TAPS M. Welzl
Internet-Draft University of Oslo
Intended status: Informational M. Tuexen
Expires: July 11, 2016 Muenster Univ. of Appl. Sciences
N. Khademi
University of Oslo
January 8, 2016
On the Usage of Transport Service Features Provided by IETF Transport
Protocols
draft-ietf-taps-transports-usage-00
Abstract
This document describes how transport protocols expose services to
applications and how an application can configure and use the
features of a transport service.
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 http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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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 July 11, 2016.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 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
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publication of this document. Please review these documents
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to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
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the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Pass 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.1. Primitives Provided by TCP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.1.1. Excluded Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.2. Primitives Provided by SCTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.2.1. Excluded Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4. Pass 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.1. CONNECTION Related Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2. DATA Transfer Related Primitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5. Pass 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
5.1. CONNECTION Related Transport Service Features . . . . . . 18
5.2. DATA Transfer Related Transport Service Features . . . . . 20
5.2.1. Sending Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
5.2.2. Receiving Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
5.2.3. Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Appendix A. Overview of RFCs used as input for pass 1 . . . . . . 24
Appendix B. How to contribute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Appendix C. Revision information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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1. Terminology
Transport Service Feature: a specific end-to-end feature that a
transport service provides to its clients. Examples include
confidentiality, reliable delivery, ordered delivery, message-
versus-stream orientation, etc.
Transport Service: a set of transport service features, without an
association to any given framing protocol, which provides a
complete service to an application.
Transport Protocol: an implementation that provides one or more
different transport services using a specific framing and header
format on the wire.
Transport Protocol Component: an implementation of a transport
service feature within a protocol.
Transport Service Instance: an arrangement of transport protocols
with a selected set of features and configuration parameters that
implements a single transport service, e.g., a protocol stack (RTP
over UDP).
Application: an entity that uses the transport layer for end-to-end
delivery of data across the network (this may also be an upper
layer protocol or tunnel encapsulation).
Endpoint: an entity that communicates with one or more other
endpoints using a transport protocol.
Connection: shared state of two or more endpoints that persists
across messages that are transmitted between these endpoints.
Primitive: a function call that is used to locally communicate
between an application and a transport endpoint and is related to
one or more Transport Service Features.
Parameter: a value passed between an application and a transport
protocol by a primitive.
Socket: the combination of a destination IP address and a
destination port number.
2. Introduction
This document presents defined interactions between transport
protocols and applications in the form of 'primitives' (function
calls). Primitives can be invoked by an application or a transport
protocol; the latter type is called an "event". The list of
transport service features and primitives in this document is
strictly based on the parts of protocol specifications that relate to
what the protocol provides to an application using it and how the
application interacts with it. It does not cover parts of a protocol
that are explicitly stated as optional to implement.
The document presents a three-pass process to arrive at a list of
transport service features. In the first pass, the relevant RFC text
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is discussed per protocol. In the second pass, this discussion is
used to derive a list of primitives that are uniformly categorized
across protocols. Here, an attempt is made to present or -- where
text describing primitives does not yet exist -- construct primitives
in a slightly generalized form to highlight similarities. This is,
for example, achieved by renaming primitives of protocols or by
avoiding a strict 1:1-mapping between the primitives in the protocol
specification and primitives in the list. Finally, the third pass
presents transport service features based on pass 2, identifying
which protocols implement them.
In the list resulting from the second pass, some transport service
features are missing because they are implicit in some protocols, and
they only become explicit when we consider the superset of all
features offered by all protocols. For example, TCP's reliability
includes integrity via a checksum, but we have to include a protocol
like UDP-Lite as specified in [RFC3828] (which has a configurable
checksum) in the list before we can consider an always-on checksum as
a transport service feature. Similar arguments apply to other
protocol functions (e.g. congestion control). The complete list of
features across all protocols is therefore only available after pass
3.
This document discusses unicast transport protocols. [AUTHOR'S NOTE:
we skip "congestion control mechanisms" for now. This simplifies the
discussion; the congestion control mechanisms part is about LEDBAT,
which should be easy to add later.] Transport protocols provide
communication between processes that operate on network endpoints,
which means that they allow for multiplexing of communication between
the same IP addresses, and normally this multiplexing is achieved
using port numbers. Port multiplexing is therefore assumed to be
always provided and not discussed in this document.
Some protocols are connection-oriented. Connection-oriented
protocols often use an initial call to a specific transport primitive
to open a connection before communication can progress, and require
communication to be explicitly terminated by issuing another call to
a transport primitive (usually called "close"). A "connection" is
the common state that some transport primitives refer to, e.g., to
adjust general configuration settings. Connection establishment,
maintenance and termination are therefore used to categorize
transport primitives of connection-oriented transport protocols in
pass 2 and pass 3.
3. Pass 1
This first iteration summarizes the relevant text parts of the RFCs
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describing the protocols, focusing on what each transport protocol
provides to the application and how it is used (abstract API
descriptions, where they are available).
