On 7/14/18 00:57, Douglas Gash (dcmgash) wrote:
> 9.5 Deployment Best Practices
> 
> With respect to the observations about the security issues described above, a 
> network administrator MUST NOT rely on the obfuscation of the TACACS+ 
> protocol and TACACS+ MUST be deployed over networks which ensure privacy and 
> integrity of the communication. TACACS+ MUST be used within a secure 
> deployment.  Failure to do so may impact overall network security.

Agree with Alan that failure to deploy T+ securely _will_ impact overall
network security.

> 
> The following recommendations impose restrictions on how the protocol is 
> applied. 
> 
> The document identifies two constituencies: implementors of TACACS+ 
> components (servers and clients), and administrators of TACACS+ deployments 
> in the field. The document assumes that it will only be read by the 
> implementors. Mandatory actions are therefore assigned to implementors to 
> either deprecate insecure features or to steer the administrators to the 
> practices they should adopt by defaulting to the recommended options and 
> warning when the restrictions are not adopted.

I assume that administrators _will_ read this document.  Why wouldn't
they if it has guidance that will help them make their T+ deployments
more secure?

My comment is I would remove that sentence, as well as the "therefore"
in the sentence after it.

> 
> Some of the specific requirements mandated for TACACS+ servers and TACACS+ 
> clients may not be present in currently deployed implementations. New 
> implementations, and upgrades of current implementations, MUST implement the 
> recommendations.
> 
> 9.5.1 Server Side Connections
> 
> TACACS+ server implementations MUST allow the definition of individual 
> clients, and the servers MUST only accept network connection attempts from 
> these defined, known clients.
> 
> If an invalid shared secret is detected on a connection, TACACS+ server 
> implementations MUST NOT accept any new sessions on that connection. TACACS+ 
> servers MUST terminate the connection on completion of any sessions that were 
> previously established with a valid shared secret on that connection.
> 
> When a client secret is defined, TACACS+ Server implementations MUST not use 
> the TAC_PLUS_UNENCRYPTED_FLAG option when processing connections from that 
> client.
> 
> 9.5.2 Shared Secrets
> 
> TACACS+ Server and client implementations MUST treat secrets as sensitive 
> data to be managed securely.
> 
> TACACS+ Server implementations MUST allow a dedicated secret key to be 
> defined for each client, and the servers SHOULD warn administrators if secret 
> keys are not unique per client.
> 
> TACACS+ server deployment administrators SHOULD always define a secret for 
> each client.
> 
> TACACS+ server deployment administrators SHOULD use secret keys of minimum 16 
> characters length.
> 
> TACACS+ server deployment administrators SHOULD change secret keys at regular 
> intervals.

I'm not sure you need to keep saying, "server deployment
administrators".  Seems like "server administrators" is clear enough.

> 
> 9.5.3 Authentication
> 
> TACACS+ server implementations MUST allow the administrator to mandate that 
> only challenge/response options will be accepted for authentication 
> (TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_TYPE_CHAP or TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_TYPE_MSCHAP or 
> TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_TYPE_MSCHAPV2 for authen_type).
> 
> TACACS+ server deployment administrators SHOULD use the option mentioned in 
> the previous paragraph. TACACS+ Server deployments SHOULD ONLY use other 
> options (such as TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_TYPE_ASCII or TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_TYPE_PAP) when 
> unavoidable due to requirements of identity/password systems.
> 
> TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_SENDAUTH and TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_SENDPASS options mentioned in 
> the original draft SHOULD not be used, due to their security implications. 
> TACACS+ server implementations SHOULD deprecate them, if they are not 
> deprecated, the implementations MUST default to the options being disabled 
> and MUST warn the user of their security impact if they are enabled.
> 
> 9.5.4 Authorization
> 
> The authorization and accounting features are intended to provide 
> extensibility and flexibility. There is a base dictionary defined in this 
> document, but is may be extended in deployments by using new attribute names. 
> The cost of the flexibility is that administrators and implementors MUST 
> ensure that the attribute and value pairs shared between the clients and 
> servers have consistent interpretation. 
> 
> If a client implementation receives receiving a mandatory authorization 
> attribute that its implementation does not define, then it SHOULD behave as 
> if it had received TAC_PLUS_AUTHOR_STATUS_FAIL.

Receives receiving?  That should be reworded.

> 
> TACACS+ server deployment administrators SHOULD mandate that TACACS+ 
> authentication was used when processing authorization requests (i.e. 
> authen_method value is set to TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_METH_TACACSPLUS).
> 
> 9.5.5 Redirection Mechanism
> 
> The original draft described a redirection mechanism 
> (TAC_PLUS_AUTHEN_STATUS_FOLLOW). This feature is difficult to secure. The the 
> option to send secret keys in the server list is particularly problematic.

You have "The the".  Remove the second "the".

Joe

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