Internet DRAFT - draft-muks-dnsop-dns-message-fragments

draft-muks-dnsop-dns-message-fragments







Internet Engineering Task Force                             M. Sivaraman
Internet-Draft                               Internet Systems Consortium
Intended status: Experimental                                    S. Kerr
Expires: July 22, 2016                                           L. Song
                                              Beijing Internet Institute
                                                        January 19, 2016


                         DNS message fragments
               draft-muks-dnsop-dns-message-fragments-00

Abstract

   This document describes a method to transmit DNS messages over
   multiple UDP datagrams by fragmenting them at the application layer.
   The objective is to allow authoriative servers to successfully reply
   to DNS queries via UDP using multiple smaller datagrams, where larger
   datagrams may not pass through the network successfully.

Status of This Memo

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   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

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   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 22, 2016.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.2.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   2.  DNS Message Fragmentation Method  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.1.  Client Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.2.  Server Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     2.3.  Other Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   3.  The ALLOW-FRAGMENTS EDNS(0) Option  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.1.  Wire Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.2.  Option Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       3.2.1.  Maximum Fragment Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.3.  Presentation Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   4.  The FRAGMENT EDNS(0) Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.1.  Wire Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.2.  Option Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.1.  Fragment Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
       4.2.2.  Fragment Count  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.3.  Presentation Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Network Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.1.  Background  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     5.2.  Implementation Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   6.  Open Issues and Discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   9.  Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     10.1.  Normative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     10.2.  Informative references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
   Appendix A.  Change History (to be removed before publication)  .  11
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11

1.  Introduction

1.1.  Background

   [RFC1035] describes how DNS messages are to be transmitted over UDP.
   A DNS query message is transmitted using one UDP datagram from client
   to server, and a corresponding DNS reply message is transmitted using
   one UDP datagram from server to client.

   The upper limit on the size of a DNS message that can be transmitted
   thus depends on the maximum size of the UDP datagram that can be
   transmitted successfully from the sender to the receiver.  Typically



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   any size limit only matters for DNS replies, as DNS queries are
   usually small.

   As a UDP datagram is transmitted in a single IP PDU, in theory the
   size of a UDP datagram (including various lower internet layer
   headers) can be as large as 64 KiB.  But practically, if the datagram
   size exceeds the path MTU, then the datagram will either be
   fragmented at the IP layer, or worse dropped, by a forwarder.  In the
   case of IPv6, DNS packets are fragmented by the sender only.  If a
   packet's size exceeds the path MTU, a Packet Too Big (PTB) ICMP
   message will be received by sender without any clue to the sender to
   reply again with a smaller sized message, due to the stateless
   feature of DNS.  In addition, IP-level fragmentation caused by large
   DNS response packet will introduce risk of cache poisoning
   [Fragment-Poisonous], in which the attacker can circumvent some
   defense mechanisms (like port, IP, and query randomization
   [RFC5452]).

   As a result, a practical DNS payload size limitation is necessary.
   [RFC1035] limited DNS message UDP datagram lengths to a maximum of
   512 bytes.  Although EDNS(0) [RFC6891] allows an initiator to
   advertise the capability of receiving lager packets (up to 4096
   bytes), it leads to fragmentation because practically most packets
   are limited to 1500 byte size due to host Ethernet interfaces, or
   1280 byte size due to minimum IPv6 MTU in the IPv6 stack [RFC3542].

   According to DNS specifications [RFC1035], if the DNS response
   message can not fit within the packet's size limit, the response is
   truncated and the initiator will have to use TCP as a fallback to re-
   query to receive large response.  However, not to mention the high
   setup cost introduced by TCP due to additional roundtrips, some
   firewalls and middle boxes even block TCP/53 which cause no responses
   to be received as well.  It becomes a significant issue when the DNS
   response size inevitably increases with DNSSEC deployment.

   In this memo, DNS message fragmentation attempts to work around
   middle box misbehavior by splitting a single DNS message across
   multiple UDP datagrams.  Note that to avoid DNS amplification and
   reflection attacks, DNS cookies [I-D.ietf-dnsop-cookies] is a
   mandatory requirement when using DNS message fragments.

   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].







