RFC 4543 PROPOSED STANDARD IPSEC · AUTHENTICATION · AES

The Use of Galois Message Authentication Code (GMAC) in IPsec ESP and AH

Using AES-GMAC in IPsec to authenticate packets without encrypting them.

On rfc-editor.org ↗
PUBLISHED
May 2006
AUTHORS
D. McGrew, J. Viega
STREAM
IETF
IV SIZE
8 octets
ICV SIZE
16 octets, the AES-GMAC tag, never truncated
SALT SIZE
4 octets, constant for the life of the security association
ESP TRANSFORM IDENTIFIER
21 for ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC
AH TRANSFORM IDENTIFIERS
9, 10 and 11 for the 128, 192 and 256-bit keys
KEYMAT SIZE
Four octets longer than the AES key: 20, 28 or 36 octets
DOI
10.17487/RFC4543
ERRATA
Reported errata

RFC text

Contents
Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗
Network Working Group                                          D. McGrew
Request for Comments: 4543                           Cisco Systems, Inc.
Category: Standards Track                                       J. Viega
                                                            McAfee, Inc.
                                                                May 2006


        The Use of Galois Message Authentication Code (GMAC) in
                            IPsec ESP and AH

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   This memo describes the use of the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
   Galois Message Authentication Code (GMAC) as a mechanism to provide
   data origin authentication, but not confidentiality, within the IPsec
   Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) and Authentication Header (AH).
   GMAC is based on the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM) of operation, and can
   be efficiently implemented in hardware for speeds of 10 gigabits per
   second and above, and is also well-suited to software
   implementations.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................2
      1.1. Conventions Used in This Document ..........................3
   2. AES-GMAC ........................................................3
   3. The Use of AES-GMAC in ESP ......................................3
      3.1. Initialization Vector ......................................4
      3.2. Nonce Format ...............................................4
      3.3. AAD Construction ...........................................5
      3.4. Integrity Check Value (ICV) ................................6
      3.5. Differences with AES-GCM-ESP ...............................6
      3.6. Packet Expansion ...........................................7
   4. The Use of AES-GMAC in AH .......................................7
   5. IKE Conventions .................................................8
      5.1. Phase 1 Identifier .........................................8
      5.2. Phase 2 Identifier .........................................8
      5.3. Key Length Attribute .......................................9
      5.4. Keying Material and Salt Values ............................9
   6. Test Vectors ....................................................9
   7. Security Considerations ........................................10
   8. Design Rationale ...............................................11
   9. IANA Considerations ............................................11
   10. Acknowledgements ..............................................11
   11. References ....................................................12
      11.1. Normative References .....................................12
      11.2. Informative References ...................................12
1.  Introduction

   This document describes the use of AES-GMAC mode (AES-GMAC) as a
   mechanism for data origin authentication in ESP [RFC4303] and AH
   [RFC4302].  We refer to these methods as ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and
   AUTH_AES_GMAC, respectively.  ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC is a companion
   to the AES Galois/Counter Mode ESP [RFC4106], which provides
   authentication as well as confidentiality.  ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC
   is intended for cases in which confidentiality is not desired.  Like
   GCM, GMAC is efficient and secure, and is amenable to high-speed
   implementations in hardware.  ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and
   AUTH_AES_GMAC are designed so that the incremental cost of
   implementation, given an implementation is AES-GCM-ESP, is small.

   This document does not cover implementation details of GCM or GMAC.
   Those details can be found in [GCM], along with test vectors.

1.1.  Conventions Used in This Document

   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.  AES-GMAC

   GMAC is a block cipher mode of operation providing data origin
   authentication.  It is defined in terms of the GCM authenticated
   encryption operation as follows.  The GCM authenticated encryption
   operation has four inputs: a secret key, an initialization vector
   (IV), a plaintext, and an input for additional authenticated data
   (AAD).  It has two outputs, a ciphertext whose length is identical to
   the plaintext and an authentication tag.  GMAC is the special case of
   GCM in which the plaintext has a length of zero.  The (zero-length)
   ciphertext output is ignored, of course, so that the only output of
   the function is the Authentication Tag.  In the following, we
   describe how the GMAC IV and AAD are formed from the ESP and AH
   fields, and how the ESP and AH packets are formed from the
   Authentication Tag.

