TLS User Mapping Extension
A TLS extension that lets a client hint which directory account its certificate belongs to.
Santesson, S., Medvinsky, A., and J. Ball, "TLS User Mapping Extension", RFC 4681, DOI 10.17487/RFC4681, October 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4681>.
@misc{rfc4681,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 4681,
howpublished = {RFC 4681},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC4681},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4681},
author = {S. Santesson and A. Medvinsky and J. Ball},
title = {{TLS User Mapping Extension}},
pagetotal = 11,
year = 2006,
month = oct,
} RFC text
Contents
Network Working Group S. Santesson
Request for Comments: 4681 A. Medvinsky
Updates: 4346 J. Ball
Category: Standards Track Microsoft
October 2006
TLS User Mapping Extension
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 document specifies a TLS extension that enables clients to send
generic user mapping hints in a supplemental data handshake message
defined in RFC 4680. One such mapping hint is defined in an
informative section, the UpnDomainHint, which may be used by a server
to locate a user in a directory database. Other mapping hints may be
defined in other documents in the future.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................2
1.1. Terminology ................................................2
1.2. Design Considerations ......................................2
2. User Mapping Extension ..........................................3
3. User Mapping Handshake Exchange .................................3
4. Message Flow ....................................................5
5. Security Considerations .........................................6
6. UPN Domain Hint (Informative) ...................................7
7. IANA Considerations .............................................8
8. Normative References ............................................9
9. Acknowledgements ................................................9
1. Introduction
This document has a normative part and an informative part. Sections
2-5 are normative. Section 6 is informative.
This specification defines a TLS extension and a payload for the
SupplementalData handshake message, defined in RFC 4680 [N6], to
accommodate mapping of users to their user accounts when using TLS
client authentication as the authentication method.
The new TLS extension (user_mapping) is sent in the client hello
message. Per convention defined in RFC 4366 [N4], the server places
the same extension (user_mapping) in the server hello message, to
inform the client that the server understands this extension. If the
server does not understand the extension, it will respond with a
server hello omitting this extension, and the client will proceed as
normal, ignoring the extension, and not include the
UserMappingDataList data in the TLS handshake.
If the new extension is understood, the client will inject
UserMappingDataList data in the SupplementalData handshake message
prior to the Client's Certificate message. The server will then
parse this message, extracting the client's domain, and store it in
the context for use when mapping the certificate to the user's
directory account.
No other modifications to the protocol are required. The messages
are detailed in the following sections.
1.1. Terminology
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 RFC 2119 [N1].
The syntax for the TLS User Mapping extension is defined using the
TLS Presentation Language, which is specified in Section 4 of [N2].
1.2. Design Considerations
The reason the mapping data itself is not placed in the extension
portion of the client hello is to prevent broadcasting this
information to servers that don't understand the extension.
2. User Mapping Extension
A new extension type (user_mapping(6)) is added to the Extension used
in both the client hello and server hello messages. The extension
type is specified as follows.
enum {
user_mapping(6), (65535)
} ExtensionType;
The "extension_data" field of this extension SHALL contain
"UserMappingTypeList" with a list of supported hint types where:
struct {
UserMappingType user_mapping_types<1..2^8-1>;
} UserMappingTypeList;
Enumeration of hint types (user_mapping_types) defined in this
document is provided in Section 3.
The list of user_mapping_types included in a client hello SHALL
signal the hint types supported by the client. The list of
user_mapping_types included in the server hello SHALL signal the hint
types preferred by the server.
If none of the hint types listed by the client is supported by the
server, the server SHALL omit the user_mapping extension in the
server hello.
When the user_mapping extension is included in the server hello, the
list of hint types in "UserMappingTypeList" SHALL be either equal to,
or a subset of, the list provided by the client.
3. User Mapping Handshake Exchange
The underlying structure of the SupplementalData handshake message,
used to carry information defined in this section, is defined in RFC
4680 [N6].
A new SupplementalDataType [N6] is defined to accommodate
communication of generic user mapping data. See RFC 2246 (TLS 1.0)
[N2] and RFC 4346 (TLS 1.1) [N3] for other handshake types.
