wdiff rfc9077.original rfc9077.txt

dnsop

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) P. van Dijk
Internet-Draft
Request for Comments: 9077 PowerDNS
Updates: 4034, 4035, 5155, 8198 (if approved) 20 May July 2021
Intended status:
Category: Standards Track
Expires: 21 November 2021
ISSN: 2070-1721

NSEC and NSEC3 NSEC3: TTLs and NSEC Aggressive Use
draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-05

Abstract

Due to a combination of unfortunate wording in earlier documents,
aggressive use of NSEC and NSEC3 records may deny the existence of
names far beyond the intended lifetime of a denial. This document
changes the definition of the NSEC and NSEC3 TTL (Time To Live) to correct that
situation. This document updates RFC RFCs 4034, RFC 4035,
RFC 5155, and RFC 8198.

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 an Internet Standards Track document.

This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list It represents the consensus of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for a maximum publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 7841.

Information about the current status of six months this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents obtained 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 21 November 2021.
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9077.

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Table of Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. NSEC and NSEC3 TTL changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Changes
3.1. Updates to RFC4034 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 RFC 4034
3.2. Updates to RFC4035 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 RFC 4035
3.3. Updates to RFC5155 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 RFC 5155
3.4. Updates to RFC8198 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 RFC 8198
4. Zone Operator Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. A Note On on Wildcards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Appendix A. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Appendix B. Document history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

1. Introduction

[RFC editor: please remove this block before publication.

Earlier notes on this:

* https://indico.dns-oarc.net/event/29/sessions/98/#20181013
(https://indico.dns-oarc.net/event/29/sessions/98/#20181013)

* https://lists.dns-oarc.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2018-April/
thread.html#17420 (https://lists.dns-oarc.net/pipermail/dns-
operations/2018-April/thread.html#17420)

* https://lists.dns-oarc.net/pipermail/dns-
operations/2018-March/017416.html (https://lists.dns-
oarc.net/pipermail/dns-operations/2018-March/017416.html)
This document lives on GitHub (https://github.com/PowerDNS/draft-
dnsop-nsec-ttl); proposed text and editorial changes are very much
welcomed there, but any functional changes should always first be
discussed on the IETF DNSOP WG mailing list.

]

[RFC2308] defines the TTL of the SOA (Start Of Authority) Start of Authority (SOA) record that
must be returned in negative answers (NXDOMAIN or NODATA):

| The TTL of this record is set from the minimum of the MINIMUM
| field of the SOA record and the TTL of the SOA itself, and
| indicates how long a resolver may cache the negative answer.

Thus, if the TTL of the SOA in the zone is lower than the SOA MINIMUM
value (the last number in the SOA record), the authoritative server
sends that lower value as the TTL of the returned SOA record. The
resolver always uses the TTL of the returned SOA record when setting
the negative TTL in its cache.

However, [RFC4034] section [RFC4034], Section 4 has this unfortunate text:

| The NSEC RR SHOULD have the same TTL value as the SOA minimum TTL
| field. This is in the spirit of negative caching ([RFC2308]).

This text, while referring to RFC2308, [RFC2308], can cause NSEC records to
have much higher TTLs than the appropriate negative TTL for a zone.
[RFC5155] contains equivalent text.

[RFC8198] section

[RFC8198], Section 5.4 tries to correct this:

| Section 5 of [RFC2308] also states that a negative cache entry TTL
| is taken from the minimum of the SOA.MINIMUM field and SOA's TTL.
| This can be less than the TTL of an NSEC or NSEC3 record, since
| their TTL is equal to the SOA.MINIMUM field (see [RFC4035],
| Section 2.3 and [RFC5155], Section 3).
|
| A resolver that supports aggressive use of NSEC and NSEC3 SHOULD
| reduce the TTL of NSEC and NSEC3 records to match the SOA.MINIMUM
| field in the authority section of a negative response, if
| SOA.MINIMUM is smaller.

But the NSEC and NSEC3 RRs should, according to RFC4034 [RFC4034] and RFC5155,
[RFC5155], already be at the value of the MINIMUM field in the SOA.
Thus, the advice from RFC8198 [RFC8198] would not actually change the TTL
used for the NSEC and NSEC3 RRs for authoritative servers that follow
the RFCs.

As a theoretical exercise, consider a TLD top-level domain (TLD) named ".example"
.example with a an SOA record like this:

"example.

example. 900 IN SOA primary.example. hostmaster.example. dnsadmin.example. (
1 1800 900 604800 86400" 86400 )

The SOA record has a 900 second TTL, 900-second TTL and a 86400 an 86400-second MINIMUM TTL.
Negative responses from this zone have a 900 second 900-second TTL, but the NSEC
or NSEC3 records in those negative responses have a 86400 an 86400-second
TTL. If a resolver were to use those NSEC or NSEC3 records
aggressively, they would be considered valid for a day, day instead of the
intended 15 minutes.

