| HTTPbis Working Group | R. Fielding, Ed. |
| Internet-Draft | Adobe |
| Updates: 2617 (if approved) | J. Gettys |
| Obsoletes: 2616 (if approved) | Alcatel-Lucent |
| Intended status: Standards Track | J. Mogul |
| Expires: May 03, 2012 | HP |
| H. Frystyk | |
| Microsoft | |
| L. Masinter | |
| Adobe | |
| P. Leach | |
| Microsoft | |
| T. Berners-Lee | |
| W3C/MIT | |
| Y. Lafon, Ed. | |
| W3C | |
| J. F. Reschke, Ed. | |
| greenbytes | |
| October 31, 2011 |
HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication
draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-17
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP has been in use by the World Wide Web global information initiative since 1990. This document is Part 7 of the seven-part specification that defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1" and, taken together, obsoletes RFC 2616.
Part 7 defines the HTTP Authentication framework.
Discussion of this draft should take place on the HTTPBIS working group mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.
The current issues list is at http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/report/3 and related documents (including fancy diffs) can be found at http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/.
The changes in this draft are summarized in Appendix Appendix C.18.
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 http://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 May 03, 2012.
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This document defines HTTP/1.1 access control and authentication. It includes the relevant parts of RFC 2616 with only minor changes, plus the general framework for HTTP authentication, as previously defined in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" ([RFC2617]).
HTTP provides several OPTIONAL challenge-response authentication mechanisms which can be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a client to provide authentication information. The "basic" and "digest" authentication schemes continue to be specified in RFC 2617.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
This document defines conformance criteria for several roles in HTTP communication, including Senders, Recipients, Clients, Servers, User-Agents, Origin Servers, Intermediaries, Proxies and Gateways. See Section 2 of [Part1] for definitions of these terms.
An implementation is considered conformant if it complies with all of the requirements associated with its role(s). Note that SHOULD-level requirements are relevant here, unless one of the documented exceptions is applicable.
This document also uses ABNF to define valid protocol elements (Section 1.2). In addition to the prose requirements placed upon them, Senders MUST NOT generate protocol elements that are invalid.
Unless noted otherwise, Recipients MAY take steps to recover a usable protocol element from an invalid construct. However, HTTP does not define specific error handling mechanisms, except in cases where it has direct impact on security. This is because different uses of the protocol require different error handling strategies; for example, a Web browser may wish to transparently recover from a response where the Location header field doesn't parse according to the ABNF, whereby in a systems control protocol using HTTP, this type of error recovery could lead to dangerous consequences.
This specification uses the ABNF syntax defined in Section 1.2 of [Part1] (which extends the syntax defined in [RFC5234] with a list rule). Appendix Appendix B shows the collected ABNF, with the list rule expanded.
The following core rules are included by reference, as defined in [RFC5234], Appendix B.1: ALPHA (letters), CR (carriage return), CRLF (CR LF), CTL (controls), DIGIT (decimal 0-9), DQUOTE (double quote), HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f), LF (line feed), OCTET (any 8-bit sequence of data), SP (space), and VCHAR (any visible US-ASCII character).
The core rules below are defined in [Part1]:
BWS = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2> OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2> quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3> token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>
HTTP provides a simple challenge-response authentication mechanism that can be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a client to provide authentication information. It uses an extensible, case-insensitive token to identify the authentication scheme, followed by additional information necessary for achieving authentication via that scheme. The latter can either be a comma-separated list of attribute-value pairs or a single sequence of characters capable of holding base64-encoded information.
auth-scheme = token
auth-param = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string )
b64token = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT /
"-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" ) *"="
The "b64token" syntax allows the 66 unreserved URI characters ([RFC3986]), plus a few others, so that it can hold a base64, base64url (URL and filename safe alphabet), base32, or base16 (hex) encoding, with or without padding, but excluding whitespace ([RFC4648]).
The 401 (Unauthorized) response message is used by an origin server to challenge the authorization of a user agent. This response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at least one challenge applicable to the requested resource.
The 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) response message is used by a proxy to challenge the authorization of a client and MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate header field containing at least one challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource.
challenge = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]
A user agent that wishes to authenticate itself with an origin server — usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401 (Unauthorized) — MAY do so by including an Authorization header field with the request.
A client that wishes to authenticate itself with a proxy — usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) — MAY do so by including a Proxy-Authorization header field with the request.
Both the Authorization field value and the Proxy-Authorization field value consist of credentials containing the authentication information of the client for the realm of the resource being requested. The user agent MUST choose to use one of the challenges with the strongest auth-scheme it understands and request credentials from the user based upon that challenge.
credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]
If the origin server does not wish to accept the credentials sent with a request, it SHOULD return a 401 (Unauthorized) response. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at least one (possibly new) challenge applicable to the requested resource.
