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IMAP UNAUTHENTICATE Extension for Connection Reuse
draft-ietf-extra-imap-unauth-01

The information below is for an old version of the document that is already published as an RFC.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8437.
Author Chris Newman
Last updated 2018-08-24 (Latest revision 2018-06-07)
Replaces draft-extra-imap-unauth
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Intended RFC status Proposed Standard
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Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Bron Gondwana
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2018-03-29
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8437 (Proposed Standard)
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(None)
Consensus boilerplate Yes
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD Alexey Melnikov
Send notices to Bron Gondwana <brong@fastmailteam.com>
IANA IANA review state IANA OK - Actions Needed
IANA action state RFC-Ed-Ack
draft-ietf-extra-imap-unauth-01
Network Working Group                                          C. Newman
Internet-Draft                                                    Oracle
Updates: 3501 (if approved)                                 June 7, 2018
Intended status: Standards Track
Expires: December 9, 2018

                IMAP UNAUTHENTICATE for Connection Reuse
                    draft-ietf-extra-imap-unauth-01

Abstract

   This specification extends the Internet Message Access Protocol
   (IMAP) to allow an administrative client to reuse the same IMAP
   connection on behalf of multiple IMAP user identities.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   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."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 9, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions Used in This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  UNAUTHENTICATE Command  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Interactions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.1.  Stateful Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.2.  Client Certificates, SASL EXTERNAL and imaps  . . . . . .   5
   5.  Revised State Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  Formal Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   9.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   Appendix A.  Design Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Appendix B.  Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   Modern IMAP [RFC3501] server deployments often have peer systems with
   administrative privilege that perform actions on behalf of IMAP end-
   users.  For example, a voice mail gateway can use IMAP to store a
   user's voicemail and mark that voicemail as \Seen when the user
   listens to it via the phone interface.  These systems can issue the
   IMAP AUTHENTICATE command with administrative credentials to act on
   behalf of other users.  However, with the IMAP base specification,
   these specialized IMAP clients must close the connection and create a
   new connection for each user.  For efficiency reasons, it is
   desirable for these clients to reuse the same connection,
   particularly if SSL has been negotiated.  This specification proposes
   the UNAUTHENTICATE command to achieve this goal.

   The IMAP state machine described in section 3 of RFC 3501 does not
   have a transition from authenticated or selected state to not
   authenticated state.  The UNAUTHENTICATE command adds a transition
   from authenticated or selected state to not authenticated state.

2.  Conventions Used in This Document

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP
   14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

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3.  UNAUTHENTICATE Command

   Arguments:  None

   Responses:  no specific response for this command

   Result:     OK - completed, now in not authenticated state
               BAD - command unknown or arguments invalid

   This command directs the server to reset all connection state, except
   for state at the TLS [RFC5246] layer.  Upon completion, the server
   connection is placed in not authenticated state.  This represents
   transition 7 in the State Machine Diagram (Section 5).

   If a mailbox was selected, the mailbox ceases to be selected but no
   expunge event is generated.  If a SASL [RFC4422] security layer was
   active, the server terminates its outgoing security layer immediately
   after sending the CRLF following the OK response.  The client's
   outgoing security layer terminates immediately after the CRLF
   following the UNAUTHENTICATE command.  Note that a BAD response only
   occurs if UNAUTHENTICATE is issued in an invalid state, is not
   advertised by the server, or does not follow the command syntax in
   the specification, and a NO response is not permitted.  As a result,
   specification-compliant implementations will interoperate across
   security layer termination.

   After sending this command, the client is free to issue a new
   AUTHENTICATE or LOGIN command as permitted based on the server's
   capabilities.  If no SASL security layer was active, the client is
   permitted to pipeline the UNAUTHENTICATE command with a subsequent
   AUTHENTICATE command.  If the IMAP server also advertises SASL-IR
   [RFC4959], this permits an administrative client to re-authenticate
   in one round trip.  Because of this pipelining optimization, a server
   advertising UNAUTHENTICATE is not permitted to respond to the
   UNAUTHENTICATE command with a NO response if it is unable to reset
   state associated with the connection.  Servers MAY close the
   connection with an untagged BYE response if this preferably rare
   situation occurs.

