Skip to main content

A Generic Autonomic Signaling Protocol (GRASP)
draft-ietf-anima-grasp-02

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8990.
Authors Carsten Bormann , Brian E. Carpenter , Bing Liu
Last updated 2016-01-12
Replaces draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8990 (Proposed Standard)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-anima-grasp-02
Network Working Group                                         C. Bormann
Internet-Draft                                   Universitaet Bremen TZI
Intended status: Standards Track                       B. Carpenter, Ed.
Expires: July 16, 2016                                 Univ. of Auckland
                                                             B. Liu, Ed.
                                            Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
                                                        January 13, 2016

             A Generic Autonomic Signaling Protocol (GRASP)
                       draft-ietf-anima-grasp-02

Abstract

   This document establishes requirements for a signaling protocol that
   enables autonomic devices and autonomic service agents to dynamically
   discover peers, to synchronize state with them, and to negotiate
   parameter settings mutually with them.  The document then defines a
   general protocol for discovery, synchronization and negotiation,
   while the technical objectives for specific scenarios are to be
   described in separate documents.  An Appendix briefly discusses
   existing protocols with comparable features.

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 http://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 July 16, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 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
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   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.  Requirement Analysis of Discovery, Synchronization and
       Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Requirements for Discovery  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Requirements for Synchronization and Negotiation
           Capability  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.3.  Specific Technical Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   3.  GRASP Protocol Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.1.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.2.  High-Level Design Choices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     3.3.  GRASP Protocol Basic Properties and Mechanisms  . . . . .  15
       3.3.1.  Required External Security Mechanism  . . . . . . . .  15
       3.3.2.  Transport Layer Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
       3.3.3.  Discovery Mechanism and Procedures  . . . . . . . . .  16
       3.3.4.  Negotiation Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
       3.3.5.  Synchronization and Flooding Procedure  . . . . . . .  20
     3.4.  High Level Deployment Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     3.5.  GRASP Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     3.6.  Session Identifier (Session ID) . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     3.7.  GRASP Messages  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
       3.7.1.  GRASP Message Format  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
       3.7.2.  Discovery Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
       3.7.3.  Response Message  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
       3.7.4.  Request Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
       3.7.5.  Negotiation Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
       3.7.6.  Negotiation-ending Message  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
       3.7.7.  Confirm-waiting Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
       3.7.8.  Synchronization Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
       3.7.9.  Flood Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
       3.7.10. No Operation Message  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     3.8.  GRASP Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
       3.8.1.  Format of GRASP Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
       3.8.2.  Divert Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       3.8.3.  Accept Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       3.8.4.  Decline Option  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       3.8.5.  Device Identity Option  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
       3.8.6.  Locator Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     3.9.  Objective Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
       3.9.1.  Format of Objective Options . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

       3.9.2.  Objective flags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
       3.9.3.  General Considerations for Objective Options  . . . .  32
       3.9.4.  Organizing of Objective Options . . . . . . . . . . .  33
       3.9.5.  Experimental and Example Objective Options  . . . . .  34
   4.  Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   5.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  40
   6.  CDDL Specification of GRASP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  44
   8.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  45
   9.  Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]  . . . . . . . . . . .  46
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  48
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  49
   Appendix A.  Capability Analysis of Current Protocols . . . . . .  53
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  55

1.  Introduction

   The success of the Internet has made IP-based networks bigger and
   more complicated.  Large-scale ISP and enterprise networks have
   become more and more problematic for human based management.  Also,
   operational costs are growing quickly.  Consequently, there are
   increased requirements for autonomic behavior in the networks.
   General aspects of autonomic networks are discussed in [RFC7575] and
   [RFC7576].

   One approach is to largely decentralize the logic of network
   management by migrating it into network elements.  A reference model
   for autonomic networking on this basis is given in
   [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model].  In order to fulfil autonomy,
   devices that embody autonomic service agents have specific signaling
   requirements.  In particular they need to discover each other, to
   synchronize state with each other, and to negotiate parameters and
   resources directly with each other.  There is no restriction on the
   type of parameters and resources concerned, which include very basic
   information needed for addressing and routing, as well as anything
   else that might be configured in a conventional non-autonomic
   network.  The atomic unit of synchronization or negotiation is
   referred to as a technical objective, i.e, a configurable parameter
   or set of parameters (defined more precisely in Section 3.1).

   Following this Introduction, Section 2 describes the requirements for
   discovery, synchronization and negotiation.  Negotiation is an
   iterative process, requiring multiple message exchanges forming a
   closed loop between the negotiating devices.  State synchronization,
   when needed, can be regarded as a special case of negotiation,
   without iteration.  Section 3.2 describes a behavior model for a
   protocol intended to support discovery, synchronization and

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   negotiation.  The design of GeneRic Autonomic Signaling Protocol
   (GRASP) in Section 3 of this document is mainly based on this
   behavior model.  The relevant capabilities of various existing
   protocols are reviewed in Appendix A.

   The proposed discovery mechanism is oriented towards synchronization
   and negotiation objectives.  It is based on a neighbor discovery
   process, but also supports diversion to off-link peers.  Although
   many negotiations will occur between horizontally distributed peers,
   many target scenarios are hierarchical networks, which is the
   predominant structure of current large-scale managed networks.
   However, when a device starts up with no pre-configuration, it has no
   knowledge of the topology.  The protocol itself is capable of being
   used in a small and/or flat network structure such as a small office
   or home network as well as a professionally managed network.
   Therefore, the discovery mechanism needs to be able to allow a device
   to bootstrap itself without making any prior assumptions about
   network structure.

   Because GRASP can be used to perform a decision process among
   distributed devices or between networks, it must run in a secure and
   strongly authenticated environment.

   It is understood that in realistic deployments, not all devices will
   support GRASP.  It is expected that some autonomic service agents
   will directly manage a group of non-autonomic nodes, and that other
   non-autonomic nodes will be managed traditionally.  Such mixed
   scenarios are not discussed in this specification.

2.  Requirement Analysis of Discovery, Synchronization and Negotiation

   This section discusses the requirements for discovery, negotiation
   and synchronization capabilities.  The primary user of the protocol
   is an autonomic service agent (ASA), so the requirements are mainly
   expressed as the features needed by an ASA.  A single physical device
   might contain several ASAs, and a single ASA might manage several
   technical objectives.

   Note that requirements for ASAs themselves, such as the processing of
   Intent [RFC7575] or interfaces for coordination between ASAs are out
   of scope for the present document.

2.1.  Requirements for Discovery

   D1.  ASAs may be designed to manage anything, as required in
   Section 2.2.  A basic requirement is therefore that the protocol can
   represent and discover any kind of technical objective among
   arbitrary subsets of participating nodes.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   In an autonomic network we must assume that when a device starts up
   it has no information about any peer devices, the network structure,
   or what specific role it must play.  The ASA(s) inside the device are
   in the same situation.  In some cases, when a new application session
   starts up within a device, the device or ASA may again lack
   information about relevant peers.  It might be necessary to set up
   resources on multiple other devices, coordinated and matched to each
   other so that there is no wasted resource.  Security settings might
   also need updating to allow for the new device or user.  The relevant
   peers may be different for different technical objectives.  Therefore
   discovery needs to be repeated as often as necessary to find peers
   capable of acting as counterparts for each objective that a discovery
   initiator needs to handle.  From this background we derive the next
   three requirements:

   D2.  When an ASA first starts up, it has no knowledge of the specific
   network to which it is attached.  Therefore the discovery process
   must be able to support any network scenario, assuming only that the
   device concerned is bootstrapped from factory condition.

   D3.  When an ASA starts up, it must require no information about any
   peers in order to discover them.

   D4.  If an ASA supports multiple technical objectives, relevant peers
   may be different for different discovery objectives, so discovery
   needs to be repeated to find counterparts for each objective.  Thus,
   there must be a mechanism by which an ASA can separately discover
   peer ASAs for each of the technical objectives that it needs to
   manage, whenever necessary.

   D5.  Following discovery, an ASA will normally perform negotiation or
   synchronization for the corresponding objectives.  The design should
   allow for this by associating discovery, negotiation and
   synchronization objectives.  It may provide an optional mechanism to
   combine discovery and negotiation/synchronization in a single call.

   D6.  Some objectives may only be significant on the local link, but
   others may be significant across the routed network and require off-
   link operations.  Thus, the relevant peers might be immediate
   neighbors on the same layer 2 link, or they might be more distant and
   only accessible via layer 3.  The mechanism must therefore provide
   both on-link and off-link discovery of ASAs supporting specific
   technical objectives.

   D7.  The discovery process should be flexible enough to allow for
   special cases, such as the following:

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   o  In some networks, as mentioned above, there will be some
      hierarchical structure, at least for certain synchronization or
      negotiation objectives, but this is unknown in advance.  The
      discovery protocol must therefore operate regardless of
      hierarchical structure, which is an attribute of individual
      technical objectives and not of the autonomic network as a whole.
      This is part of the more general requirement to discover off-link
      peers.

   o  During initialisation, a device must be able to establish mutual
      trust with the rest of the network and join an authentication
      mechanism.  Although this will inevitably start with a discovery
      action, it is a special case precisely because trust is not yet
      established.  This topic is the subject of
      [I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra].  We require that once
      trust has been established for a device, all ASAs within the
      device inherit the device's credentials and are also trusted.

   o  Depending on the type of network involved, discovery of other
      central functions might be needed, such as the Network Operations
      Center (NOC) [I-D.eckert-anima-stable-connectivity].  The protocol
      must be capable of supporting such discovery during
      initialisation, as well as discovery during ongoing operation.

   D8.  The discovery process must not generate excessive traffic and
   must take account of sleeping nodes in the case of a constrained-node
   network [RFC7228].

   D9.  There must be a mechanism for handling stale discovery results.

2.2.  Requirements for Synchronization and Negotiation Capability

   As background, consider the example of routing protocols, the closest
   approximation to autonomic networking already in widespread use.
   Routing protocols use a largely autonomic model based on distributed
   devices that communicate repeatedly with each other.  The focus is
   reachability, so current routing protocols mainly consider simple
   link status, i.e., up or down, and an underlying assumption is that
   all nodes need a consistent view of the network topology in order for
   the routing algorithm to converge.  Thus, routing is mainly based on
   information synchronization between peers, rather than on bi-
   directional negotiation.  Other information, such as latency,
   congestion, capacity, and particularly unused capacity, would be
   helpful to get better path selection and utilization rate, but is not
   normally used in distributed routing algorithms.  Additionally,
   autonomic networks need to be able to manage many more dimensions,
   such as security settings, power saving, load balancing, etc.  Status
   information and traffic metrics need to be shared between nodes for

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   dynamic adjustment of resources and for monitoring purposes.  While
   this might be achieved by existing protocols when they are available,
   the new protocol needs to be able to support parameter exchange,
   including mutual synchronization, even when no negotiation as such is
   required.  In general, these parameters do not apply to all
   participating nodes, but only to a subset.

   SN1.  A basic requirement for the protocol is therefore the ability
   to represent, discover, synchronize and negotiate almost any kind of
   network parameter among arbitrary subsets of participating nodes.

   SN2.  Negotiation is a request/response process that must be
   guaranteed to terminate (with success or failure) and if necessary it
   must contain tie-breaking rules for each technical objective that
   requires them.  While these must be defined specifically for each use
   case, the protocol should have some general mechanisms in support of
   loop and deadlock prevention, such as hop count limits or timeouts.

   SN3.  Synchronization might concern small groups of nodes or very
   large groups.  Different solutions might be needed at different
   scales.

   SN4.  To avoid "reinventing the wheel", the protocol should be able
   to carry the message formats used by existing configuration protocols
   (such as NETCONF/YANG) in cases where that is convenient.

