Filename: 249-large-create-cells.txt Title: Allow CREATE cells with >505 bytes of handshake data Authors: Nick Mathewson Created: 23 July 15 Status: Draft
1. Summary
There have been multiple proposals over the last year or so for adding post-quantum cryptography to Tor's circuit extension handshakes. (See for example https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/008 or https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/287 .) These proposals share the property that the request and reply for a handshake message do not fit in a single RELAY cell.
In this proposal I describe a new CREATE2V cell for handshakes that don't fit in a 505-byte CREATE2 cell's HDATA section, and a means for fragmenting these CREATE2V cells across multiple EXTEND2 cells. I also discuss replies, migration, and DoS-mitigation strategies.
2. CREATE2V and CREATED2V
First, we add two variable-width cell types, CREATE2V and CREATED2V.
These cell formats are nearly the same as CREATE2 and CREATED2. (Here specified using Trunnel.)
struct create2v_cell_body { /* Handshake type */ u16 htype; /* Length of handshake data */ u16 hlen; /* Handshake data */ u8 hdata[hlen]; /* Padding data to be ignored */ u8 ignored[]; };
struct created2v_cell_body { /* Handshake replay length */ u16 hlen; /* Handshake reply data */ u8 hdata[hlen]; /* Padding data to be ignored */ u8 ignored[]; };
The 'ignored' fields, which extend to the end of the variable-length cells, are reserved. Initiators MAY set them to any length, but MUST fill them with zero-valued bytes. Responders MUST ignore them, regardless of what they contain. When a CREATE2V cell is generated in response to a set of EXTEND2 cells, these fields are set by the relay that receives the EXTEND2 cells.
(The purpose of the 'ignored' fields here is future-proofing and padding.)
3. Fragmented EXTEND2 cells
Without changing the current EXTEND2 cell format, we change its semantics:
If the 'HLEN' field in an EXTEND2 cell describes a handshake data section that would be too long to fit in the EXTEND2 cell's payload, the handshake data of the EXTEND2 cell is to be continued in one or more subsequent EXTEND2 cells. These subsequent cells MUST have zero link specifiers, handshake type 0xFFFF, and handshake data length field set to zero.
Similarly, if the 'HLEN' field in an EXTENDED2 cell would be too long to fit into the EXTENDED2 cell's payload, the handshake reply data of the EXTENDED2 cell is to be continued in one or more subsequent EXTENDED2 cells. These subsequent cells must have the handshake data length field set to zero.
These cells must be sent on the circuit with no intervening cells. If any intervening cells are received, the receiver SHOULD destroy the circuit.
4. Example
So for example, if we are a client, and we need to send a 2000-byte handshake to extend a circuit from relay X to relay Y, we might send cells as follows:
EXTEND2 { nspec = 2; { node ID for Y, taking 22 bytes. } { node address for Y, taking 8 bytes } htype = {whatever the handshake type is.} hlen = 2000 hdata = { the first 462 bytes of the handshake } } EXTEND2 { nspec = 0; htype = 0xffff; hlen = 0; hdata = { the next 492 bytes of the handshake } } EXTEND2 { nspec = 0; htype = 0xffff; hlen = 0; hdata = { the next 492 bytes of the handshake } } EXTEND2 { nspec = 0; htype = 0xffff; hlen = 0; hdata = { the next 492 bytes of the handshake } } EXTEND2 { nspec = 0; htype = 0xffff; hlen = 0; hdata = { the final 62 bytes of the handshake } }
Upon receiving this last cell, the relay X would send a create2v cell to Y, containing the entire handshake.
5. Migration
We can and should implement the EXTEND2 fragmentation feature before we implement anything that uses it. If we can get it widely deployed before it's needed, we can use the new handshake types whenever both of the involved relays support this proposal.
Clients MUST NOT sent fragmented EXTEND2 cells to relays that don't support them, since this would cause them to close the circuit.
Relays MAY send CREATE2V and CREATED2V cells to relays that don't support them, since unrecognized cell types are ignored.
6. Resource management issues
This feature requires relays and clients to buffer EXTEND2 cell bodies for incoming cells until the entire CREATE2V/CREATED2V body has arrived. To avoid memory-related denial-of-service attacks, the buffers allocated for this data need to be counted against the total data usage of the circuit.
Appendix A. A rejected idea for migration
In section 5 above, I gave up on the idea of allowing relay A to extend to relay B with a large CREATE cell when relay A does not support this proposal.
There are other ways to do this, but they are impressively kludgey. For example, we could have a fake CREATE cell for new handshake types that always elicits a "yes, keep going!" CREATED cell. Then the client could send the rest of the handshake and receive the rest of the CREATED cell as RELAY cells inside the circuit.
This design would add an extra round-trip to circuit extension whenever it was used, however, and would violate a number of Tor's assumptions about circuits (e.g., by having half-created circuits, where authentication hasn't actually been performed). So I'm guessing we shouldn't do that.