Source Address Validation in Inter-domain Networks (Inter-domain SAVNET) Gap Analysis, Problem Statement, and Requirements
draft-wu-savnet-inter-domain-problem-statement-01
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| Authors | Jianping Wu , Dan Li , Lancheng Qin , Mingqing(Michael) Huang , Nan Geng | ||
| Last updated | 2022-09-25 | ||
| Replaced by | draft-ietf-savnet-inter-domain-problem-statement, draft-ietf-savnet-inter-domain-problem-statement | ||
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draft-wu-savnet-inter-domain-problem-statement-01
Network Working Group J. Wu
Internet-Draft D. Li
Intended status: Informational L. Qin
Expires: 30 March 2023 Tsinghua University
M. Huang
N. Geng
Huawei
26 September 2022
Source Address Validation in Inter-domain Networks (Inter-domain SAVNET)
Gap Analysis, Problem Statement, and Requirements
draft-wu-savnet-inter-domain-problem-statement-01
Abstract
Source Address Validation in Inter-domain Networks (Inter-domain
SAVNET) focuses on narrowing the technical gaps of existing source
address validation (SAV) mechanisms in inter-domain scenarios. This
document provides a gap analysis of existing SAV efforts, describes
the problem statement based on the analysis results, and concludes
the requirements for improving inter-domain SAV.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 8174 [RFC8174].
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on 30 March 2023.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2022 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
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Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Gap Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Improper Permit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.1. Reflection Attack Scenario . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1.2. Spoofing within a Customer Cone . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Improper Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.1. NO_EXPORT in BGP Advertisement . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2.2. Direct Server Return (DSR) Scenario . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Misaligned Incentive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.1. Inaccurate Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2. Misaligned Incentive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Accurate SAV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.2. Direct Incentive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3. Working in Partial Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4. Acceptable Overhead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Inter-domain SAVNET Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1. Introduction
Source address validation in inter-domain networks (Inter-domain
SAVNET) is vital to mitigate source address spoofing between ASes.
Inter-domain SAV is essential to the Internet security [RFC5210].
Many efforts have been taken on the tasks of inter-domain SAV.
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Ingress filtering [RFC2827] [RFC3704] is a typical method of inter-
domain SAV. Strict uRPF [RFC3704] reversely looks up the FIB table
and requires that the valid incoming interface must be the same
interface which would be used to forward traffic to the source
address in the FIB table. Feasible-path uRPF (FP-uRPF) [RFC3704],
taking a looser SAV than strict uRPF, is designed to add more
alternative valid incoming interfaces for the source address. To be
more flexible about directionality, BCP 84 [RFC3704][RFC8704]
recommends that i) the loose uRPF method which loses directionality
completely SHOULD be applied on lateral peer and transit provider
interfaces, and that ii) the Enhanced FP-uRPF (EFP-uRPF) method with
Algorithm B, looser than strict uRPF, FP-uRPF, and EFP-uRPF with
Algorithm A, SHOULD be applied on customer interfaces. Routers
deploying EFP-uRPF accept a data packet from customer interfaces only
when the source address of the packet is contained in that of the
customer cone.
Despite the diversity of inter-domain SAV mechanisms, there are still
some points that are under considered but important for enhancing
Internet security. Moreover, in the currently focused SAV work
scope, these mechanisms may lead to improper permit or improper block
problems in some scenarios.
This document does an analysis of the existing inter-domain SAV
mechanisms and answers: i) what are the technical gaps, ii) what are
the major problems needing to be solved, and iii) what are the
potential directions for further enhancing inter-domain SAV.
2. Terminology
SAV: Source Address Validation, i.e., validating the authenticity of
a packet's source IP address.
SAV rule: The filtering rule generated by inter-domain SAV mechanisms
that determines valid incoming interfaces for a specific source
prefix.
SAV table: The data structure that stores SAV rules on the data
plane. The router queries its local SAV table to validate the
authenticity of source addresses.
Improper block: Cases when packets with legitimate source addresses
are improperly blocked.
Improper permit: Cases when packets with spoofed source addresses are
improperly permitted.
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3. Gap Analysis
BCP 84 recommends loose uRPF at provider/peer interfaces and EFP-uRPF
at customer interfaces. The followings are the gap analysis of these
SAV mechanisms.
3.1. Improper Permit
Existing SAV mechanisms may have improper permit problems that the
packets with spoofed source addresses are considered as legal. Here
are two cases where improper permit will appear.
3.1.1. Reflection Attack Scenario
The first case is at provider or peer interfaces where loose uRPF is
deployed. Loose uPRF almost accepts any source address, which fails
to protect ASes in the customer cone from externally injected
attacks.
