Request for Comments: 4346 Independent
Obsoletes: 2246 E. Rescorla
Category: Standards Track RTFM, Inc.
April 2006
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.1
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).
Abstract
This document specifies Version 1.1 of the Transport Layer Security
(TLS) protocol. The TLS protocol provides communications security
over the Internet. The protocol allows client/server applications to
communicate in a way that is designed to prevent eavesdropping,
tampering, or message forgery.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................4
1.1. Differences from TLS 1.0 ...................................5
1.2. Requirements Terminology ...................................5
2. Goals ...........................................................5
3. Goals of This Document ..........................................6
4. Presentation Language ...........................................6
4.1. Basic Block Size ...........................................7
4.2. Miscellaneous ..............................................7
4.3. Vectors ....................................................7
4.4. Numbers ....................................................8
4.5. Enumerateds ................................................8
4.6. Constructed Types ..........................................9
4.6.1. Variants ...........................................10
4.7. Cryptographic Attributes ..................................11
4.8. Constants .................................................12
5. HMAC and the Pseudorandom Function .............................12
6. The TLS Record Protocol ........................................14
6.1. Connection States .........................................15
6.2. Record layer ..............................................17
6.2.1. Fragmentation ......................................17
6.2.2. Record Compression and Decompression ...............19
6.2.3. Record Payload Protection ..........................19
6.2.3.1. Null or Standard Stream Cipher ............20
6.2.3.2. CBC Block Cipher ..........................21
6.3. Key Calculation ...........................................24
7. The TLS Handshaking Protocols ..................................24
7.1. Change Cipher Spec Protocol ...............................25
7.2. Alert Protocol ............................................26
7.2.1. Closure Alerts .....................................27
7.2.2. Error Alerts .......................................28
7.3. Handshake Protocol Overview ...............................31
7.4. Handshake Protocol ........................................34
7.4.1. Hello Messages .....................................35
7.4.1.1. Hello request .............................35
7.4.1.2. Client Hello ..............................36
7.4.1.3. Server Hello ..............................39
7.4.2. Server Certificate .................................40
7.4.3. Server Key Exchange Message ........................42
7.4.4. Certificate request ................................44
7.4.5. Server Hello Done ..................................46
7.4.6. Client certificate .................................46
7.4.7. Client Key Exchange Message ........................47
7.4.7.1. RSA Encrypted Premaster Secret Message ....47
7.4.7.2. Client Diffie-Hellman Public Value ........50
7.4.8. Certificate verify .................................50
7.4.9. Finished ...........................................51
8. Cryptographic Computations .....................................52
8.1. Computing the Master Secret ...............................52
8.1.1. RSA ................................................53
8.1.2. Diffie-Hellman .....................................53
9. Mandatory Cipher Suites ........................................53
10. Application Data Protocol .....................................53
11. Security Considerations .......................................53
12. IANA Considerations ...........................................54
A. Appendix - Protocol constant values ............................55
A.1. Record layer .........................................55
A.2. Change cipher specs message ..........................56
A.3. Alert messages .......................................56
A.4. Handshake protocol ...................................57
A.4.1. Hello messages .....................................57
A.4.2. Server authentication and key exchange messages ....58
A.4.3. Client authentication and key exchange messages ....59
A.4.4.Handshake finalization message ......................60
A.5. The CipherSuite ......................................60
A.6. The Security Parameters ..............................63
B. Appendix - Glossary ............................................64
C. Appendix - CipherSuite definitions .............................68
D. Appendix - Implementation Notes ................................69
D.1 Random Number Generation and Seeding ..................70
D.2 Certificates and authentication .......................70
D.3 CipherSuites ..........................................70
E. Appendix - Backward Compatibility With SSL .....................71
E.1. Version 2 client hello ...............................72
E.2. Avoiding man-in-the-middle version rollback ..........74
F. Appendix - Security analysis ...................................74
F.1. Handshake protocol ...................................74
F.1.1. Authentication and key exchange ....................74
F.1.1.1. Anonymous key exchange ...........................75
F.1.1.2. RSA key exchange and authentication ..............75
F.1.1.3. Diffie-Hellman key exchange with authentication ..76
F.1.2. Version rollback attacks ...........................77
F.1.3. Detecting attacks against the handshake protocol ...77
F.1.4. Resuming sessions ..................................78
F.1.5. MD5 and SHA ........................................78
F.2. Protecting application data ..........................78
F.3. Explicit IVs .........................................79
F.4 Security of Composite Cipher Modes ...................79
F.5 Denial of Service ....................................80
F.6. Final notes ..........................................80
Normative References ..............................................81
Informative References ............................................82
1. Introduction
The primary goal of the TLS Protocol is to provide privacy and data
integrity between two communicating applications. The protocol is
composed of two layers: the TLS Record Protocol and the TLS Handshake
Protocol. At the lowest level, layered on top of some reliable
transport protocol (e.g., TCP[TCP]), is the TLS Record Protocol. The
TLS Record Protocol provides connection security that has two basic
properties:
- The connection is private. Symmetric cryptography is used for
data encryption (e.g., DES [DES], RC4 [SCH] etc.). The keys for
this symmetric encryption are generated uniquely for each
connection and are based on a secret negotiated by another
protocol (such as the TLS Handshake Protocol). The Record
Protocol can also be used without encryption.
