RFC 3554 (rfc3554) - Page 1 of 9

On the Use of Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) with IPsec

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Network Working Group                                        S. Bellovin
Request for Comments: 3554                                  J. Ioannidis
Category: Standards Track                           AT&T Labs - Research
                                                            A. Keromytis
                                                     Columbia University
                                                              R. Stewart
                                                                   Cisco
                                                               July 2003


  On the Use of Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) with IPsec

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 functional requirements for IPsec (RFC 2401)
   and Internet Key Exchange (IKE) (RFC 2409) to facilitate their use in
   securing SCTP (RFC 2960) traffic.

1.  Introduction

   The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is a reliable
   transport protocol operating on top of a connection-less packet
   network such as IP.  SCTP is designed to transport PSTN signaling
   messages over IP networks, but is capable of broader applications.

   When SCTP is used over IP networks, it may utilize the IP security
   protocol suite [RFC 2402][RFC 2406] for integrity and confidentiality.
   To dynamically establish IPsec Security Associations (SAs), a key
   negotiation protocol such as IKE [RFC 2409] may be used.

   This document describes functional requirements for IPsec and IKE to
   facilitate their use in securing SCTP traffic.  In particular, we
   discuss additional support in the form of a new ID type in IKE
   [RFC 2409] and implementation choices in the IPsec processing to
   accommodate for the multiplicity of source and destination addresses
   associated with a single SCTP association.



Bellovin, et. al.           Standards Track
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