Internet-Draft BRSKI-discovery July 2024
Eckert & Dijk Expires 8 January 2025 [Page]
Workgroup:
ANIMA
Internet-Draft:
draft-ietf-anima-brski-discovery-02
Published:
Intended Status:
Standards Track
Expires:
Authors:
T. Eckert, Ed.
Futurewei
E. Dijk
IoTconsultancy.nl

Discovery for BRSKI variations

Abstract

This document specifies how BRSKI entities, such as registrars, proxies, pledges or others that are acting as responders, can be discovered and selected by BRSKI entities acting as initiators.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on 8 January 2025.

Table of Contents

1. 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 BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

This document relies on the terminology defined in Section 1. The following terms are described partly in addition.

Context:

See Variation Context.

Initiator:

A host that is using an IP transport protocol to initiate a connection or transaction to another host called the responder.

Initiator socket:

A socket consisting of an initiators IP or IPv6 address, protocol and protocol port number from which it initiates connections or transactions to a responder (typically UDP or TCP).

Objective Name:

See Service Name.

Resource Type:

See Service Name.

Responder:

A host that is using an IP transport protocol to respond to transaction or connection requests from an Initiator.

Responder socket:

A socket consisting of a responders IP or IPv6 address, protocol and protocol port number on which it responds to requests of the protocol (typically UDP or TCP).

Role:

In the context of this document, a type of entity in a variation of BRSKI that can act as a responder and whose supported variations can be discovered. BRSKI roles relevant in this document include Join Registrar, Join Proxy and Pledge. The IANA registry defined by this document allows to specify variations for any roles. See also Variation Context.

Socket:

The combination of am IP or IPv6 address, an IP protocol that utilizes a port number (such as TCP or UDP) and a port number of that protocol.

Service Name:

The name for (a subset of) the functionality/API provided by a discoverable responder socket. This term is inherited from Section 1 but unless otherwise specified also used in this document to apply to any other discovery functionality/API. The terminology used by other mechanisms typically differs. For example, when Section 1 is used to discover a responder socket for BRSKI, the Objective Name carries the equivalent to the service name. In Section 1, the Resource Type (rt=) carries the equivalent of the service name.

Type:

See Variation Type.

Variation:

A combination one one variation choice each for every variation type applicable to the variation context of one discoverable BRSKI communications. For example, in the context of BRSKI, a variation is one choice for "mode", one choice for "enroll" and once choice for "vformat".

Variation Context:

A set of Services for whom the same set of variations applies

Variation Type:

The name for one aspect of a protocol for which two or more choices exist (or may exist in the future), and where the choice can technically be combined orthogonal to other variation types. This document defined the BRSKI variation types "mode", "enroll" and "vformat".

Variation Type Choice:

The name for different values that a particular variation type may have. For example, this document does defines the choices "rrm" and "prm" for the BRSKI variation "mode".

ACP:

"An Autonomic Control Plane", [RFC8994].

BRSKI:

"Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructure", [RFC8995].

BRSKI-AE:

"Alternative Enrollment Protocols in Section 1", [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae].

BRSKI-PRM:

"Section 1 with Pledge in Responder Mode", [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm].

cBRSKI:

"Constrained Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructure (Section 1)", [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher].

COAP:

"The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", [RFC7252].

CORE-LF:

"Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format", [RFC6690].

cPROXY:

"Constrained Join Proxy for Bootstrapping Protocols", [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy].

DNS-SD:

"DNS-Based Service Discovery", [RFC6763].

EST:

"Enrollment over Secure Transport", [RFC7030].

GRASP:

"GeneRic Autonomic Signaling Protocol", [RFC8990].

GRASP-DNSSD:

"DNS-SD Compatible Service Discovery in GeneRic Autonomic Signaling Protocol (GRASP)", [I-D.eckert-anima-grasp-dnssd].

JWS-VOUCHER:

"JWS signed Voucher Artifacts for Bootstrapping Protocols", [I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher].

lwCMP:

"Lightweight Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) Profile", [I-D.ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile].

mDNS:

"multicast DNS", [RFC6762].

SCEP:

"Simple Certificate Enrolment Protocol", [RFC8894].

2. Overview

The mechanisms described in this document are intended to help solve the following challenges.

Signaling BRSKI variation for responder selection.

When an initiator such as a proxy or pledge uses a mechanism such as Section 1 to discover an instance of a role it intends to connect to, such as a registrar, it may discover more than one such instance. In the presence of variations of the BRSKI mechanisms that impact interoperability, performance or security, not all discovered instances may support exactly what the initiator needs to achieve interoperability and/or best performance, security or other metrics. In this case, the service announcement mechanism needs to carry the necessary additional information beside the name that indicates the service to aid the initiator in selecting an instance that it can inter operate and achieve best performance with.

Easier use of additional discovery mechanisms.

In the presence of different discovery mechanisms, such as Section 1, Section 1, Section 1 or others, the details of how to apply each of these mechanisms are usually specified individually for each mechanism, easily resulting in inconsistencies. Deriving as much as possible the details of discovery from a common specification and registries can reduce such inconsistencies and easy introduction of additional discovery mechanisms.

Generalization of principles related to discovery and operation of proxies.

Because of the unified approach to discovery of BRSKI Variations described in this document, it also allows to use Section 1 for document for Section 1 and Section 1, which may be of interest in networks such as Thread, which use Section 1.

3. Specification

3.1. Abstracted BRSKI discovery and selection

In the abstract model of discovery used by this document and intended to apply to all described discovery mechanisms, an entity operating as an initiator of a transport connection for a particular BRSKI protocol role, such as a pledge, discovers one or more responder sockets (IP/IPv6-address, responder-port, IP-protocol) of entities acting as responders for the peer BRSKI role, such as registrar. The initiator uses some discovery mechanism such as Section 1, Section 1 or Section 1. In the the initiator looks for a particular combination of a Service Name and an IP-protocol, and in return learns about responder sockets from one or more responders that use this IP-protocol and serve the requested Service Name type service across it. It also learns the BRSKI variation(s) supported on the socket.

Service Name is the name of the protocol element used in Section 1, unless explicitly specified, it is used as a placeholder for the equivalent protocol elements in other discovery mechanisms. In Section 1, it is called objective-name, in Section 1 it is called Resource Type.

Upon discovery of the available sockets, the initiator selects one, whose supported variation(s) best match the expectations of the initiator, including performance, security or other preferences. Selection may also include attempting to establish a connection to the responder socket, and upon connection failure to attempt connecting to the next best responder socket. This is for example necessary when discovery information may not be updated in real-time, and the best responder has gone offline.

3.2. Variation Contexts

A Variation Context is a set of (Discover Mechanism, Service Names, IP-protocols) across which this document and the registry of variations defines a common set of variations. The initial registry defined in this document defines two variation contexts.

BRSKI context:

context for discovery of BRSKI registrar and proxy variations by proxies, pledges or agents (as defined in Section 1) via the Service Names defined for Section 1 and Section 1 via TCP and hence (by default) TLS (version 1.2 or higher according to Section 1).

cBRSKI context (constrained BRSKI):

context for discovery of BRSKI registrar and proxy variations by proxies, pledges via the Service Names defined for Section 1, Section 1 and Section 1 via UDP, and hence (by default) secure COAP.

Note that the Service Names for cBRSKI include the same Section 1 Service Names as for the BRSKI context, hence enabling the use of Section 1 with cBRSKI.

This document does not define variations for different end-to-end encryption mechanisms, so only the "(by default)" options exist at the time of writing this document. However, the mechanisms described here can also be used to introduce backward incompatible new secure transport options. For example when responders start to support only TLS 1.3 or higher in the presence of TLS 1.2 only initiators, then new variations can be added, such that those initiators will not select those responders.

This document does not introduce variation contexts for discovery of other BRSKI roles, such as discovery of pledges by agents (as defined in Section 1), or discovery of MASA by registrars. However, the registry introduced by this document is defined such that it can be extended by such additional contexts through future documents.