   SN5.  Human intervention in complex situations is costly and error-
   prone.  Therefore, synchronization or negotiation of parameters
   without human intervention is desirable whenever the coordination of
   multiple devices can improve overall network performance.  It
   therefore follows that the protocol, as part of the Autonomic
   Networking Infrastructure, must be capable of running in any device
   that would otherwise need human intervention.

   SN6.  Human intervention in large networks is often replaced by use
   of a top-down network management system (NMS).  It therefore follows
   that the protocol, as part of the Autonomic Networking
   Infrastructure, must be capable of running in any device that would
   otherwise be managed by an NMS, and that it can co-exist with an NMS,
   and with protocols such as SNMP and NETCONF.

   SN7.  Some features are expected to be implemented by individual
   ASAs, but the protocol must be general enough to allow them:

   o  Dependencies and conflicts: In order to decide a configuration on
      a given device, the device may need information from neighbors.
      This can be established through the negotiation procedure, or
      through synchronization if that is sufficient.  However, a given

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      item in a neighbor may depend on other information from its own
      neighbors, which may need another negotiation or synchronization
      procedure to obtain or decide.  Therefore, there are potential
      dependencies and conflicts among negotiation or synchronization
      procedures.  Resolving dependencies and conflicts is a matter for
      the individual ASAs involved.  To allow this, there need to be
      clear boundaries and convergence mechanisms for negotiations.
      Also some mechanisms are needed to avoid loop dependencies.  In
      such a case, the protocol's role is limited to signaling between
      ASAs.

   o  Recovery from faults and identification of faulty devices should
      be as automatic as possible.  The protocol's role is limited to
      the ability to handle discovery, synchronization and negotiation
      at any time, in case an ASA detects an anomaly such as a
      negotiation counterpart failing.

   o  Since the goal is to minimize human intervention, it is necessary
      that the network can in effect "think ahead" before changing its
      parameters.  In other words there must be a possibility of
      forecasting the effect of a change by a "dry run" mechanism before
      actually installing the change.  This will be an application of
      the protocol rather than a feature of the protocol itself.

   o  Management logging, monitoring, alerts and tools for intervention
      are required.  However, these can only be features of individual
      ASAs.  Another document [I-D.eckert-anima-stable-connectivity]
      discusses how such agents may be linked into conventional OAM
      systems via an Autonomic Control Plane
      [I-D.ietf-anima-autonomic-control-plane].

   SN8.  The protocol will be able to deal with a wide variety of
   technical objectives, covering any type of network parameter.
   Therefore the protocol will need either an explicit information model
   describing its messages, or at least a flexible and easily extensible
   message format.  One design consideration is whether to adopt an
   existing information model or to design a new one.

2.3.  Specific Technical Requirements

   T1.  It should be convenient for ASA designers to define new
   technical objectives and for programmers to express them, without
   excessive impact on run-time efficiency and footprint.  The classes
   of device in which the protocol might run is discussed in
   [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model].

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   T2.  The protocol should be easily extensible in case the initially
   defined discovery, synchronization and negotiation mechanisms prove
   to be insufficient.

   T3.  To be a generic platform, the protocol payload format should be
   independent of the transport protocol or IP version.  In particular,
   it should be able to run over IPv6 or IPv4.  However, some functions,
   such as multicasting on a link, might need to be IP version
   dependent.  In case of doubt, IPv6 should be preferred.

   T4.  The protocol must be able to access off-link counterparts via
   routable addresses, i.e., must not be restricted to link-local
   operation.

   T5.  It must also be possible for an external discovery mechanism to
   be used, if appropriate for a given technical objective.  In other
   words, GRASP discovery must not be a prerequisite for GRASP
   negotiation or synchronization; the prerequisite is discovering a
   peer's locator by any method.

   T6.  ASAs and the signaling protocol need to run asynchronously when
   wait states occur.

   T7.  Intent: There must be provision for general Intent rules to be
   applied by all devices in the network (e.g., security rules, prefix
   length, resource sharing rules).  However, Intent distribution might
   not use the signaling protocol itself, but its design should not
   exclude such use.

   T8.  Management monitoring, alerts and intervention: Devices should
   be able to report to a monitoring system.  Some events must be able
   to generate operator alerts and some provision for emergency
   intervention must be possible (e.g.  to freeze synchronization or
   negotiation in a mis-behaving device).  These features might not use
   the signaling protocol itself, but its design should not exclude such
   use.

   T9.  The protocol needs to be fully secured against forged messages
   and man-in-the middle attacks, and secured as much as reasonably
   possible against denial of service attacks.  It needs to be capable
   of encryption in order to resist unwanted monitoring.  However, it is
   not required that the protocol itself provides these security
   features; it may depend on an existing secure environment.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.  GRASP Protocol Overview

3.1.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119] when they appear in ALL CAPS.  When these words are not in
   ALL CAPS (such as "should" or "Should"), they have their usual
   English meanings, and are not to be interpreted as [RFC2119] key
   words.

   This document uses terminology defined in [RFC7575].

   The following additional terms are used throughout this document:

   o  Autonomic Device: identical to Autonomic Node.

   o  Discovery: a process by which an ASA discovers peers according to
      a specific discovery objective.  The discovery results may be
      different according to the different discovery objectives.  The
      discovered peers may later be used as negotiation counterparts or
      as sources of synchronization data.

   o  Negotiation: a process by which two (or more) ASAs interact
      iteratively to agree on parameter settings that best satisfy the
      objectives of one or more ASAs.

   o  State Synchronization: a process by which two (or more) ASAs
      interact to agree on the current state of parameter values stored
      in each ASA.  This is a special case of negotiation in which
      information is sent but the ASAs do not request their peers to
      change parameter settings.  All other definitions apply to both
      negotiation and synchronization.

   o  Technical Objective (usually abbreviated as Objective): A
      technical objective is a configurable parameter or set of
      parameters of some kind, which occurs in three contexts:
      Discovery, Negotiation and Synchronization.  In the protocol, an
      objective is represented by an identifier and if relevant a value.
      Normally, a given objective will occur during discovery and
      negotiation, or during discovery and synchronization, but not in
      all three contexts.

      *  One ASA may support multiple independent objectives.

      *  The parameter described by a given objective is naturally based
         on a specific service or function or action.  It may in

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 10]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

         principle be anything that can be set to a specific logical,
         numerical or string value, or a more complex data structure, by
         a network node.  That node is generally expected to contain an
         ASA which may itself manage other nodes.

      *  Discovery Objective: if a node needs to synchronize or
         negotiate a specific objective but does not know a peer that
         supports this objective, it starts a discovery process.  The
         objective is called a Discovery Objective during this process.

      *  Synchronization Objective: an objective whose specific
         technical content needs to be synchronized among two or more
         ASAs.

      *  Negotiation Objective: an objective whose specific technical
         content needs to be decided in coordination with another ASA.

   o  Discovery Initiator: an ASA that spontaneously starts discovery by
      sending a discovery message referring to a specific discovery
      objective.

   o  Discovery Responder: a peer ASA which responds to the discovery
      objective initiated by the discovery initiator.

   o  Synchronization Initiator: an ASA that spontaneously starts
      synchronization by sending a request message referring to a
      specific synchronization objective.

   o  Synchronization Responder: a peer ASA which responds with the
      value of a synchronization objective.

   o  Negotiation Initiator: an ASA that spontaneously starts
      negotiation by sending a request message referring to a specific
      negotiation objective.

   o  Negotiation Counterpart: a peer with which the Negotiation
      Initiator negotiates a specific negotiation objective.

3.2.  High-Level Design Choices

   This section describes a behavior model and some considerations for
   designing a generic signaling protocol initially supporting
   discovery, synchronization and negotiation, which can act as a
   platform for different technical objectives.

   o  A generic platform

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 11]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      The protocol is designed as a generic platform, which is
      independent from the synchronization or negotiation contents.  It
      takes care of the general intercommunication between counterparts.
      The technical contents will vary according to the various
      technical objectives and the different pairs of counterparts.

   o  The protocol is expected to form part of an Autonomic Networking
      Infrastructure [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model].  It will
      provide services to ASAs via a suitable application programming
      interface, which will reflect the protocol elements but will not
      necessarily be in one-to-one correspondence to them.  It is
      expected that a single instance of GRASP will exist in an
      autonomic node, and that the protocol engine and each ASA will run
      as independent asynchronous processes.

   o  Security infrastructure and trust relationship

      Because this negotiation protocol may directly cause changes to
      device configurations and bring significant impacts to a running
      network, this protocol is assumed to run within an existing secure
      environment with strong authentication.

      On the other hand, a limited negotiation model might be deployed
      based on a limited trust relationship.  For example, between two
      administrative domains, ASAs might also exchange limited
      information and negotiate some particular configurations based on
      a limited conventional or contractual trust relationship.

   o  Discovery, synchronization and negotiation are designed together.

      The discovery method and the synchronization and negotiation
      methods are designed in the same way and can be combined when this
      is useful.  These processes can also be performed independently
      when appropriate.

      *  GRASP discovery is always available for efficient discovery of
         GRASP peers and allows a rapid mode of operation described in
         Section 3.3.3.  For some objectives, especially those concerned
         with application layer services, another discovery mechanism
         such as the future DNS Service Discovery [RFC7558] or Service
         Location Protocol [RFC2608] MAY be used.  The choice is left to
         the designers of individual ASAs.

   o  A uniform pattern for technical contents

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 12]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      The synchronization and negotiation contents are defined according
      to a uniform pattern.  They could be carried either in simple
      binary format or in payloads described by a flexible language.
      The basic protocol design uses the Concise Binary Object
      Representation (CBOR) [RFC7049].  The format is extensible for
      unknown future requirements.

   o  A flexible model for synchronization

      GRASP supports bilateral synchronization, which could be used to
      perform synchronization among a small number of nodes.  It also
      supports an unsolicited flooding mode when large groups of nodes,
      possibly including all autonomic nodes, need data for the same
      technical objective.

      *  There may be some network parameters for which a more
         traditional flooding mechanism such as DNCP
         [I-D.ietf-homenet-dncp] is considered more appropriate.  GRASP
         can coexist with DNCP.

   o  A simple initiator/responder model for negotiation

      Multi-party negotiations are too complicated to be modeled and
      there might be too many dependencies among the parties to converge
      efficiently.  A simple initiator/responder model is more feasible
      and can complete multi-party negotiations by indirect steps.

   o  Organizing of synchronization or negotiation content

      Naturally, the technical content will be organized according to
      the relevant function or service.  The content from different
      functions or services is kept independent from each other.  They
      are not combined into a single option or single session because
      these contents may be negotiated or synchronized with different
      counterparts or may be different in response time.

   o  Self-aware network device

      Every autonomic device will be pre-loaded with various functions
      and ASAs and will be aware of its own capabilities, typically
      decided by the hardware, firmware or pre-installed software.  Its
      exact role may depend on Intent and on the surrounding network
      behaviors, which may include forwarding behaviors, aggregation
      properties, topology location, bandwidth, tunnel or translation

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 13]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      properties, etc.  The surrounding topology will depend on the
      network planning.  Following an initial discovery phase, the
      device properties and those of its neighbors are the foundation of
      the synchronization or negotiation behavior of a specific device.
      A device has no pre-configuration for the particular network in
      which it is installed.

   o  Requests and responses in negotiation procedures

      The initiator can negotiate with its relevant negotiation
      counterpart ASAs, which may be different according to the specific
      negotiation objective.  It can request relevant information from
      the negotiation counterpart so that it can decide its local
      configuration to give the most coordinated performance.  It can
      request the negotiation counterpart to make a matching
      configuration in order to set up a successful communication with
      it.  It can request certain simulation or forecast results by
      sending some dry run conditions.

