Optimizing BFD Authentication

Authenticating every BFD control packet with MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm , or Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-1) is a computationally intensive process. This makes it difficult, if not impossible to authenticate every packet - particularly at faster rates. Also, the recent escalating series of attacks on MD5 and SHA-1 described in Finding Collisions in the Full SHA-1 and New Collision Search for SHA-1 raise concerns about their remaining useful lifetime as outlined in Updated Security Considerations for the MD5 Message-Digest and the HMAC-MD5 Algorithm and Security Considerations for the SHA-0 and SHA-1 Message-Digest Algorithm . If replaced by stronger algorithms, the computational overhead, will make the task of authenticating every packet even more difficult to achieve. This document proposes that BFD control packets that signal a state change, a demand mode change (to D bit), a poll sequence change (P or F bit change) be categorized as a significant change. Control packets that do not require a poll sequence, such as a change in bfd.RequiredMinRxInterval or bfd.RequiredMinTxInterval, are also considered as a significant change. In other words, the contents of an Up packet MUST NOT change aside from the authentication section without stronger authentication to take advantage of the method described in this document. In the Up state, most packets that are transmitted and received have no state change associated with them. Limiting authentication to packets that affect a BFD session's state allows more sessions to be supported with this optimized method of authentication. Once the session has reached the Up state, the session can choose a less computationally intensive Auth Type. Currently, this includes:

Meticulous Keyed ISAAC authentication as described in . This authentication type prevents the attack when the Up packets do not change, because only the paired devices know the shared secret, key, and sequence number to select the ISAAC result.

When using optimized methods of authentication, BFD sessions should periodically test the session using strong authentication. Strong authentication is tested using a Poll sequence. To test strong authentication, a Poll sequence SHOULD be initiated by the sender using the strong authentication Auth Type rather than the chosen optimized Auth Type. If a control packet with the Final (F) bit is not received within the Detect Interval, the session has been compromised, and should be brought down. The interval for initiating a Poll sequence can be configured depending on the capability of the system. Most packets transmitted on a BFD session are BFD Up packets. Strongly authenticating a small subset of these packets with a Poll sequence as described above, for example every one minute, significantly reduces the computational demand for the system while maintaining security of the session across the configured strong reauthentication interval.

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 BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

This document uses several placeholder values throughout the document. Please replace them as follows and remove this note before publication. RFC XXXX, where XXXX is the number assigned to this document at the time of publication. 2024-07-04 with the actual date of the publication of this document.

The following terms used in this document have been defined in BFD. Auth Type Detect Multiplier Detection Time The following terms are introduced in this document. Term Meaning significant change State change, a demand mode change (to D bit) or a poll sequence change (P or F bit). Control packets that do not require a poll sequence, such as bfd.RequiredMinRxInterval bfd.RequiredMinTxInterval, or bfd.DetectMult are also considered as a significant change. configured strong reauthentication interval Interval at which BFD control packets are retried with a stronger authentication.

The cryptographic authentication mechanisms specified in BFD describes enabling and disabling of authentication as a one time operation. As a security precaution, it mentions that authentication state be allowed to change at most once. Once enabled, every packet must have Authentication Bit set and the associated Authentication Type appended. In addition, it states that an implementation SHOULD NOT allow the authentication state to be changed based on the receipt of a BFD control packet. This document proposes that an authentication mode that permits both a strong authentication mode and a less expensive "optimized" mode to be used within the same BFD session. This pairing of a strong and an optimized mode of authentication is carried in new BFD authentication types representing a given authentication type pairing. The proposal outlines which BFD control packets are required to be strongly authenticated. A BFD control packet that fails authentication is discarded, or a BFD control packet that was supposed to be strongly authenticated, but was not; e.g. a significant change packet, is discarded. However, there is no change to the state machine for BFD, as the decision of a significant change is still decided by how many valid consecutive packets were received. In this proposal, the contents of an Up packet MUST NOT change aside from the authentication section without stronger authentication. The full procedure is documented in the following sections.

