Internet DRAFT - draft-docdt-dime-ovli
draft-docdt-dime-ovli
Diameter Maintenance and Extensions J. Korhonen, Ed.
(DIME) Broadcom Communications
Internet-Draft S. Donovan
Intended status: Standards Track B. Campbell
Expires: May 8, 2014 Oracle
November 4, 2013
Diameter Overload Indication Conveyance
draft-docdt-dime-ovli-01.txt
Abstract
This specification documents a Diameter Overload Control (DOC) base
solution and the dissemination of the overload report information.
Requirements
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].
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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 May 8, 2014.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2013 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
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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.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Terminology and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Solution Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Architectural Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1.1. Application Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1.2. Application Type Overload Implications . . . . . . . . 8
3.1.3. Request Transaction Classification . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.4. Request Type Overload Implications . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.1.5. Diameter Deployment Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.1.6. Diameter Agent Behaviour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.1.7. Simplified Example Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2. Conveyance of the Overload Indication . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.1. Negotiation and Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.2. Transmission of the Attribute Value Pairs . . . . . . 14
3.3. Overload Condition Indication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. Attribute Value Pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. OC-Feature-Vector AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2. OC-OLR AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.3. TimeStamp AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.4. ValidityDuration AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.5. ReportType AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.6. Reduction-Percentage AVP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.7. Attribute Value Pair flag rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5. Overload Control Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.1. Overload Control Endpoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
5.2. Piggybacking Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.3. Capability Announcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
5.3.1. Request Message Initiator Endpoint Considerations . . 24
5.3.2. Answer Message Initiating Endpoint Considerations . . 24
5.4. Protocol Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.5. Overload Report Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.5.1. Sender Endpoint Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.5.2. Receiver Endpoint Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . 25
6. Transport Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.1. AVP codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
7.2. New registries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8.1. Potential Threat Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
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8.2. Denial of Service Attacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
8.3. Non-Compliant Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
8.4. End-to End-Security Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
9. Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
10. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Appendix A. Issues left for future specifications . . . . . . . . 31
A.1. Additional traffic abatement algorithms . . . . . . . . . 31
A.2. Agent Overload . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
A.3. DIAMETER_TOO_BUSY clarifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Appendix B. Conformance to Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Appendix C. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.1. 3GPP S6a interface overload indication . . . . . . . . . . 41
C.2. 3GPP PCC interfaces overload indication . . . . . . . . . 41
C.3. Mix of Destination-Realm routed requests and
Destination-Host reouted requests . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
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1. Introduction
This specification defines a base solution for the Diameter Overload
Control (DOC). The requirements for the solution are described and
discussed in the corresponding design requirements document
[I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs]. Note that the overload control
solution defined in this specification does not address all the
requirements listed in [I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs]. A number of
overload control related features are left for the future
specifications. See Appendix A for more detailed discussion on
those.
The solution defined in this specification addresses the Diameter
overload control between two endpoints (see Section 5.1).
Furthermore, the solution is designed to apply to existing and future
Diameter applications, requires no changes to the Diameter base
protocol [RFC6733] and is deployable in environments where some
Diameter nodes do not implement the Diameter overload control
solution defined in this specification.
2. Terminology and Abbreviations
Server Farm
A set of Diameter servers that can handle any request for a given
set of Diameter applications. While these servers support the
same set of applications, they do not necessarily all have the
same capacity. An individual server farm might also support a
subset of the users for a Diameter Realm.
[OpenIssue: Is a server farm assumed to support a single realm?
That is, does it support a set of applications in a single realm?]
Server Front End
A Server Front End (SFE) is a role that can be performed by a
Diameter agent -- either a relay or a proxy -- that sits between
Diameter clients and a Server Farm. An SFE can perform various
functions for the server farm it sits in front of. This includes
some or all of the following functions:
* Diameter Routing
* Diameter layer load balancing
* Load Management
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* Overload Management
* Topology Hiding
* Server Farm Identity Management
[OpenIssue: We used the concept of a server farm and SFE for
internal discussions. Do we still need those concepts to explain
the mechanism? It doesn't seem like we use them much.]
Diameter Routing:
Diameter Routing determines the destination of Diameter messages
addressed to either a Diameter Realm and Application in general,
or to a specific server using Destination-Host. This function is
defined in [RFC6733]. Application level routing specifications
that expand on [RFC6733] also exist.
Diameter-layer Load Balancing:
Diameter layer load balancing allows Diameter requests to be
distributed across the set of servers. Definition of this
function is outside the scope of this document.
Load Management:
This functionality ensures that the consolidated load state for
the server farm is collected, and processed. The exact algorithm
for computing the load at the SFE is implementation specific but
enough semantic of the conveyed load information needs to be
specified so that deterministic behavior can be ensured.
Overload Management:
The SFE is the entity that understands the consolidated overload
state for the server farm. Just as it is outside the scope of
this document to specify how a Diameter server calculates its
overload state, it is also outside the scope of this document to
specify how an SFE calculates the overload state for the set of
servers. This document describes how the SFE communicates
Overload information to Diameter Clients.
Topology Hiding:
Topology Hiding is loosely defined as ensuring that no Diameter
topology information about the server farm can be discovered from
Diameter messages sent outside a predefined boundary (typically an
administrative domain). This includes obfuscating identifiers and
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address information of Diameter entities in the server farm. It
can also include hiding the number of various Diameter entities in
the server farm. Identifying information can occur in many
Diameter Attribute-Value Pairs (AVPs), including Origin-Host,
Destination-Host, Route-Record, Proxy-Info, Session-ID and other
AVPs.
Server Farm Identity Management:
Server Farm Identity Management (SFIM) is a mechanism that can be
used by the SFE to present a single Diameter identity that can be
used by clients to send Diameter requests to the server farm.
This requires that the SFE modifies Origin-Host information in
answers coming from servers in the server farm. An agent that
performs SFIM appears as a server from the client's perspective.
Throttling:
Throttling is the reduction of the number of requests sent to an
entity. Throttling can include a client dropping requests, or an
agent rejecting requests with appropriate error responses.
Clients and agents can also choose to redirect throttled requests
to some other entity or entities capable of handling them.
Reporting Node
A Diameter node that generates an overload report. (This may or
may not be the actually overloaded node.)
Reacting Node
A Diameter node that consumes and acts upon a report. Note that
"act upon" does not necessarily mean the reacting node applies an
abatement algorithm; it might decide to delegate that downstream,
in which case it also becomes a "reporting node".
OLR Oveload Report.
3. Solution Overview
3.1. Architectural Assumptions
This section describes the high-level architectural and semantic
assumptions that underly the Diameter Overload Control Mechanism.
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3.1.1. Application Classification
The following is a classification of Diameter applications and
requests. This discussion is meant to document factors that play
into decisions made by the Diameter identity responsible for handling
overload reports.
Section 8.1 of [RFC6733] defines two state machines that imply two
types of applications, session-less and session-based. The primary
differentiator between these types of applications is the lifetime of
Session-IDs.
For session-based applications, the session-id is used to tie
multiple requests into a single session.
In session-less applications, the lifetime of the session-id is a
single Diameter transaction.
The 3GPP-defined S6a application is an example of a session-less
application. The following, copied from section 7.1.4 of 29.272,
explicitly states that sessions are implicitly terminated and that
the server does not maintain session state:
"Between the MME and the HSS and between the SGSN and the HSS and
between the MME and the EIR, Diameter sessions shall be implicitly
terminated. An implicitly terminated session is one for which the
server does not maintain state information. The client shall not
send any re-authorization or session termination requests to the
server.
The Diameter base protocol includes the Auth-Session-State AVP as
the mechanism for the implementation of implicitly terminated
sessions.
The client (server) shall include in its requests (responses) the
Auth-Session-State AVP set to the value NO_STATE_MAINTAINED (1),
as described in [RFC6733]. As a consequence, the server shall not
maintain any state information about this session and the client
shall not send any session termination request. Neither the
Authorization-Lifetime AVP nor the Session-Timeout AVP shall be
present in requests or responses."
