining warning specifies the remaining number of times a user will be allowed to Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 20] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 authenticate with an expired password. The passwordExpired error signifies that the password has expired and must be reset. The changeAfterReset error signifies that the password must be changed before the user will be allowed to perform any operation other than bind and modify. The passwordModNotAllowed error is set when a user is restricted from changing her password. The insufficientPasswordQuality error is set when a password doesn't pass quality checking. The passwordTooYoung error is set if the age of the password to be modified is not yet old enough. Typically, only either a warning or an error will be encoded though there may be exceptions. For example, if the user is required to change a password after the password administrator set it, and the password will expire in a short amount of time, the control may include the timeBeforeExpiration warning and the changeAfterReset error. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 21] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 7. Policy Decision Points Following are a number of procedures used to make policy decisions. These procedures are typically performed by the server while processing an operation. The following sections contain detailed instructions that refer to attributes of the pwdPolicy object class. When doing so, the attribute of the pwdPolicy object that governs the entry being discussed is implied. 7.1 Locked Account Check A status of true is returned to indicate that the account is locked if any of these conditions are met: o The value of the pwdAccountLockedTime attribute is 000001010000Z. o The current time is less than the value of the pwdAccountLockedTime attribute added to the value of the pwdLockoutDuration. Otherwise a status of false is returned. 7.2 Password Must be Changed Now Check A status of true is returned to indicate that the account is locked if all of these conditions are met: The pwdMustChange attribute is set to TRUE. The pwdReset attribute is set to TRUE. Otherwise a status of false is returned. 7.3 Password Expiration Check A status of true is returned indicating that the password has expired if the value of the pwdExpireWarning attribute is 0, and the current time minus the value of pwdChangedTime is greater than the value of the pwdMaxAge. Otherwise, a status of false is returned. 7.4 Remaining Grace AuthN Check If the pwdGraceUseTime attribute is present, the number of values in that attribute subtracted from the value of pwdGraceAuthNLimit is returned. Otherwise zero is returned. A positive result specifies the number of remaining grace authentications. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 22] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 7.5 Time Before Expiration Check If the pwdExpireWarning attribute is not present a zero status is returned. Otherwise the following steps are followed: Subtract the time stored in pwdChangedTime from the current time to arrive at the password's age. If the password's age is greater than than the value of the pwdMaxAge attribute, a zero status is returned. Subtract the value of the pwdExpireWarning attribute from the value of the pwdMaxAge attribute to arrive at the warning age. If the password's age is equal to or greater than the warning age, the value of pwdMaxAge minus the password's age is returned. 7.6 Intruder Detection Check A status of true indicating that an intruder has been detected is returned if the following conditions are met: The pwdLockout attribute is TRUE. The number of values in the pwdFailureTime attribute that are younger than pwdFailureCountInterval is greater or equal to the pwdMaxFailure attribute. Otherwise a status of false is returned. While performing this check, values of pwdFailureTime that are old by more than pwdFailureCountInterval are purged and not counted. 7.7 Password Too Young Check A status of true indicating that not enough time has passed since the password was last updated is returned if: The value of pwdMinAge is non-zero and pwdChangedTime is present. The value of pwdMinAge is greater than the current time minus the value of pwdChangedTime. Otherwise a false status is returned. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 23] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 8. Server Policy Enforcement Points The server SHOULD enforce that the password attribute subject to a password policy as defined in this document, contains one and only one password value. The scenarios in the following operations assume that the client has attached a passwordPolicyRequest control to the request message of the operation. In the event that the passwordPolicyRequest control was not sent, no passwordPolicyResponse control is returned. All other instructions remain the same. For successfuly completed operations, unless otherwise stated, no passwordPolicyResponse control is returned. 8.1 Password-based Authentication This section contains the policy enforcement rules and policy data updates used while validating a password. Operations that validate passwords include, but are not limited to, the Bind operation where the simple choice specifies a password, and the compare operation where the attribute being compared holds a password. 8.1.1 Fail if the account is locked If the account is locked as specified in Section 7.1, the server fails the operation with an appropriate resultCode (i.e. invalidCredentials (49) in the case of a bind operation, compareFalse (5) in the case of a compare operation, etc.). The server MAY set the error: accountLocked (1) in the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the message. 8.1.2 AuthN Passed Procedures If the authentication process indicates that the password validated, these procedures are followed in order: 8.1.2.1 Policy state updates Delete the pwdFailureTime and pwdAccountLockedTime attributes. 