3.3. Variation Types and Choices

A Variation Type is a variation in one aspect of the BRSKI connection between initiator and responder that ideally orthogonal from variations in other aspects of the BRSKI connection.

A Variation Type Choice is one alternative (aka: value) for its Variation Type.

This document, and the initial registry documenting the variation types introduces three variation types as follows:

mode:

A variation in the basic sequence of URI endpoints communicated. This document introduces the choices of "rrm" to indicate the endpoints and sequence as defined in Section 1 and "prm" to indicate the endpoints and sequence as defined in Section 1. Note that registrars also act as responders in "prm". "rrm" was chosen because the more logical "pim" (pledge initiator mode) term was feared to cause confusion with other technologies that use that term.

vformat (voucher format):

A variation in the encoding format of the voucher communicated between registrar and pledge. This document introduces the choices "cms" as defined in Section 1, "cose" as defined in Section 1 and "jose" as defined in Section 1.

enroll:

A variation in the URI endpoints used for enrollment of the pledge with keying material (trust anchors and certificate (chain)). This document introduces the following :choices

  • "est" as introduced by Section 1 to indicate the Section 1 protocol, which is default

  • "cmp" to indicate the CMP protocol according to the Lightweight CMP profile (Section 1). The respective adaptations to BRSKI have been introduced by Section 1.

  • "scep" to indicate Section 1. This is only a reservation, because no specification for the use of Section 1 with BRSKI exists.

3.4. Variations

A Variation is the combination of one Choice each for every Variation Type applicable to the Variation Context. In other words, a variation is a possible instance of BRSKI if supported by initiator and responder. In Section 1, the default variation is "registrar responder mode" (rrm) and use of the "cms voucher format" (cms).

3.5. BRSKI Variations Discovery Registry

The IANA "BRSKI Variations Registry" as specified by this document, see Section 5.1 specifies the defined parameters for discovery of BRSKI variations.

3.5.1. BRSKI Variation Contexts table

This table, Table 1, defines the BRSKI Variations Contexts.

The "Applicable Variation Types" lists the Variation Types from whose choices a Variation for this context is formed. The "Service Name(s)" column lists the discovery mechanisms and their Service Name(s) that constitute the context.

3.5.2. BRSKI Variation Type Choices table

This table, Table 2, defines the Variations Type Choices.

The "Context" column lists the BRSKI Variation Context(s) to which this line applies. If it is empty, then the same Context(s) apply as that of the last prior line with a non-empty Context column.

The "Variation Type" column lists the BRSKI Variation Type to which this line applies. If it is empty, then the same Variation Type applies as that of the last prior line with a non-empty Variation Type column. Variation Types MUST the listed in the order in which the Variation Types are listed in the Applicable Variation Types column of the BRSKI Variation Contexts table.

The "Variation Type Choice" column defines a Variation Type Choice term within the Context(s) of the line. To allow the most flexible encodings of variations, all Variation Types and Variation Type Choices MUST be unique strings (across all Variation Types). This allows to encode Variation Type Choices in a discovery mechanism without indicating their Variation Type. Variation Types and Variation Type Choices and MUST be strings from lowercase letters a-z and digits 0-9 and MUST start with a letter. The maximum length of a Variation Type Choice is 12 characters.

The "Reference" column specifies the documents which describe the Variation Type Choice. Relevant specification includes those that only specify the semantics without referring to the aspects of discovery and/or those that specify only the Discovery aspects. Current RFCs for BRSKI variations preceding this RFC typically only specify the semantics, and this document adds the discovery aspects.

The "Dflt" Flag specifies a Variation Type Choice that is assumed to be the default Choice for the Context, such as "rrm" for the BRSKI context. Such a Variation Type Choice is to be assumed to be supported in discovery if discovery is performed without indication of any or an empty signaling element to carry the Variation or Variation Choices. For example, Section 1 specifies the empty string "" as the objective-value in Section 1 discovery. Because "rrm", "est" and "cms" are default in the BRSKI context, this Discovery signaling indicates the support for those Variation Type Choices.

The "Dflt" Flag specifies a Variation Type Choice that is only default in a subset of Discovery options in a context. The Note(s) column has then to explain which subset this is. Like for "Dflt", the signaling in this subset of Discovery options can then forego indication of the "Dflt" Variation Type Choice.

The "Rsvd" Flag specifies a Variation Type Choice for which no complete specification exist on how to use it within BRSKI (or more specifically the context), but which is known to be of potential interest. "Rsvd" Variation Type Choices MUST NOT be considered for the Discoverable Variations table. They are documented primarily to reserve the Variation Type Choice term.

The Note(s) section expands the Variation Type Choice terms and provides additional beneficial specification references beyond the "Reference" column.

3.5.3. BRSKI Discoverable Variations table

This table Table 3 enumerates the Discoverable Variations and categorizes them.

The "Context" column lists the BRSKI Variation Context(s) to which this line applies. If it is empty, then the same Context(s) apply as that of the last prior line with a non-empty Context column.

The "Spec / Applicability" lists the document(s) that specify the variation, if the variation is explicitly described. If the variation is not described explicitly, but rather a combination of Variation Type Choices from more than one BRSKI related specification, then this column will indicate "-" if by expert opinion it is assumed that this variation should work, or "NA", if by expert opinion, this variation could not work. The "Explanations" column includes references to the relevant documents and as necessary additional explanation.

The "Variation" column lists the Variation Type Choices that form the Variation. The Variation Type Choices MUST be listed in the order in which the Variation Types are listed in the Applicable Variation Types column of the BRSKI Variation Contexts table.

The "Variation String" column has the string term used to indicate the variation when using the simple encoding of BRSKI Variation Discovery for GRASP as described in Section 1. It is formed by concatenating the Choices term from the Variation column with the "-" character, excluding those Choices terms (and "-" concatenator) which are Default for the Context. If this procedure ends up with the empty string, then this is indicated as "" in the column.

The "Explanations" column explains the "Spec / Applicability" status of the Variation.

3.5.4. Extending or modifying the registry

Unless otherwise specified below, extension or changes to the registry require standards action.

Additional Variation Type Choices and Variation Context discovery mechanism Service Names including additional discovery mechanisms require (only) specification and expert review if they refer to non standard action protocols and/or protocol variation aspects. For example, a specification how to use Section 1 with BRSKI would fall under this clause as it is an informational RFC.

Non standards action Variation Type Choices can not be Default(Dflt). They can only be Dflt* for non standards action (sub)Contexts.

Reservation of additional Variation Type Choices requires (only) expert review.

Additional Contexts MUST be added at the end of the BRSKI Variation Contexts table.

Additional Variation Types MUST be added at the end of the Applicable Variation Types column of the BRSKI Variation Contexts table and at the end of existing lines for the Context in the BRSKI Variation Type Choices. Additional Variation Types MUST be introduced with a Default (Dflt) Variation Type Choice. These rules ensures that the rule to create the Variation String for GRASP (and as desired by other discovery mechanism), and it also enables to add new Variation Type and Choices without changing pre-existing Variation Strings: Any Variations String implicitly include the Default Choice for any future Variation Types.

When a new Variation Type is added, their Default Choice SHOULD be added to the Variation Column of existing applicable lines in the BRSKI Discoverable Variations table. Variations that include new non-Default Variation Type Choices SHOULD be added at the end of the existing lines for the Context.

3.6. BRSKI Join Proxies support for Variations

3.6.1. Permissible Variations

Variations according to the terminology of this document are those that do not require changes to BRSKI join proxy operations, but that can transparently pass across existing join proxies without changes to them - as long as they support the rules outlined in this document.

Different choices for e.g.: pledge to registrar encryption mechanisms, voucher format (vformat), use of different URI endpoints or enrollment protocol endpoints (mode) are all transparent to join proxies, and hence join proxies can not only support existing, well-defined Choices of these Variation Types, but without changes to the proxies also future ones - and only those are permitted to become Variation Type Choices.

Changes to the BRSKI mechanism that do require additional changes to join proxies are not considered Variations according to this document and MUST NOT use the same discovery protocol signaling elements as those defined for variations by this document. Instead, they SHOULD use different combinations of Service Name and Protocol (e.g.: TCP vs. UDP).

