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Network Working Group N. Cam-Winget
Request for Comments: 5421 H. Zhou
Category: Informational Cisco Systems
March 2009
Basic Password Exchange within the Flexible Authentication
via Secure Tunneling Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP-FAST)
Status of This Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It does
not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this
memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2009 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 in effect on the date of
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
Contributions published or made publicly available before November
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material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
than English.
IESG Note
EAP-FAST has been implemented by many vendors and it is used in the
Internet. Publication of this specification is intended to promote
interoperability by documenting current use of existing EAP methods
within EAP-FAST.
The EAP method EAP-FAST-GTC reuses the EAP type code assigned to EAP-
GTC (6). The reuse of previously assigned EAP Type Codes is
incompatible with EAP method negotiation as defined in RFC 3748.
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Since EAP-GTC does not support method-specific version negotiation,
the use of EAP-FAST-GTC is implied when used inside the EAP-FAST
tunnel during authentication. This behavior may cause problems in
implementations where the use of another vendor's EAP-GTC is
required. Since such support requires special case execution of a
method within a tunnel, it also complicates implementations that use
the same method code both within and outside of the tunnel method.
If EAP-FAST were to be designed today, these difficulties could be
avoided by utilization of unique EAP Type codes. Given these issues,
assigned method types must not be re-used with different meaning
inside tunneled methods in the future.
Abstract
The Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling Extensible
Authentication Protocol (EAP-FAST) method enables secure
communication between a peer and a server by using Transport Layer
Security (TLS) to establish a mutually authenticated tunnel. Within
this tunnel, a basic password exchange, based on the Generic Token
Card method (EAP-GTC), may be executed to authenticate the peer.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Specification Requirements .................................3
2. EAP-FAST GTC Authentication .....................................3
3. Security Considerations .........................................7
3.1. Security Claims ............................................7
4. IANA Considerations .............................................8
5. Acknowledgments .................................................9
6. References ......................................................9
6.1. Normative References .......................................9
6.2. Informative References .....................................9
1. Introduction
EAP-FAST [RFC4851] is an EAP method that can be used to mutually
authenticate a peer and server. This document describes the EAP-FAST
inner EAP method, EAP-FAST-GTC, which is used to authenticate the
peer through a basic password exchange. EAP-FAST-GTC was developed
to support using cleartext passwords to authenticate to legacy user
databases, to facilitate password change, and to support one time
password features such as new pin mode. Message exchanges, including
user credentials, are cleartext strings transferred within the
encrypted TLS tunnel and thus are considered secure. For historical
reasons, EAP-FAST-GTC uses EAP Type 6, originally allocated to EAP-
GTC [RFC3748]. Note that EAP-FAST-GTC payloads used in EAP-FAST
require specific formatting and therefore will not necessarily be
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compatible with EAP-GTC mechanisms used outside of EAP-FAST. To
avoid interference between these two methods, EAP-FAST-GTC MUST NOT
be used outside an EAP-FAST tunnel, and EAP-GTC MUST NOT be used
inside an EAP-FAST tunnel. All EAP-FAST-GTC packets sent within the
TLS tunnel must be encapsulated in EAP Payload TLVs, described in
[RFC4851].
It is assumed that a reader of this document is familiar with EAP-
FAST [RFC4851].
1.1. Specification Requirements
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. EAP-FAST GTC Authentication
All EAP-FAST-GTC packets inside EAP-FAST other than the empty
acknowledgment packet MUST follow the "LABEL=Value" format. All
Labels are in ASCII text and SHALL NOT contain the space character.
Currently, three Labels are defined:
o "CHALLENGE", the server request packet MUST be in the form of
"CHALLENGE=Value", where Value is the server challenge, such as
"please enter your password".
o "RESPONSE", the peer response packet MUST be in the form of
"RESPONSE=Value", where Value is the peer response.
o "E", the server failure packet MUST be in the form of "E=Value",
where Value is the error message generated by the server.