For the purposes of this discussion, session-less applications are
further divided into two types of applications:
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Stateless applications: Requests within a stateless application have
no relationship to each other. The 3GPP defined S13 application
is an example of a stateless application.
Pseudo-session applications: While this class of application does
not use the Diameter Session-ID AVP to correlate requests, there
is an implied ordering of transactions defined by the application.
The 3GPP defined Cx application [reference] is an example of a
pseudo-session application.
[OpenIssue: Do we assume that all requests in a pseudo-session
typically need to go to the same server?]
The accounting application defined in [RFC6733] and the Credit-
Control application defined in [RFC4006] are examples of Diameter
session-based applications.
The handling of overload reports must take the type of application
into consideration, as discussed in Section 3.1.2.
3.1.2. Application Type Overload Implications
This section discusses considerations for mitigating overload
reported by a Diameter entity. This discussion focuses on the type
of application. Section 3.1.3 discusses considerations for handling
various request types when the target server is known to be in an
overloaded state. Section 3.1.5 discusses considerations for
handling overload conditions based on the network deployment
scenario.
These discussions assume that the strategy for mitigating the
reported overload is to reduce the overall workload sent to the
overloaded entity. The concept of applying overload treatment to
requests targeted for an overloaded Diameter entity is inherent to
this discussion. The method used to reduce offered load is not
specified here but could include routing requests to another Diameter
entity known to be able to handle them, or it could mean rejecting
certain requests. For a Diameter agent, rejecting requests will
usually mean generating appropriate Diameter error responses. For a
Diameter client, rejecting requests will depend upon the application.
For example, it could mean giving an indication to the entity
requesting the Diameter service that the network is busy and to try
again later.
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Stateless applications: By definition there is no relationship
between individual requests in a stateless application. As a
result, when a request is sent or relayed to an overloaded
Diameter entity - either a Diameter Server or a Diameter Agent -
the sending or relaying entity can choose to apply the overload
treatment to any request targeted for the overloaded entity.
Pseudo-stateful applications: Pseudo stateful applications are also
stateless applications in that there is no session Diameter state
maintained between transactions. There is, however, an implied
ordering of requests. As a result, decisions about which
transactions to reject as a result of an overloaded entity could
take the command-code of the request into consideration. This
generally means that transactions later in the sequence of
transactions should be given more favorable treatment than
messages earlier in the sequence. This is because more work has
already been done by the Diameter network for those transactions
that occur later in the sequence. Rejecting them could result in
increasing the load on the network as the transactions earlier in
the sequence might also need to be repeated.
Stateful applications: Overload handling for stateful applications
must take into consideration the work associated with setting up
an maintaining a session. As such, the entity handling overload
of a Diameter entity for a stateful application might tend to
reject new session requests before rejecting intra-session
requests. In addition, session ending requests might be given a
lower priority of being rejected as rejecting session ending
requests could result in session status being out of sync between
the Diameter clients and servers. Nodes that reject mid-session
requests will need to consider whether the rejection invalidates
the session, and any session clean-up that may be required.
3.1.3. Request Transaction Classification
Independent Request: An independent request is not a part of a
Diameter session and, as such, the lifetime of the session-id is
constrained to an individual transaction.
Session-Initiating Request: A session-initiating request is the
initial message that establishes a Diameter session. The ACR
message defined in [RFC6733] is an example of a session-initiating
request.
Correlated Session-Initiating Request: There are cases, most notably
in the 3GPP PCC architecture, where multiple Diameter sessions are
correlated and must be handled by the same Diameter server. This
is a special case of a Session-Initiating Request. Gx CCR-I
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requests and Rx AAR messages are examples of correlated session-
initiating requests.
[OpenIssue: The previous paragraph needs references.]
Intra-Session Request: An intra session request is a request that
uses a session-id for an already established request. An intra
session request generally needs to be delivered to the server that
handled the session creating request for the session. The STR
message defined in [RFC6733] is an example of an intra-session
requests. CCR-U and CCR-T requests defined in [RFC4006] are
further examples of intra-session requests.
Pseudo-Session Requests: Pseudo session requests are independent
requests and, as such, the request transactions are not tied
together using the Diameter session-id. There exist Diameter
applications that define an expected ordering of transactions.
This sequencing of independent transactions results in a pseudo
session. The AIR, MAR and SAR requests in the 3GPP defined Cx
application are examples of pseudo-session requests.
3.1.4. Request Type Overload Implications
The request classes identified in Section 3.1.3 have implications on
decisions about which requests should be throttled first.
Independent requests: Independent requests can be given equal
treatment when making throttling decisions.
Session-creating requests: Session-creating requests represent more
work than independent or intra-session requests. As such,
throttling decisions might favor intra-session requests over
session-creating requests. Individual session-creating requests
can be given equal treatment when making throttling decisions.
Correlated session-creating requests: A Request that results in a
new binding, where the binding is used for routing of subsequent
session-creating requests, represents more work than other
requests. As such, these requests might be throttled more
frequently than other request types.
Pseudo-session requests: Throttling decisions for pseudo-session
requests can take where individual requests fit into the overall
sequence of requests within the pseudo session. Requests that are
earlier in the sequence might be throttled more aggressively than
requests that occur later in the sequence.
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Intra-session requests There are two classes of intra-sessions
requests. The first is a request that ends a session. The second
is a request that is used to convey session related state between
the Diameter client and server. Session ending request should be
throttled less aggressively in order to keep session state
consistent between the client and server, and possibly reduce the
sessions impact on the overloaded entity. The default handling of
other intra-session requests might be to treat them equally when
making throttling decisions. There might also be application
level considerations whether some request types are favored over
others.
3.1.5. Diameter Deployment Scenarios
This section discusses various Diameter network deployment scenarios
and the implications of those deployment models on handling of
overload reports.
The scenarios vary based on the following:
o The presence or absence of Diameter agents
o Which Diameter entities support the DOC extension
o The amount of the network topology understood by Diameter clients
o The complexity of the Diameter server deployment for a Diameter
application
o Number of Diameter applications supported by Diameter clients and
Diameter servers
Without consideration for which elements support the DOC extension,
the following is a representative list of deployment scenarios:
o Client --- Server
o Client --- Multiple equivalent servers
o Client --- Agent --- Multiple equivalent servers
o Client --- Agent [ --- Agent ] --- Partitioned server
o Client --- Edge Agent [ --- Edge Agent] --- { Multiple Equivalent
Servers | Partitioned Servers }
o Client --- Session Correlating Agent --- Multiple Equivalent
Servers
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[OpenIssue: Do the "multiple equivalent servers" cases change for
session-stateful applications? Do we need to distinguish equivalence
for session-initiation requests vs intra-session requests?]
The following is a list of representative DOC deployment scenarios:
o Direct connection between a DOC client and a DOC server
o DOC client --- non-DOC agent --- DOC server
o DOC client --- DOC agent --- DOC server
o Non-DOC client --- DOC agent --- DOC server
o Non-DOC client --- DOC agent --- Mix of DOC and non-DOC servers
o DOC client --- agent --- Partitioned/Segmented DOC server
o DOC client --- agent --- agent --- Partitioned/Segmented DOC
server
o DOC client --- edge agent --- edge agent --- DOC server
[OpenIssue: In the last 3 list entries, are the agents DOC or non-
DOC?]
3.1.6. Diameter Agent Behaviour
In the context of the Diameter Overload Indication Conveyance (DOIC)
and reacting to the overload information, the functional behaviour of
Diameter agents in front of servers, especially Diameter proxies,
needs to be common. This is important because agents may actively
participate in the handling of an overload conditions. For example,
they may make intelligent next hop selection decisions based on
overload conditions, or aggregate overload information to be
disseminated downstream. Diameter agents may have other deployment
related tasks that are not defined in the Diameter base protocol
[RFC6733]. These include, among other tasks, topology hiding, and
acting as a server front end for a server farm of real Diameter
servers.