When the Authentication Present (A) bit is set and the Auth Type is a type supporting Optimized BFD Authentication (), the Auth Type signals a pairing of a strong authentication type and an optimized authentication type. This pairing is advertised in a single Auth Type value in order to permit implementations to be aware that:

Optimized BFD procedures will be in use.
The pairing of the strong and optimized authentication mechanisms will be used for that session.
The current strong or optimized mode will be carried as described below:

The Meticulous Keyed MD5, Meticulous Keyed SHA-1, and Meticulous Keyed ISAAC authentication sections define the fourth octet as "Reserved". This document repurposes the "Reserved" field as the "Optimized" field when used for authentication types for optimized BFD procedures. The values of the Optimized field are:

When using the strong authentication type for optimized BFD Auth Types.
When using the optimized authentication type for optimized BFD Auth Types.

Authentication Specific Data: When using the strong authentication type, the remainder of the authentication section carries that type's data. For example, for Auth Type "Optimized MD5 Meticulous Keyed ISAAC Authentication" (type TBD): When Optimized is 1, the format of the authentication section is the same as , excepting that Auth Type is still TBD and that Reserved is set to 1. When Optimized is 2, the format of the authentication section is the same as , excepting that Auth Type is still TBD and that Reserved is set to 2.

If the received BFD Control packet contains an optimized authentication type using these procedures and the Optimized field is not 1 or 2, then the received packet MUST be discarded.

As noted in Section 2, when using optimized BFD procedures, strong authentication is used in the BFD state machine to bring a BFD session to the Up state or to make any change of the BFD parameters as carried in the BFD Control packet when in the Up state. Once the BFD session has reached the Up state, the BFD Up state MUST be signaled to the remote BFD system using the strong authentication for at least Detect Mult packets before switching to the optimized authentication mode. This is to permit mechanisms such as Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication to be bootstrapped before switching to optimized authentication. It is RECOMMENDED that when using optimized authentication that implementations switch from strong authentication to optimized authentication after sending at least Detect Mult packets. In the circumstances where a BFD session successfully reaches the Up state with strong authentication, but there are problems with the optimized authentication, this will permit the remote system to tear down the session as quickly as possible. BFD sessions using optimized authentication that succeed in reaching the Up state using strong authentication and fail using the optimized authentication SHOULD bring the issue to the attention of the operator. Further, implementations MAY wish to throttle session restarts. It is further RECOMMENDED that BFD implementations using optimized authentication defer notifying their client that the session has reached the Up state until it has transitioned to using the optimized authentication mode. In the event where optimized authentication is failing in the protocol, this avoids propagating the failed transitions to optimized mode to the clients.

The YANG 1.1 model defined in this document augments the "ietf-bfd" module to add configuration relevant to the management of the feature defined in this document. In particular, it adds crypto algorithms that are described in this model, and in Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication. It adds a feature statement to enable optimized authentication. Finally, it adds a flag to enable optimized authentication, an interval value that specifies how often the BFD session should be re-authenticated once it is in the Up state, and the key chain that should be used in the Up state.

The tree diagram for the YANG modules defined in this document use annotations defined in YANG Tree Diagrams..

This YANG module imports YANG Key Chain , A YANG Data Model for Routing Management (NMDA version), and YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD). Implementations supporting the optimization procedures defined in this document enable optimization by using one of the newly defined key-chain crypto-algorithms defined in this YANG module.

