Internet Engineering Task Force R. Winter
Internet-Draft University of Applied Sciences Augsburg
Intended status: Informational A. Ripke
Expires: August 27, 2013 NEC Laboratories Europe
February 25, 2013
Multipath TCP Support for Single-homed End-systems
draft-wr-mptcp-single-homed-04
Abstract
Multipath TCP relies on the existence of multiple paths at the end-
systems typically provided through different IP addresses obtained by
different ISPs. While this scenario is certainly becoming
increasingly a reality (e.g. mobile devices), currently most end-
systems are single-homed (e.g. desktop PCs in an enterprise). This
memo describes mechanisms to make multiple paths available to
multipath TCP-capable end-systems that are not available directly at
the end-systems but somewhere within the network.
Status of this Memo
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This Internet-Draft will expire on August 27, 2013.
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Winter & Ripke Expires August 27, 2013 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft single-homed MPTCP February 2013
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Approaches to Use Multiple Paths in the Network . . . . . . . 3
2.1. Exposing Multiple Paths Through End-host Auto-configuration 3
2.2. Heuristic Use of Multiple Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Other scenarios and extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4. Alternative approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
5. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. Introduction
The IETF has specified a multipath TCP (MPTCP) architecture and
protocol where end-systems operate a modified standard TCP stack
which allows packets of the same TCP connection to be sent via
different paths to an MPTCP-capable destination ([RFC6824],
[RFC6182]) where paths are defined by sets of source and destination
IP addresses. Using multiple paths has a number of benefits such as
an increased reliability of the transport connection and an effect
known as resource pooling [resource_pooling]. Most end-systems today
do not have multiple paths/interfaces available in order to make use
of multipath TCP, however further within the network multiple paths
are the norm rather than the exception. This memo therefore
describes ways how these multiple paths in the network could
potentially be made available to multipath TCP-capable hosts that are
single-homed.
In order to illustrate the general mechanism we make use of a simple
reference scenario shown in Figure 1.
+-------+
| DHCP |
+-------+ +----------+ Server|
| | | | |
| Host +------+ +-------+
| | | +-------+ ISP 1
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