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Network Working Group P. Eronen, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4555 Nokia
Category: Standards Track June 2006
IKEv2 Mobility and Multihoming Protocol (MOBIKE)
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This document describes the MOBIKE protocol, a mobility and
multihoming extension to Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2). MOBIKE
allows the IP addresses associated with IKEv2 and tunnel mode IPsec
Security Associations to change. A mobile Virtual Private Network
(VPN) client could use MOBIKE to keep the connection with the VPN
gateway active while moving from one address to another. Similarly,
a multihomed host could use MOBIKE to move the traffic to a different
interface if, for instance, the one currently being used stops
working.
Eronen Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Scope and Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3. Terminology and Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.1. Basic Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.2. Example Protocol Exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3. MOBIKE and Network Address Translation (NAT) . . . . . . . 9
3. Protocol Exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1. Initial IKE Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Signaling Support for MOBIKE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3. Initial Tunnel Header Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.4. Additional Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.5. Changing Addresses in IPsec SAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.6. Updating Additional Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.7. Return Routability Check . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.8. Changes in NAT Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.9. NAT Prohibition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.10. Path Testing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.11. Failure Recovery and Timeouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.12. Dead Peer Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4. Payload Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.1. Notify Messages - Error Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.2. Notify Messages - Status Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.1. Traffic Redirection and Hijacking . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.2. IPsec Payload Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5.3. Denial-of-Service Attacks against Third Parties . . . . . 25
5.4. Spoofing Network Connectivity Indications . . . . . . . . 26
5.5. Address and Topology Disclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix A. Implementation Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
A.1. Links from SPD Cache to Outbound SAD Entries . . . . . . . 31
A.2. Creating Outbound SAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
1. Introduction
1.1. Motivation
IKEv2 is used for performing mutual authentication, as well as
establishing and maintaining IPsec Security Associations (SAs). In
the base IKEv2 protocol [IKEv2], the IKE SAs and tunnel mode IPsec
SAs are created implicitly between the IP addresses that are used
when the IKE_SA is established. These IP addresses are then used as
the outer (tunnel header) addresses for tunnel mode IPsec packets
(transport mode IPsec SAs are beyond the scope of this document).
Currently, it is not possible to change these addresses after the
IKE_SA has been created.
There are scenarios where these IP addresses might change. One
example is mobility: a host changes its point of network attachment
and receives a new IP address. Another example is a multihoming host
that would like to change to a different interface if, for instance,
the currently used interface stops working for some reason.
Although the problem can be solved by creating new IKE and IPsec SAs
when the addresses need to be changed, this may not be optimal for
several reasons. In some cases, creating a new IKE_SA may require
user interaction for authentication, such as entering a code from a
token card. Creating new SAs often involves expensive calculations
and possibly a large number of round-trips. For these reasons, a
mechanism for updating the IP addresses of existing IKE and IPsec SAs
is needed. The MOBIKE protocol described in this document provides
such a mechanism.
The main scenario for MOBIKE is enabling a remote access VPN user to
move from one address to another without re-establishing all security
associations with the VPN gateway. For instance, a user could start
from fixed Ethernet in the office and then disconnect the laptop and
move to the office's wireless LAN. When the user leaves the office,
the laptop could start using General Packet Radio Service (GPRS);
when the user arrives home, the laptop could switch to the home
wireless LAN. MOBIKE updates only the outer (tunnel header)
addresses of IPsec SAs, and the addresses and other traffic selectors
used inside the tunnel stay unchanged. Thus, mobility can be
(mostly) invisible to applications and their connections using the
VPN.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
MOBIKE also supports more complex scenarios where the VPN gateway
also has several network interfaces: these interfaces could be
connected to different networks or ISPs, they may be a mix of IPv4
and IPv6 addresses, and the addresses may change over time.
Furthermore, both parties could be VPN gateways relaying traffic for
other parties.
1.2. Scope and Limitations
This document focuses on the main scenario outlined above and
supports only tunnel mode IPsec SAs.
The mobility support in MOBIKE allows both parties to move, but does
not provide a "rendezvous" mechanism that would allow simultaneous
movement of both parties or discovery of the addresses when the
IKE_SA is first established. Therefore, MOBIKE is best suited for
situations where the address of at least one endpoint is relatively
stable and can be discovered using existing mechanisms such as DNS
(see Section 3.1).
MOBIKE allows both parties to be multihomed; however, only one pair
of addresses is used for an SA at a time. In particular, load
balancing is beyond the scope of this specification.
MOBIKE follows the IKEv2 practice where a response message is sent to
the same address and port from which the request was received. This
implies that MOBIKE does not work over address pairs that provide
only unidirectional connectivity.
Network Address Translators (NATs) introduce additional limitations
beyond those listed above. For details, refer to Section 2.3.
The base version of the MOBIKE protocol does not cover all potential
future use scenarios, such as transport mode, application to securing
SCTP, or optimizations desirable in specific circumstances. Future
extensions may be defined later to support additional requirements.
Please consult the MOBIKE design document [Design] for further
information and rationale behind these limitations.
1.3. Terminology and Notation
When messages containing IKEv2 payloads are described, optional
payloads are shown in brackets (for instance, "[FOO]"), and a plus
sign indicates that a payload can be repeated one or more times (for
instance, "FOO+"). To provide context, some diagrams also show what
existing IKEv2 payloads would typically be included in the exchanges.
These payloads are shown for illustrative purposes only; see [IKEv2]
for an authoritative description.
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When this document describes updating the source/destination
addresses of an IPsec SA, it means updating IPsec-related state so
that outgoing Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)/Authentication
Header (AH) packets use those addresses in the tunnel header.
Depending on how the nominal divisions between Security Association
Database (SAD), Security Policy Database (SPD), and Peer
Authorization Database (PAD) described in [IPsecArch] are actually
implemented, an implementation can have several different places that
have to be updated.
In this document, the term "initiator" means the party who originally
initiated the first IKE_SA (in a series of possibly several rekeyed
IKE_SAs); "responder" is the other peer. During the lifetime of the
IKE_SA, both parties may initiate INFORMATIONAL or CREATE_CHILD_SA
exchanges; in this case, the terms "exchange initiator" and "exchange
responder" are used. The term "original initiator" (which in [IKEv2]
refers to the party who started the latest IKE_SA rekeying) is not
used in this document.
The 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 [KEYWORDS].
