1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
|
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) R. Bush
Request for Comments: 8210 Internet Initiative Japan
Updates: 6810 R. Austein
Category: Standards Track Dragon Research Labs
ISSN: 2070-1721 September 2017
The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to Router Protocol,
Version 1
Abstract
In order to verifiably validate the origin Autonomous Systems and
Autonomous System Paths of BGP announcements, routers need a simple
but reliable mechanism to receive Resource Public Key Infrastructure
(RFC 6480) prefix origin data and router keys from a trusted cache.
This document describes a protocol to deliver them.
This document describes version 1 of the RPKI-Router protocol. RFC
6810 describes version 0. This document updates RFC 6810.
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for 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 this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8210.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 1]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 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/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 2]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. Changes from RFC 6810 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Deployment Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Operational Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5. Protocol Data Units (PDUs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.1. Fields of a PDU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
5.2. Serial Notify . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.3. Serial Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.4. Reset Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.5. Cache Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.6. IPv4 Prefix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.7. IPv6 Prefix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.8. End of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.9. Cache Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.10. Router Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.11. Error Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6. Protocol Timing Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7. Protocol Version Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8. Protocol Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.1. Start or Restart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.2. Typical Exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.3. No Incremental Update Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.4. Cache Has No Data Available . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
9. Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9.1. SSH Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.2. TLS Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
9.3. TCP MD5 Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
9.4. TCP-AO Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
10. Router-Cache Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
11. Deployment Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
12. Error Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
13. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
14. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
15. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
15.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
15.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 3]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
1. Introduction
In order to verifiably validate the origin Autonomous Systems (ASes)
and AS paths of BGP announcements, routers need a simple but reliable
mechanism to receive cryptographically validated Resource Public Key
Infrastructure (RPKI) [RFC6480] prefix origin data and router keys
from a trusted cache. This document describes a protocol to deliver
them. The design is intentionally constrained to be usable on much
of the current generation of ISP router platforms.
This document updates [RFC6810].
Section 3 describes the deployment structure, and Section 4 then
presents an operational overview. The binary payloads of the
protocol are formally described in Section 5, and the expected
Protocol Data Unit (PDU) sequences are described in Section 8. The
transport protocol options are described in Section 9. Section 10
details how routers and caches are configured to connect and
authenticate. Section 11 describes likely deployment scenarios. The
traditional security and IANA considerations end the document.
The protocol is extensible in order to support new PDUs with new
semantics, if deployment experience indicates that they are needed.
PDUs are versioned should deployment experience call for change.
1.1. Requirements Language
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.
1.2. Changes from RFC 6810
This section summarizes the significant changes between [RFC6810] and
the protocol described in this document.
o New Router Key PDU type (Section 5.10) added.
o Explicit timing parameters (Section 5.8, Section 6) added.
o Protocol version number incremented from 0 (zero) to 1 (one).
o Protocol version number negotiation (Section 7) added.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 4]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
2. Glossary
The following terms are used with special meaning.
Global RPKI: The authoritative data of the RPKI are published in a
distributed set of servers at the IANA, Regional Internet
Registries (RIRs), National Internet Registries (NIRs), and ISPs;
see [RFC6481].
Cache: A cache is a coalesced copy of the published Global RPKI
data, periodically fetched or refreshed, directly or indirectly,
using the rsync protocol [RFC5781] or some successor. Relying
Party software is used to gather and validate the distributed data
of the RPKI into a cache. Trusting this cache further is a matter
between the provider of the cache and a Relying Party.
Serial Number: "Serial Number" is a 32-bit strictly increasing
unsigned integer which wraps from 2^32-1 to 0. It denotes the
logical version of a cache. A cache increments the value when it
successfully updates its data from a parent cache or from primary
RPKI data. While a cache is receiving updates, new incoming data
and implicit deletes are associated with the new serial but MUST
NOT be sent until the fetch is complete. A Serial Number is not
commensurate between different caches or different protocol
versions, nor need it be maintained across resets of the cache
server. See [RFC1982] on DNS Serial Number Arithmetic for too
much detail on the topic.
Session ID: When a cache server is started, it generates a
Session ID to uniquely identify the instance of the cache and to
bind it to the sequence of Serial Numbers that cache instance will
generate. This allows the router to restart a failed session
knowing that the Serial Number it is using is commensurate with
that of the cache.
Payload PDU: A payload PDU is a protocol message which contains data
for use by the router, as opposed to a PDU which conveys the
control mechanisms of this protocol. Prefixes and Router Keys are
examples of payload PDUs.
3. Deployment Structure
Deployment of the RPKI to reach routers has a three-level structure
as follows:
Global RPKI: The authoritative data of the RPKI are published in a
distributed set of servers at the IANA, RIRs, NIRs, and ISPs (see
[RFC6481]).
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 5]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Local Caches: Local caches are a local set of one or more collected
and verified caches of RPKI data. A Relying Party, e.g., router
or other client, MUST have a trust relationship with, and a
trusted transport channel to, any cache(s) it uses.
Routers: A router fetches data from a local cache using the protocol
described in this document. It is said to be a client of the
cache. There MAY be mechanisms for the router to assure itself of
the authenticity of the cache and to authenticate itself to the
cache (see Section 9).
4. Operational Overview
A router establishes and keeps open a connection to one or more
caches with which it has client/server relationships. It is
configured with a semi-ordered list of caches and establishes a
connection to the most preferred cache, or set of caches, which
accept the connections.
The router MUST choose the most preferred, by configuration, cache or
set of caches so that the operator may control load on their caches
and the Global RPKI.
Periodically, the router sends to the cache the most recent Serial
Number for which it has received data from that cache, i.e., the
router's current Serial Number, in the form of a Serial Query. When
a router establishes a new session with a cache or wishes to reset a
current relationship, it sends a Reset Query.
The cache responds to the Serial Query with all data changes which
took place since the given Serial Number. This may be the null set,
in which case the End of Data PDU (Section 5.8) is still sent. Note
that the Serial Number comparison used to determine "since the given
Serial Number" MUST take wrap-around into account; see [RFC1982].
