
DNSOP                                                         O. Kolkman
Internet-Draft                                                  RIPE NCC
Expires: August 30, 2004                                       R. Gieben
                                                              NLnet Labs
                                                              March 2004


                      DNSSEC Operational Practices
         draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices-01.txt

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other
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   The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://
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   The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
   http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.

   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 30, 2004.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004). All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document describes a set of practices for operating a DNSSEC
   aware environment.  The target audience is zone administrators
   deploying DNSSEC that need a guide to help them chose appropriate
   values for DNSSEC parameters.  It also discusses operational matters
   such as key rollovers, KSK and ZSK considerations and related
   matters.








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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.1   The Use of the Term 'key'  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
     1.2   Keeping the Chain of Trust Intact  . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Time in DNSSEC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.1   Time Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
     2.2   Time Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  5
   3.  Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     3.1   Motivations for the KSK and ZSK Functions  . . . . . . . .  7
     3.2   Key Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.2.1   Key Validity Period  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.2.2   Key Algorithm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.2.3   Key Sizes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
     3.3   Key Rollovers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  9
       3.3.1   Zone-signing Key Rollovers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       3.3.2   Key-signing Key Rollovers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
   4.  Planning for Emergency Key Rollover  . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     4.1   KSK Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     4.2   ZSK Compromise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
     4.3   Compromises of Keys Anchored in Resolvers  . . . . . . . . 16
   5.  Parental Policies  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.1   Initial Key Exchanges and Parental Policies
           Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
     5.2   Storing Keys So Hashes Can Be Regenerated  . . . . . . . . 16
     5.3   Security Lameness Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     5.4   DS Signature Validity Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   6.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   7.  Acknowledgments  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
   8.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8.1   Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
   8.2   Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   A.  Terminology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
   B.  Zone-signing Key Rollover Howto  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   C.  Typographic Conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
   D.  Document Details and Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
     D.1   draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices-00 . . . . . 22
     D.2   draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices-01 . . . . . 22
       Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . . . 23











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1.  Introduction

   During workshops and early operational deployment tests, operators
   and system administrators gained experience about operating DNSSEC
   aware DNS services.  This document translates these experiences into
   a set of practices for zone administrators. At the time of writing,
   there exists very little experience with DNSSEC in production
   environments, this document should therefore explicitly not be seen
   as represented 'Best Current Practices'.

   The procedures herein are focused on the maintenance of signed zones
   (i.e. signing and publishing zones on authoritative servers). It is
   intended that maintenance of zones such as resigning or key rollovers
   be transparent to any verifying clients on the Internet.

   The structure of this document is as follows: It begins with
   discussing some of the considerations with respect to timing
   parameters of DNS in relation to DNSSEC (Section 2). Aspects of key
   management such as key rollover schemes are described in Section 3.
   Emergency rollover considerations are addressed in Section 4.  The
   typographic conventions used in this document are explained in
   Appendix C.

   Since this is a document with operational suggestions and there are
   no protocol specifications, the RFC2119 [5] language does not apply.

1.1  The Use of the Term 'key'

   It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the concept of
   asymmetric keys on which DNSSEC is based (Public Key Cryptography
   [Ref to Schneider?]). Therefore, this document will use the term
   'key' rather loosely. Where it is written that 'a key is used to sign
   data' it is assumed that the reader understands that it is the
   private part of the key-pair that is used for signing. It is also
   assumed that the reader understands that the public part of the
   key-pair is published in the DNSKEY resource record and that it is
   used in key-exchanges.

1.2  Keeping the Chain of Trust Intact

   Maintaining a valid chain of trust is important because broken chains
   of trust will result in data being marked as bogus, which may cause
   entire (sub)domains to become invisible to verifying clients. The
   administrators of secured zones have to realise that their zone is,
   to their clients, part of a chain of trust.

   As mentioned in the introduction, the procedures herein are intended
   to ensure maintenance of zones, such as resigning or key rollovers,



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   be transparent to the verifying clients on the Internet.
   Administrators of secured zones will have to keep in mind that data
   published on an authoritative primary server will not be immediately
   seen by verifying clients; it may take some time for the data to be
   transfered to other secondary authoritative nameservers, during which
   period clients may be fetching data from caching non-authoritative
   servers.  For the verifying clients it is important that  data from
   secured zones can be used to build chains of trust regardless of
   whether the  data came directly from an authoritative server, a
   caching nameserver or some middle box. Only by carefully using the
   available timing parameters can a zone administrator  assure that the
   data necessary for verification can be obtained.

   The responsibility for maintaining the chain of trust is shared by
   administrators of secured zones in the chain of trust. This is most
   obvious in the case of a 'key compromise' when a trade off between
   maintaining a valid chain of trust and the fact that the key has been
   stolen, must be made.

   The zone administrator will have to make a tradeoff between keeping
   the chain of trust intact  -thereby allowing for attacks with the
   compromised key- or to deliberately break the chain of trust thereby
   making secured subdomains invisible to security aware resolvers. Also
   see Section 4.

