Juniper PSN-2010-01-626 (AS4 Again!)

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I’ve had a couple of mails relating to this PSN, which again references the research that Andy Davidson, Jonathan Oddy and I did last year. It seems that some of the sources of the initial mailing list posts we made are gone (particularly the merit.edu one that is referenced from both Juniper’s site and most other places). For that reason, I’ve included both the mails that we sent to NANOG/C-NSP/J-NSP last year here.

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2009 12:57:19 +0000 From: Rob Shakir rjs@eng.gxn.net To: cisco-nsp@puck.nether.net, nanog@nanog.org Subject: BGP Session Teardown due to AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE in AS4_PATH Message-ID: 20090116125718.GB26415@bronze.eng.gxn.net

Strict RFC 4893 (4-byte ASN support) BGP4 implementations are vulnerable to a session reset by distant (not directly connected) ASes. This vulnerability is a feature of the standard, and unless immediate action is taken an increasingly significant number of networks will be open to attack. Accidental triggering of this vulnerability has already been seen in the wild, although the limited number of RFC 4893 deployments has limited its effect.

Summary: It is possible to cause BGP sessions to remotely reset by injecting invalid data into the AS4_PATH attribute provided to store 4-byte ASN paths. Since AS4_PATH is an optional transitive attribute, the invalid data will be transited through many intermediate ASes which will not examine the content. To be vulnerable, an operator does not have to be actively using 4-byte AS support. This problem was first reported by Andy Davidson on NANOG in December 2008 0, furthermore we have been able to demonstrate that a device running Cisco IOS release 12.0(32)S12 behaves as per this description.

Details:

When a prefix is learnt from a BGP neighbour that does not support 4-byte ASNs, the AS4_PATH attribute is retained, and appended to UPDATE messages sent to other neighbours [1, 3]. RFC4893 specifies that AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE and AS_CONFED_SET are invalid in an AS4_PATH, the intention of which is to ensure that an AS with a mix of AS4-aware BGP speakers, and AS4-unaware BGP speakers does not propagate confederation AS paths outside of the confederation [1, 3]. Upon receiving an invalid BGP UPDATE message, a BGP speaker must send a NOTIFICATION message [2, 6.3], after a NOTIFICATION message, the BGP connection is closed [2, 4.5].

Analysis of the Reported Path:

On 10th December 2008, a BGP update was propagated with illegal/invalid confederation attributes in the AS4_PATH. When this update was received by AS4 aware BGP speakers, the RFCs described above were interpreted literally and the session was torn down. Because the illegal attributes were learned on a transit session, an affected network can have global reachability impaired.

Please note that the analysis of this path describes what we expect to have happened in this case, it has not been confirmed by any of the ASNs involved.

91.207.218.0/23 Path Attributes - Origin: Incomplete Flags: 0x40 (Well-known, Transitive, Complete) Origin: Incomplete (2) AS_PATH: xx xx 35320 23456 (13 bytes) AS4_PATH: (65044 65057) 196629 (7 bytes)

In this data, the AS_PATH indicates that a prefix is announced by an AS4 speaker (as indicated by AS23456) and propagated through by AS35320. The AS4_PATH data shows that the AS4 originator is AS196629, the rest of this path is an AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE [3, 5]. It would appear that in this case, AS196629 peers with AS35320, which is AS4-aware on this border. The prefix is then propagated through AS35320, with the AS4 aware routers appending their ASN to the AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE. This is in contravention of RFC 4893 [1, 3]. The border which announces this route to AS35320’s upstream does not appear to be AS4-aware. During normal announcements, the BGP speaker on a border with an upstream ASN that is not part of the confederation will remove the left-most AS_CONFED_SETs or AS_CONFED_SEQUENCEs that exist in the AS_PATH [3, 6.1] and replace them with the confederation identifier. However, due to the fact that both AS_CONFED_SET and AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE are invalid in an AS4_PATH, then no such action is taken on the border between an AS4 aware AS, and a non-AS4 aware AS. In addition, since the AS35320 border is not AS4 aware, then it does not update the AS4_PATH.

This malformed UPDATE is then sent to AS35320’s upstream, if there are no AS4-aware routers in the path between the AS35320 border, and an AS receiving this update, the AS4_PATH will not have been analysed. The first AS4-aware router to receive this update will reset the session towards the neighbour from whom it receives the update.

