RFC 4398 PROPOSED STANDARD DNS · CERTIFICATES · DNSSEC

DNS CERT Record: Storing Certificates in the Domain Name System (DNS)

A DNS record for holding certificates and revocation lists where a name server can serve them.

On rfc-editor.org ↗
PUBLISHED
March 2006
AUTHORS
S. Josefsson
STREAM
IETF
BUILDS ON
RFC 2538 — CERT RR
UPDATED BY
RFC 6944 — Applicability Statement: DNS Security (DNSSEC) DNSKEY Algorithm Implementation Status
CERT RECORD TYPE CODE
37
KEY TAG FIELD WIDTH
16 bits
MAXIMUM PAYLOAD IN ONE RECORD
65535 octets
CERTIFICATES STORED UNDER
A domain name related to their subject
REVOCATION LISTS STORED UNDER
A domain name related to their issuer
INDIRECT TYPES
IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP and IACPKIX
DOI
10.17487/RFC4398
ERRATA
Reported errata

RFC text

Contents
Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗
Network Working Group                                       S. Josefsson
Request for Comments: 4398                                    March 2006
Obsoletes: 2538
Category: Standards Track


          Storing Certificates in the Domain Name System (DNS)

Status of This Memo

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

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2006).

Abstract

   Cryptographic public keys are frequently published, and their
   authenticity is demonstrated by certificates.  A CERT resource record
   (RR) is defined so that such certificates and related certificate
   revocation lists can be stored in the Domain Name System (DNS).

   This document obsoletes RFC 2538.

Table of Contents

   1. Introduction ....................................................3
   2. The CERT Resource Record ........................................3
      2.1. Certificate Type Values ....................................4
      2.2. Text Representation of CERT RRs ............................6
      2.3. X.509 OIDs .................................................6
   3. Appropriate Owner Names for CERT RRs ............................7
      3.1. Content-Based X.509 CERT RR Names ..........................8
      3.2. Purpose-Based X.509 CERT RR Names ..........................9
      3.3. Content-Based OpenPGP CERT RR Names ........................9
      3.4. Purpose-Based OpenPGP CERT RR Names .......................10
      3.5. Owner Names for IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP, and IACPKIX ...........10
   4. Performance Considerations .....................................11
   5. Contributors ...................................................11
   6. Acknowledgements ...............................................11
   7. Security Considerations ........................................12
   8. IANA Considerations ............................................12
   9. Changes since RFC 2538 .........................................13
   10. References ....................................................14
      10.1. Normative References .....................................14
      10.2. Informative References ...................................15
   Appendix A.  Copying Conditions ...................................16

1.  Introduction

   Public keys are frequently published in the form of a certificate,
   and their authenticity is commonly demonstrated by certificates and
   related certificate revocation lists (CRLs).  A certificate is a
   binding, through a cryptographic digital signature, of a public key,
   a validity interval and/or conditions, and identity, authorization,
   or other information.  A certificate revocation list is a list of
   certificates that are revoked, and of incidental information, all
   signed by the signer (issuer) of the revoked certificates.  Examples
   are X.509 certificates/CRLs in the X.500 directory system or OpenPGP
   certificates/revocations used by OpenPGP software.

   Section 2 specifies a CERT resource record (RR) for the storage of
   certificates in the Domain Name System [1] [2].

   Section 3 discusses appropriate owner names for CERT RRs.

   Sections 4, 7, and 8 cover performance, security, and IANA
   considerations, respectively.

   Section 9 explains the changes in this document compared to RFC 2538.

   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 [3].

2.  The CERT Resource Record

   The CERT resource record (RR) has the structure given below.  Its RR
   type code is 37.

                       1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
   0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |             type              |             key tag           |
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
   |   algorithm   |                                               /
   +---------------+            certificate or CRL                 /
   /                                                               /
   +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-|

   The type field is the certificate type as defined in Section 2.1
   below.

   The key tag field is the 16-bit value computed for the key embedded
   in the certificate, using the RRSIG Key Tag algorithm described in
   Appendix B of [12].  This field is used as an efficiency measure to
   pick which CERT RRs may be applicable to a particular key.  The key
   tag can be calculated for the key in question, and then only CERT RRs
   with the same key tag need to be examined.  Note that two different
   keys can have the same key tag.  However, the key MUST be transformed
   to the format it would have as the public key portion of a DNSKEY RR
   before the key tag is computed.  This is only possible if the key is
   applicable to an algorithm and complies to limits (such as key size)
   defined for DNS security.  If it is not, the algorithm field MUST be
   zero and the tag field is meaningless and SHOULD be zero.

   The algorithm field has the same meaning as the algorithm field in
   DNSKEY and RRSIG RRs [12], except that a zero algorithm field
   indicates that the algorithm is unknown to a secure DNS, which may
   simply be the result of the algorithm not having been standardized
   for DNSSEC [11].