The information in this data type carries one or more unauthenticated
hints, UserMappingDataList, inserted by the client side. Upon
receipt and successful completion of the TLS handshake, the server
MAY use this hint to locate the user's account from which user
information and credentials MAY be retrieved to support
authentication based on the client certificate.
struct {
SupplementalDataType supp_data_type;
uint16 supp_data_length;
select(SupplementalDataType) {
case user_mapping_data: UserMappingDataList;
}
} SupplementalDataEntry;
enum {
user_mapping_data(0), (65535)
} SupplementalDataType;
The user_mapping_data(0) enumeration results in a new supplemental
data type UserMappingDataList with the following structure:
enum {
(255)
} UserMappingType;
struct {
UserMappingType user_mapping_version;
uint16 user_mapping_length;
select(UserMappingType) { }
} UserMappingData;
struct{
UserMappingData user_mapping_data_list<1..2^16-1>;
}UserMappingDataList;
user_mapping_length
This field is the length (in bytes) of the data selected by
UserMappingType.
The UserMappingData structure contains a single mapping of type
UserMappingType. This structure can be leveraged to define new types
of user mapping hints in the future. The UserMappingDataList MAY
carry multiple hints; it is defined as a vector of UserMappingData
structures.
No preference is given to the order in which hints are specified in
this vector. If the client sends more than one hint, then the Server
SHOULD use the applicable mapping supported by the server.
Implementations MAY support the UPN domain hint as specified in
Section 6 of this document. Implementations MAY also support other
user mapping types as they are defined. Definitions of standards-
track user mapping types must include a discussion of
internationalization considerations.
4. Message Flow
In order to negotiate sending user mapping data to a server in
accordance with this specification, clients MUST include an extension
of type "user_mapping" in the (extended) client hello, which SHALL
contain a list of supported hint types.
Servers that receive an extended client hello containing a
"user_mapping" extension MAY indicate that they are willing to accept
user mapping data by including an extension of type "user_mapping" in
the (extended) server hello, which SHALL contain a list of preferred
hint types.
After negotiation of the use of user mapping has been successfully
completed (by exchanging hello messages including "user_mapping"
extensions), clients MAY send a "SupplementalData" message containing
the "UserMappingDataList" before the "Certificate" message. The
message flow is illustrated in Figure 1 below.
Client Server
ClientHello
/* with user_mapping ext */ -------->
ServerHello
/* with user-mapping ext */
Certificate*
ServerKeyExchange*
CertificateRequest*
<-------- ServerHelloDone
SupplementalData
/* with UserMappingDataList */
Certificate*
ClientKeyExchange
CertificateVerify*
[ChangeCipherSpec]
Finished -------->
[ChangeCipherSpec]
<-------- Finished
Application Data <-------> Application Data
* Indicates optional or situation-dependent messages that are not
always sent according to RFC 2246 [N2] and RFC 4346 [N3].
Figure 1. Message Flow with User Mapping Data
The server MUST expect and gracefully handle the case where the
client chooses not to send any supplementalData handshake message
even after successful negotiation of extensions. The client MAY at
its own discretion decide that the user mapping hint it initially
intended to send no longer is relevant for this session. One such
reason could be that the server certificate fails to meet certain
requirements.
5. Security Considerations
The user mapping hint sent in the UserMappingDataList is
unauthenticated data that MUST NOT be treated as a trusted
identifier. Authentication of the user represented by that user
mapping hint MUST rely solely on validation of the client
certificate. One way to do this is to use the user mapping hint to
locate and extract a certificate of the claimed user from the trusted
directory and subsequently match this certificate against the
validated client certificate from the TLS handshake.
As the client is the initiator of this TLS extension, it needs to
determine when it is appropriate to send the User Mapping
Information. It may not be prudent to broadcast a user mapping hint
to just any server at any time.
To avoid superfluously sending user mapping hints, clients SHOULD
only send this information if it recognizes the server as a
legitimate recipient. Recognition of the server can be done in many
ways. One way to do this could be to recognize the name and address
of the server.
In some cases, the user mapping hint may itself be regarded as
sensitive. In such cases, the double handshake technique described
in [N6] can be used to provide protection for the user mapping hint
information.
6. UPN Domain Hint (Informative)
This specification provides an informative description of one user
mapping hint type for Domain Name hints and User Principal Name
hints. Other hint types may be defined in other documents in the
future.