   Servers MAY choose to advertise the UNAUTHENTICATE capability only
   after authentication has completed.  As a result, clients may need to
   issue an IMAP CAPABILITY command after authentication in order to
   determine the availability of UNAUTHENTICATE.

   The IMAP ID [RFC2971] command provides properties about the client
   primarily for use in server log or audit files.  Because IMAP ID is
   not related to application authentication or user identity in any way
   and caching it for the duration of the client connection can be

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   useful, the interaction between IMAP ID and the UNAUTHENTICATE
   command is implementation defined.

4.  Interactions

   This section describes interactions between this extension and other
   IMAP extensions or usage models.

4.1.  Stateful Extensions

   The connection state for the following list of IMAP extensions MUST
   be reset if both the specified extension is advertised and the
   UNAUTHENTICATE command is advertised and used.  This list may not be
   complete; the requirement to reset connection state applies to all
   current and future extensions except STARTTLS and ID.  Additional
   requirements apply to specific stateful extensions as follows:

   o  Cached identity information, such a group memberships, that are
      used to evaluate access control lists [RFC4314] MUST be reset.

   o  CONDSTORE servers [RFC7162] MUST behave as if no CONDSTORE
      enabling command had been issued after an UNAUTHENTICATE command
      is issued.

   o  If IMAP COMPRESS [RFC4978] is active, the server terminates its
      outgoing compression layer after it sends the CRLF following the
      OK response.  The client terminates its outgoing compression layer
      after the CRLF following the UNAUTHENTICATE command.  In the event
      it matters, the compression layer terminates before a SASL layer
      terminates.

   o  Any extensions enabled by the IMAP ENABLE [RFC5161] command cease
      to be enabled when the UNAUTHENTICATE command is issued.  This
      includes, but is not limited to, CONDSTORE [RFC7162], QRESYNC
      [RFC7162], METADATA [RFC5464], METADATA-SERVER [RFC5464] and
      UTF8=ACCEPT [RFC6855].

   o  A server advertising SEARCHRES [RFC5182] discards any saved search
      results so that '$' subsequently represents the empty set.

   o  A server advertising LANGUAGE [RFC5255] will revert to the
      "i-default" language.

   o  When a server advertises CONTEXT=SEARCH or CONTEXT=SORT [RFC5267],
      the UNAUTHENTICATE command includes an implicit CANCELUPDATE for
      all server contexts.

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   o  When a server advertises NOTIFY [RFC5465], the UNAUTHENTICATE
      command cancels server state related to the NOTIFY command and
      reverts to default IMAP base-specification behavior for
      notifications.

4.2.  Client Certificates, SASL EXTERNAL and imaps

   When a TLS [RFC5246] security layer is negotiated either via the
   STARTTLS command or use of the imaps port [RFC8314], IMAP servers may
   be configured to request a client certificate and IMAP clients may
   provide one.  Client credentials at the TLS layer do not normally
   impact the application layer without use of the SASL EXTERNAL
   mechanism [RFC4422] in an IMAP AUTHENTICATE command that directs the
   server to use the provided client certificate to authenticate as the
   specified IMAP user.  The UNAUTHENTICATE command breaks any
   application-level binding of the TLS client credentials but does not
   discard the client credentials.  As a result, an administrative
   client may use a client certificate with administrative privilege to
   act on behalf of multiple IMAP users in the same connection via the
   EXTERNAL mechanism and the UNAUTHENTICATE command.

   Some server implementations using the imaps port will request and use
   a TLS client certificate to authenticate immediately as the default
   IMAP identity associated with that certificate.  These
   implementations indicate this behavior by using the PREAUTH greeting
   as indicated by transition 2 in the State Machine Diagram
   (Section 5).  As a result, TLS client certificates can not be used
   for administrative proxy authentication with the imaps port unless
   the UNAUTHENTICATE command is also advertised.  In that case, an
   administrative client can respond to the PREAUTH greeting with an
   UNAUTHENTICATE command and then issue an AUTHENTICATE EXTERNAL
   command.

