Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Heartbeat Extension
RFC 6520
Document | Type |
RFC - Proposed Standard
(February 2012; No errata)
Updated by RFC 8447
|
|
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Authors | Michael Williams , Michael Tüxen , Robin Seggelmann | ||
Last updated | 2018-12-20 | ||
Stream | IETF | ||
Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
Reviews | |||
Stream | WG state | Submitted to IESG for Publication | |
Document shepherd | No shepherd assigned | ||
IESG | IESG state | RFC 6520 (Proposed Standard) | |
Consensus Boilerplate | Unknown | ||
Telechat date | |||
Responsible AD | Sean Turner | ||
IESG note | Joe Salowey (jsalowey@cisco.com) is the document shepherd. | ||
Send notices to | (None) |
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Seggelmann Request for Comments: 6520 M. Tuexen Category: Standards Track Muenster Univ. of Appl. Sciences ISSN: 2070-1721 M. Williams GWhiz Arts & Sciences February 2012 Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Heartbeat Extension Abstract This document describes the Heartbeat Extension for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocols. The Heartbeat Extension provides a new protocol for TLS/DTLS allowing the usage of keep-alive functionality without performing a renegotiation and a basis for path MTU (PMTU) discovery for DTLS. Status of This Memo This is an Internet Standards Track document. This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has received public review and has been approved for publication by the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741. Information about the current status of this document, any errata, and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6520. Seggelmann, et al. Standards Track [Page 1] RFC 6520 TLS/DTLS Heartbeat Extension February 2012 Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2012 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 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must 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. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Heartbeat Hello Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Heartbeat Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Heartbeat Request and Response Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 5. Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 8. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. Introduction 1.1. Overview This document describes the Heartbeat Extension for the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocols, as defined in [RFC5246] and [RFC6347] and their adaptations to specific transport protocols described in [RFC3436], [RFC5238], and [RFC6083]. DTLS is designed to secure traffic running on top of unreliable transport protocols. Usually, such protocols have no session management. The only mechanism available at the DTLS layer to figure out if a peer is still alive is a costly renegotiation, particularly when the application uses unidirectional traffic. Furthermore, DTLS needs to perform path MTU (PMTU) discovery but has no specific message type to realize it without affecting the transfer of user messages. Seggelmann, et al. Standards Track [Page 2] RFC 6520 TLS/DTLS Heartbeat Extension February 2012 TLS is based on reliable protocols, but there is not necessarily a feature available to keep the connection alive without continuous data transfer. The Heartbeat Extension as described in this document overcomes these limitations. The user can use the new HeartbeatRequest message, which has to be answered by the peer with a HeartbeartResponse immediately. To perform PMTU discovery, HeartbeatRequest messages containing padding can be used as probe packets, as described in [RFC4821]. 1.2. Conventions 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]. 2. Heartbeat Hello Extension The support of Heartbeats is indicated with Hello Extensions. A peer cannot only indicate that its implementation supports Heartbeats, it can also choose whether it is willing to receive HeartbeatRequestShow full document text