- The connection is reliable. Message transport includes a message
integrity check using a keyed MAC. Secure hash functions (e.g.,
SHA, MD5, etc.) are used for MAC computations. The Record
Protocol can operate without a MAC, but is generally only used in
this mode while another protocol is using the Record Protocol as a
transport for negotiating security parameters.
The TLS Record Protocol is used for encapsulation of various higher-
level protocols. One such encapsulated protocol, the TLS Handshake
Protocol, allows the server and client to authenticate each other and
to negotiate an encryption algorithm and cryptographic keys before
the application protocol transmits or receives its first byte of
data. The TLS Handshake Protocol provides connection security that
has three basic properties:
- The peer’s identity can be authenticated using asymmetric, or
public key, cryptography (e.g., RSA [RSA], DSS [DSS], etc.). This
authentication can be made optional, but is generally required for
at least one of the peers.
- The negotiation of a shared secret is secure: the negotiated
secret is unavailable to eavesdroppers, and for any authenticated
connection the secret cannot be obtained, even by an attacker who
can place himself in the middle of the connection.
- The negotiation is reliable: no attacker can modify the
negotiation communication without being detected by the parties to
the communication.
One advantage of TLS is that it is application protocol independent.
Higher level protocols can layer on top of the TLS Protocol
transparently. The TLS standard, however, does not specify how
protocols add security with TLS; the decisions on how to initiate TLS
handshaking and how to interpret the authentication certificates
exchanged are left to the judgment of the designers and implementors
of protocols that run on top of TLS.
1.1. Differences from TLS 1.0
This document is a revision of the TLS 1.0 [TLS1.0] protocol, and
contains some small security improvements, clarifications, and
editorial improvements. The major changes are:
- The implicit Initialization Vector (IV) is replaced with an
explicit IV to protect against CBC attacks [CBCATT].
- Handling of padding errors is changed to use the bad_record_mac
alert rather than the decryption_failed alert to protect against
CBC attacks.
- IANA registries are defined for protocol parameters.
- Premature closes no longer cause a session to be nonresumable.
- Additional informational notes were added for various new attacks
on TLS.
In addition, a number of minor clarifications and editorial
improvements were made.
1.2. Requirements Terminology
In this document, the keywords "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT" and "MAY" are to be interpreted as described
in RFC 2119 [REQ].
2. Goals
The goals of TLS Protocol, in order of their priority, are as
follows:
1. Cryptographic security: TLS should be used to establish a secure
connection between two parties.
2. Interoperability: Independent programmers should be able to
develop applications utilizing TLS that can successfully exchange
cryptographic parameters without knowledge of one another’s code.
3. Extensibility: TLS seeks to provide a framework into which new
public key and bulk encryption methods can be incorporated as
necessary. This will also accomplish two sub-goals: preventing
the need to create a new protocol (and risking the introduction of
possible new weaknesses) and avoiding the need to implement an
entire new security library.
4. Relative efficiency: Cryptographic operations tend to be highly
CPU intensive, particularly public key operations. For this
reason, the TLS protocol has incorporated an optional session
caching scheme to reduce the number of connections that need to be
established from scratch. Additionally, care has been taken to
reduce network activity.
