CoAP Protocol Negotiation
draft-silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation-05

CoRE Working Group                                         B. Silverajan
Internet-Draft                                                       TUT
Intended status: Informational                                   M. Ocak
Expires: November 5, 2017                                       Ericsson
                                                             May 4, 2017

                       CoAP Protocol Negotiation
           draft-silverajan-core-coap-protocol-negotiation-05

Abstract

   CoAP has been standardised as an application-level REST-based
   protocol.  When multiple transport protocols exist for exchanging
   CoAP resource representations, this document introduces a way forward
   for CoAP endpoints as well as intermediaries to agree upon alternate
   transport and protocol configurations as well as URIs for CoAP
   messaging, using the CoRE Resource Directory.

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Overcoming Middlebox Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Better resource caching and serving in proxies  . . . . .   5
   3.  Node Types based on Transport Availability  . . . . . . . . .   6
   4.  New Resource Directory Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.1.  The 'at' RD parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.2.  The 'tt' RD parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   6.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   7.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   8.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     8.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     8.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   Appendix A.  Change Log . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     A.1.  From -04 to -05 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     A.2.  From -03 to -04 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     A.3.  From -02 to -03 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     A.4.  From -01 to -02 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
     A.5.  From -00 to -01 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] allows clients,
   origin servers and proxies, to exchange and manipulate resource
   representations using REST-based methods over UDP or DTLS.  CoAP
   messaging is however being extended to use other alternative
   underlying transports.  These include reliable transports such as
   TCP, WebSockets and TLS.  In addition, the use of SMS as a CoAP
   transport remains a possibility for simple communication in cellular
   networks.

   When CoAP-based endpoints and proxies possess the ability to perform
   CoAP messaging over multiple transports, significant benefits can be
   obtained if communicating client endpoints can discover that multiple
   transport bindings may exist on an origin server over which CoAP
   resources can be retrieved.  This allows a client to understand and
   possibly subsitute a different transport protocol configuration for
   the same CoAP resources on the origin server, based on the
   preferences of the communicating peers.  Inevitably, if two CoAP
   endpoints reside in distinctly separate networks with orthogonal

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   transports, a CoAP proxy node is needed between the two networks so
   that CoAP Requests and Responses can be exchanged properly.

   A URI in CoAP, however, serves two purposes simultaneously.  It
   firstly functions as a locator, by specifying the network location of
   the endpoint hosting the resource, and the underlying transport used
   by CoAP for accessing the resource representation.  It secondly
   identifies the name of the specific resource found at that endpoint
   together with its namespace, or resource path.  A single CoAP URI
   cannot be used to express the identity of the resource independently
   of alternate underlying transports or protocol configuration.
   Multiple URIs can result for a single CoAP resource representations
   if:

   o  the authority components of the URI differ, owing to the same
      physical host exposing several network endpoints.  For example,
      "coap://example.org/sensors/temperature" and
      "coap://example.net/sensors/temperature"

   o  the scheme components of the URI differ, owing to the origin
      server exposing several underlying transport alternatives.  For
      example, "coap://example.org/sensors/temperature" and
      "coap+tcp://example.org/sensors/temperature"

   o  the path components of the URI differ, should an origin server
      also allow alternative transport endpoint such as the WebSocket
      protocol, to be expressed using the path.  For example,
      "coap://example.org/sensors/temperature" and
      "coap+ws://example.org/ws-endpoint/sensors/temperature"

   Without a priori knowledge, clients would be unable to ascertain if
   two or more URIs provided by an origin server are associated to the
   same representation or not.  Consequently, a communication mechanism
   needs to be conceived to allow an origin server to properly capture
   the relationship between these alternate representations or locations
   and then subsequently supply this information to clients.  This also
   goes some way in limiting URI aliasing [WWWArchv1].

   In order to support CoAP clients, proxies and servers wishing to use
   CoAP over multiple transports, this draft proposes the following:

   o  An ability for servers to register supported CoAP transports to a
      CoRE Resource Directory [I-D.ietf-core-resource-directory] with
      optional registration lifetime values

   o  A means for CoAP clients to interact with a CoRE resource
      directory interface for requesting and discovering alternative
      transports and locations of CoAP resources

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   o  New Resource Directory parameter types enabling the above-
      mentioned features.

