Network Working Group S. Glass
Request for Comments: 3543 Sun Microsystems
Category: Standards Track M. Chandra
Cisco Systems
August 2003
Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4
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 (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document defines a Mobile IPv4 Registration Revocation mechanism
whereby a mobility agent involved in providing Mobile IP services to
a mobile node can notify the other mobility agent providing Mobile IP
services to the same mobile node of the termination of this
registration. The mechanism is also usable by a home agent to notify
a co-located mobile node of the termination of its binding as well.
Moreover, the mechanism provides for this notification to be
acknowledged. A signaling mechanism already defined by the Mobile
IPv4 protocol is leveraged as a way to inform a mobile node of the
revocation of its binding.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Applicability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Registration Revocation Extensions and Messages. . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Advertising Registration Revocation Support. . . . . . . 5
3.2. Revocation Support Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3. Registration Revocation Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4. Registration Revocation Acknowledgment Message . . . . . 11
3.5. Replay Protection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. Registration Revocation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. Mobile Node Notification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2. Registration Revocation Mechanism - Agent Notification . 17
4.2.1. Negotiating Revocation Support . . . . . . . . . 17
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 1]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
4.2.2. Home Domain Revoking a Registration. . . . . . . 19
4.2.2.1. Home Agent Responsibilities. . . . . . 19
4.2.2.2. Foreign Agent Responsibilities . . . . 20
4.2.2.3. 'Direct' Co-located Mobile Node
Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.2.3. Foreign Domain Revoking a Registration . . . . . 21
4.2.3.1. Foreign Agent Responsibilities . . . . 21
4.2.3.2. Home Agent Responsibilities. . . . . . 22
4.2.4. Mobile Node Deregistering a Registration . . . . 23
4.3. Mobile IP Registration Bits in the Revocation Process. . 23
4.3.1. The 'R' Bit in Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.3.2. The 'D' Bit in Use (co-located mobile nodes) . . 23
5. Error Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6. Security Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.1. Agent Advertisements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
6.2. Revocation Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7. IANA Considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.1. New Message Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.2. New Extension Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
7.3. New Error Codes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8.1. Normative (Numerical References) . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
8.2. Informational (Alphabetical References). . . . . . . . . 28
Appendix A An Example of the New Messages in Use. . . . . . . . . 29
A.1. The Registration Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.2. The Revocation Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Appendix B Disparate Address, and Receiver Considerations . . . . 30
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1. Introduction and Applicability
Mobile IP [1] defines registration of a mobile node's location to
provide connectivity between the mobile node and its home domain,
facilitating communication between mobile nodes and any correspondent
node. At any time, either the home or foreign agent may wish to
cease servicing a mobile node, or for administrative reasons may no
longer be required to service a mobile node.
This document defines a general registration revocation mechanism for
Mobile IPv4, whereby a mobility agent can notify another mobility
agent (or a 'direct' co-located mobile node) of the termination of
mobility bindings. A mobility agent that receives a revocation
notification no longer has to provide services to the mobile node
whose registration has been revoked. A signaling mechanism already
defined by the Mobile IPv4 protocol [1] is leveraged as a way to
inform a mobile node of the revocation of its binding.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 2]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
The registration revocation protocol provides the following
advantages:
1. Timely release of Mobile IP resources. Resources being consumed
to provide Mobile IP services for a mobile node that has stopped
receiving Mobile IP services by one agent, can be reclaimed by the
other agent in a more timely fashion than if it had to wait for
the binding to expire. This also applies to the case in which a
mobile node roams away from a foreign agent to another foreign
agent. Notification to the previous foreign agent would allow it
to reclaim resources.
2. Accurate accounting. This has a favorable impact on resolving
accounting issues with respect to the length of mobility bindings
in both domains, as the actual end of the registration is relayed.
3. Earlier adoption of domain policy changes with regards to services
offered/required of a Mobile IP binding. For example, the home
domain may now require reverse tunnels [C], yet there are existing
bindings that do not use them. Without a revocation mechanism,
new services can only be put in place or removed as bindings are
re-registered.
4. Timely notification to a mobile node that it is no longer
receiving mobility services, thereby significantly shortening any
'black-hole' periods to facilitate a more robust recovery.
The revocation protocol is an active, yet unobtrusive mechanism
allowing more timely communication between the three Mobile IP
entities in the various administrative domains. Since many mobile
nodes may not understand the concept of revocation, care has been
taken to ensure backwards compatibility with [1].
The registration revocation protocol does not replace the methods
described in [1] for Mobile IP deregistration, as the purpose of
these mechanisms is fundamentally different. Deregistration messages
are used by a mobile node to inform its home agent that it has e.g.,
roamed back to its home subnet, whereas revocation messages are used
between mobility agents to signal the termination of mobility
bindings. More specifically, the revocation message defined here is
NOT for use by 'direct' co-located mobile nodes that are terminating
their registration as deregistration messages are already sufficient
for this purpose. A 'direct' co-located mobile node, however, may
wish to process revocation messages as it is a useful mechanism to
trigger the re-negotiation of required services from the home domain.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 3]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
2. Terminology
It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the terminology used
in [1]. In addition, the following terms are defined:
'Direct' Co-located Mobile Node
A mobile node registering directly with its home agent, with the
'D' bit set in its registration request, and NOT registering
through a foreign agent.
Mobile IP Resources
Various functional elements allocated by a mobility agent to
support a Mobile IP binding, e.g., memory.
Mobile IP Services
Various responsibilities of a mobility agent in supporting a
mobile node as defined in [1], e.g., encapsulation of packets
addressed to a mobile node by a home agent, decapsulation of these
packets by a foreign agent for delivery to a mobile node, etc.
Mobility Agent
The home agent or foreign agent as specified in [1].
Revocation
Premature termination of a mobility binding.
The keywords "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, RFC 2119 [3].
3. Registration Revocation Extensions and Messages
Registration revocation in Mobile IPv4 is accomplished via the
following:
- Advertising Registration Revocation Support (Section 3.1.):
o A flag in the Agent Advertisement extension has been reserved
for agents to advertise their support of revocation messages.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 4]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
- Revocation Support Extension (Section 3.2.):
o This extension is appended to a registration request or
registration reply by a mobility agent to indicate its support
of registration revocation.
o This extension is appended to a registration request by a
'direct' co-located mobile node to indicate its understanding
of revocation messages.
- Registration Revocation Message (Section 3.3.):
o A message sent by a mobility agent to inform another mobility
agent, or a 'direct' co-located mobile node, that it has
revoked the binding of a mobile node.
- Registration Revocation Acknowledgment Message (Section 3.4.):
o A message sent by mobility agents or 'direct' co-located mobile
nodes to indicate the receipt of a revocation message.