2.1.  Certificate Type Values

   The following values are defined or reserved:

         Value  Mnemonic  Certificate Type
         -----  --------  ----------------
             0            Reserved
             1  PKIX      X.509 as per PKIX
             2  SPKI      SPKI certificate
             3  PGP       OpenPGP packet
             4  IPKIX     The URL of an X.509 data object
             5  ISPKI     The URL of an SPKI certificate
             6  IPGP      The fingerprint and URL of an OpenPGP packet
             7  ACPKIX    Attribute Certificate
             8  IACPKIX   The URL of an Attribute Certificate
         9-252            Available for IANA assignment
           253  URI       URI private
           254  OID       OID private
           255            Reserved
     256-65279            Available for IANA assignment
   65280-65534            Experimental
         65535            Reserved

   These values represent the initial content of the IANA registry; see
   Section 8.

   The PKIX type is reserved to indicate an X.509 certificate conforming
   to the profile defined by the IETF PKIX working group [8].  The
   certificate section will start with a one-octet unsigned OID length
   and then an X.500 OID indicating the nature of the remainder of the
   certificate section (see Section 2.3, below).  (NOTE: X.509
   certificates do not include their X.500 directory-type-designating
   OID as a prefix.)

   The SPKI and ISPKI types are reserved to indicate the SPKI
   certificate format [15], for use when the SPKI documents are moved
   from experimental status.  The format for these two CERT RR types
   will need to be specified later.

   The PGP type indicates an OpenPGP packet as described in [5] and its
   extensions and successors.  This is used to transfer public key
   material and revocation signatures.  The data is binary and MUST NOT
   be encoded into an ASCII armor.  An implementation SHOULD process
   transferable public keys as described in Section 10.1 of [5], but it
   MAY handle additional OpenPGP packets.

   The ACPKIX type indicates an Attribute Certificate format [9].

   The IPKIX and IACPKIX types indicate a URL that will serve the
   content that would have been in the "certificate, CRL, or URL" field
   of the corresponding type (PKIX or ACPKIX, respectively).

   The IPGP type contains both an OpenPGP fingerprint for the key in
   question, as well as a URL.  The certificate portion of the IPGP CERT
   RR is defined as a one-octet fingerprint length, followed by the
   OpenPGP fingerprint, followed by the URL.  The OpenPGP fingerprint is
   calculated as defined in RFC 2440 [5].  A zero-length fingerprint or
   a zero-length URL are legal, and indicate URL-only IPGP data or
   fingerprint-only IPGP data, respectively.  A zero-length fingerprint
   and a zero-length URL are meaningless and invalid.

   The IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP, and IACPKIX types are known as "indirect".
   These types MUST be used when the content is too large to fit in the
   CERT RR and MAY be used at the implementer's discretion.  They SHOULD
   NOT be used where the DNS message is 512 octets or smaller and could
   thus be expected to fit a UDP packet.

   The URI private type indicates a certificate format defined by an
   absolute URI.  The certificate portion of the CERT RR MUST begin with
   a null-terminated URI [10], and the data after the null is the
   private format certificate itself.  The URI SHOULD be such that a
   retrieval from it will lead to documentation on the format of the
   certificate.  Recognition of private certificate types need not be
   based on URI equality but can use various forms of pattern matching
   so that, for example, subtype or version information can also be
   encoded into the URI.

   The OID private type indicates a private format certificate specified
   by an ISO OID prefix.  The certificate section will start with a
   one-octet unsigned OID length and then a BER-encoded OID indicating
   the nature of the remainder of the certificate section.  This can be
   an X.509 certificate format or some other format.  X.509 certificates
   that conform to the IETF PKIX profile SHOULD be indicated by the PKIX
   type, not the OID private type.  Recognition of private certificate
   types need not be based on OID equality but can use various forms of
   pattern matching such as OID prefix.

2.2.  Text Representation of CERT RRs

   The RDATA portion of a CERT RR has the type field as an unsigned
   decimal integer or as a mnemonic symbol as listed in Section 2.1,
   above.

   The key tag field is represented as an unsigned decimal integer.

   The algorithm field is represented as an unsigned decimal integer or
   a mnemonic symbol as listed in [12].

   The certificate/CRL portion is represented in base 64 [16] and may be
   divided into any number of white-space-separated substrings, down to
   single base-64 digits, which are concatenated to obtain the full
   signature.  These substrings can span lines using the standard
   parenthesis.

   Note that the certificate/CRL portion may have internal sub-fields,
   but these do not appear in the master file representation.  For
   example, with type 254, there will be an OID size, an OID, and then
   the certificate/CRL proper.  However, only a single logical base-64
   string will appear in the text representation.

2.3.  X.509 OIDs

   OIDs have been defined in connection with the X.500 directory for
   user certificates, certification authority certificates, revocations
   of certification authority, and revocations of user certificates.
   The following table lists the OIDs, their BER encoding, and their
   length-prefixed hex format for use in CERT RRs:

       id-at-userCertificate
           = { joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) at(4) 36 }
              == 0x 03 55 04 24
       id-at-cACertificate
           = { joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) at(4) 37 }
              == 0x 03 55 04 25
       id-at-authorityRevocationList
           = { joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) at(4) 38 }
              == 0x 03 55 04 26
       id-at-certificateRevocationList
           = { joint-iso-ccitt(2) ds(5) at(4) 39 }
              == 0x 03 55 04 27

3.  Appropriate Owner Names for CERT RRs

   It is recommended that certificate CERT RRs be stored under a domain
   name related to their subject, i.e., the name of the entity intended
   to control the private key corresponding to the public key being
   certified.  It is recommended that certificate revocation list CERT
   RRs be stored under a domain name related to their issuer.