3. Goals of This Document
This document and the TLS protocol itself are based on the SSL 3.0
Protocol Specification as published by Netscape. The differences
between this protocol and SSL 3.0 are not dramatic, but they are
significant enough that TLS 1.1, TLS 1.0, and SSL 3.0 do not
interoperate (although each protocol incorporates a mechanism by
which an implementation can back down prior versions). This document
is intended primarily for readers who will be implementing the
protocol and for those doing cryptographic analysis of it. The
specification has been written with this in mind, and it is intended
to reflect the needs of those two groups. For that reason, many of
the algorithm-dependent data structures and rules are included in the
body of the text (as opposed to in an appendix), providing easier
access to them.
This document is not intended to supply any details of service
definition or of interface definition, although it does cover select
areas of policy as they are required for the maintenance of solid
security.
4. Presentation Language
This document deals with the formatting of data in an external
representation. The following very basic and somewhat casually
defined presentation syntax will be used. The syntax draws from
several sources in its structure. Although it resembles the
programming language "C" in its syntax and XDR [XDR] in both its
syntax and intent, it would be risky to draw too many parallels. The
purpose of this presentation language is to document TLS only; it has
no general application beyond that particular goal.
4.1. Basic Block Size
The representation of all data items is explicitly specified. The
basic data block size is one byte (i.e., 8 bits). Multiple byte data
items are concatenations of bytes, from left to right, from top to
bottom. From the bytestream, a multi-byte item (a numeric in the
example) is formed (using C notation) by:
value = (byte[0] << 8*(n-1)) | (byte[1] << 8*(n-2)) |
... | byte[n-1];
This byte ordering for multi-byte values is the commonplace network
byte order or big endian format.
4.2. Miscellaneous
Comments begin with "/*" and end with "*/".
Optional components are denoted by enclosing them in "[[ ]]" double
brackets.
Single-byte entities containing uninterpreted data are of type
opaque.
4.3. Vectors
A vector (single dimensioned array) is a stream of homogeneous data
elements. The size of the vector may be specified at documentation
time or left unspecified until runtime. In either case, the length
declares the number of bytes, not the number of elements, in the
vector. The syntax for specifying a new type, T’, that is a fixed-
length vector of type T is
T T’[n];
Here, T’ occupies n bytes in the data stream, where n is a multiple
of the size of T. The length of the vector is not included in the
encoded stream.
In the following example, Datum is defined to be three consecutive
bytes that the protocol does not interpret, while Data is three
consecutive Datum, consuming a total of nine bytes.
opaque Datum[3]; /* three uninterpreted bytes */
Datum Data[9]; /* 3 consecutive 3 byte vectors */
Variable-length vectors are defined by specifying a subrange of legal
lengths, inclusively, using the notation <floor..ceiling>. When
these are encoded, the actual length precedes the vector’s contents
in the byte stream. The length will be in the form of a number
consuming as many bytes as required to hold the vector’s specified
maximum (ceiling) length. A variable-length vector with an actual
length field of zero is referred to as an empty vector.
T T’<floor..ceiling>;
In the following example, mandatory is a vector that must contain
between 300 and 400 bytes of type opaque. It can never be empty.
The actual length field consumes two bytes, a uint16, sufficient to
represent the value 400 (see Section 4.4). On the other hand, longer
can represent up to 800 bytes of data, or 400 uint16 elements, and it
may be empty. Its encoding will include a two-byte actual length
field prepended to the vector. The length of an encoded vector must
be an even multiple of the length of a single element (for example, a
17-byte vector of uint16 would be illegal).
opaque mandatory<300..400>;
/* length field is 2 bytes, cannot be empty */
uint16 longer<0..800>;
/* zero to 400 16-bit unsigned integers */
4.4. Numbers
The basic numeric data type is an unsigned byte (uint8). All larger
numeric data types are formed from fixed-length series of bytes
concatenated as described in Section 4.1 and are also unsigned. The
following numeric types are predefined.
uint8 uint16[2];
uint8 uint24[3];
uint8 uint32[4];
uint8 uint64[8];
All values, here and elsewhere in the specification, are stored in
"network" or "big-endian" order; the uint32 represented by the hex
bytes 01 02 03 04 is equivalent to the decimal value 16909060.
4.5. Enumerateds
An additional sparse data type is available called enum. A field of
type enum can only assume the values declared in the definition.
Each definition is a different type. Only enumerateds of the same
type may be assigned or compared. Every element of an enumerated
must be assigned a value, as demonstrated in the following example.
