Network Working Group                                         M. Bagnulo
Internet-Draft                                                      UC3M
Intended status: Informational                                B. Briscoe
Expires: January 9, 2017                             Simula Research Lab
                                                            July 8, 2016


  Adding Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to TCP control packets
                 draft-bagnulo-tswg-generalized-ecn-00

Abstract

   This documents explores the possibility of adding ECN support to TCP
   control packets.

Status of This Memo

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  The reliability argument  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  TCP SYNs  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Pure ACKs.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   5.  Retransmitted packets.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  Window probe packets  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   7.  Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   9.  Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   10. Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12

1.  Introduction

   RFC3168 [RFC3168] specifies the support of Explicit Congestion
   Notification (ECN) to IP.  By using the ECN capability, switches
   performing Active Queue Management (AQM) can use ECN marks instead of
   packets drops to signal congestion to the endpoints of a
   communication.  This results in lower packet loss and increased
   performance.  However, RFC3168 specifies the support of ECN in TCP
   data packets, but precludes the use of ECN in TCP control packets
   (TCP SYN, TCP SYN/ACK, pure ACKs, Window probes) and in retransmitted
   packets.  RFC 5562 [RFC5562] is an experimental extension to ECN that
   enables the ECN support for TCP SYN/ACK packets.

   The inability of using ECN in TCP control packets has a potential
   harmful effect, especially in environments where ECN support is
   pervasive.  For example, [judd-nsdi] shows that in a data center
   environment where DCTCP is used (in conjunction with ECN), the the
   probability of being able to establish a new connection using a non-
   ECT-marked SYN packet drops to close to 0 when there are 16 ongoing
   TCP flows transmitting at full speed.  In this particular context of
   a datacenter using DCTCP, the issue is that the proposed AQM
   aggressively marks packets to keep the buffer queues small and this
   implies that non-ECT-marked packets are in turn dropped aggressively
   as well, rendering nearly impossible to establish new connection when
   there is ongoing traffic.

   These limitations are not limited to the data center environment.  In
   any ECN deployment, non ECT marked packets received a penalty when
   they go through a congested bottleneck, since in many cases they are
   dropped instead of marked with the CE codepoint.  Dropping TCP
   control traffic, such as TCP SYNs and pure ACKs have a negative
   effect on the overall performance of the communication, so it is
   beneficial to avoid it.




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   Finally, there are ongoing efforts to promote the adoption of DCTCP
   (and similar transports) over the Internet to achieve low latency for
   all communications [I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-aqm-tcpm-rmcat-l4s-problem].
   In such approach, ECN capable packets are treated more favorably, as
   they are likely to experience less delay and lower packet drop
   probability.  Preventing TCP control packets, which are critical for
   TCP performance, to obtain the benefits of ECN would result in
   degraded performance.

   However, RFC3168 does not prevents from using ECN in TCP control
   packets lightly.  It provides a number of specific reasons for each
   packet type.  In this note, we revisit each of the arguments provided
   by RFC3168 and explore possibilities to enable the ECN capability in
   the different packet types.  We do so in the context of a data center
   network and in the context of the public Internet.

2.  The reliability argument

   While for each type of packet RFC 3168 provides a set of specific
   arguments for preventing their marking, RFC3168 presents the reliable
   delivery of the congestion signal as an overarching argument that
   needs to be consider when trying to enable the ECT marking of TCP
   control packets.  In particular, Section 5.2 of RFC3168 states:

      To ensure the reliable delivery of the congestion indication of
      the CE codepoint, an ECT codepoint MUST NOT be set in a packet
      unless the loss of that packet in the network would be detected by
      the end nodes and interpreted as an indication of congestion.

