POSTECH DP&NM Lab

ASN.1 & BER

J. Won-Ki Hong Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering POSTECH Tel: 054-279-2244 Email: jwkhong@postech.ac.kr
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Table of Contents
Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1)
Overview Properties & Restrictions Type and Value Definitions ASN.1 Simple Types ASN.1 Structured Types ASN.1 Macro Definitions

Basic Encoding Rules (BER)

Overview Tags, Lengths & Values Encoding Examples
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Overview of ASN.1
a machine independent data description language CCITT (X.208) and ISO (ISO 8824) standard define abstract syntax of application data define the structure of application and presentation protocol data units (PDUs) define SNMP and OSI Management Information Base (MIB)

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ASN.1 Terminology
Abstract Syntax
describes the generic structure of data allows data types and values to be defined

Data Type
a named set of values -- may be simple or structured

Encoding
sequence of octets used to represent a data value

Encoding Rules
specifies the mapping from one syntax to another

Transfer Syntax
describes how data are actually represented in terms of bit patterns while in transit
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Abstract & Transfer Syntaxes

User User Local storage (e.g, MIB) user presentation mapping user presentation mapping Local storage (e.g, MIB)

local mapping

Application component

Abstract Syntax (e.g., ASN.1)

Application component

local mapping

encoding rules

encoding rules

data transfer component (e.g, TCP, OSI session)

Transfer Syntax (e.g., BER)

data transfer component (e.g, TCP, OSI session)

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ASN.1 Module Definition

The basic building block of an ASN.1 specification is the module See Figure B.2 (BNF grammar for ASN.1) Modules have the following basic form

<modulereference> DEFINITIONS ::= Definitions in this module that may BEGIN be imported by other modules. EXPORTS Definitions that are to be imported IMPORTS from other modules. AssignmentList Type assignments, value assignments, and macro definitions END
that are defined in this module.
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Lexical Conventions
Comments begin with two hyphens (--) and terminated either by another set (--) or the end of line character Identifiers begin with a letter, and may contain letters, digits, and hyphens, but may not end with a hyphen or contain two consecutive hyphens The type identifier must start with an uppercase letter The value identifier must start with a lowercase letter Reserved keywords are all uppercase Multiple spaces and blank lines can be considered as a single space

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Categories of ASN.1 Data Types

Simple (Primitive)
atomic types, with no components

Structured
types with components

Tagged
types derived from other types

Other
CHOICE and ANY types

Every ASN.1 data type, with the exception of CHOICE and ANY types, has an associated TAG, which consists of a class name and nonnegative integer tag number
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Classes of TAG
UNIVERSAL
Built-in types, application independent types See Table B.2

APPLICATION
Application specific types

CONTEXT-SPECIFIC
limited to a context within an application

PRIVATE
defined by users and not covered by any standard

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ASN.1 Simple Types

INTEGER
the positive and negative whole numbers, including zero

OCTET STRING
a sequence of zero or more octets (8-bit bytes)

OBJECT IDENTIFIER (OID)

the set of values associated with information objects allocated by the standard

NULL
the single value NULL

Other ASN.1 simple types include boolean, bit string, real, enumerated, PrintableString, etc.
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ASN.1 Structured Types

SET
a collection of one or more types

SET OF
a collection of zero or more occurrences of a given type

SEQUENCE
an ordered collection of one or more types

SEQUENCE OF
an ordered collection of zero or more occurrences of a given type

CHOICE
a list of alternatives
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ASN.1 Example
Informal Description of Personnel Record
Name: Title: Employee Number: Date of Hire: Name of Spouse: Number of Children:
Child Information Name: Date of Birth: Child Information Name: Date of Birth:

James W Hong Associate Professor 20292 May 26, 1995 In-Young B Hong 2
Suk D Hong 29 March 1988 Myungdo M Hong 10 August 1994

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ASN.1 Description of the Record Structure

PersonalRecord ::= [APPLICATION 0] IMPLICIT SET { Name, title [0] VisibleString, number EmployeeNo, dateOfHire [1] Date, nameOfSpouse [2] Name, children [3] IMPLICIT SEQUENCE OF ChildInfo DEFAULT {} } ChildInfo ::= SET { Name, dateOfBirth [0] Date} Name ::= [APPLICATION 1] IMPLICIT SEQUENCE { givenName VisibleString, initial VisibleString, familyName VisibleString} EmployeeNo ::= [APPLICATION 2] IMPLICIT INTEGER

Date ::= [APPLICATION 3] IMPLICIT VisibleString

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ASN.1 Description of a Record Value

{ {givenName James, initial W, familyName Hong}, title Associate Professor number 20292 dateOfHire 19950526 nameOfSpouse {givenName In-Young, initial B, familyName Hong}, children { { {givenName Suk, initial D, familyName Hong}, dateOfBirth 19880329}, { {givenName Myungdo, initial M, familyName Hong}, dateOfBirth 19940810} }
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ASN.1 Macro Definitions

