<pre>Network Working Group                                       J. Pinkerton
Request for Comments: 5042                         Microsoft Corporation
Category: Standards Track                                   E. Deleganes
                                                                    Self
                                                            October 2007


                <span class="h1">Direct Data Placement Protocol (DDP) /</span>
         <span class="h1">Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol (RDMAP) Security</span>

Status of This Memo

   This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
   Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
   improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
   Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
   and status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

   This document analyzes security issues around implementation and use
   of the Direct Data Placement Protocol (DDP) and Remote Direct Memory
   Access Protocol (RDMAP).  It first defines an architectural model for
   an RDMA Network Interface Card (RNIC), which can implement DDP or
   RDMAP and DDP.  The document reviews various attacks against the
   resources defined in the architectural model and the countermeasures
   that can be used to protect the system.  Attacks are grouped into
   those that can be mitigated by using secure communication channels
   across the network, attacks from Remote Peers, and attacks from Local
   Peers.  Attack categories include spoofing, tampering, information
   disclosure, denial of service, and elevation of privilege.




















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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


Table of Contents

   <a href="#section-1">1</a>. Introduction ....................................................<a href="#page-4">4</a>
   <a href="#section-2">2</a>. Architectural Model .............................................<a href="#page-6">6</a>
      <a href="#section-2.1">2.1</a>. Components .................................................<a href="#page-7">7</a>
      <a href="#section-2.2">2.2</a>. Resources ..................................................<a href="#page-9">9</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.1">2.2.1</a>. Stream Context Memory ...............................<a href="#page-9">9</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.2">2.2.2</a>. Data Buffers .......................................<a href="#page-10">10</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.3">2.2.3</a>. Page Translation Tables ............................<a href="#page-10">10</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.4">2.2.4</a>. Protection Domain (PD) .............................<a href="#page-11">11</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.5">2.2.5</a>. STag Namespace and Scope ...........................<a href="#page-11">11</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.6">2.2.6</a>. Completion Queues ..................................<a href="#page-12">12</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.7">2.2.7</a>. Asynchronous Event Queue ...........................<a href="#page-12">12</a>
           <a href="#section-2.2.8">2.2.8</a>. RDMA Read Request Queue ............................<a href="#page-13">13</a>
      <a href="#section-2.3">2.3</a>. RNIC Interactions .........................................<a href="#page-13">13</a>
           <a href="#section-2.3.1">2.3.1</a>. Privileged Control Interface Semantics .............<a href="#page-13">13</a>
           <a href="#section-2.3.2">2.3.2</a>. Non-Privileged Data Interface Semantics ............<a href="#page-13">13</a>
           <a href="#section-2.3.3">2.3.3</a>. Privileged Data Interface Semantics ................<a href="#page-14">14</a>
           2.3.4. Initialization of RNIC Data Structures for
                  Data Transfer ......................................<a href="#page-14">14</a>
           <a href="#section-2.3.5">2.3.5</a>. RNIC Data Transfer Interactions ....................<a href="#page-16">16</a>
   <a href="#section-3">3</a>. Trust and Resource Sharing .....................................<a href="#page-17">17</a>
   <a href="#section-4">4</a>. Attacker Capabilities ..........................................<a href="#page-18">18</a>
   <a href="#section-5">5</a>. Attacks That Can Be Mitigated with End-to-End Security .........<a href="#page-18">18</a>
      <a href="#section-5.1">5.1</a>. Spoofing ..................................................<a href="#page-19">19</a>
           <a href="#section-5.1.1">5.1.1</a>. Impersonation ......................................<a href="#page-19">19</a>
           <a href="#section-5.1.2">5.1.2</a>. Stream Hijacking ...................................<a href="#page-20">20</a>
           <a href="#section-5.1.3">5.1.3</a>. Man-in-the-Middle Attack ...........................<a href="#page-20">20</a>
      <a href="#section-5.2">5.2</a>. Tampering - Network-Based Modification of Buffer Content ..21
      <a href="#section-5.3">5.3</a>. Information Disclosure - Network-Based Eavesdropping ......<a href="#page-21">21</a>
      <a href="#section-5.4">5.4</a>. Specific Requirements for Security Services ...............<a href="#page-21">21</a>
           <a href="#section-5.4.1">5.4.1</a>. Introduction to Security Options ...................<a href="#page-21">21</a>
           <a href="#section-5.4.2">5.4.2</a>. TLS Is Inappropriate for DDP/RDMAP Security ........<a href="#page-22">22</a>
           <a href="#section-5.4.3">5.4.3</a>. DTLS and RDDP ......................................<a href="#page-23">23</a>
           <a href="#section-5.4.4">5.4.4</a>. ULPs That Provide Security .........................<a href="#page-23">23</a>
           <a href="#section-5.4.5">5.4.5</a>. Requirements for IPsec Encapsulation of DDP ........<a href="#page-23">23</a>
   <a href="#section-6">6</a>. Attacks from Remote Peers ......................................<a href="#page-24">24</a>
      <a href="#section-6.1">6.1</a>. Spoofing ..................................................<a href="#page-25">25</a>
           <a href="#section-6.1.1">6.1.1</a>. Using an STag on a Different Stream ................<a href="#page-25">25</a>
      <a href="#section-6.2">6.2</a>. Tampering .................................................<a href="#page-26">26</a>
           <a href="#section-6.2.1">6.2.1</a>. Buffer Overrun - RDMA Write or Read Response .......<a href="#page-26">26</a>
           <a href="#section-6.2.2">6.2.2</a>. Modifying a Buffer after Indication ................<a href="#page-27">27</a>
           <a href="#section-6.2.3">6.2.3</a>. Multiple STags to Access the Same Buffer ...........<a href="#page-27">27</a>
      <a href="#section-6.3">6.3</a>. Information Disclosure ....................................<a href="#page-28">28</a>
           <a href="#section-6.3.1">6.3.1</a>. Probing Memory Outside of the Buffer Bounds ........<a href="#page-28">28</a>
           <a href="#section-6.3.2">6.3.2</a>. Using RDMA Read to Access Stale Data ...............<a href="#page-28">28</a>
           <a href="#section-6.3.3">6.3.3</a>. Accessing a Buffer after the Transfer ..............<a href="#page-28">28</a>
           <a href="#section-6.3.4">6.3.4</a>. Accessing Unintended Data with a Valid STag ........<a href="#page-29">29</a>



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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


           <a href="#section-6.3.5">6.3.5</a>. RDMA Read into an RDMA Write Buffer ................<a href="#page-29">29</a>
           6.3.6. Using Multiple STags That Alias to the Same
                  Buffer .............................................<a href="#page-29">29</a>
      <a href="#section-6.4">6.4</a>. Denial of Service (DOS) ...................................<a href="#page-30">30</a>
           <a href="#section-6.4.1">6.4.1</a>. RNIC Resource Consumption ..........................<a href="#page-30">30</a>
           <a href="#section-6.4.2">6.4.2</a>. Resource Consumption by Idle ULPs ..................<a href="#page-31">31</a>
           <a href="#section-6.4.3">6.4.3</a>. Resource Consumption by Active ULPs ................<a href="#page-32">32</a>
                  <a href="#section-6.4.3.1">6.4.3.1</a>. Multiple Streams Sharing Receive Buffers ..32
                  6.4.3.2. Remote or Local Peer Attacking a
                           Shared CQ .................................<a href="#page-34">34</a>
                  <a href="#section-6.4.3.3">6.4.3.3</a>. Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue .....<a href="#page-36">36</a>
           <a href="#section-6.4.4">6.4.4</a>. Exercise of Non-Optimal Code Paths .................<a href="#page-37">37</a>
           6.4.5. Remote Invalidate an STag Shared on
                  Multiple Streams ...................................<a href="#page-37">37</a>
           <a href="#section-6.4.6">6.4.6</a>. Remote Peer Attacking an Unshared CQ ...............<a href="#page-38">38</a>
      <a href="#section-6.5">6.5</a>. Elevation of Privilege ....................................<a href="#page-38">38</a>
   <a href="#section-7">7</a>. Attacks from Local Peers .......................................<a href="#page-38">38</a>
      <a href="#section-7.1">7.1</a>. Local ULP Attacking a Shared CQ ...........................<a href="#page-39">39</a>
      <a href="#section-7.2">7.2</a>. Local Peer Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue ..........<a href="#page-39">39</a>
      <a href="#section-7.3">7.3</a>. Local ULP Attacking the PTT and STag Mapping ..............<a href="#page-39">39</a>
   <a href="#section-8">8</a>. Security considerations ........................................<a href="#page-40">40</a>
   <a href="#section-9">9</a>. IANA Considerations ............................................<a href="#page-40">40</a>
   <a href="#section-10">10</a>. References ....................................................<a href="#page-40">40</a>
      <a href="#section-10.1">10.1</a>. Normative References .....................................<a href="#page-40">40</a>
      <a href="#section-10.2">10.2</a>. Informative References ...................................<a href="#page-41">41</a>
   <a href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>. ULP Issues for RDDP Client/Server Protocols ...........<a href="#page-43">43</a>
   <a href="#appendix-B">Appendix B</a>. Summary of RNIC and ULP Implementation Requirements ...<a href="#page-46">46</a>
   <a href="#appendix-C">Appendix C</a>. Partial Trust Taxonomy ................................<a href="#page-47">47</a>
   Acknowledgments ...................................................<a href="#page-49">49</a>






















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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-1" href="#section-1">1</a>.  Introduction</span>

   RDMA enables new levels of flexibility when communicating between two
   parties compared to current conventional networking practice (e.g., a
   stream-based model or datagram model).  This flexibility brings new
   security issues that must be carefully understood when designing
   Upper Layer Protocols (ULPs) utilizing RDMA and when implementing
   RDMA-aware NICs (RNICs).  Note that for the purposes of this security
   analysis, an RNIC may implement RDMAP [<a href="#ref-RDMAP" title="&quot;A Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol Specification&quot;">RDMAP</a>] and DDP [<a href="#ref-DDP" title="&quot;Direct Data Placement over Reliable Transports&quot;">DDP</a>], or just
   DDP.  Also, a ULP may be an application or it may be a middleware
   library.

   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 <a href="./rfc2119">RFC 2119</a>.
   Additionally, the security terminology defined in [<a href="./rfc4949" title="&quot;Internet Security Glossary, Version 2&quot;">RFC4949</a>] is used
   in this specification.

   The document first develops an architectural model that is relevant
   for the security analysis.  <a href="#section-2">Section 2</a> details components, resources,
   and system properties that may be attacked.  The document uses Local
   Peer to represent the RDMA/DDP protocol implementation on the local
   end of a Stream (implemented with a transport protocol, such as
   [<a href="./rfc793" title="&quot;Transmission Control Protocol&quot;">RFC793</a>] or [<a href="./rfc4960" title="&quot;Stream Control Transmission Protocol&quot;">RFC4960</a>]).  The local Upper-Layer-Protocol (ULP) is used
   to represent the application or middle-ware layer above the Local
   Peer.  The document does not attempt to differentiate between a
   Remote Peer and a Remote ULP (an RDMA/DDP protocol implementation on
   the remote end of a Stream versus the application on the remote end)
   for several reasons: often, the source of the attack is difficult to
   know for sure and, regardless of the source, the mitigations required
   of the Local Peer or local ULP are the same.  Thus, the document
   generically refers to a Remote Peer rather than trying to further
   delineate the attacker.

   The document then defines what resources a local ULP may share across
   Streams and what resources the local ULP may share with the Remote
   Peer across Streams in <a href="#section-3">Section 3</a>.

   Intentional sharing of resources between multiple Streams may imply
   some level of trust between the Streams.  However, some types of
   resource sharing have unmitigated security attacks, which would
   mandate not sharing a specific type of resource unless there is some
   level of trust between the Streams sharing resources.








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   This document defines a new term, "Partial Mutual Trust", to address
   this concept:

      Partial Mutual Trust - a collection of RDMAP/DDP Streams, which
      represent the local and remote end points of the Stream that are
      willing to assume that the Streams from the collection will not
      perform malicious attacks against any of the other Streams in the
      collection.

   ULPs have explicit control of which collection of endpoints is in a
   Partial Mutual Trust collection through tools discussed in <a href="#appendix-C">Appendix</a>
   <a href="#appendix-C">C</a>, Partial Trust Taxonomy.

   An untrusted peer relationship is appropriate when a ULP wishes to
   ensure that it will be robust and uncompromised even in the face of a
   deliberate attack by its peer.  For example, a single ULP that
   concurrently supports multiple unrelated Streams (e.g., a server)
   would presumably treat each of its peers as an untrusted peer.  For a
   collection of Streams that share Partial Mutual Trust, the assumption
   is that any Stream not in the collection is untrusted.  For the
   untrusted peer, a brief list of capabilities is enumerated in <a href="#section-4">Section</a>
   <a href="#section-4">4</a>.

   The rest of the document is focused on analyzing attacks and
   recommending specific mitigations to the attacks.  Attacks are
   categorized into attacks mitigated by end-to-end security, attacks
   initiated by Remote Peers, and attacks initiated by Local Peers.  For
   each attack, possible countermeasures are reviewed.

   ULPs within a host are divided into two categories - Privileged and
   Non-Privileged.  Both ULP types can send and receive data and request
   resources.  The key differences between the two are:

      The Privileged ULP is trusted by the local system not to
      maliciously attack the operating environment, but it is not
      trusted to optimize resource allocation globally.  For example,
      the Privileged ULP could be a kernel ULP; thus, the kernel
      presumably has in some way vetted the ULP before allowing it to
      execute.

      A Non-Privileged ULP's capabilities are a logical sub-set of the
      Privileged ULP's.  It is assumed by the local system that a Non-
      Privileged ULP is untrusted.  All Non-Privileged ULP interactions
      with the RNIC Engine that could affect other ULPs need to be done
      through a trusted intermediary that can verify the Non-Privileged
      ULP requests.





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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


   The appendices provide focused summaries of this specification.
   <a href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>, ULP Issues for RDDP Client/Server Protocols, focuses on
   implementers of traditional client/server protocols.  <a href="#appendix-B">Appendix B</a>,
   Summary of RNIC and ULP Implementation Requirements, summarizes all
   normative requirements in this specification.  <a href="#appendix-C">Appendix C</a>, Partial
   Trust Taxonomy, provides an abstract model for categorizing trust
   boundaries.