3.1. Primitives Provided by TCP
[RFC0793] states: "The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is
intended for use as a highly reliable host-to-host protocol between
hosts in packet-switched computer communication networks, and in
interconnected systems of such networks". Section 3.8 in [RFC0793]
further specifies the interaction with the application by listing
several transport primitives. It is also assumed that an Operating
System provides a means for TCP to asynchronously signal the
application; the primitives representing such signals are called
'events' in this section. This section describes the relevant
primitives.
open: this is either active or passive, to initiate a connection or
listen for incoming connections. All other primitives are
associated with a specific connection, which is assumed to first
have been opened. An active open call contains a socket. A
passive open call with a socket waits for a particular connection;
alternatively, a passive open call can leave the socket
unspecified to accept any incoming connection. A fully specified
passive call can later be made active by calling 'send'.
Optionally, a timeout can be specified, after which TCP will abort
the connection if data has not been successfully delivered to the
destination (else a default timeout value is used). [RFC1122]
describes a procedure for aborting the connection that must be
used to avoid excessive retransmissions, and states that an
application must be able to control the threshold used to
determine the condition for aborting -- and that this threshold
may be measured in time units or as a count of retransmission.
This indicates that the timeout could also be specified as a count
of retransmission.
Also optional, for multihomed hosts, the local IP address can be
provided [RFC1122]. If it is not provided, a default choice will
be made in case of active open calls. A passive open call will
await incoming connection requests to all local addresses and then
maintain usage of the local IP address where the incoming
connection request has arrived. Finally, the 'options' parameter
is explained in [RFC1122] to allow the application to specify IP
options such as source route, record route, or timestamp. It is
not stated on which segments of a connection these options should
be applied, but probably all segments, as this is also stated in a
specification given for the usage of source route (section 4.2.3.8
of [RFC1122]). Source route is the only non-optional IP option in
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this parameter, allowing an application to specify a source route
when it actively opens a TCP connection.
send: this is the primitive that an application uses to give the
local TCP transport endpoint a number of bytes that TCP should
reliably send to the other side of the connection. The URGENT
flag, if set, states that the data handed over by this send call
is urgent and this urgency should be indicated to the receiving
process in case the receiving application has not yet consumed all
non-urgent data preceding it. An optional timeout parameter can
be provided that updates the connection's timeout (see 'open').
receive: This primitive allocates a receiving buffer for a provided
number of bytes. It returns the number of received bytes provided
in the buffer when these bytes have been received and written into
the buffer by TCP. The application is informed of urgent data via
an URGENT flag: if it is on, there is urgent data. If it is off,
there is no urgent data or this call to 'receive' has returned all
the urgent data.
close: This primitive closes one side of a connection. It is
semantically equivalent to "I have no more data to send" but does
not mean "I will not receive any more", as the other side may
still have data to send. This call reliably delivers any data
that has already been given to TCP (and if that fails, 'close'
becomes 'abort').
abort: This primitive causes all pending 'send' and 'receive' calls
to be aborted. A TCP RESET message is sent to the TCP endpoint on
the other side of the connection [RFC0793].
close event: TCP uses this primitive to inform an application that
the application on the other side has called the 'close'
primitive, so the local application can also issue a 'close' and
terminate the connection gracefully. See [RFC0793], Section 3.5.
abort event: When TCP aborts a connection upon receiving a "Reset"
from the peer, it "advises the user and goes to the CLOSED state."
See [RFC0793], Section 3.4.
USER TIMEOUT event: This event, described in Section 3.9 of
[RFC0793], is executed when the user timeout expires (see 'open').
All queues are flushed and the application is informed that the
connection had to be aborted due to user timeout.
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ERROR_REPORT event: This event, described in Section 4.2.4.1 of
[RFC1122], informs the application of "soft errors" that can be
safely ignored [RFC5461], including the arrival of an ICMP error
message or excessive retransmissions (reaching a threshold below
the threshold where the connection is aborted).
Type-of-Service: Section 4.2.4.2 of [RFC1122] states that the
application layer MUST be able to specify the Type-of-Service
(TOS) for segments that are sent on a connection. The application
should be able to change the TOS during the connection lifetime,
and the TOS value should be passed to the IP layer unchanged.
Since then the TOS field has been redefined. A part of the field
has been assigned to ECN [RFC3168] and the six most significant
bits have been assigned to carry the DiffServ CodePoint, DSField
[RFC3260]. Staying with the intention behind the application's
ability to specify the "Type of Service", this should probably be
interpreted to mean the value in the DSField, which is the
Differentiated Services Codepoint (DSCP).
Nagle: The Nagle algorithm, described in Section 4.2.3.4 of
[RFC1122], delays sending data for some time to increase the
likelihood of sending a full-sized segment. An application can
disable the Nagle algorithm for an individual connection.
User Timeout Option: The User Timeout Option (UTO) [RFC5482] allows
one end of a TCP connection to advertise its current user timeout
value so that the other end of the TCP connection can adapt its
own user timeout accordingly. In addition to the configurable
value of the User Timeout (see 'send'), [RFC5482] introduces three
per-connection state variables that an application can adjust to
control the operation of the User Timeout Option (UTO): ADV_UTO is
the value of the UTO advertised to the remote TCP peer (default:
system-wide default user timeout); ENABLED (default false) is a
boolean-type flag that controls whether the UTO option is enabled
for a connection. This applies to both sending and receiving.
CHANGEABLE is a boolean-type flag (default true) that controls
whether the user timeout may be changed based on a UTO option
received from the other end of the connection. CHANGEABLE becomes
false when an application explicitly sets the user timeout (see
'send').