Security considerations related to the above messages and extensions
are covered in Section 6.
3.1. Advertising Registration Revocation Support
Mobility agents can advertise their support of registration
revocation with a modification to the Mobility Agent Advertisement
extension described in [1]. An 'X' bit is introduced to indicate an
agent's support for Registration Revocation.
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length | Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Registration Lifetime |R|B|H|F|M|G|r|T|U|X| reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| zero or more Care-of Addresses |
| ... |
X The mobility agent supports Registration Revocation
A foreign agent that sets the 'X' bit in an agent advertisement
extension MUST support registration revocation messages on that link,
specifically the Revocation Support Extension (section 3.2.),
Revocation Messages (section 3.3.), and Revocation Acknowledgment
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 5]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
(section 3.4.). It is not required that all agents advertising on
the same link support registration revocation, nor is it required
that an agent advertise this support on all of its links.
Note that using this information, a mobile node can select a foreign
agent that supports Registration Revocation. Should a mobile node
not understand this bit, it simply ignores it as per [1].
As a bit in the agent advertisement, use of the 'X' bit has no impact
on other messages, such as e.g., Challenge-Response [2].
3.2. Revocation Support Extension
The Mobile IP revocation support extension indicates support of
registration revocation, and so MUST be attached to a registration
request or registration reply by any entity that wants to receive
revocation messages. Normally, this is either a foreign agent, or a
home agent. However a 'direct' co-located mobile node MAY also
include a revocation support extension in its registration request.
A mobile node which is not co-located MUST NOT include a Revocation
Support Extension in its registration.
A foreign agent advertising the 'X' bit on the link on which the
registration request was received, and that has a security
relationship with the home agent identified in the same registration
request, MUST attach a revocation support extension to the forwarded
registration request. A home agent that receives a registration
request that does not contain a revocation extension SHOULD NOT
include a revocation support extension in the associated registration
reply.
The format of the revocation support extension is based on the Type-
Length-Value Extension Format given in [1] and is defined as follows:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
| Type | Length |I| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
| Timestamp |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Type 137
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 6]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Length
Length (in bytes, currently 6). Does NOT include Type
and Length fields (in accordance with section 1.9. of
[1]). This allows for a longer extension length should
more bits be required in the future.
Timestamp
Current 4-byte timestamp of the mobility agent or
'direct' co-located mobile node. This is used to
identify the ordering of registrations as they are
forwarded, how they relate to the sending of any
revocation messages, and to identify the approximate
offset between the clocks of the mobility agents
providing support for this binding, or between a 'direct'
co-located mobile node and its home agent.
'I' Bit
This bit is set to '1' by a mobility agent to indicate it
supports the use of the 'I' bit in revocation messages
(section 3.3.)
When sent by a foreign agent in a registration request:
If set to 1, the FA is willing to have the home agent use
the 'I' bit in the revocation process to determine
whether the mobile node should be informed of the
revocation or not.
If set to 0, indicates to the home agent that the foreign
agent will follow its own policy with regards to
informing the mobile node in the event of a revocation.
When sent by a home agent in response to a revocation
extension in which the 'I' bit was set to '1':
If set to 1, the home agent agrees to use the 'I' bit in
the revocation process to indicate to the foreign agent
whether or not the mobile node should be informed.
If set to 0, the home agent will not use the 'I' bit in
the revocation process, thereby yielding to the foreign
agent's default behavior with regard to informing the
mobile node.
To preserve the robustness of the protocol, the
recommended default behavior for a foreign agent is to
inform the mobile node of its revocation as described in
Section 4.1.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 7]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Reserved
Reserved for future use. MUST be set to 0 on sending,
MUST be ignored on receiving.
When appearing in a registration request, or registration reply, the
Mobile IP revocation support extension MUST be protected either by a
foreign-home authentication extension, a mobile-home authentication
extension, or any other equivalent mechanism [1], e.g., via AAA [A],
[B], or perhaps IPsec. If the extension appearing in either of these
registration messages is NOT protected, the appropriate action as
described by [1] (Sections 3.8.2.1. and Sections 3.7.3.1.) MUST be
taken.
Support of the 'I' bit is OPTIONAL. If a mobility agent does not
support the specified functionality, it MUST set the 'I' bit to zero.
Note that the home agent setting the 'I' bit to '1' in response to a
revocation extension from the foreign agent in which the 'I' bit was
set to '0' is undefined, and SHOULD NOT be done.
'I' bit support has been negotiated when both agents have set the 'I'
bit to '1' in their revocation support extensions.
It is important to note that this extension is skippable (i.e., if
the receiving mobility agent does not understand this extension, it
MUST skip it, and continue processing the remainder of the
registration request).
3.3. Registration Revocation Messages
A revocation message is sent by a mobility agent to inform another
mobility agent, or a 'direct' co-located mobile node, that it is
revoking the binding of a mobile node.
IP Fields:
Source Address In the case of the home agent issuing the
registration revocation, the address
registered with the care-of address as that
of the home agent (that is the address
identified as the home address of this
binding).
In the case of the foreign agent issuing the
registration revocation, the address
registered with the home agent as the care-of
address.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 8]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Destination Address In the case of the home agent issuing the
registration revocation, the source address
of the last approved registration request for
this binding, i.e., the destination address
of the last registration reply indicating
success for this binding.
In the case of the foreign agent issuing the
registration revocation, the address
registered as that of the home agent by the
mobile node whose registration is being
revoked.
UDP Fields:
Source Port variable
Destination Port 434
The UDP header is followed by the Mobile IP fields shown below:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Reserved |A|I| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Home Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Home Domain Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Foreign Domain Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Revocation Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Extensions...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
| Authenticator...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Type 7
Reserved MUST be sent as 0, ignored when received.
A Agent bit ('direction' bit).
This bit identifies the role of the agent sending the
revocation, that is the 'direction' of the revocation
message. This is useful for detecting reflection
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 9]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
attacks, particularly when symmetric keying is being
used.
Set to '0' if the revoking agent is servicing this
binding as a foreign agent.
Set to '1' if the revoking agent is servicing this
binding as a home agent.
I Inform bit.
This bit MUST NOT be set to '1' unless 'I' bit support
was negotiated in the revocation extension messages
passed in the registration process, otherwise the results
can be unpredictable.
When sent by the home agent to a foreign agent:
Set to '0' to request that the mobile node SHOULD NOT be
informed of the revocation, or because the use of the 'I'
bit was not agreed upon.
Set to '1' to request that the mobile node be informed of
the revocation.
When sending a revocation message to a 'direct' co-
located mobile node, this bit is essentially irrelevant,
but SHOULD be set to '1'.