   If an RDMAP/DDP protocol implementation uses the mitigations
   recommended in this document, that implementation should not exhibit
   additional security vulnerabilities above and beyond those of an
   implementation of the transport protocol (i.e., TCP or SCTP) and
   protocols beneath it (e.g., IP) without RDMAP/DDP.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-2" href="#section-2">2</a>.  Architectural Model</span>

   This section describes an RDMA architectural reference model that is
   used as security issues are examined.  It introduces the components
   of the model, the resources that can be attacked, the types of
   interactions possible between components and resources, and the
   system properties that must be preserved.

   Figure 1 shows the components comprising the architecture and the
   interfaces where potential security attacks could be launched.
   External attacks can be injected into the system from a ULP that sits
   above the RNIC Interface or from the network.

   The intent here is to describe high level components and capabilities
   that affect threat analysis, and not focus on specific implementation
   options.  Also note that the architectural model is an abstraction,
   and an actual implementation may choose to subdivide its components
   along different boundary lines from those defined here.  For example,
   the Privileged Resource Manager may be partially or completely
   encapsulated in the Privileged ULP.  Regardless, it is expected that
   the security analysis of the potential threats and countermeasures
   still apply.

   Note that the model below is derived from several specific RDMA
   implementations.  A few of note are [<a href="#ref-VERBS-RDMAC" title="&quot;RDMA Protocol Verbs Specification&quot;">VERBS-RDMAC</a>], [VERBS-RDMAC-
   Overview], and [<a href="#ref-INFINIBAND" title="&quot;InfiniBand Architecture Specification Volume 1&quot;">INFINIBAND</a>].











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             +-------------+
             |  Privileged |
             |  Resource   |
    Admin&lt;-+&gt;|  Manager    |     ULP Control Interface
           | |             |&lt;------+-------------------+
           | +-------------+       |                   |
           |       ^               v                   v
           |       |         +-------------+   +-----------------+
           +----------------&gt;| Privileged  |   |  Non-Privileged |
                   |         | ULP         |   |  ULP            |
                   |         +-------------+   +-----------------+
                   |               ^                   ^
                   |Privileged     |Privileged         |Non-Privileged
                   |Control        |Data               |Data
                   |Interface      |Interface          |Interface
   RNIC            |               |                   |
   Interface       v               v                   v
   =================================================================

                 +--------------------------------------+
                 |                                      |
                 |               RNIC Engine            |
                 |                                      |
                 +--------------------------------------+
                                   ^
                                   |
                                   v
                                Internet

                      Figure 1 - RDMA Security Model

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.1" href="#section-2.1">2.1</a>.  Components</span>

   The components shown in Figure 1 - RDMA Security Model are:

   *   RDMA Network Interface Controller Engine (RNIC) - The component
       that implements the RDMA protocol and/or DDP protocol.

   *   Privileged Resource Manager - The component responsible for
       managing and allocating resources associated with the RNIC
       Engine.  The Resource Manager does not send or receive data.
       Note that whether the Resource Manager is an independent
       component, part of the RNIC, or part of the ULP is implementation
       dependent.







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   *   Privileged ULP - See <a href="#section-1">Section 1</a>, Introduction, for a definition of
       Privileged ULP.  The local host infrastructure can enable the
       Privileged ULP to map a Data Buffer directly from the RNIC Engine
       to the host through the RNIC Interface, but it does not allow the
       Privileged ULP to directly consume RNIC Engine resources.

   *   Non-Privileged ULP - See <a href="#section-1">Section 1</a>, Introduction, for a
       definition of Non-Privileged ULP.

   A design goal of the DDP and RDMAP protocols is to allow, under
   constrained conditions, Non-Privileged ULP to send and receive data
   directly to/from the RDMA Engine without Privileged Resource Manager
   intervention, while ensuring that the host remains secure.  Thus, one
   of the primary goals of this document is to analyze this usage model
   for the enforcement that is required in the RNIC Engine to ensure
   that the system remains secure.

   DDP provides two mechanisms for transferring data:

   *   Untagged Data Transfer - The incoming payload simply consumes the
       first buffer in a queue of buffers that are in the order
       specified by the receiving Peer (commonly referred to as the
       Receive Queue), and

   *   Tagged Data Transfer - The Peer transmitting the payload
       explicitly states which destination buffer is targeted, through
       use of an STag.  STag-based transfers allow the receiving ULP to
       be indifferent to what order (or in what messages) the opposite
       Peer sent the data, or in what order packets are received.

   Both data transfer mechanisms are also enabled through RDMAP, with
   additional control semantics.  Typically, Tagged Data Transfer can be
   used for payload transfer, while Untagged Data Transfer is best used
   for control messages.  However, each Upper Layer Protocol can
   determine the optimal use of Tagged and Untagged messages for itself.
   See [<a href="#ref-APPLICABILITY">APPLICABILITY</a>] for more information on application applicability
   for the two transfer mechanisms.

   For DDP, the two forms correspond to Untagged and Tagged DDP
   Messages, respectively.  For RDMAP, the two forms correspond to Send
   Type Messages and RDMA Messages (either RDMA Read or RDMA Write
   Messages), respectively.









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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


   The host interfaces that could be exercised include:

   *   Privileged Control Interface - A Privileged Resource Manager uses
       the RNIC Interface to allocate and manage RNIC Engine resources,
       control the state within the RNIC Engine, and monitor various
       events from the RNIC Engine.  It also uses this interface to act
       as a proxy for some operations that a Non-Privileged ULP may
       require (after performing appropriate countermeasures).

   *   ULP Control Interface - A ULP uses this interface to the
       Privileged Resource Manager to allocate RNIC Engine resources.
       The Privileged Resource Manager implements countermeasures to
       ensure that, if the Non-Privileged ULP launches an attack, it can
       prevent the attack from affecting other ULPs.

   *   Non-Privileged Data Transfer Interface - A Non-Privileged ULP
       uses this interface to initiate and check the status of data
       transfer operations.

   *   Privileged Data Transfer Interface - A superset of the
       functionality provided by the Non-Privileged Data Transfer
       Interface.  The ULP is allowed to directly manipulate RNIC Engine
       mapping resources to map an STag to a ULP Data Buffer.

   If Internet control messages, such as ICMP, ARP, RIPv4, etc. are
   processed by the RNIC Engine, the threat analyses for those protocols
   is also applicable, but outside the scope of this document.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2" href="#section-2.2">2.2</a>.  Resources</span>

   This section describes the primary resources in the RNIC Engine that
   could be affected if under attack.  For RDMAP, all the defined
   resources apply.  For DDP, all the resources except the RDMA Read
   Queue apply.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.1" href="#section-2.2.1">2.2.1</a>.  Stream Context Memory</span>

   The state information for each Stream is maintained in memory, which
   could be located in a number of places - on the NIC, inside RAM
   attached to the NIC, in host memory, or in any combination of the
   three, depending on the implementation.

   Stream Context Memory includes state associated with Data Buffers.
   For Tagged Buffers, this includes how STag names, Data Buffers, and
   Page Translation Tables (see <a href="#section-2.2.3">Section 2.2.3</a>) interrelate.  It also
   includes the list of Untagged Data Buffers posted for reception of
   Untagged Messages (commonly called the Receive Queue), and a list of
   operations to perform to send data (commonly called the Send Queue).



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<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.2" href="#section-2.2.2">2.2.2</a>.  Data Buffers</span>

   As mentioned previously, there are two different ways to expose a
   local ULP's Data Buffers for data transfer: Untagged Data Transfer,
   where a buffer can be exposed for receiving RDMAP Send Type Messages
   (a.k.a. DDP Untagged Messages) on DDP Queue zero, or Tagged Data
   Transfer, where the buffer can be exposed for remote access through
   STags (a.k.a. DDP Tagged Messages).  This distinction is important
   because the attacks and the countermeasures used to protect against
   the attack are different depending on the method for exposing the
   buffer to the network.

   For the purposes of the security discussion, for Tagged Data
   Transfer, a single logical Data Buffer is exposed with a single STag
   on a given Stream.  Actual implementations may support scatter/gather
   capabilities to enable multiple physical data buffers to be accessed
   with a single STag, but from a threat analysis perspective, it is
   assumed that a single STag enables access to a single logical Data
   Buffer.

   In any event, it is the responsibility of the Privileged Resource
   Manager to ensure that no STag can be created that exposes memory
   that the consumer had no authority to expose.

   A Data Buffer has specific access rights.  The local ULP can control
   whether a Data Buffer is exposed for local only, or local and remote
   access, and assign specific access privileges (read, write, read and
   write) on a per Stream basis.

   For DDP, when an STag is Advertised, the Remote Peer is presumably
   given write access rights to the data (otherwise, there would not be
   much point to the Advertisement).  For RDMAP, when a ULP Advertises
   an STag, it can enable write-only, read-only, or both write and read
   access rights.

   Similarly, some ULPs may wish to provide a single buffer with
   different access rights on a per Stream basis.  For example, some
   Streams may have read-only access, some may have remote read and
   write access, while on other Streams, only the local ULP/Local Peer
   is allowed access.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.3" href="#section-2.2.3">2.2.3</a>.  Page Translation Tables</span>

   Page Translation Tables are the structures used by the RNIC to be
   able to access ULP memory for data transfer operations.  Even though
   these structures are called "Page" Translation Tables, they may not
   reference a page at all - conceptually, they are used to map a ULP
   address space representation (e.g., a virtual address) of a buffer to



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   the physical addresses that are used by the RNIC Engine to move data.
   If, on a specific system, a mapping is not used, then a subset of the
   attacks examined may be appropriate.  Note that the Page Translation
   Table may or may not be a shared resource.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.4" href="#section-2.2.4">2.2.4</a>.  Protection Domain (PD)</span>

   A Protection Domain (PD) is a local construct to the RDMA
   implementation, and never visible over the wire.  Protection Domains
   are assigned to three of the resources of concern - Stream Context
   Memory, STags associated with Page Translation Table entries, and
   Data Buffers.  A correct implementation of a Protection Domain
   requires that resources that belong to a given Protection Domain
   cannot be used on a resource belonging to another Protection Domain,
   because Protection Domain membership is checked by the RNIC prior to
   taking any action involving such a resource.  Protection Domains are
   therefore used to ensure that an STag can only be used to access an
   associated Data Buffer on one or more Streams that are associated
   with the same Protection Domain as the specific STag.

   If an implementation chooses not to share resources between Streams,
   it is recommended that each Stream be associated with its own, unique
   Protection Domain.  If an implementation chooses to allow resource
   sharing, it is recommended that Protection Domain be limited to the
   collection of Streams that have Partial Mutual Trust with each other.

   Note that a ULP (either Privileged or Non-Privileged) can potentially
   have multiple Protection Domains.  This could be used, for example,
   to ensure that multiple clients of a server do not have the ability
   to corrupt each other.  The server would allocate a Protection Domain
   per client to ensure that resources covered by the Protection Domain
   could not be used by another (untrusted) client.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.5" href="#section-2.2.5">2.2.5</a>.  STag Namespace and Scope</span>

   The DDP specification defines a 32-bit namespace for the STag.
   Implementations may vary in terms of the actual number of STags that
   are supported.  In any case, this is a bounded resource that can come
   under attack.  Depending upon STag namespace allocation algorithms,
   the actual name space to attack may be significantly less than 2^32.

   The scope of an STag is the set of DDP/RDMAP Streams on which the
   STag is valid.  If an STag is valid on a particular DDP/RDMAP Stream,
   then that stream can modify the buffer, subject to the access rights
   that the stream has for the STag (see <a href="#section-2.2.2">Section 2.2.2</a>, Data Buffers,
   for additional information).





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   The analysis presented in this document assumes two mechanisms for
   limiting the scope of Streams for which the STag is valid:

   *   Protection Domain scope.  The STag is valid if used on any Stream
       within a specific Protection Domain, and is invalid if used on
       any Stream that is not a member of the Protection Domain.

   *   Single Stream scope.  The STag is valid on a single Stream,
       regardless of what the Stream association is to a Protection
       Domain.  If used on any other Stream, it is invalid.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.6" href="#section-2.2.6">2.2.6</a>.  Completion Queues</span>

   Completion Queues (CQ) are used in this document to conceptually
   represent how the RNIC Engine notifies the ULP about the completion
   of the transmission of data, or the completion of the reception of
   data through the Data Transfer Interface (specifically for Untagged
   Data Transfer; Tagged Data Transfer cannot cause a completion to
   occur).  Because there could be many transmissions or receptions in
   flight at any one time, completions are modeled as a queue rather
   than as a single event.  An implementation may also use the
   Completion Queue to notify the ULP of other activities; for example,
   the completion of a mapping of an STag to a specific ULP buffer.
   Completion Queues may be shared by a group of Streams, or may be
   designated to handle a specific Stream's traffic.  Limiting
   Completion Queue association to one, or a small number, of RDMAP/DDP
   Streams can prevent several forms of attacks by sharply limiting the
   scope of the attack's effect.

   Some implementations may allow this queue to be manipulated directly
   by both Non-Privileged and Privileged ULPs.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.7" href="#section-2.2.7">2.2.7</a>.  Asynchronous Event Queue</span>

   The Asynchronous Event Queue is a queue from the RNIC to the
   Privileged Resource Manager of bounded size.  It is used by the RNIC
   to notify the host of various events that might require management
   action, including protocol violations, Stream state changes, local
   operation errors, low water marks on receive queues, and possibly
   other events.

   The Asynchronous Event Queue is a resource that can be attacked
   because Remote or Local Peers and/or ULPs can cause events to occur
   that have the potential of overflowing the queue.