8.1.2.2 Password must be changed now If the decision in Section 7.2 returns true, the server sends to the client a response with an appropriate successful resultCode (i.e. success (0), compareTrue (6), etc.), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the bindResponse message with the warning: changeAfterReset specified. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 24] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 For bind, the server MUST then disallow all operations issued by this user except modify password, bind, unbind, abandon and StartTLS extended operation. 8.1.2.3 Expired password If the password has expired as per Section 7.3, the server either returns a success or failure based on the state of grace authentications. 8.1.2.3.1 Remaining Grace Authentications If there are remaining grace authentications as per Section 7.4, the server adds a new value with the current time in pwdGraceUseTime. Then it sends to the client a response with an appropriate successful resultCode (i.e. success (0), compareTrue (6), etc.), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the warning: graceAuthNsRemaining choice set to the number of grace authentications left. Implementor's note: The system time of the host machine may be more granular than is needed to ensure unique values of this attribute. It is recommended that a mechanism is used to ensure unique generalized time values. The fractional seconds field may be used for this purpose. 8.1.2.3.2 No Remaining Grace Authentications If there are no remaining grace authentications, the server fails the operation with an appropriate resultCode (invalidCredentials (49), compareFalse (5), etc.), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the bindResponse message with the error: passwordExpired (0) set. 8.1.2.4 Expiration Warning If the result of Section 7.5 is a positive number, the server sends to the client a response with an appropriate successful resultCode (i.e. success (0), compareTrue (6), etc.), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the bindResponse message with the warning: timeBeforeExiration set to the value as described above. Otherwise, the server sends a successful response, and omits the passwordPolicyResponse. 8.1.2.5 AuthN Failed Procedures If the authentication process indicates that the password failed validation due to invalid credentials, these procedures are followed: Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 25] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 8.1.2.5.1 Policy state update Add the current time as a value of the pwdFailureTime attribute. Implementor's note: The system time of the host machine may be more granular than is needed to ensure unique values of this attribute. It is recommended that a mechanism is used to ensure unique generalized time values. The fractional seconds field may be used for this purpose. 8.1.2.5.2 Lock on intruder detection If the check in Section 7.6 returns a true state, the server locks the account by setting the value of the pwdAccountLockedTime attribute to the current time. After locking the account, the server fails the operation with an appropriate resultCode (invalidCredentials (49), compareFalse (5), etc.), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the message with the error: accountLocked (1). 8.2 Password Update Operations Because the password is stored in an attribute, various operations (like add and modify) may be used to create or update a password. But some alternate mechanisms have been defined or may be defined, such as the LDAP Password Modify Extended Operation [RFC3062]. While processing a password update, the server performs the following steps: 8.2.1 Safe Modification If pwdSafeModify is set to TRUE and if there is an existing password value, the server ensures that the password update operation includes the user's existing password. When the LDAP modify operation is used to modify a password, this is done by specifying both a delete action and an add or replace action, where the delete action is first, and specifies the existing password, and the add or replace action specifies the new password. Other password update operations SHOULD employ a similar mechanism. Otherwise this policy will fail. If the existing password is not specified, the server does not process the operation and sends the appropriate response message to the client with the resultCode: insufficientAccessRights (50), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: mustSupplyOldPassword (4). Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 26] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 8.2.2 Change After Reset If the decision in Section 7.2 returns true, the server ensures that the password update operation contains no modifications other than the modification of the password attribute. If other modifications exist, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: insufficientAccessRights (50), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: changeAfterReset (2). 8.2.3 Rights Check Check to see whether the bound identity has sufficient rights to update the password. If the bound identity is a user changing its own password, this MAY be done by checking the pwdAllowUserChange attribute or using an access control mechanism. The determination of this is implementation specific. If the user is not allowed to update her password, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: insufficientAccessRights (50), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: passwordModNotAllowed (3). 8.2.4 Too Early to Update If the check in Section 7.7 results in a true status The server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: passwordTooYoung (7). 