UDP Usage Guidelines
draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc5405bis-03

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Transport Area Working Group                                   L. Eggert
Internet-Draft                                                    NetApp
Obsoletes: 5405 (if approved)                               G. Fairhurst
Intended status: Best Current Practice            University of Aberdeen
Expires: January 8, 2016                                     G. Shepherd
                                                           Cisco Systems
                                                            July 7, 2015

                          UDP Usage Guidelines
                     draft-ietf-tsvwg-rfc5405bis-03

Abstract

   The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) provides a minimal message-passing
   transport that has no inherent congestion control mechanisms.  This
   document provides guidelines on the use of UDP for the designers of
   applications, tunnels and other protocols that use UDP.  Congestion
   control guidelines are a primary focus, but the document also
   provides guidance on other topics, including message sizes,
   reliability, checksums, middlebox traversal, the use of ECN, DSCPs,
   and ports.

   Because congestion control is critical to the stable operation of the
   Internet, applications and other protocols that choose to use UDP as
   an Internet transport must employ mechanisms to prevent congestion
   collapse and to establish some degree of fairness with concurrent
   traffic.  They may also need to implement additional mechanisms,
   depending on how they use UDP.

   Some guidance is also applicable to the design of other protocols
   (e.g., protocols layered directly on IP or via IP-based tunnels),
   especially when these protocols do not themselves provide congestion
   control.

   If published as an RFC, this document will obsolete RFC5405.

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/.

Eggert, et al.           Expires January 8, 2016                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft            UDP Usage Guidelines                 July 2015

   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 January 8, 2016.

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
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  UDP Usage Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.1.  Congestion Control Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     3.2.  Message Size Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     3.3.  Reliability Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     3.4.  Checksum Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
     3.5.  Middlebox Traversal Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   4.  Multicast UDP Usage Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
     4.1.  Multicast Congestion Control Guidelines . . . . . . . . .  24
     4.2.  Message Size Guidelines for Multicast . . . . . . . . . .  26
   5.  Programming Guidelines  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     5.1.  Using UDP Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     5.2.  ICMP Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   7.  Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   9.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  35
   Appendix A.  Case Study of the Use of IPv6 UDP Zero-Checksum Mode  42
   Appendix B.  Revision Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  43