| Network Working Group | H. Alvestrand |
| Internet-Draft | |
| Intended status: Standards Track | June 9, 2014 |
| Expires: December 11, 2014 |
WebRTC MediaStream Identification in the Session Description Protocol
draft-ietf-mmusic-msid-06
This document specifies a Session Description Protocol (SDP) Grouping mechanism for RTP media streams that can be used to specify relations between media streams.
This mechanism is used to signal the association between the SDP concept of "m-line" and the WebRTC concept of "MediaStream" / "MediaStreamTrack" using SDP signaling.
This document is a work item of the MMUSIC WG, whose discussion list is mmusic@ietf.org.
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].
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This document adds a new Session Description Protocol (SDP) Grouping[RFC5888] relation between SDP m-lines [RFC4566] that can associate application layer identifiers with the binding between media streams, attaching identifiers to the media streams and attaching identifiers to the groupings they form.
Section 1.2 gives the background on why a new mechanism is needed.
Section 2 gives the definition of the new mechanism.
Section 3 gives the definition of the msid-semantic field, which gives the possibility of using MSIDs with different semantics in the same SDP message.
Section 4 gives the application of the new mechanism for providing necessary semantic information for the association of MediaStreamTracks to MediaStreams in the WebRTC API[W3C.WD-webrtc-20120209].
When media is carried by RTP [RFC3550], each RTP media stream is distinguished inside an RTP session by its SSRC; each RTP session is distinguished from all other RTP sessions by being on a different transport association (strictly speaking, 2 transport associations, one used for RTP and one used for RTCP, unless RTP/RTCP multiplexing [RFC5761] is used).
SDP gives a description based on m-lines. According to the model used in [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-jsep], each m-line describes exactly one media source, and if mulitple media sources are carried in an RTP session, this is signalled using BUNDLE [I-D.ietf-mmusic-sdp-bundle-negotiation]; if BUNDLE is not used, each media source is carried in its own RTP session.
There exist cases where an application using RTP and SDP needs to signal some relationship between RTP media streams that may be carried in either the same RTP session or different RTP sessions. For instance, there may be a need to signal a relationship between a video track and an audio track, and where the generator of the SDP does not yet know if they will be carried in the same RTP session or different RTP sessions.
The SDP grouping framework [RFC5888] can be used to group m-lines. However, there is sometimes the need for an application to specify some application-level information about the association between the m-line and the group. This is not possible using the SDP grouping framework.
The W3C WebRTC API specification [W3C.WD-webrtc-20120209] specifies that communication between WebRTC entities is done via MediaStreams, which contain MediaStreamTracks. A MediaStreamTrack is generally carried using a single SSRC in an RTP session (forming an RTP media stream. The collision of terminology is unfortunate.) There might possibly be additional SSRCs, possibly within additional RTP sessions, in order to support functionality like forward error correction or simulcast. This complication is ignored below.
In the RTP specification, media streams are identified using the SSRC field. Streams are grouped into RTP Sessions, and also carry a CNAME. Neither CNAME nor RTP session correspond to a MediaStream. Therefore, the association of an RTP media stream to MediaStreams need to be explicitly signaled.
WebRTC defines a mapping (documented in [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-jsep]) where one SDP m-line is used to describe each MediaStreamTrack, and that the BUNDLE mechanism [I-D.ietf-mmusic-sdp-bundle-negotiation] is used to group MediaStreamTracks into RTP sessions. Therefore, the need is to specify the ID of a MediaStreamTrack and its associated MediaStream for each m-line, which can be accomplished with a media-level SDP attribute.
This usage is described in Section 4.
This document defines a new SDP [RFC4566] media-level "msid" attribute. This new attribute allows endpoints to associate RTP media streams that are carried in the same or different m-lines. The attribute also allows application-specific information to the association.
The value of the "msid" attribute consists of an identifier and optional application-specific data, according to the following ABNF [RFC5234] grammar:
; "attribute" is defined in RFC 4566. attribute =/ msid-attr msid-attr = "msid:" identifier [ SP appdata ] identifier = 1*64token-char ; see RFC 4566 appdata = 1*64token-char ; see RFC 4566
An example msid value for a group with the identifier "examplefoo" and application data "examplebar" might look like this:
msid:examplefoo examplebar
The identifier is a string of ASCII characters that are legal in a "token", consisting of between 1 and 64 characters. It MUST be unique among the identifier values used in the same SDP session. It is RECOMMENDED that it is generated using a random-number generator.
Application data is carried on the same line as the identifier, separated from the identifier by a space.
The identifier uniquely identifies a group within the scope of an SDP description.
