TLS E. Rescorla
Internet-Draft RTFM, Inc.
Obsoletes: 6347 (if approved) H. Tschofenig
Intended status: Standards Track ARM Limited
Expires: April 29, 2017 October 26, 2016

The Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version 1.3
draft-rescorla-tls-dtls13-00

Abstract

This document specifies Version 1.3 of the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol. DTLS 1.3 allows client/server applications to communicate over the Internet in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery.

The DTLS 1.3 protocol is intentionally based on the Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3 protocol and provides equivalent security guarantees. Datagram semantics of the underlying transport are preserved by the DTLS protocol.

Status of This Memo

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction

RFC EDITOR: PLEASE REMOVE THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH

The source for this draft is maintained in GitHub. Suggested changes should be submitted as pull requests at https://github.com/tlswg/dtls13-spec. Instructions are on that page as well. Editorial changes can be managed in GitHub, but any substantive change should be discussed on the TLS mailing list.

The primary goal of the TLS protocol is to provide privacy and data integrity between two communicating peers. The TLS protocol is composed of two layers: the TLS Record Protocol and the TLS Handshake Protocol. However, TLS must run over a reliable transport channel – typically TCP [RFC0793].

There are applications that utilize UDP as a transport and to offer communication security protection for those applications the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol has been designed. DTLS is deliberately designed to be as similar to TLS as possible, both to minimize new security invention and to maximize the amount of code and infrastructure reuse.

DTLS 1.0 was originally defined as a delta from TLS 1.1 and DTLS 1.2 was defined as a series of deltas to TLS 1.2. There is no DTLS 1.1; that version number was skipped in order to harmonize version numbers with TLS. This specification describes the most current version of the DTLS protocol aligning with the efforts around TLS 1.3.

Implementations that speak both DTLS 1.2 and DTLS 1.3 can interoperate with those that speak only DTLS 1.2 (using DTLS 1.2 of course), just as TLS 1.3 implementations can interoperate with TLS 1.2 (see Appendix C of [I-D.ietf-tls-tls13] for details). While backwards compatibility with DTLS 1.0 is possible the use of DTLS 1.0 is not recommended as explained in Section 3.1.2 of RFC 7525 [RFC7525].

2. Conventions and Terminology

The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “NOT RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

The following terms are used:

The reader is assumed to be familiar with the TLS 1.3 specification since this document defined as a delta from TLS 1.3.

3. DTLS Design Rational and Overview

The basic design philosophy of DTLS is to construct “TLS over datagram transport”. Datagram transport does not require or provide reliable or in-order delivery of data. The DTLS protocol preserves this property for application data. Applications such as media streaming, Internet telephony, and online gaming use datagram transport for communication due to the delay-sensitive nature of transported data. The behavior of such applications is unchanged when the DTLS protocol is used to secure communication, since the DTLS protocol does not compensate for lost or re-ordered data traffic.

TLS cannot be used directly in datagram environments for the following five reasons:

  1. TLS does not allow independent decryption of individual records. Because the integrity check indirectly depends on a sequence number, if record N is not received, then the integrity check on record N+1 will be based on the wrong sequence number and thus will fail. DTLS solves this problem by adding explicit sequence numbers.
  2. The TLS handshake is a lock-step cryptographic handshake. Messages must be transmitted and received in a defined order; any other order is an error. Clearly, this is incompatible with reordering and message loss.
  3. Not all TLS 1.3 handshake messages (such as the NewSessionTicket message) are acknowledged. Hence, a new acknowledgement message has to be added to detect message loss.
  4. Handshake messages are potentially larger than any given datagram, thus creating the problem of IP fragmentation.
  5. Datagram transport protocols, like UDP, are more vulnerable to denial of service attacks and require a return-routability check with the help of cookies to be integrated into the handshake. A detailed discussion of countermeasures can be found in Section 5.1.

