DKIM E. Allman Internet-Draft Sendmail, Inc. Expires: January 16, 2007 J. Callas PGP Corporation M. Delany M. Libbey Yahoo! Inc J. Fenton M. Thomas Cisco Systems, Inc. July 15, 2006 DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures draft-ietf-dkim-base-04 Status of this Memo By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet- Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on January 16, 2007. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). Abstract DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) defines a domain-level Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 1] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 authentication framework for email using public-key cryptography and key server technology to permit verification of the source and contents of messages by either Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs) or Mail User Agents (MUAs). The ultimate goal of this framework is to permit a signing domain to assert responsibility for a message, thus protecting message signer identity and the integrity of the messages they convey while retaining the functionality of Internet email as it is known today. Protection of email identity may assist in the global control of "spam" and "phishing". Requirements Language 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 [RFC2119]. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 2] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.1 Signing Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.2 Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.3 Simple Key Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2. Terminology and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.1 Signers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2.2 Verifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.3 White Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.4 Common ABNF Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.5 Imported ABNF Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.6 DKIM-Quoted-Printable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 3. Protocol Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.1 Selectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 3.2 Tag=Value Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3.3 Signing and Verification Algorithms . . . . . . . . . . . 12 3.4 Canonicalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 3.5 The DKIM-Signature header field . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 3.6 Key Management and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 3.7 Computing the Message Hashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.8 Signing by Parent Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 4. Semantics of Multiple Signatures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 5. Signer Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 5.1 Determine if the Email Should be Signed and by Whom . . . 33 5.2 Select a private-key and corresponding selector information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 5.3 Normalize the Message to Prevent Transport Conversions . . 34 5.4 Determine the header fields to Sign . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5.5 Compute the Message Hash and Signature . . . . . . . . . . 36 5.6 Insert the DKIM-Signature header field . . . . . . . . . . 36 6. Verifier Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.1 Extract Signatures from the Message . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6.2 Communicate Verification Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 6.3 Interpret Results/Apply Local Policy . . . . . . . . . . . 43 7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 7.1 DKIM-Signature Tag Specifications . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 7.2 DKIM-Signature Query Method Registry . . . . . . . . . . . 45 7.3 DKIM-Signature Canonicalization Registry . . . . . . . . . 45 7.4 _domainkey DNS TXT Record Tag Specifications . . . . . . . 46 7.5 DKIM Key Type Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 7.6 DKIM Hash Algorithms Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 8.1 Misuse of Body Length Limits ("l=" Tag) . . . . . . . . . 47 8.2 Misappropriated Private Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 8.3 Key Server Denial-of-Service Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . 49 8.4 Attacks Against DNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 8.5 Replay Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 3] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 8.6 Limits on Revoking Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 8.7 Intentionally malformed Key Records . . . . . . . . . . . 51 8.8 Intentionally Malformed DKIM-Signature header fields . . . 51 8.9 Information Leakage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 8.10 Remote Timing Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 9.1 Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 9.2 Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 A. Example of Use (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 A.1 The user composes an email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 A.2 The email is signed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 A.3 The email signature is verified . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 B. Usage Examples (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 B.1 Simple Message Forwarding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 B.2 Outsourced Business Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 B.3 PDAs and Similar Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 B.4 Mailing Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 B.5 Affinity Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 B.6 Third-party Message Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 B.7 SMTP Servers for Roaming Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 C. Creating a public key (INFORMATIVE) . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 D. MUA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 E. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 F. Edit History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 F.1 Changes since -ietf-03 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 F.2 Changes since -ietf-02 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 F.3 Changes since -ietf-01 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 F.4 Changes since -ietf-00 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 F.5 Changes since -allman-01 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 F.6 Changes since -allman-00 version . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . 67 Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 4] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 1. Introduction [[Note: text in double square brackets (such as this text) will be deleted before publication.]] DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) defines a mechanism by which email messages can be cryptographically signed, permitting a signing domain to claim responsibility for the introduction of a message into the mail stream. Message recipients can verify the signature by querying the signer's domain directly to retrieve the appropriate public key, and thereby confirm that the message was attested to by a party in possession of the private key for the signing domain. The approach taken by DKIM differs from previous approaches to message signing (e.g. S/MIME [RFC1847], OpenPGP [RFC2440]) in that: o the message signature is written as a message header field so that neither human recipients nor existing MUA (Mail User Agent) software are confused by signature-related content appearing in the message body, o there is no dependency on public and private key pairs being issued by well-known, trusted certificate authorities, o there is no dependency on the deployment of any new Internet protocols or services for public key distribution or revocation, o signature verification failure does not result in rejection of the message, o no attempt is made to include encryption as part of the mechanism, o archival is not a design goal. DKIM: o is compatible with the existing email infrastructure and transparent to the fullest extent possible o requires minimal new infrastructure o can be implemented independently of clients in order to reduce deployment time o does not require the use of an additional trusted third party (such as a certificate authority or other entity) which might impose significant costs or introduce delays to deployment Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 5] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 o can be deployed incrementally o allows delegation of signing to third parties 1.1 Signing Identity DKIM separates the question of the identity of the signer of the message from the purported author of the message. In particular, a signature includes the identity of the signer. Verifiers can use the signing information to decide how they want to process the message. The signing identity is included as part of the signature header field. INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: The signing identity specified by a DKIM signature is not required to match an address in any particular header field because of the broad methods of interpretation by recipient mail systems, including MUAs. 1.2 Scalability DKIM is designed to support the extreme scalability requirements which characterize the email identification problem. There are currently over 70 million domains and a much larger number of individual addresses. DKIM seeks to preserve the positive aspects of the current email infrastructure, such as the ability for anyone to communicate with anyone else without introduction. 1.3 Simple Key Management DKIM differs from traditional hierarchical public-key systems in that no key signing infrastructure is required; the verifier requests the public key from the claimed signer directly. The DNS is proposed as the initial mechanism for publishing public keys. DKIM is designed to be extensible to other key fetching services as they become available. 2. Terminology and Definitions This section defines terms used in the rest of the document. Syntax descriptions use the form described in Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications [RFC4234]. 2.1 Signers Elements in the mail system that sign messages are referred to as Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 6] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 signers. These may be MUAs (Mail User Agents), MSAs (Mail Submission Agents), MTAs (Mail Transfer Agents), or other agents such as mailing list exploders. In general any signer will be involved in the injection of a message into the message system in some way. The key issue is that a message must be signed before it leaves the administrative domain of the signer. 2.2 Verifiers Elements in the mail system that verify signatures are referred to as verifiers. These may be MTAs, Mail Delivery Agents (MDAs), or MUAs. In most cases it is expected that verifiers will be close to an end user (reader) of the message or some consuming agent such as a mailing list exploder. 2.3 White Space There are three forms of white space: o WSP represents simple white space, i.e., a space or a tab character, and is inherited from[RFC2822]. o SWSP is streaming white space, defined as WSP plus the CR and LF characters. o FWS, also from [RFC2822], is folding white space. It allows multiple lines separated by CRLF followed by at least one white space, to be joined. The formal ABNF for SWSP is: SWSP = CR / LF / WSP ; streaming white space 2.4 Common ABNF Tokens The following ABNF tokens are used elsewhere in this document. hyphenated-word = ALPHA [ *(ALPHA / DIGIT / "-") (ALPHA / DIGIT) ] base64string = 1*(ALPHA / DIGIT / "+" / "/" / "=" / SWSP) 2.5 Imported ABNF Tokens The following tokens are imported from other RFCs as noted. Those RFCs should be considered definitive. However, all tokens having Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 7] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 names beginning with "obs-" should be excluded from this import, as they have been obsoleted and are expected to go away in future editions of those RFCs. The following tokens are imported from [RFC2821]: o "Local-part" (implementation warning: this permits quoted strings) o "sub-domain" The following definitions are imported from [RFC2822]: o "WSP" (space or tab) o "FWS" (folding white space) o "field-name" (name of a header field) o "dot-atom-text" (in the local-part of an email address) The following tokens are imported from [RFC2045]: o "qp-section" (a single line of quoted-printable-encoded text) o "hex-octet" (a quoted-printable encoded octet) INFORMATIVE NOTE: Be aware that the ABNF in RFC 2045 does not obey the rules of RFC 4234 and must be interpreted accordingly, particularly as regards case folding. Other tokens not defined herein are imported from [RFC4234]. These are intuitive primitives such as SP, ALPHA, CRLF, etc. 2.6 DKIM-Quoted-Printable The DKIM-Quoted-Printable encoding syntax resembles that described in Quoted-Printable [RFC2045] section 6.7: any character MAY be encoded as an "=" followed by two hexadecimal digits from the alphabet "0123456789ABCDEF" (no lower case characters permitted) representing the hexadecimal-encoded integer value of that character. All control characters (those with values < %x20), eight-bit characters (values > %x7F), and the characters DEL (%x7F), SPACE (%x20), and semicolon (";", %x3B) MUST be encoded. Note that all white space, including SPACE, CR and LF characters, MUST be encoded. After encoding, FWS MAY be added at arbitrary locations in order to avoid excessively long lines; such white space is NOT part of the value, and MUST be removed before decoding. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 8] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 ABNF: dkim-quoted-printable = *(FWS / hex-octet / dkim-safe-char) ; hex-octet is from RFC 2045 dkim-safe-char = %x21-3A / %x3C / %x3E-7E ; '!' - ':', '<', '>' - '~' ; Characters not listed as "mail-safe" in ; RFC 2049 are also not recommended. INFORMATIVE NOTE: DKIM-Quoted-Printable differs from Quoted- Printable as defined in RFC 2045 in several important ways: 1. White space in the input text, including CR and LF, must be encoded. RFC 2045 does not require such encoding, and does not permit encoded of CR or LF characters that are part of a CRLF line break. 2. White space in the encoded text is ignored. This is to allow DKIM-Quoted-Printable to be wrapped as needed in headers. In particular, RFC 2045 requires that line breaks in the input be represented as physical line breaks; that is not the case here. 3. The "soft line break" syntax ("=" as the last non-white-space character on the line) does not apply. 4. DKIM-Quoted-Printable does not require that encoded lines be no more than 76 characters long (although there may be other requirements depending on the context in which the encoded text is being used). 3. Protocol Elements Protocol Elements are conceptual parts of the protocol that are not specific to either signers or verifiers. The protocol descriptions for signers and verifiers are described in later sections (Signer Actions (Section 5) and Verifier Actions (Section 6)). NOTE: This section must be read in the context of those sections. 3.1 Selectors To support multiple concurrent public keys per signing domain, the key namespace is subdivided using "Selectors". For example, Selectors might indicate the names of office locations (e.g., "sanfrancisco", "coolumbeach", and "reykjavik"), the signing date (e.g., "january2005", "february2005", etc.), or even the individual user. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 9] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Selectors are needed to support some important use cases. For example: o Domains which want to delegate signing capability for a specific address for a given duration to a partner, such as an advertising provider or other out-sourced function. o Domains which want to allow frequent travelers to send messages locally without the need to connect with a particular MSA. o "Affinity" domains (e.g., college alumni associations) which provide forwarding of incoming mail but which do not operate a mail submission agent for outgoing mail. Periods are allowed in Selectors and are component separators. When keys are retrieved from the DNS, periods in Selectors define DNS label boundaries in a manner similar to the conventional use in domain names. Selector components might be used to combine dates with locations; for example, "march2005.reykjavik". In a DNS implementation, this can be used to allow delegation of a portion of the Selector name-space. ABNF: selector = sub-domain *( "." sub-domain ) The number of public keys and corresponding Selectors for each domain are determined by the domain owner. Many domain owners will be satisfied with just one Selector whereas administratively distributed organizations may choose to manage disparate Selectors and key pairs in different regions or on different email servers. Beyond administrative convenience, Selectors make it possible to seamlessly replace public keys on a routine basis. If a domain wishes to change from using a public key associated with Selector "january2005" to a public key associated with Selector "february2005", it merely makes sure that both public keys are advertised in the public-key repository concurrently for the transition period during which email may be in transit prior to verification. At the start of the transition period, the outbound email servers are configured to sign with the "february2005" private- key. At the end of the transition period, the "january2005" public key is removed from the public-key repository. INFORMATIVE NOTE: A key may also be revoked as described below. The distinction between revoking and removing a key selector record is subtle. When phasing out keys as described above, a signing domain would probably simply remove the key record after the transition period. However, a signing domain could elect to Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 10] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 revoke the key (but maintain the key record) for a further period. There is no defined semantic difference between a revoked key and a removed key. While some domains may wish to make Selector values well known, others will want to take care not to allocate Selector names in a way that allows harvesting of data by outside parties. E.g., if per-user keys are issued, the domain owner will need to make the decision as to whether to associate this Selector directly with the user name, or make it some unassociated random value, such as a fingerprint of the public key. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTERS' NOTE: reusing a Selector with a new key (for example, changing the key associated with a user's name) makes it impossible to tell the difference between a message that didn't verify because the key is no longer valid versus a message that is actually forged. Signers should not change the key associated with a Selector. When creating a new key, signers should associate it with a new Selector. 3.2 Tag=Value Lists DKIM uses a simple "tag=value" syntax in several contexts, including in messages and domain signature records. Values are a series of strings containing either plain text, "base64" text (as defined in [RFC2045], section 6.8), "qp-section" (ibid, section 6.7), or "dkim-quoted-printable" (as defined above). The name of the tag will determine the encoding of each value; however, no encoding may include the semicolon (";") character, since that separates tag-specs. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: Although the "plain text" defined below (as "tag-value") only includes 7-bit characters, an implementation that wished to anticipate future standards would be advised to not preclude the use of UTF8-encoded text in tag=value lists. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 11] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Formally, the syntax rules are: tag-list = tag-spec 0*( ";" tag-spec ) [ ";" ] tag-spec = [FWS] tag-name [FWS] "=" [FWS] tag-value [FWS] tag-name = ALPHA 0*ALNUMPUNC tag-value = [ 1*VALCHAR 0*( 1*(WSP / FWS) 1*VALCHAR ) ] ; WSP and FWS prohibited at beginning and end VALCHAR = %x21-3A / %x3C-7E ; EXCLAMATION to TILDE except SEMICOLON ALNUMPUNC = ALPHA / DIGIT / "_" Note that WSP is allowed anywhere around tags; in particular, any WSP after the "=" and any WSP before the terminating ";" is not part of the value; however, WSP inside the value is significant. Tags MUST be interpreted in a case-sensitive manner. Values MUST be processed as case sensitive unless the specific tag description of semantics specifies case insensitivity. Tags with duplicate names MUST NOT be specified within a single tag- list. Whitespace within a value MUST be retained unless explicitly excluded by the specific tag description. Tag=value pairs that represent the default value MAY be included to aid legibility. Unrecognized tags MUST be ignored. Tags that have an empty value are not the same as omitted tags. An omitted tag is treated as having the default value; a tag with an empty value explicitly designates the empty string as the value. For example, "g=" does not mean "g=*", even though "g=*" is the default for that tag. 3.3 Signing and Verification Algorithms DKIM supports multiple digital signature algorithms. Two algorithms are defined by this specification at this time: rsa-sha1, and rsa- sha256. The rsa-sha256 algorithm is the default if no algorithm is specified. Verifiers MUST implement both rsa-sha1 and rsa-sha256. Signers MUST implement and SHOULD sign using rsa-sha256. 3.3.1 The rsa-sha1 Signing Algorithm The rsa-sha1 Signing Algorithm computes a message hash as described in Section 3.7 below using SHA-1 as the hash-alg. That hash is then signed by the signer using the RSA algorithm (defined in PKCS#1 Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 12] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 version 1.5 [RFC3447]) as the crypt-alg and the signer's private key. The hash MUST NOT be truncated or converted into any form other than the native binary form before being signed. 3.3.2 The rsa-sha256 Signing Algorithm The rsa-sha256 Signing Algorithm computes a message hash as described in Section 3.7 below using SHA-256 as the hash-alg. That hash is then signed by the signer using the RSA algorithm (actually PKCS#1 version 1.5 [RFC3447]) as the crypt-alg and the signer's private key. The hash MUST NOT be truncated or converted into any form other than the native binary form before being signed. 3.3.3 Other algorithms Other algorithms MAY be defined in the future. Verifiers MUST ignore any signatures using algorithms that they do not implement. 3.3.4 Key sizes Selecting appropriate key sizes is a trade-off between cost, performance and risk. Since short RSA keys more easily succumb to off-line attacks, signers MUST use RSA keys of at least 1024 bits for long-lived keys. Verifiers MUST be able to validate signatures with keys ranging from 512 bits to 2048 bits, and they MAY be able to validate signatures with larger keys. Verifier policies may use the length of the signing key as one metric for determining whether a signature is acceptable. Factors that should influence the key size choice include: o The practical constraint that large keys may not fit within a 512 byte DNS UDP response packet o The security constraint that keys smaller than 1024 bits are subject to off-line attacks o Larger keys impose higher CPU costs to verify and sign email o Keys can be replaced on a regular basis, thus their lifetime can be relatively short o The security goals of this specification are modest compared to typical goals of public-key systems See [RFC3766] for further discussion of selecting key sizes. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 13] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 3.4 Canonicalization Empirical evidence demonstrates that some mail servers and relay systems modify email in transit, potentially invalidating a signature. There are two competing perspectives on such modifications. For most signers, mild modification of email is immaterial to the authentication status of the email. For such signers a canonicalization algorithm that survives modest in-transit modification is preferred. Other signers demand that any modification of the email, however minor, result in a signature verification failure. These signers prefer a canonicalization algorithm that does not tolerate in-transit modification of the signed email. Some signers may be willing to accept modifications to header fields that are within the bounds of email standards such as [RFC2822], but are unwilling to accept any modification to the body of messages. To satisfy all requirements, two canonicalization algorithms are defined for each of the header and the body: a "simple" algorithm that tolerates almost no modification and a "relaxed" algorithm that tolerates common modifications such as white-space replacement and header field line re-wrapping. A signer MAY specify either algorithm for header or body when signing an email. If no canonicalization algorithm is specified by the signer, the "simple" algorithm defaults for both header and body. Verifiers MUST implement both canonicalization algorithms. Note that the header and body may use different canonicalization algorithms. Further canonicalization algorithms MAY be defined in the future; verifiers MUST ignore any signatures that use unrecognized canonicalization algorithms. [[WORKING GROUP DISCUSSION POINT: If a message is transmitted using CHUNKING (that is, BDAT instead of the DATA command) and BODY=BINARYMIME [RFC3030] then the body should be treated as a binary stream, and no canonicalization whatsoever should be done. Do we want to leave this for the future, say that canonicalization is ignored in this circumstance, or add a third "binary" body canonicalization algorithm? Or something else, of course.]] Canonicalization simply prepares the email for presentation to the signing or verification algorithm. It MUST NOT change the transmitted data in any way. Canonicalization of header fields and body are described below. NOTE: This section assumes that the message is already in "network normal" format (e.g., text is ASCII encoded, lines are separated with CRLF characters, etc.). See also Section 5.3 for information about Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 14] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 normalizing the message. 3.4.1 The "simple" Header Field Canonicalization Algorithm The "simple" header canonicalization algorithm does not change header fields in any way. Header fields MUST be presented to the signing or verification algorithm exactly as they are in the message being signed or verified. In particular, header field names MUST NOT be case folded and white space MUST NOT be changed. 3.4.2 The "relaxed" Header Field Canonicalization Algorithm The "relaxed" header canonicalization algorithm MUST apply the following steps in order: o Convert all header field names (not the header field values) to lower case. For example, convert "SUBJect: AbC" to "subject: AbC". o Unfold all header field continuation lines as described in [RFC2822]; in particular, lines with terminators embedded in continued header field values (that is, CRLF sequences followed by WSP) MUST be interpreted without the CRLF. Implementations MUST NOT remove the CRLF at the end of the header field value. o Convert all sequences of one or more WSP characters to a single SP character. WSP characters here include those before and after a line folding boundary. o Delete all WSP characters at the end of each unfolded header field value. o Delete any WSP characters remaining before and after the colon separating the header field name from the header field value. The colon separator MUST be retained. 3.4.3 The "simple" Body Canonicalization Algorithm The "simple" body canonicalization algorithm ignores all empty lines at the end of the message body. An empty line is a line of zero length after removal of the line terminator. If there is no trailing CRLF on the message, a CRLF is added. It makes no other changes to the message body. In more formal terms, the "simple" body canonicalization algorithm converts "0*CRLF" at the end of the body to a single "CRLF". Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 15] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 3.4.4 The "relaxed" Body Canonicalization Algorithm [[This section may be deleted; see discussion below.]] The "relaxed" body canonicalization algorithm: o Ignores all white space at the end of lines. Implementations MUST NOT remove the CRLF at the end of the line. o Reduces all sequences of WSP within a line to a single SP character. o Ignores all empty lines at the end of the message body. "Empty line" is defined in Section 3.4.3. [[WORKING GROUP DISCUSSION POINT (ISSUE 1326): Mike Thomas has found bare CRs in the wild that are getting converted to CRLF by some MTAs and thus breaking signatures. Shall we (a) drop "relaxed" until we can figure out how to do it right and then put it in as an extension, (b) change "relaxed" to handle this case, probably by having it convert bare CR and LF to CRLF, or (c) something else?]] 3.4.5 Body Length Limits A body length count MAY be specified to limit the signature calculation to an initial prefix of the body text, measured in octets. If the body length count is not specified then the entire message body is signed. INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: This capability is provided because it is very common for mailing lists to add trailers to messages (e.g., instructions how to get off the list). Until those messages are also signed, the body length count is a useful tool for the verifier since it may as a matter of policy accept messages having valid signatures with extraneous data. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: Using body length limits enables an attack in which an attacker modifies a message to include content that solely benefits the attacker. It is possible for the appended content to completely replace the original content in the end recipient's eyes and to defeat duplicate message detection algorithms. To avoid this attack, signers should be wary of using this tag, and verifiers might wish to ignore the tag or remove text that appears after the specified content length, perhaps based on other criteria. The body length count allows the signer of a message to permit data Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 16] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 to be appended to the end of the body of a signed message. The body length count MUST be calculated following the canonicalization algorithm; for example, any white space ignored by a canonicalization algorithm is not included as part of the body length count. Signers of MIME messages that include a body length count SHOULD be sure that the length extends to the closing MIME boundary string. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: A signer wishing to ensure that the only acceptable modifications are to add to the MIME postlude would use a body length count encompassing the entire final MIME boundary string, including the final "--CRLF". A signer wishing to allow additional MIME parts but not modification of existing parts would use a body length count extending through the final MIME boundary string, omitting the final "--CRLF". A body length count of zero means that the body is completely unsigned. Signers wishing to ensure that no modification of any sort can occur should specify the "simple" canonicalization algorithm for both header and body and omit the body length count. 