Unified Properties for the ALTO Protocol
draft-ietf-alto-unified-props-new-07
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Wendy Roome , Sabine Randriamasy , Y. Richard Yang , Jingxuan Zhang | ||
| Last updated | 2019-03-11 (Latest revision 2019-01-02) | ||
| Replaces | draft-roome-alto-unified-props-new | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
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draft-ietf-alto-unified-props-new-07
ALTO WG W. Roome
Internet-Draft S. Randriamasy
Intended status: Standards Track Nokia Bell Labs
Expires: September 12, 2019 Y. Yang
Yale University
J. Zhang
Tongji University
March 11, 2019
Unified Properties for the ALTO Protocol
draft-ietf-alto-unified-props-new-07
Abstract
This document extends the Application-Layer Traffic Optimization
(ALTO) Protocol [RFC7285] by generalizing the concept of "endpoint
properties" to domains of other entities, and by presenting those
properties as maps, similar to the network and cost maps in ALTO.
Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
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
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on September 12, 2019.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2019 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(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
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Definitions and Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1. Entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2. Entity Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3. Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.4. Entity Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.5. Property Type and Property Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6. Hierarchy and Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.7. Relationship with Other ALTO Resources . . . . . . . . . 7
3. Entity Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Internet Address Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.1. IPv4 Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2. IPv6 Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.3. Hierarchy and Inheritance of ipv4/ipv6 Domains . . . 9
3.2. PID Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2.1. Domain Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2.2. Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2.3. Hierarchy and Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2.4. Relationship To Internet Addresses Domains . . . . . 11
3.3. Internet Address Properties vs. PID Properties . . . . . 11
4. Property Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. HTTP Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3. Accept Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.4. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.5. Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.6. Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Filtered Property Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1. Media Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2. HTTP Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3. Accept Input Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4. Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.5. Uses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.6. Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. Impact on Legacy ALTO Servers and ALTO Clients . . . . . . . 17
6.1. Impact on Endpoint Property Service . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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6.2. Impact on Resource-Specific Properties . . . . . . . . . 17
6.3. Impact on the pid Property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6.4. Impact on Other Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.1. Network Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.2. Property Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
7.3. Information Resource Directory (IRD) . . . . . . . . . . 19
7.4. Property Map Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.5. Filtered Property Map Example #1 . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.6. Filtered Property Map Example #2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
7.7. Filtered Property Map Example #3 . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
7.8. Filtered Property Map Example #4 . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9.1. application/alto-* Media Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9.2. ALTO Entity Domain Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
9.2.1. Consistency Procedure between ALTO Address Type
Registry and ALTO Entity Domain Registry . . . . . . 29
9.2.2. ALTO Entity Domain Registration Process . . . . . . . 30
9.3. ALTO Entity Property Type Registry . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.4. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
10. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
1. Introduction
The ALTO protocol [RFC7285] introduces the concept of "properties"
attached to "endpoint addresses", and defines the Endpoint Property
Service (EPS) to allow ALTO clients to retrieve those properties.
While useful, the EPS, as defined in [RFC7285], has at least two
limitations.
First, it only allows properties to be associated with a particular
domain of entities, namely individual IP addresses. It is reasonable
to think that collections of endpoints, as defined by CIDRs [RFC4632]
or PIDs, may also have properties. Since the EPS cannot be extended
to new entity domains, new services, with new request and response
messages, would have to be defined for new entity domains.
Second, the EPS is only defined as a POST-mode service. Clients must
request the properties for an explicit set of endpoint addresses. By
contrast, [RFC7285] defines a GET-mode cost map resource which
returns all available costs, so a client can get a full set of costs
once, and then processes costs lookups without querying the ALTO
server. [RFC7285] does not define an equivalent service for endpoint
properties. At first a map of endpoint properties might seem
impractical, because it could require enumerating the property value
for every possible endpoint. But in practice, it is highly unlikely
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that properties will be defined for every endpoint address. It is
much more likely that properties will only be defined for a subset of
endpoint addresses, and that subset would be small enough to be
enumerated. This is particularly true if blocks of endpoint
addresses with a common prefix (e.g., a CIDR) have the same value for
a property. Furthermore, entities in other domains may very well be
enumerable.
This document proposes a new approach to retrieve ALTO properties.
Specifically, it defines two new types of resources, namely Property
Map (see Section 4) and Filtered Property Map (see Section 5). The
former is a GET-mode resource which returns the property values for
all entities in a domain, and is analogous to a network map or a cost
map in [RFC7285]. The latter is a POST-mode resource which returns
the values for a set of properties and entities requested by the
client, and is analogous to a filtered network map or a filtered cost
map.
Additionally, this document introduces ALTO Entity Domains, where an
entity is a generalization of an endpoint to also represent, a PID, a
network element, or a cell in a cellular network, etc. As a
consequence, ALTO Entity Domains defined in this document are a
super-set of ALTO Address Types defined in [RFC7285]. Their exact
relationship is specified in Section 9.2.1.
Entity domains and property names are extensible. New entity domains
can be defined without revising the messages defined in this
document, in the same way that new cost metrics and new endpoint
properties can be defined without revising the messages defined in
[RFC7285].
This proposal subsumes the Endpoint Property Service defined in
[RFC7285], although that service may be retained for legacy clients
(see Section 6).
2. Definitions and Concepts
2.1. Entity
The entity generalizes the concept of the endpoint defined in
Section 2.1 of [RFC7285]. An entity is an object that can be an
endpoint and is identified by its network address, but can also be an
object that has a defined mapping to a set of one or more network
addresses or is even not related to any network address.
Examples of eligible entities are:
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o a PID, defined in [RFC7285], that has a provider defined human
readable abstract identifier and maps to a set of ipv4 and ipv6
addresses,
o an ASN number, that has a specified identifier and direct mapping
to network addresses,
o a country code, that specified in ISO 3166 format and that can be
retrieved from an IP of cellular address. As a consequence, all
endpoints are entities while not all entities are endpoints,
o a TCP/IP network flow, that has a server defined identifier and
represents in a TCP/IP 5-Tuple,
o a routing element, that specified in [RFC7921] and includes
routing capability information,
o an abstract network element, that has a server defined identifier
and represents a network node, link or their aggregation.
