HTTP/1.1, part 7: Authentication

Abstract

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP has been in use by the World Wide Web global information initiative since 1990. This document is Part 7 of the seven-part specification that defines the protocol referred to as "HTTP/1.1" and, taken together, obsoletes RFC 2616.¶

Part 7 defines the HTTP Authentication framework.¶

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 http://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 February 25, 2012.¶

Copyright Notice

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (http://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.¶

This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF Contributions published or made publicly available before November 10, 2008. The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process. Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other than English.¶

1. Introduction

This document defines HTTP/1.1 access control and authentication. It includes the relevant parts of RFC 2616 with only minor changes, plus the general framework for HTTP authentication, as previously defined in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication" ([RFC2617]).¶

HTTP provides several OPTIONAL challenge-response authentication mechanisms which can be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a client to provide authentication information. The "basic" and "digest" authentication schemes continue to be specified in RFC 2617.¶

1.1. Requirements

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].¶

An implementation is not compliant if it fails to satisfy one or more of the "MUST" or "REQUIRED" level requirements for the protocols it implements. An implementation that satisfies all the "MUST" or "REQUIRED" level and all the "SHOULD" level requirements for its protocols is said to be "unconditionally compliant"; one that satisfies all the "MUST" level requirements but not all the "SHOULD" level requirements for its protocols is said to be "conditionally compliant".¶

1.2. Syntax Notation

This specification uses the ABNF syntax defined in Section 1.2 of [Part1] (which extends the syntax defined in [RFC5234] with a list rule). Appendix B shows the collected ABNF, with the list rule expanded.¶

The following core rules are included by reference, as defined in [RFC5234], Appendix B.1: ALPHA (letters), CR (carriage return), CRLF (CR LF), CTL (controls), DIGIT (decimal 0-9), DQUOTE (double quote), HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f), LF (line feed), OCTET (any 8-bit sequence of data), SP (space), VCHAR (any visible USASCII character), and WSP (whitespace).¶

1.2.1. Core Rules

The core rules below are defined in [Part1]:¶

  BWS           = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
  OWS           = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>
  quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>
  token         = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>

2. Access Authentication Framework

2.1. Challenge and Response

HTTP provides a simple challenge-response authentication mechanism that can be used by a server to challenge a client request and by a client to provide authentication information. It uses an extensible, case-insensitive token to identify the authentication scheme, followed by additional information necessary for achieving authentication via that scheme. The latter can either be a comma-separated list of attribute-value pairs or a single sequence of characters capable of holding base64-encoded information.¶

  auth-scheme    = token
  
  auth-param     = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string )

  b64token       = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT /
                       "-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" ) *"="

The "b64token" syntax allows the 66 unreserved URI characters ([RFC3986]), plus a few others, so that it can hold a base64, base64url (URL and filename safe alphabet), base32, or base16 (hex) encoding, with or without padding, but excluding whitespace ([RFC4648]).¶

The 401 (Unauthorized) response message is used by an origin server to challenge the authorization of a user agent. This response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at least one challenge applicable to the requested resource.¶

The 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) response message is used by a proxy to challenge the authorization of a client and MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate header field containing at least one challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource.¶

  challenge   = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]

A user agent that wishes to authenticate itself with an origin server — usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 401 (Unauthorized) — MAY do so by including an Authorization header field with the request.¶

A client that wishes to authenticate itself with a proxy — usually, but not necessarily, after receiving a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required) — MAY do so by including a Proxy-Authorization header field with the request.¶

Both the Authorization field value and the Proxy-Authorization field value consist of credentials containing the authentication information of the client for the realm of the resource being requested. The user agent MUST choose to use one of the challenges with the strongest auth-scheme it understands and request credentials from the user based upon that challenge.¶

  credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / #auth-param ) ]

If the origin server does not wish to accept the credentials sent with a request, it SHOULD return a 401 (Unauthorized) response. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field containing at least one (possibly new) challenge applicable to the requested resource.¶

If a proxy does not accept the credentials sent with a request, it SHOULD return a 407 (Proxy Authentication Required). The response MUST include a Proxy-Authenticate header field containing a (possibly new) challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource.¶

The HTTP protocol does not restrict applications to this simple challenge-response mechanism for access authentication. Additional mechanisms MAY be used, such as encryption at the transport level or via message encapsulation, and with additional header fields specifying authentication information. However, such additional mechanisms are not defined by this specification.¶