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1.2.  Motivation

   It is not a new topic regarding large DNS packets(>512B) issue
   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-respsize], starting from introduction of IPv6,
   EDNS(0) [SAC016], and DNSSEC deployment [SAC035].  In current
   production networks, using DNSSEC with longer DNSKEYs (ZSK>1024B and
   KSK>2048B) will result in response packets no smaller than 1500B
   [T-DNS].  Especially during the KSK rollover process, responses to
   the query of DNSKEY RRset will be enlarged as they contain both the
   new and old KSK.

   When possible, we should avoid dropped packets as this means the
   client must wait for a timeout, which incurs a high cost.  For
   example, a validator behind a firewall suffers waiting till the
   timeout with no response, if the firewall drops large EDNS(0) packets
   and IP fragments.  It may even cause disaster when the validator can
   not recieve response for new trust anchor KSK due to the extreme case
   of bad middle boxes which also drop TCP/53.

   Since UDP requires fewer packets on the wire and less state on
   servers than TCP, in this memo we propose continuing to use UDP for
   transmission but fragment the larger DNS packets into smaller DNS
   packets at the application layer.  We would like the fragments to
   easily go through middle boxes and avoid falling back to TCP.

2.  DNS Message Fragmentation Method

2.1.  Client Behavior

   Clients supporting DNS message fragmentation add an EDNS option to
   their queries, which declares their support for this feature.

   If a DNS reply is received that has been fragmented, it will consist
   of multiple DNS message fragments (each transmitted in a respective
   UDP packet), and every fragment contain an EDNS option which says how
   many total fragments there are, and the identifier of the fragment
   that the current packet represents.  The client collects all of the
   fragments and uses them to reconstruct the full DNS message.  Clients
   MUST maintain a timeout when waiting for the fragments to arrive.

   Clients that support DNS message fragments MUST be able to reassemble
   fragments into a DNS message of any size, up to the maximum of 64KiB.

   The client MAY save information about what sizes of packets have been
   received from a given server.  If saved, this information MUST have a
   limited duration.





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   If TSIG [RFC2845] is used, then the signature must be checked on each
   fragment separately.

   Any DNSSEC validation is performed on the reassembled DNS message.

2.2.  Server Behavior

   Servers supporting DNS message fragmentation will look for the EDNS
   option which declares client support for the feature.  If not
   present, the server MUST NOT use DNS message fragmentation.  The
   server MUST check that DNS cookies are supported. [**FIXME**]
   Implementation of the first request case, where no existing
   established cookie is available needs discussion; we want to avoid
   additional round-trips here.  Shane: don't cookies already handle
   this case?

   The server prepares the response DNS message normally.  If the
   message exceeds the maximum UDP payload size specified by the client,
   then it should fragment the message into multiple UDP datagrams.

   Each fragment contains an identical DNS header with TC=1, possibly
   varying only in the section counts.  Setting the TC flag in this way
   insures that clients which do not support DNS fragments can fallback
   to TCP transparently.

   As many RR are included in each fragment as are possible without
   going over the desired size of the fragment.  An EDNS option is added
   to every fragment, that includes both the fragment identifier and the
   total number of fragments.  Names are compressed in each fragment
   separately.

   An RRSET may be split across multiple fragments.  RRSIG may be sent
   in a separate fragment from the RRSET that it refers to.

   The server needs to know how many total fragments there are to insert
   into each fragment.  A simple approach would be to generate all
   fragments, and then count the total number at the end, and update the
   previously-generated fragments with the total number of fragments.
   Other techniques may be possible.

   The server MUST limit the number of fragments that it uses in a
   reply.  Too many packets sent simultaneously can cause network
   congestion or packet loss, either of which will degrade the overall
   network performance.  (See "Open Issues and Discussion" for remaining
   work.)

   The server should try to minimize the total number of packets sent,
   however since this is similar to the bin packing problem, which is



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   complexity NP-hard, the server does not have to garantee this.  In
   all cases, the server MUST NOT exceed the maximum fragment size
   requested by a client.

   If TSIG [RFC2845] is used, then the signature must be added to each
   fragment separately.

   If a message cannot be fragmented successfully or the server does not
   wish to fragment a message, then the FRAGMENT EDNS(0) Option is not
   included in the reply, and it is truncated as a normal, non-
   fragmented message.  (There are many reasons a server may not wish to
   fragment a reply, for example if it would result in too many
   fragments.  Also, since fragmentation occurs on an RR boundary, any
   RR that would cause a fragment to exceed the maximum message size
   cannot be fragmented.  A large TXT record can cause this behavior,
   for example.)