For example, the stateless join proxy mode defined by Section 1 is such a mechanism that requires explicit join proxy support. Therefore, registrars sockets that support circuit proxy mode use the GRASP objective "AN_join_registrar", and registrar sockets that support stateless join proxy mode use the GRASP objective "AN_join_registrar_rjp". This enables join proxies to select the registrar and socket according to what the join proxy supports and prefers. By not using the same signaling element(s) for variations, join proxies can support discovery of all variations independent of their support for stateless join proxy operations.

3.6.2. Join Proxy support for Variations

Join proxies supporting the mechanisms of this document MUST signal for each socket they announce to initiators via a discovery mechanism the Variation(s) supported on the socket. These Variation(s) MUST all be supported by the registrar that the join proxy then uses for the connection from the initiator (e.g.: pledge). Pledges SHOULD announce sockets to initiators so that all Variations that are supported by registrars that the join proxy can interoperate with are also available to the initiators connecting to the join proxy.

To meet these requirements, join proxies can employ different implementation option. In the most simple one, a join proxy allocates a separate responder socket for every Variation for which it discovers one or more registrars supporting this Variation. It then announces that socket with only that one Variation in the discovery mechanism, even if the Registrar(s) are all announcing their socket with multiple Variations. When the join proxy operates in circuit mode, it can then select one of the registrars supporting the variation for every new initiator connection based on policies as specified by BRSKI specifications and/or discovery parameters, such as priority and weight when Section 1 is used, and redundant registrars include those parameters.

TBD: insert example of received Registrar announcement and created proxy announcement ??

Join proxies MAY reduce the number of sockets announced to initiators by using a single socket for all Variations for which they have the same set of registrar sockets supporting those Variations. This primarily helps to reduce the size of the discovery messages to initiators and can save socket resources on the join proxy.

Join proxies MAY create multiple sockets in support of other discovery options, even for the same Variation(s). For example, if Section 1 is used by two registrars, both announcing the same priority but different weights, then the join proxy may create a separate socket for each of these registrars - and their variations, so that the join proxy can equally announce the same priority and weight for both sockets to initiators. This allows to maintain the desired weights of use of registrars, even when the join proxy operates in stateless mode, in which it can not select a separate registrar for every client initiating a connection.

3.6.3. Co-location of Proxy and Registrar

In networks using Section 1 and Section 1, registrars must have a co-located proxy, because pledges can only use single-hop discovery (DULL-GRASP) and will only discover proxies, but not registrar. Such a co-located proxy does not constitute additional processing/code on a registrar supporting circuit mode, it simply implies that the registrars BRSKI services(s) are announced with a proxy Service Name, to support pledges, and the registrar service name, to support join proxies.

To ease consistency of deployment models in the face of different discovery mechanisms, Variations and non-Variation enhancements to BRSKI, it is RECOMMENDED that all future options to BRSKI do always have a Service Name for proxies and a separate Service Name in support of pledge or other initiators. Pledges and other initiators SHOULD always only look for the proxy Service Name, and only Proxies should look for a registrar Service Name. Registrars therefore SHOULD always include the proxy functionality according to the prior paragraph. This only involves additional code on the registrar beyond the service announcement in case the Registrar would otherwise not implement circuit mode.

3.7. BRSKI Pledges support for Variations

3.7.1. BRSKI-PLEDGE context

BRSKI-PLEDGE is the context for discovery of pledges by nodes such as registrar-agents. Pledges supporting Section 1 MUST support it. It may also be used by other variations of BRSKI when supported by pledges.

Pledges supporting BRSKI-PLEDGE MUST support DNS-SD for discovery via mDNS, using link-local scope. For DNS-SD discovery beyond link-local scope, pledges SHOULD support DNS-SD via [I-D.ietf-dnssd-srp].

TBD: Is there sufficient auto-configuration support in [I-D.ietf-dnssd-srp], that pledges without any configuration can use it, and if so, do we need to raise specific additional requirements to enable this in pledges ?

These DNS-SD requirements are defaults. Specifications for specific deployment contexts such as specific type of radio network solutions may need to specify their own requirements overriding or amending these requirements.

Pledges MUST support to be discoverable via their service instance name. They MAY be discoverable via DNS-SD browsing, so that registrar-agents can find even unexpected pledges through DNS-SD browsing.

Support for browsing is required to discover over the network pledges supporting only Section 1, but not Section 1 if they have no known serial-number information from which their service instance name can be constructed, so it is a crucial feature for robust enrollment. See Section 6 for more details about discovery and BRSKI-PLEDGE.

When pledges are discoverable vis DNS-SD browsing, they MUST expect that a large number of pledges exist in the network at the same time, such as in the order of 100 or more, and schedule their responses according to the procedures in Section 1 and Section 1 to avoid simultaneous reply from all pledges.

TBD: What is the best section in mDNS/DNS-SD to point to for this timed reply to scale ?

Browsing via DNS-SD for a pledge is circumvented by the pledge not announcing its PTR RR for "brski-registrar". Technically, the remaining RR may not constitute full DNS-SD service, but they do provide the required discovery for the known service instance name of the pledge.

counter measures such as limiting the number and rate of PRM connects that they accept, ideally on a per-initiator basis (assuming that DDoS attacks are more harder to mount than single attacker DoS attacks).

3.7.1.1. Service Instance Name

The service instance name chosen by a BRSKI pledge MUST be composed from information which is

  • Easily known by BRSKI operations, such as the operational personnel or software automation, specifically sales integration,

  • Available to the pledges BRSKI software itself, for example by being encoded in some attribute of the IDevID.

Typically, a customer will know the serial number of a product from sales information, or even from bar-code/QR-codes on the product itself. If this serial number is used as the service instance name to discover a pledge from a registrar-agent, then this may lead to possible duplicate replies from two or more pledges having the same serial number, such as in the following cases:

  1. A manufacturer has different product lines and re-uses serial-numbers across them.

  2. Two different manufacturer re-use the same serial-numbers.

If pledges enable browsing of their service instance name, they MAY support Section 1 specified procedures to create unique service instance names when they discover such clashes, by appending a space and serial number, starting with 2 to the service instance name: "<service-instance-name> (2)", as described in Section 1 Appendix D.

Nevertheless, this approach to resolving conflicts is not desirable:

  • If browsing of DNS-SD service instance name is not supported, registrar-agents would have to always (and mostly wrongly) guess that there is a clash and (mostly unnecessarily) search for "<service-instance-name> (2)".

  • If a clash exists between pledges from the same manufacturer, and even if the registrar-agent then attempts to start enrolling all pledges with the same clashing service instance name, it may not have enough information to determine which the correct pledge is. This would happen especially if the IDevID from both devices (of different product type), had the same serial number, and the CA of both was the same (because they come from the same manufacturer). Even if some other IDevID field was used to distinguish their device model, the registrar-agent would not be able to determine that difference without additional vendor specific programming.

In result:

  • Vendors MUST document a scheme how their pledges form a service instance name from information available to the customer of the pledge.

  • These service instance names MUST be unique across all IDevID of the manufacturer that share the same CA.

The following mechanisms are recommended:

  • Pledges SHOULD encode manufacturer unique product instance information in their subject name serialNumber. [RFC5280] calls this the X520SerialNumber.

  • Pledges SHOULD make this serialNumber information consistent with easily accessible product instance information when in physical possession of the pledge, such as product type code and serial number on bar-code/QR-code to enable Section 1 discovery without additional backend sales integration. Note that discovery alone does not allow for enrollment!

  • Pledges SHOULD construct their service instance name by concatenating their X520SerialNumber with a domain name prefix that is used by the manufacturer and thus allows to disambiguate devices from different manufacturer using the same serialNumber scheme, and hence the likelihood of service instance name clashes.

