Network Working Group                                     Q. Wu (Editor)
Internet-Draft                                                    Huawei
Intended status: Informational                          Y. Ohba (Editor)
Expires: September 9, 2009                                       Toshiba
                                                           March 8, 2009


                EAP Pre-authentication Problem Statement
                     draft-ietf-hokey-preauth-ps-06

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Abstract

   EAP (Extensible Authentication Protocol) pre-authentication is
   defined as the use of EAP to pre-establish EAP keying material on a



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   target authenticator prior to arrival of the peer at the access
   network managed by that authenticator.  This draft discusses EAP pre-
   authentication problems in detail.


Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   3.  Problem Statement  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   4.  Usage Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
     4.1.  The pre-authentication model(Peer-CA-AAA)  . . . . . . . .  9
     4.2.  The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-CA-AAA) . . . . . . . 10
     4.3.  The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-AAA-CA) . . . . . . . 12
   5.  Architectural Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.1.  Authenticator Discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
     5.2.  Context Binding  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   6.  AAA Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
   7.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
   8.  IANA Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   9.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   10. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

























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1.  Introduction

   When a mobile device during an active communication session moves
   from one access network to another access network and changes its
   point of attachment, it is subjected to disruption in the continuity
   of service because of the associated handover operation.  The
   performance requirement of a real-time application will vary based on
   the type of application and its characteristics such as delay
   tolerance and loss tolerance limit.  ITU-T G.114 [ITU] recommends 150
   ms as the upper limit for VoIP applications and 400 ms as generally
   unacceptable delay.  Similarly, a streaming application has a
   tolerable packet (SDU) error rates ranging from 0.1 to 0.00001 and
   the transfer delay of less than 300 ms.  Thus, any optimized handoff
   mechanism will need to take these factors into consideration in order
   to be able to support a heterogeneous handover that is agnostic to
   link-layer technologies.

   As a mobile device goes through a handover process, it is subjected
   to delay because of the rebinding of its association at or across
   several layers of the protocol stack and higer number of round trips
   for EAP exchange.  Delays incurred within each of these layers affect
   the ongoing multimedia application and data traffic within the client
   [WCM].

   During the handover process, it often requires authentication and
   authorization for acquisition or modification of resources assigned
   to a mobile device and the authentication and authorization needs
   interaction with a central authority in a domain in most cases.  In
   some cases the central authority may be placed far away from the
   mobile device.  The delay introduced due to such an authentication
   and authorization procedure adds to the handover latency and
   consequently affects ongoing application sessions [MQ7].  As
   regarding this kind of delay, we focus our discussion highlighting
   the factors that affect the performance due to network access
   authentication and authorization where EAP [RFC3748] is used for
   network access authentication.

   This draft discusses EAP pre-authentication problems in detail where
   EAP pre-authentication is defined as the utilization of EAP to pre-
   establish EAP keying material on an EAP authenticator prior to
   arrival of the mobile device that acts as an EAP peer, at the access
   network served by that authenticator.


2.  Terminology






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   Peer

      See [RFC3748].

   Authenticator

      See [RFC3748].

   EAP Server

      See [RFC3748].

   Serving Authenticator (SA)

      An authenticator that is currently serving the peer.

   Target Authenticator (TA)

      An authenticator that has been chosen to be the new serving
      authenticator for a peer.

   Candidate Authenticator (CA)

      An authenticator that can potentially become the target
      authenticator for a peer.  There can be multiple candidate
      authenticators for the peer.

   Serving Access Network

      An access network that is currently serving the peer.

   Candidate Access Network

      An access network that can potentially become the target access
      network for a peer.  There can be multiple candidate access
      network for the peer.

   Target Access Network

      An access network that has been chosen to be the new serving
      access network for a peer.

   Master Session Key (MSK)

      See [RFC3748].






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   Access Point (AP)

      A network point of attachment in IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN
      [802.11].

   Basic Service Set (BSS)

      The basic building block of an IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN [802.11].
      The BSS consists of a group of any number of 802.11 stations.