3.1. Packet Loss

DTLS uses a simple retransmission timer to handle packet loss. Figure 1 demonstrates the basic concept, using the first phase of the DTLS handshake:

         Client                                   Server
         ------                                   ------
         ClientHello           ------>

                                 X<-- HelloRetryRequest
                                                  (lost)

         [Timer Expires]

         ClientHello           ------>
         (retransmit)

Figure 1: DTLS Retransmission Example.

Once the client has transmitted the ClientHello message, it expects to see a HelloRetryRequest from the server. However, if the server’s message is lost, the client knows that either the ClientHello or the HelloRetryRequest has been lost and retransmits. When the server receives the retransmission, it knows to retransmit.

The server also maintains a retransmission timer and retransmits when that timer expires.

Note that timeout and retransmission do not apply to the HelloRetryRequest since this would require creating state on the server. The HelloRetryRequest is designed to be small enough that it will not itself be fragmented, thus avoiding concerns about interleaving multiple HelloRetryRequests.

3.1.1. Reordering

In DTLS, each handshake message is assigned a specific sequence number within that handshake. When a peer receives a handshake message, it can quickly determine whether that message is the next message it expects. If it is, then it processes it. If not, it queues it for future handling once all previous messages have been received.

3.1.2. Message Size

TLS and DTLS handshake messages can be quite large (in theory up to 2^24-1 bytes, in practice many kilobytes). By contrast, UDP datagrams are often limited to less than 1500 bytes if IP fragmentation is not desired. In order to compensate for this limitation, each DTLS handshake message may be fragmented over several DTLS records, each of which is intended to fit in a single IP datagram. Each DTLS handshake message contains both a fragment offset and a fragment length. Thus, a recipient in possession of all bytes of a handshake message can reassemble the original unfragmented message.

3.2. Replay Detection

DTLS optionally supports record replay detection. The technique used is the same as in IPsec AH/ESP, by maintaining a bitmap window of received records. Records that are too old to fit in the window and records that have previously been received are silently discarded. The replay detection feature is optional, since packet duplication is not always malicious, but can also occur due to routing errors. Applications may conceivably detect duplicate packets and accordingly modify their data transmission strategy.

4. The DTLS Record Layer

The DTLS record layer is extremely similar to that of TLS 1.3. The only change is the inclusion of an explicit epoch and sequence number in the record. This sequence number allows the recipient to correctly verify the TLS MAC. The DTLS record format is shown below:

      struct {
           ContentType type;
           ProtocolVersion version = { 254, 253 };
           uint16 epoch;                         // DTLS-related field
           uint48 sequence_number;               // DTLS-related field
           uint16 length;
           opaque fragment[DTLSPlaintext.length];
         } DTLSPlaintext;

type:
Identical to the type field in a TLS 1.3 record.
version:
This specification re-uses the DTLS version 1.2 version number, namely { 254, 253 }. This field is deprecated and MUST be ignored for all purposes.
epoch:
A counter value that is incremented on every cipher state change.
sequence_number:
The sequence number for this record.
length:
Identical to the length field in a TLS 1.3 record.
fragment:
Identical to the fragment field in a TLS 1.3 record.

DTLS uses an explicit sequence number, rather than an implicit one, carried in the sequence_number field of the record. Sequence numbers are maintained separately for each epoch, with each sequence_number initially being 0 for each epoch. For instance, if a handshake message from epoch 0 is retransmitted, it might have a sequence number after a message from epoch 1, even if the message from epoch 1 was transmitted first. Note that some care needs to be taken during the handshake to ensure that retransmitted messages use the right epoch and keying material.

If several handshakes are performed in close succession, there might be multiple records on the wire with the same sequence number but from different cipher states. The epoch field allows recipients to distinguish such packets. The epoch number is initially zero and is incremented each time keying material changes and a sender aims to rekey. More details are provided in Section 5.9. In order to ensure that any given sequence/epoch pair is unique, implementations MUST NOT allow the same epoch value to be reused within two times the TCP maximum segment lifetime.

