Proxy Operations for CoAP Group Communication
draft-tiloca-core-groupcomm-proxy-03
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Marco Tiloca
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Esko Dijk
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2021-02-22
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CoRE Working Group M. Tiloca
Internet-Draft RISE AB
Intended status: Standards Track E. Dijk
Expires: August 26, 2021 IoTconsultancy.nl
February 22, 2021
Proxy Operations for CoAP Group Communication
draft-tiloca-core-groupcomm-proxy-03
Abstract
This document specifies the operations performed by a forward-proxy
or reverse-proxy, when using the Constrained Application Protocol
(CoAP) in group communication scenarios. Such CoAP proxy processes a
single request, sent by a CoAP client over unicast, and distributes
the request over IP multicast to a group of CoAP servers. It then
collects the individual responses from these CoAP servers and sends
these responses to the CoAP client such that the client is able to
distinguish the responses and their origin servers through addressing
information.
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
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on August 26, 2021.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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
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carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. The Multicast-Signaling Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. The Response-Forwarding Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1. Encoding of Server Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2. Default Values of the Server Port Number . . . . . . . . 8
4. Requirements and Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
5. Protocol Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1. Request Sending at the Client . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1.1. Request Sending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
5.1.2. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.2. Request Processing at the Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5.2.1. Request Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.2.2. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3. Request and Response Processing at the Server . . . . . . 13
5.3.1. Request and Response Processing . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.3.2. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.4. Response Processing at the Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.4.1. Response Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5.4.2. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.5. Response Processing at the Client . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.5.1. Response Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.5.2. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5.6. Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6. Reverse-Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6.1. Processing on the Client Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6.2. Processing on the Proxy Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
7. Chain of Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
7.1. Request Processing at the Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7.1.1. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
7.2. Response Processing at the Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7.2.1. Supporting Observe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.1. Client Authentication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.2. Multicast-Signaling Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8.3. Response-Forwarding Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.1. CoAP Option Numbers Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.2. CoAP Transport Information Registry . . . . . . . . . . . 25
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Appendix A. Using OSCORE Between Client and Proxy . . . . . . . 28
A.1. Protecting the Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
A.2. Verifying the Request . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.3. Protecting the Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
A.4. Verifying the Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Appendix B. Examples with Reverse-Proxy . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
B.1. Example 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
B.2. Example 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
1. Introduction
The Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) [RFC7252] allows the
presence of forward-proxies and reverse-proxies, as intermediary
entities supporting clients to perform requests on their behalf.
CoAP supports also group communication over IP multicast
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], where a group request can be addressed
to multiple recipient servers, each of which may reply with an
individual unicast response. As discussed in Section 3.4 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], this group communication scenario
poses a number of issues and limitations to proxy operations.
In particular, the client sends a single unicast request to the
proxy, which the proxy forwards to a group of servers over IP
multicast. Later on, the proxy delivers back to the client multiple
responses to the original unicast request. As defined by [RFC7252],
the multiple responses are delivered to the client inside separate
CoAP messages, all matching (by Token) to the client's original
unicast request. A possible alternative approach of performing
aggregation of responses into a single CoAP response would require a
specific aggregation content-format, which is not available yet.
Both these approaches have open issues.
This specification considers the former approach, i.e. the proxy
forwards the individual responses to a CoAP group request back to the
client. The described method addresses all the related issues raised
in Section 3.4 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis]. To this end, a
dedicated signaling protocol is defined, using two new CoAP options.
Using this protocol, the client explicitly confirms its intent to
perform a proxied group request and its support for receiving
multiple responses as a result, i.e. one per origin server. It also
signals for how long it is willing to wait for responses. Also, when
forwarding a response to the client, the proxy indicates the
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addressing information of the origin server. This enables the client
to distinguish multiple, diffent responses by origin and to possibly
contact one or more of the respective servers by sending individual
unicast request(s) to the indicated address(es). In doing these
follow-up unicast requests, the client may optionally bypass the
proxy.
1.1. Terminology
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.
Readers are expected to be familiar with terms and concepts defined
in CoAP [RFC7252], Group Communication for CoAP
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], CBOR [RFC8949], OSCORE [RFC8613] and
Group OSCORE [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm].
Unless specified otherwise, the term "proxy" refers to a CoAP-to-CoAP
forward-proxy, as defined in Section 5.7.2 of [RFC7252].
2. The Multicast-Signaling Option
The Multicast-Signaling Option defined in this section has the
properties summarized in Figure 1, which extends Table 4 of
[RFC7252].
Since the option is not Safe-to-Forward, the column "N" indicates a
dash for "not applicable". The value of the Multicast-Signaling
Option specifies a timeout value in seconds, encoded as an unsigned
integer (see Section 3.2 of [RFC7252]).
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
| No. | C | U | N | R | Name | Format | Length | Default |
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
| | | | | | | | | |
| TBD1 | | x | - | | Multicast- | uint | 0-5 | (none) |
| | | | | | Signaling | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
C=Critical, U=Unsafe, N=NoCacheKey, R=Repeatable
Figure 1: The Multicast-Signaling Option.
This document specifically defines how this option is used by a
client in a CoAP request, to indicate to a forward-proxy its support
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for and interest in receiving multiple responses to a proxied CoAP
group request, i.e. one per origin server, and for how long it is
willing to wait for receiving responses via that proxy (see
Section 5.1.1 and Section 5.2.1).
The client, when sending a CoAP group request to a proxy via IP
unicast, to be forwarded by the proxy to a targeted group of servers,
includes the Multicast-Signaling Option into the request. The option
value indicates after what time period in seconds the client will
stop accepting responses matching its original unicast request, with
the exception of notifications if the CoAP Observe Option [RFC7641]
is used in the same request. Signaling the time period allows the
proxy to stop forwarding responses back to the client, that are
received from servers after the end of the time period.
The Multicast-Signaling Option is of class U in terms of OSCORE
processing (see Section 4.1 of [RFC8613]).
3. The Response-Forwarding Option
The Response-Forwarding Option defined in this section has the
properties summarized in Figure 2, which extends Table 4 of
[RFC7252]. The option is intended only for inclusion in CoAP
responses, and builds on the Base-Uri option from Section 3 of
[I-D.bormann-coap-misc].
Since the option is intended only for responses, the column "N"
indicates a dash for "not applicable".
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
| No. | C | U | N | R | Name | Format | Length | Default |
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
| | | | | | | | | |
| TBD2 | | | - | | Response- | (*) | 9-24 | (none) |
| | | | | | Forwarding | | | |
| | | | | | | | | |
+------+---+---+---+---+------------+--------+--------+---------+
C=Critical, U=Unsafe, N=NoCacheKey, R=Repeatable
(*) See below.