3.1.1. Excluded Primitives
The 'open' primitive specified in [RFC0793] can be handed optional
Precedence or security/compartment information according to
[RFC0793], but this was not included here because it is mostly
irrelevant today, as explained in [RFC7414].
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The 'status' primitive was not included because [RFC0793] describes
this primitive as "implementation dependent" and states that it
"could be excluded without adverse effect". Moreover, while a data
block containing specific information is described, it is also stated
that not all of this information may always be available. The 'send'
primitive described in [RFC0793] includes an optional PUSH flag
which, if set, requires data to be promptly transmitted to the
receiver without delay; the 'receive' primitive described in
[RFC0793] can (under some conditions) yield the status of the PUSH
flag. Because PUSH functionality is made optional to implement for
both the 'send' and 'receive' primitives in [RFC1122], this
functionality is not included here. [RFC1122] also introduces keep-
alives to TCP, but these are optional to implement and hence not
considered here. [RFC1122] describes that "some TCP implementations
have included a FLUSH call", indicating that this call is also
optional to implement. It is therefore not considered here.
3.2. Primitives Provided by SCTP
Section 1.1 of [RFC4960] lists limitations of TCP that SCTP removes.
Three of the four mentioned limitations directly translate into a
transport service features that are visible to an application using
SCTP: 1) it allows for preservation of message delineations; 2) these
messages, while reliably transferred, do not require to be in order
unless the application wants it; 3) multi-homing is supported. In
SCTP, connections are called "association" and they can be between
not only two (as in TCP) but multiple addresses at each endpoint.
Section 10 of [RFC4960] further specifies the interaction with the
application (which RFC [RFC4960] calls the "Upper Layer Protocol"
(ULP)). It is assumed that the Operating System provides a means for
SCTP to asynchronously signal the application; the primitives
representing such signals are called 'events' in this section. Here,
we describe the relevant primitives.
Initialize: Initialize creates a local SCTP instance that it binds
to a set of local addresses (and, if provided, port number).
Initialize needs to be called only once per set of local
addresses.
Associate: This creates an association (the SCTP equivalent of a
connection) between the local SCTP instance and a remote SCTP
instance. Most primitives are associated with a specific
association, which is assumed to first have been created.
Associate can return a list of destination transport addresses so
that multiple paths can later be used. One of the returned
sockets will be selected by the local endpoint as default primary
path for sending SCTP packets to this peer, but this choice can be
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changed by the application using the list of destination
addresses. Associate is also given the number of outgoing streams
to request and optionally returns the number of outgoing streams
negotiated.
Send: This sends a message of a certain length in bytes over an
association. A number can be provided to later refer to the
correct message when reporting an error, and a stream id is
provided to specify the stream to be used inside an association
(we consider this as a mandatory parameter here for simplicity: if
not provided, the stream id defaults to 0). An optional maximum
life time can specify the time after which the message should be
discarded rather than sent. A choice (advisory, i.e. not
guaranteed) of the preferred path can be made by providing a
socket, and the message can be delivered out-of-order if the
unordered flag is set. Another advisory flag indicates whether
the application prefers to avoid bundling user data with other
outbound DATA chunks (i.e., in the same packet). A payload
protocol-id can be provided to pass a value that indicates the
type of payload protocol data to the peer.
Receive: Messages are received from an association, and optionally a
stream within the association, with their size returned. The
application is notified of the availability of data via a DATA
ARRIVE notification. If the sender has included a payload
protocol-id, this value is also returned. If the received message
is only a partial delivery of a whole message, a partial flag will
indicate so, in which case the stream id and a stream sequence
number are provided to the application.
Shutdown: This primitive gracefully closes an association, reliably
delivering any data that has already been handed over to SCTP. A
return code informs about success or failure of this procedure.
Abort: This ungracefully closes an association, by discarding any
locally queued data and informing the peer that the association
was aborted. Optionally, an abort reason to be passed to the peer
may be provided by the application. A return code informs about
success or failure of this procedure.
Change Heartbeat / Request Heartbeat: This allows the application to
enable/disable heartbeats and optionally specify a heartbeat
frequency as well as requesting a single heartbeat to be carried
out upon a function call, with a notification about success or
failure of transmitting the HEARTBEAT chunk to the destination.
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Set Protocol Parameters: This allows to set values for protocol
parameters per association; for some parameters, a setting can be
made per socket. The set listed in [RFC4960] is: RTO.Initial;
RTO.Min; RTO.Max; Max.Burst; RTO.Alpha; RTO.Beta;
Valid.Cookie.Life; Association.Max.Retrans; Path.Max.Retrans;
Max.Init.Retransmits; HB.interval; HB.Max.Burst.
Set Primary: This allows to set a new primary default path for an
association by providing a socket. Optionally, a default source
address to be used in IP datagrams can be provided.
Status: The 'Status' primitive returns a data block with information
about a specified association, containing: association connection
state; socket list; destination transport address reachability
states; current receiver window size; current congestion window
sizes; number of unacknowledged DATA chunks; number of DATA chunks
pending receipt; primary path; most recent SRTT on primary path;
RTO on primary path; SRTT and RTO on other destination addresses.