When sent by the foreign agent:
Set to '0' to indicate that the foreign agent is using
foreign domain policy as to whether or not the mobile
node should be informed of the revocation, or because 'I'
bit support was not agreed upon.
Set to '1' to ask the home agent if the mobile node
should be informed of the revocation.
Reserved
MUST be sent as 0, ignored when received.
Home Address
The home IP address of the mobile node whose registration
is being revoked.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 10]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Foreign Domain Address
The relevant IP address in the foreign domain to identify
which binding is being revoked. This is one of the
following: (i) the foreign agent's IP address, or (ii)
the co-located care-of address.
Home Domain Address
The IP address of the home agent to identify which
binding is being revoked.
Revocation Identifier
Protects against replay attacks. The revoking agent MUST
insert its current 4-byte timestamp running off the same
clock as it is using to fill in the timestamp in its
revocation extensions. See section 3.5.
A registration revocation message MUST be protected by either a valid
authenticator as specified in [1], namely a home-foreign
authenticator, if the communication is between home and foreign
agents, or a mobile-home authenticator if the communication is being
sent from a home agent to a 'direct' co-located mobile node, or
another security mechanism at least as secure, and agreed upon by the
home and foreign domains, e.g., IPsec. If any agent, or 'direct'
co-located mobile node, receives a registration revocation message
that does not contain a valid authenticator, and is not adequately
protected, the revocation message MUST be ignored, and silently
discarded.
A revocation message MUST NOT be sent for any registration that has
expired, and MAY only be sent prior to the expiration of a mobile
node's registration. Note, however, due to the nature of datagram
delivery, this does not guarantee these messages will arrive before
the natural expiration of any binding.
An agent MUST NOT send more than one revocation message or
registration message per second for the same binding. Note that this
updates [1] by including revocation messages in the rate limit
specified in [1], i.e., that an agent MUST NOT send more than one
registration message per second for the same binding.
An example of the use of revocation messages is given in Appendix A.
3.4. Registration Revocation Acknowledgment Message
A revocation acknowledgment message is sent by mobility agents or
'direct' co-located mobile nodes to indicate the successful receipt
of a revocation message.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 11]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
IP fields:
Source Address Copied from the destination address of the
received registration revocation message for
which this registration revocation
acknowledgment message is being generated.
Destination Address Copied from the source address of the
received registration revocation message for
which this registration revocation
acknowledgment message is being generated.
UDP fields:
Source Port 434 (copied from the destination port of the
revocation message).
Destination Port Copied from the source port of the revocation
message.
The UDP header is followed by the Mobile IP fields shown below:
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
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Reserved |I| Reserved |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Home Address |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Revocation Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Extensions...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
| Authenticator...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
Type 15
Reserved
MUST be sent as 0, ignored when received.
I Inform bit.
The 'I' bit MUST NOT be set to '1' in the revocation
acknowledgment messages unless it was set to '1' in the
revocation message. If an agent receives a revocation
acknowledgment message in which the 'I' bit is set to
'1', but for which the revocation message being
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 12]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
acknowledged had the 'I' bit set to '0', the 'I' bit in
the revocation acknowledgment message MUST be ignored.
When sent by the home agent:
Set to '1' by the home agent to request the foreign agent
inform the mobile node of the revocation.
Set to '0' by the home agent to request the foreign agent
not inform the mobile node of the revocation.
When sent by a foreign agent:
Set to '1' to indicate to the home agent that the mobile
node was informed.
Set to '0' to indicate to the home agent that the foreign
agent used local policy to determine whether or not the
mobile node should be informed. For purposes of protocol
robustness, it is highly recommended that such a default
be set for the foreign agent to inform the mobile node of
the revocation.
Reserved
MUST be sent as 0, ignored when received.
Home Address
The home address copied from the revocation message for
which this acknowledgment is being sent.
Revocation Identifier
Copied from the Revocation Identifier of the revocation
message for which this acknowledgment is being sent. See
Section 3.5.
A registration revocation acknowledgment message MUST be sent in
response to a valid and authenticated registration revocation
message.
A registration acknowledgment message MUST be protected by either a
valid authenticator as specified in [1], namely a home-foreign
authenticator if the communication is between home and foreign
agents, or a mobile-home authenticator if the communication is
between home agent and 'direct' co-located mobile node, or another
security mechanism at least as secure and agreed upon by the home and
foreign domains, e.g., IPsec.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 13]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
An example of the use of Revocation Acknowledgment Messages is given
in Appendix A.
3.5. Replay Protection
As registration revocation messages are designed to terminate service
for a mobile node, or multiple mobile nodes simultaneously, replay
protection is crucial to prevent denial of service attacks by
"malicious repeaters" - those who store datagrams with the intent of
replaying them at a later time, or by "malicious reflectors" - those
who reflect packets back at their original source (both a form of
"active" attack). See Section 6. for a discussion of these security
considerations.
All Revocation Messages and Revocation Acknowledgment Messages MUST
be authenticated as well be replay-protected. The order in which
they are done, however, is up to implementation.
Replay protection is handled with a simple timestamp mechanism, using
a single 32-bit identifier field in the registration revocation
message, in conjunction with the home address field, to associate any
revocation acknowledgment messages with its revocation messages. To
do this:
- The revoking agent sets the 'A' bit to its agent-type, and the
Revocation Identifier field in the registration revocation message
to a valid 32-bit timestamp from the same clock it is using to set
the timestamp field of its revocation extensions included in
registration messages.
- Upon receipt of an authenticated revocation message, the receiving
agent (or 'direct' co-located mobile node) MUST check the value of
the 'A' bit, and Revocation Identifier to make sure this
revocation message is not a replay of an old revocation message
received from the same agent. The receiving agent MUST also check
that the message is not a reflection of a revocation message it
sent in relation to the identified binding. If the 'A' bit and
Identifier field imply this packet is a replay, the revocation
message MUST be silently discarded.
- When building a revocation acknowledgment message, the
acknowledging agent (or 'direct' co-located mobile node) copies
the values of the Home Address and Revocation Identifier fields
from the revocation message into the Home Address and the
Revocation Identifier of the revocation acknowledgment message.
This is so the revoking agent can match this revocation
acknowledgment to its corresponding revocation message.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 14]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
- Upon receiving a valid revocation acknowledgment, the revoking
agent MUST check the Home Address and Identifier fields to make
sure they match those fields from a corresponding revocation
message it sent to the acknowledging agent. If not, this
revocation acknowledgment message MUST be silently discarded.
Note that since the Identifier in an incoming revocation message is a
32-bit timestamp, it is possible for an agent to check the validity
of the Identifier fields without having to remember all identifiers
sent by that corresponding agent.
