| Internet-Draft | server-cookies | January 2021 |
| Sury, et al. | Expires 17 July 2021 | [Page] |
DNS Cookies, as specified in [RFC7873], are a lightweight DNS transaction security mechanism that provide limited protection to DNS servers and clients against a variety of amplification denial of service, forgery, or cache poisoning attacks by off-path attackers.¶
This document updates [RFC7873] with precise directions for creating Server Cookies so that an anycast server set including diverse implementations will interoperate with standard clients, suggestions for constructing Client Cookies in a privacy preserving fashion, and suggestions on how to update a Server Secret. An IANA registry listing the methods and associated pseudo random function suitable for creating DNS Server Cookies is created, with the method described in this document as the first and as of yet only entry.¶
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶
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This Internet-Draft will expire on 17 July 2021.¶
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DNS Cookies, as specified in [RFC7873], are a lightweight DNS transaction security mechanism that provide limited protection to DNS servers and clients against a variety of denial of service amplification, forgery, or cache poisoning attacks by off-path attackers. This document specifies a means of producing interoperable Cookies so that an anycast server set including diverse implementations can be easily configured to interoperate with standard clients. Also single implementation or non-anycast services can benefit from a well-studied standardized algorithm for which the behavioural and security characteristics are more widely known.¶
The threats considered for DNS Cookies and the properties of the DNS Security features other than DNS Cookies are discussed in [RFC7873].¶
In [RFC7873] in Section 6 it is "RECOMMENDED for simplicity that the same Server Secret be used by each DNS server in a set of anycast servers." However, how precisely a Server Cookie is calculated from this Server Secret, is left to the implementation.¶
This guidance has led to a gallimaufry of DNS Cookie implementations, calculating the Server Cookie in different ways. As a result, DNS Cookies are impractical to deploy on multi-vendor anycast networks, because even when all DNS Software share the same secret, as RECOMMENDED in Section 6 of [RFC7873], the Server Cookie constructed by one implementation cannot generally be validated by another.¶
There is no need for DNS client (resolver) Cookies to be interoperable across different implementations. Each client need only be able to recognize its own cookies. However, this document does contain recommendations for constructing Client Cookies in a client protecting fashion.¶
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.¶
In its Appendices A.1 and B.1, [RFC7873] provides example "simple" algorithms for computing Client and Server Cookies, respectively. These algorithms MUST NOT be used as the resulting cookies are too weak when evaluated against modern security standards.¶
In its Appendix B.2, [RFC7873] provides an example "more complex" server algorithm. This algorithm is replaced by the interoperable specification in Section 4 of this document, which MUST be used by Server Cookie implementations.¶
This document has suggestions on Client Cookie construction in Section 3. The previous example in Appendix A.2 of [RFC7873] is NOT RECOMMENDED.¶
The Client Cookie acts as an identifier for a given client and its IP address, and needs to be unguessable. In order to provide minimal authentication of the targeted server, a client MUST use a different Client Cookie for each different Server IP address. This complicates a server's ability to spoof answers for other DNS servers. The Client Cookie SHOULD have 64-bits of entropy.¶
When a server does not support DNS Cookies, the client MUST NOT send the same Client Cookie to that same server again. Instead, it is recommended that the client does not send a Client Cookie to that server for a certain period, for example five minutes, before it retries with a new Client Cookie.¶
When a server does support DNS Cookies, the client should store the Client Cookie alongside the Server Cookie it registered for that server.¶
Except for when the Client IP address changes, there is no need to change the Client Cookie often. It is reasonable to change the Client Cookie then only if it has been compromised or after a relatively long implementation-defined period of time. The time period should be no longer than a year, and in any case Client Cookies are not expected to survive a program restart.¶
Client-Cookie = 64 bits of entropy¶
Previously, the recommended algorithm to compute the Client Cookie included Client IP address as an input to a hashing function. However, when implementing the DNS Cookies, several DNS vendors found impractical to include the Client IP as the Client Cookie is typically computed before the Client IP address is known. Therefore, the requirement to put Client IP address as input was removed.¶
However, for privacy reasons, in order to prevent tracking of devices across links and to not circumvent IPv6 Privacy Extensions [RFC4941], clients MUST NOT re-use a Client or Server Cookie after the Client IP address has changed.¶
One way to satisfy this requirement for non-re-use is to register the Client IP address alongside the Server Cookie when it receives the Server Cookie. In subsequent queries to the server with that Server Cookie, the socket MUST be bound to the Client IP address that was also used (and registered) when it received the Server Cookie. Failure to bind MUST then result in a new Client Cookie.¶