COMMUNICATION UP notification: When a lost communication to an
endpoint is restored or when SCTP becomes ready to send or receive
user messages, this notification informs the application process
about the affected association, the type of event that has
occurred, the complete set of sockets of the peer, the maximum
number of allowed streams and the inbound stream count (the number
of streams the peer endpoint has requested).
DATA ARRIVE notification: When a message is ready to be retrieved
via the Receive primitive, the application is informed by this
notification.
SEND FAILURE notification / Receive Unsent Message / Receive
Unacknowledged Message: When a message cannot be delivered via an
association, the sender can be informed about it and learn whether
the message has just not been acknowledged or (e.g. in case of
lifetime expiry) if it has not even been sent.
NETWORK STATUS CHANGE notification: The NETWORK STATUS CHANGE
notification informs the application about a socket becoming
active/inactive.
COMMUNICATION LOST notification: When SCTP loses communication to an
endpoint (e.g. via Heartbeats or excessive retransmission) or
detects an abort, this notification informs the application
process of the affected association and the type of event (failure
OR termination in response to a shutdown or abort request).
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SHUTDOWN COMPLETE notification: When SCTP completes the shutdown
procedures, this notification is passed to the upper layer,
informing it about the affected assocation.
3.2.1. Excluded Primitives
The 'Receive' primitive can return certain additional information,
but this is optional to implement and therefore not considered. With
a COMMUNICATION LOST notification, some more information may
optionally be passed to the application (e.g., identification to
retrieve unsent and unacknowledged data). SCTP "can invoke" a
COMMUNICATION ERROR notification and "may send" a RESTART
notification, making these two notifications optional to implement.
The list provided under 'Status' includes "etc", indicating that more
information could be provided. The primitive 'Get SRTT Report'
returns information that is included in the information that 'Status'
provides and is therefore not discussed. Similarly, 'Set Failure
Threshold' sets only one out of various possible parameters included
in 'Set Protocol Parameters'. The 'Destroy SCTP Instance' API
function was excluded: it erases the SCTP instance that was created
by 'Initialize', but is not a Primitive as defined in this document
because it does not relate to a Transport Service Feature.
4. Pass 2
This pass categorizes the primitives from pass 1 based on whether
they relate to a connection or to data transmission. Primitives are
presented following the nomenclature:
"CATEGORY.[SUBCATEGORY].PRIMITIVENAME.PROTOCOL". A connection is a
general protocol-independent concept and refers to, e.g., TCP
connections (identifiable by a unique pair of IP addresses and TCP
port numbers) as well as SCTP associations (identifiable by multiple
IP address and port number pairs).
Some minor details are omitted for the sake of generalization --
e.g., SCTP's 'close' [RFC4960] returns success or failure, whereas
this is not described in the same way for TCP in [RFC0793], but this
detail plays no significant role for the primitives provided by
either TCP or SCTP.
The TCP 'send' and 'receive' primitives include usage of an "URGENT"
mechanism. This mechanism is required to implement the "synch
signal" used by telnet [RFC0854], but SHOULD NOT be used by new
applications [RFC6093]. Because pass 2 is meant as a basis for the
creation of TAPS systems, the "URGENT" mechanism is excluded. This
also concerns the notification "Urgent pointer advance" in the
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ERROR_REPORT described in Section 4.2.4.1 of [RFC1122].
4.1. CONNECTION Related Primitives
ESTABLISHMENT:
Active creation of a connection from one transport endpoint to one or
more transport endpoints.
o CONNECT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'open' (active) or 'open' (passive) with
socket, followed by 'send'
Parameters: 1 local IP address (optional); 1 destination transport
address (for active open; else the socket and the local IP address
of the succeeding incoming connection request will be maintained);
timeout (optional); options (optional)
Comments: If the local IP address is not provided, a default
choice will automatically be made. The timeout can also be a
retransmission count. The options are IP options to be used on
all segments of the connection. At least the Source Route option
is mandatory for TCP to provide.
o CONNECT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'initialize', followed by 'associate'
Parameters: list of local SCTP port number / IP address pairs
(initialize); 1 socket; outbound stream count
Returns: socket list
Comments: 'initialize' needs to be called only once per list of
local SCTP port number / IP address pairs. One socket will
automatically be chosen; it can later be changed in MAINTENANCE.
AVAILABILITY:
Preparing to receive incoming connection requests.
o LISTEN.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'open' (passive)
Parameters: 1 local IP address (optional); 1 socket (optional);
timeout (optional)
Comments: if the socket and/or local IP address is provided, this
waits for incoming connections from only and/or to only the
provided address. Else this waits for incoming connections
without this / these constraint(s). ESTABLISHMENT can later be
performed with 'send'.
o LISTEN.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'initialize', followed by 'COMMUNICATION
UP' notification
Parameters: list of local SCTP port number / IP address pairs
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(initialize)
Returns: socket list; outbound stream count; inbound stream count
Comments: initialize needs to be called only once per list of
local SCTP port number / IP address pairs. COMMUNICATION UP can
also follow a COMMUNICATION LOST notification, indicating that the
lost communication is restored.
MAINTENANCE:
Adjustments made to an open connection, or notifications about it.