Figure 2: The Response-Forwarding Option.
This document specifically defines how this option is used by a proxy
that can perform proxied CoAP group communication requests.
Upon receiving a response to such request from a server, the proxy
includes the Response-Forwarding Option into the response sent to the
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origin client (see Section 5). The proxy uses the option to indicate
the addressing information where the client can send an individual
request intended to that origin server.
In particular, the client can use the addressing information
specified in the option to identify the response originator and
possibly send it individual requests later on, either directly, or
indirectly via the proxy, as CoAP unicast requests.
The option value is set to the byte serialization of the CBOR array
'tp_info' defined in Section 2.2.1 of
[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications], including only the
set of elements 'srv_addr'. In turn, the set includes the integer
'tp_id' identifying the used transport protocol, and further elements
whose number, format and encoding depend on the value of 'tp_id'.
The value of 'tp_id' MUST be taken from the "Value" column of the
"CoAP Transport Information" Registry defined in Section 14.4 of
[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications]. The elements of
'srv_addr' following 'tp_id' are specified in the corresponding entry
of the Registry, under the "Server Addr" column.
If the server is reachable through CoAP transported over UDP, the
'tp_info' array includes the following elements, encoded as defined
in Section 2.2.1.1 of
[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications].
o 'tp_id': the CBOR integer with value 1. This element MUST be
present.
o 'srv_host': a CBOR byte string, encoding the unicast IP address of
the server. This element is tagged and identified by the CBOR tag
260 "Network Address (IPv4 or IPv6 or MAC Address)". This element
MUST be present.
o 'srv_port': a CBOR unsigned integer or the CBOR simple value Null.
This element MAY be present.
If present as a CBOR unsigned integer, it has as value the
destination UDP port number to use for individual requests to the
server.
If present as the CBOR simple value Null, the client MUST assume
that the default port number 5683 defined in [RFC7252] can be used
as the destination UDP port number for individual requests to the
server.
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If not present, the client MUST assume that the same port number
specified in the group URI of the original unicast CoAP group
request sent to the proxy (see Section 5.1.1) can be used for
individual requests to the server.
The CDDL notation [RFC8610] provided below describes the 'tp_info'
CBOR array using the format defined above.
tp_info = [
tp_id : 1, ; UDP as transport protocol
srv_host : #6.260(bstr), ; IP address where to reach the server
? srv_port : uint / null ; Port number where to reach the server
]
At present, 'tp_id' is expected to take only value 1 (UDP) when using
forward proxies, UDP being the only currently available transport for
CoAP to work over IP multicast. While additional multicast-friendly
transports may be defined in the future, other current tranport
protocols can still be useful in applications relying on a reverse-
proxy (see Section 6).
The rest of this section considers the new values of 'tp_id'
registered by this document (see Section 9.2), and specifies:
o The encoding for the elements of 'tp_info' following 'tp_id' (see
Section 3.1).
o The port number assumed by the client if 'srv_port' in 'tp_info'
specifies the CBOR simple value Null (see Section 3.2).
The Response-Forwarding Option is of class U in terms of OSCORE
processing (see Section 4.1 of [RFC8613]).
3.1. Encoding of Server Address
This specification defines some values used as transport protocol
identifiers, whose respective new entries are included in the "CoAP
Transport Information" Registry defined in Section 14.4 of
[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications].
For each of these values, the following table summarizes the elements
specified under the "Srv Addr" and "Req Info" columns of the
registry, together with their CBOR encoding and short description.
While not listed here for brevity, the element 'tp_id' is always
present as a CBOR integer in the element set "Srv Addr".
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+----------+-------------+----------+--------------+---------------+
| 'tp_id' | Element Set | Element | CBOR Type | Description |
| Values | | | | |
+----------+-------------+----------+--------------+---------------+
| 2, 3, 4, | Srv Addr | srv_host | #6.260(bstr) | Address of |
| 5, 6 | | | (*) | the server |
| | +----------+--------------+---------------+
| | | srv_port | uint / null | Port number |
| | | | | of the server |
| +-------------+----------+--------------+---------------+
| | Req Info | cli_host | #6.260(bstr) | Address of |
| | | | (*) | the client |
| | +----------+--------------+---------------+
| | | cli_port | uint | Port number |
| | | | | of the client |
+----------+-------------+----------+--------------+---------------+
* The CBOR byte string is tagged and identified by the
CBOR tag 260 "Network Address (IPv4 or IPv6 or MAC Address)".
3.2. Default Values of the Server Port Number
If the 'srv_port' element in the 'tp_info' array specifies the CBOR
simple value Null, the client MUST assume the following value as port
number where to send individual requests intended to the server,
based on the value of 'tp_id'.
o If 'tp_id' is equal to 2, i.e. CoAP over UDP secured with DTLS,
the default port number 5684 as defined in [RFC7252].
o If 'tp_id' is equal to 3, i.e. CoAP over TCP, the default port
number 5683 as defined in [RFC8323].
o If 'tp_id' is equal to 4, i.e. CoAP over TCP secured with TLS, the
default port number 5684 as defined in [RFC8323].
o If 'tp_id' is equal to 5, i.e. CoAP over WebSockets, the default
port number 80 as defined in [RFC8323].
o If 'tp_id' is equal to 6, i.e. CoAP over WebSockets secured with
TLS, the default port number 443 as defined in [RFC8323].
4. Requirements and Objectives
This specification assumes that the following requirements are
fulfilled.
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o REQ1. The CoAP proxy is explicitly configured (allow-list) to
allow proxied CoAP group requests from specific client(s).
o REQ2. The CoAP proxy MUST identify a client sending a CoAP group
request, in order to verify whether the client is allowed-listed
to do so. For example, this can rely on one of the following.
* A TLS [RFC8446] or DTLS [RFC6347][I-D.ietf-tls-dtls13] channel
between the client and the proxy, where the client has been
authenticated during the secure channel establishment.
* A pairwise OSCORE Security Context between the client and the
proxy, as described in Appendix A.
o REQ3. If secure, end-to-end communication is required between the
client and the servers in the CoAP group, exchanged messages MUST
be protected by using Group OSCORE
[I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm], as discussed in Section 5.2 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis]. This requires the client and the
servers to have previously joined the correct OSCORE group, for
instance by using the approach described in
[I-D.ietf-ace-key-groupcomm-oscore]. The correct OSCORE group to
join can be pre-configured or alternatively discovered, for
instance by using the approach described in
[I-D.tiloca-core-oscore-discovery].