2.2. Entity Domain
Each entity MUST be in one and only one entity domain. An entity
domain is a class of entities. Examples of entity domains are the
Internet address domains (see Section 3.1 and the PID domain (see
Section 3.2). The future documents can define new entity domains to
satisfy the additional requirements such as cellular network
information and routing capability exposure. But they are not in the
scope of this document.
2.3. Domain Name
Each entity domain has a unique name. A domain name MUST be no more
than 32 characters, and MUST NOT contain characters other than US-
ASCII alphanumeric characters (U+0030-U+0039, U+0041-U+005A, and
U+0061-U+007A), hyphen ("-", U+002D), and low line ("_", U+005F).
For example, the names "ipv4" and "ipv6" identify entities in the
Internet address domains (see Section 3.1).
The type DomainName is used in this document to denote a JSON string
with a domain name in this format.
Domain names MUST be registered with the IANA, and the format of the
entity addresses (see Section 2.4) in that entity domain, as well as
any hierarchical or inheritance rules (see Section 2.6) for those
entities, MUST be specified at the same time.
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2.4. Entity Identifier
Each entity has an identifier of the format:
EntityId ::= DomainName : DomainSpecificEntityId
An entity identifier uniquely identifies a particular entity within
an ALTO property map resource (see Section 4).
Examples from the IP domains include individual IP addresses such as
"ipv4:192.0.2.14" and "ipv6:2001:db8::12", as well as address blocks
such as "ipv4:192.0.2.0/26" and "ipv6:2001:db8::1/48".
The type EntityId is used in this document to denote a JSON string
with an entity identifier in this format.
The format of the second part of an entity identifier depends on the
entity domain, and MUST be specified when registering a new entity
domain. Identifiers MAY be hierarchical, and properties MAY be
inherited based on that hierarchy. Again, the rules defining any
hierarchy or inheritance MUST be defined when the entity domain is
registered.
Note that an entity address MAY have different textual
representations, for a given entity domain. For example, the strings
"ipv6:2001:db8::1" and "ipv6:2001:db8:0:0:0:0:0:1" refer to the same
entity.
2.5. Property Type and Property Name
Every entity in some domain MAY have one or more properties. Every
property is identified by a Property Type and is specific to a
domain. Every property MUST have a unique Property Type.
This document defines property types in the domain-specific
semantics. Multiple property types with similar semantics MAY share
the same Property Name in different entity domains. But each
property type MUST be registered for a single specific entity domain
for the following reasons:
o Some properties may only be applicable for particular entity
domains, not all. For example, the "pid" property is not
applicable for entities in the "pid" domain.
o The interpretation of the value of a property may depend on the
entity domain. For different entity domains, not only the
intended semantics but also the dependent resource types may be
totally different. For example, suppose that the "geo-location"
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property is defined as the coordinates of a point, encoded as
(say) "latitude longitude [altitude]." When applied to an entity
that represents a specific host computer, identified by an address
in the ipv4 or ipv6 domain, the property defines the host's
location and has no required dependency. However, when applied to
an entity in the "pid" domain, the property would indicate the
location of the center of all hosts in this "pid" entity and
depend on the Network Map defining this "pid" entity.
Therefore, each property type has a unique identifier encoded with
the following format:
PropertyType ::= DomainName : PropertyName
o The "DomainName" indicates which entity domain the property type
applies to.
o The "PropertyName" SHOULD relate to the semantics of this property
type. It does not have to be globally unique. In other words,
different property types could have the same property name applied
to different entity domains, if they have the similar semantics.
For example, the property types "ipv4:pid" and "ipv6:pid" have the
same property name "pid" applied to both "ipv4" and "ipv6"
domains.
Property types MUST be registered with the IANA, and the intended
semantics, as well as the media types of dependent resources and the
interpretation, MUST be specified at the same time.
2.6. Hierarchy and Inheritance
Entities in a given domain MAY form a hierarchy based on entity
identifiers, and introducing hierarchy allows the introduction of
inheritance. Each entity domain MUST define its own hierarchy and
inheritance rules when registered. The hierarchy and inheritance
rule makes it possible for an entity to inherit a property value from
another entity in the same domain.
2.7. Relationship with Other ALTO Resources
[RFC7285] recognizes that some properties for some entity domains MAY
be specific to an ALTO resource, such as a network map. Accordingly
Section 10.8.1 of [RFC7285] defines the concept of "resource-specific
endpoint properties", and indicates that dependency by prefixing the
property name with the ID of the resource on which it depends. That
document defines one resource-specific property, namely the "pid"
property, whose value is the name of the PID containing that endpoint
in the associated network map.
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Because a property may be associated to more than one information
resources within an entity domain, this document takes a different
approach as follows:
o Firstly, instead of defining the dependency by prefixing the
property name with a specific dependent resource identifier, this
document introduces a Property Type that appends a property name
to an entity domain name, and registers the dependency types for
this Property Type. This gives a hint on the types of dependent
resources. For example, the fictitious property "pid:region"
applying to entities in the PID domain depends on the network map
in which the input PID entities have been defined; but the
fictitious property "ipv4:region" does not depend on any
information resource.
o Secondly, it sets a rule saying that in a property map, all
provided property types MUST have the same dependency types. For
example, "pid:region" and "ipv4:region" cannot be provided by an
individual property map.
o Finally, it identifies, in the IRD and Server responses, the
sequence of information resources associated to all provided
properties in a particular property map. If a property depends on
some different information resources from other properties, the
ALTO server should define a different property map to provide it.
For example, the property "ipv4:pid" provided by a particular
property map MUST depend on one and only one network map. If an
ALTO server wants to provide "ipv4:pid" for PIDs defined in both
network maps "net1" and "net2", it MUST define two individual
property maps.
To specify the aforementionned dependencies, this document uses the
"uses" and "dependent-vtags" fields defined respectively in Sections
9.1.5 and 11.1 of [RFC7285].
o the "uses" field is included in the IRD entry of a resources-
dependent information resource and specifies the dependent IRD
resource.
o the "dependent-vtags" member is used in a Server response message
to specify the dependent resource.
