| Homenet Working Group | M. Stenberg |
| Internet-Draft | |
| Intended status: Standards Track | S. Barth |
| Expires: October 24, 2015 | April 22, 2015 |
Distributed Node Consensus Protocol
draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-02
This document describes the Distributed Node Consensus Protocol (DNCP), a generic state synchronization protocol which uses Trickle and Merkle trees. DNCP is transport agnostic and leaves some of the details to be specified in profiles, which define actual implementable DNCP based protocols.
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/.
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 October 24, 2015.
Copyright (c) 2015 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 (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents 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.
DNCP is designed to provide a way for nodes to publish data consisting of an ordered set of TLV (Type-Length-Value) tuples and to receive the data published by all other reachable DNCP nodes.
DNCP validates the set of data within it by ensuring that it is reachable via nodes that are currently accounted for; therefore, unlike Time-To-Live (TTL) based solutions, it does not require periodic re-publishing of the data by the nodes. On the other hand, it does require the topology to be visible to every node that wants to be able to identify unreachable nodes and therefore remove old, stale data. Another notable feature is the use of Trickle to send status updates as it makes the DNCP network very thrifty when there are no updates. DNCP is most suitable for data that changes only gradually to gain the maximum benefit from using Trickle, and if more rapid state exchanges are needed, something point-to-point is recommended and just e.g. publishing of addresses of the services within DNCP.
DNCP has relatively few requirements for the underlying transport; it requires some way of transmitting either unicast datagram or stream data to a DNCP peer and, if used in multicast mode, a way of sending multicast datagrams. If security is desired and one of the built-in security methods is to be used, support for some TLS-derived transport scheme - such as TLS [RFC5246] on top of TCP or DTLS [RFC6347] on top of UDP - is also required.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].
A DNCP profile is a definition of a set of rules and values listed in Section 9 specifying the behavior of a DNCP based protocol, such as the used transport method. For readability, any DNCP profile specific parameters with a profile-specific fixed value are prefixed with DNCP_.
A DNCP node is a single node which runs a protocol based on a DNCP profile.
The DNCP network is a set of DNCP nodes running the same DNCP profile that can reach each other, either via discovered connectivity in the underlying network, or using each other's addresses learned via other means. As DNCP exchanges are bidirectional, DNCP nodes connected via only unidirectional links are not considered connected.
The node identifier is an opaque fixed-length identifier consisting of DNCP_NODE_IDENTIFIER_LENGTH bytes which uniquely identifies a DNCP node within a DNCP network.
A link indicates a link-layer media over which directly connected nodes can communicate.
An interface indicates a port of a node that is connected to a particular link.
A connection denotes a locally configured use of DNCP on a DNCP node, that is attached either to an interface, to a specific remote unicast address to be contacted, or to a range of remote unicast addresses that are allowed to contact.
The connection identifier is a 32-bit opaque value, which identifies a particular connection of that particular DNCP node. The value 0 is reserved for DNCP and sub-protocol purposes in the TLVs, and MUST NOT be used to identify an actual connection. This definition is in sync with [RFC3493], as the non-zero small positive integers should comfortably fit within 32 bits.
A (DNCP) peer refers to another DNCP node with which a DNCP node communicates directly using a particular local and remote connection pair.
The node data is a set of TLVs published by a node in the DNCP network. The whole node data is owned by the node that publishes it, and it MUST be passed along as-is, including TLVs unknown to the forwarder.
The node state is a set of metadata attributes for node data. It includes a sequence number for versioning, a hash value for comparing and a timestamp indicating the time passed since its last publication. The hash function and the number of bits used are defined in the DNCP profile.
The network state (hash) is a hash value which represents the current state of the network. The hash function and the number of bits used are defined in the DNCP profile. Whenever any node is added, removed or changes its published node data this hash value changes as well. It is calculated over the hash values of each reachable nodes' node data in ascending order of the respective node identifier.
The effective (trust) verdict for a certificate is defined as the verdict with the highest priority within the set of verdicts announced for the certificate in the DNCP network.
The neighbor graph is the undirected graph of DNCP nodes produced by retaining only bidirectional peer relationships between nodes.