   Following some of the guidelines below may result in DNS names with
   characters that require DNS quoting as per Section 5.1 of RFC 1035
   [2].

   The choice of name under which CERT RRs are stored is important to
   clients that perform CERT queries.  In some situations, the clients
   may not know all information about the CERT RR object it wishes to
   retrieve.  For example, a client may not know the subject name of an
   X.509 certificate, or the email address of the owner of an OpenPGP
   key.  Further, the client might only know the hostname of a service
   that uses X.509 certificates or the Key ID of an OpenPGP key.

   Therefore, two owner name guidelines are defined: content-based owner
   names and purpose-based owner names.  A content-based owner name is
   derived from the content of the CERT RR data; for example, the
   Subject field in an X.509 certificate or the User ID field in OpenPGP
   keys.  A purpose-based owner name is a name that a client retrieving
   CERT RRs ought to know already; for example, the host name of an
   X.509 protected service or the Key ID of an OpenPGP key.  The
   content-based and purpose-based owner name may be the same; for
   example, when a client looks up a key based on the From: address of
   an incoming email.

   Implementations SHOULD use the purpose-based owner name guidelines
   described in this document and MAY use CNAME RRs at content-based
   owner names (or other names), pointing to the purpose-based owner
   name.

   Note that this section describes an application-based mapping from
   the name space used in a certificate to the name space used by DNS.
   The DNS does not infer any relationship amongst CERT resource records
   based on similarities or differences of the DNS owner name(s) of CERT
   resource records.  For example, if multiple labels are used when
   mapping from a CERT identifier to a domain name, then care must be
   taken in understanding wildcard record synthesis.

3.1.  Content-Based X.509 CERT RR Names

   Some X.509 versions, such as the PKIX profile of X.509 [8], permit
   multiple names to be associated with subjects and issuers under
   "Subject Alternative Name" and "Issuer Alternative Name".  For
   example, the PKIX profile has such Alternate Names with an ASN.1
   specification as follows:

      GeneralName ::= CHOICE {
           otherName                       [0]     OtherName,
           rfc822Name                      [1]     IA5String,
           dNSName                         [2]     IA5String,
           x400Address                     [3]     ORAddress,
           directoryName                   [4]     Name,
           ediPartyName                    [5]     EDIPartyName,
           uniformResourceIdentifier       [6]     IA5String,
           iPAddress                       [7]     OCTET STRING,
           registeredID                    [8]     OBJECT IDENTIFIER }

   The recommended locations of CERT storage are as follows, in priority
   order:

   1.  If a domain name is included in the identification in the
       certificate or CRL, that ought to be used.
   2.  If a domain name is not included but an IP address is included,
       then the translation of that IP address into the appropriate
       inverse domain name ought to be used.
   3.  If neither of the above is used, but a URI containing a domain
       name is present, that domain name ought to be used.
   4.  If none of the above is included but a character string name is
       included, then it ought to be treated as described below for
       OpenPGP names.
   5.  If none of the above apply, then the distinguished name (DN)
       ought to be mapped into a domain name as specified in [4].

   Example 1: An X.509v3 certificate is issued to /CN=John Doe /DC=Doe/
   DC=com/DC=xy/O=Doe Inc/C=XY/ with Subject Alternative Names of (a)
   string "John (the Man) Doe", (b) domain name john-doe.com, and (c)
   URI <https://www.secure.john-doe.com:8080/>.  The storage locations
   recommended, in priority order, would be
   1.  john-doe.com,
   2.  www.secure.john-doe.com, and
   3.  Doe.com.xy.

   Example 2: An X.509v3 certificate is issued to /CN=James Hacker/
   L=Basingstoke/O=Widget Inc/C=GB/ with Subject Alternate names of (a)
   domain name widget.foo.example, (b) IPv4 address 10.251.13.201, and
   (c) string "James Hacker <hacker@mail.widget.foo.example>".  The
   storage locations recommended, in priority order, would be

   1.  widget.foo.example,
   2.  201.13.251.10.in-addr.arpa, and
   3.  hacker.mail.widget.foo.example.

3.2.  Purpose-Based X.509 CERT RR Names

   Due to the difficulty for clients that do not already possess a
   certificate to reconstruct the content-based owner name,
   purpose-based owner names are recommended in this section.
   Recommendations for purpose-based owner names vary per scenario.  The
   following table summarizes the purpose-based X.509 CERT RR owner name
   guidelines for use with S/MIME [17], SSL/TLS [13], and IPsec [14]:

    Scenario             Owner name
    ------------------   ----------------------------------------------
    S/MIME Certificate   Standard translation of an RFC 2822 email
                         address.  Example: An S/MIME certificate for
                         "postmaster@example.org" will use a standard
                         hostname translation of the owner name,
                         "postmaster.example.org".

    TLS Certificate      Hostname of the TLS server.

    IPsec Certificate    Hostname of the IPsec machine and/or, for IPv4
                         or IPv6 addresses, the fully qualified domain
                         name in the appropriate reverse domain.

   An alternate approach for IPsec is to store raw public keys [18].