The User Principal Name (UPN) in this hint type represents a name
that specifies a user's entry in a directory in the form
userName@domainName. Traditionally, Microsoft has relied on the
presence of such a name form to be present in the client certificate
when logging on to a domain account. However, this has several
drawbacks since it prevents the use of certificates with an absent
UPN and also requires re-issuance of certificates or issuance of
multiple certificates to reflect account changes or creation of new
accounts. The TLS extension, in combination with the defined hint
type, provides a significant improvement to this situation as it
allows a single certificate to be mapped to one or more accounts of
the user and does not require the certificate to contain a
proprietary UPN.
The domain_name field MAY be used when only domain information is
needed, e.g., where a user have accounts in multiple domains using
the same username name, where that user name is known from another
source (e.g., from the client certificate). When the user name is
also needed, the user_principal_name field MAY be used to indicate
both username and domain name. If both fields are present, then the
server can make use of whichever one it chooses.
enum {
upn_domain_hint(64), (255)
} UserMappingType;
struct {
opaque user_principal_name<0..2^16-1>;
opaque domain_name<0..2^16-1>;
} UpnDomainHint;
struct {
UserMappingType user_mapping_version;
uint16 user_mapping_length;
select(UserMappingType) {
case upn_domain_hint: UpnDomainHint;
}
} UserMappingData;
The user_principal_name field, when specified, SHALL be of the form
"user@domain", where "user" is a UTF-8 encoded Unicode string that
does not contain the "@" character, and "domain" is a domain name
meeting the requirements in the following paragraph.
The domain_name field, when specified, SHALL contain a domain name
[N5] in the usual text form; in other words, a sequence of one or
more domain labels separated by ".", each domain label starting and
ending with an alphanumeric character and possibly also containing
"-" characters. This field is an "IDN-unaware domain name slot" as
defined in RFC 3490 [N7], and therefore, domain names containing
non-ASCII characters have to be processed as described in RFC 3490
before being stored in this field.
The UpnDomainHint MUST at least contain a non-empty
user_principal_name or a non-empty domain_name. The UpnDomainHint
MAY contain both user_principal_name and domain_name.
7. IANA Considerations
IANA has taken the following actions:
1) Created an entry, user_mapping(6), in the existing registry for
ExtensionType (defined in RFC 4366 [N4]).
2) Created an entry, user_mapping_data(0), in the new registry for
SupplementalDataType (defined in RFC 4680).
3) Established a registry for TLS UserMappingType values. The first
entry in the registry is upn_domain_hint(64). TLS UserMappingType
values in the inclusive range 0-63 (decimal) are assigned via RFC
2434 [N8] Standards Action. Values from the inclusive range
64-223 (decimal) are assigned via RFC 2434 Specification Required.
Values from the inclusive range 224-255 (decimal) are reserved for
RFC 2434 Private Use.
8. Normative References
[N1] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[N2] Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0", RFC
2246, January 1999.
[N3] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", RFC 4346, April 2006.
[N4] Blake-Wilson, S., Nystrom, M., Hopwood, D., Mikkelsen, J., and
T. Wright, "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Extensions", RFC
4366, April 2006.
[N5] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities", STD
13, RFC 1034, November 1987.
[N6] Santesson, S., "TLS Handshake Message for Supplemental Data",
RFC 4680, October 2006.
[N7] Faltstrom, P., Hoffman, P., and A. Costello,
"Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA)", RFC
3490, March 2003.
[N8] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA
Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434, October
1998.
9. Acknowledgements
The authors extend a special thanks to Russ Housley, Eric Resocorla,
and Paul Leach for their substantial contributions.
Authors' Addresses
Stefan Santesson
Microsoft
Finlandsgatan 30
164 93 KISTA
Sweden
EMail: stefans@microsoft.com
Ari Medvinsky
Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
USA
EMail: arimed@microsoft.com
Joshua Ball
Microsoft
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
USA
EMail: joshball@microsoft.com
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ISO Plain Language
On this page
§1Introduction
This document has a normative part and an informative part. Sections 2 to 5 are normative, and section 6 is informative.
The specification defines a TLS extension and a payload for the SupplementalData handshake message, defined in RFC 4680, to accommodate mapping of users to their user accounts when using TLS client authentication as the authentication method.
The new TLS extension, user_mapping, is sent in the client hello message. Per the convention defined in RFC 4366, the server places the same extension in the server hello message to inform the client that the server understands it. If the server does not understand the extension, it responds with a server hello omitting it, and the client proceeds as normal, ignoring the extension and not including the UserMappingDataList data in the TLS handshake.
