



LAMPS Working Group                                       R. Shekh-Yusef
Internet-Draft                                                     Ciena
Intended status: Standards Track                           M. Richardson
Expires: 6 January 2026                         Sandelman Software Works
                                                             5 July 2025


Certificate Renewal Recommendations for Enrollment over Secure Transport
          draft-yusef-lamps-rfc7030-renewal-recommendation-00

Abstract

   This document describes an extension to RFC7030, Enrollment over
   Secure Transport to give an indication to a end-entity device when it
   should start attempting to renew its certificates.

   Prior art is that client decides, with a typical recommmendation to
   start when the remaining lifetime of the certificate is at the 50%
   point.  As typical certificate lifetimes are reduced from years to
   fractions of a year, the 50% may be far too early, and this document
   provides a way to give alternate advice.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-yusef-lamps-rfc7030-renewal-
   recommendation/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the lamps Working Group
   mailing list (mailto:spasm@ietf.org), which is archived at
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/spasm/.  Subscribe at
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/spasm/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/mcr/rfc7030-renewal-recommendation.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.




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   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 6 January 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Protocol Details  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Privacy Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   8.  Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   [RFC9773], Section 1 explains why certificate lifetimes and renewal
   times need more deterministic control in the ACME [RFC8555]
   ecosystem.  Similar arguments apply to the [RFC7030] ecosystem.

   (Do the ecosystems differ in significant ways?  Probably.  How much
   to explain)

   Is this as much about client certificates and IoT certificates?





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2.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

3.  Protocol Details

   A new magic header will be returned during RFC7030 certificate
   enrollment, whether using simpleenroll, or fullcmc.

4.  Privacy Considerations

   A very short certificate lifetime renewal time will cause clients to
   communicate with the EST Registrar more frequently.

   EST connections make use of mutually authenticated TLS, when the
   client certificate being an IDevID, or the last issued certificate,
   often an LDevID, there is potential to disclose identities during
   this connection.

   When using TLS 1.2, the client certificate details will be revealed.
   TLS 1.3 does not suffer from this problem, and it's use is
   RECOMMENDED as per [I-D.ietf-uta-require-tls13]

5.  Security Considerations

   Not sure what yet.

6.  IANA Considerations

   Might need a header allocation

7.  Acknowledgements

   Hello.

8.  Changelog

9.  References

9.1.  Normative References







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   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC7030]  Pritikin, M., Ed., Yee, P., Ed., and D. Harkins, Ed.,
              "Enrollment over Secure Transport", RFC 7030,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7030, October 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7030>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

9.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-uta-require-tls13]
              Salz, R. and N. Aviram, "New Protocols Using TLS Must
              Require TLS 1.3", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-uta-require-tls13-12, 14 April 2025,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-uta-
              require-tls13-12>.

   [RFC8555]  Barnes, R., Hoffman-Andrews, J., McCarney, D., and J.
              Kasten, "Automatic Certificate Management Environment
              (ACME)", RFC 8555, DOI 10.17487/RFC8555, March 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8555>.

   [RFC9773]  Gable, A., "ACME Renewal Information (ARI) Extension",
              RFC 9773, DOI 10.17487/RFC9773, June 2025,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc9773>.

Authors' Addresses

   Rifaat Shekh-Yusef
   Ciena
   Email: rifaat.s.ietf@gmail.com


   Michael Richardson
   Sandelman Software Works
   Email: mcr+ietf@sandelman.ca









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