Guidelines for Internet Congestion Control at Endpoints
draft-fairhurst-tsvwg-cc-03

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Internet Engineering Task Force                             G. Fairhurst
Internet-Draft                                    University of Aberdeen
Intended status: Standards Track                       September 6, 2019
Expires: March 9, 2020

        Guidelines for Internet Congestion Control at Endpoints
                      draft-fairhurst-tsvwg-cc-03

Abstract

   This document provides guidance on the design of methods to avoid
   congestion collapse and to provide congestion control.
   Recommendations and requirements on this topic are distributed across
   many documents in the RFC series.  This therefore seeks to gather and
   consolidate these recommendations.  It is intended to provide input
   to the design of new congestion control methods in protocols, such as
   IETF QUIC.

   The present document is for discussion and comment by the IETF.  If
   published, this plans to update the Best Current Practice in BCP 41,
   which currently includes "Congestion Control Principles" provided in
   RFC2914.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on March 9, 2020.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents

Fairhurst                 Expires March 9, 2020                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                CC Guidelines               September 2019

   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
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   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Best Current Practice in the RFC-Series . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Principles of Congestion Control  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  A Diversity of Path Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.2.  Flow Multiplexing and Congestion  . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.3.  Avoiding Congestion Collapse and Flow Starvation  . . . .   8
   4.  Guidelines for Performing Congestion Control  . . . . . . . .   9
     4.1.  Connection Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.2.  Using Path Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     4.3.  Timers and Retransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.4.  Responding to Potential Congestion  . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     4.5.  Using More Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     4.6.  Network Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     4.7.  Protection of Protocol Mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   5.  IETF Guidelines on Evaluation of Congestion Control . . . . .  17
   6.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   8.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   9.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     9.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     9.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   Appendix A.  Revision Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25

1.  Introduction

   The IETF has specified Internet transports (e.g., TCP
   [I-D.ietf-tcpm-rfc793bis], UDP [RFC0768], UDP-Lite [RFC3828], SCTP
   [RFC4960], and DCCP [RFC4340]) as well as protocols layered on top of
   these transports (e.g., RTP, QUIC [I-D.ietf-quic-transport], SCTP/UDP
   [RFC6951], DCCP/UDP [RFC6773]) and transports that work directly over
   the IP network layer.  These transports are implemented in endpoints
   (Internet hosts or routers acting as endpoints) and are designed to
   detect and react to network congestion.  TCP was the first transport
   to provide this, although the TCP specifications found in RFC 793