2. Conventions and Definitions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.

3. NSEC and NSEC3 TTL changes

The existing texts in Changes

[RFC4034], [RFC4035], and [RFC5155] use the SHOULD requirement level,
but they were written prior to the publication of [RFC8198] when
[RFC4035] still
said 'However, said:

| However, it seems prudent for resolvers to avoid blocking new
| authoritative data or synthesizing new data on their own'. own.

[RFC8198] updated that text to contain 'DNSSEC-enabled contain:

| ...DNSSEC-enabled validating resolvers SHOULD use wildcards and
| NSEC/NSEC3 resource records to generate positive and negative
| responses until the effective TTLs or signatures for those records expire'.
| expire.

This means that the correctness of NSEC and NSEC3 records, records and their TTLs,
TTLs has become much more important. Because of that, the updates in
this document upgrade the requirement level to MUST.

3.1. Updates to RFC4034

Where RFC 4034

[RFC4034] says:

| The NSEC RR SHOULD have the same TTL value as the SOA minimum TTL
| field. This is in the spirit of negative caching ([RFC2308]).

This is updated to say:

| The TTL of the NSEC RR that is returned MUST be the lesser of the
| MINIMUM field of the SOA record and the TTL of the SOA itself.
| This matches the definition of the TTL for negative responses in
| [RFC2308]. Because some signers incrementally update the NSEC
| chain, a transient inconsistency between the observed and expected
| TTL MAY exist.

3.2. Updates to RFC4035

Where RFC 4035

[RFC4035] says:

| The TTL value for any NSEC RR SHOULD be the same as the minimum
| TTL value field in the zone SOA RR.

This is updated to say:

3.3. Updates to RFC5155

Where RFC 5155

[RFC5155] says:

| The NSEC3 RR SHOULD have the same TTL value as the SOA minimum TTL
| field. This is in the spirit of negative caching [RFC2308].

This is updated to say:

| The TTL of the NSEC3 RR that is returned MUST be the lesser of the
| MINIMUM field of the SOA record and the TTL of the SOA itself.
| This matches the definition of the TTL for negative responses in
| [RFC2308]. Because some signers incrementally update the NSEC3
| chain, a transient inconsistency between the observed and expected
| TTL MAY exist.

Where [RFC5155] says:

| o * The TTL value for any NSEC3 RR SHOULD be the same as the minimum
| minimum TTL value field in the zone SOA RR.

This is updated to say:

| o * The TTL value for each NSEC3 RR MUST be the lesser of the
| MINIMUM field of the zone SOA RR and the TTL of the zone SOA RR
| itself. Because some signers incrementally update the NSEC3
| chain, a transient inconsistency between the observed and expected
| expected TTL MAY exist.

3.4. Updates to RFC8198

[RFC8198] section RFC 8198

[RFC8198], Section 5.4 (Consideration ("Consideration on TTL) TTL") is completely
replaced by the following text:

| The TTL value of negative information is especially important,
| because newly added domain names cannot be used while the negative
| information is effective.
|
| Section 5 of [RFC2308] suggests a maximum default negative cache
| TTL value of 3 hours (10800). It is RECOMMENDED that validating
| resolvers limit the maximum effective TTL value of negative
| responses (NSEC/NSEC3 RRs) to this same value.
|
| A resolver that supports aggressive use of NSEC and NSEC3 MAY
| limit the TTL of NSEC and NSEC3 records to the lesser of the
| SOA.MINIMUM field and the TTL of the SOA in a response, if
| present. It MAY also use a previously cached SOA for a zone to
| find these values.

(The third paragraph of the original is removed, and the fourth
paragraph is updated to allow resolvers to also take the lesser of
the SOA TTL and SOA MINIMUM.)

4. Zone Operator Considerations

If signers and DNS servers for a zone cannot immediately be updated
to conform to this document, zone operators are encouraged to
consider setting their SOA record TTL and the SOA MINIMUM field to
the same value. That way, the TTL used for aggressive NSEC and NSEC3
use matches the SOA TTL for negative responses.

Note that some signers might use the SOA TTL or MINIMUM as a default
for other values, such as the TTL for DNSKEY records. Operators
should consult documentation before changing values.

4.1. A Note On on Wildcards

Validating resolvers consider an expanded wildcard valid for the
wildcard's TTL, capped by the TTLs of the NSEC or NSEC3 proof that
shows that the wildcard expansion is legal. Thus, changing the TTL
of NSEC or NSEC3 records (explicitly, or by implementation of this
document,
document implicitly) might affect (shorten) the lifetime of
wildcards.