There may be multiple msid attributes in a single media description. There may also be multiple media descriptions that have the same value for identifier and application data.
Endpoints can update the associations between RTP media streams as expressed by msid attributes at any time; the semantics and restrictions of such grouping and ungrouping are application dependent.
A session-level attribute is defined for signaling the semantics associated with an msid grouping. This allows msid groupings with different semantics to coexist.
This OPTIONAL attribute gives the group identifier and its group semantic; it carries the same meaning as the ssrc-group-attr of RFC 5576 section 4.2, but uses the identifier of the group rather than a list of SSRC values.
This attribute MUST be present if "a=msid" is used.
An empty list of identifiers is an indication that the sender understands the indicated semantic, but has no msid groupings of the given type in the present SDP.
An identifier of "*" is an indication that all "a=msid" lines in the SDP have this specific semantic.
The ABNF of msid-semantic is:
attribute =/ msid-semantic-attr
msid-semantic-attr = "msid-semantic:" semantic identifier-list
semantic = token ; see RFC 4566
identifier-list = (" " identifier)* / " *"
The semantic field holds values from the IANA registriy "Semantics for the msid-semantic SDP attribute" (which is defined in Section 5).
An example msid-semantic might look like this, if a semantic LS was registered by IANA for the same purpose as the existing LS grouping semantic:
a=msid-semantic:LS xyzzy forolow
This means that the SDP description has two lip sync groups, with the group identifiers xyzzy and forolow, respectively.
This section creates a new semantic for use with the framework defined in Section 2, to be used for associating m-lines representing MediaStreamTracks within MediaStreams as defined in [W3C.WD-webrtc-20120209].
In the Javascript API, each MediaStream and MediaStreamTrack has an "id" attribute, which is a DOMString.
The semantic token for this semantic is "WMS" (short for WebRTC Media Stream).
The value of the "identifier" field in the msid consists of the "id" attribute of a MediaStream, as defined in its WebIDL specification.
The value of the "appdata" field in the msid consists of the "id" attribute of a MediaStreamTrack, as defined in its WebIDL specification.
If two different m-lines have MSID attributes with the same value for identifier and appdata, it means that these two m-lines are both intended for the same MediaStreamTrack. So far, no semantic for such a mixture have been defined, but this specification does not forbid the practice.
When an SDP description is updated, a specific msid "identifier" continues to refer to the same MediaStream, and a specific "appdata" to the same MediaStreamTrack. Once negotiation has completed on a session, there is no memory apart from the currently valid SDP descriptions; an msid "identifier" value that appears in a later negotiation will be taken to refer to a new MediaStream.
The following are the rules for handling updates of the list of m-lines and their msid values.
[RFC3550] section 6.3.4 (BYE packet received) and 6.3.5 (timeout), and when the corresponding media section is disabled by setting the port number to zero. Changing the direction of the media section to "recvonly" will not close the MediaStreamTrack.
In addition to signaling that the track is closed when its msid attribute disappears from the SDP, the track will also be signaled as being closed when all associated SSRCs have disappeared by the rules of
The association between SSRCs and m-lines is specified in [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-jsep].
Non-WebRTC entities will not send msid. This means that there will be some incoming RTP packets that the recipient has no predefined MediaStream id value for.
Note that this handling is triggered by incoming RTP packets, not by SDP negotiation.
Handling will depend on whether or not the msid-semantic:WMS attribute is present. There are two cases:
If a WebRTC entity sends a description, it MUST include the msid-semantic:WMS attribute, even if no media streams are sent. This allows us to distinguish between the case of no media streams at the moment and the case of legacy SDP generation.
It follows from the above that the WebRTC entity must have the SDP of the other party before it can decide correctly which of the two cases described above applies. RTP media packets that arrive before the remote party's SDP MUST be buffered or discarded, and MUST NOT cause a new MediaStreamTrack to be signalled.
It follows from the above that media stream tracks in the "default" media stream cannot be closed by removing the msid attribute; the application must instead signal these as closed when the SSRC disappears according to the rules of RFC 3550 section 6.3.4 and 6.3.5 or by disabling the m-line by setting its port to zero.
These procedures are given in terms of RFC 3264-recommended sections. They describe the actions to be taken in terms of MediaStreams and MediaStreamTracks; they do not include event signalling inside the application, which is described in JSEP.
They are specifically applicable to the WMS semantic; other semantics will have their own consideration.
For each media section in the offer, if there is an associated MediaStreamTrack, the offerer adds one "a=msid" attribute to the section for each MediaStream with which the MediaStreamTrack is associated. The "identifier" field of the attribute is set to the WebIDL "id" attribute of the MediaStream, and the "appdata" field is set to the WebIDL "id" attribute of the MediaStreamTrack.