   Extended Service Set (ESS)

      A set of infrastructure BSSs in IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN [802.11],
      where the access points communicate amongst themselves to forward
      traffic from one BSS to another to facilitate movement of stations
      between BSSs.

   Inter-ESS Handover

      An 802.11 handover across multiple ESSs.

   Intra-AAA-Domain Handover (Intra-Domain Handover)

      A handover within the same AAA domain.  Intra-AAA-domain Handover
      include a handover across different authenticators within the same
      AAA domain.

   Inter-AAA-Domain Handover (Inter-Domain Handover)

      A handover across multiple AAA domains.

   Intra-Technology Handover

      A handover within the same link layer technology.

   Inter-Technology Handover

      A handover across different link layer technologies.

   Inter-Authenticator Handover

      A handover across multiple authenticators.  An inter-access-domain
      handover, an inter-ESS handover, an inter-AAA-domain handover, an
      inter-technology handover can be view as examples of An inter-
      authenticator handover.






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   ERP (EAP Extensions for EAP Re-authentication Protocol)

      Extensions to EAP and EAP keying hierarchy to support an EAP
      method-independent protocol for efficient re-authentication
      between the peer and an EAP re-authentication server defined in
      [RFC5296].


3.  Problem Statement

   The basic mechanism of handover is a three-step procedure involving
   i) discovery of candidate network points of attachment and their
   authenticators, ii) network selection procedure to determine the
   appropriate candidate network point of attachment and iii) handover
   or setting up L2 and L3 connectivity to the target network point of
   attachment.  Currently, as part of the third step, network access
   authentication and authorization are performed directly with the
   target network.  For example, in IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs [802.11],
   the network access authentication and authorization involves
   performing a new IEEE 802.1X message exchange with the authenticator
   in the target AP to initiate an EAP exchange to the authentication
   server [WPA].  Following a successful EAP authentication, a secure
   association procedure is performed between the peer and the target
   authenticator to derive a new set of link-layer ciphering keys from
   EAP keying material such as the MSK.  The third step may require full
   EAP authentication in the absence of any particular optimization for
   handover key management.  The handover latency introduced by full EAP
   authentication has proven to be larger than that is acceptable for
   real-time applications scenarios as described in [MQ7].  Hence,
   improvement in the handover latency performance due to EAP is a
   necessary objective for such scenarios.

   There is relevant work undertaken by various standards organizations,
   but these efforts are scoped to a specific link layer technology.
   IEEE 802.11F [802.11f], a trial use document has defined context
   transfer and caching mechanism to transfer some IEEE 802.11 keying
   material between the neighboring APs.  However, it has been
   administratively withdrawn since 2006.  IEEE 802.11 [802.11] defines
   a pre-authentication mechanism for use in 802.11 wireless networks.
   This mechanism allows peers to pre-authenticate to one or more
   candidate authenticators over the wired medium, by way of the serving
   authenticator.  IEEE 802.11r [802.11r] defines Fast BSS transition
   mechanisms involving a definition of a key management hierarchy and
   setup of session keys before the re-association to the target AP in
   the same 802.11r mobility domain.  These mechanisms, as indicated
   before, are defined for IEEE 802.11 technologies and are only
   applicable for intra-technology handover within the 802.11 mobility
   domain with the limited coverage and fall short when it comes to



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   inter-technology handovers (e.g., movement between WLAN and 3G cell
   network) or inter-ESS handover.  They also require L2 (e.g.,
   Ethernet) connectivity for transfer of key management signaling to
   the target AP.  A solution is needed to enable EAP pre-authentication
   for inter-AAA-domain or inter-ESS handovers in IEEE 802.11.

   As various flavors of wireless technologies are increasingly
   available, there is a growing demand for seamless inter-technology
   mobility.  This is particularly beneficial in the presence of high
   bandwidth, low cost, wireless technologies (e.g., IEEE 802.11) with
   only limited coverage, e.g., hotspot coverage while the overlay
   licensed wireless/cellular coverage is expensive and relatively low
   bandwidth.  Hence, the security optimization mechanisms for better
   handover performance must be looked at from the IP level so as to
   make it a common method over different access technologies.

