Ericsson

francesca.palombini@ericsson.com

Brunel University

csengul@acm.org

Security ACE Working Group Internet-Draft This specification defines an application profile for authentication and authorization for Publishers and Subscribers in a constrained pub-sub scenario, using the ACE framework. This profile relies on transport layer or application layer security to authorize the pub-sub clients to the broker. Moreover, it describes the use of application layer security to protect the content of the pub-sub client message exchange through the broker. The profile mainly focuses on the pub-sub scenarios using the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) . Note to Readers Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at https://github.com/ace-wg/pubsub-profile.

Introduction In the publish-subscribe (pub-sub) scenario, devices with limited reachability communicate via a broker, which enables store-and-forward messaging between the devices. This document defines a way to authorize pub-sub clients using the ACE framework to obtain the keys for protecting the content of their pub-sub messages when communicating through the broker. The pub-sub communication using the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is specified in .This document gives detailed specifications for CoAP pub-sub, and describes how it can be adapted for MQTT ; similar adaptations can extend to other transport protocols as well.

Terminology 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 2119 . Readers are expected to be familiar with:

• The terms and concepts described in . In particular, analogously to , terminology for entities in the architecture such as Client (C), Resource Server (RS), and Authorization Server (AS) is defined in OAuth 2.0 .
• The terms and concept related to the message formats and processing specified in , for provisioning and renewing keying material in group communication scenarios. and terminology for entities such as the Key Distribution Center (KDC) and Dispatcher in .
• The terms and concepts of pub-sub group communication, as described in .

Application Profile Overview The objective of this document is to specify how to request, distribute and renew keying material and configuration parameters to protect message exchanges for pub-sub communication, using , which expands from the ACE framework (). The pub-sub communication protocol can be based on CoAP, as described in , MQTT , or other transport. This document focuses on CoAP and expands on the transport profiles and . The architecture of the scenario is shown in . Publisher or Subscriber Clients is referred to as Client in short. A Client can act both as a publisher and a subscriber, publishing to some topics, and subscribing to others. However, for the simplicity of presentation, this profile describes Publisher and Subscriber clients separately. The Broker acts as the ACE RS, and also corresponds to the Dispatcher in ).Both Publishers and Subscribers use the same pub-sub communication protocol and the same transport profile of ACE in their interaction with the broker. All clients need to use CoAP when communicating to the KDC.

Architecture for Pub-Sub with Authorization Server and Key Distribution Center | Broker | | Client | | | | | | | +------------+ +------------+ ]]>

This profile expects the establishment of a secure connection between a Client and Broker, using an ACE transport profile such as DTLS or OSCORE (A and C). Once the client establishes a secure association with KDC with the help of AS, it can request to join the security groups of its pub-sub topics (A and B), and can communicate securely with the other group members, using the keying material provided by the KDC. (C) corresponds to the exchange between the Client and the Broker, where the Client sends its access token to the Broker and establishes a secure connection with the Broker. Depending on the Information received in (A), this can be for example DTLS handshake, or other protocols. Depending on the application, there may not be the need for this set up phase: for example, if OSCORE is used directly. Note that, in line with what's defined in the ACE transport profile used, the access token includes the scope (i.e. pubsub topics on the Broker) the Publisher is allowed to publish to. After the previous phases have taken place, the pub-sub communication can commence. The operations of publishing and subscribing are defined in . It must be noted that Clients maintain two different security associations. On the one hand, the Publisher and the Subscriber clients have a security association with the Broker, so that, as the ACE RS, it can verify that the Clients are authorized (Security Association 1). On the other hand, the Publisher has a security association with the Subscriber, to protect the publication content (Security Association 2) while sending it through the broker. The Security Association 1 is set up using AS and a transport profile of , the Security Association 2 is set up using AS, KDC and . Note that, given that the publication content is protected, the Broker MAY accept unauthorised Subscribers. In this case, the Subscriber client can skip setting up Security Association 1 with the Broker and connect to it as an anonymous client to subscribe to topics of interest at the Broker.

Security Associations between Publisher, Broker, Subscriber pairs.

Interfacing the KDC This profile builds on the mechanisms defined in to enable the following for pub-sub communication:

1. Authorizing a Client to join a topic's security group(s), and providing it with the group keying material to communicate with other group members.
2. Allowing a Client to retrieve group keying material for the Publisher Client to publish protected publications to the Broker, and for the Subscriber Client to read protected publications.
3. Allowing a group member to retrieve authentication credentials of other group members and to provide and updated authentication credential.
4. Allowing a group member to leave the group.
5. Evicting a group member from the group.
6. Renewing and redistributing the group keying (rekeying) material due to membership change in the group.

To this end, the Clients uses the following KDC resources:

• '/ace-group': A Client can access this resource in order to retrieve a set of group names, each corresponding to one of the specified group identifiers.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME': Corresponds to the resource associated with group GROUPNAME, and contains its symmetric group keying material.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/creds': Contains the authentication credentials of all the Publisher members of the group with name GROUPNAME.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/num': Contains the current version number for the symmetric group keying material of the group with name GROUPNAME.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/nodes/NODENAME': Contains the group keying material and the individual keying material for that group member NODENAME in GROUPNAME. All Clients can send a DELETE request to leave the group with name GROUPNAME. GET operation is supported for all Clients. PUT is not supported.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/nodes/NODENAME/cred': A Publisher Client can POST to this resource to upload at the KDC a new authentication credential to use in the group GROUPNAME. The KDC returns 4.01 (Unauthorized) error response for requests from the Subscriber Clients.
• 'ace-group/GROUPNAME/kdc-cred': MUST be hosted if a group re-keying mechanism is used. Contains the authentication credential of the KDC for the group with name GROUPNAME.