When the router has received all data records from the cache, it sets
its current Serial Number to that of the Serial Number in the
received End of Data PDU.
When the cache updates its database, it sends a Notify PDU to every
currently connected router. This is a hint that now would be a good
time for the router to poll for an update, but it is only a hint.
The protocol requires the router to poll for updates periodically in
any case.
Strictly speaking, a router could track a cache simply by asking for
a complete data set every time it updates, but this would be very
inefficient. The Serial-Number-based incremental update mechanism
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 6]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
allows an efficient transfer of just the data records which have
changed since the last update. As with any update protocol based on
incremental transfers, the router must be prepared to fall back to a
full transfer if for any reason the cache is unable to provide the
necessary incremental data. Unlike some incremental transfer
protocols, this protocol requires the router to make an explicit
request to start the fallback process; this is deliberate, as the
cache has no way of knowing whether the router has also established
sessions with other caches that may be able to provide better
service.
As a cache server must evaluate certificates and ROAs (Route Origin
Authorizations; see [RFC6480]), which are time dependent, servers'
clocks MUST be correct to a tolerance of approximately an hour.
5. Protocol Data Units (PDUs)
The exchanges between the cache and the router are sequences of
exchanges of the following PDUs according to the rules described in
Section 8.
Reserved fields (marked "zero" in PDU diagrams) MUST be zero on
transmission and MUST be ignored on receipt.
5.1. Fields of a PDU
PDUs contain the following data elements:
Protocol Version: An 8-bit unsigned integer, currently 1, denoting
the version of this protocol.
PDU Type: An 8-bit unsigned integer, denoting the type of the PDU,
e.g., IPv4 Prefix.
Serial Number: The Serial Number of the RPKI cache when this set of
PDUs was received from an upstream cache server or gathered from
the Global RPKI. A cache increments its Serial Number when
completing a rigorously validated update from a parent cache or
the Global RPKI.
Session ID: A 16-bit unsigned integer. When a cache server is
started, it generates a Session ID to identify the instance of the
cache and to bind it to the sequence of Serial Numbers that cache
instance will generate. This allows the router to restart a
failed session knowing that the Serial Number it is using is
commensurate with that of the cache. If, at any time after the
protocol version has been negotiated (Section 7), either the
router or the cache finds that the value of the Session ID is not
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 7]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
the same as the other's, the party which detects the mismatch MUST
immediately terminate the session with an Error Report PDU with
code 0 ("Corrupt Data"), and the router MUST flush all data
learned from that cache.
Note that sessions are specific to a particular protocol version.
That is, if a cache server supports multiple versions of this
protocol, happens to use the same Session ID value for multiple
protocol versions, and further happens to use the same Serial
Number values for two or more sessions using the same Session ID
but different Protocol Version values, the Serial Numbers are not
commensurate. The full test for whether Serial Numbers are
commensurate requires comparing Protocol Version, Session ID, and
Serial Number. To reduce the risk of confusion, cache servers
SHOULD NOT use the same Session ID across multiple protocol
versions, but even if they do, routers MUST treat sessions with
different Protocol Version fields as separate sessions even if
they do happen to have the same Session ID.
Should a cache erroneously reuse a Session ID so that a router
does not realize that the session has changed (old Session ID and
new Session ID have the same numeric value), the router may become
confused as to the content of the cache. The time it takes the
router to discover that it is confused will depend on whether the
Serial Numbers are also reused. If the Serial Numbers in the old
and new sessions are different enough, the cache will respond to
the router's Serial Query with a Cache Reset, which will solve the
problem. If, however, the Serial Numbers are close, the cache may
respond with a Cache Response, which may not be enough to bring
the router into sync. In such cases, it's likely but not certain
that the router will detect some discrepancy between the state
that the cache expects and its own state. For example, the Cache
Response may tell the router to drop a record which the router
does not hold or may tell the router to add a record which the
router already has. In such cases, a router will detect the error
and reset the session. The one case in which the router may stay
out of sync is when nothing in the Cache Response contradicts any
data currently held by the router.
Using persistent storage for the Session ID or a clock-based
scheme for generating Session IDs should avoid the risk of
Session ID collisions.
The Session ID might be a pseudorandom value, a strictly
increasing value if the cache has reliable storage, et cetera. A
seconds-since-epoch timestamp value such as the POSIX time()
function makes a good Session ID value.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 8]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Length: A 32-bit unsigned integer which has as its value the count
of the bytes in the entire PDU, including the 8 bytes of header
which includes the length field.
Flags: The lowest-order bit of the Flags field is 1 for an
announcement and 0 for a withdrawal. For a Prefix PDU (IPv4 or
IPv6), the flag indicates whether this PDU announces a new right
to announce the prefix or withdraws a previously announced right;
a withdraw effectively deletes one previously announced Prefix PDU
with the exact same Prefix, Length, Max-Len, and Autonomous System
Number (ASN). Similarly, for a Router Key PDU, the flag indicates
whether this PDU announces a new Router Key or deletes one
previously announced Router Key PDU with the exact same AS Number,
subjectKeyIdentifier, and subjectPublicKeyInfo.
The remaining bits in the Flags field are reserved for future use.
In protocol version 1, they MUST be zero on transmission and MUST
be ignored on receipt.
Prefix Length: An 8-bit unsigned integer denoting the shortest
prefix allowed by the Prefix element.
Max Length: An 8-bit unsigned integer denoting the longest prefix
allowed by the Prefix element. This MUST NOT be less than the
Prefix Length element.
Prefix: The IPv4 or IPv6 prefix of the ROA.
Autonomous System Number: A 32-bit unsigned integer representing an
ASN allowed to announce a prefix or associated with a router key.
Subject Key Identifier: 20-octet Subject Key Identifier (SKI) value
of a router key, as described in [RFC6487].
Subject Public Key Info: A router key's subjectPublicKeyInfo value,
as described in [RFC8208]. This is the full ASN.1 DER encoding of
the subjectPublicKeyInfo, including the ASN.1 tag and length
values of the subjectPublicKeyInfo SEQUENCE.
