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Filename: 219-expanded-dns.txt
Title: Support for full DNS and DNSSEC resolution in Tor
Authors: Ondrej Mikle
Created: 4 February 2012
Modified: 2 August 2013
Target: 0.2.5.x
Status: Needs-Revision

0. Overview

  Adding support for any DNS query type to Tor.

0.1. Motivation

  Many applications running over Tor need more than just resolving FQDN to
  IPv4 and vice versa. Sometimes to prevent DNS leaks the applications have to
  be hacked around to be supplied necessary data by hand (e.g. SRV records in
  XMPP). TLS connections will benefit from planned TLSA record that provides
  certificate pinning to avoid another Diginotar-like fiasco.

0.2. What about DNSSEC?

  Routine DNSSEC resolution is not practical with this proposal alone,
  because of round-trip issues: a single name lookup can require
  dozens of round trips across a circuit, rendering it very slow. (We
  don't want to add minutes to every webpage load time!)

  For records like TLSA that need extra signing, this might not be an
  unacceptable amount of overhead, but routine hostname lookup, it's
  probably overkill.

  [Further, thanks to the changes of proposal 205, DNSSEC for routine
  hostname lookup is less useful in Tor than it might have been back
  when we cached IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and used them across multiple
  circuits and exit nodes.]

  See section 8 below for more discussion of DNSSEC issues.

1. Design

1.1 New cells

  There will be two new cells, RELAY_DNS_BEGIN and RELAY_DNS_RESPONSE (we'll
  use DNS_BEGIN and DNS_RESPONSE for short below).

1.1.1. DNS_BEGIN

  DNS_BEGIN payload:

    FLAGS        [2 octets]
    DNS packet data (variable length, up to length of relay cell.)

  The DNS packet must be generated internally by Tor to avoid
  fingerprinting users by differences in client resolvers' behavior.

  [XXXX We need to specify the exact behavior here: saying "Just do what
  Libunbound does!" would make it impossible to implement a
  Tor-compatible client without reverse-engineering libunbound. - NM]

  The FLAGS field is reserved, and should be set to 0 by all clients.

  Because of the maximum length of the RELAY cell, the DNS packet may
  not be longer than 496 bytes. [XXXX Is this enough? -NM]

  Some fields in the query must be omitted or set to zero: see section 3
  below.

1.1.2. DNS_RESPONSE

  DNS_RESPONSE payload:

    STATUS [1 octet]
    CONTENT [variable, up to length of relay cell]

  If the low bit of STATUS is set, this is the last DNS_RESPONSE that
  the server will send in response to the given DNS_BEGIN.  Otherwise,
  there will be more DNS_RESPONSE packets.  The other bits are reserved,
  and should be set to zero for now.

  The CONTENT fields of the DNS_RESPONSE cells contain a DNS record,
  split across multiple cells as needed, encoded as:


    total length (2 octets)
    data         (variable)

  So for example, if the DNS record R1 is only 300 bytes long, then it
  is sent in a single DNS_RESPONSE cell with payload [01 01 2C] R1.  But
  if the DNS record R2 is 1024 bytes long, it's sent in 3 DNS_RESPONSE
  cells, with contents: [00 04 00] R2[0:495], [00] R2[495:992], and
  [01] R2[992:1024] respectively.

  [NOTE: I'm using the length field and the is-this-the-last-cell
  field to allow multi-packet responses in the future. -NM]

  AXFR and IXRF are not supported in this cell by design (see
  specialized tool below in section 5).

1.1.3. Matching queries to responses.

  DNS_BEGIN must use a non-zero, distinct StreamID.  The client MUST NOT
  re-use the same stream ID until it has received a complete response
  from the server or a RELAY_END cell.

  The client may cancel a DNS_BEGIN request by sending a RELAY_END cell.
  The server may refused to answer, or abort answering, a DNS_BEGIN cell
  by sending a RELAY_END cell.

