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Advertising Proxy for DNS-SD Service Registration Protocol
draft-ietf-dnssd-advertising-proxy-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Authors Stuart Cheshire , Ted Lemon
Last updated 2022-01-12
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draft-ietf-dnssd-advertising-proxy-00
DNSSD                                                        S. Cheshire
Internet-Draft                                                  T. Lemon
Intended status: Standards Track                              Apple Inc.
Expires: 16 July 2022                                    12 January 2022

       Advertising Proxy for DNS-SD Service Registration Protocol
                 draft-ietf-dnssd-advertising-proxy-00

Abstract

   An Advertising Proxy allows a device that accepts service
   registrations using Service Registration Protocol (SRP) to make those
   registrations visible to legacy clients that only implement Multicast
   DNS.

Status of This Memo

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

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 16 July 2022.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2022 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 (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.
   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Conventions and Terminology Used in This Document . . . .   3
   2.  Advertising Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Name Conflicts  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
       2.1.1.  Name Conflicts in Managed Namespaces  . . . . . . . .   5
     2.2.  Data Translation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.3.  No Text-Encoding Translation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.4.  No Address Suppression  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.5.  No Support for Reconfirm  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   3.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   4.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10

1.  Introduction

   DNS-Based Service Discovery [RFC6763] [ROADMAP] was designed to
   facilitate Zero Configuration IP Networking [RFC6760] [ZC].
   When used with Multicast DNS [RFC6762] with ".local" domain names
   [RFC6761] this works well on a single link (a single broadcast
   domain).

   There is also a desire to have DNS-Based Service Discovery work
   between multiple links that aren't part of the same broadcast domain
   [RFC7558].  Even within a single Wi-Fi broadcast domain it is
   beneficial to reduce multicast traffic, because, in comparison to
   Wi-Fi unicast traffic, Wi-Fi multicast is inefficient, slow, and
   unreliable [MCAST].

   There are three complementary ways that this move towards decreased
   reliance on multicast is achieved.

   One variant is pure end-to-end unicast, with services using unicast
   Service Registration Protocol [SRP] to register with a service
   registry, and clients using unicast DNS Push Notification
   subscriptions [RFC8765] over DNS Stateful Operations [RFC8490] to
   communicate with the service registry to discover and track changes
   to those registered services.

   A second variant is a hybrid approach that facilitates legacy devices
   that only implement link-local Multicast DNS (like your ten-year-old
   network laser printer) having their services discovered by remote
   clients using a unicast DNS Push Notifications session to a Discovery
   Proxy [RFC8766].

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   The third variant, documented here, is a logical complement to the
   second variant.  It enables legacy clients (that only implement link-
   local Multicast DNS) to discover services registered (using unicast)
   with a service registry.  The service registry accepts service
   registrations using unicast Service Registration Protocol [SRP], and
   makes those service registrations visible, both to remote clients
   using unicast DNS Push Notifications [RFC8765] and, using the
   Advertising Proxy mechanism documented here, to local clients using
   Multicast DNS [RFC6762].

1.1.  Conventions and Terminology Used in This Document

   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
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

2.  Advertising Proxy

   An Advertising Proxy can be a component of any DNS authoritative
   server, though it logically makes most sense as a component of a
   service registry (a DNS authoritative server that implements Service
   Registration Protocol [SRP]).  A client can send registration
   requests for any valid DNS records to a service registry, though in
   practice the most common use is to register the PTR, SRV and TXT
   records that describe a DNS-SD service [RFC6763], and the A and AAAA
   records that give the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of the target host
   where that service can be reached.

   When a service registry accepts a registration request for DNS
   records, a service registry that implements an Advertising Proxy also
   advertises equivalent records using Multicast DNS on one or more
   configured local multicast-capable interfaces.  An Advertising Proxy
   could also advertise on one or more configured remote multicast-
   capable interfaces using a Multicast DNS Relay [RELAY].  For the
   purposes of this document, a local multicast-capable interface
   directly attached to the host and a remote multicast-capable
   interface connected via a relay are considered to be equivalent.