3. Entity Domains
This document defines three entity domains. The definition of each
entity domain below includes the following: (1) domain name, (2)
domain-specific entity identifiers, and (3) hierarchy and inheritance
semantics.
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3.1. Internet Address Domains
The document defines two entity domains (IPv4 and IPv6) for Internet
addresses. Both entity domains include individual addresses and
blocks of addresses. Since the two domains use the same hierarchy
and inheritance semantics, we define the semantics together, instead
of repeating for each.
3.1.1. IPv4 Domain
3.1.1.1. Domain Name
ipv4
3.1.1.2. Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers
Individual addresses are strings as specified by the IPv4Addresses
rule of Section 3.2.2 of [RFC3986]; blocks of addresses are prefix-
match strings as specified in Section 3.1 of [RFC4632]. For the
purpose of defining properties, an individual Internet address and
the corresponding full-length prefix are considered aliases for the
same entity. Thus "ipv4:192.0.2.0" and "ipv4:192.0.2.0/32" are
equivalent.
3.1.2. IPv6 Domain
3.1.2.1. Domain Name
ipv6
3.1.2.2. Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers
Individual addresses are strings as specified by Section 4 of
[RFC5952]; blocks of addresses are prefix-match strings as specified
in Section 7 of [RFC5952]. For the purpose of defining properties,
an individual Internet address and the corresponding 128-bit prefix
are considered aliases for the same entity. That is,
"ipv6:2001:db8::1" and "ipv6:2001:db8::1/128" are equivalent, and
have the same set of properties.
3.1.3. Hierarchy and Inheritance of ipv4/ipv6 Domains
Both Internet address domains allow property values to be inherited.
Specifically, if a property P is not defined for a specific Internet
address I, but P is defined for some block C which prefix-matches I,
then the address I inherits the value of P defined for block C. If
more than one such block defines a value for P, I inherits the value
of P in the block with the longest prefix. It is important to notice
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that this longest prefix rule will ensure no multiple inheritance,
and hence no ambiguity.
Address blocks can also inherit properties: if a property P is not
defined for a block C, but is defined for some block C' which covers
all IP addresses in C, and C' has a shorter mask than C, then block C
inherits the property from C'. If there are several such blocks C',
C inherits from the block with the longest prefix.
As an example, suppose that a server defines a property P for the
following entities:
ipv4:192.0.2.0/26: P=v1
ipv4:192.0.2.0/28: P=v2
ipv4:192.0.2.0/30: P=v3
ipv4:192.0.2.0: P=v4
Figure 1: Defined Property Values.
Then the following entities have the indicated values:
ipv4:192.0.2.0: P=v4
ipv4:192.0.2.1: P=v3
ipv4:192.0.2.16: P=v1
ipv4:192.0.2.32: P=v1
ipv4:192.0.2.64: (not defined)
ipv4:192.0.2.0/32: P=v4
ipv4:192.0.2.0/31: P=v3
ipv4:192.0.2.0/29: P=v2
ipv4:192.0.2.0/27: P=v1
ipv4:192.0.2.0/25: (not defined)
Figure 2: Inherited Property Values.
An ALTO server MAY explicitly indicate a property as not having a
value for a particular entity. That is, a server MAY say that
property P of entity X is "defined to have no value", instead of
"undefined". To indicate "no value", a server MAY perform different
behaviours:
o If that entity would inherit a value for that property, then the
ALTO server MUST return a "null" value for that property. In this
case, the ALTO client MUST recognize a "null" value as "no value"
and "do not apply the inheritance rules for this property."
o If the entity would not inherit a value, then the ALTO server MAY
return "null" or just omit the property. In this case, the ALTO
client cannot infer the value for this property of this entity
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from the Inheritance rules. So the client MUST interpret that
this property has no value.
If the ALTO server does not define any properties for an entity, then
the server MAY omit that entity from the response.
3.2. PID Domain
The PID domain associates property values with the PIDs in a network
map. Accordingly, this entity domain always depends on a network
map.
3.2.1. Domain Name
pid
3.2.2. Domain-Specific Entity Identifiers
The entity identifiers are the PID names of the associated network
map.
3.2.3. Hierarchy and Inheritance
There is no hierarchy or inheritance for properties associated with
PIDs.
3.2.4. Relationship To Internet Addresses Domains
The PID domain and the Internet address domains are completely
independent; the properties associated with a PID have no relation to
the properties associated with the prefixes or endpoint addresses in
that PID. An ALTO server MAY choose to assign some or all properties
of a PID to the prefixes in that PID.
For example, suppose "PID1" consists of the prefix
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/24", and has the property "P" with value "v1". The
Internet address entities "ipv4:192.0.2.0" and "ipv4:192.0.2.0/24",
in the IPv4 domain MAY have a value for the property "P", and if they
do, it is not necessarily "v1".
3.3. Internet Address Properties vs. PID Properties
Because the Internet address and PID domains are completely separate,
the question may arise as to which entity domain is the best for a
property. In general, the Internet address domains are RECOMMENDED
for properties that are closely related to the Internet address, or
are associated with, and inherited through, blocks of addresses.
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The PID domain is RECOMMENDED for properties that arise from the
definition of the PID, rather than from the Internet address prefixes
in that PID.
For example, because Internet addresses are allocated to service
providers by blocks of prefixes, an "ISP" property would be best
associated with the Internet address domain. On the other hand, a
property that explains why a PID was formed, or how it relates a
provider's network, would best be associated with the PID domain.
4. Property Map
A property map returns the properties defined for all entities in one
or more domains, e.g., the "location" property of entities in "pid"
domain, and the "ASN" property of entities in "ipv4" and "ipv6"
domains.
Section 7.4 gives an example of a property map request and its
response.
4.1. Media Type
The media type of a property map is "application/alto-propmap+json".
4.2. HTTP Method
The property map is requested using the HTTP GET method.
4.3. Accept Input Parameters
None.
4.4. Capabilities
The capabilities are defined by an object of type
PropertyMapCapabilities:
object {
DomainName entity-domains<1..*>;
PropertyName properties<1..*>;
} PropertyMapCapabilities;
where "entity-domains" is an array specifying the entity domains, and
"properties" is an array specifying the property names returned for
entities in those domains. The semantics is that this property map
provides all property types generated by the cross product of
"entity-domains" and "properties". If a property in "properties" is
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NOT supported by a domain in "entity-domains", the server can declare
different property maps to conform to the semantics.
