RADIUS IANA: IANA Considerations for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service)
How to assign new numbers in RADIUS authentication and accounting.
Aboba, B., "IANA Considerations for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service)", RFC 3575, DOI 10.17487/RFC3575, July 2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3575>.
@misc{rfc3575,
series = {Request for Comments},
number = 3575,
howpublished = {RFC 3575},
publisher = {RFC Editor},
doi = {10.17487/RFC3575},
url = {https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3575},
author = {B. Aboba},
title = {{IANA Considerations for RADIUS (Remote Authentication Dial In User Service)}},
pagetotal = 8,
year = 2003,
month = jul,
} RFC text
Contents
Network Working Group B. Aboba
Request for Comments: 3575 Microsoft
Updates: 2865 July 2003
Category: Standard Track
IANA Considerations for RADIUS
(Remote Authentication Dial In User Service)
Status of this Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved.
Abstract
This document describes the IANA considerations for the Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS).
This document updates RFC 2865.
1. Introduction
This document provides guidance to the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA) regarding registration of values related to the
Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS), defined in
[RFC2865], in accordance with BCP 26, [RFC2434]. It also reserves
Packet Type Codes that are or have been in use on the Internet.
1.1. Specification of Requirements
In this document, several words are used to signify the requirements
of the specification. These words are often capitalized. 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].
1.2. Terminology
The following terms are used here with the meanings defined in BCP
26: "name space", "assigned value", "registration".
The following policies are used here with the meanings defined in BCP
26: "Private Use", "First Come First Served", "Expert Review",
"Specification Required", "IESG Approval", "IETF Consensus",
"Standards Action".
2. IANA Considerations
There are three name spaces in RADIUS that require registration:
Packet Type Codes, Attribute Types, and Attribute Values (for certain
Attributes). This document creates no new IANA registries, since a
RADIUS registry was created by [RFC2865].
RADIUS is not intended as a general-purpose protocol, and allocations
SHOULD NOT be made for purposes unrelated to Authentication,
Authorization or Accounting.
2.1. Recommended Registration Policies
For registration requests where a Designated Expert should be
consulted, the responsible IESG area director should appoint the
Designated Expert. The intention is that any allocation will be
accompanied by a published RFC. However, the Designated Expert can
approve allocations once it seems clear that an RFC will be
published, allowing for the allocation of values prior to the
document being approved for publication as an RFC. The Designated
Expert will post a request to the AAA WG mailing list (or a successor
designated by the Area Director) for comment and review, including an
Internet-Draft. Before a period of 30 days has passed, the
Designated Expert will either approve or deny the registration
request, publish a notice of the decision to the AAA WG mailing list
or its successor, and inform IANA of its decision. A denial notice
must be justified by an explanation and, in the cases where it is
possible, concrete suggestions on how the request can be modified so
as to become acceptable.
Packet Type Codes have a range from 1 to 253. RADIUS Type Codes 1-5
and 11-13 were allocated in [RFC2865], while Type Codes 40-45,
250-253 are allocated by this document. Type Codes 250-253 are
allocated for Experimental Uses, and 254-255 are reserved. Packet
Type Codes 6-10, 12-13, 21-34, 50-51 have no meaning defined by an
IETF RFC, but are reserved until a specification is provided for
them. This is being done to avoid interoperability problems with
software that implements non-standard RADIUS extensions that are or
have been in use on the Internet. Because a new Packet Type has
considerable impact on interoperability, a new Packet Type Code
requires IESG Approval. The intention is that any allocation will be
accompanied by a published RFC. Type Codes 52-249 should be
allocated first; when these are exhausted, Type Codes 14-20, 35-39,
46-49 may be allocated. For a list of Type Codes, see Appendix A.
Attribute Types have a range from 1 to 255, and are the scarcest
resource in RADIUS, thus must be allocated with care. Attributes
1-53,55,60-88,90-91,94-100 have been allocated, with 17 and 21
available for re-use. Attributes 17, 21, 54, 56-59, 89, 101-191 may
be allocated by IETF Consensus. It is recommended that attributes 17
and 21 be used only after all others are exhausted.
Note that RADIUS defines a mechanism for Vendor-Specific extensions
(Attribute 26) for functions specific only to one vendor's
implementation of RADIUS, where no interoperability is deemed useful.
For functions specific only to one vendor's implementation of RADIUS,
the use of that should be encouraged instead of the allocation of
global attribute types.
As noted in [RFC2865]:
Attribute Type Values 192-223 are reserved for experimental use,
values 224-240 are reserved for implementation-specific use, and
values 241-255 are reserved and should not be used.
Therefore Attribute Type values 192-240 are considered Private Use,
and values 241-255 require Standards Action.