The following resource may be optionally hosted: '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/policies' (KDC doesn't host policies for GROUPNAME). ToDo: REQUIRED of the application profiles of this specification to register a Resource Type for the root url-path (REQ10) Note that the use of these resources follows what is defined in applies, and only additions or modifications to that specification are defined in this document.

Joining a pub-sub security group (A-B) Figure provides a high level overview of the message flow for a node joining a group. This message flow is expanded in the subsequent sections.

Authorisation Flow ] | | | | | | | | [<----AS Information (CoAP/MQTT or other)--] | | | | | | | ----- Authorisation Request (CoAP/HTTP or other)---->| | | | | | <------Authorisation Response (CoAP/HTTP or other) --| | | | |----------------------Token Post (CoAP)------------------->| | | |------------------- Joining Request (CoAP) --------------->| | | |------------------ Joining Response (CoAP) --------------->| ]]>

Since recommends the use of CoAP and CBOR, this document describes the exchanges assuming CoAP and CBOR are used. However, using HTTP instead of CoAP is possible, using the corresponding parameters and methods. Analogously, JSON can be used instead of CBOR, using the conversion method specified in Sections 6.1 and 6.2 of . In case JSON is used, the Content Format or Media Type of the message has to be changed accordingly. Exact definition of these exchanges are considered out of scope for this document.

AS Discovery (Optional) Complementary to what is defined in (Section 5.1) for AS discovery, the Broker MAY send the address of the AS to the Client in the 'AS' parameter in the AS Information as a response to an Unauthorized Resource Request (Section 5.2). An example using CBOR diagnostic notation and CoAP is given below:

AS Information example

Authorisation Request/Response for the KDC and the Broker After retrieving the AS address, the Client sends two Authorisation Requests to the AS for the KDC and the Broker, respectively. Note that the AS authorises what topics a Client is allowed to Publish or Subscribe to the Broker, which means authorising which application and security groups a Client can join. This is because being able to publish or subscribe to a topic at the Broker requires authorisation to join an application group. To secure the message contents, the client needs to request to be part of the security group(s) for the selected application groups. Communications between the Client and the AS MUST be secured, according to what is defined by the used transport profile of ACE. Both Authorisation Requests include the following fields (Section 3.1 of ):

• 'scope', specifying the name of the groups, that the Client requests to access. This parameter is a CBOR byte string that encodes a CBOR array, whose format MUST follow the data model AIF-PUBSUB-GROUPCOMM defined below.
• 'audience', an identifier, corresponding to either the KDC or the Broker.

Other additional parameters can be included if necessary, as defined in . For the Broker, the scope represents pub-sub topics i.e., the application group, and for the KDC, the scope represents the security group. If there is a one-to-one mapping between the application group and the security group, the client uses the same scope for both requests. If there is not a one-to-one mapping, the correct policies regarding both sets of scopes MUST be available to the AS. The client MUST ask for the correct scopes in its Authorization Requests. How the client discovers the (application group, security group) association is out of scope of this document. ToDo: Should the Client ask with the topic names, and KDC does the security group mapping? Look into something like OSCORE group discovery draft-tiloca-core-oscore-discovery-12? The 'scope' parameter used for the KDC follows the AIF format. Based on the generic AIF model = [* [Toid, Tperm]] ]]> the value of the CBOR byte string used as scope encodes the CBOR array [* [Toid, Tperm]], where each [Toid, Tperm] element corresponds to one scope entry. This document defines the new AIF specific data model AIF-PUBSUB-GROUPCOMM, that this profile MUST use to format and encode scope entries. In particular, the object identifier ("Toid") is a CBOR text string, specifying the topic name for the scope entry. The permission set ("Tperm") is a CBOR unsigned integer with value, specifying the role(s) that the Client wishes to take in the group. The set of numbers representing the role is converted into a single number by taking two to the power of each method number and computing the inclusive OR of the binary representations of all the power values.

Pub-Sub scope using the AIF format pubsub-topic = tstr pubsub-permissions = uint . bits pubsub-roles pubsub-roles = &( Pub: 0, Sub: 1 ) scope_entry = [pubsub-topic, pubsub-permissions] ]]>

Authorisation response The AS responds with an Authorization Response to each request, containing claims, as defined in Section 5.8.2 of and Section 3.2 of with the following additions:

• The AS MUST include the 'scope' parameter, when the value included in the Access Token differs from the one specified by the joining node in the Authorization Request. In such a case, the second element of each scope entry MUST be present, and specifies the set of roles that the joining node is actually authorized to take in for that scope entry, encoded as specified in .

The 'profile' claim is set to "coap_pubsub_app" as defined in . On receiving the Authorisation Response, the Client needs to manage which token to use for which audience, i.e., the KDC or the Broker.

