| RMT | V. Roca |
| Internet-Draft | INRIA |
| Intended status: Experimental Protocol | B. Adamson |
| Expires: August 14, 2011 | Naval Research Laboratory |
| February 10, 2011 |
FCAST: Scalable Object Delivery for the ALC and NORM Protocols
This document introduces the FCAST object (e.g., file) delivery application on top of the ALC and NORM reliable multicast protocols. FCAST is a highly scalable application that provides a reliable object delivery service.
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 August 14, 2011.
Copyright (c) 2011 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.
This document introduces the FCAST reliable and scalable object (e.g., file) delivery application. Two variants of FCAST exist:
Hereafter, the term FCAST denotes either FCAST/ALC or FCAST/NORM. FCAST is not a new protocol specification per se. Instead it is a set of data format specifications and instructions on how to use ALC and NORM to implement a file-casting service.
Depending on the target use case, the delivery service provided by FCAST is more or less reliable. For instance, with FCAST/ALC used in ON-DEMAND mode over a time period that largely exceeds the typical download time, the service can be considered as fully reliable. Similarly, when FCAST is used along with a session control application that collects reception information and takes appropriate corrective measures (e.g., a direct point-to-point retransmission of missing packets, or a new multicast recovery session), then the service can be considered as fully reliable. On the opposite, if FCAST operates in PUSH mode, then the service is usually only partially reliable, and a receiver that is disconnected during a sufficient time will perhaps not have the possibility to download the object.
Depending on the target use case, the FCAST scalability is more or less important. For instance, if FCAST/ALC is used on top of purely unidirectional transport channels, with no feedback information at all, which is the default mode of operation, then the scalability is maximum since neither FCAST, nor ALC, UDP or IP generates any feedback message. On the opposite, the FCAST/NORM scalability is typically limited by NORM scalability itself. Similarly, if FCAST is used along with a session control application that collects reception information from the receivers, then this session control application may limit the scalability of the global object delivery system. This situation can of course be mitigated by using a hierarchy of feedback message aggregators or servers. The details of this are out of the scope of the present document.
A design goal behind FCAST is to define a streamlined solution, in order to enable lightweight implementations of the protocol stack, and limit the operational processing and storage requirements. A consequence of this choice is that FCAST cannot be considered as a versatile application, capable of addressing all the possible use-cases. On the opposite, FCAST has some intrinsic limitations. From this point of view it differs from FLUTE [RMT-FLUTE] which favors flexibility at the expense of some additional complexity.
A good example of the design choices meant to favor the simplicity is the way FCAST manages the object meta-data: by default, the meta-data and the object content are sent together, in a compound object. This solution has many advantages in terms of simplicity as will be described later on. However, as such, it also has an intrinsic limitation since it does not enable a receiver to decide in advance, before beginning the reception of the compound object, whether the object is of interest or not, based on the information that may be provided in the meta-data. Therefore this document defines additional techniques that may be used to mitigate this limitation. It is also possible that some use-cases require that each receiver download the whole set of objects sent in the session (e.g., with mirroring tools). When this is the case, the above limitation is no longer be a problem.
FCAST is compatible with any congestion control protocol designed for ALC/LCT or NORM. However, depending on the use-case, the data flow generated by the FCAST application might not be constant, but instead be bursty in nature. Similarly, depending on the use-case, an FCAST session might be very short. Whether and how this will impact the congestion control protocol is out of the scope of the present document.
FCAST is compatible with any security mechanism designed for ALC/LCT or NORM. The use of a security scheme is strongly RECOMMENDED (see Section 6).
FCAST is compatible with any FEC scheme designed for ALC/LCT or NORM. Whether FEC is used or not, and the kind of FEC scheme used, is to some extent transparent to FCAST.
FCAST is compatible with both IPv4 and IPv6. Nothing in the FCAST specification has any implication on the source or destination IP address.
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 [RFC2119].