Refresh Interval: Interval between normal cache polls. See
Section 6.
Retry Interval: Interval between cache poll retries after a failed
cache poll. See Section 6.
Expire Interval: Interval during which data fetched from a cache
remains valid in the absence of a successful subsequent cache
poll. See Section 6.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 9]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.2. Serial Notify
The cache notifies the router that the cache has new data.
The Session ID reassures the router that the Serial Numbers are
commensurate, i.e., the cache session has not been changed.
Upon receipt of a Serial Notify PDU, the router MAY issue an
immediate Serial Query (Section 5.3) or Reset Query (Section 5.4)
without waiting for the Refresh Interval timer (see Section 6) to
expire.
Serial Notify is the only message that the cache can send that is not
in response to a message from the router.
If the router receives a Serial Notify PDU during the initial startup
period where the router and cache are still negotiating to agree on a
protocol version, the router MUST simply ignore the Serial Notify
PDU, even if the Serial Notify PDU is for an unexpected protocol
version. See Section 7 for details.
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | Session ID |
| 1 | 0 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=12 |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Serial Number |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
5.3. Serial Query
The router sends a Serial Query to ask the cache for all
announcements and withdrawals which have occurred since the Serial
Number specified in the Serial Query.
The cache replies to this query with a Cache Response PDU
(Section 5.5) if the cache has a (possibly null) record of the
changes since the Serial Number specified by the router, followed by
zero or more payload PDUs and an End Of Data PDU (Section 5.8).
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 10]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
When replying to a Serial Query, the cache MUST return the minimum
set of changes needed to bring the router into sync with the cache.
That is, if a particular prefix or router key underwent multiple
changes between the Serial Number specified by the router and the
cache's current Serial Number, the cache MUST merge those changes to
present the simplest possible view of those changes to the router.
In general, this means that, for any particular prefix or router key,
the data stream will include at most one withdrawal followed by at
most one announcement, and if all of the changes cancel out, the data
stream will not mention the prefix or router key at all.
The rationale for this approach is that the entire purpose of the
RPKI-Router protocol is to offload work from the router to the cache,
and it should therefore be the cache's job to simplify the change
set, thus reducing work for the router.
If the cache does not have the data needed to update the router,
perhaps because its records do not go back to the Serial Number in
the Serial Query, then it responds with a Cache Reset PDU
(Section 5.9).
The Session ID tells the cache what instance the router expects to
ensure that the Serial Numbers are commensurate, i.e., the cache
session has not been changed.
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | Session ID |
| 1 | 1 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=12 |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Serial Number |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 11]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.4. Reset Query
The router tells the cache that it wants to receive the total active,
current, non-withdrawn database. The cache responds with a Cache
Response PDU (Section 5.5), followed by zero or more payload PDUs and
an End of Data PDU (Section 5.8).
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | zero |
| 1 | 2 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=8 |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
5.5. Cache Response
The cache responds to queries with zero or more payload PDUs. When
replying to a Serial Query (Section 5.3), the cache sends the set of
announcements and withdrawals that have occurred since the Serial
Number sent by the client router. When replying to a Reset Query
(Section 5.4), the cache sends the set of all data records it has; in
this case, the withdraw/announce field in the payload PDUs MUST have
the value 1 (announce).
In response to a Reset Query, the new value of the Session ID tells
the router the instance of the cache session for future confirmation.
In response to a Serial Query, the Session ID being the same
reassures the router that the Serial Numbers are commensurate, i.e.,
the cache session has not been changed.
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | Session ID |
| 1 | 3 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=8 |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 12]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.6. IPv4 Prefix
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | zero |
| 1 | 4 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=20 |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| | Prefix | Max | |
| Flags | Length | Length | zero |
| | 0..32 | 0..32 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| IPv4 Prefix |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Autonomous System Number |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
The lowest-order bit of the Flags field is 1 for an announcement and
0 for a withdrawal.
In the RPKI, nothing prevents a signing certificate from issuing two
identical ROAs. In this case, there would be no semantic difference
between the objects, merely a process redundancy.
In the RPKI, there is also an actual need for what might appear to a
router as identical IPvX PDUs. This can occur when an upstream
certificate is being reissued or there is an address ownership
transfer up the validation chain. The ROA would be identical in the
router sense, i.e., have the same {Prefix, Len, Max-Len, ASN}, but it
would have a different validation path in the RPKI. This is
important to the RPKI but not to the router.
The cache server MUST ensure that it has told the router client to
have one and only one IPvX PDU for a unique {Prefix, Len, Max-Len,
ASN} at any one point in time. Should the router client receive an
IPvX PDU with a {Prefix, Len, Max-Len, ASN} identical to one it
already has active, it SHOULD raise a Duplicate Announcement Received
error.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 13]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.7. IPv6 Prefix
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | zero |
| 1 | 6 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=32 |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| | Prefix | Max | |
| Flags | Length | Length | zero |
| | 0..128 | 0..128 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
+--- ---+
| |
+--- IPv6 Prefix ---+
| |
+--- ---+
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Autonomous System Number |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
Analogous to the IPv4 Prefix PDU, it has 96 more bits and no magic.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 14]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.8. End of Data
The cache tells the router it has no more data for the request.
The Session ID and Protocol Version MUST be the same as that of the
corresponding Cache Response which began the (possibly null) sequence
of payload PDUs.
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | Session ID |
| 1 | 7 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=24 |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Serial Number |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Refresh Interval |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Retry Interval |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Expire Interval |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
The Refresh Interval, Retry Interval, and Expire Interval are all
32-bit elapsed times measured in seconds. They express the timing
parameters which the cache expects the router to use in deciding when
to send subsequent Serial Query or Reset Query PDUs to the cache.
See Section 6 for an explanation of the use and the range of allowed
values for these parameters.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 15]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
5.9. Cache Reset
The cache may respond to a Serial Query informing the router that the
cache cannot provide an incremental update starting from the Serial
Number specified by the router. The router must decide whether to
issue a Reset Query or switch to a different cache.