These are out-of-band messages to the protocol that can be issued at
any time, at least after a connection has been established and before
it has been terminated (with one exception: CHANGE-TIMEOUT.TCP can
only be issued when DATA.SEND.TCP is called).
o CHANGE-TIMEOUT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'send' combined with unspecified control
of per-connection state variables
Parameters: timeout value (optional); ADV_UTO (optional); boolean
UTO_ENABLED (optional, default false); boolean CHANGEABLE
(optional, default true)
Comments: when sending data, an application can adjust the
connection's timeout value (time after which the connection will
be aborted if data could not be delivered). If UTO_ENABLED is
true, the user timeout value (or, if provided, the value ADV_UTO)
will be advertised for the TCP on the other side of the connection
to adapt its own user timeout accordingly. UTO_ENABLED controls
whether the UTO option is enabled for a connection. This applies
to both sending and receiving. CHANGEABLE controls whether the
user timeout may be changed based on a UTO option received from
the other end of the connection; it becomes false when 'timeout
value' is used.
o CHANGE-TIMEOUT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Change HeartBeat' combined with 'Set
Protocol Parameters'
Parameters: 'Change HeartBeat': heartbeat frequency; 'Set Protocol
Parameters': Association.Max.Retrans (whole association) or
Path.Max.Retrans (per socket)
Comments: Change Heartbeat can enable / disable heartbeats in SCTP
as well as change their frequency. The parameter
Association.Max.Retrans defines after how many unsuccessful
heartbeats the connection will be terminated; thus these two
primitives / parameters together can yield a similar behavior to
CHANGE-TIMEOUT.TCP.
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o DISABLE-NAGLE.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: not specified
Parameters: one boolean value
Comments: the Nagle algorithm delays data transmission to increase
the chance to send a full-sized segment. An application must be
able to disable this algorithm for a connection. This is related
to the no-bundle flag in DATA.SEND.SCTP.
o REQUESTHEARTBEAT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Request HeartBeat'
Parameters: socket
Returns: success or failure
Comments: requests an immediate heartbeat on a path, returning
success or failure.
o SETPROTOCOLPARAMETERS.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Set Protocol Parameters'
Parameters: RTO.Initial; RTO.Min; RTO.Max; Max.Burst; RTO.Alpha;
RTO.Beta; Valid.Cookie.Life; Association.Max.Retrans;
Path.Max.Retrans; Max.Init.Retransmits; HB.interval; HB.Max.Burst
o SETPRIMARY.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Set Primary'
Parameters: socket
Returns: result of attempting this operation
Comments: update the current primary address to be used, based on
the set of available sockets of the association.
o ERROR.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'ERROR_REPORT'
Returns: reason (encoding not specified); subreason (encoding not
specified)
Comments: soft errors that can be ignored without harm by many
applications; an application should be able to disable these
notifications. The reported conditions include at least: ICMP
error message arrived; Excessive Retransmissions.
o STATUS.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Status' and 'NETWORK STATUS CHANGE'
notification
Returns: data block with information about a specified
association, containing: association connection state; socket
list; destination transport address reachability states; current
receiver window size; current congestion window sizes; number of
unacknowledged DATA chunks; number of DATA chunks pending receipt;
primary path; most recent SRTT on primary path; RTO on primary
path; SRTT and RTO on other destination addresses. The NETWORK
STATUS CHANGE notification informs the application about a socket
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becoming active/inactive.
o CHANGE-DSCP.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: not specified
Parameters: DSCP value
Comments: This allows an application to change the DSCP value.
For TCP this was originally specified for the TOS field [RFC1122],
which is here interpreted to refer to the DSField [RFC3260].
TERMINATION:
Gracefully or forcefully closing a connection, or being informed
about this event happening.
o CLOSE.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'close'
Comments: this terminates the sending side of a connection after
reliably delivering all remaining data.
o CLOSE.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Shutdown'
Comments: this terminates a connection after reliably delivering
all remaining data.
o ABORT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'abort'
Comments: this terminates a connection without delivering
remaining data and sends an error message to the other side.
o ABORT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'abort'
Parameters: abort reason to be given to the peer (optional)
Comments: this terminates a connection without delivering
remaining data and sends an error message to the other side.
o TIMEOUT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'USER TIMEOUT' event
Comments: the application is informed that the connection is
aborted. This event is executed on expiration of the timeout set
in CONNECTION.ESTABLISHMENT.CONNECT.TCP (possibly adjusted in
CONNECTION.MAINTENANCE.CHANGE-TIMEOUT.TCP).
o TIMEOUT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'COMMUNICATION LOST' event
Comments: the application is informed that the connection is
aborted. this event is executed on expiration of the timeout that
should be enabled by default (see beginning of section 8.3 in
[RFC4960]) and was possibly adjusted in
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CONNECTION.MAINTENANCE.CHANGE-TIMEOOUT.SCTP.
o ABORT-EVENT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: not specified.
o ABORT-EVENT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'COMMUNICATION LOST' event
Returns: abort reason from the peer (if available)
Comments: the application is informed that the other side has
aborted the connection using CONNECTION.TERMINATION.ABORT.SCTP.
o CLOSE-EVENT.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: not specified.
o CLOSE-EVENT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'SHUTDOWN COMPLETE' event
Comments: the application is informed that
CONNECTION.TERMINATION.CLOSE.SCTP was successfully completed.