   (Note: Although previous versions of this draft provided a mechanism
   for CoAP clients to directly interact with, discover, use and
   possibly even negotiate an alternative transport for CoAP-based
   communication directly with an origin server, discussions at the CoRE
   Working Group yielded new insights about problems with the proposed
   approach [CoREWG96].  The current version consequently adopts the
   usage of the CoRE Resource Directory.  Future work is planned on
   performing discovery and negotiation without the RD as well.)

2.  Aim

   The following simple scenarios aim to better portray how CoAP
   protocol negotiation benefits communicating nodes

2.1.  Overcoming Middlebox Issues

   Discovering which transports are available is important for a client
   to determine the optimal alternative to perform CoAP messaging
   according to its needs, particularly when separated from a CoAP
   server via a NAT.  It is well-known that some firewalls as well as
   many NATs, particularly home gateways, hinder the proper operation of
   UDP traffic.  NAT bindings for UDP-based traffic do not have as long
   timeouts as TCP-based traffic.

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                                                   +-----------+
                                                   | Resource  |
                                            +--4-->| Directory |
                                            |      +-----------+
                                   +---+    |            ^
                         +----4--->|   |<---+   +---1----+
        +-------------+--V--+      |   |      +-V-----------------+
        |             |     |--2-->|   |--2-->|     |             |
        |             | UDP |      | N |      | UDP |             |
        |             |     |<--3--|   |<--3--|     |             |
        | CoAP Client +-----+      | A |      +-----+ CoAP Server |
        |             |     |--5-->|   |--5-->|     |             |
        |             | TCP |      | T |      | TCP |             |
        |             |     |<--6--|   |<--6--|     |             |
        +-------------+-----+      +---+      +-----+-------------+

     Figure 1: CoAP Client initially accesses CoAP Server over UDP and
                           then switching to TCP

   Figure 1 depicts such a scenario.  Step 1 depicts the CoAP Server
   registering its transports to a Resource Directory.  A CoAP client
   uses UDP initially for accessing a CoAP Server in Step 2 and receives
   a response in Step 3.  Subsequently a CoAP client, residing behind a
   NAT, performs a lookup on the Resource Directory in Step 4 to
   discover alternative transports offered by the server.  Steps 5 and 6
   illustrate the client then deciding to use TCP for CoAP messaging
   instead of UDP to set up an Observe relationship for a resource at
   the CoAP Server, in order to avoid incoming packets containing
   resource updates being discarded by the NAT.

2.2.  Better resource caching and serving in proxies

   Figure 2 outlines a more complex example of intermediate nodes such
   as CoAP-based proxies to intelligently cache and respond to CoAP or
   HTTP clients with the same resource representation requested over
   alternative transports or server endpoints.  As with the earlier
   example, the CoAP Server registers its transports to a Resource
   Directory (This is assumed to be performed beforehand and not
   depicted in the figure, for brevity)

   In this example, a CoAP over WebSockets client successfully obtains a
   response from a CoAP forward proxy to retrieve a resource
   representation from an origin server using UDP, by supplying the CoAP
   server's endpoint address and resource in a Proxy-URI option.  Arrow
   1 represents a GET request to "coap+ws://proxy.example.com" which

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   subsequently retrieves the resource from the CoAP server using the
   URI "coap://example.org/sensors/temperature", shown as arrow 2.

        +---------+
        | CoAP+WS |     +--------+-------+---+     +-----+---------+
        | Client  |<-1->|  Web   |       |   |<-2->|     |         |
        +---------+     | Socket | CoAP  | U |     | UDP |   CoAP  |
        +---------+     +--------+ Proxy | D |     +-----+  Server |
        |  HTTP   |<-3->|  HTTP  |       | P |     | TCP |         |
        | Client  |<-4->|        |       |   |     |     |         |
        +---------+     +--------+-------+---+     +-----+---------+

      Figure 2: Proxying and returning a resource's alternate cached
                    representations to multiple clients

   Subsequently, assume an HTTP client requests the same resource, but
   instead specifies a CoAP over TCP alternative URI instead.  Arrow 3
   represents this event, where the HTTP client performs a GET request
   to "http://proxy.example.com/coap+tcp://example.org/sensors/
   temperature".  When the proxy receives the request, instead of
   immediately retrieving the temperature resource again over TCP, it
   first verifies from the Resource Directory whether the cached
   resource retrieved over UDP is a valid equivalent representation of
   the resource requested by the HTTP client over TCP.  Upon
   confirmation, the proxy is able to supply the same cached
   representation to the HTTP client as well (arrow 4).