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | zero |
| 1 | 8 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length=8 |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
5.10. Router Key
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | | |
| Version | Type | Flags | zero |
| 1 | 9 | | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
+--- ---+
| Subject Key Identifier |
+--- ---+
| |
+--- ---+
| (20 octets) |
+--- ---+
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| AS Number |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Subject Public Key Info |
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 16]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
The lowest-order bit of the Flags field is 1 for an announcement and
0 for a withdrawal.
The cache server MUST ensure that it has told the router client to
have one and only one Router Key PDU for a unique {SKI, ASN, Subject
Public Key} at any one point in time. Should the router client
receive a Router Key PDU with a {SKI, ASN, Subject Public Key}
identical to one it already has active, it SHOULD raise a Duplicate
Announcement Received error.
Note that a particular ASN may appear in multiple Router Key PDUs
with different Subject Public Key values, while a particular Subject
Public Key value may appear in multiple Router Key PDUs with
different ASNs. In the interest of keeping the announcement and
withdrawal semantics as simple as possible for the router, this
protocol makes no attempt to compress either of these cases.
Also note that it is possible, albeit very unlikely, for multiple
distinct Subject Public Key values to hash to the same SKI. For this
reason, implementations MUST compare Subject Public Key values as
well as SKIs when detecting duplicate PDUs.
5.11. Error Report
This PDU is used by either party to report an error to the other.
Error reports are only sent as responses to other PDUs, not to report
errors in Error Report PDUs.
Error codes are described in Section 12.
If the error is generic (e.g., "Internal Error") and not associated
with the PDU to which it is responding, the Erroneous PDU field MUST
be empty and the Length of Encapsulated PDU field MUST be zero.
An Error Report PDU MUST NOT be sent for an Error Report PDU. If an
erroneous Error Report PDU is received, the session SHOULD be
dropped.
If the error is associated with a PDU of excessive length, i.e., too
long to be any legal PDU other than another Error Report, or a
possibly corrupt length, the Erroneous PDU field MAY be truncated.
The diagnostic text is optional; if not present, the Length of Error
Text field MUST be zero. If error text is present, it MUST be a
string in UTF-8 encoding (see [RFC3629]).
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 17]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
0 8 16 24 31
.-------------------------------------------.
| Protocol | PDU | |
| Version | Type | Error Code |
| 1 | 10 | |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length of Encapsulated PDU |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
~ Erroneous PDU ~
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Length of Error Text |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
| |
| Arbitrary Text |
| of |
~ Error Diagnostic Message ~
| |
`-------------------------------------------'
6. Protocol Timing Parameters
Since the data the cache distributes via the RPKI-Router protocol are
retrieved from the Global RPKI system at intervals which are only
known to the cache, only the cache can really know how frequently it
makes sense for the router to poll the cache, or how long the data
are likely to remain valid (or, at least, unchanged). For this
reason, as well as to allow the cache some control over the load
placed on it by its client routers, the End Of Data PDU includes
three values that allow the cache to communicate timing parameters to
the router:
Refresh Interval: This parameter tells the router how long to wait
before next attempting to poll the cache and between subsequent
attempts, using a Serial Query or Reset Query PDU. The router
SHOULD NOT poll the cache sooner than indicated by this parameter.
Note that receipt of a Serial Notify PDU overrides this interval
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 18]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
and suggests that the router issue an immediate query without
waiting for the Refresh Interval to expire. Countdown for this
timer starts upon receipt of the containing End Of Data PDU.
Minimum allowed value: 1 second.
Maximum allowed value: 86400 seconds (1 day).
Recommended default: 3600 seconds (1 hour).
Retry Interval: This parameter tells the router how long to wait
before retrying a failed Serial Query or Reset Query. The router
SHOULD NOT retry sooner than indicated by this parameter. Note
that a protocol version mismatch overrides this interval: if the
router needs to downgrade to a lower protocol version number, it
MAY send the first Serial Query or Reset Query immediately.
Countdown for this timer starts upon failure of the query and
restarts after each subsequent failure until a query succeeds.
Minimum allowed value: 1 second.
Maximum allowed value: 7200 seconds (2 hours).
Recommended default: 600 seconds (10 minutes).
Expire Interval: This parameter tells the router how long it can
continue to use the current version of the data while unable to
perform a successful subsequent query. The router MUST NOT retain
the data past the time indicated by this parameter. Countdown for
this timer starts upon receipt of the containing End Of Data PDU.
Minimum allowed value: 600 seconds (10 minutes).
Maximum allowed value: 172800 seconds (2 days).
Recommended default: 7200 seconds (2 hours).
If the router has never issued a successful query against a
particular cache, it SHOULD retry periodically using the default
Retry Interval, above.
Caches MUST set Expire Interval to a value larger than either Refresh
Interval or Retry Interval.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 19]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
7. Protocol Version Negotiation
A router MUST start each transport connection by issuing either a
Reset Query or a Serial Query. This query will tell the cache which
version of this protocol the router implements.
If a cache which supports version 1 receives a query from a router
which specifies version 0, the cache MUST downgrade to protocol
version 0 [RFC6810] or send a version 1 Error Report PDU with Error
Code 4 ("Unsupported Protocol Version") and terminate the connection.
If a router which supports version 1 sends a query to a cache which
only supports version 0, one of two things will happen:
1. The cache may terminate the connection, perhaps with a version 0
Error Report PDU. In this case, the router MAY retry the
connection using protocol version 0.
2. The cache may reply with a version 0 response. In this case, the
router MUST either downgrade to version 0 or terminate the
connection.
In any of the downgraded combinations above, the new features of
version 1 will not be available, and all PDUs will have 0 in their
version fields.
If either party receives a PDU containing an unrecognized Protocol
Version (neither 0 nor 1) during this negotiation, it MUST either
downgrade to a known version or terminate the connection, with an
Error Report PDU unless the received PDU is itself an Error
Report PDU.
The router MUST ignore any Serial Notify PDUs it might receive from
the cache during this initial startup period, regardless of the
Protocol Version field in the Serial Notify PDU. Since Session ID
and Serial Number values are specific to a particular protocol
version, the values in the notification are not useful to the router.