   Below we refer to the AES-GMAC IV input as a nonce, in order to
   distinguish it from the IV fields in the packets.  The same nonce and
   key combination MUST NOT be used more than once, since reusing a
   nonce/key combination destroys the security guarantees of AES-GMAC.

   Because of this restriction, it can be difficult to use this mode
   securely when using statically configured keys.  For the sake of good
   security, implementations MUST use an automated key management
   system, such as the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) (either version two
   [RFC4306] or version one [RFC2409]), to ensure that this requirement
   is met.

3.  The Use of AES-GMAC in ESP

   The AES-GMAC algorithm for ESP is defined as an ESP "combined mode"
   algorithm (see Section 3.2.3 of [RFC4303]), rather than an ESP
   integrity algorithm.  It is called ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC to
   highlight the fact that it performs no encryption and provides no
   confidentiality.

      Rationale: ESP makes no provision for integrity transforms to
      place an initialization vector within the Payload field; only
      encryption transforms are expected to use IVs.  Defining GMAC as
      an encryption transform avoids this issue, and allows GMAC to
      benefit from the same pipelining as does GCM.

   Like all ESP combined modes, it is registered in IKEv2 as an
   encryption transform, or "Type 1" transform.  It MUST NOT be used in
   conjunction with any other ESP encryption transform (within a
   particular ESP encapsulation).  If confidentiality is desired, then
   GCM ESP [RFC4106] SHOULD be used instead.

3.1.  Initialization Vector

   With ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC, an explicit Initialization Vector (IV)
   is included in the ESP Payload, at the outset of that field.  The IV
   MUST be eight octets long.  For a given key, the IV MUST NOT repeat.
   The most natural way to meet this requirement is to set the IV using
   a counter, but implementations are free to set the IV field in any
   way that guarantees uniqueness, such as a linear feedback shift
   register (LFSR).  Note that the sender can use any IV generation
   method that meets the uniqueness requirement without coordinating
   with the receiver.

3.2.  Nonce Format

   The nonce passed to the AES-GMAC authentication algorithm has the
   following layout:

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                             Salt                              |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                     Initialization Vector                     |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                        Figure 1: Nonce Format

   The components of the nonce are as follows:

   Salt
      The salt field is a four-octet value that is assigned at the
      beginning of the security association, and then remains constant
      for the life of the security association.  The salt SHOULD be
      unpredictable (i.e., chosen at random) before it is selected, but
      need not be secret.  We describe how to set the salt for a
      Security Association established via the Internet Key Exchange in
      Section 5.4.

   Initialization Vector
      The IV field is described in Section 3.1.

3.3.  AAD Construction

   Data integrity and data origin authentication are provided for the
   SPI, (Extended) Sequence Number, Authenticated Payload, Padding, Pad
   Length, and Next Header fields.  This is done by including those
   fields in the AES-GMAC Additional Authenticated Data (AAD) field.
   Two formats of the AAD are defined: one for 32-bit sequence numbers,
   and one for 64-bit extended sequence numbers.  The format with 32-bit
   sequence numbers is shown in Figure 2, and the format with 64-bit
   extended sequence numbers is shown in Figure 3.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               SPI                             |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                     32-bit Sequence Number                    |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   ~                Authenticated Payload (variable)               ~
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                    Padding (0-255 bytes)                      |
   +                               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               |  Pad Length   | Next Header   |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

            Figure 2: AAD Format with 32-bit Sequence Number

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               SPI                             |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                 64-bit Extended Sequence Number               |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   ~                Authenticated Payload (variable)               ~
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                    Padding (0-255 bytes)                      |
   +                               +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                               |  Pad Length   | Next Header   |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

        Figure 3: AAD Format with 64-bit Extended Sequence Number

   The use of 32-bit sequence numbers vs. 64-bit extended sequence
   numbers is determined by the security association (SA) management
   protocol that is used to create the SA.  For IKEv2 [RFC4306] this is
   negotiated via Transform Type 5, and the default for ESP is to use
   64-bit extended sequence numbers in the absence of negotiation (e.g.,
   see Section 2.2.1 of [RFC4303]).