2.  Time in DNSSEC

   Without DNSSEC all times in DNS are relative. The SOA's refresh,
   retry and expiration timers are counters that are used to determine
   the time elapsed after a slave server syncronised (or tried to
   syncronise) with a master server. The Time to Live (TTL) value and
   the SOA minimum TTL parameter [6] are used to determine how long a
   forwarder should cache data after it has been fetched from an
   authoritative server. DNSSEC introduces the notion of an absolute
   time in the DNS. Signatures in DNSSEC have an expiration date after
   which the signature is marked as invalid and the signed data is to be
   considered bogus.

2.1  Time Definitions

   In this document we will be using a number of time related terms.
   Within the context of this document the following definitions apply:
   o  "Signature validity period"
         The period that a signature is valid. It starts at the time
         specified in the signature inception field of the RRSIG RR and
         ends at the time specified in the expiration field of the RRSIG
         RR.




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   o  "Signature publication period"
         Time after which a signature (made with a specific key) is
         replaced with a new signature (made with the same key). This
         replacement takes place by publishing the relevant RRSIG in the
         master zone file.  If a signature is published at time T0 and a
         new signature is published at time T1, the signature
         publication period is T1 - T0.
         If all signatures are refreshed at zone (re)signing then the
         signature publication period is equal signature validity
         period.
   o  "Maximum/Minimum Zone TTL"
         The maximum or minimum value of all the TTLs in a zone.

2.2  Time Considerations

   Because of the expiration of signatures, one should consider the
   following.
   o  The Maximum Zone TTL of your zone data should be a fraction of
      your signature validity period.
         If the TTL would be of similar order as the signature validity
         period, then all RRsets fetched during the validity period
         would be cached until the signature expiration time.  As a
         result query load on authoritative servers would peak at
         signature expiration time.
         To avoid query load peaks we suggest the TTL on all the RRs in
         your zone to be at least a few times smaller than your
         signature validity period.
   o  The signature publication period should be at least one maximum
      TTL smaller than the signature validity period.
         Resigning a zone shortly before the end of the signature
         validity period may cause simultaneous expiration of data from
         caches. This in turn may lead to peaks in the load on
         authoritative servers.
   o  The Minimum zone TTL should be long enough to both fetch and
      verify all the RRs in the authentication chain.
            1. During validation, some data may expire before the
            validation is complete. The validator should be able to keep
            all data, until is completed. This applies to all RRs needed
            to complete the chain of trust: DSs, DNSKEYs, RRSIGs, and
            the final answers i.e. the RR that is returned for the
            initial query.
            2. Frequent verification causes load on recursive
            nameservers. Data at delegation points, DSs, DNSKEYs and
            RRSIGs benefit from caching. The TTL on those should be
            relatively long.






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         We have seen events where data needed for verification of an
         authentication chain had expired from caches.
         We suggest the TTL on DNSKEY and DSs to be between ten minutes
         and one hour.  We recommend zone administrators to chose TTLs
         longer than half a minute.
         [Editor's Note: this observation could be implementation
         specific. We are not sure if we should leave this item]
   o  Slave servers will need to be able to fetch newly signed zones
      well before the data expires from your zone.
         'Better no answers than bad answers.'
         If a properly implemented slave server is not able to contact a
         master server for an extended period the data will at some
         point expire and the slave server will not hand out any data.
         If the server serves a DNSSEC zone than it may well happen that
         the signatures expire well before the SOA expiration timer
         counts down to zero. It is not possible to completely prevent
         this from happening by tweaking the SOA parameters. However,
         the effects can be minimized where the SOA expiration time is
         equal or smaller than the signature validity period.
         The consequence of an authoritative server not being able to
         update a zone, whilst that zone includes expired signaturs, is
         that non-secure resolvers will continue to be able to resolve
         data served by the particular slave servers. Security aware
         resolvers will experience problems.
         We suggest the SOA expiration timer being approximately one
         third or one fourth of the signature validity period. It will
         allow problems with transfers from the master server to be
         noticed before the actual signature time out.
         We suggest that operators of nameservers with slave zones
         develop 'watch dogs' to spot upcoming signature expirations in
         slave zones, and take appropriate action.
         When determining the value for the expiration parameter one has
         to take the following into account: What are the chances that
         all my secondary zones expire; How quickly can I reach an
         administrator and load a valid zone? All these arguments are
         not DNSSEC specific.

3.  Keys

   In the DNSSEC protocol there is only one type of key, the zone key.
   With this key, the data in a zone is signed.

   To make zone re-signing and key rollovers procedures easier to
   implement, it is possible to use one or more keys as Key Signing Keys
   (KSK) these keys will only sign the apex DNSKEY RRs in a zone. Other
   keys can be used to sign all the RRsets in a zone and are referred to
   as Zone Signing Keys (ZSK). In this document we assume that KSKs are
   the subset of keys that are used for key exchanges with the parents



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   and potentially for configuration as trusted anchors - the so called
   Secure Entry Point keys (SEP). In this document we assume a
   one-to-one mapping between KSK and SEP keys and we assume the SEP
   flag [4] to be set on KSKs.

