The SSLKEYLOGFILE Format for TLS
draft-ietf-tls-keylogfile-01

Transport Layer Security                                      M. Thomson
Internet-Draft                                                   Mozilla
Intended status: Informational                              2 April 2024
Expires: 4 October 2024

                    The SSLKEYLOGFILE Format for TLS
                      draft-ietf-tls-keylogfile-01

Abstract

   A format that supports the logging information about the secrets used
   in a TLS connection is described.  Recording secrets to a file in
   SSLKEYLOGFILE format allows diagnostic and logging tools that use
   this file to decrypt messages exchanged by TLS endpoints.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   The latest revision of this draft can be found at
   https://tlswg.github.io/sslkeylogfile/draft-ietf-tls-keylogfile.html.
   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-tls-keylogfile/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the Transport Layer
   Security Working Group mailing list (mailto:tls@ietf.org), which is
   archived at https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/tls/.  Subscribe
   at https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/tls/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/tlswg/sslkeylogfile.

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-
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   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."

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 4 October 2024.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Applicability Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     1.2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  The SSLKEYLOGFILE Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Secret Labels for TLS 1.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Secret Labels for TLS 1.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Example  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   Debugging or analyzing protocols can be challenging when TLS [TLS13]
   is used to protect the content of communications.  Inspecting the
   content of encrypted messages in diagnostic tools can enable more
   thorough analysis.

   Over time, multiple TLS implementations have informally adopted a
   file format that logging the secret values generated by the TLS key
   schedule.  In many implementations, the file that the secrets are
   logged to is specified in an environment variable named
   "SSLKEYLOGFILE", hence the name of SSLKEYLOGFILE format.  Note the
   use of "SSL" as this convention originally predates the adoption of
   TLS as the name of the protocol.

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   This document describes the SSLKEYLOGFILE format.  This format can be
   used for TLS 1.2 [TLS12] and TLS 1.3 [TLS13].  The format also
   supports earlier TLS versions, though use of earlier versions is
   forbidden [RFC8996].  This format can also be used with DTLS
   [DTLS13], QUIC [RFC9000][RFC9001], and other protocols that also use
   the TLS key schedule.  Use of this format could complement other
   protocol-specific logging such as QLOG [QLOG].

1.1.  Applicability Statement

   The artifact that this document describes - if made available to
   entities other than endpoints - completely undermines the core
   guarantees that TLS provides.  This format is intended for use in
   systems where TLS only protects test data.  While the access that
   this information provides to TLS connections can be useful for
   diagnosing problems while developing systems, this mechanism MUST NOT
   be used in a production system.

1.2.  Conventions and Definitions

   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.

2.  The SSLKEYLOGFILE Format

   A file in SSLKEYLOGFILE format is a text file.  This document
   specifies the character encoding as UTF-8 [RFC3629].  Though the
   format itself only includes ASCII characters [RFC0020], comments MAY
   contain other characters.  Though Unicode is permitted in comments,
   the file MUST NOT contain a Unicode byte order mark (U+FEFF).

   Lines are terminated using the line ending convention of the platform
   on which the file is generated.  Tools that process these files MUST
   accept CRLF (U+13 followed by U+10), CR (U+13), or LF (U+10) as a
   line terminator.  Lines are ignored if they are empty or if the first
   character is an octothorp character ('#', U+23).  Other lines of the
   file each contain a single secret.

   Implementations that record secrets to a file do so continuously as
   those secrets are generated.

   Each secret is described using a single line composed of three values
   that are separated by a single space character (U+20).  These values
   are:

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   label:  The label identifies the type of secret that is being
      conveyed; see Section 2.1 for a description of the labels that are
      defined in this document.

   client_random:  The 32-byte value of the Random field from the
      ClientHello message that established the TLS connection.  This
      value is encoded as 64 hexadecimal characters.  Including this
      field allows a single file to include secrets from multiple
      connections and for the secrets to be applied to the correct
      connection, though this depends on being able to match records to
      the correct ClientHello message.

   secret:  The value of the identified secret for the identified
      connection.  This value is encoded in hexadecimal, with a length
      that depends on the size of the secret.