2. Protocol Overview
2.1. Basic Operation
MOBIKE allows both parties to have several addresses, and there are
up to N*M pairs of IP addresses that could potentially be used. The
decision of which of these pairs to use has to take into account
several factors. First, the parties may have preferences about which
interface should be used due to, for instance, performance and cost
reasons. Second, the decision is constrained by the fact that some
of the pairs may not work at all due to incompatible IP versions,
outages in the network, problems at the local link at either end, and
so on.
MOBIKE solves this problem by taking a simple approach: the party
that initiated the IKE_SA (the "client" in a remote access VPN
scenario) is responsible for deciding which address pair is used for
the IPsec SAs and for collecting the information it needs to make
this decision (such as determining which address pairs work or do not
work). The other party (the "gateway" in a remote access VPN
scenario) simply tells the initiator what addresses it has, but does
not update the IPsec SAs until it receives a message from the
initiator to do so. This approach applies to the addresses in the
IPsec SAs; in the IKE_SA case, the exchange initiator can decide
which addresses are used.
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Making the decision at the initiator is consistent with how normal
IKEv2 works: the initiator decides which addresses it uses when
contacting the responder. It also makes sense, especially when the
initiator is a mobile node: it is in a better position to decide
which of its network interfaces should be used for both upstream and
downstream traffic.
The details of exactly how the initiator makes the decision, what
information is used in making it, how the information is collected,
how preferences affect the decision, and when a decision needs to be
changed are largely beyond the scope of MOBIKE. This does not mean
that these details are unimportant: on the contrary, they are likely
to be crucial in any real system. However, MOBIKE is concerned with
these details only to the extent that they are visible in IKEv2/IPsec
messages exchanged between the peers (and thus need to be
standardized to ensure interoperability).
Many of these issues are not specific to MOBIKE, but are common with
the use of existing hosts in dynamic environments or with mobility
protocols such as Mobile IP [MIP4] [MIP6]. A number of mechanisms
already exist or are being developed to deal with these issues. For
instance, link-layer and IP-layer mechanisms can be used to track the
status of connectivity within the local link [RFC2461]; movement
detection is being specified for both IPv4 and IPv6 in [DNA4],
[DNA6], and so on.
Naturally, updating the addresses of IPsec SAs has to take into
account several security considerations. MOBIKE includes two
features designed to address these considerations. First, a "return
routability" check can be used to verify the addresses provided by
the peer. This makes it more difficult to flood third parties with
large amounts of traffic. Second, a "NAT prohibition" feature
ensures that IP addresses have not been modified by NATs, IPv4/IPv6
translation agents, or other similar devices. This feature is
enabled only when NAT Traversal is not used.
2.2. Example Protocol Exchanges
A simple MOBIKE exchange in a mobile scenario is illustrated below.
The notation is based on [IKEv2], Section 1.2. In addition, the
source/destination IP addresses and ports are shown for each packet:
here IP_I1, IP_I2, IP_R1, and IP_R2 represent IP addresses used by
the initiator and the responder.
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Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
1) (IP_I1:500 -> IP_R1:500)
HDR, SAi1, KEi, Ni,
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) -->
<-- (IP_R1:500 -> IP_I1:500)
HDR, SAr1, KEr, Nr,
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP)
2) (IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { IDi, CERT, AUTH,
CP(CFG_REQUEST),
SAi2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED) } -->
<-- (IP_R1:4500 -> IP_I1:4500)
HDR, SK { IDr, CERT, AUTH,
CP(CFG_REPLY),
SAr2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED) }
(Initiator gets information from lower layers that its attachment
point and address have changed.)
3) (IP_I2:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES),
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) } -->
<-- (IP_R1:4500 -> IP_I2:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) }
(Responder verifies that the initiator has given it a correct IP
address.)
4) <-- (IP_R1:4500 -> IP_I2:4500)
HDR, SK { N(COOKIE2) }
(IP_I2:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(COOKIE2) } -->
Step 1 is the normal IKE_INIT exchange. In step 2, the peers inform
each other that they support MOBIKE. In step 3, the initiator
notices a change in its own address, and informs the responder about
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
this by sending an INFORMATIONAL request containing the
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES notification. The request is sent using the new
IP address. At this point, it also starts to use the new address as
a source address in its own outgoing ESP traffic. Upon receiving the
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES notification, the responder records the new
address and, if it is required by policy, performs a return
routability check of the address. When this check (step 4)
completes, the responder starts to use the new address as the
destination for its outgoing ESP traffic.
Another protocol run in a multihoming scenario is illustrated below.
In this scenario, the initiator has one address but the responder has
two.
Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
1) (IP_I1:500 -> IP_R1:500)
HDR, SAi1, KEi, Ni,
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) -->
<-- (IP_R1:500 -> IP_I1:500)
HDR, SAr1, KEr, Nr,
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP)
2) (IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { IDi, CERT, AUTH,
CP(CFG_REQUEST),
SAi2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED) } -->
<-- (IP_R1:4500 -> IP_I1:4500)
HDR, SK { IDr, CERT, AUTH,
CP(CFG_REPLY),
SAr2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED),
N(ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS) }
(The initiator suspects a problem in the currently used address pair
and probes its liveness.)
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
3) (IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) } -->
(IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) } -->
...
(Eventually, the initiator gives up on the current address pair and
tests the other available address pair.)
4) (IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R2:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) }
<-- (IP_R2:4500 -> IP_I1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP) }
(This worked, and the initiator requests the peer to switch to new
addresses.)
5) (IP_I1:4500 -> IP_R2:4500)
HDR, SK { N(UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES),
N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP),
N(COOKIE2) } -->
<-- (IP_R2:4500 -> IP_I1:4500)
HDR, SK { N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP),
N(COOKIE2) }
2.3. MOBIKE and Network Address Translation (NAT)
In some MOBIKE scenarios, the network may contain NATs or stateful
packet filters (for brevity, the rest of this document simply
describes NATs). The NAT Traversal feature specified in [IKEv2]
allows IKEv2 to work through NATs in many cases, and MOBIKE can
leverage this functionality: when the addresses used for IPsec SAs
are changed, MOBIKE can enable or disable IKEv2 NAT Traversal, as
needed.
