1CAT working group                                              M. Swift 
2Internet Draft                                                J. Brezak 
3Document: draft-brezak-win2k-krb-rc4-hmac-01.txt              Microsoft 
4Category: Informational                                    October 1999 
5 
6 
7           The Windows 2000 RC4-HMAC Kerberos encryption type 
8 
9 
10Status of this Memo 
11 
12   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with 
13   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026 [1]. Internet-Drafts are 
14   working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its 
15   areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also 
16   distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are 
17   draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be 
18   updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It 
19   is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference material or to 
20   cite them other than as "work in progress." 
21     
22   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at 
23   http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt  
24
25   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at 
26   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. 
27    
281. Abstract 
29    
30   The Windows 2000 implementation of Kerberos introduces a new 
31   encryption type based on the RC4 encryption algorithm and using an 
32   MD5 HMAC for checksum. This is offered as an alternative to using 
33   the existing DES based encryption types. 
34    
35   The RC4-HMAC encryption types are used to ease upgrade of existing 
36   Windows NT environments, provide strong crypto (128-bit key 
37   lengths), and provide exportable (meet United States government 
38   export restriction requirements) encryption. 
39    
40   The Windows 2000 implementation of Kerberos contains new encryption 
41   and checksum types for two reasons: for export reasons early in the 
42   development process, 56 bit DES encryption could not be exported, 
43   and because upon upgrade from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000, 
44   accounts will not have the appropriate DES keying material to do the 
45   standard DES encryption. Furthermore, 3DES is not available for 
46   export, and there was a desire to use a single flavor of encryption 
47   in the product for both US and international products. 
48    
49   As a result, there are two new encryption types and one new checksum 
50   type introduced in Windows 2000. 
51    
52    
532. Conventions used in this document 
54    
55
56  
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61 
62   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", 
63   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in 
64   this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC-2119 [2]. 
65    
663. Key Generation 
67    
68   On upgrade from existing Windows NT domains, the user accounts would 
69   not have a DES based key available to enable the use of DES base 
70   encryption types specified in RFC 1510. The key used for RC4-HMAC is 
71   the same as the existing Windows NT key (NT Password Hash) for 
72   compatibility reasons. Once the account password is changed, the DES 
73   based keys are created and maintained. Once the DES keys are 
74   available DES based encryption types can be used with Kerberos.  
75    
76   The RC4-HMAC String to key function is defined as follow: 
77    
78   String2Key(password) 
79    
80        K = MD4(UNICODE(password)) 
81         
82   The RC4-HMAC keys are generated by using the Windows UNICODE version 
83   of the password. Each Windows UNICODE character is encoded in 
84   little-endian format of 2 octets each. Then performing an MD4 [6] 
85   hash operation on just the UNICODE characters of the password (not 
86   including the terminating zero octets). 
87    
884. Basic Operations 
89    
90   The MD5 HMAC function is defined in [3]. It is used in this 
91   encryption type for checksum operations. Refer to [3] for details on 
92   its operation. In this document this function is referred to as 
93   HMAC(Key, Data) returning the checksum using the specified key on 
94   the data. 
95    
96   The basic MD5 hash operation is used in this encryption type and 
97   defined in [7]. In this document this function is referred to as 
98   MD5(Data) returning the checksum of the data. 
99    
100   The basic RC4 encryption operation is used in this encryption type 
101   and defined in [8]. In this document the function is referred to as 
102   RC4(Key, Data) returning the encrypted data using the specified key 
103   on the data. 
104    
105   These encryption types use key derivation as defined in [9] (RFC-
106   1510BIS) in Section titled "Key Derivation". With each message, the 
107   message type (T) is used as a component of the keying material. 
108    
109   All strings in this document are ASCII unless otherwise specified. 
110   The lengths of ASCII encoded character strings include the trailing 
111   terminator character (0). 
112    
113   The concat(a,b,c,...) function will return the logical concatenation 
114   (left to right) of the values of the arguments. 