For each media section in the offer, and for each "a=msid" attribute in the media section, the receiver of the offer will perform the following steps:
The answer is generated in exactly the same manner as the offer.
The answer is processed in exactly the same manner as the offer.
On subsequent exchanges, precisely the same procedure as for the initial offer/answer is followed, but with one additional step in the parsing of the offer and answer:
This document requests IANA to register the "msid" attribute in the "att-field (media level only)" registry within the SDP parameters registry, according to the procedures of [RFC4566]
The required information for "msid" is:
This document requests IANA to register the "msid-semantic" attribute in the "att-field (session level) registry within the SDP parameters registry, according to the same procedures.
The required information is:
This document requests IANA to create a new registry called "Semantics for the msid-semantic SDP attribute", which should have exactly the same rules as for the "Semantics for the ssrc-group SDP attribute" registry (Expert Review), and to register the "WMS" semantic within this new registry.
The required information is:
IANA is requested to replace "RFC XXXX" with the RFC number of this document upon publication.
An adversary with the ability to modify SDP descriptions has the ability to switch around tracks between media streams. This is a special case of the general security consideration that modification of SDP descriptions needs to be confined to entities trusted by the application.
If implementing buffering as mentioned in Section 4.1, the amount of buffering should be limited to avoid memory exhaustion attacks.
No other attacks have been identified that depend on this mechanism.
This note is based on sketches from, among others, Justin Uberti and Cullen Jennings.
Special thanks to Flemming Andreassen, Miguel Garcia and Paul Kyzivat for their work in reviewing this draft, with many specific language suggestions.
| [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-jsep] | Uberti, J. and C. Jennings, "Javascript Session Establishment Protocol", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-rtcweb-jsep-06, February 2014. |
| [RFC2119] | Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. |
| [RFC3550] | Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R. and V. Jacobson, "RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time Applications", STD 64, RFC 3550, July 2003. |
| [RFC4566] | Handley, M., Jacobson, V. and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session Description Protocol", RFC 4566, July 2006. |
| [RFC5234] | Crocker, D. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008. |
| [RFC5576] | Lennox, J., Ott, J. and T. Schierl, "Source-Specific Media Attributes in the Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 5576, June 2009. |
| [W3C.WD-webrtc-20120209] | Bergkvist, A., Burnett, D., Jennings, C. and A. Narayanan, "WebRTC 1.0: Real-time Communication Between Browsers", World Wide Web Consortium WD WD-webrtc-20120209, February 2012. |
| [I-D.ietf-mmusic-sdp-bundle-negotiation] | Holmberg, C., Alvestrand, H. and C. Jennings, "Negotiating Media Multiplexing Using the Session Description Protocol (SDP)", Internet-Draft draft-ietf-mmusic-sdp-bundle-negotiation-07, April 2014. |
| [I-D.roach-mmusic-unified-plan] | Roach, A., Uberti, J. and M. Thomson, "A Unified Plan for Using SDP with Large Numbers of Media Flows", Internet-Draft draft-roach-mmusic-unified-plan-00, July 2013. |
| [I-D.westerlund-avtcore-multiplex-architecture] | Westerlund, M., Perkins, C. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for using the Multiplexing Features of RTP", Internet-Draft draft-westerlund-avtcore-multiplex-architecture-03, February 2013. |
| [RFC5761] | Perkins, C. and M. Westerlund, "Multiplexing RTP Data and Control Packets on a Single Port", RFC 5761, April 2010. |
| [RFC5888] | Camarillo, G. and H. Schulzrinne, "The Session Description Protocol (SDP) Grouping Framework", RFC 5888, June 2010. |
This appendix should be deleted before publication as an RFC.
One suggested mechanism has been to use CNAME instead of a new attribute. This was abandoned because CNAME identifies a synchronization context; one can imagine both wanting to have tracks from the same synchronization context in multiple MediaStreams and wanting to have tracks from multiple synchronization contexts within one MediaStream (but the latter is impossible, since a MediaStream is defined to impose synchronization on its members).
Another suggestion has been to put the msid value within an attribute of RTCP SR (sender report) packets. This doesn't offer the ability to know that you have seen all the tracks currently configured for a media stream.
This appendix is included to document the usage of msid as a source-specific attribute. Prior to the acceptance of the Unified Plan document, some implementations used this mechanism to distinguish between multiple MediaStreamTracks that were carried in the same M-line.
It reproduces some of the original justification text for this mechanism that is not relevant when Unified Plan is used.
