Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) B. Sipos
Request for Comments: 9891 RKF Engineering
Category: Experimental November 2025
ISSN: 2070-1721
Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME) Delay-Tolerant
Networking (DTN) Node ID Validation Extension
Abstract
This document specifies an extension to the Automated Certificate
Management Environment (ACME) protocol that allows an ACME server to
validate the Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) Node ID for an ACME
client. A DTN Node ID is an identifier used in the Bundle Protocol
(BP) to name a "singleton endpoint": an endpoint that is registered
on a single BP Node. The DTN Node ID is encoded both as a
certificate Subject Alternative Name (SAN) identity of type otherName
with an Other Name form of BundleEID and as an ACME Identifier type
"bundleEID".
Status of This Memo
This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
published for examination, experimental implementation, and
evaluation.
This document defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. 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). Not
all documents approved by the IESG are candidates for any level of
Internet Standard; see 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/rfc9891.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2025 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
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include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the
Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described
in the Revised BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
1.1. Scope
1.2. Authorization Strategy
1.3. Use of CDDL
1.4. Terminology
1.5. Experiment Scope
2. Bundle EID ACME Identifier
2.1. Subsets of Bundle EID
3. DTN Node ID Validation
3.1. DTN Node ID Challenge Object
3.2. DTN Node ID Response Object
3.3. ACME Node ID Validation Challenge Bundle
3.3.1. Challenge Bundle Checks
3.4. ACME Node ID Validation Response Bundles
3.4.1. Response Bundle Checks
3.5. Multi-Perspective Validation
4. Bundle Integrity Gateway
5. Certificate Request Profile
5.1. Multiple Identity Claims
5.2. Generating Encryption-Only or Signing-Only Bundle Security
Certificates
6. Security Considerations
6.1. Threat: Passive Leak of Validation Data
6.2. Threat: BP Node Impersonation
6.3. Threat: Bundle Replay
6.4. Threat: Denial of Service
6.5. Inherited Security Considerations
6.6. Out-of-Scope BP Agent Communication
7. IANA Considerations
7.1. ACME Identifier Types
7.2. ACME Validation Methods
7.3. Bundle Administrative Record Types
8. References
8.1. Normative References
8.2. Informative References
Appendix A. Administrative Record Types CDDL
Appendix B. Example Authorization
B.1. Challenge Bundle
B.2. Response Bundle
Acknowledgements
Author's Address
1. Introduction
Although the original purpose of the Automatic Certificate Management
Environment (ACME) [RFC8555] was to allow Public Key Infrastructure
using X.509 (PKIX) Certification Authorities (CAs) to validate
network domain names of clients, the same mechanism can be used to
validate any of the subject identity claims supported by the PKIX
profile [RFC5280].
In this specification, the claim being validated is a Subject
Alternative Name (SAN) identity of type otherName with an Other Name
form of BundleEID, which is used to represent a Bundle Protocol (BP)
Endpoint ID (EID) in a Delay-Tolerant Networking (DTN) overlay
network. A DTN Node ID is any EID that can uniquely identify a BP
Node, as defined in Section 4.2.5.2 of [RFC9171], which is equivalent
to the EID being usable as a singleton endpoint. One common EID used
as a Node ID is the Administrative EID, which is guaranteed to exist
on any BP Node. At the time of writing, the URI schemes "dtn" and
"ipn" as defined in Section 4.2.5.1 of [RFC9171] are valid for a
singleton endpoint and, thus, a Node ID. Because the BundleEID claim
is new to ACME, a new ACME Identifier type "bundleEID" is needed to
manage this claim within ACME messaging.
Once an ACME server validates a Node ID, either as a pre-
authorization of an identifier type "bundleEID" as one of the
authorizations of an order containing an identifier type "bundleEID",
the client can finalize the order using an associated Certificate
Signing Request (CSR). Because a single order can contain multiple
identifiers of multiple types, there can be operational issues for a
client attempting to, and possibly failing to, validate those
multiple identifiers as described in Section 5.1. Once a certificate
is issued for a Node ID, how the ACME client configures the BP Agent
with the new certificate is an implementation matter.
1.1. Scope
This document describes the ACME message contents [RFC8555], Bundle
Protocol version 7 (BPv7) payloads [RFC9171], and Bundle Protocol
Security (BPSec) operations [RFC9172] needed to validate claims of
Node ID ownership.
This document does not address:
* Mechanisms for communication between an ACME client or ACME server
and their associated BP Agent(s), depicted as steps 1, 2, 5, and 6
of Figure 1. This document only describes exchanges between ACME
client-server pairs and between their respective associated BP
Agents.
* Specific BP extension blocks or BPSec contexts necessary to
fulfill the security requirements of this protocol. The exact
security context needed, and its parameters, is network specific.
* Policies or mechanisms for defining or configuring Bundle
integrity gateways, or trusting integrity gateways on an
individual entity or across a network.
* Mechanisms for locating or identifying other Bundle entities
(peers) within a network or across an internet. The mapping of a
Node ID to a potential Convergence-Layer (CL) protocol and network
address is left to implementation and configuration of the BP
Agent and its various potential routing strategies.
* Logic for routing Bundles along a path toward a Bundle's endpoint.
This protocol is involved only in creating Bundles at a source and
handling them at a destination.
* Logic for performing rate control and congestion control of Bundle
transfers. The ACME server is responsible for rate control of
validation requests.
* Policies or mechanisms for an ACME server to choose a prioritized
list of acceptable hash algorithms or for an ACME client to choose
a set of acceptable hash algorithms.
* Policies or mechanisms for provisioning, deploying, or accessing
certificates and private keys; deploying or accessing Certificate
Revocation Lists (CRLs); or configuring security parameters on an
individual entity or across a network.
* Policies or mechanisms for an ACME server to handle mixed-use
certificate signing requests. This specification is focused only
on single-use DTN-specific PKIX profiles.
1.2. Authorization Strategy
The basic unit of data exchange in a DTN is a Bundle [RFC9171], which
consists of a data payload with accompanying metadata. An EID is
used as the destination of a Bundle and can indicate both a singleton
or a group destination. A Node ID is used to identify the source of
a Bundle and is used for routing through intermediate nodes,
including the final node(s) used to deliver a Bundle to its
destination endpoint. A Node ID can also be used as an endpoint for
administrative Bundles. More detailed descriptions of the rationale
and capabilities of these networks can be found in the
"Delay-Tolerant Networking Architecture" [RFC4838].
When an ACME client requests a pre-authorization or an order with an
identifier type "bundleEID" (Section 2), the ACME server offers a
"bp-nodeid-00" challenge type (Section 3) to validate that Node ID.
If the ACME client attempts the authorization challenge to validate a
Node ID, the ACME server sends an ACME Node ID Validation Challenge
Bundle with a destination of the Node ID being validated. The BP
Agent on that node receives the Challenge Bundle, generates an ACME
Key Authorization digest, and sends an ACME Node ID Validation
Response Bundle in reply. An Integrity Gateway on the client side of
the DTN can be used to attest to the source of the Response Bundle.
Finally, the ACME server receives the Response Bundle and checks that
the digest was generated for the associated ACME challenge and from
the client account key associated with the original request. This
workflow is shown in Figure 1.
+------------+ +------------+
| ACME |<===== HTTPS Exchanges =====>| ACME |
| Client | | Server |
+------------+ +------------+
| | ^
(1) Enable or (6) Disable (2) Send | |
Validation from Server Challenge | |(5) Indicate
| Non-DTN | | Response
~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~
V DTN V |
++------------++ ++------------++
|| Admin Elem.|| || Admin Elem.||-+
|+------------+| (3) Challenge |+------------+| |
| Client's |<------------- Bundle -----| Server's | |
| BP Agent | | BP Agent | |
+--------------+ +--------------+ |
| +----^---------+
| +-------------+ |
| | Integrity | (4) Response |
+---->| Gateway |------ Bundle --------+
+-------------+
Figure 1: The Relationships and Flows Between Node ID Validation
Entities
Because the DTN Node ID is used both for routing Bundles between BP
Agents and for multiplexing administrative services within a BP
Agent, there is no possibility to separate the ACME validation of a
Node ID from normal Bundle handling for that same Node ID. This
leaves administrative record types as a way to keep the Node ID
unchanged while disambiguating from other service data Bundles.
There is nothing in this protocol that requires network-topological
co-location of either the ACME client or ACME server with their
respective associated BP Agent. While ACME requires a low-enough
latency network to perform HTTPS exchanges between the ACME client
and server, the client's BP Agent (the one being validated) could be
on the far side of a long-delay or multi-hop BP network. The means
by which the ACME client or server communicates with its associated
BP Agent is an implementation matter.
1.3. Use of CDDL
This document defines Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)
structure using the Concise Data Definition Language (CDDL)
[RFC8610]. The entire CDDL structure can be extracted from the XML
version of this document using the XPath expression:
'//sourcecode[@type="cddl"]'
The following initial fragment defines the top-level symbols of this
document's CDDL, which includes the example CBOR content.
start = acme-record / bundle / tstr
1.4. Terminology
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.
Because this document combines two otherwise unrelated contexts, ACME
and DTN, when a protocol term applies to one of those areas and is
used in the other its name is prefixed with either "ACME" or "DTN"
respectively. Thus, within the ACME context the term is "DTN Node
ID" while in the DTN context the name is just "Node ID".
In this document, several terms are shortened for the sake of
brevity. These terms are as follows:
Challenge Object: This is a shortened form of the full "DTN Node ID
Challenge Object". It is a JSON object created by the ACME server
for challenge type "bp-nodeid-00" as defined in Section 3.1.
Response Object: This is a shortened form of the full "DTN Node ID
Response Object". It is a JSON object created by the ACME client
to authorize a challenge type "bp-nodeid-00" as defined in
Section 3.2.
Challenge Bundle: This is a shortened form of the full "ACME Node ID
Validation Challenge Bundle". It is a Bundle created by the BP
Agent managed by the ACME server to challenge a Node ID claim as
defined in Section 3.3.
Response Bundle: This is a shortened form of the full "ACME Node ID
Validation Response Bundle". It is a Bundle created by the BP
Agent managed by the ACME client to validate a Node ID claim as
defined in Section 3.4.
Because this is a document produced by the ACME WG, the following DTN
BP terms are defined here to clarify how they are used by this ACME
identifier type and validation mechanism.
Endpoint ID: An EID is an identifier for the ultimate destination of
a Bundle, independent of any intermediate forwarding needed to
reach that destination. An endpoint can be a singleton or not, so
an EID can also represent a single entity or a set of entities.
This is formally defined in Section 4.2.5.1 of [RFC9171].
Node ID: A Node ID is an identifier (that is not guaranteed to be
unique) for a specific node in a network in the form of a
singleton EID. A single node can have any number of Node IDs, but
a typical (and expected) form of Node ID is the Administrative EID
(described below). This is formally defined in Section 4.2.5.2 of
[RFC9171].
Administrative EID: An Administrative EID is unique for a node
within a specific URI scheme. Although any Node ID can be a valid
Bundle Source and Destination, the Administrative EID is a minimum
required Node ID for any node operating in a particular URI
scheme. For the "dtn" scheme, this is the empty demux part; for
the "ipn" scheme, this is the service number zero. These are
formally defined under Section 4.2.5.1 of [RFC9171].
1.5. Experiment Scope
The emergent properties of DTN naming and BP security are still being
developed and explored, especially between different organizational
and administrative domains. Thus, the Experimental status of this
document is related more to the practical utility of this kind of
Node ID validation than to the validation method itself. The
original use case is in large or cross-organizational networks where
a BP Node can be trusted to be allocated and added to a network, but
the method of certificate validation and issuance is desired to be
in-band on the network rather than configured solely through a side
channel using bespoke or manual protocols. Because this mechanism is
so similar to other validation methods, specifically email address
validation [RFC8823], it is expected to have few implementation
difficulties or interoperability issues.
Part of the experimental nature of the validation method defined in
Section 3, and BP more generally, is understanding its vulnerability
to different kinds of on-path attacks. Some attacks could be based
on the topology of the BP overlay network, while others could be
based on the underlying (IP) network topology. Because not all of
the attack surfaces of this validation method are known or fully
understood, the usefulness of the multi-perspective technique
described in Section 3.5 is also not assured. The point of those
multi-perspective requirements is that both the ACME client and
server have consistent logic for handling the technique.
The usefulness of the integrity gateway defined in Section 4 to this
validation method is experimental: the way that naming authority in a
DTN is either allocated, delegated, or enforced is not a settled
matter. How the organization running the CA (and its ACME server)
can delegate some level of trust to a different organization running
a connected DTN with a security gateway is also not defined. The
organization running the integrity gateway would need to apply some
minimal amount of policy to nodes running behind it, such as patterns
to their Node IDs, which would behave conceptually similar to
delegation of subdomains in the Domain Name System (DNS), but without
the online interaction of DNS.
A successful experiment of this validation method would involve using
the ACME protocol along with this Node ID validation to allow issuing
of identity certificates across administrative domains. One possible
scenario for this would be an issuing CA and an ACME server on the
edge of a BP transit network operated by some agency. This transit
network is used by edge nodes and accessed via edge routers of a peer
network operated by a second agency. The nodes of the peer network
are trusted by the second agency but not the first. The transit
network can refuse to route traffic from the peer network that is not
traceable to a valid identity certificate, which the edge nodes can
obtain via the ACME server.
A valuable result from any experiment, even an unsuccessful one,
would be feedback about this method to improve later versions. That
feedback could include improvements to object or message structure,
random versus deterministic token values, client or server
procedures, or naming more generally.
2. Bundle EID ACME Identifier
This specification is the first to make use of a Bundle EID to
identify a claim for a certificate request in ACME. In this
document, the only purpose for which a Bundle EID ACME identifier is
validated is as a DTN Node ID (see Section 3), but other
specifications can define challenge types for other EID uses.
Every ACME identifier type "bundleEID" SHALL have a value containing
a text URI consistent with the requirements of Section 4.2.5.1 of
[RFC9171] using one of the schemes available from the "Bundle
Protocol URI Scheme Types" registry [IANA-BP]. Any identifier type
"bundleEID" value that fails to properly percent-decode SHALL be
rejected with an ACME error type of "malformed".
An ACME server supporting identifier type "bundleEID" SHALL decode
and normalize (based on scheme-specific syntax) all such received
identifier values. Any identifier type "bundleEID" value for which
the scheme-specific part does not match the scheme-specific syntax
SHALL be rejected with an ACME error type of "malformed". Any
identifier type "bundleEID" value that uses a scheme not handled by
the ACME server SHALL be rejected with an ACME error type of
"rejectedIdentifier".
When an ACME server needs to request proof that a client controls a
Bundle EID, it SHALL create an authorization with the identifier type
"bundleEID". An ACME server SHALL NOT attempt to dereference a
Bundle EID value on its own. It is the responsibility of an ACME
validation method to ensure the EID ownership using a method
authorized by the ACME client.
An identifier for the Node ID of "dtn://example/" would be formatted
as:
{
"type": "bundleEID",
"value": "dtn://example/"
}
2.1. Subsets of Bundle EID
A PKIX certificate SAN identity containing an Other Name form of
BundleEID can hold any EID value (as a text URI). But the
certificate profile used by the TCP Convergence Layer [RFC9174] and
supported by the ACME validation method in Section 3 requires that
the value hold a Node ID (Section 1.4).
In addition to the narrowing of that certificate profile, this
validation method requires that the client's BP Agent respond to
administrative records sent to the Node ID being validated.
Typically, this is limited to an Administrative EID (Section 1.4)
destination. However, the administrative element of a BP Node is not
prohibited from receiving administrative records for, or sending
records from, other Node IDs in order to support this validation
method.
Neither that certificate profile nor this validation method support
operating on non-singleton EIDs, but other validation methods could
be defined to do so in order to support other certificate profiles.
3. DTN Node ID Validation
The DTN Node ID validation method proves control over a Node ID by
requiring the ACME client to configure a BP Agent to respond to
specific Challenge Bundles sent from the ACME server. The ACME
server validates control of the Node ID by verifying that received
Response Bundles correspond with the BP Node and client account key
being validated.
Similar to the ACME use case for email-address validation [RFC8823],
this challenge splits the token into several parts, each part being
transported by a different channel, and the Key Authorization result
requires combining all parts of the token. A separate challenge
identifier is used as a filter by BP Agents similar to the challenge
"from" used by email validation in Section 3 of [RFC8823].
The token parts are as follows:
token-chal:
This token is unique to each ACME authorization. It is contained
in the Challenge Object of Section 3.1. Each authorization can
consist of multiple Challenge Bundles (e.g., taking different
routes), but they all share the same token-chal value. This
ensures that the Key Authorization is bound to the specific ACME
challenge (and parent ACME authorization). This token does not
appear on the BP channel; thus, any eavesdropper knowing the
client's account key thumbprint (e.g., from some other validation
method) is not able to impersonate the client.
token-bundle:
This token is unique to each Challenge Bundle sent by the ACME
server. It is contained in the Challenge Bundle of Section 3.3
and Response Bundle of Section 3.4. This ensures that the Key
Authorization is bound to the ability to receive the Challenge
Bundle and not just having access to the ACME Challenge Object.
This token is also accessible to DTN on-path eavesdroppers.
Because multiple Challenge Bundles can be sent to validate the same
Node ID, the token-bundle in the response is needed to correlate with
the expected Key Authorization digest.
The DTN Node ID Challenge Object SHALL only be allowed for an EID
usable as a DTN Node ID, which is defined per-scheme in
Section 4.2.5.1 of [RFC9171]. When an ACME server supports Node ID
validation, the ACME server SHALL provide a Challenge Object in
accordance with Section 3.1. Once this Challenge Object is defined,
the ACME client may begin the validation.
To initiate a Node ID validation, the ACME client performs the
following steps:
1. The ACME client POSTs a newOrder or newAuthz request including
the identifier type "bundleEID" for the desired Node ID. From
either of these entry points, an authorization for the identifier
type "bundleEID" is indicated by the ACME server. See
Section 7.4 of [RFC8555] for more details.
2. The ACME client obtains the id-chal and token-chal from the
Challenge Object (Section 3.1) contained in an authorization
object associated with the order in accordance with Section 7.1.4
of [RFC8555].
3. The ACME client indicates to the administrative element of its BP
Agent the id-chal that is authorized for use along with the
associated token-chal and client account key thumbprint. The
ACME client waits, if necessary, until the Agent is configured
before proceeding to the next step.
4. The ACME client POSTs a response object (Section 3.2) to the
challenge URL on the ACME server in accordance with Section 7.5.1
of [RFC8555]. The payload object is constructed in accordance
with Section 3.2.
5. The administrative element waits for a Challenge Bundle to be
received with the authorized ACME parameters, including its id-
chal payload, in accordance with Section 3.3.
6. The administrative element concatenates token-bundle with token-
chal (each as base64url-encoded text strings) and computes the
Key Authorization in accordance with Section 8.1 of [RFC8555]
using the full token and client account key thumbprint.
7. The administrative element chooses the highest-priority hash
algorithm supported by both the client and server, uses that
algorithm to compute the digest of the Key Authorization result,
and generates a Response Bundle to send back to the ACME server
in accordance with Section 3.4.
8. The ACME client waits for the authorization to be finalized on
the ACME server in accordance with Section 7.5.1 of [RFC8555].
9. Once the challenge is completed (successfully or not), the ACME
client indicates to the BP Agent that the id-chal is no longer
usable. If the authorization fails, the ACME client MAY retry
the challenge from Step 3.
The ACME server verifies the client's control over a Node ID by
performing the following steps:
1. The ACME server receives a newOrder or newAuthz request including
the identifier type "bundleEID", where the URI value is a Node
ID.
2. The ACME server generates an authorization for the Node ID with
challenge type "bp-nodeid-00" in accordance with Section 3.1.
3. The ACME server receives a POST to the challenge URL indicated
from the authorization object. The payload is handled in
accordance with Section 3.2.
4. The ACME server sends, via the administrative element of its BP
Agent, one or more Challenge Bundles in accordance with
Section 3.3. Each Challenge Bundle contains a distinct, random
token-bundle to be able to correlate with a Response Bundle.
Computing an expected Key Authorization digest is not necessary
until a response is received with a chosen hash algorithm.
5. The ACME server waits for a Response Bundle(s) for a limited
interval of time (based on the response object of Section 3.2).
Responses are encoded in accordance with Section 3.4.
6. Once received and decoded, the ACME server checks the contents of
each Response Bundle in accordance with Section 3.4.1. After all
Challenge Bundles have either been responded to or timed-out, the
ACME server policy (see Section 3.5) determines whether the
validation is successful. If validation is not successful, a
client may retry the challenge that starts in Step 3.
When responding to a Challenge Bundle, a BP Agent SHALL send a single
Response Bundle in accordance with Section 3.4. A BP Agent SHALL
respond to ACME challenges only within the interval of time and only
for the id-chal indicated by the ACME client. A BP Agent SHALL
respond to multiple Challenge Bundles with the same ACME parameters
but different Bundle identities (source Node ID and timestamp); these
correspond with the ACME server validating via multiple routing
paths.
3.1. DTN Node ID Challenge Object
The DTN Node ID Challenge Object is included by the ACME server as
defined in Section 7.5 of [RFC8555] when it supports validating Node
IDs.
The DTN Node ID Challenge Object has the following content:
type (required, string): The string "bp-nodeid-00".
id-chal (required, string): This is a random value associated with a
challenge that allows a client to filter valid Challenge Bundles
(Section 3.3). The same value is used for all Challenge Bundles
associated with an ACME challenge, including multi-perspective
validation using multiple sources as described in Section 3.5.
This value SHALL have at least 128 bits of entropy. It SHALL NOT
contain any characters outside the base64url alphabet as described
in Section 5 of [RFC4648]. Trailing '=' padding characters SHALL
be stripped. See BCP 106 [RFC4086] for additional information on
randomness requirements.
token-chal (required, string): This is a random value, used as part
of the Key Authorization algorithm, which is communicated to the
ACME client only over the ACME channel. This value SHALL have at
least 128 bits of entropy. It SHALL NOT contain any characters
outside the base64url alphabet as described in Section 5 of
[RFC4648]. Trailing '=' padding characters SHALL be stripped.
See BCP 106 [RFC4086] for additional information on randomness
requirements.
{
"type": "bp-nodeid-00",
"url": "https://example.com/acme/chall/prV_B7yEyA4",
"id-chal": "dDtaviYTPUWFS3NK37YWfQ",
"token-chal": "tPUZNY4ONIk6LxErRFEjVw"
}
The token-chal value included in this object applies to the entire
challenge and may correspond with multiple separate token-bundle
values when multiple Challenge Bundles are sent for a single
validation.
3.2. DTN Node ID Response Object
The DTN Node ID response object is sent by the ACME client when it
authorizes validation of a Node ID as defined in Section 7.5.1 of
[RFC8555]. Because a DTN has the potential for significantly longer
(but roughly predictable) delays than a non-DTN network, the ACME
client is able to inform the ACME server if a particular validation
round-trip is expected to take longer than non-DTN network delays (on
the order of seconds).
The DTN Node ID response object has the following content:
rtt (optional, number): An expected Round-Trip Time (RTT), in
seconds, between sending a Challenge Bundle and receiving a
Response Bundle. This value is a hint to the ACME server for how
long to wait for responses but is not authoritative. The minimum
RTT value SHALL be zero. There is no special significance to
zero-value RTT, it simply indicates the response is expected in
less than the least significant unit used by the ACME client.
{
"rtt": 300.0
}
A response object SHALL NOT be sent until the BP Agent has been
configured to properly respond to the challenge. The RTT value is
meant to indicate any node-specific path delays expected to be
encountered from the ACME server. Because there is no requirement on
the path (or paths) regarding which Bundles may traverse between the
ACME server and the BP Agent, and the ACME server can attempt some
path diversity, the RTT value SHOULD be pessimistic.
A default Bundle response interval, used when the object does not
contain an RTT, SHOULD be a configurable parameter of the ACME
server. If the ACME client indicated an RTT value in the object, the
response interval SHOULD be twice the RTT (with limiting logic
applied as described below). The lower limit on the response
interval is network specific, but it SHOULD NOT be shorter than one
second. The upper limit on response interval is network specific,
but it SHOULD NOT be longer than one minute (60 seconds) for a
terrestrial-only DTN.
3.3. ACME Node ID Validation Challenge Bundle
Each ACME Node ID Validation Challenge Bundle SHALL be structured and
encoded in accordance with BPv7 [RFC9171].
Each Challenge Bundle has parameters as listed here:
Bundle Processing Control Flags: The primary block flags SHALL
indicate that the payload is an administrative record. The
primary block flags SHALL indicate that user application
acknowledgement is requested; this flag distinguishes the
Challenge Bundle from the Response Bundle.
Destination EID: The Destination EID SHALL be the ACME-server-
normalized Node ID being validated.
Source Node ID: The Source Node ID SHALL indicate the Node ID of a
BP Agent of the ACME server performing the challenge.
Creation Timestamp and Lifetime: The Creation Timestamp SHALL be set
to the time at which the challenge was generated. The Lifetime
SHALL indicate the response interval (of Section 3.2) for which
the ACME server will accept responses to this challenge.
Administrative Record Type Code: This is set to the ACME Node ID
Validation type code defined in Section 7.3.
Administrative Record Content: The Challenge Bundle administrative
record content SHALL consist of a CBOR map containing the
following three pairs:
* One pair SHALL consist of key 1 with a value of ACME challenge
id-chal, copied from the Challenge Object, represented as a
CBOR byte string.
* One pair SHALL consist of key 2 with a value of ACME challenge
token-bundle, represented as a CBOR byte string. The token-
bundle is a random value that uniquely identifies the Challenge
Bundle. This value SHALL have at least 128 bits of entropy.
See BCP 106 [RFC4086] for additional information on randomness
requirements.
* One pair SHALL consist of key 4 with a value of an array
containing acceptable hash algorithm identifiers. The array
SHALL be ordered in descending preference, with the first item
being the most preferred. The array SHALL contain at least one
item. Each algorithm identifier SHALL correspond to the Value
column (integer or text string) of the algorithm registered in
the "COSE Algorithms" registry [IANA-COSE].
This structure is part of the extension CDDL in Appendix A. An
example full Challenge Bundle is included in Appendix B.1.
For interoperability, entities that use this validation method SHALL
support the hash algorithm "SHA-256" (value -16) [RFC9054]. This
requirement allows for different implementations to be configured to
use an interoperable algorithm, but does not preclude the use of
other algorithms with either higher or lower priority.
If the BP Agent generating a Challenge Bundle does not have a well-
synchronized clock or the agent responding to the challenge is
expected to not have a well-synchronized clock, the Bundle SHALL
include a Bundle Age extension block in accordance with Section 4.4.2
of [RFC9171].
Challenge Bundles SHALL include a Block Integrity Block (BIB) in
accordance with Section 4 or with a Security Source identical to the
Bundle Source Node. Challenge Bundles SHALL NOT be directly
encrypted by the Block Confidentiality Block (BCB) method or any
other method (see Section 6.1).
3.3.1. Challenge Bundle Checks
A proper Challenge Bundle meets all of the following criteria:
* The Challenge Bundle was received within the time interval allowed
for the challenge. The allowed interval starts at the Creation
Timestamp and extends for the Lifetime of the Challenge Bundle.
* The Challenge Bundle contains a BIB that covers at least the
primary block and payload. That BIB has a Security Source that is
trusted and passes security-context-specific validation (i.e.,
Message Authentication Code (MAC) or signature verification).
* The challenge payload contains the id-chal as indicated in the
ACME Challenge Object.
* The challenge payload contains a token-bundle matching the
definition in Section 3.3.
* The challenge payload contains at least one hash algorithm
identifier acceptable to the client.
Failure to match any of the above SHALL cause the Challenge Bundle to
be otherwise ignored by the BP Agent. It is an implementation matter
of how to react to such failures, which could include logging the
event, incrementing counters, or raising alarms.
3.4. ACME Node ID Validation Response Bundles
Each ACME Node ID Validation Response Bundle SHALL be structured and
encoded in accordance with BPv7 [RFC9171].
Each Response Bundle has parameters as listed here:
Bundle Processing Control Flags: The primary block flags SHALL
indicate that the payload is an administrative record. The
primary block flags SHALL NOT indicate that user application
acknowledgement is requested; this flag distinguishes the Response
Bundle from the Challenge Bundle.
Destination EID: The Destination EID SHALL be identical to the
Source Node ID of the Challenge Bundle to which this response
corresponds.
Source Node ID: The Source Node ID SHALL be identical to the
Destination EID of the Challenge Bundle to which this response
corresponds.
Creation Timestamp and Lifetime: The Creation Timestamp SHALL be set
to the time at which the response was generated. The response
Lifetime SHALL indicate the response interval remaining if the
Challenge Bundle indicated a limited Lifetime.
Administrative Record Type Code: Set to the ACME Node ID Validation
type code defined in Section 7.3.
Administrative Record Content: The Response Bundle administrative
record content SHALL consist of a CBOR map containing the
following three pairs:
* One pair SHALL consist of key 1 with value of ACME challenge
id-chal, copied from the Request Bundle, represented as a CBOR
byte string.
* One pair SHALL consist of key 2 with value of ACME challenge
token-bundle, copied from the Request Bundle, represented as a
CBOR byte string.
* One pair SHALL consist of key 3 with value of a two-element
array containing the pair of a hash algorithm identifier and
the hash byte string. The algorithm identifier SHALL
correspond to the Value column (integer or text string) of the
algorithm registered in the "COSE Algorithms" registry
[IANA-COSE].
This structure is part of the extension CDDL in Appendix A. An
example full Response Bundle is included in Appendix B.2.
If the BP Agent responding to a Challenge Bundle does not have a
well-synchronized clock, it SHALL use any information about last-hop
delays and (if present) Bundle Age extension data to infer the age of
the Challenge Bundle and Lifetime of the Response Bundle.
Response Bundles SHALL include a BIB in accordance with Section 4.
Response Bundles SHALL NOT be directly encrypted by BCB or any other
method (see Section 6.1 for explanation).
3.4.1. Response Bundle Checks
A proper Response Bundle meets all of the following criteria:
* The Response Bundle was received within the time interval allowed
for the challenge. The allowed interval starts at the Creation
Timestamp and extends for the Lifetime of the associated Challenge
Bundle. The interval of the Challenge Bundle is used here because
the interval of the Response Bundle could be made to disagree with
the Challenge Bundle.
* The Response Bundle Source Node ID is identical to the Node ID
being validated. The comparison of Node IDs SHALL use the
comparison logic of the NODE-ID from Section 4.4.1 of [RFC9174].
* The Response Bundle contains a BIB that covers at least the
primary block and payload. That BIB has a Security Source that is
trusted and passes security-context-specific validation.
* The response payload contains the same id-chal and token-bundle as
sent in the Challenge Bundle (this is also how the two Bundles are
correlated).
* The response payload contains a hash algorithm identifier
acceptable to the server (as indicated in the Challenge Bundle).
* The response payload contains the expected Key Authorization
digest computed by the ACME server.
Any of the failures above SHALL cause that single-perspective
validation to fail. Any of the failures above SHOULD be
distinguished as subproblems to the ACME client. The lack of a
response within the expected response interval, as defined in
Section 3.2, SHALL also be treated as a validation failure.
3.5. Multi-Perspective Validation
To avoid on-path attacks in certain networks, an ACME server can
perform a single validation using multiple Challenge Bundle sources
or via multiple routing paths. This technique is called "multi-
perspective validation" as recommended in Section 10.2 of [RFC8555]
and an implementation is used by the Let's Encrypt service in its
operational deployment [LE-multi-perspective]. The utility of a
multi-perspective validation is part of the experimental nature (see
Section 1.5) of this specification.
When required by policy, an ACME server SHALL send multiple Challenge
Bundles from different sources in the BP network. When multiple
Challenge Bundles are sent for a single validation, it is a matter of
ACME server policy to determine whether or not the validation as a
whole is successful. The result of each single-source validation is
defined as success or failure in Section 3.4.1.
A RECOMMENDED validation policy is to succeed if the challenge from a
primary Bundle source is successful and if there is no more than one
failure from a secondary source. The determination of which
perspectives are considered primary or secondary is an implementation
matter.
Regardless of whether a validation is single- or multi-perspective, a
validation failure SHALL be indicated by an ACME error type of
"incorrectResponse". Each specific perspective failure SHOULD be
indicated to the ACME client as a validation subproblem.
4. Bundle Integrity Gateway
This section defines a BIB use that closely resembles the function of
DKIM email signing [RFC6376]. In this mechanism, a routing node in a
DTN subnetwork attests to the origination of a Bundle by adding a BIB
before forwarding it. The Bundle receiver then need not trust the
source of the Bundle, it only needs to trust this Security Source
node. The receiver needs policy configuration to know which Security
Sources are permitted to attest for which Bundle sources. The
utility of an integrity gateway is part of the experimental nature
(Section 1.5) of this specification.
An integrity gateway SHALL validate the Source Node ID of a Bundle,
using local-network-specific means, before adding a BIB to the
Bundle. The exact means by which an integrity gateway validates a
Bundle's source is network specific, but it could use physical-layer,
network-layer, or BP-convergence-layer authentication. The Bundle
source could also add its own BIB with a local-network-specific
security context or local-network-specific key material (i.e., a
group key shared within the local network).
When an integrity gateway adds a BIB, it SHALL be in accordance with
BPSec [RFC9172] requirements. The BIB targets SHALL cover both the
payload block and the primary block (either directly as a target or
as additional authenticated data for the payload block MAC/
signature). The Security Source of this BIB SHALL be either the
Bundle source Node ID itself or a routing node trusted by the
destination node (see Section 6.2).
5. Certificate Request Profile
The ultimate purpose of this ACME validation is to allow a CA to
issue certificates following the profiles of Section 4.4.2 of
[RFC9174] and Section 4 of [BPSEC-COSE]. These purposes are referred
to here as "Bundle security certificates".
The ACME identifier type "bundleEID" correlates to the PKIX
certificate and certificate request "NODE-ID" as defined in
Section 4.4.1 of [RFC9174]. This NODE-ID is present in certificate
requests with an extensionRequest attribute (see [RFC2985])
containing a SAN extension with identities of type otherName having
an Other Name form of BundleEID, identified by id-on-bundleEID from
the "SMI Security for PKIX Other Name Forms" registry [IANA-SMI].
Because the BundleEID Other Name form is encoded as an IA5String, it
SHALL be treated as being in the percent-encoded form of Section 2.1
of [RFC3986].
One defining aspect of Bundle security certificates is the Extended
Key Usage key purpose id-kp-bundleSecurity [IANA-SMI], as defined in
Section 4.4.2.1 of [RFC9174]. When requesting a certificate that
includes a NODE-ID, the CSR SHOULD include an Extended Key Usage of
id-kp-bundleSecurity. When a Bundle security certificate is issued
based on a validated NODE-ID, the certificate SHALL include an
Extended Key Usage of id-kp-bundleSecurity.
5.1. Multiple Identity Claims
A single Bundle security CSR MAY contain a mixed set of SAN
identifiers, including combinations of IP-ID [RFC9525], DNS-ID
[RFC9525], and NODE-ID [RFC9174] types. These correspond with ACME
identifier types "ip", "dns", and "bundleEID", respectively.
There is no restriction on how a certificate combines these claims,
but each identifier SHALL be validated by an ACME server to issue
such a certificate as part of an associated ACME order. This is no
different than the existing behavior of ACME [RFC8555] but is
mentioned here to make sure that CA policy handles such situations,
especially related to validation failure of an identifier in the
presence of multiple identifiers. Existing validation mechanisms are
defined for identifier types "ip" [RFC8738] and "dns" [RFC8555] among
others [IANA-ACME].
The specific use case of TLS-based security for BPv7 CL transport in
Section 4.4 of [RFC9174] allows, and for some network policies
requires, that a certificate authenticate both the DNS name of an
entity as well as the Node ID of the entity. These authentications
apply to each identifier type, used for different network layers, at
different points during secure session establishment.
5.2. Generating Encryption-Only or Signing-Only Bundle Security
Certificates
ACME extensions specified in this document can be used to request
encryption-only or signing-only Bundle security certificates. The
validity of a request for either a restricted-use or unrestricted-use
certificate is dependent on both CA policy to issue such certificates
as well as constraints based on the requested key and algorithm
types.
In order to request a signing-only Bundle security certificate, the
CSR SHALL include the key usage extension with the digitalSignature
and/or nonRepudiation bits set and no other bits set.
In order to request an encryption-only Bundle security certificate,
the CSR SHALL include the key usage extension with the
keyEncipherment or keyAgreement bits set and no other bits set.
Presence of both of the above sets of key usage bits in the CSR, as
well as absence of key usage extension in the CSR, signals the ACME
server to issue a Bundle security certificate suitable for both
signing and encryption.
6. Security Considerations
This section separates security considerations into threat categories
based on guidance of BCP 72 [RFC3552].
6.1. Threat: Passive Leak of Validation Data
Because this challenge mechanism is used to bootstrap security
between DTN Nodes, the challenge and its response are likely to be
transferred in plaintext. The only ACME data present on-the-wire is
a random token and a cryptographic digest, so there is no sensitive
data to be leaked within the Node ID Validation Bundle exchange.
Because each challenge uses a separate token pair, there is no value
in an on-path attacker seeing the tokens from past challenges and/or
responses.
It is possible for intermediate BP Nodes to encapsulate-and-encrypt
Challenge Bundles and/or Response Bundles while they traverse
untrusted networks, but that is a DTN configuration matter outside of
the scope of this document.
6.2. Threat: BP Node Impersonation
As described in Section 10.1 of [RFC8555], it is possible for an
active attacker to alter data on both ACME client channel and the DTN
validation channel.
The primary mitigation is to delegate Bundle integrity sourcing to a
trusted routing node near, in the sense of Bundle routing topology,
the Bundle source node as defined in Section 4. This is functionally
similar to the DKIM signing [RFC6376] and provides some level of
secure Bundle origination.
Another way to mitigate on-path attacks is to attempt validation of
the same Node ID from multiple sources, hopefully via multiple Bundle
routing paths, as defined in Section 3.5. It is not a trivial task
to guarantee Bundle routing though, so more advanced techniques such
as onion routing (using Bundle-in-Bundle encapsulation) could be
employed.
6.3. Threat: Bundle Replay
It is possible for an on-path attacker to replay both Challenge
Bundles or Response Bundles. Even in a properly configured DTN, it
is possible that intermediate Bundle routers would use multi-path
forwarding of a singleton-destination Bundle.
Ultimately, the point of the ACME Bundle exchange is to derive a Key
Authorization value and its cryptographic digest, and to communicate
that digest back to the ACME server for validation, so the uniqueness
of the Key Authorization directly determines the scope of replay
validity. The uniqueness of each token-bundle to each Challenge
Bundle ensures that the Key Authorization is unique to the Challenge
Bundle. The uniqueness of each token-chal to the ACME challenge
ensures that the Key Authorization is unique to that ACME challenge
and not based solely on values visible to on-path eavesdroppers.
Having each Bundle's primary block and payload block covered by a BIB
from a trusted Security Source (see Section 4) ensures that a
replayed Bundle cannot be altered in the blocks used by ACME. All
together, these properties mean that there is no degraded security
caused by replay of either a Challenge Bundle or a Response Bundle
even in the case where the primary or payload block is not covered by
a BIB. The worst that can come of Bundle replay is the waste of
network resources as described in Section 6.4.
6.4. Threat: Denial of Service
The behaviors described in this section all amount to a potential
denial-of-service to a BP Agent.
A malicious entity can continually send Challenge Bundles to a BP
Agent. The victim BP Agent can ignore Challenge Bundles that do not
conform to the specific time interval and challenge token for which
the ACME client has informed the BP Agent that challenges are
expected. The victim BP Agent can require all Challenge Bundles to
be BIB-signed to ensure authenticity of the challenge.
A malicious entity can continually send Response Bundles to a BP
Agent. The victim BP Agent can ignore Response Bundles that do not
conform to the specific time interval or Source Node ID or challenge
token for an active Node ID validation.
Similar to other validation methods, an ACME server validating a DTN
Node ID could be used as a denial-of-service amplifier. For this
reason, any ACME server can rate-limit validation activities for
individual clients and individual certificate requests.
6.5. Inherited Security Considerations
Because this protocol relies on ACME for part of its operation, the
security considerations of ACME [RFC8555] apply to all ACME client-
server exchanges during Node ID validation.
Because this protocol relies on BPv7 for part of its operation, the
security considerations of BPv7 [RFC9171] and BPSec [RFC9172] apply
to all BP messaging during Node ID validation.
6.6. Out-of-Scope BP Agent Communication
Although messaging between an ACME client or ACME server and its
associated BP Agent are out-of-scope for this document, both of those
channels are critical to Node ID validation security. Either channel
can potentially leak data or provide attack vectors if not properly
secured. These channels need to protect against spoofing of
messaging in both directions to avoid interruption of normal
validation sequencing and to prevent false validations from
succeeding.
The ACME server and its BP Agent exchange the outgoing id-chal,
token-bundle, and Key Authorization digest, but these values do not
need to be confidential (they are also in plaintext over the BP
channel).
Depending on implementation details, the ACME client might transmit
the client account key thumbprint to its BP Agent to allow computing
the Key Authorization digest on the BP Agent. If an ACME client does
transmit its client account key thumbprint to a BP Agent, it is
important that this data is kept confidential because it provides the
binding of the client account key to the Node ID validation (as well
as for all other types of ACME validation). Avoiding this
transmission would require a full round-trip between BP Agent and
ACME client, which can be undesirable if the two are separated by a
long-delay network.
7. IANA Considerations
This specification adds to the "Automated Certificate Management
Environment (ACME) Protocol" registry group and the "Bundle Protocol"
registry group.
7.1. ACME Identifier Types
Within the "Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
Protocol" registry group [IANA-ACME], the following entry has been
added to the "ACME Identifier Types" registry.
+===========+===========+
| Label | Reference |
+===========+===========+
| bundleEID | RFC 9891 |
+-----------+-----------+
Table 1
7.2. ACME Validation Methods
Within the "Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
Protocol" registry group [IANA-ACME], the following entry has been
added to the "ACME Validation Methods" registry.
+==============+=================+======+===========+
| Label | Identifier Type | ACME | Reference |
+==============+=================+======+===========+
| bp-nodeid-00 | bundleEID | Y | RFC 9891 |
+--------------+-----------------+------+-----------+
Table 2
7.3. Bundle Administrative Record Types
Within the "Bundle Protocol" registry group [IANA-BP], the following
entry has been added to the "Bundle Administrative Record Types"
registry.
+=========================+=======+==============+===========+
| Bundle Protocol Version | Value | Description | Reference |
+=========================+=======+==============+===========+
| 7 | 255 | ACME Node ID | RFC 9891 |
| | | Validation | |
+-------------------------+-------+--------------+-----------+
Table 3
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[IANA-ACME]
IANA, "Automated Certificate Management Environment (ACME)
Protocol", .
[IANA-BP] IANA, "Bundle Protocol",
.
[IANA-COSE]
IANA, "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE)",
.
[IANA-SMI] IANA, "Structure of Management Information (SMI) Numbers
(MIB Module Registrations)",
.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
.
[RFC2985] Nystrom, M. and B. Kaliski, "PKCS #9: Selected Object
Classes and Attribute Types Version 2.0", RFC 2985,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2985, November 2000,
.
[RFC3552] Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552,
DOI 10.17487/RFC3552, July 2003,
.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
.
[RFC4086] Eastlake 3rd, D., Schiller, J., and S. Crocker,
"Randomness Requirements for Security", BCP 106, RFC 4086,
DOI 10.17487/RFC4086, June 2005,
.
[RFC4648] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data
Encodings", RFC 4648, DOI 10.17487/RFC4648, October 2006,
.
[RFC4838] Cerf, V., Burleigh, S., Hooke, A., Torgerson, L., Durst,
R., Scott, K., Fall, K., and H. Weiss, "Delay-Tolerant
Networking Architecture", RFC 4838, DOI 10.17487/RFC4838,
April 2007, .
[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,
.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, .
[RFC8555] Barnes, R., Hoffman-Andrews, J., McCarney, D., and J.
Kasten, "Automatic Certificate Management Environment
(ACME)", RFC 8555, DOI 10.17487/RFC8555, March 2019,
.
[RFC8610] Birkholz, H., Vigano, C., and C. Bormann, "Concise Data
Definition Language (CDDL): A Notational Convention to
Express Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) and
JSON Data Structures", RFC 8610, DOI 10.17487/RFC8610,
June 2019, .
[RFC9054] Schaad, J., "CBOR Object Signing and Encryption (COSE):
Hash Algorithms", RFC 9054, DOI 10.17487/RFC9054, August
2022, .
[RFC9171] Burleigh, S., Fall, K., and E. Birrane, III, "Bundle
Protocol Version 7", RFC 9171, DOI 10.17487/RFC9171,
January 2022, .
[RFC9172] Birrane, III, E. and K. McKeever, "Bundle Protocol
Security (BPSec)", RFC 9172, DOI 10.17487/RFC9172, January
2022, .
[RFC9174] Sipos, B., Demmer, M., Ott, J., and S. Perreault, "Delay-
Tolerant Networking TCP Convergence-Layer Protocol Version
4", RFC 9174, DOI 10.17487/RFC9174, January 2022,
.
[RFC9525] Saint-Andre, P. and R. Salz, "Service Identity in TLS",
RFC 9525, DOI 10.17487/RFC9525, November 2023,
.
8.2. Informative References
[BPSEC-COSE]
Sipos, B., "Bundle Protocol Security (BPSec) COSE
Context", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
dtn-bpsec-cose-10, 15 October 2025,
.
[LE-multi-perspective]
Aas, J., McCarney, D., and R. Shoemaker, "Multi-
Perspective Validation Improves Domain Validation
Security", 19 February 2020,
.
[RFC6376] Crocker, D., Ed., Hansen, T., Ed., and M. Kucherawy, Ed.,
"DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures", STD 76,
RFC 6376, DOI 10.17487/RFC6376, September 2011,
.
[RFC8738] Shoemaker, R.B., "Automated Certificate Management
Environment (ACME) IP Identifier Validation Extension",
RFC 8738, DOI 10.17487/RFC8738, February 2020,
.
[RFC8792] Watsen, K., Auerswald, E., Farrel, A., and Q. Wu,
"Handling Long Lines in Content of Internet-Drafts and
RFCs", RFC 8792, DOI 10.17487/RFC8792, June 2020,
.
[RFC8823] Melnikov, A., "Extensions to Automatic Certificate
Management Environment for End-User S/MIME Certificates",
RFC 8823, DOI 10.17487/RFC8823, April 2021,
.
Appendix A. Administrative Record Types CDDL
The extension of BPv7 from Appendix B of [RFC9171] for the ACME
Bundles in Sections 3.3 and 3.4 is the following CDDL:
; All ACME records have the same structure
$admin-record /= [0xFF, acme-record]
acme-record = acme-challenge-record / acme-response-record
acme-challenge-record = {
id-chal,
token-bundle,
alg-list
}
acme-response-record = {
id-chal,
token-bundle,
key-auth-digest
}
id-chal = (1: bstr)
token-bundle = (2: bstr)
key-auth-digest = (3: [
alg: alg-id,
value: bstr
])
alg-list = (4: [+ alg-id])
; From the IANA COSE registry, only hash algorithms allowed
alg-id = tstr / int
Appendix B. Example Authorization
This example is a Bundle exchange for the ACME server with Node ID
"dtn://acme-server/" performing a verification for ACME client Node
ID "dtn://acme-client/". The example Bundles use no block CRC or
BPSec integrity, which is for simplicity and is not recommended for
normal use. The provided figures are extended diagnostic notation
[RFC8610].
For this example, the ACME client key thumbprint has the base64url-
encoded value of:
"LPJNul-wow4m6DsqxbninhsWHlwfp0JecwQzYpOLmCQ"
and the ACME-server generated token-chal has the base64url-encoded
value of:
"tPUZNY4ONIk6LxErRFEjVw"
B.1. Challenge Bundle
For the single Challenge Bundle in this example, the token-bundle
(transported as byte string via BP) has the base64url-encoded value
of:
"p3yRYFU4KxwQaHQjJ2RdiQ"
The minimal-but-valid Challenge Bundle is shown in Figure 2. This
challenge requires that the ACME client respond within a 60-second
time window.
[_
[
7, / BP version /
0x22, / flags: user-app-ack, payload-is-an-admin-record /
0, / CRC type: none /
[1, "//acme-client/"], / destination /
[1, "//acme-server/"], / source /
[1, 0], / report-to: none /
[1000000, 0], / timestamp: 2000-01-01T00:16:40+00:00 /
60000 / lifetime: 60s /
],
[
1, / block type code /
1, / block number /
0, / flags /
0, / CRC type: none /
<<[ / type-specific data /
0xFF, / record-type-code /
{ / record-content /
1: b64'dDtaviYTPUWFS3NK37YWfQ', / id-chal /
2: b64'p3yRYFU4KxwQaHQjJ2RdiQ', / token-bundle /
4: [-16] / alg-list: SHA-256 /
}
]>>
]
]
Figure 2: Example Challenge Bundle
B.2. Response Bundle
When the tokens are combined with the key thumbprint, the full Key
Authorization value is the following, folded across lines for
readability using the "single backslash" strategy of Section 7 of
[RFC8792].
/ NOTE: '\' line wrapping per RFC 8792 /
"p3yRYFU4KxwQaHQjJ2RdiQtPUZNY4ONIk6LxErRFEjVw.\
LPJNul-wow4m6DsqxbninhsWHlwfp0JecwQzYpOLmCQ"
The minimal-but-valid Response Bundle is shown in Figure 3. This
response indicates that there are 30 seconds remaining in the
response time window.
[_
[
7, / BP version /
0x02, / flags: payload-is-an-admin-record /
0, / CRC type: none /
[1, "//acme-server/"], / destination /
[1, "//acme-client/"], / source /
[1, 0], / report-to: none /
[1030000, 0], / timestamp: 2000-01-01T00:17:10+00:00 /
30000 / lifetime: 30s /
],
[
1, / block type code /
1, / block number /
0, / flags /
0, / CRC type: none /
<<[ / block-type-specific data /
0xFF, / record-type-code /
{ / record-content /
1: b64'dDtaviYTPUWFS3NK37YWfQ', / id-chal /
2: b64'p3yRYFU4KxwQaHQjJ2RdiQ', / token-bundle /
3: [-16, b64'mVIOJEQZie8XpYM6MMVSQUiNPH64URnhM9niJ5XHrew']
/ SHA-256 key auth. digest /
}
]>>
]
]
Figure 3: Example Response Bundle
Acknowledgements
This specification is based on DTN use cases related to PKIX
certificate issuance.
The workflow and terminology of this validation method were
originally copied from the work of Alexey Melnikov for email
validation [RFC8823].
Author's Address
Brian Sipos
RKF Engineering Solutions, LLC
7500 Old Georgetown Road
Suite 1275
Bethesda, MD 20814-6198
United States of America
Email: brian.sipos+ietf@gmail.com