3.1  Motivations for the KSK and ZSK Functions

   Differentiating between the KSK to ZSK functions has several
   advantages:

   o  Making the KSK stronger (i.e. using more bits in the key material)
      has little operational impact since it is only used to sign a
      small fraction of the zone data.
   o  As the KSK is only used to sign a keyset, which is most probably
      updated less frequently than other data in the zone, it can be
      stored separately from (and thus in a safer location than) the
      ZSK.
   o  A KSK can be used for longer periods.
   o  No parent/child interaction is required when ZSKs are updated.

   The KSK is used less than ZSK, once a keyset is signed with the KSK
   all the keys in the keyset can be used as ZSK. If a ZSK is
   compromised, it can be simply dropped from the keyset. The new keyset
   is then resigned with the KSK.

   Given the assumption that for KSKs the SEP flag is set, the KSK can
   be distinguished from a ZSK by examining the flag field in the DNSKEY
   RR. If the flag field is an odd number it is a KSK if it is an even
   number it is a ZSK e.g. a value of 256 and a key signing key has 257.

   The zone-signing key can be used to sign all the data in a zone on a
   regular basis. When a zone-signing key is to be rolled, no
   interaction with the parent is needed.  This allows for relatively
   short "Signature Validity Periods". That is, Signature Validity
   Periods of the order of days.

   The key-signing key is only to be used to sign the Key RR set from
   the zone apex. If a key-signing key is to be rolled over, there will
   be interactions with parties other than the zone administrator such
   as the registry of the parent zone or administrators of verifying
   resolvers that have the particular key configured as trusted entry
   points. Hence, the "Key Usage Time" of these keys can and should be
   made much longer. Although, given a long enough key, the "Key Usage
   Time" can be on the order of years we suggest to plan for a "Key
   Usage Time" of the order of a few months so that a key rollover
   remains an operational routine.





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3.2  Key Security Considerations

   Keys in DNSSEC have a number of parameters which should all be chosen
   with care, the most important once are: size, algorithm and the key
   validity period (its lifetime).

3.2.1  Key Validity Period

   RFC2541 [2] describes a number of considerations with respect to the
   security of keys. The document deals with the generation, lifetime,
   size and storage of private keys.

   In Section 3 of RFC2541 [2] there are some suggestions for a key
   validity period: 13 months for long-lived keys and 36 days for
   transaction keys but suggestions for key sizes are not made.

   If we say long-lived keys are key-signing keys and transactions keys
   are zone-signing keys, these recommendations will lead to rollovers
   occurring frequently enough to become part of 'operational habits';
   the procedure does not have to be reinvented every time a key is
   replaced.

3.2.2  Key Algorithm

   We recommend you choose RSA/SHA-1 as the preferred algorithm for the
   key. RSA has been developed in an open and transparent manner. As the
   patent on RSA expired in 2001, its use is now also free. The current
   known attacks on RSA can be defeated by making your key longer. As
   the MD5 hashing algorithm is showing (theoretical) cracks, we
   recommend the usage of SHA1.

3.2.3  Key Sizes

   When choosing key sizes, zone administrators will need to take into
   account how long a key will be used and how much data will be signed
   during the key publication period. It is hard to give precise
   recommendations but Lenstra and Verheul [9] supplied the following
   table with lower bound estimates for cryptographic key sizes. Their
   recommendations are based on a set of explicitly formulated parameter
   settings, combined with existing data points about cryptosystems. For
   details we refer to the original paper.

   [Editor's Note: DSA???]








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   	Year		RSA Key Sizes	Elliptic Curve Key Size
   	2000		952			132
   	2001		990			135
   	2002		1028			139
   	2003		1068			140
   	2004		1108			143

   	2005		1149			147
   	2006		1191			148
   	2007		1235			152
   	2008		1279			155
   	2009		1323			157


   	2010		1369			160
   	2011		1416			163
   	2012		1464			165
   	2013		1513			168
   	2014		1562			172

   	2015		1613			173
   	2016		1664			177
   	2017		1717			180
   	2018		1771			181
   	2019		1825			185


   	2020		1881			188
   	2021		1937			190
   	2022		1995			193
   	2023		2054			197
   	2024		2113			198

   	2025		2174			202
   	2026		2236			205
   	2027		2299			207
   	2028		2362			210
   	2029		2427			213

   For example, should you wish your key to last three years from 2003,
   check the RSA keysize values for 2006 in this table. In this case
   1191.

3.3  Key Rollovers

   Key rollovers are a fact of life when using DNSSEC. A DNSSEC key
   cannot be used forever (see RFC2541 [2] and Section 3.2 ).  Zone
   administrators who are in the process of rolling their keys have to



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   take into account that data published in previous versions of their
   zone still lives in caches. When deploying DNSSEC, this becomes an
   important consideration; ignoring data that may be in caches may lead
   to loss of service for clients.

   The most pressing example of this is when zone material signed with
   an old key is being validated by a resolver which does not have the
   old zone key cached. If the old key is no longer present in the
   current zone, this validation fails, marking the data bogus.
   Alternatively, an attempt could be made to validate data which is
   signed with a new key against an old key that lives in a local cache,
   also resulting in data being marked bogus.