2. Interfaces to applications

  DNSPort evdns - existing implementation will be updated to use
  DNS_BEGIN.

  [XXXX we should add a dig-like tool that can work over the socksport
  via some extension, as tor-resolve does now. -NM]

3. Limitations on DNS query

  Clients must only set query class to IN (INTERNET), since the only
  other useful class CHAOS is practical for directly querying
  authoritative servers (OR in this case acts as a recursive resolver).
  Servers MUST return REFUSED for any for class other than IN.

  Multiple questions in a single packet are not supported and OR will
  respond with REFUSED as the DNS error code.

  All query RR types are allowed.

  [XXXX I originally thought about some exit policy like "basic RR types" and
  "all RRs", but managing such list in deployed nodes with extra directory
  flags outweighs the benefit. Maybe disallow ANY RR type? -OM]

  Client as well as OR MUST block attempts to resolve local RFC 1918,
  4193, or 4291 adresses (PTR). REFUSED will be returned as DNS error
  code from OR.  [XXXX Must they also refuse to report addresses that
  resolve to these? -NM]

  [XXX I don't think so. People often use public DNS
  records that map to private adresses. We can't effectively separate
  "truly public" records from the ones client's dnsmasq or similar DNS
  resolver returns. - OM]

  [XXX Then do you mean "must be returned as the DNS error from the OP"?]

  Request for special names (.onion, .exit, .noconnect) must never be
  sent, and will return REFUSED.

  The DNS transaction ID field MUST be set to zero in all requests and
  replies; the stream ID field plays the same function in Tor.

4. Implementation notes

  Client will periodically purge incomplete DNS replies. Any unexpected
  DNS_RESPONSE will be dropped.

  AD flag must be zeroed out on client unless validation is performed.

  [XXXX libunbound lowlevel API, Tor+libunbound libevent loop

  libunbound doesn't publicly expose all the necessary parts of low-level API.
  It can return the received DNS packet, but not let you construct a packet
  and get it in wire-format, for example.

  Options I see:

  a) patch libunbound to be able feed wire-format DNS packets and add API to
  obtain constructed packets instead of sending over network

  b) replace bufferevents for sockets in unbound with something like
  libevent's paired bufferevents. This means that data extracted from
  DNS_RESPONSE/DNS_BEGIN cells would be fed directly to some evbuffers that
  would be picked up by libunbound. It could possibly result in avoiding
  background thread of libunbound's ub_resolve_async running separate libevent
  loop.

  c) bind to some arbitrary local address like 127.1.2.3:53 and use it as
  forwarder for libunbound. The code there would pack/unpack the DNS packets
  from/to libunbound into DNS_BEGIN/DNS_RESPONSE cells. It wouldn't require
  modification of libunbound code, but it's not pretty either. Also the bind
  port must be 53 which usually requires superuser privileges.

  Code of libunbound is fairly complex for me to see outright what would the
  best approach be.
  ]

5. Separate tool for AXFR

  The AXFR tool will have similar interface like tor-resolve, but will
  return raw DNS data.

  Parameters are: query domain, server IP of authoritative DNS.

  The tool will transfer the data through "ordinary" tunnel using RELAY_BEGIN
  and related cells.

  This design decision serves two goals:

  - DNS_BEGIN and DNS_RESPONSE will be simpler to implement (lower chance of
    bugs)
  - in practice it's often useful do AXFR queries on secondary authoritative
    DNS servers

  IXFR will not be supported (infrequent corner case, can be done by manual
  tunnel creation over Tor if truly necessary).

6. Security implications

  As proposal 171 mentions, we need mitigate circuit correlation. One solution
  would be keeping multiple streams to multiple exit nodes and picking one at
  random for DNS resolution. Other would be keeping DNS-resolving circuit open
  only for a short time (e.g. 1-2 minutes). Randomly changing the circuits
  however means that it would probably incur additional latency since there
  would likely be a few cache misses on the newly selected exits.