3.3.  Content-Based OpenPGP CERT RR Names

   OpenPGP signed keys (certificates) use a general character string
   User ID [5].  However, it is recommended by OpenPGP that such names
   include the RFC 2822 [7] email address of the party, as in "Leslie
   Example <Leslie@host.example>".  If such a format is used, the CERT
   ought to be under the standard translation of the email address into
   a domain name, which would be leslie.host.example in this case.  If
   no RFC 2822 name can be extracted from the string name, no specific
   domain name is recommended.

   If a user has more than one email address, the CNAME type can be used
   to reduce the amount of data stored in the DNS.  For example:

      $ORIGIN example.org.
      smith        IN CERT PGP 0 0 <OpenPGP binary>
      john.smith   IN CNAME smith
      js           IN CNAME smith

3.4.  Purpose-Based OpenPGP CERT RR Names

   Applications that receive an OpenPGP packet containing encrypted or
   signed data but do not know the email address of the sender will have
   difficulties constructing the correct owner name and cannot use the
   content-based owner name guidelines.  However, these clients commonly
   know the key fingerprint or the Key ID.  The key ID is found in
   OpenPGP packets, and the key fingerprint is commonly found in
   auxiliary data that may be available.  In this case, use of an owner
   name identical to the key fingerprint and the key ID expressed in
   hexadecimal [16] is recommended.  For example:

      $ORIGIN example.org.
      0424D4EE81A0E3D119C6F835EDA21E94B565716F IN CERT PGP ...
      F835EDA21E94B565716F                     IN CERT PGP ...
      B565716F                                 IN CERT PGP ...

   If the same key material is stored for several owner names, the use
   of CNAME may help avoid data duplication.  Note that CNAME is not
   always applicable, because it maps one owner name to the other for
   all purposes, which may be sub-optimal when two keys with the same
   Key ID are stored.

3.5.  Owner Names for IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP, and IACPKIX

   These types are stored under the same owner names, both purpose- and
   content-based, as the PKIX, SPKI, PGP, and ACPKIX types.

4.  Performance Considerations

   The Domain Name System (DNS) protocol was designed for small
   transfers, typically below 512 octets.  While larger transfers will
   perform correctly and work is underway to make larger transfers more
   efficient, it is still advisable at this time that every reasonable
   effort be made to minimize the size of certificates stored within the
   DNS.  Steps that can be taken may include using the fewest possible
   optional or extension fields and using short field values for
   necessary variable-length fields.

   The RDATA field in the DNS protocol may only hold data of size 65535
   octets (64kb) or less.  This means that each CERT RR MUST NOT contain
   more than 64kb of payload, even if the corresponding certificate or
   certificate revocation list is larger.  This document addresses this
   by defining "indirect" data types for each normal type.

   Deploying CERT RRs to support digitally signed email changes the
   access patterns of DNS lookups from per-domain to per-user.  If
   digitally signed email and a key/certificate lookup based on CERT RRs
   are deployed on a wide scale, this may lead to an increased DNS load,
   with potential performance and cache effectiveness consequences.
   Whether or not this load increase will be noticeable is not known.

5.  Contributors

   The majority of this document is copied verbatim from RFC 2538, by
   Donald Eastlake 3rd and Olafur Gudmundsson.

6.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to David Shaw and Michael Graff for their contributions to
   earlier works that motivated, and served as inspiration for, this
   document.

   This document was improved by suggestions and comments from Olivier
   Dubuisson, Scott Hollenbeck, Russ Housley, Peter Koch, Olaf M.
   Kolkman, Ben Laurie, Edward Lewis, John Loughney, Allison Mankin,
   Douglas Otis, Marcos Sanz, Pekka Savola, Jason Sloderbeck, Samuel
   Weiler, and Florian Weimer.  No doubt the list is incomplete.  We
   apologize to anyone we left out.

7.  Security Considerations

   By definition, certificates contain their own authenticating
   signatures.  Thus, it is reasonable to store certificates in
   non-secure DNS zones or to retrieve certificates from DNS with DNS
   security checking not implemented or deferred for efficiency.  The
   results may be trusted if the certificate chain is verified back to a
   known trusted key and this conforms with the user's security policy.

   Alternatively, if certificates are retrieved from a secure DNS zone
   with DNS security checking enabled and are verified by DNS security,
   the key within the retrieved certificate may be trusted without
   verifying the certificate chain if this conforms with the user's
   security policy.

   If an organization chooses to issue certificates for its employees,
   placing CERT RRs in the DNS by owner name, and if DNSSEC (with NSEC)
   is in use, it is possible for someone to enumerate all employees of
   the organization.  This is usually not considered desirable, for the
   same reason that enterprise phone listings are not often publicly
   published and are even marked confidential.

   Using the URI type introduces another level of indirection that may
   open a new vulnerability.  One method of securing that indirection is
   to include a hash of the certificate in the URI itself.

   If DNSSEC is used, then the non-existence of a CERT RR and,
   consequently, certificates or revocation lists can be securely
   asserted.  Without DNSSEC, this is not possible.