This specification defines how to achieve the following objectives.
o OBJ1. The CoAP proxy gets an indication from the client that it
is in fact interested in and capable to receive multiple responses
to its unicast request containing a CoAP group URI.
o OBJ2. The CoAP proxy learns how long it should wait for responses
to a proxied request, before starting to ignore following
responses (except for notifications, if a CoAP Observe Option is
used [RFC7641]).
o OBJ3. The CoAP proxy returns individual unicast responses to the
client, each of which matches the original unicast request made to
the proxy.
o OBJ4. The CoAP client is able to distinguish the different
responses to the original unicast request, as well as their
corresponding origin servers.
o OBJ5. The CoAP client is enabled to optionally contact one or
more of the responding origin servers in the future, either
directly or via the CoAP proxy.
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5. Protocol Description
This section specifies the steps of the signaling protocol.
5.1. Request Sending at the Client
This section defines the operations that the client performs for
sending a request addressed to a group of servers via the CoAP proxy.
5.1.1. Request Sending
The client proceeds according to the following steps.
1. The client prepares a request addressed to the CoAP proxy. The
request specifies the group URI as a string in the Proxi-URI
option, or by using the Proxy-Scheme option with the group URI
constructed from the URI-* options (see Section 2.3.3 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis]).
2. The client MUST retain the Token value used for this original
unicast request beyond the reception of a first response matching
it. To this end, the client follows the same rules for Token
retention defined for multicast requests in Section 2.3.1 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
In particular, the client picks an amount of time T it is fine to
wait for before freeing up the Token value. Specifically, the
value of T MUST be such that:
* T < T_r , where T_r is the amount of time that the client is
fine to wait for before potentially reusing the Token value.
Note that T_r MUST NOT be less than MIN_TOKEN_REUSE_TIME
defined in Section 2.3.1 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
* T should be at least the expected worst-case time taken by the
request and response processing on the forward-proxy and on
the servers in the addressed CoAP group.
* T should be at least the expected worst-case round-trip delay
between the client and the forward-proxy plus the worst-case
round-trip delay between the proxy and any one of the origin
servers.
3. The client MUST include the Multicast-Signaling Option defined in
Section 2 into the unicast request to send to the proxy. The
option value specifies an amount of time T' < T. The difference
(T - T') should be at least the expected worst-case round-trip
time between the client and the forward-proxy.
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The client can specify T' = 0 as option value, thus indicating to
be not interested in receiving responses from the origin servers
through the proxy. In such a case, the client SHOULD also
include a No-Response Option [RFC7967] with value 26 (suppress
all response codes), if it supports the option.
Consistently, if the unicast request to send to the proxy already
included a No-Response Option with value 26, the client SHOULD
specify T' = 0 as value of the Multicast-Signaling Option.
4. The client processes the request as defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], and also as in
[I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm] when secure group communication
is used between the client and the servers.
5. If OSCORE is used to protect the leg between the client and the
proxy (see REQ2 in Section 4), the client (further) protects the
unicast request resulting at the end of step 4. In particular,
the client uses the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with
the proxy, as described in Appendix A.1.
6. The client sends the request to the proxy as a unicast CoAP
message.
The exact method that the client uses to estimate the worst-case
processing times and round-trip delays mentioned above is out of the
scope of this specification. However, such a method is expected to
be already used by the client when generally determining a good Token
lifetime and reuse interval.
5.1.2. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], the client follows what is
specified in Section 2.3.5 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], with the
difference that it sends a unicast request to the proxy, to be
forwarded to the group of servers, as defined in Section 5.1.1 of
this specification.
Furthermore, the client especially follows what is specified in
Section 5 of [RFC7641], i.e. it registers its interest to be an
observer with the proxy, as if it was communicating with the servers.
5.2. Request Processing at the Proxy
This section defines the operations that the proxy performs when
receiving a request addressed to a group of servers.
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5.2.1. Request Processing
Upon receiving the request from the client, the proxy proceeds
according to the following steps.
1. If OSCORE is used to protect the leg between the client and the
proxy (see REQ2 in Section 4), the proxy decrypts the request
using the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with the
client, as described in Appendix A.2.
2. The proxy identifies the client, and verifies that the client is
in fact allowed-listed to have its requests proxyied to CoAP
group URIs.
3. The proxy verifies the presence of the Multicast-Signaling
Option, as a confirmation that the client is fine to receive
multiple responses matching the same original request.
If the Multicast-Signaling Option is not present, the proxy MUST
stop processing the request and MUST reply to the client with a
4.00 (Bad Request) response. The response MUST include a
Multicast-Signaling Option with an empty (zero-length) value,
specifying that the Multicast-Signaling Option was missing and
has to be included in the request. As per Section 5.9.2 of
[RFC7252] The response SHOULD include a diagnostic payload.
4. The proxy retrieves the value T' from the Multicast-Signaling
Option, and then removes the option from the client's request.
5. The proxy forwards the client's request to the group of servers.
In particular, the proxy sends it as a CoAP group request over IP
multicast, addressed to the group URI specified by the client.
6. The proxy sets a timeout with the value T' retrieved from the
Multicast-Signaling Option of the original unicast request.
In case T' > 0, the proxy will ignore responses to the forwarded
group request coming from servers, if received after the timeout
expiration, with the exception of Observe notifications (see
Section 5.4).
In case T' = 0, the proxy will ignore all responses to the
forwarded group request coming from servers.
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5.2.2. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], the proxy takes the role of the
client and registers its own interest to observe the target resource
with the servers as per Section 5 of [RFC7641].
When doing so, the proxy especially follows what is specified for the
client in Section 2.3.5 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], by
forwarding the group request to the servers over IP multicast, as
defined in Section 5.2.1 of this specification.
5.3. Request and Response Processing at the Server
This section defines the operations that the server performs when
receiving a group request from the proxy.
5.3.1. Request and Response Processing
Upon receiving the request from the proxy, the server proceeds
according to the following steps.
1. The server processes the group request as defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], and also as in
[I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm] when secure group communication
is used between the client and the server.
2. The server processes the response to be forwarded back to the
client as defined in [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], and also as
in [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm] when secure group
communication is used between the client and the server.
5.3.2. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], the server especially follows what
is specified in Section 2.3.5 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis] and
Section 5 of [RFC7641].
5.4. Response Processing at the Proxy
This section defines the operations that the proxy performs when
receiving a response matching a forwarded group request.
5.4.1. Response Processing
Upon receiving a response matching the group request before the
amount of time T' has elapsed, the proxy proceeds according to the
following steps.