2.1.  Name Conflicts

   In the event that an SRP client attempts to register a record with a
   name that was already created in that registry by a different SRP
   client, or is otherwise disallowed by policy, a name conflict is
   reported and the new client is required to choose a new name.

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   Similarly, Multicast DNS implements first-come-first-served name
   allocation.  When a registered record is advertised using Multicast
   DNS it may suffer a name conflict if a conflicting Multicast DNS
   record with that name already exists on that link.  In the case of
   network failure and subsequent recovery, Multicast DNS can also
   signal name conflicts at a later time during the life of a record
   registration.  For example, if the network link is partitioned at the
   time of record registration, the name conflict may not be discovered
   until later when the partition is healed.

   Specifically, a name conflict can occur:

   1.  During the SRP validation process, because another SRP client has
       already registered the same name.

   2.  Immediately while the Advertising Proxy is registering the name,
       if the Multicast DNS uniqueness probes detect a conflicting
       record.

   3.  After the name has been successfully registered, but before the
       response has been sent to the client.

   4.  After the initial response has been sent to the client.

   In the first three cases, the client can be notified of the conflict
   at the time of registration, and is expected to choose a new name.
   In the last case, SRP clients must be coded defensively to handle the
   case where an apparently successful record registration is later
   determined to be in conflict, just as existing Multicast DNS clients
   have to be coded defensively to handle late conflicts gracefully.
   With a sleepy SRP client there may be no way to notify it of the
   conflict until it next re-registers.  In the case of late conflicts,
   the service registry with Advertising Proxy capability is responsible
   for selecting a temporary new name to be used until the client
   renews.  When the client next renews, the service registry informs
   the client of the new name the service registry selected on its
   behalf.  The client can choose to accept that new name, or select a
   new name of its own choosing.

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   The registration process has several steps.  First the hostname
   claimed by the SRP client must be registered.  Once this has
   succeeded, the Advertising Proxy can register all of the service
   instances that point to that hostname.  When all of these
   registrations have succeeded, the service registry can finally send
   its response to the SRP client.  If any of them fail, they must all
   be removed and the client notified of the failure.  If the failure is
   a result of a name conflict, the response code should be YXDOMAIN.
   Other SRP failures are documented in the SRP specification.  Any
   other failures not contemplated in the SRP specification return
   SERVFAIL.

2.1.1.  Name Conflicts in Managed Namespaces

   In some cases, the name conflict resolution behavior described above
   is neither needed nor desirable.  For instance, when the set of
   expected SRP clients is known to include only clients added with some
   kind of commissioning or on-boarding protocol that guarantees that
   hostnames are unique, it may cause serious problems to rename such a
   device.

   In this situation, the Advertising Proxy behavior should be
   different: it should be assumed that all names registered with SRP
   that survive SRP's first-come, first-serve name conflict detection
   are indeed as intended.  Any conflict that may be discovered as a
   result of advertising those names using mDNS can be assumed to either
   be an error or an attack, and there is no benefit to renaming such a
   device: it will not be usable under its new name.

   In this case, the Advertising Proxy simply performs normal SRP first-
   come, first-serve naming and then updates its local idea of the SRP
   namespace.  This update is then reflected in mDNS.  If a conflict is
   detected, the Advertising Proxy schedules a new attempt to claim the
   name at some time in the future: long enough that these re-attempts
   to not generate excessive multicast traffic, but short enough that an
   accidental conflict is cured in a reasonable timeframe.

   The downside to this approach is that if the device on the multicast
   network persists in claiming the name, the SRP client that claimed it
   will be unreachable.  Networks that use Advertising Proxies
   configured to behave in this way should provide a way to rename the
   device that is suffering the conflict.  However, if the failure is
   the result of a malicious attack by a device on the multicast
   network, that device will have to be identified and removed before
   the attack can be eliminated.

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   In order to address this problem, it may be advisable to provide with
   a way for the advertising proxy to inform the mDNS service that it
   should continue to advertise the name that is in conflict, rather
   than ceasing to do so when the conflict is detected.