8.  IANA Considerations

   The IANA has created a new registry for CERT RR: certificate types.
   The initial contents of this registry is:

       Decimal   Type     Meaning                           Reference
       -------   ----     -------                           ---------
             0            Reserved                          RFC 4398
             1   PKIX     X.509 as per PKIX                 RFC 4398
             2   SPKI     SPKI certificate                  RFC 4398
             3   PGP      OpenPGP packet                    RFC 4398
             4   IPKIX    The URL of an X.509 data object   RFC 4398
             5   ISPKI    The URL of an SPKI certificate    RFC 4398
             6   IPGP     The fingerprint and URL           RFC 4398
                          of an OpenPGP packet
             7   ACPKIX   Attribute Certificate             RFC 4398
             8   IACPKIX  The URL of an Attribute           RFC 4398
                             Certificate

         9-252            Available for IANA assignment
                             by IETF Standards action
           253   URI      URI private                       RFC 4398
           254   OID      OID private                       RFC 4398
           255            Reserved                          RFC 4398
     256-65279            Available for IANA assignment
                          by IETF Consensus
   65280-65534            Experimental                      RFC 4398
         65535            Reserved                          RFC 4398

   Certificate types 0x0000 through 0x00FF and 0xFF00 through 0xFFFF can
   only be assigned by an IETF standards action [6].  This document
   assigns 0x0001 through 0x0008 and 0x00FD and 0x00FE.  Certificate
   types 0x0100 through 0xFEFF are assigned through IETF Consensus [6]
   based on RFC documentation of the certificate type.  The availability
   of private types under 0x00FD and 0x00FE ought to satisfy most
   requirements for proprietary or private types.

   The CERT RR reuses the DNS Security Algorithm Numbers registry.  In
   particular, the CERT RR requires that algorithm number 0 remain
   reserved, as described in Section 2.  The IANA will reference the
   CERT RR as a user of this registry and value 0, in particular.

9.  Changes since RFC 2538

   1.   Editorial changes to conform with new document requirements,
        including splitting reference section into two parts and
        updating the references to point at latest versions, and to add
        some additional references.
   2.   Improve terminology.  For example replace "PGP" with "OpenPGP",
        to align with RFC 2440.
   3.   In Section 2.1, clarify that OpenPGP public key data are binary,
        not the ASCII armored format, and reference 10.1 in RFC 2440 on
        how to deal with OpenPGP keys, and acknowledge that
        implementations may handle additional packet types.
   4.   Clarify that integers in the representation format are decimal.
   5.   Replace KEY/SIG with DNSKEY/RRSIG etc, to align with DNSSECbis
        terminology.  Improve reference for Key Tag Algorithm
        calculations.
   6.   Add examples that suggest use of CNAME to reduce bandwidth.
   7.   In Section 3, appended the last paragraphs that discuss
        "content-based" vs "purpose-based" owner names.  Add Section 3.2
        for purpose-based X.509 CERT owner names, and Section 3.4 for
        purpose-based OpenPGP CERT owner names.
   8.   Added size considerations.
   9.   The SPKI types has been reserved, until RFC 2692/2693 is moved
        from the experimental status.
   10.  Added indirect types IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP, and IACPKIX.

   11.  An IANA registry of CERT type values was created.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [1]   Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
         STD 13, RFC 1034, November 1987.

   [2]   Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
         specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, November 1987.

   [3]   Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement
         Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [4]   Kille, S., Wahl, M., Grimstad, A., Huber, R., and S. Sataluri,
         "Using Domains in LDAP/X.500 Distinguished Names", RFC 2247,
         January 1998.

   [5]   Callas, J., Donnerhacke, L., Finney, H., and R. Thayer,
         "OpenPGP Message Format", RFC 2440, November 1998.

   [6]   Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an IANA
         Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434,
         October 1998.

   [7]   Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822, April 2001.

   [8]   Housley, R., Polk, W., Ford, W., and D. Solo, "Internet X.509
         Public Key Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate
         Revocation List (CRL) Profile", RFC 3280, April 2002.

   [9]   Farrell, S. and R. Housley, "An Internet Attribute Certificate
         Profile for Authorization", RFC 3281, April 2002.

   [10]  Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
         Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986,
         January 2005.

   [11]  Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. Rose,
         "DNS Security Introduction and Requirements", RFC 4033,
         March 2005.

   [12]  Arends, R., Austein, R., Larson, M., Massey, D., and S. Rose,
         "Resource Records for the DNS Security Extensions", RFC 4034,
         March 2005.

10.2.  Informative References

   [13]  Dierks, T. and C. Allen, "The TLS Protocol Version 1.0",
         RFC 2246, January 1999.

   [14]  Kent, S. and K. Seo, "Security Architecture for the Internet
         Protocol", RFC 4301, December 2005.

   [15]  Ellison, C., Frantz, B., Lampson, B., Rivest, R., Thomas, B.,
         and T. Ylonen, "SPKI Certificate Theory", RFC 2693,
         September 1999.

   [16]  Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings",
         RFC 3548, July 2003.

   [17]  Ramsdell, B., "Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
         (S/MIME) Version 3.1 Message Specification", RFC 3851,
         July 2004.

   [18]  Richardson, M., "A Method for Storing IPsec Keying Material in
         DNS", RFC 4025, March 2005.

Appendix A.  Copying Conditions

   Regarding the portion of this document that was written by Simon
   Josefsson ("the author", for the remainder of this section), the
   author makes no guarantees and is not responsible for any damage
   resulting from its use.  The author grants irrevocable permission to
   anyone to use, modify, and distribute it in any way that does not
   diminish the rights of anyone else to use, modify, and distribute it,
   provided that redistributed derivative works do not contain
   misleading author or version information.  Derivative works need not
   be licensed under similar terms.