   To appreciate the situation one could think of a number of
   authoritative servers that may not be instantaneously running the
   same version of a zone and a security aware non-recursive resolver
   that sits behind security aware caching forwarders.

   Note that KSK rollovers and ZSK rollovers are different. A zone-key
   rollover can be handled in two different ways: pre-publish (Section
   Section 3.3.1.1) and double signature (Section Section 3.3.1.2). The
   pre-publish technique works because the key-signing key stays the
   same during this ZSK rollover. With this KSK a cache is able to
   validate the new keyset of a zone. With a KSK rollover a cache can
   not validate the new keyset, because it does not trust the new KSK.

   [Editors note: This needs more verbose explanation, nobody will
   appreciate the situation just yet. Help with text and examples is
   appreciated]

3.3.1  Zone-signing Key Rollovers

   For zone-signing key rollovers there are two ways to make sure that
   during the rollover data still cached can be verified with the new
   keysets or newly generated signatures can be verified with the keys
   still in caches. One schema uses double signatures, it is described
   in Section 3.3.1.2, the other uses key pre-publication (Section
   3.3.1.1). The pros, cons and recommendations are described in Section
   3.3.1.3.

3.3.1.1  Pre-publish Keyset Rollover

   This section shows how to perform a ZSK rollover without the need to
   sign all the data in a zone twice - the so called "prepublish
   rollover". We recommend this method because it has advantages in the
   case of key compromise. If the old key is compromised, the new key
   has already been distributed in the DNS. The zone administrator is
   then able to quickly switch to the new key and remove the compromised



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   key from the zone. Another major advantage is that the zone size does
   not double, as is the case with the double signature ZSK rollover. A
   small "HOWTO" for this kind of rollover can be found in Appendix B.

       normal          pre-roll         roll            after

       SOA0            SOA1             SOA2            SOA3
       RRSIG10(SOA0)   RRSIG10(SOA1)    RRSIG11(SOA2)   RRSIG11(SOA3)

       DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1          DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1
       DNSKEY10        DNSKEY10         DNSKEY10        DNSKEY11
                       DNSKEY11         DNSKEY11
       RRSIG1 (DNSKEY) RRSIG1 (DNSKEY)  RRSIG1(DNSKEY)  RRSIG1 (DNSKEY)
       RRSIG10(DNSKEY) RRSIG10(DNSKEY)  RRSIG11(DNSKEY) RRSIG11(DNSKEY)


   normal: Version 0 of the zone: DNSKEY 1 is the key-signing key.
      DNSKEY 10 is used to sign all the data of the zone, the
      zone-signing key.
   pre-roll: DNSKEY 11 is introduced into the keyset. Note that no
      signatures are generated with this key yet, but this does not
      secure against brute force attacks on the public key.  The minimum
      duration of this pre-roll phase is the time it takes for the data
      to propagate to the authoritative servers plus TTL value of the
      keyset. This equates to two times the Maximum Zone TTL.
   roll: At the rollover stage (SOA serial 1) DNSKEY 11 is used to sign
      the data in the zone exclusively  (i.e. all the signatures from
      DNSKEY 10 are removed from the zone). DNSKEY 10 remains published
      in the keyset. This way data that was loaded into caches from
      version 1 of the zone can still be verified with key sets fetched
      from version 2 of the zone.
      The minimum time that the keyset including DNSKEY 10 is to be
      published is the time that it takes for zone data from the
      previous version of the zone to expire from old caches i.e. the
      time it takes for this zone to propagate to all authoritative
      servers plus the Maximum Zone TTL value of any of the data in the
      previous version of the zone.
   after: DNSKEY 10 is removed from the zone. The keyset, now only
      containing DNSKEY 11 is resigned with the DNSKEY 1.

   The above scheme can be simplified by always publishing the "future"
   key immediately after the rollover. The scheme would look as follows
   (we show two rollovers); the future key is introduced in "after" as
   DNSKEY 12 and again a newer one, numbered 13, in "2nd after":







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       normal          roll            after           2nd roll        2nd after

       SOA0            SOA2            SOA3            SOA4            SOA5
       RRSIG10(SOA0)   RRSIG11(SOA2)   RRSIG11(SOA3)   RRSIG12(SOA4)   RRSIG12(SOA5)

       DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1
       DNSKEY10        DNSKEY10        DNSKEY11        DNSKEY11        DNSKEY12
       DNSKEY11        DNSKEY11        DNSKEY12        DNSKEY12        DNSKEY13
       RRSIG1(DNSKEY)  RRSIG1 (DNSKEY) RRSIG1(DNSKEY)  RRSIG1(DNSKEY)  RRSIG1(DNSKEY)
       RRSIG10(DNSKEY) RRSIG11(DNSKEY) RRSIG11(DNSKEY) RRSIG12(DNSKEY) RRSIG12(DNSKEY)


   Note that the key introduced after the rollover is not used for
   production yet; the private key can thus be stored in a physically
   secure manner and does not need to be 'fetched' every time a zone
   needs to be signed.

   This scheme has the benefit that the key that is intended for future
   use: immediately during an emergency rollover assuming that the
   private key was stored in a physically secure manner.