   We believe this argument is overly conservative.  The overall
   principle that should determine the level of reliability required for
   ECN capable packets should be the one of "do not harm".  Reliable
   delivery of the CE codepoint is indeed paramount but the level of
   reliability required should be the one of the original congestion
   signal (i.e. the detection of the loss of the original packet).  In
   other words, the situation without ECN is that when a packet is to be
   transmitted through a congested link, the packet may be dropped and
   that is the congestion signal sent to the endpoint.  When ECN is
   introduced, the reliability of the delivery of the congestion signal
   should be no worse than without ECN.  In particular, setting the CE
   codepoint in the very same packet seem to fulfill this criteria,
   since either the packet is delivered and the CE codepoint signal is
   delivered to the endpoint, or the packet is dropped, so the original
   congestion signal through the packet loss is delivered to the
   endpoint.  Requiring more than this implies that the ECN congestion
   signal is delivered more reliably than the current situation, which
   is not a bad thing per se, but, as we describe in this memo, it




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   results in performance penalties that should be reconsidered in the
   view of current deployments.

   In addition, the reliability of the delivery of the congestion signal
   is used an argument for not setting the ECT codepoint in TCP control
   packets, which effectively reduced the reliability of the
   transmission of these TCP control packets.  There is the then a
   tradeoff between the reliability of the delivery of the congestion
   signal and the reliability of the delivery of TCP control packets.
   As currently specified, ECN adoption implies an increased reliability
   of the ECN congestion signal and a decrease in the reliability in the
   TCP control packets.  We believe that it is possible and desirable to
   restore the tradeoff existent in non ECN capable networks in terms of
   reliability, where the congestion signal delivery is as reliable as
   in a non ECN capable network and so it is the delivery of TCP control
   packets.

3.  TCP SYNs

   We next describe he arguments exhibited by current specification for
   precluding the ECT marking of SYN packets.

   In addition to the reliability argument above, RFC 5562 presents two
   arguments against ECT marking of SYN packets (cited verbatim):

      There are several reasons why an ECN-Capable codepoint must not be
      set in the IP header of the initiating TCP SYN packet.  First,
      when the TCP SYN packet is sent, there are no guarantees that the
      other TCP endpoint (node B in Figure 2) is ECN-Capable, or that it
      would be able to understand and react if the ECN CE codepoint was
      set by a congested router.

      Second, the ECN-Capable codepoint in TCP SYN packets could be
      misused by malicious clients to "improve" the well-known TCP SYN
      attack.  By setting an ECN-Capable codepoint in TCP SYN packets, a
      malicious host might be able to inject a large number of TCP SYN
      packets through a potentially congested ECN-enabled router,
      congesting it even further.

   We next go through all the arguments stated above to enable ECT
   marking of SYN packets.

   Argument 1: Unknown ECN capability capability at the responder.  The
   initiator does not know whether the responder supports ECN and in
   particular, the initiator does not know if the responder supports ECT
   marked SYNs.





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   In the DC context, this argument does not hold (at least in single
   tenant DCs, possibly in multi-tenant DCs, if we assume that each
   tenant mostly communicates with its own VMs).  The DC is a much more
   controlled environment than the public Internet, so the server's
   support of ECN can be guaranteed administratively i.e. the manager of
   the DC makes sure that the servers support ECN and in particular ECT
   marked SYN packets.

   In the public Internet context, it cannot be assumed that all servers
   support ECN, and much less that they support ECT marked SYN packets.
   When sending an ECT marked SYN to a legacy responder (i.e. a
   responder that does not support ECT marked SYNs), different
   behaviours are possible.

   The responder may drop the SYN (either silently or by sending a RST)
   or may reply with a non ECT marked SYN/ACK.  If it is the latter,
   then this is a non-issue (the second issue presented next still
   applies though).  If it is the former, then the initiator will have
   to retransmit the SYN (without the ECT mark).  Depending how extended
   is this behaviour, this can reduce significantly the benefits of
   adding ECT capability to the SYN or even be detrimental for the
   performance.  According to [ecn-pam], out of the top 1M Alexa web
   sites, only 0,82% of IPv4 sites and 0,61% of IPv6 sites fail to
   establish a connection when they receive a TCP SYN with any ECN
   codepoint set.