Note that because DTLS records may be reordered, a record from epoch 1 may be received after epoch 2 has begun. In general, implementations SHOULD discard packets from earlier epochs, but if packet loss causes noticeable problems they MAY choose to retain keying material from previous epochs for up to the default MSL specified for TCP [RFC0793] to allow for packet reordering. (Note that the intention here is that implementers use the current guidance from the IETF for MSL, not that they attempt to interrogate the MSL that the system TCP stack is using.) Until the handshake has completed, implementations MUST accept packets from the old epoch.

Conversely, it is possible for records that are protected by the newly negotiated context to be received prior to the completion of a handshake. For instance, the server may send its Finished message and then start transmitting data. Implementations MAY either buffer or discard such packets, though when DTLS is used over reliable transports (e.g., SCTP), they SHOULD be buffered and processed once the handshake completes. Note that TLS’s restrictions on when packets may be sent still apply, and the receiver treats the packets as if they were sent in the right order. In particular, it is still impermissible to send data prior to completion of the first handshake.

As in TLS, implementations MUST either abandon an association or re-key using a KeyUpdate message prior to allowing the sequence number to wrap.

Implementations MUST NOT allow the epoch to wrap, but instead MUST establish a new association, terminating the old association.

4.1. Transport Layer Mapping

Each DTLS record MUST fit within a single datagram. In order to avoid IP fragmentation, clients of the DTLS record layer SHOULD attempt to size records so that they fit within any PMTU estimates obtained from the record layer.

Note that unlike IPsec, DTLS records do not contain any association identifiers. Applications must arrange to multiplex between associations. With UDP, this is presumably done with the host/port number.

Multiple DTLS records may be placed in a single datagram. They are simply encoded consecutively. The DTLS record framing is sufficient to determine the boundaries. Note, however, that the first byte of the datagram payload must be the beginning of a record. Records may not span datagrams.

Some transports, such as DCCP [RFC4340] provide their own sequence numbers. When carried over those transports, both the DTLS and the transport sequence numbers will be present. Although this introduces a small amount of inefficiency, the transport layer and DTLS sequence numbers serve different purposes; therefore, for conceptual simplicity, it is superior to use both sequence numbers.

Some transports provide congestion control for traffic carried over them. If the congestion window is sufficiently narrow, DTLS handshake retransmissions may be held rather than transmitted immediately, potentially leading to timeouts and spurious retransmission. When DTLS is used over such transports, care should be taken not to overrun the likely congestion window. [RFC5238] defines a mapping of DTLS to DCCP that takes these issues into account.

4.2. PMTU Issues

In general, DTLS’s philosophy is to leave PMTU discovery to the application. However, DTLS cannot completely ignore PMTU for three reasons:

4.3. Record Payload Protection

Like TLS, DTLS transmits data as a series of protected records. The rest of this section describes the details of that format.

4.3.1. Anti-Replay

DTLS records contain a sequence number to provide replay protection. Sequence number verification SHOULD be performed using the following sliding window procedure, borrowed from Section 3.4.3 of [RFC4303].

The receiver packet counter for this session MUST be initialized to zero when the session is established. For each received record, the receiver MUST verify that the record contains a sequence number that does not duplicate the sequence number of any other record received during the life of this session. This SHOULD be the first check applied to a packet after it has been matched to a session, to speed rejection of duplicate records.

Duplicates are rejected through the use of a sliding receive window. (How the window is implemented is a local matter, but the following text describes the functionality that the implementation must exhibit.) A minimum window size of 32 MUST be supported, but a window size of 64 is preferred and SHOULD be employed as the default. Another window size (larger than the minimum) MAY be chosen by the receiver. (The receiver does not notify the sender of the window size.)

The “right” edge of the window represents the highest validated sequence number value received on this session. Records that contain sequence numbers lower than the “left” edge of the window are rejected. Packets falling within the window are checked against a list of received packets within the window. An efficient means for performing this check, based on the use of a bit mask, is described in Section 3.4.3 of [RFC4303].

