RFC 9932 - Mutually Authenticating TLS in the Context of Federations

• Status: Informational
• Published: April 2026
• Stream: Independent
• Errata: No Errata

Abstract

RFC 9932 is an Informational Independent Submission describing how to use TLS 1.3 for machine-to-machine mutual authentication within federations. It does not modify TLS, and it relies on a centrally managed trust anchor, signed metadata, and public key pinning.

Contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Diverse Design Patterns
• 3. Trust Model
• 4. Metadata Repository
• 5. Authentication
• 6. Federation Metadata
• 7. Example Usage Scenarios
• 8. Deployments of the MATF Framework
• 9. Security Considerations
• 10. IANA Considerations
• 11. References
• Appendix A. JSON Schema for MATF Metadata
• Acknowledgements
• Authors' Addresses

Related Resources

• Official Text: RFC 9932
• Official Page: RFC 9932 DataTracker
• Errata: RFC Editor Errata