   If based on this data, we conclude that the fraction of fraction of
   servers that discard the ECT marked SYN is a non negligible, further
   options depend on whether they silently discard it or they send a RST
   back.  If they send a RST back, the initiator can then send a non ECT
   marked SYN.  In this case the penalty would be an extra RTT, which
   may or may not be acceptable, depending on the fraction of servers
   that behaves like this.  If the server silently discard the ECT
   marked SYN, then the initiator needs to wait for the retransmission
   timer to expire and retransmit a non-ECT marked SYN.  This is a high
   penalty.  If this is the case, one option, would be to first send an
   ECT marked SYN and then a non-ECT marked SYN (possibly with a small
   delay between them) and establish the ECT capable connection if the
   former is replied.

   Argument 2: Lost of congestion notification in the SYN packet due to
   lack of support from the responder.  If the ECT marked SYN packet is
   tagged as CE by a router along the path and the server does not
   support ECT marked SYN packets, even if the server replies with a
   SYN/ACK, the congestion information would be lost.  The conservative
   approach would be that if a non ECT SYN/ACK packet is received as a
   reply to an ECT SYN, then the initiator assumes the SYN was marked
   with the CE and hence it for instance reduces the initial window



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   accordingly (to half its default initial value?).  That may be much
   of a penalty, especially in the early days of deployment, when little
   support for ECT SYN packets will be available.  The alternative is
   simply assume that such congestion information will be lost during
   partial deployment.  Not clear if this is acceptable.  Not sure if
   there is another (better) alternative.

   Argument 3: DoS attacks.  There are two possible DoS attacks involved
   in the text contained in RFC3168.  On one hand, the mention about
   improving the well-known TCP SYN attack.  The reference to the TCP
   SYN attack we interpret it as a reference to the TCP SYN flood attack
   (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SYN_flood).  This attack is
   addressed to the responder endpoint of the connection.  The argument
   is basically, because SYN can be used to launch attacks, their
   transmission should not be more reliable.  While it is true that SYNs
   can be used to launch attacks, it is also true that SYNs are
   fundamental for legitimate communications, so the argument for
   increasing reliability of legitimate communications should take
   precedence.  On the other hand in the RFC3168 refers about ECN
   capable SYN packets to congest further a bottleneck.  It is not clear
   why a TCP SYN packet is worse than any other packet in this respect.
   In any case, section 7 of RFC3168 already provides the means to
   address this concern, as it reads:

      First, ECN-Capable routers will only mark packets (as opposed to
      dropping them) when the packet marking rate is reasonably low.
      During periods where the average queue size exceeds an upper
      threshold, and therefore the potential packet marking rate would
      be high, our recommendation is that routers drop packets rather
      then set the CE codepoint in packet headers.

      Safe deployment of ECN requires that network devices drop
      excessive traffic, even when marked as originating from an ECN-
      capable transport.  This is a necessary safety precaution
      because:..

   Alternative behaviour.  If we were to allow setting the ECT codepoint
   in the SYN packets, we need to define how it would behave.

   One challenge is to support legacy ECN responders that do not support
   ECT marked SYNs but do support ECN.

   One possible behaviour could be something along these lines.  The SYN
   packet will carry the ECT(1) bit set as well as the ECE and CWR bits
   set.  This is needed to support legacy ECN responders that would
   ignore the ECT bit, but properly process the ECN support negotiation
   using the ECE and CWR flags.  Routers can then set the CE bit in the
   SYN.



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   If the responder receives a SYN with ECT(1), ECE and CWR bits set, it
   replies with a SYN/ACK that includes ECT(1) bit set.  Because the
   ECT(1) bit is set, (and the CWR bit is not set) the initiator can
   realize that the responder supports ECN and also ECT marked SYNs.

   If the responder receives a SYN with ECT(1), ECE, CWR and CE bits
   set, it replies with a SYN/ACK that includes the ECT(1) and the ECE
   bits set.  Because the ECT(1) bit is set (and the CWR bit is not
   set), the initiator can realize that the ECE bit means that the CE
   bit was set in the SYN and then can react accordingly.  The reaction
   to the ECE bit is then to halve the initial CWND for the connection.

4.  Pure ACKs.

   RFC3168 exposes the following arguments for not allowing the ECT
   marking of pure ACKs.  In section 5.2 it reads:

      To ensure the reliable delivery of the congestion indication of
      the CE codepoint, an ECT codepoint MUST NOT be set in a packet
      unless the loss of that packet in the network would be detected by
      the end nodes and interpreted as an indication of congestion.

