Size-Limited Bi-directional Remote Procedure Call On Remote Direct Memory Access Transports
draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpcrdma-bidirection-00
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type | Active Internet-Draft (nfsv4 WG) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author | Chuck Lever | ||
| Last updated | 2015-06-01 | ||
| Stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | plain text xml pdf ps htmlized pdfized bibtex | ||
| Reviews |
SECDIR Last Call review
(of
-06)
Has Nits
GENART Last Call review
(of
-06)
Ready with Nits
|
||
| Stream | WG state | WG Document | |
| Document shepherd | (None) | ||
| IESG | IESG state | I-D Exists | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Unknown | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | (None) | ||
| Send notices to | (None) |
draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpcrdma-bidirection-00
NFSv4 C. Lever
Internet-Draft Oracle
Intended status: Experimental May 29, 2015
Expires: November 30, 2015
Size-Limited Bi-directional Remote Procedure Call On Remote Direct
Memory Access Transports
draft-ietf-nfsv4-rpcrdma-bidirection-00
Abstract
Recent minor versions of NFSv4 work best when ONC RPC transports can
send ONC RPC transactions in both directions. This document
describes conventions that enable RPC-over-RDMA version 1 transport
endpoints to interoperate when operation in both directions is
necessary.
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 November 30, 2015.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 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
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
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Scope Of This Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Understanding RPC Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3.1. Forward Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.2. Backward Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.3. Bi-direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.4. XID Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Rationale For RPC-over-RDMA Bi-Direction . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.1. NFSv4.0 Callback Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.4.2. NFSv4.1 Callback Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5. Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5.1. Backward Compatibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.2. Performance Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.3. Server Memory Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5.4. Payload Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Conventions For Backward Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1. Flow Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.1.1. Forward Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1.2. Backward Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2. Managing Receive Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1. Client Receive Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.2. Server Receive Buffers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2.3. In the Absense of Backward Direction Support . . . . 10
2.3. Backward Direction Retransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.4. Backward Direction Message Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.5. Sending A Backward Direction Call . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.6. Sending A Backward Direction Reply . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. Limits To This Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1. Payload Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2. Preparedness To Handle Backward Requests . . . . . . . . 13
3.3. Long Term . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1. Introduction
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
1.1. Requirements Language
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
1.2. Scope Of This Document
This document describes a set of experimental conventions that apply
to RPC-over-RDMA version 1, specified in [RFC5666]. When observed,
these conventions enable RPC-over-RDMA version 1 endpoints to
concurrently handle RPC transactions that flow from client to server
and from server to client.
These conventions can be observed when using the existing the RPC-
over-RDMA version 1 protocol definition. Therefore this document
does not update [RFC5666].
The purpose of this document is to permit interoperable prototype
implementations of bi-directional RPC-over-RDMA, enabling the use of
NFSv4.1 (including pNFS and later NFSv4 minor versions) on RDMA
transports.
Providing an Upper Layer Binding for NFSv4.x callback operations is
outside the scope of this document.
1.3. Understanding RPC Direction
The ONC RPC protocol as described in [RFC5531] is fundamentally a
message-passing protocol involving one server and perhaps multiple
clients. ONC RPC transactions are made up of two types of messages.
A CALL message, or "call", requests work. A call is designated by
the value CALL in the message's msg_type field. An arbitrary unique
value is placed in the message's xid field. A host that originates a
call is referred to in this document as a "caller."
A REPLY message, or "reply", reports the results of work requested by
a call. A reply is designated by the value REPLY in the message's
msg_type field. The value contained in the message's xid field is
copied from the call whose results are being reported. A host that
emits a reply is referred to as a "responder."
RPC-over-RDMA is a connection-oriented RPC transport. When a
connection-oriented transport is used, ONC RPC client endpoints are
responsible for initiating transport connections, while ONC RPC
service endpoints wait passively for incoming connection requests.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
We do not consider RPC direction on connectionless RPC transports in
this document.
1.3.1. Forward Direction
A traditional ONC RPC client is always a caller. A traditional ONC
RPC service is always a responder. This traditional form of ONC RPC
message passing is referred to as operation in the "forward
direction."