Service Instance Name:
  "PID:Model-0815 SN:WLDPC2117A99.example.com"

Manufacturer published Service Instance Name schema:
 PID:\<PID>\\ SN:\<SN>.example.com

Pledge IDevID certificate information:
  ; Format as shown by e.g.: openssh
  Subject: serialNumber = "PID:Model-0815 SN:WLDPC2117A99",
    O = Example, CN = Model-0815

DNS-SD RR for the pledge:
  ; PTR RR to support browsing / discovery of service instance name
  _brski-pledge._tcp.local  IN PTR
    PID:Model-0815\\ SN:WLDPC2117A99\\.example\\.com._brski-pledge._tcp.local

  ; SRC and TXT RR for the service instance name
  PID:Model-0815\\ SN:WLDPC2117A99\\.example\\.com._brski-pledge._tcp.local
    IN SRV 1 1
    PID:Model-0815\\ SN:WLDPC2117A99\\.example\\.com.local
  PID:Model-0815\\ SN:WLDPC2117A99\\.example\\.com._brski-pledge._tcp.local
    IN TXT ""

  ; AAAA address resolution for the target host name
  PID:Model-0815\\ SN:WLDPC2117A99\\.example\\.com.local
    IN AAAA fda3:79a6:f6ee:0000::0200:0000:6400:00a1
Figure 1: Example service instance name data

In Figure 1, the manufacturer "example" identifies device instances through a product identifier <PID> and a serial number <SN>. Both are printed on labels on the product/packaging and/or communicated during purchase of the product.

The service instance name of pledges from this manufacturer are using the string "PID:<PID> SN:<SN>.example.com". "example.com" is assumed to be a domain owned by this manufacturer. <PID> and <SN> are replaced by the actual strings.

The IDevID encodes the service instance name without the domain ending (".example.com") in the X520SerialNumber field. Other fields of the IDevID are not used.

The resulting DNS-SD RRs that the pledge announces are shown in the example. " " and "." characters are escaped as recommended by Section 1.

In this example, the same string as constructed for the service instance name is also used as the target host name. This is of course not necessary, but unless the pledge already obtains a host name through other DNS means, re-using the same name allows to avoid coming up with a second method to construct a unique name.

3.8. Variation signaling and encoding rules for different discovery mechanisms

3.8.1. DNS-SD

3.8.1.1. Signaling

The following definitions apply to any instantiation of DNS-SD including DNS-SD via mDNS as defined in Section 1, but also via unicast DNS, for example by registering the necessary DNS-SD Resource Records (RR) via [I-D.ietf-dnssd-srp] (SRP).

The requirements in this document do not guarantee interoperability when using DNS-SD, instead, they need to be amended with deployment specific specifications / requirements as to which signaling variation, such as mDNS or unicast DNS with SRP is to be supported between initiator and responder. When using unicast DNS (with SRP), additional mechanisms are required to learn the IP / IPv6 address(es) of feasible DNS and SRP servers, and deployment may also need agreements for the (default) domain they want to use in unicast DNS. Hence, a mandatory to implement (MTI) profile is not feasible because of the wide range of variations to deploy DNS-SD.

TBD: We could say that mDNS MUST be supported, unless the network context defines an interoperable mode to support DNS-SD without mDNS ???

3.8.1.2. Encoding

Variation Type Choices defined in the IANA registry Table 3 are encoded as Section 1 Keys with a value of 1 in the DNS-SD service instances TXT RR. This is possible because all Variation Type Choices are required to be unique across all Variation Types. It also allows to shorten the encoding from "key=1" to just "key" for every Variation Type Choice, so that the TXT-DATA encoding can be more compact.

If the TXT Record does not contain a Variation Type Choice for a particular applicable Variation Type, then this indicates support for the Default Choice of this Variation Type in the context of the DNS-SD Service Name. For example, if the TXT Record is "jose", then this indicates support for "rrm" and "est", if the Service Name is brski-registrar or brski-proxy and the protocol is TCP (BRSKI Context), but also when the protocol is UDP (cBRSKI context), because "rrm" and "est" are defaults in both contexts.

If multiple Variation Type Choices for the same Variation Type are indicated, then this implies that either of these Variation Type Choices is supported in conjunction with any of the other Variation Type Choices in the same TXT Record. For example, if the TXT Record is "prm" "rrm" "cms" "jose", then this implies support for rrm-cms-est, rrm-jose-est, prm-cms-est and prm-jose-est. This example also shows that if the default Variation Type Choice, such as "rrm" and another Choice of the same Variation Type ("prm") are to be indicated as supported, then both need to be included in the TXT Record.

In Section 1, a responder does not only indicate a Service Name, but also its Service Instance Name, which needs to be unique across the domain to support initiators selecting a responder. This specification makes no recommendation for choosing the Instance portion of that name. Usually it is the same, or derived from some form of pre-existing system name.

Registrars SHOULD support support their configuration without specifying a name to use in the Service Instance Name to minimize the amount of configuration required. Registrars SHOULD support the configuration of such a name.

If the responder needs to indicate different sockets for different (set of) Variations, for example, when operating as a proxy, according to Section 3.6.2, then it needs to signal for each socket a separate Service Instance Name with the appropriate port information in its SRV Record and the supported Variations for that socket in the TXT Record of that Service Instance Name. In this case, it is RECOMMENDED that the Instance Name includes the Variation it supports, such as in the format specified in Section 3.5.3 and used in the Variation String column of the Table 3 table.

               _brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN PTR  0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._tcp.local
0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._tcp.local
                IN SRV  1 2 4555 0200:0000:7400.local
0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._tcp.local IN TXT  "rrm" "prm"
0200:0000:7400.local
                IN AAAA  fda3:79a6:f6ee:0000::0200:0000:6400:0001

               _brski-registrar._udp.local
                IN PTR  0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._udp.local
0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._udp.local
                IN SRV  1 2 5684 0200:0000:7400.local
0200:0000:7400._brski-registrar._udp.local IN TXT  ""
Figure 2: DNS-SD for a simple BRSKI and cBRSKI registrar

In the above example Figure 3, a registrar supports BRSKI with "rrm" and "prm" modes across the same TCP socket, port 4555. It uses "cms" voucher format and "est" enrollment, which are not included in the TXT strings because both are default for _brski-registrar._tcp. The registrar also offers cBRSKI with "rrm" mode, "cose" voucher and "est" enrollment on UDP port 5684, the COAP over DTLS default port. The TXT RR for this has only an empty string because "rrm", "cose" and "est" are default for cBRSKI.

As the instance name, the registrar uses in this example the MAC address "0200:0000:7400", which is MAC address of the interface on which the registrar has the IPv6 address "fda3:79a6:f6ee:0000::0200:0000:6400:0001". The registrar should know that this MAC address is globally unique (assigned by IEEE). Else it should instead use its IPv6 address as the Instance Name. For example, if the registrar is just a software application not knowing the specifics of the hardware it is running on, the MAC address MUST NOT be used. If only mDNS is used (as in this example), then the IPv6 link-local address would also suffice as the Instance Name.

In this example, a single Instance Name suffices, because BRSKI and cBRSKI are two separate service contexts: they are distinguished by different protocols: TCP vs. UDP.

0123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
                   _brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN PTR  0200:0000:7400-rrm._brski-registrar._tcp.local
0200:0000:7400-rrm._brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN SRV  1 2 4555 0200:0000:7400-rrm.local
0200:0000:7400-rrm._brski-registrar._tcp.local IN TXT ""
0200:0000:7400-rrm.local
               IN AAAA fda3:79a6:f6ee:0000::0200:0000:6400:0001

                   _brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN PTR 0200:0000:7400-prm._brski-registrar._tcp.local
0200:0000:7400-prm._brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN SRV 1 2 4555 0200:0000:7400-prm.local
0200:0000:7400-prm._brski-registrar._tcp.local
               IN TXT "prm" "cmp"
0200:0000:7400-prm.local
               IN AAAA fda3:79a6:f6ee:0000::0200:0000:6400:0001
Figure 3: DNS-SD for a BRSKI registrar supporting RRM and PRM

In the second example Figure 3, a registrar needs to use two different Instance Names, because both share the same service context: BRSKI - TCP with service name brski-registrar. In this example, the registrar offers "rrm" mode with "cms" voucher and "est" enrollment. It also offers "prm" mode with "cms" voucher, but (only) with "cmp" enrollment protocol. Because the registrar does not offer "rrm" with "cmp", or "prm" with "est", it is not possible to coalesce all variations under one Instance Name, so instead, two Instance Names have to be created, and with them the necessary (duplicate) RR.