3.4.  Integrity Check Value (ICV)

   The ICV consists solely of the AES-GMAC Authentication Tag.  The
   Authentication Tag MUST NOT be truncated, so the length of the ICV is
   16 octets.

3.5.  Differences with AES-GCM-ESP

   In this section, we highlight the differences between this
   specification and AES-GCM-ESP [RFC4106].  The essential difference is
   that in this document, the AAD consists of the SPI, Sequence Number,
   and ESP Payload, and the AES-GCM plaintext is zero-length, while in
   AES-GCM-ESP, the AAD consists only of the SPI and Sequence Number,
   and the AES-GCM plaintext consists of the ESP Payload.  These
   differences are illustrated in Figure 4.  This figure shows the case
   in which the Extended Sequence Number option is not used.  When that
   option is exercised, the Sequence Number field in the figure would be
   replaced with the Extended Sequence Number.

   Importantly, ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC is *not* equivalent to AES-GCM-
   ESP with encryption "turned off".  However, the ICV computations
   performed in both cases are similar because of the structure of the
   GHASH function [GCM].

                     +-> +-----------------------+ <-+
      AES-GCM-ESP    |   |          SPI          |   |
          AAD -------+   +-----------------------+   |
                     |   |    Sequence Number    |   |
                     +-> +-----------------------+   |
                         |    Authentication     |   |
                         |          IV           |   |
                  +->+-> +-----------------------+   +
      AES-GCM-ESP |      |                       |   |
       Plaintext -+      ~       ESP Payload     ~   |
                  |      |                       |   |
                  |      +-----------+-----+-----+   |
                  |      | Padding   |  PL | NH  |   |
                  +----> +-----------+-----+-----+ <-+
                                                     |
                       ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC AAD --+

   Figure 4: Differences between ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and AES-GCM-ESP

3.6.  Packet Expansion

   The IV adds an additional eight octets to the packet and the ICV adds
   an additional 16 octets.  These are the only sources of packet
   expansion, other than the 10-13 bytes taken up by the ESP SPI,
   Sequence Number, Padding, Pad Length, and Next Header fields (if the
   minimal amount of padding is used).

4.  The Use of AES-GMAC in AH

   In AUTH_AES_GMAC, the AH Authentication Data field consists of the IV
   and the Authentication Tag, as shown in Figure 5.  Unlike the usual
   AH case, the Authentication Data field contains both an input to the
   authentication algorithm (the IV) and the output of the
   authentication algorithm (the tag).  No padding is required in the
   Authentication Data field, because its length is a multiple of 64
   bits.

    0                   1                   2                   3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                    Initialization Vector (IV)                 |
   |                            (8 octets)                         |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |                                                               |
   |             Integrity Check Value (ICV) (16 octets)           |
   |                                                               |
   |                                                               |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

       Figure 5: The AUTH_AES_GMAC Authentication Data Format

   The IV is as described in Section 3.1.  The Integrity Check Value
   (ICV) is as described in Section 3.4.

   The GMAC Nonce input is formed as described in Section 3.2.  The GMAC
   AAD input consists of the authenticated data as defined in Section
   3.1 of [RFC4302].  These values are provided as to that algorithm,
   along with the secret key, and the resulting authentication tag given
   as output is used to form the ICV.

5.  IKE Conventions

   This section describes the conventions used to generate keying
   material and salt values for use with ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and
   AUTH_AES_GMAC using the Internet Key Exchange (IKE) versions one
   [RFC2409] and two [RFC4306].

5.1.  Phase 1 Identifier

   This document does not specify the conventions for using AES-GMAC for
   IKE Phase 1 negotiations.  For AES-GMAC to be used in this manner, a
   separate specification would be needed, and an Encryption Algorithm
   Identifier would need to be assigned.  Implementations SHOULD use an
   IKE Phase 1 cipher that is at least as strong as AES-GMAC.  The use
   of AES-CBC [RFC3602] with the same AES key size as used by
   ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC or AUTH_AES_GMAC is RECOMMENDED.