Author's Address

   Simon Josefsson

   EMail: simon@josefsson.org

Full 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.

   This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
   "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
   OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
   ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
   INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
   INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
   WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Intellectual Property

   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.

   The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
   copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
   rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
   this standard.  Please address the information to the IETF at
   ietf-ipr@ietf.org.

Acknowledgement

   Funding for the RFC Editor function is provided by the IETF
   Administrative Support Activity (IASA).

ISO Plain Language

On this page
PROBLEMPublic keys are often published as certificates, and their authenticity is shown by a signature and by revocation lists. Those certificates have so far lived in directories such as X.500, which puts them outside the reach of the ordinary name service.
MECHANISMThe RFC defines a CERT resource record, type 37, that holds a certificate or a revocation list together with the type of key material, a key tag and an algorithm number. It also defines which name the record should sit under so that a client can find it.
WHAT IT ENABLESCertificates can be published and retrieved through the DNS like any other data. Because DNS messages are small, the record defines indirect types that point at the content with a URL, and the record has a hard size limit of 65535 octets of payload.

§1What the CERT Record Is For

Public keys are frequently published in the form of a certificate, and their authenticity is commonly demonstrated by certificates and by related certificate revocation lists. A certificate is a binding, through a cryptographic digital signature, of a public key, a validity interval and conditions, and identity, authorization or other information. A certificate revocation list is a list of revoked certificates and incidental information, all signed by the issuer of the revoked certificates. Examples are X.509 certificates and revocation lists in the X.500 directory system, or the OpenPGP certificates and revocations used by OpenPGP software.

Section 2 of the RFC specifies a resource record for storing certificates in the DNS. Section 3 discusses appropriate owner names for those records. The performance, security and IANA considerations follow, and the last numbered section lists the changes compared with the earlier specification.

The record puts a signed public key, and the list saying which keys have been withdrawn, into the same database that already holds names and addresses. That lets any program that can ask the DNS fetch them.

§2The CERT Resource Record

The CERT record has a type code of 37 and is laid out in three fixed fields followed by the certificate or revocation list itself.

The type field is the certificate type, defined in the next section. The key tag field is the 16-bit value computed for the key embedded in the certificate, using the RRSIG key tag algorithm described in the security extensions. It is an efficiency measure: the key tag can be calculated for the key in question and then only records with the same key tag need to be examined. Two different keys can share a key tag, so it narrows the search without deciding anything. The key must first be transformed into the form it would have as the public key part of a DNSKEY record, which is only possible if the key uses an algorithm and stays within the limits defined for DNS security. If it does not, the algorithm field must be zero and the tag field is meaningless and should be zero.

The algorithm field has the same meaning as the algorithm field in the DNSKEY and RRSIG records, except that a zero algorithm field means the algorithm is unknown to a secure DNS, which may simply be the result of the algorithm never having been standardized for DNSSEC.

In the text form of a zone file, the type field is written as an unsigned decimal integer or as the mnemonic symbol listed in the next section, the key tag as an unsigned decimal integer, and the algorithm as an unsigned decimal integer or a mnemonic symbol. The certificate or revocation list is written in base 64 and may be split into any number of whitespace-separated substrings, down to single base 64 digits, which are concatenated to obtain the full data. The substrings can span lines using the standard parenthesis. The certificate portion may have internal sub-fields that do not appear in the master file, so with the OID private type there is an OID size, an OID and then the certificate proper, but only a single logical base 64 string appears in the text representation.

Each record carries a short fixed header and then the certificate itself. The header says what kind of key material it is, which key it belongs to, and which algorithm was used. The certificate follows as base 64 text, which may be broken across lines.

The CERT record layout, as drawn in the RFC
CERT resource record
                        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
    0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |             type              |             key tag           |
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
    |   algorithm   |                                               /
    +---------------+            certificate or CRL                 /
    /                                                               /
    +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-|

§2.1The Certificate Type Values

The type field says what the payload is. The RFC lists the initial values of the registry, and several of them carry rules of their own.

The PKIX type is reserved for an X.509 certificate conforming to the profile defined by the IETF PKIX working group. The certificate section starts with a one-octet unsigned OID length and then an X.500 OID describing the nature of the remainder of the certificate section. X.509 certificates do not include their X.500 directory-type OID as a prefix.

The SPKI and ISPKI types are reserved for the SPKI certificate format, for use when the SPKI documents move from experimental status; the format for them still needs to be specified.

The PGP type indicates an OpenPGP packet, and is used to transfer public key material and revocation signatures. The data is binary and must not be encoded into ASCII armor. An implementation should process transferable public keys as described in the OpenPGP message format document, but may handle additional packets.

The ACPKIX type indicates an attribute certificate format. The IPKIX and IACPKIX types indicate a URL that will serve the content that would have been in the certificate, revocation list or URL field of the corresponding type. The IPGP type contains both an OpenPGP fingerprint for the key in question and a URL: the certificate portion is a one-octet fingerprint length, followed by the fingerprint, followed by the URL. A zero-length fingerprint or a zero-length URL is legal and indicates URL-only or fingerprint-only data; a zero-length fingerprint together with a zero-length URL is meaningless and invalid.

