1 NETWORK WORKING GROUP N. Williams
3 Expires: December 30, 2004 July 2004
8 draft-williams-gssapi-v3-guide-to-00.txt
14 By submitting this Internet-Draft, I certify that any applicable
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40 This Internet-Draft will expire on December 30, 2004.
46 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.
52 Extensions to the GSS-APIv2 are needed for a number of reasons. This
53 documents describes the extensions being proposed, the resons,
54 possible future directions, and portability, IANA and security
55 considerations. This document does not define any protocol or
56 interface and is purely informational.
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74 1. Conventions used in this document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
75 2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
76 3. A Pseudo-Mechanism OID for the GSS-API Itself . . . . . . . . 5
77 4. Mechanism Attribute Inquiry Facilities . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
78 5. Security Context Extensibility Extensions . . . . . . . . . . 7
79 6. Credential Extensibility Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
80 7. Credential Export/Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
81 8. GSS_Store_cred() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
82 9. Pseudo-Mechanism Stacking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
83 10. Naming Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
84 11. Additional Name Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
85 12. GSS_Pseudo_random() . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
86 13. Channel Bindings Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
87 14. Semantic and Miscallaneous Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
88 15. Portability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
89 16. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
90 17. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
91 18. Normative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
92 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
93 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 20
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129 1. Conventions used in this document
132 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
133 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
134 document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
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190 [NOTE: the references section is current fairly empty; the various
191 KITTEN WG work items will be added to this I-D in a subsequent
195 Since the advent of the GSS-APIv2 it has come to be used in a number
196 of Internet (and other) protocols and a number of implementations
197 exist. In that time implementors and protocol designers have come to
198 understand both, the GSS-API's strengths, and its shortcommings; we
199 believe now that a number of extensions to the GSS-API are needed.
200 Here these proposed extensions, forming what we may call the GSS-API
201 version 3, are described at a high-level.;
204 Some of these extensions are intended to facilitate further
205 extensions, so that further major revisions to the GSS-API may not be
206 necessary. Others are intended to fill voids in the the GSS-APIv2.
209 The extensions being proposed are:
210 A pseudo-mechanism OID for the GSS-API itself
211 Mechanism attribute inquiry facilities
212 Security context extensibility extensions
213 Credential extensibility extensions
214 Credential export/import
215 GSS_Store_cred(), for making delegated credentials available for
217 Pseudo-mechanism stacking
218 Naming extensions, to facilitate authorization by identifiers
220 Additional name types, specifically domain-based naming
221 A pseudo-random function interface
222 Channel bindings specifications
223 Semantic extensions relating to thread- and/or fork-safety
224 [Have I missed anything? I have a feeling I have. Re-keying?]
228 Additionally, because we foresee future minor extensions, including,
229 specifically, extensions which may impact the various namespaces
230 associated with APIs (symbol names, constant values, class names,
231 etc...) we also propose the establishment of IANA registries for
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249 3. A Pseudo-Mechanism OID for the GSS-API Itself
252 A mechanism OID is assigned to identify and refer to the GSS-API
253 iself. This is necessary to enable the use of extended inquiry
254 interfaces to inquire about features of a GSS-API implementation
255 specifically, apart from actual mechanisms.
258 But also, this OID is needed for better error handling, so that minor
259 status codes produced in generic contexts that lack a mechanism OID
260 can be distinguished from minor status codes for a "default"
261 mechanism and properly displayed.
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308 4. Mechanism Attribute Inquiry Facilities
311 In the course of designing a pseudo-mechanism stacking facility, as
312 well as while considering the impact of all of these extensions on
313 portability, a need for interfaces through which to discover or
314 inquire by features provided by GSS-API mechanisms was discovered.
317 The proposed mechanism attribute inquiry interfaces consist of:
318 GSS_Inquire_mech_attrs_for_mech()
319 GSS_Indicate_mechs_by_mech_attrs()
320 GSS_Display_mech_attr()
323 These extensions facilitate portability by allowing GSS-APIv3
324 applications to discover the features provided by a given
325 implementation of the GSS-API or any mechanisms. These extensions
326 are also useful in facilitating stackable pseudo-mechanisms.
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368 5. Security Context Extensibility Extensions
371 In order to facilitate future security context options we introduce a
372 GSS_Create_sec_context() interface that creates a security context
373 object, for use with extensions and with GSS_Init_sec_context(),
374 GSS_Accept_sec_context(), and GSS_Inquire_sec_context(). Such
375 security contexts are in a non-established state until they are
376 established through the use of GSS_Init_sec_context() or
377 GSS_Accept_sec_context().
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426 6. Credential Extensibility Extensions
429 In order to facilitate future extensions to GSS credentials we
430 introduce a GSS_Create_credential(), similar to
431 GSS_Create_sec_context(), interface that creates an "empty"
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484 7. Credential Export/Import
487 To allow for passing of credentials between different "session
488 contexts," between different hosts, or for storage of post-dated
489 credentials, we introduce a credential export/import facility, much
490 like the security context export/import facility of the GSS-APIv2.