When media is carried by RTP [RFC3550], each RTP media stream is distinguished inside an RTP session by its SSRC; each RTP session is distinguished from all other RTP sessions by being on a different transport association (strictly speaking, 2 transport associations, one used for RTP and one used for RTCP, unless RTCP multiplexing [RFC5761] is used).
There exist cases where an application using RTP and SDP needs to signal some relationship between RTP media streams that may be carried in either the same RTP session or different RTP sessions. For instance, there may be a need to signal a relationship between a video track in one RTP session and an audio track in another RTP session. In traditional SDP, it is not possible to signal that these two tracks should be carried in one session, so they are carried in different RTP sessions.
Traditionally, SDP was used to describe the RTP sessions, with one m-line being used to describe each RTP session. With the advent of extensions like BUNDLE [I-D.ietf-mmusic-sdp-bundle-negotiation], this association may be more complex, with multiple m-lines being used to describe one RTP session; the rest of this document therefore talks about m-lines, not RTP sessions, when describing the signalling mechanism.
The SSRC grouping mechanism ("a=ssrc-group") [RFC5576] can be used to associate RTP media streams when those RTP media streams are described by the same m-line. The semantics of this mechanism prevent the association of RTP media streams that are spread across different m-lines.
The SDP grouping framework [RFC5888] can be used to group m-lines. When an m-line describes one and only one RTP media stream, it is possible to associate RTP media streams across different m-lines. However, if an m-line has multiple RTP media streams, using multiple SSRCs, the SDP grouping framework cannot be used for this purpose.
There are use cases (some of which are discussed in [I-D.westerlund-avtcore-multiplex-architecture] ) where neither of these approaches is appropriate; In those cases, a new mechanism is needed.
In addition, there is sometimes the need for an application to specify some application-level information about the association between the SSRC and the group. This is not possible using either of the frameworks above.
When the MSID attribute was used with the SSRC attribute, it had to be registered in the "Attribute names (source level)" registry rather than the "Attribute names (media level only)" registry, and the msid line was prefixed with "a=ssrc:<ssrc> ". Apart from that, usage of the attribute with SSRC-bound flows was identical with the current proposal.
This appendix should be deleted before publication as an RFC.
Added track identifier.
Added inclusion-by-reference of draft-lennox-mmusic-source-selection for track muting.
Some rewording.
Split document into sections describing a generic grouping mechanism and sections describing the application of this grouping mechanism to the WebRTC MediaStream concept.
Removed the mechanism for muting tracks, since this is not central to the MSID mechanism.
Changed the draft name according to the wishes of the MMUSIC group chairs.
Added text indicting cases where it's appropriate to have the same appdata for multiple SSRCs.
Minor textual updates.
Increased the amount of explanatory text, much based on a review by Miguel Garcia.
Removed references to BUNDLE, since that spec is under active discussion.
Removed distinguished values of the MSID identifier.
Changed the order of the "msid-semantic: " attribute's value fields and allowed multiple identifiers. This makes the attribute useful as a marker for "I understand this semantic".
Changed the syntax for "identifier" and "appdata" to be "token".
Changed the registry for the "msid-semantic" attribute values to be a new registry, based on advice given in Atlanta.
Updated terminology to refer to m-lines rather than RTP sessions when discussing SDP formats and the ability of other linking mechanisms to refer to SSRCs.
Changed the "default" mechanism to return independent streams after considering the synchronization problem.
Removed the space from between "msid-semantic" and its value, to be consistent with RFC 5576.
Reworked msid mechanism to be a per-m-line attribute, to align with [I-D.roach-mmusic-unified-plan]
Corrected several missed cases where the word "ssrc" was not changed to "M-line".
Added pointer to unified-plan (which should be moved to point to -jsep)
Removed suggestion that ssrc-group attributes can be used with "msid-semantic", it is now only the msid-semantic registry.
Corrected even more cases where the word "ssrc" was not changed to "M-line".
Added the functionality of using an asterisk (*) in the msid-semantic line, in order to remove the need for listing all msids in the msid-semantic line whne only one msid-semantic is in use.
Removed some now-unnecessary text.
Changed title to reflect focus on WebRTC MediaStreams
Added a section on receiver-side media stream control, using the "msid-control" attribute.
Removed the msid-control section after WG discussion.
Removed some text that seemed only to pertain to resolved issues.
Addressed issues found in Fleming Andreassen's review
Referenced JSEP rather than unified-plan for the M-line mapping model
Relaxed MSID definition to allow "token-char" in values rather than a-z 0-9 hyphen; tightened ABNF by adding length description to it.
Deleted discussion of abandoned alternatives, as part of preparing for publication.
Added a "detailed procedures" section to the WMS semantics description.
Added IANA registration of the "msid-semantic" attribute.