4.2. DATA Transfer Related Primitives
All primitives in this section refer to an existing connection, i.e.
a connection that was either established or made available for
receiving data. In addition to the listed parameters, all sending
primitives contain a reference to a data block and all receiving
primitives contain a reference to available buffer space for the
data.
o SEND.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'send'
Parameters: timeout (optional)
Comments: this gives TCP a data block for reliable transmission to
the TCP on the other side of the connection. The timeout can be
configured with this call whenever data are sent (see also
CONNECTION.MAINTENANCE.CHANGE-TIMEOUT.TCP).
o SEND.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'Send'
Parameters: stream number; context (optional); life time
(optional); socket (optional); unordered flag (optional); no-
bundle flag (optional); payload protocol-id (optional)
Comments: this gives SCTP a data block for reliable transmission
to the SCTP on the other side of the connection (SCTP
association). The 'stream number' denotes the stream to be used.
The 'context' number can later be used to refer to the correct
message when an error is reported. The 'life time' specifies a
time after which this data block will not be sent. The 'socket'
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can be used to state which path should be preferred, if there are
multiple paths available (see also
CONNECTION.MAINTENANCE.SETPRIMARY.SCTP). The data block can be
delivered out-of-order if the 'unordered flag' is set. The 'no-
bundle flag' can be set to indicate a preference to avoid
bundling. The 'payload protocol-id' is a number that will, if
provided, be handed over to the receiving application.
o RECEIVE.TCP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'receive'.
o RECEIVE.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'DATA ARRIVE' notification, followed by
'Receive'
Parameters: stream number (optional)
Returns: stream sequence number (optional), partial flag
(optional)
Comments: if the 'stream number' is provided, the call to receive
only receives data on one particular stream. If a partial message
arrives, this is indicated by the 'partial flag', and then the
'stream sequence number' must be provided such that an application
can restore the correct order of data blocks that comprise an
entire message.
o SENDFAILURE-EVENT.SCTP:
Pass 1 primitive / event: 'SEND FAILURE' notification, optionally
followed by 'Receive Unsent Message' or 'Receive Unacknowledged
Message'
Returns: cause code; context; unsent or unacknowledged message
(optional)
Comments: 'cause code' indicates the reason of the failure, and
'context' is the context number if such a number has been provided
in DATA.SEND.SCTP, for later use with 'Receive Unsent Message' or
'Receive Unacknowledged Message', respectively. These primitives
can be used to retrieve the complete unsent or unacknowledged
message if desired.
5. Pass 3
This section presents the superset of all transport service features
in all protocols that were discussed in the preceding sections, based
on the list of primitives in pass 2 but also on text in pass 1 to
include features that can be configured in one protocol and are
static properties in another. Again, some minor details are omitted
for the sake of generalization -- e.g., TCP may provide various
different IP options, but only source route is mandatory to
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implement, and this detail is not visible in the Pass 3 feature
"Specify IP Options".
[AUTHOR'S NOTE: the list here looks pretty similar to the list in
pass 2 for now. This will change as more protocols are added. For
example, when we add UDP, we will find that UDP does not do
congestion control, which is relevant to the application using it.
This will have to be reflected in pass 1 and pass 2, only for UDP.
In pass 3, we can then derive "no congestion control" as a transport
service feature of UDP; however, since it would be strange to call
the lack of congestion control a feature, the natural outcome is then
to list "congestion control" as a feature of TCP and SCTP.]
5.1. CONNECTION Related Transport Service Features
ESTABLISHMENT:
Active creation of a connection from one transport endpoint to one or
more transport endpoints.
o Specify IP Options
Protocols: TCP
o Request multiple streams
Protocols: SCTP
o Obtain multiple sockets
Protocols: SCTP
AVAILABILITY:
Preparing to receive incoming connection requests.
o Listen, 1 specified local interface
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
o Listen, N specified local interfaces
Protocols: SCTP
o Listen, all local interfaces (unspecified)
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
o Obtain requested number of streams
Protocols: SCTP
MAINTENANCE:
Adjustments made to an open connection, or notifications about it.
NOTE: all features except "set primary path" in this category apply
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to one out of multiple possible paths (identified via sockets) in
SCTP, whereas TCP uses only one path (one socket).
o Change timeout for aborting connection (using retransmit limit or
time value)
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
o Control advertising timeout for aborting connection to remote
endpoint
Protocols: TCP
o Disable Nagle algorithm
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
Comments: This is not specified in [RFC4960] but in [RFC6458].
o Request an immediate heartbeat, returning success/failure
Protocols: SCTP
o Set protocol parameters
Protocols: SCTP
SCTP parameters: RTO.Initial; RTO.Min; RTO.Max; Max.Burst;
RTO.Alpha; RTO.Beta; Valid.Cookie.Life; Association.Max.Retrans;
Path.Max.Retrans; Max.Init.Retransmits; HB.interval; HB.Max.Burst
Comments: in future versions of this document, it might make sense
to split out some of these parameters -- e.g., if a different
protocol provides means to adjust the RTO calculation there could
be a common feature for them called "adjust RTO calculation".
o Notification of Excessive Retransmissions (early warning below
abortion threshold)
Protocols: TCP
o Notification of ICMP error message arrival
Protocols: TCP
o Status (query or notification)
Protocols: SCTP
SCTP parameters: association connection state; socket list; socket
reachability states; current receiver window size; current
congestion window sizes; number of unacknowledged DATA chunks;
number of DATA chunks pending receipt; primary path; most recent
SRTT on primary path; RTO on primary path; SRTT and RTO on other
destination addresses; socket becoming active / inactive
o Set primary path
Protocols: SCTP
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o Change DSCP
Protocols: TCP
Comments: This is described to be changeable for SCTP too in
[RFC6458].