The four indirect types, IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP and IACPKIX, must be used when the content is too large to fit in the record and may be used at the implementer's discretion. They should not be used where the DNS message is 512 octets or smaller and could therefore be expected to fit in a UDP packet.

The URI private type indicates a certificate format defined by an absolute URI. The certificate portion must begin with a null-terminated URI, and the data after the null is the private format certificate itself. The URI should be one from which a retrieval leads to documentation on the format. Recognition of private certificate types need not be based on equality of the URI and can use pattern matching, so that subtype or version information can also be encoded in it.

The OID private type indicates a private format certificate specified by an ISO OID prefix. The certificate section starts with a one-octet unsigned OID length and then a BER-encoded OID describing the nature of the remainder, which can be an X.509 certificate format or something else. X.509 certificates conforming to the IETF PKIX profile should use the PKIX type rather than this one. Recognition may use prefix matching rather than equality.

The type number tells the reader what kind of key material it has found. Some types hold the certificate itself, and four hold a pointer to it instead for when the certificate is too big to travel in a DNS message.

The certificate type values
  • 1PKIX — An X.509 certificate conforming to the PKIX profile.
  • 2SPKI — An SPKI certificate. The format is to be specified later.
  • 3PGP — An OpenPGP packet. The data is binary and must not be ASCII armored.
  • 4IPKIX — The URL of an X.509 data object.
  • 5ISPKI — The URL of an SPKI certificate.
  • 6IPGP — The fingerprint and URL of an OpenPGP packet.
  • 7ACPKIX — An attribute certificate.
  • 8IACPKIX — The URL of an attribute certificate.
  • 253URI — A private format certificate named by an absolute URI.
  • 254OID — A private format certificate named by an ISO OID prefix.

§3Choosing the Name to Store the Certificate Under

It is recommended that certificate records be stored under a domain name related to their subject, the name of the entity intended to control the private key corresponding to the public key being certified, and that revocation list records be stored under a domain name related to their issuer. Following some of the guidelines below may produce names with characters that need DNS quoting.

The choice matters to clients that run CERT queries, because in some situations they do not know everything about the object they want. A client may not know the subject name of an X.509 certificate, or the email address of the owner of an OpenPGP key, and may know only the host name of a service that uses X.509 certificates, or the key ID of an OpenPGP key. Two guidelines therefore exist. A content-based owner name is derived from the content of the record, for example the Subject field of an X.509 certificate or the User ID field of an OpenPGP key. A purpose-based owner name is a name that a client retrieving records ought to know already, for example the host name of an X.509 protected service or the key ID of an OpenPGP key. The two may be the same, as when a client looks up a key from the From: address of an incoming email. Implementations should use the purpose-based guidelines and may use CNAME records at content-based owner names, or other names, pointing to the purpose-based owner name.

For X.509 certificates the recommended storage locations are given in priority order. If a domain name appears in the identification in the certificate or revocation list, that should be used. If not, but an IP address appears, the translation of that address into the inverse domain name should be used. If neither applies but a URI containing a domain name is present, that domain name should be used. If none of those apply but a character string name is present, it should be treated the way OpenPGP names are. Failing all of that, the distinguished name should be mapped into a domain name. The first worked example issues a certificate with a subject alternative name of the string John (the Man) Doe, the domain name john-doe.com and a URI, and the recommended locations are john-doe.com, www.secure.john-doe.com and Doe.com.xy. The second example has a domain name, an IPv4 address and a string, and the recommended locations are widget.foo.example, 201.13.251.10.in-addr.arpa and hacker.mail.widget.foo.example.

For purpose-based X.509 names the guidance varies by scenario. For S/MIME the owner name is the standard translation of an RFC 2822 email address, so a certificate for postmaster@example.org uses postmaster.example.org. For TLS it is the host name of the TLS server. For IPsec it is the host name of the machine and, for IPv4 or IPv6 addresses, the fully qualified domain name in the appropriate reverse domain.

For OpenPGP, signed keys use a general character string User ID, and it is recommended that such names include the email address of the party. If that format is used, the certificate should be under the standard translation of the email address into a domain name. If no email address can be extracted from the string name, no specific domain name is recommended. Where a user has more than one email address, CNAME can reduce the amount of data stored in the DNS.

For purpose-based OpenPGP names, an application that receives a packet but does not know the sender's email address usually knows the key fingerprint or the key ID, and the owner name should be the fingerprint and the key ID expressed in hexadecimal. CNAME can help avoid duplication where the same key material is stored under several names, although CNAME maps one owner name to the other for all purposes, which may be sub-optimal when two keys share a key ID. The indirect types are stored under the same owner names as the corresponding direct types.

A client looking for a certificate often knows only one thing about it, such as the host name it is about to connect to. The rules say to file the certificate under that name, and to use an alias record when a certificate can be reached under several names.

Two ways to choose the name a certificate is filed under
AspectContent-based namePurpose-based name
Derived fromThe content of the certificateWhat the client already knows
X.509 exampleThe Subject fieldThe host name of the service
OpenPGP exampleThe User ID fieldThe key fingerprint or key ID
RecommendedMay be used with a CNAMESHOULD be used

§4Performance and Size

The DNS was designed for small transfers, typically below 512 octets. Larger transfers work correctly and work is under way to make them more efficient, but it is still advisable to make every reasonable effort to minimize the size of certificates stored in the DNS. Steps that can be taken include using the fewest possible optional or extension fields and using short field values for necessary variable-length fields.