Note: as it is possible for a mobile node to register at different
times with different home agents, and at different times with
different foreign agents, it is crucial that it not be required that
the Identifier fields be unique in messages from different agents as
there is no guarantee that clocks on different agents will be
synchronized. For example, if a mobile node has simultaneous
bindings with multiple foreign agents, and if revocation messages are
received by more than one such foreign agent "simultaneously", it is
possible the revocation message from one of these foreign agents may
contain Identifier fields that happen to match those of any or all
the other foreign agents. This MUST NOT result in any of these
revocation messages being ignored.
4. Registration Revocation Overview
Registration Revocation consists of two distinct pieces: a signaling
mechanism between tunnel endpoints, and a signaling mechanism between
foreign agent and mobile node. A 'direct' co-located mobile node MAY
implement revocation extensions and revocation acknowledgment in
order to receive and respond to revocation messages from its home
agent, however, a 'direct' co-located mobile node MUST NOT send a
revocation message as de-registration messages defined in [1] are
sufficient for this purpose.
For further discussion on security issues related to registration
revocation, refer to Section 6.
4.1. Mobile Node Notification
A mechanism which provides a foreign agent a way to actively notify a
mobile node that its binding has been reset already exists in [1],
though it has been overlooked for this purpose.
A brief overview of the mechanics of the sequence number in agent
advertisement from [1] is given so that the mechanism by which the
foreign agent 'implies' to the mobile node that its binding is no
longer active is clearly understood.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 15]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
When a foreign agent begins sending agent advertisements, it starts
with a sequence number of 0, and [monotonically] increments the
sequence number with each subsequent agent advertisement. In order
for a mobile node to be able to distinguish between a foreign agent
that has simply exhausted the sequence number space from one which
has been reset, when the agent increments the sequence number counter
past its maximum value, it sets the sequence number to 256 instead of
rolling to 0 [1]. In this way, a mobile node would have to miss, at
that time, 256 advertisements in a row to mistake a reset as a roll-
over. Moreover, the lifetimes contained within an agent
advertisement should be set in such a way that when a mobile node
believes it has missed 3 beacons, the entry for this foreign agent
should time out, and if the mobile node is registered there, it
should send an agent solicitation [1]. If, however, an agent is
somehow reset, it will begin advertising with a sequence number of 0,
and the mobile node can presume this foreign agent has lost its
binding, and the mobile node SHOULD re-register to make sure it is
still obtaining Mobile IP services through this foreign agent.
Leveraging this mechanism, a foreign agent may consciously notify all
mobile nodes currently bound to it that it has "reset" all of their
bindings, even if the agent itself has not been reset, by simply
[re]setting the sequence number of the next agent advertisement to 0.
Moreover, a foreign agent may inform all mobile nodes currently bound
to it that they should re-register with a different foreign agent by
simultaneously setting the 'B' bit in the advertisement to 1,
indicating this foreign agent is busy and is not accepting new
registrations [1]. In these situations, any mobile node in
compliance with [1] will presume this foreign agent has lost its
binding, and must re-register if they wish to re-establish Mobile IP
functionality with their home subnet.
To indicate to any registered mobile node that its binding no longer
exists, the foreign agent with which the mobile node is registered
may unicast an agent advertisement with the sequence number set to 0
to the mobile node [1], [D]. Moreover, if such a foreign agent
wishes to indicate to the mobile node that its binding has been
revoked, and that the mobile node should not attempt to renew its
registration with it, the foreign agent MAY also set the 'B' bit to 1
in these agent advertisements, indicating it is busy, and is not
accepting new registrations [1]. All mobile nodes compliant with [1]
will understand that this means the agent is busy, and MAY either
immediately attempt to re-register with another agent in their
foreign agent cache, or MAY solicit for additional agents. In the
latter case, a foreign agent can optionally remember the mobile
node's binding was revoked, and respond to the solicit in the same
way, namely with the 'B' bit set to 1. It should be noted, though,
that since the foreign agent is likely to not be setting the 'B' bit
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 16]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
to 1 in its broadcasted agent advertisements (sent to the entire
link), the revoked mobile node, upon hearing this agent's multicast
agent advertisement without the 'B' bit set, may attempt to
[re]register with it. If this happens, depending on foreign domain
policy, the foreign agent can simply deny the mobile node with an
appropriate error code (e.g., "administratively prohibited"). At
this time, a mobile node can use foreign agent fallback to attempt to
register with a different foreign agent as described in [1].
Mobile nodes which understand the revocation mechanism described by
this document may understand that a unicast agent advertisement with
the sequence number reset to 0 could indicate a revocation, and may
attempt to re-register with the same foreign agent, or register with
a different foreign agent, or co-locate.
Agent Advertisements unicast to a mobile node MUST be sent as
described in [1] in addition to any methods currently in use on the
link to make them secure or authenticatable to protect from denial-
of-service attacks.
4.2. Registration Revocation Mechanism - Agent Notification
A foreign agent that is currently supporting registration revocation
on a link MUST set the 'X' bit in its Agent Advertisement Extensions
being sent on that link. This allows mobile nodes requiring
Registration Revocation services to register with those foreign
agents advertising its support.
4.2.1. Negotiation of Revocation Support
During the registration process, if the foreign agent wishes to
participate in revocation messages with the home domain, it MUST have
an existing security association with the home agent identified in
the registration request, and append a revocation support extension
(defined in Section 3.2.) to it. If the corresponding registration
reply from this home agent does not contain a revocation support
extension, the foreign agent SHOULD assume the home agent does not
understand registration revocation, or is unwilling to participate.
If this is unacceptable to the foreign agent, it MAY deny the
registration with e.g., "Administratively Prohibited". Note that in
this case, where a security association exists, as specified in [1],
both registration request and registration reply MUST still contain
home-foreign authenticators.
If a home agent wishes to be able to exchange revocation messages
with the foreign domain, it MUST have an existing security
association with the foreign agent who relayed the registration
request, and it MUST append a revocation support extension to the
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 17]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
registration reply. If the registration request from a foreign agent
did not contain a revocation support extension, the home agent SHOULD
assume the foreign agent does not understand registration revocation,
or is unwilling to participate specifically for this binding. If
this is unacceptable to the home agent, it MAY deny the registration
with e.g., "Administratively Prohibited". The home agent MAY include
a revocation support extension in the registration reply.
If a 'direct' co-located mobile node wishes to be informed of a
released binding by its home agent, it MUST insert a revocation
support extension into the registration request. If this is
acceptable to the home agent, it MUST include a revocation support
extension in its registration reply. Note that if this is not
acceptable, the home agent MAY deny the registration, or it MAY
simply not include a revocation support extension in its registration
reply indicating to the mobile node that it will not participate in
revocation for this binding. A home agent which receives a
registration request from a 'direct' co-located mobile node which
does not contain a revocation support extension MAY deny the
registration with e.g., "Administratively Prohibited" and also MAY or
MAY NOT include a revocation support extension in the registration
reply.
