Internet DRAFT - draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams
draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams
httpbis K. Oku
Internet-Draft Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track L. Pardue
Expires: 19 August 2024 Cloudflare
16 February 2024
HTTP/3 on Streams
draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams-00
Abstract
This document specifies how to use HTTP/3 on top of bi-directional,
byte-oriented streams such as TLS over TCP.
Discussion Venues
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
Discussion of this document takes place on the HTTP Working Group
mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/.
Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at
https://github.com/kazuho/draft-kazuho-httpbis-http3-on-streams.
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
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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 19 August 2024.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2024 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://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
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Conventions and Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. The Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Starting HTTP/3 on Streams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Support for Extended CONNECT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1. Introduction
As of 2023, HTTP/2 [HTTP2] remains the most widely used version of
HTTP across the Internet, although the adoption rate of HTTP/3
[HTTP3] is increasing rapidly.
HTTP/3 has several advantages over HTTP/2, primarily due to its use
of QUIC [QUIC] as the transport layer protocol, which provides
features like stream multiplexing without head-of-line blocking and
low-latency connection establishment.
However, given that QUIC's availability and accessibility are not as
universal as TCP's, a complete migration of all HTTP/2 traffic to
QUIC-based HTTP/3 seems unlikely.
This situation necessitates HTTP deployments to support both
transport protocols and their respective HTTP versions for the
foreseeable future.
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Maintaining dual support is costly, as the two protocols differ in
many aspects such as wire-encoding, flow control and stream
multiplexing machinery, and HTTP header compression. Extensions
operating at the HTTP wire encoding layer must be developed and
implemented for both HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, and both protocol stacks
require ongoing maintenance to address bugs, performance issues, and
vulnerabilities.
To address this redundancy, this specification defines the method of
running HTTP/3 over TCP, utilizing QUIC on Streams [QUIC-ON-STREAMS]
as the basis. QUIC on Streams, acting as a polyfill of QUIC atop bi-
directional byte streams, enables the operation of HTTP/3 over TCP
without any modifications.
Consequently, design, implementation, and maintenance efforts can
concentrate on a single HTTP version: HTTP/3.
2. Conventions and Definitions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
capitals, as shown here.
3. The Protocol
HTTP/3 functions over QUIC version 1, employing the set of operations
(i.e., API) defined in Section 2.4 and Section 5.3 of [QUIC].
Conversely, HTTP/3 on Streams utilizes the same set of operations but
functions over QUIC on Streams instead.
4. Starting HTTP/3 on Streams
HTTP/3 on Streams can be used for “http” and “https” URI schemes
defined in Section 4.2 of [HTTP-SEMANTICS] with the same default port
numbers as HTTP/1.1 [HTTP1].
When starting HTTP/3 on Streams for “https” URIs, clients use the TLS
[TLS13] with the ALPN [ALPN] extension: “h3s”.
Also, clients may learn that a particular server supports HTTP/3 on
Streams by other means. A client that knows that a server supports
HTTP/3 on Streams can establish a TCP connection and start exchanging
HTTP/3 frames using QUIC on Streams.
The latter is the only way to discover HTTP/3 on Streams for “http”
URIs.
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When used in cleartext, servers can determine if or not the client is
speaking HTTP/3 on Streams by comparing the first eight bytes to the
encoded form of the QS_TRANSPORT_PARAMETERS frame type (Section 4.2
of [QUIC-ON-STREAMS]).
5. Support for Extended CONNECT
Servers speaking HTTP/3 on Streams MUST implement the Extended
CONNECT scheme defined in [EXT-CONNECT3].
6. Security Considerations
TODO Security
7. IANA Considerations
This document has no IANA actions.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[ALPN] Friedl, S., Popov, A., Langley, A., and E. Stephan,
"Transport Layer Security (TLS) Application-Layer Protocol
Negotiation Extension", RFC 7301, DOI 10.17487/RFC7301,
July 2014, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7301>.
[EXT-CONNECT3]
Hamilton, R., "Bootstrapping WebSockets with HTTP/3",
RFC 9220, DOI 10.17487/RFC9220, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9220>.
[HTTP-SEMANTICS]
Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP Semantics", STD 97, RFC 9110,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9110, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110>.
[HTTP1] Fielding, R., Ed., Nottingham, M., Ed., and J. Reschke,
Ed., "HTTP/1.1", STD 99, RFC 9112, DOI 10.17487/RFC9112,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9112>.
[HTTP3] Bishop, M., Ed., "HTTP/3", RFC 9114, DOI 10.17487/RFC9114,
June 2022, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9114>.
[QUIC-ON-STREAMS]
Oku, K. and L. Pardue, "QUIC on Streams", Work in
Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-kazuho-quic-quic-on-
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streams-00, 16 February 2024,
<https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-kazuho-quic-
quic-on-streams-00>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.
[RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.
[TLS13] Rescorla, E., "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Protocol
Version 1.3", RFC 8446, DOI 10.17487/RFC8446, August 2018,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8446>.
8.2. Informative References
[HTTP2] Thomson, M., Ed. and C. Benfield, Ed., "HTTP/2", RFC 9113,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9113, June 2022,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9113>.
[QUIC] Iyengar, J., Ed. and M. Thomson, Ed., "QUIC: A UDP-Based
Multiplexed and Secure Transport", RFC 9000,
DOI 10.17487/RFC9000, May 2021,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9000>.
Acknowledgments
TODO acknowledge.
Authors' Addresses
Kazuho Oku
Fastly
Email: kazuhooku@gmail.com
Lucas Pardue
Cloudflare
Email: lucas@lucaspardue.com
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