Certain attributes (for example, NAS-Port-Type) in RADIUS define a
list of values to correspond with various meanings. There can be 4
billion (2^32) values for each attribute. Additional values can be
allocated by the Designated Expert. The exception to this policy is
the Service-Type attribute (6), whose values define new modes of
operation for RADIUS. Values 1-16 of the Service-Type attribute have
been allocated. Allocation of new Service-Type values are by IETF
Consensus. The intention is that any allocation will be accompanied
by a published RFC.
3. References
3.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing
an IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC
2434, October 1998.
[RFC2865] Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A. and W. Simpson,
"Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
RFC 2865, June 2000.
3.2. Informative References
[RFC2607] Aboba, B. and J. Vollbrecht, "Proxy Chaining and
Policy Implementation in Roaming", RFC 2607, June
1999.
[RFC2866] Rigney, C., "RADIUS Accounting", RFC 2866, June 2000.
[RFC2867] Zorn, G., Aboba, B. and D. Mitton, "RADIUS Accounting
Modifications for Tunnel Protocol Support", RFC 2867,
June 2000.
[RFC2868] Zorn, G., Leifer, D., Rubens, A., Shriver, J.,
Holdrege, M. and I. Goyret, "RADIUS Attributes for
Tunnel Protocol Support", RFC 2868, June 2000.
[RFC2869] Rigney, C., Willats, W. and P. Calhoun, "RADIUS
Extensions", RFC 2869, June 2000.
[RFC2869bis] Aboba, B. and P. Calhoun, "RADIUS Support for
Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)", Work in
Progress.
[RFC2882] Mitton, D., "Network Access Servers Requirements:
Extended RADIUS Practices", RFC 2882, July 2000.
[RFC3162] Aboba, B., Zorn, G. and D. Mitton, "RADIUS and IPv6",
RFC 3162, August 2001.
[DynAuth] Chiba, M., Dommety, G., Eklund, M., Mitton, D. and B.
Aboba, "Dynamic Authorization Extensions to Remote
Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)", RFC
3576, July 2003.
4. Security Considerations
The security considerations detailed in [RFC2434] are generally
applicable to this document. Security considerations relating to the
RADIUS protocol are discussed in [RFC2607], [RFC2865], [RFC3162],
[DynAuth], and [RFC2869bis].
Appendix A - RADIUS Packet Types
A list of RADIUS Packet Type Codes is given below. This document
instructs IANA to list them in the registry of Packet Type Codes.
Note that Type Codes 40-45, defined in [DynAuth], are being formally
allocated here. Codes 40-45 were listed in [RFC2882] and have been
implemented and used. Given their current widespread usage, these
assignments are not reclaimable in practice.
# Message Reference
---- ------------------------- ---------
1 Access-Request [RFC2865]
2 Access-Accept [RFC2865]
3 Access-Reject [RFC2865]
4 Accounting-Request [RFC2865]
5 Accounting-Response [RFC2865]
6 Accounting-Status [RFC2882]
(now Interim Accounting)
7 Password-Request [RFC2882]
8 Password-Ack [RFC2882]
9 Password-Reject [RFC2882]
10 Accounting-Message [RFC2882]
11 Access-Challenge [RFC2865]
12 Status-Server (experimental) [RFC2865]
13 Status-Client (experimental) [RFC2865]
21 Resource-Free-Request [RFC2882]
22 Resource-Free-Response [RFC2882]
23 Resource-Query-Request [RFC2882]
24 Resource-Query-Response [RFC2882]
25 Alternate-Resource-
Reclaim-Request [RFC2882]
26 NAS-Reboot-Request [RFC2882]
27 NAS-Reboot-Response [RFC2882]
28 Reserved
29 Next-Passcode [RFC2882]
# Message Reference
---- ------------------------- ---------
30 New-Pin [RFC2882]
31 Terminate-Session [RFC2882]
32 Password-Expired [RFC2882]
33 Event-Request [RFC2882]
34 Event-Response [RFC2882]
40 Disconnect-Request [DynAuth]
41 Disconnect-ACK [DynAuth]
42 Disconnect-NAK [DynAuth]
43 CoA-Request [DynAuth]
44 CoA-ACK [DynAuth]
45 CoA-NAK [DynAuth]
50 IP-Address-Allocate [RFC2882]
51 IP-Address-Release [RFC2882]
250-253 Experimental Use
254 Reserved
255 Reserved [RFC2865]
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Director.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Ignacio Goyret of Lucent, Allison Mankin of Lucent Bell
Labs, Thomas Narten of IBM, Glen Zorn and Harald Alvestrand of Cisco
for discussions relating to this document.
Authors' Addresses
Bernard Aboba
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
EMail: bernarda@microsoft.com
Phone: +1 425 706 6605
Fax: +1 425 936 7329
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AI ELI5
On this page
§1Introduction and Overview
RFC 3575 provides guidance to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) on how to manage registries for the Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS), which is defined in RFC 2865. RADIUS is widely used for authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) in networks.
The document reserves and allocates Packet Type Codes and specifies policies for registering new values in three RADIUS name spaces: Packet Type Codes, Attribute Types, and Attribute Values. The motivation is to prevent conflicts, ensure interoperability, and allow for future extensions without breaking existing implementations.