+----------+
Attacker(P4') +-+ AS3(P3) |
+----------+
|
(P2C) |
|
+----v-----+
| AS4(P4) |-+Victim
+/\+----+/\+
/ \
/ \
(C2P) / \ (C2P)
+----------+ +----------+
| AS1(P1) | | AS2(P2) +-+Server
+----------+ +----------+
P4' is the spoofed source prefix P4 by the attacker
which is attached to AS3
Figure 1: A reflection attack scenario
Figure 1 shows a reflection attack scenario. AS 3 is the provider of
AS 4. AS 4 is the provider of AS 1 and AS 2. EFP-uRPF is deployed
at AS 4's customer interfaces, and loose uRPF is implemented at AS
4's provider interface. Assume a reflection attacker is attached to
AS 3. It sends packets spoofing P4 to the server located in AS 2 for
attacking the victim in AS 4. However, this attack cannot be
successfully blocked though AS 4 has deployed inter-domain SAV.
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3.1.2. Spoofing within a Customer Cone
The second case is at customer interfaces where EFP-uRPF with
algorithm B is deployed. It allows packets with source addresses of
the customer cone to enter from any customer interfaces to avoid
potential improper block problems that EFP-uRPF with algorithm A may
have. However, vulnerability is imported. Although EFP-uRPF with
algorithm B can prevent ASes inside the customer cone from using
source addresses of ASes outside the customer cone, it sacrifices the
directionality of traffic from different customers, which will lead
to improper permit problems.
+----------+
+ AS 3(P3) |
+----------+
|
(P2C) |
|
+----v-----+
| AS 4(P4) |
+/\+----+/\+
/ \
/ \
(C2P) / \ (C2P)
+----------+ +----------+
Victim+-+ AS 1(P1) | | AS 2(P2) +-+Attacker
+----------+ +----------+
P1' is the spoofed source prefix P1 by the attacker
which is attached to AS3
Figure 2: Spoofing within a customer cone
In Figure 2, assume AS 4 implements EFP-uRPF with algorithm B at
customer interfaces. Under EFP-uRPF with algorithm B, AS 4 will
generate SAV rules with legitimate P1 and P2 at both customer
interfaces. When the attacker in AS 2 spoofs source address of AS 1,
AS 4 will improperly permit these packets with spoofed source
addresses of prefix P1. The same also applies when the attacker in
AS 1 forges prefix P2. That is to say, EFP-uRPF algorithm B cannot
prevent source address spoofing between ASes of the customer cone.
3.2. Improper Block
In some cases, existing SAV mechanisms may improperly block the
packets with legitimate source addresses. Here are two cases where
improper permit will appear.
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3.2.1. NO_EXPORT in BGP Advertisement
Figure 3 presents a NO_EXPORT scenario. AS 1 is the common customer
of AS 2 and AS 3. AS 4 is the provider of AS 2. The relationship
between AS 3 and AS 4 is customer-to-provider (C2P) or peer-to-peer
(P2P). All arrows in Figure 2 represent BGP advertisements. AS 2
owns prefix P2 and advertises it to AS 4 through BGP. AS 3 also
advertises its own prefix P3 to AS 4. AS 1 has prefix P1 and
advertises the prefix to the providers, i.e., AS 2 and AS 3. After
receiving the route for prefix P1 from AS 1, AS 3 propagates this
route to AS 4. Differently, AS 2 does not propagate the route for
prefix P1 to AS 4, since AS 1 adds the NO_EXPORT community attribute
in the BGP advertisement destined to AS 2. In the end, AS 4 only
learns the route for prefix P1 from AS 3.
Assume that AS 3 is the customer of AS 4. If AS 4 runs EFP-uRPF with
algorithm A at customer interfaces, the packets with source addresses
of P1 are required to arrive only from AS 3. When AS 1 sends the
packets with legitimate source addresses of prefix P1 to AS 4 through
AS 2, AS 4 will improperly block these packets. EFP-uRPF with
algorithm B works well in this case.
Assume that AS 3 is the peer of AS 4. AS 4 will never learn the
route of P1 from its customer interfaces. So, no matter EFP-uRPF
with algorithm A or that with algorithm B are used by AS 4, there
will be improper block problems.
Besides the NO_EXPORT case above, there are also many route filtering
policies that can result in interruption of BGP advertisement.
Improper block may be induced by existing inter-domain SAV mechanisms
in such cases, and it is hard to prevent networks from taking these
configurations.
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+-----------------+
| AS 4 |
+-+/\+-------+/\+-+
/ \
/ \
P3[AS 3]/(P2P/C2P) (C2P)\ P2[AS 2]
P1[AS 3, AS 1] / \
/ \
+----------------+ +----------------+
P3---+ AS 3 | | AS 2 +---P2
+--------/\------+ +-------/\-------+
\ /
P1[AS 1]\(C2P) (C2P)/P1[AS 1]
\ / NO_EXPORT
+-----------------+
| AS 1 +---P1
+-----------------+
Figure 3: Interrupted BGP advertisement caused by NO_EXPORT
3.2.2. Direct Server Return (DSR) Scenario
Anycast is a network addressing and routing methodology. An anycast
IP address is shared by devices in multiple locations, and incoming
requests are routed to the location closest to the sender.