This document uses the following definitions:
This document uses the following abbreviations:
The basic goal of FCAST is to transmit objects to a group of receivers in a reliable way. The receiver set MAY be restricted to a single receiver or MAY include possibly a very large number of receivers. FCAST is specified to support two forms of operation:
This specification is designed such that both forms of operation share as much commonality as possible.
While the choice of the underlying transport protocol (i.e., ALC or NORM) and its parameters may limit the practical receiver group size, nothing in FCAST itself limits it. The transmission might be fully reliable, or only partially reliable depending upon the way ALC or NORM is used (e.g., whether FEC encoding and/or NACK-based repair requests are used or not), the way the FCAST carousel is used (e.g., whether the objects are made available for a long time span or not), and the way in which FCAST itself is employed (e.g., whether there is a session control application that might automatically extend an existing FCAST session until all receivers have received the transmitted content).
FCAST is designed to be as self-sufficient as possible, in particular in the way object meta-data is attached to object data content. However, for some uses, meta-data MAY also be communicated by an out-of-band mechanism that is out of the scope of the present document.
FCAST usually carries meta-data elements by prepending them to the object it refers to. As a result, a Compound Object is created that is composed of a header followed by the original object data. This header is itself composed of the meta-data as well as several fields, for instance to indicate the boundaries between the various parts of this Compound Object (Figure 1).
<------------------------ Compound Object -----------------------> +-------------------------+--------------------------------------+ | Compound Object Header | Object Data | | (can include meta-data) | (can be encoded by FCAST) | +-------------------------+--------------------------------------+
Attaching the meta-data to the object is an efficient solution, since it guaranties that meta-data be received along with the associated object, and it allows the transport of the meta-data to benefit from any transport-layer erasure protection of the Compound Object (e.g., using FEC encoding and/or NACK-based repair). However a limit of this scheme, as such, is that a client does not know the meta-data of an object before beginning its reception, and in case of erasures affecting the meta-data, not until the object decoding is completed. The details of course depend upon the transport protocol and the FEC code used.
In certain use-cases, FCAST can also be associated to another in-band (e.g., via NORM INFO messages, Section 4.8) or out-of-band signaling mechanism. In that case, this mechanism can be used in order to carry the whole meta-data (or a subset of it), possibly ahead of time.
The meta-data associated to an object can be composed of, but are not limited to:
This list is not limited and new meta-data information can be added. For instance, when dealing with very large objects (e.g., that largely exceed the working memory of a receiver), it can be interesting to split this object into several sub-objects (or slices). When this happens, the meta-data associated to each sub-object MUST include the following entries:
When meta-data elements are communicated out-of-band, in advance of data transmission, the following pieces of information MAY also be useful:
A set of FCAST Compound Objects scheduled for transmission are considered a logical "Carousel". A given "Carousel Instance" is comprised of a fixed set of Compound Objects. Whenever the FCAST application needs to add new Compound Objects to, or remove old Compound Objects from the transmission set, a new Carousel Instance is defined since the set of Compound Objects changes. Because of the native object multiplexing capability of both ALC and NORM, sender and receiver(s) are both capable to multiplex and demultiplex FCAST Compound Objects.
For a given Carousel Instance, one or more transmission cycles are possible. During each cycle, all of the Compound Objects comprising the Carousel are sent. By default, each object is transmitted once per cycle. However, in order to allow different levels of priority, some objects MAY be transmitted more often that others during a cycle, and/or benefit from higher FEC protection than others. This can be the case for instance for the CID objects (Section 4.5). For some FCAST usage (e.g., a unidirectional "push" mode), a Carousel Instance may be associated to a single transmission cycle. In other cases it may be associated to a large number of transmission cycles (e.g., in "on-demand" mode, where objects are made available for download during a long period of time).