Token Transfer to KDC After receiving a token from the AS, the Client transfers the token to the KDC using one of the methods defined Section 3.3 ). This includes sending a POST request to the authz-info endpoint, and if using the DTLS transport profile of ACE, the Client MAY provide the access token to the KDC during the secure session establishment. When using the authz-info endpoint, a Subscriber Client MAY ask in addition for the format of the public keys in the group, used for source authentication, as well as any other group parameters. In this case, the message MUST have Content-Format set to "application/ace+cbor" defined in Section 8.16 of . The message payload MUST be formatted as a CBOR map, which MUST include the access token and MAY include the 'sign_info' parameter, specifying the CBOR simple value "null" (0xf6) to request information about the signature algorithm, signature algorithm parameters, signature key parameters and about the exact format of authentication credentials used in the groups that the Client has been authorized to join. Alternatively, the joining node MAY retrieve this information by other means as described in . The KDC verifies the token to check of the Client is authorized to access the topic with the requested role. After successful verification, the Client is authorized to receive the group keying material from the KDC and join the group. The KDC replies to the Client with a 2.01 (Created) response, using Content-Format "application/ace+cbor". The payload of the 2.01 response is a CBOR map. For Publisher Clients, i.e., the Clients whose scope of the access token includes the "Pub" role, the KDC MUST include the parameter 'kdcchallenge' in the CBOR map, specifying a dedicated challenge N_S generated by the KDC. For the N_S value, it is RECOMMENDED to use a 8-byte long random nonce. Later when joining the group, the Publisher Client MUST send its own public key to the KDC and use the 'kdcchallenge' as part of proving possession of the corresponding private key (see ). If 'sign_info' is included in the Token Transfer Request, the KDC SHOULD include the 'sign_info' parameter in the Token Transfer Response.

• 'sign_alg' MUST take value from the "Value" column of one of the Recommended algorithms in the "COSE Algorithms" registry .
• 'sign_parameters' is a CBOR array. Its format and value are the same of the COSE capabilities array for the algorithm indicated in 'sign_alg' under the "Capabilities" column of the "COSE Algorithms" registry .
• 'sign_key_parameters' is a CBOR array. Its format and value are the same of the COSE capabilities array for the COSE key type of the keys used with the algorithm indicated in 'sign_alg', as specified for that key type in the "Capabilities" column of the "COSE Key Types" registry .
• 'cred_fmt' takes value from the "Label" column of the "COSE Header Parameters" registry . Acceptable values denote a format of authentication credential that MUST explicitly provide the public key as well as the comprehensive set of information related to the public key algorithm, including, e.g., the used elliptic curve (when applicable). Current acceptable formats of authentication credentials are CBOR Web Tokens (CWTs) and CWT Claims Sets (CCSs) , X.509 certificates and C509 certificates . Future formats would be acceptable to use as long as they comply with the criteria defined above.

ToDo: Need to specify N_S generation if we are allowing DTLS profile token transfer.

Join Request In the next step, a node MUST have established a secure communication association established before attempting to join a group. Possible ways to provide a secure communication association are described in the DTLS transport profile and OSCORE transport profile of ACE. After establishing a secure communication, the Client sends a Join Request to the KDC as described in Section 4.3 of . More specifically, the Client sends a POST request to the /ace-group/GROUPNAME endpoint, with Content-Format "application/ace-groupcomm+cbor". The payload MUST contain the following information formatted as a CBOR map, which MUST be encoded as defined in Section 4.3.1 of :

• 'scope' parameter set to the specific group that the Client is attempting to join, i.e., the group name, and the roles it wishes to have in the group. This value corresponds to one scope entry, as defined in .
• 'get_creds' parameter MAY be present if the Client needs to retrieve the public keys of the other members. The Subscriber Clients MUST have access to the public keys of all the Publisher Clients. This may be achieved by requesting the public keys of all the Publisher Clients. In this case, parameter MUST be set to "null".
• 'client_cred' parameter MUST be included if the Client is a Publisher and contains the Client's public key formatted according to the encoding of the public keys used in the group. For a Subscriber-only Client, the Joining Request MUST NOT contain the 'client_cred' parameter.
• 'cnonce', includes a dedicated nonce N_C generated by the Client, if 'client_cred' is present. It is RECOMMENDED to use a 8-byte long random nonce.
• 'client_cred_verify', if 'client_cred' is present. This parameter contains the proof-of-possession evidence. Client signs the scope, concatenated with N_S and concatenated with N_C using the private key corresponding to the public key in the 'client_cred' paramater. N_S is the challenge received from the KDC in the 'kdcchallenge' parameter of the 2.01 (Created) response to the Token Transfer Request (see ).
• OPTIONALLY, the 'creds_repo', if the format of the Client's authentication credential in the 'client_cred' parameter is a certificate.
• 'control_uri', using the default url-path is /ace-group/GROUPNAME/node

An example of the Join Request for a CoAP Publisher using CoAP and CBOR is specified in , where SIG is a signature computed using the private key associated to the public key and the algorithm in 'client_cred'.

Joining Request payload for a Publisher

An example of the payload of a Join Request for a Subscriber using CoAP and CBOR is specified in .

