Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-00

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Path Aware Networking RG                                     B. Trammell
Internet-Draft                                                ETH Zurich
Intended status: Informational                            April 11, 2018
Expires: October 13, 2018

                Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
                     draft-irtf-panrg-questions-00

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.

Status of This Memo

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 13, 2018.

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Trammell                Expires October 13, 2018                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                PAN questions                   April 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.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7

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
   Internet-connected networks in an intradomain context.  Indeed, much
   of the practice of network engineering using encapsulation at layer 3