   For the hexadecimal values of the client_random or secret, no
   convention exists for the case of characters 'a' through 'f' (or 'A'
   through 'F').  Files can be generated with either, so either form
   MUST be accepted when processing a file.

   Diagnostic tools that accept files in this format might choose to
   ignore lines that do not conform to this format in the interest of
   ensuring that secrets can be obtained from corrupted files.

   Logged secret values are not annotated with the cipher suite or other
   connection parameters.  A record of the TLS handshake might therefore
   be needed to use the logged secrets.

2.1.  Secret Labels for TLS 1.3

   An implementation of TLS 1.3 produces a number of values as part of
   the key schedule (see Section 7.1 of [TLS13]).  Each of the following
   labels correspond to the equivalent secret produced by the key
   schedule:

   CLIENT_EARLY_TRAFFIC_SECRET:
      This secret is used to protect records sent by the client as early
      data, if early data is attempted by the client.  Note that a
      server that rejects early data will not log this secret, though a
      client that attempts early data can do so unconditionally.

   EARLY_EXPORTER_MASTER_SECRET:
      This secret is used for early exporters.  Like the
      CLIENT_EARLY_TRAFFIC_SECRET, this is only generated when early
      data is attempted and might not be logged by a server if early
      data is rejected.

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   CLIENT_HANDSHAKE_TRAFFIC_SECRET:
      This secret is used to protect handshake records sent by the
      client.

   SERVER_HANDSHAKE_TRAFFIC_SECRET:
      This secret is used to protect handshake records sent by the
      server.

   CLIENT_TRAFFIC_SECRET_0:
      This secret is used to protect application_data records sent by
      the client immediately after the handshake completes.  This secret
      is identified as client_application_traffic_secret_0 in the TLS
      1.3 key schedule.

   SERVER_TRAFFIC_SECRET_0:
      This secret is used to protect application_data records sent by
      the server immediately after the handshake completes.  This secret
      is identified as server_application_traffic_secret_0 in the TLS
      1.3 key schedule.

   EXPORTER_SECRET:
      This secret is used in generating exporters Section 7.5 of
      [TLS13].

   These labels all appear in uppercase in the key log, but they
   correspond to lowercase labels in the TLS key schedule (Section 7.1
   of [TLS13]), except for the application data secrets as noted.  For
   example, "EXPORTER_SECRET" in the log file corresponds to the secret
   named exporter_secret.

   Note that the order that labels appear here corresponds to the order
   in which they are presented in [TLS13], but there is no guarantee
   that implementations will log secrets strictly in this order.

   Key updates (Section 7.2 of [TLS13]) result in new secrets being
   generated for protecting application_data records.  The label used
   for these secrets comprises a base label of "CLIENT_TRAFFIC_SECRET_"
   for a client or "SERVER_TRAFFIC_SECRET_" for a server, plus the
   decimal value of a counter.  This counter identifies the number of
   key updates that occurred to produce this secret.  This counter
   starts at 0, which produces the first application data traffic
   secret, as above.  Note that with knowledge of "_TRAFFIC_SECRET_N",
   all subsequent application data traffic secret can be derived without
   any additional information.

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2.2.  Secret Labels for TLS 1.2

   An implementation of TLS 1.2 [TLS12] (and also earlier versions) use
   the label "CLIENT_RANDOM" to identify the "master" secret for the
   connection.

3.  Security Considerations

   Access to the content of a file in SSLKEYLOGFILE format allows an
   attacker to break the confidentiality protection on any TLS
   connections that are included in the file.  This includes both active
   connections and connections for which encrypted records were
   previously stored.  Ensuring adequate access control on these files
   therefore becomes very important.