Nevertheless, there are some limitations because NATs usually
introduce an asymmetry into the network: only packets coming from the
"inside" cause state to be created. This asymmetry leads to
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
restrictions on what MOBIKE can do. To give a concrete example,
consider a situation where both peers have only a single address, and
the initiator is behind a NAT. If the responder's address now
changes, it needs to send a packet to the initiator using its new
address. However, if the NAT is, for instance, of the common
"restricted cone" type (see [STUN] for one description of different
NAT types), this is not possible. The NAT will drop packets sent
from the new address (unless the initiator has previously sent a
packet to that address -- which it cannot do until it knows the
address).
For simplicity, MOBIKE does not attempt to handle all possible NAT-
related scenarios. Instead, MOBIKE assumes that if NATs are present,
the initiator is the party "behind" the NAT, and the case where the
responder's addresses change is not fully supported (meaning that no
special effort is made to support this functionality). Responders
may also be unaware of NATs or specific types of NATs they are
behind. However, when a change has occurred that will cause a loss
of connectivity, MOBIKE responders will still attempt to inform the
initiator of the change. Depending on, for instance, the exact type
of NAT, it may or may not succeed. However, analyzing the exact
circumstances when this will or will not work is not done in this
document.
3. Protocol Exchanges
3.1. Initial IKE Exchange
The initiator is responsible for finding a working pair of addresses
so that the initial IKE exchange can be carried out. Any information
from MOBIKE extensions will only be available later, when the
exchange has progressed far enough. Exactly how the addresses used
for the initial exchange are discovered is beyond the scope of this
specification; typical sources of information include local
configuration and DNS.
If either or both of the peers have multiple addresses, some
combinations may not work. Thus, the initiator SHOULD try various
source and destination address combinations when retransmitting the
IKE_SA_INIT request.
3.2. Signaling Support for MOBIKE
Implementations that wish to use MOBIKE for a particular IKE_SA MUST
include a MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification in the IKE_AUTH exchange (in
case of multiple IKE_AUTH exchanges, in the message containing the SA
payload).
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The format of the MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification is described in
Section 4.
3.3. Initial Tunnel Header Addresses
When an IPsec SA is created, the tunnel header IP addresses (and
port, if doing UDP encapsulation) are taken from the IKE_SA, not the
IP header of the IKEv2 message requesting the IPsec SA. The
addresses in the IKE_SA are initialized from the IP header of the
first IKE_AUTH request.
The addresses are taken from the IKE_AUTH request because IKEv2
requires changing from port 500 to 4500 if a NAT is discovered. To
simplify things, implementations that support both this specification
and NAT Traversal MUST change to port 4500 if the correspondent also
supports both, even if no NAT was detected between them (this way,
there is no need to change the ports later if a NAT is detected on
some other path).
3.4. Additional Addresses
Both the initiator and responder MAY include one or more
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and/or ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications in
the IKE_AUTH exchange (in case of multiple IKE_AUTH exchanges, in the
message containing the SA payload). Here "ADDITIONAL_*_ADDRESS"
means either an ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS or an ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS
notification.
Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
HDR, SK { IDi, [CERT], [IDr], AUTH,
[CP(CFG_REQUEST)]
SAi2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED),
[N(ADDITIONAL_*_ADDRESS)+] } -->
<-- HDR, SK { IDr, [CERT], AUTH,
[CP(CFG_REPLY)],
SAr2, TSi, TSr,
N(MOBIKE_SUPPORTED)
[N(ADDITIONAL_*_ADDRESS)+] }
The recipient stores this information, but no other action is taken
at this time.
Although both the initiator and responder maintain a set of peer
addresses (logically associated with the IKE_SA), it is important to
note that they use this information for slightly different purposes.
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The initiator uses the set of responder addresses as an input to its
address selection policy; it may, at some later point, decide to move
the IPsec traffic to one of these addresses using the procedure
described in Section 3.5. The responder normally does not use the
set of initiator addresses for anything: the addresses are used only
when the responder's own addresses change (see Section 3.6).
The set of addresses available to the peers can change during the
lifetime of the IKE_SA. The procedure for updating this information
is described in Section 3.6.
Note that if some of the initiator's interfaces are behind a NAT
(from the responder's point of view), the addresses received by the
responder will be incorrect. This means the procedure for changing
responder addresses described in Section 3.6 does not fully work when
the initiator is behind a NAT. For the same reason, the peers also
SHOULD NOT use this information for any other purpose than what is
explicitly described either in this document or a future
specification updating it.
3.5. Changing Addresses in IPsec SAs
In MOBIKE, the initiator decides what addresses are used in the IPsec
SAs. That is, the responder does not normally update any IPsec SAs
without receiving an explicit UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES request from the
initiator. (As described below, the responder can, however, update
the IKE_SA in some circumstances.)
The reasons why the initiator wishes to change the addresses are
largely beyond the scope of MOBIKE. Typically, triggers include
information received from lower layers, such as changes in IP
addresses or link-down indications. Some of this information can be
unreliable: for instance, ICMP messages could be spoofed by an
attacker. Unreliable information SHOULD be treated only as a hint
that there might be a problem, and the initiator SHOULD trigger Dead
Peer Detection (that is, send an INFORMATIONAL request) to determine
if the current path is still usable.
Changing addresses can also be triggered by events within IKEv2. At
least the following events can cause the initiator to re-evaluate its
local address selection policy, possibly leading to changing the
addresses.
o An IKEv2 request has been re-transmitted several times, but no
valid reply has been received. This suggests the current path is
no longer working.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
o An INFORMATIONAL request containing an ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS,
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS, or NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notification is
received. This means the peer's addresses may have changed. This
is particularly important if the announced set of addresses no
longer contains the currently used address.
o An UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES notification is received as a response
to address update request (described below).
o The initiator receives a NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP notification
that does not match the previous UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES response (see
Section 3.8 for a more detailed description).
The description in the rest of this section assumes that the
initiator has already decided what the new addresses should be. When
this decision has been made, the initiator:
o Updates the IKE_SA with the new addresses, and sets the
"pending_update" flag in the IKE_SA.
o Updates the IPsec SAs associated with this IKE_SA with the new
addresses (unless the initiator's policy requires a return
routability check before updating the IPsec SAs, and the check has
not been done for this responder address yet).
o If the IPsec SAs were updated in the previous step: If NAT
Traversal is not enabled, and the responder supports NAT Traversal
(as indicated by NAT detection payloads in the IKE_SA_INIT
exchange), and the initiator either suspects or knows that a NAT
is likely to be present, enables NAT Traversal (that is, enables
UDP encapsulation of outgoing ESP packets and sending of NAT-
Keepalive packets).
o If there are outstanding IKEv2 requests (requests for which the
initiator has not yet received a reply), continues retransmitting
them using the addresses in the IKE_SA (the new addresses).
o When the window size allows, sends an INFORMATIONAL request
containing the UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES notification (which does not
contain any data), and clears the "pending_update" flag. The
request will be as follows:
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
HDR, SK { N(UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES),
[N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP)],
[N(NO_NATS_ALLOWED)],
[N(COOKIE2)] } -->
o If a new address change occurs while waiting for the response,
starts again from the first step (and ignores responses to this
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES request).
