Framework for Interface to Network Security Functions
RFC 8329
| Document | Type | RFC - Informational (February 2018; No errata) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Diego Lopez , Edward Lopez , Linda Dunbar , John Strassner , Rakesh Kumar | ||
| Last updated | 2018-02-22 | ||
| Replaces | draft-merged-i2nsf-framework | ||
| Stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | plain text html pdf htmlized bibtex | ||
| Reviews | |||
| Stream | WG state | Submitted to IESG for Publication | |
| Document shepherd | Yoav Nir | ||
| Shepherd write-up | Show (last changed 2017-10-11) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | RFC 8329 (Informational) | |
| Action Holders |
(None)
|
||
| Consensus Boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | |||
| Responsible AD | Kathleen Moriarty | ||
| Send notices to | "Adrian Farrel" <adrian@olddog.co.uk>, Yoav Nir <ynir.ietf@gmail.com>, Adrian Farrel <adrian@olddog.co.uk> | ||
| IANA | IANA review state | Version Changed - Review Needed | |
| IANA action state | No IANA Actions | ||
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) D. Lopez
Request for Comments: 8329 Telefonica I+D
Category: Informational E. Lopez
ISSN: 2070-1721 Curveball Networks
L. Dunbar
J. Strassner
Huawei
R. Kumar
Juniper Networks
February 2018
Framework for Interface to Network Security Functions
Abstract
This document describes the framework for Interface to Network
Security Functions (I2NSF) and defines a reference model (including
major functional components) for I2NSF. Network Security Functions
(NSFs) are packet-processing engines that inspect and optionally
modify packets traversing networks, either directly or in the context
of sessions to which the packet is associated.
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for informational purposes.
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). Not all documents
approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of Internet
Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 7841.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8329.
Lopez, et al. Informational [Page 1]
RFC 8329 I2NSF Framework February 2018
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2018 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
(https://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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. I2NSF Reference Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. I2NSF Consumer-Facing Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2. I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. I2NSF Registration Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. Threats Associated with Externally Provided NSFs . . . . . . 8
5. Avoiding NSF Ossification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
6. The Network Connecting I2NSF Components . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6.1. Network Connecting I2NSF Users and the I2NSF Controller . 10
6.2. Network Connecting the I2NSF Controller and NSFs . . . . 10
6.3. Interface to vNSFs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.4. Consistency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
7. I2NSF Flow Security Policy Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Customer-Facing Flow Security Policy Structure . . . . . 13
7.2. NSF-Facing Flow Security Policy Structure . . . . . . . . 14
7.3. Differences from ACL Data Models . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
8. Capability Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. Registration Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
9.1. Flow-Based NSF Capability Characterization . . . . . . . 17
9.2. Registration Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
10. Manageability Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
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1. Introduction
This document describes the framework for Interface to Network
Security Functions (I2NSF) and defines a reference model (including
major functional components) for I2NSF. This includes an analysis of
the threats implied by the deployment of Network Security Functions
(NSFs) that are externally provided. It also describes how I2NSF
facilitates implementing security functions in a technology- and
vendor-independent manner in Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and
Network Function Virtualization (NFV) environments, while avoiding
potential constraints that could limit the capabilities of NSFs.
I2NSF use cases [RFC8192] call for standard interfaces for users of
an I2NSF system (e.g., applications, overlay or cloud network
management system, or enterprise network administrator or management
system) to inform the I2NSF system which I2NSF functions should be
applied to which traffic (or traffic patterns). The I2NSF system
realizes this as a set of security rules for monitoring and
controlling the behavior of different traffic. It also provides
standard interfaces for users to monitor flow-based security
functions hosted and managed by different administrative domains.
[RFC8192] also describes the motivation and the problem space for an
Interface to Network Security Functions system.
2. Conventions Used in This Document
This memo does not propose a protocol standard, and the use of words
such as "should" follow their ordinary English meaning and not that
for normative languages defined in [RFC2119] [RFC8174].