Even if these values were meaningful, the only effect that processing
the notification would have would be to trigger exactly the same
Reset Query or Serial Query that the router has already sent as part
of the not-yet-complete version negotiation process, so there is
nothing to be gained by processing notifications until version
negotiation completes.
Caches SHOULD NOT send Serial Notify PDUs before version negotiation
completes. Routers, however, MUST handle such notifications (by
ignoring them) for backwards compatibility with caches serving
protocol version 0.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 20]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Once the cache and router have agreed upon a Protocol Version via the
negotiation process above, that version is stable for the life of the
session. See Section 5.1 for a discussion of the interaction between
Protocol Version and Session ID.
If either party receives a PDU for a different Protocol Version once
the above negotiation completes, that party MUST drop the session;
unless the PDU containing the unexpected Protocol Version was itself
an Error Report PDU, the party dropping the session SHOULD send an
Error Report with an error code of 8 ("Unexpected Protocol Version").
8. Protocol Sequences
The sequences of PDU transmissions fall into four conversations as
follows:
8.1. Start or Restart
Cache Router
~ ~
| <----- Reset Query -------- | R requests data (or Serial Query)
| |
| ----- Cache Response -----> | C confirms request
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | C sends zero or more
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | IPv4 Prefix, IPv6 Prefix,
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | or Router Key PDUs
| ------- End of Data ------> | C sends End of Data
| | and sends new serial
~ ~
When a transport connection is first established, the router MUST
send either a Reset Query or a Serial Query. A Serial Query would be
appropriate if the router has significant unexpired data from a
broken session with the same cache and remembers the Session ID of
that session, in which case a Serial Query containing the Session ID
from the previous session will allow the router to bring itself up to
date while ensuring that the Serial Numbers are commensurate and that
the router and cache are speaking compatible versions of the
protocol. In all other cases, the router lacks the necessary data
for fast resynchronization and therefore MUST fall back to a Reset
Query.
The Reset Query sequence is also used when the router receives a
Cache Reset, chooses a new cache, or fears that it has otherwise lost
its way.
See Section 7 for details on version negotiation.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 21]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
To limit the length of time a cache must keep the data necessary to
generate incremental updates, a router MUST send either a Serial
Query or a Reset Query periodically. This also acts as a keep-alive
at the application layer. See Section 6 for details on the required
polling frequency.
8.2. Typical Exchange
Cache Router
~ ~
| -------- Notify ----------> | (optional)
| |
| <----- Serial Query ------- | R requests data
| |
| ----- Cache Response -----> | C confirms request
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | C sends zero or more
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | IPv4 Prefix, IPv6 Prefix,
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | or Router Key PDUs
| ------- End of Data ------> | C sends End of Data
| | and sends new serial
~ ~
The cache server SHOULD send a Notify PDU with its current Serial
Number when the cache's serial changes, with the expectation that the
router MAY then issue a Serial Query earlier than it otherwise might.
This is analogous to DNS NOTIFY in [RFC1996]. The cache MUST
rate-limit Serial Notifies to no more frequently than one per minute.
When the transport layer is up and either a timer has gone off in the
router or the cache has sent a Notify PDU, the router queries for new
data by sending a Serial Query, and the cache sends all data newer
than the serial in the Serial Query.
To limit the length of time a cache must keep old withdraws, a router
MUST send either a Serial Query or a Reset Query periodically. See
Section 6 for details on the required polling frequency.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 22]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
8.3. No Incremental Update Available
Cache Router
~ ~
| <------ Serial Query ------ | R requests data
| ------- Cache Reset ------> | C cannot supply update
| | from specified serial
| <------ Reset Query ------- | R requests new data
| ----- Cache Response -----> | C confirms request
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | C sends zero or more
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | IPv4 Prefix, IPv6 Prefix,
| ------- Payload PDU ------> | or Router Key PDUs
| ------- End of Data ------> | C sends End of Data
| | and sends new serial
~ ~
The cache may respond to a Serial Query with a Cache Reset, informing
the router that the cache cannot supply an incremental update from
the Serial Number specified by the router. This might be because the
cache has lost state, or because the router has waited too long
between polls and the cache has cleaned up old data that it no longer
believes it needs, or because the cache has run out of storage space
and had to expire some old data early. Regardless of how this state
arose, the cache replies with a Cache Reset to tell the router that
it cannot honor the request. When a router receives this, the router
SHOULD attempt to connect to any more-preferred caches in its cache
list. If there are no more-preferred caches, it MUST issue a Reset
Query and get an entire new load from the cache.
8.4. Cache Has No Data Available
Cache Router
~ ~
| <------ Serial Query ------ | R requests data
| ---- Error Report PDU ----> | C No Data Available
~ ~
Cache Router
~ ~
| <------ Reset Query ------- | R requests data
| ---- Error Report PDU ----> | C No Data Available
~ ~
The cache may respond to either a Serial Query or a Reset Query
informing the router that the cache cannot supply any update at all.
The most likely cause is that the cache has lost state, perhaps due
to a restart, and has not yet recovered. While it is possible that a
cache might go into such a state without dropping any of its active
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 23]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
sessions, a router is more likely to see this behavior when it
initially connects and issues a Reset Query while the cache is still
rebuilding its database.
When a router receives this kind of error, the router SHOULD attempt
to connect to any other caches in its cache list, in preference
order. If no other caches are available, the router MUST issue
periodic Reset Queries until it gets a new usable load from the
cache.
9. Transport
The transport-layer session between a router and a cache carries the
binary PDUs in a persistent session.
To prevent cache spoofing and DoS attacks by illegitimate routers, it
is highly desirable that the router and the cache be authenticated to
each other. Integrity protection for payloads is also desirable to
protect against monkey-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks. Unfortunately,
there is no protocol to do so on all currently used platforms.
Therefore, as of the writing of this document, there is no mandatory-
to-implement transport which provides authentication and integrity
protection.
To reduce exposure to dropped but non-terminated sessions, both
caches and routers SHOULD enable keep-alives when available in the
chosen transport protocol.