5.2.  Phase 2 Identifier

   For IKE Phase 2 negotiations, IANA has assigned identifiers as
   described in Section 9.

5.3.  Key Length Attribute

   AES-GMAC can be used with any of the three AES key lengths.  The way
   that the key length is indicated is different for AH and ESP.

   For AH, each key length has its own separate integrity transform
   identifier and algorithm name (Section 9).  The IKE Key Length
   attribute MUST NOT be used with these identifiers.  This transform
   MUST NOT be used with ESP.

   For ESP, there is a single encryption transform identifier (which
   represents the combined transform) (Section 9).  The IKE Key Length
   attribute MUST be used with each use of this identifier to indicate
   the key length.  The Key Length attribute MUST have a value of 128,
   192, or 256.

5.4.  Keying Material and Salt Values

   IKE makes use of a pseudo-random function (PRF) to derive keying
   material.  The PRF is used iteratively to derive keying material of
   arbitrary size, called KEYMAT.  Keying material is extracted from the
   output string without regard to boundaries.

   The size of the KEYMAT for the ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and
   AUTH_AES_GMAC MUST be four octets longer than is needed for the
   associated AES key.  The keying material is used as follows:

   ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC with a 128-bit key and AUTH_AES_128_GMAC
      The KEYMAT requested for each AES-GMAC key is 20 octets.  The
      first 16 octets are the 128-bit AES key, and the remaining four
      octets are used as the salt value in the nonce.

   ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC with a 192-bit key and AUTH_AES_192_GMAC
      The KEYMAT requested for each AES-GMAC key is 28 octets.  The
      first 24 octets are the 192-bit AES key, and the remaining four
      octets are used as the salt value in the nonce.

   ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC with a 256-bit key and AUTH_AES_256_GMAC
      The KEYMAT requested for each AES-GMAC key is 36 octets.  The
      first 32 octets are the 256-bit AES key, and the remaining four
      octets are used as the salt value in the nonce.

6.  Test Vectors

   Appendix B of [GCM] provides test vectors that will assist
   implementers with AES-GMAC.

7.  Security Considerations

   Since the authentication coverage is different between AES-GCM-ESP
   and this specification (see Figure 4), it is worth pointing out that
   both specifications are secure.  In ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC, the IV
   is not included in either the plaintext or the additional
   authenticated data.  This does not adversely affect security, because
   the IV field only provides an input to the GMAC IV, which is not
   required to be authenticated (see [GCM]).  In AUTH_AES_GMAC, the IV
   is included in the additional authenticated data.  This fact has no
   adverse effect on security; it follows from the property that GMAC is
   secure even against attacks in which the adversary can manipulate
   both the IV and the message.  Even an adversary with these powerful
   capabilities cannot forge an authentication tag for any message
   (other than one that was submitted to the chosen-message oracle).
   Since such an adversary could easily choose messages that contain the
   IVs with which they correspond, there are no security problems with
   the inclusion of the IV in the AAD.

   GMAC is provably secure against adversaries that can adaptively
   choose plaintexts, ICVs and the AAD field, under standard
   cryptographic assumptions (roughly, that the output of the underlying
   cipher under a randomly chosen key is indistinguishable from a
   randomly selected output).  Essentially, this means that, if used
   within its intended parameters, a break of GMAC implies a break of
   the underlying block cipher.  The proof of security is available in
   [GCMP].

   The most important security consideration is that the IV never
   repeats for a given key.  In part, this is handled by disallowing the
   use of AES-GMAC when using statically configured keys, as discussed
   in Section 2.

   When IKE is used to establish fresh keys between two peer entities,
   separate keys are established for the two traffic flows.  If a
   different mechanism is used to establish fresh keys, one that
   establishes only a single key to protect packets, then there is a
   high probability that the peers will select the same IV values for
   some packets.  Thus, to avoid counter block collisions, ESP or AH
   implementations that permit use of the same key for protecting
   packets with the same peer MUST ensure that the two peers assign
   different salt values to the security association (SA).