If the peer or the server receives an EAP-FAST-GTC request or
response that is not in the format specified above, it SHOULD fail
the authentication by sending a Result TLV with a failure.
After the TLS encryption tunnel is established and EAP-FAST
Authentication phase 2 starts, the EAP server sends an EAP-FAST-GTC
Request, which contains a server challenge. The server challenge is
a displayable message for use by the peer to prompt the user.
A peer MAY prompt the user for the user credentials, or decide to use
the user credentials gained through some other means without
prompting the user. The peer sends the user credentials back in the
EAP-FAST-GTC Response using the following format:
"RESPONSE=user@example.com\0secret"
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where "user@example.com" is the actual username and "secret" is the
actual password. The NULL character "\0" is used to separate the
username and password.
The username and password are included in a single message in the
first response packet as an optimization by eliminating the inner
method EAP-Identity exchange to save an extra round trip.
Once the EAP-FAST server receives the user credentials, it SHOULD
first validate the user identity with the Initiator ID (I-ID)
[RFC5422] in the PAC-Opaque (Protected Access Credential) and if it
matches, it will continue to authenticate the user with internal or
external user databases.
Additional exchanges MAY occur between the EAP-FAST server and peer
to facilitate various user authentications. The EAP-FAST server
might send additional challenges to prompt the peer for additional
information, such as a request for the next token or a new pin in the
one time password case, or a server failure packet to indicate an
error. The peer displays the prompt to the user again and sends back
the needed information in an EAP-FAST-GTC Response. The exchange
ends when a Result TLV is received.
An EAP-FAST-GTC server implementation within EAP-FAST uses the
following format to indicate an error if an authentication fails:
"E=eeeeeeeeee R=r M=<msg>"
where:
The "eeeeeeeeee" is the ASCII representation of a decimal error code
corresponding to one of those listed below, though peer
implementations SHOULD deal with codes not on this list gracefully.
The error code need not be 10 digits long.
Below is a complete list of predefined error codes:
o 646 ERROR_RESTRICTED_LOGON_HOURS
Indicates that access is attempted outside the allowed hours.
Peer implementations SHOULD display the error message to the user
and ask the user to try at a later time.
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o 647 ERROR_ACCT_DISABLED
Indicates that the requested account is disabled. Peer
implementations SHOULD display the error message to the user,
which helps the user to resolve the issue with the administrator.
o 648 ERROR_PASSWD_EXPIRED
Indicates that the password has expired and a password change is
required. Peer implementations SHOULD prompt the user for a new
password and send back the new password in the peer response
packet.
o 649 ERROR_NO_DIALIN_PERMISSION
Indicates that access has been denied due to lack of dial-in
permission. Peer implementations SHOULD display the error message
to the user, which helps the user to resolve the issue with the
administrator.
o 691 ERROR_AUTHENTICATION_FAILURE
Indicates that there was authentication failure due to an
incorrect username or password. Based on the retry flag described
below, peer implementations MAY prompt the user again for a new
set of username and password or simply send back an empty
acknowledgment packet to acknowledge the failure and go into the
termination phase of the authentication session.
o 709 ERROR_CHANGING_PASSWORD
Indicates that the password change failed, most likely because the
new password fails to meet the password complexity policy. Peer
implementations SHOULD display the error message and prompt the
user again for the new password.
o 755 ERROR_PAC_I-ID_NO_MATCH
Indicates that the PAC used to establish the EAP-FAST session
cannot be used to authenticate to this user account. Based on the
retry flag described below, peer implementations MAY prompt the
user again for a new set of username and password or simply send
back an empty acknowledgment packet to acknowledge the failure and
go into the termination phase of the authentication session.