   Note that an implementation is at liberty to implement the functions
   of the Asynchronous Event Queue in a variety of ways, including
   multiple queues or even simple callbacks.  All vulnerabilities



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   identified are intended to apply, regardless of the implementation of
   the Asynchronous Event Queue.  For example, a callback function may
   be viewed simply as a very short queue.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.2.8" href="#section-2.2.8">2.2.8</a>.  RDMA Read Request Queue</span>

   The RDMA Read Request Queue is the memory that holds state
   information for one or more RDMA Read Request Messages that have
   arrived, but for which the RDMA Read Response Messages have not yet
   been completely sent.  Because potentially more than one RDMA Read
   Request can be outstanding at one time, the memory is modeled as a
   queue of bounded size.  Some implementations may enable sharing of a
   single RDMA Read Request Queue across multiple Streams.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3" href="#section-2.3">2.3</a>.  RNIC Interactions</span>

   With RNIC resources and interfaces defined, it is now possible to
   examine the interactions supported by the generic RNIC functional
   interfaces through each of the 3 interfaces: Privileged Control
   Interface, Privileged Data Interface, and Non-Privileged Data
   Interface.  As mentioned previously in <a href="#section-2.1">Section 2.1</a>, Components, there
   are two data transfer mechanisms to be examined, Untagged Data
   Transfer and Tagged Data Transfer.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3.1" href="#section-2.3.1">2.3.1</a>.  Privileged Control Interface Semantics</span>

   Generically, the Privileged Control Interface controls the RNIC's
   allocation, de-allocation, and initialization of RNIC global
   resources.  This includes allocation and de-allocation of Stream
   Context Memory, Page Translation Tables, STag names, Completion
   Queues, RDMA Read Request Queues, and Asynchronous Event Queues.

   The Privileged Control Interface is also typically used for managing
   Non-Privileged ULP resources for the Non-Privileged ULP (and possibly
   for the Privileged ULP as well).  This includes initialization and
   removal of Page Translation Table resources, and managing RNIC events
   (possibly managing all events for the Asynchronous Event Queue).

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3.2" href="#section-2.3.2">2.3.2</a>.  Non-Privileged Data Interface Semantics</span>

   The Non-Privileged Data Interface enables data transfer (transmit and
   receive) but does not allow initialization of the Page Translation
   Table resources.  However, once the Page Translation Table resources
   have been initialized, the interface may enable a specific STag
   mapping to be enabled and disabled by directly communicating with the
   RNIC, or create an STag mapping for a buffer that has been previously
   initialized in the RNIC.




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   For RDMAP, ULP data can be sent by one of the previously described
   data transfer mechanisms: Untagged Data Transfer or Tagged Data
   Transfer.  Two RDMAP data transfer mechanisms are defined, one using
   Untagged Data Transfer (Send Type Messages), and one using Tagged
   Data Transfer (RDMA Read Responses and RDMA Writes).  ULP data
   reception through RDMAP can be done by receiving Send Type Messages
   into buffers that have been posted on the Receive Queue or Shared
   Receive Queue.  Thus, a Receive Queue or Shared Receive Queue can
   only be affected by Untagged Data Transfer.  Data reception can also
   be done by receiving RDMA Write and RDMA Read Response Messages into
   buffers that have previously been exposed for external write access
   through Advertisement of an STag (i.e., Tagged Data Transfer).
   Additionally, to cause ULP data to be pulled (read) across the
   network, RDMAP uses an RDMA Read Request Message (which only contains
   RDMAP control information necessary to access the ULP buffer to be
   read), to cause an RDMA Read Response Message to be generated that
   contains the ULP data.

   For DDP, transmitting data means sending DDP Tagged or Untagged
   Messages.  For data reception, DDP can receive Untagged Messages into
   buffers that have been posted on the Receive Queue or Shared Receive
   Queue.  It can also receive Tagged DDP Messages into buffers that
   have previously been exposed for external write access through
   Advertisement of an STag.

   Completion of data transmission or reception generally entails
   informing the ULP of the completed work by placing completion
   information on the Completion Queue.  For data reception, only an
   Untagged Data Transfer can cause completion information to be put in
   the Completion Queue.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3.3" href="#section-2.3.3">2.3.3</a>.  Privileged Data Interface Semantics</span>

   The Privileged Data Interface semantics are a superset of the Non-
   Privileged Data Transfer semantics.  The interface can do everything
   defined in the prior section, as well as create/destroy buffer to
   STag mappings directly.  This generally entails initialization or
   clearing of Page Translation Table state in the RNIC.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3.4" href="#section-2.3.4">2.3.4</a>.  Initialization of RNIC Data Structures for Data Transfer</span>

   Initialization of the mapping between an STag and a Data Buffer can
   be viewed in the abstract as two separate operations:

   a.  Initialization of the allocated Page Translation Table entries
       with the location of the Data Buffer, and





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   b.  Initialization of a mapping from an allocated STag name to a set
       of Page Translation Table entry(s) or partial entries.

   Note that an implementation may not have a Page Translation Table
   (i.e., it may support a direct mapping between an STag and a Data
   Buffer).  If there is no Page Translation Table, then attacks based
   on changing its contents or exhausting its resources are not
   possible.

   Initialization of the contents of the Page Translation Table can be
   done by either the Privileged ULP or by the Privileged Resource
   Manager as a proxy for the Non-Privileged ULP.  By definition, the
   Non-Privileged ULP is not trusted to directly manipulate the Page
   Translation Table.  In general, the concern is that the Non-
   Privileged ULP may try to maliciously initialize the Page Translation
   Table to access a buffer for which it does not have permission.

   The exact resource allocation algorithm for the Page Translation
   Table is outside the scope of this document.  It may be allocated for
   a specific Data Buffer, or as a pooled resource to be consumed by
   potentially multiple Data Buffers, or be managed in some other way.
   This document attempts to abstract implementation dependent issues,
   and group them into higher level security issues, such as resource
   starvation and sharing of resources between Streams.

   The next issue is how an STag name is associated with a Data Buffer.
   For the case of an Untagged Data Buffer (i.e., Untagged Data
   Transfer), there is no wire visible mapping between an STag and the
   Data Buffer.  Note that there may, in fact, be an STag that
   represents the buffer, if an implementation chooses to internally
   represent Untagged Data Buffer using STags.  However, because the
   STag, by definition, is not visible on the wire, this is a local
   host, implementation-specific issue that should be analyzed in the
   context of a local host implementation-specific security analysis,
   and thus, is outside the scope of this document.

   For a Tagged Data Buffer (i.e., Tagged Data Transfer), either the
   Privileged ULP or the Privileged Resource Manager acting on behalf of
   the Non-Privileged ULP may initialize a mapping from an STag to a
   Page Translation Table, or may have the ability to simply
   enable/disable an existing STag to Page Translation Table mapping.
   There may also be multiple STag names that map to a specific group of
   Page Translation Table entries (or sub-entries).  Specific security
   issues with this level of flexibility are examined in <a href="#section-6.2.3">Section 6.2.3</a>,
   Multiple STags to Access the Same Buffer.






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   There are a variety of implementation options for initialization of
   Page Translation Table entries and mapping an STag to a group of Page
   Translation Table entries that have security repercussions.  This
   includes support for separation of mapping an STag versus mapping a
   set of Page Translation Table entries, and support for ULPs directly
   manipulating STag to Page Translation Table entry mappings (versus
   requiring access through the Privileged Resource Manager).

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-2.3.5" href="#section-2.3.5">2.3.5</a>.  RNIC Data Transfer Interactions</span>

   RNIC Data Transfer operations can be subdivided into send and receive
   operations.

   For send operations, there is typically a queue that enables the ULP
   to post multiple operation requests to send data (referred to as the
   Send Queue).  Depending upon the implementation, Data Buffers used in
   the operations may or may not have Page Translation Table entries
   associated with them, and may or may not have STags associated with
   them.  Because this is a local host specific implementation issue
   rather than a protocol issue, the security analysis of threats and
   mitigations is left to the host implementation.

   Receive operations are different for Tagged Data Buffers versus
   Untagged Data Buffers (i.e., Tagged Data Transfer vs. Untagged Data
   Transfer).  For Untagged Data Transfer, if more than one Untagged
   Data Buffer can be posted by the ULP, the DDP specification requires
   that they be consumed in sequential order (the RDMAP specification
   also requires this).  Thus, the most general implementation is that
   there is a sequential queue of receive Untagged Data Buffers (Receive
   Queue).  Some implementations may also support sharing of the
   sequential queue between multiple Streams.  In this case, defining
   "sequential" becomes non-trivial - in general, the buffers for a
   single Stream are consumed from the queue in the order that they were
   placed on the queue, but there is no consumption order guarantee
   between Streams.

   For receive Tagged Data Transfer (i.e., Tagged Data Buffers, RDMA
   Write Buffers, or RDMA Read Buffers), at some time prior to data
   transfer, the mapping of the STag to specific Page Translation Table
   entries (if present) and the mapping from the Page Translation Table
   entries to the Data Buffer must have been initialized (see <a href="#section-2.3.4">Section</a>
   <a href="#section-2.3.4">2.3.4</a> for interaction details).









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<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-3" href="#section-3">3</a>.  Trust and Resource Sharing</span>

   It is assumed that, in general, the Local and Remote Peer are
   untrusted, and thus attacks by either should have mitigations in
   place.

   A separate, but related issue is resource sharing between multiple
   Streams.  If local resources are not shared, the resources are
   dedicated on a per Stream basis.  Resources are defined in <a href="#section-2.2">Section</a>
   <a href="#section-2.2">2.2</a>, Resources.  The advantage of not sharing resources between
   Streams is that it reduces the types of attacks that are possible.
   The disadvantage of not sharing resources is that ULPs might run out
   of resources.  Thus, there can be a strong incentive for sharing
   resources, if the security issues associated with the sharing of
   resources can be mitigated.

   It is assumed in this document that the component that implements the
   mechanism to control sharing of the RNIC Engine resources is the
   Privileged Resource Manager.  The RNIC Engine exposes its resources
   through the RNIC Interface to the Privileged Resource Manager.  All
   Privileged and Non-Privileged ULPs request resources from the
   Resource Manager (note that by definition both the Non-Privileged and
   the Privileged application might try to greedily consume resources,
   thus creating a potential Denial of Service (DOS) attack).  The
   Resource Manager implements resource management policies to ensure
   fair access to resources.  The Resource Manager should be designed to
   take into account security attacks detailed in this document.  Note
   that for some systems the Privileged Resource Manager may be
   implemented within the Privileged ULP.

   All Non-Privileged ULP interactions with the RNIC Engine that could
   affect other ULPs MUST be done using the Privileged Resource Manager
   as a proxy.  All ULP resource allocation requests for scarce
   resources MUST also be done using a Privileged Resource Manager.

   The sharing of resources across Streams should be under the control
   of the ULP, both in terms of the trust model the ULP wishes to
   operate under, as well as the level of resource sharing the ULP
   wishes to give local processes.  For more discussion on types of
   trust models that combine partial trust and sharing of resources, see
   <a href="#appendix-C">Appendix C</a>, Partial Trust Taxonomy.

   The Privileged Resource Manager MUST NOT assume that different
   Streams share Partial Mutual Trust unless there is a mechanism to
   ensure that the Streams do indeed share Partial Mutual Trust.  This
   can be done in several ways, including explicit notification from the
   ULP that owns the Streams.




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<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-4" href="#section-4">4</a>.  Attacker Capabilities</span>

   An attacker's capabilities delimit the types of attacks that the
   attacker is able to launch.  RDMAP and DDP require that the initial
   LLP Stream (and connection) be set up prior to transferring RDMAP/DDP
   Messages.  This requires at least one round-trip handshake to occur.

   If the attacker is not the Remote Peer that created the initial
   connection, then the attacker's capabilities can be segmented into
   send only capabilities or send and receive capabilities.  Attacking
   with send only capabilities requires the attacker to first guess the
   current LLP Stream parameters before they can attack RNIC resources
   (e.g., TCP sequence number).  If this class of attacker also has
   receive capabilities and the ability to pose as the receiver to the
   sender and the sender to the receiver, they are typically referred to
   as a "man-in-the-middle" attacker [<a href="./rfc3552" title="&quot;Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security Considerations&quot;">RFC3552</a>].  A man-in-the-middle
   attacker has a much wider ability to attack RNIC resources.  The
   breadth of attack is essentially the same as that of an attacking
   Remote Peer (i.e., the Remote Peer that set up the initial LLP
   Stream).

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-5" href="#section-5">5</a>.  Attacks That Can Be Mitigated with End-to-End Security</span>

   This section describes the RDMAP/DDP attacks where the only solution
   is to implement some form of end-to-end security.  The analysis
   includes a detailed description of each attack, what is being
   attacked, and a description of the countermeasures that can be taken
   to thwart the attack.

   Some forms of attack involve modifying the RDMAP or DDP payload by a
   network-based attacker or involve monitoring the traffic to discover
   private information.  An effective tool to ensure confidentiality is
   to encrypt the data stream through mechanisms, such as IPsec
   encryption.  Additionally, authentication protocols, such as IPsec
   authentication, are an effective tool to ensure the remote entity is
   who they claim to be, as well as ensuring that the payload is
   unmodified as it traverses the network.

   Note that connection setup and tear down is presumed to be done in
   stream mode (i.e., no RDMA encapsulation of the payload), so there
   are no new attacks related to connection setup/tear down beyond what
   is already present in the LLP (e.g., TCP or SCTP).  Note, however,
   that RDMAP/DDP parameters may be exchanged in stream mode, and if
   they are corrupted by an attacker unintended consequences will
   result.  Therefore, any existing mitigations for LLP Spoofing,
   Tampering, Repudiation, Information Disclosure, Denial of Service, or





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   Elevation of Privilege continue to apply (and are out of scope of
   this document).  Thus, the analysis in this section focuses on
   attacks that are present, regardless of the LLP Stream type.

   Tampering is any modification of the legitimate traffic (machine
   internal or network).  Spoofing attack is a special case of tampering
   where the attacker falsifies an identity of the Remote Peer (identity
   can be an IP address, machine name, ULP level identity, etc.).