Joining Request payload for a Subscriber

Join Response On receiving the Join Request, the KDC processes the request as defined in Section 4.3.1 of , and may return a success or error response. If 'client_cred' field is present, the KDC verifies signature in the the 'client_cred_verify'. As PoP input, the KDC uses the value of the 'scope' parameter from the Join Request as a CBOR byte string, concatenated with N_S encoded as a CBOR byte string, concatenated with N_C encoded as a CBOR byte string. As public key of the joining node, the KDC uses either the one included in the authentication credential retrieved from the 'client_cred' parameter of the Join Request or the already stored authentication credential from previous interactions with the joining node. The KDC verifies the PoP evidence, which is a signature, by using the public key of the joining node, as well as the signature algorithm used in the group and possible corresponding parameters. In the case of success,the Client is added to the list of current members, if not already a member. The Client is assigned a NODENAME and assigned a sub-resource /ace-group/GROUPNAME/nodes/NODENAME. NODENAME is associated to the access token and secure session of the Client. For Publishers, their public key is also associated with tuple containing NODENAME, GROUPNAME and access token. The public key of the Publisher is stored. Then, the KDC responds with a Join Response with response code 2.01 (Created) if the Client has been added to the list of group members, and 2.04 (Changed) otherwise (e.g., if the Client is re-joining). The Content-Format is "application/ace-groupcomm+cbor". The payload (formatted as a CBOR map) MUST contain the following fields from the Join Response and encode them as defined in Section 4.3.1 of :

• 'gkty', the key type for the 'key' parameter.
• 'key', the keying material for group communication. This is a "COSE_Key" object (defined in , containing:
  • 'kty' with value 4 (symmetric)
  • 'alg' with value defined by the AS (Content Encryption Algorithm)
  • 'Base IV' with value defined by the AS
  • 'k' with value the symmetric key value
  • OPTIONALLY, 'kid' with an identifier for the key value ToDo: Check the format of the 'key' value (REQ17) ToDo: Additionally, documents specifying the key format MUST register it in the "ACE Groupcomm Key Types" registry including its name, type and application profile to be used with.
• 'num' containing the version number for the 'key'. The initial version number is set to 1.
• 'exp', the value of the expiration time of the 'key'
• 'creds', MUST be present, if the 'get_creds' parameter was present. Otherwise, it MUST NOT be present. If the joining node has asked for the authentication credentials of all the group members, i.e., 'get_creds' had value the CBOR simple value "null" (0xf6) in the Join Request, then the Group Manager provides the authentication credentials of all the Publisher Clients in the group.
• 'peer_roles' MUST be present if 'creds' is also present. Otherwise, it MUST NOT be present. ToDo: Requested a change for this, and see how the Groupcomm draft is updated
• 'peer_identifiers' MUST be present if 'creds' is also present. Otherwise, it MUST NOT be present.
• 'kdc_cred', MUST be present if group re-keying is used, and encoded as a CBOR byte string, with value the original binary representation of the KDC's authentication credential.
• 'kdc_nonce', MUST be present, if 'kdc_cred' is present and encoded as a CBOR byte string, and including a dedicated nonce N_KDC generated by the KDC.
• 'kdc_cred_verify' MUST be present, if 'kdc_cred' is present and encoded as a CBOR byte string. The PoP evidence is computed over the nonce N_KDC, which is specified in the 'kdc_nonce' parameter and taken as PoP input. KDC MUST compute the signature by using the signature algorithm used in the group, as well as its own private key associated with the authentication credential specified in the 'kdc_cred' parameter.

An example of the Join Response for a CoAP Publisher using CoAP and CBOR (corresponding to Join Request in ) is shown in. .

Join Response payload for a Publisher

An example of the payload of a Join Response for a Subscriber using CoAP and CBOR (corresponding to the request in ) is shown in .

Joining Response payload for a Subscriber

PubSub Protected Communication (C)

Secure communication between Publisher and Subscriber | Broker | | Subscriber | | | | | <----(E)---- | | | | | | -----(F)---> | | +------------+ +------------+ +------------+ ]]>

(D) corresponds to the publication of a topic on the Broker, using a CoAP PUT. The publication (the resource representation) is protected with COSE () by the Publisher. The (E) message is the subscription of the Subscriber, and uses a CoAP GET with the Observe option set to 0 (zero) . The subscription MAY be unprotected. The (F) message is the response from the Broker, where the publication is protected with COSE by the Publisher.

