2 TLS Working Group N. Mavroyanopoulos
3 Internet-Draft January 25, 2005
6 Using OpenPGP keys for TLS authentication
7 draft-ietf-tls-openpgp-keys-06
11 This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
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38 Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
42 This memo proposes extensions to the TLS protocol to support the
43 OpenPGP trust model and keys. The extensions discussed here include
44 a certificate type negotiation mechanism, and the required
45 modifications to the TLS Handshake Protocol.
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55 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
56 2. Extension Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
57 3. Changes to the Handshake Message Contents . . . . . . . . . . 5
58 3.1 Client Hello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
59 3.2 Server Hello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
60 3.3 Server Certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
61 3.4 Certificate request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
62 3.5 Client certificate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
63 3.6 Server key exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
64 3.7 Certificate verify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
65 3.8 Finished . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
66 4. Cipher suites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
67 5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
68 6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
69 7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
70 7.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
71 7.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
72 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
73 A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
74 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 14
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95 At the time of writing, TLS [1] uses the PKIX [6] infrastructure, to
96 provide certificate services. Currently the PKIX protocols are
97 limited to a hierarchical key management and as a result,
98 applications which follow different - non hierarchical - trust
99 models, like the "web of trust" model, could not be benefited by TLS.
101 OpenPGP keys (sometimes called OpenPGP certificates), provide
102 security services for electronic communications. They are widely
103 deployed, especially in electronic mail applications, provide public
104 key authentication services, and allow distributed key management.
106 This document will extend the TLS protocol to support OpenPGP keys
107 and trust model using the existing TLS cipher suites. In brief this
108 would be achieved by adding a negotiation of the certificate type in
109 addition to the normal handshake negotiations. Then the required
110 modifications to the handshake messages, in order to hold OpenPGP
111 keys as well, will be described. The the normal handshake procedure
112 with X.509 certificates will not be altered, to preserve
113 compatibility with existing TLS servers and clients.
115 This document uses the same notation used in the TLS Protocol
118 The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
119 "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
120 document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
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138 A new value, "cert_type(7)", is added to the enumerated
139 ExtensionType, defined in TLSEXT [3]. This value is used as the
140 extension number for the extensions in both the client hello message
141 and the server hello message. This new extension type will be used
142 for certificate type negotiation.
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168 3. Changes to the Handshake Message Contents
170 This section describes the changes to the TLS handshake message
171 contents when OpenPGP keys are to be used for authentication.
175 In order to indicate the support of multiple certificate types
176 clients will include an extension of type "cert_type" to the extended
177 client hello message. The hello extension mechanism is described in
180 This extension carries a list of supported certificate types the
181 client can use, sorted by client preference. This extension MAY be
182 omitted if the client only supports X.509 certificates. The
183 "extension_data" field of this extension will contain a
184 CertificateTypeExtension structure.
186 enum { client, server } ClientOrServerExtension;
188 enum { X.509(0), OpenPGP(1), (255) } CertificateType;
191 select(ClientOrServerExtension) {
193 CertificateType certificate_types<1..2^8-1>;
195 CertificateType certificate_type;
197 } CertificateTypeExtension;
201 Servers that receive an extended client hello containing the
202 "cert_type" extension, and have chosen a cipher suite that supports
203 certificates, then they MUST select a certificate type from the
204 certificate_types field in the extended client hello, or terminate
205 the connection with a fatal alert of type "unsupported_certificate".
207 The certificate type selected by the server, is encoded in a
208 CertificateTypeExtension structure, which is included in the extended
209 server hello message, using an extension of type "cert_type".
210 Servers that only support X.509 certificates MAY omit including the
211 "cert_type" extension in the extended server hello.
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218 3.3 Server Certificate
220 The contents of the certificate message sent from server to client
221 and vice versa are determined by the negotiated certificate type and
222 the selected cipher suite's key exchange algorithm.
224 If the OpenPGP certificate type is negotiated then it is required to
225 present an OpenPGP key in the Certificate message. The OpenPGP key
226 must contain a public key that matches the selected key exchange
227 algorithm, as shown below.
229 Key Exchange Algorithm OpenPGP Key Type
231 RSA RSA public key which can be used for
234 DHE_DSS DSS public key.
236 DHE_RSA RSA public key which can be used for
239 An OpenPGP public key appearing in the Certificate message will be
240 sent using the binary OpenPGP format. The term public key is used to
241 describe a composition of OpenPGP packets to form a block of data
242 which contains all information needed by the peer. This includes
243 public key packets, user ID packets and all the fields described in
244 "Transferable Public Keys" section in OpenPGP [2].
246 The option is also available to send an OpenPGP fingerprint, instead
247 of sending the entire key. The process of fingerprint generation is
248 described in OpenPGP [2]. The peer shall respond with a
249 "certificate_unobtainable" fatal alert if the key with the given key
250 fingerprint cannot be found. The "certificate_unobtainable" fatal
251 alert is defined in section 4 of TLSEXT [3].