2.1. Acronyms
The following acronyms are used in this document:
DOTS: Distributed Denial-of-Service Open Threat Signaling
IDS: Intrusion Detection System
IoT: Internet of Things
IPS: Intrusion Protection System
NSF: Network Security Function
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2.2. Definitions
The following terms, which are used in this document, are defined in
the I2NSF terminology document [I2NSF-TERMS]:
Capability
Controller
Firewall
I2NSF Consumer
I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface
I2NSF Policy Rule
I2NSF Producer
I2NSF Registration Interface
I2NSF Registry
Interface
Interface Group
Intrusion Detection System
Intrusion Protection System
Network Security Function
Role
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3. I2NSF Reference Model
Figure 1 shows a reference model (including major functional
components and interfaces) for an I2NSF system. This figure is drawn
from the point of view of the Network Operator Management System;
hence, this view does not assume any particular management
architecture for either the NSFs or how the NSFs are managed (on the
developer's side). In particular, the Network Operator Management
System does not participate in NSF data-plane activities.
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| I2NSF User (e.g., Overlay Network Mgmt, Enterprise |
| Network Mgmt, another network domain's mgmt, etc.) |
+--------------------+----------------------------------+
|
| I2NSF Consumer-Facing Interface
|
| I2NSF
+------------+---------+ Registration +-------------+
| Network Operator Mgmt| Interface | Developer's |
| System | < --------- > | Mgmt System |
+----------------+-----+ +-------------+
|
| I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface
|
+---------------+----+------------+---------------+
| | | |
+---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+ +---+---+
| NSF-1 | ... | NSF-m | | NSF-1 | ... | NSF-m | ...
+-------+ +-------+ +-------+ +-------+
Developer Mgmt System A Developer Mgmt System B
Figure 1: I2NSF Reference Model
When defining I2NSF Interfaces, this framework adheres to the
following principles:
o It is agnostic of network topology and NSF location in the network
o It is agnostic of provider of the NSF (i.e., independent of the
way that the provider makes an NSF available, as well as how the
provider allows the NSF to be managed)
o It is agnostic of any vendor-specific operational, administrative,
and management implementation; hosting environment; and form
factor (physical or virtual)
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o It is agnostic to NSF control-plane implementation (e.g.,
signaling capabilities)
o It is agnostic to NSF data-plane implementation (e.g.,
encapsulation capabilities)
In general, all I2NSF Interfaces should require at least mutual
authentication and authorization for their use. Other security and
privacy considerations are specified in Section 11.
3.1. I2NSF Consumer-Facing Interface
The I2NSF Consumer-Facing Interface is used to enable different users
of a given I2NSF system to define, manage, and monitor security
policies for specific flows within an administrative domain. The
location and implementation of I2NSF policies are irrelevant to the
consumer of I2NSF policies.
Some examples of I2NSF Consumers include:
o A video-conference network manager that needs to dynamically
inform the underlay network to allow, rate-limit, or deny flows
(some of which are encrypted) based on specific fields in the
packets for a certain time span.
o Enterprise network administrators and management systems that need
to request their provider network to enforce specific I2NSF
policies for particular flows.
o An IoT management system sending requests to the underlay network
to block flows that match a set of specific conditions.
3.2. I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface
The I2NSF NSF-Facing Interface (NSF-Facing Interface for short) is
used to specify and monitor flow-based security policies enforced by
one or more NSFs. Note that the I2NSF Management System does not
need to use all features of a given NSF, nor does it need to use all
available NSFs. Hence, this abstraction enables NSF features to be
treated as building blocks by an NSF system; thus, developers are
free to use the security functions defined by NSFs independent of
vendor and technology.
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Flow-based NSFs [RFC8192] inspect packets in the order that they are
received. Note that all Interface Groups require the NSF to be
registered using the Registration Interface. The interface to flow-
based NSFs can be categorized as follows:
1. NSF Operational and Administrative Interface: an Interface Group
used by the I2NSF Management System to program the operational
state of the NSF; this also includes administrative control
functions. I2NSF Policy Rules represent one way to change this
Interface Group in a consistent manner. Since applications and
I2NSF Components need to dynamically control the behavior of
traffic that they send and receive, much of the I2NSF effort is
focused on this Interface Group.
2. Monitoring Interface: an Interface Group used by the I2NSF
Management System to obtain monitoring information from one or
more selected NSFs. Each interface in this Interface Group could
be a query- or a report-based interface. The difference is that
a query-based interface is used by the I2NSF Management System to
obtain information, whereas a report-based interface is used by
the NSF to provide information. The functionality of this
Interface Group may also be defined by other protocols, such as
SYSLOG and DOTS. The I2NSF Management System may take one or
more actions based on the receipt of information; this should be
specified by an I2NSF Policy Rule. This Interface Group does NOT
change the operational state of the NSF.
