Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-01
Path Aware Networking RG B. Trammell
Internet-Draft ETH Zurich
Intended status: Informational October 17, 2018
Expires: April 20, 2019
Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-01
Abstract
This document poses open questions in path-aware networking, as a
background for framing discussions in the Path Aware Networking
proposed Research Group (PANRG). These are split into making
properties of Internet paths available to endpoints, and allowing
endpoints to select paths through the Internet for their traffic.
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Trammell Expires April 20, 2019 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft PAN questions October 2018
Table of Contents
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1. A Vocabulary of Path Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2. Discovery, Distribution, and Trustworthiness of Path
Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3. Supporting Path Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4. Interfaces for Path Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.5. Implications of Path Awareness for the Data Plane . . . . 5
2.6. What is an Endpoint? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.7. Operating a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.8. Deploying a Path Aware Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1. Introduction to Path-Aware Networking
In the current Internet architecture, the interdomain network layer
provides an unverifiable, best-effort service: an application can
assume that a packet with a given destination address will eventually
be forwarded toward that destination, but little else. A transport
layer protocol such as TCP can provide reliability over this best-
effort service, and a protocol above the network layer such as IPsec
AH [RFC4302] or TLS [RFC5246] can authenticate the remote endpoint.
However, no explicit information about the path is available, and
assumptions about that path sometimes do not hold, sometimes with
serious impacts on the application, as in the case with BGP hijacking
attacks.
By contrast, in a path-aware internetworking architecture, endpoints
have the ability to select or influence the path through the network
used by any given packet, and the network layer explicitly exposes
information about the path or paths available between two endpoints
to those endpoints so that they can make this selection. Path
control at the packet level enables new transport protocols that can
leverage multipath connectivity across maximally-disjoint paths
through the Internet, even over a single interface. It also provides
transparency and control for applications and end-users to specify
constraints on the paths that traffic should traverse, for instance
to confound pervasive passive surveillance in the network core.
We note that this property of "path awareness" already exists in many
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