Example of protected communication for CoAP | | | protected with COSE | | | | <--- GET /topic ----- | | | Observe:0 | | | ---- response ------> | | | protected with COSE | ]]>

Using COSE Objects To Protect The Resource Representation The Publisher uses the symmetric COSE Key received from the KDC to protect the payload of the PUBLISH operation (Section 4.3 of ). Specifically, the COSE Key is used to create a COSE_Encrypt0 object with algorithm specified by the KDC. The Publisher uses the private key corresponding to the public key sent to the KDC in exchange B to countersign the COSE Object as specified in . The payload is replaced by the COSE object before the publication is sent to the Broker. ToDo: Check RFC9338 for counter signatures The Subscriber uses the 'kid' in the 'countersignature' field in the COSE object to retrieve the right public key to verify the countersignature. It then uses the symmetric key received from KDC to verify and decrypt the publication received in the payload from the Broker (in the case of CoAP the publication is received by the CoAP Notification). The COSE object is constructed in the following way:

• The protected Headers (as described in ) MUST contain the kid parameter if it was provided in the Joining Response, with value the kid of the symmetric COSE Key received and MUST contain the content encryption algorithm.
• The unprotected Headers MUST contain the Partial IV, with value a sequence number that is incremented for every message sent, and the counter signature that includes:
  • the algorithm (same value as in the asymmetric COSE Key received in (B)) in the protected header;
  • the kid (same value as the kid of the asymmetric COSE Key received in (B)) in the unprotected header;
  • the signature computed as specified in .
• The ciphertext, computed over the plaintext that MUST contain the message payload.

The 'external_aad' is an empty string. An example is given in :

Example of COSE Object sent in the payload of a PUBLISH operation

The encryption and decryption operations are described in .

Other Group Operations

Querying for Group Information

• '/ace-group': All Clients use FETCH requests to retrieve a set of group names associated with their group identifiers. ToDo: Encoding of gid
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME': All Clients can use GET requests to retrieve the symmetric group keying material of the group with the name GROUPNAME. The value of the GROUPNAME URI path and the group name in the access token scope ('gname') MUST coincide.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/creds': KDC acts as a repository of authentication credentials for Publisher Clients. The Subscriber Clients of the group use GET/FETCH requests to retrieve the authentication credentials of all or subset of the group members of the group with name GROUPNAME.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/num': All group member Clients use GET requests to retrieve the current version number for the symmetric group keying material of the group with name GROUPNAME.
• '/ace-group/GROUPNAME/kdc-cred': All group member Clients use GET requests to retrieve the current authentication credential of the KDC.

Updating Authentication Credentials A Publisher Client can contact the KDC to upload a new authentication credential to use in the group, and replace the currently stored one. To this end, it sends a sends a CoAP POST request to the /ace-group/GROUPNAME/nodes/NODENAME/cred. The KDC replaces the stored authentication credential of this Client (identified by NODENAME) with the one specified in the request at the KDC, for the group identified by GROUPNAME.

Removal from a Group A Client can actively request to leave the group. In this case, the Client sends a CoAP DELETE request to the endpoint /ace- group/GROUPNAME/nodes/NODENAME at the KDC, where GROUPNAME is the group name and NODENAME is its node name. KDC can also remove a group member due to any of the reasons described in Section 5 of .

Rekeying a Group KDC MUST trigger a group rekeying as described in Section 6 of due to a change in the group membership or the current group keying material approaching its expiration time. KDC MAY trigger regularly scheduled update of the group keying material. Default rekeying scheme is Point-to-point (Section 6.1 of ), where KDC individually targets ach node to rekey, using the pairwise secure communication association with that node. If the group rekeying is performed due to one or multiple Publisher Clients that have joined the group, then a rekeying message MUST also include the authentication credentials that those Clients use in the group, together with the roles and node identifier that the corresponding Client has in the group. This information is specified by means of the parameters 'creds', 'peer_roles' and 'peer_identifiers', like done in the Join Response message. ToDo: Any additional rekeying mechanisms? The pub-sub model would make sense. In this case, the KDC acts as publisher (KDC authentication credential??) and publishes each rekeying message to a specific "rekeying topic", which is associated with the group and is hosted at a broker server. Following their group joining, the group members subscribe to the rekeying topic at the broker, thus receiving the group rekeying messages as they are published by the KDC.

Considerations for Supporting MQTT PubSub Profile The steps MQTT clients go through would be similar to the CoAP clients, and the payload of the MQTT PUBLISH messages will be protected using COSE. In MQTT, topics are organised as a tree, and in the , 'scope' captures permissions for not a single topic but a topic filter. Therefore, topic names (i.e., group names) may include wildcards spanning several levels of the topic tree. Hence, it is important to distinguish application groups and security groups defined in . Also differently for MQTT, the Client sends a token request to AS for the requested topics (application groups) using AIF-MQTT data model for representing the requested scopes is described in Section 3 of the . In the authorisation response, the 'profile' claim is set to "mqtt_pubsub_app" as defined in . Both Publisher and Subscriber Clients authorise to the Broker with their respective tokens (described in ). A Publisher Client sends PUBLISH messages for a given topic and protects the payload with the corresponding key for the associated security group. RS validates the PUBLISH message by verifying its topic in the stored token. A Subscriber Client may send SUBSCRIBE messages with one or multiple topic filters. A topic filter may correspond to multiple topics. RS validates the SUBSCRIBE message by checking the stored token for the Client. Authorisation Server (AS) Discovery is defined in Section 2.2.6.1 of for MQTT v5 clients (and not supported for MQTT v3 clients).