A DNCP node has:
A DNCP node has for every DNCP node in the DNCP network:
Additionally, a DNCP node has a set of connections for which DNCP is configured to be used. For each such connection, a node has:
For each remote (DNCP node,connection) pair detected on a particular connection, a DNCP node has:
The DNCP protocol consists of Trickle [RFC6206] driven unicast or multicast status payloads which indicate the current status of shared TLV data and additional unicast exchanges which ensure DNCP peer reachability and synchronize the data when necessary.
If DNCP is to be used on a multicast-capable interface, as opposed to only point-to-point using unicast, a datagram-based transport which supports multicast SHOULD be defined in the DNCP profile to be used for the TLVs to be sent to the whole link. As this is used only to identify potential new DNCP nodes and to notify that an unicast exchange should be triggered, the multicast transport does not have to be particularly secure.
A DNCP message in and of itself is just an abstraction; when using reliable stream transport, the whole stream of TLVs can be considered a single message, with new TLVs becoming gradually available once they have been fully received. On datagram transport, each individual datagram is a separate message. In order to facilitate fast comparing of local state with that in a received update, TLVs in every container TLV MUST be placed in ascending order based on the binary comparison of both TLV header and value.
When employing unreliable transport, each node MUST send a Network State TLV [net-state] every time the connection-specific Trickle algorithm [RFC6206] instance indicates that an update should be sent. Multicast MUST be employed on a multicast-capable interface; otherwise, unicast can be used as well. If possible, most recent, recently changed, or best of all, all known Node State TLVs [node-state] SHOULD be also included, unless it is defined as undesirable for some reason by the DNCP profile. Avoiding sending some or all Node State TLVs may make sense to avoid fragmenting packets to multicast destinations, or for security reasons.
A Trickle state MUST be maintained separately for each connection which employs unreliable transport. The Trickle state for all connections is considered inconsistent and reset if and only if the locally calculated network state hash changes. This occurs either due to a change in the local node's own node data, or due to receipt of more recent data from another node.
The Trickle algorithm has 3 parameters: Imin, Imax and k. Imin and Imax represent the minimum and maximum values for I, which is the time interval during which at least k Trickle updates must be seen on a connection to prevent local state transmission. The actual suggested Trickle algorithm parameters are DNCP profile specific, as described in Section 9.
This section describes how received TLVs are processed. The DNCP profile may specify criteria based on which particular TLVs are ignored. Any 'reply' mentioned in the steps below denotes sending of the specified TLV(s) via unicast to the originator of the message being processed. If the reply was caused by a multicast message and sent to a link with shared bandwidth it SHOULD be delayed by a random timespan in [0, Imin/2]. Sending of replies SHOULD be rate-limited by the implementation, and in case of excess load (or some other reason), a reply MAY be omitted altogether.
Upon receipt of:
If secure unicast transport is configured for a connection, any Node Data TLVs and Node State TLVs received via insecure multicast MUST be silently ignored.
When receiving a message on a connection from an unknown peer:
If keep-alives specified in Section 6.1 are NOT sent by the peer (either the DNCP profile does not specify the use of keep-alives or the particular peer chooses not to send keep-alives), some other means MUST be employed to ensure a DNCP peer is present. When the peer is no longer present, the Neighbor TLV and the local DNCP peer state MUST be removed.
When a Neighbor TLV or a whole node is added or removed, the neighbor graph SHOULD be traversed, starting from the local node. The edges to be traversed are identified by looking for Neighbor TLVs on both nodes, that have the other node's identifier in the neighbor node identifier, and local and neighbor connection identifiers swapped. Each node reached should be marked currently reachable.
DNCP nodes MUST be either purged immediately when not marked reachable in a particular graph traversal, or eventually after they have not been marked reachable within DNCP_GRACE_INTERVAL. During the grace period, the nodes that were not marked reachable in the most recent graph traversal MUST NOT be used for calculation of the network state hash, be provided to any applications that need to use the whole TLV graph, or be provided to remote nodes.
This section specifies extensions to the core protocol that a DNCP profile may want to use.
