site: fix site name checking leaving room for expansion
[secnet] / NOTES
CommitLineData
974d0468 1* Design of new, multi-subnet secnet protocol
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3Like the first (1995/6) version, we're tunnelling IP packets inside
4UDP packets. To defeat various restrictions which may be imposed on us
5by network providers (like the prohibition of incoming TCP
6connections) we're sticking with UDP for everything this time,
3454dce4 7including key setup. This means we have to handle retries, etc.
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8
9Other new features include being able to deal with subnets hidden
10behind changing 'real' IP addresses, and the ability to choose
11algorithms and keys per pair of communicating sites.
12
13** Configuration and structure
14
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15[The original plan]
16
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17The network is made up from a number of 'sites'. These are collections
18of machines with private IP addresses. The new secnet code runs on
19machines which have interfaces on the private site network and some
20way of accessing the 'real' internet.
21
22Each end of a tunnel is identified by a name. Often it will be
23convenient for every gateway machine to use the same name for each
24tunnel endpoint, but this is not vital. Individual tunnels are
25identified by their two endpoint names.
26
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27[The new plan]
28
29It appears that people want to be able to use secnet on mobile
30machines like laptops as well as to interconnect sites. In particular,
31they want to be able to use their laptop in three situations:
32
331) connected to their internal LAN by a cable; no tunnel involved
342) connected via wireless, using a tunnel to protect traffic
353) connected to some other network, using a tunnel to access the
36internal LAN.
37
38They want the laptop to keep the same IP address all the time.
39
40Case (1) is simple.
41
42Case (2) requires that the laptop run a copy of secnet, and have a
43tunnel configured between it and the main internal LAN default
44gateway. secnet must support the concept of a 'soft' tunnel where it
45adds a route and causes the gateway to do proxy-ARP when the tunnel is
46up, and removes the route again when the tunnel is down.
47
48The usual prohibition of packets coming in from one tunnel and going
49out another must be relaxed in this case (in particular, the
50destination address of packets from these 'mobile station' tunnels may
51be another tunnel as well as the host).
52
53(Quick sanity check: if chiark's secnet address was in
54192.168.73.0/24, would this work properly? Yes, because there will be
55an explicit route to it, and proxy ARP will be done for it. Do we want
56packets from the chiark tunnel to be able to go out along other
57routes? No. So, spotting a 'local' address in a remote site's list of
58networks isn't sufficient to switch on routing for a site. We need an
59explicit option. NB packets may be routed if the source OR the
60destination is marked as allowing routing [otherwise packets couldn't
61get back from eg. chiark to a laptop at greenend]).
62
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63[the even newer plan]
64
65secnet sites are configured to grant access to particular IP address
66ranges to the holder of a particular public key. The key can certify
67other keys, which will then be permitted to use a subrange of the IP
68address range of the certifying key.
69
70This means that secnet won't know in advance (i.e. at configuration
71time) how many tunnels it might be required to support, so we have to
72be able to create them (and routes, and so on) on the fly.
73
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74** VPN-level configuration
75
76At a high level we just want to be able to indicate which groups of
77users can claim ownership of which ranges of IP addresses. Assuming
78these users (or their representatives) all have accounts on a single
79machine, we can automate the submission of keys and other information
80to make up a 'sites' file for the entire VPN.
81
82The distributed 'sites' file should be in a more restricted format
83than the secnet configuration file, to prevent attackers who manage to
84distribute bogus sites files from taking over their victim's machines.
85
86The distributed 'sites' file is read one line at a time. Each line
87consists of a keyword followed by other information. It defines a
88number of VPNs; within each VPN it defines a number of locations;
89within each location it defines a number of sites. These VPNs,
90locations and sites are turned into a secnet.conf file fragment using
91a script.
92
93Some keywords are valid at any 'level' of the distributed 'sites'
94file, indicating defaults.
95
96The keywords are:
97
98vpn n: we are now declaring information to do with VPN 'n'. Must come first.
99
100location n: we are now declaring information for location 'n'.
101
102site n: we are now declaring information for site 'n'.
103endsite: we're finished declaring information for the current site
104
105restrict-nets a b c ...: restrict the allowable 'networks' for the current
106 level to those in this list.
107end-definitions: prevent definition of further vpns and locations, and
108 modification of defaults at VPN level
109
110dh x y: the current VPN uses the specified group; x=modulus, y=generator
111
112hash x: which hash function to use. Valid options are 'md5' and 'sha1'.
113
114admin n: administrator email address for current level
115
116key-lifetime n
117setup-retries n
118setup-timeout n
119wait-time n
120renegotiate-time n
121
122address a b: a=dnsname, b=port
123networks a b c ...
124pubkey x y z: x=keylen, y=encryption key, z=modulus
125mobile: declare this to be a 'mobile' site
126
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127** Logging etc.
128
129There are several possible ways of running secnet:
130
131'reporting' only: --version, --help, etc. command line options and the
132--just-check-config mode.
133
134'normal' run: perform setup in the foreground, and then background.