5. Security Considerations

An attacker can delay future records from appearing in a cache by
seeding the cache with queries that cause NSEC or NSEC3 responses to
be cached for aggressive use purposes. This document reduces the
impact of that attack in cases where the NSEC or NSEC3 TTL is higher
than the zone operator intended.

6. IANA Considerations

IANA is requested to add has added a reference to this document in the "Resource Record
(RR) TYPEs" subregistry of the "Domain Name System (DNS) Parameters" registry,
registry for the NSEC and NSEC3 types.

7. Normative References

[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFC
2119 Key Words", RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 8174, 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>. 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

[RFC2308] Andrews, M., "Negative Caching of DNS Queries (DNS
NCACHE)", RFC 2308, DOI 10.17487/RFC2308, March 1998,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2308>.

[RFC4034] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "Resource Records for the DNS Security Extensions",
RFC 4034, DOI 10.17487/RFC4034, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4034>.

[RFC4035] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S.
Rose, "Protocol Modifications for the DNS Security
Extensions", RFC 4035, DOI 10.17487/RFC4035, March 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4035>.

[RFC5155] Laurie, B., Sisson, G., Arends, R., and D. Blacka, "DNS
Security (DNSSEC) Hashed Authenticated Denial of
Existence", RFC 5155, DOI 10.17487/RFC5155, March 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5155>.

[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>.

[RFC8198] Fujiwara, K., Kato, A., and W. Kumari, "Aggressive Use of
DNSSEC-Validated Cache", RFC 8198, DOI 10.17487/RFC8198,
July 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8198>.

[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

Appendix A. Implementation Status

[RFC Editor: please remove this section before publication]

Implemented in PowerDNS Authoritative Server 4.3.0
https://doc.powerdns.com/authoritative/dnssec/
operational.html?highlight=ttl#some-notes-on-ttl-usage
(https://doc.powerdns.com/authoritative/dnssec/
operational.html?highlight=ttl#some-notes-on-ttl-usage) .

Implemented in BIND 9.16 and up, to be released early 2021
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/ga41J2PPUbmc21--
dqf3i7_IY6M (https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/dnsop/
ga41J2PPUbmc21--dqf3i7_IY6M) https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/
bind9/-/merge_requests/4506 (https://gitlab.isc.org/isc-projects/
bind9/-/merge_requests/4506) .

Implemented in Knot DNS 3.1, to be released in 2021
https://gitlab.nic.cz/knot/knot-dns/-/merge_requests/1219
(https://gitlab.nic.cz/knot/knot-dns/-/merge_requests/1219) .

Implemented in ldns, patch under review
https://github.com/NLnetLabs/ldns/pull/118
(https://github.com/NLnetLabs/ldns/pull/118)

Implementation status is tracked at
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/dnsop/wiki/draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl
(https://trac.ietf.org/trac/dnsop/wiki/draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl)

Appendix B. Document history

[RFC editor: please remove this section before publication.]

From draft-vandijk-dnsop-nsec-ttl-00 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-00:

* document was adopted

* various minor editorial changes
* now also updates 4035

* use .example instead of .com for the example

* more words on 8198

* a note on wildcards

From draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-00 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-01:

* various wording improvements

* added Implementation note from Knot, expanded the BIND one with
the GitLab MR URL

* reduced requirement level from MUST to SHOULD, like the original
texts

From draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-01 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-02:

* updated the second bit of wrong text in 5155

From draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-02 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-03:

* document now updates resolver behaviour in 8198

* lots of extra text to clarify what behaviour goes where (thanks
Paul Hoffman)

* replace 'any' with 'each' (thanks Duane)

* upgraded requirement level to MUST, plus a note on incremental
signers

From draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-03 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-04:

* the 'incremental signer exception' is now part of all relevant
document updates

* added an explanation for the upgraded requirement level

From draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-04 to draft-ietf-dnsop-nsec-ttl-05:

* various minor rewordings (from IESG review, and things I spotted
while handling IESG review comments)

* added a note on the secondary impact of changing the SOA TTL and/
or MINIMUM (IESG review)

Acknowledgements

This document was made possible with the help of the following
people:

* Ralph Dolmans

* Warren Kumari

* Matthijs Mekking

* Vladimir Cunat

* Matt Nordhoff

* Josh Soref

* Tim Wicinski

The author would like to explicitly thank Paul Hoffman for the
extensive reviews, text contributions, and help in navigating WG
comments.

Author's Address

Peter van Dijk
PowerDNS
Den Haag
Netherlands

Email: peter.van.dijk@powerdns.com