   Optimized solutions for secure inter-authenticator handovers can be
   largely seen as security context transfer: ERP [RFC5296] or EAP pre-
   authentication.  Security context transfer involves transfer of
   reusable key context to the new point of attachment.  However, the
   recent AAA key management requirements [RFC4962] do not recommend
   horizontal context transfer of reusable key context because of the
   domino effect in which the compromise of an authenticator will lead
   to the compromise of another authenticator.  So ERP uses existing EAP
   keying material obtained from AAA server for deriving a re-
   authentication key to be distributed to an ERP server in a visited
   domain in order to reduce the handover delay, which eliminates the
   need for running full EAP authentication with the EAP server in the
   home domain for intra-domain handovers.  On the other hand, there are
   certain cases where ERP is not applicable or an additional
   optimization mechanism is needed to establish a key for the candidate
   authenticator:

   o  One case is an inter-domain handover with the trust relationship
      between the home and visited AAA domains.  If there is a trust
      relationship between the two AAA domains and the visited AAA
      domain supports ERP, full EAP authentication with the EAP server
      in the home AAA domain is still needed to distribute the existing
      keying materials to the ERP server when entering the visited AAA
      domain.

   o  Second case is an inter-technology handover where the target
      authenticator or AAA domain do not support ERP.

   o  Another case is an intra-domain, inter-authenticator handover
      where the target authenticator or AAA domain do not support ERP,
      or ERP needs to be performed proactively before the peer arrives
      at the target authenticator.



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   EAP pre-authentication discussed in this document is mainly to deal
   with these cases while a general solution for the EAP pre-
   authentication problem can be used for other handover cases.

   EAP pre-authentication has general applicability to various
   deployment scenarios in which proactive signaling can take effect.
   In other words, applicability of EAP pre-authentication is limited to
   the scenarios where candidate authenticators can be discovered and an
   accurate prediction of movement can be easily made.  Also the
   effectiveness of EAP pre-authentication may be less significant for
   particular inter-technology handover scenarios where simultaneous use
   of multiple technologies is not a major concern.

   In EAP pre-authentication, AAA-based authentication and authorization
   for a candidate authenticator is performed while ongoing data
   communication is in progress via the serving network.  The goal of
   EAP pre-authentication is to avoid AAA signaling for EAP when or soon
   after the peer moves.  There are several AAA issues related to EAP
   pre-authentication.  The pre-authentication AAA issues are described
   in Section 6.

   Figure 1 shows the functional elements that are related to EAP pre-
   authentication.  These functional elements include a peer, a serving
   authenticator, a candidate authenticator and an AAA/EAP server or
   AAA/EAP servers.  The AAA servers can be divided into the AAA server
   in the home domain and the AAA proxy/server in the visited AAA
   domain.  When the serving and candidate authenticators belong to
   different AAA domains, the candidate authenticator may use a
   different AAA server and user credentials than those were used by the
   serving authenticator to authenticate the peer.

   +------+      +-------------+     +------+
   | Peer |------|   Serving   |    /        \
   |      |      |Authenticator|---/          \
   +------+      +-------------+  /            \
      .                          /              \    +-----------------+
      . Move                    +   IP Network   +---|AAA/EAP Server(s)|
      .                          \              /    +-----------------+
      v          +-------------+  \            /
                 |  Candidate  |---\          /
                 |Authenticator|    \        /
                 +-------------+     +------+

           Figure 1: EAP Pre-authentication Functional Elements

   A peer is attached to the serving access network.  Before the peer
   performs handover from the serving access network to a candidate
   access network, it performs EAP pre-authentication with a candidate



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   authenticator via the serving access network.  The peer may perform
   EAP pre-authentication with one or more candidate authenticators.  It
   is assumed that each authenticator has an IP address.  It is assumed
   that there is at least one candidate authenticator in each candidate
   access network while the serving access network may or may not have a
   serving authenticator.  The serving and candidate access networks may
   use different link layer technologies.

