HTTP/3 on Streams
draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00

httpbis                                                           K. Oku
Internet-Draft                                                    Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track                               L. Pardue
Expires: 19 August 2024                                       Cloudflare
                                                        16 February 2024

                           HTTP/3 on Streams
                draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00

Abstract

   This document specifies how to use HTTP/3 on top of bi-directional,
   byte-oriented streams such as TLS over TCP.

Discussion Venues

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

   Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
   mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
   https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.

   Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
   https://github.com/kazuho/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams.

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
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   This Internet-Draft will expire on 19 August 2024.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   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.  The Protocol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Starting HTTP/3 on Streams  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Support for Extended CONNECT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   As of 2023, HTTP/2 [HTTP2] remains the most widely used version of
   HTTP across the Internet, although the adoption rate of HTTP/3
   [HTTP3] is increasing rapidly.

   HTTP/3 has several advantages over HTTP/2, primarily due to its use
   of QUIC [QUIC] as the transport layer protocol, which provides
   features like stream multiplexing without head-of-line blocking and
   low-latency connection establishment.

   However, given that QUIC's availability and accessibility are not as
   universal as TCP's, a complete migration of all HTTP/2 traffic to
   QUIC-based HTTP/3 seems unlikely.

   This situation necessitates HTTP deployments to support both
   transport protocols and their respective HTTP versions for the
   foreseeable future.

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   Maintaining dual support is costly, as the two protocols differ in
   many aspects such as wire-encoding, flow control and stream
   multiplexing machinery, and HTTP header compression.  Extensions
   operating at the HTTP wire encoding layer must be developed and
   implemented for both HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, and both protocol stacks
   require ongoing maintenance to address bugs, performance issues, and
   vulnerabilities.

   To address this redundancy, this specification defines the method of
   running HTTP/3 over TCP, utilizing QUIC on Streams [QUIC-ON-STREAMS]
   as the basis.  QUIC on Streams, acting as a polyfill of QUIC atop bi-
   directional byte streams, enables the operation of HTTP/3 over TCP
   without any modifications.

   Consequently, design, implementation, and maintenance efforts can
   concentrate on a single HTTP version: HTTP/3.

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.  The Protocol

   HTTP/3 functions over QUIC version 1, employing the set of operations
   (i.e., API) defined in Section 2.4 and Section 5.3 of [QUIC].
   Conversely, HTTP/3 on Streams utilizes the same set of operations but
   functions over QUIC on Streams instead.

4.  Starting HTTP/3 on Streams

   HTTP/3 on Streams can be used for “http” and “https” URI schemes
   defined in Section 4.2 of [HTTP-SEMANTICS] with the same default port
   numbers as HTTP/1.1 [HTTP1].

   When starting HTTP/3 on Streams for “https” URIs, clients use the TLS
   [TLS13] with the ALPN [ALPN] extension: “h3s”.

   Also, clients may learn that a particular server supports HTTP/3 on
   Streams by other means.  A client that knows that a server supports
   HTTP/3 on Streams can establish a TCP connection and start exchanging
   HTTP/3 frames using QUIC on Streams.

   The latter is the only way to discover HTTP/3 on Streams for “http”
   URIs.

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   When used in cleartext, servers can determine if or not the client is
   speaking HTTP/3 on Streams by comparing the first eight bytes to the
   encoded form of the QS_TRANSPORT_PARAMETERS frame type (Section 4.2
   of [QUIC-ON-STREAMS]).

5.  Support for Extended CONNECT

   Servers speaking HTTP/3 on Streams MUST implement the Extended
   CONNECT scheme defined in [EXT-CONNECT3].

6.  Security Considerations

   TODO Security

7.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [ALPN]     Friedl, S., Popov, A., Langley, A., and E. Stephan,
              "Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol
              Negotiation Extension", RFC 7301, DOI 10.17487/RFC7301,
              July 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7301>.

   [EXT-CONNECT3]
              Hamilton, R., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/3",
              RFC 9220, DOI 10.17487/RFC9220, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9220>.

   [HTTP-SEMANTICS]
              Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
              Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110>.

   [HTTP1]    Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
              Ed., "HTTP/1.1", STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC9112,
              June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9112>.

   [HTTP3]    Bishop, M., Ed., "HTTP/3", RFC 9114, DOI 10.17487/RFC9114,
              June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9114>.

   [QUIC-ON-STREAMS]
              Oku, K. and L. Pardue, "QUIC on Streams", Work in
              Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-kazuho-quic-quic-on-

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              streams-00, 16 February 2024,
              <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kazuho-quic-
              quic-on-streams-00>.

   [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>.

   [TLS13]    Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
              Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446>.

8.2.  Informative References

   [HTTP2]    Thomson, M., Ed. and C. Benfield, Ed., "HTTP/2", RFC 9113,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9113, June 2022,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9113>.

   [QUIC]     Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
              Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.

Acknowledgments

   TODO acknowledge.

Authors' Addresses

   Kazuho Oku
   Fastly
   Email: kazuhooku@gmail.com

   Lucas Pardue
   Cloudflare
   Email: lucas@lucaspardue.com

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