  [This needs more analysis; We need to consider the possible attacks
  here.  It would be good to have a way to tie requests to
  SocksPorts, perhaps? -NM]

7. TTL normalization idea

  A bit complex on implementation, because it requires parsing DNS packets at
  exit node.

  TTL in reply DNS packet MUST be normalized at exit node so that client won't
  learn what other clients queried. The normalization is done in following
  way:

  - for a RR, the original TTL value received from authoritative DNS server
    should be used when sending DNS_RESPONSE, trimming the values to interval
    [5, 600]
  - does not pose "ghost-cache-attack", since once RR is flushed from
    libunbound's cache, it must be fetched anew

8. DNSSEC notes

8.1. Where to do the resolution?

  DNSSEC is part of the DNS protocol and the most appropriate place for DNSSEC
  API would be probably in OS libraries (e.g. libc). However that will
  probably take time until it becomes widespread.

  On the Tor's side (as opposed to application's side), DNSSEC will provide
  protection against DNS cache-poisoning attacks (provided that exit is not
  malicious itself, but still reduces attack surface).

8.2. Round trips and serialization

  Following are two examples of resolving two A records. The one for
  addons.mozila.org is an example of a "common" RR without CNAME/DNAME, the
  other for www.gov.cn an extreme example chained through 5 CNAMEs and 3 TLDs.
  The examples below are shown for resolving that started with an empty DNS
  cache.

  Note that multiple queries are made by libunbound as it tries to adjust for
  the latency of network. "Standard query response" below that does not list
  RR type is a negative NOERROR reply with NSEC/NSEC3 (usually reply to DS
  query).

  The effect of DNS cache plays a great role - once DS/DNSKEY for root and a
  TLD is cached, at most 3 records usually need to be fetched for a record
  that does not utilize CNAME/DNAME (3 roundtrips for DS, DNSKEY and the
  record itself if there are no zone cuts below).

  Query for addons.mozilla.org, 6 roundtrips (not counting retries):

    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query A addons.mozilla.org
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query response A 63.245.217.112 RRSIG
    Standard query DNSKEY <Root>
    Standard query DNSKEY <Root>
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG
    Standard query DS org
    Standard query response DS DS RRSIG
    Standard query DNSKEY org
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG RRSIG
    Standard query DS mozilla.org
    Standard query response DS RRSIG
    Standard query DNSKEY mozilla.org
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG RRSIG

  Query for www.gov.cn, 16 roundtrips (not counting retries):

    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A www.gov.cn
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A www.gov.chinacache.net
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A www.gov.cncssr.chinacache.net
    Standard query response CNAME www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A www.gov.foreign.ccgslb.com
    Standard query response CNAME wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A wac.0b51.edgecastcdn.net
    Standard query response CNAME gp1.wac.v2cdn.net A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query A gp1.wac.v2cdn.net
    Standard query response A 68.232.35.119
    Standard query DNSKEY <Root>
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG
    Standard query DS cn
    Standard query response
    Standard query DS net
    Standard query response DS RRSIG
    Standard query DNSKEY net
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG
    Standard query DS chinacache.net
    Standard query response
    Standard query DS com
    Standard query response DS RRSIG
    Standard query DNSKEY com
    Standard query response DNSKEY DNSKEY RRSIG
    Standard query DS ccgslb.com
    Standard query response
    Standard query DS edgecastcdn.net
    Standard query response
    Standard query DS v2cdn.net
    Standard query response

  An obvious idea to avoid so many roundtrips is to serialize them together.
  There has been an attempt to standardize such "DNSSEC stapling" [1], however
  it's incomplete for the general case, mainly due to various intricacies -
  proofs of non-existence, NSEC3 opt-out zones, TTL handling (see RFC 4035
  section 5).

References:

  [1] https://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/dane/current/msg02823.html
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