When processing an INFORMATIONAL request containing the
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES notification, the responder:
o Determines whether it has already received a newer
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES request than this one (if the responder uses a
window size greater than one, it is possible that requests are
received out of order). If it has, a normal response message
(described below) is sent, but no other action is taken.
o If the NO_NATS_ALLOWED notification is present, processes it as
described in Section 3.9.
o Checks that the (source IP address, destination IP address) pair
in the IP header is acceptable according to local policy. If it
is not, replies with a message containing the
UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES notification (and possibly COOKIE2).
o Updates the IP addresses in the IKE_SA with the values from the IP
header. (Using the address from the IP header is consistent with
normal IKEv2, and allows IKEv2 to work with NATs without needing
unilateral self-address fixing [UNSAF].)
o Replies with an INFORMATIONAL response:
Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
<-- HDR, SK { [N(NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP),
N(NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP)],
[N(COOKIE2)] }
o If necessary, initiates a return routability check for the new
initiator address (see Section 3.7) and waits until the check is
completed.
o Updates the IPsec SAs associated with this IKE_SA with the new
addresses.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
o If NAT Traversal is supported and NAT detection payloads were
included, enables or disables NAT Traversal.
When the initiator receives the reply:
o If an address change has occurred after the request was first
sent, no MOBIKE processing is done for the reply message because a
new UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES is going to be sent (or has already been
sent, if window size greater than one is in use).
o If the response contains the UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED notification,
the initiator processes the response as described in Section 3.9.
o If the response contains an UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES notification,
the initiator MAY select another addresses and retry the exchange,
keep on using the previously used addresses, or disconnect.
o It updates the IPsec SAs associated with this IKE_SA with the new
addresses (unless this was already done earlier before sending the
request; this is the case when no return routability check was
required).
o If NAT Traversal is supported and NAT detection payloads were
included, the initiator enables or disables NAT Traversal.
There is one exception to the rule that the responder never updates
any IPsec SAs without receiving an UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES request. If
the source address that the responder is currently using becomes
unavailable (i.e., sending packets using that source address is no
longer possible), the responder is allowed to update the IPsec SAs to
use some other address (in addition to initiating the procedure
described in the next section).
3.6. Updating Additional Addresses
As described in Section 3.4, both the initiator and responder can
send a list of additional addresses in the IKE_AUTH exchange. This
information can be updated by sending an INFORMATIONAL exchange
request message that contains either one or more
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS/ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications or the
NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notification.
If the exchange initiator has only a single IP address, it is placed
in the IP header, and the message contains the
NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notification. If the exchange initiator has
several addresses, one of them is placed in the IP header, and the
rest in ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS/ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications.
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The new list of addresses replaces the old information (in other
words, there are no separate add/delete operations; instead, the
complete list is sent every time these notifications are used).
The message exchange will look as follows:
Initiator Responder
----------- -----------
HDR, SK { [N(ADDITIONAL_*_ADDRESS)+],
[N(NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES)],
[N(NO_NATS_ALLOWED)],
[N(COOKIE2)] } -->
<-- HDR, SK { [N(COOKIE2)] }
When a request containing an ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS,
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS, or NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notification is
received, the exchange responder:
o Determines whether it has already received a newer request to
update the addresses (if a window size greater than one is used,
it is possible that the requests are received out of order). If
it has, a response message is sent, but the address set is not
updated.
o If the NO_NATS_ALLOWED notification is present, processes it as
described in Section 3.9.
o Updates the set of peer addresses based on the IP header and the
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS, ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS, and
NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notifications.
o Sends a response.
The initiator MAY include these notifications in the same request as
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES.
If the request to update the addresses is retransmitted using several
different source addresses, a new INFORMATIONAL request MUST be sent.
There is one additional complication: when the responder wants to
update the address set, the currently used addresses may no longer
work. In this case, the responder uses the additional address list
received from the initiator, and the list of its own addresses, to
determine which addresses to use for sending the INFORMATIONAL
request. This is the only time the responder uses the additional
address list received from the initiator.
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Note that both peers can have their own policies about what addresses
are acceptable to use, and certain types of policies may simplify
implementation. For instance, if the responder has a single fixed
address, it does not need to process the ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications it receives (beyond ignoring
unrecognized status notifications, as already required in [IKEv2]).
Furthermore, if the initiator has a policy saying that only the
responder address specified in local configuration is acceptable, it
does not have to send its own additional addresses to the responder
(since the responder does not need them except when changing its own
address).
3.7. Return Routability Check
Both parties can optionally verify that the other party can actually
receive packets at the claimed address. By default, this "return
routability check" SHOULD be performed. In environments where the
peer is expected to be well-behaved (many corporate VPNs, for
instance), or the address can be verified by some other means (e.g.,
a certificate issued by an authority trusted for this purpose), the
return routability check MAY be omitted.
The check can be done before updating the IPsec SAs, immediately
after updating them, or continuously during the connection. By
default, the return routability check SHOULD be done before updating
the IPsec SAs, but in some environments it MAY be postponed until
after the IPsec SAs have been updated.
Any INFORMATIONAL exchange can be used for return routability
purposes, with one exception (described later in this section): when
a valid response is received, we know the other party can receive
packets at the claimed address.
To ensure that the peer cannot generate the correct INFORMATIONAL
response without seeing the request, a new payload is added to
INFORMATIONAL messages. The sender of an INFORMATIONAL request MAY
include a COOKIE2 notification, and if included, the recipient of an
INFORMATIONAL request MUST copy the notification as-is to the
response. When processing the response, the original sender MUST
verify that the value is the same one as sent. If the values do not
match, the IKE_SA MUST be closed. (See also Section 4.2.5 for the
format of the COOKIE2 notification.)