If the new extension is understood, the client injects UserMappingDataList data in the SupplementalData handshake message prior to the client's Certificate message. The server then parses this message, extracts the client's domain, and stores it in the context for use when mapping the certificate to the user's directory account. No other modifications to the protocol are required.
The extension is an offer and an answer. If the server says no, nothing changes and the handshake looks ordinary. If it says yes, one extra message appears before the client sends its certificate.
§1.2Design Consideration
The reason the mapping data itself is not placed in the extension portion of the client hello is to prevent broadcasting this information to servers that do not understand the extension.
The client hello can be seen by any server it talks to. Putting the account name there would hand it out to servers that have no use for it, so it is sent separately and only after the server has agreed to receive it.
§2The User Mapping Extension
A new extension type, user_mapping(6), is added to the Extension used in both the client hello and server hello messages. The extension_data field of this extension SHALL contain a UserMappingTypeList with a list of supported hint types, where the list is a vector of UserMappingType values of length 1 to 2^8-1.
The list of user_mapping_types included in a client hello SHALL signal the hint types supported by the client. The list included in the server hello SHALL signal the hint types preferred by the server. If none of the hint types listed by the client is supported by the server, the server SHALL omit the user_mapping extension in the server hello. When the user_mapping extension is included in the server hello, the list of hint types in the UserMappingTypeList SHALL be either equal to, or a subset of, the list provided by the client.
The extension carries a list of hint kinds the client understands. The server answers with the ones it prefers, which must be a subset of what the client offered, or it leaves the extension out entirely.
§3The Supplemental Data Structures
The underlying structure of the SupplementalData handshake message, used to carry the information defined in this section, is defined in RFC 4680. A new SupplementalDataType is defined to accommodate communication of generic user mapping data.
The information in this data type carries one or more unauthenticated hints, a UserMappingDataList, inserted by the client side. Upon receipt and successful completion of the TLS handshake, the server MAY use this hint to locate the user's account from which user information and credentials MAY be retrieved to support authentication based on the client certificate.
The SupplementalDataEntry structure holds a supplemental data type, a 16-bit length, and a selection on the type whose only case is user_mapping_data carrying the UserMappingDataList. The user_mapping_data enumeration has the value 0.
The UserMappingData structure contains a user_mapping_version of type UserMappingType, a 16-bit user_mapping_length, and a selection on the type. The user_mapping_length field is the length in bytes of the data selected by UserMappingType. The UserMappingDataList is a vector of UserMappingData structures of length 1 to 2^16-1.
The UserMappingData structure contains a single mapping of type UserMappingType, and it can be leveraged to define new types of user mapping hints in the future. No preference is given to the order in which hints are specified in the vector. If the client sends more than one hint, the server SHOULD use the applicable mapping supported by the server. Implementations MAY support the UPN domain hint, and MAY also support other user mapping types as they are defined. Definitions of standards-track user mapping types must include a discussion of internationalization considerations.
The message holds a list of hints. Each hint starts with a kind number and a length, then the data for that kind. More kinds can be added later without breaking this one.
§4Message Flow
To negotiate sending user mapping data to a server in accordance with this specification, clients MUST include an extension of type user_mapping in the extended client hello, which SHALL contain a list of supported hint types.
Servers that receive an extended client hello containing a user_mapping extension MAY indicate that they are willing to accept user mapping data by including an extension of type user_mapping in the extended server hello, which SHALL contain a list of preferred hint types.
After negotiation of the use of user mapping has been successfully completed by exchanging hello messages including user_mapping extensions, clients MAY send a SupplementalData message containing the UserMappingDataList before the Certificate message.
The server MUST expect and gracefully handle the case where the client chooses not to send any supplementalData handshake message even after successful negotiation of extensions. The client MAY at its own discretion decide that the user mapping hint it initially intended to send is no longer relevant for this session. One such reason could be that the server certificate fails to meet certain requirements.
The client offers, the server accepts, and the client then sends the hint before its certificate. The client is allowed to change its mind and send nothing at all, and the server has to cope with that.
- CLIENTHELLO WITH user_mapping EXTENSIONLists the hint types the client supports.
- SERVERHELLO WITH user_mapping EXTENSIONLists the hint types the server prefers.