This document uses the flow-based paradigm to develop the NSF-Facing
Interface. A common trait of flow-based NSFs is in the processing of
packets based on the content (e.g., header/payload) and/or context
(e.g., session state and authentication state) of the received
packets. This feature is one of the requirements for defining the
behavior of I2NSF.
3.3. I2NSF Registration Interface
NSFs provided by different vendors may have different capabilities.
In order to automate the process of utilizing multiple types of
security functions provided by different vendors, it is necessary to
have a dedicated interface for vendors to define the capabilities of
(i.e., register) their NSFs. This interface is called the I2NSF
Registration Interface.
An NSF's capabilities can be either pre-configured or retrieved
dynamically through the I2NSF Registration Interface. If a new
function that is exposed to the consumer is added to an NSF, then the
capabilities of that new function should be registered in the I2NSF
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Registry via the I2NSF Registration Interface, so that interested
management and control entities may be made aware of them.
4. Threats Associated with Externally Provided NSFs
While associated with a much higher flexibility, and in many cases a
necessary approach given the deployment conditions, the usage of
externally provided NSFs implies several additional concerns in
security. The most relevant threats associated with a security
platform of this nature are:
o An unknown/unauthorized user can try to impersonate another user
that can legitimately access external NSF services. This attack
may lead to accessing the I2NSF Policy Rules and applications of
the attacked user and/or generating network traffic outside the
security functions with a falsified identity.
o An authorized user may misuse assigned privileges to alter the
network traffic processing of other users in the NSF underlay or
platform.
o A user may try to install malformed elements (e.g., I2NSF Policy
Rules or configuration files) to directly take control of an NSF
or the whole provider platform. For example, a user may exploit a
vulnerability on one of the functions or may try to intercept or
modify the traffic of other users in the same provider platform.
o A malicious provider can modify the software (e.g., the operating
system or the specific NSF implementation) to alter the behavior
of one or more NSFs. This event has a high impact on all users
accessing NSFs, since the provider has the highest level of
privileges controlling the operation of the software.
o A user that has physical access to the provider platform can
modify the behavior of the hardware/software components or the
components themselves. For example, the user can access a serial
console (most devices offer this interface for maintenance
reasons) to access the NSF software with the same level of
privilege of the provider.
The use of authentication, authorization, accounting, and audit
mechanisms is recommended for all users and applications to access
the I2NSF environment. This can be further enhanced by requiring
attestation to be used to detect changes to the I2NSF environment by
authorized parties. The characteristics of these procedures will
define the level of assurance of the I2NSF environment.
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5. Avoiding NSF Ossification
A basic tenet in the introduction of I2NSF standards is that the
standards should not make it easier for attackers to compromise the
network. Therefore, in constructing standards for I2NSF Interfaces
as well as I2NSF Policy Rules, it is equally important to allow
support for specific functions, as this enables the introduction of
NSFs that evolve to meet new threats. Proposed standards for I2NSF
Interfaces to communicate with NSFs, as well as I2NSF Policy Rules to
control NSF functionality, should not:
o Narrowly define NSF categories, or their roles, when implemented
within a network. Security is a constantly evolving discipline.
The I2NSF framework relies on an object-oriented information
model, which provides an extensible definition of NSF information
elements and categories; it is recommended that implementations
follow this model.
o Attempt to impose functional requirements or constraints, either
directly or indirectly, upon NSF developers. Implementations
should be free to realize and apply NSFs in a way that best suits
the needs of the applications and environment using them.
o Be a limited lowest common denominator approach, where interfaces
can only support a limited set of standardized functions, without
allowing for developer-specific functions. NSFs, interfaces, and
the data communicated should be extensible, so that they can
evolve to protect against new threats.
o Be seen as endorsing a best common practice for the implementation
of NSFs; rather, this document describes the conceptual structure
and reference model of I2NSF. The purpose of this reference model
is to define a common set of concepts in order to facilitate the
flexible implementation of an I2NSF system.
To prevent constraints on NSF developers' creativity and innovation,
this document recommends flow-based NSF interfaces to be designed
from the paradigm of processing packets in the network. Flow-based
NSFs are ultimately packet-processing engines that inspect packets
traversing networks, either directly or in the context of sessions in
which the packet is associated. The goal is to create a workable
interface to NSFs that aids in their integration within legacy, SDN,
and/or NFV environments, while avoiding potential constraints that
could limit their functional capabilities.