3.3.1.2  Double Signature Zone-signing Key Rollover

   This section shows how to perform a ZSK key rollover using the double
   zone data signature scheme, aptly named "double sig rollover".

   During the rollover stage the new version of the zone file will need
   to propagate to all authoritative servers and the data that exists in
   (distant) caches will need to expire, this will take at least the
   maximum Zone TTL .

       normal              roll              after

       SOA0                SOA1              SOA2
       RRSIG10(SOA0)       RRSIG10(SOA1)     RRSIG11(SOA2)
                           RRSIG11(SOA1)

       DNSKEY1             DNSKEY1           DNSKEY1
       DNSKEY10            DNSKEY10          DNSKEY11
                           DNSKEY11
       RRSIG1(DNSKEY)      RRSIG1(DNSKEY)    RRSIG1(DNSKEY)
       RRSIG10(DNSKEY)     RRSIG10(DNSKEY)   RRSIG11(DNSKEY)
                           RRSIG11(DNSKEY)

   normal: Version 0 of the zone: DNSKEY 1 is the key-signing key.
      DNSKEY 10 is used to sign all the data of the zone, the
      zone-signing key.




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   roll: At the rollover stage (SOA serial 1) DNSKEY 11 is introduced
      into the keyset and all the data in the zone is signed with DNSKEY
      10 and DNSKEY 11. The rollover period will need to exist until all
      data from version 0 of the zone has expired from remote caches.
      This will take at least the maximum Zone TTL of version 0 of the
      zone.
   after: DNSKEY 10 is removed from the zone. All the signatures from
      DNSKEY 10 are removed from the zone. The keyset, now only
      containing DNSKEY 11, is resigned with DNSKEY 1.

   At every instance the data from the previous version of the zone can
   be verified with the key from the current version and vice verse. The
   data from the current version can be verified with the data from the
   previous version of the zone. The duration of the rollover phase and
   the period between rollovers should be at least the "Maximum Zone
   TTL".

   Making sure that the rollover phase lasts until the signature
   expiration time of the data in version 0 of the zone is recommended.
   However, this date could be considerably longer than the Maximum Zone
   TTL, making the rollover a lengthy procedure.

   Note that in this example we assumed that the zone was not modified
   during the rollover. New data can be introduced in the zone as long
   as it is signed with both keys.

3.3.1.3  Pros and Cons of the Schemes

   Prepublish-keyset rollover: This rollover does not involve signing
      the zone data twice. Instead, just before the actual rollover, the
      new key is published in the keyset and thus available for
      cryptanalysis attacks. A small disavantage is that this process
      requires four steps. Also the prepublish scheme will not work for
      KSKs as explained in Section 3.3.
   Double signature rollover: The drawback of this signing scheme is
      that during the rollover the number of signatures in your zone
      doubles, this may be prohibitive if you have very big zones.  An
      advantage is that it only requires three steps.

3.3.2  Key-signing Key Rollovers

   For the rollover of a key-signing key the same considerations as for
   the rollover of a zone-signing key apply. However we can use a double
   signature scheme to guarantee that old data (only the apex keyset) in
   caches can be verified with a new keyset and vice versa.

   Since only the keyset is signed with a KSK, zone size considerations
   do not apply.



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       normal          roll            after

       SOA0            SOA1            SOA2
       RRSIG10(SOA0)   RRSIG10(SOA1)   RRSIG10(SOA2)

       DNSKEY1         DNSKEY1         DNSKEY2
                       DNSKEY2
       DNSKEY10        DNSKEY10        DNSKEY10
       RRSIG1 (DNSKEY) RRSIG1 (DNSKEY) RRSIG2(DNSKEY)
                       RRSIG2 (DNSKEY)
       RRSIG10(DNSKEY) RRSIG10(DNSKEY) RRSIG10(DNSKEY)

   normal: Version 0 of the zone.  The parental DS points to DNSKEY1.
      Before the rollover starts the child will have to verify what the
      TTL is of the DS RR that points to DNSKEY1 - it is needed during
      the rollover and we refer to the value as TTL_DS.
   roll: During the rollover phase the zone administrator generates a
      second KSK, DNSKEY2. The key is provided to the parent and the
      child will have to wait until a new DS RR has been generated that
      points to DNSKEY2. After that DS RR has been published on _all_
      servers authoritative for the parents zone, the zone administrator
      has to wait at least TTL_DS to make sure that the old DS RR has
      expired from distant caches.
   after: DNSKEY1 has been removed.

   The scenario above puts the responsibility for maintaining a valid
   chain of trust with the child. It also is based on the premises that
   the parent only has one DS RR (per algorithm) per zone. St John [The
   draft has expired] proposed a mechanism where using an established
   trust relation, the interaction can be performed in-band. In this
   mechanism there are periods where there are two DS RRs at the parent.

   [Editors note: We probably need to mention more]

4.  Planning for Emergency Key Rollover

   This section deals with preparation for a possible key compromise.
   Our advice is to have a documented procedure ready for when a key
   compromise is suspected or confirmed.