Security Considerations All the security considerations in apply. In the profile described above, the Publisher and Subscriber use asymmetric crypto, which would make the message exchange quite heavy for small constrained devices. Moreover, all Subscribers must be able to access the public keys of all the Publishers to a specific topic to be able to verify the publications. Even though Access Tokens have expiration times, an Access Token may need to be revoked before its expiration time (see for a list of possible circumstances). Clients can be excluded from future publications through re-keying for a certain topic. This could be set up to happen on a regular basis, for certain applications. How this could be done is out of scope for this work. The method described in MAY be used to allow an Authorization Server to notify the KDC about revoked Access Tokens. The Broker is only trusted with verifying that the Publisher is authorized to publish, but is not trusted with the publications itself, which it cannot read nor modify. In this setting, caching of publications on the Broker is still allowed. TODO: expand on security and privacy considerations

IANA Considerations

ACE Groupcomm Profile Registry The following registrations are done for the "ACE Groupcomm Profile" Registry following the procedure specified in . Note to RFC Editor: Please replace all occurrences of "[[This document]]" with the RFC number of this specification and delete this paragraph.

CoAP Profile Registration Name: coap_pubsub_app Description: Profile for delegating client authentication and authorization for publishers and subscribers in a CoAP pub-sub setting scenario in a constrained environment. CBOR Key: TBD Reference: [[This document]]

MQTT Profile Registration Name: mqtt_pubsub_app Description: Profile for delegating client authentication and authorization for publishers and subscribers in a MQTT pub-sub setting scenario in a constrained environment. CBOR Key: TBD Reference: [[This document]]

ACE Groupcomm Key Registry The following registrations are done for the ACE Groupcomm Key Registry following the procedure specified in . Note to RFC Editor: Please replace all occurrences of "[[This document]]" with the RFC number of this specification and delete this paragraph. Name: COSE_Key Key Type Value: TBD Profile: coap_pubsub_app, mqtt_pubsub_app Description: COSE_Key object References: , [[This document]]

AIF For the media-types application/aif+cbor and application/aif+json defined in Section 5.1 of , IANA is requested to register the following entries for the two media-type parameters Toid and Tperm, in the respective sub-registry defined in Section 5.2 of within the "MIME Media Type Sub-Parameter" registry group. For Toid: Name: Description/Specification: Reference: [[This document]] For Tperm: Name: Description/Specification: Reference: [[This document]]