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6. The Network Connecting I2NSF Components
6.1. Network Connecting I2NSF Users and the I2NSF Controller
As a general principle, in the I2NSF environment, users directly
interact with the I2NSF Controller. Given the role of the I2NSF
Controller, a mutual authentication of users and the I2NSF Controller
is required. I2NSF does not mandate a specific authentication
scheme; it is up to the users to choose available authentication
schemes based on their needs.
Upon successful authentication, a trusted connection between the user
and the I2NSF Controller (or an endpoint designated by it) will be
established. This means that a direct, physical point-to-point
connection, with physical access restricted according to access
control, must be used. All traffic to and from the NSF environment
will flow through this connection. The connection is intended not
only to be secure but trusted in the sense that it should be bound to
the mutual authentication between the user and the I2NSF Controller,
as described in [I2NSF-ATTESTATION]. The only possible exception is
when the required level of assurance is lower (see Section 4.1 of
[I2NSF-ATTESTATION]), in which case the user must be made aware of
this circumstance.
6.2. Network Connecting the I2NSF Controller and NSFs
Most likely, the NSFs are not directly attached to the I2NSF
Controller; for example, NSFs can be distributed across the network.
The network that connects the I2NSF Controller with the NSFs can be
the same network that carries the data traffic, or it can be a
dedicated network for management purposes only. In either case,
packet loss could happen due to failure, congestion, or other
reasons.
Therefore, the transport mechanism used to carry management data and
information must be secure. It does not have to be a reliable
transport; rather, a transport-independent reliable messaging
mechanism is required, where communication can be performed reliably
(e.g., by establishing end-to-end communication sessions and by
introducing explicit acknowledgement of messages into the
communication flow). Latency requirements for control message
delivery must also be evaluated. Note that monitoring does not
require reliable transport.
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The network connection between the I2NSF Controller and NSFs can rely
on either:
o Open environments, where one or more NSFs can be hosted in one or
more external administrative domains that are reached via secure
external network connections. This requires more restrictive
security control to be placed over the I2NSF Interface. The
information over the I2NSF Interfaces shall be exchanged by using
the trusted connection described in Section 6.1, or
o Closed environments, where there is only one administrative
domain. Such environments provide a more **isolated** environment
but still communicate over the same set of I2NSF Interfaces
present in open environments (see above). Hence, the security
control and access requirements for closed environments are the
same as those for open environments.
The network connection between the I2NSF Controller and NSFs will use
the trusted connection mechanisms described in Section 6.1.
Following these mechanisms, the connections need to rely on the use
of properly verified peer identities (e.g., through an
Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) framework). The
implementations of identity management functions, as well as the AAA
framework, are out of scope for I2NSF.
6.3. Interface to vNSFs
There are some unique characteristics in interfacing to virtual NSFs
(vNSFs):
o There could be multiple instantiations of one single NSF that has
been distributed across a network. When different instantiations
are visible to the I2NSF Controller, different policies may be
applied to different instantiations of an individual NSF (e.g., to
reflect the different roles that each vNSF is designated for).
Therefore, it is recommended that Roles, in addition to the use of
robust identities, be used to distinguish between different
instantiations of the same vNSF. Note that this also applies to
physical NSFs.
o When multiple instantiations of one single NSF appear as one
single entity to the I2NSF Controller, the I2NSF Controller may
need to get assistance from other entities in the I2NSF Management
System and/or delegate the provisioning of the multiple
instantiations of the (single) NSF to other entities in the I2NSF
Management System. This is shown in Figure 2 below.
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o Policies enforced by one vNSF instance may need to be retrieved
and moved to another vNSF of the same type when user flows are
moved from one vNSF to another.
o Multiple vNSFs may share the same physical platform.
o There may be scenarios where multiple vNSFs collectively perform
the security policies needed.
+------------------------+
| I2NSF Controller |
+------------------------+
^ ^
| |
+-----------+ +------------+
| |
v v
+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +
| NSF-A +--------------+ | | NSF-B +--------------+ |
| | NSF Manager | | | | NSF Manager | |
| +--------------+ | | +--------------+ |
| + - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | | + - - - - - - - - - - - - - + |
| |+---------+ +---------+| | | |+---------+ +---------+| |
| || NSF-A#1 | ... | NSF-A#n || | | || NSF-B#1 | ... | NSF-B#m || |
| |+---------+ +---------+| | | |+---------+ +---------+| |
| | NSF-A cluster | | | | NSF-B cluster | |
| + - - - - - - - - - - - - - + | | + - - - - - - - - - - - - - + |
+ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - + + - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - +
Figure 2: Cluster of NSF Instantiations Management
6.4. Consistency
There are three basic models of consistency:
o centralized, which uses a single manager to impose behavior
o decentralized, in which managers make decisions without being
aware of each other (i.e., managers do not exchange information)
o distributed, in which managers make explicit use of information
exchange to arrive at a decision
This document does NOT make a recommendation on which of the above
three models to use. I2NSF Policy Rules, coupled with an appropriate
management strategy, is applicable to the design and integration of
any of the above three consistency models.