8.2.5 Password Quality Check the value of the pwdCheckQuality attribute. If the value is non-zero, the server: o Ensure that the password meets the quality criteria enforced by the server. This enforcement is implementation specific. If the server is unable to check the quality (due to a hashed password or otherwise), the value of pwdCheckQuality is evaluated. If the value is 1, operation continues. If the value is 2, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: insufficientPasswordQuality (5). If the server is able to check the password quality, and the check fails, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 27] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 message with the error: insufficientPasswordQuality (5). o checks the value of the pwdMinLength attribute. If the value is non-zero, it ensures that the new password is of at least the minimum length. If the server is unable to check the length (due to a hashed password or otherwise), the value of pwdCheckQuality is evaluated. If the value is 1, operation continues. If the value is 2, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: passwordTooShort (6). If the server is able to check the password length, and the check fails, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: passwordTooShort (6). 8.2.6 Invalid Reuse If pwdInHistory is present and its value is non-zero, the server checks whether this password exists in the entry's pwdHistory attribute or in the current password attribute. If the password does exist in the pwdHistory attribute or in the current password attribute, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: constraintViolation (19), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: passwordInHistory (8). 8.2.7 Policy State Updates If the steps have completed without causing an error condition, the server performs the following steps in order to update the necessary password policy state attributes: If the value of either pwdMaxAge or pwdMinAge is non-zero, the server updates the pwdChangedTime attribute on the entry to the current time. If the value of pwdInHistory is non-zero, the server adds the previous password (if one existed) to the pwdHistory attribute. If the number of attributes held in the pwdHistory attribute exceeds the value of pwdInHistory, the server removes the oldest excess passwords. If the value the pwdMustChange is TRUE and the modification is performed by a password administrator, then the pwdReset attribute is set to TRUE. Otherwise, the pwdReset is removed from the user's entry if it exists. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 28] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 The pwdFailureTime, pwdGraceUseTime and pwdExpirationWarned attributes is removed from the user's entry if they exist. 8.3 Other Operations For operations other than bind, password update, unbind, abandon or StartTLS, if the decision in Section 7.2 returns true, the server sends a response message to the client with the resultCode: insufficientAccessRights (50), and includes the passwordPolicyResponse in the controls field of the response message with the error: changeAfterReset (2). Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 29] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 9. Client Policy Enforcement Points These sections illustrate possible scenarios for each LDAP operation and define the types of responses that identify those scenarios. The scenarios in the following operations assume that the client attached a passwordPolicyRequest control to the request message of the operation, and thus may receive a passwordPolicyResponse control in the response message. In the event that the passwordPolicyRequest control was not sent, no passwordPolicyResponse control is returned. All other instructions remain the same. 9.1 Bind Operation For every bind response received, the client checks the resultCode of the bindResponse and checks for a passwordPolicyResponse control to determine if any of the following conditions are true and MAY prompt the user accordingly. o bindResponse.resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = accountLocked (1): The password failure limit has been reached and the account is locked. The user needs to retry later or contact the password administrator to reset the password. o bindResponse.resultCode = success (0), passwordPolicyResponse.error = changeAfterReset (2): The user is binding for the first time after the password administrator set the password. In this scenario, the client SHOULD prompt the user to change his password immediately. o bindResponse.resultCode = success (0), passwordPolicyResponse.warning = graceAuthNsRemaining: The password has expired but there are remaining grace authentications. The user needs to change it. o bindResponse.resultCode = invalidCredentials (49), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordExpired (0): The password has expired and there are no more grace authentications. The user contacts the password administrator in order to have its password reset. o bindResponse.resultCode = success (0), passwordPolicyResponse.warning = timeBeforeExpiration: The user's password will expire in n number of seconds. 9.2 Modify Operations 9.2.1 Modify Request If the application or client encrypts the password prior to sending it in a password modification operation (whether done through Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 30] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 modifyRequest or another password modification mechanism), it SHOULD check the values of the pwdMinLength, and pwdCheckQuality attributes and SHOULD enforce these policies. 