253 If the key is not valid, expired, revoked, corrupt, the appropriate
254 fatal alert message is sent from section A.3 of the TLS
255 specification. If a key is valid and neither expired nor revoked, it
256 is accepted by the protocol. The key validation procedure is a local
257 matter outside the scope of this document.
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267 key_fingerprint (0), key (1), (255)
268 } PGPKeyDescriptorType;
270 opaque PGPKeyFingerprint<16..20>;
272 opaque PGPKey<0..2^24-1>;
275 PGPKeyDescriptorType descriptorType;
276 select (descriptorType) {
277 case key_fingerprint: PGPKeyFingerprint;
282 3.4 Certificate request
284 The semantics of this message remain the same as in the TLS
285 specification. However the structure of this message has been
286 modified for OpenPGP keys. The PGPCertificateRequest structure will
287 only be used if the negotiated certificate type is OpenPGP.
290 rsa_sign(1), dss_sign(2), (255)
291 } ClientCertificateParamsType;
294 ClientCertificateParamsType certificate_params_types<1..2^8-1>;
295 } PGPCertificateRequest;
297 The certificate_params_types is a list of accepted client certificate
298 parameter types, sorted in order of the server's preference.
300 3.5 Client certificate
302 This message is only sent in response to the certificate request
303 message. The client certificate message is sent using the same
304 formatting as the server certificate message and it is also required
305 to present a certificate that matches the negotiated certificate
306 type. If OpenPGP keys have been selected, and no key is available
307 from the client, then a Certificate that contains an empty PGPKey
308 should be sent. The server may respond with a "handshake_failure"
309 fatal alert if client authentication is required. This transaction
310 follows the TLS specification.
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316 3.6 Server key exchange
318 The server key exchange message for OpenPGP keys is identical to the
321 3.7 Certificate verify
323 The certificate verify message for OpenPGP keys is identical to the
328 The finished message for OpenPGP keys is identical to the description
329 in the specification.
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354 No new cipher suites are required to use OpenPGP keys. OpenPGP keys
355 can be combined with existing cipher suites defined in TLS [1],
356 except the ones marked as "Exportable". Exportable cipher suites
357 SHOULD NOT be used with OpenPGP keys.
359 Some additional cipher suites are defined here in order to support
360 algorithms which are defined in OpenPGP [2], and are always available
361 in OpenPGP implementations but are not present in TLS [1].
363 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x72 };
364 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_128_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x73 };
365 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_DSS_WITH_AES_256_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x74 };
366 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x77 };
367 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x78 };
368 CipherSuite TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x79 };
369 CipherSuite TLS_RSA_WITH_3DES_EDE_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x7C };
370 CipherSuite TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x7D };
371 CipherSuite TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_RMD160 = { 0x00, 0x7E };
373 All of the above cipher suites use either the AES [5] and 3DES block
374 ciphers in CBC mode. The choice of hash is the RIPEMD-160 [4]
375 algorithm. Implementations are not required to support the above
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393 5. Internationalization Considerations
395 All the methods defined in this document are represented as machine
396 readable structures. As such issues of human internationalization
397 and localization are not introduced.
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424 6. Security Considerations
426 As with X.509 ASN.1 formatted keys, OpenPGP keys need specialized
427 parsers. Care must be taken to make those parsers safe against
428 maliciously modified keys, that may crash or modify the application's
431 Security considerations about the use of the web of trust or the
432 verification procedure are outside the scope of this document, since
433 they are considered a local policy matter.
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460 7.1 Normative References
462 [1] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol", RFC 2246, January
465 [2] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finey, H. and R. Thayer, "OpenPGP
466 Message Format", RFC 2440, November 1998.
468 [3] Blake-Wilson, S., Nystrom, M., Hopwood, D., Mikkelsen, J. and T.
469 Wright, "TLS Extensions", RFC 3546, June 2003.
471 [4] Dobbertin, H., Bosselaers, A. and B. Preneel, "RIPEMD-160: A
472 Strengthened Version of RIPEMD", April 1996.
474 [5] Chown, P., "Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) Ciphersuites for
475 Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 3268, June 2002.
477 7.2 Informative References
479 [6] Housley, R., Ford, W., Polk, W. and D. Solo, "Internet X.509
480 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation
481 List (CRL) Profile", RFC 3280, April 2002.
483 [7] "Recommendation X.509: The Directory - Authentication
488 Nikos Mavroyanopoulos
490 Halandri, Attiki 15234
493 EMail: nmav@gnutls.org
494 URI: http://www.gnutls.org/
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505 Appendix A. Acknowledgements
507 The author wishes to thank Werner Koch, David Taylor and Timo Schulz
508 for their suggestions on improving this document.
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