The Server Cookie is effectively a Message Authentication Code (MAC). The Server Cookie, when it occurs in a COOKIE option in a request, is intended to weakly assure the server that the request came from a client that is both at the source IP address of the request and using the Client Cookie included in the option. This assurance is provided by the Server Cookie that the server (or any other server from the anycast set) sent to that client in an earlier response appearing as the Server Cookie field in the request (see Section 5.2 of [RFC7873]).¶
DNS Cookies do not provide protection against "on-path" adversaries (see Section 9 of [RFC7873]). An on path observer that has seen a Server Cookie for a client, can abuse that Server Cookie to spoof request for that client within the timespan a Server Cookie is valid (see Section 4.3).¶
The Server Cookie is calculated from the Client Cookie, a series of Sub-Fields specified below, the Client IP address, and a Server Secret known only to the server, or servers responding on the same address in an anycast set.¶
For calculation of the Server Cookie, a pseudorandom function is RECOMMENDED with the property that an attacker that does not know the Server Secret, cannot find (any information about) the Server Secret and cannot create a Server Cookie for any combination of - the Client Cookie, the series of Sub-Fields specified below and the client IP address - for which it has not seen a Server Cookie before. Because DNS servers need to calculate in order to verify Server Cookies, it is RECOMMENDED for the pseudorandom function to be performant. The [SipHash-2-4] pseudorandom function introduced in Section 4.4 fit these recommendations.¶
Changing the Server Secret regularly is RECOMMENDED but, when a secure pseudorandom function is used, it need not be changed too frequently. For example once a month would be adequate. See Section 5 on operator and implementation guidelines for updating a Server Secret.¶
The 128-bit Server Cookie consists of Sub-Fields: a 1 octet Version Sub-Field, a 3 octet Reserved Sub-Field, a 4 octet Timestamp Sub-Field and an 8 octet Hash Sub-Field.¶
0 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Version | Reserved | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Timestamp | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Hash | | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+¶
The Version Sub-Field prescribes the structure and Hash calculation formula. This document defines Version 1 to be the structure and way to calculate the Hash Sub-Field as defined in this Section.¶
The value of the Reserved Sub-Field is reserved for future versions of server side Cookie construction. On construction it MUST be set to zero octets. On Server Cookie verification the server MUST NOT enforce those fields to be zero and the Hash should be computed with the received value as described in Section 4.4.¶
The Timestamp value prevents Replay Attacks and MUST be checked by the server to be within a defined period of time. The DNS server SHOULD allow Cookies within 1 hour period in the past and 5 minutes into the future to allow operation of low volume clients and some limited time skew between the DNS servers in the anycast set.¶
The Timestamp value specifies a date and time in the form of a 32-bit unsigned number of seconds elapsed since 1 January 1970 00:00:00 UTC, ignoring leap seconds, in network byte order. All comparisons involving these fields MUST use "Serial number arithmetic", as defined in [RFC1982]. The [RFC1982] specifies how the differences should be handled. This handles any relative time window less than 68 years, at any time in the future (2038 or 2106 or 2256 or 22209 or later.)¶
The DNS server SHOULD generate a new Server Cookie at least if the received Server Cookie from the client is more than half an hour old, but MAY generate a new cookie more often than that.¶
It's important that all the DNS servers use the same algorithm for computing the Server Cookie. This document defines the Version 1 of the server side algorithm to be:¶
Hash = SipHash-2-4(
Client Cookie | Version | Reserved | Timestamp | Client-IP,
Server Secret )
¶
where "|" indicates concatenation.¶
Notice that Client-IP is used for hash generation even though it is not included in the cookie value itself. Client-IP can be either 4 bytes for IPv4 or 16 bytes for IPv6. The length of all the concatenated elements (the input into [SipHash-2-4]) MUST be either precisely 20 bytes in case of an IPv4 Client-IP or precisely 32 bytes in case of an IPv6 Client-IP.¶
When a DNS server receives a Server Cookie version 1 for validation, the length of the received COOKIE option MUST be precisely 24 bytes: 8 bytes for the Client Cookie plus 16 bytes for the Server Cookie. Verification of the length of the received COOKIE option is REQUIRED to guarantee the length of the input into [SipHash-2-4] to be precisely 20 bytes in case of an IPv4 Client-IP and precisely 32 bytes in case of an IPv6 Client-IP. This ensures that the input into [SipHash-2-4] is an injective function of the elements making up the input, and thereby prevents data substitution attacks. More specifically, this prevents a 36 byte COOKIE option coming from an IPv4 Client-IP to be validated as if it were coming from an IPv6 Client-IP.¶
The Server Secret MUST be configurable to make sure that servers in an anycast network return consistent results.¶
Changing the Server Secret regularly is RECOMMENDED. All servers in an anycast set must be able to verify the Server Cookies constructed by all other servers in that anycast set at all times. Therefore it is vital that the Server Secret is shared among all servers before it is used to generate Server Cookies on any server.¶