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7. I2NSF Flow Security Policy Structure
Even though security functions come in a variety of form factors and
have different features, provisioning to flow-based NSFs can be
standardized by using policy rules.
In this version of I2NSF, policy rules are limited to imperative
paradigms. I2NSF is using an Event-Condition-Action (ECA) policy,
where:
o An Event clause is used to trigger the evaluation of the Condition
clause of the I2NSF Policy Rule.
o A Condition clause is used to determine whether or not the set of
Actions in the I2NSF Policy Rule can be executed or not.
o An Action clause defines the type of operations that may be
performed on this packet or flow.
Each of the above three clauses are defined to be Boolean clauses.
This means that each is a logical statement that evaluates to either
TRUE or FALSE.
The above concepts are described in detail in [I2NSF-CAPABILITIES].
7.1. Customer-Facing Flow Security Policy Structure
This layer is for the user's network management system to express and
monitor the needed flow security policies for their specific flows.
Some customers may not have the requisite security skills to express
security requirements or policies that are precise enough to
implement in an NSF. These customers may instead express
expectations (e.g., goals or intent) of the functionality desired by
their security policies. Customers may also express guidelines, such
as which types of destinations are (or are not) allowed for certain
users. As a result, there could be different levels of content and
abstractions used in Service Layer policies. Here are some examples
of more abstract security policies that can be developed based on the
I2NSF-defined Customer-Facing Interface:
o Enable Internet access for authenticated users
o Any operation on a HighValueAsset must use the corporate network
o The use of FTP from any user except the CxOGroup must be audited
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o Streaming media applications are prohibited on the corporate
network during business hours
o Scan email for malware detection; protect traffic to corporate
network with integrity and confidentiality
o Remove tracking data from Facebook [website = *.facebook.com]
One flow policy over the Customer-Facing Interface may need multiple
NSFs at various locations to achieve the desired enforcement. Some
flow security policies from users may not be granted because of
resource constraints. [I2NSF-DEMO] describes an implementation of
translating a set of 1) user policies to flow policies and 2) flow
policies to individual NSFs.
I2NSF will first focus on user policies that can be modeled as
closely as possible to the flow security policies used by individual
NSFs. An I2NSF user flow policy should be similar in structure to
the structure of an I2NSF Policy Rule, but with more of a user-
oriented expression for the packet content, the context, and other
parts of an ECA policy rule. This enables the user to construct an
I2NSF Policy Rule without having to know the exact syntax of the
desired content (e.g., actual tags or addresses) to match in the
packets. For example, when used in the context of policy rules over
the Client-Facing Interface:
o An Event can be "the client has passed the AAA process"
o A Condition can be matching the user identifier or from specific
ingress or egress points
o An Action can be establishing an IPsec tunnel
7.2. NSF-Facing Flow Security Policy Structure
The NSF-Facing Interface is to pass explicit rules to individual NSFs
to treat packets, as well as methods to monitor the execution status
of those functions.
Here are some examples of Events over the NSF-Facing Interface:
o time == 08:00
o notification that a NSF state changes from standby to active
o user logon or logoff
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Here are some examples of Conditions over the NSF-Facing Interface:
o Packet content values that look for one or more packet headers,
data from the packet payload, bits in the packet, or data that are
derived from the packet.
o Context values that are based on measured and/or inferred
knowledge, which can be used to define the state and environment
in which a managed entity exists or has existed. In addition to
state data, this includes data from sessions, direction of the
traffic, time, and geo-location information. State refers to the
behavior of a managed entity at a particular point in time.
Hence, it may refer to situations in which multiple pieces of
information that are not available at the same time must be
analyzed. For example, tracking established TCP connections
(connections that have gone through the initial three-way
handshake).