The FCAST sender CAN transmit an OPTIONAL Carousel Instance Descriptor (CID). The CID carries the list of the Compound Objects that are part of a given Carousel Instance, by specifying their respective Transmission Object Identifiers (TOI). However the CID does not describe the objects themselves (i.e., there is no meta-data). Additionally, the CID MAY include a "Complete" flag that is used to indicate that no further modification to the enclosed list will be done in the future. Finally, the CID MAY include a Carousel Instance ID that identifies the Carousel Instance it pertains to. These aspects are discussed in Section 5.2.
There is no reserved TOI value for the CID Compound Object itself, since this special object is regarded by ALC/LCT or NORM as a standard object. On the opposite, the nature of this object (CID) is indicated by means of a specific Compound Object header field (the "I" flag) so that it can be recognized and processed by the FCAST application as needed. A direct consequence is the following: since a receiver does not know in advance which TOI will be used for the following CID (in case of a dynamic session), he MUST NOT filter out packets that are not in the current CID's TOI list. Said differently, the goal of CID is not to setup ALC or NORM packet filters (this mechanism would not be secure in any case).
The use of a CID remains optional. If it is not used, then the clients progressively learn what files are part of the carousel instance by receiving ALC or NORM packets with new TOIs. However using a CID has several benefits:
During idle periods, when the carousel instance does not contain any object, a CID with an empty TOI list MAY be transmitted. In that case, a new carousel instance ID MUST be used to differentiate this (empty) carousel instance from the other ones. This mechanism can be useful to inform the receivers that:
The decisions of whether a CID should be used or not, how often and when a CID should be sent, are left to the sender and depend on many parameters, including the target use case and the session dynamics. For instance it may be appropriate to send a CID at the beginning of each new carousel instance, and then periodically. These operational aspects are out of the scope of the present document.
The FCAST Compound Objects are directly associated with the object-based transport service that the ALC and NORM protocols provide. In each of these protocols, the messages containing transport object content are labeled with a numeric transport object identifier (i.e., the ALC TOI and the NORM NormTransportId). For the purposes of this document, this identifier in either case (ALC or NORM) is referred to as the TOI.
There are several differences between ALC and NORM:
In both NORM and ALC, it is possible that the transport identification space may eventually wrap for long-lived sessions (especially with NORM where this phenomenon is expected to happen more frequently). This can possibly introduce some ambiguity in FCAST object identification if a sender retains some older objects in newer Carousel Instances with updated object sets. To avoid ambiguity the active TOIs (i.e., the TOIs corresponding to objects being transmitted) can only occupy half of the TOI sequence space. If an old object, whose TOI has fallen outside the current window, needs to be transmitted again, a new TOI must be used for it. In case of NORM, this constraint limits to 32768 the maximum number of objects that can be part of any carousel instance. In order to allow receivers to properly combine the transport packets with a newly-assigned TOI to those of associated to the previously-assigned TOI, a mechanism is required to equate the objects with the new and the old TOIs.
The preferred mechanism consists in signaling, within the CID, that the newly assigned TOI, for the current Carousel Instance, is equivalent to the TOI used within a previous Carousel Instance. By convention, the reference tuple for any object is the {TOI; CI ID} tuple used for its first transmission within a Carousel Instance. This tuple MUST be used whenever a TOI equivalence is provided.
An alternative solution, when meta-data can be processed rapidly (e.g., by using NORM-INFO messages), consists for the receiver in identifying that both objects are the same, after examining the meta-data. The receiver can then take appropriate measures.
There are no additional detail or option for FCAST/ALC operation.
The NORM Protocol provides a few additional capabilities that can be used to specifically support FCAST operation:
It should be noted that the NORM_INFO message header may carry the EXT_FTI extension. The reliable delivery of the NORM_INFO content allows the individual objects' FEC Transmission Information to be provided to the receivers without burdening every packet (i.e. NORM_DATA messages) with this additional, but important, content. Examples are provided in Appendix Appendix A.
The following operations MAY take place at a sender:
The following operations MAY take place at a receiver:
This section details the various data formats used by FCAST.