      Beyond the traditional yes/no answer, the responder can reply with
      a suggested alternative if its answer is 'no'.  This would start a
      bi-directional negotiation ending in a compromise between the two
      ASAs.

   o  Convergence of negotiation procedures

      To enable convergence, when a responder makes a suggestion of a
      changed condition in a negative reply, it should be as close as
      possible to the original request or previous suggestion.  The
      suggested value of the third or later negotiation steps should be
      chosen between the suggested values from the last two negotiation
      steps.  In any case there must be a mechanism to guarantee
      convergence (or failure) in a small number of steps, such as a
      timeout or maximum number of iterations.

      *  End of negotiation

         A limited number of rounds, for example three, or a timeout, is
         needed on each ASA for each negotiation objective.  It may be
         an implementation choice, a pre-configurable parameter, or
         network Intent.  These choices might vary between different
         types of ASA.  Therefore, the definition of each negotiation
         objective MUST clearly specify this, so that the negotiation
         can always be terminated properly.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 14]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      *  Failed negotiation

         There must be a well-defined procedure for concluding that a
         negotiation cannot succeed, and if so deciding what happens
         next (deadlock resolution, tie-breaking, or revert to best-
         effort service).  Again, this MUST be specified for individual
         negotiation objectives, as an implementation choice, a pre-
         configurable parameter, or network Intent.

3.3.  GRASP Protocol Basic Properties and Mechanisms

3.3.1.  Required External Security Mechanism

   The protocol SHOULD run within a secure Autonomic Control Plane (ACP)
   [I-D.ietf-anima-autonomic-control-plane].  The ACP is assumed to
   carry all messages securely, including link-local multicast if
   possible.  A GRASP implementation MUST verify whether the ACP is
   operational.

   If there is no ACP, the protocol MUST use another form of strong
   authentication and SHOULD use a form of strong encryption.  TLS
   [RFC5246] is RECOMMENDED for this purpose, based on a local Public
   Key Infrastructure (PKI) [RFC5280] managed within the autonomic
   network itself.  The details of such a PKI and how its boundary is
   established are out of scope for this document.  DTLS [RFC6347] MAY
   be used but since GRASP operations usually involve several messages
   this is not expected to be advantageous.

   The ACP, or in its absence the local PKI, sets the boundary within
   which nodes are trusted as GRASP peers.  A GRASP implementation MUST
   refuse to execute any GRASP functions except discovery if there is
   neither an operational ACP nor an operational (D)TLS environment.

   As mentioned in Section 3.2, limited GRASP operations might be
   performed across an administrative domain boundary by mutual
   agreement.  Such operations MUST be authenticated and SHOULD be
   encrypted.  TLS is RECOMMENDED for this purpose.

   Link-local multicast is used for discovery messages.  Responses to
   discovery messages MUST be secured, with one exception.

   The exception is that during initialisation, before a node has joined
   the applicable trust infrastructure, e.g.,
   [I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra], or before the ACP is fully
   established, it might be impossible to secure messages.  Indeed, both
   the security bootstrap process and the ACP creation process might use
   insecure GRASP discovery and response messages.  Such usage MUST be

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 15]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   limited to the strictly necessary minimum.  A full analysis of the
   initialisation process is out of scope for the present document.

3.3.2.  Transport Layer Usage

   The protocol is capable of running over UDP or TCP, except for link-
   local multicast discovery messages, which can only run over UDP and
   MUST NOT be fragmented, and therefore cannot exceed the link MTU
   size.

   When running within a secure ACP, UDP SHOULD be used for messages not
   exceeding the minimum IPv6 path MTU, and TCP MUST be used for longer
   messages.  In other words, IPv6 fragmentation is avoided.  If a node
   receives a UDP message but the reply is too long, it MUST open a TCP
   connection to the peer for the reply.

   When running without an ACP, TLS SHOULD be supported and used by
   default, except for multicast discovery messages.  DTLS MAY be
   supported as an alternative but the details are out of scope for this
   document.

   For all transport protocols, the GRASP protocol listens to the GRASP
   Listen Port (Section 3.5).

3.3.3.  Discovery Mechanism and Procedures

   o  Separated discovery and negotiation mechanisms

         Although discovery and negotiation or synchronization are
         defined together in the GRASP, they are separated mechanisms.
         The discovery process could run independently from the
         negotiation or synchronization process.  Upon receiving a
         discovery (Section 3.7.2) message, the recipient ASA should
         return a message in which it either indicates itself as a
         discovery responder or diverts the initiator towards another
         more suitable ASA.

         The discovery action will normally be followed by a negotiation
         or synchronization action.  The discovery results could be
         utilized by the negotiation protocol to decide which ASA the
         initiator will negotiate with.

         It is entirely possible to use GRASP discovery without a
         subsequent negotiation or synchronization action.  In this
         case, the discovered objective is simply used as a name during
         the discovery process and any subsequent operations between the
         peers are outside the scope of GRASP.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 16]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   o  Discovery Procedures

         Discovery starts as an on-link operation.  The Divert option
         can tell the discovery initiator to contact an off-link ASA for
         that discovery objective.  Every Discovery message is sent by a
         discovery initiator via UDP to the ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast
         address (Section 3.5).  Every network device that supports the
         GRASP always listens to a well-known UDP port to capture the
         discovery messages.

         If an ASA in the neighbor device supports the requested
         discovery objective, it MAY respond with a Response message
         (Section 3.7.3) with locator option(s).  Otherwise, if the
         neighbor has cached information about an ASA that supports the
         requested discovery objective (usually because it discovered
         the same objective before), it SHOULD respond with a Response
         message with a Divert option pointing to the appropriate
         Discovery Responder.

         If no discovery response is received within a reasonable
         timeout (default GRASP_DEF_TIMEOUT milliseconds, Section 3.5),
         the Discovery message MAY be repeated, with a newly generated
         Session ID (Section 3.6).  An exponential backoff SHOULD be
         used for subsequent repetitions, in order to mitigate possible
         denial of service attacks.

         After a GRASP device successfully discovers a Discovery
         Responder supporting a specific objective, it MUST cache this
         information.  This cache record MAY be used for future
         negotiation or synchronization, and SHOULD be passed on when
         appropriate as a Divert option to another Discovery Initiator.
         The cache lifetime is an implementation choice that MAY be
         modified by network Intent.

         If multiple Discovery Responders are found for the same
         objective, they SHOULD all be cached, unless this creates a
         resource shortage.  The method of choosing between multiple
         responders is an implementation choice.  This choice MUST be
         available to each ASA but the GRASP implementation SHOULD
         provide a default choice.

         Because Discovery Responders will be cached in a finite cache,
         they might be deleted at any time.  In this case, discovery
         will need to be repeated.  If an ASA exits for any reason, its
         locator might still be cached for some time, and attempts to
         connect to it will fail.  ASAs need to be robust in these
         circumstances.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 17]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

         A GRASP device with multiple link-layer interfaces (typically a
         router) MUST support discovery on all interfaces.  If it
         receives a Discovery message on a given interface for a
         specific objective that it does not support and for which it
         has not previously discovered a Discovery Responder, it MUST
         relay the query by re-issuing a Discovery message on its other
         interfaces.  The relayed message MAY have a different Session
         ID.  Before this, it MUST decrement the loop count within the
         objective, and MUST NOT relay the Discovery message if the
         result is zero.  Also, it MUST limit the total rate at which it
         relays discovery messages to a reasonable value, in order to
         mitigate possible denial of service attacks.  It MUST cache the
         Session ID value of each relayed discovery message and, to
         prevent loops, MUST NOT relay a Discovery message which carries
         such a cached Session ID.  These precautions avoid discovery
         loops and mitigate potential overload.

         This relayed discovery mechanism, with caching of the results,
         should be sufficient to support most network bootstrapping
         scenarios.

   o  A complete discovery process will start with multicast on the
      local link; a neighbor might divert it to an off-link destination,
      which could be a default higher-level gateway in a hierarchical
      network.  Then discovery would continue with a unicast to that
      gateway; if that gateway is still not the right counterpart, it
      should divert to another gateway, which is in principle closer to
      the right counterpart.  Finally the right counterpart responds to
      start the negotiation or synchronization process.

   o  Rapid Mode (Discovery/Negotiation binding)

         A Discovery message MAY include a Negotiation Objective option.
         This allows a rapid mode of negotiation described in
         Section 3.3.4.  A similar mechanism is defined for
         synchronization in Section 3.3.5.

3.3.4.  Negotiation Procedures

   A negotiation initiator sends a negotiation request to a counterpart
   ASA, including a specific negotiation objective.  It may request the
   negotiation counterpart to make a specific configuration.
   Alternatively, it may request a certain simulation or forecast result
   by sending a dry run configuration.  The details, including the
   distinction between dry run and an actual configuration change, will
   be defined separately for each type of negotiation objective.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 18]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   If no reply message of any kind is received within a reasonable
   timeout (default GRASP_DEF_TIMEOUT milliseconds, Section 3.5), the
   negotiation request MAY be repeated, with a newly generated Session
   ID (Section 3.6).  An exponential backoff SHOULD be used for
   subsequent repetitions.

   If the counterpart can immediately apply the requested configuration,
   it will give an immediate positive (accept) answer.  This will end
   the negotiation phase immediately.  Otherwise, it will negotiate.  It
   will reply with a proposed alternative configuration that it can
   apply (typically, a configuration that uses fewer resources than
   requested by the negotiation initiator).  This will start a bi-
   directional negotiation to reach a compromise between the two ASAs.

   The negotiation procedure is ended when one of the negotiation peers
   sends a Negotiation Ending message, which contains an accept or
   decline option and does not need a response from the negotiation
   peer.  Negotiation may also end in failure (equivalent to a decline)
   if a timeout is exceeded or a loop count is exceeded.

   A negotiation procedure concerns one objective and one counterpart.
   Both the initiator and the counterpart may take part in simultaneous
   negotiations with various other ASAs, or in simultaneous negotiations
   about different objectives.  Thus, GRASP is expected to be used in a
   multi-threaded mode.  Certain negotiation objectives may have
   restrictions on multi-threading, for example to avoid over-allocating
   resources.

   Some configuration actions, for example wavelength switching in
   optical networks, might take considerable time to execute.  The ASA
   concerned needs to allow for this by design, but GRASP does allow for
   a peer to insert latency in a negotiation process if necessary
   (Section 3.7.7).

3.3.4.1.  Rapid Mode (Discovery/Negotiation Linkage)

   A Discovery message MAY include a Negotiation Objective option.  In
   this case the Discovery message also acts as a Request message to
   indicate to the Discovery Responder that it could directly reply to
   the Discovery Initiator with a Negotiation message for rapid
   processing, if it could act as the corresponding negotiation
   counterpart.  However, the indication is only advisory not
   prescriptive.

   This rapid mode could reduce the interactions between nodes so that a
   higher efficiency could be achieved.  This rapid negotiation function
   SHOULD be configured off by default and MAY be configured on or off
   by Intent.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 19]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.3.5.  Synchronization and Flooding Procedure

   A synchronization initiator sends a synchronization request to a
   counterpart, including a specific synchronization objective.  The
   counterpart responds with a Synchronization message (Section 3.7.8)
   containing the current value of the requested synchronization
   objective.  No further messages are needed.

   If no reply message of any kind is received within a reasonable
   timeout (default GRASP_DEF_TIMEOUT milliseconds, Section 3.5), the
   synchronization request MAY be repeated, with a newly generated
   Session ID (Section 3.6).  An exponential backoff SHOULD be used for
   subsequent repetitions.

3.3.5.1.  Flooding

   In the case just described, the message exchange is unicast and
   concerns only one synchronization objective.  For large groups of
   nodes requiring the same data, synchronization flooding is available.
   For this, a flooding initiator MAY send an unsolicited Flood message
   containing one or more Synchronization Objective option(s), if and
   only if the specification of those objectives permits it.  This is
   sent as a multicast message to the ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast
   address (Section 3.5).  To ensure that flooding does not result in a
   loop, the originator of the Flood message MUST set the loop count in
   the objectives to a suitable value (the default is GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT).
   In this case a suitable mechanism is needed to avoid excessive
   multicast traffic.  This mechanism MUST be defined as part of the
   specification of the synchronization objective(s) concerned.  It
   might be a simple rate limit or a more complex mechanism such as the
   Trickle algorithm [RFC6206].

