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A Sequence Number Extension for HTTP Datagrams
draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers-01

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Authors Marcus Ihlar , Magnus Westerlund
Last updated 2023-03-13
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draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers-01
Masque Working Group                                            M. Ihlar
Internet-Draft                                               Ericsson AB
Intended status: Standards Track                           M. Westerlund
Expires: 14 September 2023                                      Ericsson
                                                           13 March 2023

             A Sequence Number Extension for HTTP Datagrams
                 draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers-01

Abstract

   This document defines a sequence number extension to HTTP datagrams
   used to carry proxied UDP payload or IP datagrams.  This extension is
   useful when HTTP datagrams are transported on top of a multipath
   protocol that does not ensure in-order delivery as it allows a masque
   endpoint to implement reordering logic specific to its needs.

About This Document

   This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.

   Status information for this document may be found at
   https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-
   numbers/.

   Discussion of this document takes place on the WG Working Group
   mailing list (mailto:masque@ietf.org), which is archived at
   https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/browse/masque/.  Subscribe at
   https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/masque/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/ihlar/draft-ihlar-masque-datagram-numbers.

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."

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 14 September 2023.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2023 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
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   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Sequence Number Datagram Extension  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.1.  Registration  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     3.2.  Datagram Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     5.1.  Capsule types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     5.2.  HTTP headers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   This document defines a sequence number extension to HTTP datagrams
   [RFC9297].  Sequence numbers at the HTTP datagram layer allows a
   receiving endpoint to implement arbitrary reordering logic, which can
   be useful when proxied datagrams are sent over multiple paths
   simultaneously, such as when using the multipath QUIC extension
   [MPQUIC].  The extension applies to HTTP datagrams when they are used
   with the extended CONNECT method and the protocols are either
   connect-ip [CONNECT-IP] or connect-udp [RFC9298].

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2.  Conventions and Definitions

   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.

3.  Sequence Number Datagram Extension

   The Sequence Number datagram extension prepends sequence numbers to
   HTTP datagrams.  Datagram sequence numbers are unsigned integers
   initiated to 0 and are incremented by 1 for every transmitted HTTP
   datagram, except for when the integer overflows and is reset to 0.
   The extension can be used with the HTTP CONNECT method when the
   :protocol pseudo header is equal to "connect-udp" or "connect-ip".
   Use of the sequence number extension is determined per request, and
   the scope of a datagram sequence is limited to a single request
   stream.  Datagrams with different quarter stream IDs have distinct
   sequence number spaces.

3.1.  Registration

   Endpoints indicate support for Sequence Number Datagram type by
   including the boolean-valued Item Structured Field "DG-Sequence: ?1"
   in the HTTP Request and Response headers (See Section 3.3.6 of
   [RFC8941] for information about the boolean format.).

   A datagram sequence is registered by sending a
   REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsule.  An endpoint MAY send multiple
   REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsules in order to support multiple
   payload formats.

   REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT Capsule {
     Type (i) = REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT,
     Length (i),
     Context ID (i),
     Payload Context ID (i),
     [Representation (8)]
   }

   The capsule has the following fields:

   Context ID: Identifies a sequence number context.  The value MUST be
   unique within the scope of a request stream.

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   Payload Context ID: Identifies the type of payload that follows a
   sequence number.  The value MUST be equal to a previously registered
   Context ID.

   Representation: The size in bits of the unsigned interger used to
   encode the sequence number, the value MUST be one of the following:
   8, 16, 32 or 64.  This field MUST be present in the first
   REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT capsule sent on a request stream and it MAY
   be omitted in subsequent capsules.

3.2.  Datagram Format

   A Sequence Number Datagram has the following format:

   Sequence Number Datagram {
     Context ID (i),
     Sequence Number (8..64),
     Payload (..)
   }

   Context ID: This value indicates that the datagram contains a
   sequence number and the format of the data that follows the sequence
   number.

   Sequence Number: Unsigned integer of size specified in registration,
   indicates the transmission order of the datagagram.

   Payload: Datagram payload.

4.  Security Considerations

   Although the usage of the sequence number is not defined by this
   specification, there is an underlying assumption that the sequence
   numbers are assigned in transmission order of HTTP datagram sent in
   the context of this HTTP request.  Any attacker that can break that
   assumption will thus impact any node that uses the sequence number.
   By altering the sequence number in HTTP datagrams, an attacker can
   impact how much data a receiver is buffering for the following
   purposes:

   *  Resource exhaustion attack by maximizing the amount of data
      buffered in each HTTP request context

   *  Introducing reordering, jitter and additional delay in the path
      properties for these datagram

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   *  Cause the sequence number using node to drop some HTTP Datagrams
      by causing them to be so far reordered that some policy in the
      receiving node drops the datagram.

   A malicious endpoint is more likely to mount a resource exhaustion
   attack, while HTTP intermediares could be used by an third party
   attacker to impact the HTTP datagram flow between a source and a
   destination.

   A user that buffers datagrams based on sequence numbers should ensure
   that they have protection against resource exhaustion attacks by
   limiting the size of their buffers.

5.  IANA Considerations

5.1.  Capsule types

   This document adds following entries to the "HTTP Capsule Types"
   registry:

          +===========================+=======+=================+
          | Capsule Type              | Value | Specification   |
          +===========================+=======+=================+
          | REGISTER_SEQUENCE_CONTEXT | TBD   | (This document) |
          +---------------------------+-------+-----------------+

                                  Table 1

5.2.  HTTP headers

   This document adds following entry to the "Hypertext Transfer
   Protocol (HTTP) Field Name Registry":

    +=============+==========+===========+=================+==========+
    | Field Name  | Template | Status    | Reference       | Comments |
    +=============+==========+===========+=================+==========+
    | DG-Sequence |          | permanent | (This document) |          |
    +-------------+----------+-----------+-----------------+----------+

                                  Table 2

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [CONNECT-IP]
              Pauly, T., Schinazi, D., Chernyakhovsky, A., Kühlewind,
              M., and M. Westerlund, "Proxying IP in HTTP", Work in

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              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-masque-connect-ip-08,
              1 March 2023, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-masque-connect-ip-08>.

   [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/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [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/rfc/rfc8174>.

   [RFC8941]  Nottingham, M. and P-H. Kamp, "Structured Field Values for
              HTTP", RFC 8941, DOI 10.17487/RFC8941, February 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8941>.

   [RFC9297]  Schinazi, D. and L. Pardue, "HTTP Datagrams and the
              Capsule Protocol", RFC 9297, DOI 10.17487/RFC9297, August
              2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9297>.

   [RFC9298]  Schinazi, D., "Proxying UDP in HTTP", RFC 9298,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9298, August 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9298>.

6.2.  Informative References

   [MPQUIC]   Liu, Y., Ma, Y., De Coninck, Q., Bonaventure, O., Huitema,
              C., and M. Kühlewind, "Multipath Extension for QUIC", Work
              in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-quic-multipath-03,
              24 October 2022, <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/
              draft-ietf-quic-multipath-03>.

Acknowledgments

   TODO acknowledge.

Authors' Addresses

   Marcus Ihlar
   Ericsson AB
   Email: marcus.ihlar@ericsson.com

   Magnus Westerlund
   Ericsson
   Email: magnus.westerlund@ericsson.com

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