For example, the capability {"entity-domains": ["ipv4", "ipv6"],
"properties": ["pid"]} means the property map provides both property
types "ipv4:pid" and "ipv6:pid".
4.5. Uses
The "uses" field of a property map resource in an IRD entry specifies
dependencies as discussed in Section 2.7. It is an array of the
resource ID(s) of the resource(s) that properties of entities in
domains specified in "entity-domains" depend on.
In a single property map, every property value of every entity
depends on the same array of resources. Thus, if properties
depending on different resources arrays would be provided, they MUST
be split into different property maps.
Note that according to [RFC7285], a legacy ALTO server with two
network maps, with resource IDs "net1" and "net2", could offer a
single Endpoint Property Service for the two properties "net1.pid"
and "net2.pid". An ALTO server which supports the property map
resource defined in this document, would, instead, offer two
different property maps for the "pid" property, one depending on
"net1", and the other on "net2".
4.6. Response
If the entity domains in this property map depend on other resources,
the "dependent-vtags" field in the "meta" field of the response MUST
be an array that includes the version tags of those resources, and
the order MUST be consistent with the "uses" field of this property
map resource. The data component of a property map response is named
"property-map", which is a JSON object of type PropertyMapData,
where:
object {
PropertyMapData property-map;
} InfoResourceProperties : ResponseEntityBase;
object-map {
EntityId -> EntityProps;
} PropertyMapData;
object {
PropertyName -> JSONValue;
} EntityProps;
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The ResponseEntityBase type is defined in Section 8.4 of [RFC7285].
Specifically, a PropertyMapData object has one member for each entity
in the property map. The entity's properties are encoded in the
corresponding EntityProps object. EntityProps encodes one name/value
pair for each property, where the property names are encoded as
strings of type PropertyName. A protocol implementation SHOULD
assume that the property value is either a JSONString or a JSON
"null" value, and fail to parse if it is not, unless the
implementation is using an extension to this document that indicates
when and how property values of other data types are signaled.
For each entity in the Property Map, the ALTO server returns the
value defined for each of the properties specified in this resource's
"capabilities" list. For efficiency, the ALTO server SHOULD omit
property values that are inherited rather than explicitly defined; if
a client needs inherited values, the client SHOULD use the entity
domain's inheritance rules to deduce those values.
5. Filtered Property Map
A filtered property map returns the values of a set of properties for
a set of entities selected by the client.
Section 7.5, Section 7.6, Section 7.7 and Section 7.8 give examples
of filtered property map requests and responses.
5.1. Media Type
The media type of a property map resource is "application/alto-
propmap+json".
5.2. HTTP Method
The filtered property map is requested using the HTTP POST method.
5.3. Accept Input Parameters
The input parameters for a filtered property map request are supplied
in the entity body of the POST request. This document specifies the
input parameters with a data format indicated by the media type
"application/alto-propmapparams+json", which is a JSON object of type
ReqFilteredPropertyMap:
object {
EntityId entities<1..*>;
PropertyName properties<1..*>;
} ReqFilteredPropertyMap;
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with fields:
entities: List of entity identifiers for which the specified
properties are to be returned. The ALTO server MUST interpret
entries appearing multiple times as if they appeared only once.
The domain of each entity MUST be included in the list of entity
domains in this resource's "capabilities" field (see Section 5.4).
properties: List of properties to be returned for each entity. Each
specified property MUST be included in the list of properties in
this resource's "capabilities" field (see Section 5.4). The ALTO
server MUST interpret entries appearing multiple times as if they
appeared only once.
Note that the "entities" and "properties" fields MUST have at
least one entry each.
5.4. Capabilities
The capabilities are defined by an object of type
PropertyMapCapabilities, as defined in Section 4.4.
5.5. Uses
The "uses" field of a filtered property map is an array with the
resource ID(s) of resource(s) that each domain in "entity-domains"
depends on, in order to provide the properties specified in the
"properties" capability. The same "uses" rule as defined by the
property map resource applies (see Section 4.5).
5.6. Response
The response MUST indicate an error, using ALTO protocol error
handling, as defined in Section 8.5 of [RFC7285], if the request is
invalid.
Specifically, a filtered property map request can be invalid as
follows:
o An entity identifiers in "entities" in the request is invalid if:
* The domain of this entity is not defined in the "entity-domain-
types" capability of this resource in the IRD;
* The entity identifier is an invalid identifier in the entity
domain.
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A valid entity identifier is never an error, even if this filtered
property map resource does not define any properties for it.
If an entity identifier in "entities" in the request is invalid,
the ALTO server MUST return an "E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE" error
defined in Section 8.5.2 of [RFC7285], and the "value" field of
the error message SHOULD indicate this entity identifier.
o A property name in "properties" in the request is invalid if this
property name is not defined in the "property-types" capability of
this resource in the IRD.
It is not an error that a filtered property map resource does not
define a requested property's value for a particular entity. In
this case, the ALTO server MUST omit that property from the
response for that endpoint.
If a property name in "properties" in the request is invalid, the
ALTO server MUST return an "E_INVALID_FIELD_VALUE" error defined
in Section 8.5.2 of [RFC7285]. The "value" field of the error
message SHOULD indicate the property name.
The response to a valid request is the same as for the Property Map
(see Section 4.6), except that:
o The "dependent-vtags" field in its "meta" field only includes the
version tags of resources on which the requested properties of the
entity domains depend, and the order MUST be consistent with the
"uses" field of this filtered property map resource.
o It only includes the entities and properties requested by the
client. If an entity in the request is an identifier block (e.g.,
an "ipv4" or "ipv6" entity), the response MUST cover properties
for all identifiers in this block.