During forward direction operation, the ONC RPC client is responsible
for establishing transport connections.
1.3.2. Backward Direction
The ONC RPC standard does not forbid passing messages in the other
direction. An ONC RPC service endpoint can act as a caller, in which
case an ONC RPC client endpoint acts as a responder. This form of
message passing is referred to as operation in the "backward
direction."
During backward direction operation, the ONC RPC client is
responsible for establishing transport connections, even though ONC
RPC calls may come from the ONC RPC server.
ONC RPC clients and services are optimized to perform and scale well
while handling traffic in the forward direction, and may not be
prepared to handle operation in the backward direction. Not until
recently has there been a need to handle backward direction
operation.
1.3.3. Bi-direction
A pair of endpoints may choose to use only forward or only backward
direction operations on a particular transport. Or, the endpoints
may send operations in both directions concurrently on the same
transport.
Bi-directional operation occurs when both transport endpoints act as
a caller and a responder at the same time. As above, the ONC RPC
client is responsible for establishing transport connections.
1.3.4. XID Values
Section 9 of [RFC5531] introduces the ONC RPC transaction identifier,
or "xid" for short. The value of an xid is interpreted in the
context of the message's msg_type field.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
o The xid of a call is arbitrary but is unique among outstanding
calls from that caller.
o The xid of a reply always matches that of the initiating call.
A caller matches the xid value in each reply with a call it
previously sent.
1.3.4.1. XIDs with Bi-direction
During bi-directional operation, the forward and backward directions
use independent xid spaces.
In other words, a forward direction caller MAY use the same xid value
at the same time as a backward direction caller on the same transport
connection. Though such concurrent requests use the same xid value,
they represent distinct ONC RPC transactions.
1.4. Rationale For RPC-over-RDMA Bi-Direction
1.4.1. NFSv4.0 Callback Operation
An NFSv4.0 client employs a traditional ONC RPC client to send NFS
requests to an NFSv4.0 server's traditional ONC RPC service
[RFC7530]. NFSv4.0 requests flow in the forward direction on a
connection established by the client. This connection is referred to
as a "forechannel."
NFSv4.0 introduces the use of callback operations, or "callbacks", in
Section 10.2 of [RFC7530], for managing file delegation. An NFSv4.0
server sets up a traditional ONC RPC client, and an NFSv4.0 client
sets up a traditional ONC RPC service to handle callbacks. Callbacks
flow in the forward direction on a connection established by an
NFSv4.0 server. This connection is distinct from connections being
used as forechannels. This connection is referred to as a
"backchannel."
When an RDMA transport is used as a forechannel, an NFSv4.0 client
typically provides a TCP callback service. The client's SETCLIENTID
operation advertises the callback service endpoint with a "tcp" or
"tcp6" netid. The server then connects to this service using a TCP
socket.
NFSv4.0 implementations are fully functional without a backchannel in
place. In this case, the server does not grant file delegations.
This might result in a negative performance effect, but functional
correctness is unaffected.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
1.4.2. NFSv4.1 Callback Operation
NFSv4.1 supports file delegation in a similar fashion to NFSv4.0, and
extends the repertoire of callbacks to manage pNFS layouts, as
discussed in Chapter 12 of [RFC5661].
For various reasons, NFSv4.1 requires that all transport connections
be initiated by NFSv4.1 clients. Therefore, NFSv4.1 servers send
callbacks to clients in the backward direction on connections
established by NFSv4.1 clients.
An NFSv4.1 client or server indicates to its peer that a backchannel
capability is available on a given transport when sending a
CREATE_SESSION or BIND_CONN_TO_SESSION operation.
NFSv4.1 clients may establish distinct transport connections for
forechannel and backchannel operation, or they may combine
forechannel and backchannel operation on one transport connection
using bi-directional operation.
When an RDMA transport is used as a forechannel, an NFSv4.1 client
must additionally connect using a transport with backward direction
capability to use as a backchannel. Without a backward direction
RPC-over-RDMA capability, TCP is the only choice at present for an
NFSv4.1 backchannel connection.