Note that the "-rrm" and "-prm" in the Instance Names are only explanatory and could be any mutually unique strings - as is true for the whole Instance Name.

Note too, that because both Instances share the same port number 4555 (and hence TCP socket), they both have to be provided by the same BRSKI application. If two separate applications where to be started on the dame host, one for "rrm", the other for "prm", then they would have separate sockets and hence port numbers.

3.8.2. GRASP

3.8.2.1. Signaling

This document does not specify a mandatory to implement set of signaling options to guarantee interoperability of discovery between initiator and responders when using GRASP. Like for the other discovery mechanisms, these requirements will have to come from other specifications that outline what in Section 1 is called the "security and transport substrate" to be used for GRASP.

[RFC8994] specifies one such "security and transport substrate", which is zero-touch deployable. It is mandatory to support for initiators and responders implementing the so-called "Autonomic Network Infrastructure" (ANI). DULL GRASP is used for link-local discovery of proxies, and the ACP is used to automatically and securely build the connectivity for multi-hop discovery of registrars by proxies.

3.8.2.2. Encoding

To announce protocol variations with Section 1, the supported Variation is indicated in the objective-value field of the GRASP objective, using the method of forming the Variation string term in Section 3.5.3, and listed in the Variation String column of the Table 3 table.

If more than one Variation is supported, then multiple objectives have to be announced, each with a different objective-value, but the same location information if the different Variations are supported across the same socket. Different sockets require different objective structures in GRASP anyhow.

Compared to DNS-SD, the choice of encoding for GRASP optimizes for minimum parsing effort, whereas the DNS-SD encoding is optimized for most compact encoding given the limit for DNS-SD TXT records.

[M_FLOOD, 12340815, h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', 180000,
    [["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 4443],
     ["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "prm",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 4443],
     ["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 4684]]
]
Figure 4: GRASP example for a BRSKI registrar supporting RRM and PRM

Figure 4 is an example for a GRASP service announcement for "AN_Proxy" in support of BRSKI with both "rrm" and "prm" supported on the same socket (TCP port number) and for cBRSKI with COAP over DTLS.

Note that one or more complete service instances (in the example 3) can be contained within a single GRASP message without the need for any equivalent to the Service Instance Name of the DNS-SD PTR RR or the Target name of the DNS-SD SRV RR. DNS-SD requires them because its encoding is decomposed into different RR, but it also intentionally introduces the Service Instance Name as an element for human interaction with selection (browsing and/or diagnostics of selection), something that the current GRASP objective-value encoding does not support.

Because this GRASP encoding does not support service instance name, examples such as

[M_FLOOD, 12340815, h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', 180000,
    [["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 4443],
     ["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 4684]]
]

[M_FLOOD, 42310815, h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', 180000,
    [["AN_Proxy", 4, 1, "prm",
     [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fe800000000000000000000000000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 44000]]
]
Figure 5: GRASP example with two different processes

In Figure 5, A separate application process supports "prm" and hence uses a separate socket, with example TCP port 44000. In this case, there is no need nor significant benefit to merge all service instance announcements into a single GRASP message. Instead, the BRSKI-"rrm"/cBRSKI process would be able to generate and send its own, first, message shown in the example, and the second process would send its own, second message in the example.

For a more extensive, DNS-SD compatible encoding of the objective-value that also support Service Instance Names, see [I-D.eckert-anima-grasp-dnssd].

3.8.3. CORE-LF

"Web Linking", [RFC5988] defines a format, originally for use with HTTP headers, to link an HTTP document against other URIs. Web linking is not a standalone method for discovery of services for use with HTTP.

Based on Web Linking, "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format", Section 1 introduces a stand alone method to discover services instances, which are called resources in CORE-LF; primarily for use with Section 1 but equally for use with, for use with HTTP or any other suitable web transfer protocols.

In CORE-LF, an initiator may use (link-local) IPv6 multicast UDP packet to the COAP port (5683) to discover a a possible responder for a specifically requested resource. The responder will reply with unicast UDP. If the IPv6 address of a responder has been configured or is otherwise known to the initiator, it may equally query the parameters of the desired resource via unicast to the default COAP UDP or TCP port (5683).

A service such as BRSKI registrar, join proxy or pledge can be considered to be a resource, but it can equally be broken down into a set of component resources resources, in which case the group can be requested. As mentioned above, CORE-LF can equally be used to request and discover resources not using COAP, but any other suitable protocol.

[RFC9176] defines a "Resource Directory" mechanism for CORE-LF which is abbreviated CORE-RD. Initiators can learn the IPv6 address protocol (TCP or UDP) and port numberaof a CORE-RD server by some other mechanism (such as DNS-SD) and then use a unicast UDP or TCP COAP connection to the CORE-RD server to discover CORE-LF resources available on other systems. Resource providers can likewise register their resources with the resource directory server using CORE-RD registration procedures.

In summaery, CORE-LF including CORE-RD is a mechanism for registration and discovery of resources and hence services which may be preferred in deployments over other options and can equally be applicable to register/discover any variation of BRSKI for any type of BRSKI service.

3.8.3.1. Signaling
3.8.3.1.1. Existing definitions

Section 1 specifies the use of CORE-LF as a reference methods for pledges to discover registrars - in the absence of any proxies, to allow deployments of scenarios where no proxies are needed - and hence also where Section 1. is not needed. Because BRSKI is designed so that pledges can be agnostic of whether they connect to a registrar directly or via a proxy, the resource/service that the pledge needs to discover is nevertheless called "(brski) join proxy (for pleges)", and encoded in CORE-LF as the value "brski.jp" for the resource type attribute ("rt=resource-type") according to Section 1.

The following picture, Figure 6 shows the encoding and an example of this discovery. "ff02::fd" is the link-local scope address for "All Coap Nodes" in IPv6, as introduced in [RFC7390], which also defines IPv6 and site-scoped address options.

Template:

REQ: GET coap://[All_Coap_Nodes_IP_multicast_addr]/.well-known/core?rt=brski.jp

RES: 2.05 Content
   <coaps://[Responder_IP_unicast_address]:join-port>; rt="brski.jp"

Example:

REQ: GET coap://[ff02::fd]/.well-known/core?rt=brski.jp

RES: 2.05 Content
   <coaps://[fe80::c78:e3c4:58a0:a4ad]:8485>;rt=brski.jp
Figure 6: CORE-LF discovery of registrar/proxy by pledges

Section 1 introduces the operations of a CoAP based join proxy both as a connection based proxy as in Section 1 (only using UDP connections for COAPs instead of TCP for TLS as in Section 1), but also as a new, stateless join proxy - to eliminate the need for potentially highly constrained join proxy nodes to keep connection state and avoid the complexity of protecting that state against attacks. The new resource type "brski.rjp" is defined to support stateless join proxies to discover registrars and their UDP port number that support the stateless, so-called JPY protocol.

The following picture, Figure 7 shows the encoding and an example of this discovery. Section 1 introduces the new scheme "coaps+jpy" for the packet header used by the stateless JPY" protocol. The request in the template is assumed to be based on unicast, relying on another method to discover the IP address of the registrar first. It could equally use COAP site-scoped IP multicast, but in general, the assumeption is that registrar will not necessarily be link-local connected to proxies (this may be different in specific deployments). Even though the registrar IP address is hence known, the reply still needs to include this address again because in the [RFC6690] link format, and [RFC3986], Section 3.2, the authority attribute can not include a port number unless it also includes the IP address.