Proxies MUST forward the WWW-Authenticate and Authorization headers unmodified and follow the rules found in Section 4.1.¶

2.2. Protection Space (Realm)

The authentication parameter realm is reserved for use by authentication schemes that wish to indicate the scope of protection:¶

  realm       = "realm" BWS "=" BWS realm-value
  realm-value = quoted-string

A protection space is defined by the canonical root URI (the scheme and authority components of the effective request URI; see Section 4.3 of [Part1]) of the server being accessed, in combination with the realm value if present. These realms allow the protected resources on a server to be partitioned into a set of protection spaces, each with its own authentication scheme and/or authorization database. The realm value is a string, generally assigned by the origin server, which can have additional semantics specific to the authentication scheme. Note that there can be multiple challenges with the same auth-scheme but different realms.¶

The protection space determines the domain over which credentials can be automatically applied. If a prior request has been authorized, the same credentials MAY be reused for all other requests within that protection space for a period of time determined by the authentication scheme, parameters, and/or user preference. Unless otherwise defined by the authentication scheme, a single protection space cannot extend outside the scope of its server.¶

2.3. Authentication Scheme Registry

The HTTP Authentication Scheme Registry defines the name space for the authentication schemes in challenges and credentials.¶

Registrations MUST include the following fields: ¶

Authentication Scheme Name
Pointer to specification text
Notes (optional)

Values to be added to this name space are subject to IETF review ([RFC5226], Section 4.1).¶

The registry itself is maintained at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes>.¶

2.3.1. Considerations for New Authentication Schemes

There are certain aspects of the HTTP Authentication Framework that put constraints on how new authentication schemes can work:¶

Authentication schemes need to be compatible with the inherent constraints of HTTP; for instance, that messages need to keep their semantics when inspected in isolation, thus an authentication scheme can not bind information to the TCP session over which the message was received (see Section 2.2 of [Part1]).
The authentication parameter "realm" is reserved for defining Protection Spaces as defined in Section 2.2. New schemes MUST NOT use it in a way incompatible with that definition.
The "b64token" notation was introduced for compatibility with existing authentication schemes and can only be used once per challenge/credentials. New schemes thus ought to use the "auth-param" syntax instead, because otherwise future extensions will be impossible.
Authentication schemes need to document whether they are usable in origin-server authentication (i.e., using WWW-Authenticate), and/or proxy authentication (i.e., using Proxy-Authenticate).
The credentials carried in an Authorization header field are specific to the User Agent, and therefore have the same effect on HTTP caches as the "private" Cache-Control response directive, within the scope of the request they appear in.
Therefore, new authentication schemes which choose not to carry credentials in the Authorization header (e.g., using a newly defined header) will need to explicitly disallow caching, by mandating the use of either Cache-Control request directives (e.g., "no-store") or response directives (e.g., "private").

3. Status Code Definitions

3.1. 401 Unauthorized

The request requires user authentication. The response MUST include a WWW-Authenticate header field (Section 4.4) containing a challenge applicable to the target resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Authorization header field (Section 4.1). If the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401 response indicates that authorization has been refused for those credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the prior response, and the user agent has already attempted authentication at least once, then the user SHOULD be presented the representation that was given in the response, since that representation might include relevant diagnostic information.¶

3.2. 407 Proxy Authentication Required

This code is similar to 401 (Unauthorized), but indicates that the client ought to first authenticate itself with the proxy. The proxy MUST return a Proxy-Authenticate header field (Section 4.2) containing a challenge applicable to the proxy for the target resource. The client MAY repeat the request with a suitable Proxy-Authorization header field (Section 4.3).¶

5. IANA Considerations

5.1. Authenticaton Scheme Registry

The registration procedure for HTTP Authentication Schemes is defined by Section 2.3 of this document.¶

The HTTP Method Authentication Scheme shall be created at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-authschemes>.¶

5.2. Status Code Registration

The HTTP Status Code Registry located at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-status-codes> shall be updated with the registrations below:¶

Value	Description	Reference
401	Unauthorized	Section 3.1
407	Proxy Authentication Required	Section 3.2

5.3. Header Field Registration

The Message Header Field Registry located at <http://www.iana.org/assignments/message-headers/message-header-index.html> shall be updated with the permanent registrations below (see [RFC3864]):¶