Also, to maximize maintaining established relationships between clients and servers, an old Server Secret should be valid for verification purposes for a specific period.¶
To facilitate this, deployment of a new Server Secret MUST be done in three stages:¶
The new Server Secret is deployed on all the servers in an anycast set by
the operator.¶
Each server learns the new Server Secret, but keeps using the previous Server Secret to generate Server Cookies.¶
Server Cookies constructed with the both the new Server Secret and with the previous Server Secret are considered valid when verifying.¶
After stage 1 completed, all the servers in the anycast set have learned the new Server Secret, and can verify Server Cookies constructed with it, but keep generating Server Cookies with the old Server Secret.¶
This stage is initiated by the operator after the Server Cookie is present
on all members in the anycast set.¶
When entering Stage 2, servers start generating Server Cookies with the new Server Secret. The previous Server Secret is not yet removed/forgotten about.¶
Server Cookies constructed with the both the new Server Secret and with the previous Server Secret are considered valid when verifying.¶
This stage is initiated by the operator when it can be assumed that most
clients have obtained a Server Cookie derived from the new Server Secret.¶
With this stage, the previous Server Secret can be removed and MUST NOT be used anymore for verifying.¶
We RECOMMEND the operator to wait at least a period to be the longest TTL in the zones served by the server plus 1 hour after it initiated Stage 2, before initiating Stage 3.¶
The operator SHOULD wait at least longer than the period clients are allowed to use the same Server Cookie, which SHOULD be 1 hour, see Section 4.3.¶
IANA is requested to create a registry on the "Domain Name System (DNS) Parameters" IANA web page as follows:¶
Registry Name: DNS Server Cookie Methods
Assignment Policy: Expert Review
Reference: [this document], [RFC7873]
Note: Server Cookie method (construction and pseudorandom algorithm) are
determined by the Version in the first byte of the Cookie and by the Cookie
size. Server Cookie size is limited to the inclusive range of 8 to 32 bytes.¶
| Version | Size | Method |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 8-32 | reserved |
| 1 | 8-15 | unassigned |
| 1 | 16 | SipHash-2-4 [this document] Section 4 |
| 1 | 17-32 | unassigned |
| 2-239 | 8-32 | unassigned |
| 240-254 | 8-32 | private use |
| 255 | 8-32 | reserved |
DNS Cookies provide limited protection to DNS servers and clients against a variety of denial of service amplification, forgery or cache poisoning attacks by off-path attackers. They provide no protection against on-path adversaries that can observe the plaintext DNS traffic. An on-path adversary that can observe a Server Cookie for a client and server interaction, can use that Server Cookie for denial of service amplification, forgery or cache poisoning attacks directed at that client for the lifetime of the Server Cookie.¶
Thanks to Witold Krecicki and Pieter Lexis for valuable input, suggestions and text and above all for implementing a prototype of an interoperable DNS Cookie in Bind9, Knot and PowerDNS during the hackathon of IETF104 in Prague. Thanks for valuable input and suggestions go to Ralph Dolmans, Bob Harold, Daniel Salzman, Martin Hoffmann, Mukund Sivaraman, Petr Spacek, Loganaden Velvindron, Bob Harold, Philip Homburg, Tim Wicinski and Brian Dickson.¶
The query below is from a client with IPv6 address 2001:db8:220:1:59de:d0f4:8769:82b8 to a server with IPv6 address 2001:db8:8f::53. The client has learned a valid Server Cookie before (at Wed Jun 5 13:36:57 UTC 2019) when the Server had the secret: dd3bdf9344b678b185a6f5cb60fca715. The server now uses a new secret, but it can still validate the Server Cookie provided by the client as the old secret has not expired yet.¶
The Timestamp field in the Server Cookie in the request has value 1559741817, which in [RFC3339] format is 2019-06-05 13:36:57+00:00.¶
;; Sending: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6774 ;; flags:; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ; COOKIE: 22681ab97d52c298010000005cf7c57926556bd0934c72f8 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;example.net. IN A ;; QUERY SIZE: 52¶
The authoritative nameserver (server) replies with a freshly generated server cookie for this client with its new secret: 445536bcd2513298075a5d379663c962¶
The Timestamp field in the returned new Server Cookie has value 1559741961, which in [RFC3339] format is .¶
;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 6774 ;; flags: qr aa; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096 ; COOKIE: 22681ab97d52c298010000005cf7c609a6bb79d16625507a (good) ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;example.net. IN A ;; ANSWER SECTION: example.net. 86400 IN A 192.0.2.34 ;; Query time: 6 msec ;; SERVER: 2001:db8:8f::53#53(2001:db8:8f::53) ;; WHEN: Wed Jun 5 13:36:57 UTC 2019 ;; MSD SIZE rcvd: 84¶
At the time of writing, BIND from version 9.16 and Knot DNS from version 2.9.0 create Server Cookies according to the recipe described in this draft. Unbound and NSD have an Proof of Concept implementation that has been tested for interoperability during the hackathon at the IETF104 in Prague. Construction of privacy maintaining Client Cookies according to the directions in this draft have been implemented in the getdns library and will be in the upcoming getdns-1.6.1 release and in Stubby version 0.3.1.¶