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.1" href="#section-5.1">5.1</a>.  Spoofing</span>

   Spoofing attacks can be launched by the Remote Peer, or by a
   network-based attacker.  A network-based spoofing attack applies to
   all Remote Peers.  This section analyzes the various types of
   spoofing attacks applicable to RDMAP and DDP.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.1.1" href="#section-5.1.1">5.1.1</a>.  Impersonation</span>

   A network-based attacker can impersonate a legal RDMAP/DDP Peer (by
   spoofing a legal IP address).  This can either be done as a blind
   attack (see [<a href="./rfc3552" title="&quot;Guidelines for Writing RFC Text on Security Considerations&quot;">RFC3552</a>]) or by establishing an RDMAP/DDP Stream with
   the victim.  Because an RDMAP/DDP Stream requires an LLP Stream to be
   fully initialized (e.g., for [<a href="./rfc793" title="&quot;Transmission Control Protocol&quot;">RFC793</a>], it is in the ESTABLISHED
   state), existing transport layer protection mechanisms against blind
   attacks remain in place.

   For a blind attack to succeed, it requires the attacker to inject a
   valid transport layer segment (e.g., for TCP, it must match at least
   the 4-tuple as well as guess a sequence number within the window)
   while also guessing valid RDMAP or DDP parameters.  There are many
   ways to attack the RDMAP/DDP protocol if the transport protocol is
   assumed to be vulnerable.  For example, for Tagged Messages, this
   entails guessing the STag and TO values.  If the attacker wishes to
   simply terminate the connection, it can do so by correctly guessing
   the transport and network layer values, and providing an invalid
   STag.  Per the DDP specification, if an invalid STag is received, the
   Stream is torn down and the Remote Peer is notified with an error.
   If an attacker wishes to overwrite an Advertised Buffer, it must
   successfully guess the correct STag and TO.  Given that the TO will
   often start at zero, this is straightforward.  The value of the STag
   should be chosen at random, as discussed in <a href="#section-6.1.1">Section 6.1.1</a>, Using an
   STag on a Different Stream.  For Untagged Messages, if the MSN is
   invalid then the connection may be torn down.  If it is valid, then
   the receive buffers can be corrupted.

   End-to-end authentication (e.g., IPsec or ULP authentication)
   provides protection against either the blind attack or the connected
   attack.



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<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.1.2" href="#section-5.1.2">5.1.2</a>.  Stream Hijacking</span>

   Stream hijacking happens when a network-based attacker eavesdrops on
   the LLP connection through the Stream establishment phase, and waits
   until the authentication phase (if such a phase exists) is completed
   successfully.  The attacker then spoofs the IP address and re-directs
   the Stream from the victim to its own machine.  For example, an
   attacker can wait until an iSCSI authentication is completed
   successfully, and then hijack the iSCSI Stream.

   The best protection against this form of attack is end-to-end
   integrity protection and authentication, such as IPsec, to prevent
   spoofing.  Another option is to provide a physically segregated
   network for security.  Discussion of physical security is out of
   scope for this document.

   Because the connection and/or Stream itself is established by the
   LLP, some LLPs are more difficult to hijack than others.  Please see
   the relevant LLP documentation on security issues around connection
   and/or Stream hijacking.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.1.3" href="#section-5.1.3">5.1.3</a>.  Man-in-the-Middle Attack</span>

   If a network-based attacker has the ability to delete or modify
   packets that will still be accepted by the LLP (e.g., TCP sequence
   number is correct), then the Stream can be exposed to a man-in-the-
   middle attack.  One style of attack is for the man-in-the-middle to
   send Tagged Messages (either RDMAP or DDP).  If it can discover a
   buffer that has been exposed for STag enabled access, then the man-
   in-the-middle can use an RDMA Read operation to read the contents of
   the associated Data Buffer, perform an RDMA Write Operation to modify
   the contents of the associated Data Buffer, or invalidate the STag to
   disable further access to the buffer.

   The best protection against this form of attack is end-to-end
   integrity protection and authentication, such as IPsec, to prevent
   spoofing or tampering.  If authentication and integrity protections
   are not used, then physical protection must be employed to prevent
   man-in-the-middle attacks.

   Because the connection/Stream itself is established by the LLP, some
   LLPs are more exposed to man-in-the-middle attack than others.
   Please see the relevant LLP documentation on security issues around
   connection and/or Stream hijacking.







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   Another approach is to restrict access to only the local subnet/link,
   and provide some mechanism to limit access, such as physical security
   or 802.1.x.  This model is an extremely limited deployment scenario,
   and will not be further examined here.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.2" href="#section-5.2">5.2</a>.  Tampering - Network-Based Modification of Buffer Content</span>

   This is actually a man-in-the-middle attack, but only on the content
   of the buffer, as opposed to the man-in-the-middle attack presented
   above, where both the signaling and content can be modified.  See
   <a href="#section-5.1.3">Section 5.1.3</a>, Man-in-the-Middle Attack.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.3" href="#section-5.3">5.3</a>.  Information Disclosure - Network-Based Eavesdropping</span>

   An attacker that is able to eavesdrop on the network can read the
   content of all read and write accesses to a Peer's buffers.  To
   prevent information disclosure, the read/written data must be
   encrypted.  See also <a href="#section-5.1.3">Section 5.1.3</a>, Man-in-the-Middle Attack.  The
   encryption can be done either by the ULP, or by a protocol that can
   provide security services to RDMAP and DDP (e.g., IPsec).

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4" href="#section-5.4">5.4</a>.  Specific Requirements for Security Services</span>

   Generally speaking, Stream confidentiality protects against
   eavesdropping.  Stream and/or session authentication and integrity
   protection is a counter measurement against various spoofing and
   tampering attacks.  The effectiveness of authentication and integrity
   against a specific attack depends on whether the authentication is
   machine level authentication (such as IPsec), or ULP authentication.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4.1" href="#section-5.4.1">5.4.1</a>.  Introduction to Security Options</span>

   The following security services can be applied to an RDMAP/DDP
   Stream:

   1.  Session confidentiality - Protects against eavesdropping (<a href="#section-5.3">Section</a>
       <a href="#section-5.3">5.3</a>).

   2.  Per-packet data source authentication - Protects against the
       following spoofing attacks: network-based impersonation (<a href="#section-5.1.1">Section</a>
       <a href="#section-5.1.1">5.1.1</a>) and Stream hijacking (<a href="#section-5.1.2">Section 5.1.2</a>).

   3.  Per-packet integrity - Protects against tampering done by
       network-based modification of buffer content (<a href="#section-5.2">Section 5.2</a>) and
       when combined with authentication, also protects against man-in-
       the-middle attacks (<a href="#section-5.1.3">Section 5.1.3</a>).





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   4.  Packet sequencing - protects against replay attacks, which is a
       special case of the above tampering attack.

   If an RDMAP/DDP Stream may be subject to impersonation attacks, or
   Stream hijacking attacks, it is recommended that the Stream be
   authenticated, integrity protected, and protected from replay
   attacks; it may use confidentiality protection to protect from
   eavesdropping (in case the RDMAP/DDP Stream traverses a public
   network).

   IPsec is a protocol suite that is used to secure communication at the
   network layer between two peers.  The IPsec protocol suite is
   specified within the IP Security Architecture [<a href="./rfc2401" title="&quot;Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol&quot;">RFC2401</a>], IKE
   [<a href="./rfc2409" title="&quot;The Internet Key Exchange (IKE)&quot;">RFC2409</a>], IPsec Authentication Header (AH) [<a href="./rfc2402" title="&quot;IP Authentication Header&quot;">RFC2402</a>], and IPsec
   Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) [<a href="./rfc2406" title="&quot;IP Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)&quot;">RFC2406</a>] documents.  IKE is the
   key management protocol, while AH and ESP are used to protect IP
   traffic.  Please see those RFCs for a complete description of the
   respective protocols.

   IPsec is capable of providing the above security services for IP and
   TCP traffic, respectively.  ULP protocols are able to provide only
   part of the above security services.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4.2" href="#section-5.4.2">5.4.2</a>.  TLS Is Inappropriate for DDP/RDMAP Security</span>

   TLS [<a href="./rfc4346" title="&quot;The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1&quot;">RFC4346</a>] provides Stream authentication, integrity and
   confidentiality for TCP based ULPs.  TLS supports one-way (server
   only) or mutual certificates based authentication.

   If TLS is layered underneath RDMAP, TLS's connection orientation
   makes TLS inappropriate for DDP/RDMA security.  If a stream cipher or
   block cipher in CBC mode is used for bulk encryption, then a packet
   can be decrypted only after all the packets preceding it have already
   arrived.  If TLS is used to protect DDP/RDMAP traffic, then TCP must
   gather all out-of-order packets before TLS can decrypt them.  Only
   after this is done can RDMAP/DDP place them into the ULP buffer.
   Thus, one of the primary features of DDP/RDMAP - enabling
   implementations to have a flow-through architecture with little to no
   buffering - cannot be achieved if TLS is used to protect the data
   stream.

   If TLS is layered on top of RDMAP or DDP, TLS does not protect the
   RDMAP and/or DDP headers.  Thus, a man-in-the-middle attack can still
   occur by modifying the RDMAP/DDP header to place the data into the
   wrong buffer, thus effectively corrupting the data stream.

   For these reasons, it is not RECOMMENDED that TLS be layered on top
   of RDMAP or DDP.



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<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4.3" href="#section-5.4.3">5.4.3</a>.  DTLS and RDDP</span>

   DTLS [<a href="#ref-DTLS" title="&quot;Datagram Transport Layer Security&quot;">DTLS</a>] provides security services for datagram protocols,
   including unreliable datagram protocols.  These services include
   anti-replay based on a mechanism adapted from IPsec that is intended
   to operate on packets as they are received from the network.  For
   these and other reasons, DTLS is best applied to RDDP by employing
   DTLS beneath TCP, yielding a layering of RDDP over TCP over DTLS over
   UDP/IP.  Such a layering inserts DTLS at roughly the same level in
   the protocol stack as IPsec, making DTLS's security services an
   alternative to IPsec's services from an RDDP standpoint.

   For RDDP, IPsec is the better choice for a security framework, and
   hence is mandatory-to-implement (as specified elsewhere in this
   document).  An important contributing factor to the specification of
   IPsec rather than DTLS is that the non-RDDP versions of two initial
   adopters of RDDP (iSCSI [<a href="#ref-iSCSI" title="&quot;Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI)&quot;">iSCSI</a>][iSER] and NFSv4 [<a href="#ref-NFSv4" title="&quot;Network File System (NFS) version 4 Protocol&quot;">NFSv4</a>][NFSv4.1]) are
   compatible with IPsec but neither of these protocols currently uses
   either TLS or DTLS.  For the specific case of iSCSI, IPsec is the
   basis for mandatory-to-implement security services [<a href="./rfc3723" title="&quot;Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP&quot;">RFC3723</a>].
   Therefore, this document and the RDDP protocol specifications contain
   mandatory implementation requirements for IPsec rather than for DTLS.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4.4" href="#section-5.4.4">5.4.4</a>.  ULPs That Provide Security</span>

   ULPs that provide integrated security but wish to leverage lower-
   layer protocol security, should be aware of security concerns around
   correlating a specific channel's security mechanisms to the
   authentication performed by the ULP.  See [<a href="#ref-NFSv4CHANNEL">NFSv4CHANNEL</a>] for
   additional information on a promising approach called "channel
   binding".  From [<a href="#ref-NFSv4CHANNEL">NFSv4CHANNEL</a>]:

      "The concept of channel bindings allows applications to prove that
      the end-points of two secure channels at different network layers
      are the same by binding authentication at one channel to the
      session protection at the other channel.  The use of channel
      bindings allows applications to delegate session protection to
      lower layers, which may significantly improve performance for some
      applications."

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-5.4.5" href="#section-5.4.5">5.4.5</a>.  Requirements for IPsec Encapsulation of DDP</span>

   The IP Storage working group has spent significant time and effort to
   define the normative IPsec requirements for IP Storage [<a href="./rfc3723" title="&quot;Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP&quot;">RFC3723</a>].
   Portions of that specification are applicable to a wide variety of
   protocols, including the RDDP protocol suite.  In order not to
   replicate this effort, an RNIC implementation MUST follow the
   requirements defined in <a href="./rfc3723#section-2.3">RFC 3723, Section&nbsp;2.3</a> and <a href="#section-5">Section 5</a>,



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   including the associated normative references for those sections.
   Note that this means that support for IPSEC ESP mode is normative.

   Additionally, since IPsec acceleration hardware may only be able to
   handle a limited number of active IKE Phase 2 SAs, Phase 2 delete
   messages may be sent for idle SAs as a means of keeping the number of
   active Phase 2 SAs to a minimum.  The receipt of an IKE Phase 2
   delete message MUST NOT be interpreted as a reason for tearing down a
   DDP/RDMA Stream.  Rather, it is preferable to leave the Stream up,
   and if additional traffic is sent on it, to bring up another IKE
   Phase 2 SA to protect it.  This avoids the potential for continually
   bringing Streams up and down.

   Note that there are serious security issues if IPsec is not
   implemented end-to-end.  For example, if IPsec is implemented as a
   tunnel in the middle of the network, any hosts between the Peer and
   the IPsec tunneling device can freely attack the unprotected Stream.

   The IPsec requirements for RDDP are based on the version of IPsec
   specified in <a href="./rfc2401">RFC 2401</a> [<a href="./rfc2401" title="&quot;Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol&quot;">RFC2401</a>] and related RFCs, as profiled by <a href="./rfc3723">RFC</a>
   <a href="./rfc3723">3723</a> [<a href="./rfc3723" title="&quot;Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP&quot;">RFC3723</a>], despite the existence of a newer version of IPsec
   specified in <a href="./rfc4301">RFC 4301</a> [<a href="./rfc4301" title="&quot;Security Architecture for the Internet Protocol&quot;">RFC4301</a>] and related RFCs.  One of the
   important early applications of the RDDP protocols is their use with
   iSCSI [<a href="#ref-iSER" title="&quot;Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) Extensions for Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)&quot;">iSER</a>]; RDDP's IPsec requirements follow those of IPsec in
   order to facilitate that usage by allowing a common profile of IPsec
   to be used with iSCSI and the RDDP protocols.  In the future, <a href="./rfc3723">RFC</a>
   <a href="./rfc3723">3723</a> may be updated to the newer version of IPsec; the IPsec security
   requirements of any such update should apply uniformly to iSCSI and
   the RDDP protocols.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-6" href="#section-6">6</a>.  Attacks from Remote Peers</span>

   This section describes remote attacks that are possible against the
   RDMA system defined in Figure 1 - RDMA Security Model and the RNIC
   Engine resources defined in <a href="#section-2.2">Section 2.2</a>.  The analysis includes a
   detailed description of each attack, what is being attacked, and a
   description of the countermeasures that can be taken to thwart the
   attack.

