Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-02
Path Aware Networking RG B. Trammell
Internet-Draft Google
Intended status: Informational May 22, 2019
Expires: November 23, 2019
Open Questions in Path Aware Networking
draft-irtf-panrg-questions-02
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). Path-aware networking has two
aspects: the exposure of properties of available Internet paths to
endpoints and applications running on them, and allowing endpoints
and applications to use these properties to select paths through the
Internet for their traffic.
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Internet-Draft PAN questions May 2019
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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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
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 and transport layers
explicitly expose information about the path or paths available
between two endpoints to those endpoints and the applications running
on them, so that they can make this selection.
Path selection provides transparency and control to applications and
users of the network. Selection may be made at either the
application layer or the transport layer. Path control at the packet
level enables the design of new transport protocols that can leverage
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