ASN.1 macro notation can be used to extend the syntax of ASN.1 to define new types and values a macro definition is expressed in the macro notation and used to define a set of macro instances a macro instance is generated from a macro definition by substituting values for variables the macro is used to extend the ASN.1 syntax but does not extend the encoding
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Macro Definition Format

<macroname> MACRO ::= BEGIN TYPE NOTATION ::= <new-type-syntax> VALUE NOTATION ::= <new-value-syntax> <supporting-productions> END

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Macro Definition Example

OBJECT-TYPE MACRO ::= BEGIN TYPE NOTATION ::= SYNTAX type (TYPE ObjectSyntax) ACCESS Access STATUS Status VALUE NOTATION ::= value (VALUE ObjectName) Access ::= read-only | read-write | write-only | not-accessible Status ::= mandatory | optional | obsolete END

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Overview of BER
BER Basic Encoding Rules an encoding specification CCITT (X.209) and ISO (ISO 8825) standard describes a method for encoding values of each ASN.1 type as a string of octets based on the use of a type-length-value (TLV) structure
Type Length Value

Fields of a BER encoded ASN.1 value

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BER Type Field

Class

BIT

Constructed
Most significant Least significant

Tag number

CLASS
Universal Application

Bit 8
0 0

Bit 7 Description
0 1 0 1 Built-in types SNMP defined types Used in context Not used in the SNMP protocol
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Context-Specific 1 Private 1

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Tag Values for SNMP Types

Type
INTEGER/Integer32 OCTET STRING NULL OBJECT IDENTIFIER SEQUENCE IpAddress Counter/Counter32 Gauge/Gauge32 TimeTicks Opaque Counter64

SNMPv1 protocol

SNMPv2 protocol

ASN.1 Tag
UNIVERSAL 2 UNIVERSAL 4 UNIVERSAL 5 UNIVERSAL 6 UNIVERSAL 16 APPLICATION 0 APPLICATION 1 APPLICATION 2 APPLICATION 3 APPLICATION 4

Tag Tag Number Value

0x02 0x02

0x04
0x05 0x06 0x10 0x00 0x01 0x02 0x03 0x04

0x04
0x05 0x06 0x30 0x40 0x41 0x42 0x43 0x44

APPLICATION 6

0x06

0x46 20

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Encoding Methods
The TLV structure is recursive for any ASN.1 value that consists of one or more components, the value portion of its TLV encoding itself consists of one or more TLV structures Three methods for encoding an ASN.1 value: 1. Primitive, definite-length encoding 2. Constructed, definite-length encoding 3. Constructed, indefinite-length encoding
The method chosen depends on the ASN.1 type of the value to be encoded and whether or not the length of the value is known based on the type (see Table B.4)
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BER Length Field

two forms of length field exist:
short form: specified in a single octet
Value
0 1 1 0 0 1

= 102

Short(0)/Long(1) form indicator

long form: specified in multiple octets

Value 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1

= 7559605

Short/Long form indicator Length of length Length value

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BER Examples - Integers

0 0 0 0 0 0
1

Tag Universal 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Length 1

What value was encoded?

Value 0

Tag Universal 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0

Length 2 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1

Value (1 of 2)

Value (2 of 2)

What value was encoded?

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BER Example - Octet String

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0

Tag Universal 4 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 1

Length 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0

1st octet 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1

2nd octet 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1

3rd octet

4th octet

Overall Length = 6

Value of Octet String encoded is EB069937

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BER Example - SEQUENCE

Message ::= SEQUENCE { version INTEGER { version-1(0) }, community OCTET STRING } Given the above definition, what is the BER encoding of sampleMessage ::= { 0, EB069937h } ?
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... and its BER encoding is

0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

0
1

0 0

0
0

0
0

0
0

0
0

1
0

0
0

0 0

1
1

Tag universal 16 Value (1 of 9) integer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Length 9

Value (2 of 9) integer 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Value (4 of 9) OCTET STRING 1

Value (3 of 9) integer 0 0 0 0 0

Value (5 of 9) OCTET STRING 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0

Value (6 of 9) OCTET STRING 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 Value (8 of 9) OCTET STRING

Value (7 of 9) OCTET STRING 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 Value (9 of 9) OCTET STRING

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Summary
We have covered a subset of ASN.1 and BER which are used in SNMP and OSI Management Frameworks ASN.1 is widely used in defining application data and protocol data units BER is widely used in defining transfer syntaxes READ:
Stallings, SNMP, SNMPv2, SNMPv3 and RMON 1 and 2, 3rd Edition, Addison-Wesley, Appendix B

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