In an FCAST session, Compound Objects are constructed by prepending the Compound Object Header (which may include meta-data) before the original object data content (Figure 2).
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ^ |Ver| Resvd |G|C| MDFmt | MDEnc | Checksum | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Compound Object Header Length | h +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-| d | Object Meta-Data (optional, variable length) | r | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | Padding (optional) | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ v | | . Object Data (optional, variable length) . . . . .
The Compound Object Header fields are:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Version | 2-bit field that MUST be set to 0 in this specification and indicates the protocol version number. |
| Reserved | 4-bit field that MUST be set to 0 in this specification and is reserved for future use. Receivers MUST ignore this field. |
| G | 1-bit field that, when set to 1, indicates that the checksum encompasses the whole Compound Object (Global checksum). When set to 0, this field indicates that the checksum encompasses only the Compound Object header. |
| C | 1-bit field that, when set to 1, indicates the object is a Carousel Instance Descriptor (CID). When set to 0, this field indicates that the transported object is a standard object. |
| Meta-Data Format (MDFmt) | 4-bit field that defines the format of the object meta-data (see Section 7). An HTTP/1.1 metainformation format [RFC2616] MUST be supported and is associated to value 0. Other formats (e.g., XML) MAY be defined in the future. |
| Meta-Data Encoding (MDEnc) | 4-bit field that defines the optional encoding of the Object Meta-Data field (see Section 7). By default, a plain text encoding is used and is associated to value 0. Gzip encoding MUST also be supported and is associated to value 1. Other encodings MAY be defined in the future. |
| Checksum | 16-bit field that contains the checksum computed over either the whole Compound Object (when G is set to 1), or over the Compound Object header (when G is set to 0), using the Internet checksum algorithm specified in [RFC1071]. More precisely, the checksum field is the 16-bit one's complement of the one's complement sum of all 16-bit words to be considered. If a segment contains an odd number of octets to be checksummed, the last octet is padded on the right with zeros to form a 16-bit word for checksum purposes (this pad is not transmitted). While computing the checksum, the checksum field itself is set to zero. |
| Compound Object Header Length | 32-bit field indicating total length (in bytes) of all fields of the Compound Object Header, except the optional padding. A header length field set to value 8 means that there is no meta-data included. When this size is not multiple to 32-bits words and when the Compound Object Header is followed by a non null Compound Object Data, padding MUST be added. It should be noted that the meta-data field maximum size is equal to (2^32 - 8) bytes. |
| Object Meta-Data | Optional, variable length field that contains the meta-data associated to the object. The format and encoding of this field is defined by the MDFmt MDEnc fields. With the default HTTP/1.1 format and plain text encoding, the Meta-Data is NULL-terminated plain text that follows the "TYPE" ":" "VALUE" "<CR-LF>" format used in HTTP/1.1 for metainformation [RFC2616]. The various meta-data items can appear in any order. The associated string, when non empty, MUST be NULL-terminated. When no meta-data is communicated, this field MUST be empty and the Compound Object Header Length MUST be equal to 8. |
| Padding | Optional, variable length field of zero-value bytes to align the start of the Object Data to 32-bit boundary. Padding is only used when the Compound Object Header Length value, in bytes, is not multiple of 4 and when the Compound Object Header is followed by non null Compound Object Data. |
The Compound Object Header is then followed by the Object Data, i.e., the original object possibly encoded by FCAST. Note that the length of this content is the transported object length (e.g., as specified by the FEC OTI) minus the Compound Object Header Length and optional padding if any.
The format of the CID, which is a special Compound Object, is given in Figure 3.