References Normative References IANA IANA IANA In many standards track documents several words are used to signify the requirements in the specification. These words are often capitalized. This document defines these words as they should be interpreted in IETF documents. This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and requests discussion and suggestions for improvements. The OAuth 2.0 authorization framework enables a third-party application to obtain limited access to an HTTP service, either on behalf of a resource owner by orchestrating an approval interaction between the resource owner and the HTTP service, or by allowing the third-party application to obtain access on its own behalf. This specification replaces and obsoletes the OAuth 1.0 protocol described in RFC 5849. [STANDARDS-TRACK] The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a specialized web transfer protocol for use with constrained nodes and constrained (e.g., low-power, lossy) networks. The nodes often have 8-bit microcontrollers with small amounts of ROM and RAM, while constrained networks such as IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPANs) often have high packet error rates and a typical throughput of 10s of kbit/s. The protocol is designed for machine- to-machine (M2M) applications such as smart energy and building automation. CoAP provides a request/response interaction model between application endpoints, supports built-in discovery of services and resources, and includes key concepts of the Web such as URIs and Internet media types. CoAP is designed to easily interface with HTTP for integration with the Web while meeting specialized requirements such as multicast support, very low overhead, and simplicity for constrained environments. A common design pattern in Internet of Things (IoT) deployments is the use of a constrained device that collects data via sensors or controls actuators for use in home automation, industrial control systems, smart cities, and other IoT deployments. This document defines a Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) 1.2 profile that offers communications security for this data exchange thereby preventing eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. The lack of communication security is a common vulnerability in IoT products that can easily be solved by using these well-researched and widely deployed Internet security protocols. CBOR Web Token (CWT) is a compact means of representing claims to be transferred between two parties. The claims in a CWT are encoded in the Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR), and CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) is used for added application-layer security protection. A claim is a piece of information asserted about a subject and is represented as a name/value pair consisting of a claim name and a claim value. CWT is derived from JSON Web Token (JWT) but uses CBOR rather than JSON. The Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format whose design goals include the possibility of extremely small code size, fairly small message size, and extensibility without the need for version negotiation. These design goals make it different from earlier binary serializations such as ASN.1 and MessagePack. This document obsoletes RFC 7049, providing editorial improvements, new details, and errata fixes while keeping full compatibility with the interchange format of RFC 7049. It does not create a new version of the format. Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format designed for small code size and small message size. There is a need to be able to define basic security services for this data format. This document defines the CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) protocol. This specification describes how to create and process signatures, message authentication codes, and encryption using CBOR for serialization. This specification additionally describes how to represent cryptographic keys using CBOR. This document, along with RFC 9053, obsoletes RFC 8152. Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format designed for small code size and small message size. There is a need to be able to define basic security services for this data format. This document defines a set of algorithms that can be used with the CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE) protocol (RFC 9052). This document, along with RFC 9052, obsoletes RFC 8152. Information about which entities are authorized to perform what operations on which constituents of other entities is a crucial component of producing an overall system that is secure. Conveying precise authorization information is especially critical in highly automated systems with large numbers of entities, such as the Internet of Things. This specification provides a generic information model and format for representing such authorization information, as well as two variants of a specific instantiation of that format for use with Representational State Transfer (REST) resources identified by URI path. Fraunhofer SIT Qualcomm Technologies Inc. Cisco Systems Universität Bremen TZI CBOR Web Token (CWT, RFC 8392) Claims Sets sometimes do not need the protection afforded by wrapping them into COSE, as is required for a true CWT. This specification defines a CBOR tag for such unprotected CWT Claims Sets (UCCS) and discusses conditions for its proper use. Ericsson AB Ericsson AB RISE AB RISE AB Nexus Group This document specifies a CBOR encoding of X.509 certificates. The resulting certificates are called C509 Certificates. The CBOR encoding supports a large subset of RFC 5280 and all certificates compatible with the RFC 7925, IEEE 802.1AR (DevID), CNSA, RPKI, GSMA eUICC, and CA/Browser Forum Baseline Requirements profiles. When used to re-encode DER encoded X.509 certificates, the CBOR encoding can in many cases reduce the size of RFC 7925 profiled certificates with over 50%. The CBOR encoded structure can alternatively be signed directly ("natively signed"), which does not require re- encoding for the signature to be verified. The document also specifies C509 COSE headers, a C509 TLS certificate type, and a C509 file format. Combitech Ericsson Spotify AB Arm Ltd. This specification defines a framework for authentication and authorization in Internet of Things (IoT) environments called ACE-OAuth. The framework is based on a set of building blocks including OAuth 2.0 and the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), thus transforming a well-known and widely used authorization solution into a form suitable for IoT devices. Existing specifications are used where possible, but extensions are added and profiles are defined to better serve the IoT use cases. SmartThings Ericsson Ericsson The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), and related extensions are intended to support machine-to-machine communication in systems where one or more nodes are resource constrained, in particular for low power wireless sensor networks. This document defines a publish- subscribe Broker for CoAP that extends the capabilities of CoAP for supporting nodes with long breaks in connectivity and/or up-time. Ericsson AB RISE AB This document defines how to use the Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) framework to distribute keying material and configuration parameters for secure group communication. Candidate group members acting as Clients and authorized to join a group can do so by interacting with a Key Distribution Center (KDC) acting as Resource Server, from which they obtain the keying material to communicate with other group members. While defining general message formats as well as the interface and operations available at the KDC, this document supports different approaches and protocols for secure group communication. Therefore, details are delegated to separate application profiles of this document, as specialized instances that target a particular group communication approach and define how communications in the group are protected. Compliance requirements for such application profiles are also specified. IoTconsultancy.nl InterDigital RISE AB This document specifies the use of the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) for group communication, including the use of UDP/IP multicast as the default underlying data transport. Both unsecured and secured CoAP group communication are specified. Security is achieved by use of the Group Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments (Group OSCORE) protocol. The target application area of this specification is any group communication use cases that involve resource-constrained devices or networks that support CoAP. This document replaces RFC 7390, while it updates RFC 7252 and RFC 7641. Informative References JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a lightweight, text-based, language-independent data interchange format. It was derived from the ECMAScript Programming Language Standard. JSON defines a small set of formatting rules for the portable representation of structured data. This document removes inconsistencies with other specifications of JSON, repairs specification errors, and offers experience-based interoperability guidance. Universitaet Bremen TZI RISE SICS Ericsson AB Universitaet Bremen TZI Constrained-node networks are networks where some nodes have severe constraints on code size, state memory, processing capabilities, user interface, power and communication bandwidth (RFC 7228). This document provides terminology, and identifies the elements that an architecture needs to address, providing a problem statement, for authentication and authorization in these networks. Universität Bremen TZI Universität Bremen TZI Universität Bremen TZI Ericsson AB Combitech This specification defines a profile of the Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) framework that allows constrained servers to delegate client authentication and authorization. The protocol relies on DTLS version 1.2 or later for communication security between entities in a constrained network using either raw public keys or pre-shared keys. A resource-constrained server can use this protocol to delegate management of authorization information to a trusted host with less-severe limitations regarding processing power and memory. Ericsson AB Combitech Ericsson AB RISE This document specifies a profile for the Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) framework. It utilizes Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments (OSCORE) to provide communication security and proof-of-possession for a key owned by the client and bound to an OAuth 2.0 access token. Brunel University Oxbotica This document specifies a profile for the ACE (Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments) framework to enable authorization in a Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT)-based publish-subscribe messaging system. Proof-of-possession keys, bound to OAuth2.0 access tokens, are used to authenticate and authorize MQTT Clients. The protocol relies on TLS for confidentiality and MQTT server (Broker) authentication. RISE AB Combitech Ericsson AB CMU SEI CMU SEI This document specifies a method of the Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ACE) framework, which allows an Authorization Server to notify Clients and Resource Servers (i.e., registered devices) about revoked Access Tokens. The method allows Clients and Resource Servers to access a Token Revocation List on the Authorization Server, with the possible additional use of resource observation for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). Resulting (unsolicited) notifications of revoked Access Tokens complement alternative approaches such as token introspection, while not requiring additional endpoints on Clients and Resource Servers.

Requirements on Application Profiles This section lists the specifications on this profile based on the requirements defined in Appendix A of .