3.  Node Types based on Transport Availability

   In [RFC7228], Tables 1, 3 and 4 introduced classification schemes for
   devices, in terms of their resource constraints, energy limitations
   and communication power.  For this document, in addition to these
   capabilities, it seems useful to also identify devices based on their
   transport capabilities.

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     +-------+----------------------------+
     | Name  |  Transport Availability    |
     +-------+----------------------------+
     |  T0   |  Single transport          |
     |       |                            |
     |  T1   |  Multiple transports, with |
     |       |  one or more active at any |
     |       |  point in time             |
     |       |                            |
     |  T2   |  Multiple active and       |
     |       |  persistent transports     |
     |       |  at all times              |
     +-------+----------------------------+

    Table 1: Classes of Available Transports

   Type T0 nodes possess the capability of exactly 1 type of transport
   channel for CoAP, at all times.  These include both active and sleepy
   nodes, which may choose to perform duty cycling for power saving.

   Type T1 nodes possess multiple different transports, and can retrieve
   or expose CoAP resources over any or all of these transports.
   However, not all transports are constantly active and certain
   transport channels and interfaces could be kept in a mostly-off state
   for energy-efficiency, such as when using CoAP over SMS.

   Type T2 nodes possess more than 1 transport, and multiple transports
   are simultaneously active at all times in a persistent manner.  CoAP
   proxy nodes which allow CoAP endpoints from disparate transports to
   communicate with each other, are a good example of this.

4.  New Resource Directory Parameters

   In order to allow resource interactions between clients and servers
   with multiple locations or transports, the registration, update and
   lookup interfaces of the CoRE Resource Directory need to be extended.
   In this section two new RD parameters, "at" and "tt" are introduced.
   Both are optional CoAP features.  If supported, they occur at the
   granularity level of an origin server, ie.  they cannot be applied
   selectively on some resources only.  When absent, it is assumed that
   the server does not support multiple transports or locations.

4.1.  The 'at' RD parameter

   A CoAP server wishing to advertise its resources over multiple
   transports does so by using a new "at" parameter to register a list
   of CoAP alternative transport URIs during registration with a

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   Resource Directory.  Such a URI would contain the schemes, addresses
   as well as any ports or paths at which the server is available.

   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+
   | Name      | Query | Validity      | Description                   |
   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+
   | CoAP      | at    |     URI       | Comma separated list of URIs  |
   | Transport |       |               | (scheme, address, port, and   |
   | URI List  |       |               | path) available at the server |
   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+

 Table 2: The "at" RD parameter

   The "at" parameter extends the Resource Directory's Registration and
   Update interfaces.

   The following example shows a type T1 endpoint registering its
   resources and advertising its ability to use TCP as an alternative
   transport:

   Req: POST coap:/rd.example.com/rd
    ?ep=node1&at=coap+tcp://server.example.com,coap+ws://server.example.com:5683/ws/
   Content-Format: 40
   Payload:
   </sensors/temp>;ct=41;rt="temperature-f";if="sensor",
   </sensors/door>;ct=41;rt="door";if="sensor"

   Res: 2.01 Created
   Location: /rd/4521

   The next example shows the same endpoint updating its registration
   with a new lifetime and the availability of a single alternative
   transport for CoAP (in this case WebSockets):

      Req: POST /rd/4521?lt=600&at=coap+ws://server.example.com:5683/ws/
      Content-Format: 40
      Payload:
      </sensors/temp>;ct=41;rt="temperature-f";if="sensor",
      </sensors/door>;ct=41;rt="door";if="sensor"

      Res: 2.04 Changed

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4.2.  The 'tt' RD parameter

   A CoAP client wishing to perform a look-up on the Resource Directory
   for CoAP servers supporting multiple transports does so by using a
   new "tt" parameter to query for CoAP alternative transport URIs.