   Each authenticator is either a standalone authenticator or pass-
   through authenticator [RFC3748].  When an authenticator acts as a
   standalone authenticator, it also has the functionality of an EAP
   server.  When an authenticator acts as a pass-through authenticator,
   it communicates with the EAP server typically implemented on a AAA
   server using a AAA transport protocol such as RADIUS [RFC2865] and
   Diameter [RFC3588].

   If the candidate authenticator uses an MSK [RFC5247] for generating
   lower-layer ciphering keys, EAP pre-authentication is used for
   proactively generating an MSK for the candidate authenticator.


4.  Usage Models

   As specified in the section 3, there are certain cases where Pre-
   authentication is applicable while ERP does not work.  This section
   concentrates on providing some usage models based on the certain
   cases mentioned above.  It is assumed that in these models there is
   no direct L2 connectivity between a peer and a candidate
   authenticator.  No security association between the serving
   authenticator and the candidate authenticator is required for either
   pre-authentication scenario (see Section 7 Section 7 for more
   detailed discussion).  Depending on how the serving authenticator is
   involved in the EAP pre-authentication signaling, these scenarios can
   be categorized into the following three usage models.

4.1.  The pre-authentication model(Peer-CA-AAA)

   In this type of pre-authentication model shown in Figure 2,













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              Peer            Candidate              AAA Server
                              Authenticator
                              (CA)

            +---------+   +---------------------+    +---------+
            |         |   |     EAP Auth-       |    | EAP     |
            |EAP Peer |   |     enticator       |    | Server  |
            |         |   |                     |    |         |
            +---------+   +---------------------+    +---------+
            |Peer-SA  |   |Peer-CA  | |CA-AAA   |    |CA-AAA   |
            |Signaling<-->|Signaling| |Signaling|<--->Signaling|
            |Layer    |   |Layer    | |Layer    |    |Layer    |
            +---------+   +---------+ +---------+    +---------+

              Figure 2: Pre-authentication Model(Peer-CA-AAA)

   the serving authenticator does not involve in EAP exchange and only
   forwards the EAP pre-authentication traffic as it would any other
   data traffic or there may be no serving authenticator at all in the
   serving access network.  The candidate authenticator and the serving
   authenticator may belong to the different AAA domain.  An
   intermediary AAA node such as a AAA proxy may also involve in the AAA
   signaling between the candidate Authenticator and AAA/EAP server.

   The pre-authentication signaling for the model (Peer-CA-AAA) is shown
   in Figure 3.

     Peer              Serving              Candidate            AAA/EAP
                    Authenticator         Authenticator          Server
                        (SA)                 (CA)
      |                   |                    |                   |
      |                   |                    |                   |
      |         Peer-CA Signaling (L3)         |       AAA         |
      |<------------------+------------------->|<----------------->|
      |                   |                    |                   |
      |                   |                    |                   |

          Figure 3: Pre-authentication for the model(Peer,CA,AAA)

   [I-D.ietf-pana-preauth] is identified as a protocol to realize direct
   pre-authentication.

4.2.  The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-CA-AAA)

   The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-CA-AAA) is illustrated in
   Figure 4.





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      Peer            Serving                Candidate           AAA Server
                      Authenticator          Authenticator
                      (SA)                   (CA)

   +----------+                            +--------------------+  +------+
   |          <- - - - - - - - - - - - - ->|                    <->|      |
   | EAP Peer |   +--------------------|   |   EAP Auth-        |  |EAP   |
   |          |   |Pre-authentication  |   |   enticator        |  |Server|
   |          |   |Forwarding          |   |                    |  |      |
   +----------+   +---------++---------|   +--------------------+  +------+
   | Peer-SA  |   |Peer-SA  ||SA-CA    |   |SA-CA    ||CA-AAA   |  |CA-AAA|
   | Signaling<-->|Signaling||Signaling<-->|Signaling||Signaling<-->Signa-|
   | Layer    |   |Layer    ||Layer    |   |Layer    ||Layer    |  |ling  |
   +----------+   +---------++---------+   +---------++---------+  |Layer |
                                                                   +------+