• REQ1: Specify the format and encoding of 'scope'. : TODO.
• REQ2: If the AIF format of 'scope' is used, register its specific instance of "Toid" and "Tperm" as Media Type parameters and a corresponding Content-Format, as per the guidelines in .
• REQ3: If used, specify the acceptable values for 'sign_alg': TODO
• REQ4: If used, specify the acceptable values for 'sign_parameters': TODO
• REQ5: If used, specify the acceptable values for 'sign_key_parameters' : TODO
• REQ6: Specify the acceptable formats for authentication credentials and, if used, the acceptable values for 'cred_fmt': TODO
• REQ7: If the value of the GROUPNAME URI path and the group name in the access token scope (gname) are not required to coincide, specify the mechanism to map the GROUPNAME value in the URI to the group name: TODO
• REQ8: Define whether the KDC has an authentication credential and if this has to be provided through the 'kdc_cred' parameter : TODO
• REQ9: Specify if any part of the KDC interface as defined in is not supported by the KDC: TODO
• REQ10: Register a Resource Type for the root url-path, which is used to discover the correct url to access at the KDC : TODO
• REQ11: Define what specific actions (e.g., CoAP methods) are allowed on each resource provided by the KDC interface, depending on whether the Client is a current group member; the roles that a Client is authorized to take as per the obtained access token; and the roles that the Client has as current group member.
• REQ12: Categorize possible newly defined operations for Clients into primary operations expected to be minimally supported and secondary operations, and provide accompanying considerations: None added.
• REQ13: Specify the encoding of group identifier: ToDo.
• REQ14: Specify the approaches used to compute and verify the PoP evidence to include in 'client_cred_verify', and which of those approaches is used in which case: ToDo
• REQ15: Specify how the nonce N_S is generated, if the token is not provided to the KDC through the Token Transfer Request to the authz-info endpoint (e.g., if it is used directly to validate TLS instead): TODO
• REQ16: Define the initial value of the 'num' parameter: 1
• REQ17: Specify the format of the 'key' parameter: ToDo
• REQ18: Specify the acceptable values of the 'gkty' parameter: ToDo
• REQ19: Specify and register the application profile identifier: coap_pubsub_app
• REQ20: If used, specify the format and content of 'group_policies' and its entries. Specify the policies default values: N/A
• REQ21: Specify the approaches used to compute and verify the PoP evidence to include in 'kdc_cred_verify', and which of those approaches is used in which case
• REQ22: Specify the communication protocol the members of the group must use.
• REQ23: Specify the security protocol the group members must use to protect their communication. This must provide encryption, integrity and replay protection.
• REQ24: Specify how the communication is secured between Client and KDC. Optionally, specify transport profile of ACE [RFC9200] to use between Client and KDC.
• REQ25: Specify the format of the identifiers of group members.
• REQ26: Specify policies at the KDC to handle ids that are not included in 'get_creds'.
• REQ27: Specify the format of newly-generated individual keying material for group members, or of the information to derive it, and corresponding CBOR label.
• REQ28: Specify which CBOR tag is used for identifying the semantics of binary scopes, or register a new CBOR tag if a suitable one does not exist already.
• REQ29: Categorize newly defined parameters according to the same criteria of Section 8 of .
• REQ30: Define whether Clients must, should or may support the conditional parameters defined in Section 8 of , and under which circumstances.
• OPT1: Optionally, if the textual format of 'scope' is used, specify CBOR values to use for abbreviating the role identifiers in the group: N/A
• OPT2: Optionally, specify the additional parameters used in the exchange of Token Transfer Request and Response : N/A
• OPT3: Optionally, specify the negotiation of parameter values for signature algorithm and signature keys, if 'sign_info' is not used: N/A
• OPT4: Optionally, specify possible or required payload formats for specific error cases.: not defined
• OPT5: Optionally, specify additional identifiers of error types, as values of the 'error' field in an error response from the KDC: not defined.
• OPT6: Optionally, specify the encoding of 'creds_repo' if the default is not used.: N/A
• OPT7: Optionally, specify the functionalities implemented at the 'control_uri' resource hosted at the Client, including message exchange encoding and other details
• OPT8: Optionally, specify the behavior of the handler in case of failure to retrieve an authentication credential for the specific node:
• OPT9: Optionally, define a default group rekeying scheme, to refer to in case the 'rekeying_scheme' parameter is not included in the Join Response:
• OPT10: Optionally, specify the functionalities implemented at the 'control_group_uri' resource hosted at the Client, including message exchange encoding and other details
• OPT11: Optionally, specify policies that instruct Clients to retain messages and for how long, if they are unsuccessfully decrypted
• OPT12: Optionally, specify for the KDC to perform group rekeying (together or instead of renewing individual keying material) when receiving a Key Renewal Request
• OPT13: Optionally, specify how the identifier of a group member's authentication credential is included in requests sent to other group members
• OPT14: Optionally, specify additional information to include in rekeying messages for the "Point-to-Point" group rekeying scheme:
• OPT15: Optionally, specify if Clients must or should support any of the parameters defined as optional in :

Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank Ari Keraenen, John Mattsson, Ludwig Seitz, Goeran Selander, Jim Schaad and Marco Tiloca for the useful discussion and reviews that helped shape this document.