   A GRASP device with multiple link-layer interfaces (typically a
   router) MUST support synchronization flooding on all interfaces.  If
   it receives a multicast Flood message on a given interface, it MUST
   relay it by re-issuing a Flood message on its other interfaces.  The
   relayed message MAY have a different Session ID.  Before this, it
   MUST decrement the loop count within the objective, and MUST NOT
   relay the Flood message if the result is zero.  Also, it MUST limit
   the total rate at which it relays Flood messages to a reasonable
   value, in order to mitigate possible denial of service attacks.  It
   MUST cache the Session ID value of each relayed Flood message and, to
   prevent loops, MUST NOT relay a Flood message which carries such a
   cached Session ID.  These precautions avoid synchronization loops and
   mitigate potential overload.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 20]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   Note that this mechanism is unreliable in the case of sleeping nodes.
   Sleeping nodes that require an objective subject to flooding SHOULD
   periodically request unicast synchronization for that objective.

   The multicast messages for synchronization flooding are subject to
   the security rules in Section 3.3.1.  In practice this means that
   they MUST NOT be transmitted and MUST be ignored on receipt unless
   there is an operational ACP.

3.3.5.2.  Rapid Mode (Discovery/Synchronization Linkage)

   A Discovery message MAY include a Synchronization Objective option.
   In this case the Discovery message also acts as a Request message to
   indicate to the Discovery Responder that it could directly reply to
   the Discovery Initiator with a Synchronization message Section 3.7.8
   with synchronization data for rapid processing, if the discovery
   target supports the corresponding synchronization objective.
   However, the indication is only advisory not prescriptive.

   This rapid mode could reduce the interactions between nodes so that a
   higher efficiency could be achieved.  This rapid synchronization
   function SHOULD be configured off by default and MAY be configured on
   or off by Intent.

3.4.  High Level Deployment Model

   It is expected that a GRASP implementation will reside in an
   autonomic node that also contains both the appropriate security
   environment (preferably the ACP) and one or more Autonomic Service
   Agents (ASAs).  In the minimal case of a single-purpose device, these
   three components might be fully integrated.  A more common model is
   expected to be a multi-purpose device capable of containing several
   ASAs.  In this case it is expected that the ACP, GRASP and the ASAs
   will be implemented as separate processes, which are probably multi-
   threaded to support asynchronous operation.  It is expected that
   GRASP will access the ACP by using a typical socket interface.  Well
   defined Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) will be needed
   between GRASP and the ASAs.  For further details of possible
   deployment models, see [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model].

3.5.  GRASP Constants

   o  ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR

      A link-local scope multicast address used by a GRASP-enabled
      device to discover GRASP-enabled neighbor (i.e., on-link) devices
      . All devices that support GRASP are members of this multicast
      group.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 21]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      *  IPv6 multicast address: TBD1

      *  IPv4 multicast address: TBD2

   o  GRASP_LISTEN_PORT (TBD3)

      A UDP and TCP port that every GRASP-enabled network device always
      listens to.

   o  GRASP_DEF_TIMEOUT (60000 milliseconds)

      The default timeout used to determine that a discovery etc. has
      failed to complete.

   o  GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT (6)

      The default loop count used to determine that a negotiation has
      failed to complete, and to avoid looping messages.

3.6.  Session Identifier (Session ID)

   This is an up to 24-bit opaque value used to distinguish multiple
   sessions between the same two devices.  A new Session ID MUST be
   generated by the initiator for every new Discovery, Flood or Request
   message.  All responses and follow-up messages in the same discovery,
   synchronization or negotiation procedure MUST carry the same Session
   ID.

   The Session ID SHOULD have a very low collision rate locally.  It
   MUST be generated by a pseudo-random algorithm using a locally
   generated seed which is unlikely to be used by any other device in
   the same network [RFC4086].

   However, there is a finite probability that two nodes might generate
   the same Session ID value.  For that reason, when a Session ID is
   communicated via GRASP, the receiving node MUST tag it with the
   initiator's IP address to allow disambiguation.  Multicast GRASP
   messages and their responses, which may be relayed between links,
   therefore include a field that carries the initiator's global IP
   address.

3.7.  GRASP Messages

   This section defines the GRASP message format and message types.
   Message types not listed here are reserved for future use.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 22]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.7.1.  GRASP Message Format

   GRASP messages share an identical header format and a variable format
   area for options.  GRASP message headers and options are transmitted
   in Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) [RFC7049].  In this
   specification, they are described using CBOR data definition language
   (CDDL) [I-D.greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl].  Fragmentary CDDL is
   used to describe each item in this section.  A complete and normative
   CDDL specification of GRASP is given in Section 6, including
   constants such as message types.

   Every GRASP message, except the No Operation message, carries a
   Session ID (Section 3.6).  Options are then presented serially in the
   options field.

   In fragmentary CDDL, every GRASP message follows the pattern:

     grasp-message = (message .within message-structure) / noop-message

     message-structure = [MESSAGE_TYPE, session-id, +grasp-option]

     MESSAGE_TYPE = 1..255
     session-id = 0..16777215 ;up to 24 bits
     grasp-option = any

   The MESSAGE_TYPE indicates the type of the message and thus defines
   the expected options.  Any options received that are not consistent
   with the MESSAGE_TYPE SHOULD be silently discarded.

   The No Operation (noop) message is described in Section 3.7.10.

   The various MESSAGE_TYPE values are defined in Section 6.

   All other message elements are described below and formally defined
   in Section 6.

3.7.2.  Discovery Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Discovery message follows the pattern:

     discovery-message = [M_DISCOVERY, session-id, initiator, objective]

   A discovery initiator sends a Discovery message to initiate a
   discovery process for a particular objective option.

   The discovery initiator sends the Discovery messages to the link-
   local ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast address for discovery, and stores

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 23]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   the discovery results (including responding discovery objectives and
   corresponding unicast addresses, FQDNs or URIs).

   The 'initiator' field in the message is a globally unique IP address
   of the initiator, for the sole purpose of disambiguating the Session
   ID in other nodes.  If for some reason the initiator does not have a
   globally unique IP address, it MUST use a link-local address for this
   purpose that is highly likely to be unique, for example using
   [RFC7217].

   A Discovery message MUST include exactly one of the following:

   o  a discovery objective option (Section 3.9.1).  Its loop count MUST
      be set to a suitable value to prevent discovery loops (default
      value is GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT).

   o  a negotiation objective option (Section 3.9.1).  This is used both
      for the purpose of discovery and to indicate to the discovery
      target that it MAY directly reply to the discovery initiatior with
      a Negotiation message for rapid processing, if it could act as the
      corresponding negotiation counterpart.  The sender of such a
      Discovery message MUST initialize a negotiation timer and loop
      count in the same way as a Request message (Section 3.7.4).

   o  a synchronization objective option (Section 3.9.1).  This is used
      both for the purpose of discovery and to indicate to the discovery
      target that it MAY directly reply to the discovery initiator with
      a Synchronization message for rapid processing, if it could act as
      the corresponding synchronization counterpart.  Its loop count
      MUST be set to a suitable value to prevent discovery loops
      (default value is GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT).

3.7.3.  Response Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Response message follows the pattern:

     response-message = [M_RESPONSE, session-id, initiator,
                       (+locator-option // divert-option), ?objective)]

   A node which receives a Discovery message SHOULD send a Response
   message if and only if it can respond to the discovery.  It MUST
   contain the same Session ID and initiator as the Discovery message.
   It MAY include a copy of the discovery objective from the Discovery
   message.

   If the responding node supports the discovery objective of the
   discovery, it MUST include at least one kind of locator option
   (Section 3.8.6) to indicate its own location.  A sequence of multiple

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 24]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   kinds of locator options (e.g.  IP address option + FQDN option) is
   also valid.

   If the responding node itself does not support the discovery
   objective, but it knows the locator of the discovery objective, then
   it SHOULD respond to the discovery message with a divert option
   (Section 3.8.2) embedding a locator option or a combination of
   multiple kinds of locator options which indicate the locator(s) of
   the discovery objective.

3.7.4.  Request Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Request message follows the pattern:

     request-message = [M_REQUEST, session-id, objective]

   A negotiation or synchronization requesting node sends the Request
   message to the unicast address (directly stored or resolved from an
   FQDN) of the negotiation or synchronization counterpart (selected
   from the discovery results).

   A request message MUST include the relevant objective option, with
   the requested value in the case of negotiation.

   When an initiator sends a Request message, it MUST initialize a
   negotiation timer for the new negotiation thread with the value
   GRASP_DEF_TIMEOUT milliseconds.  Unless this timeout is modified by a
   Confirm-waiting message (Section 3.7.7), the initiator will consider
   that the negotiation has failed when the timer expires.

   When an initiator sends a Request message, it MUST initialize the
   loop count of the objective option with a value defined in the
   specification of the option or, if no such value is specified, with
   GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT.

   If a node receives a Request message for an objective for which no
   ASA is currently listening, it MUST immediately close the relevant
   socket to indicate this to the initiator.

3.7.5.  Negotiation Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Negotiation message follows the pattern:

     discovery-message = [M_NEGOTIATE, session-id, objective]

   A negotiation counterpart sends a Negotiation message in response to
   a Request message, a Negotiation message, or a Discovery message in
   Rapid Mode.  A negotiation process MAY include multiple steps.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 25]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   The Negotiation message MUST include the relevant Negotiation
   Objective option, with its value updated according to progress in the
   negotiation.  The sender MUST decrement the loop count by 1.  If the
   loop count becomes zero the message MUST NOT be sent.  In this case
   the negotiation session has failed and will time out.

3.7.6.  Negotiation-ending Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Negotiation-ending message follows the
   pattern:

     end-message = [M_END, session-id, accept-option / decline-option]

   A negotiation counterpart sends an Negotiation-ending message to
   close the negotiation.  It MUST contain either an accept or a decline
   option, defined in Section 3.8.3 and Section 3.8.4.  It could be sent
   either by the requesting node or the responding node.

3.7.7.  Confirm-waiting Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Confirm-waiting message follows the pattern:

     wait-message = [M_WAIT, session-id, waiting-time]
     waiting-time =        0..4294967295 ; in milliseconds

   A responding node sends a Confirm-waiting message to ask the
   requesting node to wait for a further negotiation response.  It might
   be that the local process needs more time or that the negotiation
   depends on another triggered negotiation.  This message MUST NOT
   include any other options.  When received, the waiting time value
   overwrites and restarts the current negotiation timer
   (Section 3.7.4).

   The responding node SHOULD send a Negotiation, Negotiation-Ending or
   another Confirm-waiting message before the negotiation timer expires.
   If not, the initiator MUST abandon or restart the negotiation
   procedure, to avoid an indefinite wait.

3.7.8.  Synchronization Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Synchronization message follows the pattern:

     synch-message = [M_SYNCH, session-id, objective]

   A node which receives a synchronization Request, or a Discovery
   message in Rapid Mode, sends back a unicast Synchronization message
   with the synchronization data, in the form of a GRASP Option for the
   specific synchronization objective present in the Request.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 26]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.7.9.  Flood Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a Flood message follows the pattern:

     flood-message = [M_FLOOD, session-id, initiator, +objective]

   A node MAY initiate flooding by sending an unsolicited Flood Message
   with synchronization data.  This MAY be sent to the link-local
   ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast address, in accordance with the rules in
   Section 3.3.5.  The initiator address is provided as described for
   Discovery messages.  The synchronization data will be in the form of
   GRASP Option(s) for specific synchronization objective(s).  The loop
   count(s) MUST be set to a suitable value to prevent flood loops
   (default value is GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT).

