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The EDNS(0) Padding Option
draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-02

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7830.
Author Alexander Mayrhofer
Last updated 2016-03-03 (Latest revision 2016-01-25)
Replaces draft-mayrhofer-edns0-padding
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Tim Wicinski
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2015-12-18
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7830 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Yes
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Terry Manderson
Send notices to "Tim Wicinski" <tjw.ietf@gmail.com>
IANA IANA review state IANA OK - Actions Needed
draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-02
Network Working Group                                       A. Mayrhofer
Internet-Draft                                               nic.at GmbH
Intended status: Standards Track                        January 25, 2016
Expires: July 28, 2016

                       The EDNS(0) Padding Option
                   draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-02

Abstract

   This document specifies the EDNS(0) 'Padding' option, which allows
   DNS clients and servers to pad request and response messages by a
   variable number of octets.

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 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 July 28, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  The 'Padding' Option  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Usage Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.1.  draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-02  . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.2.  draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-01  . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     8.3.  draft-ieft-dprive-edns0-padding-00  . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     8.4.  draft-mayrhofer-edns0-padding-01  . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     8.5.  draft-mayrhofer-edns0-padding-00  . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   The Domain Name System (DNS) [RFC1035] was specified to transport DNS
   messages in clear text form.  Since this can expose significant
   amounts of information about the internet activities of an end user,
   the IETF has undertaken work to provide confidentiality to DNS
   transactions (see the DPRIVE WG).  Encrypting the DNS transport is
   considered as one of the options to improve the situation.

   However, even if both DNS query and response messages were encrypted,
   meta data of could still be used to correlate such messages with well
   known unencrypted messages, hence jeopardizing some of the
   confidentiality gained by encryption.  One such property is the
   message size.

   This document specifies the Extensions Mechanisms for DNS (EDNS(0))
   "Padding" Option, which allows to artificially increase the size of a
   DNS message by a variable number of bytes, significantly hampering
   size-based correlation of the encrypted message.

2.  Terminology

   The terms "Requestor", "Responder" are to be interpreted as specified
   in [RFC6891].

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and

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   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119].

3.  The 'Padding' Option

   The EDNS(0) [RFC6891] specifies a mechanism to include new options in
   DNS packets, contained in the RDATA of the OPT meta-RR.  This
   document specifies the 'Padding' option in order to allow clients and
   servers pad DNS packets by a variable number of bytes.  The 'Padding'
   option MUST occur at most once per OPT meta-RR (and hence, at most
   once per message).

   The figure below specifies the structure of the option in the RDATA
   of the OPT RR:

                0                       8                      16
                +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
                |                  OPTION-CODE                  |
                +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
                |                 OPTION-LENGTH                 |
                +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
                |        (PADDING) ...        (PADDING) ...     /
                +-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -

                                 Figure 1

   The OPTION-CODE for the 'Padding' option is 12.

   The OPTION-LENGTH for the 'Padding' option is the size (in octets) of
   the PADDING.  The minimum number of padding octets is 0.

   The PADDING octets SHOULD be set to 0x00.  Other values MAY be used;
   for example, in cases where there is a concern that the padded
   message could be subject to compression before encryption.  PADDING
   octets of any value MUST be accepted in messages received.

4.  Usage Considerations

   This document does not specify the actual amount of padding to be
   used, since this depends on the situation in which the option is
   used.  However, padded DNS messages MUST NOT exceed the number of
   octets specified in the Requestor's Payload Size field encoded in The
   RR Class Field (see Section 6.2.3 and 6.2.4 of [RFC6891]).

   Responders MUST pad DNS responses when the respective DNS query
   included the 'Padding' option, unless doing so would violate the
   maximum UDP payload size.

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   Responders MAY pad DNS responses when the respective DNS query
   indicated EDNS(0) support of the Requestor.

   Responders MUST NOT pad DNS responses when the respective DNS query
   did not indicate EDNS(0).

5.  IANA Considerations

   IANA has assigned EDNS Option Code 12 for Padding.

   IANA is requested to update the respective registration record by
   changing the Reference field to [[THISRFC]] and the Status field to
   'Standard'.

6.  Security Considerations

   Padding DNS packets obviously increases their size, and will
   therefore lead to increased traffic.

   The use of the EDNS(0) Padding provides only a benefit when DNS
   packets are not transported in clear text.  Implementations therefore
   SHOULD avoid using this option if the DNS transport is not encrypted.

   Padding length might be affected by lower-level compression.
   Therefore (as described in Section 3.3 of [RFC7525]), implementations
   and deployments SHOULD disable TLS-level compression.

   The payload of the 'Padding' option could (like many other fields in
   the DNS protocol) be used as a covert channel.

7.  Acknowledgements

   This document was inspired by a discussion with Daniel Kahn Gillmor
   during IETF93, as an alternative to the proposed padding on the TLS
   layer.  Allison Mankin, Andreas Gustaffson, Christian Huitema and
   Jinmei Tatuya suggested text for this document.

8.  Changes

   Note to RFC Editors: Please remove this whole section before
   publication

8.1.  draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-02

   Clarified that changes section is to be removed before publication.
   Clarified that both Requestors and Responders are to ignore padding
   contents. changed text about non-zero padding contents based on WGLC
   comments. removed security considerations about truncation based on

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   WGLC comment. added more acknowledgements. replaced "packets" with
   "messages" where appropriate.

8.2.  draft-ietf-dprive-edns0-padding-01

   Fixed 'octects' typo.  Changed 'covert channel' text to align with
   allowing non-0x00 padding.  changed IANA considerations - assigned
   option code is 12.  Changed field definitions to allow for non-0x00
   padding, removed FORMERR requirement.  referenced rfc7525 in security
   considerations.  added acknowledgements.

8.3.  draft-ieft-dprive-edns0-padding-00

   Adopted by WG.  Changed text about message size limit based on
   feedback.

8.4.  draft-mayrhofer-edns0-padding-01

   Changed minimum padding size to 0, rewrote Usage Considerations
   section, extended Security considerations section

8.5.  draft-mayrhofer-edns0-padding-00

   Initial version

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References

   [RFC1035]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
              specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
              November 1987, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC6891]  Damas, J., Graff, M., and P. Vixie, "Extension Mechanisms
              for DNS (EDNS(0))", STD 75, RFC 6891,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6891, April 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6891>.

9.2.  Informative References

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   [RFC7525]  Sheffer, Y., Holz, R., and P. Saint-Andre,
              "Recommendations for Secure Use of Transport Layer
              Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security
              (DTLS)", BCP 195, RFC 7525, DOI 10.17487/RFC7525, May
              2015, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7525>.

Author's Address

   Alexander Mayrhofer
   nic.at GmbH
   Karlsplatz 1/2/9
   Vienna  1010
   Austria

   Email: alex.mayrhofer.ietf@gmail.com

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