Header Field Name	Protocol	Status	Reference
Authorization	http	standard	Section 4.1
Proxy-Authenticate	http	standard	Section 4.2
Proxy-Authorization	http	standard	Section 4.3
WWW-Authenticate	http	standard	Section 4.4

The change controller is: "IETF (iesg@ietf.org) - Internet Engineering Task Force".¶

6. Security Considerations

This section is meant to inform application developers, information providers, and users of the security limitations in HTTP/1.1 as described by this document. The discussion does not include definitive solutions to the problems revealed, though it does make some suggestions for reducing security risks.¶

6.1. Authentication Credentials and Idle Clients

Existing HTTP clients and user agents typically retain authentication information indefinitely. HTTP/1.1 does not provide a method for a server to direct clients to discard these cached credentials. This is a significant defect that requires further extensions to HTTP. Circumstances under which credential caching can interfere with the application's security model include but are not limited to: ¶

Clients which have been idle for an extended period following which the server might wish to cause the client to reprompt the user for credentials.
Applications which include a session termination indication (such as a "logout" or "commit" button on a page) after which the server side of the application "knows" that there is no further reason for the client to retain the credentials.

This is currently under separate study. There are a number of work-arounds to parts of this problem, and we encourage the use of password protection in screen savers, idle time-outs, and other methods which mitigate the security problems inherent in this problem. In particular, user agents which cache credentials are encouraged to provide a readily accessible mechanism for discarding cached credentials under user control.¶

7. Acknowledgments

This specification takes over the definition of the HTTP Authentication Framework, previously defined in RFC 2617. We thank John Franks, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker, Jeffery L. Hostetler, Scott D. Lawrence, Paul J. Leach, Ari Luotonen, and Lawrence C. Stewart for their work on that specification. See Section 6 of [RFC2617] for further acknowledgements.¶

See Section 12 of [Part1] for the Acknowledgments related to this document revision.¶

8. References

8.1. Normative References

[Part1]: Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed., and J. Reschke, Ed., “HTTP/1.1, part 1: URIs, Connections, and Message Parsing”, Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-16 (work in progress), August 2011.
[Part6]: Fielding, R., Ed., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., Berners-Lee, T., Lafon, Y., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke, Ed., “HTTP/1.1, part 6: Caching”, Internet-Draft draft-ietf-httpbis-p6-cache-16 (work in progress), August 2011.
[RFC2119]: Bradner, S., “Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels”, BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC5234]: Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, “Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF”, STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008.

8.2. Informative References

[RFC2616]: Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H., Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, “Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1”, RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC2617]: Franks, J., Hallam-Baker, P., Hostetler, J., Lawrence, S., Leach, P., Luotonen, A., and L. Stewart, “HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication”, RFC 2617, June 1999.
[RFC3864]: Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, “Registration Procedures for Message Header Fields”, BCP 90, RFC 3864, September 2004.
[RFC3986]: Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, “Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax”, STD 66, RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC4648]: Josefsson, S., “The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings”, RFC 4648, October 2006.
[RFC5226]: Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, “Guidelines for Writing an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs”, BCP 26, RFC 5226, May 2008.

Appendix A. Changes from RFCs 2616 and 2617

The "realm" parameter isn't required anymore in general; consequently, the ABNF allows challenges without any auth parameters. (Section 2)¶

The "b64token" alternative to auth-param lists has been added for consistency with legacy authentication schemes such as "Basic". (Section 2)¶

Change ABNF productions for header fields to only define the field value. (Section 4)¶

Appendix B. Collected ABNF

Authorization = credentials

BWS = <BWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

OWS = <OWS, defined in [Part1], Section 1.2.2>

Proxy-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS
 challenge ] )
Proxy-Authorization = credentials

WWW-Authenticate = *( "," OWS ) challenge *( OWS "," [ OWS challenge
 ] )

auth-param = token BWS "=" BWS ( token / quoted-string )
auth-scheme = token

b64token = 1*( ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "." / "_" / "~" / "+" / "/" )
 *"="

challenge = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param ) *(
 OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ]
credentials = auth-scheme [ 1*SP ( b64token / [ ( "," / auth-param )
 *( OWS "," [ OWS auth-param ] ) ] ) ]

quoted-string = <quoted-string, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>

realm = "realm" BWS "=" BWS realm-value
realm-value = quoted-string

token = <token, defined in [Part1], Section 3.2.3>

ABNF diagnostics:

; Authorization defined but not used
; Proxy-Authenticate defined but not used
; Proxy-Authorization defined but not used
; WWW-Authenticate defined but not used
; realm defined but not used

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/35>: "Normative and Informative references"

C.3. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-01

Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>): ¶

Explicitly import BNF rules for "challenge" and "credentials" from RFC2617.
Add explicit references to BNF syntax and rules imported from other parts of the specification.