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The exception mentioned earlier is as follows: If the same
INFORMATIONAL request has been sent to several different addresses
(i.e., the destination address in the IKE_SA has been updated after
the request was first sent), receiving the INFORMATIONAL response
does not tell which address is the working one. In this case, a new
INFORMATIONAL request needs to be sent to check return routability.
3.8. Changes in NAT Mappings
IKEv2 performs Dead Peer Detection (DPD) if there has recently been
only outgoing traffic on all of the SAs associated with the IKE_SA.
In MOBIKE, these messages can also be used to detect if NAT mappings
have changed (for example, if the keepalive interval is too long, or
the NAT box is rebooted). More specifically, if both peers support
both this specification and NAT Traversal, the
NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP and NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP
notifications MAY be included in any INFORMATIONAL request; if the
request includes them, the responder MUST also include them in the
response (but no other action is taken, unless otherwise specified).
When the initiator is behind a NAT (as detected earlier using the
NAT_DETECTION_SOURCE_IP and NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP
notifications), it SHOULD include these notifications in DPD messages
and compare the received NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP notifications
with the value from the previous UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES response (or the
IKE_SA_INIT response). If the values do not match, the IP address
and/or port seen by the responder has changed, and the initiator
SHOULD send UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES as described in Section 3.5. If the
initiator suspects that the NAT mapping has changed, it MAY also skip
the detection step and send UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES immediately. This
saves one roundtrip if the NAT mapping has indeed changed.
Note that this approach to detecting NAT mapping changes may cause an
extra address update when the IKE_SA is rekeyed. This is because the
NAT_DETECTION_DESTINATION_IP hash also includes the IKE Security
Parameter Indexes (SPIs), which change when performing rekeying.
This unnecessary update is harmless, however.
When MOBIKE is in use, the dynamic updates (specified in [IKEv2],
Section 2.23), where the peer address and port are updated from the
last valid authenticated packet, work in a slightly different
fashion. The host not behind a NAT MUST NOT use these dynamic
updates for IKEv2 packets, but MAY use them for ESP packets. This
ensures that an INFORMATIONAL exchange that does not contain
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES does not cause any changes, allowing it to be
used for, e.g., testing whether a particular path works.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
3.9. NAT Prohibition
Basic IKEv2/IPsec without NAT Traversal support may work across some
types of one-to-one "basic" NATs and IPv4/IPv6 translation agents in
tunnel mode. This is because the IKEv2 integrity checksum does not
cover the addresses in the IP header. This may be considered a
problem in some circumstances, because in some sense any modification
of the IP addresses can be considered an attack.
This specification addresses the issue by protecting the IP addresses
when NAT Traversal has not been explicitly enabled. This means that
MOBIKE without NAT Traversal support will not work if the paths
contain NATs, IPv4/IPv6 translation agents, or other nodes that
modify the addresses in the IP header. This feature is mainly
intended for IPv6 and site-to-site VPN cases, where the
administrators may know beforehand that NATs are not present, and
thus any modification to the packet can be considered an attack.
More specifically, when NAT Traversal is not enabled, all messages
that can update the addresses associated with the IKE_SA and/or IPsec
SAs (the first IKE_AUTH request and all INFORMATIONAL requests that
contain any of the following notifications: UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES,
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS, ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS,
NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES) MUST also include a NO_NATS_ALLOWED
notification. The exchange responder MUST verify that the contents
of the NO_NATS_ALLOWED notification match the addresses in the IP
header. If they do not match, a response containing an
UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED notification is sent. The response message
is sent to the address and port that the corresponding request came
from, not to the address contained in the NO_NATS_ALLOWED
notification.
If the exchange initiator receives an UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED
notification in response to its INFORMATIONAL request, it SHOULD
retry the operation several times using new INFORMATIONAL requests.
Similarly, if the initiator receives UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED in the
IKE_AUTH exchange, it SHOULD retry IKE_SA establishment several
times, starting from a new IKE_SA_INIT request. This ensures that an
attacker who is able to modify only a single packet does not
unnecessarily cause a path to remain unused. The exact number of
retries is not specified in this document because it does not affect
interoperability. However, because the IKE message will also be
rejected if the attacker modifies the integrity checksum field, a
reasonable number here would be the number of retries that is being
used for normal retransmissions.
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If an UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED notification is sent, the exchange
responder MUST NOT use the contents of the NO_NATS_ALLOWED
notification for any other purpose than possibly logging the
information for troubleshooting purposes.
3.10. Path Testing
IKEv2 Dead Peer Detection allows the peers to detect if the currently
used path has stopped working. However, if either of the peers has
several addresses, Dead Peer Detection alone does not tell which of
the other paths might work.
If required by its address selection policy, the initiator can use
normal IKEv2 INFORMATIONAL request/response messages to test whether
a certain path works. Implementations MAY do path testing even if
the path currently being used is working to, for example, detect when
a better (but previously unavailable) path becomes available.
3.11. Failure Recovery and Timeouts
In MOBIKE, the initiator is responsible for detecting and recovering
from most failures.
To give the initiator enough time to detect the error, the responder
SHOULD use relatively long timeout intervals when, for instance,
retransmitting IKEv2 requests or deciding whether to initiate Dead
Peer Detection. While no specific timeout lengths are required, it
is suggested that responders continue retransmitting IKEv2 requests
for at least five minutes before giving up.
3.12. Dead Peer Detection
MOBIKE uses the same Dead Peer Detection method as normal IKEv2, but
as addresses may change, it is not sufficient to just verify that the
peer is alive, but also that it is synchronized with the address
updates and has not, for instance, ignored an address update due to
failure to complete return routability test. This means that when
there are incoming IPsec packets, MOBIKE nodes SHOULD inspect the
addresses used in those packets and determine that they correspond to
those that should be employed. If they do not, such packets SHOULD
NOT be used as evidence that the peer is able to communicate with
this node and or that the peer has received all address updates.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
4. Payload Formats
This specification defines several new IKEv2 Notify payload types.
See [IKEv2], Section 3.10, for a general description of the Notify
payload.
4.1. Notify Messages - Error Types
4.1.1. UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES Notify Payload
The responder can include this notification in an INFORMATIONAL
exchange response to indicate that the address change in the
corresponding request message (which contained an UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES
notification) was not carried out.
The Notify Message Type for UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES is 40. The
Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. There is no data
associated with this Notify type.