Some implementations find it more convenient to use a single combined
transport (ie. a transport that is capable of bi-directional
operation). This simplifies connection establishment and recovery
during network partitions or when one endpoint restarts.
As with NFSv4.0, if a backchannel is not in use, an NFSv4.1 server
does not grant delegations. But because of its reliance on callbacks
to manage pNFS layout state, pNFS operation is not possible without a
backchannel.
1.5. Design Considerations
As of this writing, the only use case for backward direction ONC RPC
messages is the NFSv4.1 backchannel. The conventions described in
this document take advantage of certain characteristics of NFSv4.1
callbacks, namely:
o NFSv4.1 callbacks typically bear small argument and result
payloads
o NFSv4.1 callback payloads are insensitive to alignment relative to
system pages
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
o NFSv4.1 callbacks are infrequent relative to forechannel
operations
1.5.1. Backward Compatibility
Existing clients that implement RPC-over-RDMA version 1 should
interoperate correctly with servers that implement RPC-over-RDMA with
backward direction support, and vice versa.
The approach taken here avoids altering the RPC-over-RDMA version 1
XDR specification. Keeping the XDR the same enables existing RPC-
over-RDMA version 1 implementations to interoperate with
implementations that support operation in the backward direction.
1.5.2. Performance Impact
Support for operation in the backward direction should never impact
the performance or scalability of forward direction operation, where
the bulk of ONC RPC transport activity typically occurs.
1.5.3. Server Memory Security
RDMA transfers involve one endpoint exposing a section of its memory
to the other endpoint, which then drives RDMA READ and WRITE
operations to access or modify the exposed memory. RPC-over-RDMA
client endpoints expose their memory, and RPC-over-RDMA server
endpoints initiate RDMA data transfer operations.
If RDMA transfers are not used for backward direction operations,
there is no need for servers to expose their memory to clients.
Further, this avoids the client complexity required to drive RDMA
transfers.
1.5.4. Payload Size
Small RPC-over-RDMA messages are conveyed using only RDMA SEND
operations. SEND is used to transmit both ONC RPC calls and replies.
To send a large payload, an RPC-over-RDMA client endpoint registers a
region of memory known as a chunk, and transmits its coordinates to a
server endpoint, who uses an RDMA transfer to move data to or from
the client. See Sections 3.1, 3.2, and 3.4 of [RFC5666].
To transmit RPC-over-RDMA messages larger than the receive buffer
size (typically 1024 bytes), a chunk must be used. For example, in
an RDMA_NOMSG type message, the entire RPC header and Upper Layer
payload are contained in chunks. See Section 5.1 of [RFC5666] for
details.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
If chunks are not allowed to be used for conveying backward direction
messages, an RDMA_NOMSG type message cannot be used to convey a
backward direction message using the conventions described in this
document. Therefore, backward direction messages sent using the
conventions in this document can be no larger than a single receive
buffer.
Stipulating such a limit on backward direction message size assumes
that either Upper Layer Protocol consumers of backward direction
messages can advertise this limit to peers, or that ULP consumers can
agree by convention on a maximum size of their backchannel payloads.
In addition, using only inline forms of RPC-over-RDMA messages and
never populating the RPC-over-RDMA chunk lists means that the RPC
header's msg_type field is always at a fixed location in messages
flowing in the backward direction, allowing efficient detection of
the direction of an RPC-over-RDMA message.
With few exceptions, NFSv4.1 servers can break down callback requests
so they fit within this limit. There are potentially large NFSv4.1
callback operations, such as a CB_GETATTR operation where a large ACL
must be conveyed. Although we are not aware of any NFSv4.1
implementation that uses CB_GETATTR, this state of affairs is not
guaranteed in perpetuity.
2. Conventions For Backward Operation
Performing backward direction ONC RPC operations over an RPC-over-
RDMA transport can be accomplished within limits by observing the
conventions described in the following subsections. For reference,
the XDR description of RPC-over-RDMA version 1 is contained in
Section 4.3 of [RFC5666].