It is expected that, when the TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO)
[RFC5925] is available on all platforms deployed by operators, it
will become the mandatory-to-implement transport.
Caches and routers MUST implement unprotected transport over TCP
using a port, rpki-rtr (323); see Section 14. Operators SHOULD use
procedural means, e.g., access control lists (ACLs), to reduce the
exposure to authentication issues.
If unprotected TCP is the transport, the cache and routers MUST be on
the same trusted and controlled network.
If available to the operator, caches and routers MUST use one of the
following more protected protocols:
o Caches and routers SHOULD use TCP-AO transport [RFC5925] over the
rpki-rtr port.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 24]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
o Caches and routers MAY use Secure Shell version 2 (SSHv2)
transport [RFC4252] using the normal SSH port. For an example,
see Section 9.1.
o Caches and routers MAY use TCP MD5 transport [RFC2385] using the
rpki-rtr port. Note that TCP MD5 has been obsoleted by TCP-AO
[RFC5925].
o Caches and routers MAY use TCP over IPsec transport [RFC4301]
using the rpki-rtr port.
o Caches and routers MAY use Transport Layer Security (TLS)
transport [RFC5246] using port rpki-rtr-tls (324); see Section 14.
9.1. SSH Transport
To run over SSH, the client router first establishes an SSH transport
connection using the SSHv2 transport protocol, and the client and
server exchange keys for message integrity and encryption. The
client then invokes the "ssh-userauth" service to authenticate the
application, as described in the SSH authentication protocol
[RFC4252]. Once the application has been successfully authenticated,
the client invokes the "ssh-connection" service, also known as the
SSH connection protocol.
After the ssh-connection service is established, the client opens a
channel of type "session", which results in an SSH session.
Once the SSH session has been established, the application invokes
the application transport as an SSH subsystem called "rpki-rtr".
Subsystem support is a feature of SSHv2 and is not included in SSHv1.
Running this protocol as an SSH subsystem avoids the need for the
application to recognize shell prompts or skip over extraneous
information, such as a system message that is sent at shell startup.
It is assumed that the router and cache have exchanged keys out of
band by some reasonably secured means.
Cache servers supporting SSH transport MUST accept RSA authentication
and SHOULD accept Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA)
authentication. User authentication MUST be supported; host
authentication MAY be supported. Implementations MAY support
password authentication. Client routers SHOULD verify the public key
of the cache to avoid MITM attacks.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 25]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
9.2. TLS Transport
Client routers using TLS transport MUST present client-side
certificates to authenticate themselves to the cache in order to
allow the cache to manage the load by rejecting connections from
unauthorized routers. In principle, any type of certificate and
Certification Authority (CA) may be used; however, in general, cache
operators will wish to create their own small-scale CA and issue
certificates to each authorized router. This simplifies credential
rollover; any unrevoked, unexpired certificate from the proper CA may
be used.
Certificates used to authenticate client routers in this protocol
MUST include a subjectAltName extension [RFC5280] containing one or
more iPAddress identities; when authenticating the router's
certificate, the cache MUST check the IP address of the TLS
connection against these iPAddress identities and SHOULD reject the
connection if none of the iPAddress identities match the connection.
Routers MUST also verify the cache's TLS server certificate, using
subjectAltName dNSName identities as described in [RFC6125], to avoid
MITM attacks. The rules and guidelines defined in [RFC6125] apply
here, with the following considerations:
o Support for the DNS-ID identifier type (that is, the dNSName
identity in the subjectAltName extension) is REQUIRED in rpki-rtr
server and client implementations which use TLS. Certification
authorities which issue rpki-rtr server certificates MUST support
the DNS-ID identifier type, and the DNS-ID identifier type MUST be
present in rpki-rtr server certificates.
o DNS names in rpki-rtr server certificates SHOULD NOT contain the
wildcard character "*".
o rpki-rtr implementations which use TLS MUST NOT use Common Name
(CN-ID) identifiers; a CN field may be present in the server
certificate's subject name but MUST NOT be used for authentication
within the rules described in [RFC6125].
o The client router MUST set its "reference identifier" to the DNS
name of the rpki-rtr cache.
9.3. TCP MD5 Transport
If TCP MD5 is used, implementations MUST support key lengths of at
least 80 printable ASCII bytes, per Section 4.5 of [RFC2385].
Implementations MUST also support hexadecimal sequences of at least
32 characters, i.e., 128 bits.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 26]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Key rollover with TCP MD5 is problematic. Cache servers SHOULD
support [RFC4808].
9.4. TCP-AO Transport
Implementations MUST support key lengths of at least 80 printable
ASCII bytes. Implementations MUST also support hexadecimal sequences
of at least 32 characters, i.e., 128 bits. Message Authentication
Code (MAC) lengths of at least 96 bits MUST be supported, per
Section 5.1 of [RFC5925].
The cryptographic algorithms and associated parameters described in
[RFC5926] MUST be supported.
10. Router-Cache Setup
A cache has the public authentication data for each router it is
configured to support.
A router may be configured to peer with a selection of caches, and a
cache may be configured to support a selection of routers. Each must
have the name of, and authentication data for, each peer. In
addition, in a router, this list has a non-unique preference value
for each server. This preference merely denotes proximity, not
trust, preferred belief, et cetera. The client router attempts to
establish a session with each potential serving cache in preference
order and then starts to load data from the most preferred cache to
which it can connect and authenticate. The router's list of caches
has the following elements:
Preference: An unsigned integer denoting the router's preference to
connect to that cache; the lower the value, the more preferred.
Name: The IP address or fully qualified domain name of the cache.
Cache Credential(s): Any credential (such as a public key) needed to
authenticate the cache's identity to the router.
Router Credential(s): Any credential (such as a private key or
certificate) needed to authenticate the router's identity to the
cache.
Due to the distributed nature of the RPKI, caches simply cannot be
rigorously synchronous. A client may hold data from multiple caches
but MUST keep the data marked as to source, as later updates MUST
affect the correct data.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 27]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Just as there may be more than one covering ROA from a single cache,
there may be multiple covering ROAs from multiple caches. The
results are as described in [RFC6811].