Actions to individual flow-based NSFs include:
o Actions performed on ingress packets, such as pass, drop, rate
limiting, and mirroring.
o Actions performed on egress packets, such as invoke signaling,
tunnel encapsulation, packet forwarding, and/or transformation.
o Applying a specific functional profile or signature -- e.g., an
IPS Profile, a signature file, an anti-virus file, or a URL
filtering file. Many flow-based NSFs utilize profile and/or
signature files to achieve more effective threat detection and
prevention. It is not uncommon for an NSF to apply different
profiles and/or signatures for different flows. Some profiles/
signatures do not require any knowledge of past or future
activities, while others are stateful and may need to maintain
state for a specific length of time.
The functional profile or signature file is one of the key properties
that determine the effectiveness of the NSF and is mostly NSF
specific today. The rulesets and software interfaces of I2NSF aim to
specify the format to pass profile and signature files while
supporting specific functionalities of each.
Policy consistency among multiple security function instances is very
critical because security policies are no longer maintained by one
central security device; instead, they are enforced by multiple
security functions instantiated at various locations.
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7.3. Differences from ACL Data Models
Policy rules are very different from Access Control Lists (ACLs). An
ACL is NOT a policy. Rather, policies are used to manage the
construction and life cycle of an ACL.
[ACL-YANG] has defined rules for ACLs supported by most routers/
switches that forward packets based on their L2, L3, or sometimes L4
headers. The actions for ACLs include Pass, Drop, or Redirect.
The functional profiles (or signatures) for NSFs are not present in
[ACL-YANG] because the functional profiles are unique to specific
NSFs. For example, most IPS/IDS implementations have their
proprietary functions/profiles. One of the goals of I2NSF is to
define a common envelope format for exchanging or sharing profiles
among different organizations to achieve more effective protection
against threats.
The "packet content matching" of the I2NSF policies should not only
include the matching criteria specified by [ACL-YANG] but also the
L4-L7 fields depending on the NSFs selected.
Some flow-based NSFs need matching criteria that include the context
associated with the packets. This may also include metadata.
The I2NSF "actions" should extend the actions specified by [ACL-YANG]
to include applying statistics functions, threat profiles, or
signature files that clients provide.
8. Capability Negotiation
It is very possible that the underlay network (or provider network)
does not have the capability or resources to enforce the flow
security policies requested by the overlay network (or enterprise
network). Therefore, it is required that the I2NSF system support
dynamic discovery capabilities, as well as a query mechanism, so that
the I2NSF system can expose appropriate security services using I2NSF
capabilities. This may also be used to support negotiation between a
user and the I2NSF system. Such dynamic negotiation facilitates the
delivery of the required security service(s). The outcome of the
negotiation would feed the I2NSF Management System, which would then
dynamically allocate appropriate NSFs (along with any resources
needed by the allocated NSFs) and configure the set of security
services that meet the requirements of the user.
When an NSF cannot perform the desired provisioning (e.g., due to
resource constraints), it must inform the I2NSF Management System.
The protocol needed for this security function/capability negotiation
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may be somewhat correlated to the dynamic service parameter
negotiation procedure described in [RFC7297]. The Connectivity
Provisioning Profile (CPP) template, even though currently covering
only connectivity requirements, includes security clauses such as
isolation requirements and non-via nodes. Hence, it could be
extended as a basis for the negotiation procedure. Likewise, the
companion Connectivity Provisioning Negotiation Protocol (CPNP) could
be a candidate for the negotiation procedure.
"Security-as-a-Service" would be a typical example of the kind of
(CPP-based) negotiation procedures that could take place between a
corporate customer and a service provider. However, more security-
specific parameters have to be considered.
[I2NSF-CAPABILITIES] describes the concepts of capabilities in
detail.
9. Registration Considerations
9.1. Flow-Based NSF Capability Characterization
There are many types of flow-based NSFs. Firewall, IPS, and IDS are
the commonly deployed flow-based NSFs. However, the differences
among them are definitely blurring, due to more powerful technology,
integration of platforms, and new threats. Basic types of flow-based
NSFs include:
o Firewall -- A device or a function that analyzes packet headers
and enforces policy based on protocol type, source address,
destination address, source port, destination port, and/or other
attributes of the packet header. Packets that do not match policy
are rejected. Note that additional functions, such as logging and
notification of a system administrator, could optionally be
enforced as well.
o IDS (Intrusion Detection System) -- A device or function that
analyzes packets, both header and payload, looking for known
events. When a known event is detected, a log message is
generated detailing the event. Note that additional functions,
such as notification of a system administrator, could optionally
be enforced as well.
o IPS (Intrusion Prevention System) -- A device or function that
analyzes packets, both header and payload, looking for known
events. When a known event is detected, the packet is rejected.