The Trickle-driven messages provide a mechanism for handling of new peer detection (if applicable) on a connection, as well as state change notifications. Another mechanism may be needed to get rid of old, no longer valid DNCP peers if the transport or lower layers do not provide one.
If keep-alives are not specified in the DNCP profile, the rest of this subsection MUST be ignored.
A DNCP profile MAY specify either per-connection or per-peer keep-alive support.
For every connection that a keep-alive is specified for in the DNCP profile, the connection-specific keep-alive interval MUST be maintained. By default, it is DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL. If there is a local value that is preferred for that for any reason (configuration, energy conservation, media type, ..), it should be substituted instead. If a non-default keep-alive interval is used on any connection, a DNCP node MUST publish appropriate Keep-Alive Interval TLV(s) [ka-interval] within its node data.
The following additions to the Data Model [dm] are needed to support keep-alive:
Each node MUST have a timestamp which indicates the last time a Network State TLV [net-state] was sent for each connection, i.e. on an interface or to the point-to-point peer(s).
Each node MUST have for each peer:
If per-connection keep-alives are enabled on a connection with a multicast-enabled link, and if no traffic containing a Network State TLV [net-state] has been sent to a particular connection within the connection-specific keep-alive interval, a Network State TLV [net-state] MUST be sent on that connection, and a new Trickle transmission time 't' in [I/2, I] MUST be randomly chosen. The actual sending time SHOULD be further delayed by a random timespan in [0, Imin/2].
If per-peer keep-alives are enabled on a unicast-only connection, and if no traffic containing a Network State TLV [net-state] has been sent to a particular peer within the connection-specific keep-alive interval, a Network State TLV [net-state] MUST be sent to the peer and a new Trickle transmission time 't' in [I/2, I] MUST be randomly chosen.
If a TLV is received via unicast from the peer, the Last contact timestamp for the peer MUST be updated.
On receipt of a Network State TLV [net-state] which is consistent with the locally calculated network state hash, the Last contact timestamp for the peer MUST be updated.
For every peer on every connection, the connection-specific keep-alive interval must be calculated by looking for Keep-Alive Interval TLVs [ka-interval] published by the node, and if none exist, using the default value of DNCP_KEEPALIVE_INTERVAL. If the peer's last contact state timestamp has not been updated for at least DNCP_KEEPALIVE_MULTIPLIER times the peer's connection-specific keep-alive interval, the Neighbor TLV for that peer and the local DNCP peer state MUST be removed.
An upper bound for the number of neighbors that are allowed for a (particular type of) link that a connection runs on SHOULD be provided by a DNCP profile, user configuration, or some hardcoded default in the implementation. If an implementation does not support this, the rest of this subsection MUST be ignored.
If the specified limit is exceeded, nodes without the highest Node Identifier on the link SHOULD treat the connection as an unicast connection connected to the node that has the highest Node Identifier detected on the link. The nodes MUST also keep listening to multicast traffic to both detect the presence of that node, and to react to nodes with a higher Node Identifier appearing. If the highest Node Identifier present on the link changes, the connection endpoint MUST be changed. If the Node Identifier of the local node is the highest one, the node MUST keep the connection in normal multicast mode, and the node MUST allow others to peer with it over the link.
A DNCP profile may require a node to exceed the maximum size of a single Node Data TLV [node-data] (65535 bytes of payload), or use a datagram-only transport with a limited MTU and no reliable support for fragmentation. To handle such cases, a DNCP profile MAY specify a fixed number of trailing bytes in the Node Identifier to represent a fragment number indicating a part of a node's node data. The profile MAY also specify an upper bound for the size of a single fragment to accommodate limitations of links in the network.
The data within Node Data TLVs of fragments with non-zero fragment number must be treated as opaque (as they may not contain even a single full TLV). However, the concatenated node data for a particular node MUST be produced by concatenating all node data for each fragment, in ascending fragment number order. The concatenated node data MUST follow the ordering described in Section 4.
Any Node Identifiers on the wire used to identify the own or any other node MUST have the fragment number 0. For algorithm purposes, the relative time since the most recent fragment change MUST be used, regardless of fragment number. Therefore, even if just part of the node data fragments change, they all are considered refreshed if one of them is.