If data from multiple caches are held, implementations MUST NOT
distinguish between data sources when performing validation of BGP
announcements.
When a more-preferred cache becomes available, if resources allow, it
would be prudent for the client to start fetching from that cache.
The client SHOULD attempt to maintain at least one set of data,
regardless of whether it has chosen a different cache or established
a new connection to the previous cache.
A client MAY drop the data from a particular cache when it is fully
in sync with one or more other caches.
See Section 6 for details on what to do when the client is not able
to refresh from a particular cache.
If a client loses connectivity to a cache it is using or otherwise
decides to switch to a new cache, it SHOULD retain the data from the
previous cache until it has a full set of data from one or more other
caches. Note that this may already be true at the point of
connection loss if the client has connections to more than one cache.
11. Deployment Scenarios
For illustration, we present three likely deployment scenarios:
Small End Site: The small multihomed end site may wish to outsource
the RPKI cache to one or more of their upstream ISPs. They would
exchange authentication material with the ISP using some out-of-
band mechanism, and their router(s) would connect to the cache(s)
of one or more upstream ISPs. The ISPs would likely deploy caches
intended for customer use separately from the caches with which
their own BGP speakers peer.
Large End Site: A larger multihomed end site might run one or more
caches, arranging them in a hierarchy of client caches, each
fetching from a serving cache which is closer to the Global RPKI.
They might configure fallback peerings to upstream ISP caches.
ISP Backbone: A large ISP would likely have one or more redundant
caches in each major point of presence (PoP), and these caches
would fetch from each other in an ISP-dependent topology so as not
to place undue load on the Global RPKI.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 28]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Experience with large DNS cache deployments has shown that complex
topologies are ill-advised, as it is easy to make errors in the
graph, e.g., not maintain a loop-free condition.
Of course, these are illustrations, and there are other possible
deployment strategies. It is expected that minimizing load on the
Global RPKI servers will be a major consideration.
To keep load on Global RPKI services from unnecessary peaks, it is
recommended that primary caches which load from the distributed
Global RPKI not do so all at the same times, e.g., on the hour.
Choose a random time, perhaps the ISP's AS number modulo 60, and
jitter the inter-fetch timing.
12. Error Codes
This section contains a preliminary list of error codes. The authors
expect additions to the list during development of the initial
implementations. There is an IANA registry where valid error codes
are listed; see Section 14. Errors which are considered fatal MUST
cause the session to be dropped.
0: Corrupt Data (fatal): The receiver believes the received PDU to
be corrupt in a manner not specified by another error code.
1: Internal Error (fatal): The party reporting the error experienced
some kind of internal error unrelated to protocol operation (ran
out of memory, a coding assertion failed, et cetera).
2: No Data Available: The cache believes itself to be in good
working order but is unable to answer either a Serial Query or a
Reset Query because it has no useful data available at this time.
This is likely to be a temporary error and most likely indicates
that the cache has not yet completed pulling down an initial
current data set from the Global RPKI system after some kind of
event that invalidated whatever data it might have previously held
(reboot, network partition, et cetera).
3: Invalid Request (fatal): The cache server believes the client's
request to be invalid.
4: Unsupported Protocol Version (fatal): The Protocol Version is not
known by the receiver of the PDU.
5: Unsupported PDU Type (fatal): The PDU Type is not known by the
receiver of the PDU.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 29]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
6: Withdrawal of Unknown Record (fatal): The received PDU has
Flag=0, but a matching record ({Prefix, Len, Max-Len, ASN} tuple
for an IPvX PDU or {SKI, ASN, Subject Public Key} tuple for a
Router Key PDU) does not exist in the receiver's database.
7: Duplicate Announcement Received (fatal): The received PDU has
Flag=1, but a matching record ({Prefix, Len, Max-Len, ASN} tuple
for an IPvX PDU or {SKI, ASN, Subject Public Key} tuple for a
Router Key PDU) is already active in the router.
8: Unexpected Protocol Version (fatal): The received PDU has a
Protocol Version field that differs from the protocol version
negotiated in Section 7.
13. Security Considerations
As this document describes a security protocol, many aspects of
security interest are described in the relevant sections. This
section points out issues which may not be obvious in other sections.
Cache Validation: In order for a collection of caches as described
in Section 11 to guarantee a consistent view, they need to be
given consistent trust anchors to use in their internal validation
process. Distribution of a consistent trust anchor is assumed to
be out of band.
Cache Peer Identification: The router initiates a transport
connection to a cache, which it identifies by either IP address or
fully qualified domain name. Be aware that a DNS or address
spoofing attack could make the correct cache unreachable. No
session would be established, as the authorization keys would not
match.
Transport Security: The RPKI relies on object, not server or
transport, trust. That is, the IANA root trust anchor is
distributed to all caches through some out-of-band means and can
then be used by each cache to validate certificates and ROAs all
the way down the tree. The inter-cache relationships are based on
this object security model; hence, the inter-cache transport can
be lightly protected.
However, this protocol document assumes that the routers cannot do
the validation cryptography. Hence, the last link, from cache to
router, is secured by server authentication and transport-level
security. This is dangerous, as server authentication and
transport have very different threat models than object security.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 30]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
So the strength of the trust relationship and the transport
between the router(s) and the cache(s) are critical. You're
betting your routing on this.
While we cannot say the cache must be on the same LAN, if only due
to the issue of an enterprise wanting to offload the cache task to
their upstream ISP(s), locality, trust, and control are very
critical issues here. The cache(s) really SHOULD be as close, in
the sense of controlled and protected (against DDoS, MITM)
transport, to the router(s) as possible. It also SHOULD be
topologically close so that a minimum of validated routing data
are needed to bootstrap a router's access to a cache.
The identity of the cache server SHOULD be verified and
authenticated by the router client, and vice versa, before any
data are exchanged.