            Figure 4: Pre-authentication Model (Peer-SA-CA-AAA)

   In this pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-CA-AAA), it is assumed that
   a trust relationship exists between the serving network (or serving
   AAA domain) and candidate network (or candidate AAA domain).  The
   candidate authenticator and the serving authenticator may belong to
   the different AAA domain.  An intermediary AAA node such as a AAA
   proxy may also involve in the AAA signaling between the candidate
   Authenticator and AAA/EAP server.  The serving authenticator is
   involved in EAP pre-authentication signaling.  This pre-
   authentication model is needed if the peer cannot discover the
   candidate authenticator's IP address or if IP communication is not
   available due to security or network topology reasons.

   The role of the serving authenticator in this pre-authentication
   model is to forward EAP pre-authentication signaling between the peer
   and the candidate authenticator and not to act as an authenticator,
   while it acts as an authenticator for normal authentication
   signaling.

   The pre-authentication signaling for this model is shown in Figure 5
   .













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     Peer              Serving              Candidate            AAA/EAP
                    Authenticator         Authenticator          Server
                        (SA)                 (CA)
      |                   |                    |                   |
      |                   |                    |                   |
      | Peer-SA Signaling |   SA-CA Signaling  |       AAA         |
      |    (L2 or L3)     |        (L3)        |                   |
      |<----------------->|<------------------>|<----------------->|
      |                   |                    |                   |
      |                   |                    |                   |

        Figure 5: Pre-authentication for the model(Peer-SA-CA-AAA)

   In this model, the pre-authentication signaling between a peer and a
   candidate authenticator consists of peer to serving authenticator
   signaling (Peer-SA signaling) and serving authenticator to candidate
   authenticator signaling (SA-CA signaling).

   SA-CA signaling is performed over L3.

   Peer-SA signaling is performed over L2 or L3.

4.3.  The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-AAA-CA)

   The Pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-AAA-CA) is illustrated in
   Figure 6.

      Peer            Serving                AAA Server      Candidate
                      Authenticator                          Authenticator
                      (SA)                                   (CA)

   +---------+  +--------------------+  +--------------------+ + ---------+
   |         |  |                    |  |                    | |          |
   |EAP Peer |  |    EAP Auth-       |  |     EAP            | | EAP Auth-|
   |         |  |    enticator       |  |     Server         | | enticator|
   +---------+  +--------------------+  +--------------------+ + ---------+
   |Peer-SA  |  |Peer-SA  ||SA-AAA   |  |SA-AAA   ||CA-AAA   | | CA-AAA   |
   |Signaling<->|Signaling||Signaling<->|Signaling||Signaling<-> Signaling|
   |Layer    |  |Layer    ||Layer    |  |Layer    ||Layer    | | Layer    |
   +---------+  +---------++---------+  +---------++---------+ + ---------+

            Figure 6: Pre-authentication Model(Peer-SA-AAA-CA)

   In this pre-authentication model(Peer-SA-AAA-CA), it is assumed that
   there is no trust relationship between the serving authenticator (or
   serving AAA domain) and the candidate authenticator (or candidate AAA
   domain).  The serving authenticator is involved in EAP pre-
   authentication signaling.  The candidate authenticator and the



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   serving authenticator may belong to the different AAA domain.  An
   intermediary AAA node such as a AAA proxy may also involve in the AAA
   signaling between the candidate Authenticator and AAA/EAP server.

   The role of the serving authenticator in this pre-authentication
   model is to perform the pre-authentication signaling between the peer
   and EAP server on behalf of the candidate authenticator and act as an
   authenticator.  The pre-authentication signaling is different from
   the normal authentication signaling associated with the serving
   authenticator.  The Peer-SA signaling is performed over L2 or L3.


5.  Architectural Considerations

   There are two architectural issues relating to pre-authentication:
   authenticator discovery and context binding.