Since the solution defined in this specification must not break the
Diameter base protocol [RFC6733] at any time, great care has to be
taken not to assume functionality from the Diameter agents that would
break base protocol behavior, or to assume agent functionality beyond
the Diameter base protocol. Effectively this means the following
from a Diameter agent:
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o If a Diameter agent presents itself as the "end node", perhaps
acting as an topology hiding SFE, the DOC mechanism MUST NOT leak
information of the Diameter nodes behind it. From the Diameter
client point of view the final destination to its requests and the
original source for the answers MUST be the Diameter agent. This
requirement means that such a Diameter agent acts as a back-to-
back-agent for DOC purposes. How the agent in this case appears
to the Diameter nodes it is representing (i.e. the real Diameter
servers), is an implementation and a deployment specific within
the realm the Diameter agent is deployed.
o This requirement also implies that if the Diameter agent does not
impersonate the servers behind it, the Diameter dialogue is
established between clients and servers and any overload
information received by a client would be from a given server
identified by the Origin-Host identity.
[OpenIssue: We've discussed multiple situations where an agent might
insert an OLR. I don't think we mean to force them to always perform
topology hiding or SFIM in order to do so. We cannot assume that an
OLR is always "from" or "about" the Origin-Host. Also, the section
seems to assume that topology hiding agents act as b2b overload
agents, but non-topology hiding agents never do. It don't think
that's the right abstraction. It's possible that topology-hiding
agents must do this, but I don't think we can preclude non-topology
hiding agents from also doing it, at least some of the time.]
3.1.7. Simplified Example Architecture
Figure 1 illustrates the simplified architecture for Diameter
overload control. See Section 5.1 for more discussion and details
how different Diameter nodes fit into the architecture from the DOIC
point of view.
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Realm X Other Realms
<--------------------------------------> <---------------------->
+--^-----+ : (optional) :
|Diameter| : :
|Server A|--+ .--. : +---^----+ : .--.
+--------+ | _( `. : |Diameter| : _( `. +---^----+
+--( )--:-| Agent |-:--( )--|Diameter|
+--------+ | ( ` . ) ) : +-----^--+ : ( ` . ) ) | Client |
|Diameter|--+ `--(___.-' : : `--(___.-' +-----^--+
|Server B| : :
+---^----+ : :
Overload Indication A Overload Indication A'
1) <----------------------> <---------------------->
standard base protocol standard base protocol
End-to-end Overload Indication
2) <----------------------------------------------->
standard base protocol
Figure 1: Simplified architecture choices for overload indication
delivery
3.2. Conveyance of the Overload Indication
The following features describe new Diameter AVPs used for sending
overload reports, and for declaring support for certain DOC features.
3.2.1. Negotiation and Versioning
Since the Diameter overload control mechanism is also designed to
work over existing application (i.e., the piggybacking principle), a
proper negotiation is hard to accomplish. The "capability
negotiation" is based on the existense of specific non-mandatory APV,
such as the OC-Feature-Vector AVP (see Section 4.1. Although the OC-
Feature-Vector AVP can be used to advertise a certain set of new or
existing Diameter overload control capabilities, it is not a
versioning solution per se, however, it can be used to achieve the
same result.
3.2.2. Transmission of the Attribute Value Pairs
The Diameter overload control APVs SHOULD always be sent as an
optional AVPs. This requirement stems from the fact that
piggybacking overload control information on top of existing
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application cannot really use AVPs with the M-bit set. However,
there are certain exceptions as explained in Section 5.4.
From the Diameter overload control functionality point of view, the
"Reacting node" is always the requester of the overload report
information and the "Reporting node" is the provider of the overload
report. The overload report or the capability information in the
request message is always interpreted as an announcement of a
"capability". The overload report and the capability information in
the answer is always interpreted as a report of supported commond
functionality and as a status report of an overload condition (of a
node).
3.3. Overload Condition Indication
Diameter nodes can request a reduction in offered load by indicating
an overload condition in the form of an overload report. The
overload report contains information about how much load should be
reduced, and may contain other information about the overload
condition. This information is encoded in Diameter Attribute Value
Pairs (AVPs).
Certain new AVPs may also be used to declare certain DOIC
capabilities and extensions.
4. Attribute Value Pairs
This section describes the encoding and semantics of Overload
Indication Attribute Value Pairs (AVPs).
4.1. OC-Feature-Vector AVP
The OC-Feature-Vector AVP (AVP code TBD1) is type of Unsigned64 and
contains a 64 bit flags field of announced capabilities of an
overload control endpoint. Sending or receiving the OC-Feature-
Vector AVP with the value 0 indicates that the endpoint only support
the capabilities defined in this specification.
An overload control endpoint (a reacting node) includes this AVP to
indicate its capabilities to the other overload control endpoint (the
reporting node). For example, the endpoint (reacting node) may
indicate which (future defined) traffic abatement algorithms it
supports in addition to the default.
During the message exchange the overload control endpoints express
their common set of supported capabilities. The endpoint sending a
request (the reacting node) includes the OC-Feature-Vector AVP with
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those flags set that correspond what it supports. The endpoint that
sends the answer (the reporting node) also includes the OC-Feature-
Vector AVP with flags set to describe the capabilities it both
supports and agrees with the request sender (e.g., based on the local
policy and/or configuration). The answer sending endpoint (the
reporting node) does not need to advertise those capabilities it is
not going to use with the request sending endpoint (the reacting
node).
This specification does not define any additional capability flag.
The implicity capability (all flags set to zero) indicates the
support for this specification only.
4.2. OC-OLR AVP
The OC-OLR AVP (AVP code TBD2) is type of Grouped and contains the
necessary information to convey an overload report. OC-OLR may also
be used to convey additional information about an extension that is
declared in the OC-Feature-Vector AVP.
The OC-OLR AVP does not contain explicit information to which
application it applies to and who inserted the AVP or whom the
specific OC-OLR AVP concerns to. Both these information is
implicitly learned from the encapsulating Diameter message/command.
The application the OC-OLR AVP applies to is the same as the
Application-Id found in the Diameter message header. The identity
the OC-OLR AVP concerns is determined from the Origin-Host AVP found
from the encapsulating Diameter command.
OC-OLR ::= < AVP Header: TBD2 >
< TimeStamp >
[ Reduction-Percentage ]
[ ValidityDuration ]
[ ReportType ]
* [ AVP ]
The TimeStamp AVP indicates when the original OC-OLR AVP with the
current content was created. It is possible to replay the same OC-
OLR AVP multiple times between the overload endpoints, however, when
the OC-OLR AVP content changes or the other information sending
endpoint wants the receiving endpoint to update its overload control
information, then the TimeStamp AVP MUST contain a new value.
[OpenIssue: Is this necessarily a timestamp, or is it just a sequence
number that can be implemented as a timestamp? Is this timestamp
used to calculate expiration time? (propose no.). We should also
consider whether either a timestamp or sequence number is needed for
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protection against replay attacks.]
4.3. TimeStamp AVP
The TimeStamp AVP (AVP code TBD3) is type of Time. Its usage in the
context of the overload control is described in Section 4.2. From
the functionality point of view, the TimeStamp AVP is merely used as
a non-volatile increasing counter between two overload control
endpoints.
4.4. ValidityDuration AVP
The ValidityDuration AVP (AVP code TBD4) is type of Unsigned32 and
describes the number of seconds the OC-OLR AVP and its content is
valid since the creation of the OC-OLR AVP (as indicated by the
TimeStamp AVP).
A timeout of the overload report has specific concerns that need to
be taken into account by the endpoint acting on the earlier received
overload report(s). Section 4.6 discusses the impacts of timeout in
the scope of the traffic abatement algorithms.