TERMINATION:
Gracefully or forcefully closing a connection, or being informed
about this event happening.
o Close after reliably delivering all remaining data, causing an
event informing the application on the other side
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
Comments: A TCP endpoint locally only closes the connection for
sending; it may still receive data afterwards.
o Abort without delivering remaining data, causing an event
informing the application on the other side
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
Comments: In SCTP a reason can optionally be given by the
application on the aborting side, which can then be received by
the application on the other side.
o Timeout event when data could not be delivered for too long
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
Comments: the timeout is configured with CONNECTION.MAINTENANCE
"Change timeout for aborting connection (using retransmit limit or
time value)".
5.2. DATA Transfer Related Transport Service Features
All features in this section refer to an existing connection, i.e. a
connection that was either established or made available for
receiving data. Reliable data transfer entails delay -- e.g. for the
sender to wait until it can transmit data, or due to retransmission
in case of packet loss.
5.2.1. Sending Data
All features in this section are provided by DATA.SEND from pass 2.
DATA.SEND is given a data block from the application, which we here
call a "message".
o Reliably transfer data
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
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o Notifying the receiver to promptly hand over data to application
Protocols: TCP
Comments: This seems unnecessary in SCTP, where data arrival
causes an event for the application.
o Message identification
Protocols: SCTP
o Choice of stream
Protocols: SCTP
o Choice of path (destination address)
Protocols: SCTP
o Message lifetime
Protocols: SCTP
o Choice between unordered (potentially faster) or ordered delivery
Protocols: SCTP
o Request not to bundle messages
Protocols: SCTP
o Specifying a "payload protocol-id" (handed over as such by the
receiver)
Protocols: SCTP
5.2.2. Receiving Data
All features in this section are provided by DATA.RECEIVE from pass
2. DATA.RECEIVE fills a buffer provided to the application, with
what we here call a "message".
o Receive data
Protocols: TCP, SCTP
o Choice of stream to receive from
Protocols: SCTP
o Message identification
Protocols: SCTP
Comments: In SCTP, this is optionally achieved with a "stream
sequence number". The stream sequence number is always provided
in case of partial message arrival.
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o Information about partial message arrival
Protocols: SCTP
Comments: In SCTP, partial messages are combined with a stream
sequence number so that the application can restore the correct
order of data blocks an entire message consists of.
5.2.3. Errors
This section describes sending failures that are associated with a
specific call to DATA.SEND from pass 2.
o Notification of unsent messages
Protocols: SCTP
o Notification of unacknowledged messages
Protocols: SCTP
6. Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank (in alphabetical order) Bob Briscoe,
David Hayes, Gorry Fairhurst, Karen Nielsen and Joe Touch for
providing valuable feedback on this document. This work has received
funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and
innovation programme under grant agreement No. 644334 (NEAT). The
views expressed are solely those of the author(s).
7. IANA Considerations
XX RFC ED - PLEASE REMOVE THIS SECTION XXX
This memo includes no request to IANA.
8. Security Considerations
Security will be considered in future versions of this document.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC0793] Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981,
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<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc793>.
[RFC1122] Braden, R., Ed., "Requirements for Internet Hosts -
Communication Layers", STD 3, RFC 1122, DOI 10.17487/
RFC1122, October 1989,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1122>.
[RFC4960] Stewart, R., Ed., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol",
RFC 4960, DOI 10.17487/RFC4960, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4960>.
[RFC5482] Eggert, L. and F. Gont, "TCP User Timeout Option",
RFC 5482, DOI 10.17487/RFC5482, March 2009,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5482>.
9.2. Informative References
[FA15] Fairhurst, Ed., G., Trammell, Ed., B., and M. Kuehlewind,
Ed., "Services provided by IETF transport protocols and
congestion control mechanisms",
draft-fairhurst-taps-transports-08.txt (work in progress),
December 2015.
[RFC0854] Postel, J. and J. Reynolds, "Telnet Protocol
Specification", STD 8, RFC 854, DOI 10.17487/RFC0854,
May 1983, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc854>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/
RFC2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[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>.
[RFC3260] Grossman, D., "New Terminology and Clarifications for
Diffserv", RFC 3260, DOI 10.17487/RFC3260, April 2002,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3260>.
[RFC3828] Larzon, L-A., Degermark, M., Pink, S., Jonsson, L-E., Ed.,
and G. Fairhurst, Ed., "The Lightweight User Datagram
Protocol (UDP-Lite)", RFC 3828, DOI 10.17487/RFC3828,
July 2004, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3828>.
[RFC5461] Gont, F., "TCP's Reaction to Soft Errors", RFC 5461,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5461, February 2009,
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<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5461>.
[RFC6093] Gont, F. and A. Yourtchenko, "On the Implementation of the
TCP Urgent Mechanism", RFC 6093, DOI 10.17487/RFC6093,
January 2011, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6093>.