- SUPPLEMENTALDATA WITH UserMappingDataListSent before the Certificate message, and only if the server agreed.
- CERTIFICATE
- FINISHED
§5Security Considerations
The user mapping hint sent in the UserMappingDataList is unauthenticated data that MUST NOT be treated as a trusted identifier. Authentication of the user represented by that user mapping hint MUST rely solely on validation of the client certificate. One way to do this is to use the user mapping hint to locate and extract a certificate of the claimed user from the trusted directory and subsequently match this certificate against the validated client certificate from the TLS handshake.
As the client is the initiator of this TLS extension, it needs to determine when it is appropriate to send the user mapping information. It may not be prudent to broadcast a user mapping hint to just any server at any time. To avoid superfluously sending user mapping hints, clients SHOULD only send this information if they recognize the server as a legitimate recipient. Recognition of the server can be done in many ways, for example by recognizing the name and address of the server.
In some cases the user mapping hint may itself be regarded as sensitive. In such cases, the double handshake technique described in RFC 4680 can be used to provide protection for the user mapping hint information.
The hint is a claim, not proof. The server must check the certificate against the directory entry the hint points at, and the client should only send the hint to a server it trusts.
§6The UPN Domain Hint
This section gives an informative description of one user mapping hint type, for Domain Name hints and User Principal Name hints. Other hint types may be defined in other documents in the future.
The User Principal Name in this hint type represents a name that specifies a user's entry in a directory in the form userName@domainName. Traditionally, Microsoft has relied on the presence of such a name form in the client certificate when logging on to a domain account. However, this has several drawbacks, since it prevents the use of certificates with an absent UPN and also requires re-issuance of certificates, or issuance of multiple certificates, to reflect account changes or the creation of new accounts. The TLS extension, in combination with the defined hint type, provides a significant improvement to this situation, as it allows a single certificate to be mapped to one or more accounts of the user and does not require the certificate to contain a proprietary UPN.
The domain_name field MAY be used when only domain information is needed, for example where a user has accounts in multiple domains using the same user name, and where that user name is known from another source such as the client certificate. When the user name is also needed, the user_principal_name field MAY be used to indicate both user name and domain name. If both fields are present, the server can make use of whichever one it chooses.
The hint has the enumeration value upn_domain_hint(64) and carries an opaque user_principal_name of up to 2^16-1 bytes and an opaque domain_name of up to 2^16-1 bytes. The user_principal_name field, when specified, SHALL be of the form user@domain, where user is a UTF-8 encoded Unicode string that does not contain the @ character, and domain is a domain name. The domain_name field, when specified, SHALL contain a domain name in the usual text form, that is a sequence of one or more domain labels separated by dots, each domain label starting and ending with an alphanumeric character and possibly also containing hyphen characters. The field is an IDN-unaware domain name slot as defined in RFC 3490, so domain names containing non-ASCII characters have to be processed as described in RFC 3490 before being stored in it. The UpnDomainHint MUST at least contain a non-empty user_principal_name or a non-empty domain_name, and MAY contain both.
This hint carries the account name in two halves, so the server can be told just the domain when it already knows the user name. One certificate can then stand for several accounts.
enum {
upn_domain_hint(64), (255)
} UserMappingType;
struct {
opaque user_principal_name<0..2^16-1>;
opaque domain_name<0..2^16-1>;
} UpnDomainHint;§7IANA Considerations
IANA has taken three actions. First, it created an entry, user_mapping(6), in the existing registry for ExtensionType defined in RFC 4366. Second, it created an entry, user_mapping_data(0), in the new registry for SupplementalDataType defined in RFC 4680. Third, it established a registry for TLS UserMappingType values, whose first entry is upn_domain_hint(64).
Values in the inclusive range 0 to 63 are assigned via RFC 2434 Standards Action. Values from the inclusive range 64 to 223 are assigned via RFC 2434 Specification Required. Values from the inclusive range 224 to 255 are reserved for RFC 2434 Private Use.
Three registry entries: the extension number, the supplemental data number, and a new range for hint kinds with a set of rules for who may assign them.
- 0-63Standards Action — Assigned via RFC 2434 Standards Action.
- 64upn_domain_hint — The first registered hint type.
- 64-223Specification Required — Assigned via RFC 2434 Specification Required.
- 224-255Private Use — Reserved for RFC 2434 Private Use.