If using fragmentation, the unreachable node purging defined in Section 5.4 is extended so that if a Fragment Count TLV [fragment-count] is present within the fragment number 0, all fragments up to fragment number specified in the Count field are also considered reachable if the fragment number 0 itself is reachable based on graph traversal.
Each TLV is encoded as a 2 byte type field, followed by a 2 byte length field (of the value, excluding header; 0 means no value) followed by the value itself (if any). Both type and length fields in the header as well as all integer fields inside the value - unless explicitly stated otherwise - are represented in network byte order. Zero padding bytes MUST be added up to the next 4 byte boundary if the length is not divisible by 4. These padding bytes MUST NOT be included in the length field.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type | Length |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Value |
| (variable # of bytes) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
For example, type=123 (0x7b) TLV with value 'x' (120 = 0x78) is encoded as: 007B 0001 7800 0000.
Notation:
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: REQ-NETWORK-STATE (2) | Length: 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV is used to request response with a Network State TLV [net-state] and all Node State TLVs [node-state].
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: REQ-NODE-DATA (3) | Length: >0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV is used to request response with a Node State TLV [node-state] and a Node Data TLV [node-data] for the node with matching node identifier.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NODE-CONNECTION (1) | Length: > 4 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Connection Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV identifies both the local node's node identifier, as well as the particular connection identifier. It MUST be sent in every message if bidirectional peer relationship is desired with remote nodes. Bidirectional peer relationship is not necessary for read-only access to the DNCP state, but it is required to be able to publish something.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NETWORK-STATE (10) | Length: > 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| H(H(node data TLV 1) .. [...] .. H(node data TLV N)) |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV contains the current locally calculated network state hash. The network state hash is derived by calculating the hash value for each currently reachable node's Node Data TLV, concatenating said hash values based on the ascending order of their corresponding node identifiers, and hashing the resulting concatenated hash values.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NODE-STATE (11) | Length: > 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Node Identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Update Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Milliseconds since Origination |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| H(node data TLV) |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV represents the local node's knowledge about the published state of a node in the DNCP network identified by the node identifier field in the TLV.
The whole network should have roughly same idea about the time since origination of any particular published state. Therefore every node, including the originating one, MUST increment the time whenever it needs to send a Node State TLV for an already published Node Data TLV. This age value is not included within the Node Data TLV, however, as that is immutable and used to detect changes in the network state.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NODE-DATA (12) | Length: > 4 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| node identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Update Sequence Number |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Nested TLVs containing node information |
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: CUSTOM-DATA (15) | Length: > 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| H(URI) |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Opaque Data |
This TLV can be used to contain anything; the URI used should be under control of the author of that specification. The TLV may appear within protocol exchanges, or within Node Data TLV [node-data]. For example:
V = H('http://example.com/author/json-for-dncp') .. '{"cool": "json extension!"}'
or
V = H('mailto:author@example.com') .. '{"cool": "json extension!"}'
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: FRAGMENT-COUNT (9) | Length: > 0 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Count |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
If the DNCP profile supports Node Data fragmentation as specified in Section 6.3, this TLV indicates that the Node Data is encoded as a series of Node Data TLVs. Subsequent Node Data with Node Identifiers up to Count higher than the current one MUST be considered reachable and part of the same logical set of Node Data that this TLV is within. The fragment portion of the Node Identifier of the Node Data this is within MUST be zeros.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: NEIGHBOR (13) | Length: > 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| neighbor node identifier |
| (length fixed in DNCP profile) |
...
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Neighbor Connection Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Local Connection Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV indicates that the node in question vouches that the specified neighbor is reachable by it on the specified local connection. The presence of this TLV at least guarantees that the node publishing it has received traffic from the neighbor recently. For guaranteed up-to-date bidirectional reachability, the existence of both nodes' matching Neighbor TLVs should be checked.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: KEEP-ALIVE-INTERVAL (14)| Length: 8 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Connection Identifier |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Interval |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
This TLV indicates a non-default interval being used to send keep-alives specified in Section 6.1.
Connection identifier is used to identify the particular connection for which the interval applies. If 0, it applies for ALL connections for which no specific TLV exists.