2.1. Flow Control
For an RDMA SEND operation to work, the receiving consumer must have
posted an RDMA RECV Work Request to provide a receive buffer in which
to capture the incoming message. If a receiver hasn't posted enough
RECV WRs to catch incoming SEND operations, the RDMA provider is
allowed to drop the RDMA connection.
The RPC-over-RDMA version 1 protocol provides built-in send flow
control to prevent overrunning the number of pre-posted receive
buffers on a connection's receive endpoint. This is fully discussed
in Section 3.3 of [RFC5666].
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
2.1.1. Forward Credits
An RPC-over-RDMA credit is roughly the capability to handle one RPC-
over-RDMA transaction. Each forward direction RPC-over-RDMA call
requests a number of credits from the responder. Each forward
direction reply informs the caller how many credits the responder is
prepared to handle in total. The value of the request and grant are
carried in each RPC-over-RDMA message's rdma_credit field.
Practically speaking, the critical value is the value of the
rdma_credit field in RPC-over-RDMA replies. When a caller is
operating correctly, it sends no more outstanding requests at a time
than the responder's advertised forward direction credit value.
The credit value is a guaranteed minimum. However, a receiver can
post more receive buffers than its credit value. There is no
requirement in the RPC-over-RDMA protocol for a receiver to indicate
a credit overrun. Operation continues as long as there are enough
receive buffers to handle incoming messages.
2.1.2. Backward Credits
Credits work the same way in the backward direction as they do in the
forward direction. However, forward direction credits and backward
direction credits are accounted separately.
In other words, the forward direction credit value is the same
whether or not there are backward direction resources associated with
an RPC-over-RDMA transport connection. The backward direction credit
value MAY be different than the forward direction credit value. The
rdma_credit field in a backward direction RPC-over-RDMA message MUST
NOT contain the value zero.
A backward direction caller (an RPC-over-RDMA service endpoint)
requests credits from the responder (an RPC-over-RDMA client
endpoint). The responder reports how many credits it can grant.
This is the number of backward direction calls the responder is
prepared to handle at once.
When an RPC-over-RDMA server endpoint is operating correctly, it
sends no more outstanding requests at a time than the client
endpoint's advertised backward direction credit value.
2.2. Managing Receive Buffers
An RPC-over-RDMA transport endpoint must pre-post receive buffers
before it can receive and process incoming RPC-over-RDMA messages.
If a sender transmits a message for a receiver which has no prepared
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
receive buffer, the RDMA provider is allowed to drop the RDMA
connection.
2.2.1. Client Receive Buffers
Typically an RPC-over-RDMA caller posts only as many receive buffers
as there are outstanding RPC calls. A client endpoint without
backward direction support might therefore at times have no pre-
posted receive buffers.
To receive incoming backward direction calls, an RPC-over-RDMA client
endpoint must pre-post enough additional receive buffers to match its
advertised backward direction credit value. Each outstanding forward
direction RPC requires an additional receive buffer above this
minimum.
When an RDMA transport connection is lost, all active receive buffers
are flushed and are no longer available to receive incoming messages.
When a fresh transport connection is established, a client endpoint
must re-post a receive buffer to handle the reply for each
retransmitted forward direction call, and a full set of receive
buffers to handle backward direction calls.
2.2.2. Server Receive Buffers
A forward direction RPC-over-RDMA service endpoint posts as many
receive buffers as it expects incoming forward direction calls. That
is, it posts no fewer buffers than the number of RPC-over-RDMA
credits it advertises in the rdma_credit field of forward direction
RPC replies.
To receive incoming backward direction replies, an RPC-over-RDMA
server endpoint must pre-post a receive buffer for each backward
direction call it sends.
When the existing transport connection is lost, all active receive
buffers are flushed and are no longer available to receive incoming
messages. When a fresh transport connection is established, a server
endpoint must re-post a receive buffer to handle the reply for each
retransmitted backward direction call, and a full set of receive
buffers for receiving forward direction calls.
2.2.3. In the Absense of Backward Direction Support
An RPC-over-RDMA transport endpoint might not support backward
direction operation. There might be no mechanism in the
implementation to do so. Or the Upper Layer Protocol consumer might
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
not yet have configured the transport to handle backward direction
traffic.