Transports which cannot provide the necessary authentication and
integrity (see Section 9) must rely on network design and
operational controls to provide protection against spoofing/
corruption attacks. As pointed out in Section 9, TCP-AO is the
long-term plan. Protocols which provide integrity and
authenticity SHOULD be used, and if they cannot, i.e., TCP is used
as the transport, the router and cache MUST be on the same
trusted, controlled network.
14. IANA Considerations
This section only discusses updates required in the existing IANA
protocol registries to accommodate version 1 of this protocol. See
[RFC6810] for IANA considerations from the original (version 0)
protocol.
All existing entries in the IANA "rpki-rtr-pdu" registry remain valid
for protocol version 0. All of the PDU types allowed in protocol
version 0 are also allowed in protocol version 1, with the addition
of the new Router Key PDU. To reduce the likelihood of confusion,
the PDU number used by the Router Key PDU in protocol version 1 is
hereby registered as reserved (and unused) in protocol version 0.
The policy for adding to the registry is RFC Required per [RFC8126];
the document must be either Standards Track or Experimental.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 31]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
The "rpki-rtr-pdu" registry has been updated as follows:
Protocol PDU
Version Type Description
-------- ---- ---------------
0-1 0 Serial Notify
0-1 1 Serial Query
0-1 2 Reset Query
0-1 3 Cache Response
0-1 4 IPv4 Prefix
0-1 6 IPv6 Prefix
0-1 7 End of Data
0-1 8 Cache Reset
0 9 Reserved
1 9 Router Key
0-1 10 Error Report
0-1 255 Reserved
All existing entries in the IANA "rpki-rtr-error" registry remain
valid for all protocol versions. Protocol version 1 adds one new
error code:
Error
Code Description
----- ---------------------------
8 Unexpected Protocol Version
15. References
15.1. Normative References
[RFC1982] Elz, R. and R. Bush, "Serial Number Arithmetic", RFC 1982,
DOI 10.17487/RFC1982, August 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1982>.
[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>.
[RFC2385] Heffernan, A., "Protection of BGP Sessions via the TCP MD5
Signature Option", RFC 2385, DOI 10.17487/RFC2385, August
1998, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2385>.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 32]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
[RFC4252] Ylonen, T. and C. Lonvick, Ed., "The Secure Shell (SSH)
Authentication Protocol", RFC 4252, DOI 10.17487/RFC4252,
January 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4252>.
[RFC4301] Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
Internet Protocol", RFC 4301, DOI 10.17487/RFC4301,
December 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4301>.
[RFC5246] Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
(TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5246>.
[RFC5280] Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
(CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5280>.
[RFC5925] Touch, J., Mankin, A., and R. Bonica, "The TCP
Authentication Option", RFC 5925, DOI 10.17487/RFC5925,
June 2010, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5925>.
[RFC5926] Lebovitz, G. and E. Rescorla, "Cryptographic Algorithms
for the TCP Authentication Option (TCP-AO)", RFC 5926,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5926, June 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5926>.
[RFC6125] Saint-Andre, P. and J. Hodges, "Representation and
Verification of Domain-Based Application Service Identity
within Internet Public Key Infrastructure Using X.509
(PKIX) Certificates in the Context of Transport Layer
Security (TLS)", RFC 6125, DOI 10.17487/RFC6125, March
2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6125>.
[RFC6487] Huston, G., Michaelson, G., and R. Loomans, "A Profile for
X.509 PKIX Resource Certificates", RFC 6487,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6487, February 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6487>.
[RFC6810] Bush, R. and R. Austein, "The Resource Public Key
Infrastructure (RPKI) to Router Protocol", RFC 6810,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6810, January 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6810>.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 33]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
[RFC6811] Mohapatra, P., Scudder, J., Ward, D., Bush, R., and R.
Austein, "BGP Prefix Origin Validation", RFC 6811,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6811, January 2013,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6811>.
[RFC8126] Cotton, M., Leiba, B., and T. Narten, "Guidelines for
Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26,
RFC 8126, DOI 10.17487/RFC8126, June 2017,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8126>.
[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>.
[RFC8208] Turner, S. and O. Borchert, "BGPsec Algorithms, Key
Formats, and Signature Formats", RFC 8208,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8208, September 2017,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8208>.
15.2. Informative References
[RFC1996] Vixie, P., "A Mechanism for Prompt Notification of Zone
Changes (DNS NOTIFY)", RFC 1996, DOI 10.17487/RFC1996,
August 1996, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1996>.
[RFC4808] Bellovin, S., "Key Change Strategies for TCP-MD5",
RFC 4808, DOI 10.17487/RFC4808, March 2007,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4808>.
[RFC5781] Weiler, S., Ward, D., and R. Housley, "The rsync URI
Scheme", RFC 5781, DOI 10.17487/RFC5781, February 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5781>.
[RFC6480] Lepinski, M. and S. Kent, "An Infrastructure to Support
Secure Internet Routing", RFC 6480, DOI 10.17487/RFC6480,
February 2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6480>.
[RFC6481] Huston, G., Loomans, R., and G. Michaelson, "A Profile for
Resource Certificate Repository Structure", RFC 6481,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6481, February 2012,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6481>.
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 34]
^L
RFC 8210 RPKI-Router Protocol September 2017
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Nils Bars, Steve Bellovin, Tim Bruijnzeels,
Rex Fernando, Richard Hansen, Paul Hoffman, Fabian Holler, Russ
Housley, Pradosh Mohapatra, Keyur Patel, David Mandelberg, Sandy
Murphy, Robert Raszuk, Andreas Reuter, Thomas C. Schmidt, John
Scudder, Ruediger Volk, Matthias Waehlisch, and David Ward.
Particular thanks go to Hannes Gredler for showing us the dangers of
unnecessary fields.
No doubt this list is incomplete. We apologize to any contributor
whose name we missed.
Authors' Addresses
Randy Bush
Internet Initiative Japan
5147 Crystal Springs
Bainbridge Island, Washington 98110
United States of America
Email: randy@psg.com
Rob Austein
Dragon Research Labs
Email: sra@hactrn.net
Bush & Austein Standards Track [Page 35]
^L
|