RADIUS and TLS-PSK

4.1. Requirements on PSKs

Reuse of a PSK in multiple versions of TLS (e.g. TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3) is considered unsafe ([RFC8446] Section E.7). Where TLS 1.3 binds the PSK to a particular key deriviation function, TLS 1.2 does not. This binding means that it is possible to use the same PSK in different hashes, leading to the potential for attacking the PSK by comparing the hash outputs. While there are no known insecurities, these uses are not known to be secure, and should therefore be avoided.¶

[RFC9258] adds a key derivation function to the import interface of (D)TLS 1.3, which binds the externally provided PSK to the protocol version. In particular, that document:¶

• ... describes a mechanism for importing PSKs derived from external PSKs by including the target KDF, (D)TLS protocol version, and an optional context string to ensure uniqueness. This process yields a set of candidate PSKs, each of which are bound to a target KDF and protocol, that are separate from those used in (D)TLS 1.2 and prior versions. This expands what would normally have been a single PSK and identity into a set of PSKs and identities.¶

If an implementation supports both TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3, it MUST require that TLS 1.3 be negotiated in RADIUS/TLS and RADIUS/DTLS. This requirement prevents reuse of a PSK with multiple TLS versions, which prevents the attacks discussed in [RFC8446] Section E.7.¶

It is RECOMMENDED that systems follow the directions of [RFC9257] Section 4 for the use of external PSKs in TLS. That document provides extremely useful guidance on generating and using PSKs.¶

Implementations MUST support PSKs of at least 32 octets in length, and SHOULD support PSKs of 64 octets. Implementations MUST require that PSKs be at least 16 octets in length. That is, short PSKs MUST NOT be permitted to be used.¶

Administrators SHOULD use PSKs of at least 24 octets, generated using a source of cryptographically secure random numbers. Implementors needing a secure random number generator should see [RFC8937] for for further guidance. PSKs are not passwords, and administrators should not try to manually create PSKs.¶

Passwords are generally intended to be remembered and entered by people on a regular basis. In contrast, PSKs are intended to be entered once, and then automatically saved in a system configuration. As such, due to the limited entropy of passwords, they are not acceptable for use with TLS-PSK, and would only be acceptable for use with a password-authenticated key exchange (PAKE) TLS method.¶

We also incorporate by reference the requirements of Section 10.2 of [RFC7360] when using PSKs.¶

4.2. PSK Identities

It is RECOMMENDED that systems follow the directions of [RFC9257] Section 6.1.1 for the use of external PSK identies in TLS. Note that the PSK identity is sent in the clear, and is therefore visible to attackers. Where privacy is desired, the PSK identity could be either an opaque token generated cryptographically, or perhaps in the form of a Network Access Identifier (NAI) [RFC7542], where the "user" portion is an opaque token. For example, an NAI could be "68092112@example.com". If the attacker already knows that the client is associated with "example.com", then using that domain name in the PSK identity offers no additional information. In constrast, the "user" portion needs to be both unique to the client and private, so using an opaque token there is a more secure approach.¶

Implementations MUST support PSK identies of 128 octets, and SHOULD support longer PSK identities. We note that while TLS provides for PSK identities of up to 2^16-1 octets in length, there are few practical uses for extremely long PSK identities.¶

4.3. PSK and PSK Identity Sharing

While administrators may desire to share PSKs and/or PSK identities across multiple systems, such usage is NOT RECOMMENDED. Details of the possible attacks on reused PSKs are given in [RFC9257] Section 4.1.¶

Implementations MUST support configuring a unique PSK and PSK identity for each possible client-server relationship. This configuration allows administrators desiring security to use unique PSKs for each such relationship. This configuration also allows administrators to re-use PSKs and PSK identies where local policies permit.¶

Implementations SHOULD warn administrators if the same PSK identity and/or PSK is used for multiple client-server relationships.¶

5.1. PSK Identities

[RFC6614] is silent on the subject of PSK identities, which is an issue that we correct here. Guidance is required on the use of PSK identities, as the need to manage identities associated with PSK is a new requirement for NAS management interfaces, and is a new requirement for RADIUS servers.¶