It is important that the filtered property map response MUST include
all inherited property values for the requested entities and all the
entities which are able to inherit property values from them. To
achieve this goal, the ALTO server MAY follow three rules:
o If a property for a requested entity is inherited from another
entity not included in the request, the response SHOULD include
this property for the requested entity. For example, A full
property map may skip a property P for an entity A (e.g.,
ipv4:192.0.2.0/31) if P can be derived using inheritance from
another entity B (e.g., ipv4:192.0.2.0/30). A filtered property
map request may include only A but not B. In such a case, the
property P SHOULD be included in the response for A.
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o If there are entities covered by a requested entity but having
different values for the requested properties, the response SHOULD
include all those entities and the different property values for
them. For example, considering a request for property P of entity
A (e.g., ipv4:192.0.2.0/31), if P has value v1 for
A1=ipv4:192.0.2.0/32 and v2 for A2=ipv4:192.0.2.1/32, then, the
response SHOULD include A1 and A2.
o If an entity in the response is already covered by some other
entities in the same response, it SHOULD be removed from the
response for compactness. For example, in the previous example,
the entity A=ipv4:192.0.2.0/31 SHOULD be removed because A1 and A2
cover all the addresses in A.
An ALTO client should be aware that the entities in the response MAY
be different from the entities in its request.
6. Impact on Legacy ALTO Servers and ALTO Clients
6.1. Impact on Endpoint Property Service
Since the property map and the filtered property map defined in this
document provide the functionality of the Endpoint Property Service
(EPS) defined in Section 11.4 of [RFC7285], it is RECOMMENDED that
the EPS be deprecated in favor of Property Map and Filtered Property
Map. However, ALTO servers MAY provide an EPS for the benefit of
legacy clients.
6.2. Impact on Resource-Specific Properties
Section 10.8 of [RFC7285] defines two categories of endpoint
properties: "resource-specific" and "global". Resource-specific
property names are prefixed with the ID of the resource they depend
upon, while global property names have no such prefix. The property
map and the filtered property map defined in this document do not
distinguish between those two types of properties. Instead, if there
is a dependency, it is indicated by the "uses" capability of a
property map, and is shared by all properties and entity domains in
that map. Accordingly, it is RECOMMENDED that resource-specific
endpoint properties be deprecated, and no new resource-specific
endpoint properties be defined.
6.3. Impact on the pid Property
Section 7.1.1 of [RFC7285] defines the resource-specific endpoint
property name "pid", whose value is the name of the PID containing
that endpoint. For compatibility with legacy clients, an ALTO server
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which provides the "pid" property via the EPS MUST use that
definition, and that syntax.
However, when used with property maps, this document amends the
definition of the "pid" property as follows.
First, the name of the property is simply "pid"; the name is not
prefixed with the resource ID of a network map. The "uses"
capability of the property map indicates the associated network map.
This implies that a property map can only return the "pid" property
for one network map; if an ALTO server provides several network maps,
it MUST provide a Property Map for each of the network maps.
Second, a client MAY request the "pid" property for a block of
Internet addresses. An ALTO server determines the value of "pid" for
an address block C as the rules defined in Section 5.6.
Note that although an ALTO server MAY provide a GET-mode property map
which returns the entire map for the "pid" property, there is no need
to do so, because that map is simply the inverse of the network map.
6.4. Impact on Other Properties
In general, there should be little or no impact on other previously
defined properties. The only consideration is that properties can
now be defined on blocks of identifiers, rather than just individual
identifiers, which might change the semantics of a property.
7. Examples
7.1. Network Map
The examples in this section use a very simple default network map:
defaultpid: ipv4:0.0.0.0/0 ipv6:::0/0
pid1: ipv4:192.0.2.0/25
pid2: ipv4:192.0.2.0/28 ipv4:192.0.2.16/28
pid3: ipv4:192.0.3.0/28
pid4: ipv4:192.0.3.16/28
Figure 3: Example Network Map
7.2. Property Definitions
Beyond "pid", the examples in this section use four additional
properties for Internet address domains, "ISP", "ASN", "country" and
"state", with the following values:
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ISP ASN country state
ipv4:192.0.2.0/23: BitsRus - us -
ipv4:192.0.2.0/28: - 12345 - NJ
ipv4:192.0.2.16/28: - 12345 - CT
ipv4:192.0.2.0: - - - PA
ipv4:192.0.3.0/28: - 12346 - TX
ipv4:192.0.3.16/28: - 12346 - MN
Figure 4: Example Property Values for Internet Address Domains
And the examples in this section use the property "region" for PID
domain with the following values:
region
pid:defaultpid: -
pid:pid1: west
pid:pid2: east
pid:pid3: south
pid:pid4: north
Figure 5: Example Property Values for PID Domain
Note that "-" means the value of the property for the entity is
"undefined". So the entity would inherit a value for this property
by the inheritance rule if possible. For example, the value of the
"ISP" property for "ipv4:192.0.2.0" is "BitsRus" because of
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/24". But the "region" property for "pid:defaultpid"
has no value because no entity from which it can inherit.
7.3. Information Resource Directory (IRD)
The following IRD defines the relevant resources of the ALTO server.
It provides two property maps, one for the "ISP" and "ASN"
properties, and another for the "country" and "state" properties.
The server could have provided a single property map for all four
properties, but did not, presumably because the organization that
runs the ALTO server believes any given client is not interested in
all four properties.
The server provides two filtered property maps. The first returns
all four properties, and the second just returns the "pid" property
for the default network map.
The filtered property maps for the "ISP", "ASN", "country" and
"state" properties do not depend on the default network map (it does
not have a "uses" capability), because the definitions of those
properties do not depend on the default network map. The Filtered
Property Map for the "pid" property does have a "uses" capability for
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the default network map, because that defines the values of the "pid"
property.
Note that for legacy clients, the ALTO server provides an Endpoint
Property Service for the "pid" property for the default network map.
"meta" : {
...
"default-alto-network-map" : "default-network-map"
},
"resources" : {
"default-network-map" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/networkmap",
"media-type" : "application/alto-networkmap+json"
},
.... property map resources ....