   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+
   | Name      | Query | Validity      | Description                   |
   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+
   | CoAP      | tt    |               | Transport type                |
   | Transport |       |               | requested by                  |
   | Type      |       |               | the client                    |
   +-----------+-------+---------------+-------------------------------+

 Table 3: The "tt" RD parameter

   The "tt" parameter extends the Resource Directory's rd-lookup
   interface.

   The following example shows a client performing a lookup for
   endpoints supporting TCP:

      Req: GET /rd-lookup/ep?tt=tcp

      Res: 2.05 Content
      <coap+tcp://[FDFD::123]:61616>;ep="node5",
      <coap+tcp://[FDFD::123]:61616>;ep="node7"

   The next example shows a client performing a lookup for all
   transports supported by a specific endpoint:

      Req: GET /rd-lookup/ep?ep=node5&tt=*

      Res: 2.05 Content
      <coap+tcp://[FDFD::123]:61616>;ep="node5",
      <coap+ws://[FDFD::123]:61616>;ep="node5"

5.  IANA Considerations

   This document requests the registration of new RD parameter types
   "at" and "tt".

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6.  Security Considerations

   When multiple transports, locations and representations are used,
   some obvious risks are present both at the origin server as well as
   by requesting clients.

   When a client is presented with alternate URIs for retrieving
   resources, it presents an opportunity for attackers to mount a series
   of attacks, either by hijacking communication and masquerading as an
   alternate location or by using a man-in-the-middle attack on TLS-
   based communication to a server and redirecting traffic to an
   alternate location.  A malicious or compromised server could also be
   used for reflective denial-of-service attacks on innocent third
   parties.  Moreover, clients may obtain web links to alternate URIs
   containing weaker security properties than the existing session.

7.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Klaus Hartke for comments and reviewing this draft, and
   Teemu Savolainen for initial discussions about protocol negotations
   and lifetime values.  Zach Shelby provided significant suggestions on
   how the Resource Directory can be employed and extended in place of
   link attributes and relation types.

8.  References

8.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-core-resource-directory]
              Shelby, Z., Koster, M., Bormann, C., and P. Stok, "CoRE
              Resource Directory", draft-ietf-core-resource-directory-10
              (work in progress), March 2017.

   [RFC7228]  Bormann, C., Ersue, M., and A. Keranen, "Terminology for
              Constrained-Node Networks", RFC 7228,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7228, May 2014,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7228>.

   [RFC7252]  Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
              Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7252>.

   [RFC7641]  Hartke, K., "Observing Resources in the Constrained
              Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7641,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC7641, September 2015,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7641>.

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8.2.  Informative References

   [CoREWG96]
              https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/96/minutes/minutes-
              96-core, "IETF96 CoRE minutes", July 2016.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [WWWArchv1]
              http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#uri-aliases, "Architecture
              of the World Wide Web, Volume One", December 2004.

Appendix A.  Change Log

A.1.  From -04 to -05

   Freshness update

A.2.  From -03 to -04

   Removed previously introduced link attribute and relation types

   Initial foray with Resource Directory support

A.3.  From -02 to -03

   Added new author

   Rewrite of "Introduction" section

   Added new Aims Section

   Added new Section on Node Types

   Introduced "al" Active Lifetime link attribute

   Added new Section on Observing transports and resources

   Security and IANA considerations sections populated

A.4.  From -01 to -02

   Freshness update.

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A.5.  From -00 to -01

   Reworked "Introduction" section, added "Rationale", and "Goals"
   sections.

Authors' Addresses

   Bilhanan Silverajan
   Tampere University of Technology
   Korkeakoulunkatu 10
   FI-33720 Tampere
   Finland

   Email: bilhanan.silverajan@tut.fi

   Mert Ocak
   Ericsson
   Hirsalantie 11
   02420 Jorvas
   Finland

   Email: mert.ocak@ericsson.com

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