   [Editors note: We are much in favor of a rollover tactic that keeps
   the authentication chain intact as long as possible. This means that
   one has to take all the regular rollover properties into account.]

   When the private material of one of your keys is compromised it can
   be used for as long as a valid authentication chain exists.  An
   authentication chain remains intact for:




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   o  as long as a signature over the compromised key in the
      authentication chain is valid,
   o  as long as a parental DS RR (and signature) points to the
      compromised key,
   o  as long as the key is anchored in a resolver and is used as a
      starting point for validation. (This is the hardest to update.)
   While an authentication chain to your compromised key exists, your
   name-space is vulnerable to abuse by the malicious key holder (i.e.
   the owner of the compromised key). Zone operators have to make a
   trade off if the abuse of the compromised key is worse than having
   data in caches that cannot be validated. If the zone operator chooses
   to break the authentication chain to the compromised key, data in
   caches signed with this key cannot be validated. However, if the zone
   administrator chooses to take the path of a regular roll-over, the
   malicious key holder can spoof data so that it appears to be valid,
   note that this kind of attack will usually be localised in the
   Internet topology.


4.1  KSK Compromise

   When the KSK has been compromised the parent must be notified as soon
   as possible using secure means. The keyset of the zone should be
   resigned as soon as possible. Care must be taken to not break the
   authentication chain. The local zone can only be resigned with the
   new KSK after the parent's zone has been updated with the new KSK.
   Before this update takes place it would be best to drop the security
   status of a zone all together: the parent removes the DS of the child
   at the next zone update.  After that the child can be made secure
   again.

   An additional danger of a key compromise is that the compromised key
   can be used to facilitate a legitimate DNSKEY/DS and/or nameserver
   rollover at the parent. When that happens the domain can be in
   dispute. An out of band and secure notify mechanism to contact a
   parent is needed in this case.

4.2  ZSK Compromise

   Primarily because there is no parental interaction required when a
   ZSK is compromised, the situation is less severe than with with a KSK
   compromise.  The zone must still be resigned with a new ZSK as soon
   as possible. As this is a local operation and requires no
   communication between the parent and child this can be achieved
   fairly quickly. However, one has to take into account that just as
   with a normal rollover the immediate disappearance from the old
   compromised key may lead to verification problems. The
   pre-publication scheme as discussed above minimises such problems.



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4.3  Compromises of Keys Anchored in Resolvers

   A key can also be pre-configured in resolvers. If DNSSEC is rolled
   out as planned the root key should be pre-configured in every secure
   aware resolver on the planet. [Editors Note: add more about
   authentication of a newly received  resolver key]

   If trust-anchor keys are compromised, the resolvers using these keys
   should be notified of this fact. Zone administrators may consider
   setting up a mailing list to communicate the fact that a SEP key is
   about to be rolled over. This communication will of course need to be
   authenticated e.g. by using digital signatures.

5.  Parental Policies

5.1  Initial Key Exchanges and Parental Policies Considerations

   The initial key exchange is always subject to the policies set by the
   parent (or its registry). When designing a key exchange policy one
   should take into account that the authentication and authorisation
   mechanisms used during a key exchange should be as strong as the
   authentication and authorisation mechanisms used for the exchange of
   delegation information between parent and child.

   Using the DNS itself as the source for the actual DNSKEY material,
   with an off-band check on the validity of the DNSKEY, has the benefit
   that it reduces the chances of user error. A parental DNSKEY download
   tool can make use of the SEP bit [4] to select the proper key from a
   DNSSEC keyset; thereby reducing the chance that the wrong DNSKEY is
   sent. It can validate the self-signature over a key; thereby
   verifying the ownership of the private key material. Fetching the
   DNSKEY from the DNS ensures that the child will not become bogus once
   the parent publishes the DS RR indicating the child is secure.

   Note: the off-band verification is still needed when the key-material
   is fetched by a tool. The parent can not be sure whether the DNSKEY
   RRs have been spoofed.

5.2  Storing Keys So Hashes Can Be Regenerated

   When designing a registry system one should consider if the DNSKEYs
   and/or the corresponding DSs are stored. Storing DNSKEYs will help
   during troubleshooting while the overhead of calculating DS records
   from them is minimal.

   Having an out-of-band mechanism, such as a Whois database, to find
   out which keys are used to generate DS Resource Records for specific
   owners may also help with troubleshooting.



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5.3  Security Lameness Checks

   Security Lameness is defined as what happens when a parent has a DS
   Resource Record pointing to a non-existing DNSKEY RR. During key
   exchange a parent should make sure that the child's key is actually
   configured in the DNS before publishing a DS RR in its zone. Failure
   to do so would render the child's zone being marked as bogus.

   Child zones should be very careful removing DNSKEY material,
   specifically SEP keys, for which a DS RR exists.

   Once a zone is "security lame" a fix (e.g. by removing a DS RR) will
   take time to propagate through the DNS.

