Communicating Proxy Configurations in Provisioning Domains

Introduction HTTP proxies that use the CONNECT method defined in (often referred to as "forward" proxies) allow clients to open connections to hosts via a proxy. These typically allow for TCP stream proxying, but can also support UDP proxying and IP packet proxying . The locations of these proxies are not just defined as hostnames and ports, but can use URI templates . In order to make use of multiple related proxies, clients need a way to understand which proxies are associated with one another, and which protocols can be used to communicate with the proxies. Client can also benefit from learning about additional information associated with the proxy to optimize their proxy usage, such knowing that a proxy is configured to only allow access to a limited set of destinations. These improvements to client behavior can be achieved through the use of Provisioning Domains. Provisioning Domains (PvDs) are defined in as consistent sets of network configuration information, which can include proxy configuration details . defines a JSON format for describing Provisioning Domain Additional Information, which is an extensible dictionary of properties of the Provisioning Domain. This document defines several mechanisms to use PvDs to help clients understand how to use proxies:

A way to fetch PvD Additional Information associated with a known proxy URI ()
A way to list one or more proxy URIs in a PvD, allowing clients to learn about other proxy options given a known proxy ().
A way to define the set of destinations that are accessible through the proxy ().

Additionally, this document partly describes how these mechanisms might be used to discover proxies associated with a network (). Using this mechanism a client can learn that a legacy insecure HTTP proxy that the client is configured with is also accessible using HTTPS. In this way, clients can upgrade to a more secure connection to the proxy.

Background Other non-standard mechanisms for proxy configuration and discovery have been used historically, some of which are described in . Proxy Auto Configuration (PAC) files are Javascript scripts that take URLs as input and provide an output of a proxy configuration to use. Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Protocol (WPAD) allows networks to advertise proxies to use by advertising a PAC file. This solution squats on DHCP option 252. These common (but non-standard) mechanisms only support defining proxies by hostname and port, and do not support configuring a full URI template . The mechanisms defined in this document are intended to offer a standard alternative that works for URI-based proxies and avoids dependencies on executing Javascript scripts, which are prone to implementation-specific inconsistencies and can open up security vulnerabilities.

Requirements 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 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here.

Fetching PvD Additional Information for proxies This document defines a way to fetch PvD Additional Information associated with a proxy. This PvD describes the properties of the network accessible through the proxy. In order to fetch PvD Additional Information associated with a proxy, a client issues an HTTP GET request for the well-known PvD URI (".well-known/pvd") as defined in and the host authority of the proxy. This is applicable for both proxies that are identified by a host and port only (such as SOCKS proxies and HTTP CONNECT proxies) and proxies that are identified by a URI or URI template. The fetch MUST use the "https" scheme. By default, the fetch SHOULD use the standard port for HTTP over TLS (443) and the ".well-known/pvd" path. However, both the port and the path MAY be overridden by local configuration policy on the client. It is not necessary for the client to re‑fetch PvD Additional Information unless one of the following conditions occurs:

The current time is beyond the "expires" value defined in
A new Sequence Number for that PvD is received in a Router Advertisement (RA)

To avoid synchronized queries toward the server hosting the PvD Additional Information when an object expires, clients MUST apply a randomized backoff as specified in . For example, a client would issue the following request for the PvD associated with "https://proxy.example.org/masque{?target_host,target_port}": A client would send the same request as above for the PvD assocated with an HTTP CONNECT proxy on "proxy.example.org:8080". Note that the client will not make a request to port 8080, but to port 443. Note that all proxies that are co-located on the same host share the same PvD Additional Information. Proxy deployments that need separate PvD configuration properties SHOULD use different hosts. PvD Additional Information is required to contain the "identifier", "expires", and "prefixes" keys. For proxy PvDs as defined in this document, the "identifier" MUST match the hostname of the HTTP proxy. The "prefixes" array SHOULD be empty by default.

Discovery via HTTPS/SVCB Records To allow clients to determine whether PvD Additional Information is available for a given proxy, this document defines a new SvcParamKey in HTTPS and SVCB DNS records defined in . Presence of this SvcParamKey, named pvd indicates that the proxy host supports PvD discovery via the well-known PvD URI ".well-known/pvd" defined in . The presence of this key in an HTTPS or SVCB record signals that the proxy's PvD Additional Information can be fetched using the "https" scheme from the proxy host on port 443 using the well-known path. The presentation and wire-format values for pvd SvcParamKey MUST be empty. A client receiving a DNS record like the following: can interpret the presence of the pvd key as an indication that it MAY perform a PvD fetch from "https://proxy.example.org/.well-known/pvd" using HTTP GET method. While this key is particularly useful for detecting proxy configurations when looking up a DNS record for a known proxy name, this key generically provides a hint that PvD Additional Information is available, and can be used for use cases unrelated to proxies. This marker is advisory; clients MAY still attempt to fetch PvD Additional Information even if pvd SvcParamKey is not present. The pvd SvcParamKey is registered with IANA as described in .

Enumerating proxies within a PvD This document defines a new PvD Additional Information key, proxies, that is an array of dictionaries, where each dictionary in the array defines a single proxy that is available as part of the PvD (see ). Each proxy is defined by a proxy protocol and a proxy location (i.e., a hostname and port or a URI template ), along with other optional keys. When a PvD that contains the proxies key is fetched from a known proxy using the method described in , the proxies list describes equivalent proxies (potentially supporting other protocols) that can be used in addition to the known proxy. Such cases are useful for informing clients of related proxies as a discovery method, with the assumption that the client already is aware of one proxy. Many historical methods of configuring a proxy only allow configuring a single FQDN hostname for the proxy. A client can attempt to fetch the PvD information from the well-known URI to learn the list of complete URIs that support non-default protocols, such as and .

Proxy definition keys This document defines two required keys for the sub-dictionaries in the proxies array: protocol and proxy. There are also optional keys, including mandatory, alpn, and identifier. Other optional keys can be added to the dictionary to further define or restrict the use of a proxy. The keys are registered with IANA as described in , with the initial content provided below. Initial Proxy Information PvD Keys Registry Contents

JSON Key	Optional	Description	Type	Example
protocol	No	The protocol used to communicate with the proxy	String	"connect-udp"
proxy	No	String containing the URI template or host and port of the proxy, depending on the format defined by the protocol	String	"https://proxy.example.org:4443/masque{?target_host,target_port}"
mandatory	Yes	An array of optional keys that client must understand and process to use this proxy	Array of Strings	["example_key"]
alpn	Yes	An array of Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation protocol identifiers	Array of Strings	["h3","h2"]
identifier	Yes	A string used to refer to the proxy, which can be referenced by other dictionaries, such as entries in `proxy-match`	String	"udp-proxy"

The values for the protocol key are defined in the proxy protocol registry (), with the initial contents provided below. For consistency, any new proxy types that use HTTP Upgrade Tokens (and use the :protocol pseudo-header) SHOULD define the protocol value to match the Upgrade Token / :protocol value. Extensions to proxy types that use the same HTTP Upgrade Tokens ought to be covered by the same protocol value; if there are properties specific to an extension, the extensions can either define new optional keys or rely on negotation within the protocol to discover support. Initial PvD Proxy Protocol Registry Contents

Proxy Protocol	Proxy Location Format	Notes
socks5	host:port
http-connect	host:port	Standard CONNECT method, using unencrypted HTTP to the proxy
https-connect	host:port	Standard CONNECT method, using TLS-protected HTTP to the proxy
connect-udp	URI template
connect-ip	URI template
connect-tcp	URI template

The value of proxy depends on the Proxy Location Format defined by proxy protocol. The types defined here either use a host as defined in and port, or a full URI template. The value of the mandatory key is a list of keys that the client must understand and process to be able to use the proxy. A client that does not understand a key from the list or cannot fully process the value of a key from the list MUST ignore the entire proxy definition. The mandatory list can contain keys that are either:

registered in an IANA registry, defined in and marked as optional;
or proprietary, as defined in

The mandatory list MUST NOT include any entries that are not present in the sub-dictionary. If the alpn key is present, it provides a hint for the Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation (ALPN) protocol identifiers associated with this server. For HTTP proxies, this can indicate if the proxy supports HTTP/3, HTTP/2, etc. The value of identifier key is a string that can be used to refer to a particular proxy from other dictionaries, specifically those defined in . The string value is an arbitrary non-empty JSON string using UTF-8 encoding as discussed in . Identifier values MAY be duplicated across different proxy dictionaries in the proxies array, which indicates that all references from other dictionaries to a particular identifier value apply to all matching proxies. Proxies without the identifier key are expected to accept any traffic since their destinations cannot be contained in proxy-match array defined in . Proxies with identifier keys are expected to accept only traffic matching rules in the proxy-match array and SHOULD NOT be used if they are not included in the proxy-match array.

Proprietary keys in proxy configurations Implementations MAY include proprietary or vendor-specific keys in the sub-dictionaries of the proxies array to convey additional proxy configuration information not defined in this specification. A proprietary key MUST contain at least one underscore character ("_"). This character serves as a separator between a vendor-specific namespace and the key name. For example, "acme_authmode" could be a proprietary key indicating an authentication mode defined by a vendor named "acme". When combined with mandatory list, this mechanism allows implementations to extend proxy metadata while maintaining interoperability and ensuring safe fallback behavior for clients that do not support a given extension.

Example Given a known HTTP CONNECT proxy FQDN, "proxy.example.org", a client could request PvD Additional Information with the following request: If the proxy has a PvD definition for this FQDN, it would return the following response to indicate a PvD that has two related proxy URIs. From this response, the client would learn the URI template of the proxy that supports UDP using , at "https://proxy.example.org/masque{?target_host,target_port}".

Destination accessibility information for proxies Destination accessibility information is used when only a subset of destinations is reachable through a proxy. Destination restrictions are often used in VPN tunnel configurations such as split DNS in IKEv2 , and in other proxy configuration mechanisms like PAC files (see ). PvD Additional Information can be used to indicate that a set of proxies only allows access to a limited set of destinations. To support determining which traffic is supported by different proxies, this document defines a new PvD Additional Information key proxy-match. This key has a value that is an array of dictionaries, where each subdictionary describes a rule for matching traffic to one or more proxies, or excluding the traffic from all proxies described in the PvD. These subdictionaries are referred to as "destination rules", since they define rules about which destinations can be accessed for a particular proxy or set of proxies.

Destination Rule Keys This document defines four keys for destination rules. Any destination rule MUST contain the proxies key. Values corresponding to the proxies key may be either an empty array, which implies that no proxy defined in this PvD can process matching traffic, or an array of strings with at least one proxy identifier string. All destination rules MUST also contain at least one other key use to describe the destination properties. Each key MUST correspond to an array with at least one entry. Extensions or proprietary deployments can define new keys to describe destination properties. Any destination rules that include keys not known to the client, or values that cannot be parsed, MUST be ignored in their entirety. Destination rule keys are registered with IANA as defined in , with the initial content provided below. Initial PvD Proxy Destination Rule Registry Contents

JSON Key	Optional	Description	Type	Example
proxies	No	An array of strings that match `identifier` values from the top-level `proxies` array	Array of Strings	["tcp-proxy", "udp-proxy"]
domains	Yes	An array of FQDNs and wildcard DNS domains	Array of Strings	["www.example.com", "*.internal.example.com"]
subnets	Yes	An array of IPv4 and IPv6 addresses and subnets	Array of Strings	["2001:DB8::1", "192.0.2.0/24"]
ports	Yes	An array of TCP and UDP port ranges	Array of Strings	["80", "443", "1024-65535"]

The domains array includes specific FQDNs and zones that are either accessible using specific proxy (for rules with non-empty proxies array) or non-accessible through any proxies (for rules with empty proxies array). Wildcards are allowed only as prefixes (*.). A wildcard prefix is used to indicate matching entire domains or subdomains instead of specific hostnames. Note that this can be used to match multiple levels of subdomains. For example "*.example.com" matches "internal.example.com" as well as "www.public.example.com". Entries that include the wildcard prefix also MUST be treated as if they match an FQDN that only contains the string after the prefix, with no subdomain. So, an entry "*.example.com" in the domains array of a proxy-match rule would match the FQDN "example.com". This is done to prevent commonly needing to include both "*.example.com" and "example.com" in the domains array of a proxy-match rule. Matches are performed against absolute domain names, independent of the client's configured DNS search suffixes. Clients MUST NOT apply local DNS suffix search rules when interpreting domains entries. A trailing dot (".") at the end of a domain name is not required; the matching logic is the same regardless of its presence or absence. The subnets array includes IPv4 and IPv6 address literals, as well as IPv4 and IPv6 address subnets written using CIDR notation . Subnet-based destination information can apply to cases where applications are communicating directly with an IP address (without having resolved a DNS name) as well as cases where an application resolved a DNS name to a set of IP addresses. Note that if destination rules includes an empty proxies list (indicating that no proxy is applicable for this subnet), an application can only reliably follow this destination rule if it resolves DNS names prior to proxying. The ports array includes specific ports (used for matching TCP and/or UDP ports), as well as ranges of ports written with a low port value and a high port value, with a - in between. For example, "1024-2048" matches all ports from 1024 to 2048, including the 1024 and 2048. If ports key is not present, all ports are assumed to match. The list may contain individual port numbers (such as "80") or inclusive ranges of ports. For example "1024-2048" matches all ports from 1024 to 2048, including the 1024 and 2048.

Using Destination Rules The destination rules can be used to determine which traffic can be sent through proxies, and which specific set of proxies to use for any particular connection. By evaluating the rules in order, a consistent behavior for usage can be achieved. Rules in the proxy-match list are provided in order of priority, such that a client can evaluate the list of rules from the first in the array to the last in the array, and attempt using the matching proxy or proxies from the earliest matching rule first. If earliest matching rule has empty list of proxies client SHOULD NOT send matching traffic to any proxy defined in this PvD. In order to match a destination rule in the proxy-match list, all properties MUST apply. For example, if a destination rule includes a domains array and a ports array, traffic that matches the rule needs to match at least one of the entries in the domains array and one of the entries in the ports array. In addition, a destination rule is considered a match only if at least one of the associated proxy identifiers supports the protocol required by the connection attempt (for example, connect-udp for UDP traffic). If no listed proxy identifier is applicable to the protocol, the rule MUST be treated as not matching, and the client continues evaluation of subsequent rules. A matched rule will then either point to one or more proxy identifier values, which correspond to proxies defined in the list from , or instructs the client to not send the matching traffic to any proxy. If a matching rule contains more then one identifier the client should treat the list as an ordered list, where the first identifier is the most preferred. Multiple proxy dictionaries can contain the same identifier value. In this case, the client can choose any of the proxies; however, the client ought to prefer using the same proxy for the consecutive requests to the same proxy identifier to increase connection reuse. Entries listed in a proxy-match object MUST NOT expand the set of destinations that a client is willing to send to a particular proxy. The list can only narrow the list of destinations that the client is willing to send through the proxy. For example, if the client has a local policy to only send requests for "*.example.com" to a proxy "proxy.example.com", and domains array of a match object contains "internal.example.com" and "other.company.com", the client would end up only proxying "internal.example.com" through the proxy.

Proprietary Keys in Destination Rules Implementations MAY include proprietary or vendor-specific keys in destination rules to define custom matching logic not specified in this document. Similar to proprietary keys in proxy definitions (), a proprietary key in destination rule MUST contain at least one underscore character ("_"), which separates a vendor-specific namespace from the key name. For example, "acme_processid" could be a key used to apply rules only to traffic of a specific process identifier as defined by a vendor named "acme". Clients that encounter a proprietary key they do not recognize MUST ignore the entire destination rule in which the key appears. This ensures that unknown or unsupported matching logic does not inadvertently influence proxy selection or bypass security controls. This handling applies uniformly across all match rules, including fallback rules.

Examples In the following example, two proxies are defined with a common identifier ("default_proxy"), with a single destination rule for "*.internal.example.org". The client could then choose to use either proxy associated with the "default_proxy" identifier for accessing TCP hosts that fall within the "*.internal.example.org" zone. This would include the hostnames "internal.example.org", "foo.internal.example.org", "www.bar.internal.example.org" and all other hosts within "internal.example.org". The client will use the same proxy for the following requests to hosts falling into the "*.internal.example.org" zone to increase connection reuse and make use of the connection resumption. The client will not use the proxies defined in this configuration to hosts outside of the "*.internal.example.org" zone. In the next example, two proxies are defined with a separate identifiers, and there are three destination rules: In this case, the client would use "special-proxy.example.org:80" for any TCP traffic that matches "*.special.example.org" destined to ports 80, 443 or any port between 49152 and 65535. The client would not use any of the defined proxies for access to "no-proxy.internal.example.org". And finally, the client would use "proxy.example.org:80" to access any other TCP traffic that matches "*.internal.example.org". In the following example, three proxies are sharing a common identifier ("default-proxy"), but use separate protocols constraining the traffic that they can process. The client would use proxies in the following way:

Traffic not destined to hosts within the "*.internal.example.org" zone is not sent to any proxy defined in this configuration
TCP traffic destined to hosts within the "*.internal.example.org" zone is sent either to the proxy with "http-connect" protocol or to the proxy with "connect-ip" protocol
UDP traffic destined to hosts within the "*.internal.example.org" zone is sent either to the proxy with "connect-udp" protocol or to the proxy with "connect-ip" protocol
Traffic other than TCP and UDP destined to hosts within the "*.internal.example.org" zone is sent to the proxy with "connect-ip" protocol

The following example provides a configuration of proxies to be used by default with a set with exceptions to bypass: In this case, the client will not forward TCP traffic that is destined to hosts matching "*.intranet.example.org", 192.168.0.0/16 or 2001:DB8::/32, through the proxies. Due to the order in "proxies" list in the last rule of "proxy-match", the client would prefer "proxy.example.org:80" over "backup.example.org:80"

Discovering proxies from network PvDs defines how PvD Additional Information is discovered based on network advertisements using Router Advertisements . A network defining its configuration via PvD information can include the proxies key () to inform clients of a list of proxies available on the network. This association of proxies with the network's PvD can be used as a mechanism to discover proxies, as an alternative to PAC files. However, client systems MUST NOT automatically send traffic over proxies advertised in this way without explicit configuration, policy, or user permission. For example, a client can use this mechanism to choose between known proxies, such as if the client was already proxying traffic and has multiple options to choose between. Further security and experience considerations are needed for these cases.

Security Considerations The mechanisms in this document allow clients using a proxy to "upgrade" a configuration for a cleartext HTTP/1.1 or SOCKS proxy into a configuration that uses TLS to communication to the proxy. This upgrade can add protection to the proxied traffic so it is less observable by entities along the network path; however it does not prevent the proxy itself from observing the traffic being proxied. Configuration advertised via PvD Additional Information, such DNS zones or associated proxies, can only be safely used when fetched over a secure TLS-protected connection, and the client has validated that that the hostname of the proxy, the identifier of the PvD, and the validated hostname identity on the certificate all match. When using information in destination rules (), clients MUST only allow the PvD configuration to narrow the scope of traffic that they will send through a proxy. Clients that are configured by policy to only send a particular set of traffic through a particular proxy can learn about rules that will cause them to send more narrowly-scoped traffic, but MUST NOT send traffic that would go beyond what is allowed by local policy.

IANA Considerations

New PvD Additional Information key This document registers two new keys in the "Additional Information PvD Keys" registry.

proxies Key JSON Key: proxies Description: Array of proxy dictionaries associated with this PvD Type: Array of dictionaries Example:

proxy-match Key JSON Key: proxy-match Description: Array of proxy match rules, as dictionaries, associated with entries in the proxies list. Type: Array of dictionaries Example:

New PvD Proxy Information Registry IANA is requested to create a new registry "Proxy Information PvD Keys", within the "Provisioning Domains (PvDs)" registry page. This new registry reserves JSON keys for use in sub-dictionaries under the proxies key. The initial contents of this registry are given in . New assignments in the "Proxy Information PvD Keys" registry will be administered by IANA through Expert Review . Experts are requested to ensure that defined keys do not overlap in names or semantics, do not contain an underscore character ("_") in the names (since underscores are reserved for vendor-specific keys), and have clear format definitions. The reference and notes fields MAY be empty.

New PvD Proxy Protocol Registry IANA is requested to create a new registry "Proxy Protocol PvD Values", within the "Provisioning Domains (PvDs)" registry page. This new registry reserves JSON values for the protocol key in proxies sub-dictionaries. The initial contents of this registry are given in . New assignments in the "Proxy Protocol PvD Values" registry will be administered by IANA through Expert Review . Experts are requested to ensure that defined keys do not overlap in names. The reference and notes fields MAY be empty.

New PvD Proxy Destination Rule Registry IANA is requested to create a new registry "Proxy Destination Rule PvD Keys", within the "Provisioning Domains (PvDs)" registry page. This new registry reserves JSON keys for use in sub-dictionaries under the proxy-match key. The initial contents of this registry are given in . New assignments in the "Proxy Destination Rule PvD Keys" registry will be administered by IANA through Expert Review . Experts are requested to ensure that defined keys do not overlap in names or semantics, and do not contain an underscore character ("_") in the names (since underscores are reserved for vendor-specific keys).

New DNS SVCB Service Parameter Key (SvcParamKey) IANA is requested to add a new entry to the "DNS SVCB Service Parameter Keys (SvcParamKeys)" registry:

Number: TBD
Name: pvd
Meaning: PvD configuration is available at the well-known path
Change Controller: IETF
Reference: this document,