   The attacks are classified into five categories: Spoofing, Tampering,
   Information Disclosure, Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, and
   Elevation of Privileges.  As mentioned previously, tampering is any
   modification of the legitimate traffic (machine internal or network).
   A spoofing attack is a special case of tampering where the attacker
   falsifies an identity of the Remote Peer (identity can be an IP
   address, machine name, ULP level identity, etc.).





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<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.1" href="#section-6.1">6.1</a>.  Spoofing</span>

   This section analyzes the various types of spoofing attacks
   applicable to RDMAP and DDP.  Spoofing attacks can be launched by the
   Remote Peer or by a network-based attacker.  For countermeasures
   against a network-based attacker, see <a href="#section-5">Section 5</a>, Attacks That Can Be
   Mitigated with End-to-End Security.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.1.1" href="#section-6.1.1">6.1.1</a>.  Using an STag on a Different Stream</span>

   One style of attack from the Remote Peer is for it to attempt to use
   STag values that it is not authorized to use.  Note that if the
   Remote Peer sends an invalid STag to the Local Peer, per the DDP and
   RDMAP specifications, the Stream must be torn down.  Thus, the threat
   exists if an STag has been enabled for Remote Access on one Stream
   and a Remote Peer is able to use it on an unrelated Stream.  If the
   attack is successful, the attacker could potentially be able to
   either perform RDMA Read operations to read the contents of the
   associated Data Buffer, perform RDMA Write operations to modify the
   contents of the associated data buffer, or invalidate the STag to
   disable further access to the buffer.

   An attempt by a Remote Peer to access a buffer with an STag on a
   different Stream in the same Protection Domain may or may not be an
   attack, depending on whether resource sharing is intended (i.e.,
   whether the Streams shared Partial Mutual Trust).  For some ULPs,
   using an STag on multiple Streams within the same Protection Domain
   could be desired behavior.  For other ULPs, attempting to use an STag
   on a different Stream could be considered an attack.  Since this
   varies by ULP, a ULP typically would need to be able to control the
   scope of the STag.

   In the case where an implementation does not share resources between
   Streams (including STags), this attack can be defeated by assigning
   each Stream to a different Protection Domain.  Before allowing remote
   access to the buffer, the Protection Domain of the Stream where the
   access attempt was made is matched against the Protection Domain of
   the STag.  If the Protection Domains do not match, access to the
   buffer is denied, an error is generated, and the RDMAP Stream
   associated with the attacking Stream is terminated.

   For implementations that share resources between multiple Streams, it
   may not be practical to separate each Stream into its own Protection
   Domain.  In this case, the ULP can still limit the scope of any of
   the STags to a single Stream (if it is enabling it for remote
   access).  If the STag scope has been limited to a single Stream, any
   attempt to use that STag on a different Stream will result in an
   error, and the RDMAP Stream is terminated.



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   Thus, for implementations that do not share STags between Streams,
   each Stream MUST either be in a separate Protection Domain or the
   scope of an STag MUST be limited to a single Stream.

   An RNIC MUST ensure that a specific Stream in a specific Protection
   Domain cannot access an STag in a different Protection Domain.

   An RNIC MUST ensure that, if an STag is limited in scope to a single
   Stream, no other Stream can use the STag.

   An additional issue may be unintended sharing of STags (i.e., a bug
   in the ULP) or a bug in the Remote Peer that causes an off-by-one
   STag to be used.  For additional protection, an implementation should
   allocate STags in such a fashion that it is difficult to predict the
   next allocated STag number, and also ensure that STags are reused at
   as slow a rate as possible.  Any allocation method that would lead to
   intentional or unintentional reuse of an STag by the peer should be
   avoided (e.g., a method that always starts with a given STag and
   monotonically increases it for each new allocation, or a method that
   always uses the same STag for each operation).

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.2" href="#section-6.2">6.2</a>.  Tampering</span>

   A Remote Peer or a network-based attacker can attempt to tamper with
   the contents of Data Buffers on a Local Peer that have been enabled
   for remote write access.  The types of tampering attacks from a
   Remote Peer are outlined in the sections that follow.  For
   countermeasures against a network-based attacker, see <a href="#section-5">Section 5</a>,
   Attacks That Can Be Mitigated with End-to-End Security.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.2.1" href="#section-6.2.1">6.2.1</a>.  Buffer Overrun - RDMA Write or Read Response</span>

   This attack is an attempt by the Remote Peer to perform an RDMA Write
   or RDMA Read Response to memory outside of the valid length range of
   the Data Buffer enabled for remote write access.  This attack can
   occur even when no resources are shared across Streams.  This issue
   can also arise if the ULP has a bug.

   The countermeasure for this type of attack must be in the RNIC
   implementation, leveraging the STag.  When the local ULP specifies to
   the RNIC the base address and the umber of bytes in the buffer that
   it wishes to make accessible, the RNIC must ensure that the base and
   bounds check are applied to any access to the buffer referenced by
   the STag before the STag is enabled for access.  When an RDMA data
   transfer operation (which includes an STag) arrives on a Stream, a
   base and bounds byte granularity access check must be performed to
   ensure that the operation accesses only memory locations within the
   buffer described by that STag.



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   Thus an RNIC implementation MUST ensure that a Remote Peer is not
   able to access memory outside of the buffer specified when the STag
   was enabled for remote access.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.2.2" href="#section-6.2.2">6.2.2</a>.  Modifying a Buffer after Indication</span>

   This attack can occur if a Remote Peer attempts to modify the
   contents of an STag referenced buffer by performing an RDMA Write or
   an RDMA Read Response after the Remote Peer has indicated to the
   Local Peer or local ULP (by a variety of means) that the STag Data
   Buffer contents are ready for use.  This attack can occur even when
   no resources are shared across Streams.  Note that a bug in a Remote
   Peer, or network-based tampering, could also result in this problem.

   For example, assume that the STag referenced buffer contains ULP
   control information as well as ULP payload, and the ULP sequence of
   operation is to first validate the control information and then
   perform operations on the control information.  If the Remote Peer
   can perform an additional RDMA Write or RDMA Read Response (thus,
   changing the buffer) after the validity checks have been completed
   but before the control data is operated on, the Remote Peer could
   force the ULP down operational paths that were never intended.

   The local ULP can protect itself from this type of attack by revoking
   remote access when the original data transfer has completed and
   before it validates the contents of the buffer.  The local ULP can do
   this either by explicitly revoking remote access rights for the STag
   when the Remote Peer indicates the operation has completed, or by
   checking to make sure the Remote Peer invalidated the STag through
   the RDMAP Remote Invalidate capability.  If the Remote Peer did not
   invalidate the STag, the local ULP then explicitly revokes the STag
   remote access rights.  (See <a href="#section-6.4.5">Section 6.4.5</a>, Remote Invalidate an STag
   Shared on Multiple Streams for a definition of Remote Invalidate.)

   The local ULP SHOULD follow the above procedure to protect the buffer
   before it validates the contents of the buffer (or uses the buffer in
   any way).

   An RNIC MUST ensure that network packets using the STag for a
   previously Advertised Buffer can no longer modify the buffer after
   the ULP revokes remote access rights for the specific STag.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.2.3" href="#section-6.2.3">6.2.3</a>.  Multiple STags to Access the Same Buffer</span>

   See <a href="#section-6.3.6">Section 6.3.6</a> Using Multiple STags That Alias to the Same Buffer,
   for this analysis.





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<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3" href="#section-6.3">6.3</a>.  Information Disclosure</span>

   The main potential source for information disclosure is through a
   local buffer that has been enabled for remote access.  If the buffer
   can be probed by a Remote Peer on another Stream, then there is
   potential for information disclosure.

   The potential attacks that could result in unintended information
   disclosure and countermeasures are detailed in the following
   sections.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.1" href="#section-6.3.1">6.3.1</a>.  Probing Memory Outside of the Buffer Bounds</span>

   This is essentially the same attack as described in <a href="#section-6.2.1">Section 6.2.1</a>,
   Buffer Overrun - RDMA Write or Read Response, except that an RDMA
   Read Request is used to mount the attack.  The same countermeasure
   applies.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.2" href="#section-6.3.2">6.3.2</a>.  Using RDMA Read to Access Stale Data</span>

   If a buffer is being used for some combination of reads and writes
   (either remote or local), and is exposed to a Remote Peer with at
   least remote read access rights before it is initialized with the
   correct data, there is a potential race condition where the Remote
   Peer can view the prior contents of the buffer.  This becomes a
   security issue if the prior contents of the buffer were not intended
   to be shared with the Remote Peer.

   To eliminate this race condition, the local ULP SHOULD ensure that no
   stale data is contained in the buffer before remote read access
   rights are granted (this can be done by zeroing the contents of the
   memory, for example).  This ensures that the Remote Peer cannot
   access the buffer until the stale data has been removed.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.3" href="#section-6.3.3">6.3.3</a>.  Accessing a Buffer after the Transfer</span>

   If the Remote Peer has remote read access to a buffer and, by some
   mechanism, tells the local ULP that the transfer has been completed,
   but the local ULP does not disable remote access to the buffer before
   modifying the data, it is possible for the Remote Peer to retrieve
   the new data.

   This is similar to the attack defined in <a href="#section-6.2.2">Section 6.2.2</a>, Modifying a
   Buffer after Indication.  The same countermeasures apply.  In
   addition, the local ULP SHOULD grant remote read access rights only
   for the amount of time needed to retrieve the data.





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<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.4" href="#section-6.3.4">6.3.4</a>.  Accessing Unintended Data with a Valid STag</span>

   If the ULP enables remote access to a buffer using an STag that
   references the entire buffer, but intends only a portion of the
   buffer to be accessed, it is possible for the Remote Peer to access
   the other parts of the buffer anyway.

   To prevent this attack, the ULP SHOULD set the base and bounds of the
   buffer when the STag is initialized to expose only the data to be
   retrieved.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.5" href="#section-6.3.5">6.3.5</a>.  RDMA Read into an RDMA Write Buffer</span>

   One form of disclosure can occur if the access rights on the buffer
   enabled remote read, when only remote write access was intended.  If
   the buffer contained ULP data, or data from a transfer on an
   unrelated Stream, the Remote Peer could retrieve the data through an
   RDMA Read operation.  Note that an RNIC implementation is not
   required to support STags that have both read and write access.

   The most obvious countermeasure for this attack is to not grant
   remote read access if the buffer is intended to be write-only.  Then
   the Remote Peer would not be able to retrieve data associated with
   the buffer.  An attempt to do so would result in an error and the
   RDMAP Stream associated with the Stream would be terminated.

   Thus, if a ULP only intends a buffer to be exposed for remote write
   access, it MUST set the access rights to the buffer to only enable
   remote write access.  Note that this requirement is not meant to
   restrict the use of zero-length RDMA Reads.  Zero-length RDMA Reads
   do not expose ULP data.  Because they are intended to be used as a
   mechanism to ensure that all RDMA Writes have been received, and do
   not even require a valid STag, their use is permitted even if a
   buffer has only been enabled for write access.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.3.6" href="#section-6.3.6">6.3.6</a>.  Using Multiple STags That Alias to the Same Buffer</span>

   Multiple STags that alias to the same buffer at the same time can
   result in unintentional information disclosure if the STags are used
   by different, mutually untrusted Remote Peers.  This model applies
   specifically to client/server communication, where the server is
   communicating with multiple clients, each of which do not mutually
   trust each other.

   If only read access is enabled, then the local ULP has complete
   control over information disclosure.  Thus, a server that intended to
   expose the same data (i.e., buffer) to multiple clients by using
   multiple STags to the same buffer creates no new security issues



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   beyond what has already been described in this document.  Note that
   if the server did not intend to expose the same data to the clients,
   it should use separate buffers for each client (and separate STags).

   When one STag has remote read access enabled and a different STag has
   remote write access enabled to the same buffer, it is possible for
   one Remote Peer to view the contents that have been written by
   another Remote Peer.

   If both STags have remote write access enabled and the two Remote
   Peers do not mutually trust each other, it is possible for one Remote
   Peer to overwrite the contents that have been written by the other
   Remote Peer.

   Thus, a ULP with multiple Remote Peers that do not share Partial
   Mutual Trust MUST NOT grant write access to the same buffer through
   different STags.  A buffer should be exposed to only one untrusted
   Remote Peer at a time to ensure that no information disclosure or
   information tampering occurs between peers.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4" href="#section-6.4">6.4</a>.  Denial of Service (DOS)</span>

   A DOS attack is one of the primary security risks of RDMAP.  This is
   because RNIC resources are valuable and scarce, and many ULP
   environments require communication with untrusted Remote Peers.  If
   the Remote Peer can be authenticated or the ULP payload encrypted,
   clearly, the DOS profile can be reduced.  For the purposes of this
   analysis, it is assumed that the RNIC must be able to operate in
   untrusted environments, which are open to DOS-style attacks.

   Denial of service attacks against RNIC resources are not the typical
   unknown party spraying packets at a random host (such as a TCP SYN
   attack).  Because the connection/Stream must be fully established
   (e.g., a 3-message transport layer handshake has occurred), the
   attacker must be able to both send and receive messages over that
   connection/Stream, or be able to guess a valid packet on an existing
   RDMAP Stream.

   This section outlines the potential attacks and the countermeasures
   available for dealing with each attack.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.1" href="#section-6.4.1">6.4.1</a>.  RNIC Resource Consumption</span>

   This section covers attacks that fall into the general category of a
   local ULP attempting to unfairly allocate scarce (i.e., bounded) RNIC
   resources.  The local ULP may be attempting to allocate resources on
   its own behalf, or on behalf of a Remote Peer.  Resources that fall
   into this category include Protection Domains, Stream Context Memory,



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   Translation and Protection Tables, and STag namespace.  These can be
   due to attacks by currently active local ULPs or ones that allocated
   resources earlier but are now idle.

   This type of attack can occur regardless of whether resources are
   shared across Streams.