Since the elements of the enumerated are not ordered, they can be
assigned any unique value, in any order.
enum { e1(v1), e2(v2), ... , en(vn) [[, (n)]] } Te;
Enumerateds occupy as much space in the byte stream as would its
maximal defined ordinal value. The following definition would cause
one byte to be used to carry fields of type Color.
enum { red(3), blue(5), white(7) } Color;
One may optionally specify a value without its associated tag to
force the width definition without defining a superfluous element.
In the following example, Taste will consume two bytes in the data
stream but can only assume the values 1, 2, or 4.
enum { sweet(1), sour(2), bitter(4), (32000) } Taste;
The names of the elements of an enumeration are scoped within the
defined type. In the first example, a fully qualified reference to
the second element of the enumeration would be Color.blue. Such
qualification is not required if the target of the assignment is well
specified.
Color color = Color.blue; /* overspecified, legal */
Color color = blue; /* correct, type implicit */
For enumerateds that are never converted to external representation,
the numerical information may be omitted.
enum { low, medium, high } Amount;
4.6. Constructed Types
Structure types may be constructed from primitive types for
convenience. Each specification declares a new, unique type. The
syntax for definition is much like that of C.
struct {
T1 f1;
T2 f2;
...
Tn fn;
} [[T]];
The fields within a structure may be qualified using the type’s name,
with a syntax much like that available for enumerateds. For example,
T.f2 refers to the second field of the previous declaration.
Structure definitions may be embedded.
4.6.1. Variants
Defined structures may have variants based on some knowledge that is
available within the environment. The selector must be an enumerated
type that defines the possible variants the structure defines. There
must be a case arm for every element of the enumeration declared in
the select. The body of the variant structure may be given a label
for reference. The mechanism by which the variant is selected at
runtime is not prescribed by the presentation language.
struct {
T1 f1;
T2 f2;
....
Tn fn;
select (E) {
case e1: Te1;
case e2: Te2;
....
case en: Ten;
} [[fv]];
} [[Tv]];
For example:
enum { apple, orange } VariantTag;
struct {
uint16 number;
opaque string<0..10>; /* variable length */
} V1;
struct {
uint32 number;
opaque string[10]; /* fixed length */
} V2;
struct {
select (VariantTag) { /* value of selector is implicit */
case apple: V1; /* VariantBody, tag = apple */
case orange: V2; /* VariantBody, tag = orange */
} variant_body; /* optional label on variant */
} VariantRecord;
Variant structures may be qualified (narrowed) by specifying a value
for the selector prior to the type. For example, an
orange VariantRecord
is a narrowed type of a VariantRecord containing a variant_body of
type V2.
4.7. Cryptographic Attributes
The four cryptographic operations digital signing, stream cipher
encryption, block cipher encryption, and public key encryption are
designated digitally-signed, stream-ciphered, block-ciphered, and
public-key-encrypted, respectively. A field’s cryptographic
processing is specified by prepending an appropriate key word
designation before the field’s type specification. Cryptographic
keys are implied by the current session state (see Section 6.1).
In digital signing, one-way hash functions are used as input for a
signing algorithm. A digitally-signed element is encoded as an
opaque vector <0..2^16-1>, where the length is specified by the
signing algorithm and key.
In RSA signing, a 36-byte structure of two hashes (one SHA and one
MD5) is signed (encrypted with the private key). It is encoded with
PKCS #1 block type 1, as described in [PKCS1A].
Note: The standard reference for PKCS#1 is now RFC 3447 [PKCS1B].
However, to minimize differences with TLS 1.0 text, we are
using the terminology of RFC 2313 [PKCS1A].
In DSS, the 20 bytes of the SHA hash are run directly through the
Digital Signing Algorithm with no additional hashing. This produces
two values, r and s. The DSS signature is an opaque vector, as
above, the contents of which are the DER encoding of:
Dss-Sig-Value ::= SEQUENCE {
r INTEGER,
s INTEGER
}
In stream cipher encryption, the plaintext is exclusive-ORed with an
identical amount of output generated from a cryptographically secure
keyed pseudorandom number generator.
In block cipher encryption, every block of plaintext encrypts to a
block of ciphertext. All block cipher encryption is done in CBC
(Cipher Block Chaining) mode, and all items that are block-ciphered
will be an exact multiple of the cipher block length.