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1. The proxy MUST include the Response-Forwarding Option defined in
Section 3 into the response. The proxy specifies as option value
the addressing information of the server generating the response,
encoded as defined in Section 3. In particular:
* The 'srv_addr' element of the 'srv_info' array MUST specify
the server IPv6 address if the multicast request was destined
for an IPv6 multicast address, and MUST specify the server
IPv4 address if the multicast request was destined for an IPv4
address.
* If present, the 'srv_port' element of the 'srv_info' array
MUST specify the port number of the server as the source port
number of the response. This element MUST be present if the
source port number of the response differs from the port
number specified in the group URI of the original unicast CoAP
group request (see Section 5.1.1). Otherwise, the 'srv_port'
element MAY be omitted.
2. If OSCORE is used to protect the leg between the client and the
proxy (see REQ2 in Section 4), the proxy (further) protects the
response using the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with
the client, as described in Appendix A.3.
3. The proxy forwards the response back to the client.
Upon timeout expiration, i.e. T' seconds after having sent the group
request over IP multicast, the proxy frees up its local Token value
associated to that request. Thus, following late responses to the
same group request will be discarded and not forwarded back to the
client.
5.4.2. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], the proxy acts as a client
registered with the servers, as described earlier in Section 5.2.2.
Furthermore, the proxy takes the role of a server when forwarding
notifications from origin servers back to the client. To this end,
the proxy follows what is specified in Section 2.3.5 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis] and Section 5 of [RFC7641], with the
following additions.
o At step 1 in Section 5.4, the proxy includes the Response-
Forwarding Option in every notification, including non-2.xx
notifications resulting in removing the proxy from the list of
observers of the origin server.
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o The proxy frees up its Token value used for a group observation
only if, after the timeout expiration, no 2.xx (Success) responses
matching the group request and also including an Observe option
have been received from any origin server. After that, as long as
observations are active with servers in the group for the target
resource of the group request, notifications from those servers
are forwarded back to the client, as defined in Section 5.4, and
the Token value used for the group observation is not freed during
this time.
Finally, the proxy SHOULD regularly verify that the client is still
interested in receiving observe notifications for a group
observation. To this end, the proxy can rely on the same approach
discussed for servers in Section 2.3.5 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis], with more details available in
Section 4.5 of [RFC7641].
5.5. Response Processing at the Client
This section defines the operations that the client performs when
receiving a response matching a request addressed to a group of
servers via the CoAP proxy.
5.5.1. Response Processing
Upon receiving from the proxy a response matching the original
unicast request before the amount of time T has elapsed, the client
proceeds according to the following steps.
1. The client processes the response as defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
2. If OSCORE is used to protect the leg between the client and the
proxy (see REQ2 in Section 4), the client decrypts the response
using the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with the proxy,
as described in Appendix A.4.
3. If secure group communication is used end-to-end between the
client and the servers, the client processes the response,
possibly as outcome of step 2, as defined in
[I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm].
4. The client identifies the origin server, whose addressing
information is specified as value of the Response-Forwarding
Option. If the port number is omitted in the value of the
Response-Forwarding Option, the client MUST assume that the port
number where to send unicast requests to the server - in case
this is needed - is the same port number specified in the group
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URI of the original unicast CoAP group request sent to the proxy
(see Section 5.1.1).
In particular, the client is able to distinguish different
responses as originated by different servers. Optionally, the
client may contact one or more of those servers individually,
i.e. directly (bypassing the proxy) or indirectly (via a proxied
CoAP unicast request).
In order to individually reach an origin server again through the
proxy, the client is not required to understand or support the
transport protocol indicated in the Response-Forwarding Option,
as used between the proxy and the origin server, in case it
differs from "UDP" (1). That is, using the IPv4/IPv6 address
value and optional port value from the Response-Forwarding
Option, the client simply creates the correct URI for the
individual request, by means of the Proxy-Uri or Uri-Scheme
Option in the unicast request to the proxy. The client uses the
transport protocol it knows, and has used before, to send the
request to the proxy.
Upon the timeout expiration, i.e. T seconds after having sent the
original unicast request to the proxy, the client frees up its local
Token value associated to that request. Note that, upon this timeout
expiration, the Token value is not eligible for possible reuse yet
(see Section 5.1.1). Thus, until the actual amount of time before
enabling Token reusage has elapsed, any following late responses to
the same request forwarded by the proxy will be discarded, as these
are not matching (by Token) any active request from the client.
5.5.2. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], the client frees up its Token
value only if, after the timeout T expiration, no 2.xx (Success)
responses matching the original unicast request and also including an
Observe option have been received.
Instead, if at least one such response has been received, the client
continues receiving those notifications as forwarded by the proxy, as
long as the observation for the target resource of the original
unicast request is active.
5.6. Example
The example in this section refers to the following actors.
o One origin client C, with address C_ADDR and port number C_PORT.
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o One proxy P, with address P_ADDR and port number P_PORT.
o Two origin servers S1 and S2, where the server Sx has address
Sx_ADDR and port number Sx_PORT.
The origin servers are members of a CoAP group with IP multicast
address G_ADDR and port number G_PORT. Also, the origin servers are
members of a same application group, and share the same resource /r.
The communication between C and P is based on CoAP over UDP, as per
[RFC7252]. The communication between P and the origin servers is
based on CoAP over UDP and IP multicast, as per
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
Finally, 'bstr(X)' denotes a CBOR byte string with value the byte
serialization of X.
C P S1 S2
| | | |
|------------------------->| | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT | | |
| Proxi-URI { | | |
| coap://G_ADDR:G_PORT/r | | |
| } | | |
| Multicast-Signaling: 60 | | |
| | | |
| | Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | Dst: G_ADDR:G_PORT | |
| | Uri-Path: /r | |
| |---------------+----->| |
| | \ | |
| | +----------------->|
| | | |
| | /* t = 0 : P starts | |
| | accepting responses | |
| | for this request */ | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |<---------------------| |
| | Src: S1_ADDR:G_PORT | |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | | |
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| | | |
|<-------------------------| | |
| Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [1, /*CoAP over UDP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(S1_ADDR)) | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
| |<-----------------------------------|
| | Src: S2_ADDR:S2_PORT |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT |
|<-------------------------| | |
| Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [1, /*CoAP over UDP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(S2_ADDR)), | | |
| S2_PORT | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
| /* At t = 60, P stops accepting | |
| responses for this request */ | |
| | | |
Figure 3: Workflow example with a forward-proxy
6. Reverse-Proxies
The use of reverse-proxies in group communication scenarios is
defined in Section 3.4.2 of [I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
This section clarifies how the Multicast-Signaling Option is
effective also in such a context, in order for:
o The proxy to explictly reveal itself as a reverse-proxy to the
client.
o The client to indicate to the proxy of being aware that it is
communicating with a reverse-proxy, and for how long it is willing
to receive responses to a proxied request.