Interval specifies the interval in milliseconds at which the node sends keep-alives. A value of zero means no keep-alives are sent at all; in that case, some lower layer mechanism that ensures presence of nodes MUST be available and used.
If specified in the DNCP profile, either DTLS [RFC6347] or TLS [RFC5246] may be used to authenticate and encrypt either some (if specified optional in the profile), or all unicast traffic. The following methods for establishing trust are defined, but it is up to the DNCP profile to specify which ones may, should or must be supported.
A PSK-based trust model is a simple security management mechanism that allows an administrator to deploy devices to an existing network by configuring them with a pre-defined key, similar to the configuration of an administrator password or WPA-key. Although limited in nature it is useful to provide a user-friendly security mechanism for smaller networks.
A PKI-based trust-model enables more advanced management capabilities at the cost of increased complexity and bootstrapping effort. It however allows trust to be managed in a centralized manner and is therefore useful for larger networks with a need for an authoritative trust management.
The certificate-based consensus model is designed to be a compromise between trust management effort and flexibility. It is based on X.509-certificates and allows each DNCP node to provide a verdict on any other certificate and a consensus is found to determine whether a node using this certificate or any certificate signed by it is to be trusted.
The current effective trust verdict for any certificate is defined as the one with the highest priority from all verdicts announced for said certificate at the time.
Trust Verdicts are statements of DNCP nodes about the trustworthiness of X.509-certificates. There are 5 possible verdicts in order of ascending priority:
Verdicts are differentiated in 3 groups:
The current effective trust verdict for any certificate is defined as the one with the highest priority within the set of verdicts + announced for the certificate in the DNCP network. A node MUST be trusted for participating in the DNCP network if and only if the current effective verdict for its own certificate or any one in its certificate hierarchy is (Cached or Configured) Trust and none of the certificates in its hierarchy have an effective verdict of (Cached or Configured) Distrust. In case a node has a configured verdict, which is different from the current effective verdict for a certificate, the current effective verdict takes precedence in deciding trustworthiness. Despite that, the node still retains and announces its configured verdict.
Each node SHOULD maintain a trust cache containing the current effective trust verdicts for all certificates currently announced in the DNCP network. This cache is used as a backup of the last known state in case there is no node announcing a configured verdict for a known certificate. It SHOULD be saved to a non-volatile memory at reasonable time intervals to survive a reboot or power outage.
Every time a node (re)joins the network or detects the change of an effective trust verdict for any certificate, it will synchronize its cache, i.e. store new effective verdicts overwriting any previously cached verdicts. Configured verdicts are stored in the cache as their respective cached counterparts. Neutral verdicts are never stored and do not override existing cached verdicts.
A node SHOULD always announce any configured trust verdicts it has established by itself, and it MUST do so if announcing the configured trust verdict leads to a change in the current effective verdict for the respective certificate. In absence of configured verdicts, it MUST announce cached trust verdicts it has stored in its trust cache, if one of the following conditions applies:
A node rechecks these conditions whenever it detects changes of announced trust verdicts anywhere in the network.
Upon encountering a node with a hierarchy of certificates for which there is no effective verdict, a node adds a Neutral Trust-Verdict-TLV to its node data for all certificates found in the hierarchy, and publishes it until an effective verdict different from Neutral can be found for any of the certificates, or a reasonable amount of time (10 minutes is suggested) with no reaction and no further authentication attempts has passed. Such verdicts SHOULD also be limited in rate and number to prevent denial-of-service attacks.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Type: Trust-Verdict (16) | Length: 37-100 |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Verdict | (reserved) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| |
| |
| |
| SHA-256 Fingerprint |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Common Name |
Trust verdicts are announced using Trust-Verdict TLVs:
The following non-exhaustive list of methods describes possible ways to establish trust relationships between DNCP nodes and node certificates. Trust establishment is a two-way process in which the existing network must trust the newly added node and the newly added node must trust at least one of its neighboring nodes. It is therefore necessary that both the newly added node and an already trusted node perform such a ceremony to successfully introduce a node into the DNCP network. In all cases an administrator MUST be provided with external means to identify the node belonging to a certificate based on its fingerprint and a meaningful common name.