3.4.6 Canonicalization Examples (INFORMATIVE) (In the following examples, actual white space is used only for clarity. The actual input and output text is designated using bracketed descriptors: "" for a space character, "" for a tab character, and "" for a carriage-return/line-feed sequence. For example, "X Y" and "XY" represent the same three characters.) Example 1: A message reading: A: X B : Y Z C D E when canonicalized using relaxed canonicalization for both header and body results in a header reading: a:X b:Y Z Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 17] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 and a body reading: C D E Example 2: The same message canonicalized using simple canonicalization for both header and body results in a header reading: A: X B : Y Z and a body reading: C D E Example 3: When processed using relaxed header canonicalization and simple body canonicalization, the canonicalized version has a header of: a:X b:Y Z and a body reading: C D E 3.5 The DKIM-Signature header field The signature of the email is stored in the "DKIM-Signature:" header field. This header field contains all of the signature and key- fetching data. The DKIM-Signature value is a tag-list as described in Section 3.2. The "DKIM-Signature:" header field SHOULD be treated as though it were a trace header field as defined in section 3.6 of [RFC2822], and hence SHOULD NOT be reordered and SHOULD be prepended to the message. The "DKIM-Signature:" header field being created or verified is always included in the signature calculation, after the body of the message; however, when calculating or verifying the signature, the value of the b= tag (signature value) of that DKIM-Signature header field MUST be treated as though it were an empty string. Unknown tags in the "DKIM-Signature:" header field MUST be included in the signature calculation but MUST be otherwise ignored by verifiers. Other "DKIM-Signature:" header fields that are included in the signature should be treated as normal header fields; in particular, the b= tag is not treated specially. The encodings for each field type are listed below. Tags described Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 18] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 as qp-section are as described in section 6.7 of MIME Part One [RFC2045], with the additional conversion of semicolon characters to "=3B"; intuitively, this is one line of quoted-printable encoded text. Tags described as dkim-quoted-printable are as defined in Section 2.6. Tags on the DKIM-Signature header field along with their type and requirement status are shown below. Unrecognized tags MUST be ignored. v= Version (MUST be included). This tag defines the version of this specification that applies to the signature record. It MUST have the value 0.4. ABNF: sig-v-tag = %x76 [FWS] "=" [FWS] "0.4" INFORMATIVE NOTE: DKIM-Signature version numbers are expected to increase arithmetically as new versions of this specification are released. [[INFORMATIVE NOTE: Upon publication, this version number should be changed to "1", and this note should be deleted.]] a= The algorithm used to generate the signature (plain-text; REQUIRED). Verifiers MUST support "rsa-sha1" and "rsa-sha256"; signers SHOULD sign using "rsa-sha256". See Section 3.3 for a description of algorithms. ABNF: sig-a-tag = %x61 [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-a-tag-alg sig-a-tag-alg = sig-a-tag-k "-" sig-a-tag-h sig-a-tag-k = "rsa" / x-sig-a-tag-k sig-a-tag-h = "sha1" / "sha256" / x-sig-a-tag-h x-sig-a-tag-k = ALPHA *(ALPHA / DIGIT) ; for later extension x-sig-a-tag-h = ALPHA *(ALPHA / DIGIT) ; for later extension b= The signature data (base64; REQUIRED). Whitespace is ignored in this value and MUST be ignored when re-assembling the original signature. In particular, the signing process can safely insert FWS in this value in arbitrary places to conform to line-length limits. See Signer Actions (Section 5) for how the signature is computed. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 19] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 ABNF: sig-b-tag = %x62 [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-b-tag-data sig-b-tag-data = base64string bh= The hash of the canonicalized body part of the message as limited by the "l=" tag (base64; REQUIRED). Whitespace is ignored in this value and MUST be ignored when re-assembling the original signature. In particular, the signing process can safely insert FWS in this value in arbitrary places to conform to line-length limits. See Section 3.7 for how the body hash is computed. ABNF: sig-bh-tag = %x62 %x68 [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-bh-tag-data sig-bh-tag-data = base64string c= Message canonicalization (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "simple/simple"). This tag informs the verifier of the type of canonicalization used to prepare the message for signing. It consists of two names separated by a "slash" (%d47) character, corresponding to the header and body canonicalization algorithms respectively. These algorithms are described in Section 3.4. If only one algorithm is named, that algorithm is used for the header and "simple" is used for the body. For example, "c=relaxed" is treated the same as "c=relaxed/simple". ABNF: sig-c-tag = %x63 [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-c-tag-alg ["/" sig-c-tag-alg] sig-c-tag-alg = "simple" / "relaxed" / x-sig-c-tag-alg x-sig-c-tag-alg = hyphenated-word ; for later extension d= The domain of the signing entity (plain-text; REQUIRED). This is the domain that will be queried for the public key. This domain MUST be the same as or a parent domain of the "i=" tag (the signing identity, as described below), or it MUST meet the requirements for parent domain signing described in Section 3.8. When presented with a signature that does not meet these requirement, verifiers MUST consider the signature invalid. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 20] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Internationalized domain names MUST be punycode-encoded [RFC3492]. ABNF: sig-d-tag = %x64 [FWS] "=" [FWS] domain-name domain-name = sub-domain 1*("." sub-domain) ; from RFC 2821 Domain, but excluding address-literal h= Signed header fields (plain-text, but see description; REQUIRED). A colon-separated list of header field names that identify the header fields presented to the signing algorithm. The field MUST contain the complete list of header fields in the order presented to the signing algorithm. The field MAY contain names of header fields that do not exist when signed; nonexistent header fields do not contribute to the signature computation (that is, they are treated as the null input, including the header field name, the separating colon, the header field value, and any CRLF terminator). The field MUST NOT include the DKIM-Signature header field that is being created or verified, but may include others. Folding white space (FWS) MAY be included on either side of the colon separator. Header field names MUST be compared against actual header field names in a case insensitive manner. This list MUST NOT be empty. See Section 5.4 for a discussion of choosing header fields to sign. ABNF: sig-h-tag = %x68 [FWS] "=" [FWS] hdr-name 0*( *FWS ":" *FWS hdr-name ) hdr-name = field-name INFORMATIVE EXPLANATION: By "signing" header fields that do not actually exist, a signer can prevent insertion of those header fields before verification. However, since a signer cannot possibly know what header fields might be created in the future, and that some MUAs might present header fields that are embedded inside a message (e.g., as a message/rfc822 content type), the security of this solution is not total. INFORMATIVE EXPLANATION: The exclusion of the header field name and colon as well as the header field value for non- existent header fields prevents an attacker from inserting an actual header field with a null value. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 21] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 i= Identity of the user or agent (e.g., a mailing list manager) on behalf of which this message is signed (dkim-quoted-printable; OPTIONAL, default is an empty local-part followed by an "@" followed by the domain from the "d=" tag). The syntax is a standard email address where the local-part MAY be omitted. The domain part of the address MUST be the same as or a subdomain of the value of the "d=" tag. Internationalized domain names MUST be punycode-encoded [RFC3492]. ABNF: sig-i-tag = %x69 [FWS] "=" [FWS] [ Local-part ] "@" domain-name INFORMATIVE NOTE: The local-part of the "i=" tag is optional because in some cases a signer may not be able to establish a verified individual identity. In such cases, the signer may wish to assert that although it is willing to go as far as signing for the domain, it is unable or unwilling to commit to an individual user name within their domain. It can do so by including the domain part but not the local-part of the identity. INFORMATIVE DISCUSSION: This document does not require the value of the "i=" tag to match the identity in any message header field fields. This is considered to be a verifier policy issue. Constraints between the value of the "i=" tag and other identities in other header fields seek to apply basic authentication into the semantics of trust associated with a role such as content author. Trust is a broad and complex topic and trust mechanisms are subject to highly creative attacks. The real-world efficacy of any but the most basic bindings between the "i=" value and other identities is not well established, nor is its vulnerability to subversion by an attacker. Hence reliance on the use of these options should be strictly limited. In particular it is not at all clear to what extent a typical end-user recipient can rely on any assurances that might be made by successful use of the "i=" options. l= Body length count (plain-text unsigned decimal integer; OPTIONAL, default is entire body). This tag informs the verifier of the number of octets in the body of the email after canonicalization included in the cryptographic hash, starting from 0 immediately following the CRLF preceding the body. This value MUST NOT be larger than the actual number of octets in the canonicalized Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 22] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 message body. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION WARNING: Use of the l= tag might allow display of fraudulent content without appropriate warning to end users. The l= tag is intended for increasing signature robustness when sending to mailing lists that both modify their content and do not sign their messages. However, using the l= tag enables attacks in which an intermediary with malicious intent modifies a message to include content that solely benefits the attacker. It is possible for the appended content to completely replace the original content in the end recipient's eyes and to defeat duplicate message detection algorithms. Examples are described in Security Considerations (Section 8). To avoid this attack, signers should be extremely wary of using this tag, and verifiers might wish to ignore the tag or remove text that appears after the specified content length. INFORMATIVE NOTE: The value of the l= tag is constrained to 76 decimal digits, which will fit in a 256-bit binary integer field. This constraint is not intended to predict the size of future messages, but is intended to remind the implementer to check the length of this and all other tags during verification. Implementers may need to limit the actual value expressed to a value smaller than 10^76, e.g., to allow a message to fit within the available storage space. ABNF: sig-l-tag = %x6c [FWS] "=" [FWS] 1*76DIGIT q= A colon-separated list of query methods used to retrieve the public key (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "dns/txt"). Each query method is of the form "type[/options]", where the syntax and semantics of the options depends on the type and specified options. If there are multiple query mechanisms listed, the choice of query mechanism MUST NOT change the interpretation of the signature. Implementations MUST use the recognized query mechanisms in the order presented. Currently the only valid value is "dns/txt" which defines the DNS TXT record lookup algorithm described elsewhere in this document. The only option defined for the "dns" query type is "txt", which MUST be included. Verifiers and signers MUST support "dns/txt". Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 23] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 ABNF: sig-q-tag = %x71 [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-q-tag-method *([FWS] ":" [FWS] sig-q-tag-method) sig-q-tag-method = "dns/txt" / x-sig-q-tag-type ["/" x-sig-q-tag-args] x-sig-q-tag-type = hyphenated-word ; for future extension x-sig-q-tag-args = qp-hdr-value s= The Selector subdividing the namespace for the "d=" (domain) tag (plain-text; REQUIRED). ABNF: sig-s-tag = %x73 [FWS] "=" [FWS] selector t= Signature Timestamp (plain-text unsigned decimal integer; RECOMMENDED, default is an unknown creation time). The time that this signature was created. The format is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970 in the UTC time zone. The value is expressed as an unsigned integer in decimal ASCII. This value is not constrained to fit into a 31- or 32-bit integer. Implementations SHOULD be prepared to handle values up to at least 10^12 (until approximately AD 200,000; this fits into 40 bits). To avoid denial of service attacks, implementations MAY consider any value longer than 12 digits to be infinite. ABNF: sig-t-tag = %x74 [FWS] "=" [FWS] 1*12DIGIT x= Signature Expiration (plain-text unsigned decimal integer; RECOMMENDED, default is no expiration). The format is the same as in the "t=" tag, represented as an absolute date, not as a time delta from the signing timestamp. The value is expressed as an unsigned integer in decimal ASCII, with the same contraints on the value in the "t=" tag. Signatures MAY be considered invalid if the verification time at the verifier is past the expiration date. The verification time should be the time that the message was first received at the administrative domain of the verifier if that time is reliably available; otherwise the current time should be used. The value of the "x=" tag MUST be greater than the value of the "t=" tag if both are present. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 24] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 INFORMATIVE NOTE: The x= tag is not intended as an anti- replay defense. ABNF: sig-x-tag = %x78 [FWS] "=" [FWS] 1*12DIGIT z= Copied header fields (dkim-quoted-printable, but see description; OPTIONAL, default is null). A vertical-bar-separated list of selected header fields present when the message was signed, including both the field name and value. It is not required to include all header fields present at the time of signing. This field need not contain the same header fields listed in the "h=" tag. The header field text itself must encode the vertical bar ("|", %x7C) character (i.e., vertical bars in the z= text are metacharacters, and any actual vertical bar characters in a copied header field must be encoded). Note that all white space must be encoded, including white space between the colon and the header field value. After encoding, SWSP MAY be added at arbitrary locations in order to avoid excessively long lines; such white space is NOT part of the value of the header field, and MUST be removed before decoding. Verifiers MUST NOT use the header field names or copied values for checking the signature in any way. Copied header field values are for diagnostic use only. Header fields with characters requiring conversion (perhaps from legacy MTAs which are not [RFC2822] compliant) SHOULD be converted as described in MIME Part Three [RFC2047]. ABNF: sig-z-tag = %x7A [FWS] "=" [FWS] sig-z-tag-copy *( [FWS] "|" sig-z-tag-copy ) sig-z-tag-copy = hdr-name ":" qp-hdr-value qp-hdr-value = dkim-quoted-printable ; with "|" encoded INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE of a signature header field spread across multiple continuation lines: DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; d=example.net; s=brisbane; c=simple; q=dns/txt; i=@eng.example.net; t=1117574938; x=1118006938; h=from:to:subject:date; z=From:foo@eng.example.net|To:joe@example.com| Subject:demo=20run|Date:July=205,=202005=203:44:08=20PM=20-0700; bh=MTIzNDU2Nzg5MDEyMzQ1Njc4OTAxMjM0NTY3ODkwMTI=; b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 25] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 VoG4ZHRNiYzR 3.6 Key Management and Representation Signature applications require some level of assurance that the verification public key is associated with the claimed signer. Many applications achieve this by using public key certificates issued by a trusted third party. However, DKIM can achieve a sufficient level of security, with significantly enhanced scalability, by simply having the verifier query the purported signer's DNS entry (or some security-equivalent) in order to retrieve the public key. DKIM keys can potentially be stored in multiple types of key servers and in multiple formats. The storage and format of keys are irrelevant to the remainder of the DKIM algorithm. Parameters to the key lookup algorithm are the type of the lookup (the "q=" tag), the domain of the responsible signer (the "d=" tag of the DKIM-Signature header field), and the Selector (the "s=" tag). public_key = dkim_find_key(q_val, d_val, s_val) This document defines a single binding, using DNS TXT records to distribute the keys. Other bindings may be defined in the future. 