   The other consideration is that, as with any block cipher mode of
   operation, the security of all data protected under a given security
   association decreases slightly with each message.

   To protect against this problem, implementations MUST generate a
   fresh key before processing 2^64 blocks of data with a given key.
   Note that it is impossible to reach this limit when using 32-bit
   Sequence Numbers.

   Note that, for each message, GMAC calls the block cipher only once.

8.  Design Rationale

   This specification was designed to be as similar to AES-GCM-ESP
   [RFC4106] as possible.  We re-use the design and implementation
   experience from that specification.  We include all three AES key
   sizes since AES-GCM-ESP supports all of those sizes, and the larger
   key sizes provide future users with more high-security options.

9.  IANA Considerations

   IANA has assigned the following IKEv2 parameters.  For the use of AES
   GMAC in AH, the following integrity (type 3) transform identifiers
   have been assigned:

       "9" for AUTH_AES_128_GMAC

      "10" for AUTH_AES_192_GMAC

      "11" for AUTH_AES_256_GMAC

   For the use of AES-GMAC in ESP, the following encryption (type 1)
   transform identifier has been assigned:

      "21" for ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC

10.  Acknowledgements

   Our discussions with Fabio Maino and David Black significantly
   improved this specification, and Tero Kivinen provided us with useful
   comments.  Steve Kent provided guidance on ESP interactions.  This
   work is closely modeled after AES-GCM, which itself is closely
   modeled after Russ Housley's AES-CCM transform [RFC4309].
   Additionally, the GCM mode of operation was originally conceived as
   an improvement to the CWC mode [CWC] in which Doug Whiting and Yoshi
   Kohno participated.  We express our thanks to Fabio, David, Tero,
   Steve, Russ, Doug, and Yoshi.

11.  References

11.1.  Normative References

   [GCM]      McGrew, D. and J. Viega, "The Galois/Counter Mode of
              Operation (GCM)", Submission to NIST. http://
              csrc.nist.gov/CryptoToolkit/modes/proposedmodes/gcm/
              gcm-spec.pdf, January 2004.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC3602]  Frankel, S., Glenn, R., and S. Kelly, "The AES-CBC Cipher
              Algorithm and Its Use with IPsec", RFC 3602, September
              2003.

11.2.  Informative References

   [CWC]      Kohno, T., Viega, J., and D. Whiting, "CWC: A high-
              performance conventional authenticated encryption mode",
              Fast Software Encryption.
              http://eprint.iacr.org/2003/106.pdf, February 2004.

   [GCMP]     McGrew, D. and J. Viega, "The Security and Performance of
              the Galois/Counter Mode (GCM)", Proceedings of INDOCRYPT
              '04, http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/193, December 2004.

   [RFC2409]  Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
              (IKE)", RFC 2409, November 1998.

   [RFC4106]  Viega, J. and D. McGrew, "The Use of Galois/Counter Mode
              (GCM) in IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC
              4106, June 2005.

   [RFC4302]  Kent, S., "IP Authentication Header", RFC 4302, December
              2005.

   [RFC4303]  Kent, S., "IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC
              4303, December 2005.

   [RFC4306]  Kaufman, C., "Internet Key Exchange (IKEv2) Protocol", RFC
              4306, December 2005.

   [RFC4309]  Housley, R., "Using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) CCM
              Mode with IPsec Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)", RFC
              4309, December 2005.