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ ^ |Ver| Resvd |G|C| MDFmt | MDEnc | Checksum | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Compound Object Header Length | h +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-| d | Object Meta-Data (optional, variable length) | r | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | Padding (optional) | | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ v . . ^ . Object List (variable length) . | . . o . +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ b . | j +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ v
Because the CID is transmitted as a special Compound Object, the following CID-specific meta-data entries are defined:
The motivation for making the Fcast-CID-Complete and Fcast-CID-ID entries optional is to simplify the simple case of a session consisting of a single, complete, carousel instance, with an Object List given in plain text, without any content encoding. In that case, the CID does not need to contain any meta-data entry.
Content-Encoding: gzip
Additionally, the following standard meta-data entries are often used (Section 4.3):
Content-Length: 0
An empty Object List is valid and indicates that the current carousel instance does not include any object (Section 4.5). This can be specified by using the following meta-data entry:
The non-encoded (i.e., plain text) Object List, when non empty, is a NULL-terminated ASCII string. It can contain two things:
First of all, this string can contain the list of TOIs included in the current carousel instance, specified either as the individual TOIs of each object, or as TOI intervals, or any combination. The format of the ASCII string is a comma-separated list of individual "TOI" values or "TOI_a-TOI_b" elements. This latter case means that all values between TOI_a and TOI_b, inclusive, are part of the list. In that case TOI_a MUST be strictly inferior to TOI_b. If a TOI wrapping to 0 occurs in an interval, then two TOI intervals MUST be specified, TOI_a-MAX_TOI and 0-TOI_b.
This string can also contain the TOI equivalences, if any. The format is a comma-separated list of "(" newTOI "=" 1stTOI "/" 1stCIID ")" elements. Each element says that the new TOI, for the current Carousel Instance, is equivalent to (i.e., refers to the same object as) the provided identifier, 1stTOI, for the Carousel Instance of ID 1stCIID.
The ABNF specification is the following:
cid-list = *(list-elem *( "," list-elem))
list-elem = toi-elem / toieq-elem
toi-elem = toi-value / toi-interval
toi-value = 1*DIGIT
toi-interval = toi-value "-" toi-value
; additionally, the first toi-value MUST be
; strictly inferior to the second toi-value
toieq-elem = "(" toi-value "=" toi-value "/" ciid-value ")"
ciid-value = 1*DIGIT
DIGIT = %x30-39
; a digit between O and 9, inclusive
For readability purposes, it is RECOMMENDED that all the TOI values in the list be given in increasing order. However a receiver MUST be able to handle non-monotonically increasing values. It is also RECOMMENDED to group the TOI equivalence elements together, at the end of the list, in increasing newTOI order. However a receiver MUST be able to handle lists of mixed TOI and TOI equivalence elements. Specifying a TOI equivalence for a given newTOI relieves the sender from specifying newTOI explicitly in the TOI list. However a receiver MUST be able to handle situations where the same TOI appears both in the TOI value and TOI equivalence lists. Finally, a given TOI value or TOI equivalence item MUST NOT be included multiple times in either list.
For instance, the following object list specifies that the current Carousel Instance is composed of 8 objects, and that TOIs 100 to 104 are equivalent to the TOIs 10 to 14 of Carousel Instance ID 2 and refer to the same objects:
97,98,99,(100=10/2),(101=11/2),(102=12/2),(103=13/2),(104=14/2)
or equivalently:
97-104,(100=10/2),(101=11/2),(102=12/2),(103=13/2),(104=14/2)
A content delivery system is potentially subject to attacks. Attacks may target:
These attacks can be launched either:
In the following sections we provide more details on these possible attacks and sketch some possible counter-measures. We finally provide recommendations in Section 6.5.
Let us consider attacks against the data flow first. At least, the following types of attacks exist:
Access control to the object being transmitted is typically provided by means of encryption. This encryption can be done over the whole object (e.g., by the content provider, before submitting the object to FCAST), or be done on a packet per packet basis (e.g., when IPsec/ESP is used [RFC4303], see Section 6.5). If confidentiality is a concern, it is RECOMMENDED that one of these solutions be used.