RADIUS systems implementing TLS-PSK MUST support identities as per [RFC4279] Section 5.3, and MUST enable configuring TLS-PSK identities in management interfaces as per [RFC4279] Section 5.4.¶

RADIUS shared secrets cannot safely be used as TLS-PSKs. To prevent confusion between shared secrets and TLS-PSKs, management interfaces and APIs need to label PSK fields as "PSK" or "TLS-PSK", rather than "shared secret¶

Where dynamic server lookups [RFC7585] are not used, RADIUS clients MUST still permit the configuration of a RADIUS server IP address.¶

6.1. Identifying and filtering clients

RADIUS/UDP and RADIUS/TCP identify clients by source IP address. This practice is no longer needed when TLS transport is used, as the client can instead be identified via TLS information such as PSK identity, client certificate, etc.¶

When a RADIUS server implements TLS-PSK, it MUST use the PSK identity as the logical identifier for a RADIUS client instead of the IP address as was done with RADIUS/UDP. That is, instead of associating a source IP address with a shared secret, the RADIUS server instead associates a PSK identity with a pre-shared key. In effect, the PSK identity replaces the source IP address of the connection as the client identifier.¶

For example, when a RADIUS server receives a RADIUS/UDP packet, it normally looks up the source IP address, finds a client definition, and that client definition contains a shared secret. The packet is then authenticated (or not) using that shared secret.¶

When TLS-PSK is used, the RADIUS server instead receives a TLS connection request which contains a PSK identity. That identity is then used to find a client definition, and that client definition contains a PSK. The TLS connection is then authenticated (or not) using that PSK.¶

Each RADIUS client MUST be configured with a unique PSK, which implies a unique PSK identifier for each RADIUS client. To enforce the use of unique PSKs, RADIUS servers accepting TLS-PSK MUST require that a PSK identifier and PSK can be associated with each RADIUS client.¶

RADIUS servers MUST be able to look up PSK identity in a subsystem which then returns the actual PSK.¶

RADIUS servers MUST support IP address and network filtering of the source IP address for all TLS connections. In many situations a RADIUS server does not need to allow connections from the entire Internet. As such, it can increase security to limit permitted connections to a small list of networks.¶

For example, a RADIUS server be configured to be accept connections from a source network of 192.0.2/24. The RADIUS server could therefore discard any TLS connection request which comes from a source IP address outside of that network. In that case, there is no need to examine the PSK identity or to find the client definition. Instead, the IP source filtering policy would deny the connection before any TLS communication had been performed.¶

RADIUS servers SHOULD be able to limit certain PSK identifiers to certain network ranges or IP addresses. This filtering can catch configuration errors. That is, if a NAS is known to have a dynamic IP address within a particular subnet, the server should limit use of the NASes PSK to that subnet.¶

For example, as with the example above, the RADIUS server be configured to be accept connections from a source network of 192.0.2/24. The RADIUS server may be configured with a PSK identity "system1", and then also configured to associate that PSK identity with the source IP address 192.0.2.16. In that case, if the server receives a connection request from the source IP address 192.0.2.16 with PSK identity other than "system1", then the connection could be rejected. Similarly, if the server receives a connection request from the source IP address other than 192.0.2.16 but which uses the PSK identity "system1", then the connection could also be rejected.¶

The use of PSK identities as client identifiers does not prevent RADIUS servers from performing source IP filtering of incoming packets or connections. Instead, the use of PSK identities as client identifiers means that source IP addresses are no longer required to be associated with RADIUS clients.¶

Note that as some clients may have dynamic IP addresses, it is possible for a one PSK identity to appear at different source IP addresses over time. In addition, as there may be many clients behind one NAT gateway, there may be multiple RADIUS clients using one public IP address. RADIUS servers MUST support multiple PSKs at one source IP address, and MUST support a unique PSK identity for each unique client which is deployed in such a scenario.¶

In those use-cases, the RADIUS server should either not use source IP address filtering, or should apply source IP filtering rules which permit those use-cases. This filtering must therefore be flexible to allow all of the above behaviors, and be configurable by administrators to match their needs.¶

RADIUS servers SHOULD tie PSK identities to a particular permitted IP address or permitted network, as doing so will lower the risk if a PSK is leaked. RADIUS servers MUST permit multiple clients to share one permitted IP address or network.¶