[RFC6458] Stewart, R., Tuexen, M., Poon, K., Lei, P., and V.
Yasevich, "Sockets API Extensions for the Stream Control
Transmission Protocol (SCTP)", RFC 6458, DOI 10.17487/
RFC6458, December 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6458>.
[RFC7414] Duke, M., Braden, R., Eddy, W., Blanton, E., and A.
Zimmermann, "A Roadmap for Transmission Control Protocol
(TCP) Specification Documents", RFC 7414, DOI 10.17487/
RFC7414, February 2015,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7414>.
Appendix A. Overview of RFCs used as input for pass 1
TCP: [RFC0793], [RFC1122], [RFC5482]
SCTP: [RFC4960], planned: [RFC6458]
Appendix B. How to contribute
This document is only concerned with transport service features that
are explicitly exposed to applications via primitives. It also
strictly follows RFC text: if a feature is truly relevant for an
application, the RFCs better say so and in some way describe how to
use and configure it. Thus, the approach to follow for contributing
to this document is to identify the right RFCs, then analyze and
process their text.
Experimental RFCs are excluded, and so are primitives that MAY be
implemented (by the transport protocol). To be included, the minimum
requirement level for a primitive to be implemented by a protocol is
SHOULD. If [RFC2119]-style requirements levels are not used,
primitives should be excluded when they are described in conjunction
with statements like, e.g.: "some implementations also provide" or
"an implementation may also". Briefly describe excluded primitives
in a subsection called "excluded primitives".
Pass 1: Identify text that talks about primitives. An API
specification, abstract or not, obviously describes primitives -- but
note that we are not *only* interested in API specifications. The
text describing the 'send' primitive in the API specified in
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[RFC0793], for instance, does not say that data transfer is reliable.
TCP's reliability is clear, however, from this text in Section 1 of
[RFC0793]: "The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is intended for
use as a highly reliable host-to-host protocol between hosts in
packet-switched computer communication networks, and in
interconnected systems of such networks."
For the new pass 1 subsection about the protocol you're describing,
it is recommendable to begin by copy+pasting all the relevant text
parts from the relevant RFCs, then adjust terminology to match the
terminology in Section 1 and adjust (shorten!) phrasing to match the
general style of the document. Try to formulate everything as a
primitive description to make the primitive description as complete
as possible (e.g., the "SEND.TCP" primitive in pass 2 is explicitly
described as reliably transferring data); if there is text that is
relevant for the primitives presented in this pass but still does not
fit directly under any primitive, use it as an introduction for your
subsection. However, do note that document length is a concern and
all the protocols and their services / features are already described
in [FA15].
Pass 2: The main goal of this pass is unification of primitives. As
input, use your own text from Pass 1, no exterior sources. If you
find that something is missing there, fix the text in Pass 1. The
list in pass 2 is not done by protocol ("first protocol X, here are
all the primitives; then protocol Y, here are all the primitives,
..") but by primitive ("primitive A, implemented this way in protocol
X, this way in protocol Y, ..."). We want as many similar pass 2
primitives as possible. This can be achieved, for instance, by not
always maintaining a 1:1 mapping between pass 1 and pass 2
primitives, renaming primitives etc. Please consider the primitives
that are already there and try to make the ones of the protocol you
are describing as much in line with the already existing ones as
possible. In other words, we would rather have a primitive with new
parameters than a new primitive that allows to send in a particular
way.
Please make primitives fit within the already existing categories and
subcategories. For each primitive, please follow the style:
o PRIMITIVENAME.PROTOCOL:
Pass 1 primitive / event:
Parameters:
Returns:
Comments:
The entries "Parameters", "Returns" and "Comments" may be skipped if
a primitive has no parameters, no described return value or no
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comments seem necessary, respectively. Optional parameters must be
followed by "(optional)". If a default value is known, provide it
too.
Pass 3: the main point of this pass is to identify features that are
the result of static properties of protocols, for which all protocols
have to be listed together; this is then the final list of all
available features. For this, we need a list of features per
category (similar categories as in pass 2) along with the protocol
supporting it. This should be primarily based on text from pass 2 as
input, but text from pass 1 can also be used. Do not use external
sources.
Appendix C. Revision information
XXX RFC-Ed please remove this section prior to publication.
-00 (from draft-welzl-taps-transports): this now covers TCP based on
all TCP RFCs (this means: if you know of something in any TCP RFC
that you think should be addressed, please speak up!) as well as
SCTP, exclusively based on [RFC4960]. We decided to also incorporate
[RFC6458] for SCTP, but this hasn't happened yet. Terminology made
in line with [FA15]. Addressed comments by Karen Nielsen and Gorry
Fairhurst; various other fixes. Appendices (TCP overview and how-to-
contribute) added.
Authors' Addresses
Michael Welzl
University of Oslo
PO Box 1080 Blindern
Oslo, N-0316
Norway
Phone: +47 22 85 24 20
Email: michawe@ifi.uio.no
Michael Tuexen
Muenster University of Applied Sciences
Stegerwaldstrasse 39
Steinfurt 48565
Germany
Email: tuexen@fh-muenster.de
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Naeem Khademi
University of Oslo
PO Box 1080 Blindern
Oslo, N-0316
Norway
Email: naeemk@ifi.uio.no
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