Authors' Addresses

   David A. McGrew
   Cisco Systems, Inc.
   510 McCarthy Blvd.
   Milpitas, CA  95035
   US

   Phone: (408) 525 8651
   EMail: mcgrew@cisco.com
   URI:   http://www.mindspring.com/~dmcgrew/dam.htm


   John Viega
   McAfee, Inc.
   1145 Herndon Parkway, Suite 500
   Herndon, VA 20170

   EMail: viega@list.org

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ISO Plain Language

On this page
PROBLEMIPsec can encrypt a packet, authenticate it, or do both, but a deployment that wants authentication without confidentiality has no standard way to get it that reuses the hardware and code already built for AES-GCM.
MECHANISMThe RFC defines two transforms built on GMAC, the message authentication part of AES-GCM: ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC for ESP and AUTH_AES_GMAC for AH. The ESP payload carries an 8-octet IV and a 16-octet tag, and the nonce is a 4-octet salt plus the IV.
WHY IT MATTERSIANA assigned transform identifiers 9, 10 and 11 for AH with the three AES key sizes and 21 for ESP. The RFC requires an automated key management system, because reusing a nonce with the same key destroys the security of GMAC.

§1Authentication Without Encryption

This document describes the use of AES-GMAC mode as a mechanism for data origin authentication in ESP and AH. These methods are called ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and AUTH_AES_GMAC respectively. ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC is a companion to the AES Galois/Counter Mode ESP, which provides authentication as well as confidentiality, and it is intended for cases in which confidentiality is not desired. Like GCM, GMAC is efficient and secure, and is amenable to high-speed implementations in hardware. The two transforms are designed so that the incremental cost of implementation, given an implementation is AES-GCM-ESP, is small.

The document does not cover implementation details of GCM or GMAC; those details can be found in the GCM specification, along with test vectors.

IPsec can encrypt a packet, check that it came from the claimed sender, or do both. This RFC adds the missing case: checking the sender without encrypting the content. It uses GMAC, the authentication part of AES-GCM, so an implementation that already does AES-GCM can reuse most of its code and hardware.

§2What GMAC Is

GMAC is a block cipher mode of operation providing data origin authentication. It is defined in terms of the GCM authenticated encryption operation. The GCM operation has four inputs: a secret key, an initialization vector, a plaintext, and an input for additional authenticated data (AAD). It has two outputs, a ciphertext whose length is identical to the plaintext and an authentication tag. GMAC is the special case of GCM in which the plaintext has a length of zero, so the zero-length ciphertext is ignored and the only output is the authentication tag.

The same nonce and key combination MUST NOT be used more than once, since reusing a nonce and key combination destroys the security guarantees of AES-GMAC. Because of this restriction it can be difficult to use this mode securely with statically configured keys. For the sake of good security, implementations MUST use an automated key management system, such as IKE in either version two or version one, to ensure that this requirement is met.

GMAC is the message authentication half of AES-GCM, with the encryption turned off: the plaintext has length zero and the only output is an authentication tag. The tag proves the data came from the holder of the key and was not changed. As with any stream-cipher-like mode, the same nonce must never be used twice with the same key.

§3AES-GMAC in the ESP Payload

The AES-GMAC algorithm for ESP is defined as an ESP combined mode algorithm rather than an ESP integrity algorithm. It is called ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC to highlight the fact that it performs no encryption and provides no confidentiality.

The RFC gives the reason: ESP makes no provision for integrity transforms to place an initialization vector within the Payload field, only encryption transforms are expected to use IVs. Defining GMAC as an encryption transform avoids this issue and allows GMAC to benefit from the same pipelining as GCM. Like all ESP combined modes, it is registered in IKEv2 as an encryption transform, or Type 1 transform. It MUST NOT be used in conjunction with any other ESP encryption transform within a particular ESP encapsulation, and if confidentiality is desired then GCM ESP SHOULD be used instead.

With ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC, an explicit Initialization Vector is included in the ESP Payload at the outset of that field. The IV MUST be eight octets long, and for a given key it MUST NOT repeat. The most natural way to meet this requirement is to set the IV using a counter, but implementations are free to set it in any way that guarantees uniqueness, such as a linear feedback shift register. The sender can use any IV generation method that meets the uniqueness requirement without coordinating with the receiver.

ESP has no place to put an initialization vector for an integrity-only transform, so the RFC defines GMAC as a combined mode, the same kind of slot that encryption uses. The name says what it does: no encryption, but authentication. The payload then starts with an 8-octet IV that must never repeat for a given key, followed by the payload itself and the tag.