5.  Revised State Machine

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                      +----------------------+
                      |connection established|
                      +----------------------+
                                 ||
                                 \/
               +--------------------------------------+
               |          server greeting             |
               +--------------------------------------+
                         || (1)       || (2)        || (3)
                         \/           ||            ||
               +-----------------+    ||            ||
               |Not Authenticated|<===||=========++ ||
               +-----------------+    ||     (7) || ||
                || (8)   || (4)       ||         || ||
                ||       \/           \/         || ||
                ||     +----------------+        || ||
                ||     |                |========++ ||
                ||     | Authenticated  |<=++    || ||
                ||     +----------------+  ||    || ||
                ||       || (8)   || (5)   ||(6) || ||
                ||       ||       \/       ||    || ||
                ||       ||    +--------+  ||    || ||
                ||       ||    |Selected|==++    || ||
                ||       ||    |        |========++ ||
                ||       ||    +--------+           ||
                ||       ||       || (8)            ||
                \/       \/       \/                \/
               +--------------------------------------+
               |               Logout                 |
               +--------------------------------------+
                                 ||
                                 \/
                   +-------------------------------+
                   |both sides close the connection|
                   +-------------------------------+

   Revised IMAP state machine transitions:

   1.  connection without pre-authentication (OK greeting)

   2.  pre-authenticated connection (PREAUTH greeting)

   3.  rejected connection (BYE greeting)

   4.  successful LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE command

   5.  successful SELECT or EXAMINE command

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   6.  CLOSE, UNSELECT [RFC3691] or failed SELECT or EXAMINE command

   7.  UNAUTHENTICATE command

   8.  LOGOUT command, server shutdown, or connection closed

6.  Formal Syntax

   The following syntax specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur
   Form (ABNF) as described in [RFC5234].  Amended terms are defined in
   [RFC3501].

     capability     =/ "UNAUTHENTICATE"

     command-auth   =/ "UNAUTHENTICATE"

     command-select =/ "UNAUTHENTICATE"

7.  IANA Considerations

   The IANA shall add the UNAUTHENTICATE capability to the IMAP4
   Capabilities Registry.

8.  Security Considerations

   The original IMAP state machine was designed to allow a server
   implementation approach where each IMAP authentication identity
   matches an operating system identity and the server revokes all
   administrative privilege once authentication completes.  This
   extension is not compatible with that implementation approach.
   However, that approach has significant performance costs on Unix
   systems, and this extension is designed for environments where
   efficiency is a relatively high priority deployment goal.  So this
   extension is appropriate for some deployments but may not be
   appropriate for the most security sensitive environments.

   IMAP server implementations are complicated and can retain a lot of
   state related to an authenticated user.  Server implementers need to
   take care to reset all server state such that authentication as a
   subsequent user does not inherit any data or privileges from the
   previous user.  State data associated with a user can include cached
   identity information such as group membership used to evaluate access
   control lists [RFC4314], active notifications [RFC5465], access to
   per-user data such as flags, etc.

   IMAP server systems are often deployed in a two-tier model where a
   server-side IMAP proxy routes to an IMAP back-end which handles all
   connections for a subset of possible users.  Some IMAP proxies enter

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   a pass-through mode after authentication.  The UNAUTHENTICATE
   command, if enabled, would allow a client to bypass any security
   restrictions present in the proxy layer but not in the back-end
   server layer on a subsequent authentication.  As a result, IMAP
   server implementations of this extension MUST provide a way to
   disable it when it is not needed.  Use of an IMAP proxy that
   processes the UNAUTHENTICATE command at the proxy layer eliminates
   this concern.  Another option to mitigate this concern is for servers
   to only enable the UNAUTHENTICATE extension if the supplied
   authentication credentials were associated with an administrative
   identity.

9.  Privacy Considerations

   For the most part, this extension will have no impact on the privacy
   considerations already present in an IMAP implementation.  However,
   if this extension were used between data centers, it could improve
   end-user privacy by increasing the difficultly of traffic analysis
   due to connection re-use.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC3501]  Crispin, M., "INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL - VERSION
              4rev1", RFC 3501, DOI 10.17487/RFC3501, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3501>.