If a proxy does not accept the credentials sent with a request, it SHOULD return a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required). The response MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate header field containing a (possibly new) challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource.
The HTTP protocol does not restrict applications to this simple challenge-response mechanism for access authentication. Additional mechanisms MAY be used, such as encryption at the transport level or via message encapsulation, and with additional header fields specifying authentication information. However, such additional mechanisms are not defined by this specification.
Proxies MUST forward the WWW-Authenticate and Authorization headers unmodified and follow the rules found in Section 4.1.
The authentication parameter realm is reserved for use by authentication schemes that wish to indicate the scope of protection:
realm = "realm" BWS "=" BWS realm-value realm-value = quoted-string
A protection space is defined by the canonical root URI (the scheme and authority components of the effective request URI; see Section 4.3 of [Part1]) of the server being accessed, in combination with the realm value if present. These realms allow the protected resources on a server to be partitioned into a set of protection spaces, each with its own authentication scheme and/or authorization database. The realm value is a string, generally assigned by the origin server, which can have additional semantics specific to the authentication scheme. Note that there can be multiple challenges with the same auth-scheme but different realms.
The protection space determines the domain over which credentials can be automatically applied. If a prior request has been authorized, the same credentials MAY be reused for all other requests within that protection space for a period of time determined by the authentication scheme, parameters, and/or user preference. Unless otherwise defined by the authentication scheme, a single protection space cannot extend outside the scope of its server.
The HTTP Authentication Scheme Registry defines the name space for the authentication schemes in challenges and credentials.
Registrations MUST include the following fields:
Values to be added to this name space are subject to IETF review ([RFC5226], Section 4.1).
The registry itself is maintained at http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes.
There are certain aspects of the HTTP Authentication Framework that put constraints on how new authentication schemes can work:
The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field (Section 4.4) containing a challenge applicable to the target resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Authorization header field (Section 4.1). If the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401 response indicates that authorization has been refused for those credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the prior response, and the user agent has already attempted authentication at least once, then the user SHOULD be presented the representation that was given in the response, since that representation might include relevant diagnostic information.
This code is similar to 401 (Unauthorized), but indicates that the client ought to first authenticate itself with the proxy. The proxy MUST return a Proxy-Authenticate header field (Section 4.2) containing a challenge applicable to the proxy for the target resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Proxy-Authorization header field (Section 4.3).
This section defines the syntax and semantics of HTTP/1.1 header fields related to authentication.
The "Authorization" header field allows a user agent to authenticate itself with a server — usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401 (Unauthorized) response. Its value consists of credentials containing information of the user agent for the realm of the resource being requested.
Authorization = credentials
If a request is authenticated and a realm specified, the same credentials SHOULD be valid for all other requests within this realm (assuming that the authentication scheme itself does not require otherwise, such as credentials that vary according to a challenge value or using synchronized clocks).
When a shared cache (see Section 1.2 of [Part6]) receives a request containing an Authorization field, it MUST NOT return the corresponding response as a reply to any other request, unless one of the following specific exceptions holds:
The "Proxy-Authenticate" header field consists of a challenge that indicates the authentication scheme and parameters applicable to the proxy for this effective request URI (Section 4.3 of [Part1]). It MUST be included as part of a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) response.
Proxy-Authenticate = 1#challenge
Unlike WWW-Authenticate, the Proxy-Authenticate header field applies only to the current connection and SHOULD NOT be passed on to downstream clients. However, an intermediate proxy might need to obtain its own credentials by requesting them from the downstream client, which in some circumstances will appear as if the proxy is forwarding the Proxy-Authenticate header field.
The "Proxy-Authorization" header field allows the client to identify itself (or its user) to a proxy which requires authentication. Its value consists of credentials containing the authentication information of the user agent for the proxy and/or realm of the resource being requested.
Proxy-Authorization = credentials
Unlike Authorization, the Proxy-Authorization header field applies only to the next outbound proxy that demanded authentication using the Proxy-Authenticate field. When multiple proxies are used in a chain, the Proxy-Authorization header field is consumed by the first outbound proxy that was expecting to receive credentials. A proxy MAY relay the credentials from the client request to the next proxy if that is the mechanism by which the proxies cooperatively authenticate a given request.
The "WWW-Authenticate" header field consists of at least one challenge that indicates the authentication scheme(s) and parameters applicable to the effective request URI (Section 4.3 of [Part1]).
It MUST be included in 401 (Unauthorized) response messages and MAY be included in other response messages to indicate that supplying credentials (or different credentials) might affect the response.