9.2.2 Modify Response If the modifyRequest operation was used to change the password, or if another mechanism is used --such as an extendedRequest-- the modifyResponse or other appropriate response MAY contain information pertinent to password policy. The client checks the resultCode of the response and checks for a passwordPolicyResponse control to determine if any of the following conditions are true and optionally notify the user of the condition. o .resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = mustSupplyOldPassword (4): The user attempted to change her password without specifying the old password but the password policy requires this. o .resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = changeAfterReset (2): The user must change her password before submitting any other LDAP requests. o .resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordModNotAllowed (3): The user doesn't have sufficient rights to change his password. o .resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordTooYoung (7): It is too soon after the last password modification to change the password. o .resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = insufficientPasswordQuality (5): The password failed quality checking. o .resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordTooShort (6): The length of the password is too short. o .resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordInHistory (8): The password has already been used; the user must choose a different one. 9.3 Add Operation If a password is specified in an addRequest, the client checks the resultCode of the addResponse and checks for a passwordPolicyResponse control to determine if any of the following conditions are true and may prompt the user accordingly. o addResponse.resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordModNotAllowed (3): The user doesn't have sufficient rights to add this password. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 31] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 o addResponse.resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = insufficientPasswordQuality (5): The password failed quality checking. o addResponse.resultCode = constraintViolation (19), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordTooShort (6): The length of the password is too short. 9.4 Compare Operation When a compare operation is used to compare a password, the client checks the resultCode of the compareResponse and checks for a passwordPolicyResponse to determine if any of the following conditions are true and MAY prompt the user accordingly. These conditions assume that the result of the comparison was true. o compareResponse.resultCode = compareFalse (5), passwordPolicyResponse.error = accountLocked (1): The password failure limit has been reached and the account is locked. The user needs to retry later or contact the password administrator to reset the password. o compareResponse.resultCode = compareTrue (6), passwordPolicyResponse.warning = graceAuthNsRemaining: The password has expired but there are remaining grace authentications. The user needs to change it. o compareResponse.resultCode = compareFalse (5), passwordPolicyResponse.error = passwordExpired (0): The password has expired and there are no more grace authentications. The user must contact the password administrator to reset the password. o compareResponse.resultCode = compareTrue (6), passwordPolicyResponse.warning = timeBeforeExpiration: The user's password will expire in n number of seconds. 9.5 Other Operations For operations other than bind, unbind, abandon or StartTLS, the client checks the following result code and control to determine if the user needs to change the password immediately. o .resultCode = insufficientAccessRights (50), passwordPolicyResponse.error = : changeAfterReset (2) Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 32] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 10. Administration of the Password Policy {TODO: Need to define an administrativeRole (need OID). Need to describe whether pwdPolicy admin areas can overlap} A password policy is defined for a particular subtree of the DIT by adding to an LDAP subentry whose immediate superior is the root of the subtree, the pwdPolicy auxiliary object class. The scope of the password policy is defined by the SubtreeSpecification attribute of the LDAP subentry as specified in [RFC3672]. It is possible to define password policies for different password attributes within the same pwdPolicy entry, by specifying multiple values of the pwdAttribute. But password policies could also be in separate sub entries as long as they are contained under the same LDAP subentry. Modifying the password policy MUST NOT result in any change in users' entries to which the policy applies. It SHOULD be possible to overwrite the password policy for one user by defining a new policy in a subentry of the user entry. Each object that is controlled by password policy advertises the subentry that is being used to control its policy in its pwdPolicySubentry attribute. Clients wishing to examine or manage password policy for an object may interrogate the pwdPolicySubentry for that object in order to arrive at the proper pwdPolicy subentry. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 33] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 11. Password Policy and Replication The pwdPolicy object defines the password policy for a portion of the DIT and MUST be replicated on all the replicas of this subtree, as any subentry would be, in order to have a consistent policy among all replicated servers. The elements of the password policy that are related to the users are stored in the entry themselves as operational attributes. As these attributes are subject to modifications even on a read-only replica, replicating them must be carefully considered. The pwdChangedTime attribute MUST be replicated on all replicas, to allow expiration of the password. The pwdReset attribute MUST be replicated on all replicas, to deny access to operations other than bind and modify password. The pwdHistory attribute MUST be replicated to writable replicas. It doesn't have to be replicated to a read-only replica, since the password will never be directly modified on this server. The pwdAccountLockedTime, pwdExpirationWarned, pwdFailureTime and pwdGraceUseTime attributes MUST be replicated to writable replicas, making the password policy global for all servers. When the user entry is replicated to a