C.4. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-02

Ongoing work on IANA Message Header Field Registration (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/40>): ¶

Reference RFC 3984, and update header field registrations for header fields defined in this document.

C.5. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-03

None.¶

C.6. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-04

Ongoing work on ABNF conversion (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>): ¶

Use "/" instead of "|" for alternatives.
Introduce new ABNF rules for "bad" whitespace ("BWS"), optional whitespace ("OWS") and required whitespace ("RWS").
Rewrite ABNFs to spell out whitespace rules, factor out header field value format definitions.

C.7. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-05

Final work on ABNF conversion (<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/36>): ¶

Add appendix containing collected and expanded ABNF, reorganize ABNF introduction.

C.8. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-06

None.¶

C.9. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-07

Closed issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/198>: "move IANA registrations for optional status codes"

C.10. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-08

No significant changes.¶

C.11. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-09

Partly resolved issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/196>: "Term for the requested resource's URI"

C.12. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-10

None.¶

C.13. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-11

Closed issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/130>: "introduction to part 7 is work-in-progress"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/195>: "auth-param syntax"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/224>: "Header Classification"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/237>: "absorbing the auth framework from 2617"

Partly resolved issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/141>: "should we have an auth scheme registry"

C.14. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-12

None.¶

C.15. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-13

Closed issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/276>: "untangle ABNFs for header fields"

C.16. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-14

None.¶

C.17. Since draft-ietf-httpbis-p7-auth-15

Closed issues: ¶

<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/78>: "Relationship between 401, Authorization and WWW-Authenticate"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/177>: "Realm required on challenges"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/195>: "auth-param syntax"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/257>: "Considerations for new authentications schemes"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/287>: "LWS in auth-param ABNF"
<http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/309>: "credentials ABNF missing SP (still using implied LWS?)"

Index

4 A B C G H P R S W

4
- 401 Unauthorized (status code) 3.1, 5.2
- 407 Proxy Authentication Required (status code) 3.2, 5.2
A
- auth-param 2.1
- auth-scheme 2.1
- Authorization header field 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.3
B
- b64token 2.1
C
- challenge 2.1
- credentials 2.1
G
- Grammar
  - auth-param 2.1
  - auth-scheme 2.1
  - Authorization 4.1
  - b64token 2.1
  - challenge 2.1
  - credentials 2.1
  - Proxy-Authenticate 4.2
  - Proxy-Authorization 4.3
  - realm 2.2
  - WWW-Authenticate 4.4
H
- Header Fields
  - Authorization 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, 5.3
  - Proxy-Authenticate 3.2, 4.2, 5.3
  - Proxy-Authorization 3.2, 4.3, 5.3
  - WWW-Authenticate 3.1, 4.4, 5.3
P
- Part1 1.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.1, 1.2.1, 1.2.1, 1.2.1, 2.2, 2.3.1, 4.2, 4.4, 7, 8.1
  - Section 1.2 1.2
  - Section 1.2.2 1.2.1, 1.2.1
  - Section 2.2 2.3.1
  - Section 3.2.3 1.2.1, 1.2.1
  - Section 4.3 2.2, 4.2, 4.4
  - Section 12 7
- Part6 4.1, 8.1
  - Section 1.2 4.1
- Protection Space 2.2
- Proxy-Authenticate header field 3.2, 4.2, 5.3
- Proxy-Authorization header field 3.2, 4.3, 5.3
R
- Realm 2.2
- realm 2.2
- realm-value 2.2
- RFC2119 1.1, 8.1
- RFC2616 1, 8.2, C.1
- RFC2617 1, 1, 7, 7, 8.2
  - Section 6 7
- RFC3864 5.3, 8.2
- RFC3986 2.1, 8.2
- RFC4648 2.1, 8.2
- RFC5226 2.3, 8.2
  - Section 4.1 2.3
- RFC5234 1.2, 1.2, 8.1
  - Appendix B.1 1.2
S
- Status Codes
  - 401 Unauthorized 3.1, 5.2
  - 407 Proxy Authentication Required 3.2, 5.2
W
- WWW-Authenticate header field 3.1, 4.4, 5.3