WWW-Authenticate = 1#challenge
User agents are advised to take special care in parsing the WWW-Authenticate field value as it might contain more than one challenge, or if more than one WWW-Authenticate header field is provided, the contents of a challenge itself can contain a comma-separated list of authentication parameters.
For instance:
WWW-Authenticate: Newauth realm="apps", type=1,
title="Login to \"apps\"", Basic realm="simple"
This header field contains two challenges; one for the "Newauth" scheme with a realm value of "apps", and two additional parameters "type" and "title", and another one for the "Basic" scheme with a realm value of "simple".
The registration procedure for HTTP Authentication Schemes is defined by Section 2.3 of this document.
The HTTP Method Authentication Scheme shall be created at http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes.
The HTTP Status Code Registry located at http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes shall be updated with the registrations below:
| Value | Description | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 401 | Unauthorized | Section 3.1 |
| 407 | Proxy Authentication Required | Section 3.2 |
The Message Header Field Registry located at http://www.iana.org/assignments/message-headers/message-header-index.html shall be updated with the permanent registrations below (see [RFC3864]):
| Header Field Name | Protocol | Status | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authorization | http | standard | Section 4.1 |
| Proxy-Authenticate | http | standard | Section 4.2 |
| Proxy-Authorization | http | standard | Section 4.3 |
| WWW-Authenticate | http | standard | Section 4.4 |
The change controller is: "IETF (iesg@ietf.org) - Internet Engineering Task Force".
This section is meant to inform application developers, information providers, and users of the security limitations in HTTP/1.1 as described by this document. The discussion does not include definitive solutions to the problems revealed, though it does make some suggestions for reducing security risks.
Existing HTTP clients and user agents typically retain authentication information indefinitely. HTTP/1.1 does not provide a method for a server to direct clients to discard these cached credentials. This is a significant defect that requires further extensions to HTTP. Circumstances under which credential caching can interfere with the application's security model include but are not limited to:
This is currently under separate study. There are a number of work-arounds to parts of this problem, and we encourage the use of password protection in screen savers, idle time-outs, and other methods which mitigate the security problems inherent in this problem. In particular, user agents which cache credentials are encouraged to provide a readily accessible mechanism for discarding cached credentials under user control.
This specification takes over the definition of the HTTP Authentication Framework, previously defined in RFC 2617. We thank John Franks, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker, Jeffery L. Hostetler, Scott D. Lawrence, Paul J. Leach, Ari Luotonen, and Lawrence C. Stewart for their work on that specification. See Section 6 of [RFC2617] for further acknowledgements.
See Section 11 of [Part1] for the Acknowledgments related to this document revision.
| [Part1] | Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y. and J. F. Reschke, "HTTP/1.1, part 1: URIs, Connections, and Message Parsing", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-17, October 2011. |
| [Part6] | Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Nottingham, M. and J. F. Reschke, "HTTP/1.1, part 6: Caching", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-17, October 2011. |
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC5234] | Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008. |
| [RFC2616] | Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P. and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999. |
| [RFC2617] | Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P.M., Hostetler, J.L., Lawrence, S.D., Leach, P.J., Luotonen, A. and L. Stewart, "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication", RFC 2617, June 1999. |
| [RFC3864] | Klyne, G., Nottingham, M. and J. Mogul, "Registration Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864, September 2004. |
| [RFC3986] | Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R. and L. Masinter, "Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986, January 2005. |
| [RFC4648] | Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings", RFC 4648, October 2006. |
| [RFC5226] | Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226, May 2008. |
The "realm" parameter isn't required anymore in general; consequently, the ABNF allows challenges without any auth parameters. (Section 2)
The "b64token" alternative to auth-param lists has been added for consistency with legacy authentication schemes such as "Basic". (Section 2)
Change ABNF productions for header fields to only define the field value. (Section 4)
Authorization = credentials BWS = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2> OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2> Proxy-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS challenge ] ) Proxy-Authorization = credentials WWW-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS challenge ] ) auth-param = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string ) auth-scheme = token b64token = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" ) *"=" challenge = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param ) *( OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ] credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param ) *( OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ] quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3> realm = "realm" BWS "=" BWS realm-value realm-value = quoted-string token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>
ABNF diagnostics:
; Authorization defined but not used ; Proxy-Authenticate defined but not used ; Proxy-Authorization defined but not used ; WWW-Authenticate defined but not used ; realm defined but not used
Extracted relevant partitions from [RFC2616].
Closed issues:
Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36):
Ongoing work on IANA Message Header Field Registration (http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/40):
None.
Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36):
Final work on ABNF conversion (http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36):
None.
Closed issues:
No significant changes.
Partly resolved issues:
None.
Closed issues:
Partly resolved issues:
None.
Closed issues:
None.
Closed issues:
Closed issues: