The NAF Authentication Filter intercepts requests to the XCAP Server.
The filter performs the role of the NAF, authenticating the requests using GAA procedures. If successful, the authenticated requests and credentials are passed on to the Sentinel XCAP Server.
- NAF Authentication Filter operation
- 1. UE makes a request
- 2. NAF filter rejects with challenge
- 3. UE sends challenge response using bootstrapped security association
- 4. NAF filter retrieves bootstrap information
- 5. NAF filter validates the bootstrapped user information
- 6. Filter passes request and credentials to Sentinel XCAP Server
- 7. Sentinel XCAP Server requests user data over Sh
- 8. Sentinel XCAP Server returns response to filter
- 9. Response sent back to UE
NAF Authentication Filter operation
To illustrate how the filter works, we can walk through how the NAF Authentication Filter handles a typical request to the Sentinel XCAP server.
An overview of the authentication process, from the filter’s point of view, is shown below.

The steps shown in the diagram are explained in the following sections.
1. UE makes a request
The UE needs to retrieve an XCAP resource, for example to discover configuration settings for an MMTEL service.
The UE selects the authentication mechanism to use through addition of a product token to the User-Agent
header:
-
if the UE wishes to use the
GBA_Digest
mechanism, then it must include the product token3gpp-gba-digest
in itsUser-Agent
header (not shown in this example). -
if the UE wishes to use the
GBA_ME
mechanism, then it must include the product token3gpp-gba
in itsUser-Agent
header -
if the UE includes neither, then the NAF rejects the request without a challenge
Here we assume the UE knows its XCAP server’s address, xcap.home1.net
.
This address may be preconfigured in the UE, or the UE may derive it from the subscriber’s private identity as per 3GPP TS 23.003 §13.9.
The UE constructs the XCAP selector for the resource and sends an HTTP GET request to the XCAP server.
In this example, the UE wants to retrieve the communication diversion (CDIV) configuration for their public identity sip:user@home1.net
.
GET /simservs.ngn.etsi.org/users/sip:user@home1.net/simservs/~~/communication-diversion HTTP/1.1
Host: xcap.home1.net
User-Agent: vendorstring/2.0 3gbb-gba
The XCAP server will need to confirm that the request is being made by a device associated with the public identity sip:user@home1.net
.
2. NAF filter rejects with challenge
The web container (such as Apache Tomcat) sees that the URL is for a resource protected by the filter, so passes the request to the filter.
The filter sees that the request has not been authenticated, because there is no Authorization
header.
The filter generates a 401 unauthorized response, containing a challenge.
HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
WWW-Authenticate: Digest algorithm=MD5 realm="3GPP-bootstrapping@xcap.home1.net" qop="auth-int",
nonce="8982ac96f06922330de40902183fa099",
opaque="00fffde7845cc67534bdc78f3a9e233"
The realm
value 3GPP-bootstrapping@xcap.home1.net
tells the UE that bootstrapping is required, and that GBA_ME
is to be used.
At this point the UE must perform the GBA bootstrapping procedure with the BSF. This process is covered separately in the BSF Server section.
Assuming bootstrapping is successful, the authentication process carries on.
When using GBA_Digest
the WWW-Authenticate
header includes the realm
value 3GPP-bootstrapping-digest@xcap.home1.net
.
The same applies to subsequent requests sent by the UE.
3. UE sends challenge response using bootstrapped security association
After completing bootstrapping, the UE can retry the request using its bootstrapped security association.
The UE should now know the Bootstrapping Transaction Identifier (B-TID), which is used as the username for the HTTP Digest authentication scheme.
The password used is derived from shared secrets generated in the bootstrapping process, and information about the connection to the NAF. This password is known as the NAF-specific shared key, or Ks_NAF.
The UE generates a challenge response using the standard HTTP Digest (RFC 2617) scheme. The username, password, nonce, opaque, and other values from the challenge are combined to calculate the response value:
GET /simservs.ngn.etsi.org/users/sip:user@home1.net/simservs/~~/communication-diversion HTTP/1.1
Host: xcap.home1.net
Authorization: Digest username="CH8Bm4AA/38BADV/f4DBAQ==@bsf.home1.net",
realm="3GPP-bootstrapping@xcap.home1.net",
algorithm=MD5, qop=auth-int,
uri="/simservs.ngn.etsi.org/users/sip:user@home1.net/simservs/~~/communication-diversion"
nonce="8982ac96f06922330de40902183fa099",
opaque="00fffde7845cc67534bdc78f3a9e233",
nc=00000001,
cnonce="9856f65d8925a"
response="43ef1da9e534fb321476a1679ff8256"
4. NAF filter retrieves bootstrap information
The filter receives the challenge response over HTTP, and must now verify that it is correct.
To do this, the filter queries the bootstrap_info
Cassandra table to find an entry for the username (B-TID).
If an entry exists, it will contain the user’s private identity (IMPI) and also the shared secrets that will be used to calculate Ks_NAF, the password.
The filter also looks up the user’s GBA User Security Settings (GUSS) in the GUSS cache, populated by the BSF. If no bootstrap information or GUSS is found, the filter must reject the request as it does not have enough information to continue.
5. NAF filter validates the bootstrapped user information
Now the filter calculates Ks_NAF, and uses this value as the password in its HTTP Digest calculation. If everything is correct, the filter will calculate the same value that the UE sent in the challenge response. This means the request has been successfully authenticated — the filter can now pass the request to the Sentinel XCAP Server.
Before doing so, the filter must also determine which IMS public identities (IMPUs) are associated with the request.
This is determined by the ussList
element from the user’s GUSS, and also the filter’s configuration for service ID, service type and NAF group.
See GUSS usage in the NAF Authentication Filter for details.
6. Filter passes request and credentials to Sentinel XCAP Server
The user is now authenticated, and the filter knows the public identities associated with the request.
The filter adds the X-3GPP-Asserted-Identity
header to the request, with the known public identities.
The request header seen by the Sentinel XCAP Server looks like this:
GET /simservs.ngn.etsi.org/users/sip:user@home1.net/simservs/~~/communication-diversion HTTP/1.1
Host: xcap.home1.net
X-3GPP-Asserted-Identity: "tel:358504836551", "sip:user@home1.net"
Authorization: Digest username="CH8Bm4AA/38BADV/f4DBAQ==@bsf.home1.net",
realm="3GPP-bootstrapping@xcap.home1.net",
algorithm=MD5, qop=auth-int,
uri="/simservs.ngn.etsi.org/users/sip:user@home1.net/simservs/~~/communication-diversion"
nonce="8982ac96f06922330de40902183fa099",
opaque="00fffde7845cc67534bdc78f3a9e233",
nc=00000001,
cnonce="9856f65d8925a"
response="43ef1da9e534fb321476a1679ff8256"
7. Sentinel XCAP Server requests user data over Sh
The Sentinel XCAP Server sees that one of the asserted identities ("sip:user@home.net") matches the XCAP User Identity (XUI) in the Request-URI, so allows the request to proceed. If the XUI did not match an asserted identity, the request would be rejected immediately.
The Sentinel XCAP Server uses the Sh Cache Microservice to retrieve the supplementary services transparent data for this identity from the HSS.
Assuming the data is found, it applies the XCAP selector to extract the requested portion of the XML document, in this case the communication-diversion
element.
8. Sentinel XCAP Server returns response to filter
The Sentinel XCAP Server generates a 200 OK response with the communication-diversion
element.
At this point control returns to the filter.
If the requested qop
(Quality of Protection) parameter was auth-int
, the filter must calculate a response digest so that the UE can verify the integrity of the response.
The filter calculates the digest over the response body, and adds the Authentication-Info
header to the response.
9. Response sent back to UE
Finally the HTTP response is transmitted back to the UE. The response seen at the UE will be something like this:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Authentication-Info: qop=auth-int, cnonce="9856f65d8925a", nc=00000001
rspauth="a8478cea0d1f23ba975af498954c62d"
Content-Type: application/vnd.etsi.simservs+xml
Content-Length: 123
<communication-diversion>
...
</communication-diversion>