As a general guidance for implementations it is RECOMMENDED never to
let any overload report to timeout. Rather, an overload endpoint
should explicitly signal, e.g. the end of overload condition. This
leaves no need for the other overload endpoint to reason or guess the
condition the other endpoint is at.
4.5. ReportType AVP
The ReportType AVP (AVP code TBD5) is type of Enumerated. The value
of the AVP describes what the overload report concerns. The
following values are initially defined:
0 Reserved.
1 Destination-Host report. The overload treatment should apply to
requests that the sender knows will reach the overloaded server.
For example, requests with a Destination-Host AVP indicating the
server.
2 Realm (aggregated) report. The overload treatment should apply to
all requests bound for the overloaded realm.
The ReportType AVP is envisioned to be useful for situations where a
reacting node needs to apply different overload treatments for
different "types" of overload. For example, the reacting node(s)
might need to throttle requests that are targeted to a specific
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server by the presence of a Destination-Host AVP than for requests
that can be handled by any server in a realm. The example in
Appendix C.3 illustrates this usage.
[OpenIssue: There is an ongoing discussion about whether the
ReportType AVP is the right way to solve that issue, and whether it's
needed at all.]
4.6. Reduction-Percentage AVP
The Reduction-Percentage AVP (AVP code TBD8) is type of Unsigned32
and describes the percentage of the traffic that the sender is
requested to reduce, compared to what it otherwise would have sent.
The value of the Reduction-Percentage AVP is between zero (0) and one
hundred (100). Values greater than 100 are interpreted as 100. The
value of 100 means that no traffic is expected, i.e. the sender of
the information is under a severe load and ceases to process any new
messages. The value of 0 means that the sender of the information is
in a stable state and has no requests to the other endpoint to apply
any traffic abatement.
[Open Issue: We should consider an algorithm independent way to end
an overload condition. Perhaps setting the validitytime to zero?
Counter comment; since the abatement is based on a specific
algorithm, it is natural to indicate that from the abatement
algorithm point of view status quo has been reached.]
If an overload control endpoint comes out of the 100 percent traffic
reduction as a result of the overload report timing out, the
following concerns are RECOMMENDED to be applied. The endpoint
sending the traffic should be conservative and, for example, first
send few "probe" messages to learn the overload condition of the
other endpoint before converging to any traffic amount/rate decided
by the sender. Similar concerns actually apply in all cases when the
overload report times out unless the previous overload report stated
0 percent reduction.
[Open Issue: It is still open whether we need an AVP to indicate the
exact used traffic abatement algorithm. Currently it assumed that
the reacting node is able to figure out what to do based on the
Reducttion-Percentage AVP and possible other embedded information
inside the OC-OLR AVP.]
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4.7. Attribute Value Pair flag rules
+---------+
|AVP flag |
|rules |
+----+----+
AVP Section | |MUST|
Attribute Name Code Defined Value Type |MUST| NOT|
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|OC-Feature-Vector TBD1 x.x Unsigned64 | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|OC-OLR TBD2 x.x Grouped | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|TimeStamp TBD3 x.x Time | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|ValidityPeriod TBD4 x.x Unsigned32 | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|ReportType TBD5 x.x Enumerated | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
|Reduction | | |
| -Percentage TBD8 x.x Unsigned32 | | V |
+--------------------------------------------------+----+----+
5. Overload Control Operation
5.1. Overload Control Endpoints
The overload control solution can be considered as an overlay on top
of an arbitrary Diameter network. The overload control information
is exchanged over on a "DOIC association" between two communicatin
endpoints. The endpoints, namely the "reacting node" and the
"reporting node" do not need to be adjacent Diameter peer nodes, nor
they need to be the end-to-end Diameter nodes in a typical "client-
server" deployment with multiple intermediate Diameter agent nodes in
between. The overload control endpoint are the two Diameter nodes
that decide to exchange overload control information between each
other. How the endpoints are determined is specific to a deployment,
a Diameter node role in that deployment and local configuration.
The following diagrams illustrate the concept of Diameter Overload
End-Points and how they differ from the standard [RFC6733] defined
client, server and agent Diameter nodes. The following is the key to
the elements in the diagrams:
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C Diameter client as defined in [RFC6733].
S Diameter server as defined in [RFC6733].
A Diameter agent, in either a relay or proxy mode, as defined in
[RFC6733].
DEP Diameter Overload End-Point as defined in this document. In the
following figures a DEP may terminate two different DOIC
associations being a reporter and reactor at the same time.
Diameter Session A Diameter session as defined in [RFC6733].
DOIC Association A DOIC association exists between two Diameter
Overload End-Points. One of the end-points is the overload
reporter and the other is the overload reactor.
Figure 2 illustrates the most basic configuration where a client is
connected directly to a server. In this case, the session and
association are both between the client and server.
+-----+ +-----+
| C | | S |
+-----+ +-----+
| DEP | | DEP |
+--+--+ +--+--+
| |
| |
|{Diameter Session}|
| |
|{DOIC Association}|
| |
Figure 2: Basic DOIC deployment
In Figure 3 there is an agent that is not participating directly in
the exchange of overload reports. As a result, the DOIC association
is still between the client and the server.
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+-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| C | | A | | S |
+-----+ +--+--+ +-----+
| DEP | | | DEP |
+--+--+ | +--+--+
| | |
| | |
|----------{Diameter Session}---------|
| | |
|----------{DOIC Association}---------|
| | |
Figure 3: DOIC deployment with non participating agent
Figure 4 illustrates the case where the client does not support
Diameter overload. In this case, the DOIC association is between the
agent and the server. The agent handles the role of the reactor for
overload reports generated by the server.
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| C | | A | | S |
+--+--+ +-----+ +-----+
| | DEP | | DEP |
| +--+--+ +--+--+
| | |
| | |
|----------{Diameter Session}---------|
| | |
| |{DOIC Association}|
| | |
Figure 4: DOIC deployment with non-DOIC client and DOIC enabled agent
In Figure 5 there is a DOIC association between the client and the
agent and a second DOIC association between the agent and the server.
One use case requiring this configuration is when the agent is
serving as a SFE/SFIM for a set of servers.
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+-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| C | | A | | S |
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| DEP | | DEP | | DEP |
+--+--+ +--+--+ +--+--+
| | |
| | |
|----------{Diameter Session}---------|
| | |
|{DOIC Association}|{DOIC Association}|
| | |
Figure 5: A deployment where all nodes support DOIC
Figure 6 illustrates a deployment where some clients support Diameter
overload control and some do not. In this case the agent must
support Diameter overload control for the non supporting client. It
might also need to have a DOIC association with the server, as shown
here, to handle overload for a server farm and/or for managing Realm
overload.
+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| C1 | | C2 | | A | | S |
+-----+ +--+--+ +-----+ +-----+
| DEP | | | DEP | | DEP |
+--+--+ | +--+--+ +--+--+
| | | |
| | | |
|-------------------{Diameter Session}-------------------|
| | | |
| |--------{Diameter Session}-----------|
| | | |
|---------{DOIC Association}----------|{DOIC Association}|
| | | |
Figure 6: A deployment with DOIC and non-DOIC supporting clients
Figure 7 illustrates a deployment where some agents support Diameter
overload control and others do not.
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+-----+ +-----+ +-----+ +-----+
| C | | A | | A | | S |
+-----+ +--+--+ +-----+ +-----+
| DEP | | | DEP | | DEP |
+--+--+ | +--+--+ +--+--+
| | | |
| | | |
|-------------------{Diameter Session}-------------------|
| | | |
| | | |
|---------{DOIC Association}----------|{DOIC Association}|
| | | |
Figure 7: A deployment with DOIC and non-DOIC supporting agents
5.2. Piggybacking Principle
The overload control solution defined AVPs are essentially
piggybacked on top of existing application message exchanges. This
is made possible by adding overload control top level AVPs, the OC-
OLR AVP and the OC-Feature-Vector AVP into existing commands (this
has an assumption that the application CCF allows adding new AVPs
into the Diameter messages.