   A node that receives a Flood message SHOULD cache the received
   objectives for use by local ASAs.

3.7.10.  No Operation Message

   In fragmentary CDDL, a No Operation message follows the pattern:

     noop-message = [M_NOOP]

   This message MAY be sent by an implementation that for practical
   reasons needs to activate a socket.  It MUST be silently ignored by a
   recipient.

3.8.  GRASP Options

   This section defines the GRASP options for the negotiation and
   synchronization protocol signaling.  Additional options may be
   defined in the future.

3.8.1.  Format of GRASP Options

   GRASP options are CBOR objects that MUST start with an unsigned
   integer identifying the specific option type carried in this option.
   These option types are formally defined in Section 6.  Apart from
   that the only format requirement is that each option MUST be a well-
   formed CBOR object.  In general a CBOR array format is RECOMMENDED to
   limit overhead.

   GRASP options are usually scoped by using encapsulation.  However,
   this is not a requirement

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 27]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.8.2.  Divert Option

   The Divert option is used to redirect a GRASP request to another
   node, which may be more appropriate for the intended negotiation or
   synchronization.  It may redirect to an entity that is known as a
   specific negotiation or synchronization counterpart (on-link or off-
   link) or a default gateway.  The divert option MUST only be
   encapsulated in Response messages.  If found elsewhere, it SHOULD be
   silently ignored.

   In fragmentary CDDL, the Divert option follows the pattern:

     divert-option = [O_DIVERT, +locator-option]

   The embedded Locator Option(s) (Section 3.8.6) point to diverted
   destination target(s) in response to a Discovery message.

3.8.3.  Accept Option

   The accept option is used to indicate to the negotiation counterpart
   that the proposed negotiation content is accepted.

   The accept option MUST only be encapsulated in Negotiation-ending
   messages.  If found elsewhere, it SHOULD be silently ignored.

   In fragmentary CDDL, the Accept option follows the pattern:

     accept-option = [O_ACCEPT]

3.8.4.  Decline Option

   The decline option is used to indicate to the negotiation counterpart
   the proposed negotiation content is declined and end the negotiation
   process.

   The decline option MUST only be encapsulated in Negotiation-ending
   messages.  If found elsewhere, it SHOULD be silently ignored.

   In fragmentary CDDL, the Decline option follows the pattern:

     decline-option = [O_DECLINE, ?reason]
     reason = text  ;optional error message

   Note: there are scenarios where a negotiation counterpart wants to
   decline the proposed negotiation content and continue the negotiation
   process.  For these scenarios, the negotiation counterpart SHOULD use
   a Negotiate message, with either an objective option that contains a

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 28]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   data field set to indicate a meaningless initial value, or a specific
   objective option that provides further conditions for convergence.

3.8.5.  Device Identity Option

   The Device Identity option carries the identities of the sender and
   of the domain(s) that it belongs to.

   In fragmentary CDDL, the Device Identity option follows the pattern:

     option-device-id = [O_DEVICE_ID, bytes]

   The option contains a variable-length field containing the device
   identity and one or more domain identities.  The format is not yet
   defined.

   Note: Currently this option is an unused placeholder.  It might be
   removed or modified.

3.8.6.  Locator Options

   These locator options are used to present reachability information
   for an ASA, a device or an interface.  They are Locator IPv4 Address
   Option, Locator IPv6 Address Option, Locator FQDN (Fully Qualified
   Domain Name) Option and Uniform Resource Identifier Option.

   Note: It is assumed that all locators are in scope throughout the
   GRASP domain.  GRASP is not intended to work across disjoint
   addressing or naming realms.

3.8.6.1.  Locator IPv4 address option

   In fragmentary CDDL, the IPv4 address option follows the pattern:

     ipv4-locator-option = bytes .size 4

   The content of this option is a binary IPv4 address.

   Note: If an operator has internal network address translation for
   IPv4, this option MUST NOT be used within the Divert option.

3.8.6.2.  Locator IPv6 address option

   In fragmentary CDDL, the IPv6 address option follows the pattern:

     ipv6-locator-option = bytes .size 16

   The content of this option is a binary IPv6 address.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 29]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   Note 1: The IPv6 address MUST normally have global scope.
   Exceptionally, during node bootstrap, a link-local address MAY be
   used for specific objectives only.

   Note 2: A link-local IPv6 address MUST NOT be used when this option
   is included in a Divert option.

3.8.6.3.  Locator FQDN option

   In fragmentary CDDL, the FQDN option follows the pattern:

     fqdn-locator-option = [O_FQDN_LOCATOR, text]

   The content of this option is the Fully Qualified Domain Name of the
   target.

   Note 1: Any FQDN which might not be valid throughout the network in
   question, such as a Multicast DNS name [RFC6762], MUST NOT be used
   when this option is used within the Divert option.

   Note 2: Normal GRASP operations are not expected to use this option.
   It is intended for special purposes such as discovering external
   services.

3.8.6.4.  Locator URI option

   In fragmentary CDDL, the URI option follows the pattern:

     uri-locator-option = [O_URI_LOCATOR, text]

   The content of this option is the Uniform Resource Identifier of the
   target [RFC3986].

   Note 1: Any URI which might not be valid throughout the network in
   question, such as one based on a Multicast DNS name [RFC6762], MUST
   NOT be used when this option is used within the Divert option.

   Note 2: Normal GRASP operations are not expected to use this option.
   It is intended for special purposes such as discovering external
   services.

3.9.  Objective Options

3.9.1.  Format of Objective Options

   An objective option is used to identify objectives for the purposes
   of discovery, negotiation or synchronization.  All objectives MUST be
   in the following format, described in fragmentary CDDL:

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 30]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

     objective = [objective-name, objective-flags, loop-count, ?any]

     objective-name = text
     loop-count = 0..255

   All objectives are identified by a unique name which is a case-
   sensitive UTF-8 string.

   The names of generic objectives MUST NOT include a colon (":") and
   MUST be registered with IANA (Section 7).

   The names of privately defined objectives MUST include at least one
   colon (":").  The string preceding the last colon in the name MUST be
   globally unique and in some way identify the entity or person
   defining the objective.  The following three methods MAY be used to
   create such a globally unique string:

   1.  The unique string is a decimal number representing a registered
       32 bit Private Enterprise Number (PEN) [I-D.liang-iana-pen] that
       uniquely identifies the enterprise defining the objective.

   2.  The unique string is a fully qualified domain name that uniquely
       identifies the entity or person defining the objective.

   3.  The unique string is an email address that uniquely identifies
       the entity or person defining the objective.

   The GRASP protocol treats the objective name as an opaque string.
   For example, "EX1", "411:EX1", "example.com:EX1", "example.org:EX1
   and "user@example.org:EX1" would be five different objectives.

   The 'objective-flags' field is described below.

   The 'loop-count' field is used for terminating negotiation as
   described in Section 3.7.5.  It is also used for terminating
   discovery as described in Section 3.3.3, and for terminating flooding
   as described in Section 3.3.5.1.

   The 'any' field is to express the actual value of a negotiation or
   synchronization objective.  Its format is defined in the
   specification of the objective and may be a single value or a data
   structure of any kind.  It is optional because it is optional in a
   Discovery or Response message.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 31]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.9.2.  Objective flags

   An objective may be relevant for discovery only, for discovery and
   negotiation, or for discovery and synchronization.  This is expressed
   in the objective by logical flags:

     objective-flags = uint .bits objective-flag
     objective-flag = &(
     F_DISC: 0   ; valid for discovery only
     F_NEG: 1    ; valid for discovery and negotiation
     F_SYNCH: 2  ; valid for discovery and synchronization
     )

3.9.3.  General Considerations for Objective Options

   As mentioned above, Objective Options MUST be assigned a unique name.
   As long as privately defined Objective Options obey the rules above,
   this document does not restrict their choice of name, but the entity
   or person concerned SHOULD publish the names in use.

   All Objective Options MUST respect the CBOR patterns defined above as
   "objective" and MUST replace the "any" field with a valid CBOR data
   definition for the relevant use case and application.

   An Objective Option that contains no additional fields beyond its
   "loop-count" can only be a discovery objective and MUST only be used
   in Discovery and Response messages.

   The Negotiation Objective Options contain negotiation objectives,
   which vary according to different functions/services.  They MUST be
   carried by Discovery, Request or Negotiation Messages only.  The
   negotiation initiator MUST set the initial "loop-count" to a value
   specified in the specification of the objective or, if no such value
   is specified, to GRASP_DEF_LOOPCT.

   For most scenarios, there should be initial values in the negotiation
   requests.  Consequently, the Negotiation Objective options MUST
   always be completely presented in a Request message, or in a
   Discovery message in rapid mode.  If there is no initial value, the
   bits in the value field SHOULD all be set to indicate a meaningless
   value, unless this is inappropriate for the specific negotiation
   objective.

   Synchronization Objective Options are similar, but MUST be carried by
   Discovery, Request, Response or Flood messages only.  They include
   value fields only in Response or Flood messages.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 32]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

3.9.4.  Organizing of Objective Options

   Generic objective options MUST be specified in documents available to
   the public and SHOULD be designed to use either the negotiation or
   the synchronization mechanism described above.

   As noted earlier, one negotiation objective is handled by each GRASP
   negotiation thread.  Therefore, a negotiation objective, which is
   based on a specific function or action, SHOULD be organized as a
   single GRASP option.  It is NOT RECOMMENDED to organize multiple
   negotiation objectives into a single option, nor to split a single
   function or action into multiple negotiation objectives.

   It is important to understand that GRASP negotiation does not support
   transactional integrity.  If transactional integrity is needed for a
   specific objective, this must be ensured by the ASA.  For example, an
   ASA might need to ensure that it only participates in one negotiation
   thread at the same time.  Such an ASA would need to stop listening
   for incoming negotiation requests before generating an outgoing
   negotiation request.

   A synchronization objective SHOULD be organized as a single GRASP
   option.

   Some objectives will support more than one operational mode.  An
   example is a negotiation objective with both a "dry run" mode (where
   the negotiation is to find out whether the other end can in fact make
   the requested change without problems) and a "live" mode.  Such modes
   will be defined in the specification of such an objective.  These
   objectives SHOULD include flags indicating the applicable mode(s).

   An objective may have multiple parameters.  Parameters can be
   categorized into two classes: the obligatory ones presented as fixed
   fields; and the optional ones presented in CBOR sub-options or some
   other form of data structure embedded in CBOR.  The format might be
   inherited from an existing management or configuration protocol, the
   objective option acting as a carrier for that format.  The data
   structure might be defined in a formal language, but that is a matter
   for the specifications of individual objectives.  There are many
   candidates, according to the context, such as ABNF, RBNF, XML Schema,
   possibly YANG, etc.  The GRASP protocol itself is agnostic on these
   questions.

   It is NOT RECOMMENDED to split parameters in a single objective into
   multiple options, unless they have different response periods.  An
   exception scenario may also be described by split objectives.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 33]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   All objectives MUST support GRASP discovery.  However, as mentioned
   in Section 3.2, it is acceptable for an ASA to use an alternative
   method of discovery.

   Normally, a GRASP objective will refer to specific technical
   parameters as explained in Section 3.1.  However, it is acceptable to
   define an abstract objective for the purpose of managing or
   coordinating ASAs.  It is also acceptable to define a special-purpose
   objective for purposes such as trust bootstrapping or formation of
   the ACP.

3.9.5.  Experimental and Example Objective Options

   The names "EX0" through "EX9" have been reserved for experimental
   options.  Multiple names have been assigned because a single
   experiment may use multiple options simultaneously.  These
   experimental options are highly likely to have different meanings
   when used for different experiments.  Therefore, they SHOULD NOT be
   used without an explicit human decision and SHOULD NOT be used in
   unmanaged networks such as home networks.

   These names are also RECOMMENDED for use in documentation examples.