Template:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.jpy

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coaps+jpy://[Responder_IP_unicast_address]:join-port>;rt=brski.jpy

Example:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.jpy

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coaps+jpy://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7633>;rt=brski.jpy
Figure 7: CORE-LF discovery of registrars that support stateless JPY protocll by proxies
3.8.3.1.2. New variation discovery

This document expands the above summarized existing CORE-LF definitions from Section 1 and Section 1 as follows.

Discovery of stateful sockets on a registrar uses the resource type "brski.rs" (for "registrar (for) join proxies stateful)" - instead of "brski.rjpy" for the previosly defined stateless connection mode.

The following picture Figure 8 show template and example of this discovery option. In Example 1, the registrar is running on a separate port 7634 from the COREs UDP port, so this response needs to also include the IP address of the responding registrar (as explained above). In Example 2, the registar functions are provided via the default (potentially shared) COAPS port, so this is not necessary. In both cases, the response include a shorter URL part "/b/s" which allows that the service can be used via that shorter prefix than the default "/.well-known/brksi", hence shortening the required COAPS packet sizes.

Template:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.r(*|s|spy)

RES: 2.05 Content
     <scheme://[Responder_IP_unicast_address]:join-port>;rt=brski.(rjpy|rs)

Example 1:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.rs

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coaps://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b/s>;rt=brski.rs

Example 2:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.rjpy

RES: 2.05 Content
     </b/s>;rt=brski.rjpy
Figure 8: CORE-LF discovery of registrars that support stateless JPY protocll by proxies

TBD: Question: can we really reply without coaps given how we always want coaps - aka: the query itself may not have been coaps ?? This is question for constrained proxy/voucher - can we rightfully (according to IETF specs) make the expection that even though the resource discovery is done insecure, that it is understood that the actual resource consumption has to use coaps ???? - question for COAP experts.

Explanations:

The discovery and distinction between a stateless and stateful registrar socket is orthogonal to the concept of a variation of BRSKI as defined in this document. Therefore, the distinction between a stateless and stateless socket on a registrar is provided solely via the CORE-LF resource-type, "brski.rjpy" (stateless) and "brski.rs" (stateful). In other words, the "rt" attribute in CORE-LF serves as the abstract "Service Name" in this document. If discover of stateless join proxies was required with other discovery mechanisms such as GRASP or DNS-SD, then new "Service Name" equivalents in those discovery mechanisms would need to be defined. For the purpose of this document, it is assumed that stateless proxy operations is well enough supported with CORE-LF.

To indicate variations other than the default combination implied by Section 1 and Section 1, this document specifies the new "bv" (brski variation) attribute for CORE-LF records, which is specified relative only to "rt=brski.r*" resource targets.

The value to the "bv=" attribute is a flattened string of the non-default Variation Type Choices as specified for GRASP, so that CORE-LF does not introduce another registry table to maintain. The only difference is that the absence of the "bv=" attribute is equivalent to the actual defaults established by Section 1 and Section 1, namely "rrm" (registrar response-mode) with "cose" (CBOR with COSE signed voucher) and "est" - enrollment via the 'fitting' variation of EST, in the case of using COAPS it is [RFC9148], e.g.: EST over COAPS. Including or excluding "bv=" (empty value) is hence equivalent to "bs=cose", aka: the default variation over COAPS.

When a variation implies use of HTTPS (or in the future any other transport other than COAPS), then the schema, and hence IP-address needs to be included in the CORE-LF response. Likewise, even if the protocol schema is coaps, then the IP address needs to be included if the resource is not served on the standard COAPS UDP port.

[ Q: How does the schema indicate UDP versus TCP for COAPS ??? ]

The following Figure 9 shows the schema and an example for various BRSKI registar variations, discovered via CORE-LF.

"rt=brski.rs" with schema "coaps" and without any "bv" attribute indicate the default combination of "rrm", "cose" and "est" (EST via COAPS), as introduced by [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher], aka: stateful cBRSKI.

"rt=brski.rjpy" with schema "coaps+jpy" and without any "bv" attribute indicate the default combination of "rrm", "cose" and "est" (EST via COAPS), as introduced by [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy], aka: stateless proxy cBRSKI, using the JPY header.

In both cases, there is no "bv=" attribute, so that the absence of the "bv" attribute indicates backward compatibility with existing definitions from [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher] and [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy].

"rt=brski.rs" with schema "https" and with "bv=" indicates Section 1 with its default variation of "rrm", "cms" and "est". As there is no mechanism to support the JPY header via TCP (for https), there is no schema "https+jpy" option.

"rt=brski.rs" with schema "https" and with "bv=cmp" indicates the variation "rrm", "cms" and "cmp" as introduced by Section 1, and "rt=brski.rs" with schema "https" and with "bv=prm-jose" indicates the variation "prm", "jose" and "cmp" as introduced by Section 1.

Note that the variation type value of "est" does mean different protocol specifications depending on the transport. Over "https" it means Section 1, whereas over COAPS it means [RFC9148].

Template:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.r*

RES: 2.05 Content
     <scheme://[Responder_IP_unicast_address]:join-port>;\
       rt=brski.r*(;brv=brski-variation-string)

Example:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.r*

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coaps://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b>;rt=brski.rs,
     <coaps+jpy://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7633/b>;rt=brski.rjpy,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b>;rt=brski.rs;bv=,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b>;rt=brski.rs;bv=cmp,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b>;rt=brski.rs;bv=prm-jose,
Figure 9: CORE-LF discovery of registrars by a proxy for different BRSKI variations

The following Figure 10 shows variations that have not explicitly been defined in existing specifications, so it is more or less unless whether they will work withough additional specification of details to allow interoperability. Specifically, it is unclear whether "endpoint" protocols defined for "http" transport will equall work over "coaps" transport without additional specification.

For this reason, such variations are not explicitly assumed to be supportable, but included as candidarte, subject to additional specification, and/or expert review.

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coapsy://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7633/b>;rt=brski.rsy;bv=cose-cmp,
     <coaps+jpy://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7633/b>;rt=brski.rjpy;bv=cose-cmp,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b2>;rt=brski.rjps;bv=jose-cmp,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7634/b3>;rt=brski.rjps;bv=cose-cmp
Figure 10: Potential ? future registrar variations

[ Q: Can we actually use the * discovery to only discover the two variations of registrar transport variations "rj*" - when we are a registrar ??? we do not want to discover the resource that proxies or registrars provide to pledges!!! ]

When pledges need to discover (and select) proxies (or registrars) supporting a specific combination of variations, the encoding of attributes is the same as shown in Figure 8 except that now, "rt=brski.jp" needs to be discovered.

It is a responsibility of the proxy to discover registrars and map their discovered "bv=" variations for rt=brski.rjp" and/or "brski.rjps" to the same "bv=" variations to their announced "rt=brski.jp" resources: For provies, there is simply a 1:1 mapping of the "bv" attribute and the connection scheme for the resources discovered from registrars, except for the subset of variations that can rely on COAPS transport, for those both the "rt=brski.rjp" and "rt=brski.rjps" are options how to proxy the resource for the pleges.

Note that the port numbers announced by the proxy resources will of course likely be different than those announced by the registarars.

Template:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.jp

RES: 2.05 Content
     <scheme://[Responder_IP_unicast_address]:join-port>;\
         rt=brski.jp(;brv=brski-variation-string)

Example:

REQ: GET /.well-known/core?rt=brski.rj*

RES: 2.05 Content
     <coaps://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7734/b>;rt=brski.jp,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7734/b>;rt=brski.jp;bv=,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7734/b2>;rt=brski.jp;bv=jose-cmp,
     <https://[2001:db8:0:abcd::52]:7734/b3>;rt=brski.jp;bv=cose-cmp
Figure 11: CORE-LF discovery of registrars or proxies by pledges for various BRSKI variations

4. Updates to existing RFCs

5. IANA considerations

5.1. BRSKI Variations Discovery Registry (section)

This document requests a new section named "BRSKI Variations Discovery Parameters" in the "Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructures (BRSKI) Parameters" registry (https://www.iana.org/assignments/brski-parameters/brski-parameters.xhtml). Its initial content is as follows.