In a case of newly defined Diameter applications, it is RECOMMENDED
to add and defined how overload control mechanisms works on that
application. using OC-Feature-Vector and OC-OLR AVPs in a non-
mandatory manner is intended only existing applications.
Note that the overload control solution does not have fixed server
and client roles. The endpoint role is determined based on the sent
message type: whether the message is a request (i.e. sent by a
"reacting node") or an answer (i.e. send by a "reporting node").
Therefore, in a typical "client-server" deployment, the "client" MAY
report its overload condition to the "server" for any server
initiated message exchange. An example of such is the server
requesting a re-authentication from a client.
5.3. Capability Announcement
Since the overload control solution relies on the piggybacking
principle for the overload reporting and the overload control
endpoint are likely not adjacent peers, finding out whether the other
endpoint supports the overload control or what is the common traffic
abatement algorithm to apply for the traffic. The approach defined
in this specification for the end-to-end capability capability
announcement relies on the exchange of the OC-Feature-Vector between
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the endpoints. The feature announcement solution also works when
carried out on existing applications. For the newly defined
application the negotiation can be more exact based on the
application specification. The announced set of capabilities MUST
NOT change during the life time of the Diameter session (or
transaction in a case of non-session maintaining applications).
5.3.1. Request Message Initiator Endpoint Considerations
The basic principle is that the request message initiating endpoint
(i.e. the "reacting node") announces its support for the overload
control mechanism by including in the request message the OC-Feature-
Vector AVP with those capability flag bits set that it supports and
is willing to use for this Diameter session (or transaction in a case
of a non-session state maintaining applications). In a case of
session maintaining applications the request message initiating
endpoint does not need to do the capability announcement more than
once for the lifetime of the Diameter session. In a case of non-
session maintaining applications, it is RECOMMENDED that the request
message initiating endpoint includes the capability announcement into
every request regardless it has had prior message exchanges with the
give remote endpoint.
[OpenIssue: We need to think about the lifetime of a capabilities
declaration. It's probably not the same as for a session. We have
had proposals that the feature vector needs to go into every request
sent by an OC node. For peer to peer cases, this can be associated
with connection lifetime, but it's more complex for non-adjacent OC
support.]
Once the endpoint that initiated the request message receives an
answer message from the remote endpoint, it can detect from the
received answer message whether the remote endpoint supports the
overload control solution and in a case it does, what features are
supported. The support for the overload control solution is based on
the presence of the OC-Feature-Vector AVP in the Diameter answer for
existing application. For the newly defined applications the support
for the overload control MAY already be part of the application
specification. Based on capability knowledge the request message
initiating endpoint can select the preferred common traffic abatement
algorithm and act accordingly for the subsequent message exchanges.
5.3.2. Answer Message Initiating Endpoint Considerations
When a remote endpoint (i.e. a "reporting node") receives a request
message in can detect whether the request message initiating endpoint
has support for the overload control solution based on the presence
of the OC-Feature-Vector AVP. For the newly defined applications the
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overload control solution support can be part of the application
specification. Based on the content of the OC-Feature-Vector AVP the
request message receiving endpoint knows what overload control
functionality the other endpoint supports and then act accordingly
for the subsequent answer messages it initiates. It is RECOMMENDED
that the answer message initiating endpoint selects one common
traffic abatement algorithm even if it would support multiple. The
answer message initiating endpoint MUST NOT include any overload
control solution defined AVPs into its answer messages if the request
message initiating endpoint has not indicated support at the
beginning of the the created session (or transaction in a case of
non-session state maintaining applications).
5.4. Protocol Extensibility
The overload control solution can be extended, e.g. with new traffic
abatement algorithms or new functionality. The new features and
algorithms MUST be registered with the IANA and for the ppossible use
with the OC-Feature-Vector for announcing the support for the new
features (see Section 7 for the required procedures).
It should be noted that [RFC6733] defined Grouped AVP extension
mechanisms also apply. This allows, for example, defining a new
feature that is mandatory to understand even when piggybacked on an
existing applications. More specifically, the sub-AVPs inside the
OC-OLR AVP MAY have the M-bit set. However, when overload control
AVPs are piggybacked on top of an existing applications, setting
M-bit in sub-AVPs is NOT RECOMMENDED.
5.5. Overload Report Processing
5.5.1. Sender Endpoint Considerations
5.5.2. Receiver Endpoint Considerations
[OpenIssue: did we now agree that e.g. a server can refrain sending
OLR in answers based on some magical algorithm? (Note: We seem to
have consensus that a server MAY repeat OLRs in subsequent messages,
but is not required to do so, based on local policy.)]
6. Transport Considerations
In order to reduce overload control introduced additional AVP and
message processing it might be desirable/beneficial to signal whether
the Diameter command carries overload control information that should
be of interest of an overload aware Diameter node.
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Should such indication be include is not part of this specification.
It has not either been concluded at what layer such possible
indication should be. Obvious candidates include transport layer
protocols (e.g., SCTP PPID or TCP flags) or Diameter command header
flags.
7. IANA Considerations
7.1. AVP codes
New AVPs defined by this specification are listed in Section 4. All
AVP codes allocated from the 'Authentication, Authorization, and
Accounting (AAA) Parameters' AVP Codes registry.
7.2. New registries
Three new registries are needed under the 'Authentication,
Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) Parameters' registry.
Section 4.1 defines a new "Overload Control Feature Vector" registry
including the initial assignments. New values can be added into the
registry using the Specification Required policy [RFC5226].
Section 4.5 defines a new "Overload Report Type" registry with its
initial assignments. New types can be added using the Specification
Required policy [RFC5226].
8. Security Considerations
This mechanism gives Diameter nodes the ability to request that
downstream nodes send fewer Diameter requests. Nodes do this by
exchanging overload reports that directly affect this reduction.
This exchange is potentially subject to multiple methods of attack,
and has the potential to be used as a Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack
vector.
Overload reports may contain information about the topology and
current status of a Diameter network. This information is
potentially sensitive. Network operators may wish to control
disclosure of overload reports to unauthorized parties to avoid its
use for competitive intelligence or to target attacks.
Diameter does not include features to provide end-to-end
authentication, integrity protection, or confidentiality. This may
cause complications when sending overload reports between non-
adjacent nodes.
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8.1. Potential Threat Modes
The Diameter protocol involves transactions in the form of requests
and answers exchanged between clients and servers. These clients and
servers may be peers, that is,they may share a direct transport (e.g.
TCP or SCTP) connection, or the messages may traverse one or more
intermediaries, known as Diameter Agents. Diameter nodes use TLS,
DTLS, or IPSec to authenticate peers, and to provide confidentiality
and integrity protection of traffic between peers. Nodes can make
authorization decisions based on the peer identities authenticated at
the transport layer.
When agents are involved, this presents an effectively hop-by-hop
trust model. That is, a Diameter client or server can authorize an
agent for certain actions, but it must trust that agent to make
appropriate authorization decisions about its peers, and so on.
Since confidentiality and integrity protection occurs at the
transport layer. Agents can read, and perhaps modify, any part of a
Diameter message, including an overload report.
There are several ways an attacker might attempt to exploit the
overload control mechanism. An unauthorized third party might inject
an overload report into the network. If this third party is upstream
of an agent, and that agent fails to apply proper authorization
policies, downstream nodes may mistakenly trust the report. This
attack is at least partially mitigated by the assumption that nodes
include overload reports in Diameter answers but not in requests.
This requires an attacker to have knowledge of the original request
in order to construct a response. Therefore, implementations SHOULD
validate that an answer containing an overload report is a properly
constructed response to a pending request prior to acting on the
overload report.