493 Together with credential extensibility and other extensions this
494 facility may allow for:
495 Credential delegation at any time
496 Post-dated credentials, and storage of the such for subsequent
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546 This extension fills a void in the GSS-APIv2 where delegated
547 credentials could not be used except in the context of the same
548 process that received them. With this extension acceptor
549 applications can now make delegated credentials available for use,
550 with GSS_Acquire_cred() et. al., in other process contexts.
553 [Manipulation of "credential stores" is (may be?) out of scope for
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602 9. Pseudo-Mechanism Stacking
605 A number of pseudo-mechanisms are being proposed which are designed
606 to "stack" atop other mechanisms. The possiblities are many,
607 including: a compression mechanism, a perfect forward security
608 mechanism, an many others.
611 The GSS-APIv2 only had concrete mechanisms and one pseudo-mechanism
612 (SPNEGO) available. With this proposal the mechanism taxonomy is
614 Concrete mechanisms (e.g., the Kerberos V mechanism)
615 Composite mechanisms (a concrete mechanism composed with one or
616 more stackable pseudo-mechanisms)
617 Stackable pseudo-mechanisms
618 Other pseudo-mechanisms (e.g., SPNEGO, the GSS-API itself)
621 Although composed mechanisms may be made available for use by
622 GSS-APIv2 applications without any further extensions, use of
623 stackable pseudo-mechanisms can complicate mechanism negotiation;
624 additionally, discovery of mechanisms appropriate for use in one or
625 another context would require hard-coding information about them in
626 GSS-APIv2 applications. Extensions to the GSS-APIv2 could facilitate
630 The mechanism attribute inquiry facilities, together with the
631 forllowing additional interfaces, provide for a complete interface to
632 mechanism composition and for managing the complexity of mechanism
637 GSS_Indicate_negotiable_mechs()
638 GSS_Negotiate_mechs()
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663 10. Naming Extensions
666 Some applications make use of exported names, as produced by
667 GSS_Export_name(), to create/manage/evaluate access control lists; we
668 call this name-based authorization.
671 Exported names typically encode names that are meant for display to
672 humans, not internal identifiers.
675 In practice this creates a number of problems. E.g., the referential
676 integrity of such access control lists is hard to maintain as
677 principals are added, removed, renamed or old principal names reused.
680 Additionally, some mechanisms may lack a notion of a "canonical" name
681 for some or all of their principals. Such mechanisms cannot be used
682 by applications that rely on name-based authorization.
685 <Describe the proposed extensions in this area.>
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725 11. Additional Name Types
728 <Decribe domain-based names and the need for them.>
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783 12. GSS_Pseudo_random()
786 <Decribe GSS_Pseudo_random() and the need for it.>
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841 13. Channel Bindings Specifications
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898 14. Semantic and Miscallaneous Extensions
901 The GSS-APIv2 specifications say nothing about the thread-safety,
902 much less the fork-safety, of the GSS-API. Thread-safety and
903 fork-safety are, after all, platform- and/or language-specific
904 matters. But as support for multi-threading spreads the matter of
905 thread-safety cannot be avoided. The matter of fork-safety is
906 specific to platforms that provide a "fork()" function, or similar.
909 <describe the GSS-APIv3's thread-safety requirements>
912 <reference the portability considerations section>
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958 15. Portability Considerations
961 The potential for additional generic, mechanism-specific, language
962 binding-specific and, most importantly, semantic extensions to the
963 GSS-APIv3 may create application portability problems. The mechanism
964 attribute inquiry facilities of the GSS-APIv3 and the
965 pseudo-mechanism OID for the GSS-API itself double as a run-time
966 facility for discovery of feature availability. Run-time feature
967 discovery facilities, in turn, can be used at application build-time
968 as well by building small applications to display the available
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1017 16. IANA Considerations
1020 <Describe the namespace issues associated with future minor
1021 extensions to the GSS-APIv3 and the IANA registries to be created to
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1075 17. Security Considerations
1084 [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
1085 Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
1088 [RFC2743] Linn, J., "Generic Security Service Application Program
1089 Interface Version 2, Update 1", RFC 2743, January 2000.
1092 [RFC2744] Wray, J., "Generic Security Service API Version 2 :
1093 C-bindings", RFC 2744, January 2000.
1107 EMail: Nicolas.Williams@sun.com
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