4.  Open Issues

   RFC Editor: This section should be deleted except for any items not
   marked as resolved, which should be retained and renumbered.

   There are various unresolved design questions that are worthy of more
   work in the near future, as listed below (statically numbered in
   historical order for reference purposes, with the resolved issues
   retained for reference):

   o  1.  UDP vs TCP: For now, this specification suggests UDP and TCP
      as message transport mechanisms.  This is not clarified yet.  UDP
      is good for short conversations, is necessary for multicast
      discovery, and generally fits the discovery and divert scenarios
      well.  However, it will cause problems with large messages.  TCP
      is good for stable and long sessions, with a little bit of time
      consumption during the session establishment stage.  If messages
      exceed a reasonable MTU, a TCP mode will be required in any case.
      This question may be affected by the security discussion.

      RESOLVED by specifying UDP for short message and TCP for longer
      one.

   o  2.  DTLS or TLS vs built-in security mechanism.  For now, this
      specification has chosen a PKI based built-in security mechanism

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 34]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      based on asymmetric cryptography.  However, (D)TLS might be chosen
      as security solution to avoid duplication of effort.  It also
      allows essentially similar security for short messages over UDP
      and longer ones over TCP.  The implementation trade-offs are
      different.  The current approach requires expensive asymmetric
      cryptographic calculations for every message.  (D)TLS has startup
      overheads but cheaper crypto per message.  DTLS is less mature
      than TLS.

      RESOLVED by specifying external security (ACP or (D)TLS).

   o  The following open issues applied only if the original security
      model was retained:

      *  2.1.  For replay protection, GRASP currently requires every
         participant to have an NTP-synchronized clock.  Is this OK for
         low-end devices, and how does it work during device
         bootstrapping?  We could take the Timestamp out of signature
         option, to become an independent and OPTIONAL (or RECOMMENDED)
         option.

      *  2.2.  The Signature Option states that this option could be any
         place in a message.  Wouldn't it be better to specify a
         position (such as the end)?  That would be much simpler to
         implement.

      RESOLVED by changing security model.

   o  3.  DoS Attack Protection needs work.

      RESOLVED by adding text.

   o  4.  Should we consider preferring a text-based approach to
      discovery (after the initial discovery needed for bootstrapping)?
      This could be a complementary mechanism for multicast based
      discovery, especially for a very large autonomic network.
      Centralized registration could be automatically deployed
      incrementally.  At the very first stage, the repository could be
      empty; then it could be filled in by the objectives discovered by
      different devices (for example using Dynamic DNS Update).  The
      more records are stored in the repository, the less the multicast-
      based discovery is needed.  However, if we adopt such a mechanism,
      there would be challenges: stateful solution, and security.

      RESOLVED for now by adding optional use of DNS-SD by ASAs.
      Subsequently removed by editors as irrelevant to GRASP istelf.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 35]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   o  5.  Need to expand description of the minimum requirements for the
      specification of an individual discovery, synchronization or
      negotiation objective.

      RESOLVED for now by extra wording.

   o  6.  Use case and protocol walkthrough.  A description of how a
      node starts up, performs discovery, and conducts negotiation and
      synchronisation for a sample use case would help readers to
      understand the applicability of this specification.  Maybe it
      should be an artificial use case or maybe a simple real one, based
      on a conceptual API.  However, the authors have not yet decided
      whether to have a separate document or have it in the protocol
      document.

      RESOLVED: recommend a separate document.

   o  7.  Cross-check against other ANIMA WG documents for consistency
      and gaps.

   o  8.  Consideration of ADNCP proposal.

      RESOLVED by adding optional use of DNCP for flooding-type
      synchronization.

   o  9.  Clarify how a GDNP instance knows whether it is running inside
      the ACP.  (Sheng)

      RESOLVED by improved text.

   o  10.  Clarify how a non-ACP GDNP instance initiates (D)TLS.
      (Sheng)

      RESOLVED by improved text and declaring DTLS out of scope for this
      draft.

   o  11.  Clarify how UDP/TCP choice is made.  (Sheng) [Like DNS? -
      Brian]

      RESOLVED by improved text.

   o  12.  Justify that IP address within ACP or (D)TLS environment is
      sufficient to prove AN identity; or explain how Device Identity
      Option is used.  (Sheng)

      RESOLVED for now: we assume that all ASAs in a device are trusted
      as soon as the device is trusted, so they share credentials.  In

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 36]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      that case the Device Identity Option is useless.  This needs to be
      reviewed later.

   o  13.  Emphasise that negotiation/synchronization are independent
      from discovery, although the rapid discovery mode includes the
      first step of a negotiation/synchronization.  (Sheng)

      RESOLVED by improved text.

   o  14.  Do we need an unsolicited flooding mechanism for discovery
      (for discovery results that everyone needs), to reduce scaling
      impact of flooding discovery messages?  (Toerless)

      RESOLVED: Yes, added to requirements and solution.

   o  15.  Do we need flag bits in Objective Options to distinguish
      distinguish Synchronization and Negotiation "Request" or rapid
      mode "Discovery" messages?  (Bing)

      RESOLVED: yes, work on the API showed that these flags are
      essential.

   o  16.  (Related to issue 14).  Should we revive the "unsolicited
      Response" for flooding synchronisation data?  This has to be done
      carefully due to the well-known issues with flooding, but it could
      be useful, e.g. for Intent distribution, where DNCP doesn't seem
      applicable.

      RESOLVED: Yes, see #14.

   o  17.  Ensure that the discovery mechanism is completely proof
      against loops and protected against duplicate responses.

      RESOLVED: Added loop count mechanism.

   o  18.  Discuss the handling of multiple valid discovery responses.

      RESOLVED: Stated that the choice must be available to the ASA but
      GRASP implementation should pick a default.

   o  19.  Should we use a text-oriented format such as JSON/CBOR
      instead of native binary TLV format?

      RESOLVED: Yes, changed to CBOR.

   o  20.  Is the Divert option needed?  If a discovery response
      provides a valid IP address or FQDN, the recipient doesn't gain
      any extra knowledge from the Divert.  On the other hand, the

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 37]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      presence of Divert informs the receiver that the target is off-
      link, which might be useful sometimes.

      RESOLVED: Decided to keep Divert option.

   o  21.  Rename the protocol as GRASP (GeneRic Autonomic Signaling
      Protocol)?

      RESOLVED: Yes, name changed.

   o  22.  Does discovery mechanism scale robustly as needed?  Need hop
      limit on relaying?

      RESOLVED: Added hop limit.

   o  23.  Need more details on TTL for caching discovery responses.

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  24.  Do we need "fast withdrawal" of discovery responses?

      RESOLVED: This doesn't seem necessary.  If an ASA exits or stops
      supporting a given objective, peers will fail to start future
      sessions and will simply repeat discovery.

   o  25.  Does GDNP discovery meet the needs of multi-hop DNS-SD?

      RESOLVED: Decided not to consider this further as a GRASP protocol
      issue.  GRASP objectives could embed DNS-SD formats if needed.

   o  26.  Add a URL type to the locator options (for security bootstrap
      etc.)

      RESOLVED: Done, later renamed as URI.

   o  27.  Security of Flood multicasts (Section 3.3.5.1).

      RESOLVED: added text.

   o  28.  Does ACP support secure link-local multicast?

   o  29.  PEN is used to distinguish vendor options.  Would it be
      better to use a domain name?  Anything unique will do.

      RESOLVED: Simplified this by removing PEN field and changing
      naming rules for objectives.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 38]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   o  30.  Does response to discovery require randomized delays to
      mitigate amplification attacks?

      RESOLVED: WG feedback is that it's unnecessary.

   o  31.  We have specified repeats for failed discovery etc.  Is that
      sufficient to deal with sleeping nodes?

      RESOLVED: WG feedback is that it's unnecessary to say more.

   o  32.  We have one-to-one synchronization and flooding
      synchronization.  Do we also need selective flooding to a subset
      of nodes?

      RESOLVED: This will be discussed as a protocol extension in a
      separate draft (draft-liu-anima-grasp-distribution).

   o  33.  Clarify if/when discovery needs to be repeated.

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  34.  Clarify what is mandatory for running in ACP, expand
      discussion of security boundary when running with no ACP - might
      rely on the local PKI infrastructure.

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  35.  State that role-based authorization of ASAs is out of scope
      for GRASP.  GRASP doesn't recognize/handle any "roles".

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  36.  Reconsider CBOR definition for PEN syntax.  ( objective-name
      = text / [pen, text] ; pen = uint )

      RESOLVED: See issue 29.

   o  37.  Are URI locators really needed?

      RESOLVED: Yes, e.g. for security bootstrap discovery, but added
      note that addresses are the normal case (same for FQDN locators).

   o  38.  Is Session ID sufficient to identify relayed responses?
      Isn't the originator's address needed too?

      RESOLVED: Yes, this is needed for multicast messages and their
      responses.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 39]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   o  39.  Clarify that a node will contain one GRASP instance
      supporting multiple ASAs.

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  40.  Add a "reason" code to the DECLINE option?

      RESOLVED: Done.

   o  41.  What happens if an ASA cannot conveniently use one of the
      GRASP mechanisms?  Do we (a) add a message type to GRASP, or (b)
      simply pass the discovery results to the ASA so that it can open
      its own socket?

      RESOLVED: Both would be possible, but (b) is preferred.

   o  42.  Do we need a feature whereby an ASA can bypass the ACP and
      use the data plane for efficiency/throughput?  This would require
      discovery to return non-ACP addresses and would evade ACP
      security.

   o  43.  Rapid mode synchronization and negotiation is currently
      limited to a single objective for simplicity of design and
      implementation.  A future consideration is to allow multiple
      objectives in rapid mode for greater efficiency.

   o  44.  In requirement T9, the words that encryption "may not be
      required in all deployments" were removed.  Is that OK?.

   o  45.  Device Identity Option is unused.  Can we remove it
      completely?.

   o  46.  The 'initiator' field in DISCOVER, RESPONSE and FLOOD
      messages is intended to assist in loop prevention.  However, we
      also have the loop count for that.  It would be simpler to remove
      the initiator, making message parsing more uniform.  Is that OK?

   o  47.  REQUEST is a dual purpose message (request negotiation or
      request synchronization).  Would it be better to split this into
      two different messages (and adjust various message names
      accordingly)?

5.  Security Considerations

   It is obvious that a successful attack on negotiation-enabled nodes
   would be extremely harmful, as such nodes might end up with a
   completely undesirable configuration that would also adversely affect

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 40]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   their peers.  GRASP nodes and messages therefore require full
   protection.

   - Authentication

      A cryptographically authenticated identity for each device is
      needed in an autonomic network.  It is not safe to assume that a
      large network is physically secured against interference or that
      all personnel are trustworthy.  Each autonomic node MUST be
      capable of proving its identity and authenticating its messages.
      GRASP relies on a separate external certificate-based security
      mechanism to support authentication, data integrity protection,
      and anti-replay protection.

      Since GRASP is intended to be deployed in a single administrative
      domain operating its own trust anchor and CA, there is no need for
      a trusted public third party.  In a network requiring "air gap"
      security, such a dependency would be unacceptable.

      If GRASP is used temporarily without an external security
      mechanism, for example during system bootstrap (Section 3.3.1),
      the Session ID (Section 3.6) will act as a nonce to provide
      limited protection against third parties injecting responses.  A
      full analysis of the secure bootstrap process is out of scope for
      the present document.

   - Authorization and Roles

      The GRASP protocol is agnostic about the role of individual ASAs
      and about which objectives a particular ASA is authorized to
      support.  It SHOULD apply obvious precautions such as allowing
      only one ASA in a given node to modify a given objective, but
      otherwise authorization is out of scope.