Note that a non-colocated mobile node MUST NOT insert a revocation
support extension into its registration request. If a foreign agent
receives such a registration request, it MUST silently discard it,
and MAY log it as a protocol error.
The 'I' bit in the revocation extension is used to indicate whether
or not the decision to inform the mobile node that its binding is
terminated will be left to the home agent. This functionality is
offered by the foreign agent, and accepted by the home agent. More
precisely, by sending a revocation extension attached to a
registration request in which the 'I' bit is set to 1, the foreign
agent is indicating to the home agent that it MAY leave the decision
to inform this mobile node that its registration is terminated up to
the home agent. (The term "MAY" is used here because it is
recognized that domain policy may change during the lifetime of any
registration). The home agent can acknowledge that it wishes to do
this by setting the 'I' bit to 1, or it can indicate it will not do
so by setting the 'I' bit to 0, in the revocation extension appearing
in the registration reply.
Revocation support is considered to be negotiated for a binding when
both sides have included a revocation support extension during a
successful registration exchange.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 18]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
4.2.2. Home Domain Revoking/Releasing a Registration
The following section details the responsibilities of each party
depending on the functionality negotiated in the revocation support
extensions when the home domain is revoking a registration.
4.2.2.1. Home Agent Responsibilities
In the case where a home agent is revoking a mobile node's binding,
and revocation support has been negotiated, the home agent MUST
notify the foreign domain address it is terminating the tunnel entry
point by sending a revocation message. Note that the foreign domain
address can either be the foreign agent care-of address, or the co-
located care-of address of a 'direct' co-located mobile node.
As a home agent, it MUST set the 'A' bit to '1', indicating this
packet is coming from the home agent servicing this binding.
When a revocation message is being sent to a foreign agent, and the
use of the 'I' bit was negotiated in the registration process, the
home agent MUST set the 'I' bit to 1 if the home agent would like the
foreign agent to inform the mobile node of the revocation.
Conversely, if the home agent does not want the mobile node notified,
it MUST set the 'I' bit to 0. Note that the home agent could also
set the 'I' bit to '0' because it knows the mobile node has
registered with a different foreign agent, and so there is no need
for the foreign agent to attempt a notification.
The home agent MUST set the Identifier field as defined in Section
3.5., and MUST include a valid authenticator as specified in Section
3.3.
If the home agent does not receive a revocation acknowledgment
message within a reasonable amount of time, it MUST retransmit the
revocation message. How long the home agent waits to retransmit, and
how many times the message is retransmitted is limited by the
requirement that:
- every time the home agent is about to retransmit the revocation
message, it MUST update the value of the timestamp in the
revocation identifier with a current value from the same clock
used to generate the timestamps in the revocation extensions sent
to this foreign agent. Note that this also necessarily means
updating any fields derived using the revocation identifier (e.g.,
a home-foreign authenticator).
- the home agent MUST NOT send more than one revocation per second
for a particular binding,
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 19]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
- the time between retransmissions SHOULD fall-back in analogy with
the registration guidelines in [1], namely exponential backoff,
and
- the home agent MUST NOT retransmit revocation messages beyond the
normal life of the binding identified by the revocation message.
4.2.2.2. Foreign Agent Responsibilities
Upon receiving a registration revocation message, the foreign agent
MUST check that the validity of the authenticator, the 'A' bit, and
the identifier field against replay as defined by Section 3.5. The
foreign agent MUST also identify the binding described by the home
agent as being released using the information in the revocation
message, namely the addresses identified by the mobile node address,
the foreign domain address, the home domain address, as well as the
timestamp in the revocation message, and also the timestamp in the
last accepted registration message; revocations are only valid for
existing registrations, and so the timestamp of a registration MUST
precede the revocation message (note that both of those timestamps
were set by the same home agent). Upon locating the binding, the
foreign agent MUST revoke it, and MUST respond with a revocation
acknowledgment sent to the source address of the revocation message.
If the 'I' bit was negotiated, the foreign agent MUST check the value
of the 'I' bit in the revocation message and act accordingly.
If notifying the mobile node by the methods described in Section
4.1., the foreign agent MUST set the 'I' bit to '1' in the revocation
acknowledgment to be sent to the home agent, or if not notifying the
mobile node, the foreign agent MUST set the 'I' bit to '0'.
The foreign agent may discontinue all Mobile IP services by the
former binding at this time, and free up any resources that were
being used by it.
The foreign agent MUST then generate a revocation acknowledgment,
setting the Home Address and Identifier field in the revocation
acknowledgment message as described by Section 3.5., and protect it
with a valid authenticator as specified in Section 3.3.
4.2.2.3. 'Direct' co-located mobile node Responsibilities
Upon receiving a revocation message, the 'direct' co-located mobile
node MUST validate the authenticator, and check the home address and
identifier specified in the revocation message for replay. If the
packet passes authentication, and the identifier reveals this
revocation to be new, the mobile node MUST verify that the
information contained in the revocation messages identifies the home
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 20]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
agent with which it has a current binding, that this binding
identifies correctly this mobile node and any foreign domain address
it is currently using. If the mobile node is able to identify such a
binding, the mobile node SHOULD first generate a revocation
acknowledgment message which MUST be sent to the IP source address of
the revocation message. The mobile node may then terminate any
reverse tunnel encapsulation [C] it is using to this home agent, and
consider its binding revoked, and free up any other resources
associated with the former binding.
4.2.3. Foreign Domain Revoking/Releasing a Registration
The following section details the responsibilities of each party
depending on the functionality negotiated in the revocation support
extensions when the foreign domain is revoking a registration. Note
that revocation support for a co-located mobile node registering via
a foreign agent (because the 'R' bit was set in the agent's
advertisement) is not supported. See Section 4.3.1. for details.
4.2.3.1. Foreign Agent Responsibilities
If the use of the 'I' bit was negotiated, and the foreign domain
policy of informing the mobile node has not changed since the last
successful registration exchange, the foreign agent MUST NOT inform
any mobile node of its revocation at this time. Instead, the foreign
agent MUST set the 'I' bit to '1' in the revocation message, thereby
asking the home agent to use the 'I' bit in the revocation
acknowledgment to indicate if it should notify the effected mobile
nodes. If the policy on the foreign domain was to not notify the
mobile node, or if it has changed since the most recent successful
registration, and the foreign agent is no longer able to use the 'I'
bit, the foreign agent MUST set the 'I' bit to '0', and follow the
policies of the foreign domain with regard to notifying the mobile
node.