Protection against corruptions (e.g., if an attacker sends forged packets) is achieved by means of a content integrity verification/sender authentication scheme. This service can be provided at the object level, but in that case a receiver has no way to identify which symbol(s) is(are) corrupted if the object is detected as corrupted. This service can also be provided at the packet level. In this case, after removing all corrupted packets, the file may be in some cases recovered. Several techniques can provide this content integrity/sender authentication service:
Techniques relying on public key cryptography (digital signatures and TESLA during the bootstrap process, when used) require that public keys be securely associated to the entities. This can be achieved by a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), or by a PGP Web of Trust, or by pre-distributing securely the public keys of each group member.
Techniques relying on symmetric key cryptography (Group MAC) require that a secret key be shared by all group members. This can be achieved by means of a group key management protocol, or simply by pre-distributing securely the secret key (but this manual solution has many limitations).
It is up to the developer and deployer, who know the security requirements and features of the target application area, to define which solution is the most appropriate. In any case, whenever there is any concern of the threat of file corruption, it is RECOMMENDED that at least one of these techniques be used.
Let us now consider attacks against the session control parameters and the associated building blocks. The attacker has at least the following opportunities to launch an attack:
The consequences of these attacks are potentially serious, since they can compromise the behavior of content delivery system or even compromise the network itself.
An FCAST receiver may potentially obtain an incorrect Session Description for the session. The consequence of this is that legitimate receivers with the wrong Session Description are unable to correctly receive the session content, or that receivers inadvertently try to receive at a much higher rate than they are capable of, thereby possibly disrupting other traffic in the network.
To avoid these problems, it is RECOMMENDED that measures be taken to prevent receivers from accepting incorrect Session Descriptions. One such measure is the sender authentication to ensure that receivers only accept legitimate Session Descriptions from authorized senders. How these measures are achieved is outside the scope of this document since this session description is usually carried out-of-band.
Corrupting the FCAST CID is one way to create a Denial of Service attack. For example, the attacker can set the "Complete" flag to make the receivers believe that no further modification will be done.
It is therefore RECOMMENDED that measures be taken to guarantee the integrity and to check the sender's identity of the CID. To that purpose, one of the counter-measures mentioned above (Section 6.2.2) SHOULD be used. These measures will either be applied on a packet level, or globally over the whole CID object. When there is no packet level integrity verification scheme, it is RECOMMENDED to digitally sign the CID.
Corrupting the object meta-data is another way to create a Denial of Service attack. For example, the attacker changes the MD5 sum associated to a file. This possibly leads a receiver to reject the files received, no matter whether the files have been correctly received or not. When the meta-data are appended to the object, corrupting the meta-data means that the Compound Object will be corrupted.
It is therefore RECOMMENDED that measures be taken to guarantee the integrity and to check the sender's identity of the Compound Object. To that purpose, one of the counter-measures mentioned above (Section 6.2.2) SHOULD be used. These measures will either be applied on a packet level, or globally over the whole Compound Object. When there is no packet level integrity verification scheme, it is RECOMMENDED to digitally sign the Compound Object.
By corrupting the ALC/LCT header (or header extensions) one can execute attacks on the underlying ALC/LCT implementation. For example, sending forged ALC packets with the Close Session flag (A) set to one can lead the receiver to prematurely close the session. Similarly, sending forged ALC packets with the Close Object flag (B) set to one can lead the receiver to prematurely give up the reception of an object. The same comments can be made for NORM.
It is therefore RECOMMENDED that measures be taken to guarantee the integrity and to check the sender's identity of each ALC or NORM packet received. To that purpose, one of the counter-measures mentioned above (Section 6.2.2) SHOULD be used.
Let us first focus on the congestion control building block that may be used in an ALC or NORM session. A receiver with an incorrect or corrupted implementation of the multiple rate congestion control building block may affect the health of the network in the path between the sender and the receiver. That may also affect the reception rates of other receivers who joined the session.