[ RFC editor. Please remove the following sentence. Note to IANA: This section contains three tables according to the specifications of this document. Each of these tables should include the table title so that they can be more easily distinguished. If it is not possible to introduce more than one table per section, then we will modify the request accordingly for three sections, but given how the three tables are tightly linked, that would be unfortunate. ]

Registration Procedure(s): Standards action or expert review based on registration. See ThisRFC.

Experts: TBD.

Reference: ThisRFC.

Notes:

Dflt flag:

Indicates a Variation Type Choice that is assumed to be used if the service discover/selection mechanism does not indicate any variation.

Rsvd Flag:

Indicates a Variation Type Choice that is reserved for use with the mechanism described in the Note(s) column, but for which no specification yet exists.

Spec / Applicability:

A "-" indicates that the variation is considered to be feasible through existing specifications, but not explicitly mentioned in them. An "NA" indicates that the combination is assumed to be not working with the currently available specifications.

Table 1: BRSKI Variation Contexts
Context Applicable Variation Types Discovery Mechanism Service Name(s)
BRSKI mode
vformat
enroll
GRASP "AN_join_registrar" /
"AN_Proxy"
with IPPROTO_TCP
    DNS-SD "brski-registrar" /
"brski-proxy"
with TCP
cBRSKI mode
vformat
enroll
GRASP "AN_join_registrar" /
"AN_join_registrar_rjp" /
"AN_Proxy"
with IPPROTO_UDP
    DNS-SD "brski-registrar" /
"brski-proxy"
with UDP
    CORE-LF rt=brski.*
BRSKI-PLEDGE mode
vformat
enroll
DNS-SD "brski-pledge" with TCP
Table 2: BRSKI Variation Type Choices
Context Variation Type Variation Type Choice Reference Flags Note(s)
BRSKI, cBRSKI mode rrm [RFC8995]
ThisRFC
Dflt Registrar Responder Mode
the mode specified in [RFC8995]
    prm ThisRFC
  Pledge Responder Mode
[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm]
BRSKI vformat cms [RFC8368]
ThisRFC
Dflt CMS-signed JSON Voucher
    cose ThisRFC
  CBOR with COSE signature
cBRSKI   cose ThisRFC
Dflt CBOR with COSE signature
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher]
    cms [RFC8368]
ThisRFC
  CMS-signed JSON Voucher
BRSKI, cBRSKI   jose ThisRFC
Dflt* JOSE-signed JSON, Default when prm is used
[I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher], [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae]
BRSKI-PLEDGE mode prm ThisRFC Dflt Pledge responder Mode
[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm]
  vformat jose ThisRFC Dflt JOSE-signed JSON, Default when prm is used
[I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher], [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae]
    cms ThisRFC Rsvd CMS-signed JSON Voucher, not specified.
    cose ThisRFC Rsvd CBOR with COSE signature, not specified.
BRSKI, cBRSKI, BRSKI-PLEDGE enroll est [RFC8995]
[RFC7030]
Dflt Enroll via EST
as specified in [RFC8995], extension for Section 1 when used in context BRSKI-PLEDGE<br}[RFC9148] when used over COAP
    cmp ThisRFC   Lightweight CMP Profile
{I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae}}, [I-D.ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile]
    scep ThisRFC Rsvd [RFC8894]
Note 1:

The Variation String "EST-TLS" is equivalent to the Variation String "" and is required and only permitted for the AN_join_registrar objective value in GRASP for backward compatibility with RFC8995, where it is used for this variation. Note that AN_proxy uses "".

Table 3
Context Reference Variation String Variations Explanations / Notes
BRSKI [RFC8995] "" / "EST-TLS" rrm cms est Note 1
  [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae] cmp rrm cms cmp  
  [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm] prm-jose prm jose est  
         
cBRSKI <<I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher}} "" / "rrm-cose" rrm cose est  

5.2. Service Names Registry

IANA is asked to modify and amend the "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry" registry (https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.txt) as follows:

brski-proxy and brski-registrar are to be added as Service Names for the "udp" protocol using ThisRFC as the reference.

The registrations for brski-proxy and brski-registrar for the "tcp" protocol are to be updated to also include ThisRFC as their reference.

The Defined TXT keys column for brski-proxy and brski-registrar for both "tcp" and "udp" protocols are to state the following text:

See ThisRFC and the "BRSKI Variation Type Choices" table in the "Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructures (BRSKI) Parameters" registry.

TBD: This request likely does not include all the necessary formatting.

5.3. BRSKI Well-Known URIs fixes (opportunistic)

The following change requests to "https://www.iana.org/assignments/brski-parameters/brski-parameters.xhtml#brski-well-known-uris" are cosmetic in nature and are included in this document solely because support for Endpoint URIs is implied by the mechanisms specified in this document and the existing registry has these cosmetic issues.

  1. IANA is asked to change the name of the first column of the table from "URI" to "URI Suffix". This is in alignment with other table columns with the same syntax/semantic, such as "https://www.iana.org/assignments/well-known-uris/well-known-uris.xhtml".

  2. IANA is asked to change the Reference from [RFC8995] to [RFC8995], Section 8.3.1.

  3. IANA is asked to include the following "Note" text: The following table contains the assigned BRSKI protocol Endpoint URI suffixes under "/.well-known/brski"." - This note is added to introduce the term "Endpoint" into the registry table as that is the term commonly used (instead of URI) in several of the memos for which this discovery document was written. It is meant to help readers map the registry to the terminology used in those documents.

6. Security Considerations

In Section 1, pledges are easier subject to DoS attacks than in Section 1, because attackers can be initiators and delay or prohibit enrollment of a pledge by opening so many connections to the pledge that a valid registrar-agents connection to the pledge may not be possible. Discovery of the pledge via DNS-SD increases the ability of attackers to discover pledges against which such DoS attacks can be attempted.

Especially when supporting DNS-SD browsing across unicast DNS, Pledges MUST implement DoS prevention measures, such as limiting the number and rate of accepted TCP connections on a per-initiator basis. If feasible for the implementation, simultaneous connections SHOULD be possible, so that an ongoing attacker connection will not delay a valid registrar-agent connection. When accepting connections, a strategy such as LRU MAY be used to ensure that an attacker will not be able to monopolize connections.

Browsing via DNS-SD, especially via unicast DNS which makes information available network-wide does also introduce a perpass attack, gathering intelligence against what type and serial number of devices are installed in the network. Whether or not this is seen as a relevant risk is highly installation dependent. Networks SHOULD implement filtering measures at mDNS and/or DNS RR/services level to prohibit such data collection if there is a risk, and this is seen as an undesirable attack vector.

7. Acknowledgments

TBD.

8. Draft considerations

8.1. Open Issues

Questions to the DNS-SD community.

TBD

8.2. Change log

[RFC Editor: please remove this section.]

WG draft 02:

Fix up tables to be correctly rendered by html output.

WG draft 01:

Core-LF improvements / interim work.

WG draft 00:

Added section for CORE-LF. Still missing to update existing text with the CORE-LF definitions.

Individual version 01:

Various enhancements

Individual version 00:

Initial version.