A node implementing certificate-based trust MUST provide an interface to retrieve the current set of effective trust verdicts, fingerprints and names of all certificates currently known and set configured trust verdicts to be announced. Alternatively it MAY provide a companion DNCP node or application with these capabilities with which it has a pre-established trust relationship.
A node MAY be preconfigured to trust a certain set of node or CA certificates. However such trust relationships MUST NOT result in unwanted or unrelated trust for nodes not intended to be run inside the same network (e.g. all other devices by the same manufacturer).
A node MAY provide a physical or virtual interface to put one or more of its internal network interfaces temporarily into a mode in which it trusts the certificate of the first DNCP node it can successfully establish a connection with.
A node which is not associated with any other DNCP node MAY trust the certificate of the first DNCP node it can successfully establish a connection with. This method MUST NOT be used when the node has already associated with any other DNCP node.
Each DNCP profile MUST define following:
DNCP profiles may use multicast to indicate DNCP state changes and for keep-alive purposes. However, no actual data TLVs will be sent across that channel. Therefore an attacker may only learn hash values of the state within DNCP and may be able to trigger unicast synchronization attempts between nodes on a local link this way. A DNCP node should therefore rate-limit its reactions to multicast packets.
When using DNCP to bootstrap a network, PKI based solutions may have issues when validating certificates due to potentially unavailable accurate time, or due to inability to use the network to either check Certifcate Revocation Lists or perform on-line validation.
The Certificate-based trust consensus mechanism defined in this document allows for a consenting revocation, however in case of a compromised device the trust cache may be poisoned before the actual revocation happens allowing the distrusted device to rejoin the network using a different identity. Stopping such an attack might require physical intervention and flushing of the trust caches.
IANA should set up a registry for DNCP TLV types, with the following initial contents:
0: Reserved (should not happen on wire)
1: Node connection
2: Request network state
3: Request node data
4-8: Reserved for DNCP profile use
9: Fragment count
10: Network state
11: Node state
12: Node data
13: Neighbor
14: Keep-alive interval
15: Custom
16: Trust-Verdict
17-31: Reserved for future DNCP versions.
192-255: Reserved for per-implementation experimentation. The nodes using TLV types in this range SHOULD use e.g. Custom TLV to identify each other and therefore eliminate potential conflict caused by potential different use of same TLV numbers.
For the rest of the values (32-191, 256-65535), policy of 'standards action' should be used.
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC6206] | Levis, P., Clausen, T., Hui, J., Gnawali, O. and J. Ko, "The Trickle Algorithm", RFC 6206, March 2011. |
| [RFC6347] | Rescorla, E. and N. Modadugu, "Datagram Transport Layer Security Version 1.2", RFC 6347, January 2012. |
| [RFC5246] | Dierks, T. and E. Rescorla, "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol Version 1.2", RFC 5246, August 2008. |
| [RFC3493] | Gilligan, R., Thomson, S., Bound, J., McCann, J. and W. Stevens, "Basic Socket Interface Extensions for IPv6", RFC 3493, February 2003. |
| [RFC6234] | Eastlake, D. and T. Hansen, "US Secure Hash Algorithms (SHA and SHA-based HMAC and HKDF)", RFC 6234, May 2011. |
Q: 32-bit connection id?
A: Here, it would save 32 bits per neighbor if it was 16 bits (and less is not realistic). However, TLVs defined elsewhere would not seem to even gain that much on average. 32 bits is also used for ifindex in various operating systems, making for simpler implementation.
Q: Why have topology information at all?
A: It is an alternative to the more traditional seq#/TTL-based flooding schemes. In steady state, there is no need to e.g. re-publish every now and then.
draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-02:
draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-01:
draft-ietf-homenet-dncp-00: Split from pre-version of draft-ietf-homenet-hncp-03 generic parts. Changes that affect implementations:
As usual, this draft is available at https://github.com/fingon/ietf-drafts/ in source format (with nice Makefile too). Feel free to send comments and/or pull requests if and when you have changes to it!
Thanks to Ole Troan, Pierre Pfister, Mark Baugher, Mark Townsley, Juliusz Chroboczek and Jiazi Yi for their contributions to the draft.