A similar attack involves an otherwise authorized Diameter node that
sends an inappropriate overload report. For example, a server for
the realm "example.com" might send an overload report indicating that
a competitor's realm "example.net" is overloaded. If other nodes act
on the report, they may falsely believe that "example.net" is
overloaded, effectively reducing that realm's capacity. Therefore,
it's critical that nodes validate that an overload report received
from a peer actually falls within that peer's responsibility before
acting on the report or forwarding the report to other peers. For
example, an overload report from an peer that applies to a realm not
handled by that peer is suspect.
An attacker might use the information in an overload report to assist
in certain attacks. For example, an attacker could use information
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about current overload conditions to time a DoS attack for maximum
effect, or use subsequent overload reports as a feedback mechanism to
learn the results of a previous or ongoing attack.
8.2. Denial of Service Attacks
Diameter overload reports can cause a node to cease sending some or
all Diameter requests for an extended period. This makes them a
tempting vector for DoS tacks. Furthermore, since Diameter is almost
always used in support of other protocols, a DoS attack on Diameter
is likely to impact those protocols as well. Therefore, Diameter
nodes MUST NOT honor or forward overload reports from unauthorized or
otherwise untrusted sources.
8.3. Non-Compliant Nodes
When a Diameter node sends an overload report, it cannot assume that
all nodes will comply. A non-compliant node might continue to send
requests with no reduction in load. Requirement 28
[I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs] indicates that the overload control
solution cannot assume that all Diameter nodes in a network are
necessarily trusted, and that malicious nodes not be allowed to take
advantage of the overload control mechanism to get more than their
fair share of service.
In the absence of an overload control mechanism, Diameter nodes need
to implement strategies to protect themselves from floods of
requests, and to make sure that a disproportionate load from one
source does not prevent other sources from receiving service. For
example, a Diameter server might reject a certain percentage of
requests from sources that exceed certain limits. Overload control
can be thought of as an optimization for such strategies, where
downstream nodes never send the excess requests in the first place.
However, the presence of an overload control mechanism does not
remove the need for these other protection strategies.
8.4. End-to End-Security Issues
The lack of end-to-end security features makes it far more difficult
to establish trust in overload reports that originate from non-
adjacent nodes. Any agents in the message path may insert or modify
overload reports. Nodes must trust that their adjacent peers perform
proper checks on overload reports from their peers, and so on,
creating a transitive-trust requirement extending for potentially
long chains of nodes. Network operators must determine if this
transitive trust requirement is acceptable for their deployments.
Nodes supporting Diameter overload control MUST give operators the
ability to select which peers are trusted to deliver overload
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reports, and whether they are trusted to forward overload reports
from non-adjacent nodes.
[OpenIssue: This requires that a responding node be able to tell a
peer-generated OLR from one generated by a non-adjacent node. One
way of doing this would be to include the identity of the node that
generated the report as part of the OLR]
[OpenIssue: Do we need further language about what rules an agent
should apply before forwarding an OLR?]
The lack of end-to-end protection creates a tension between two
requirements from the overload control requirements document.
[I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs] Requirement 34 requires the ability
to send overload reports across intermediaries (i.e. agents) that
do not support overload control mechanism. Requirement 27 forbids
the mechanism from adding new vulnerabilities or increasing the
severity of existing ones. A non-supporting agent will most
likely forward overload reports without inspecting them or
applying any sort of validation or authorization. This makes the
transitive trust issue considerably more of a problem. Without
the ability to authenticate and integrity protect overload reports
across a non-supporting agent, the mechanism cannot comply with
both requirements.
[OpenIssue: What do we want to do about this? Req27 is a
normative MUST, while Req34 is "merely" a SHOULD. This would seem
to imply that 27 has to take precedent. Can we say that overload
reports MUST NOT be sent to and/or accepted from non-supporting
agents until such time we can use end-to-end security?]
The lack of end-to-end confidentiality protection means that any
Diameter agent in the path of an overload report can view the
contents of that report. In addition to the requirement to select
which peers are trusted to send overload reports, operators MUST be
able to select which peers are authorized to receive reports. A node
MUST not send an overload report to a peer not authorized to receive
it. Furthermore, an agent MUST remove any overload reports that
might have been inserted by other nodes before forwarding a Diameter
message to a peer that is not authorized to receive overload reports.
At the time of this writing, the DIME working group is studying
requirements for adding end-to-end security
[I-D.ietf-dime-e2e-sec-req] features to Diameter. These features,
when they become available, might make it easier to establish
trust in non-adjacent nodes for overload control purposes.
Readers should be reminded, however, that the overload control
mechanism encourages Diameter agents to modify AVPs in, or insert
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additional AVPs into, existing messages that are originated by
other nodes. If end-to-end security is enabled, there is a risk
that such modification could violate integrity protection. The
details of using any future Diameter end-to-end security mechanism
with overload control will require careful consideration, and are
beyond the scope of this document.
9. Contributors
The following people contributed substantial ideas, feedback, and
discussion to this document:
o Eric McMurry
o Hannes Tschofenig
o Ulrich Wiehe
o Jean-Jacques Trottin
o Lionel Morand
o Maria Cruz Bartolome
o Martin Dolly
o Nirav Salot
o Susan Shishufeng
10. Acknowledgements
...
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 5226,
May 2008.
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[RFC6733] Fajardo, V., Arkko, J., Loughney, J., and G. Zorn,
"Diameter Base Protocol", RFC 6733, October 2012.
11.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-dime-e2e-sec-req]
Tschofenig, H., Korhonen, J., Zorn, G., and K. Pillay,
"Diameter AVP Level Security: Scenarios and Requirements",
draft-ietf-dime-e2e-sec-req-00 (work in progress),
September 2013.
[I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs]
McMurry, E. and B. Campbell, "Diameter Overload Control
Requirements", draft-ietf-dime-overload-reqs-13 (work in
progress), September 2013.
[RFC4006] Hakala, H., Mattila, L., Koskinen, J-P., Stura, M., and J.
Loughney, "Diameter Credit-Control Application", RFC 4006,
August 2005.
Appendix A. Issues left for future specifications
The base solution for the overload control does not cover all
possible use cases. A number of solution aspects were intentionally
left for future specification and protocol work.
A.1. Additional traffic abatement algorithms
This specification describes only means for a simple loss based
algorithm. Future algorithms can be added using the designed
solution extension mechanism. The new algorithms need to be
registered with IANA. See Sections 4.1 and 7 for the required IANA
steps.
A.2. Agent Overload
This specification focuses on Diameter end-point (server or client)
overload. A separate extension will be required to outline the
handling the case of agent overload.
A.3. DIAMETER_TOO_BUSY clarifications
The current [RFC6733] behaviour in a case of DIAMETER_TOO_BUSY is
somewhat underspecified. For example, there is no information how
long the specific Diameter node is willing to be unavailable. A
specification updating [RFC6733] should clarify the handling of
DIAMETER_TOO_BUSY from the error answer initiating Diameter node
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point of view and from the original request initiating Diameter node
point of view. Further, the inclusion of possible additional
information providing APVs should be discussed and possible be
recommended to be used.
Appendix B. Conformance to Requirements
The following section analyses, which Diameter Overload Control
requirements [I-D.ietf-dime-overload-reqs] are met by this
specification.