If the received record falls within the window and is new, or if the packet is to the right of the window, then the receiver proceeds to MAC verification. If the MAC validation fails, the receiver MUST discard the received record as invalid. The receive window is updated only if the MAC verification succeeds.

4.3.2. Handling Invalid Records

Unlike TLS, DTLS is resilient in the face of invalid records (e.g., invalid formatting, length, MAC, etc.). In general, invalid records SHOULD be silently discarded, thus preserving the association; however, an error MAY be logged for diagnostic purposes. Implementations which choose to generate an alert instead, MUST generate fatal level alerts to avoid attacks where the attacker repeatedly probes the implementation to see how it responds to various types of error. Note that if DTLS is run over UDP, then any implementation which does this will be extremely susceptible to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks because UDP forgery is so easy. Thus, this practice is NOT RECOMMENDED for such transports.

If DTLS is being carried over a transport that is resistant to forgery (e.g., SCTP with SCTP-AUTH), then it is safer to send alerts because an attacker will have difficulty forging a datagram that will not be rejected by the transport layer.

5. The DTLS Handshake Protocol

DTLS 1.3 re-uses the TLS 1.3 handshake messages and flows, with the following changes:

  1. To handle message loss, reordering, and fragmentation modifications to the handshake header are necessary.
  2. Retransmission timers are introduced to handle message loss.
  3. The TLS 1.3 KeyUpdate message is not used in DTLS 1.3 for re-keying.
  4. A new ACK message is introduced to more robustness in message delivery.

Note that TLS 1.3 already supports a cookie extension, which used to prevent denial-of-service attacks. This DoS prevention mechanism is described in more detail below since UDP-based protocols are more vulnerable to amplification attacks than a connection-oriented transport like TCP that performs return-routability checks as part of the connection establishment.

With these exceptions, the DTLS message formats, flows, and logic are the same as those of TLS 1.3.

5.1. Denial-of-Service Countermeasures

Datagram security protocols are extremely susceptible to a variety of DoS attacks. Two attacks are of particular concern:

  1. An attacker can consume excessive resources on the server by transmitting a series of handshake initiation requests, causing the server to allocate state and potentially to perform expensive cryptographic operations.
  2. An attacker can use the server as an amplifier by sending connection initiation messages with a forged source of the victim. The server then sends its next message (in DTLS, a Certificate message, which can be quite large) to the victim machine, thus flooding it.

In order to counter both of these attacks, DTLS borrows the stateless cookie technique used by Photuris [RFC2522] and IKE [RFC5996]. When the client sends its ClientHello message to the server, the server MAY respond with a HelloRetryRequest message. The HelloRetryRequest message as well as the cookie extension is defined in TLS 1.3. The HelloRetryRequest message contains a stateless cookie generated using the technique of [RFC2522]. The client MUST retransmit the ClientHello with the cookie added as an extension. The server then verifies the cookie and proceeds with the handshake only if it is valid. This mechanism forces the attacker/client to be able to receive the cookie, which makes DoS attacks with spoofed IP addresses difficult. This mechanism does not provide any defence against DoS attacks mounted from valid IP addresses.

The DTLS 1.3 specification changes the way how cookies are exchanged compared to DTLS 1.2. DTLS 1.3 re-uses the HelloRetryRequest message and conveys the cookie to the client via an extension. The client then uses the same extension to place the cookie into a ClientHello message. DTLS 1.2 on the other hand used a separate message, namely the HelloVerifyRequest, to pass a cookie to the client and did not utilize the extension mechanism. For backwards compatibility reason the cookie field in the ClientHello is present in DTLS 1.3 but is ignored by a DTLS 1.3 compliant server implementation.

The exchange is shown in Figure 2. Note that the figure focuses on the cookie exchange; all other extensions are omitted.