5.4  DS Signature Validity Period

   Since the DS can be replayed as long as it has a valid signature a
   short signature validity period over the DS minimises the time a
   child is vulnerable in the case of a compromise of the child's
   KSK(s).  A signature validity period that is too short introduces the
   possibility that a zone is marked bogus in case of a configuration
   error in the signer; there may not be enough time to fix the problems
   before signatures expire.  Something as mundane as operator
   unavailability during weekends shows the need for DS signature
   lifetimes longer than 2 days. We recommend the minimum for a DS
   signature validity period to be a few days.

   The maximum signature lifetime of the DS record depends on how long
   child zones are willing to be vulnerable after a key compromise. We
   consider a signature validity period of around one week to be a good
   compromise between the operational constraints of the parent and
   minimising damage for the child.

6.  Security Considerations

   DNSSEC adds data integrity to the DNS. This document tries to assess
   considerations to operate a stable and secure DNSSEC service. Not
   taking into account the 'data propagation' properties in the DNS will
   cause validation failures and may make secured zones unavailable to
   security aware resolvers.

7.  Acknowledgments

   We, the folk mentioned as authors, only acted as editors. Most of the
   ideas in this draft were the result of collective efforts during
   workshops, discussions and try outs.

   At the risk of forgetting individuals who where the original



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   contributors of the ideas we would like to acknowledge people who
   where actively involved in the compilation of this document. In
   random order: Olafur Gudmundsson, Wesley Griffin, Michael Richardson,
   Scott Rose, Rick van Rein, Tim McGinnis, Gilles Guette and Olivier
   Courtay, Sam Weiler.

   Emma Bretherick and Adrian Bedford corrected many of the spelling and
   style issues.

   Kolkman and Gieben take the blame for introducing all miscakes(SIC).

8.  References

8.1  Normative References

   [1]  Eastlake, D., "Domain Name System Security Extensions", RFC
        2535, March 1999.

   [2]  Eastlake, D., "DNS Security Operational Considerations", RFC
        2541, March 1999.

   [3]  Lewis, E., "DNS Security Extension Clarification on Zone
        Status", RFC 3090, March 2001.

   [4]  Lewis, E., Kolkman, O. and J. Schlyter, "KEY RR Key-Signing Key
        (KSK) Flag", draft-ietf-dnsext-keyrr-key-signing-flag-06 (work
        in progress), February 2003.

8.2  Informative References

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

   [6]  Andrews, M., "Negative Caching of DNS Queries (DNS NCACHE)", RFC
        2308, March 1998.

   [7]  Gudmundsson, O., "Delegation Signer Resource Record",
        draft-ietf-dnsext-delegation-signer-13 (work in progress), March
        2003.

   [8]  Arends, R., "Protocol Modifications for the DNS Security
        Extensions", draft-ietf-dnsext-dnssec-protocol-01 (work in
        progress), March 2003.

   [9]  Lenstra, A. and E. Verheul, "Selecting Cryptographic Key Sizes",
        The Journal of Cryptology 14 (255-293), 2001.





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Authors' Addresses

   Olaf M. Kolkman
   RIPE NCC
   Singel 256
   Amsterdam  1016 AB
   The Netherlands

   Phone: +31 20 535 4444
   EMail: olaf@ripe.net
   URI:   http://www.ripe.net/


   Miek Gieben
   NLnet Labs
   Kruislaan 419
   Amsterdam  1098 VA
   The Netherlands

   EMail: miek@nlnetlabs.nl
   URI:   http://www.nlnetlabs.nl

Appendix A.  Terminology

   In this document there is some jargon used that is defined in other
   documents. In most cases we have not copied the text from the
   documents defining the terms but given a more elaborate explanation
   of the meaning. Note that these explanations should not be seen as
   authoritative.

   Private and Public Keys: DNSSEC secures the DNS through the use of
      public key cryptography. Public key cryptography is based on the
      existence of two keys, a public key and a private key. The public
      keys are published in the DNS by use of the DNSKEY Resource Record
      (DNSKEY RR). Private keys should remain private i.e. should not be
      exposed to parties not-authorised to do the actual signing.
   Signer: The system that has access to the private key material and
      signs the Resource Record sets in a zone. A signer may be
      configured to sign only parts of the zone e.g. only those RRsets
      for which existing signatures are about to expire.
   KSK: A Key-Signing Key (KSK) is a key that is used exclusively for
      signing the apex keyset.  The fact that a key is a KSK is only
      relevant to the signing tool.
   ZSK: A Zone Signing Key (ZSK) is a key that is used for signing all
      data in a zone.  The fact that a key is a ZSK is only relevant to
      the signing tool.





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   SEP Key: A KSK that has a parental DS record pointing to it. Note:
      this is not enforced in the protocol. A SEP Key with no parental
      DS is security lame.
   Anchored Key: A DNSKEY configured in resolvers around the globe. This
      Key is hard to update, hence the term anchored.
   Bogus: [Editors Note: a reference here] An RRset in DNSSEC is marked
      "Bogus" when a signature of a RRset does not validate against the
      DNSKEY. Even if the key itself was not marked Bogus. A cache may
      choose to cache Bogus data for various reasons.
   Singing the Zone File: The term used for the event where an
      administrator joyfully signs its zone file while producing melodic
      sound patterns.
   Zone Administrator: The 'role' that is responsible for signing a zone
      and publishing it on the primary authoritative server.