This practically addresses the addional issues compared to the case
with a forward-proxy, as compiled in Section 3.4.2 of
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis]. A reverse-proxy may also operate
without support of the Multicast-Signaling Option, as defined in that
section.
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Appendix B provides examples with a reverse-proxy.
6.1. Processing on the Client Side
If a client sends a request intended to a group of servers and is
aware of actually communicating with a reverse-proxy, then the client
MUST perform the steps defined in Section 5.1.1. In particular, this
results in a request sent to the proxy including a Multicast-
Signaling Option.
The client processes the responses forwarded back by the proxy as
defined in Section 5.5.
6.2. Processing on the Proxy Side
If the proxy receives a request and determines that it should forward
it to a group of servers over IP multicast, then the proxy MUST
perform the steps defined in Section 5.2.
In particular, when such request does not include a Multicast-
Signaling Option, the proxy explicitly reveals itself as a reverse-
proxy, by sending a 4.00 (Bad Request) response including an
Multicast-Signaling Option with empty (zero-length) value.
7. Chain of Proxies
A client may be interested to access a resource at a group of origin
servers which is reached through a chain of two or more proxies.
That is, these proxies are configured into a chain, where each non-
last proxy is configured to forward CoAP (group) requests to the next
hop towards the origin servers. Also, each non-first proxy is
configured to forward back CoAP responses to (the previous hop proxy
towards) the origin client.
This section specifies how the signaling protocol defined in
Section 5 is used in that setting. Except for the last proxy before
the origin servers, every other proxy in the chain takes the role of
client with respect to the next hop towards the origin servers.
Also, every proxy in the chain except the first takes the role of
server towards the previous proxy closer to the origin client.
The requirements REQ1 and REQ2 defined in Section 4 MUST be fulfilled
for each proxy in the chain. That is, every proxy in the chain has
to be explicitly configured (allow-list) to allow proxied group
requests from specific senders, and MUST identify those senders upon
receiving their group request. For the first proxy in the chain,
that sender is the origin client. For each other proxy in the chain,
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that sender is the previous hop proxy closer to the origin client.
In either case, a proxy can identify the sender of a group request by
the same means mentioned in Section 4.
7.1. Request Processing at the Proxy
Upon receiving a group request to be forwarded to a CoAP group URIs,
a proxy proceed as follows.
If the proxy is the last one in the chain, i.e. it is the last hop
before the origin servers, the proxy performs the steps defined in
Section 5.2, with no modifications.
Otherwise, the proxy performs the steps defined in Section 5.2, with
the following differences.
o At steps 1-3, "client" refers to the origin client for the first
proxy in the chain; or to the previous hop proxy closer to the
origin client, otherwise.
o At step 4, the proxy rather performs the following actions.
1. The proxy retrieves the value T' from the Multicast-Signaling
Option, and does not remove the option.
2. In case T' > 0, the proxy picks an amount of time T it is fine
to wait for before freeing up its local Token value to use
with the next hop towards the origin servers. To this end,
the proxy MUST follow what is defined at step 2 of
Section 5.1.1 for the origin client, with the following
differences.
+ T MUST be greater than the retrieved value T', i.e. T' < T.
+ The worst-case message processing time takes into account
all the next hops towards the origin servers, as well as
the origin servers themselves.
+ The worst-case round-trip delay takes into account all the
legs between the proxy and the origin servers.
3. In case T' > 0, the proxy replaces the value of the Multicast-
Signaling Option with a new value T'', such that:
+ T'' < T. The difference (T - T'') should be at least the
expected worst-case round-trip time between the proxy and
the next hop towards the origin servers.
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+ T'' < T'. The difference (T' - T'') should be at least the
expected worst-case round-trip time between the proxy and
the (previous hop proxy closer to the) origin client.
If the proxy is not able to determine a value T'' that
fulfills both the requirements above, the proxy MUST stop
processing the request and MUST respond with a 5.05 (Proxying
Not Supported) error response to the previous hop proxy closer
to the origin client. The proxy SHOULD include a Multicast-
Signaling Option, set to the minimum value T' that would be
acceptable in the Multicast-Signaling Option of a request to
forward.
Upon receiving such an error response, any proxy in the chain
MAY send an updated request to the next hop towards the origin
servers, specifying in the Multicast-Signaling Option a value
T' greater than in the previous request. If this does not
happen, the proxy receiving the error response MUST also send
a 5.05 (Proxying Not Supported) error response to the previous
hop proxy closer to the origin client. Like the received one,
also this error response SHOULD include a Multicast-Signaling
Option, set to the minimum value T' acceptable by the proxy
sending the error response.
o At step 5, the proxy forwards the request to the next hop towards
the origin servers.
o At step 6, the proxy sets a timeout with the value T' retrieved
from the Multicast-Signaling Option of the request received from
the (previous hop proxy closer to the) origin client.
In case T' > 0, the proxy will ignore responses to the forwarded
group request coming from the (next hop towards the) origin
servers, if received after the timeout expiration, with the
exception of Observe notifications (see Section 5.4).
In case T' = 0, the proxy will ignore all responses to the
forwarded group request coming from the (next hop towards the)
origin servers.
7.1.1. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], what is defined in Section 5.2.2
applies for the last proxy in the chain, i.e. the last hop before the
origin servers.
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Any other proxy in the chain acts as a client and registers its own
interest to observe the target resource with the next hop towards the
origin servers, as per Section 5 of [RFC7641].
7.2. Response Processing at the Proxy
Upon receiving a response matching the group request before the
amount of time T' has elapsed, the proxy proceeds as follows.
If the proxy is the last one in the chain, i.e. it is the last hop
before the origin servers, the proxy performs the steps defined in
Section 5.4, with no modifications.
Otherwise, the proxy performs the steps defined in Section 5.4, with
the following differences.
o The proxy skips step 1. In particular, the proxy MUST NOT remove,
alter or replace the Response-Forwarding Option.
o At steps 2-3, "client" refers to the origin client for the first
proxy in the chain; or to the previous hop proxy closer to the
origin client, otherwise.
Upon timeout expiration, i.e. T seconds after having sent the group
request to the next hop towards the origin servers, the proxy frees
up its local Token value associated to that request. Thus, following
late responses to the same group request will be discarded and not
forwarded back to the (previous hop proxy closer to the) origin
client.