file "ietf-bfd-opt-auth@2024-07-04.yang" module ietf-bfd-opt-auth { yang-version 1.1; namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:ietf-bfd-opt-auth"; prefix "bfdoa"; import ietf-routing { prefix "rt"; reference "RFC 8349: A YANG Data Model for Routing Management (NMDA version)"; } import ietf-bfd { prefix bfd; reference "RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection."; } import ietf-bfd-ip-sh { prefix bfd-ip-sh; reference "RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection."; } import ietf-bfd-ip-mh { prefix bfd-ip-mh; reference "RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection."; } import ietf-bfd-lag { prefix bfd-lag; reference "RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection."; } import ietf-bfd-mpls { prefix bfd-mpls; reference "RFC 9314: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding Detection."; } import ietf-key-chain { prefix key-chain; reference "RFC 8177: YANG Key Chain."; } organization "IETF BFD Working Group"; contact "WG Web: WG List: Authors: Mahesh Jethanandani (mjethanandani@gmail.com) Ashesh Mishra (mishra.ashesh@gmail.com) Ankur Saxena (ankurpsaxena@gmail.com) Manav Bhatia (mnvbhatia@google.com)."; description "This YANG module augments the base BFD YANG model to add attributes related to BFD Optimized Authentication. Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as authors of the code. All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to the license terms contained in, the Revised BSD License set forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info). This version of this YANG module is part of RFC XXXX (https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfcXXXX); see the RFC itself for full legal notices. The key words 'MUST', 'MUST NOT', 'REQUIRED', 'SHALL', 'SHALL NOT', 'SHOULD', 'SHOULD NOT', 'RECOMMENDED', 'NOT RECOMMENDED', 'MAY', and 'OPTIONAL' in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 (RFC 2119) (RFC 8174) when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here."; revision "2024-07-04" { description "Initial Version."; reference "RFC XXXX: Optimizing BFD Authentication."; } feature optimized-auth { description "When enabled, this implementation supports optimized authentication as described in this document."; } identity optimized-md5-meticulous-keyed-isaac { base key-chain:crypto-algorithm; description "BFD Optimized Authentication using Meticulous Keyed MD5 as the strong authentication and Meticulous Keyed ISAAC Keyed as the 'optimized' authentication."; reference "I-D.ietf-bfd-optimizing-authentication: Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication. I-D.ietf-bfd-secure-sequence-numbers: Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication."; } identity optimized-sha1-meticulous-keyed-isaac { base key-chain:crypto-algorithm; description "BFD Optimized Authentication using Meticulous Keyed SHA-1 as the strong authentication and Meticulous Keyed ISAAC Keyed as the 'optimized' authentication."; reference "I-D.ietf-bfd-optimizing-authentication: Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication. I-D.ietf-bfd-secure-sequence-numbers: Meticulous Keyed ISAAC for BFD Authentication."; } grouping bfd-opt-auth-config { description "Grouping for BFD Optimized Authentication Parameters."; leaf reauth-interval { type uint32; units "seconds"; default "60"; description "Interval of time after which strong authentication should be utilized to prevent an on-path-attacker attack. Default is 1 minute. A value of zero means that we do not do periodic re-authorization using strong authentication. This value SHOULD have jitter applied to it to avoid self-synchronization during expensive authentication operations."; } } augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols" + "/rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-sh:ip-sh" + "/bfd-ip-sh:sessions/bfd-ip-sh:session" + "/bfd-ip-sh:authentication" { uses bfd-opt-auth-config; description "Augment the 'authentication' container in BFD module to add attributes related to BFD optimized authentication."; } augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" + "rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-ip-mh:ip-mh/" + "bfd-ip-mh:session-groups/bfd-ip-mh:session-group/" + "bfd-ip-mh:authentication" { uses bfd-opt-auth-config; description "Augment the 'authentication' container in BFD module to add attributes related to BFD optimized authentication."; } augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" + "rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-lag:lag/" + "bfd-lag:sessions/bfd-lag:session/" + "bfd-lag:authentication" { uses bfd-opt-auth-config; description "Augment the 'authentication' container in BFD module to add attributes related to BFD optimized authentication."; } augment "/rt:routing/rt:control-plane-protocols/" + "rt:control-plane-protocol/bfd:bfd/bfd-mpls:mpls/" + "bfd-mpls:session-groups/bfd-mpls:session-group/" + "bfd-mpls:authentication" { uses bfd-opt-auth-config; description "Augment the 'authentication' container in BFD module to add attributes related to BFD optimized authentication."; } }

]]>



    
      
	This documents requests two new authentication types, one URI,
	one YANG model, and an update to an existing IANA YANG model.
      
      
	
	  This document requests an update to the registry titled "BFD
	  Authentication Types". IANA is requested to assign two new
	  BFD AuthType:
	  
	    
	      
	      Optimized MD5 Meticulous Keyed ISAAC Authentication,
	      with a suggested value of 7.
	    
	    
	      
	      Optimized SHA-1 Meticulous Keyed ISAAC Authentication,
	      with a suggested value of 8.
	    