A loss of the RDMA connection may result if the receiver is not
prepared to receive an incoming message. Thus a denial-of-service
could result if a sender continues to send backchannel messages after
every transport reconnect to an endpoint that is not prepared to
receive them.
Generally, for RPC-over-RDMA version 1 transports, the Upper Layer
Protocol consumer is responsible for informing its peer when it has
no support for the backward direction. Otherwise even a simple
backward direction NULL probe from a peer would result in a lost
connection.
An NFSv4.1 server should never send backchannel messages to an
NFSv4.1 client before the NFSv4.1 client has sent a CREATE_SESSION or
a BIND_CONN_TO_SESSION operation. As long as an NFSv4.1 client has
prepared appropriate backchannel resources before sending one of
these operations, denial-of-service is avoided. Legacy versions of
NFS should never send backchannel operations.
Therefore, an Upper Layer Protocol consumer MUST NOT perform backward
direction ONC RPC operations unless the peer consumer has indicated
it is prepared to handle them. A description of Upper Layer Protocol
mechanisms used for this indication is outside the scope of this
document.
2.3. Backward Direction Retransmission
In rare cases, an ONC RPC transaction cannot be completed within a
certain time. This can be because the transport connection was lost,
the call or reply message was dropped, or because the Upper Layer
consumer delayed or dropped the ONC RPC request. Typically, the
caller sends the transaction again, reusing the same RPC XID. This
is known as an "RPC retransmission".
In the forward direction, the caller is the ONC RPC client. The
client is always responsible for establishing a transport connection
before sending again.
In the backward direction, the caller is the ONC RPC server. Because
an ONC RPC server does not establish transport connections with
clients, it cannot send a retransmission if there is no transport
connection. It must wait for the ONC RPC client to re-establish the
transport connection before it can retransmit ONC RPC transactions in
the backward direction.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
If an ONC RPC client has no work to do, it may be some time before it
re-establishes a transport connection. Backward direction callers
must be prepared to wait indefinitely before a connection is
established before a pending backward direction ONC RPC call can be
retransmitted.
2.4. Backward Direction Message Size
RPC-over-RDMA backward direction messages are transmitted and
received using the same buffers as messages in the forward direction.
Therefore they are constrained to be no larger than receive buffers
posted for forward messages. Typical implementations have chosen to
use 1024-byte buffers.
It is expected that the Upper Layer Protocol consumer establishes an
appropriate payload size limit for backward direction operations,
either by advertising that size limit to its peers, or by convention.
If that is done, backward direction messages would not exceed the
size of receive buffers at either endpoint.
If a sender transmits a backward direction message that is larger
than the receiver is prepared for, the RDMA provider drops the
message and the RDMA connection.
If a sender transmits an RDMA message that is too small to convey a
complete and valid RPC-over-RDMA and RPC message in either direction,
the receiver MUST NOT use any value in the fields that were
transmitted. Namely, the rdma_credit field MUST be ignored, and the
message dropped.
2.5. Sending A Backward Direction Call
To form a backward direction RPC-over-RDMA call message on an RPC-
over-RDMA version 1 transport, an ONC RPC service endpoint constructs
an RPC-over-RDMA header containing a fresh RPC XID in the rdma_xid
field (see Section 1.3.4 for full requirements).
The rdma_vers field MUST contain the value one. The number of
requested credits is placed in the rdma_credit field (see
Section 2.1).
The rdma_proc field in the RPC-over-RDMA header MUST contain the
value RDMA_MSG. All three chunk lists MUST be empty.
The ONC RPC call header MUST follow immediately, starting with the
same XID value that is present in the RPC-over-RDMA header. The call
header's msg_type field MUST contain the value CALL.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
2.6. Sending A Backward Direction Reply
To form a backward direction RPC-over-RDMA reply message on an RPC-
over-RDMA version 1 transport, an ONC RPC client endpoint constructs
an RPC-over-RDMA header containing a copy of the matching ONC RPC
call's RPC XID in the rdma_xid field (see Section 1.3.4 for full
requirements).
