Network Working Group B. Haberman Internet-Draft JHU APL Intended status: Standards Track J. Levine Expires: September 1, 2016 Taughannock Networks February 29, 2016 Using a DNS SRV Record to Locate an X.509 Certificate Store draft-bhjl-x509-srv-00.txt Abstract This document describes a method to allow parties to locate X.509 certificate stores with Domain Name System Service records in order to retrieve certificates and certificate revocation lists. The primary purpose of such retrievals is to facilitate the association of X.509 and PGP public keys with e-mail addresses to allow for encrypted e-mail exchanges. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. 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." This Internet-Draft will expire on September 1, 2016. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2016 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 Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Cert Store SRV Record February 2016 the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Service Record Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Certificate Store Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Name Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 5. Certificate Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Introduction X.509 and PGP public keys can be used to encrypt or sign e-mail messages. In order to verify a sender's signature or encrypt an e-mail, the e-mail client needs to locate the appropriate public key. The Internet Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) provides the necessary services to allow for the retrieval of certificates and certificate revocation lists, but lacks the discovery mechanism needed to associate e-mail domains with specific PKI servers. This document specifies an approach that uses a Domain Name System (DNS) Service Record (SRV) that allows mail service providers to advertise the X.509 certificate store [RFC4387] that contains certificates and certificate revocation lists for their e-mail users. Additionally, this document specifies the appropriate query strings to use when accessing the certificate store. The capitalized key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119]. 2. Service Record Format The general format of a DNS SRV record is documented in [RFC2782] as: _Service._Proto.Name TTL Class SRV Priority Weight Port Target To support the advertisement of an X.509 certificate store, service providers will construct an SRV record with the appropriate Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Cert Store SRV Record February 2016 parameters, as described in [RFC4387], section 3.2. An example of such an SRV record is: _certificates._tcp 86400 IN SRV 0 0 443 certs.example.com The parameters of the DNS SRV record are set based on the operational needs of the service provider. The DNS SRV record MUST be signed via DNSSEC [RFC4033][RFC4034]. The server MUST be an https server and will typically use port 443. The certificate of the https server MUST be validated by a DNSSEC signed TLSA record, and MAY also be validated by a certificate authority. 3. Certificate Store Queries To retrieve an X.509 S/MIME certificate, the attribute type is "uri", and the URI is constructed using the path described in [RFC4387], Section 3.3, specifically "/certificates/search.cgi". Using the SRV record above to look up a certificate for someuser@example.com, the URI would be: https://certs.example.com/certificates/search.cgi?uri=someuser%40example.com X.509 certificate stores MUST support the uri attribute MAY support other attributes. To retrieve a PGP certificate, the attribute type is "email", and the URI is constructed using the path described in [RFC4387], Section 3.3, specifically "/pgpkeys/search.cgi". Using the SRV record above to look up a certificate for someuser@example.com, the URI would be: https://certs.example.com/pgpkeys/search.cgi?email=someuser%40example.com PGP certificate stores MUST support the email attribute MAY support other attributes. 4. Name Matching SMTP [RFC5321] specifies that the local part of a mailbox is interpreted only by the mailbox domain itself. This document does not update or modify that RFC. Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Cert Store SRV Record February 2016 If a certificate store has no certificate with an e-mail address that matches the uri or email attribute in a retrieval request, but it does have a certificate with an e-mail address that the mailbox domain treats similarly to the requested address, the server MAY return that certificate. The definition of what is sufficiently similar is a matter of local policy, but the intention is that a human correspondent would consider the same person or entity to receive mail at the two addresses. 5. Certificate Validation The certificate is returned as a blob of binary data. If multiple certificates are returned, the response MUST be encoded as multipart/ mixed. X509 S/MIME certificates have are validated by checking for a signature by a Certificate Authority (CA) that is acceptable to the validating party. This specification defines an additional validation technique. The domain MAY publish validation certificates using TLSA records at the name _smime._tcp. The TLSA records MUST have PKIX-TA or DANE-TA usage[RFC7218]. Since the relationship between a domain and its mailbox users is in general unknown to correspondents, a client MUST apply a local policy to decide whether to use a S/MIME certificate validated only by a signing certificate published by the domain. PGP certificates are validated by the PGP web of trust. A domain may endorse the certificates it publishes by signing them with a signature of postmaster@. Since the relationship between a domain and its mailbox users is in general unknown to correspondents. a client MUST apply a local policy to decide whether to use a PGP certificate retrieved from a certificate server. This policy would typically be the same one used to decide whether to use a certificate retrieved from a traditional PGP key server. 6. Security Considerations DNSSEC signatures on the SRV record and the https server certificate ensure that any keys retrieved by the technique described in this document are the ones published by the domain's management. But since the relationship between a domain and its mailbox users is in general unknown to correspondents, it would be imprudent to assume that such certificates are in fact ones issued to or used by mailbox recipients or to assume that mail encrypted using the certificates will be readable only by the intended recipient. Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Cert Store SRV Record February 2016 A domain could publish man-in-the-middle certificates that allowed it to decode and read mail, and perhaps re-encrypt it using different certificates used by the recipients. In some cases this would be entirely legitimate, e.g., a financial institution that is required to log all of its employees's correspondence. In other cases, it could be improper surveillance of the contents of users' mail. Identifying or describing the relationship between a domain and its mail users is beyond the scope of this document. 7. IANA Considerations [Note to IANA, to be removed prior to publication.] IANA is requested to add one entry to the Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry. The service name is "smime"", with no associated port numbers. (more here) 8. Acknowledgements 9. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC2782] Gulbrandsen, A., Vixie, P., and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for specifying the location of services (DNS SRV)", RFC 2782, DOI 10.17487/RFC2782, February 2000, . [RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements", RFC 4033, DOI 10.17487/RFC4033, March 2005, . [RFC4034] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. Rose, "Resource Records for the DNS Security Extensions", RFC 4034, DOI 10.17487/RFC4034, March 2005, . [RFC4387] Gutmann, P., Ed., "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Operational Protocols: Certificate Store Access via HTTP", RFC 4387, DOI 10.17487/RFC4387, February 2006, . Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Cert Store SRV Record February 2016 [RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321, DOI 10.17487/RFC5321, October 2008, . [RFC7218] Gudmundsson, O., "Adding Acronyms to Simplify Conversations about DNS-Based Authentication of Named Entities (DANE)", RFC 7218, DOI 10.17487/RFC7218, April 2014, . Authors' Addresses Brian Haberman Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab Email: brian@innovationslab.net John Levine Taughannock Networks PO Box 727 Trumansburg, NY 14886 Phone: +1 831 480 2300 Email: standards@taugh.com Haberman & Levine Expires September 1, 2016 [Page 6]