	  
	
      
      
	
	  This document registers one URIs in the "ns" subregistry of
	  the "IETF XML" registry . Following
	  the format in , the following
	  registration is requested:
	
        
	  
            
	      
	    
          
	
      
      
        
	  This document registers one YANG modules in the "YANG Module
	  Names" registry . Following the
	  format in , the following
	  registrations are requested:
	
        
	  
	    
	      
	    
          
	
      
      
	
	  This document also requests an update to an existing IANA
	  YANG module described in Updated BFD IANA
	  Module
	
      
    

    
      
	The YANG module specified in this document defines a schema
	for data that is designed to be accessed via network
	management protocols such as NETCONF or RESTCONF. The lowest NETCONF layer is
	the secure transport layer, and the mandatory-to-implement
	secure transport is Secure Shell
	(SSH). The lowest RESTCONF layer is HTTPS, and the
	mandatory-to-implement secure transport is TLS. The NETCONF Access Control Model (NACM) 
	provides the means to restrict access for particular NETCONF
	or RESTCONF users to a preconfigured subset of all available
	NETCONF or RESTCONF protocol operations and content.
      

      
	There are a number of data nodes defined in this YANG module
	that are writable/creatable/deletable (i.e., config true,
	which is the default).  These data nodes may be considered
	sensitive or vulnerable in some network environments. Write
	operations (e.g., edit-config) to these data nodes without
	proper protection can have a negative effect on network
	operations. Some of the subtrees and data nodes and their
	sensitivity/vulnerability are described here.
      

      
	
	  'reauth-interval' specifies the interval in Up state, after
	  which a strong authentication SHOULD be performed to prevent
	  a Person-In-The-Middle (PITM) attack. If this interval is
	  set very low, the utility of these optimization procedures is
	  lessened. If this interval is set very high, attacks detected
	  by the strong authentication mechanisms may happen overly
	  late.
	
      

      
	Some of the readable data nodes in this YANG module may be
	considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network
	environments. It is thus important to control read access
	(e.g., via get, get-config, or notification) to these data
	nodes.
      

      
	There are no read-only data nodes defined in this model.
      

      
	Some of the RPC operations in this YANG module may be
	considered sensitive or vulnerable in some network
	environments. It is thus important to control access to these
	operations.
      

      
	There are no RPC operations defined in this model.
      

      
	The approach described in this document enhances the ability
	to authenticate a BFD session by taking away the onerous
	requirement that every BFD control packet be authenticated. By
	authenticating packets that affect the state of the session,
	the security of the BFD session is maintained. In this mode,
	packets that are a significant change but are not
	authenticated, are dropped by the system. Therefore, a
	malicious user that tries to inject a non-authenticated
	packet; e.g. with a Down state to take a session down will
	fail. That combined with the proposal of using sequence number
	defined in Meticulous Keyed
	ISAAC for BFD Authentication further enhances the
	security of BFD sessions.
      
    

    
      
	The authors of this document would like to acknowledge Reshad
	Rahman as a contributor to this document.



  
    
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
    

    
      
        
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	This section carries the updated IANA BFD Module,
	iana-bfd-types.yang module, first defined in YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forward
	Detection (BFD). The updated module carries three new
	authentication type enum definitions, 'null' with a suggested
	value of 6, and 'optimized-md5-meticulous-keyed-isaac' with a
	suggested value of 7, and
	'optimized-sha1-meticulous-keyed-isaac' with a suggested value
	of 8. Note, the null enum type is used by BFD Stability only, but
	is being defined here to make sure changes to this YANG module
	do not cause a conflict. This module should replace the
	version that currently exists in the IANA registry.
      
	
          
             file "iana-bfd-types@2024-07-04.yang"
module iana-bfd-types {
  yang-version 1.1;
  namespace "urn:ietf:params:xml:ns:yang:iana-bfd-types";
  prefix iana-bfd-types;

  organization
    "IANA";
  contact
    "Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

     Postal: ICANN
             12025 Waterfront Drive, Suite 300
             Los Angeles, CA 90094-2536
             United States of America
     Tel:    +1 310 301 5800
     ";
  description
    "This module defines YANG data types for IANA-registered
     BFD parameters.

     This YANG module is maintained by IANA and reflects the
     'BFD Diagnostic Codes' and 'BFD Authentication Types'
     registries.

     Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as
     authors of the code.  All rights reserved.

     Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
     without modification, is permitted pursuant to, and subject to
     the license terms contained in, the Simplified BSD License set
     forth in Section 4.c of the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions
     Relating to IETF Documents
     (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info).