Therefore, anycast is widely used in Content Delivery Network (CDN)
to improve the quality of service by bringing the content to the user
as soon as possible. In practice, anycast IP addresses are usually
announced only from some locations with a lot of connectivity. Upon
receiving incoming requests from users, requests are then tunneled to
the edge locations where the content is. Subsequently, the edge
locations do direct server return (DSR), i.e., directly sending the
content to the users. To ensure that DSR works, servers in edge
locations must send response packets with anycast IP address as the
source address. However, since edge locations never advertise the
anycast prefixes through BGP, an intermediate AS with EFP-uRPF may
improperly block these response packets.
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+----------+
Anycast Server+-+ AS3(P3) |
+----------+
|
(P2C) | P3[AS3]
|
+----v-----+
| AS4 |
+/\+----+/\+
/ \
P1[AS1] / \ P2[AS2]
(C2P) / \ (C2P)
+----------+ +----------+
User+-+ AS1(P1) | | AS2(P2) +-+Edge Server
+----------+ +----------+
P3 is the anycast prefix and is only advertised from AS3
Figure 4: A Direct Server Return (DSR) scenario
Figure 4 shows a specific DSR scenario. The anycast IP prefix (i.e.,
prefix P3) is only advertised from AS 3 through BGP. Assume AS 3 is
the provider of AS 4. AS 4 is the provider of AS 1 and AS 2. When
users in AS 1 send requests to the anycast destination IP, the
forwarding path from users to anycast servers is AS 1 -> AS 4 -> AS
3. Anycast servers in AS 3 receive the requests and then tunnel them
to the edge servers in AS 2. Finally, the edge servers send the
content to the users with source addresses of prefix P3. The reverse
forwarding path is AS 2 -> AS 4 -> AS 1. Since AS 4 never receives
routing information for prefix P3 from AS 2, EFP-uRPF algorithm A/
EFP-uRPF algorithm B or other existing uRPF-like mechanisms at AS 4
will improperly block the response packets from AS 2.
3.3. Misaligned Incentive
Existing SAV mechanisms validate upstream (i.e., the packets from
customers to providers) strictly but take a loose validation for
downstream (i.e., the packets from providers/peers to customers).
Even an AS as well as its provider deploy BCP 84, the AS may still
suffer source address spoofing attacks.
The reflection attack scenario in Figure 1 shows a misaligned
incentive case. The attacker connected to AS 3 spoofs the prefix P4
owned by AS 4 and sends attack packets to the server attached to AS
2. The reflection attack succeeds even AS 4 has enabled SAV.
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The scenario in Figure 2 is another example. AS 4 deploying EFP-uRPF
with algorithm B cannot prevent source address spoofing within an
customer cone. Technical limitations induce inaccurate SAV
(particularly improper permit) and further degrade the incentive of
deployers.
A detailed discussion about incentive can be found in
[draft-qin-savnet-incentive-00].
4. Problem Statement
4.1. Inaccurate Validation
High accuracy, i.e., avoiding improper block problems while trying
best to reduce improper permit problems, is the basic and key problem
of an SAV mechanism. Existing inter-domain SAV mechanisms have
accuracy gaps in some scenarios like routing asymmetry induced by BGP
route policies or configurations. Particularly, EFP-uRPF takes the
RPF list in data-plane, which means the packets from customer
interfaces with unknown source prefixes (not appear in the RPF list)
will be discarded directly. Improper block issues will arise when
legitimate source prefixes are not accurately learned by EFP-uRPF.
The root cause is that these mechanisms leverage local RIB table of
routers to learn the source addresses and determine the valid
incoming interface, which may not match the real data-plane
forwarding path from the source. It may mistakenly consider a valid
incoming interface as invalid, resulting in improper block problems;
or consider an invalid incoming interface as valid, resulting in
improper permit problems. Essentially, it is impossible to generate
an accurate SAV table solely based on the router's local information
due to the existence of asymmetric routes.
4.2. Misaligned Incentive
Existing inter-domain SAV mechanisms pay more attention to upstream
(traffic from customer to provider/peer), resulting in weak source
address checking of downstream (traffic from provider/peer to
customer). The deployed network is still vulnerable to reflection
attack, which is considered the most harmful source address spoofing
attack, from other networks. "Strict upstream but weak downstream
checking" makes the benefits of deploying SAV flow to the rest of the
Internet, but not to the deployed network itself. This will harm the
incentive of ASes deploying SAV. Misaligned incentive will undermine
the motivation of the deployment.