5.1.  Authenticator Discovery

   In general, pre-authentication requires an address of a candidate
   authenticator to be discovered either by a peer or by a serving
   authenticator or some other entity prior to handover.  An
   authenticator discovery protocol is typically defined as a separate
   protocol from a pre-authentication protocol.  For both intra-domain
   and inter-domain handover, the IP address of a candidate
   authenticator must be reachable by the peer or the serving
   authenticator that is performing the pre-authentication.  For
   example, IEEE 802.21 Information Service (IS) [802.21] provides a
   link layer independent mechanism for obtaining neighboring network
   information by defining a set of Information Elements (IEs), where
   one of the IEs is defined to contain an IP address of a point of
   attachment.  IEEE 802.21 IS queries for such an IE may be used as a
   method for authenticator discovery.

   If IEEE 802.21 IS or a similar mechanism is used, an authenticator
   discovery requires a database on the neighboring network information.
   Provisioning of a server with such a database is another issue.

5.2.  Context Binding

   When a candidate authenticator uses different EAP transport protocols
   for normal authentication and pre-authentication, a mechanism is
   needed to bind link layer independent context carried over pre-
   authentication signaling to the link layer specific context of the
   link to be established between the peer and the candidate
   authenticator.  The link layer independent context includes the
   identities of the peer and authenticator as well as the MSK.  The
   link layer specific context includes link layer addresses of the peer



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   and the candidate authenticator.  Such context binding can happen
   before or after the peer changes its point of attachment.

   There are at least two possible approaches to address the context
   binding issue.  The first approach is based on communicating the link
   layer context as opaque data via pre-authentication signaling.  The
   second approach is based on running EAP over the link layer of the
   candidate authenticator after the peer arrives at the authenticator
   using short-term credentials generated via pre-authentication.  In
   this case, the short-term credentials are shared between the peer and
   the candidate authenticator, where the candidate authenticator is
   also the EAP server for the EAP method execution performed after the
   peer arrives at the target authenticator resides in the
   authenticator.  In both approaches, context binding needs to be
   securely made between the peer and the candidate authenticator.
   Also, the peer is not fully authorized by the candidate authenticator
   until the peer completes the link layer specific secure association
   procedure with the authenticator using the link layer signaling.


6.  AAA Issues

   Most of the AAA documents today do not distinguish between a normal
   authentication and a pre-authentication and this creates a set of
   open issues:

   Pre-authentication authorization:   Many users may not be allowed to
      have more than one logon session at the time.  This means that
      when such users actively engage in an active session (as a result
      of a previously valid authentication), they will not be able to
      perform pre-authentication.  The AAA server currently has no way
      of distinguishing between a normal authentication request and a
      pre-authentication request.

   Pre-authentication lifetime:   Currently AAA protocols define
      attributes carrying lifetime information for a normal
      authentication session.  Even when a user profile and the AAA
      server supports pre-authentication, the lifetime for a pre-
      authentication session is typically valid only for a short amount
      of time because the peer has not completed its authentication at
      the target link layer.  It is currently not possible for a AAA
      server to indicate to the AAA client or a peer the lifetime of the
      pre-authenticated session unless AAA protocols are extended to
      carry pre-authentication session lifetime information.  In other
      words, it is not clear to the peer or the authenticator when the
      pre-authentication session will expire.





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   Pre-authentication retries:   It is typically expected that shortly
      following the pre-authentication process, the peer moves to the
      new point of attachment and converts the pre-authentication state
      to a normal authentication state (the procedure for which is not
      the topic of this particular subsection).  However, if the peer
      has not yet moved to the new location and realizes that the pre-
      authentication is expiring, it may perform another pre-
      authentication.  Some limiting mechanism is needed to avoid
      unlimited number of pre-authentication tries.

   Completion of network attachment:   Once the peer has successfully
      attached to the new point of attachment, it needs to convert its
      authentication state from pre-authenticated to fully attached and
      authorized.  There may need to be a mechanism within the AAA
      protocol to provide this indication to the AAA server if the AAA
      server needs to differentiate between pre-authentication and
      normal authentication.  This is important from billing perspective
      where the billing policy does not charge for a pre-authenticated
      peer until the peer is fully attached to the target authenticator.