7.2.1. Supporting Observe
When using CoAP Observe [RFC7641], what is defined in Section 5.4.2
applies for the last proxy in the chain, i.e. the last hop before the
origin servers.
As to any other proxy in the chain, the following applies.
o The proxy acts as a client registered with the next hop towards
the origin servers, as described earlier in Section 7.1.1.
o The proxy takes the role of a server when forwarding notifications
from the next hop to the origin servers back to the (previous hop
proxy closer to the) origin client, as per Section 5 of [RFC7641].
o The proxy frees up its Token value used for a group observation
only if, after the timeout expiration, no 2.xx (Success) responses
matching the group request and also including an Observe option
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have been received from the next hop towards the origin servers.
After that, as long as the observation for the target resource of
the group request is active with the next hop towards the origin
servers in the group, notifications from that hop are forwarded
back to the (previous hop proxy closer to the) origin client, as
defined in Section 7.2.
o The proxy SHOULD regularly verify that the (previous hop proxy
closer to the) origin client is still interested in receiving
observe notifications for a group observation. To this end, the
proxy can rely on the same approach defined in Section 4.5 of
[RFC7641].
8. Security Considerations
The security considerations from [RFC7252][I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bi
s][RFC8613][I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm] hold for this document.
When a chain of proxies is used (see Section 7), the secure
communication between any two adjacent hops is independent.
When Group OSCORE is used for end-to-end secure group communication
between the origin client and the origin servers, this security
association is unaffected by the possible presence of a proxy or a
chain of proxies.
Furthermore, the following additional considerations hold.
8.1. Client Authentication
As per the requirement REQ2 (see Section 4), the client has to
authenticate to the proxy when sending a group request to forward.
This leverages an established security association between the client
and the proxy, that the client uses to protect the group request,
before sending it to the proxy.
Note that, if the group request is (also) protected with Group
OSCORE, i.e. end-to-end between the client and the servers, the proxy
can authenticate the client by successfully verifying the counter
signature embedded in the group request. This requires that, for
each client to authenticate, the proxy stores the public key used by
that client in the OSCORE group, which in turn would require a form
of active synchronization between the proxy and the Group Manager for
that group [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm].
Nevertheless, the client and the proxy SHOULD still rely on a full-
fledged, pairwise secure association. In addition to ensuring the
integrity of group requests sent to the proxy (see Section 8.2 and
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Section 8.3), this prevents the proxy from forwarding replayed group
requests with a valid counter signature, as possibly injected by an
active, on-path adversary.
The same considerations apply when a chain of proxies is used (see
Section 7), with each proxy but the last one in the chain acting as
client with the next hop towards the origin servers.
8.2. Multicast-Signaling Option
The Multicast-Signaling Option is of class U for OSCORE [RFC8613].
Hence, also when Group OSCORE is used between the client and the
servers [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm], a proxy is able to access
the option value and retrieve the timeout value T', as well as to
remove the option altogether before forwarding the group request to
the servers. When a chain of proxies is used (see Section 7), this
also allows each proxy but the last one in the chain to update the
option value, as an indication for the next hop towards the origin
servers (see Section 7.1).
The security association between the client and the proxy MUST
provide message integrity, so that further intermediaries between the
two as well as on-path active adversaries are not able to remove the
option or alter its content, before the group request reaches the
proxy. Removing the option would otherwise result in not forwarding
the group request to the servers. Instead, altering the option
content would result in the proxy accepting and forwarding back
responses for an amount of time different than the one actually
indicated by the client.
The security association between the client and the proxy SHOULD also
provide message confidentiality. Otherwise, further intermediaries
between the two as well as on-path passive adversaries would be able
to simply access the option content, and thus learn for how long the
client is willing to receive responses from the servers in the group
via the proxy. This may in turn be used to perform a more efficient,
selective suppression of responses from the servers.
When the client (further) protects the unicast request sent to the
proxy using OSCORE (see Appendix A) and/or with (D)TLS, both message
integrity and message confidentiality are achieved in the leg between
the client and the proxy.
The same considerations above about security associations apply when
a chain of proxies is used (see Section 7), with each proxy but the
last one in the chain acting as client with the next hop towards the
origin servers.
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8.3. Response-Forwarding Option
The Response-Forwarding Option is of class U for OSCORE [RFC8613].
Hence, also when Group OSCORE is used between the client and the
servers [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm], the proxy that has
forwarded the group request to the servers is able to include the
option into a server response, before forwarding this response back
to the (previous hop proxy closer to the) origin client.
Since the security association between the client and the proxy
provides message integrity, any further intermediaries between the
two or on-path active adversaries are not able to undetectably remove
the Response-Forwarding Option from a forwarded server response.
This ensures that the client can correctly distinguish the different
responses and identify their corresponding origin server.
When the proxy (further) protects the response forwarded back to the
client using OSCORE (see Appendix A) and/or with (D)TLS, message
integrity is achieved in the leg between the client and the proxy.
The same considerations above about security associations apply when
a chain of proxies is used (see Section 7), with each proxy but the
last one in the chain acting as client with the next hop towards the
origin servers.
9. IANA Considerations
This document has the following actions for IANA.
9.1. CoAP Option Numbers Registry
IANA is asked to enter the following option numbers to the "CoAP
Option Numbers" registry defined in [RFC7252] within the "CoRE
Parameters" registry.
+--------+---------------------+-------------------+
| Number | Name | Reference |
+--------+---------------------+-------------------+
| TBD1 | Multicast-Signaling | [[this document]] |
+--------+---------------------+-------------------+
| TBD2 | Response-Forwarding | [[this document]] |
+--------+---------------------+-------------------+
9.2. CoAP Transport Information Registry
IANA is asked to enter the following entries to the "CoAP Transport
Information" Registry defined in Section 14.4 of
[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications].
