DANE

From ArchWiki

DANE (DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities) is a protocol to allow X.509 certificates, commonly used for Transport Layer Security (TLS), to be bound to DNS names using Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC).

Warning: This is not a trivial article. Be aware that you make sure you know what you are doing. Read Common Mistakes before going any further.

Resource Record

TLSA resource record is an own type of DNS record. It consists of port number and protocol of the service secured by it. An example record for port 25 over tcp could look like _25._tcp.example.com IN TLSA 3 0 1 $DATA. The TLSA parameters 3 0 1 are explaining the data following it. The first number is the Certificate Usage Field, the second is the Selector Field and the third is named Matching Type Field.

Certificate Usage Field
Value Name Description
0 PKIX trust anchor Hash contains a public CA from the x509 tree by which your cert has to be signed
1 PKIX end entity Hash contains your cert which also has to pass x509 validation
2 DANE trust anchor Hash contains a private CA (unknown to the x509 tree) by which your cert has to be signed
3 DANE end entity Hash contains your cert which is not matched against any other validation
Note: Certificate Usage 0 and 1 are not allowed for use with email servers (port 25). See RFC 7672 3.1.3 for details.
Selector Field
Value Name Description
0 cert DATA is based on the full cert
1 SPKI DATA is based on public key only
Matching Type Field
Value Name Description
0 Full DATA is the full cert or SPKI
1 sha256 DATA is the sha256 hash of the cert or SPKI
2 sha512 DATA is the sha512 hash of the cert or SPKI

The RR can also easily be generated with ldns-dane from ldns.

DANE supporting software

See also