The border which announces this route to AS35320’s upstream does not appear to be AS4-aware; If it were a strict AS4 implementation it would reset the BGP session due to the malformed AS4_PATH, and a broken implementation that treats AS4_PATH as an equivalent of the AS_PATH would sanitise the AS4_PATH. This allows the AS4_PATH containing an AS_CONFED_SET to be passed to neighbouring networks.

This escape of an AS_CONFED_SET from a network with only partial AS4 support is exactly the situation that RFC 4893 attempts to avoid by forbidding the presence of an AS_CONFED_SET in the AS4_PATH. In the ideal world the neighbouring network receiving an UPDATE containing this obviously malformed AS4_PATH would reset the session, preventing further propagation and isolating the broken network.

Unfortunately the vast majority of networks do not support AS4 so pass on this malformed AS4_PATH to their neighbours. The first AS4-aware router to receive this update will reset the session towards the neighbour from whom it received the update.

Cisco IOS Behaviour:

In a lab environment, a Cisco 7200 running IOS 12.0(32)S12, which is able to support 4-byte ASNs, was peered with a Cisco 2811 running 12.4(19). When the BGP session to the upstream 2811 is established by the 7200, the following log messages are observed:

*Jan 16 11:29:58.531: %BGP-5-ADJCHANGE: neighbor 193.239.32.2 Up *Jan 16 11:30:02.595: %BGP-6-ASPATH: Invalid AS path (65044 65048 65062) 3.21 23456 received from 193.239.32.2: Confederation found in AS4_PATH *Jan 16 11:30:02.595: %BGP-5-ADJCHANGE: neighbor 193.239.32.2 Down BGP Notification sent *Jan 16 11:30:02.595: %BGP-3-NOTIFICATION: sent to neighbor 193.239.32.2 31 (update malformed) 27 bytes E0111803 030000FE 140000FE 180000FE 26 FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF FFFF 0050 0200 0000 3540 0101 0240 020C 0205 3D25 2114 89F8 5BA0 5BA0 4003 04C1 EF20 02E0 1118 0303 0000 FE14 0000 FE18 0000 FE26 0202 0003 0015 0000 5BA0 175B CFDA

The configuration on the 7200 is as follows:

router bgp 65123 no synchronization bgp log-neighbor-changes neighbor 193.239.32.2 remote-as 15653 no auto-summary

The BGP session will continue to be reset each time the invalid AS4_PATH is received.

Possible Impact:

During a BGP conversation, it is expected that a neighbour’s UPDATE messages are sanitised by the immediate neighbour, during a ‘normal’ BGP conversation, if a BGP speaker receives an invalid UPDATE, it will teardown the session, and this invalid UPDATE will not propagate any further. In the case of optional transitive attributes such as AS4_PATH, this invalid update can be transited through many ASes, as the content of the invalid attribute in the UPDATE message is not examined.

In a hypothetical scenario, an AS4 aware service provider (A) has a transit provider (T) that is not AS4 aware. BGP speaker B, a large distance from A has a bug affecting their equipment that introduces an AS_CONFED_SET in the AS4_PATH. Since B’s updates are propagated through to A via T, A will tear down the session to T due to the malformed attribute. This is an out of proportion reaction as the update may affect only one prefix in a full BGP table. If this update is also propagated through A’s other transit providers A may lose full-table visibility until one of their transit providers filters the route. Examining the UPDATE message to establish which route caused session teardown may be a non-trivial activity.

Conclusion:

Whilst this description may be applied to invalid data in any optional transitive element, it has a greater impact with AS4_PATH due to the large number of BGP speakers that currently do not examine any 4-byte ASN data in an UPDATE. There has been a discussion of this matter on the IETF IDR mailing list [4], however, due to availability of Cisco IOS containing AS4 support (12.0(32)S12), and an observation of this problem ‘in the wild’, we believe that it is of operational concern to those that are planning on deployment of AS4-aware platforms 5.

Any input from the operational community relating to this problem is much appreciated, either publicly, or privately.

Regards, Andy Davidson, NetSumo (andy.davidson@netsumo.com), Jonathan Oddy, Hostway UK (jonathan.oddy@hostway.co.uk), Rob Shakir, GX Networks (rjs@eng.gxn.net)

References: 0: Andy Davidson - 91.207.218.0/23 prefix in DFZ - AS3.21 / AS196629 - announced with AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE in AS4_PATH - propagated by 35320, http://markmail.org/message/3ofvjyggayfxezna 1: rfc4893: BGP Support for Four-octet AS Number Space [2]: rfc4271: A Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4) [3]: rfc3054: Autonomous System Confederations for BGP [4]: Kaliraj Vairavakkalai, Juniper Networks, [Idr] RFC-4893 handling malformed AS4_PATH attributes, http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/idr/current/msg03368.html

Thanks to Will Hargrave (LONAP) for assistance with this document.



Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 10:14:24 +0000
From: Rob Shakir rjs@eng.gxn.net
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: BGP Session Teardown due to AS_CONFED_SEQUENCE in AS4_PATH
Message-ID: 20090121101424.GB5577@bronze.eng.gxn.net
References: 20090116125718.GB26415@bronze.eng.gxn.net

Hi,

Further to the initial research sent to NANOG, after discussions with a number of operators, we have compiled some recommendations on the handling of invalid AS4_PATH attributes.

Any feedback on these recommendations is appreciated:

As discussed on the IETF IDR list last month, there are concerns relating to the treatment of AS_CONFED_SET/SEQUENCE in AS4_PATH as described in RFC4893 0. Since the last post to that thread the situation has been made more urgent with the release of Cisco IOS 12.0(32)S12, which responds to malformed AS4_PATH attributes by sending a NOTIFICATION to the neighbour, and tearing down the BGP adjacency. This behaviour seems to be required by RFC4721 section 6.3, as there is no alternative error handling defined in RFC4893. As posted last Friday 1, and discussed on the IDR list, this strict implementation introduces a new attack vector by which a BGP session can be torn down due to a an attribute populated by a distant BGP neighbour. These malformed attributes have already been seen in the wild as a result of a error in Juniper’s implementation of RFC4893.

Following discussions with a number of operators, we have attempted to generate some recommendations relating to the behaviour that would be operationally most useful when treating the invalid data in the AS4_PATH optional transitive attribute.

There are two cases to consider when an invalid AS4_PATH is received: (1) A path to the prefix is not already known from that neighbour. (2) A path to the prefix has already been learnt from that neighbour;

In case (1) we recommend that the BGP speaker should discard the UPDATE and log the fact. The log entry should include the received AS_PATH and AS4_PATH to aid in debugging.

In case (2) we recommend that the BGP speaker should treat the UPDATE as a withdrawal of existing path to the prefix. As per case (1) a log entry should be raised to indicate that this has occurred.

It is quite possible that in both cases this behaviour may result in the BGP speaker no longer having a valid path to the destination. We foresee that this lack of a prefix in a BGP speaker’s routing table may cause some operational load initially, however, we feel that this is acceptable, considering the alternate behaviours.

Should a prefix be injected into the global table with an invalid AS4_PATH, and should the newly advertised (invalid) path be selected by all upstreams available to a given ASN then this ASN will lose reachability to the prefix. Whilst this can be abused we do not see this as more serious than the existing possibility of malicious injection and blackholing of a prefix by a 3rd party. As long as the rejection of paths due to invalid AS4_PATHs is clearly reported to the administrator the source of the problem can be clearly identified.

We consider that attempting to extract a valid AS4 or AS_PATH from the invalid UPDATE is a mistake since this allows the propagation of invalid BGP data. In addition, incorrect implementation of this comparatively complex mechanism by a vendor may result in loops. By explicitly not installing prefixes with invalid AS_PATH or AS4_PATH into the routing table, the possibility of loops caused by these invalid paths is avoided.

The defined behaviour in RFC4893 and RFC4271 has significantly harmful effects and it seems only by virtue of the fact that the implementations of many vendors do not strictly comply with the RFCs that this problem has not had the same impact for every vendor. At the current time, however, one cannot deploy a 4-byte capable Cisco IOS device, or an OpenBGP (current stable release) router into the global table, without risking teardown of a every session via which a global table is learnt.

Further discussion of this issue would be much appreciated, as a common and consistent approach to rectifying the problem will benefit network operators far more than individual vendor implementing their own solution. Should a consensus be reached an update to the RFC is required in order to ensure that future implementations do not exhibit this harmful behaviour.

Kind regards, Andy Davidson (NetSumo), andy.davidson@netsumo.com Jonathan Oddy (HostWay), jonathan.oddy@hostway.co.uk Rob Shakir (GX Networks), rjs@eng.gxn.net

Many thanks to David Freedman (Claranet) for assistance in developing the recommendations in this document.



In addition to this - it looks like there’s some fairly interesting coverage of another Juniper PSN at this blog.