Note that the 'A' bit MUST be set to '0' to indicate that the
revocation message is coming from the foreign agent servicing this
binding.
Before transmitting the revocation message, the foreign agent MUST
set the revocation identifier as described by section 3.5., and MUST
include an authenticator as described by section 3.3.
If the foreign agent does not receive a revocation acknowledgment
message within a reasonable amount of time, it MUST retransmit the
revocation message. How long the foreign agent waits to retransmit,
and how many times the message is retransmitted is only limited by
the following specifications:
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 21]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
- every time the foreign agent is about to retransmit the revocation
message, it MUST update the value of the timestamp in the
revocation identifier with a current value from the same clock
used to generate the timestamps in the revocation extensions sent
to this home agent. Note that this also necessarily means
updating any fields derived using the revocation identifier (e.g.,
a home-foreign authenticator).
- MUST NOT send more than one revocation per second for a particular
binding,
- SHOULD set its retransmissions to fall-back in analogy with the
registration guidelines in [1], namely exponential backoff, and
- MUST NOT retransmit revocation messages beyond the normal life of
the binding identified by the revocation message.
4.2.3.2. Home Agent Responsibilities
Upon receiving a registration revocation message, the home agent MUST
check the 'A' bit, and identifier field, as well as the
authenticator. If the packet is acceptable, the home agent MUST
locate the binding identified by the foreign agent as being released
using the information in the revocation message, namely the addresses
identified by the home address, the foreign domain address and the
home domain address fields. As revocations are only valid for
existing registrations, the timestamp of a registration MUST precede
the revocation message (note that both of those timestamps were set
by the same foreign agent). Since this binding is no longer active,
the home agent can free up any resources associated with the former
binding and discontinue all Mobile IP services for it.
Upon processing a valid registration revocation message, the home
agent MUST send a revocation acknowledgment to the IP source address
of the registration revocation message.
If use of the 'I' bit was negotiated, and the 'I' bit is set to '1'
in the revocation message, the home agent should decide if it wants
the mobile node informed of the revocation of this binding. If it
does want the mobile node informed, it MUST set the 'I' bit in the
revocation acknowledgment message to '1'. If it does not want the
mobile node informed, it MUST set the 'I' bit to '0'.
The home agent MUST set the Home Address, and Revocation Identifier
fields as described by Section 3.5., and protect the revocation
acknowledgment message with a valid authenticator as specified in
Section 3.3.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 22]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
4.2.4. Mobile Node Deregistering a Registration
The cases where a mobile node is registered with its home agent,
whether it is registered directly with its home agent ('direct' co-
located mobile node), or registered via a foreign agent, and wishes
to terminate its own binding, the mobile node MUST NOT send a
revocation message, but SHOULD simply deregister the appropriate
care-of address with its home agent as described by [1].
4.3. Mobile IP Registration Bits in the Revocation Process
Several of the bits used in the registration process need special
consideration when using the revocation mechanism.
4.3.1. The 'R' Bit in Use
If the foreign agent wishes to be able to revoke a mobile node's
registration, it MUST set the 'R' bit in its agent advertisements.
(A foreign agent advertising the 'R' bit requests every mobile node,
even one that is co-located (and whose registration would otherwise
by-pass the foreign agent), to register with the foreign agent.)
However, in this case, the foreign agent SHOULD deny a registration
request as "Administratively Prohibited" from a mobile node that is
registering in a co-located fashion. The reason being that the
foreign agent will not be able to revoke the binding of a co-located
mobile node due to reasons outlined in Section 4.3.2.
How the foreign agent and/or foreign domain enforce the 'R' bit is
beyond the scope of this document.
4.3.2. The 'D' bit in Use
A mobile node registering directly with its home agent in a co-
located fashion with the 'D' bit set in its registration request is
supported in registration revocation. However, support for a co-
located mobile node (with the 'D' bit set in its registration
request) registering via a foreign agent is not supported for the
following reasons.
Registration requests where the 'D' bit is set, and which are relayed
through a foreign agent (e.g., due to the advertising of the 'R' bit)
should theoretically contain the foreign agent address as the source
address of the registration request when received by the home agent.
A home agent may conclude that the source address of this
registration request is not the same as the co-located care-of
address contained in the registration request, and is therefore
likely to be the address of the foreign agent. However, since there
is no way to guarantee that this IP source address is in fact an
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 23]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
address of the foreign agent servicing the mobile node, accepting a
revocation message from this IP source address may lead to a denial-
of-service attack by a man-in-the-middle on the mobile node.
Moreover, there is currently no method for the foreign agent
servicing the mobile node to identify itself to the home agent during
the Mobile IP registration phase. Even if a foreign agent could
identify itself, the co-located mobile node would also need to
authorize that this foreign agent is indeed the agent that is
providing it the Mobile IP services. This is to thwart a denial-of-
service attack on the mobile node by a foreign agent that has a
security association with the home agent, and is on the path between
the co-located mobile node and the home agent.
5. Error Codes
As the intent of a registration revocation message is not a request
to discontinue services, but is a notification that Mobile IP
services are discontinued, there are no new error codes.
6. Security Considerations
There are two potential vulnerabilities, one in the agent
advertisement mechanism, and one related to unauthorized revocation
messages.
6.1. Agent Advertisements
Although the mechanisms defined by this document do not introduce
this problem, it has been recognized that agent advertisements as
defined in [1] subject mobile nodes to a denial-of-service potential.
This is because the agent advertisement as defined in [1] may be
spoofed by other machines residing on the link. This makes it
possible for such nodes to trick the mobile node into believing its
registration has been revoked either by unicasting an advertisement
with a reset sequence number to the link-local address of the mobile
node, or by broadcasting it to the subnet, thereby tricking all
mobile nodes registered with a particular foreign agent into
believing all their registrations have been lost.
There has been some work in this working group and others (e.g.,
IPsec) to secure such router advertisements, though at the time of
this publication, no solutions have become common practice. To help
circumvent possible denial of service issues here, bringing their
potential for disruption to a minimum, mobile node implementors
should ensure that any agent advertisement which doesn't conform to a
strict adherence to [1], specifically those whose TTL is not 1, or
which do not emanate from the same link-address (when present) as
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 24]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
other agent advertisements supposedly from the same agent, or even
that of the last successful registration reply, be silently
discarded.
6.2. Revocation Messages
As registration revocation, when performed, terminates Mobile IP
services being provided to the mobile node, it is crucial that all
security and replay protection mechanisms be verified before a
mobility agent believes that the other agent has revoked a binding.
Messages which are sent link-local (e.g., between mobile node and
foreign agent) MAY also be secured by methods outlined in [1], namely
the use of mobile-foreign authenticators, but these have no direct
relation to registration revocation.
