MSC3383: Include destination in X-Matrix Auth Header (#3383)

* add proposal for adding the dest to federation auth headers

Signed-off-by: Jan Christian Grünhage <[email protected]>

* address compatibility concern regarding fed auth headers

The MSC already addressed old implementations receiving events from
newer implementations sending the additional field, but not the other
way around, which is added in here

* clarify the problem MSC3383 aims to solve

* clarify which verification msc3383 talks about

* clarify what happens with unknown destinations in msc3383

Author: jcgruenhage

proposals/3383-fed-auth-destination.md

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+# MSC3383: Include destination in X-Matrix Auth Header
+
+Currently, a federation request can't be
+[validated](https://spec.matrix.org/v1.2/server-server-api/#request-authentication)
+mid-flight without some
+convoluted workarounds, because federation requests don't contain the
+`server_name` of the destination. The `Host` header does not necessarily contain
+the `server_name` of the destination server, if delegation via `.well-known` is
+being used. It's currently possible to get the `server_name` by making a
+request to `/_matrix/key/v2/server/{keyId}`, and then resolving the delegation
+for the contained `server_name` back to the `Host` included in the original
+request.
+
+This hasn't been a problem so far, as the `server_name` of the destination is
+usually known when validating the `Authorization` header, it's the
+`server_name` of the matrix server that's doing the validation. But there's two
+scenarios where this might not be the case: Forward proxies (that act as an API
+gateway for enforcing additional rules), or Matrix Homeservers implementing
+vhosting and have multiple `server_name`s pointing to the same `Host`.
+
+### Example: rule enforcing forward proxy
+
+Let's assume we have an organization running a matrix server in a protected
+network, that doesn't have direct internet access. The organization only allows
+access to the internet through a forward proxy enforcing additional security
+measures.
+
+For matrix federation, it's supposed to verify the matrix servers are on a list
+of allowed `server_name`s. As explained in the introduction, the `server_name`
+is not contained in the request, so verifying these requests is not possible
+without the workaround described in the introduction.
+
+Alternatively to that, it'd be also possible to keep a map for allowed
+`server_name`s to `Host` headers, but that needs to be updated regularly, to
+make sure it doesn't get stale.
+
+Both of these workarounds are more complicated than they need to be. If the
+`server_name` was included in the `Authorization` header, these workarounds
+could be completely avoided.
+
+## Proposal
+
+In addition to the currently present `origin`, `key` and `sig` fields, the
+`Authorization` header of the scheme `X-Matrix` used in the Matrix S2S API MUST
+also include a `destination` field, which contains the `server_name` of the
+Matrix Homeserver that the request is being sent to.
+
+A Matrix Homeserver receiving a request over the S2S API SHOULD gracefully
+handle requests that do not include the `destination` field in the
+`Authorization` header for backwards compatibility.
+
+When a matrix homeserver receives a request over the S2S API for a
+`destination` that is not the `server_name` (or one of the `server_name`s in
+case of vhosting) of itself, it should deny that request with an HTTP status
+code 401 - Unauthorized.
+
+## Potential issues
+
+Server implementations could theoretically be affected by this change,
+depending on how the header is parsed, which would cause failures in verifying
+the authenticity of the requests. This would be fatal, as it would mean that
+federation would stop working. Luckily, from an initial assessment, it seems
+that all major implementations work here, the parsing implementations in
+Synapse, Dendrite, Conduit, Sydent and SyTest looks like it'd gracefully handle
+this addition without any trouble. The other way around is also a concern: Newer
+implementation might be confronted with federating with an old implementation,
+which does not send the `destination` in it's auth headers. This is explicitly
+mentioned in the proposal though, advocating for graceful handling of these
+situations if possible.
+
+## Alternatives
+
+For the forward proxy scenario, it'd be possible to use the
+`/_matrix/key/v2/server` endpoint for fetching the `server_name` when receiving
+a request. After that though, the `server_name` has to be resolved back to a
+`Host`, for making sure that the domain owner of `server_name` actually intends
+for requests for `server_name` to go to the host in `Host`. This is
+unnecessarily complex and prone to error, which is why it'd be better to have
+that included.
+
+For the vhosting scenario, it'd be possible to have a different hostname to
+delegate to for each vhost. That means that wildcard DNS records and
+certificates have to be used though, to make it manageable to allow anyone
+pointing a `server_name` against a certain service. This is a limitation that
+might be problematic in certain setups, which is why I'd be better to not force
+that.
+
+## Security considerations
+
+I can't think of anything required in this section for this MSC, but I'm open
+to input.