   The allocation of all scarce resources MUST be placed under the
   control of a Privileged Resource Manager.  This allows the Privileged
   Resource Manager to:

   *   prevent a local ULP from allocating more than its fair share of
       resources.

   *   detect if a Remote Peer is attempting to launch a DOS attack by
       attempting to create an excessive number of Streams (with
       associated resources) and take corrective action (such as
       refusing the request or applying network layer filters against
       the Remote Peer).

   This analysis assumes that the Resource Manager is responsible for
   handing out Protection Domains, and that RNIC implementations will
   provide enough Protection Domains to allow the Resource Manager to be
   able to assign a unique Protection Domain for each unrelated,
   untrusted local ULP (for a bounded, reasonable number of local ULPs).
   This analysis further assumes that the Resource Manager implements
   policies to ensure that untrusted local ULPs are not able to consume
   all the Protection Domains through a DOS attack.  Note that
   Protection Domain consumption cannot result from a DOS attack
   launched by a Remote Peer, unless a local ULP is acting on the Remote
   Peer's behalf.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.2" href="#section-6.4.2">6.4.2</a>.  Resource Consumption by Idle ULPs</span>

   The simplest form of a DOS attack, given a fixed amount of resources,
   is for the Remote Peer to create an RDMAP Stream to a Local Peer,
   request dedicated resources, and then do no actual work.  This allows
   the Remote Peer to be very light weight (i.e., only negotiate
   resources, but do no data transfer) and consumes a disproportionate
   amount of resources at the Local Peer.

   A general countermeasure for this style of attack is to monitor
   active RDMAP Streams and, if resources are getting low, to reap the
   resources from RDMAP Streams that are not transferring data and
   possibly terminate the Stream.  This would presumably be under
   administrative control.





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   Refer to <a href="#section-6.4.1">Section 6.4.1</a> for the analysis and countermeasures for this
   style of attack on the following RNIC resources: Stream Context
   Memory, Page Translation Tables, and STag namespace.

   Note that some RNIC resources are not at risk of this type of attack
   from a Remote Peer because an attack requires the Remote Peer to send
   messages in order to consume the resource.  Receive Data Buffers,
   Completion Queue, and RDMA Read Request Queue resources are examples.
   These resources are, however, at risk from a local ULP that attempts
   to allocate resources, then goes idle.  This could also be created if
   the ULP negotiates the resource levels with the Remote Peer, which
   causes the Local Peer to consume resources; however, the Remote Peer
   never sends data to consume them.  The general countermeasure
   described in this section can be used to free resources allocated by
   an idle Local Peer.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.3" href="#section-6.4.3">6.4.3</a>.  Resource Consumption by Active ULPs</span>

   This section describes DOS attacks from Local and Remote Peers that
   are actively exchanging messages.  Attacks on each RDMA NIC resource
   are examined and specific countermeasures are identified.  Note that
   attacks on Stream Context Memory, Page Translation Tables, and STag
   namespace are covered in <a href="#section-6.4.1">Section 6.4.1</a>, RNIC Resource Consumption, so
   they are not included here.

<span class="h5"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.3.1" href="#section-6.4.3.1">6.4.3.1</a>.  Multiple Streams Sharing Receive Buffers</span>

   The Remote Peer can attempt to consume more than its fair share of
   receive Data Buffers (i.e., Untagged Buffers for DDP or Send Type
   Messages for RDMAP) if receive buffers are shared across multiple
   Streams.

   If resources are not shared across multiple Streams, then this attack
   is not possible because the Remote Peer will not be able to consume
   more buffers than were allocated to the Stream.  The worst case
   scenario is that the Remote Peer can consume more receive buffers
   than the local ULP allowed, resulting in no buffers being available,
   which could cause the Remote Peer's Stream to the Local Peer to be
   torn down, and all allocated resources to be released.

   If local receive Data Buffers are shared among multiple Streams, then
   the Remote Peer can attempt to consume more than its fair share of
   the receive buffers, causing a different Stream to be short of
   receive buffers, and thus, possibly causing the other Stream to be
   torn down.  For example, if the Remote Peer sent enough one-byte
   Untagged Messages, they might be able to consume all locally shared,
   receive queue resources with little effort on their part.




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   One method the Local Peer could use is to recognize that a Remote
   Peer is attempting to use more than its fair share of resources and
   terminate the Stream (causing the allocated resources to be
   released).  However, if the Local Peer is sufficiently slow, it may
   be possible for the Remote Peer to still mount a denial of service
   attack.  One countermeasure that can protect against this attack is
   implementing a low-water notification.  The low-water notification
   alerts the ULP if the number of buffers in the receive queue is less
   than a threshold.

   If all the following conditions are true, then the Local Peer or
   local ULP can size the amount of local receive buffers posted on the
   receive queue to ensure a DOS attack can be stopped.

   *   A low-water notification is enabled, and

   *   The Local Peer is able to bound the amount of time that it takes
       to replenish receive buffers, and

   *   The Local Peer maintains statistics to determine which Remote
       Peer is consuming buffers.

   The above conditions enable the low-water notification to arrive
   before resources are depleted, and thus, the Local Peer or local ULP
   can take corrective action (e.g., terminate the Stream of the
   attacking Remote Peer).

   A different, but similar, attack is if the Remote Peer sends a
   significant number of out-of-order packets and the RNIC has the
   ability to use the ULP buffer (i.e., the Untagged Buffer for DDP or
   the buffer consumed by a Send Type Message for RDMAP) as a reassembly
   buffer.  In this case, the Remote Peer can consume a significant
   number of ULP buffers, but never send enough data to enable the ULP
   buffer to be completed to the ULP.

   An effective countermeasure is to create a high-water notification
   that alerts the ULP if there is more than a specified number of
   receive buffers "in process" (partially consumed, but not completed).
   The notification is generated when more than the specified number of
   buffers are in process simultaneously on a specific Stream (i.e.,
   packets have started to arrive for the buffer, but the buffer has not
   yet been delivered to the ULP).

   A different countermeasure is for the RNIC Engine to provide the
   capability to limit the Remote Peer's ability to consume receive
   buffers on a per Stream basis.  Unfortunately, this requires a large
   amount of state to be tracked in each RNIC on a per Stream basis.




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   Thus, if an RNIC Engine provides the ability to share receive buffers
   across multiple Streams, the combination of the RNIC Engine and the
   Privileged Resource Manager MUST be able to detect if the Remote Peer
   is attempting to consume more than its fair share of resources so
   that the Local Peer or local ULP can apply countermeasures to detect
   and prevent the attack.

<span class="h5"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.3.2" href="#section-6.4.3.2">6.4.3.2</a>.  Remote or Local Peer Attacking a Shared CQ</span>

   For an overview of the shared CQ attack model, see <a href="#section-7.1">Section 7.1</a>.

   The Remote Peer can attack a shared CQ by consuming more than its
   fair share of CQ entries by using one of the following methods:

   *   The ULP protocol allows the Remote Peer to cause the local ULP to
       reserve a specified number of CQ entries, possibly leaving
       insufficient entries for other Streams that are sharing the CQ.

   *   If the Remote Peer, Local Peer, or local ULP (or any combination)
       can attack the CQ by overwhelming the CQ with completions, then
       completion processing on other Streams sharing that Completion
       Queue can be affected (e.g., the Completion Queue overflows and
       stops functioning).

   The first method of attack can be avoided if the ULP does not allow a
   Remote Peer to reserve CQ entries, or if there is a trusted
   intermediary, such as a Privileged Resource Manager.  Unfortunately,
   it is often unrealistic not to allow a Remote Peer to reserve CQ
   entries, particularly if the number of completion entries is
   dependent on other ULP negotiated parameters, such as the amount of
   buffering required by the ULP.  Thus, an implementation MUST
   implement a Privileged Resource Manager to control the allocation of
   CQ entries.  See <a href="#section-2.1">Section 2.1</a>, Components, for a definition of a
   Privileged Resource Manager.

   One way that a Local or Remote Peer can attempt to overwhelm a CQ
   with completions is by sending minimum length RDMAP/DDP Messages to
   cause as many completions (receive completions for the Remote Peer,
   send completions for the Local Peer) per second as possible.  If it
   is the Remote Peer attacking, and we assume that the Local Peer's
   receive queue(s) do not run out of receive buffers (if they do, then
   this is a different attack, documented in <a href="#section-6.4.3.1">Section 6.4.3.1</a> Multiple
   Streams Sharing Receive Buffers), then it might be possible for the
   Remote Peer to consume more than its fair share of Completion Queue
   entries.  Depending upon the CQ implementation, this could either
   cause the CQ to overflow (if it is not large enough to handle all the
   completions generated) or for another Stream not to be able to
   generate CQ entries (if the RNIC had flow control on generation of CQ



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   entries into the CQ).  In either case, the CQ will stop functioning
   correctly, and any Streams expecting completions on the CQ will stop
   functioning.

   This attack can occur regardless of whether all the Streams
   associated with the CQ are in the same or different Protection
   Domains - the key issue is that the number of Completion Queue
   entries is less than the number of all outstanding operations that
   can cause a completion.

   The Local Peer can protect itself from this type of attack using
   either of the following methods:

   *   Size the CQ to the appropriate level, as specified below (note
       that if the CQ currently exists and needs to be resized, resizing
       the CQ is not required to succeed in all cases, so the CQ resize
       should be done before sizing the Send Queue and Receive Queue on
       the Stream), OR

   *   Grant fewer resources than the Remote Peer requested (not
       supplying the number of Receive Data Buffers requested).

   The proper sizing of the CQ is dependent on whether the local ULP(s)
   will post as many resources to the various queues as the size of the
   queue enables.  If the local ULP(s) can be trusted to post a number
   of resources that is smaller than the size of the specific resource's
   queue, then a correctly sized CQ means that the CQ is large enough to
   hold completion status for all the outstanding Data Buffers (both
   send and receive buffers), or:

            CQ_MIN_SIZE = SUM(MaxPostedOnEachRQ)
                          + SUM(MaxPostedOnEachSRQ)
                          + SUM(MaxPostedOnEachSQ)

   Where:

           MaxPostedOnEachRQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that will be posted on a
                  specific Receive Queue.

           MaxPostedOnEachSRQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that will be posted on a
                  specific Shared Receive Queue.

           MaxPostedOnEachSQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that will be posted on a
                  specific Send Queue.




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   If the local ULP must be able to completely fill the queues, or
   cannot be trusted to observe a limit smaller than the queues, then
   the CQ must be sized to accommodate the maximum number of operations
   that it is possible to post at any one time.  Thus, the equation
   becomes:

            CQ_MIN_SIZE = SUM(SizeOfEachRQ)
                          + SUM(SizeOfEachSRQ)
                          + SUM(SizeOfEachSQ)

   Where:

          SizeOfEachRQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that can ever be posted
                  on a specific Receive Queue.

          SizeOfEachSRQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that can ever be posted
                  on a specific Shared Receive Queue.

          SizeOfEachSQ = the maximum number of requests that
                  can cause a completion that can ever be posted
                  on a specific Send Queue.

   MaxPosted*OnEach*Q and SizeOfEach*Q vary on a per Stream or per
   Shared Receive Queue basis.

   If the ULP is sharing a CQ across multiple Streams that do not share
   Partial Mutual Trust, then the ULP MUST implement a mechanism to
   ensure that the Completion Queue does not overflow.  Note that it is
   possible to share CQs even if the Remote Peers accessing the CQs are
   untrusted if either of the above two formulas are implemented.  If
   the ULP can be trusted not to post more than MaxPostedOnEachRQ,
   MaxPostedOnEachSRQ, and MaxPostedOnEachSQ, then the first formula
   applies.  If the ULP cannot be trusted to obey the limit, then the
   second formula applies.

<span class="h5"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.3.3" href="#section-6.4.3.3">6.4.3.3</a>.  Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue</span>

   The RDMA Read Request Queue can be attacked if the Remote Peer sends
   more RDMA Read Requests than the depth of the RDMA Read Request Queue
   at the Local Peer.  If the RDMA Read Request Queue is a shared
   resource, this could corrupt the queue.  If the queue is not shared,
   then the worst case is that the current Stream is no longer
   functional (e.g., torn down).  One approach to solving the shared
   RDMA Read Request Queue would be to create thresholds, similar to
   those described in <a href="#section-6.4.3.1">Section 6.4.3.1</a>, Multiple Streams Sharing Receive
   Buffers.  A simpler approach is to not share RDMA Read Request Queue



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   resources among Streams or to enforce hard limits of consumption per
   Stream.  Thus, RDMA Read Request Queue resource consumption MUST be
   controlled by the Privileged Resource Manager such that RDMAP/DDP
   Streams that do not share Partial Mutual Trust do not share RDMA Read
   Request Queue resources.

   If the issue is a bug in the Remote Peer's implementation, but not a
   malicious attack, the issue can be solved by requiring the Remote
   Peer's RNIC to throttle RDMA Read Requests.  By properly configuring
   the Stream at the Remote Peer through a trusted agent, the RNIC can
   be made not to transmit RDMA Read Requests that exceed the depth of
   the RDMA Read Request Queue at the Local Peer.  If the Stream is
   correctly configured, and if the Remote Peer submits more requests
   than the Local Peer's RDMA Read Request Queue can handle, the
   requests would be queued at the Remote Peer's RNIC until previous
   requests complete.  If the Remote Peer's Stream is not configured
   correctly, the RDMAP Stream is terminated when more RDMA Read
   Requests arrive at the Local Peer than the Local Peer can handle
   (assuming that the prior paragraph's recommendation is implemented).
   Thus, an RNIC implementation SHOULD provide a mechanism to cap the
   number of outstanding RDMA Read Requests.  The configuration of this
   limit is outside the scope of this document.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.4" href="#section-6.4.4">6.4.4</a>.  Exercise of Non-Optimal Code Paths</span>

   Another form of a DOS attack is to attempt to exercise data paths
   that can consume a disproportionate amount of resources.  An example
   might be if error cases are handled on a "slow path" (consuming
   either host or RNIC computational resources), and an attacker
   generates excessive numbers of errors in an attempt to consume these
   resources.  Note that for most RDMAP or DDP errors, the attacking
   Stream will simply be torn down.  Thus, for this form of attack to be
   effective, the Remote Peer needs to exercise data paths that do not
   cause the Stream to be torn down.