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120 
121    
122   The nonce(n) function returns a pseudo-random number of "n" octets. 
123    
1245. Checksum Types 
125    
126   There is one checksum type used in this encryption type. The 
127   Kerberos constant for this type is: 
128        #define KERB_CHECKSUM_HMAC_MD5 (-138) 
129    
130   The function is defined as follows: 
131    
132   K - is the Key 
133   T - the message type, encoded as a little-endian four byte integer 
134    
135   CHKSUM(K, T, data) 
136    
137        Ksign = HMAC(K, "signature key")  //includes zero octet at end 
138        tmp = MD5(concat(T, data)) 
139        CHKSUM = HMAC(Ksign, tmp) 
140    
141    
1426. Encryption Types 
143    
144   There are two encryption types used in these encryption types. The 
145   Kerberos constants for these types are: 
146        #define KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC             23 
147        #define KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC_EXP         24 
148    
149   The basic encryption function is defined as follow: 
150    
151   T = the message type, encoded as a little-endian four byte integer. 
152    
153   ENCRYPT(K, T, data) 
154        if (K.enctype == KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC_EXP) 
155                L = concat("fortybits", T) //includes zero octet at 
156                                           //end of string constant 
157        Else 
158                L = T 
159        Ksign = HMAC(K,L) 
160        Confounder = nonce(8) // get an 8 octet nonce for a confounder 
161        Checksum = HMAC(Ksign, concat(Confounder, data)) 
162        Ke = Ksign 
163        if (K.enctype == KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC_EXP) 
164                memset(&Ke[7], 0x0ab, 9) 
165        Ke2 = HMAC(Ke, Checksum) 
166        data = RC4(Ke2, data) 
167    
168   The header field on the encrypted data in KDC messages is: 
169    
170        typedef struct _RC4_MDx_HEADER { 
171            UCHAR Checksum[16]; 
172            UCHAR Confounder[8]; 
173        } RC4_MDx_HEADER, *PRC4_MDx_HEADER; 
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179 
180    
181   The character constant "fortybits" evolved from the time when a 40-
182   bit key length was all that was exportable from the United States. 
183   It is now used to recognize that the key length is of "exportable" 
184   length. In this description, the key size is actually 56-bits. 
185    
1867. Key Strength Negotiation 
187    
188   A Kerberos client and server can negotiate over key length if they 
189   are using mutual authentication. If the client is unable to perform 
190   full strength encryption, it may propose a key in the "subkey" field 
191   of the authenticator, using a weaker encryption type. The server 
192   must then either return the same key or suggest its own key in the 
193   subkey field of the AP reply message. The key used to encrypt data 
194   is derived from the key returned by the server. If the client is 
195   able to perform strong encryption but the server is not, it may 
196   propose a subkey in the AP reply without first being sent a subkey 
197   in the authenticator. 
198 
1998. GSSAPI Kerberos V5 Mechanism Type  
200 
2018.1 Mechanism Specific Changes 
202    
203   The GSSAPI per-message tokens also require new checksum and 
204   encryption types. The GSS-API per-message tokens must be changed to 
205   support these new encryption types (See [5] Section 1.2.2). The 
206   sealing algorithm identifier (SEAL_ALG) for an RC4 based encryption 
207   is: 
208        Byte 4..5 SEAL_ALG      0x10 0x00 - RC4 
209    
210   The signing algorithm identifier (SGN_ALG) for MD5 HMAC is: 
211        Byte 2..3 SGN ALG       0x11 0x00 - HMAC 
212    
213   The only support quality of protection is: 
214        #define GSS_KRB5_INTEG_C_QOP_DEFAULT    0x0 
215    
216   In addition, when using an RC4 based encryption type, the sequence 
217   number is sent in big-endian rather than little-endian order. 