     This version of this YANG module is part of RFC 9127; see the
     RFC itself for full legal notices.";
  reference
    "RFC 9127: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding
     Detection (BFD)";

  revision 2024-07-04 {
    description
      "Add NULL and Meticulous ISAAC authentication type.";
    reference
      "I-D.ietf-bfd-optimizing-authentication:
           Optimizing BFD Authentication,
       I-D.ietf-bfd-stability: BFD Stability.";
  }

  revision 2021-10-21 {
    description
      "Initial revision.";
    reference
      "RFC 9127: YANG Data Model for Bidirectional Forwarding
       Detection (BFD)";
  }

  /*
   * Type definitions
   */

  typedef diagnostic {
    type enumeration {
      enum none {
        value 0;
        description
          "No Diagnostic.";
      }
      enum control-expiry {
        value 1;
        description
          "Control Detection Time Expired.";
      }
      enum echo-failed {
        value 2;
        description
          "Echo Function Failed.";
      }
      enum neighbor-down {
        value 3;
        description
          "Neighbor Signaled Session Down.";
      }
      enum forwarding-reset {
        value 4;
        description
          "Forwarding Plane Reset.";
      }
      enum path-down {
        value 5;
        description
          "Path Down.";
      }
      enum concatenated-path-down {
        value 6;
        description
          "Concatenated Path Down.";
      }
      enum admin-down {
        value 7;
        description
          "Administratively Down.";
      }
      enum reverse-concatenated-path-down {
        value 8;
        description
          "Reverse Concatenated Path Down.";
      }
      enum mis-connectivity-defect {
        value 9;
        description
          "Mis-connectivity defect.";
        reference
          "RFC 5880: Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)
           RFC 6428: Proactive Connectivity Verification, Continuity
           Check, and Remote Defect Indication for the MPLS
           Transport Profile";
      }
    }
    description
      "BFD diagnostic codes as defined in RFC 5880.  Values are
       maintained in the 'BFD Diagnostic Codes' IANA registry.
       Range is 0 to 31.";
    reference
      "RFC 5880: Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)";
  }

  typedef auth-type {
    type enumeration {
      enum reserved {
        value 0;
        description
          "Reserved.";
      }
      enum simple-password {
        value 1;
        description
          "Simple Password.";
      }
      enum keyed-md5 {
        value 2;
        description
          "Keyed MD5.";
      }
      enum meticulous-keyed-md5 {
        value 3;
        description
          "Meticulous Keyed MD5.";
      }
      enum keyed-sha1 {
        value 4;
        description
          "Keyed SHA1.";
      }
      enum meticulous-keyed-sha1 {
        value 5;
        description
          "Meticulous Keyed SHA1.";
      }
      enum null {
        value 6;
        description
          "NULL Auth. Used for stability measurement.";
      }
      enum optimized-md5-meticulous-keyed-isaac {
        value 7;
        description
          "BFD Optimized Authentication using Meticulous Keyed
           MD5 as the strong authentication and Meticulous Keyed
           ISAAC as the 'optimized' authentication.";
      }
      enum optimized-sha1-meticulous-keyed-isaac {
        value 8;
        description
          "BFD Optimized Authentication using Meticulous Keyed
           SHA-1 as the strong authentication and Meticulous Keyed
           ISAAC as the 'optimized' authentication.";
      }
    }
    description
      "BFD authentication type as defined in RFC 5880.  Values are
       maintained in the 'BFD Authentication Types' IANA registry.
       Range is 0 to 255.";
    reference
      "RFC 5880: Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD),
       I-D.ietf-bfd-optimizing-authentication:
           Optimizing BFD Authentication,
       I-D.ietf-bfd-stability: BFD Stability.";
  }
}
	    
            ]]>
            
          

	
    

    
      
	This section tries to show some examples in how the model can
	be configured.
      
      
	
          This example demonstrates how a Single Hop BFD session can
          be configured for optimized authentication.
	
	
          
            

  
    bfd-auth-config
    "An example for BFD Optimized Auth configuration."\

    
      55
      
        
          2017-01-01T00:00:00Z
          2017-02-01T00:00:00Z
        
        
          2016-12-31T23:59:55Z
          2017-02-01T00:00:05Z
        
      
      opt-auth:opti\
mized-sha1-meticulous-keyed-isaac
      
        testvector
      
    
  


  
    eth0
    if-type:ethernetCsmacd
  


  
    
      bfd-types:bfdv1
      name:BFD
      
        
          
            
              eth0
              2001:db8:0:113::101
              10000
              
                10000
              
              
                bfd-auth-config
                30
              
            
          
        
      
    
  

            ]]>