"country-state-property-map" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/propmap/full/inet-cs",
"media-type" : "application/alto-propmap+json",
"capabilities" : {
"entity-domains": [ "ipv4", "ipv6" ],
"properties" : [ "country", "state" ]
}
},
"isp-asn-property-map" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/propmap/full/inet-ia",
"media-type" : "application/alto-propmap+json",
"capabilities" : {
"entity-domains": [ "ipv4", "ipv6" ],
"properties" : [ "ISP", "ASN" ]
}
},
"iacs-property-map" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/propmap/lookup/inet-iacs",
"media-type" : "application/alto-propmap+json",
"accepts" : "application/alto-propmapparams+json",
"capabilities" : {
"entity-domains": [ "ipv4", "ipv6" ],
"properties" : [ "ISP", "ASN", "country", "state" ]
}
},
"pid-property-map" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/propmap/lookup/pid",
"media-type" : "application/alto-propmap+json",
"accepts" : "application/alto-propmapparams+json",
"uses" : [ "default-network-map" ]
"capabilities" : {
"entity-domains" : [ "ipv4", "ipv6" ],
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"properties" : [ "pid" ]
}
},
"region-property-map": {
"uri": "http://alto.exmaple.com/propmap/region",
"media-type": "application/alto-propmap+json",
"accepts": "application/alto-propmapparams+json",
"uses" : [ "default-network-map" ],
"capabilities": {
"domain-types": [ "pid" ],
"properties": [ "region" ]
}
},
"legacy-pid-property" : {
"uri" : "http://alto.example.com/legacy/eps-pid",
"media-type" : "application/alto-endpointprop+json",
"accepts" : "application/alto-endpointpropparams+json",
"capabilities" : {
"properties" : [ "default-network-map.pid" ]
}
}
}
Figure 6: Example IRD
7.4. Property Map Example
The following example uses the properties and IRD defined above to
retrieve a Property Map for entities with the "ISP" and "ASN"
properties.
Note that, to be compact, the response does not includes the entity
"ipv4:192.0.2.0", because values of all those properties for this
entity are inherited from other entities.
Also note that the entities "ipv4:192.0.2.0/28" and
"ipv4:192.0.2.16/28" are merged into "ipv4:192.0.2.0/27", because
they have the same value of the "ASN" property. The same rule
applies to the entities "ipv4:192.0.3.0/28" and "ipv4:192.0.3.0/28".
Both of "ipv4:192.0.2.0/27" and "ipv4:192.0.3.0/27" omit the value
for the "ISP" property, because it is inherited from
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/23".
GET /propmap/full/inet-ia HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json
{
"property-map": {
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/23": {"ISP": "BitsRus"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/27": {"ASN": "12345"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/27": {"ASN": "12346"}
}
}
7.5. Filtered Property Map Example #1
The following example uses the filtered property map resource to
request the "ISP", "ASN" and "state" properties for several IPv4
addresses.
Note that the value of "state" for "ipv4:192.0.2.0" is the only
explicitly defined property; the other values are all derived by the
inheritance rules for Internet address entities.
POST /propmap/lookup/inet-iacs HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmapparams+json
{
"entities" : [ "ipv4:192.0.2.0",
"ipv4:192.0.2.1",
"ipv4:192.0.2.17" ],
"properties" : [ "ISP", "ASN", "state" ]
}
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json
{
"property-map": {
"ipv4:192.0.2.0":
{"ISP": "BitsRus", "ASN": "12345", "state": "PA"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.1":
{"ISP": "BitsRus", "ASN": "12345", "state": "NJ"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.17":
{"ISP": "BitsRus", "ASN": "12345", "state": "CT"}
}
}
7.6. Filtered Property Map Example #2
The following example uses the filtered property map resource to
request the "ASN", "country" and "state" properties for several IPv4
prefixes.
Note that the property values for both entities "ipv4:192.0.2.0/26"
and "ipv4:192.0.3.0/26" are not explicitly defined. They are
inherited from the entity "ipv4:192.0.2.0/23".
Also note that some entities like "ipv4:192.0.2.0/28" and
"ipv4:192.0.2.16/28" in the response are not listed in the request
explicitly. The response includes them because they are refinements
of the requested entities and have different values for the requested
properties.
The entity "ipv4:192.0.4.0/26" is not included in the response,
because there are neither entities which it is inherited from, nor
entities inherited from it.
POST /propmap/lookup/inet-iacs HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmapparams+json
{
"entities" : [ "ipv4:192.0.2.0/26",
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/26",
"ipv4:192.0.4.0/26" ],
"properties" : [ "ASN", "country", "state" ]
}
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json
{
"property-map": {
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/26": {"country": "us"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/28": {"ASN": "12345",
"state": "NJ"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.16/28": {"ASN": "12345",
"state": "CT"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.0": {"state": "PA"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/26": {"country": "us"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/28": {"ASN": "12345",
"state": "TX"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.16/28": {"ASN": "12345",
"state": "MN"}
}
}
7.7. Filtered Property Map Example #3
The following example uses the filtered property map resource to
request the "pid" property for several IPv4 addresses and prefixes.
Note that the entity "ipv4:192.0.3.0/27" is redundant in the
response. Although it can inherit a value of "defaultpid" for the
"pid" property from the entity "ipv4:0.0.0.0/0", none of addresses in
it is in "defaultpid". Because blocks "ipv4:192.0.3.0/28" and
"ipv4:192.0.3.16/28" have already cover all addresses in that block.
So an ALTO server who wants a compact response can omit this entity.
POST /propmap/lookup/pid HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmapparams+json
{
"entities" : [
"ipv4:192.0.2.128",
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/27" ],
"properties" : [ "pid" ]
}
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json
{
"meta" : {
"dependent-vtags" : [
{"resource-id": "default-network-map",
"tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf62"}
]
},
"property-map": {
"ipv4:192.0.2.128": {"pid": "defaultpid"},
"ipv4:192.0.2.0/27": {"pid": "defaultpid"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.0/28": {"pid": "pid3"},
"ipv4:192.0.3.16/28": {"pid": "pid4"}
}
}
7.8. Filtered Property Map Example #4
The following example uses the filtered property map resource to
request the "region" property for several PIDs defined in "default-
network-map". The value of the "region" property for each PID is not
defined by "default-network-map", but the reason why the PID is
defined by the network operator.