When congestion control is applied with FCAST, it is therefore RECOMMENDED that receivers be required to identify themselves as legitimate before they receive the Session Description needed to join the session. If authenticating a receiver does not prevent this latter to launch an attack, it will enable the network operator to identify him and to take counter-measures. This authentication can be made either toward the network operator or the session sender (or a representative of the sender) in case of NORM. The details of how it is done are outside the scope of this document.
When congestion control is applied with FCAST, it is also RECOMMENDED that a packet level authentication scheme be used, as explained in Section 6.2.2. Some of them, like TESLA, only provide a delayed authentication service, whereas congestion control requires a rapid reaction. It is therefore RECOMMENDED [RFC5775] that a receiver using TESLA quickly reduces its subscription level when the receiver believes that a congestion did occur, even if the packet has not yet been authenticated. Therefore TESLA will not prevent DoS attacks where an attacker makes the receiver believe that a congestion occurred. This is an issue for the receiver, but this will not compromise the network. Other authentication methods that do not feature this delayed authentication could be preferred, or a group MAC scheme could be used in parallel to TESLA to prevent attacks launched from outside of the group.
Lastly, we note that the security considerations that apply to, and are described in, ALC [RFC5775], LCT [RFC5651], NORM [RFC5740] and FEC [RFC5052] also apply to FCAST as FCAST builds on those specifications. In addition, any security considerations that apply to any congestion control building block used in conjunction with FCAST also applies to FCAST. Finally, the security discussion of [RMT-SEC] also applies here.
We now introduce a mandatory to implement but not necessarily to use security configuration, in the sense of [RFC3365]. Since FCAST/ALC relies on ALC/LCT, it inherits the "baseline secure ALC operation" of [RFC5775]. Similarly, since FCAST/NORM relies on NORM, it inherits the "baseline secure NORM operation" of [RFC5740]. More precisely, in both cases security is achieved by means of IPsec/ESP in transport mode. [RFC4303] explains that ESP can be used to potentially provide confidentiality, data origin authentication, content integrity, anti-replay and (limited) traffic flow confidentiality. [RFC5775] specifies that the data origin authentication, content integrity and anti-replay services SHALL be used, and that the confidentiality service is RECOMMENDED. If a short lived session MAY rely on manual keying, it is also RECOMMENDED that an automated key management scheme be used, especially in case of long lived sessions.
Therefore, the RECOMMENDED solution for FCAST provides per-packet security, with data origin authentication, integrity verification and anti-replay. This is sufficient to prevent most of the in-band attacks listed above. If confidentiality is required, a per-packet encryption SHOULD also be used.
This document requires a IANA registration for the following name-space: "Object Meta-Data Format" (MDFmt). Values in this namespace are 4-bit positive integers between 0 and 15 inclusive and they define the format of the object meta-data ((see Section 5.1).
Initial values for the LCT Header Extension Type registry are defined in Section 7.1.1. Future assignments are to be made through Expert Review [RFC5226].
This document registers one value in the "Object Meta-Data Format" namespace as follows:
| format name | Value |
|---|---|
| as per HTTP/1.1 metainformation format | 0 (default) |
All implementations MUST support format 0 (default).
This document requires a IANA registration for the following name-space: "Object Meta-Data Encoding" (MDEnc). Values in this namespace are 4-bit positive integers between 0 and 15 inclusive and they define the optional encoding of the Object Meta-Data field (see Section 5.1).
Initial values for the LCT Header Extension Type registry are defined in Section 7.2.1. Future assignments are to be made through Expert Review [RFC5226].
This document registers two values in the "Object Meta-Data Encoding" namespace as follows:
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| plain text | 0 (default) |
| gzip | 1 |
All implementations MUST support both value 0 (plain-text, default) and value 1 (gzip).
The authors are grateful to the authors of [ALC-00] for specifying the first version of FCAST/ALC. The authors are also grateful to Gorry Fairhurst and Lorenzo Vicisano for their valuable comments.