   - Privacy and confidentiality

      Generally speaking, no personal information is expected to be
      involved in the signaling protocol, so there should be no direct
      impact on personal privacy.  Nevertheless, traffic flow paths,
      VPNs, etc. could be negotiated, which could be of interest for
      traffic analysis.  Also, operators generally want to conceal
      details of their network topology and traffic density from
      outsiders.  Therefore, since insider attacks cannot be excluded in
      a large network, the security mechanism for the protocol MUST
      provide message confidentiality.

   - DoS Attack Protection

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 41]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

      GRASP discovery partly relies on insecure link-local multicast.
      Since routers participating in GRASP sometimes relay discovery
      messages from one link to another, this could be a vector for
      denial of service attacks.  Relevant mitigations are specified in
      Section 3.3.3.  Additionally, it is of great importance that
      firewalls prevent any GRASP messages from entering the domain from
      an untrusted source.

   - Security during bootstrap and discovery

      A node cannot authenticate GRASP traffic from other nodes until it
      has identified the trust anchor and can validate certificates for
      other nodes.  Also, until it has succesfully enrolled
      [I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra] it cannot assume that
      other nodes are able to authenticate its own traffic.  Therefore,
      GRASP discovery during the bootstrap phase for a new device will
      inevitably be insecure and GRASP synchronization and negotiation
      will be impossible until enrollment is complete.

6.  CDDL Specification of GRASP

   <CODE BEGINS>

   grasp-message = (message .within message-structure) / noop-message

   message-structure = [MESSAGE_TYPE, session-id, +grasp-option]

   MESSAGE_TYPE = 0..255
   session-id = 0..16777215 ;up to 24 bits
   grasp-option = any

   message /= discovery-message
   discovery-message = [M_DISCOVERY, session-id, initiator, objective]

   message /= response-message ;response to Discovery
   response-message = [M_RESPONSE, session-id, initiator,
                      (+locator-option // divert-option), ?objective]

   message /= synch-message ;response to Synchronization request
   synch-message = [M_SYNCH, session-id, objective]

   message /= flood-message
   flood-message = [M_FLOOD, session-id, initiator, +objective]

   message /= request-message
   request-message = [M_REQUEST, session-id, objective]

   message /= negotiation-message

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 42]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   negotiation-message = [M_NEGOTIATE, session-id, objective]

   message /= end-message
   end-message = [M_END, session-id, accept-option / decline-option ]

   message /= wait-message
   wait-message = [M_WAIT, session-id, waiting-time]

   noop-message = [M_NOOP]

   divert-option = [O_DIVERT, +locator-option]

   accept-option = [O_ACCEPT]

   decline-option = [O_DECLINE, ?reason]
   reason = text  ;optional error message

   waiting-time = 0..4294967295 ; in milliseconds

   option-device-id = [O_DEVICE_ID, bytes]

   locator-option /= ipv4-locator-option
   ipv4-locator-option = bytes .size 4
   ; this is simpler than [O_IPv4_LOCATOR, bytes .size 4]

   locator-option /= ipv6-locator-option
   ipv6-locator-option = bytes .size 16

   locator-option /= fqdn-locator-option
   fqdn-locator-option = [O_FQDN_LOCATOR, text]

   locator-option /= uri-locator-option
   uri-locator-option = [O_URI_LOCATOR, text]

   initiator = ipv4-locator-option / ipv6-locator-option

   objective-flags = uint .bits objective-flag

   objective-flag = &(
    F_DISC: 0   ; valid for discovery only
    F_NEG: 1    ; valid for discovery and negotiation
    F_SYNCH: 2  ; valid for discovery and synchronization
    )

   objective = [objective-name, objective-flags, loop-count, ?any]

   objective-name = text ;see specification for uniqueness rules

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 43]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   loop-count = 0..255

   ; Constants for message types and option types

   M_NOOP = 0
   M_DISCOVERY = 1
   M_RESPONSE = 2
   M_REQUEST = 3
   M_NEGOTIATE = 4
   M_END = 5
   M_WAIT = 6
   M_SYNCH = 7
   M_FLOOD = 8

   O_DIVERT = 100
   O_ACCEPT = 101
   O_DECLINE = 102
   O_FQDN_LOCATOR = 103
   O_URI_LOCATOR = 104
   O_DEVICE_ID = 105

   <CODE ENDS>

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document defines the General Discovery and Negotiation Protocol
   (GRASP).

   Section 3.5 explains the following link-local multicast addresses,
   which IANA is requested to assign for use by GRASP:

   ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast address  (IPv6): (TBD1).  Assigned in
      the IPv6 Link-Local Scope Multicast Addresses registry.

   ALL_GRASP_NEIGHBOR multicast address  (IPv4): (TBD2).  Assigned in
      the IPv4 Multicast Local Network Control Block.

   Section 3.5 explains the following UDP and TCP port, which IANA is
   requested to assign for use by GRASP:

   GRASP_LISTEN_PORT:  (TBD3)

   The IANA is requested to create a GRASP Parameter Registry including
   two registry tables.  These are the GRASP Messages and Options
   Table and the GRASP Objective Names Table.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 44]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   GRASP Messages and Options Table.  The values in this table are names
   paired with decimal integers.  Future values MUST be assigned using
   the Standards Action policy defined by [RFC5226].  The following
   initial values are assigned by this document:

    M_NOOP = 0
    M_DISCOVERY = 1
    M_RESPONSE = 2
    M_REQUEST = 3
    M_NEGOTIATE = 4
    M_END = 5
    M_WAIT = 6

    O_DIVERT = 100
    O_ACCEPT = 101
    O_DECLINE = 102
    O_FQDN_LOCATOR = 103
    O_URI_LOCATOR = 104
    O_DEVICE_ID = 105

   GRASP Objective Names Table.  The values in this table are UTF-8
   strings.  Future values MUST be assigned using the Specification
   Required policy defined by [RFC5226].  The following initial values
   are assigned by this document:

    EX0
    EX1
    EX2
    EX3
    EX4
    EX5
    EX6
    EX7
    EX8
    EX9

8.  Acknowledgements

   A major contribution to the original version of this document was
   made by Sheng Jiang.

   Valuable comments were received from Michael Behringer, Jeferson
   Campos Nobre, Laurent Ciavaglia, Zongpeng Du, Yu Fu, Joel Halpern,
   Zhenbin Li, Dimitri Papadimitriou, Pierre Peloso, Reshad Rahman,
   Michael Richardson, Markus Stenberg, Rene Struik, Dacheng Zhang, and
   other participants in the NMRG research group and the ANIMA working
   group.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 45]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   This document was produced using the xml2rfc tool [RFC2629].

9.  Change log [RFC Editor: Please remove]

   draft-ietf-anima-grasp-02, 2016-01-13:

   Resolved numerous issues according to WG discussions.

   Renumbered requirements, added D9.

   Protocol change: only allow one objective in rapid mode.

   Protocol change: added optional error string to DECLINE option.

   Protocol change: removed statement that seemed to say that a Request
   not preceded by a Discovery should cause a Discovery response.  That
   made no sense, because there is no way the initiator would know where
   to send the Request.

   Protocol change: Removed PEN option from vendor objectives, changed
   naming rule accordingly.

   Protocol change: Added FLOOD message to simplify coding.

   Protocol change: Added SYNCH message to simplify coding.

   Protocol change: Added initiator id to DISCOVER, RESPONSE and FLOOD
   messages.  But also allowed the relay process for DISCOVER and FLOOD
   to regenerate a Session ID.

   Protocol change: Require that discovered addresses must be global
   (except during bootstrap).

   Protocol change: Receiver of REQUEST message must close socket if no
   ASA is listening for the objective.

   Protocol change: Simplified Waiting message.

   Protocol change: Added No Operation message.

   Renamed URL locator type as URI locator type.

   Updated CDDL definition.

   Various other clarifications and editorial fixes.

   draft-ietf-anima-grasp-01, 2015-10-09:

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 46]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   Updated requirements after list discussion.

   Changed from TLV to CBOR format - many detailed changes, added co-
   author.

   Tightened up loop count and timeouts for various cases.

   Noted that GRASP does not provide transactional integrity.

   Various other clarifications and editorial fixes.

   draft-ietf-anima-grasp-00, 2015-08-14:

   File name and protocol name changed following WG adoption.

   Added URL locator type.

   draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-04, 2015-06-21:

   Tuned wording around hierarchical structure.

   Changed "device" to "ASA" in many places.

   Reformulated requirements to be clear that the ASA is the main
   customer for signaling.

   Added requirement for flooding unsolicited synch, and added it to
   protocol spec.  Recognized DNCP as alternative for flooding synch
   data.

   Requirements clarified, expanded and rearranged following design team
   discussion.

   Clarified that GDNP discovery must not be a prerequisite for GDNP
   negotiation or synchronization (resolved issue 13).

   Specified flag bits for objective options (resolved issue 15).

   Clarified usage of ACP vs TLS/DTLS and TCP vs UDP (resolved issues
   9,10,11).

   Updated DNCP description from latest DNCP draft.

   Editorial improvements.

   draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-03, 2015-04-20:

   Removed intrinsic security, required external security

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 47]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   Format changes to allow DNCP co-existence

   Recognized DNS-SD as alternative discovery method.

   Editorial improvements

   draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-02, 2015-02-19:

   Tuned requirements to clarify scope,

   Clarified relationship between types of objective,

   Clarified that objectives may be simple values or complex data
   structures,

   Improved description of objective options,

   Added loop-avoidance mechanisms (loop count and default timeout,
   limitations on discovery relaying and on unsolicited responses),

   Allow multiple discovery objectives in one response,

   Provided for missing or multiple discovery responses,

   Indicated how modes such as "dry run" should be supported,

   Minor editorial and technical corrections and clarifications,

   Reorganized future work list.

   draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-01, restructured the logical flow
   of the document, updated to describe synchronization completely, add
   unsolicited responses, numerous corrections and clarifications,
   expanded future work list, 2015-01-06.

   draft-carpenter-anima-gdn-protocol-00, combination of draft-jiang-
   config-negotiation-ps-03 and draft-jiang-config-negotiation-protocol-
   02, 2014-10-08.

10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl]
              Vigano, C. and H. Birkholz, "CBOR data definition language
              (CDDL): a notational convention to express CBOR data
              structures", draft-greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl-07 (work
              in progress), October 2015.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 48]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://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,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.

   [RFC4086]  Eastlake 3rd, D., Schiller, J., and S. Crocker,
              "Randomness Requirements for Security", BCP 106, RFC 4086,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4086, June 2005,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4086>.

   [RFC5246]  Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security
              (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5246, August 2008,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5246>.

   [RFC5280]  Cooper, D., Santesson, S., Farrell, S., Boeyen, S.,
              Housley, R., and W. Polk, "Internet X.509 Public Key
              Infrastructure Certificate and Certificate Revocation List
              (CRL) Profile", RFC 5280, DOI 10.17487/RFC5280, May 2008,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5280>.

   [RFC6347]  Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
              Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, DOI 10.17487/RFC6347,
              January 2012, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6347>.

   [RFC7049]  Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object
              Representation (CBOR)", RFC 7049, DOI 10.17487/RFC7049,
              October 2013, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7049>.

   [RFC7217]  Gont, F., "A Method for Generating Semantically Opaque
              Interface Identifiers with IPv6 Stateless Address
              Autoconfiguration (SLAAC)", RFC 7217,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7217, April 2014,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7217>.

10.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.behringer-anima-reference-model]
              Behringer, M., Carpenter, B., Eckert, T., Ciavaglia, L.,
              Liu, B., Jeff, J., and J. Strassner, "A Reference Model
              for Autonomic Networking", draft-behringer-anima-
              reference-model-04 (work in progress), October 2015.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 49]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   [I-D.chaparadza-intarea-igcp]
              Behringer, M., Chaparadza, R., Petre, R., Li, X., and H.
              Mahkonen, "IP based Generic Control Protocol (IGCP)",
              draft-chaparadza-intarea-igcp-00 (work in progress), July
              2011.