      Transport protocols such as TCP do not necessarily detect all
      packet drops, such as the drop of a "pure" ACK packet; for
      example, TCP does not reduce the arrival rate of subsequent ACK
      packets in response to an earlier dropped ACK packet.  Any
      proposal for extending ECN- Capability to such packets would have
      to address issues such as the case of an ACK packet that was
      marked with the CE codepoint but was later dropped in the network.
      We believe that this aspect is still the subject of research, so
      this document specifies that at this time, "pure" ACK packets MUST
      NOT indicate ECN-Capability.

   Later on, in section 6.1.4 it reads:

      For the current generation of TCP congestion control algorithms,
      pure acknowledgement packets (e.g., packets that do not contain
      any accompanying data) MUST be sent with the not-ECT codepoint.
      Current TCP receivers have no mechanisms for reducing traffic on
      the ACK-path in response to congestion notification.  Mechanisms
      for responding to congestion on the ACK-path are areas for current
      and future research.  (One simple possibility would be for the
      sender to reduce its congestion window when it receives a pure ACK
      packet with the CE codepoint set).  For current TCP
      implementations, a single dropped ACK generally has only a very
      small effect on the TCP's sending rate.

   We next address each of the arguments presented above.



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   The first argument is about lack of reliability while conveying
   congestion notification information when carried in pure ACKs.  This
   is the specific instance for the pure ACK messages of the reliability
   argument discussed in Section 2.  In some cases, the loss of pure
   ACKs is not detected by the endpoints, loosing the congestion
   notification information indadvertedly if it was to be carried in
   those packets.  As we argued before, the bar for deciding if a packet
   can be marked with the ECT codepoint i.e. if it is suitable for
   carrying congestion notification information is that the congestion
   signal communication should be as reliable as dropping the packet.
   After all, the alternative of setting the CE bit in the packet is
   dropping the packet.  So, the question is whether carrying congestion
   information in a pure ACK conveys the congestion information as
   reliably as when the pure ACK is dropped and it is obvious that the
   answer to that question is clearly yes.  If the pure ACK carrying the
   ECT and the CE bits set is later dropped by the network, it will be
   essentially falling back to the use of drop as congestion signal.

   The second argument exhibited in RFC3168 is the lack of means in the
   sender of the pure ACKs to reduce the load that is creating the
   congestion.  Again, marking the pure ACKs with the ECT codepoint and
   allowing them to carry congestion notification information would be
   no worse than not doing so from this perspective (and it would be
   much more detrimental form the overall performance perspective).  The
   sender of the pure ACKs will receive the echo of the congestion
   notification and it may be able to reduce the CWND of the connection.
   If it happens to be only sending pure ACKs and no data and it can
   react reducing the rate at which data is being sent, it would not be
   worse in terms of congestion than in the case that the pure ACK is
   dropped.

   So, overall, we believe that in terms of conveying and reacting to
   congestion, allowing to set the ECT (and the CE) flags in the pure
   ACKs is not worse than not doing so (and dropping the pure ACK), but
   in terms of performance, not ECT marking the pure ACKs is certainly
   detrimental.

5.  Retransmitted packets.

   RFC3168 does not allow setting the ECT codepoint in retransmitted
   packets.  The arguments presented in the specification for supporting
   this design choice are the following ones (the text is quite long,
   not sure if we should keep it all):

      This document specifies ECN-capable TCP implementations MUST NOT
      set either ECT codepoint (ECT(0) or ECT(1)) in the IP header for
      retransmitted data packets, and that the TCP data receiver SHOULD
      ignore the ECN field on arriving data packets that are outside of



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      the receiver's current window.  This is for greater security
      against denial-of-service attacks, as well as for robustness of
      the ECN congestion indication with packets that are dropped later
      in the network.