   Implementations that support logging this data need to ensure that
   logging can only be enabled by those who are authorized.  Allowing
   logging to be initiated by any entity that is not otherwise
   authorized to observe or modify the content of connections for which
   secrets are logged could represent a privilege escalation attack.
   Implementations that enable logging also need to ensure that access
   to logged secrets is limited, using appropriate file permissions or
   equivalent access control mechanisms.

   In order to support decryption, the secrets necessary to remove
   record protection are logged.  However, as the keys that can be
   derived from these secrets are symmetric, an adversary with access to
   these secrets is also able to encrypt data for an active connection.
   This might allow for injection or modification of application data on
   a connection that would otherwise be protected by TLS.

   As some protocols rely on TLS for generating encryption keys, the
   SSLKEYLOGFILE format includes keys that identify the secret used in
   TLS exporters or early exporters (Section 7.5 of [TLS13].  Knowledge
   of these secrets can enable more than inspection or modification of
   encrypted data, depending on how an application protocol uses
   exporters.  For instance, exporters might be used for session
   bindings (e.g., [RFC8471]), authentication (e.g., [RFC9261]), or
   other derived secrets that are used in application context.  An
   adversary that obtains these secrets might be able to use this
   information to attack these applications.  A TLS implementation might
   either choose to omit these secrets in contexts where the information
   might be abused or require separate authorization to enable logging
   of exporter secrets.

   Using an environment variable, such as SSLKEYLOGFILE, to enable
   logging implies that access to the launch context for the application
   is needed to authorize logging.  On systems that support specially-

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   named files, logs might be directed to these names so that logging
   does not result in storage, but enable consumption by other programs.
   In both cases, applications might require special authorization or
   they might rely on system-level access control to limit access to
   these capabilities.

   Forward secrecy guarantees provided in TLS 1.3 (see Section 1.2 and
   Appendix E.1 of [RFC8446]) and some modes of TLS 1.2 (such as those
   in Sections 2.2 and 2.4 of [RFC4492]) do not hold if key material is
   recorded.  Access to key material allows an attacker to decrypt data
   exchanged in any previously logged TLS connections.

   Logging the TLS 1.2 "master" secret provides the recipient of that
   secret far greater access to an active connection than TLS 1.3
   secrets.  In addition to reading and altering protected messages, the
   TLS 1.2 "master" secret confers the ability to resume the connection
   and impersonate either endpoint, insert records that result in
   renegotiation, and forge Finished messages.  Implementations can
   avoid the risks associated with these capabilities by not logging
   this secret value.

4.  IANA Considerations

   The "application/sslkeylogfile" media type can be used to describe
   content in the SSLKEYLOGFILE format.  IANA [has added/is requested to
   add] the following information to the "Media Types" registry at
   https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types
   (https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types):

   Type name:  application
   Subtype name:  sslkeylogfile
   Required parameters:  N/A
   Optional parameters:  N/A
   Encoding considerations:  8bit (Unicode without BOM or ASCII only)
   Security considerations:  See Section 3.
   Interoperability considerations:  Line endings might differ from
      platform convention
   Published specification:  This document
   Applications that use this media type:  Diagnostic and analysis tools
      that need to decrypt data that is otherwise protected by TLS.
   Fragment identifier considerations:  N/A
   Additional information:  Deprecated alias names for this type:  N/A
                            Magic number(s):  N/A
                            File extension(s):  N/A
                            Macintosh file type code(s):  N/A
   Person & email address to contact for further information:  See the
      Authors' Addresses section.
   Intended usage:  COMMON

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   Restrictions on usage:  N/A
   Author:  See the Authors' Addresses section.
   Change controller:  IESG

5.  References

5.1.  Normative References

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

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3629>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [TLS12]    Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5246>.

   [TLS13]    Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-tls-rfc8446bis-10, 3 March 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-tls-
              rfc8446bis-10>.