RADIUS is a system for checking who you are on a network. Since many companies want to add their own new features, someone needs to keep track of which numbers are used. This RFC tells IANA (the number keeper) how to do that job.
§2Terminology and Registration Policies
The document uses standard terminology from BCP 26: name space, assigned value, and registration. It defines several registration policies that IANA can apply.
For RADIUS, there are policies including Private Use (for internal or vendor use), First Come First Served (no review needed), Expert Review (a designated expert checks proposals), Specification Required (must have a written spec), IESG Approval (the engineering steering group approves), IETF Consensus (broad agreement needed), and Standards Action (must be in a published RFC). Different policies apply to different types of values.
When someone wants a new number, IANA can either just give it to them, ask an expert to check it, or require it to be in a official document. The stricter the policy, the more careful the choice.
§3Packet Type Code Allocation
Packet Type Codes range from 1 to 253. The original RADIUS specification (RFC 2865) allocated codes 1-5 and 11-13. RFC 3575 allocates codes 40-45 (for dynamic authorization extensions) and reserves codes 250-253 for experimental use, with 254-255 reserved for future use.
Several codes (6-10, 12-13, 21-34, 50-51) are reserved even though they have no IETF specification, to avoid conflicts with non-standard implementations already in use on the Internet. New Packet Type Codes require IESG Approval, the highest level of scrutiny, since a new packet type has significant impact on interoperability. The ranges 52-249 should be allocated first; later allocations can use 14-20, 35-39, and 46-49 if needed.
RADIUS messages start with a type code (a number from 1 to 253) that says what kind of message it is. Some numbers are already taken, some are saved in case old software uses them, and some can be given out carefully when new message types are needed.
| Range | Allocation Status | Approval Required |
|---|---|---|
| 1-5, 11-13 | Allocated (RFC 2865) | N/A |
| 6-10, 14-20, 21-34, 35-39, 46-49, 50-51 | Reserved (no spec defined) | N/A |
| 40-45 THIS RFC | Allocated (RFC 3575) | IESG Approval |
| 52-249 | Available for allocation | IESG Approval |
| 250-253 | Experimental use | N/A |
| 254-255 | Reserved | N/A |
- 1Access-Request — A user requests access to a network resource.
- 2Access-Accept — The authentication server grants access.
- 3Access-Reject — The authentication server denies access.
- 4Accounting-Request — Request accounting or session information.
- 5Accounting-Response — Response to an accounting request.
- 40Disconnect-Request — Request to end a user session (RFC 3575).
§4Attribute Type and Attribute Value Allocation
Attribute Types have a range from 1 to 255, which is much smaller than Packet Type Codes. Most numbers from 1 to 100 are already allocated. Numbers 17 and 21 are marked as available for re-use, though it is recommended to use them only after all others are exhausted. The range 101-191 can be allocated by IETF Consensus, which requires broad agreement.
RADIUS also defines Vendor-Specific extensions (Attribute 26) so vendors can add their own attributes without claiming global numbers. Attribute Type values 192-223 are for experimental use, 224-240 for implementation-specific use, and 241-255 require Standards Action.
Attribute Values (meanings for specific attributes) can be much more numerous: each attribute can have up to 4 billion values (2^32). The Designated Expert can allocate new attribute values. However, the Service-Type attribute (attribute 6) is special: its values define new modes of operation, and allocations require IETF Consensus.
Each RADIUS message carries attributes (extra information) tagged with a number from 1 to 255. These numbers are scarce, so most are already claimed. Vendors can also add their own attributes using a special vendor code, so they don't need to ask for new global numbers.
§5Expert Review Process
When a Designated Expert must be consulted (such as for allocating new attribute values), the responsible IESG area director appoints the expert. The expert posts the request to the AAA Working Group mailing list (or a successor) for comment and review, including an Internet-Draft. The expert has 30 days to approve or deny the request, publish the decision to the mailing list, and inform IANA.
If a request is denied, the expert must explain the reasons and, when possible, suggest how to modify the proposal. The intention is that allocations will be accompanied by a published RFC, though the expert can approve allocations once it is clear an RFC will be published, allowing values to be allocated before the RFC is officially approved.
An expert listens to proposals for new numbers, talks it over with other engineers for a month, then decides whether to allow it. If they say no, they explain why and suggest how to fix it.
§6Security Considerations
The security considerations detailed in BCP 26 apply to this document. Security considerations relating to RADIUS itself are discussed in RFC 2865, RFC 3162 (RADIUS and IPv6), and RFC 3576 (Dynamic Authorization Extensions).
The careful allocation of codes and attributes helps prevent interoperability problems that could arise if conflicting implementations use the same numbers, which could lead to subtle authentication or accounting failures.
Giving out numbers in an orderly way prevents confusion and helps RADIUS work safely on networks.