218    
2198.2 GSSAPI Checksum Type 
220    
221   The GSSAPI checksum type and algorithm is defined in Section 5. Only 
222   the first 8 octets of the checksum are used. The resulting checksum 
223   is stored in the SGN_CKSUM field (See [5] Section 1.2) for 
224   GSS_GetMIC() and GSS_Wrap(conf_flag=FALSE). 
225    
2268.3 GSSAPI Encryption Types 
227    
228   There are two encryption types for GSSAPI message tokens, one that 
229   is 128 bits in strength, and one that is 56 bits in strength as 
230   defined in Section 6. 
231    
232
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238 
239   All padding is rounded up to 1 byte. One byte is needed to say that 
240   there is 1 byte of padding. The DES based mechanism type uses 8 byte 
241   padding. See [5] Section 1.2.2.3. 
242    
243   The encryption mechanism used for GSS based messages is as follow: 
244    
245   T = the message type, encoded as a little-endian four byte integer. 
246    
247   GSS-ENCRYPT(K, T, data) 
248        IV = SND_SEQ 
249        K = XOR(K, 0xf0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0f0) 
250        if (K.enctype == KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC_EXP) 
251                L = concat("fortybits", T) //includes zero octet at end 
252        else 
253                L = T 
254        Ksign = HMAC(K, L) 
255        Ke = Ksign 
256        if (K.enctype == KERB_ETYPE_RC4_HMAC_EXP) 
257                memset(&Ke[7], 0x0ab, 9) 
258        Ke2 = HMAC(Ke, IV) 
259        Data = RC4(Ke2, data) 
260        SND_SEQ = RC4(Ke, seq#) 
261         
262   The sequence number (SND_SEQ) and IV are used as defined in [5] 
263   Section 1.2.2. 
264    
265   The character constant "fortybits" evolved from the time when a 40-
266   bit key length was all that was exportable from the United States. 
267   It is now used to recognize that the key length is of "exportable" 
268   length. In this description, the key size is actually 56-bits. 
269    
2708. Security Considerations 
271 
272   Care must be taken in implementing this encryption type because it 
273   uses a stream cipher. If a different IV isn�t used in each direction 
274   when using a session key, the encryption is weak. By using the 
275   sequence number as an IV, this is avoided. 
276    
2779. References 
278 
279   1  Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 
280      9, RFC 2026, October 1996. 
281    
282   2  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement 
283      Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997 
284    
285   3  Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M., Canetti, R.,"HMAC: Keyed-Hashing for 
286      Message Authentication", RFC 2104, February 1997 
287    
288   4  Kohl, J., Neuman, C., "The Kerberos Network Authentication 
289      Service (V5)", RFC 1510, September 1993 
290 
291 
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297 
298 
299   5  Linn, J., "The Kerberos Version 5 GSS-API Mechanism", RFC-1964, 
300      June 1996 
301 
302   6  R. Rivest, "The MD4 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC-1320, April 
303      1992 
304 
305   7  R. Rivest, "The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm", RFC-1321, April 
306      1992 
307 
308   8  RC4 is a proprietary encryption algorithm available under license 
309             from RSA Data Security Inc.  For licensing information, 
310      contact: 
311             RSA Data Security, Inc. 
312             100 Marine Parkway 
313             Redwood City, CA 94065-1031 
314 
315   9  Neuman, C., Kohl, J., Ts'o, T., "The Kerberos Network 
316      Authentication Service (V5)", draft-ietf-cat-kerberos-revisions-
317      04.txt, June 25, 1999 
318 
319    
32010. Author's Addresses 
321    
322   Mike Swift 
323   Microsoft 
324   One Microsoft Way 
325   Redmond, Washington 
326   Email: mikesw@microsoft.com  
327    
328   John Brezak 
329   Microsoft 
330   One Microsoft Way 
331   Redmond, Washington 
332   Email: jbrezak@microsoft.com 
333    
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357    
35811. Full Copyright Statement 
359 
360   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (1999).  All Rights Reserved. 
361    
362   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to 
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364   or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published 
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366   kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph 
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375    
376   The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be 
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378    
379   This document and the information contained herein is provided on an 
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