NSIS Authentication, Authorization and Accounting Issues (draft-tschofenig-nsis-aaa-issues-00.txt) Authors: Hannes Tschofenig Henning Schulzrinne Maarten Buechli Sven Van den Bosch

Draft Scope This draft is: A first attempt to describe AAA issues relevant for NSIS. It points to the importance of authorization/charging for QoS signaling. The draft is not: A summary of mathematical pricing models A new protocol proposal A motivation for a certain architecture

Authorization = ability to charge someone1 Introduction At the last IETF Steve Bellovin talked about security issues in NSIS. He pointed to the importance of authorization for an NSIS protocol. An interesting aspect of authorization for QoS signaling is: Authorization = ability to charge someone1 1 There are other authorization issues (e.g. session ownership).

Introduction (cont.) Authorization has an implication on the security architecture. We looked at two possible models: New Jersey Turnpike Model New Jersey Parkway Model

New Jersey Turnpike Model Network A Network B Network C Data Sender Data Receiver Node B Node A Peering relationship is used to provide charging between neighboring networks Similar to edge pricing proposed by Schenker et. al.

NJ Turnpike Model Issues Establishment of the financial settlement between end host (data sender favorable) and access network based on network access procedure (not per-session based) Simple (if data sender is charged for the reservation) More difficult: receiver-initiated signaling and charging for data receiver Unfortunately it is possible to fully avoid reverse charging (e.g. #800 numbers).

New Jersey Parkway Model Network A Network B Network C Direct AAA relationship to intermediate networks Data Sender Data Receiver Node B Node A Financial settlement has to be provided on a per-session basis More complex: financial settlement to intermediate networks required (authentication alone is insufficient)

NJ Parkway Model Issues Trusted third party might be required such as a clearing house since intermediate networks have no direct relationship to end host Financial settlement has to be provided on a per-session basis  scalability and deployment problem More flexible signaling protocol functionality required: A route change might require interaction with end host. Signaling protocol might support the possibility for intermediate networks to interact with the end host Aggregation in the core network might be difficult to use if per-session information is required for charging.

Who is charged for what? Basic question: Charging for data sender or data receiver Sender- vs. receiver oriented signaling adds some issues but is not the source of the problem. What is the problem? Per-session based establishment of financial settlement Example: Sender-initiated reservation with charging for data receiver (see next slide)

Sender-initiated reservation with charging for data receiver Network A Network B Network C RESV RESV RESV RESV “Authorization Information” Data Sender Data Receiver Node B Node A Node A indicates that some other entity is paying for the reservation. Why should Network A authorize the reservation request?

Not enough problems already? Price Distribution Price for a QoS reservation:  Price cannot be deferred from the destination IP address alone (unlike telephone numbers)  Price distribution required (can be in-band, out-of-band or a combination of both)  Price depends on the route (number of traversed networks)  Price is directional (due to cost and route asymmetry) An end user wants to know the price before issuing a reservation request.

Price distribution Building Blocks A resource negotiation and pricing protocol (RNAP) An embedded charging approach for RSVP Border Pricing Protocol (BPP) Billing Information Protocol (BIP) Tariff Distribution Protocol (TDP) Internet Open Trading Protocol (IOTP) Open Settlement Protocol (OSP) Not surprising: Many of these protocols require the same properties as a QoS signaling protocol.

Conclusion Peer-to-peer security is fine for a simple charging model (NJ Turnpike). Authorization issues needs additional security protection. Charging is not only an end-to-end (application) issue. The network needs some information. Some authorization/charging objects have to be included into a NSIS protocol. An NSIS protocol needs to be flexible. (e.g. support for several roundtrips).