read-only replica, these attributes SHOULD NOT be replicated. This means that the number of failures, of grace authentications and the locking will take place on each replicated server. For example, the effective number of failed attempts on a user password will be N x M (where N is the number of servers and M the value of pwdMaxFailure attribute). Replicating these attributes to a read-only replica MAY reduce the number of tries globally but MAY also introduce some inconstancies in the way the password policy is applied. Servers participating in a loosely consistent multi-master replication agreement SHOULD employ a mechanism which ensures uniqueness of values when populating the attributes pwdFailureTime and pwdGraceUseTime. The method of achieving this is a local matter and may consist of using a single authoritative source for the generation of unique time values, or may consist of the use of the fractional seconds part to hold a replica identifier. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 34] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 12. Security Considerations This document defines a set of rules to implement in an LDAP server, in order to mitigate some of the security risks associated with the use of passwords and to make it difficult for password cracking programs to break into directories. Authentication with a password MUST follow the recommendations made in [RFC2829]. Modifications of passwords SHOULD only occur when the connection is protected with confidentiality and secure authentication. Access controls SHOULD be used to restrict access to the password policy attributes. The attributes defined to maintain the password policy state information SHOULD only be modifiable by the password administrator or higher authority. The pwdHistory attribute MUST be subject to the same level of access control as the attrbute holding the password. As it is possible to define a password policy for one specific user by adding a subentry immediately under the user's entry, Access Controls SHOULD be used to restrict the use of the pwdPolicy object class or the LDAP subentry object class. When the intruder detection password policy is enforced, the LDAP directory is subject to a denial of service attack. A malicious user could deliberately lock out one specific user's account (or all of them) by sending bind requests with wrong passwords. There is no way to protect against this kind of attack. The LDAP directory server SHOULD log as much information as it can (such as client IP address) whenever an account is locked, in order to be able to identify the origin of the attack. Denying anonymous access to the LDAP directory is also a way to restrict this kind of attack. Returning certain status codes (such as passwordPolicyResponse.error = accountLocked) allows a denial of service attacker to know that it has successfully denied service to an account. Servers SHOULD implement additional checks which return the same status when it is sensed that some number of failed authentication requests has occured on a single connection, or from a client address. Server implementors are encouraged to invent other checks similar to this in order to thwart this type of DoS attack. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 35] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 13. Acknowledgement This document is based in part on prior work done by Valerie Chu from Netscape Communications Corp, published as draft-vchu-ldap-pwd-policy-00.txt (December 1998). Prasanta Behera participated in early revisions of this document. 14 Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2195] Klensin, J., Catoe, R. and P. Krumviede, "IMAP/POP AUTHorize Extension for Simple Challenge/Response", RFC 2195, September 1997. [RFC2222] Myers, J., "Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)", RFC 2222, October 1997. [RFC2251] Wahl, M., Howes, T. and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3)", RFC 2251, December 1997. [RFC2252] Wahl, M., Coulbeck, A., Howes, T. and S. Kille, "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (v3): Attribute Syntax Definitions", RFC 2252, December 1997. [RFC2829] Wahl, M., Alvestrand, H., Hodges, J. and R. Morgan, "Authentication Methods for LDAP", RFC 2829, May 2000. [RFC2831] Leach, P. and C. Newman, "Using Digest Authentication as a SASL Mechanism", RFC 2831, May 2000. [RFC3062] Zeilenga, K., "LDAP Password Modify Extended Operation", RFC 3062, February 2001. [RFC3383] Zeilenga, K., "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) Considerations for the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)", BCP 64, RFC 3383, September 2002. [RFC3672] Zeilenga, K., "Subentries in the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)", RFC 3672, December 2003. [X680] International Telecommunications Union, "Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation", ITU-T Recommendation X.680, July 2002. [X690] International Telecommunications Union, "Information Technology - ASN.1 encoding rules: Specification of Basic Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 36] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER)", ITU-T Recommendation X.690, July 2002. Authors' Addresses Jim Sermersheim Novell, Inc 1800 South Novell Place Provo, Utah 84606 USA Phone: +1 801 861-3088 EMail: jimse@novell.com Ludovic Poitou Sun Microsystems 180, Avenue de l'Europe Zirst de Montbonnot, 38334 Saint Ismier cedex France Phone: +33 476 188 212 EMail: ludovic.poitou@sun.com Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 37] Internet-Draft Password Policy for LDAP Directories October 2004 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. 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Disclaimer of Validity This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). 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. Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Sermersheim & Poitou Expires April 24, 2005 [Page 38]