   If an RNIC implementation contains "slow paths" that do not result in
   the tear down of the Stream, it is recommended that an implementation
   provide the ability to detect the above condition and allow an
   administrator to act, including potentially administratively tearing
   down the RDMAP Stream associated with the Stream that is exercising
   data paths, which consume a disproportionate amount of resources.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.5" href="#section-6.4.5">6.4.5</a>.  Remote Invalidate an STag Shared on Multiple Streams</span>

   If a Local Peer has enabled an STag for remote access, the Remote
   Peer could attempt to remotely invalidate the STag by using the RDMAP
   Send with Invalidate or Send with SE and Invalidate Message.  If the
   STag is only valid on the current Stream, then the only side effect



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   is that the Remote Peer can no longer use the STag; thus, there are
   no security issues.

   If the STag is valid across multiple Streams, then the Remote Peer
   can prevent other Streams from using that STag by using the Remote
   Invalidate functionality.

   Thus, if RDDP Streams do not share Partial Mutual Trust (i.e., the
   Remote Peer may attempt to remotely invalidate the STag prematurely),
   the ULP MUST NOT enable an STag that would be valid across multiple
   Streams.

<span class="h4"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.4.6" href="#section-6.4.6">6.4.6</a>.  Remote Peer Attacking an Unshared CQ</span>

   The Remote Peer can attack an unshared CQ if the Local Peer does not
   size the CQ correctly.  For example, if the Local Peer enables the CQ
   to handle completions of received buffers, and the receive buffer
   queue is longer than the Completion Queue, then an overflow can
   potentially occur.  The effect on the attacker's Stream is
   catastrophic.  However, if an RNIC does not have the proper
   protections in place, then an attack to overflow the CQ can also
   cause corruption and/or termination of an unrelated Stream.  Thus, an
   RNIC MUST ensure that if a CQ overflows, any Streams that do not use
   the CQ MUST remain unaffected.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-6.5" href="#section-6.5">6.5</a>.  Elevation of Privilege</span>

   The RDMAP/DDP Security Architecture explicitly differentiates between
   three levels of privilege: Non-Privileged, Privileged, and the
   Privileged Resource Manager.  If a Non-Privileged ULP is able to
   elevate its privilege level to a Privileged ULP, then mapping a
   physical address list to an STag can provide local and remote access
   to any physical address location on the node.  If a Privileged Mode
   ULP is able to promote itself to be a Resource Manager, then it is
   possible for it to perform denial of service type attacks where
   substantial amounts of local resources could be consumed.

   In general, elevation of privilege is a local implementation specific
   issue and is thus outside the scope of this document.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-7" href="#section-7">7</a>.  Attacks from Local Peers</span>

   This section describes local attacks that are possible against the
   RDMA system defined in Figure 1 - RDMA Security Model and the RNIC
   Engine resources defined in <a href="#section-2.2">Section 2.2</a>.






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<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-7.1" href="#section-7.1">7.1</a>.  Local ULP Attacking a Shared CQ</span>

   DOS attacks against a Shared Completion Queue (CQ - see <a href="#section-2.2.6">Section</a>
   <a href="#section-2.2.6">2.2.6</a>, Completion Queues) can be caused by either the local ULP or
   the Remote Peer if either attempts to cause more completions than its
   fair share of the number of entries; thus, potentially starving
   another unrelated ULP such that no Completion Queue entries are
   available.

   A Completion Queue entry can potentially be maliciously consumed by a
   completion from the Send Queue or a completion from the Receive
   Queue.  In the former, the attacker is the local ULP.  In the latter,
   the attacker is the Remote Peer.

   A form of attack can occur where the local ULPs can consume resources
   on the CQ.  A local ULP that is slow to free resources on the CQ by
   not reaping the completion status quickly enough could stall all
   other local ULPs attempting to use that CQ.

   For these reasons, an RNIC MUST NOT enable sharing a CQ across ULPs
   that do not share Partial Mutual Trust.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-7.2" href="#section-7.2">7.2</a>.  Local Peer Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue</span>

   If RDMA Read Request Queue resources are pooled across multiple
   Streams, one attack is if the local ULP attempts to unfairly allocate
   RDMA Read Request Queue resources for its Streams.  For example, a
   local ULP attempts to allocate all available resources on a specific
   RDMA Read Request Queue for its Streams, thereby denying the resource
   to ULPs sharing the RDMA Read Request Queue.  The same type of
   argument applies even if the RDMA Read Request is not shared, but a
   local ULP attempts to allocate all the RNIC's resources when the
   queue is created.

   Thus, access to interfaces that allocate RDMA Read Request Queue
   entries MUST be restricted to a trusted Local Peer, such as a
   Privileged Resource Manager.  The Privileged Resource Manager SHOULD
   prevent a local ULP from allocating more than its fair share of
   resources.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-7.3" href="#section-7.3">7.3</a>.  Local ULP Attacking the PTT and STag Mapping</span>

   If a Non-Privileged ULP is able to directly manipulate the RNIC Page
   Translation Tables (which translate from an STag to a host address),
   it is possible that the Non-Privileged ULP could point the Page
   Translation Table at an unrelated Stream's or ULP's buffers and,
   thereby, be able to gain access to information of the unrelated
   Stream/ULP.



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   As discussed in <a href="#section-2">Section 2</a>, Architectural Model, introduction of a
   Privileged Resource Manager to arbitrate the mapping requests is an
   effective countermeasure.  This enables the Privileged Resource
   Manager to ensure that a local ULP can only initialize the Page
   Translation Table (PTT) to point to its own buffers.

   Thus, if Non-Privileged ULPs are supported, the Privileged Resource
   Manager MUST verify that the Non-Privileged ULP has the right to
   access a specific Data Buffer before allowing an STag for which the
   ULP has access rights to be associated with a specific Data Buffer.
   This can be done when the Page Translation Table is initialized to
   access the Data Buffer or when the STag is initialized to point to a
   group of Page Translation Table entries, or both.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-8" href="#section-8">8</a>.  Security considerations</span>

   Please see Sections <a href="#section-5">5</a>, Attacks That Can be Mitigated with End-to-End
   Security; <a href="#section-6">Section 6</a>, Attacks from Remote Peers; and <a href="#section-7">Section 7</a>,
   Attacks from Local Peers, for a detailed analysis of attacks and
   normative countermeasures to mitigate the attacks.

   Additionally, the appendices provide a summary of the security
   requirements for specific audiences.  <a href="#appendix-A">Appendix A</a>, ULP Issues for RDDP
   Client/Server Protocols, provides a summary of implementation issues
   and requirements for applications that implement a traditional
   client/server style of interaction.  It provides additional insight
   and applicability of the normative text in Sections <a href="#section-5">5</a>, <a href="#section-6">6</a>, and <a href="#section-7">7</a>.
   <a href="#appendix-B">Appendix B</a>, Summary of RNIC and ULP Implementation Requirements,
   provides a convenient summary of normative requirements for
   implementers.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-9" href="#section-9">9</a>.  IANA Considerations</span>

   IANA considerations are not addressed by this document.  Any IANA
   considerations resulting from the use of DDP or RDMA must be
   addressed in the relevant standards.

<span class="h2"><a class="selflink" id="section-10" href="#section-10">10</a>.  References</span>

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-10.1" href="#section-10.1">10.1</a>.  Normative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-DDP">DDP</a>]         Shah, H., Pinkerton, J., Recio, R., and P. Culley,
                 "Direct Data Placement over Reliable Transports", <a href="./rfc5041">RFC</a>
                 <a href="./rfc5041">5041</a>, October 2007.

   [<a id="ref-RDMAP">RDMAP</a>]       Recio, R., Culley, P., Garcia, D., and J. Hilland, "A
                 Remote Direct Memory Access Protocol Specification",
                 <a href="./rfc5040">RFC 5040</a>, October 2007.



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   [<a id="ref-RFC2401">RFC2401</a>]     Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "Security Architecture for
                 the Internet Protocol", <a href="./rfc2401">RFC 2401</a>, November 1998.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2402">RFC2402</a>]     Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Authentication Header",
                 <a href="./rfc2402">RFC 2402</a>, November 1998.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2406">RFC2406</a>]     Kent, S. and R. Atkinson, "IP Encapsulating Security
                 Payload (ESP)", <a href="./rfc2406">RFC 2406</a>, November 1998.

   [<a id="ref-RFC2409">RFC2409</a>]     Harkins, D. and D. Carrel, "The Internet Key Exchange
                 (IKE)", <a href="./rfc2409">RFC 2409</a>, November 1998.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3723">RFC3723</a>]     Aboba, B., Tseng, J., Walker, J., Rangan, V., and F.
                 Travostino, "Securing Block Storage Protocols over IP",
                 <a href="./rfc3723">RFC 3723</a>, April 2004.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4960">RFC4960</a>]     Stewart, R., Ed., "Stream Control Transmission
                 Protocol", <a href="./rfc4960">RFC 4960</a>, September 2007.

   [<a id="ref-RFC793">RFC793</a>]      Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, <a href="./rfc793">RFC</a>
                 <a href="./rfc793">793</a>, September 1981.

<span class="h3"><a class="selflink" id="section-10.2" href="#section-10.2">10.2</a>.  Informative References</span>

   [<a id="ref-RFC4301">RFC4301</a>]     Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the
                 Internet Protocol", <a href="./rfc4301">RFC 4301</a>, December 2005.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4346">RFC4346</a>]     Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer
                 Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.1", <a href="./rfc4346">RFC 4346</a>, April
                 2006.

   [<a id="ref-RFC4949">RFC4949</a>]     Shirey, R., "Internet Security Glossary, Version 2",
                 <a href="./rfc4949">RFC 4949</a>, August 2007.

   [<a id="ref-APPLICABILITY">APPLICABILITY</a>]
                 Bestler, C. and L. Coene, "Applicability of Remote
                 Direct Memory Access Protocol (RDMA) and Direct Data
                 Placement (DDP)", <a href="./rfc5045">RFC 5045</a>, October 2007.

   [<a id="ref-NFSv4CHANNEL">NFSv4CHANNEL</a>]
                 Williams, N., "On the Use of Channel Bindings to Secure
                 Channels", Work in Progress, July 2004.

   [<a id="ref-VERBS-RDMAC">VERBS-RDMAC</a>] "RDMA Protocol Verbs Specification", RDMA Consortium
                 standard, April 2003, &lt;<a href="http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/home/draft-hilland-iwarp-verbs-v1.0-RDMAC.pdf">http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/</a>
                 <a href="http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/home/draft-hilland-iwarp-verbs-v1.0-RDMAC.pdf">home/draft-hilland-iwarp-verbs-v1.0-RDMAC.pdf</a>&gt;.





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   [<a id="ref-VERBS-RDMAC-Overview">VERBS-RDMAC-Overview</a>]
                 "RDMA enabled NIC (RNIC) Verbs Overview", slide
                 presentation by Renato Recio, April 2003,
                 &lt;<a href="http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/home/RNIC_Verbs_Overview2.pdf">http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/home/</a>
                 <a href="http://www.rdmaconsortium.org/home/RNIC_Verbs_Overview2.pdf">RNIC_Verbs_Overview2.pdf</a>&gt;.

   [<a id="ref-RFC3552">RFC3552</a>]     Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
                 Text on Security Considerations", <a href="https://www.rfc-editor.org/bcp/bcp72">BCP 72</a>, <a href="./rfc3552">RFC 3552</a>,
                 July 2003.

   [<a id="ref-INFINIBAND">INFINIBAND</a>]  "InfiniBand Architecture Specification Volume 1",
                 release 1.2, InfiniBand Trade Association standard,
                 &lt;<a href="http://www.infinibandta.org/specs">http://www.infinibandta.org/specs</a>&gt;.  Verbs are
                 documented in chapter 11.

   [<a id="ref-DTLS">DTLS</a>]        Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
                 Security", <a href="./rfc4347">RFC 4347</a>, April 2006.

   [<a id="ref-iSCSI">iSCSI</a>]       Satran, J., Meth, K., Sapuntzakis, C., Chadalapaka, M.,
                 and E. Zeidner, "Internet Small Computer Systems
                 Interface (iSCSI)", <a href="./rfc3720">RFC 3720</a>, April 2004.

   [<a id="ref-iSER">iSER</a>]        Ko, M., Chadalapaka, M., Hufferd, J., Elzur, U., Shah,
                 H., and P. Thaler, "Internet Small Computer System
                 Interface (iSCSI) Extensions for Remote Direct Memory
                 Access (RDMA)", <a href="./rfc5046">RFC 5046</a>, October 2007.

   [<a id="ref-NFSv4">NFSv4</a>]       Shepler, S., Callaghan, B., Robinson, D., Thurlow, R.,
                 Beame, C., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "Network File
                 System (NFS) version 4 Protocol", <a href="./rfc3530">RFC 3530</a>, April 2003.

   [<a id="ref-NFSv4.1">NFSv4.1</a>]     Shepler, S., Ed., Eisler, M., Ed., and D. Noveck, Ed.,
                 "NFSv4 Minor Version 1", Work in Progress, September
                 2007.

















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Appendix A: ULP Issues for RDDP Client/Server Protocols

   This section is a normative appendix to the document that is focused
   on client/server ULP implementation requirements to ensure a secure
   server implementation.

   The prior sections outlined specific attacks and their
   countermeasures.  This section summarizes the attacks and
   countermeasures that have been defined in the prior section, which
   are applicable to creation of a secure ULP (e.g., application)
   server.  A ULP server is defined as a ULP that must be able to
   communicate with many clients that do not necessarily have a trust
   relationship with each other, and to ensure that each client cannot
   attack another client through server interactions.  Further, the
   server may wish to use multiple Streams to communicate with a
   specific client, and those Streams may share mutual trust.  Note that
   this section assumes a compliant RNIC and Privileged Resource Manager
   implementation - thus, it focuses specifically on ULP server (e.g.,
   application) implementation issues.