2.2.  Data Translation

   As with a Discovery Proxy [RFC8766] some translation needs to be
   performed before the Advertising Proxy makes the registered unicast
   data visible using Multicast DNS.  Specifically, the unicast DNS
   domain name suffix configured for Advertising Proxy use is stripped
   off and replaced with the top-level label "local".

2.3.  No Text-Encoding Translation

   As with a Discovery Proxy [RFC8766], an Advertising Proxy does no
   translation between text encodings [RFC6055].  Specifically, an
   Advertising Proxy does no translation between Punycode encoding
   [RFC3492] and UTF-8 encoding [RFC3629], either in the owner name of
   DNS records or anywhere in the RDATA of DNS records (such as the
   RDATA of PTR records, SRV records, NS records, or other record types
   like TXT, where it is ambiguous whether the RDATA may contain DNS
   names).  All bytes are treated as-is with no attempt at text-encoding
   translation.  A server implementing DNS-based Service Discovery
   [RFC6763] will use UTF-8 encoding for its unicast DNS-based record
   registrations, which the Advertising Proxy passes through without any
   text-encoding translation to the Multicast DNS subsystem.  Queries
   from peers on the configured multicast-capable interface are answered
   directly from the advertised data without any text-encoding
   translation.

2.4.  No Address Suppression

   Unlike a Discovery Proxy [RFC8766], an Advertising Proxy does not
   need to selectively suppress link-local [RFC3927] [RFC4862] or other
   addresses.  Since the clients of the service registry are registering
   their records in a unicast DNS namespace, there is a presumption they
   they will only register addresses with sufficient scope to be usable
   by the anticipated clients.  No further filtering or suppression by
   the service registry is required.  In most cases it is acceptable for
   devices registering with a service registry to register all of their
   available addresses, and a client implementing Happy Eyeballs
   [RFC8305] connecting to that service will automatically select an
   appropriate address to use.

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2.5.  No Support for Reconfirm

   For network efficiency, Multicast DNS [RFC6762] uses fairly long
   record lifetimes (typically 75 minutes).  When a client is unable to
   reach a service that it discovered, Multicast DNS provides a
   "reconfirm" mechanism that enables the client to signal to the
   Multicast DNS subsystem that its cached data may be suspect, which
   causes the Multicast DNS subsystem to reissue queries, and remove the
   stale records if the queries are not answered.

   Similarly, when using unicast service discovery with a Discovery
   Proxy [RFC8766], the DNS Push Notifications [RFC8765] protocol
   provides the RECONFIRM mechanism to signal that the Discovery Proxy
   should perform a local Multicast DNS reconfirm operation to re-verify
   the validity of the records.

   When an Advertising Proxy is used, to support legacy clients that
   only implement Multicast DNS, reconfirm operations have no effect.
   If a device uses unicast Service Registration Protocol [SRP] to
   register its services with a service registry with Advertising Proxy
   capability, and the device then gets disconnected from the network,
   the Advertising Proxy will continue to advertise those records until
   the registrations expire.  If a client discovers the service instance
   using Multicast DNS and is unable to reach it, and uses a Multicast
   DNS reconfirm operation to re-verify the validity of the records,
   then the Advertising Proxy will continue to answer on behalf of the
   departed device until the record registrations expire.  The
   Advertising Proxy has no reliable way to determine whether the
   additional Multicast DNS queries are due to a reconfirm operation, or
   due to other routine causes, like a client being rebooted, or
   disconnecting and then reconnecting to the network.  The service
   registry has no reliable automatic way to determine whether a device
   that registered records has failed or disconnected from the network.
   Particularly with sleepy battery powered devices, the service
   registry does not know what active duty cycle any given service is
   expected to provide.

   Consequently, reconfirm operations are not supported with an
   Advertising Proxy.  In cases where use of the reconfirm mechanism is
   important, clients should be upgraded to use the unicast DNS Push
   Notifications [RFC8765] protocol's RECONFIRM message.  This RECONFIRM
   message provides an unambiguous signal to the service registry that
   it may be retaining stale records.  (A future update to the Service
   Registration Protocol document [SRP] will consider ways that this
   unambiguous signal can be used to trigger expedited removal of stale
   data.)