RFC 3344 [1] defines a security mechanism that MUST be used between
home agents and mobile nodes, and MAY used between home agents and
foreign agents, namely the use of authenticators. All foreign and
home agents MUST support protection of revocation messages via the
foreign-home authenticators defined in [1]. They MAY implement other
mechanisms of equal or greater strength; if such mechanisms are known
to be available to both parties, they MAY be used instead.
Revocation messages are at least as secure as registration messages
passed between home and foreign agents and containing home-foreign
authenticators as defined in [1]. Thus, there are no new security
threats introduced by the revocation mechanism other than those
present in [1] with respect to the compromise of the shared secret
which is used to generate the home-foreign authenticators.
That said, there are two types of active attacks which use messages
captured "in flight" by a man-in-the-middle between the home and
foreign agents - "malicious repeaters" and "malicious reflectors".
In the case of a "malicious repeater", a man-in-the-middle captures a
revocation message, then replays it to the same IP destination
address at a later time. Presuming the authenticator of the original
packet was deemed valid, without replay protection, the home-foreign
authenticator of the replayed packet will (again) pass
authentication. Note that since datagrams are not guaranteed to
arrive unduplicated, a replay may occur by "design".
In the case of a "malicious reflector," a man-in-the-middle captures
a revocation message, then returns it to its originator at a later
time. If the security association between home and foreign domains
uses a security association involving a (single) shared secret which
only protects the contents of the UDP portion of the packet (such as
home-foreign authenticators as defined by [1]), without replay
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 25]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
protection, the sender of the packet will also believe the revocation
message to be authentic.
The replay protection mechanism used by the revocation messages
defined by this document is designed to protect against both of these
active attacks. As a benefit, by using a 32-bit timestamp it can be
more quickly determined if revocation messages are replays, though
the reader is advised to use caution in this approach. An agent
which receives an authenticated revocation message can compare the
Identifier field to that of a previously received revocation message,
and if the timestamp in the new message is found to have been
generated after that of the time-stamp in the last revocation message
received, it can immediately be determined as not being a replay.
Note however that since datagrams are not guaranteed to arrive in
order, it should not be presumed that because the values contained in
an Identifier field are timestamps that they will necessarily be
increasing with each successive revocation message received. Should
an implementor decide to base his replay detection mechanism on
increasing timestamps, and therefore increasing Identifier values, a
suitable time window should be defined in which revocation messages
can be received. At worst, ignoring any revocation message should
result in the retransmission of another revocation message, this time
with timestamp later than the last one received.
Note that any registration request or reply can be replayed. With
the exchanging of time-stamps by agents in revocation extensions, an
agent should have a belief that such messages have been delivered in
a timely manner. For purposes of registration revocation, the
timeliness of a registration packet is simply based on the
granularity of each registration. Since [1] provides a replay
mechanism for the home agent to use, it has a way to tell if the
registration request being presented to it is new. The foreign
agent, however, has no such mechanism in place with the mobile node.
Foreign agents are advised to continue to consider registrations
'outstanding' until the associated registration reply is returned
from the home agent before using the information in any of its
visitor entries. Even so, this leaves the foreign agent open to a
potential denial of service attack in which registration requests and
replies are replayed by multiple nodes. When this happens, the
foreign agent could be lead to believe such registrations are active,
but with old information, which can have adverse effects on them, as
well as to the ability of that agent to successfully use the
procedures outlined in this document. Sufficient protection against
this scenario is offered by the challenge-response mechanism [2] by
which a foreign agent generates a live challenge to a mobile node for
the purposes of making sure, among other things, that the
registration request is not a replay.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 26]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
7. IANA Considerations
This document defines an additional set of messages between the home
and foreign agent specific to the services being provided to the same
mobile node, or sub-set of mobile nodes. To ensure correct
interoperation based on this specification, IANA has reserved values
in the Mobile IP number space for two new message types, and a single
new extension.
7.1. New Message Types
The following message types are introduced by this specification:
Registration Revocation: A new Mobile IP control message, using UDP
port 434, type 7. This value has been taken from the same number
space as Mobile IP Registration Request (Type = 1), and Mobile IP
Registration Reply (Type = 3).
Registration Revocation Acknowledgment: A new Mobile IP control
message, using UDP port 434, type 15. This value has been taken from
the same number space as Mobile IP Registration Request (Type = 1),
and Mobile IP Registration Reply (Type = 3).
7.2. New Extension Values
The following extensions are introduced by this specification:
Revocation Support Extension: A new Mobile IP Extension, appended to
a Registration Request, or Registration Reply. The value assigned is
137. This extension is derived from the Extension number space. It
MUST be in the 'skippable' (128 - 255) range as defined in RFC 3344.
7.3. New Error Codes
There are no new Mobile IP error codes introduced by this document.
8. References
8.1. Normative References (Numerical)
[1] Perkins, C., Ed., "IP Mobility Support for IPv4", RFC 3344,
August 2002.
[2] Perkins, C. and P. Calhoun, "Mobile IPv4 Challenge/Response
Extensions", RFC 3012, November 2000.
[3] Bradner, S., "Key Words for us in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 27]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
8.2. Informational References (Alphabetical)
[A] Glass, S., Hiller, T., Jacobs, S. and C. Perkins, "Mobile IP
Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting Requirements", RFC
2977, October 2000.
[B] Aboba, B., Calhoun, P., Glass, S., Hiller, T., McCann, P.,
Shiino, H., Walsh, P., Zorn, G., Dommety, G., Perkins, C., Patil,
B., Mitton, D., Manning, S., Beadles, M., Chen, X., Sivalingham,
S., Hameed, A., Munson, M., Jacobs, S., Lim, B., Hirschman, B.,
Hsu, R., Koo, H., Lipford, M., Campbell, E., Xu, Y., Baba, S. and
E. Jaques, "Criteria for Evaluating AAA Protocols for Network
Access", RFC 2989, November 2000.
[C] Montenegro, G., Ed., "Reverse Tunneling for Mobile IP, revised",
RFC 3024, January 2001.
[D] Deering, S., Ed., "ICMP Router Discovery Messages", RFC 1256,
September 1991.
[E] Calhoun, P. and C. Perkins, "Mobile IP Network Access Identifier
Extension for IPv4", RFC 2794, March 2000.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 28]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Appendix A: An Example of the Revocation Messages in Use
For clarity, the following example is meant to illustrate the use of
the new messages in the registration phase, and the revocation phase.
In this example, a foreign agent and home agent will negotiate
revocation during the registration phase. During the revocation
phase, the foreign agent will revoke the binding of a mobile node.
