Subject: WG Review: Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ace)

From: The IESG <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 2021 16:27:27 -0800

The Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ace) WG in
the Security Area of the IETF is undergoing rechartering. The IESG has not
made any determination yet. The following draft charter was submitted, and is
provided for informational purposes only. Please send your comments to the
IESG mailing list ([email-masked]) by 2021-02-07.

Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ace)
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Current status: Active WG

Chairs:
  Daniel Migault <[email-masked]>

Assigned Area Director:
  Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>

Security Area Directors:
  Benjamin Kaduk <[email-masked]>
  Roman Danyliw <[email-masked]>

Mailing list:
  Address: [email-masked]
  To subscribe: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ace
  Archive: https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/ace/

Group page: https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/ace/

Charter: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/charter-ietf-ace/

The Authentication and Authorization for Constrained Environments (ace) WG
has defined a standardized solution framework for authentication and
authorization to enable authorized access to resources identified by a URI
and hosted on a resource server in constrained environments.

The access to the resource is mediated by an authorization server, which is
not considered to be constrained.

Profiles of this framework for application to security protocols commonly
used in constrained environments, including CoAP+DTLS and CoAP+OSCORE, have
also been standardized.  The Working Group is charged with maintenance of
the framework and existing profiles thereof, and may undertake work to
specify profiles of the framework for additional secure communications
protocols and for additional support services providing authorized access
to crypto keys (that are not necessarily limited to constrained endpoints,
though the focus remains on deployment in ecosystems with a substantial
portion of constrained devices).

In addition to the ongoing maintenance work, the Working Group will extend
the framework (originally designed to protect the exchange between single
client and single RS) as needed for applicability to group communications.
The initial focus will be on using (D)TLS and (Group) OSCORE as the underlying
communication security protocols. The Working Group will standardize
procedures for requesting and distributing group keying material using the ACE
framework as well as appropriated management interfaces.

The Working Group will standardize a format for expressing authorization
information for a given authenticated principal as received from an
authorization manager.

The Working Group will examine how to use Constrained Application Protocol
(CoAP) as a transport medium for certificate enrollment protocols, such as
EST and CMPv2, as well as a transport for authentication protocols such as
EAP (in coordination with the EMU WG), and standardize as needed.

Milestones:

TBD