   [I-D.eckert-anima-stable-connectivity]
              Eckert, T. and M. Behringer, "Using Autonomic Control
              Plane for Stable Connectivity of Network OAM", draft-
              eckert-anima-stable-connectivity-02 (work in progress),
              October 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-anima-autonomic-control-plane]
              Behringer, M., Bjarnason, S., BL, B., and T. Eckert, "An
              Autonomic Control Plane", draft-ietf-anima-autonomic-
              control-plane-01 (work in progress), October 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra]
              Pritikin, M., Richardson, M., Behringer, M., and S.
              Bjarnason, "Bootstrapping Key Infrastructures", draft-
              ietf-anima-bootstrapping-keyinfra-01 (work in progress),
              October 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-homenet-dncp]
              Stenberg, M. and S. Barth, "Distributed Node Consensus
              Protocol", draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-12 (work in progress),
              November 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-homenet-hncp]
              Stenberg, M., Barth, S., and P. Pfister, "Home Networking
              Control Protocol", draft-ietf-homenet-hncp-10 (work in
              progress), November 2015.

   [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf]
              Bierman, A., Bjorklund, M., and K. Watsen, "RESTCONF
              Protocol", draft-ietf-netconf-restconf-09 (work in
              progress), December 2015.

   [I-D.liang-iana-pen]
              Liang, P., Melnikov, A., and D. Conrad, "Private
              Enterprise Number (PEN) practices and Internet Assigned
              Numbers Authority (IANA) registration considerations",
              draft-liang-iana-pen-06 (work in progress), July 2015.

   [I-D.stenberg-anima-adncp]
              Stenberg, M., "Autonomic Distributed Node Consensus
              Protocol", draft-stenberg-anima-adncp-00 (work in
              progress), March 2015.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 50]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   [RFC2205]  Braden, R., Ed., Zhang, L., Berson, S., Herzog, S., and S.
              Jamin, "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) -- Version 1
              Functional Specification", RFC 2205, DOI 10.17487/RFC2205,
              September 1997, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2205>.

   [RFC2608]  Guttman, E., Perkins, C., Veizades, J., and M. Day,
              "Service Location Protocol, Version 2", RFC 2608,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2608, June 1999,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2608>.

   [RFC2629]  Rose, M., "Writing I-Ds and RFCs using XML", RFC 2629,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2629, June 1999,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2629>.

   [RFC2865]  Rigney, C., Willens, S., Rubens, A., and W. Simpson,
              "Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS)",
              RFC 2865, DOI 10.17487/RFC2865, June 2000,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2865>.

   [RFC3209]  Awduche, D., Berger, L., Gan, D., Li, T., Srinivasan, V.,
              and G. Swallow, "RSVP-TE: Extensions to RSVP for LSP
              Tunnels", RFC 3209, DOI 10.17487/RFC3209, December 2001,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3209>.

   [RFC3315]  Droms, R., Ed., Bound, J., Volz, B., Lemon, T., Perkins,
              C., and M. Carney, "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
              for IPv6 (DHCPv6)", RFC 3315, DOI 10.17487/RFC3315, July
              2003, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3315>.

   [RFC3416]  Presuhn, R., Ed., "Version 2 of the Protocol Operations
              for the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)",
              STD 62, RFC 3416, DOI 10.17487/RFC3416, December 2002,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3416>.

   [RFC4861]  Narten, T., Nordmark, E., Simpson, W., and H. Soliman,
              "Neighbor Discovery for IP version 6 (IPv6)", RFC 4861,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4861, September 2007,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4861>.

   [RFC5226]  Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
              IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5226, May 2008,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5226>.

   [RFC5971]  Schulzrinne, H. and R. Hancock, "GIST: General Internet
              Signalling Transport", RFC 5971, DOI 10.17487/RFC5971,
              October 2010, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5971>.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 51]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   [RFC6206]  Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O., and J. Ko,
              "The Trickle Algorithm", RFC 6206, DOI 10.17487/RFC6206,
              March 2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6206>.

   [RFC6241]  Enns, R., Ed., Bjorklund, M., Ed., Schoenwaelder, J., Ed.,
              and A. Bierman, Ed., "Network Configuration Protocol
              (NETCONF)", RFC 6241, DOI 10.17487/RFC6241, June 2011,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6241>.

   [RFC6733]  Fajardo, V., Ed., Arkko, J., Loughney, J., and G. Zorn,
              Ed., "Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 6733,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6733, October 2012,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6733>.

   [RFC6762]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Multicast DNS", RFC 6762,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6762, February 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6762>.

   [RFC6763]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "DNS-Based Service
              Discovery", RFC 6763, DOI 10.17487/RFC6763, February 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6763>.

   [RFC6887]  Wing, D., Ed., Cheshire, S., Boucadair, M., Penno, R., and
              P. Selkirk, "Port Control Protocol (PCP)", RFC 6887,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6887, April 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6887>.

   [RFC7228]  Bormann, C., Ersue, M., and A. Keranen, "Terminology for
              Constrained-Node Networks", RFC 7228,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7228, May 2014,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7228>.

   [RFC7558]  Lynn, K., Cheshire, S., Blanchet, M., and D. Migault,
              "Requirements for Scalable DNS-Based Service Discovery
              (DNS-SD) / Multicast DNS (mDNS) Extensions", RFC 7558,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7558, July 2015,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7558>.

   [RFC7575]  Behringer, M., Pritikin, M., Bjarnason, S., Clemm, A.,
              Carpenter, B., Jiang, S., and L. Ciavaglia, "Autonomic
              Networking: Definitions and Design Goals", RFC 7575,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7575, June 2015,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7575>.

   [RFC7576]  Jiang, S., Carpenter, B., and M. Behringer, "General Gap
              Analysis for Autonomic Networking", RFC 7576,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7576, June 2015,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7576>.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 52]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

Appendix A.  Capability Analysis of Current Protocols

   This appendix discusses various existing protocols with properties
   related to the above negotiation and synchronisation requirements.
   The purpose is to evaluate whether any existing protocol, or a simple
   combination of existing protocols, can meet those requirements.

   Numerous protocols include some form of discovery, but these all
   appear to be very specific in their applicability.  Service Location
   Protocol (SLP) [RFC2608] provides service discovery for managed
   networks, but requires configuration of its own servers.  DNS-SD
   [RFC6763] combined with mDNS [RFC6762] provides service discovery for
   small networks with a single link layer.  [RFC7558] aims to extend
   this to larger autonomous networks but this is not yet standardized.
   However, both SLP and DNS-SD appear to target primarily application
   layer services, not the layer 2 and 3 objectives relevant to basic
   network configuration.  Both SLP and DNS-SD are text-based protocols.

   Routing protocols are mainly one-way information announcements.  The
   receiver makes independent decisions based on the received
   information and there is no direct feedback information to the
   announcing peer.  This remains true even though the protocol is used
   in both directions between peer routers; there is state
   synchronization, but no negotiation, and each peer runs its route
   calculations independently.

   Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) [RFC3416] uses a command/
   response model not well suited for peer negotiation.  Network
   Configuration Protocol (NETCONF) [RFC6241] uses an RPC model that
   does allow positive or negative responses from the target system, but
   this is still not adequate for negotiation.

   There are various existing protocols that have elementary negotiation
   abilities, such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol for IPv6
   (DHCPv6) [RFC3315], Neighbor Discovery (ND) [RFC4861], Port Control
   Protocol (PCP) [RFC6887], Remote Authentication Dial In User Service
   (RADIUS) [RFC2865], Diameter [RFC6733], etc.  Most of them are
   configuration or management protocols.  However, they either provide
   only a simple request/response model in a master/slave context or
   very limited negotiation abilities.

   There are some signaling protocols with an element of negotiation.
   For example Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP) [RFC2205] was
   designed for negotiating quality of service parameters along the path
   of a unicast or multicast flow.  RSVP is a very specialised protocol
   aimed at end-to-end flows.  However, it has some flexibility, having
   been extended for MPLS label distribution [RFC3209].  A more generic
   design is General Internet Signalling Transport (GIST) [RFC5971], but

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 53]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   it is complex, tries to solve many problems, and is also aimed at
   per-flow signaling across many hops rather than at device-to-device
   signaling.  However, we cannot completely exclude extended RSVP or
   GIST as a synchronization and negotiation protocol.  They do not
   appear to be directly useable for peer discovery.

   We now consider two protocols that are works in progress at the time
   of this writing.  Firstly, RESTCONF [I-D.ietf-netconf-restconf] is a
   protocol intended to convey NETCONF information expressed in the YANG
   language via HTTP, including the ability to transit HTML
   intermediaries.  While this is a powerful approach in the context of
   centralised configuration of a complex network, it is not well
   adapted to efficient interactive negotiation between peer devices,
   especially simple ones that are unlikely to include YANG processing
   already.

   Secondly, we consider Distributed Node Consensus Protocol (DNCP)
   [I-D.ietf-homenet-dncp].  This is defined as a generic form of state
   synchronization protocol, with a proposed usage profile being the
   Home Networking Control Protocol (HNCP) [I-D.ietf-homenet-hncp] for
   configuring Homenet routers.  A specific application of DNCP for
   autonomic networking was proposed in [I-D.stenberg-anima-adncp].

   DNCP "is designed to provide a way for each participating node to
   publish a set of TLV (Type-Length-Value) tuples, and to provide a
   shared and common view about the data published... DNCP is most
   suitable for data that changes only infrequently... If constant rapid
   state changes are needed, the preferable choice is to use an
   additional point-to-point channel..."

   Specific features of DNCP include:

   o  Every participating node has a unique node identifier.

   o  DNCP messages are encoded as a sequence of TLV objects, sent over
      unicast UDP or TCP, with or without (D)TLS security.

   o  Multicast is used only for discovery of DNCP neighbors when lower
      security is acceptable.

   o  Synchronization of state is maintained by a flooding process using
      the Trickle algorithm.  There is no bilateral synchronization or
      negotiation capability.

   o  The HNCP profile of DNCP is designed to operate between directly
      connected neighbors on a shared link using UDP and link-local IPv6
      addresses.

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 54]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   DNCP does not meet the needs of a general negotiation protocol,
   because it is designed specifically for flooding synchronization.
   Also, in its HNCP profile it is limited to link-local messages and to
   IPv6.  However, at the minimum it is a very interesting test case for
   this style of interaction between devices without needing a central
   authority, and it is a proven method of network-wide state
   synchronization by flooding.

   A proposal was made some years ago for an IP based Generic Control
   Protocol (IGCP) [I-D.chaparadza-intarea-igcp].  This was aimed at
   information exchange and negotiation but not directly at peer
   discovery.  However, it has many points in common with the present
   work.

   None of the above solutions appears to completely meet the needs of
   generic discovery, state synchronization and negotiation in a single
   solution.  Many of the protocols assume that they are working in a
   traditional top-down or north-south scenario, rather than a fluid
   peer-to-peer scenario.  Most of them are specialized in one way or
   another.  As a result, we have not identified a combination of
   existing protocols that meets the requirements in Section 2.  Also,
   we have not identified a path by which one of the existing protocols
   could be extended to meet the requirements.

Authors' Addresses

   Carsten Bormann
   Universitaet Bremen TZI
   Postfach 330440
   D-28359 Bremen
   Germany

   Email: cabo@tzi.org

   Brian Carpenter (editor)
   Department of Computer Science
   University of Auckland
   PB 92019
   Auckland  1142
   New Zealand

   Email: brian.e.carpenter@gmail.com

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 55]
Internet-Draft                    GRASP                     January 2016

   Bing Liu (editor)
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd
   Q14, Huawei Campus
   No.156 Beiqing Road
   Hai-Dian District, Beijing  100095
   P.R. China

   Email: leo.liubing@huawei.com

Bormann, et al.           Expires July 16, 2016                [Page 56]