135
136'failed' run: setup in the foreground, and terminate with an error
137before going to background.
138
139'reporting' modes should never output anything except to stdout/stderr.
140'normal' and 'failed' runs output to stdout/stderr before
141backgrounding, then thereafter output only to log destinations.
142
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143** Protocols
144
145*** Protocol environment:
146
147Each gateway machine serves a particular, well-known set of private IP
148addresses (i.e. the agreement over which addresses it serves is
149outside the scope of this discussion). Each gateway machine has an IP
150address on the interconnecting network (usually the Internet), which
151may be dynamically allocated and may change at any point.
152
153Each gateway knows the RSA public keys of the other gateways with
154which it wishes to communicate. The mechanism by which this happens is
155outside the scope of this discussion. There exists a means by which
156each gateway can look up the probable IP address of any other.
157
158*** Protocol goals:
159
160The ultimate goal of the protocol is for the originating gateway
161machine to be able to forward packets from its section of the private
162network to the appropriate gateway machine for the destination
163machine, in such a way that it can be sure that the packets are being
164sent to the correct destination machine, the destination machine can
165be sure that the source of the packets is the originating gateway
166machine, and the contents of the packets cannot be understood other
167than by the two communicating gateways.
168
169XXX not sure about the address-change stuff; leave it out of the first
170version of the protocol. From experience, IP addresses seem to be
171quite stable so the feature doesn't gain us much.
172
173**** Protocol sub-goal 1: establish a shared key
174
175Definitions:
176
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177A is the originating gateway machine name
178B is the destination gateway machine name
179A+ and B+ are the names with optional additional data, currently ignored
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180PK_A is the public RSA key of A
181PK_B is the public RSA key of B
182PK_A^-1 is the private RSA key of A
183PK_B^-1 is the private RSA key of B
184x is the fresh private DH key of A
185y is the fresh private DH key of B
186k is g^xy mod m
187g and m are generator and modulus for Diffie-Hellman
188nA is a nonce generated by A
189nB is a nonce generated by B
190iA is an index generated by A, to be used in packets sent from B to A
191iB is an index generated by B, to be used in packets sent from A to B
192i? is appropriate index for receiver
193
194Note that 'i' may be re-used from one session to the next, whereas 'n'
195is always fresh.
196
ddc1d9e0 197The protocol version selection stuff is not yet implemented.
ff05a229 198
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199Messages:
200
ddc1d9e0 2011) A->B: *,iA,msg1,A,B,nA
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1737eeef 2032) B->A: iA,iB,msg2,B+,A+,nB,nA
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204
205(The order of B and A reverses in alternate messages so that the same
206code can be used to construct them...)
207
1737eeef 2083) A->B: {iB,iA,msg3,A+,B+,nA,nB,g^x mod m}_PK_A^-1
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209
210If message 1 was a replay then A will not generate message 3, because
211it doesn't recognise nA.
212
213If message 2 was from an attacker then B will not generate message 4,
214because it doesn't recognise nB.
215
1737eeef 2164) B->A: {iA,iB,msg4,B+,A+,nB,nA,g^y mod m}_PK_B^-1
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217
218At this point, A and B share a key, k. B must keep retransmitting
219message 4 until it receives a packet encrypted using key k.
220
2215) A: iB,iA,msg5,(ping/msg5)_k
222
2236) B: iA,iB,msg6,(pong/msg6)_k
224
225(Note that these are encrypted using the same transform that's used
226for normal traffic, so they include sequence number, MAC, etc.)
227
228The ping and pong messages can be used by either end of the tunnel at
229any time, but using msg0 as the unencrypted message type indicator.
230
231**** Protocol sub-goal 2: end the use of a shared key
232
2337) i?,i?,msg0,(end-session/msg7,A,B)_k
234
235This message can be sent by either party. Once sent, k can be
236forgotten. Once received and checked, k can be forgotten. No need to
237retransmit or confirm reception. It is suggested that this message be
238sent when a key times out, or the tunnel is forcibly terminated for
239some reason.
240
1e80c220 241**** Protocol sub-goal 3: send a packet
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1e80c220 2438) i?,i?,msg0,(send-packet/msg9,packet)_k
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1e80c220 245**** Other messages
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1e80c220 2479) i?,i?,NAK (NAK is encoded as zero)
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249If the link-layer can't work out what to do with a packet (session has
250gone away, etc.) it can transmit a NAK back to the sender.
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252This can alert the sender to the situation where the sender has a key
253but the receiver doesn't (eg because it has been restarted). The
254sender, on receiving the NAK, will try to initiate a key exchange.
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256Forged (or overly delayed) NAKs can cause wasted resources due to
257spurious key exchange initiation, but there is a limit on this because
258of the key exchange retry timeout.
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259
26010) i?,i?,msg8,A,B,nA,nB,msg?
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261
262This is an obsolete form of NAK packet which is not sent by any even
263vaguely recent version of secnet. (In fact, there is no evidence in
264the git history of it ever being sent.)
265
266This message number is reserved.