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+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| Transport | Description | Value | Srv Addr | Req Info | Reference |
| Protocol | | | | | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| UDP | UDP with | 2 | tp_id | token | [This |
| secured | DTLS is | | srv_host | cli_host | document] |
| with DTLS | used as per | | srv_port | ?cli_port | |
| | RFC8323 | | | | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| TCP | TCP is used | 3 | tp_id | token | [This |
| | as per | | srv_host | cli_host | document] |
| | RFC8323 | | srv_port | ?cli_port | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| TCP | TCP with | 4 | tp_id | token | [This |
| secured | TLS is | | srv_host | cli_host | document] |
| with TLS | used as per | | srv_port | ?cli_port | |
| | RFC8323 | | | | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| WebSockets | WebSockets | 5 | tp_id | token | [This |
| | are used as | | srv_host | cli_host | document] |
| | per RFC8323 | | srv_port | ?cli_port | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
| WebSockets | WebSockets | 6 | tp_id | token | [This |
| secured | with TLS | | srv_host | cli_host | document] |
| with TLS | are used as | | srv_port | ?cli_port | |
| | per RFC8323 | | | | |
+------------+-------------+-------+----------+-----------+-----------+
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis]
Dijk, E., Wang, C., and M. Tiloca, "Group Communication
for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP)", draft-
ietf-core-groupcomm-bis-03 (work in progress), February
2021.
[I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm]
Tiloca, M., Selander, G., Palombini, F., Mattsson, J., and
J. Park, "Group OSCORE - Secure Group Communication for
CoAP", draft-ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm-11 (work in
progress), February 2021.
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[I-D.tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications]
Tiloca, M., Hoeglund, R., Amsuess, C., and F. Palombini,
"Observe Notifications as CoAP Multicast Responses",
draft-tiloca-core-observe-multicast-notifications-05 (work
in progress), February 2021.
[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/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC7252] Shelby, Z., Hartke, K., and C. Bormann, "The Constrained
Application Protocol (CoAP)", RFC 7252,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7252, June 2014,
<https://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,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7641>.
[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/info/rfc8174>.
[RFC8323] Bormann, C., Lemay, S., Tschofenig, H., Hartke, K.,
Silverajan, B., and B. Raymor, Ed., "CoAP (Constrained
Application Protocol) over TCP, TLS, and WebSockets",
RFC 8323, DOI 10.17487/RFC8323, February 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8323>.
[RFC8610] Birkholz, H., Vigano, C., and C. Bormann, "Concise Data
Definition Language (CDDL): A Notational Convention to
Express Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) and
JSON Data Structures", RFC 8610, DOI 10.17487/RFC8610,
June 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8610>.
[RFC8613] Selander, G., Mattsson, J., Palombini, F., and L. Seitz,
"Object Security for Constrained RESTful Environments
(OSCORE)", RFC 8613, DOI 10.17487/RFC8613, July 2019,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8613>.
[RFC8949] Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object
Representation (CBOR)", STD 94, RFC 8949,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8949, December 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8949>.
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10.2. Informative References
[I-D.bormann-coap-misc]
Bormann, C. and K. Hartke, "Miscellaneous additions to
CoAP", draft-bormann-coap-misc-27 (work in progress),
November 2014.
[I-D.ietf-ace-key-groupcomm-oscore]
Tiloca, M., Park, J., and F. Palombini, "Key Management
for OSCORE Groups in ACE", draft-ietf-ace-key-groupcomm-
oscore-10 (work in progress), February 2021.
[I-D.ietf-tls-dtls13]
Rescorla, E., Tschofenig, H., and N. Modadugu, "The
Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) Protocol Version
1.3", draft-ietf-tls-dtls13-41 (work in progress),
February 2021.
[I-D.tiloca-core-oscore-discovery]
Tiloca, M., Amsuess, C., and P. Stok, "Discovery of OSCORE
Groups with the CoRE Resource Directory", draft-tiloca-
core-oscore-discovery-08 (work in progress), February
2020.
[RFC6347] Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer
Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, DOI 10.17487/RFC6347,
January 2012, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6347>.
[RFC7967] Bhattacharyya, A., Bandyopadhyay, S., Pal, A., and T.
Bose, "Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) Option for
No Server Response", RFC 7967, DOI 10.17487/RFC7967,
August 2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7967>.
[RFC8446] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8446>.
Appendix A. Using OSCORE Between Client and Proxy
This section describes how OSCORE is used to protect messages
exchanged by an origin client and a proxy, using their pairwise
OSCORE Security Context.
This is especially convenient for the communication scenario
addressed in this document, when the origin client already supports
and uses Group OSCORE [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm] to protect
messages end-to-end with the origin servers.
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In particular, a CoAP message is protected with the OSCORE Security
Context between the origin client and the proxy, as considering both
of them to be terminal endpoints for the exchange in question. This
requires that some CoAP options in that message are processed as
class E, although originally defined as class U or class I.
This generally applies to all options that the proxy needs to
understand and process in its exchange with the origin client.
Further options can be added and treated as class U, e.g. related to
routing information. The rest of this section hightlights the most
relevant CoAP options to consider in this respect.
The following focuses on the origin client originating the group
request and a single proxy as its immediate next hop. When a chain
of proxies is used (see Section 7), the same independently applies
between each pair of proxies in the chain, where the proxy forwarding
the group request acts as client and the next hop towards the origin
servers acts as server.
A.1. Protecting the Request
Before sending the CoAP request to the proxy, the origin client
protects it using the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with
the proxy.
To this end, the origin client processes the CoAP request as defined
in Section 8.1 of [RFC8613], with the following differences.
o The Proxy-Uri option, if present, is not decomposed and recomposed
as defined in Section 4.1.3.3 of [RFC8613].
o The following options, if present, are processed as Class E.
* Proxy-Uri, Proxy-Scheme, Uri-Host and Uri-Port, defined in
[RFC7252].
* OSCORE, defined in [RFC8613], which is present if Group OSCORE
is used between the origin client and the origin servers, to
achieve end-to-end secure group communication.
* Multicast-Signaling Option, defined in Section 2 of this
specification.
As per [RFC8613], the resulting message includes an outer OSCORE
Option, which reflects the usage of the pairwise OSCORE Security
Context between the origin client and the proxy.
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A.2. Verifying the Request
The proxy verifies the CoAP request as defined in Section 8.2 of
[RFC8613]. Note that the Multicast-Signaling Option is retrieved
during the decryption process, and added to the decrypted request.
If secure group communication is also used between the origin client
and the origin servers, the request resulting from the previous step
and to be forwarded to the origin servers is also already protected
with Group OSCORE [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm]. Consequently, it
includes an outer OSCORE Option, which reflects the usage of the
group OSCORE Security Context between the origin client and the
origin servers.
A.3. Protecting the Response
The proxy protects the CoAP response received from a server, using
the pairwise OSCORE Security Context it has with the origin client.
To this end, the proxy processes the CoAP response as defined in
Section 8.3 of [RFC8613], with the difference that the OSCORE Option,
if present, is processed as Class E. This is the case if Group
OSCORE is used between the origin client and the origin servers, to
achieve end-to-end secure group communication.
Furthermore, the Response-Forwarding Option defined in Section 3 of
this specification is also processed as Class E.