4.1.2. UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED Notify Payload
See Section 3.9 for a description of this notification.
The Notify Message Type for UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED is 41. The
Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. There is no data
associated with this Notify type.
4.2. Notify Messages - Status Types
4.2.1. MOBIKE_SUPPORTED Notify Payload
The MOBIKE_SUPPORTED notification is included in the IKE_AUTH
exchange to indicate that the implementation supports this
specification.
The Notify Message Type for MOBIKE_SUPPORTED is 16396. The Protocol
ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. The notification data field
MUST be left empty (zero-length) when sending, and its contents (if
any) MUST be ignored when this notification is received. This allows
the field to be used by future versions of this protocol.
4.2.2. ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS Notify
Payloads
Both parties can include ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and/or
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications in the IKE_AUTH exchange and
INFORMATIONAL exchange request messages; see Section 3.4 and
Section 3.6 for more detailed description.
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The Notify Message Types for ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS are 16397 and 16398, respectively. The
Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. The data associated
with these Notify types is either a four-octet IPv4 address or a
16-octet IPv6 address.
4.2.3. NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES Notify Payload
The NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES notification can be included in an
INFORMATIONAL exchange request message to indicate that the exchange
initiator does not have addresses beyond the one used in the exchange
(see Section 3.6 for more detailed description).
The Notify Message Type for NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES is 16399. The
Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. There is no data
associated with this Notify type.
4.2.4. UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES Notify Payload
This notification is included in INFORMATIONAL exchange requests sent
by the initiator to update addresses of the IKE_SA and IPsec SAs (see
Section 3.5).
The Notify Message Type for UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES is 16400. The
Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero. There is no data
associated with this Notify type.
4.2.5. COOKIE2 Notify Payload
This notification MAY be included in any INFORMATIONAL request for
return routability check purposes (see Section 3.7). If the
INFORMATIONAL request includes COOKIE2, the exchange responder MUST
copy the notification to the response message.
The data associated with this notification MUST be between 8 and 64
octets in length (inclusive), and MUST be chosen by the exchange
initiator in a way that is unpredictable to the exchange responder.
The Notify Message Type for this message is 16401. The Protocol ID
and SPI Size fields are set to zero.
4.2.6. NO_NATS_ALLOWED Notify Payload
See Section 3.9 for a description of this notification.
The Notify Message Type for this message is 16402. The notification
data contains the IP addresses and ports from/to which the packet was
sent. For IPv4, the notification data is 12 octets long and is
defined as follows:
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! Source IPv4 address !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! Destination IPv4 address !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! Source port ! Destination port !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
For IPv6, the notification data is 36 octets long and is defined as
follows:
1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! !
! Source IPv6 address !
! !
! !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! !
! Destination IPv6 address !
! !
! !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
! Source port ! Destination port !
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The Protocol ID and SPI Size fields are set to zero.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
5. Security Considerations
The main goals of this specification are to maintain the security
offered by usual IKEv2 procedures and to counter mobility-related
threats in an appropriate manner. This section describes new
security considerations introduced by MOBIKE. See [IKEv2] for
security considerations for IKEv2 in general.
5.1. Traffic Redirection and Hijacking
MOBIKE payloads relating to updating addresses are encrypted,
integrity protected, and replay protected using the IKE_SA. This
assures that no one except the participants can, for instance, give a
control message to change the addresses.
However, as with normal IKEv2, the actual IP addresses in the IP
header are not covered by the integrity protection. This means that
a NAT between the parties (or an attacker acting as a NAT) can modify
the addresses and cause incorrect tunnel header (outer) IP addresses
to be used for IPsec SAs. The scope of this attack is limited mainly
to denial of service because all traffic is protected using IPsec.
This attack can only be launched by on-path attackers that are
capable of modifying IKEv2 messages carrying NAT detection payloads
(such as Dead Peer Detection messages). By modifying the IP header
of these packets, the attackers can lead the peers to believe a new
NAT or a changed NAT binding exists between them. The attack can
continue as long as the attacker is on the path, modifying the IKEv2
messages. If this is no longer the case, IKEv2 and MOBIKE mechanisms
designed to detect NAT mapping changes will eventually recognize that
the intended traffic is not getting through, and will update the
addresses appropriately.
MOBIKE introduces the NO_NATS_ALLOWED notification that is used to
detect modification, by outsiders, of the addresses in the IP header.
When this notification is used, communication through NATs and other
address translators is impossible, so it is sent only when not doing
NAT Traversal. This feature is mainly intended for IPv6 and site-to-
site VPN cases, where the administrators may know beforehand that
NATs are not present.
5.2. IPsec Payload Protection
The use of IPsec protection on payload traffic protects the
participants against disclosure of the contents of the traffic,
should the traffic end up in an incorrect destination or be subject
to eavesdropping.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
However, security associations originally created for the protection
of a specific flow between specific addresses may be updated by
MOBIKE later on. This has to be taken into account if the (outer) IP
address of the peer was used when deciding what kind of IPsec SAs the
peer is allowed to create.
For instance, the level of required protection might depend on the
current location of the VPN client, or access might be allowed only
from certain IP addresses.
It is recommended that security policies, for peers that are allowed
to use MOBIKE, are configured in a manner that takes into account
that a single security association can be used at different times
through paths of varying security properties.
This is especially critical for traffic selector authorization. The
(logical) Peer Authorization Database (PAD) contains the information
used by IKEv2 when determining what kind of IPsec SAs a peer is
allowed to create. This process is described in [IPsecArch], Section
4.4.3. When a peer requests the creation of an IPsec SA with some
traffic selectors, the PAD must contain "Child SA Authorization Data"
linking the identity authenticated by IKEv2 and the addresses
permitted for traffic selectors. See also [Clarifications] for a
more extensive discussion.
It is important to note that simply sending IKEv2 packets using some
particular address does not automatically imply a permission to
create IPsec SAs with that address in the traffic selectors.
However, some implementations are known to use policies where simply
being reachable at some address X implies a temporary permission to
create IPsec SAs for address X. Here "being reachable" usually means
the ability to send (or spoof) IP packets with source address X and
receive (or eavesdrop) packets sent to X.
Using this kind of policies or extensions with MOBIKE may need
special care to enforce the temporary nature of the permission. For
example, when the peer moves to some other address Y (and is no
longer reachable at X), it might be necessary to close IPsec SAs with
traffic selectors matching X. However, these interactions are beyond
the scope of this document.