Appendix B.  Zone-signing Key Rollover Howto

   Using the pre-published signature scheme and the most conservative
   method to assure oneself that data does not live in distant caches
   here follows the "HOWTO". [WES: has some comments about this]
   Key notation:
   Step 0: The preparation: Create two keys and publish both in your
      keyset.  Mark one of the keys as "active" and the other as
      "published". Use the "active" key for signing your zone data.
      Store the private part of the "published" key, preferably
      off-line.
   Step 1: Determine expiration: At the beginning of the rollover make a
      note of the highest expiration time of signatures in your zone
      file created with the current key marked as "active".
      Wait until the expiration time marked in Step 1 has passed
   Step 2: Then start using the key that was marked as "published" to
      sign your data i.e. mark it as "active". Stop using the key that
      was marked as "active", mark it as "rolled".
   Step 3: It is safe to engage in a new rollover (Step 1) after at
      least one "signature validity period".

Appendix C.  Typographic Conventions

   The following typographic conventions are used in this document:
   Key notation: A key is denoted by KEYx, where x is a number, x could
      be thought of as the key id.
   RRset notations: RRs are only denoted by the type. All other
      information - owner, class, rdata and TTL - is left out. Thus:
      example.com 3600 IN A 192.168.1.1 is reduced to: A. RRsets are a
      list of RRs. A example of this would be: A1,A2, specifying the
      RRset containing two A records. This could again be abbreviated to
      just: A.




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   Signature notation: Signatures are denoted as RRSIGx(RRset), which
      means that RRset is signed with DNSKEYx.
   Zone representation: Using the above notation we have simplified the
      representation of a signed zone by leaving out all unnecessary
      details such as the names and by  representing all data by "SOAx"
   SOA representation: SOA's are represented as SOAx, where x is the
      serial number.
   Using this notation the following zone :


   example.net.      600     IN SOA  ns.example.net. ernie.example.net. (
                                     10         ; serial
                                     450        ; refresh (7 minutes 30 seconds)
                                     600        ; retry (10 minutes)
                                     345600     ; expire (4 days)
                                     300        ; minimum (5 minutes)
                                     )
                     600     RRSIG   SOA 5 2 600 20130522213204 (
                                     20130422213204 14 example.net.
                                     cmL62SI6iAX46xGNQAdQ... )
                     600     NS      a.iana-servers.net.
                     600     NS      b.iana-servers.net.
                     600     RRSIG   NS 5 2 600 20130507213204 (
                                     20130407213204 14 example.net.
                                     SO5epiJei19AjXoUpFnQ ... )
                     3600    DNSKEY  256 3 5 (
                                     EtRB9MP5/AvOuVO0I8XDxy0...
                                     ) ; key id = 14
                     3600    DNSKEY  256 3 5 (
                                     gsPW/Yy19GzYIY+Gnr8HABU...
                                     ) ; key id = 15
                     3600    RRSIG   DNSKEY 5 2 3600 20130522213204 (
                                     20130422213204 14 example.net.
                                     J4zCe8QX4tXVGjV4e1r9... )
                     3600    RRSIG   DNSKEY 5 2 3600 20130522213204 (
                                     20130422213204 15 example.net.
                                     keVDCOpsSeDReyV6O... )
                     600     NSEC    a.example.net. NS SOA TXT RRSIG DNSKEY NSEC
                     600     RRSIG   NSEC 5 2 600 20130507213204 (
                                     20130407213204 14 example.net.
                                     obj3HEp1GjnmhRjX... )
   a.example.net.    600     IN TXT  "A label"
                     600     RRSIG   TXT 5 3 600 20130507213204 (
                                     20130407213204 14 example.net.
                                     IkDMlRdYLmXH7QJnuF3v... )
                     600     NSEC    b.example.com. TXT RRSIG NSEC
                     600     RRSIG   NSEC 5 3 600 20130507213204 (
                                     20130407213204 14 example.net.



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                                     bZMjoZ3bHjnEz0nIsPMM... )

                     ...


    is reduced to the following represenation:

       SOA10
       RRSIG14(SOA10)

       DNSKEY14
       DNSKEY15

       RRSIG14(KEY)
       RRSIG15(KEY)

    The rest of the zone data has the same signature as the SOA record,
   i.e a RRSIG created with DNSKEY 14.

Appendix D.  Document Details and Changes

   This section is to be removed by the RFC editor if and when the
   document is published.

   $Header: /var/cvs/dnssec-key/
   draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices.xml,v 1.22 2004/05/12
   08:29:11 dnssec Exp $

D.1  draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices-00

   Submission as working group document. This document is a modified and
   updated version of draft-kolkman-dnssec-operational-practices-00.

D.2  draft-ietf-dnsop-dnssec-operational-practices-01

   changed the definition of "Bogus" to reflect the one in the protocol
   draft.

   Bad to Bogus

   Style and spelling corrections

   KSK - SEP mapping made explicit.

   Updates from Sam Weiler added






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   HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
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