POST /propmap/lookup/region HTTP/1.1
Host: alto.example.com
Accept: application/alto-propmap+json,application/alto-error+json
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmapparams+json
{
"entities" : ["pid:pid1",
"pid:pid2"],
"properties" : [ "region" ]
}
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HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: ###
Content-Type: application/alto-propmap+json
{
"meta" : {
"dependent-vtags" : [
{"resource-id": "default-network-map",
"tag": "7915dc0290c2705481c491a2b4ffbec482b3cf62"}
]
},
"property-map": {
"pid:pid1": {
"region": "west"
},
"pid:pid2": {
"region": "east"
}
}
}
8. Security Considerations
Both Property Map and Filtered Property Map defined in this document
fit into the architecture of the ALTO base protocol, and hence the
Security Considerations (Section 15 of [RFC7285]) of the base
protocol fully apply: authenticity and integrity of ALTO information
(i.e., authenticity and integrity of Property Maps), potential
undesirable guidance from authenticated ALTO information (e.g.,
potentially imprecise or even wrong value of a property such as geo-
location), confidentiality of ALTO information (e.g., exposure of a
potentially sensitive entity property such as geo-location), privacy
for ALTO users, and availability of ALTO services should all be
considered.
A particular fundamental security consideration when an ALTO server
provides a Property Map is to define precisely the policies on who
can access what properties for which entities. Security mechanisms
such as authentication and confidentiality mechanisms then should be
applied to enforce the policy. For example, a policy can be that a
property P can be accessed only by its owner (e.g., the customer who
is allocated a given IP address). Then, the ALTO server will need to
deploy corresponding mechanisms to realize the policy. The policy
may allow non-owners to access a coarse-grained value of the property
P. In such a case, the ALTO server may provide a different URI to
provide the information.
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9. IANA Considerations
This document defines additional application/alto-* media types, and
extends the ALTO endpoint property registry.
9.1. application/alto-* Media Types
This document registers two additional ALTO media types, listed in
Table 1.
+--------------+--------------------------+-----------------------+
| Type | Subtype | Specification |
+--------------+--------------------------+-----------------------+
| application | alto-propmap+json | Section 4.1 |
| application | alto-propmapparams+json | Section 5.3 |
+--------------+--------------------------+-----------------------+
Table 1: Additional ALTO Media Types.
Type name: application
Subtype name: This document registers multiple subtypes, as listed
in Table 1.
Required parameters: n/a
Optional parameters: n/a
Encoding considerations: Encoding considerations are identical to
those specified for the "application/json" media type. See
[RFC7159].
Security considerations: Security considerations related to the
generation and consumption of ALTO Protocol messages are discussed
in Section 15 of [RFC7285].
Interoperability considerations: This document specifies formats of
conforming messages and the interpretation thereof.
Published specification: This document is the specification for
these media types; see Table 1 for the section documenting each
media type.
Applications that use this media type: ALTO servers and ALTO clients
either stand alone or are embedded within other applications.
Additional information:
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Magic number(s): n/a
File extension(s): This document uses the mime type to refer to
protocol messages and thus does not require a file extension.
Macintosh file type code(s): n/a
Person & email address to contact for further information: See
Authors' Addresses section.
Intended usage: COMMON
Restrictions on usage: n/a
Author: See Authors' Addresses section.
Change controller: Internet Engineering Task Force
(mailto:iesg@ietf.org).
9.2. ALTO Entity Domain Registry
This document requests IANA to create and maintain the "ALTO Entity
Domain Registry", listed in Table 2.
+------------+----------------+------------------+------------------+
| Identifier | Entity | Hierarchy & | Mapping to ALTO |
| | Identifier | Inheritance | Address Type |
| | Encoding | | |
+------------+----------------+------------------+------------------+
| ipv4 | See | See | Yes |
| | Section 3.1.1 | Section 3.1.3 | |
| ipv6 | See | See | Yes |
| | Section 3.1.2 | Section 3.1.3 | |
| pid | See | None | No |
| | Section 3.2 | | |
+------------+----------------+------------------+------------------+
Table 2: ALTO Entity Domains.
This registry serves two purposes. First, it ensures uniqueness of
identifiers referring to ALTO entity domains. Second, it states the
requirements for allocated entity domains.
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9.2.1. Consistency Procedure between ALTO Address Type Registry and
ALTO Entity Domain Registry
One potential issue of introducing the "ALTO Entity Domain Registry"
is its relationship with the "ALTO Address Types Registry" already
defined in Section 14.4 of [RFC7285]. In particular, the entity
identifier of an entity domain registered in the "ALTO Entity Domain
Registry" MAY match an address type defined in "ALTO Address Type
Registry". It is necessary to precisely define and guarantee the
consistency between "ALTO Address Type Registry" and "ALTO Entity
Domain Registry".
We define that the ALTO Entity Domain Registry is consistent with
ALTO Address Type Registry if two conditions are satisfied:
o When an address type is already or able to be registered in the
ALTO Address Type Registry [RFC7285], the same identifier MUST be
used when a corresponding entity domain is registered in the ALTO
Entity Domain Registry.
o If an ALTO entity domain has the same identifier as an ALTO
address type, their addresses encoding MUST be compatible.
To achieve this consistency, the following items MUST be checked
before registering a new ALTO entity domain in a future document:
o Whether the ALTO Address Type Registry contains an address type
that can be used as an entity identifier for the candidate domain
identifier. This has been done for the identifiers "ipv4" and
"ipv6" in Table 2.
o Whether the candidate entity identifier of the entity domain is
able to be an endpoint address, as defined in Sections 2.1 and 2.2
of [RFC7285].
When a new ALTO entity domain is registered, the consistency with the
ALTO Address Type Registry MUST be ensured by the following
procedure:
o Test: Do corresponding entity identifiers match a known "network"
address type?
* If yes (e.g., cell, MAC or socket addresses):
+ Test: Is such an address type present in the ALTO Address
Type Registry?
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- If yes: Set the new ALTO entity domain identifier to be
the found ALTO address type identifier.
- If no: Define a new ALTO entity domain identifier and use
it to register a new address type in the ALTO Address
Type Registry following Section 14.4 of [RFC7285].