   All of the prior section's details on attacks and countermeasures
   apply to the server; thus, requirements that are repeated in this
   section use non-normative "must", "should", and "may".  In some
   cases, normative SHOULD statements for the ULP from the main body of
   this document are made MUST statements for the ULP server because the
   operating conditions can be refined to make the motives for a SHOULD
   inapplicable.  If a prior SHOULD is changed to a MUST in this
   section, it is explicitly noted and it uses uppercase normative
   statements.

   The following list summarizes the relevant attacks that clients can
   mount on the shared server by re-stating the previous normative
   statements to be client/server specific.  Note that each
   client/server ULP may employ explicit RDMA Operations (RDMA Read,
   RDMA Write) in differing fashions.  Therefore, where appropriate,
   "Local ULP", "Local Peer", and "Remote Peer" are used in place of
   "server" or "client", in order to retain full generality of each
   requirement.

   *   Spoofing

     *   Sections <a href="#section-5.1.1">5.1.1</a> to <a href="#section-5.1.3">5.1.3</a>.  For protection against many forms of
         spoofing attacks, enable IPsec.

     *   <a href="#section-6.1.1">Section 6.1.1</a>, Using an STag on a Different Stream.  To ensure
         that one client cannot access another client's data via use of
         the other client's STag, the server ULP must either scope an
         STag to a single Stream or use a unique Protection Domain per



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         client.  If a single client has multiple Streams that share
         Partial Mutual Trust, then the STag can be shared between the
         associated Streams by using a single Protection Domain among
         the associated Streams (see <a href="#section-5.4.4">Section 5.4.4</a>, ULPs That Provide
         Security, for additional issues).  To prevent unintended
         sharing of STags within the associated Streams, a server ULP
         should use STags in such a fashion that it is difficult to
         predict the next allocated STag number.

   *   Tampering

     *   6.2.2 Modifying a Buffer after Indication.  Before the local
         ULP operates on a buffer that was written by the Remote Peer
         using an RDMA Write or RDMA Read, the local ULP MUST ensure the
         buffer can no longer be modified by invalidating the STag for
         remote access (note that this is stronger than the SHOULD in
         <a href="#section-6.2.2">Section 6.2.2</a>).  This can be done either by explicitly revoking
         remote access rights for the STag when the Remote Peer
         indicates the operation has completed, or by checking to make
         sure the Remote Peer Invalidated the STag through the RDMAP
         Invalidate capability.  If the Remote Peer did not invalidate
         the STag, the local ULP then explicitly revokes the STag remote
         access rights.

   *   Information Disclosure

     *   6.3.2, Using RDMA Read to Access Stale Data.  In a general
         purpose server environment, there is no compelling rationale
         not to require a buffer to be initialized before remote read is
         enabled (and an enormous downside of unintentionally sharing
         data). Thus, a local ULP MUST (this is stronger than the SHOULD
         in <a href="#section-6.3.2">Section 6.3.2</a>) ensure that no stale data is contained in a
         buffer before remote read access rights are granted to a Remote
         Peer (this can be done by zeroing the contents of the memory,
         for example).

     *   6.3.3, Accessing a Buffer after the Transfer.  This mitigation
         is already covered by <a href="#section-6.2.2">Section 6.2.2</a> (above).

     *   6.3.4, Accessing Unintended Data with a Valid STag.  The ULP
         must set the base and bounds of the buffer when the STag is
         initialized to expose only the data to be retrieved.

     *   6.3.5, RDMA Read into an RDMA Write Buffer.  If a peer only
         intends a buffer to be exposed for remote write access, it must
         set the access rights to the buffer to only enable remote write
         access.




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     *   6.3.6, Using Multiple STags That Alias to the Same Buffer.  The
         requirement in <a href="#section-6.1.1">Section 6.1.1</a> (above) mitigates this attack.  A
         server buffer is exposed to only one client at a time to ensure
         that no information disclosure or information tampering occurs
         between peers.

     *   5.3, Network-Based Eavesdropping.  Confidentiality services
         should be enabled by the ULP if this threat is a concern.

   *   Denial of Service

     *   6.4.3.1, Multiple Streams Sharing Receive Buffers.  ULP memory
         footprint size can be important for some server ULPs.  If a
         server ULP is expecting significant network traffic from
         multiple clients, using a receive buffer queue per Stream where
         there is a large number of Streams can consume substantial
         amounts of memory.  Thus, a receive queue that can be shared by
         multiple Streams is attractive.

         However, because of the attacks outlined in this section,
         sharing a single receive queue between multiple clients must
         only be done if a mechanism is in place to ensure that one
         client cannot consume receive buffers in excess of its limits,
         as defined by each ULP.  For multiple Streams within a single
         client ULP (which presumably shared Partial Mutual Trust), this
         added overhead may be avoided.

     *   7.1 Local ULP Attacking a Shared CQ.  The normative RNIC
         mitigations require that the RNIC not enable sharing of a CQ if
         the local ULPs do not share Partial Mutual Trust.  Thus, while
         the ULP is not allowed to enable this feature in an unsafe
         mode, if the two local ULPs share Partial Mutual Trust, they
         must behave in the following manner:

         1) The sizing of the completion queue is based on the size of
         the receive queue and send queues, as documented in 6.4.3.2,
         Remote or Local Peer Attacking a Shared CQ.

         2) The local ULP ensures that CQ entries are reaped frequently
         enough to adhere to <a href="#section-6.4.3.2">Section 6.4.3.2</a>'s rules.

     *   6.4.3.2, Remote or Local Peer Attacking a Shared CQ.  There are
         two mitigations specified in this section - one requires a
         worst-case size of the CQ, and can be implemented entirely
         within the Privileged Resource Manager.  The second approach
         requires cooperation with the local ULP server (not to post too
         many buffers), and enables a smaller CQ to be used.




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         In some server environments, partial trust of the server ULP
         (but not the clients) is acceptable; thus, the smaller CQ fully
         mitigates the remote attacker.  In other environments, the
         local server ULP could also contain untrusted elements that can
         attack the local machine (or have bugs).  In those
         environments, the worst-case size of the CQ must be used.

     *   6.4.3.3, Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue.  The section
         requires a server's Privileged Resource Manager not to allow
         sharing of RDMA Read Request Queues across multiple Streams
         that do not share Partial Mutual Trust for a ULP that performs
         RDMA Read operations to server buffers.  However, because the
         server ULP knows which of its Streams best share Partial Mutual
         Trust, this requirement can be reflected back to the ULP.  The
         ULP (i.e., server) requirement, in this case, is that it MUST
         NOT allow RDMA Read Request Queues to be shared between ULPs
         that do not have Partial Mutual Trust.

     *   6.4.5, Remote Invalidate an STag Shared on Multiple Streams.
         This mitigation is already covered by <a href="#section-6.2.2">Section 6.2.2</a> (above).

Appendix B: Summary of RNIC and ULP Implementation Requirements

   This appendix is informative.

   Below is a summary of implementation requirements for the RNIC:

   *   3 Trust and Resource Sharing

   *   5.4.5 Requirements for IPsec Encapsulation of DDP

   *   6.1.1 Using an STag on a Different Stream

   *   6.2.1 Buffer Overrun - RDMA Write or Read Response

   *   6.2.2 Modifying a Buffer after Indication

   *   6.4.1 RNIC Resource Consumption

   *   6.4.3.1 Multiple Streams Sharing Receive Buffers

   *   6.4.3.2 Remote or Local Peer Attacking a Shared CQ

   *   6.4.3.3 Attacking the RDMA Read Request Queue

   *   6.4.6 Remote Peer Attacking an Unshared CQ

   *   6.5 Elevation of Privilege 39



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   *   7.1 Local ULP Attacking a Shared CQ

   *   7.3 Local ULP Attacking the PTT and STag Mapping

   Below is a summary of implementation requirements for the ULP above
   the RNIC:

   *   5.3 Information Disclosure - Network-Based Eavesdropping

   *   6.1.1 Using an STag on a Different Stream

   *   6.2.2 Modifying a Buffer after Indication

   *   6.3.2 Using RDMA Read to Access Stale Data

   *   6.3.3 Accessing a Buffer after the Transfer

   *   6.3.4 Accessing Unintended Data with a Valid STag

   *   6.3.5 RDMA Read into an RDMA Write Buffer

   *   6.3.6 Using Multiple STags That Alias to the Same Buffer

   *   6.4.5 Remote Invalidate an STag Shared on Multiple Streams

Appendix C: Partial Trust Taxonomy

   This appendix is informative.

   Partial Trust is defined as when one party is willing to assume that
   another party will refrain from a specific attack or set of attacks,
   the parties are said to be in a state of Partial Trust.  Note that
   the partially trusted peer may attempt a different set of attacks.
   This may be appropriate for many ULPs where any adverse effects of
   the betrayal is easily confined and does not place other clients or
   ULPs at risk.

   The Trust Models described in this section have three primary
   distinguishing characteristics.  The Trust Model refers to a local
   ULP and Remote Peer, which are intended to be the local and remote
   ULP instances communicating via RDMA/DDP.










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   *   Local Resource Sharing (yes/no) - When local resources are
       shared, they are shared across a grouping of RDMAP/DDP Streams.
       If local resources are not shared, the resources are dedicated on
       a per Stream basis.  Resources are defined in <a href="#section-2.2">Section 2.2</a>,
       Resources.  The advantage of not sharing resources between
       Streams is that it reduces the types of attacks that are
       possible.  The disadvantage is that ULPs might run out of
       resources.

   *   Local Partial Trust (yes/no) - Local Partial Trust is determined
       based on whether the local grouping of RDMAP/DDP Streams (which
       typically equates to one ULP or group of ULPs) mutually trust
       each other not to perform a specific set of attacks.

   *   Remote Partial Trust (yes/no) - The Remote Partial Trust level is
       determined based on whether the local ULP of a specific RDMAP/DDP
       Stream partially trusts the Remote Peer of the Stream (see the
       definition of Partial Trust in <a href="#section-1">Section 1</a>, Introduction).

   Not all the combinations of the trust characteristics are expected to
   be used by ULPs.  This document specifically analyzes five ULP Trust
   Models that are expected to be in common use.  The Trust Models are
   as follows:

   *   NS-NT - Non-Shared Local Resources, no Local Trust, no Remote
       Trust; typically, a server ULP that wants to run in the safest
       mode possible.  All attack mitigations are in place to ensure
       robust operation.

   *   NS-RT - Non-Shared Local Resources, no Local Trust, Remote
       Partial Trust; typically, a peer-to-peer ULP that has, by some
       method outside of the scope of this document, authenticated the
       Remote Peer.  Note that unless some form of key based
       authentication is used on a per RDMA/DDP Stream basis, it may not
       be possible for man-in-the-middle attacks to occur.

   *   S-NT - Shared Local Resources, no Local Trust, no Remote Trust;
       typically, a server ULP that runs in an untrusted environment
       where the amount of resources required is either too large or too
       dynamic to dedicate for each RDMAP/DDP Stream.

   *   S-LT - Shared Local Resources, Local Partial Trust, no Remote
       Trust; typically, a ULP that provides a session layer and uses
       multiple Streams, to provides additional throughput or fail-over
       capabilities.  All the Streams within the local ULP partially
       trust each other, but do not trust the Remote Peer.  This Trust
       Model may be appropriate for embedded environments.




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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


   *   S-T - Shared Local Resources, Local Partial Trust, Remote Partial
       Trust; typically, a distributed application, such as a
       distributed database application or High Performance Computer
       (HPC) application, which is intended to run on a cluster.  Due to
       extreme resource and performance requirements, the application
       typically authenticates with all of its peers and then runs in a
       highly trusted environment.  The application peers are all in a
       single application fault domain and depend on one another to be
       well-behaved when accessing data structures.  If a trusted Remote
       Peer has an implementation defect that results in poor behavior,
       the entire application could be corrupted.

   Models NS-NT and S-NT, above, are typical for Internet networking -
   neither the local ULP nor the Remote Peer is trusted.  Sometimes,
   optimizations can be done that enable sharing of Page Translation
   Tables across multiple local ULPs; thus, Model S-LT can be
   advantageous.  Model S-T is typically used when resource scaling
   across a large parallel ULP makes it infeasible to use any other
   model.  Resource scaling issues can either be due to performance
   around scaling or because there simply are not enough resources.
   Model NS-RT is probably the least likely model to be used, but is
   presented for completeness.

Acknowledgments

   Sara Bitan
   Microsoft Corporation
   EMail: sarab@microsoft.com

   Allyn Romanow
   Cisco Systems
   170 W Tasman Drive
   San Jose, CA 95134 USA
   Phone: +1 (408) 525-8836
   EMail: allyn@cisco.com

   Catherine Meadows
   Naval Research Laboratory
   Code 5543
   Washington, DC 20375 USA
   EMail: meadows@itd.nrl.navy.mil










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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


   Patricia Thaler
   Agilent Technologies, Inc.
   1101 Creekside Ridge Drive, #100
   M/S-RG10
   Roseville, CA 95678 USA
   Phone: +1 (916) 788-5662
   EMail: pat_thaler@agilent.com

   James Livingston
   NEC Solutions (America), Inc.
   7525 166th Ave. N.E., Suite D210
   Redmond, WA 98052-7811 USA
   Phone: +1 (425) 897-2033
   EMail: james.livingston@necsam.com

   John Carrier
   Cray Inc.
   411 First Avenue S, Suite 600
   Seattle, WA 98104-2860
   Phone: 206-701-2090
   EMail: carrier@cray.com

   Caitlin Bestler
   Broadcom
   49 Discovery
   Irvine, CA 92618
   EMail: cait@asomi.com

   Bernard Aboba
   Microsoft Corporation
   One Microsoft Way USA
   Redmond, WA 98052
   Phone: +1 (425) 706-6606
   EMail: bernarda@windows.microsoft.com

















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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


Authors' Addresses

   James Pinkerton
   Microsoft Corporation
   One Microsoft Way
   Redmond, WA 98052 USA
   Phone: +1 (425) 705-5442
   EMail: jpink@windows.microsoft.com

   Ellen Deleganes
   Self
   P.O. Box 9245
   Brooks, OR 97305
   Phone: (503) 642-3950
   EMail: deleganes@yahoo.com




































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<span class="grey"><a href="./rfc5042">RFC 5042</a>                   DDP/RDMAP Security               October 2007</span>


Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2007).

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