5.2.  Informative References

   [DTLS13]   Rescorla, E., Tschofenig, H., and N. Modadugu, "The
              Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version
              1.3", RFC 9147, DOI 10.17487/RFC9147, April 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9147>.

   [QLOG]     Marx, R., Niccolini, L., Seemann, M., and L. Pardue, "Main
              logging schema for qlog", Work in Progress, Internet-
              Draft, draft-ietf-quic-qlog-main-schema-08, 4 March 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-quic-
              qlog-main-schema-08>.

   [RFC0020]  Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", STD 80,
              RFC 20, DOI 10.17487/RFC0020, October 1969,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc20>.

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   [RFC4492]  Blake-Wilson, S., Bolyard, N., Gupta, V., Hawk, C., and B.
              Moeller, "Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) Cipher Suites
              for Transport Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 4492,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4492, May 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4492>.

   [RFC8446]  Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446>.

   [RFC8471]  Popov, A., Ed., Nystroem, M., Balfanz, D., and J. Hodges,
              "The Token Binding Protocol Version 1.0", RFC 8471,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8471, October 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8471>.

   [RFC8996]  Moriarty, K. and S. Farrell, "Deprecating TLS 1.0 and TLS
              1.1", BCP 195, RFC 8996, DOI 10.17487/RFC8996, March 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8996>.

   [RFC9000]  Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.

   [RFC9001]  Thomson, M., Ed. and S. Turner, Ed., "Using TLS to Secure
              QUIC", RFC 9001, DOI 10.17487/RFC9001, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9001>.

   [RFC9261]  Sullivan, N., "Exported Authenticators in TLS", RFC 9261,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9261, July 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9261>.

Appendix A.  Example

   The following is a sample of a file in this format, including secrets
   from a TLS 1.3 connection.

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   # NOTE: '\' line wrapping per RFC 8792

   CLIENT_HANDSHAKE_TRAFFIC_SECRET \
     cf34899b3dcb8c9fe7160ceaf95d354a294793b67a2e49cb9cca4d69b43593a0 \
     be4a28d81ce41242ff31c6d8a6615852178f2cd75eaca2ee8768f9ed51282b38
   SERVER_HANDSHAKE_TRAFFIC_SECRET \
     cf34899b3dcb8c9fe7160ceaf95d354a294793b67a2e49cb9cca4d69b43593a0 \
     258179721fa704e2f1ee16688b4b0419967ddea5624cd5ad0863288dc5ead35f
   CLIENT_TRAFFIC_SECRET_0 \
     cf34899b3dcb8c9fe7160ceaf95d354a294793b67a2e49cb9cca4d69b43593a0 \
     e9ca165bcb762fab8086068929d26c532e90ef2e2daa762d8b52346951a34c02
   SERVER_TRAFFIC_SECRET_0 \
     cf34899b3dcb8c9fe7160ceaf95d354a294793b67a2e49cb9cca4d69b43593a0 \
     4f93c61ac1393008d4c820f3723db3c67494f06574b65fcc21c9eef22f90071a
   EXPORTER_SECRET \
     cf34899b3dcb8c9fe7160ceaf95d354a294793b67a2e49cb9cca4d69b43593a0 \
     011c900833468f837f7c55d836b2719beebd39b1648fdeda58772f48d94a1ffa

   The following shows a log entry for a TLS 1.2 connection.

   # NOTE: '\' line wrapping per RFC 8792

   CLIENT_RANDOM \
     ad52329fcadd34ee3aa07092680287f09954823e26d7b5ae25c0d47714152a6a \
     97af4c8618cfdc0b2326e590114c2ec04b43b08b7e2c3f8124cc61a3b068ba966\
     9517e744e3117c3ce6c538a2d88dfdf

Acknowledgments

   The SSLKEYLOGFILE format originated in the NSS project, but it has
   evolved over time as TLS has changed.  Many people contributed to
   this evolution.  The author is only documenting the format as it is
   used.

Author's Address

   Martin Thomson
   Mozilla
   Email: mt@lowentropy.net

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