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5. Requirements
Inter-domain SAVNET focuses on narrowing the technical gaps of
existing inter-domain SAV mechanisms. The architecture of inter-
domain SAVNET should satisfy the following requirements.
5.1. Accurate SAV
SAV rules SHOULD match real data plane paths. Generating SAV rules
solely depending on control plane route information (e.g., RIB)
results in inaccurate SAV due to the mismatch of control plane path
and data plane path. To achieve high accuracy of SAV, an AS SHOULD
learn the real incoming direction of each source following the data
plane forwarding path. To this end, extra information out of routing
information (e.g., RIB or FIB) is needed as a supplement. According
to extra information, additional valid incoming interface may be
discovered for avoiding improper block, and some interfaces may be
removed for reducing improper permit.
Besides, it is desired that downstream are under the same SAV
criteria as upstream and that local SAV-enabled AS/cone are also
protected well (e.g., protected from reflection attacks). It would
be easy to achieve perfect all-round protection supposing SAV is
fully deployed, but, unfortunately, it is improbable in the recent
future. Even so, efforts are needed to narrow the gaps as possible.
5.2. Direct Incentive
SAV mechanisms SHOULD provide direct incentives. It would be
attractive if the networks deployed with SAV mechanisms are protected
from source address spoofing attacks instead of only providing
protection to others. The traffic forging these source prefixes
SHOULD be blocked as close to the traffic source as possible. To
make direct incentive, the accuracy of both upstream SAV and
downstream SAV SHOULD be improved.
5.3. Working in Partial Deployment
SAV mechanisms MUST provide protection for source addresses even the
mechanisms are partially deployed. It is impractical to assume that
all the ASes or most of the ASes enable SAV simultaneously. Partial
deployment or incremental deployment have to be considered during the
work of SAV.
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5.4. Acceptable Overhead
The overhead of SAV SHOULD be controlled. Any improvement designs
for SAV mechanisms SHOULD not overload control plane. Besides, data
plane SHOULD not modify packets for simplifying the process of data
plane, which keeps same as existing SAV mechanisms.
6. Inter-domain SAVNET Scope
This document focus on the same scope corresponding to existing
inter-domain SAV mechanisms. Generally, it includes all IP
encapsulated scenarios:
* Native IP forwarding: including both global routing table
forwarding and CE site forwarding of VPN;
* IP-in-IP Tunnel (IPsec, GRE, SRv6, etc.): focusing on the
validation of the outer layer IP address;
* Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses
Scope does not include:
* Non-IP encapsulation: including MPLS label-based forwarding and
other non-IP-based forwarding.
7. Security Considerations
SAV rules can be generated based on route information (FIB/RIB) or
non-route information. If the information is poisoned by attackers,
the SAV rules will be false. Lots of legal packets may be dropped
improperly or malicious traffic with spoofed source addresses may be
permitted improperly. Route security should be considered by routing
protocols. Non-route information should also be protected by
corresponding mechanisms or infrastructure. If SAV mechanisms or
protocols require information exchange, there should be some
considerations on the avoidance of message alteration or message
injection.
The SAV procedure referred in this document modifies no field of
packets. So, security considerations on data-plane is not in the
scope of this document.
8. IANA Considerations
This document does not request any IANA allocations.
9. Normative References
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[draft-qin-savnet-incentive-00]
Qin, L., Li, D., and J. Wu, "The Incentive Consideration
for Source Address Validation in Intra-domain and Inter-
domain Networks (SAVNET)", 15 September 2022.
[RFC2827] Ferguson, P. and D. Senie, "Network Ingress Filtering:
Defeating Denial of Service Attacks which employ IP Source
Address Spoofing", BCP 38, RFC 2827, DOI 10.17487/RFC2827,
May 2000, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2827>.
[RFC3704] Baker, F. and P. Savola, "Ingress Filtering for Multihomed
Networks", BCP 84, RFC 3704, DOI 10.17487/RFC3704, March
2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3704>.
[RFC5210] Wu, J., Bi, J., Li, X., Ren, G., Xu, K., and M. Williams,
"A Source Address Validation Architecture (SAVA) Testbed
and Deployment Experience", RFC 5210,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5210, June 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5210>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8704] Sriram, K., Montgomery, D., and J. Haas, "Enhanced
Feasible-Path Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding", BCP 84,
RFC 8704, DOI 10.17487/RFC8704, February 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8704>.
Authors' Addresses
Jianping Wu
Tsinghua University
Beijing
China
Email: jianping@cernet.edu.cn
Dan Li
Tsinghua University
Beijing
China
Email: tolidan@tsinghua.edu.cn
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Lancheng Qin
Tsinghua University
Beijing
China
Email: qlc19@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn
Mingqing Huang
Huawei
Beijing
China
Email: huangmingqing@huawei.com
Nan Geng
Huawei
Beijing
China
Email: gengnan@huawei.com
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