Note that additional functions, such as logging and notification
of a system administrator, could optionally be enforced as well.
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Flow-based NSFs differ in the depth of packet header or payload they
can inspect, the various session/context states they can maintain,
and the specific profiles and the actions they can apply. An example
of a session is as follows: allowing outbound connection requests and
only allowing return traffic from the external network.
9.2. Registration Categories
Developers can register their NSFs using packet content matching
categories. The Inter-Domain Routing (IDR) Flow Specification
[RFC5575] has specified 12 different packet header matching types.
IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) data [IPFIX-D] defines IP flow
information and mechanisms to transmit such information. This
includes flow attributes as well as information about the metering
and exporting processes. Such information may be stored in an IPFIX
registry [IPFIX-R]. As such, IPFIX information should be considered
when defining categories of registration information.
More packet content matching types have been proposed in the IDR WG.
I2NSF should reuse the packet matching types being specified as much
as possible. More matching types might be added for flow-based NSFs.
Figures 3-6 below list the applicable packet content categories that
can be potentially used as packet matching types by flow-based NSFs:
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Packet Content Matching Capability Index |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Layer 2 | Layer 2 header fields: |
| Header | Source |
| | Destination |
| | s-VID |
| | c-VID |
| | Ethertype |
|---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Layer 3 | Layer 3 header fields: |
| | protocol |
| IPv4 Header | dest port |
| | src port |
| | src address |
| | dest address |
| | dscp |
| | length |
| | flags |
| | ttl |
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| IPv6 Header | |
| | protocol/nh |
| | src port |
| | dest port |
| | src address |
| | dest address |
| | length |
| | traffic class |
| | hop limit |
| | flow label |
| | dscp |
|---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Layer 4 | Layer 4 header fields: |
| TCP | Port |
| SCTP | syn |
| DCCP | ack |
| | fin |
| | rst |
| | ? psh |
| | ? urg |
| | ? window |
| | sockstress |
| | Note: bitmap could be used to |
| | represent all the fields |
| UDP | |
| | flood abuse |
| | fragment abuse |
| | Port |
|---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| HTTP layer | |
| | | hash collision |
| | | http - get flood |
| | | http - post flood |
| | | http - random/invalid url |
| | | http - slowloris |
| | | http - slow read |
| | | http - r-u-dead-yet (rudy) |
| | | http - malformed request |
| | | http - xss |
| | | https - ssl session exhaustion |
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+---------------+----------+--------------------------------+
| IETF PCP | Configurable |
| | Ports |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| IETF TRAM | profile |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
Notes:
DCCP: Datagram Congestion Control Protocol
PCP: Port Control Protocol
TRAM: TURN Revised and Modernized, where TURN stands for
Traversal Using Relays around NAT
Figure 3: Packet Content Matching Capability Index
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Context Matching Capability Index |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Session | Session State, |
| | Bidirectional State |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Time | Time span |
| | Time occurrence |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Events | Event URL, variables |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Location | Text string, GPS coords, URL |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Connection | Internet (unsecured), Internet |
| Type | (secured by VPN, etc.), Intranet, ... |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Direction | Inbound, Outbound |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| State | Authentication State |
| | Authorization State |
| | Accounting State |
| | Session State |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
Note:
These fields are used to provide context information for
I2NSF Policy Rules to make decisions on how to handle
traffic. For example, GPS coordinates define the location
of the traffic that is entering and exiting an I2NSF
system; this enables the developer to apply different
rules for ingress and egress traffic handling.
Figure 4: Context Matching Capability Index
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+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Action Capability Index |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Ingress port | SFC header termination, |
| | VxLAN header termination |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| | Pass |
| Actions | Deny |
| | Mirror |
| | Simple Statistics: Count (X min; Day;..)|
| | Client-Specified Functions: URL |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Egress | Encap SFC, VxLAN, or other header |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
Note:
SFC: Service Function Chaining
Figure 5: Action Capability Index
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Functional Profile Index |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Profile types | name, type, or flexible |
| | |
| Signature | Profile/signature URL command for the |
| | I2NSF Controller to enable/disable |
+---------------+-------------------------------------------+
Figure 6: Functional Profile Index
10. Manageability Considerations
Management of NSFs include:
o Life-cycle management and resource management of NSFs
o Configuration of devices, such as address configuration, device
internal attributes configuration, etc.
o Signaling
o Policy rules provisioning
Currently, I2NSF only focuses on the policy rule provisioning part.
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11. Security Considerations
The configuration, control, and monitoring of NSFs provide access to
and information about security functions that are critical for
delivering network security and for protecting end-to-end traffic.
Therefore, it is important that the messages that are exchanged
within this architecture utilize a trustworthy, robust, and fully
secure communication channel. The mechanisms adopted within the
solution space must include proper secure communication channels that
are carefully specified for carrying the controlling and monitoring
information between the NSFs and their management entity or entities.
The threats associated with remotely managed NSFs are discussed in
Section 4, and solutions must address those concerns.
This framework is intended for enterprise users, with or without
cloud service offerings. Privacy of users must be provided by using
existing standard mechanisms, such as encryption; anonymization of
data should also be done if possible (depending on the transport
used). Such mechanisms require confidentiality and integrity.
12. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
13. References
13.1. Normative References
[IPFIX-D] "IP Flow Information Export (ipfix)",
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/ipfix/documents/>.
[IPFIX-R] IANA, "IP Flow Information Export (IPFIX) Entities",
<https://www.iana.org/assignments/ipfix>.
[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/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC5575] Marques, P., Sheth, N., Raszuk, R., Greene, B., Mauch, J.,
and D. McPherson, "Dissemination of Flow Specification
Rules", RFC 5575, DOI 10.17487/RFC5575, August 2009,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5575>.
[RFC7297] Boucadair, M., Jacquenet, C., and N. Wang, "IP
Connectivity Provisioning Profile (CPP)", RFC 7297,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7297, July 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7297>.
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[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/info/rfc8174>.
13.2. Informative References
[ACL-YANG]
Jethanandani, M., Huang, L., Agarwal, S., and D. Blair,
"Network Access Control List (ACL) YANG Data Model", Work
in Progress, draft-ietf-netmod-acl-model-15, January 2018.
[I2NSF-ATTESTATION]
Pastor, A., Lopez, D., and A. Shaw, "Remote Attestation
Procedures for Network Security Functions (NSFs) through
the I2NSF Security Controller", Work in Progress,
draft-pastor-i2nsf-nsf-remote-attestation-02, September
2017.
[I2NSF-CAPABILITIES]
Xia, L., Strassner, J., Basile, C., and D. Lopez,
"Information Model of NSFs Capabilities", Work in
Progress, draft-i2nsf-capability-00, September 2017.
[I2NSF-DEMO]
Xie, Y., Xia, L., and J. Wu, "Interface to Network
Security Functions Demo Outline Design", Work in
Progress, draft-xie-i2nsf-demo-outline-design-00, April
2015.
[I2NSF-TERMS]
Hares, S., Strassner, J., Lopez, D., Xia, L., and H.
Birkholz, "Interface to Network Security Functions (I2NSF)
Terminology", Work in Progress, draft-ietf-i2nsf-
terminology-05, January 2018.
[RFC8192] Hares, S., Lopez, D., Zarny, M., Jacquenet, C., Kumar, R.,
and J. Jeong, "Interface to Network Security Functions
(I2NSF): Problem Statement and Use Cases", RFC 8192,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8192, July 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8192>.
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Acknowledgements
This document includes significant contributions from Christian
Jacquenet (Orange), Seetharama Rao Durbha (Cablelabs), Mohamed
Boucadair (Orange), Ramki Krishnan (Dell), Anil Lohiya (Juniper
Networks), Joe Parrott (BT), Frank Xialing (Huawei), and XiaoJun
Zhuang (China Mobile).
Some of the results leading to this work have received funding from
the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under
grant agreement no. 611458.
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Authors' Addresses
Diego R. Lopez
Telefonica I+D
Editor Jose Manuel Lara, 9
Seville, 41013
Spain
Email: diego.r.lopez@telefonica.com
Edward Lopez
Curveball Networks
Chantilly, Virginia
United States of America
Email: ed@curveballnetworks.com
Linda Dunbar
Huawei Technologies
United States of America
Email: Linda.Dunbar@huawei.com
John Strassner
Huawei Technologies
Santa Clara, CA
United States of America
Email: John.sc.Strassner@huawei.com
Rakesh Kumar
Juniper Networks
United States of America
Email: rakeshkumarcloud@gmail.com
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