+ Use the new ALTO entity domain identifier to register a new
ALTO entity domain in the ALTO Entity Domain Registry
following Section 9.2.2 of this document.
* If no (e.g., pid name, ane name or country code): Proceed with
the ALTO Entity Domain registration as described in
Section 9.2.2.
9.2.2. ALTO Entity Domain Registration Process
New ALTO entity domains are assigned after IETF Review [RFC5226] to
ensure that proper documentation regarding the new ALTO entity
domains and their security considerations has been provided. RFCs
defining new entity domains SHOULD indicate how an entity in a
registered domain is encoded as an EntityId, and, if applicable, the
rules defining the entity hierarchy and property inheritance.
Updates and deletions of ALTO entity domains follow the same
procedure.
Registered ALTO entity domain identifiers MUST conform to the
syntactical requirements specified in Section 2.3. Identifiers are
to be recorded and displayed as strings.
Requests to the IANA to add a new value to the registry MUST include
the following information:
o Identifier: The name of the desired ALTO entity domain.
o Entity Identifier Encoding: The procedure for encoding the
identifier of an entity of the registered type as an EntityId (see
Section 2.4). If corresponding entity identifiers of an entity
domain match a known "network" address type, the Entity Identifier
Encoding of this domain identifier MUST include both Address
Encoding and Prefix Encoding of the same identifier registered in
the ALTO Address Type Registry [RFC7285]. For the purpose of
defining properties, an individual entity identifier and the
corresponding full-length prefix MUST be considered aliases for
the same entity.
o Hierarchy: If the entities form a hierarchy, the procedure for
determining that hierarchy.
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o Inheritance: If entities can inherit property values from other
entities, the procedure for determining that inheritance.
o Mapping to ALTO Address Type: A boolean value to indicate if the
entity domain can be mapped to the ALTO address type with the same
identifier.
o Security Considerations: In some usage scenarios, entity
identifiers carried in ALTO Protocol messages may reveal
information about an ALTO client or an ALTO service provider.
Applications and ALTO service providers using addresses of the
registered type should be made aware of how (or if) the addressing
scheme relates to private information and network proximity.
This specification requests registration of the identifiers "ipv4",
"ipv6" and "pid", as shown in Table 2.
9.3. ALTO Entity Property Type Registry
This document requests IANA to create and maintain the "ALTO Entity
Property Type Registry", listed in Table 3.
To distinguish with the "ALTO Endpoint Property Type Registry", each
entry in this registry is an ALTO entity property type defined in
Section 2.5. Thus, registered ALTO entity property type identifier
MUST conform to the syntactical requirements specified in that
section.
The initial registered ALTO entity property types are listed in
Table 3.
+------------+------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Identifier | Intended | Dependencies and Interpretation |
| | Semantics | |
+------------+------------------+-----------------------------------+
| ipv4:pid | PID for the IPv4 | application/alto-networkmap+json, |
| | entity | where the PID names are defined |
| ipv6:pid | PID for the IPv6 | application/alto-networkmap+json, |
| | entity | where the PID names are defined |
+------------+------------------+-----------------------------------+
Table 3: ALTO Entity Property Types.
Requests to the IANA to add a new value to the registry MUST include
the following information:
o Identifier: The unique id for the desired ALTO entity property
type. The format MUST be as defined in Section 2.5 of this
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document. It includes the information of the applied ALTO entity
domain and the property name.
o Intended Semantics: ALTO entity properties carry with them
semantics to guide their usage by ALTO clients. Hence, a document
defining a new type SHOULD provide guidance to both ALTO service
providers and applications utilizing ALTO clients as to how values
of the registered ALTO entity property should be interpreted.
o Dependencies and Interpretation: Dependent ALTO resources MAY be
required by ALTO clients to interpret ALTO entity properties.
Hence, a document defining a new type SHOULD provide a sequence of
media types in which the dependent ALTO resources are and the
guidance how ALTO clients use them to interpret the property.
This specification requests registration of the identifiers
"ipv4:pid" and "ipv6:pid", as shown in Table 3.
9.4. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank discussions with Kai Gao, Qiao Xiang,
Shawn Lin, Xin Wang, Danny Perez, and Vijay Gurbani. The authors
thank Dawn Chen (Tongji University), and Shenshen Chen (Tongji/Yale
University) for their contributions to earlier drafts.
10. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.
[RFC4632] Fuller, V. and T. Li, "Classless Inter-domain Routing
(CIDR): The Internet Address Assignment and Aggregation
Plan", BCP 122, RFC 4632, DOI 10.17487/RFC4632, August
2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4632>.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", RFC 5226,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5226, May 2008,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5226>.
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[RFC5952] Kawamura, S. and M. Kawashima, "A Recommendation for IPv6
Address Text Representation", RFC 5952,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5952, August 2010,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5952>.
[RFC7159] Bray, T., Ed., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", RFC 7159, DOI 10.17487/RFC7159, March
2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7159>.
[RFC7285] Alimi, R., Ed., Penno, R., Ed., Yang, Y., Ed., Kiesel, S.,
Previdi, S., Roome, W., Shalunov, S., and R. Woundy,
"Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO) Protocol",
RFC 7285, DOI 10.17487/RFC7285, September 2014,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7285>.
[RFC7921] Atlas, A., Halpern, J., Hares, S., Ward, D., and T.
Nadeau, "An Architecture for the Interface to the Routing
System", RFC 7921, DOI 10.17487/RFC7921, June 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7921>.
Authors' Addresses
Wendy Roome
Nokia Bell Labs (Retired)
124 Burlington Rd
Murray Hill, NJ 07974
USA
Phone: +1-908-464-6975
Email: wendy@wdroome.com
Sabine Randriamasy
Nokia Bell Labs
Route de Villejust
NOZAY 91460
FRANCE
Email: Sabine.Randriamasy@nokia-bell-labs.com
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Y. Richard Yang
Yale University
51 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT 06511
USA
Phone: +1-203-432-6400
Email: yry@cs.yale.edu
Jingxuan Jensen Zhang
Tongji University
4800 Caoan Road
Shanghai 201804
China
Email: jingxuan.n.zhang@gmail.com
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