5.3. Denial-of-Service Attacks against Third Parties
Traffic redirection may be performed not just to gain access to the
traffic or to deny service to the peers, but also to cause a denial-
of-service attack on a third party. For instance, a high-speed TCP
session or a multimedia stream may be redirected towards a victim
host, causing its communications capabilities to suffer.
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The attackers in this threat can be either outsiders or even one of
the IKEv2 peers. In usual VPN usage scenarios, attacks by the peers
can be easily dealt with if the authentication performed in the
initial IKEv2 negotiation can be traced to persons who can be held
responsible for the attack. This may not be the case in all
scenarios, particularly with opportunistic approaches to security.
If the attack is launched by an outsider, the traffic flow would
normally stop soon due to the lack of responses (such as transport
layer acknowledgements). However, if the original recipient of the
flow is malicious, it could maintain the traffic flow for an extended
period of time, since it often would be able to send the required
acknowledgements (see [Aura02] for more discussion).
It should also be noted, as shown in [Bombing], that without ingress
filtering in the attacker's network, such attacks are already
possible simply by sending spoofed packets from the attacker to the
victim directly. Furthermore, if the attacker's network has ingress
filtering, this attack is largely prevented for MOBIKE as well.
Consequently, it makes little sense to protect against attacks of
similar nature in MOBIKE. However, it still makes sense to limit the
amplification capabilities provided to attackers, so that they cannot
use stream redirection to send a large number of packets to the
victim by sending just a few packets themselves.
This specification includes return routability tests to limit the
duration of any "third party bombing" attacks by off-path (relative
to the victim) attackers. The tests are authenticated messages that
the peer has to respond to, and can be performed before the address
change takes effect, immediately afterwards, or even periodically
during the session. The tests contain unpredictable data, and only
someone who has the keys associated with the IKE SA and has seen the
request packet can properly respond to the test.
The duration of the attack can also be limited if the victim reports
the unwanted traffic to the originating IPsec tunnel endpoint using
ICMP error messages or INVALID_SPI notifications. As described in
[IKEv2], Section 2.21, this SHOULD trigger a liveness test, which
also doubles as a return routability check if the COOKIE2
notification is included.
5.4. Spoofing Network Connectivity Indications
Attackers may spoof various indications from lower layers and the
network in an effort to confuse the peers about which addresses are
or are not working. For example, attackers may spoof link-layer
error messages in an effort to cause the parties to move their
traffic elsewhere or even to disconnect. Attackers may also spoof
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
information related to network attachments, router discovery, and
address assignments in an effort to make the parties believe they
have Internet connectivity when, in reality, they do not.
This may cause use of non-preferred addresses or even denial of
service.
MOBIKE does not provide any protection of its own for indications
from other parts of the protocol stack. These vulnerabilities can be
mitigated through the use of techniques specific to the other parts
of the stack, such as validation of ICMP errors [ICMPAttacks], link
layer security, or the use of [SEND] to protect IPv6 Router and
Neighbor Discovery.
Ultimately, MOBIKE depends on the delivery of IKEv2 messages to
determine which paths can be used. If IKEv2 messages sent using a
particular source and destination addresses reach the recipient and a
reply is received, MOBIKE will usually consider the path working; if
no reply is received even after retransmissions, MOBIKE will suspect
the path is broken. An attacker who can consistently control the
delivery or non-delivery of the IKEv2 messages in the network can
thus influence which addresses actually get used.
5.5. Address and Topology Disclosure
MOBIKE address updates and the ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS/
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications reveal information about which
networks the peers are connected to.
For example, consider a host A with two network interfaces: a
cellular connection and a wired Ethernet connection to a company LAN.
If host A now contacts host B using IKEv2 and sends
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS/ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications, host B
receives additional information it might not otherwise know. If host
A used the cellular connection for the IKEv2 traffic, host B can also
see the company LAN address (and perhaps further guess that host A is
used by an employee of that company). If host A used the company LAN
to make the connection, host B can see that host A has a subscription
from this particular cellular operator.
These additional addresses can also disclose more accurate location
information than just a single address. Suppose that host A uses its
cellular connection for IKEv2 traffic, but also sends an
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS notification containing an IP address
corresponding to, say, a wireless LAN at a particular coffee shop
location. It is likely that host B can now make a much better guess
at A's location than would be possible based on the cellular IP
address alone.
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Furthermore, as described in Section 3.4, some of the addresses could
also be private addresses behind a NAT.
In many environments, disclosing address information is not a problem
(and indeed it cannot be avoided if the hosts wish to use those
addresses for IPsec traffic). For instance, a remote access VPN
client could consider the corporate VPN gateway sufficiently
trustworthy for this purpose. Furthermore, the
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS and ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS notifications are
sent encrypted, so the addresses are not visible to eavesdroppers
(unless, of course, they are later used for sending IKEv2/IPsec
traffic).
However, if MOBIKE is used in some more opportunistic approach, it
can be desirable to limit the information that is sent. Naturally,
the peers do not have to disclose any addresses they do not want to
use for IPsec traffic. Also, as noted in Section 3.6, an initiator
whose policy is to always use the locally configured responder
address does not have to send any ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS/
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS payloads.
6. IANA Considerations
This document does not create any new namespaces to be maintained by
IANA, but it requires new values in namespaces that have been defined
in the IKEv2 base specification [IKEv2].
This document defines several new IKEv2 notifications whose values
have been allocated from the "IKEv2 Notify Message Types" namespace.
Notify Messages - Error Types Value
----------------------------- -----
UNACCEPTABLE_ADDRESSES 40
UNEXPECTED_NAT_DETECTED 41
Notify Messages - Status Types Value
------------------------------ -----
MOBIKE_SUPPORTED 16396
ADDITIONAL_IP4_ADDRESS 16397
ADDITIONAL_IP6_ADDRESS 16398
NO_ADDITIONAL_ADDRESSES 16399
UPDATE_SA_ADDRESSES 16400
COOKIE2 16401
NO_NATS_ALLOWED 16402
These notifications are described in Section 4.