The "r" is a single character ASCII flag set to '1' if a retry is
allowed, and '0' if not. When the server sets this flag to '1', it
disables short timeouts, expecting the peer to prompt the user for
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new credentials and to resubmit the response. When the server sets
this flag to '0', the peer SHOULD NOT prompt the user for new
credentials to try again without restarting the EAP-FAST
authentication from the beginning.
The <msg> is human-readable ASCII text. Current implementations only
support ASCII text.
The server failure packet can be broken into Label/Value pairs using
the space character as the separator. The only value that may
contain the space character is the <msg> value, which is always the
last value pair in the failure packet. The peer SHOULD ignore any
unknown label/value pair in the failure packet.
The error format described above is similar to what is defined in the
Microsoft Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol version 2
(MSCHAPv2) [RFC2759], except for the omission of a server challenge.
So if the EAP-FAST server is distributing MSCHAPv2 exchanges to the
backend inner method server, it can simply return what the backend
inner method server returns less the server challenge. In the case
of connecting to a one time password or Lightweight Directory Access
Protocol (LDAP) [RFC4511] server, the EAP-FAST server can translate
the error message into this format. With the addition of the retry
count, the peer can potentially prompt the user for new credentials
to try again without restarting the EAP-FAST authentication from the
beginning. The peer will respond to the error code with another EAP-
FAST-GTC Response packet with both the new username and password, or
in case of other unrecoverable failures, an empty EAP-FAST-GTC packet
for acknowledgement. The peer uses empty EAP-FAST-GTC payload as an
acknowledgment of the unrecoverable failure.
If the EAP-FAST server finishes authentication for the EAP-FAST-GTC
inner method, it will proceed to Protected Termination as described
in [RFC4851]. In the case of an unrecoverable EAP-FAST-GTC
authentication failure, the EAP server can send an EAP-FAST-GTC error
code as described above, along with the Result TLV for protected
termination. This way, no extra round trips will occur. The peer
can acknowledge the EAP-FAST-GTC failure as well as the Result TLV
within the same EAP-FAST packet. Once the server receives the
acknowledgement, the TLS tunnel will be torn down and a clear text
EAP-Failure will be sent.
The username and password, as well as server challenges, MAY support
non-ASCII characters. In this case, international username,
password, and messages are based on the use of Unicode characters,
encoded as UTF-8 [RFC3629] and processed with a certain algorithm to
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ensure a canonical representation. The username and password input
SHOULD be processed according to Section 2.4 of [RFC4282], and the
server challenges SHOULD be processed according to [RFC5198].
Since EAP-FAST-GTC does not generate session keys, the MSKi (Master
Session Key) used for crypto-binding for EAP-FAST will be filled with
all zeros.
3. Security Considerations
The EAP-FAST-GTC method sends password information in the clear and
MUST NOT be used outside of a protected tunnel providing strong
protection, such as the one provided by EAP-FAST. Weak encryption,
such as 40-bit encryption or NULL cipher, MUST NOT be used. In
addition, the peer MUST authenticate the server before disclosing its
credentials. Since EAP-FAST Server-Unauthenticated Provisioning Mode
does not authenticate the server, EAP-FAST-GTC MUST NOT be used as
the inner method in this mode. EAP-FAST-GTC MAY be used in EAP-FAST
authentication and Server-Authenticated Provisioning Mode [RFC5422],
where the server is authenticated. Since EAP-FAST-GTC requires the
server to have access to the actual authentication secret, it is
RECOMMENDED to vary the stored authentication validation data by
domain so that a compromise of a server at one location does not
compromise others.
3.1. Security Claims
This section provides the needed security claim requirement for EAP
[RFC3748].
Auth. mechanism: Password based.
Ciphersuite negotiation: No. However, such negotiation is provided
by EAP-FAST for the outer authentication.
Mutual authentication: No. However, EAP-FAST provides server-side
authentication.
Integrity protection: No. However, any method executed within the
EAP-FAST tunnel is protected.
Replay protection: See above.
Confidentiality: See above.