As per [RFC8613], the resulting message to be forwarded back to the
origin client includes an outer OSCORE Option, which reflects the
usage of the pairwise OSCORE Security Context between the origin
client and the proxy.
A.4. Verifying the Response
The origin client verifies the CoAP response received from the proxy
as defined in Section 8.4 of [RFC8613]. Note that, the Response-
Forwarding Option is retrieved during the decryption process, and
added to the decrypted response.
If secure group communication is also used between the origin client
and the origin servers, the response resulting from the previous step
is protected with Group OSCORE [I-D.ietf-core-oscore-groupcomm].
Consequently, it includes an outer OSCORE Option, which reflects the
usage of the group OSCORE Security Context between the origin client
and the origin servers.
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Appendix B. Examples with Reverse-Proxy
The examples in this section refer to the following actors.
o One origin client C, with address C_ADDR and port number C_PORT.
o One proxy P, with address P_ADDR and port number P_PORT.
o Two origin servers S1 and S2, where the server Sx has address
Sx_ADDR and port number Sx_PORT.
The origin servers are members of a CoAP group with IP multicast
address G_ADDR and port number G_PORT. Also, the origin servers are
members of a same application group, and share the same resource /r.
The communication between C and P is based on CoAP over TCP, as per
[RFC8323]. The communication between P and the origin servers is
based on CoAP over UDP and IP multicast, as per
[I-D.ietf-core-groupcomm-bis].
Finally, 'bstr(X)' denotes a CBOR byte string with value the byte
serialization of X.
B.1. Example 1
The example shown in Figure 4 considers a reverse-proxy that stands
in for both the whole group of servers and for each of those servers
(e.g. acting as a firewall).
In particular:
o The address 'group1.com' resolves to P_ADDR. The proxy forwards
an incoming request to that address, for any resource i.e. URI
path, towards the CoAP group at G_ADDR:G_PORT leaving the URI path
unchanged.
o The address Dx_ADDR and port number Dx_PORT are used by the proxy,
which forwards an incoming request to that address towards the
server at Sx_ADDR:Sx_PORT.
Note that this type of reverse-proxy implementation requires the
proxy to use (potentially) a large number of distinct IP addresses,
so it is not very scalable.
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C P S1 S2
| | | |
|----------------------------->| /* C is not aware | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | that P is in fact | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | a reverse-proxy */ | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Src: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| 4.00 Bad Request | | |
| Multicast-Signaling: (empty) | | |
| Payload: "Please use | | |
| Multicast-Signaling" | | |
| | | |
|----------------------------->| | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Multicast-Signaling: 60 | | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
| | Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | Dst: G_ADDR:G_PORT | |
| | Uri-Path: /r | |
| |---------------+----->| |
| | \ | |
| | +----------------->|
| | | |
| | /* t = 0 : P starts | |
| | accepting responses | |
| | for this request */ | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |<---------------------| |
| | Src: S1_ADDR:S1_PORT | |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Src: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [3, /*CoAP over TCP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(D1_ADDR)), | | |
| D1_PORT | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
| | | |
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| |<-----------------------------------|
| | Src: S2_ADDR:S2_PORT |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Src: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [3, /*CoAP over TCP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(D2_ADDR)), | | |
| D2_PORT | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
| | | |
| /* At t = 60, P stops accepting | |
| responses for this request */ | |
| | | |
| | | |
|----------------------------->| /* Request intended | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | only to S1 */ | |
| Dst: D1_ADDR:D1_PORT | | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
| | Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | Dst: S1_ADDR:S1_PORT | |
| | Uri-Path: /r | |
| |--------------------->| |
| | | |
| | | |
| |<---------------------| |
| | Src: S1_ADDR:S1_PORT | |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Src: D1_ADDR:D1_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| | | |
Figure 4: Workflow example with reverse-proxy standing in for both
the whole group of servers and each individual server
B.2. Example 2
The example shown in Figure 5 builds on the example in Appendix B.1.
However, it considers a reverse-proxy that stands in for only the
whole group of servers, but not for each individual server.
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The final exchange between C and S1 occurs with CoAP over UDP.
C P S1 S2
| | | |
|----------------------------->| /* C is not aware | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | that P is in fact | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | a reverse-proxy */ | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Src: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| 4.00 Bad Request | | |
| Multicast-Signaling: (empty) | | |
| Payload: "Please use | | |
| Multicast-Signaling" | | |
| | | |
|----------------------------->| | |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Multicast-Signaling: 60 | | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
| | Src: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | Dst: G_ADDR:G_PORT | |
| | Uri-Path: /r | |
| |---------------+----->| |
| | \ | |
| | +----------------->|
| | | |
| | /* t = 0 : P starts | |
| | accepting responses | |
| | for this request */ | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |<---------------------| |
| | Src: S1_ADDR:S1_PORT | |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT | |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [1, /*CoAP over UDP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(S1_ADDR)), | | |
| S1_PORT | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
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| | | |
| |<-----------------------------------|
| | Src: S2_ADDR:S2_PORT |
| | Dst: P_ADDR:P_PORT |
| | | |
|<-----------------------------| | |
| Dst: group1.com:P_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| Response-Forwarding { | | |
| [1, /*CoAP over UDP*/ | | |
| #6.260(bstr(S2_ADDR)), | | |
| S2_PORT | | |
| ] | | |
| } | | |
| | | |
| /* At t = 60, P stops accepting | |
| responses for this request */ | |
| | | |
| | | |
|---------------------------------------------------->| |
| Src: C_ADDR:C_PORT | /* Request intended | |
| Dst: S1.ADDR:S1_PORT | only to S1 */ | |
| Uri-Path: /r | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|<----------------------------------------------------| |
| Src: S1.ADDR:S1_PORT | | |
| Dst: C_ADDR:C_PORT | | |
| | | |
Figure 5: Workflow example with reverse-proxy standing in for only
the whole group of servers, but not for each individual server
Acknowledgments
The authors sincerely thank Christian Amsuess, Jim Schaad and Goeran
Selander for their comments and feedback.
The work on this document has been partly supported by VINNOVA and
the Celtic-Next project CRITISEC; and by the H2020 project SIFIS-Home
(Grant agreement 952652).
Authors' Addresses
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Marco Tiloca
RISE AB
Isafjordsgatan 22
Kista SE-16440 Stockholm
Sweden
Email: marco.tiloca@ri.se
Esko Dijk
IoTconsultancy.nl
\________________\
Utrecht
The Netherlands
Email: esko.dijk@iotconsultancy.nl
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