      First, we note that if the TCP sender were to set an ECT codepoint
      on a retransmitted packet, then if an unnecessarily-retransmitted
      packet was later dropped in the network, the end nodes would never
      receive the indication of congestion from the router setting the
      CE codepoint.  Thus, setting an ECT codepoint on retransmitted
      data packets is not consistent with the robust delivery of the
      congestion indication even for packets that are later dropped in
      the network.

      In addition, an attacker capable of spoofing the IP source address
      of the TCP sender could send data packets with arbitrary sequence
      numbers, with the CE codepoint set in the IP header.  On receiving
      this spoofed data packet, the TCP data receiver would determine
      that the data does not lie in the current receive window, and
      return a duplicate acknowledgement.  We define an out-of-window
      packet at the TCP data receiver as a data packet that lies outside
      the receiver's current window.  On receiving an out-of-window
      packet, the TCP data receiver has to decide whether or not to
      treat the CE codepoint in the packet header as a valid indication
      of congestion, and therefore whether to return ECN-Echo
      indications to the TCP data sender.  If the TCP data receiver
      ignored the CE codepoint in an out-of-window packet, then the TCP
      data sender would not receive this possibly- legitimate indication
      of congestion from the network, resulting in a violation of end-
      to-end congestion control.  On the other hand, if the TCP data
      receiver honors the CE indication in the out-of-window packet, and
      reports the indication of congestion to the TCP data sender, then
      the malicious node that created the spoofed, out-of- window packet
      has successfully "attacked" the TCP connection by forcing the data
      sender to unnecessarily reduce (halve) its congestion window.  To
      prevent such a denial-of-service attack, we specify that a
      legitimate TCP data sender MUST NOT set an ECT codepoint on
      retransmitted data packets, and that the TCP data receiver SHOULD
      ignore the CE codepoint on out-of-window packets.

      One drawback of not setting ECT(0) or ECT(1) on retransmitted
      packets is that it denies ECN protection for retransmitted
      packets.  However, for an ECN-capable TCP connection in a fully-
      ECN-capable environment with mild congestion, packets should
      rarely be dropped due to congestion in the first place, and so
      instances of retransmitted packets should rarely arise.  If
      packets are being retransmitted, then there are already packet




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      losses (from corruption or from congestion) that ECN has been
      unable to prevent.

      We note that if the router sets the CE codepoint for an ECN-
      capable data packet within a TCP connection, then the TCP
      connection is guaranteed to receive that indication of congestion,
      or to receive some other indication of congestion within the same
      window of data, even if this packet is dropped or reordered in the
      network.  We consider two cases, when the packet is later
      retransmitted, and when the packet is not later retransmitted.

      In the first case, if the packet is either dropped or delayed, and
      at some point retransmitted by the data sender, then the
      retransmission is a result of a Fast Retransmit or a Retransmit
      Timeout for either that packet or for some prior packet in the
      same window of data.  In this case, because the data sender
      already has retransmitted this packet, we know that the data
      sender has already responded to an indication of congestion for
      some packet within the same window of data as the original packet.
      Thus, even if the first transmission of the packet is dropped in
      the network, or is delayed, if it had the CE codepoint set, and is
      later ignored by the data receiver as an out- of-window packet,
      this is not a problem, because the sender has already responded to
      an indication of congestion for that window of data.

      In the second case, if the packet is never retransmitted by the
      data sender, then this data packet is the only copy of this data
      received by the data receiver, and therefore arrives at the data
      receiver as an in-window packet, regardless of how much the packet
      might be delayed or reordered.  In this case, if the CE codepoint
      is set on the packet within the network, this will be treated by
      the data receiver as a valid indication of congestion.

   There are essentially three arguments for not ECT marking
   retransmitted packets, namely, reliability, DoS attacks and over-
   reaction to congestion.  We address all of them next in order.

   About reliability, as described in Section 2, we believe that the bar
   should be that the congestion signal should be delivered as reliably
   as if it was a packet drop.  So, if a retransmitted packet is dropped
   and this goes by unnoticed by the receiver, then the congestion
   signal expressed as a drop would be lost.  The same applies to the
   congestion signal resulting from marking with ECT and CE the very
   same retransmitted packet which later is dropped.