9. References

9.1. Normative References

[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae]
von Oheimb, D., Fries, S., and H. Brockhaus, "BRSKI-AE: Alternative Enrollment Protocols in BRSKI", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-brski-ae-12, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-anima-brski-ae-12>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm]
Fries, S., Werner, T., Lear, E., and M. Richardson, "BRSKI with Pledge in Responder Mode (BRSKI-PRM)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-brski-prm-13, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-anima-brski-prm-13>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy]
Richardson, M., Van der Stok, P., and P. Kampanakis, "Join Proxy for Bootstrapping of Constrained Network Elements", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy-15, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-anima-constrained-join-proxy-15>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher]
Richardson, M., Van der Stok, P., Kampanakis, P., and E. Dijk, "Constrained Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructure (cBRSKI)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-constrained-voucher-24, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-anima-constrained-voucher-24>.
[I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher]
Werner, T. and M. Richardson, "JWS signed Voucher Artifacts for Bootstrapping Protocols", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-anima-jws-voucher-10, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-anima-jws-voucher-10>.
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-srp]
Lemon, T. and S. Cheshire, "Service Registration Protocol for DNS-Based Service Discovery", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-dnssd-srp-25, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-dnssd-srp-25>.
[I-D.ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile]
Brockhaus, H., von Oheimb, D., and S. Fries, "Lightweight Certificate Management Protocol (CMP) Profile", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile-21, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile-21>.
[RFC2119]
Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC3986]
Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3986>.
[RFC5280]
Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S., Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5280>.
[RFC6690]
Shelby, Z., "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Link Format", RFC 6690, DOI 10.17487/RFC6690, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6690>.
[RFC6762]
Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762, DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6762>.
[RFC6763]
Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service Discovery", RFC 6763, DOI 10.17487/RFC6763, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6763>.
[RFC7030]
Pritikin, M., Ed., Yee, P., Ed., and D. Harkins, Ed., "Enrollment over Secure Transport", RFC 7030, DOI 10.17487/RFC7030, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7030>.
[RFC7390]
Rahman, A., Ed. and E. Dijk, Ed., "Group Communication for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7390, DOI 10.17487/RFC7390, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7390>.
[RFC8174]
Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
[RFC8368]
Eckert, T., Ed. and M. Behringer, "Using an Autonomic Control Plane for Stable Connectivity of Network Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM)", RFC 8368, DOI 10.17487/RFC8368, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8368>.
[RFC8990]
Bormann, C., Carpenter, B., Ed., and B. Liu, Ed., "GeneRic Autonomic Signaling Protocol (GRASP)", RFC 8990, DOI 10.17487/RFC8990, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8990>.
[RFC8994]
Eckert, T., Ed., Behringer, M., Ed., and S. Bjarnason, "An Autonomic Control Plane (ACP)", RFC 8994, DOI 10.17487/RFC8994, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8994>.
[RFC8995]
Pritikin, M., Richardson, M., Eckert, T., Behringer, M., and K. Watsen, "Bootstrapping Remote Secure Key Infrastructure (BRSKI)", RFC 8995, DOI 10.17487/RFC8995, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8995>.
[RFC9148]
van der Stok, P., Kampanakis, P., Richardson, M., and S. Raza, "EST-coaps: Enrollment over Secure Transport with the Secure Constrained Application Protocol", RFC 9148, DOI 10.17487/RFC9148, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9148>.
[RFC9176]
Amsüss, C., Ed., Shelby, Z., Koster, M., Bormann, C., and P. van der Stok, "Constrained RESTful Environments (CoRE) Resource Directory", RFC 9176, DOI 10.17487/RFC9176, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9176>.

9.2. Informative References

[I-D.eckert-anima-grasp-dnssd]
Eckert, T. T., Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C., and M. H. Behringer, "DNS-SD Compatible Service Discovery in GeneRic Autonomic Signaling Protocol (GRASP)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-eckert-anima-grasp-dnssd-06, , <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-eckert-anima-grasp-dnssd-06>.
[RFC5988]
Nottingham, M., "Web Linking", RFC 5988, DOI 10.17487/RFC5988, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5988>.
[RFC7252]
Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252, DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7252>.
[RFC8894]
Gutmann, P., "Simple Certificate Enrolment Protocol", RFC 8894, DOI 10.17487/RFC8894, , <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8894>.

Appendix A. Discovery for constrained BRSKI

This appendix section is intended to describe the current issues with Section 1 and Section 1 as of 08/2023, which make both drafts incompatible with this document. It will be removed if/when those issues will be fixed.

A.1. Current constrained text for GRASP

The following is the current encodings from Section 1.

  • The transport-proto is IPPROTO_UDP

  • the objective is AN_join_registrar, identical to Section 1.

  • the objective name is "BRSKI_RJP".

Here is an example M_FLOOD announcing the Registrar on example port 5685, which is a port number chosen by the Registrar.

[M_FLOOD, 51804231, h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', 180000,
[["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_RJP"],
[O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5685]]]
Figure 12: cBRSKI Fig 5: Example of Registrar announcement message

Most Registrars will announce both a JPY-stateless and stateful ports, and may also announce an HTTPS/TLS service:

[M_FLOOD, 51840231, h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', 180000,
[["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, ""],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 8443],
 ["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_JP"],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5684],
 ["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_RJP"],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5685]]]
Figure 13

The following is the current text from Section 1.

  • The transport-proto is IPPROTO_UDP

  • the objective is AN_join_registrar, identical to Section 1.

  • the objective name is "BRSKI_RJP".

Here is an example M_FLOOD announcing the Registrar on example port 5685, which is a port number chosen by the Registrar.

   [M_FLOOD, 51804231, h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', 180000,
   [["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_RJP"],
    [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5685]]]
Figure 14: Example of Registrar announcement message

Most Registrars will announce both a JPY-stateless and stateful ports, and may also announce an HTTPS/TLS service:

   [M_FLOOD, 51840231, h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', 180000,
   [["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, ""],
    [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 8443],
    ["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_JP"],
    [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5684],
    ["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, "BRSKI_RJP"],
    [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
     h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5685]]]
Figure 15: Example of Registrar announcing two services

A.1.1. Issues and proposed change

One goal of this document is to define variations such that proxies can deal with existing and future variations. This only works for variations for which proxies would need to perform specific processing other than passing on data between pledge and registrar.

Changes in protocol that require specific new behavior of proxies must therefore not be variations signaled via the objective-value field of GRASP objectives.

In result, this document recommends the following changes to the encoding for Section 1 and Section 1.

[M_FLOOD, 51840231, h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', 180000,
[["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, ""],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_TCP, 8443],
 ["AN_join_registrar", 4, 255, ""],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5684],
 ["AN_join_registrar_rjp", 4, 255, ""],
 [O_IPv6_LOCATOR,
  h'fda379a6f6ee00000200000064000001', IPPROTO_UDP, 5685]]]
Figure 16: Proposed Encoding of registrar announcements

In summary:

  • Circuit proxy operation is indicted with objective-name "AN_join_registrar" and IPPROTO_UDP. The default for AN_join_registrar/UDP is the use of COAPs and CBOR encoded voucher. For this default, the objective-value is "".

  • Stateless JPY proxy operations is indicated with objective-name "AN_join_registrar_rjp" and IPPROTO_UDP. The default for AN_join_registrar/UDP is the use of COAPs and CBOR encoded voucher. For this default, the objective-value is "".

Appendix B. Possible future variations

The following table Table 4 shows possible future entries for "Variation String" if there is an interest for such a variation. Thesew would be subject to expert review and could hence require appropriate additional specification so that interoperability based on that variation string can be guaranteed.

Table 4
Context Reference Variation String Variations Explanations / Notes
BRSKI - jose rrm jose est possible variation of [RFC8995] with voucher according to [I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher]
  - jose-cmp rrm jose cmp possible variation of [RFC8995] with voucher according to [I-D.ietf-anima-jws-voucher] and enrollment according to [I-D.ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile]
  - cose rrm cose est possible variation of [RFC8995] with voucher according to [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher]
  - cose-cmp rrm cose cmp possible variation of [RFC8995] with voucher according to [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher] and enrollment according to [I-D.ietf-lamps-lightweight-cmp-profile]
  - prm-cmp prm jose cmp possible variation of [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm] and [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae]
  - prm-cose prm cose est possible variation of [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm] and [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher]
  - prm-cose-cmp prm cose cmp possible variation of [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-prm], [I-D.ietf-anima-constrained-voucher] and [I-D.ietf-anima-brski-ae]

Contributors

Thomas Werner
Siemens AG
Germany
Steffen Fries
Siemens AG
Germany
Hendrik Brockhaus
Siemens AG
Germany
Michael Richardson
Canada
David von Oheimb
Siemens AG
Otto-Hahn-Ring 6
81739 Munich
Germany

Authors' Addresses

Toerless Eckert (editor)
Futurewei USA
United States of America
Esko Dijk
IoTconsultancy.nl