3.6.1 Textual Representation It is expected that many key servers will choose to present the keys in an otherwise unstructured text format (for example, an XML form would not be considered to be unstructured text for this purpose). The following definition MUST be used for any DKIM key represented in an otherwise unstructured textual form. The overall syntax is a tag-list as described in Section 3.2. The current valid tags are described below. Other tags MAY be present and MUST be ignored by any implementation that does not understand them. v= Version of the DKIM key record (plain-text; RECOMMENDED, default is "DKIM1"). If specified, this tag MUST be set to "DKIM1" (without the quotes). This tag MUST be the first tag in the record. Records beginning with a "v=" tag with any other value MUST be discarded. ABNF: Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 26] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 key-v-tag = %x76 [FWS] "=" [FWS] "DKIM1" g= granularity of the key (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "*"). This value MUST match the Local-part of the "i=" tag of the DKIM- Signature header field (or its default value of the empty string if "i=" is not specified), with a "*" character matching a sequence of zero or more arbitrary characters ("wildcarding"). The intent of this tag is to constrain which signing address can legitimately use this Selector. An email with a signing address that does not match the value of this tag constitutes a failed verification. Wildcarding allows matching for addresses such as "user+*". An empty "g=" value never matches any addresses. ABNF: key-g-tag = %x67 [FWS] "=" [FWS] key-g-tag-lpart key-g-tag-lpart = [dot-atom-text] ["*"] [dot-atom-text] [[NON-NORMATIVE DISCUSSION POINT: "*" is legal in a "dot- atom-text". This should probably use a different character for wildcarding. Unfortunately, the options are non-mnemonic (e.g., "@", "(", ":"). Alternatively we could insist on escaping a "*" intended as a literal "*" in the address.]] h= Acceptable hash algorithms (plain-text; OPTIONAL, defaults to allowing all algorithms). A colon-separated list of hash algorithms that might be used. Signers and Verifiers MUST support the "sha256" hash algorithm. Verifiers MUST also support the "sha1" hash algorithm. ABNF: key-h-tag = %x68 [FWS] "=" [FWS] key-h-tag-alg 0*( [FWS] ":" [FWS] key-h-tag-alg ) key-h-tag-alg = "sha1" / "sha256" / x-key-h-tag-alg x-key-h-tag-alg = hyphenated-word ; for future extension k= Key type (plain-text; OPTIONAL, default is "rsa"). Signers and verifiers MUST support the "rsa" key type. The "rsa" key type indicates that an ASN.1 DER-encoded [X.660] RSAPublicKey [RFC3447] (see sections 3.1 and A.1.1) is being used in the p= tag. (Note: the p= tag further encodes the value using the base64 algorithm.) ABNF: Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 27] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 key-k-tag = %x76 [FWS] "=" [FWS] key-k-tag-type key-k-tag-type = "rsa" / x-key-k-tag-type x-key-k-tag-type = hyphenated-word ; for future extension [[NON-NORMATIVE DISCUSSION NOTE: In some cases it can be hard to separate h= and k=; for example DSA implies that SHA-1 will be used. This might be an actual change to the spec depending on how we decide to fix this.]] n= Notes that might be of interest to a human (qp-section; OPTIONAL, default is empty). No interpretation is made by any program. This tag should be used sparingly in any key server mechanism that has space limitations (notably DNS). ABNF: key-n-tag = %x6e [FWS] "=" [FWS] qp-section p= Public-key data (base64; REQUIRED). An empty value means that this public key has been revoked. The syntax and semantics of this tag value before being encoded in base64 is defined by the k= tag. ABNF: key-p-tag = %x70 [FWS] "=" [ [FWS] base64string ] s= Service Type (plain-text; OPTIONAL; default is "*"). A colon- separated list of service types to which this record applies. Verifiers for a given service type MUST ignore this record if the appropriate type is not listed. Currently defined service types are: * matches all service types email electronic mail (not necessarily limited to SMTP) This tag is intended to permit signers to constrain the use of delegated keys, e.g., where a company is willing to delegate the right to send mail in their name to an outsourcer, but not to send IM or make VoIP calls. (This of course presumes that these keys are used in other services in the future.) Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 28] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 ABNF: key-s-tag = %x73 [FWS] "=" [FWS] key-s-tag-type 0*( [FWS] ":" [FWS] key-s-tag-type key-s-tag-type = "email" / "*" / x-key-s-tag-type x-key-s-tag-type = hyphenated-word ; for future extension t= Flags, represented as a colon-separated list of names (plain- text; OPTIONAL, default is no flags set). The defined flags are: y This domain is testing DKIM. Verifiers MUST NOT treat messages from signers in testing mode differently from unsigned email, even should the signature fail to verify. Verifiers MAY wish to track testing mode results to assist the signer. s Any DKIM-Signature header fields using the "i=" tag MUST have the same domain value on the right hand side of the "@" in the "i=" tag and the value of the "d=" tag. That is, the "i=" domain MUST NOT be a subdomain of "d=". Use of this flag is RECOMMENDED unless subdomaining is required. ABNF: key-t-tag = %x74 [FWS] "=" [FWS] key-t-tag-flag 0*( [FWS] ":" [FWS] key-t-tag-flag ) key-t-tag-flag = "y" / "s" / x-key-t-tag-flag x-key-t-tag-flag = hyphenated-word ; for future extension Unrecognized flags MUST be ignored. 3.6.2 DNS binding A binding using DNS TXT records as a key service is hereby defined. All implementations MUST support this binding. 3.6.2.1 Name Space All DKIM keys are stored in a subdomain named "_domainkey". Given a DKIM-Signature field with a "d=" tag of "example.com" and an "s=" tag of "foo.bar", the DNS query will be for "foo.bar._domainkey.example.com". Wildcard DNS records (e.g., *.bar._domainkey.example.com) MUST NOT be used. Note also that wildcards within domains (e.g., Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 29] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 s._domainkey.*.example.com) are not supported by the DNS. 3.6.2.2 Resource Record Types for Key Storage The DNS Resource Record type used is specified by an option to the query-type ("q=") tag. The only option defined in this base specification is "txt", indicating the use of a TXT RR record. A later extension of this standard may define another Resource Record type. TXT records are encoded as described in Section 3.6.1. 3.7 Computing the Message Hashes Both signing and verifying message signatures starts with a step of computing two cryptographic hashes over the message. Signers will choose the parameters of the signature as described in Signer Actions (Section 5); verifiers will use the parameters specified in the "DKIM-Signature" header field being verified. In the following discussion, the names of the tags in the "DKIM-Signature" header field which either exists (when verifying) or will be created (when signing) are used. Note that canonicalization (Section 3.4) is only used to prepare the email for signing or verifying; it does not affect the transmitted email in any way. The signer or verifier must compute two hashes, one over the body of the message and one over the selected header fields of the message. Signers MUST compute them in the order shown. Verifiers MAY compute them in any order convenient to the verifier, provided that the result is semantically identical to the semantics that would be the case had they been computed in this order. In hash step 1, the signer or verifier MUST hash the message body, canonicalized using the body canonicalization algorithm specified in the "c=" tag and truncated to the length specified in the "l=" tag. That hash value is then converted to base64 form and inserted into the "bh=" tag of the DKIM-Signature: header field. In hash step 2, the signer or verifier MUST pass the following to the hash algorithm in the indicated order. 1. The header fields specified by the "h=" tag, in the order specified in that tag, and canonicalized using the header canonicalization algorithm specified in the "c=" tag. Each header field must be terminated with a single CRLF. 2. The "DKIM-Signature" header field that exists (verifying) or will be inserted (signing) in the message, with the value of the "b=" Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 30] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 tag deleted (i.e., treated as the empty string), canonicalized using the header canonicalization algorithm specified in the "c=" tag, and without a trailing CRLF. All tags and their values in the DKIM-Signature header field are included in the cryptographic hash with the sole exception of the value portion of the "b=" (signature) tag, which MUST be treated as the null string. All tags MUST be included even if they might not be understood by the verifier. The header field MUST be presented to the hash algorithm after the body of the message rather than with the rest of the header fields and MUST be canonicalized as specified in the "c=" (canonicalization) tag. The DKIM-Signature header field MUST NOT be included in its own h= tag. When calculating the hash on messages that will be transmitted using base64 or quoted-printable encoding, signers MUST compute the hash after the encoding. Likewise, the verifier MUST incorporate the values into the hash before decoding the base64 or quoted-printable text. However, the hash MUST be computed before transport level encodings such as SMTP "dot-stuffing." With the exception of the canonicalization procedure described in Section 3.4, the DKIM signing process treats the body of messages as simply a string of octets. DKIM messages MAY be either in plain-text or in MIME format; no special treatment is afforded to MIME content. Message attachments in MIME format MUST be included in the content which is signed. More formally, the algorithm for the signature is: body-hash = hash-alg(canon_body) header-hash = hash-alg(canon_header || DKIM-SIG) signature = sig-alg(header-hash, key) where "sig-alg" is the signature algorithm specified by the "a=" tag, "hash-alg" is the hash algorithm specified by the "a=" tag, "canon_header" and "canon_body" are the canonicalized message header and body (respectively) as defined in Section 3.4 (excluding the DKIM-Signature header field), and "DKIM-SIG" is the canonicalized DKIM-Signature header field sans the signature value itself, but with "body-hash" included as the "bh=" tag. INFORMATIVE NOTE: Many digital signature APIs provide both hashing and application of the RSA private key using a single "sign()" primitive. When using such an API the last two steps in the algorithm would probably be combined into a single call that would perform both the "hash-alg" and the "sig-alg". Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 31] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 3.8 Signing by Parent Domains In some circumstances, it is desirable for a domain to apply a signature on behalf of any of its subdomains without the need to maintain separate selectors (key records) in each subdomain. By default, private keys corresponding to key records can be used to sign messages for any subdomain of the domain in which they reside, e.g., a key record for the domain example.com can be used to verify messages where the signing identity (i= tag of the signature) is sub.example.com, or even sub1.sub2.example.com. In order to limit the capability of such keys when this is not intended, the "s" flag may be set in the t= tag of the key record to constrain the validity of the record to exactly the domain of the signing identity. If the referenced key record contains the "s" flag as part of the t= tag, the domain of the signing identity (i= flag) MUST be the same as that of the d= domain. If this flag is absent, the domain of the signing identity MUST be the same as, or a subdomain of, the d= domain. Key records which are not intended for use with subdomains SHOULD specify the "s" flag in the t= tag. 4. Semantics of Multiple Signatures A signer that is adding a signature to a message merely creates a new DKIM-Signature header, using the usual semantics of the h= option. A signer MAY sign previously existing DKIM-Signature headers using the method described in section Section 5.4 to sign trace headers. Signers should be cognizant that signing DKIM-Signature headers may result in signature failures with intermediaries that do not recognize that DKIM-Signatures are trace headers and unwittingly reorder them. When evaluating a message with multiple signatures, a verifier should evaluate signatures independently and on their own merits. For example, a verifier that by policy chooses not to accept signatures with deprecated cryptographic algorithms should consider such signatures invalid. As with messages with a single signature, verifiers are at liberty to use the presence of valid signatures as an input to local policy; likewise, the interpretation of multiple valid signatures in combination is a local policy decision of the verifier. Signers SHOULD NOT remove any DKIM-Signature header fields from messages they are signing, even if they know that the signatures cannot be verified. 5. Signer Actions The following steps are performed in order by signers. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 32] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 5.1 Determine if the Email Should be Signed and by Whom A signer can obviously only sign email for domains for which it has a private-key and the necessary knowledge of the corresponding public key and Selector information. However there are a number of other reasons beyond the lack of a private key why a signer could choose not to sign an email. INFORMATIVE NOTE: Signing modules may be incorporated into any portion of the mail system as deemed appropriate, including an MUA, a SUBMISSION server, or an MTA. Wherever implemented, signers should beware of signing (and thereby asserting responsibility for) messages that may be problematic. In particular, within a trusted enclave the signing address might be derived from the header according to local policy; SUBMISSION servers might only sign messages from users that are properly authenticated and authorized. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER ADVICE: SUBMISSION servers should not sign Received header fields if the outgoing gateway MTA obfuscates Received header fields, for example to hide the details of internal topology. If an email cannot be signed for some reason, it is a local policy decision as to what to do with that email. 5.2 Select a private-key and corresponding selector information This specification does not define the basis by which a signer should choose which private-key and Selector information to use. Currently, all Selectors are equal as far as this specification is concerned, so the decision should largely be a matter of administrative convenience. Distribution and management of private-keys is also outside the scope of this document. INFORMATIVE OPERATIONS ADVICE: A signer should not sign with a private key when the Selector containing the corresponding public key is expected to be revoked or removed before the verifier has an opportunity to validate the signature. The signer should anticipate that verifiers may choose to defer validation, perhaps until the message is actually read by the final recipient. In particular, when rotating to a new key-pair, signing should immediately commence with the new private key and the old public key should be retained for a reasonable validation interval before being removed from the key server. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 33] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 5.3 Normalize the Message to Prevent Transport Conversions Some messages, particularly those using 8-bit characters, are subject to modification during transit, notably conversion to 7-bit form. Such conversions will break DKIM signatures. In order to minimize the chances of such breakage, signers SHOULD convert the message to a suitable MIME content transfer encoding such as quoted-printable or base64 as described in MIME Part One [RFC2045] before signing. Such conversion is outside the scope of DKIM; the actual message SHOULD be converted to 7-bit MIME by an MUA or MSA prior to presentation to the DKIM algorithm. Should the message be submitted to the signer with any local encoding that will be modified before transmission, such conversion to canonical form MUST be done before signing. In particular, some systems use local line separator conventions (such as the Unix newline character) internally rather than the SMTP-standard CRLF sequence. All such local conventions MUST be converted to canonical format before signing. More generally, the signer MUST sign the message as it is expected to be received by the verifier rather than in some local or internal form. 5.4 Determine the header fields to Sign The From header field MUST be signed (that is, included in the h= tag of the resulting DKIM-Signature header field). Signers SHOULD NOT sign an existing header field likely to be legitimately modified or removed in transit. In particular, [RFC2821] explicitly permits modification or removal of the "Return-Path" header field in transit. Signers MAY include any other header fields present at the time of signing at the discretion of the signer. INFORMATIVE OPERATIONS NOTE: The choice of which header fields to sign is non-obvious. One strategy is to sign all existing, non- repeatable header fields. An alternative strategy is to sign only header fields that are likely to be displayed to or otherwise be likely to affect the processing of the message at the receiver. A third strategy is to sign only "well known" headers. Note that verifiers may treat unsigned header fields with extreme skepticism, including refusing to display them to the end user or even ignore the signature if it does not cover certain header fields. For this reason signing fields present in the message such as Date, Subject, Reply-To, Sender, and all MIME headers is highly advised. The DKIM-Signature header field is always implicitly signed and MUST Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 34] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 NOT be included in the h= tag except to indicate that other preexisting signatures are also signed. Signers MAY claim to have signed header fields that do not exist (that is, signers MAY include the header field name in the h= tag even if that header field does not exist in the message). When computing the signature, the non-existing header field MUST be treated as the null string (including the header field name, header field value, all punctuation, and the trailing CRLF). INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: This allows signers to explicitly assert the absence of a header field; if that header field is added later the signature will fail. Signers choosing to sign an existing header field that occurs more than once in the message (such as Received) MUST sign the physically last instance of that header field in the header block. Signers wishing to sign multiple instances of such a header field MUST include the header field name multiple times in the h= tag of the DKIM-Signature header field, and MUST sign such header fields in order from the bottom of the header field block to the top. The signer MAY include more instances of a header field name in h= than there are actual corresponding header fields to indicate that additional header fields of that name SHOULD NOT be added. INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE: If the signer wishes to sign two existing Received header fields, and the existing header contains: Received: Received: Received: then the resulting DKIM-Signature header field should read: DKIM-Signature: ... h=Received : Received : ... and Received header fields and will be signed in that order. Signers should be careful of signing header fields that might have additional instances added later in the delivery process, since such header fields might be inserted after the signed instance or Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 35] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 otherwise reordered. Trace header fields (such as Received and DKIM- Signature) and Resent-* blocks are the only fields prohibited by [RFC2822] from being reordered. INFORMATIVE ADMONITION: Despite the fact that [RFC2822] permits header fields to be reordered (with the exception of Received header fields), reordering of signed header fields with multiple instances by intermediate MTAs will cause DKIM signatures to be broken; such anti-social behavior should be avoided. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER'S NOTE: Although not required by this specification, all end-user visible header fields should be signed to avoid possible "indirect spamming." For example, if the "Subject" header field is not signed, a spammer can resend a previously signed mail, replacing the legitimate subject with a one-line spam. 5.5 Compute the Message Hash and Signature The signer MUST compute the message hash as described in Section 3.7 and then sign it using the selected public-key algorithm. This will result in a DKIM-Signature header field which will include the body hash and a signature of the header hash, where that header includes the DKIM-Signature header field itself. Entities such as mailing list managers that implement DKIM and which modify the message or a header field (for example, inserting unsubscribe information) before retransmitting the message SHOULD check any existing signature on input and MUST make such modifications before re-signing the message. The signer MAY elect to limit the number of bytes of the body that will be included in the hash and hence signed. The length actually hashed should be inserted in the "l=" tag of the "DKIM-Signature" header field. 5.6 Insert the DKIM-Signature header field Finally, the signer MUST insert the "DKIM-Signature:" header field created in the previous step prior to transmitting the email. The "DKIM-Signature" header field MUST be the same as used to compute the hash as described above, except that the value of the "b=" tag MUST be the appropriately signed hash computed in the previous step, signed using the algorithm specified in the "a=" tag of the "DKIM- Signature" header field and using the private key corresponding to the Selector given in the "s=" tag of the "DKIM-Signature" header field, as chosen above in Section 5.2 Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 36] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 The "DKIM-Signature" MUST be inserted before any other DKIM-Signature fields in the header block. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: The easiest way to achieve this is to insert the "DKIM-Signature" header field at the beginning of the header block. In particular, it may be placed before any existing Received header fields. This is consistent with treating "DKIM-Signature" as a trace header. 6. Verifier Actions Since a signer MAY remove or revoke a public key at any time, it is recommended that verification occur in a timely manner with the most timely place being during acceptance by the border MTA. A border or intermediate MTA MAY verify the message signature(s). An MTA who has performed verification MAY communicate the result of that verification by adding a verification header field to incoming messages. This considerably simplifies things for the user, who can now use an existing mail user agent. Most MUAs have the ability to filter messages based on message header fields or content; these filters would be used to implement whatever policy the user wishes with respect to unsigned mail. A verifying MTA MAY implement a policy with respect to unverifiable mail, regardless of whether or not it applies the verification header field to signed messages. Verifiers MUST produce a result that is semantically equivalent to applying the following steps in the order listed. In practice, several of these steps can be performed in parallel in order to improve performance. 6.1 Extract Signatures from the Message The order in which verifiers try DKIM-Signature header fields is not defined; verifiers MAY try signatures in any order they would like. For example, one implementation might prefer to try the signatures in textual order, whereas another might want to prefer signatures by identities that match the contents of the "From" header field over other identities. Verifiers MUST NOT attribute ultimate meaning to the order of multiple DKIM-Signature header fields. In particular, there is reason to believe that some relays will reorder the header fields in potentially arbitrary ways. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: Verifiers might use the order as a clue to signing order in the absence of any other information. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 37] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 However, other clues as to the semantics of multiple signatures (such as correlating the signing host with Received headers) may also be considered. A verifier SHOULD NOT treat a message that has one or more bad signatures and no good signatures differently from a message with no signature at all; such treatment is a matter of local policy and is beyond the scope of this document. When a signature successfully verifies, a verifier will either stop processing or attempt to verify any other signatures, at the discretion of the implementation. A verifier MAY limit the number of signatures it tries to avoid denial-of-service attacks. INFORMATIVE NOTE: An attacker could send messages with large numbers of faulty signatures, each of which would require a DNS lookup. This could be an attack on the domain that receives the message, by slowing down the verifier by requiring it to do large number of DNS lookups and signature verifications. It could also be an attack against the domains listed in the signatures, essentially by enlisting innocent verifiers in launching an attack against the DNS servers of the actual victim. In the following description, text reading "return status (explanation)" (where "status" is one of "PERMFAIL" or "TEMPFAIL") means that the verifier MUST immediately cease processing that signature. The verifier SHOULD proceed to the next signature, if any is present, and completely ignore the bad signature. If the status is "PERMFAIL", the signature failed and should not be reconsidered. If the status is "TEMPFAIL", the signature could not be verified at this time but may be tried again later. A verifier MAY either defer the message for later processing, perhaps by queueing it locally or issuing a 451/4.7.5 SMTP reply, or try another signature; if no good signature is found and any of the signatures resulted in a TEMPFAIL status, the verifier MAY save the message for later processing. The "(explanation)" is not normative text; it is provided solely for clarification. Verifiers SHOULD ignore any DKIM-Signature header fields where the signature does not validate. Verifiers that are prepared to validate multiple signature header fields SHOULD proceed to the next signature header field, should it exist. However, verifiers MAY make note of the fact that an invalid signature was present for consideration at a later step. INFORMATIVE NOTE: The rationale of this requirement is to permit messages that have invalid signatures but also a valid signature to work. For example, a mailing list exploder might opt to leave Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 38] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 the original submitter signature in place even though the exploder knows that it is modifying the message in some way that will break that signature, and the exploder inserts its own signature. In this case the message should succeed even in the presence of the known-broken signature. For each signature to be validated, the following steps should be performed in such a manner as to produce a result that is semantically equivalent to performing them in the indicated order. 6.1.1 Validate the Signature Header Field Implementers MUST meticulously validate the format and values in the DKIM-Signature header field; any inconsistency or unexpected values MUST cause the header field to be completely ignored and the verifier to return PERMFAIL (signature syntax error). Being "liberal in what you accept" is definitely a bad strategy in this security context. Note however that this does not include the existence of unknown tags in a DKIM-Signature header field, which are explicitly permitted. Verifiers MUST ignore DKIM-Signature header fields with a "v=" tag that is inconsistent with this specification and return PERMFAIL (incompatible version). INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: An implementation may, of course, choose to also verify signatures generated by older versions of this specification. If the DKIM-Signature header field does not contain any of the tags listed as required in Section 3.5 the verifier MUST ignore the DKIM- Signature header field and return PERMFAIL (signature missing required tag). If the "DKIM-Signature" header field does not contain the "i=" tag, the verifier MUST behave as though the value of that tag were "@d", where "d" is the value from the "d=" tag. Verifiers MUST confirm that the domain specified in the "d=" tag is the same as or a parent domain of the domain part of the "i=" tag. If not, the DKIM-Signature header field MUST be ignored and the verifier should return PERMFAIL (domain mismatch). If the "h=" tag does not include the "From" header field the verifier MUST ignore the DKIM-Signature header field and return PERMFAIL (From field not signed). Verifiers MAY ignore the DKIM-Signature header field and return PERMFAIL (signature expired) if it contains an "x=" tag and the Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 39] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 signature has expired. Verifiers MAY ignore the DKIM-Signature header field and return PERMFAIL (unacceptable signature header) for any other reason, for example, if the signature does not sign header fields that the verifier views to be essential. As a case in point, if MIME header fields are not signed, certain attacks may be possible that the verifier would prefer to avoid. 