§3.2The Nonce and the Data It Covers

The nonce passed to the AES-GMAC authentication algorithm is laid out as a salt followed by the initialization vector. The salt field is a four-octet value that is assigned at the beginning of the security association and then remains constant for its life. The salt SHOULD be unpredictable, that is, chosen at random before it is selected, but it need not be secret. The initialization vector field is the one described for the ESP payload.

Data integrity and data origin authentication are provided for the SPI, the (Extended) Sequence Number, the authenticated payload, the padding, the pad length and the next header fields. This is done by including those fields in the AES-GMAC additional authenticated data field. Two formats of the AAD are defined: one for 32-bit sequence numbers, in which the AAD is the SPI, then the sequence number, then the payload, padding, pad length and next header; and one for 64-bit extended sequence numbers, where the sequence number field is replaced by the extended sequence number. The choice between 32-bit and 64-bit sequence numbers is determined by the security association management protocol used to create the security association; for IKEv2 it is negotiated via Transform Type 5, and the default for ESP in the absence of negotiation is to use 64-bit extended sequence numbers.

The integrity check value consists solely of the AES-GMAC authentication tag. The tag MUST NOT be truncated, so the length of the ICV is 16 octets. The IV adds 8 octets to the packet and the ICV adds 16 octets; these are the only sources of packet expansion, other than the 10 to 13 bytes taken up by the ESP SPI, sequence number, padding, pad length and next header fields.

The nonce is a 4-octet salt plus the IV from the packet. The integrity check covers the SPI, the sequence number, the payload and the trailer fields, so a receiver can tell that none of them was changed. The tag itself is 16 octets and is never shortened. Together the IV and the tag add 24 octets to each packet.

THE NONCE PASSED TO AES-GMAC
GMAC nonce
FieldNameSizeValueDescription
SALTSalt4 bytesFour octets, assigned at the start of the security association and constant for its life. Unpredictable but not secret.
IVInitialization Vector8 bytesThe eight-octet IV carried in the packet.

§4AES-GMAC in the Authentication Header

In AUTH_AES_GMAC, the AH Authentication Data field consists of the IV and the authentication tag. Unlike the usual AH case, the Authentication Data field contains both an input to the authentication algorithm, the IV, and the output of the authentication algorithm, the tag. No padding is required in the Authentication Data field, because its length is a multiple of 64 bits.

The GMAC nonce input is formed as described for ESP, and the GMAC AAD input consists of the authenticated data as defined in Section 3.1 of RFC 4302. Those values are provided to the algorithm along with the secret key, and the resulting authentication tag is used to form the ICV.

In the Authentication Header form, the header's authentication data field holds the 8-octet IV followed by the 16-octet tag. Unlike a normal AH, the field carries both an input to the algorithm and its output. The data that gets checked is the usual AH authenticated data, the headers of the packet.

THE AUTH_AES_GMAC AUTHENTICATION DATA FIELD
AH Authentication Data
FieldNameSizeValueDescription
IVInitialization Vector8 bytesEight octets, used as an input to the authentication algorithm and never repeated for a given key.
ICVIntegrity Check Value16 bytesSixteen octets, the AES-GMAC authentication tag. It is never truncated.

§5How IKE Supplies the Key and the Salt

This section describes the conventions used to generate keying material and salt values for ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC and AUTH_AES_GMAC using IKE versions one and two. The document does not specify conventions for using AES-GMAC in IKE Phase 1 negotiations, because a separate specification would be needed and an Encryption Algorithm Identifier would have to be assigned; implementations SHOULD use an IKE Phase 1 cipher at least as strong as AES-GMAC, and the use of AES-CBC with the same AES key size is RECOMMENDED.

The way the key length is indicated differs between AH and ESP. For AH, each key length has its own separate integrity transform identifier and algorithm name, and the IKE Key Length attribute MUST NOT be used with these identifiers. For ESP, there is a single encryption transform identifier, and the IKE Key Length attribute MUST be used with each use of it, with a value of 128, 192 or 256.