   Session Resumption:   In case the peer cycles between a network N1
      with which it has a normal authentication state to another network
      N2 and then back to N1, it should be possible to simply convert
      the full authentication state to a pre-authenticated state.  The
      problems around handling session lifetime and keying material
      caching need to be dealt with.

   Multiple candidate authenticators:   There may be situations where
      the peer may need to make a selection between a number of
      candidate authenticators.  In such cases, it is desirable for the
      peer to perform pre-authentication with multiple candidate
      authenticators.  In such cases the AAA server may need to be aware
      of the situation.

   Inter-AAA-domain handover support:  There may be situations where the
      peer moves across different visited AAA domains, in such cases,
      the EAP Pre-authentication with the EAP server in the home AAA
      domain should be performed through the visited AAA domains.  It
      requires the identity information of visited AAA domain and the
      home AAA domain to be discovered by the peer or the candidate
      authenticator for routing the EAP pre-authentication traffic.  The
      keying materials may be generated based on the identity
      information of visited AAA domain for securing the EAP exchange
      between the peer and the visited AAA domain.







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   Inter-technology support:   Current specifications on pre-
      authentication mostly deal with homogeneous 802.11 networks.  The
      AAA attributes such as Calling-Station-ID [I-D.aboba-radext-wlan]
      may need to be expanded to cover other access technologies.
      Furthermore, inter-technology handovers may require a change of
      the peer identifier as part of the handover.  Investigation on the
      best type of identifiers for peers that support multiple access
      technologies is required.


7.  Security Considerations

   This section specifically covers threats introduced to the EAP model
   by pre-authentication.  Security issues on general EAP and handover
   are described in other documents such as [RFC3748], [RFC4962],
   [RFC5169] and [RFC5247].

   Since pre-authentication described in this document needs to work
   across multiple authenticators, any solution needs to consider the
   following security threats.

   First, a resource consumption denial of service attack is possible,
   where an attacker that is not on the same IP link as the legitimate
   peer or the candidate authenticator may send unprotected pre-
   authentication messages to the legitimate peer or the candidate
   authenticator.  As a result, they may spend their computational and
   bandwidth resources on processing pre-authentication messages sent by
   the attacker.  This attack is possible for both direct and indirect
   pre-authentication scenarios.  To mitigate this attack, the candidate
   network or authenticator may apply non-cryptographic packet filtering
   so that pre-authentication messages received from only a specific set
   of serving networks or authenticators are processed.  In addition, a
   simple solution for the peer side would be to let the peer always
   initiate EAP pre-authentication and not allow EAP pre-authentication
   initiation from an authenticator.

   Second, consideration for the Channel Binding problem described in
   [RFC5247] is needed as lack of Channel Binding may enable an
   authenticator to impersonate another authenticator or communicate
   incorrect information via out-of-band mechanisms (such as via a AAA
   or lower layer protocol) [RFC3748].  It should be noted that it is
   relatively easier to launch such an impersonation attack for pre-
   authentication than normal authentication because an attacker does
   not need to be physically on the same link as the legitimate peer to
   send a pre-authentication trigger to the peer.






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8.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no actions for IANA.


9.  Acknowledgments

   The authors would like to thank Bernard Aboba, Jari Arkko, Ajay
   Rajkumar, Maryna Komarova, Charles Clancy, Glen Zorn, Subir Das,
   Shubhranshu Singh, Preetida Vinayakray and Rafa Marin Lopez for their
   valuable input.


10.  Contributors

   The following people contributed to this document.

   Yoshihiro Ohba (yohba@tari.toshiba.com)

   Ashutosh Dutta (adutta@research.telcordia.com)

   Srinivas Sreemanthula (srinivas.sreemanthula@nokia.com)

   Alper E. Yegin (alper.yegin@yegin.org)

   Madjid Nakhjiri (madjid.nakhjiri@motorola.com)

   Mahalingam Mani (mmani@avaya.com)


11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [RFC3748]  Aboba, B., Blunk, L., Vollbrecht, J., Carlson, J., and H.
              Levkowetz, "Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)",
              RFC 3748, June 2004.