6.1.2 Get the Public Key The public key for a signature is needed to complete the verification process. The process of retrieving the public key depends on the query type as defined by the "q=" tag in the "DKIM-Signature:" header field. Obviously, a public key need only be retrieved if the process of extracting the signature information is completely successful. Details of key management and representation are described in Section 3.6. The verifier MUST validate the key record and MUST ignore any public key records that are malformed. When validating a message, a verifier MUST perform the following steps in a manner that is semantically the same as performing them in the order indicated (in some cases the implementation may parallelize or reorder these steps, as long as the semantics remain unchanged): 1. Retrieve the public key as described in (Section 3.6) using the domain from the "d=" tag and the Selector from the "s=" tag. 2. If the query for the public key fails to respond, the verifier MAY defer acceptance of this email and return TEMPFAIL (key unavailable). If verification is occurring during the incoming SMTP session, this MAY be achieved with a 451/4.7.5 SMTP reply code. Alternatively, the verifier MAY store the message in the local queue for later trial or ignore the signature. Note that storing a message in the local queue is subject to denial-of- service attacks. 3. If the query for the public key fails because the corresponding key record does not exist, the verifier MUST immediately return PERMFAIL (no key for signature). 4. If the query for the public key returns multiple key records, the verifier may choose one of the key records or may cycle through the key records performing the remainder of these steps on each record at the discretion of the implementer. The order of the key records is unspecified. If the verifier chooses to cycle through the key records, then the "return with ..." wording in the remainder of this section means "try the next key record, if Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 40] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 any; if none, return to try another signature in the usual way." 5. If the result returned from the query does not adhere to the format defined in this specification, the verifier MUST ignore the key record and return PERMFAIL (key syntax error). Verifiers are urged to validate the syntax of key records carefully to avoid attempted attacks. 6. If the "g=" tag in the public key does not match the Local-part of the "i=" tag in the message signature header field, the verifier MUST ignore the key record and return PERMFAIL (inapplicable key). If the Local-part of the "i=" tag on the message signature is not present, the g= tag must be * (valid for all addresses in the domain) or the entire g= tag must be omitted (which defaults to "g=*"), otherwise the verifier MUST ignore the key record and return PERMFAIL (inapplicable key). Other than this test, verifiers SHOULD NOT treat a message signed with a key record having a g= tag any differently than one without; in particular, verifiers SHOULD NOT prefer messages that seem to have an individual signature by virtue of a g= tag versus a domain signature. 7. If the "h=" tag exists in the public key record and the hash algorithm implied by the a= tag in the DKIM-Signature header is not included in the contents of the "h=" tag, the verifier MUST ignore the key record and return PERMFAIL (inappropriate hash algorithm). 8. If the public key data (the "p=" tag) is empty then this key has been revoked and the verifier MUST treat this as a failed signature check and return PERMFAIL (key revoked). There is no defined semantic difference between a key that has been revoked and a key record that has been removed. 9. If the public key data is not suitable for use with the algorithm and key types defined by the "a=" and "k=" tags in the "DKIM- Signature" header field, the verifier MUST immediately return PERMFAIL (inappropriate key algorithm). 6.1.3 Compute the Verification Given a signer and a public key, verifying a signature consists of actions semantically equivalent to the following steps. 1. Based on the algorithm defined in the "c=" tag, the body length specified in the "l=" tag, and the header field names in the "h=" tag, prepare a canonicalized version of the message as is Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 41] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 described in Section 3.7 (note that this version does not actually need to be instantiated). When matching header field names in the "h=" tag against the actual message header field, comparisons MUST be case-insensitive. 2. Based on the algorithm indicated in the "a=" tag, compute the message hashes from the canonical copy as described in Section 3.7. 3. Verify that the hash of the canonicalized message body computed in the previous step matches the hash value conveyed in the "bh=" tag. 4. Using the signature conveyed in the "b=" tag, verify the signature against the header hash using the mechanism appropriate for the public key algorithm described in the "a=" tag. If the signature does not validate, the verifier SHOULD ignore the signature and return PERMFAIL (signature did not verify). 5. Otherwise, the signature has correctly verified. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTER'S NOTE: Implementations might wish to initiate the public-key query in parallel with calculating the hash as the public key is not needed until the final decryption is calculated. Implementations may also verify the signature on the message header before validating that the message hash listed in the "bh=" tag in the DKIM-Signature header field matches that of the actual message body; however, if the body hash does not match, the entire signature must be considered to have failed. A body length specified in the "l=" tag of the signature limits the number of bytes of the body passed to the verification algorithm. All data beyond that limit is not validated by DKIM. Hence, verifiers might treat a message that contains bytes beyond the indicated body length with suspicion, such as by truncating the message at the indicated body length, declaring the signature invalid (e.g., by returning PERMFAIL (unsigned content)), or conveying the partial verification to the policy module. INFORMATIVE IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: Verifiers that truncate the body at the indicated body length might pass on a malformed MIME message if the signer used the "N-4" trick described in the informative note in Section 5.5. Such verifiers may wish to check for this case and include a trailing "--CRLF" to avoid breaking the MIME structure. A simple way to achieve this might be to append "--CRLF" to any "multipart" message with a body length; if the MIME structure is already correctly formed, this will appear in the postlude and will not be displayed to the end user. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 42] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 6.2 Communicate Verification Results Verifiers wishing to communicate the results of verification to other parts of the mail system may do so in whatever manner they see fit. For example, implementations might choose to add an email header field to the message before passing it on. Any such header field SHOULD be inserted before any existing DKIM-Signature or preexisting authentication status header fields in the header field block. INFORMATIVE ADVICE to MUA filter writers: Patterns intended to search for results header fields to visibly mark authenticated mail for end users should verify that such header field was added by the appropriate verifying domain and that the verified identity matches the author identity that will be displayed by the MUA. In particular, MUA filters should not be influenced by bogus results header fields added by attackers. Verifiers may wish to delete existing results header fields after verification and before adding a new header field to circumvent this attack. 6.3 Interpret Results/Apply Local Policy It is beyond the scope of this specification to describe what actions a verifier system should make, but an authenticated email presents an opportunity to a receiving system that unauthenticated email cannot. Specifically, an authenticated email creates a predictable identifier by which other decisions can reliably be managed, such as trust and reputation. Conversely, unauthenticated email lacks a reliable identifier that can be used to assign trust and reputation. It is reasonable to treat unauthenticated email as lacking any trust and having no positive reputation. In general verifiers SHOULD NOT reject messages solely on the basis of a lack of signature or an unverifiable signature. However, if the verifier does opt to reject such messages, and the verifier runs synchronously with the SMTP session and a signature is missing or does not verify, the MTA SHOULD reject the message with an error such as: 550 5.7.1 Unsigned messages not accepted 550 5.7.5 Message signature incorrect If it is not possible to fetch the public key, perhaps because the key server is not available, a temporary failure message MAY be generated, such as: Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 43] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 451 4.7.5 Unable to verify signature - key server unavailable A temporary failure of the key server or other external service is the only condition that should use a 4xx SMTP reply code. In particular, signature verification failures MUST NOT return 4xx SMTP replies. Once the signature has been verified, that information MUST be conveyed to higher level systems (such as explicit allow/white lists and reputation systems) and/or to the end user. If the message is signed on behalf of any address other than that in the From: header field, the mail system SHOULD take pains to ensure that the actual signing identity is clear to the reader. The verifier MAY treat unsigned header fields with extreme skepticism, including marking them as untrusted or even deleting them before display to the end user. While the symptoms of a failed verification are obvious -- the signature doesn't verify -- establishing the exact cause can be more difficult. If a Selector cannot be found, is that because the Selector has been removed or was the value changed somehow in transit? If the signature line is missing is that because it was never there, or was it removed by an over-zealous filter? For diagnostic purposes, the exact reason why the verification fails SHOULD be made available to the policy module and possibly recorded in the system logs. However in terms of presentation to the end user, the result SHOULD be presented as a simple binary result: either the email is verified or it is not. If the email cannot be verified, then it SHOULD be rendered the same as all unverified email regardless of whether it looks like it was signed or not. 7. IANA Considerations DKIM introduces some new namespaces that require IANA registry. [[Missing registries for signature t= (flags) tags, as well as key record s= (service type) and t= (flags).]] 7.1 DKIM-Signature Tag Specifications A DKIM-Signature provides for a list of tag specifications. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM Signature Tag Specification Registry, for tag specifications that can be used in DKIM-Signature fields and that have been specified in any published RFC. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 44] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 The initial entries in the registry comprise: +------+-----------------+ | TYPE | RFC | +------+-----------------+ | v | (this document) | | a | (this document) | | b | (this document) | | bh | (this document) | | c | (this document) | | d | (this document) | | h | (this document) | | i | (this document) | | l | (this document) | | q | (this document) | | s | (this document) | | t | (this document) | | x | (this document) | | z | (this document) | +------+-----------------+ 7.2 DKIM-Signature Query Method Registry The "q=" tag-spec, as specified in Section 3.5 provides for a list of query methods. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM Query Method Registry, for mechanisms that can be used to retrieve the key that will permit validation processing of a message signed using DKIM and have been specified in any published RFC. The initial entry in the registry comprises: +------+--------+-----------------+ | TYPE | OPTION | RFC | +------+--------+-----------------+ | dns | txt | (this document) | +------+--------+-----------------+ 7.3 DKIM-Signature Canonicalization Registry The "c=" tag-spec, as specified in Section 3.5 provides for a specifier for canonicalization algorithms for the header and body of the message. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM Canonicalization Algorithm Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 45] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Registry, for algorithms for converting a message into a canonical form before signing or verifying using DKIM and have been specified in any published RFC. The initial entries in the header registry comprise: +---------+-----------------+ | TYPE | RFC | +---------+-----------------+ | simple | (this document) | | relaxed | (this document) | +---------+-----------------+ The initial entries in the body registry comprise: +---------+-----------------+ | TYPE | RFC | +---------+-----------------+ | simple | (this document) | | relaxed | (this document) | +---------+-----------------+ 7.4 _domainkey DNS TXT Record Tag Specifications A _domainkey DNS TXT record provides for a list of tag specifications. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM _domainkey DNS TXT Tag Specification Registry, for tag specifications that can be used in DNS TXT Records and that have been specified in any published RFC. The initial entries in the registry comprise: +------+-----------------+ | TYPE | RFC | +------+-----------------+ | v | (this document) | | g | (this document) | | h | (this document) | | k | (this document) | | n | (this document) | | p | (this document) | | s | (this document) | | t | (this document) | +------+-----------------+ Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 46] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 7.5 DKIM Key Type Registry The "k=" (as specified in Section 3.6.1) and the "a=" (Section 3.5) tags provide for a list of mechanisms that can be used to decode a DKIM signature. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM Key Type Registry, for such mechanisms that have been specified in any published RFC. The initial entry in the registry comprises: +------+---------+ | TYPE | RFC | +------+---------+ | rsa | RFC3447 | +------+---------+ 7.6 DKIM Hash Algorithms Registry The "h=" list (specified in Section 3.6.1) and the "a=" (Section 3.5) provide for a list of mechanisms that can be used to produce a digest of message data. IANA is requested to establish the DKIM Hash Algorithms Registry, for such mechanisms that have been specified in any published RFC. The initial entries in the registry comprise: +--------+-----+ | TYPE | RFC | +--------+-----+ | sha1 | ? | | sha256 | ? | +--------+-----+ 8. Security Considerations It has been observed that any mechanism that is introduced which attempts to stem the flow of spam is subject to intensive attack. DKIM needs to be carefully scrutinized to identify potential attack vectors and the vulnerability to each. See also [ID-DKIM-THREATS]. 8.1 Misuse of Body Length Limits ("l=" Tag) Body length limits (in the form of the "l=" tag) are subject to several potential attacks. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 47] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 8.1.1 Addition of new MIME parts to multipart/* If the body length limit does not cover a closing MIME multipart section (including the trailing ""--CRLF"" portion), then it is possible for an attacker to intercept a properly signed multipart message and add a new body part. Depending on the details of the MIME type and the implementation of the verifying MTA and the receiving MUA, this could allow an attacker to change the information displayed to an end user from an apparently trusted source. For example, if an attacker can append information to a "text/html" body part, they may be able to exploit a bug in some MUAs that continue to read after a "" marker, and thus display HTML text on top of already displayed text. If a message has a "multipart/ alternative" body part, they might be able to add a new body part that is preferred by the displaying MTA. 8.1.2 Addition of new HTML content to existing content Several receiving MUA implementations do not cease display after a """" tag. In particular, this allows attacks involving overlaying images on top of existing text. INFORMATIVE EXAMPLE: Appending the following text to an existing, properly closed message will in many MUAs result in inappropriate data being rendered on top of existing, correct data:
8.2 Misappropriated Private Key If the private key for a user is resident on their computer and is not protected by an appropriately secure mechanism, it is possible for malware to send mail as that user and any other user sharing the same private key. The malware would, however, not be able to generate signed spoofs of other signers' addresses, which would aid in identification of the infected user and would limit the possibilities for certain types of attacks involving socially- engineered messages. This threat applies mainly to MUA-based implementations; protection of private keys on servers can be easily achieved through the use of specialized cryptographic hardware. A larger problem occurs if malware on many users' computers obtains the private keys for those users and transmits them via a covert channel to a site where they can be shared. The compromised users Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 48] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 would likely not know of the misappropriation until they receive "bounce" messages from messages they are purported to have sent. Many users might not understand the significance of these bounce messages and would not take action. One countermeasure is to use a user-entered passphrase to encrypt the private key, although users tend to choose weak passphrases and often reuse them for different purposes, possibly allowing an attack against DKIM to be extended into other domains. Nevertheless, the decoded private key might be briefly available to compromise by malware when it is entered, or might be discovered via keystroke logging. The added complexity of entering a passphrase each time one sends a message would also tend to discourage the use of a secure passphrase. A somewhat more effective countermeasure is to send messages through an outgoing MTA that can authenticate the submitter using existing techniques (e.g., SMTP Authentication), possibly validate the message itself (e.g., verify that the header is legitimate and that the content passes a spam content check), and sign the message using a key appropriate for the submitter address. Such an MTA can also apply controls on the volume of outgoing mail each user is permitted to originate in order to further limit the ability of malware to generate bulk email. 8.3 Key Server Denial-of-Service Attacks Since the key servers are distributed (potentially separate for each domain), the number of servers that would need to be attacked to defeat this mechanism on an Internet-wide basis is very large. Nevertheless, key servers for individual domains could be attacked, impeding the verification of messages from that domain. This is not significantly different from the ability of an attacker to deny service to the mail exchangers for a given domain, although it affects outgoing, not incoming, mail. A variation on this attack is that if a very large amount of mail were to be sent using spoofed addresses from a given domain, the key servers for that domain could be overwhelmed with requests. However, given the low overhead of verification compared with handling of the email message itself, such an attack would be difficult to mount. 8.4 Attacks Against DNS Since DNS is a required binding for key services, specific attacks against DNS must be considered. While the DNS is currently insecure [RFC3833], it is expected that Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 49] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 the security problems should and will be solved by DNSSEC [RFC4033], and all users of the DNS will reap the benefit of that work. Secondly, the types of DNS attacks relevant to DKIM are very costly and are far less rewarding than DNS attacks on other Internet applications. To systematically thwart the intent of DKIM, an attacker must conduct a very costly and very extensive attack on many parts of the DNS over an extended period. No one knows for sure how attackers will respond, however the cost/benefit of conducting prolonged DNS attacks of this nature is expected to be uneconomical. Finally, DKIM is only intended as a "sufficient" method of proving authenticity. It is not intended to provide strong cryptographic proof about authorship or contents. Other technologies such as OpenPGP [RFC2440] and S/MIME [RFC3851] address those requirements. A second security issue related to the DNS revolves around the increased DNS traffic as a consequence of fetching Selector-based data as well as fetching signing domain policy. Widespread deployment of DKIM will result in a significant increase in DNS queries to the claimed signing domain. In the case of forgeries on a large scale, DNS servers could see a substantial increase in queries. 8.5 Replay Attacks In this attack, a spammer sends a message to be spammed to an accomplice, which results in the message being signed by the originating MTA. The accomplice resends the message, including the original signature, to a large number of recipients, possibly by sending the message to many compromised machines that act as MTAs. The messages, not having been modified by the accomplice, have valid signatures. Partial solutions to this problem involve the use of reputation services to convey the fact that the specific email address is being used for spam, and that messages from that signer are likely to be spam. This requires a real-time detection mechanism in order to react quickly enough. However, such measures might be prone to abuse, if for example an attacker resent a large number of messages received from a victim in order to make them appear to be a spammer. Large verifiers might be able to detect unusually large volumes of mails with the same signature in a short time period. Smaller verifiers can get substantially the same volume information via existing collaborative systems. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 50] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 8.6 Limits on Revoking Keys When a large domain detects undesirable behavior on the part of one of its users, it might wish to revoke the key used to sign that user's messages in order to disavow responsibility for messages which have not yet been verified or which are the subject of a replay attack. However, the ability of the domain to do so can be limited if the same key, for scalability reasons, is used to sign messages for many other users. Mechanisms for explicitly revoking keys on a per-address basis have been proposed but require further study as to their utility and the DNS load they represent. 8.7 Intentionally malformed Key Records It is possible for an attacker to publish key records in DNS which are intentionally malformed, with the intent of causing a denial-of- service attack on a non-robust verifier implementation. The attacker could then cause a verifier to read the malformed key record by sending a message to one of its users referencing the malformed record in a (not necessarily valid) signature. Verifiers MUST thoroughly verify all key records retrieved from DNS and be robust against intentionally as well as unintentionally malformed key records. 8.8 Intentionally Malformed DKIM-Signature header fields Verifiers MUST be prepared to receive messages with malformed DKIM- Signature header fields, and thoroughly verify the header field before depending on any of its contents. 8.9 Information Leakage An attacker could determine when a particular signature was verified by using a per-message Selector and then monitoring their DNS traffic for the key lookup. This would act as the equivalent of a "web bug" for verification time rather than when the message was read. 8.10 Remote Timing Attacks In some cases it may be possible to extract private keys using a remote timing attack [BONEH03]. Implementations should consider obfuscating the timing to prevent such attacks. 9. References Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 51] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 9.1 Normative References [RFC2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996. [RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) Part Three: Message header field Extensions for Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047, November 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2821] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 2821, April 2001. [RFC2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822, April 2001. [RFC3447] Jonsson, J. and B. Kaliski, "Public-Key Cryptography Standards (PKCS) #1: RSA Cryptography Specifications Version 2.1", RFC 3447, February 2003. [RFC3492] Costello, A., "Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Application(IDNA)", March 2003. [RFC4234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", RFC 4234, October 2005. [X.660] "ITU-T Recommendation X.660 Information Technology - ASN.1 encoding rules: Specification of Basic Encoding Rules (BER), Canonical Encoding Rules (CER) and Distinguished Encoding Rules (DER)", 1997. 9.2 Informative References [BONEH03] Proc. 12th USENIX Security Symposium, "Remote Timing Attacks are Practical", 2003, . [ID-DKIM-THREATS] Fenton, J., "Analysis of Threats Motivating DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)", draft-fenton-dkim-threats-02 (work in progress), April 2006. [RFC1847] Galvin, J., Murphy, S., Crocker, S., and N. Freed, "Security Multiparts for MIME: Multipart/Signed and Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 52] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Multipart/Encrypted", RFC 1847, October 1995. [RFC2440] Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., and R. Thayer, "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 2440, November 1998. [RFC3766] Orman, H. and P. Hoffman, "Determining Strengths for Public Keys Used For Exchanging Symmetric Keys", RFC 3766, April 2004. [RFC3833] Atkins, D. and R. Austein, "Threat Analysis of the Domain Name System (DNS)", RFC 3833, August 2004. [RFC3851] Ramsdell, B., "S/MIME Version 3 Message Specification", RFC 3851, June 1999. [RFC4033] Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. Rose, "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements", RFC 4033, March 2005. Authors' Addresses Eric Allman Sendmail, Inc. 6425 Christie Ave, Suite 400 Emeryville, CA 94608 USA Phone: +1 510 594 5501 Email: eric+dkim@sendmail.org URI: Jon Callas PGP Corporation 3460 West Bayshore Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA Phone: +1 650 319 9016 Email: jon@pgp.com Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 53] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Mark Delany Yahoo! Inc 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 95087 USA Phone: +1 408 349 6831 Email: markd+dkim@yahoo-inc.com URI: Miles Libbey Yahoo! Inc 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 95087 USA Email: mlibbeymail-mailsig@yahoo.com URI: Jim Fenton Cisco Systems, Inc. MS SJ-24/2 170 W. Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134-1706 USA Phone: +1 408 526 5914 Email: fenton@cisco.com URI: Michael Thomas Cisco Systems, Inc. MS SJ-9/2 170 W. Tasman Drive San Jose, CA 95134-1706 Phone: +1 408 525 5386 Email: mat@cisco.com Appendix A. Example of Use (INFORMATIVE) This section shows the complete flow of an email from submission to final delivery, demonstrating how the various components fit together. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 54] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 A.1 The user composes an email From: Joe SixPack To: Suzie Q Subject: Is dinner ready? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com> Hi. We lost the game. Are you hungry yet? Joe. A.2 The email is signed This email is signed by the example.com outbound email server and now looks like this: DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; s=brisbane; d=example.com; c=simple; q=dns/txt; i=joe@football.example.com; h=Received : From : To : Subject : Date : Message-ID; bh=ZSVEYuq4ri3LR9S+qjlzCP+LxvJrIfrOI2g5hxp5+MI=; b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ VoG4ZHRNiYzR; Received: from dsl-10.2.3.4.football.example.com [10.2.3.4] by submitserver.example.com with SUBMISSION; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Joe SixPack To: Suzie Q Subject: Is dinner ready? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com> Hi. We lost the game. Are you hungry yet? Joe. The signing email server requires access to the private-key associated with the "brisbane" Selector to generate this signature. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 55] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 A.3 The email signature is verified The signature is normally verified by an inbound SMTP server or possibly the final delivery agent. However, intervening MTAs can also perform this verification if they choose to do so. The verification process uses the domain "example.com" extracted from the "d=" tag and the Selector "brisbane" from the "s=" tag in the "DKIM- Signature" header field to form the DNS DKIM query for: brisbane._domainkey.example.com Signature verification starts with the physically last "Received" header field, the "From" header field, and so forth, in the order listed in the "h=" tag. Verification follows with a single CRLF followed by the body (starting with "Hi."). The email is canonically prepared for verifying with the "simple" method. The result of the query and subsequent verification of the signature is stored in the "Authentication-Results" header field line. After successful verification, the email looks like this: X-Authentication-Results: shopping.example.net header.from=joe@football.example.com; dkim=pass Received: from mout23.football.example.com (192.168.1.1) by shopping.example.net with SMTP; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:59 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; s=brisbane; d=example.com; c=simple; q=dns/txt; i=joe@football.example.com; h=Received : From : To : Subject : Date : Message-ID; bh=ZSVEYuq4ri3LR9S+qjlzCP+LxvJrIfrOI2g5hxp5+MI=; b=dzdVyOfAKCdLXdJOc9G2q8LoXSlEniSbav+yuU4zGeeruD00lszZ VoG4ZHRNiYzR Received: from dsl-10.2.3.4.network.example.com [10.2.3.4] by submitserver.example.com with SUBMISSION; Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:01:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Joe SixPack To: Suzie Q Subject: Is dinner ready? Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 21:00:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20030712040037.46341.5F8J@football.example.com> Hi. We lost the game. Are you hungry yet? Joe. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 56] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Appendix B. Usage Examples (INFORMATIVE) Studies in this appendix are for informational purposes only. In no case should these examples be used as guidance when creating an implementation. B.1 Simple Message Forwarding In some cases the recipient may request forwarding of email messages from the original address to another, through the use of a Unix .forward file or equivalent. In this case messages are typically forwarded without modification, except for the addition of a Received header field to the message and a change in the Envelope-to address. In this case, the eventual recipient should be able to verify the original signature since the signed content has not changed, and attribute the message correctly. B.2 Outsourced Business Functions Outsourced business functions represent a use case that motivates the need for Selectors (the "s=" signature tag) and granularity (the "g=" key tag). Examples of outsourced business functions are legitimate email marketing providers and corporate benefits providers. In either case, the outsourced function would like to be able to send messages using the email domain of the client company. At the same time, the client may be reluctant to register a key for the provider that grants the ability to send messages for any address in the domain. The outsourcing company can generate a keypair and the client company can register the public key using a unique Selector for a specific address such as winter-promotions@example.com by specifying a granularity of "g=winter-promotions" or "g=*-promotions" (to allow a range of addresses). This would enable the provider to send messages using that specific address and have them verify properly. The client company retains control over the email address because it retains the ability to revoke the key at any time. B.3 PDAs and Similar Devices PDAs are one example of the use of multiple keys per user. Suppose that John Doe wanted to be able to send messages using his corporate email address, jdoe@example.com, and the device did not have the ability to make a VPN connection to the corporate network. If the device was equipped with a private key registered for jdoe@example.com by the administrator of that domain, and appropriate software to sign messages, John could send signed messages through the outgoing network of the PDA service provider. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 57] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 B.4 Mailing Lists There is a wide range of behavior in forwarders and mailing lists (collectively called "forwarders" below), ranging from those which make no modification to the message itself (other than to add a Received header field and change the envelope information) to those which may add header fields, change the Subject header field, add content to the body (typically at the end), or reformat the body in some manner. Forwarders which do not modify the body or signed header fields of a message with a valid signature may re-sign the message as described below. Forwarders which make any modification to a message that could result in its signature becoming invalid should sign or re-sign using an appropriate identification (e.g., mailing-list-name@example.net). Since in so doing the (re-)signer is taking responsibility for the content of the message, modifying forwarders may elect to forward or re-sign only for messages which were received with valid signatures or other indications that the messages being signed are not spoofed. Forwarders which wish to re-sign a message must apply a Sender header field to the message to identify the address being used to sign the message and must remove any preexisting Sender header field as required by [RFC2822]. The forwarder applies a new DKIM-Signature header field with the signature, public key, and related information of the forwarder. B.5 Affinity Addresses "Affinity addresses" are email addresses that users employ to have an email address that is independent of any changes in email service provider they may choose to make. They are typically associated with college alumni associations, professional organizations, and recreational organizations with which they expect to have a long-term relationship. These domains usually provide forwarding of incoming email, but (currently) usually depend on the user to send outgoing messages through their own service provider's MTA. They usually have an associated Web application which authenticates the user and allows the forwarding address to be changed. With DKIM, affinity domains could use the Web application to allow users to register their own public keys to be used to sign messages on behalf of their affinity address. This is another application that takes advantage of user-level keying, and domains used for affinity addresses would typically have a very large number of user- level keys. Alternatively, the affinity domain could handle outgoing Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 58] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 mail, operating a mail submission agent that authenticates users before accepting and signing messages for them. This is of course dependent on the user's service provider not blocking the relevant TCP ports used for mail submission. B.6 Third-party Message Transmission Third-party message transmission refers to the authorized sending of mail by an Internet application on behalf of a user. For example, a website providing news may allow the reader to forward a copy of the message to a friend; this is typically done using the reader's email address. This is sometimes referred to as the "Evite problem", named after the website of the same name that allows a user to send invitations to friends. One way this can be handled is to continue to put the reader's email address in the From header field of the message, but put an address owned by the site into the Sender header field, and sign the message on behalf of that address. A verifying MTA could accept this and rewrite the From header field to indicate the address that was verified, i.e., From: John Doe via news@news-site.com . (However, such rewriting must be done after the verification pass is complete, and will break any later attempts to re-verify.) B.7 SMTP Servers for Roaming Users Roaming users may find themselves in circumstances where it is convenient or necessary to use an SMTP server other than their home server; examples are IETF conferences and many hotels. In such circumstances the signature, if any, will be added by a party other than the user's home system. Ideally roaming users would connect back to their home server using either a VPN or a SUBMISSION server running with SMTP AUTHentication on port 587. If the signing can be performed on the roaming user's laptop then they can sign before submission, although the risk of further modification may be high. If neither of these are possible, these roaming users will not be able to send mail signed using their own domain key. Appendix C. Creating a public key (INFORMATIVE) The default signature is an RSA signed SHA256 digest of the complete email. For ease of explanation, the openssl command is used to describe the mechanism by which keys and signatures are managed. One way to generate a 1024 bit, unencrypted private-key suitable for DKIM, is to use openssl like this: Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 59] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 $ openssl genrsa -out rsa.private 1024 For increased security, the "-passin" parameter can also be added to encrypt the private key. Use of this parameter will require entering a password for several of the following steps. Servers may prefer to use hardware cryptographic support. The "genrsa" step results in the file rsa.private containing the key information similar to this: -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- MIICXwIBAAKBgQDwIRP/UC3SBsEmGqZ9ZJW3/DkMoGeLnQg1fWn7/zYtIxN2SnFC jxOCKG9v3b4jYfcTNh5ijSsq631uBItLa7od+v/RtdC2UzJ1lWT947qR+Rcac2gb to/NMqJ0fzfVjH4OuKhitdY9tf6mcwGjaNBcWToIMmPSPDdQPNUYckcQ2QIDAQAB AoGBALmn+XwWk7akvkUlqb+dOxyLB9i5VBVfje89Teolwc9YJT36BGN/l4e0l6QX /1//6DWUTB3KI6wFcm7TWJcxbS0tcKZX7FsJvUz1SbQnkS54DJck1EZO/BLa5ckJ gAYIaqlA9C0ZwM6i58lLlPadX/rtHb7pWzeNcZHjKrjM461ZAkEA+itss2nRlmyO n1/5yDyCluST4dQfO8kAB3toSEVc7DeFeDhnC1mZdjASZNvdHS4gbLIA1hUGEF9m 3hKsGUMMPwJBAPW5v/U+AWTADFCS22t72NUurgzeAbzb1HWMqO4y4+9Hpjk5wvL/ eVYizyuce3/fGke7aRYw/ADKygMJdW8H/OcCQQDz5OQb4j2QDpPZc0Nc4QlbvMsj 7p7otWRO5xRa6SzXqqV3+F0VpqvDmshEBkoCydaYwc2o6WQ5EBmExeV8124XAkEA qZzGsIxVP+sEVRWZmW6KNFSdVUpk3qzK0Tz/WjQMe5z0UunY9Ax9/4PVhp/j61bf eAYXunajbBSOLlx4D+TunwJBANkPI5S9iylsbLs6NkaMHV6k5ioHBBmgCak95JGX GMot/L2x0IYyMLAz6oLWh2hm7zwtb0CgOrPo1ke44hFYnfc= -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- To extract the public-key component from the private-key, use openssl like this: $ openssl rsa -in rsa.private -out rsa.public -pubout -outform PEM This results in the file rsa.public containing the key information similar to this: -----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQDwIRP/UC3SBsEmGqZ9ZJW3/DkM oGeLnQg1fWn7/zYtIxN2SnFCjxOCKG9v3b4jYfcTNh5ijSsq631uBItLa7od+v/R tdC2UzJ1lWT947qR+Rcac2gbto/NMqJ0fzfVjH4OuKhitdY9tf6mcwGjaNBcWToI MmPSPDdQPNUYckcQ2QIDAQAB -----END PUBLIC KEY----- This public-key data (without the BEGIN and END tags) is placed in the DNS. With the signature, canonical email contents, and public key, a verifying system can test the validity of the signature. The Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 60] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 openssl invocation to verify a signature looks like this: openssl dgst -verify rsa.public -sha256 -signature signature.file \ . Appendix F. Edit History [[This section to be removed before publication.]] F.1 Changes since -ietf-03 version The following changes were made between draft-ietf-dkim-base-03 and draft-ietf-dkim-base-04: o Re-worded Abstract to avoid use of "prove" and "non-repudiation". o Use dot-atom-text instead of dot-atom to avoid inclusion of CFWS. o Capitalize Selector throughout. o Add discussion of plain text, mentioning informatively that implementors should plan for eventual 8-bit requirements. o Drop RSA requirement of exponent of 65537 (not required, since it is already in the key) and clarify the key format. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 62] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 o Drop SHOULD that DKIM-Signature should precede header fields that it signs. o Mention that wildcard DNS records MUST NOT be used for selector records. o Add section 3.8 to clarify the t=s flag. o Change the list of header fields that MUST be signed to include only From. o Require that verifier check that From is in the list of signed header fields. o Drop all reference to draft-kucherawy-sender-auth-header draft. o Substantially expand Section 7 (IANA Considerations) to include initial registries. o Add section B.7 (use case: SMTP Servers for Roaming Users). o Add several examples; update some others. o Considerable minor editorial updating to clarify language, delete redundant text, fix spelling errors, etc. Still to be resolved: o How does "simple" body canonicalization interact with BINARYMIME data? o Deal with "relaxed" body canonicalizations, especially in regard to bare CRs and NLs. o How to handle "*" in g= dot-atom-text (which allows "*" as a literal character). o The IANA Considerations need to be completed and cleaned up. F.2 Changes since -ietf-02 version The following changes were made between draft-ietf-dkim-base-02 and draft-ietf-dkim-base-03: o Section 5.2: changed key expiration text to be informational; drop "seven day" wording in favor of something vaguer. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 63] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 o Don't indicate that the "i=" tag value should be passed to the key lookup service; this can be added as an extension if required. o Move Section 6.6 (MUA Considerations) to be Appendix D and modify it to avoid any hint of normative language. o Soften the DKIM_STAT_ language in section 6 so that it doesn't appear normative. This involved using only PERMFAIL and TEMPFAIL as status, with parenthetical explanations. o Restructured section 6 to make it clearer which steps apply on a per-signature basis versus a per-message basis. o Clarification of "signing identity" in several places. o Clarification that DKIM-Signature header fields being signed by another DKIM-Signature header field should be treated as a normal header field (i.e., their "b=" field is unchanged). o Change ABNF on a= tag to separate the public key algorithm from the hash algorithm. o Add t=s flag in key record to disallow subdomains in the i= tag relative to the d= tag of the DKIM-Signature header field. o Add a new definition for "dkim-quoted-printable", which is a simple case of quoted-printable from RFC2045. dkim-quoted- printable requires that all white space in the original text be escaped, and all unescaped white space in the encoded field should be ignored to allow arbitrary wrapping of the header fields which may contain the content. o Use dkim-quoted-printable as the encoding used in z= rather than referring to RFC2045, since they are different. o Rewrite description of g= tag in the key record. o Deleted use of Domain in ABNF, which permits address-literals; define domain-name to act in stead. F.3 Changes since -ietf-01 version The following changes were made between draft-ietf-dkim-base-01 and draft-ietf-dkim-base-02: o Change wording on "x=" tag in DKIM-Signature header field regarding verifier handling of expired signatures from MUST to MAY Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 64] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 (per 20 April Jabber session). Also, make it clear that received time is to be preferred over current time if reliably available. o Several changes to limit wording that would intrude into verifier policy. This is largely changing statements such as "... MUST reject the message" to "... MUST consider the signature invalid." o Drop normative references to ID-DKIM-RR, OpenSSL, PEM, and Stringprep. o Change "v=" tag in DKIM-Signature from "MUST NOT" to "MUST"; the version number is 0.2 for this draft, with the expectation that the first official version will be "v=1". (Per 18 May Jabber session.) o Change "q=dns" query access method to "q=dnstxt" to emphasize the use of the TXT record. The expectation is that a later extension will define "q=dnsdkk" to indicate use of a DKK record. (Per 18 May Jabber session.) o Several typos fixed, including removing a paragraph that implied that the DKIM-Signature header field should be hashed with the body (it should not). F.4 Changes since -ietf-00 version The following changes were made between draft-ietf-dkim-base-00 and draft-ietf-dkim-base-01: o Added section 8.9 (Information Leakage). o Replace section 4 (Multiple Signatures) with much less vague text. o Fixed ABNF for base64string. o Added rsa-sha256 signing algorithm. o Expanded several examples. o Changed signing algorithm to use separate hash of the body of the message; this is represented as the "bh=" tag in the DKIM- Signature header field. o Changed "z=" tag so that it need not have the same header field names as the "h=" tag. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 65] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 o Significant wordsmithing. F.5 Changes since -allman-01 version The following changes were made between draft-allman-dkim-base-01 and draft-ietf-dkim-base-00: o Remove references to Sender Signing Policy document. Such consideration is implicitly included in Section 6.3. o Added ABNF for all tags. o Updated references (still includes some references to expired drafts, notably ID-AUTH-RES. o Significant wordsmithing. F.6 Changes since -allman-00 version The following changes were made between draft-allman-dkim-base-00 and draft-allman-dkim-base-01: o Changed "c=" tag to separate out header from body canonicalization. o Eliminated "nowsp" canonicalization in favor of "relaxed", which is somewhat less relaxed (but more secure) than "nowsp". o Moved the (empty) Compliance section to the Sender Signing Policy document. o Added several IANA Considerations. o Fixed a number of grammar and formatting errors. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 66] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. 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Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 67] Internet-Draft DKIM Signatures July 2006 Acknowledgment Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Allman, et al. Expires January 16, 2007 [Page 68]