   [RFC5234]  Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
              Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5234>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [RFC2971]  Showalter, T., "IMAP4 ID extension", RFC 2971,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2971, October 2000,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2971>.

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   [RFC3691]  Melnikov, A., "Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
              UNSELECT command", RFC 3691, DOI 10.17487/RFC3691,
              February 2004, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3691>.

   [RFC4314]  Melnikov, A., "IMAP4 Access Control List (ACL) Extension",
              RFC 4314, DOI 10.17487/RFC4314, December 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4314>.

   [RFC4422]  Melnikov, A., Ed. and K. Zeilenga, Ed., "Simple
              Authentication and Security Layer (SASL)", RFC 4422,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4422, June 2006,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4422>.

   [RFC4959]  Siemborski, R. and A. Gulbrandsen, "IMAP Extension for
              Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL) Initial
              Client Response", RFC 4959, DOI 10.17487/RFC4959,
              September 2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4959>.

   [RFC4978]  Gulbrandsen, A., "The IMAP COMPRESS Extension", RFC 4978,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4978, August 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4978>.

   [RFC5161]  Gulbrandsen, A., Ed. and A. Melnikov, Ed., "The IMAP
              ENABLE Extension", RFC 5161, DOI 10.17487/RFC5161, March
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5161>.

   [RFC5182]  Melnikov, A., "IMAP Extension for Referencing the Last
              SEARCH Result", RFC 5182, DOI 10.17487/RFC5182, March
              2008, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5182>.

   [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5246>.

   [RFC5255]  Newman, C., Gulbrandsen, A., and A. Melnikov, "Internet
              Message Access Protocol Internationalization", RFC 5255,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5255, June 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5255>.

   [RFC5267]  Cridland, D. and C. King, "Contexts for IMAP4", RFC 5267,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5267, July 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5267>.

   [RFC5464]  Daboo, C., "The IMAP METADATA Extension", RFC 5464,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5464, February 2009,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5464>.

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   [RFC5465]  Gulbrandsen, A., King, C., and A. Melnikov, "The IMAP
              NOTIFY Extension", RFC 5465, DOI 10.17487/RFC5465,
              February 2009, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5465>.

   [RFC6855]  Resnick, P., Ed., Newman, C., Ed., and S. Shen, Ed., "IMAP
              Support for UTF-8", RFC 6855, DOI 10.17487/RFC6855, March
              2013, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6855>.

   [RFC7162]  Melnikov, A. and D. Cridland, "IMAP Extensions: Quick Flag
              Changes Resynchronization (CONDSTORE) and Quick Mailbox
              Resynchronization (QRESYNC)", RFC 7162,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7162, May 2014,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7162>.

   [RFC8314]  Moore, K. and C. Newman, "Cleartext Considered Obsolete:
              Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS) for Email Submission
              and Access", RFC 8314, DOI 10.17487/RFC8314, January 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8314>.

Appendix A.  Design Considerations

   The author deliberately choose to add a separate UNAUTHENTICATE
   command instead of allowing the LOGIN or AUTHENTICATE commands to be
   issued when the connection is in a state other than unauthenticated
   state.  The primary reason for this choice is because the code that
   transitions from not authenticated state to authenticated state in a
   server is often the most security sensitive code as it needs to
   assume and handle unconditionally hostile attackers.  That sensitive
   code is simpler if it only handles a single server state
   (unauthenticated) and the state transition is as simple as possible.
   Smaller and simpler code is easier to audit and write in a secure
   way.

   A secondary reason to have a separate command is that it is simpler
   to enable or disable the feature with that design.  See the
   discussion in the security considerations section recommending
   implementations provide a way to disable this extension.

Appendix B.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Fred Batty for implementing UNAUTHENTICATE, and to Cyrus
   Daboo for constructive suggestions to improve this draft.

Author's Address

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   Chris Newman
   Oracle
   440 E. Huntington Dr., Suite 400
   Arcadia, CA  91006
   US

   Email: chris.newman@oracle.com

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