Internet Engineering Task Force                                   SIP WG
Internet Draft                                     G.Nair, H.Schulzrinne
draft-ietf-sip-dhcp-01.txt                           Columbia University
April 6, 2000
Expires: October 2000


                      DHCP Option for SIP Servers

STATUS OF THIS MEMO

   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.

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Abstract

   This document defines a DHCP option that contains a pointers to one
   or more SIP servers. This is one of the many methods that a SIP
   client can use to obtain the addresses of a local oubound SIP server.



                              Table of Contents



      1          Terminology .........................................    2
      2          Introduction ........................................    2
      3          Overview ............................................    2
      4          SIP server DHCP options .............................    2
      5          Security Consideration ..............................    3
      6          Acknowledgements ....................................    3
      7          Authors' Addresses ..................................    4
      8          Bibliography ........................................    4



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1 Terminology

        DHCP client: A DHCP [1] client is an Internet host that uses
             DHCP to obtain configuration parameters such as a network
             address.

        DHCP server: A DHCP server is an Internet host that returns
             configuration parameters to DHCP clients.

        SIP server: As defined in RFC 2543 [2]. In the context of this
             document, a SIP server refers to the host the SIP server is
             running on.

        SIP client: As defined in RFC 2543. In the context of this
             document, a SIP client refers to the host the SIP client is
             running on.

   In this document, the key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED",
   "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY",
   and "OPTIONAL" are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [3].

2 Introduction

   The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [2] is an application-layer
   control protocol that can establish, modify and terminate multimedia
   sessions or calls. In particular, it is used for signaling of
   Internet telephony calls.  A SIP system has two components: user
   agents and servers.  The user agent is the SIP end system that acts
   on behalf of someone who wants to participate in a SIP call.

   This draft specifies a DHCP option [1,4] that allows SIP user agents
   (clients) to locate a local SIP server that is to be used for all
   outbound SIP requests.  (SIP clients MAY contact the address
   identified in the SIP URL directly, without involving a local SIP
   server. However in some circumstances, when firewalls are present,
   SIP clients need to use a local server for outbound requests.) This
   is one of many possible solutions for locating the outbound SIP
   server.

3 Overview

   The SIP client obtains a DNS [5] string via a DHCP option.  The SIP
   client first uses the SRV [6] resource records to resolve the host
   name. If this fails, the A resource records are tried.

4 SIP server DHCP options

   This option specifies the DNS [5] string that is passed to the



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   client. This string SHOULD be the domain name of the SIP server.  The
   client SHOULD first use this string to send an SRV query to the DNS
   server. If the client is not SRV-cognizant or the SRV query fails,
   the client sends the same string in an A record query.  The code for
   this option is TBD. The length of the DNS name string is specified in
   `Len'. The maximum length of this string is 255 octets and minimum
   length is 1 octet.

             Code  Len      DNS name of SIP server
           +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--
           | TBD |  n  | s1  | s2  | s3  | s4  | s5  |  ...
           +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+--




   The reason for using the SRV string to obtain the IP address is that
   load sharing can be implemented more readily by an SRV-cognizant
   client.  The string sent by the DHCP server SHOULD be the domain name
   of the SIP server. The client uses this string to construct the SRV
   query. The DHCP server MAY instead choose to send the fully qualified
   domain name of the SIP server intended to be used in an A record
   query, but this is NOT RECOMMENDED.  The client however, MUST first
   treat the string as a domain name and use it to construct the SRV
   query.  SIP clients usually support either UDP or TCP, but SIP
   servers usually support both UDP and TCP.  Thus, if the string sent
   by the DHCP server is intended for use in constructing the SRV query,
   it MUST NOT contain the Service and Proto [6] fields. The client is
   aware of the transport protocols that it can support, therefore it is
   appropriate that the Service and the Proto fields be added by the
   client. The Service field in this case is always _sip. The Proto
   fields may be _udp or _tcp depending on the client's capabilities.
   The client adds the Service and Proto fields to the string before
   making the SRV query. If the client's SRV query fails, the client
   MUST use the string originally returned by the DHCP server in an A
   record query (without adding the Service and Proto fields).

5 Security Consideration

   There are no security considerations beyond those described in RFC
   2132.

6 Acknowledgements

   We would like to thank Robert Elz, Wenyu Jiang, Peter Koch, Erik
   Nordmark, Jonathan Rosenberg, Kundan Singh, Sven Ubik and Bernie Volz
   for their contributions.




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7 Authors' Addresses

   Gautam Nair
   Dept. of Computer Science
   Columbia University 1214 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 0401
   New York, NY 10027
   USA
   electronic mail:  gnair@cs.columbia.edu

   Henning Schulzrinne
   Dept. of Computer Science
   Columbia University 1214 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 0401
   New York, NY 10027
   USA
   electronic mail:  schulzrinne@cs.columbia.edu

8 Bibliography

   [1] R. Droms, "Dynamic host configuration protocol," Request for
   Comments (Draft Standard) 2131, Internet Engineering Task Force, Mar.
   1997.

   [2] M. Handley, H. Schulzrinne, E. Schooler, and J. Rosenberg, "SIP:
   session initiation protocol," Request for Comments (Proposed
   Standard) 2543, Internet Engineering Task Force, Mar. 1999.

   [3] S. Bradner, "Key words for use in RFCs to indicate requirement
   levels," Request for Comments (Best Current Practice) 2119, Internet
   Engineering Task Force, Mar. 1997.

   [4] S. Alexander and R. Droms, "DHCP options and BOOTP vendor
   extensions," Request for Comments (Draft Standard) 2132, Internet
   Engineering Task Force, Mar. 1997.

   [5] P. V. Mockapetris, "Domain names - implementation and
   specification," Request for Comments (Standard) 1035, Internet
   Engineering Task Force, Nov. 1987.

   [6] A. Gulbrandsen, P. Vixie, and L. Esibov, "A DNS RR for specifying
   the location of services (DNS SRV)," Request for Comments (Proposed
   Standard) 2782, Internet Engineering Task Force, Feb. 2000.


   Full Copyright Statement

   Copyright (c) The Internet Society (2000). All Rights Reserved.

   This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to



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G.Nair, H.Schulzrinne                                         [Page 5]