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 0 | 0 |1|0| 0 | 0 | Checksum | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 44 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-| . . . meta-data ASCII null terminated string (33 bytes) . . . + +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | Padding | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ . . . Object data . . . +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 9 shows a regular Compound Object where the meta-data ASCII string, in HTTP/1.1 meta-information format (MDFmt=0) contains:
Content-Location: example.txt <CR-LF>
This string is 33 bytes long, including the NULL-termination character. There is no gzip encoding of the meta-data (MDEnc=0) and there is no Content-Length information either since this length can easily be calculated by the receiver as the FEC OTI transfer length minus the header length. Finally, the checksum encompasses the whole Compound Object (G=1).
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 0 | 0 |1|0| 0 | 0 | Checksum | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 8 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ . . . Object data . . . +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 11 shows a Compound Object without any meta-data. The fact there is no meta-data is indicated by the value 8 of the Compound Object Header Length field. No padding is required.
Figure 12 shows an example CID object, in the case of a static FCAST session, i.e., a session where the set of objects is set once and for all. There is no meta-data in this example since Fcast-CID-Complete and Fcast-CID-ID are both implicit.
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 0 | 0 |1|1| 0 | 0 | Checksum | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | 8 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-| . . . Object List string . . . . +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ . | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
The object list contains the following 26 byte long string, including the NULL-termination character:
1,2,3,100-104,200-203,299
There are therefore a total of 3+5+4+1 = 13 objects in the carousel instance, and therefore in the FCAST session. There is no meta-data associated to this CID. The session being static and composed of a single Carousel Instance, the sender did not feel the necessity to carry a Carousel Instance ID meta-data.
In case of FCAST/NORM, the FCAST Compound Object meta-data (or a subset of it) can be carried as part of a NORM_INFO message, as a new Compound Object that does not contain any Compound Object Data. In the following example we assume that the whole meta-data is carried in such a message for a certain Compound Object. Figure 14 shows an example NORM_INFO message that contains the FCAST Compound Object Header and meta-data as its payload. In this example, the first 16 bytes are the NORM_INFO base header, the next 12 bytes are a NORM EXT_FTI header extension containing the FEC Object Transport Information for the associated object, and the remaining bytes are the FCAST Compound Object Header and meta-data. Note that "padding" MUST NOT be used and that the FCAST checksum only encompasses the Compound Object Header (G=0).
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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -- |version| type=1| hdr_len = 7 | sequence | ^ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | source_id | n +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ o | instance_id | grtt |backoff| gsize | r +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ m | flags | fec_id = 5 | object_transport_id | v +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -- | HET = 64 | HEL = 3 | | ^ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ + f | Transfer Length = 41 | t +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ i | Encoding Symbol Length (E) | MaxBlkLen (B) | max_n | v +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ -- | 0 | 0 |0|0| 0 | 0 | Checksum | ^ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | 41 | f +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-| c . . a . meta-data ASCII null terminated string (33 bytes) . s . . t + +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | | | v +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ --
The NORM_INFO message shown in Figure 14 contains the EXT_FTI header extension to carry the FEC OTI. In this example, the FEC OTI format is that of the Reed-Solomon FEC coding scheme for fec_id = 5 as described in [RFC5510]. Other alternatives for providing the FEC OTI would have been to either include it directly in the meta-data of the FCAST Compound Header, or to include an EXT_FTI header extension to all NORM_DATA packets (or a subset of them). Note that the NORM "Transfer_Length" is the total length of the associated FCAST Compound Object, i.e., 41 bytes.
The FCAST Compound Object in this example does contain the same meta-data and is formatted as in the example of Figure 9. With the combination of the FEC_OTI and the FCAST meta-data, the NORM protocol and FCAST application have all of the information needed to reliably receive and process the associated object. Indeed, the NORM protocol provides rapid (NORM_INFO has precedence over the associated object content), reliable delivery of the NORM_INFO message and its payload, the FCAST Compound Object Header.