The RDATA field in the DNS protocol may only hold data of 65535 octets or less, which is 64kb. Each CERT record must therefore not contain more than 64kb of payload, even if the certificate or revocation list it corresponds to is larger. The RFC addresses this by defining indirect data types for each normal type.

Deploying CERT records to support digitally signed email changes the access pattern of DNS lookups from per-domain to per-user. If digitally signed email and key and certificate lookup based on these records are deployed on a wide scale, this may lead to an increased DNS load, with potential performance and cache effectiveness consequences. Whether the load increase would be noticeable is not known.

A DNS message is small, and a certificate is not. The record therefore has a hard size limit, and for anything larger the answer is a pointer rather than the certificate itself.

What the size of the DNS imposes
  • DNS is built for small answersThe protocol was designed for transfers typically below 512 octets.
  • One record holds 64kb at mostThe RDATA field may only hold data of 65535 octets or less, so a CERT record must not carry more payload than that.
  • Indirect types for big contentFor each normal type there is an indirect type that points at the content with a URL instead.
  • Lookups become per-userDeploying these records for signed email changes DNS lookups from per-domain to per-user, which may increase the load.

§7Security Considerations

By definition, certificates contain their own authenticating signatures. It is therefore reasonable to store certificates in non-secure DNS zones, or to retrieve them from the DNS with DNS security checking not implemented or deferred for efficiency. The results may be trusted if the certificate chain is verified back to a known trusted key, and this conforms with the user's security policy.

Alternatively, if certificates are retrieved from a secure DNS zone with DNS security checking enabled and are verified by DNS security, the key within the retrieved certificate may be trusted without verifying the certificate chain, if that conforms with the user's security policy.

If an organization chooses to issue certificates for its employees and places the records in the DNS by owner name, and if DNSSEC with NSEC is in use, it becomes possible for someone to enumerate all the employees of the organization. This is usually not considered desirable, for the same reason that enterprise phone listings are not often publicly published and are even marked confidential.

Using the URI type introduces another level of indirection that may open a new vulnerability. One method of securing that indirection is to include a hash of the certificate in the URI itself.

If DNSSEC is used, the non-existence of a CERT record, and consequently of certificates or revocation lists, can be securely asserted. Without DNSSEC, this is not possible.

The certificate signs itself, so it is safe to publish it in an ordinary zone as long as the chain is checked. In a signed zone, the key inside the certificate can be taken on trust instead. The warning is that a signed zone also makes it easy to list every employee who has one.

Where the trust in a published certificate comes from
  • Certificates carry their own signatureSo it is reasonable to store them in a zone that is not itself secure, as long as the chain is checked back to a trusted key.
  • Secure zones are simplerIn a zone with DNS security enabled, the key inside the retrieved certificate can be trusted without checking the chain.
  • Employee lists can leakWith DNSSEC and NSEC in use, someone can enumerate every employee who has a certificate.
  • The URI type adds indirectionThat indirection can open a new vulnerability, and one way to secure it is to put a hash of the certificate in the URI.
  • Absence cannot be proven without DNSSECWith DNSSEC the non-existence of a record can be asserted securely. Without it, it cannot.

§9What Changed Since the Earlier Specification

The RFC lists its changes against the earlier version. The first is editorial, conforming to newer document requirements, including splitting the reference section into two parts and updating the references to the latest versions. The second improves terminology, for example replacing PGP with OpenPGP to align with the OpenPGP message format document. The third clarifies in the certificate type section that OpenPGP public key data is binary and not the ASCII armored format, points at the section on transferable public keys, and acknowledges that implementations may handle additional packet types. The fourth clarifies that integers in the representation format are decimal. The fifth replaces KEY and SIG with DNSKEY and RRSIG to align with the newer DNSSEC terminology, and improves the reference for key tag calculations. The sixth adds examples that suggest using CNAME to reduce bandwidth.

The seventh appends the paragraphs discussing content-based against purpose-based owner names, and adds sections for purpose-based X.509 owner names and purpose-based OpenPGP owner names. The eighth adds the size considerations. The ninth reserves the SPKI types until the relevant documents move from experimental status. The tenth adds the indirect types IPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP and IACPKIX. The eleventh creates an IANA registry of CERT type values.

The record itself is largely unchanged from the version it replaces. The work went into clarifying the format, adding rules for the name to file a certificate under, and adding the pointer types for large certificates.

What the revision added to the earlier specification
  • OpenPGP instead of PGPThe terminology was aligned with the OpenPGP message format, and it was made clear that key data is binary and not ASCII armored.
  • Decimal integersThe integers in the text representation are stated to be decimal.
  • DNSSEC namingKEY and SIG were replaced with DNSKEY and RRSIG, and the key tag calculation reference was improved.
  • Indirect types addedIPKIX, ISPKI, IPGP and IACPKIX were added so that content too large for one record can be pointed at instead.
  • SPKI held backThe SPKI types were reserved until the relevant documents leave experimental status.
  • A registry for the typesAn IANA registry of CERT type values was created.

§8References