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3.  Security Considerations

   An Advertising Proxy may made data visible to eavesdroppers on the
   configured multicast-capable link(s).

4.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

5.  References

5.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC6760]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Requirements for a Protocol
              to Replace the AppleTalk Name Binding Protocol (NBP)",
              RFC 6760, DOI 10.17487/RFC6760, February 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6760>.

   [RFC6761]  Cheshire, S. and M. Krochmal, "Special-Use Domain Names",
              RFC 6761, DOI 10.17487/RFC6761, February 2013,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6761>.

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

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

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8490]  Bellis, R., Cheshire, S., Dickinson, J., Dickinson, S.,
              Lemon, T., and T. Pusateri, "DNS Stateful Operations",
              RFC 8490, DOI 10.17487/RFC8490, March 2019,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8490>.

   [RFC8765]  Pusateri, T. and S. Cheshire, "DNS Push Notifications",
              RFC 8765, DOI 10.17487/RFC8765, June 2020,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8765>.

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   [SRP]      Lemon, T. and S. Cheshire, "Service Registration Protocol
              for DNS-Based Service Discovery", Work in Progress,
              Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-dnssd-srp-12, 24 October 2021,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-dnssd-
              srp-12>.

5.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3492]  Costello, A., "Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode
              for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications
              (IDNA)", RFC 3492, DOI 10.17487/RFC3492, March 2003,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3492>.

   [RFC3629]  Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
              10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, DOI 10.17487/RFC3629, November
              2003, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3629>.

   [RFC3927]  Cheshire, S., Aboba, B., and E. Guttman, "Dynamic
              Configuration of IPv4 Link-Local Addresses", RFC 3927,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3927, May 2005,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3927>.

   [RFC4862]  Thomson, S., Narten, T., and T. Jinmei, "IPv6 Stateless
              Address Autoconfiguration", RFC 4862,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC4862, September 2007,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4862>.

   [RFC6055]  Thaler, D., Klensin, J., and S. Cheshire, "IAB Thoughts on
              Encodings for Internationalized Domain Names", RFC 6055,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6055, February 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6055>.

   [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,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7558>.

   [RFC8305]  Schinazi, D. and T. Pauly, "Happy Eyeballs Version 2:
              Better Connectivity Using Concurrency", RFC 8305,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC8305, December 2017,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8305>.

   [RFC8766]  Cheshire, S., "Discovery Proxy for Multicast DNS-Based
              Service Discovery", RFC 8766, DOI 10.17487/RFC8766, June
              2020, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8766>.

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   [MCAST]    Perkins, C. E., McBride, M., Stanley, D., Kumari, W., and
              J. C. Zuniga, "Multicast Considerations over IEEE 802
              Wireless Media", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
              ietf-mboned-ieee802-mcast-problems-15, 28 July 2021,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-mboned-
              ieee802-mcast-problems-15>.

   [RELAY]    Lemon, T. and S. Cheshire, "Multicast DNS Discovery
              Relay", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
              dnssd-mdns-relay-04, 22 February 2021,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-dnssd-
              mdns-relay-04>.

   [ROADMAP]  Cheshire, S., "Service Discovery Road Map", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-cheshire-dnssd-roadmap-03,
              23 October 2018, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-cheshire-dnssd-roadmap-03>.

   [ZC]       Cheshire, S. and D. H. Steinberg, "Zero Configuration
              Networking: The Definitive Guide", O'Reilly Media, Inc.,
              ISBN 0-596-10100-7, December 2005.

Authors' Addresses

   Stuart Cheshire
   Apple Inc.
   One Apple Park Way
   Cupertino, California 95014
   United States of America

   Phone: +1 (408) 996-1010
   Email: cheshire@apple.com

   Ted Lemon
   Apple Inc.
   One Apple Park Way
   Cupertino, California 95014
   United States of America

   Phone: +1 (408) 996-1010
   Email: elemon@apple.com

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