   About the possibility of DoS attacks, the protection against the DoS
   attack does not result from not allowing retransmitted packets to be
   ECT marked.  If an attacker decided to launch such an attack, it



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   would craft the packet with the ECT codepoint set.  Effectively, the
   protection against the described DoS attack comes from the
   requirement that the receiver should not ignore the CE codepoint in
   out-of-window packets.  We proposed to allow ECT marking of
   retransmitted packets, in order reduces the chances of it being
   dropped, but keep the requirement to ignore the CE codepoint in out-
   of-window packets.

   Finally, the third argument is about over-reacting to congestion.
   Basically, if the retransmitted packet is dropped, the sender will
   not react again to congestion (it has reacted already when it
   generated the retransmitted packet).  If the retransmitted packet is
   CE tagged instead of dropped, then the congestion signal will arrive
   again to the sender who could potentially react again to congestion.
   However, this should not happen as RFC3168 imposes the condition that
   a sender must only react once per window to the congestion signal and
   this should not be an exception to this rule.

6.  Window probe packets

   RFC3168 presents only the reliability argument for preventing setting
   the ECT codepoint in Window Probe packets.  Specifically, it states:

      When the TCP data receiver advertises a zero window, the TCP data
      sender sends window probes to determine if the receiver's window
      has increased.  Window probe packets do not contain any user data
      except for the sequence number, which is a byte.  If a window
      probe packet is dropped in the network, this loss is not detected
      by the receiver.  Therefore, the TCP data sender MUST NOT set
      either an ECT codepoint or the CWR bit on window probe packets.

      However, because window probes use exact sequence numbers, they
      cannot be easily spoofed in denial-of-service attacks.  Therefore,
      if a window probe arrives with the CE codepoint set, then the
      receiver SHOULD respond to the ECN indications.

   The reliability argument has been addressed in Section 2.  dropping
   the window probe message in the case the conditions for the Silly
   Window Syndrome are on, basically implies that the sender will be
   stalled until the new Window Probe message reaches the receiver,
   which agains results in a performance penalty.

   On the bright side, receivers should respond to ECN messages in these
   packets, so changing the behaviour should be less painful than for
   other packet types.






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7.  Security considerations

   TBD, not sure if there is any.

8.  IANA Considerations

   There are no IANA considerations in this memo.

9.  Acknowledgments

   TBD

10.  Informative References

   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP",
              RFC 3168, DOI 10.17487/RFC3168, September 2001,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3168>.

   [RFC5562]  Kuzmanovic, A., Mondal, A., Floyd, S., and K.
              Ramakrishnan, "Adding Explicit Congestion Notification
              (ECN) Capability to TCP's SYN/ACK Packets", RFC 5562,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5562, June 2009,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5562>.

   [I-D.briscoe-tsvwg-aqm-tcpm-rmcat-l4s-problem]
              Briscoe, B., Schepper, K., and M. Bagnulo, "Low Latency,
              Low Loss, Scalable Throughput (L4S) Internet Service:
              Problem Statement", draft-briscoe-tsvwg-aqm-tcpm-rmcat-
              l4s-problem-02 (work in progress), July 2016.

   [judd-nsdi]
              Judd, G., "Attaining the promise and avoiding the pitfalls
              of TCP in the Datacenter", NSDI 2015, 2015.

   [ecn-pam]  Brian, B., Mirja, M., Damiano, D., Iain, I., Gorry, G.,
              and R. Richard, "Enabling Internet-Wide Deployment of
              Explicit Congestion Notification", PAM 2015, 2015.

Authors' Addresses











Bagnulo & Briscoe        Expires January 9, 2017               [Page 12]


Internet-Draft         ECN and TCP control packets             July 2016


   Marcelo Bagnulo
   Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
   Av. Universidad 30
   Leganes, Madrid  28911
   SPAIN

   Phone: 34 91 6249500
   Email: marcelo@it.uc3m.es
   URI:   http://www.it.uc3m.es


   Bob Briscoe
   Simula Research Lab

   Email: ietf@bobbriscoe.net
   URI:   http://bobbriscoe.net/



































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