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The ALPN HTTP Header FieldUnifyTechnology DriveNottinghamNG9 1LAUKandrew.hutton@unify.comGoogle747 6th Ave SKirklandWA98033USjustin@uberti.nameMozilla331 E Evelyn StreetMountain ViewCA94041USmartin.thomson@gmail.com
Applications
HTTPHTTP CONNECTFirewallHTTP proxy
This specification allows HTTP CONNECT requests to indicate what
protocol is intended to be used within the tunnel once established,
using the ALPN header field.
The HTTP CONNECT method ()
requests that the recipient establish a tunnel to the identified origin
server and thereafter forward packets, in both directions, until the
tunnel is closed. Such tunnels are commonly used to create end-to-end
virtual connections, through one or more proxies.
The HTTP ALPN header field identifies the protocol or protocols that the
client intends to use within a tunnel that is established using CONNECT.
This uses the Application Layer Protocol Negotiation identifier (ALPN,
).
For a tunnel that is then secured using TLS, the header field carries the same
application protocol label as will be carried within the TLS handshake
. If there are multiple possible application
protocols, all of those application protocols are indicated.
The ALPN header field carries an indication of client intent only. An
ALPN identifier is used here only to identify the application protocol
or suite of protocols that the client intends to use in the tunnel. No
negotiation takes place using this header field. In TLS, the final
choice of application protocol is made by the server from the set of
choices presented by the client. Other substrates could negotiate the
application protocol differently.
Proxies do not implement the tunneled protocol, though they might choose
to make policy decisions based on the value of the header field. For
example, a proxy could use the application protocol to select
appropriate traffic prioritization.
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 RFC 2119.
Clients include the ALPN header field in an HTTP CONNECT request to
indicate the application layer protocol that a client intends to use
within the tunnel, or a set of protocols that might be used within the
tunnel.
Valid values for the protocol field are taken from the
“Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) Protocol ID” registry
()
established by .
The ABNF (Augmented Backus-Naur Form) syntax for the ALPN
header field value is given below. It uses the syntax defined
in .
ALPN protocol names are octet sequences with no additional constraints
on format. Octets not allowed in tokens () MUST be percent-encoded as per . Consequently, the octet
representing the percent character “%” (hex 25) MUST be
percent-encoded as well.
In order to have precisely one way to represent any ALPN protocol
name, the following additional constraints apply:
Octets in the ALPN protocol MUST NOT be percent-encoded if they
are valid token characters except “%”, and
When using percent-encoding, uppercase hex digits MUST be used.
With these constraints, recipients can apply simple string comparison
to match protocol identifiers.
For example:
CONNECT www.example.com HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
ALPN: h2, http%2F1.1
When used in the ALPN header field, an ALPN identifier is used to
identify an entire application protocol stack, not a single protocol
layer or component.
For a CONNECT tunnel that conveys a protocol secured with TLS, the
value of the ALPN header field contains the same list of ALPN
identifiers that will be sent in the TLS ClientHello message .
Where no protocol negotiation is expected to occur, such as in
protocols that do not use TLS, the ALPN header field contains a single
ALPN Protocol Identifier corresponding to the application protocol
that is intended to be used. If an alternative form of protocol
negotiation is possible, the ALPN header field contains the set of
protocols that might be negotiated.
A proxy can use the value of the ALPN header field to more cleanly and
efficiently reject requests for a CONNECT tunnel. Exposing protocol
information at the HTTP layer allows a proxy to deny requests earlier,
with better error reporting (such as a 403 status code). The ALPN
header field can be falsified and is therefore not sufficient basis
for authorizing a request.
A proxy could attempt to inspect packets to determine the protocol in
use. This requires that the proxy understand each ALPN identifier.
Protocols like TLS could hide negotiated protocols, or protocol
negotiation details could change over time. Proxies SHOULD NOT break
a CONNECT tunnel solely on the basis of a failure to recognize the
protocol.
A proxy can use the ALPN header field value to change how it
manages or prioritizes connections.
HTTP header fields are registered within the “Permanent Message Header
Field Names” registry maintained at . This
document defines and registers the ALPN header field, according to as follows:
ALPN
http
Standard
IETF (iesg@ietf.org) – Internet Engineering Task Force
In case of using HTTP CONNECT to a TURN server (“Traversal Using Relays
around NAT”, ) the security considerations of
apply. It states that
there “are significant risks in establishing a tunnel to arbitrary
servers, particularly when the destination is a well-known or reserved
TCP port that is not intended for Web traffic. Proxies that support
CONNECT SHOULD restrict its use to a limited set of known ports or a
configurable whitelist of safe request targets.”
The ALPN header field described in this document is OPTIONAL. Clients
and HTTP proxies could choose to not support it and therefore either
fail to provide it, or ignore it when present. If the header field is
not available or ignored, a proxy cannot identify the purpose of the
tunnel and use this as input to any authorization decision regarding the
tunnel. This is indistinguishable from the case where either client or
proxy does not support the ALPN header field.
There is no confidentiality protection for the ALPN header field. ALPN
identifiers that might expose confidential or sensitive information
SHOULD NOT be sent, as described in .
The value of the ALPN header field could be falsified by a
client. If the data being sent through the tunnel is encrypted (for
example, with TLS), then the proxy might
not be able to directly inspect the data to verify that the claimed
protocol is the one which is actually being used, though a proxy might
be able to perform traffic analysis . A proxy
therefore cannot rely on the value of the ALPN header field
as a policy input in all cases.
&RFC2119;
&RFC3864;
&RFC3986;
&RFC7230;
&RFC7231;
&RFC7301;
&RFC5246;
&RFC5766;
Website Users by TLS Traffic Analysis: New Attacks and Effective
Countermeasures, Revision 1