   [RFC4962]  Housley, R. and B. Aboba, "Guidance for Authentication,
              Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) Key Management",
              BCP 132, RFC 4962, July 2007.

   [RFC5247]  Aboba, B., Simon, D., and P. Eronen, "Extensible
              Authentication Protocol (EAP) Key Management Framework",
              RFC 5247, August 2008.






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11.2.  Informative References

   [RFC2865]  Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
              "Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
              RFC 2865, June 2000.

   [RFC3588]  Calhoun, P., Loughney, J., Guttman, E., Zorn, G., and J.
              Arkko, "Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 3588, September 2003.

   [RFC5169]  Clancy, T., Nakhjiri, M., Narayanan, V., and L. Dondeti,
              "Handover Key Management and Re-Authentication Problem
              Statement", RFC 5169, March 2008.

   [RFC5296]  Narayanan, V. and L. Dondeti, "EAP Extensions for EAP Re-
              authentication Protocol (ERP)", RFC 5296, August 2008.

   [I-D.aboba-radext-wlan]
              Aboba, B., Malinen, J., Congdon, P., and J. Salowey,
              "RADIUS Attributes for IEEE 802 Networks",
              draft-aboba-radext-wlan-09 (work in progress),
              October 2008.

   [I-D.ietf-pana-preauth]
              Ohba, Y., "Pre-authentication Support for PANA",
              draft-ietf-pana-preauth-04 (work in progress),
              December 2008.

   [802.21]   IEEE, "Draft Standard for Local and Metropolitan Area
              Networks: Media Independent Handover Services", LAN MAN
              Standards Committee of the IEEE         Computer Society
              802.21 D11 2008.

   [802.11]   IEEE, "IEEE Standard for Information technology -
              Telecommunications and information exchange between
              systems - Local and metropolitan area networks - Specific
              requirements Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control
              (MAC) and Physical Layer (PHY) Specifications", IEEE
              Computer Society 2007.

   [802.11r]  IEEE, "Information technology - Telecommunications and
              information exchange between systems - Local and
              metropolitan area networks - Specific requirements - Part
              11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical
              Layer (PHY) specifications - Amendment 2: Fast BSS
              Transition", LAN MAN Standards Committee of the IEEE
              Computer Society 802.11r D9.0 2008.

   [802.11f]  IEEE, "IEEE Trial-Use Recommended Practice for Multi-



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              Vendor Access Point Interoperability via an Inter-Access
              Point Protocol Across Distribution Systems Supporting IEEE
              802.11 Operation", IEEE Computer Society 2003.

   [ITU]      ITU-T, "General Characteristics of International Telephone
              Connections and International Telephone Circuits: One-Way
              Transmission Time", ITU-T Recommendation G.114 1998.

   [WPA]      The Wi-Fi Alliance, "WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access)", Wi-
              Fi WPA v3.1, 2004.

   [MQ7]      Lopez, R., Dutta, A., Ohba, Y., Schulzrinne, H., and A.
              Skarmeta, "Network-layer Assisted Mechanism to Optimize
              Authentication Delay During Handoff in 802.11 Networks",
              ACM Mobiquitous 2007.

   [WCM]      Dutta, A., Famorali, D., Das, S., Ohba, Y., and R. Lopez,
              "Media-Independent Pre-Authentication Supporting Secure
              Interdomain Handover Optimization Network-layer Assisted
              Mechanism to Optimize", IEEE Wireless Communications April
              2008.


Authors' Addresses

   Qin Wu
   Huawei Technologies Co.,Ltd
   SiteB, Floor 12F,Huihong Mansion, No.91.,Baixia Rd.
   Nanjing, JiangSu  210001
   P.R C

   Phone: +86 2584565892
   Email: sunseawq@huawei.com


   Yoshihiro Ohba
   Toshiba America Research, Inc.
   1 Telcordia Drive
   Piscataway, NJ  08854
   USA

   Phone: +1 732 699 5365
   Email: yohba@tari.toshiba.com








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