The rdma_vers field MUST contain the value one. The number of
granted credits is placed in the rdma_credit field (see Section 2.1).
The rdma_proc field in the RPC-over-RDMA header MUST contain the
value RDMA_MSG. All three chunk lists MUST be empty.
The ONC RPC reply header MUST follow immediately, starting with the
same XID value that is present in the RPC-over-RDMA header. The
reply header's msg_type field MUST contain the value REPLY.
3. Limits To This Approach
3.1. Payload Size
The major drawback to the approach described in this document is the
limit on payload size in backward direction requests.
o Some NFSv4.1 callback operations can have potentially large
arguments or results. For example, CB_GETATTR on a file with a
large ACL; or CB_NOTIFY, which can provide a large, complex
argument.
o Any backward direction operation protected by RPCSEC_GSS may have
additional header information that makes it difficult to send
backward direction operations with large arguments or results.
o Larger payloads could potentially require the use of RDMA data
transfers, which are complex and make it more difficult to detect
backward direction requests. The msg_type field in the ONC RPC
header would no longer be at a fixed location in backward
direction requests.
3.2. Preparedness To Handle Backward Requests
A second drawback is the exposure of the client transport endpoint to
backward direction calls before it has posted receive buffers to
handle them.
Clients that do not support backward direction operation typically
drop messages they do not recognize. However, this does not allow
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
bi-direction-capable servers to quickly identify clients that cannot
handle backward direction requests.
The conventions in this document rely on Upper Layer Protocol
consumers to decide when backward direction transport operation is
appropriate.
3.3. Long Term
To address the limitations described in this section in the long run,
a new version of the RPC-over-RDMA protocol would be required. The
use of the conventions described in this document to enable backward
direction operation is thus a transitional approach that is
appropriate only while RPC-over-RDMA version 1 is the predominantly
deployed version of the RPC-over-RDMA protocol.
4. Security Considerations
As a consequence of limiting the size of backward direction RPC-over-
RDMA messages, the use of RPCSEC_GSS integrity and confidentiality
services (see [RFC2203]) in the backward direction may be challenging
due to the size of the additional RPC header information required for
RPCSEC_GSS.
5. IANA Considerations
This document does not require actions by IANA.
6. Acknowledgements
Tom Talpey was an indispensable resource, in addition to creating the
foundation upon which this work is based. Our warmest regards go to
him for his help and support.
Dave Noveck provided excellent review, constructive suggestions, and
navigational guidance throughout the process of drafting this
document.
Dai Ngo was a solid partner and collaborator. Together we
constructed and tested independent prototypes of the conventions
described in this document.
The author wishes to thank Bill Baker for his unwavering support of
this work. In addition, the author gratefully acknowledges the
expert contributions of Karen Deitke, Chunli Zhang, Mahesh
Siddheshwar, and Tom Tucker.
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft RPC-over-RDMA Bidirection May 2015
Special thanks go to the nfsv4 Working Group chair Spencer Shepler
and the WG Editor Tom Haynes for their support.
7. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2203] Eisler, M., Chiu, A., and L. Ling, "RPCSEC_GSS Protocol
Specification", RFC 2203, September 1997.
[RFC5531] Thurlow, R., "RPC: Remote Procedure Call Protocol
Specification Version 2", RFC 5531, May 2009.
[RFC5661] Shepler, S., Eisler, M., and D. Noveck, "Network File
System (NFS) Version 4 Minor Version 1 Protocol", RFC
5661, January 2010.
[RFC5666] Talpey, T. and B. Callaghan, "Remote Direct Memory Access
Transport for Remote Procedure Call", RFC 5666, January
2010.
[RFC7530] Haynes, T. and D. Noveck, "Network File System (NFS)
Version 4 Protocol", RFC 7530, March 2015.
Author's Address
Charles Lever
Oracle Corporation
1015 Granger Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
US
Phone: +1 734 274 2396
Email: chuck.lever@oracle.com
Lever Expires November 30, 2015 [Page 15]