A.1. The Registration Phase
Consider a foreign agent that supports registration revocation, and
has a security association with a home agent to which it is
forwarding a registration request. The foreign agent will include
the revocation support extension after the mobile-home authenticator.
Assume that the foreign agent supports the use of the 'I' bit, and is
willing to let the home agent decide if the mobile node should be
informed of the revocation of its registration. Thus, the foreign
agent will set the 'I' bit to '1'. The foreign agent will append a
foreign-home authenticator to the registration request.
Upon receiving the registration request containing a revocation
extension, the home agent will include a revocation support extension
in the registration reply. Since the foreign agent set the 'I' bit
to '1' in its revocation extension, and the home agent supports the
use of the 'I' bit, the home agent will set the 'I' bit in its
registration extension to '1'. Additionally, the home agent will
append a home-foreign authenticator to the registration request.
Upon receiving the authenticated registration reply, the foreign
agent will check the revocation support extension and note that the
home agent wants to decide if the mobile node should be notified in
the event this registration is revoked, i.e., since the home agent
set the 'I' bit in the return revocation extension.
A.2. The Revocation Phase
The foreign agent revokes a mobile node's binding, and generates a
revocation message to be sent to the mobile node's home agent. Since
the 'I' bit was negotiated in the revocation extensions, and the
foreign agent is still willing to let the home agent indicate whether
this mobile node should be informed about the revocation, it will set
the 'I' bit to '1' in the revocation message. The foreign agent also
makes sure the 'A' bit is set to '0'.
The foreign agent will also place the address of the mobile node
whose registration it wishes to revoke in the home address field, the
address that the mobile node registered as the care-of address in the
foreign domain field, and the address registered as the home agent in
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 29]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
the home domain address field. The foreign agent will set the
Revocation Identifier to the current 32-bit timestamp, and append the
foreign-home authenticator.
Upon receiving the above revocation message, the home agent uses the
address identified as the foreign domain address to identify the
security association, and authenticate the revocation message. After
authenticating the message, the home agent will check to make sure
the 'A' bit and Identifier indicate that this revocation is not a
replay. The home agent then uses the mobile node home address,
foreign domain address, and home domain address to locate the mobile
node whose registration is being revoked.
Upon processing a valid registration revocation message, the home
agent generates a revocation acknowledgment message. Since the 'I'
bit was set to '1' in the revocation message and the home agent
wishes for the identified mobile node to be informed of the
revocation, it will set the 'I' bit in the revocation acknowledgment
to '1'. The home agent then copies the home address and the
Revocation Identifier field into the revocation acknowledgement. The
home agent protects the revocation acknowledgment with a home-foreign
authenticator.
Upon receiving a valid revocation acknowledgment (in which the
authenticator and Identifier fields are acceptable), the foreign
agent checks the state of the 'I' bit. Since the 'I' bit is set to
'1', the foreign agent will notify the mobile node of the revocation.
Appendix B: Disparate Address, and Receiver Considerations
Since the registration revocation message comes from a source address
that is topologically routable from the interface receiving the
datagram, the agents, by definition, are topologically connected (if
this were not the case, the initial registration mechanism would have
failed). If either are the ultimate hop from this topologically
connected region to one or more disparate address spaces, no problems
are foreseen. In order for the mobile node to have successfully
registered with its home agent, it MUST have provided to the network
(foreign agent) to which it is currently attached a routable address
of its home agent. Conversely, the care-of address being used by the
mobile node must also be topologically significant to the home agent
in order for the registration reply to have been received, and the
tunnel initiated. By definition, then, the home agent address and
the care-of address must each be significant, and either address must
form a unique pair in the context of this mobile node to both agents.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 30]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Another way of understanding this is that the tunnel endpoints are in
some way connected, and hence each are unique as far as the other end
is concerned. The address at the other end of the tunnel, in
combination with the address of the mobile node, must therefore form
a unique pair that can be identified by the agent receiving the
registration revocation message.
As an example, consider a mobile node who's home address lies in
disparate address space A behind its home agent. In the following
diagram, [*] indicates an interface of the entity in which it
appears.
MN[a]-----[c]FA[b]=====((()))=====[b]HA[a]-----[a]CN
Address Some topologically Address
Space C connected network Space A
We presume a binding for MN exists, and hence a tunnel between FA[b]
and HA[b] exists. Then, since the address assigned to MN[a] MUST be
unique in address space A, the pair {FA[b],MN[a]} is guaranteed to be
unique in the binding table of HA, and the pair {HA[b],MN[a]} is
guaranteed to be unique in the foreign agent's visitor list.
As a result, a home agent receiving a registration revocation message
and foreign-home authenticator for MN[a] from FA[b] is able to
determine the unique mobile node address being deregistered.
Conversely a foreign agent receiving a registration revocation
message and home-foreign authenticator for MN[a] from HA[b] is able
to determine the exact mobile node address being deregistered. For
this reason, if a foreign agent receives a registration revocation
message with the home domain field set to the zero address it MUST be
silently discarded. This is to prevent confusion in the case of
overlapping private addresses; when multiple mobile nodes are
registered via the same care-of address and coincidentally using the
same (disparate/private) home address, the home agent address
appearing in the home domain field is the only way a foreign agent
can discern the difference between these mobile nodes.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 31]RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Rajesh Bhalla, Kent Leung, and Alpesh
Patel for their contributions to the concepts detailed in
draft-subbarao-mobileip-resource-00.txt, "Releasing Resources in
Mobile IP," from which the revocation support extension, and the
acknowledgment mechanism contained in this document were derived.
The authors would also like to thank Pete McCann for his discussions
on replay mechanisms, and security concerns, and Ahmad Muhanna for
pointing out a problem with the initial replay mechanism, which
eventually lead to the addition of a time stamp to the Revocation
Extension.
The authors would also like to acknowledge Henrik Levkowetz for his
detailed review of the document, and Michael Thomas for his review of
the replay mechanism described herein.
Authors' Addresses
Steven M. Glass
Solaris Network Technologies
Sun Microsystems
1 Network Drive
Burlington, MA. 01801
Phone: +1.781.442.0000
Fax: +1.781.442.1706
EMail: steven.glass@sun.com
Madhavi W. Chandra
IOS Technologies Division
Cisco Systems
7025 Kit Creek Road
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Phone: +1.919.392.8387
EMail: mchandra@cisco.com
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 32]
RFC 3543 Registration Revocation in Mobile IPv4 August 2003
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to
others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it
or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published
and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any
kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are
included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this
document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing
the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other
Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of
developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for
copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be
followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than
English.
The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be
revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees.
This document and the information contained herein is provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING
TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION
HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Glass & Chandra Standards Track [Page 33]