Key derivation: Keys are not generated, see Section 2.
However, when used inside EAP-FAST, the
outer method will provide keys. See
[RFC4851] for the properties of those keys.
Key strength: See above.
Dictionary attack prot.: No. However, when used inside the EAP-FAST
tunnel, the protection provided by the TLS
tunnel prevents an off-line dictionary
attack.
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Fast reconnect: No. However, EAP-FAST provides a fast
reconnect capability that allows the reuse
of an earlier session authenticated by EAP-
FAST-GTC.
Cryptographic binding: No. Given that no keys are generated, EAP-
FAST-GTC or its use within EAP-FAST cannot
provide a cryptographic assurance that no
binding attack has occurred. EAP-FAST-GTC
is required only to run within a protected
tunnel, but even the use of the same
credentials in some other, unprotected
context might lead to a vulnerability. As a
result, credentials used in EAP-FAST-GTC
SHOULD NOT be used in other unprotected
authentication mechanisms.
Session independence: No. However, EAP-FAST provides session
independence.
Fragmentation: No. However, EAP-FAST provides support for
this.
Key Hierarchy: Not applicable.
Channel binding: No, though EAP-FAST can be extended for
this.
4. IANA Considerations
EAP-FAST-GTC uses the assigned value of 6 (EAP-GTC) for the EAP Type
in [RFC3748].
This document defines a registry for EAP-FAST-GTC error codes when
running inside EAP-FAST, named "EAP-FAST GTC Error Codes". It may be
assigned by Specification Required as defined in [RFC5226]. A
summary of the error codes defined so far is given below:
o 646 ERROR_RESTRICTED_LOGON_HOURS
o 647 ERROR_ACCT_DISABLED
o 648 ERROR_PASSWD_EXPIRED
o 649 ERROR_NO_DIALIN_PERMISSION
o 691 ERROR_AUTHENTICATION_FAILURE
o 709 ERROR_CHANGING_PASSWORD
o 755 ERROR_PAC_I-ID_NO_MATCH
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No IANA registry will be created for Labels, as current
implementations only support the Labels defined in this document and
new Labels are not expected; if necessary, new Labels can be defined
in documents updating this document.
5. Acknowledgments
The authors would like thank Joe Salowey and Amir Naftali for their
contributions of the problem space, and Jouni Malinen, Pasi Eronen,
Jari Arkko, and Chris Newman for reviewing this document.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC3748] Aboba, B., Blunk, L., Vollbrecht, J., Carlson, J., and H.
Levkowetz, "Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)",
RFC 3748, June 2004.
[RFC4282] Aboba, B., Beadles, M., Arkko, J., and P. Eronen, "The
Network Access Identifier", RFC 4282, December 2005.
[RFC4851] Cam-Winget, N., McGrew, D., Salowey, J., and H. Zhou, "The
Flexible Authentication via Secure Tunneling Extensible
Authentication Protocol Method (EAP-FAST)", RFC 4851,
May 2007.
[RFC5198] Klensin, J. and M. Padlipsky, "Unicode Format for Network
Interchange", RFC 5198, March 2008.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
6.2. Informative References
[RFC2759] Zorn, G., "Microsoft PPP CHAP Extensions, Version 2",
RFC 2759, January 2000.
[RFC4511] Sermersheim, J., "Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP): The Protocol", RFC 4511, June 2006.
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[RFC5422] Cam-Winget, N., McGrew, D., Salowey, J., and H. Zhou,
"Dynamic Provisioning Using Flexible Authentication via
Secure Tunneling Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP-
FAST)", RFC 5422, March 2009.
Authors' Addresses
Nancy Cam-Winget
Cisco Systems
3625 Cisco Way
San Jose, CA 95134
US
EMail: ncamwing@cisco.com
Hao Zhou
Cisco Systems
4125 Highlander Parkway
Richfield, OH 44286
US
EMail: hzhou@cisco.com
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