IKE derives keying material of arbitrary size, called KEYMAT, using a pseudo-random function, and keying material is extracted from the output string without regard to boundaries. The size of the KEYMAT for these transforms MUST be four octets longer than the associated AES key: 20 octets for a 128-bit key, 28 octets for a 192-bit key and 36 octets for a 256-bit key. In each case the first part is the AES key and the remaining four octets are used as the salt value in the nonce.

IKE supplies the key and the salt together. The keying material is four octets longer than the AES key, so 20, 28 or 36 octets, and the last four octets become the salt. In AH each key size has its own transform number and the key length attribute is not used; in ESP there is one transform number and the key length attribute says which size is in play.

§7Security Considerations

The authentication coverage differs between AES-GCM-ESP and this specification, and it is worth pointing out that both specifications are secure. In ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC the IV is not included in either the plaintext or the additional authenticated data. This does not adversely affect security, because the IV field only provides an input to the GMAC IV, which is not required to be authenticated. In AUTH_AES_GMAC the IV is included in the additional authenticated data; this also has no adverse effect, since GMAC is secure even against attacks in which the adversary can manipulate both the IV and the message.

GMAC is provably secure against adversaries that can adaptively choose plaintexts, ICVs and the AAD field, under standard cryptographic assumptions. In short, a break of GMAC within its intended parameters implies a break of the underlying block cipher.

The most important security consideration is that the IV never repeats for a given key. This is handled in part by disallowing the use of AES-GMAC with statically configured keys. When IKE establishes fresh keys between two peers, separate keys are established for the two traffic flows; if a different mechanism establishes only a single key, there is a high probability that the peers will select the same IV values for some packets, so ESP or AH implementations that permit the same key for packets with the same peer MUST ensure that the two peers assign different salt values to the security association.

As with any block cipher mode, the security of all data protected under a given security association decreases slightly with each message. To protect against this, implementations MUST generate a fresh key before processing 2^64 blocks of data with a given key. That limit is impossible to reach when using 32-bit sequence numbers. For each message, GMAC calls the block cipher only once.

The most important rule is that the IV must never repeat for a given key, which is why the RFC insists on an automated key management system. The second rule is that a key should not protect too much: a fresh key is needed before 2^64 blocks of data have been processed with it, and the two directions of a connection must use different salt values if they share a key.

THE RULES AN IMPLEMENTATION MUST FOLLOW
  • Never repeat the IVThe same nonce and key combination must not be used more than once, or the security of GMAC is destroyed.
  • Use key managementAn automated key management system such as IKE must supply the keys, so static keys are not usable.
  • Different salts per directionPeers sharing one key must assign different salt values, or they may pick the same IV.
  • Rekey before 2^64 blocksA fresh key must be generated before that many blocks of data have been processed with a key.

§8Design Rationale and the Registered Identifiers

This specification was designed to be as similar to AES-GCM-ESP as possible. The design and implementation experience from that specification is reused, and all three AES key sizes are included since AES-GCM-ESP supports all of them and the larger sizes give future users more high-security options.

IANA assigned the following IKEv2 parameters. For the use of AES-GMAC in AH, the integrity (type 3) transform identifiers 9, 10 and 11 were assigned for AUTH_AES_128_GMAC, AUTH_AES_192_GMAC and AUTH_AES_256_GMAC. For the use of AES-GMAC in ESP, the encryption (type 1) transform identifier 21 was assigned for ENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMAC.

The design follows AES-GCM-ESP closely so that an existing implementation can reuse it, including support for all three AES key sizes. IANA registered three numbers for the AH form, one per key size, and one number for the ESP form.

THE IKEv2 TRANSFORM IDENTIFIERS IANA ASSIGNED
Transform identifierAlgorithmWhere it is used
9AUTH_AES_128_GMACAH, integrity transform
10AUTH_AES_192_GMACAH, integrity transform
11AUTH_AES_256_GMACAH, integrity transform
21 THIS RFCENCR_NULL_AUTH_AES_GMACESP, encryption transform

§9References