Key:
S - Supported
P - Partial
N - Not supported
+------+----+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Rqmt | S/ | Notes |
| # | P/ | |
| | N | |
+------+----+-------------------------------------------------------+
| REQ | P | The DOIC solution only addresses overload |
| 1 | | information. Load information is left as future |
| | | work. In addition, the DOIC solution does not |
| | | address agent overload scenarios. |
| | | - |
| REQ | P | The DOIC solution supports overload reports that |
| 2 | | implicitly indicate the application impacted by the |
| | | report. The DOIC solution does not support reporting |
| | | load information. The DOIC solution is thought to |
| | | support graceful behavior. Allowing an application |
| | | specific capabilities negotiation mechanism violates |
| | | application-independence. Suggested different |
| | | wording: The DOIC solution supports overload reports |
| | | that are applicable to any Diameter application. The |
| | | DOIC solution does not support reporting load |
| | | information. The DOIC solution allows to support |
| | | graceful behavior; this will be enhanced when the |
| | | Load information will be defined. Comment: Can we |
| | | removed the words "is thought"? |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution is thought to address this |
| 3 | | requirement. Comment: Can we removed the words "is |
| | | thought"? |
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| | | - |
| REQ | P | The DOIC solution does allow for both both a Diameter |
| 4 | | server and a Diameter client to send overload |
| | | reports. The DOIC solution only addresses Diameter |
| | | end-point (server and client) overload. Agent |
| | | overload is being addressed in a separate draft. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution does not depend on how the |
| 5 | | end-points are discovered. Comment: it might be |
| | | worth working through at least one use case showing |
| | | DNS based dynamic peer discovery to make sure we |
| | | haven't missed anything. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | Need to update text as some configuation is required. |
| 6 | | Need to determin if the current discussion on |
| | | overload application id increases the amount of |
| | | configuration which would change this to a N. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution supports the loss algorithm, which |
| 7 | | is expected to address this requirement. There is |
| | | concern about the ability to address oscillations. |
| | | Wording is included for how a reacting node starts to |
| | | increase traffic after an overload report expires to |
| | | address this concern. Suggested different wording: |
| | | The DOIC solution supports a baseline mechanism |
| | | relying on traffic reduction percentage that is a |
| | | loss algorithm, which allows to address this |
| | | requirement. Oscillations are avoided or quite |
| | | minimized by sending successive OLR reports with the |
| | | values to converge to the optimal traffic or to |
| | | smoothly come back to normal traffic conditions when |
| | | overload decreases and ends. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | The DOIC solution supports a timestamp which is meant |
| 8 | | to serve as a report version indication to address |
| | | this requirement. Comment: The use of the timestamp |
| | | is under discussion. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | The DOIC solution uses a piggybacking strategy for |
| 9 | | carrying overload reports, which scales lineraly with |
| | | the amount of traffic. As such, the first part of |
| | | the requirement is addressed. The DOIC solution does |
| | | not support a mechanism for sending overload reports |
| | | over a quiescent transport connections or, more |
| | | generally, to Diameter nodes that are not producing |
| | | traffic. Suggested different wording: The DOIC |
| | | solution uses a piggybacking strategy for carrying |
| | | overload reports. As such, the first part of the |
| | | requirement is addressed. For a connection that has |
| | | become quiescent due to OLRs with a 100% traffic |
| | | reduction, the validity timer allows to handle this |
| | | case. Other cases of quiescent connections are |
| | | outside the scope of Diameter overload (e.g. their |
| | | handling may be done through the watch dog of the |
| | | Diameter base protocol). |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution supports two methods for managing |
| 10 | | the length of an overload condition. First, all |
| | | overload reports must contain a duration indication, |
| | | after which the node reacting to the report can |
| | | consider the overload condition as ended. Secondly, |
| | | the solution supports the method for the node |
| | | originating the overload report to explicitly |
| | | communicate that the condition has ended. This |
| | | latter mechanism depends on traffic to be sent from |
| | | the reacting node and, as such, can not be depended |
| | | upon in all circumstances. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | The DOIC solution works well for small network |
| 11 | | configurations and for network configurations with a |
| | | single Diameter agent hop. More analysis is required |
| | | to determine how well the DOIC solution handles very |
| | | large Diameter network with partitioned or segmented |
| | | server farms requiring multiple hops through Diameter |
| | | agents. |
| | | - |
| REQ | P | The DOIC solution focuses on Diameter end-point |
| 12 | | overload and meets this requirement for those |
| | | Diameter nodes. The DOIC solution does not address |
| | | Diameter Agent overload and does not meet this |
| | | requirement for those Diameter nodes. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | The DOIC solution requires including of the overload |
| 13 | | report in all answer messages in some situations. It |
| | | is not agreed, however, that this constitutes |
| | | substantial work. This can also be mitigated by the |
| | | sender of the overload report keeping state to record |
| | | who has received overload reports. It is left to |
| | | implementation decisions as to which approach is |
| | | taken -- send in all messages or send once with a |
| | | record of who has received the report. Another way |
| | | is to let the request sender (reacting node) insert |
| | | information in the request to say whether a |
| | | throttling is actually performed. The reporting node |
| | | then can base its decision on information received in |
| | | the request; no need for keeping state to record who |
| | | has received overload reports. The DOIC solution |
| | | also requires capabilities negotiation in every |
| | | request and response message, which increases the |
| | | baseline work required for any node supporting the |
| | | DOIC solution. Suggested additional text: It does |
| | | not, however, require that the information be |
| | | recalculated or updated with each message. The |
| | | update frequency is up to the implementation, and |
| | | each implementation can make decisions on balancing |
| | | the update of overload information along with its |
| | | other priorities. It is expected that using a |
| | | periodically updated OLR report added to all messages |
| | | sent to overload control endpoints will not add |
| | | substantial additional work. Piggyback base |
| | | transport also does not require composition, sending, |
| | | or parsing of new Diameter messages for the purpose |
| | | of conveying overload control information. There is |
| | | still discussion on the substantial additional work |
| | | due to have OLR in each answer message. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution uses the piggybacking method to |
| 14 | | deliver overload report, which scales lineraly with |
| | | the amount of traffic. This allows for immediate |
| | | feedback to any node generating traffic toward |
| | | another overloaded node. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution does not interfere with transport |
| 15 | | protocols. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | The DOIC solution allows for a mixed network of |
| 16 | | supporting and non supporting Diameter end-points. |
| | | It isn't clear how realm overload is handled in a |
| | | network with agents that do not support the DOIC |
| | | solution. Suggested additional wording: Evaluation |
| | | of Realm overload may require a DA supporting DOIC, |
| | | if the realm overload is not evaluated by the client. |
| | | Realm overload handling is still under discussion. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | Suggested wording: The DOIC solution addresses this |
| 17 | | requirement through the loss algorithm (DOIC baseline |
| | | mechanism) with the following possibilities. A DA |
| | | supporting DOIC can act on behalf of clients not |
| | | supporting DOIC. A reporting node is also aware of |
| | | the nodes not supporting the DOIC as there is no |
| | | advertisement of the DOIC support. It may then apply |
| | | a particular throttling of the requests coming from |
| | | these non supporting DOIC clients. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | It isn't clear yet that if this requirement is |
| 18 | | addressed. There has been a proposal to mark |
| | | messages that survived overload throttling as one |
| | | method for an overloaded node to address fairness but |
| | | this proposal is not yet part of the solution. It is |
| | | also possible that the overloaded node could use |
| | | state gathered as part of the capability |
| | | advertisement mechanism to know if the sending node |
| | | supports the DOIC solution and if not, to apply a |
| | | particular throttling of the requests coming from |
| | | these non supporting DOIC clients. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution supports the ability for the |