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7. Acknowledgements
This document is a collaborative effort of the entire MOBIKE WG. We
would particularly like to thank Jari Arkko, Tuomas Aura, Marcelo
Bagnulo, Stephane Beaulieu, Elwyn Davies, Lakshminath Dondeti,
Francis Dupont, Paul Hoffman, James Kempf, Tero Kivinen, Pete McCann,
Erik Nordmark, Mohan Parthasarathy, Pekka Savola, Bill Sommerfeld,
Maureen Stillman, Shinta Sugimoto, Hannes Tschofenig, and Sami
Vaarala. This document also incorporates ideas and text from earlier
MOBIKE-like protocol proposals, including [AddrMgmt], [Kivinen],
[MOPO], and [SMOBIKE], and the MOBIKE design document [Design].
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[IKEv2] Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2)
Protocol", RFC 4306, December 2005.
[IPsecArch] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.
[KEYWORDS] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, March 1997.
8.2. Informative References
[AddrMgmt] Dupont, F., "Address Management for IKE version 2",
Work in Progress, November 2005.
[Aura02] Aura, T., Roe, M., and J. Arkko, "Security of
Internet Location Management", Proc. 18th Annual
Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC),
December 2002.
[Bombing] Dupont, F., "A note about 3rd party bombing in
Mobile IPv6", Work in Progress, December 2005.
[Clarifications] Eronen, P. and P. Hoffman, "IKEv2 Clarifications
and Implementation Guidelines", Work in Progress,
February 2006.
[DNA4] Aboba, B., Carlson, J., and S. Cheshire, "Detecting
Network Attachment in IPv4 (DNAv4)", RFC 4436,
March 2006.
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
[DNA6] Narayanan, S., Daley, G., and N. Montavont,
"Detecting Network Attachment in IPv6 - Best
Current Practices for hosts", Work in Progress,
October 2005.
[Design] Kivinen, T. and H. Tschofenig, "Design of the
MOBIKE protocol", Work in Progress, January 2006.
[ICMPAttacks] Gont, F., "ICMP attacks against TCP", Work in
Progress, October 2005.
[Kivinen] Kivinen, T., "MOBIKE protocol", Work in Progress,
February 2004.
[MIP4] Perkins, C., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4",
RFC 3344, August 2002.
[MIP6] Johnson, D., Perkins, C., and J. Arkko, "Mobility
Support in IPv6", RFC 3775, June 2004.
[MOPO] Eronen, P., "Mobility Protocol Options for IKEv2
(MOPO-IKE)", Work in Progress, February 2005.
[RFC2461] Narten, T., Nordmark, E., and W. Simpson, "Neighbor
Discovery for IP Version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 2461,
December 1998.
[SEND] Arkko, J., Kempf, J., Zill, B., and P. Nikander,
"SEcure Neighbor Discovery (SEND)", RFC 3971,
March 2005.
[SMOBIKE] Eronen, P. and H. Tschofenig, "Simple Mobility and
Multihoming Extensions for IKEv2 (SMOBIKE)",
Work in Progress, March 2004.
[STUN] Rosenberg, J., Weinberger, J., Huitema, C., and R.
Mahy, "STUN - Simple Traversal of User Datagram
Protocol (UDP) Through Network Address Translators
(NATs)", RFC 3489, March 2003.
[UNSAF] Daigle, L., "IAB Considerations for UNilateral
Self-Address Fixing (UNSAF) Across Network Address
Translation", RFC 3424, November 2002.
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Appendix A. Implementation Considerations
A.1. Links from SPD Cache to Outbound SAD Entries
[IPsecArch], Section 4.4.2, says that "For outbound processing, each
SAD entry is pointed to by entries in the SPD-S part of the SPD
cache". The document does not specify how exactly this "pointing" is
done, since this is an implementation detail that does not have to be
standardized.
However, it is clear that the links between the SPD cache and the SAD
have to be done correctly to ensure that outbound packets are sent
over the right SA. Some implementations are known to have problems
in this area.
In particular, simply storing the (remote tunnel header IP address,
remote SPI) pair in the SPD cache is not sufficient, since the pair
does not always uniquely identify a single SAD entry. For instance,
two hosts behind the same NAT can accidentally happen to choose the
same SPI value. The situation can also occur when a host is assigned
an IP address previously used by some other host, and the SAs
associated with the old host have not yet been deleted by Dead Peer
Detection. This may lead to packets being sent over the wrong SA or,
if the key management daemon ensures the pair is unique, denying the
creation of otherwise valid SAs.
Storing the remote tunnel header IP address in the SPD cache may also
complicate the implementation of MOBIKE, since the address can change
during the lifetime of the SA. Thus, we recommend implementing the
links between the SPD cache and the SAD in a way that does not
require modification when the tunnel header IP address is updated by
MOBIKE.
A.2. Creating Outbound SAs
When an outbound packet requires IPsec processing but no suitable SA
exists, a new SA will be created. In this case, the host has to
determine (1) who is the right peer for this SA, (2) whether the host
already has an IKE_SA with this peer, and (3) if no IKE_SA exists,
the IP address(es) of the peer for contacting it.
Neither [IPsecArch] nor MOBIKE specifies how exactly these three
steps are carried out. [IPsecArch], Section 4.4.3.4, says:
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For example, assume that IKE A receives an outbound packet
destined for IP address X, a host served by a security gateway.
RFC 2401 [RFC2401] and this document do not specify how A
determines the address of the IKE peer serving X. However, any
peer contacted by A as the presumed representative for X must be
registered in the PAD in order to allow the IKE exchange to be
authenticated. Moreover, when the authenticated peer asserts that
it represents X in its traffic selector exchange, the PAD will be
consulted to determine if the peer in question is authorized to
represent X.
In step 1, there may be more than one possible peer (e.g., several
security gateways that are allowed to represent X). In step 3, the
host may need to consult a directory such as DNS to determine the
peer IP address(es).
When performing these steps, implementations may use information
contained in the SPD, the PAD, and possibly some other
implementation-specific databases. Regardless of how exactly the
steps are implemented, it is important to remember that IP addresses
can change, and that an IP address alone does not always uniquely
identify a single IKE peer (for the same reasons as why the
combination of the remote IP address and SPI does not uniquely
identify an outbound IPsec SA; see Appendix A.1). Thus, in steps 1
and 2 it may be easier to identify the "right peer" using its
authenticated identity instead of its current IP address. However,
these implementation details are beyond the scope of this
specification.
Author's Address
Pasi Eronen (editor)
Nokia Research Center
P.O. Box 407
FIN-00045 Nokia Group
Finland
EMail: pasi.eronen@nokia.com
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RFC 4555 MOBIKE Protocol June 2006
Full Copyright Statement
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