| 19 | | overloaded node and the reacting node to be in |
| | | different administrative domains. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | This mechanism is still under discussion. Comment 1: |
| 20 | | I think this is a "S". OLRs are clearly |
| | | distinguishable from any error code. The fact that |
| | | an agent would need to send errors if it throttles is |
| | | not an overload indication per se. It needs to do |
| | | that even without DoC. OTOH, if we apply some DOC |
| | | related fix to TOO_BUSY, we probably need a new code. |
| | | Comment 2: New AVPs conveys overload control |
| | | information, and this is transported on existing |
| | | answer messages, so distinguishable from Diameter |
| | | errors. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | S | The inability for a node to send overload reports |
| 21 | | will result in equivalent through put to a network |
| | | that does not support the DOIC solution. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution gives this node generating the |
| 22 | | overload report the ability to control the amount of |
| | | throttling done by the reacting node using the |
| | | reduction percentage parameter in the overload |
| | | report. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | Initial text: The DOIC mechanism supports two |
| 23 | | abatement strategies by reacting nodes, routing to an |
| | | alternative node or dropping traffic. The routing to |
| | | an alternative node will be enhanced when the Load |
| | | extension is defined. Comment: This is a N. There's |
| | | no good way to determine which nodes are likely to |
| | | have sufficient capacity without some sort of load |
| | | metric for non-overloaded nodes. |
| | | - |
| REQ | N | The DOIC solution does not address delivering load |
| 24 | | information. |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution contains some guideance. |
| 25 | | |
| | | - |
| REQ | S | The DOIC solution does not constrain a nodes ability |
| 26 | | to determine which requests are trottled. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | Initial text: The DOIC solution does add a new line |
| 27 | | of attack in the ability for a malicious entity to |
| | | insert overload reports that would reduce or |
| | | eliminate traffic. This, however, is no worse than |
| | | an attacker that would assert erroneous error |
| | | responses such as a TOO BUSY response. It is |
| | | recognized that the end-to-end security solution |
| | | currently being worked on by the DIME working group |
| | | is needed to close these types of vulurabilities. |
| | | Comment: Sending a malicious OLR with a type of |
| | | "realm" will have considerably more impact than a |
| | | TOO_BUSY. Personally, I don't think we can achieve |
| | | this requirement without either being hop-by-hop or |
| | | requiring e2e security. We probably need further |
| | | analysis of the security implications of the |
| | | capabilities negotiation as well. Suggested |
| | | additional verbage: An OLR only relates to the |
| | | traffic between a reporting node and a reacting node |
| | | and can effectively block the traffic from a client |
| | | which would be an important impact. Nevertheless |
| | | OLRs are regularly sent in all answers, so a |
| | | malicious OLR will have a short transient effect, as |
| | | quickly overridden by a new OLR. To have a |
| | | significant impact would require a continuous flow of |
| | | answers with malicious OLRs. There is the exception |
| | | of the OLR with a value of 100% reduction traffic |
| | | which has a higher vulnerability and the use of which |
| | | should be avoided when possible. In addition such |
| | | malicious OLRs must be in answers, which means the |
| | | capability to insert the malicious OLR in an existing |
| | | answer rather than to create an answer which is much |
| | | less easy than to create a request. To have a |
| | | network wide applicability would request to generate |
| | | malicious OLRs messages towards all reacting nodes. |
| | | It can be considered that the baseline mechanism |
| | | offer a relevant level of security. Further analysis |
| | | with a security expertise would be beneficial. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | See REQ 18 and REQ 27. Suggested additional verbage: |
| 28 | | Guidance may be provided for detection of non |
| | | compliant/abnormal use of OLRs, not only by endpoints |
| | | but also by intermediate DA that can be aware of |
| | | OLRs, an example being edge DAs with external |
| | | networks. Further analysis with a security expertise |
| | | would be beneficial. |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | This requirement is not explicitly addressed by the |
| 29 | | DOIC solution. There is nothing in the DOIC solution |
| | | that would prevent the goals of this requirement from |
| | | being achieved. Non-adjacent DOIC without e2e |
| | | security could be an issue here. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | It isn't clear how a solution would interfere. |
| 30 | | Suggested wording: A node can have methods on how to |
| | | protect from overload from nodes non supporting DOIC. |
| | | The DOIC mechanism used with DOIC supporting nodes |
| | | will not interfere with the appliance of these |
| | | methods. There is the remark that the use of these |
| | | methods may impact the global overload of the node |
| | | and the evaluation of the traffic reduction that the |
| | | reporting node will send in OLRs. If a node has |
| | | methods to protect against denial of service attacks, |
| | | the use of DOIC will not interfere with them. A |
| | | denial of service attack concerning the DOIC itself |
| | | is addressed in REQ 27. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | Initial text with an S: The DOIC solution addresses |
| 31 | | node and realm directly. The application to which a |
| | | report applies is implicitly determined based on the |
| | | application level message carrying the report. Note |
| | | that there is no way with DOIC for an overloaded node |
| | | to communicate multiple nodes, realms or applications |
| | | in a single overload report. So the inverse of this |
| | | requirement is not supported. Comment: The inverse |
| | | is also not _required_ :-) But I think we are "P" |
| | | here, in that we don't support "node" per se. we do |
| | | support "server." "Node" includes agents. (I also |
| | | interpreted this to mean that each granularity needed |
| | | to be supported independently--that is, a potential |
| | | to say "all traffic to a realm" or "all traffic to a |
| | | host" independently of application.) |
| | | - |
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| REQ | ? | Initial text with an S: The DOIC solution supports |
| 32 | | extensibility of both the information communicated |
| | | and in the definition of new overload abatement |
| | | algorithms. Comment 1: Recent discussions have made |
| | | this a ?. It can be changed to S/N/P once these |
| | | discussions come to a conclusion and new text is |
| | | added to the draft. Comment 2: Suggested wording - |
| | | The DOIC solution supports extensibility of both the |
| | | information communicated and in the definition of new |
| | | overload abatement algorithms or strategies. It |
| | | should be noted that, according to the applications |
| | | or to reacting node implementations, many algorithms |
| | | may be applied on top of the DOIC baseline solution |
| | | (without contradicting it), e.g. regarding which type |
| | | of request to throttle, prioritized messages |
| | | handling, mapping of the reduction % to an internal |
| | | algorithm (eg 1 message out of ten etc..) but such |
| | | algorithms are out of scope of DOIC. |
| | | - |
| REQ | ? | Initial text with P: The DOIC solution currently |
| 33 | | defines the loss algorithm as the default algorithm. |
| | | It does not specify it as mandatory to implement. |
| | | Comment 1: Then I think that's a "n". The MTI part |
| | | is the crux of the requirement. Comment 2: Suggested |
| | | wording: In the DOIC baseline solution, the reacting |
| | | node has to apply the received Reduction-Percentage, |
| | | and for achieving this, the reacting node can do |
| | | requests rerouting (when it is possible) or |
| | | drop/reject requests. This DOIC baseline solution is |
| | | a loss algorithm and DOIC should not require further |
| | | specification. The answer to REQ32 indicates the |
| | | possibility to add other algorithms on top of the |
| | | DOIC baseline solution. The DOIC solution currently |
| | | defines this loss algorithm as the default algorithm. |
| | | It is still under discussion to make it as mandatory |
| | | to implement. |
| | | - |
| REQ | P | The ability to communicate overload reports between |
| 34 | | supporting Diameter nodes does not require agents to |
| | | support the DOIC solution. Load information exchange |
| | | is not currently defined. |
+------+----+-------------------------------------------------------+
Table 1
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Appendix C. Examples
C.1. 3GPP S6a interface overload indication
[TBD: Would cover S6a MME-HSS communication with several topology
choices (such as with or without DRA, and with "generic" agents).]
C.2. 3GPP PCC interfaces overload indication
[TBD: Would cover Gx/Rx and maybe S9..]
C.3. Mix of Destination-Realm routed requests and Destination-Host
reouted requests
[TBD: Add example showing the use of Destination-Host type OLRs and
Realm type OLRs.]
Authors' Addresses
Jouni Korhonen (editor)
Broadcom Communications
Porkkalankatu 24
Helsinki FIN-00180
Finland
Email: jouni.nospam@gmail.com
Steve Donovan
Oracle
17210 Campbell Road
Dallas, Texas 75254
United States
Email: srdonovan@usdonovans.com
Ben Campbell
Oracle
17210 Campbell Road
Dallas, Texas 75254
United States
Email: ben@nostrum.com
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