2.3.  Other Notes

   o  The FRAGMENT option MUST NOT be present in DNS query messages,
      i.e., when QR=0.  If a DNS implementation notices the FRAGMENT
      option in a DNS query message, it MUST ignore it.

   o  In DNS reply messages, the FRAGMENT option MUST NOT be present in
      datagrams when truncation is not done, i.e., when TC=0.  If a DNS
      implementation notices the FRAGMENT option in a DNS reply message
      fragment datagram that is not truncated, i.e, when TC=0, it MUST
      drop all DNS reply message fragment datagrams received so far
      (awaiting assembly) for that message's corresponding question
      tuple (server IP, port, message ID) without using any data from
      them. [**FIXME**] Dropping fragments to be received yet will be
      problematic for implementations, but dropping fragments received
      so far ought to be sufficient.

   o  More than one FRAGMENT option MUST NOT be present in a DNS reply
      message fragment datagram.  If a DNS implementation notices
      multiple FRAGMENT options in a DNS reply message fragment
      datagram, it MUST drop all reply datagrams received for that
      message's corresponding question tuple (server IP, port, message
      ID) without using any data from them. [**FIXME**] Dropping
      fragments to be received yet will be problematic for
      implementations, but dropping fragments received so far ought to
      be sufficient.








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3.  The ALLOW-FRAGMENTS EDNS(0) Option

   ALLOW-FRAGMENTS is an EDNS(0) [RFC6891] option that a client uses to
   inform a server that it supports fragmented responses.

3.1.  Wire Format

   TBD.

3.2.  Option Fields

3.2.1.  Maximum Fragment Size

   The Maximum Fragment Size field is represented as an unsigned 16-bit
   integer.  This is the maximum size used by any given fragment the
   server returns.

3.3.  Presentation Format

   As with other EDNS(0) options, the ALLOW-FRAGMENTS option does not
   have a presentation format.

4.  The FRAGMENT EDNS(0) Option

   FRAGMENT is an EDNS(0) [RFC6891] option that assists a client in
   gathering the various fragments of a DNS message from multiple UDP
   datagrams.  It is described in a previous section.  Here, its syntax
   is provided.

4.1.  Wire Format

   TBD.

4.2.  Option Fields

4.2.1.  Fragment Identifier

   The Fragment Identifier field is represented as an unsigned 8-bit
   integer.  The first fragment is identified as 1.  Values in the range
   [1,255] can be used to identify the various fragments.  Value 0 is
   used for signalling purposes.

4.2.2.  Fragment Count

   The Fragment Count field is represented as an unsigned 8-bit integer.
   It contains the number of fragments in the range [1,255] that make up
   the DNS message.  Value 0 is used for signalling purposes.




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4.3.  Presentation Format

   As with other EDNS(0) options, the FRAGMENT option does not have a
   presentation format.

5.  Network Considerations

5.1.  Background

   TCP-based application protocols co-exist well with competing traffic
   flows in the internet due to congestion control methods such as in
   [RFC5681] that are present in TCP implementations.

   UDP-based application protocols have no restrictions in lower layers
   to stop them from flooding datagrams into a network and causing
   congestion.  So applications that use UDP have to check themselves
   from causing congestion so that their traffic is not disruptive.

   In the case of [RFC1035], only one reply UDP datagram was sent per
   request UDP datagram, and so the lock-step flow control automatically
   ensured that UDP DNS traffic didn't lead to congestion.  When DNS
   clients didn't hear back from the server, and had to retransmit the
   question, they typically paced themselves by using methods such as a
   retransmission timer based on a smoothed round-trip time between
   client and server.

   Due to the message fragmentation described in this document, when a
   DNS query causes multiple DNS reply datagrams to be sent back to the
   client, there is a risk that without effective control of flow, DNS
   traffic could cause problems to competing flows along the network
   path.

   Because UDP does not guarantee delivery of datagrams, there is a
   possibility that one or more fragments of a DNS message will be lost
   during transfer.  This is especially a problem on some wireless
   networks where a rate of datagrams can continually be lost due to
   interference and other environmental factors.  With larger numbers of
   message fragments, the probability of fragment loss increases.

5.2.  Implementation Requirements

   TBD.

6.  Open Issues and Discussion

   1.  Resolver behavior





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       We need some more discussion of resolver behavior in general, at
       least to the point of making things clear to an implementor.

   2.  What is the size of fragments?

       Generally speaking the number of fragment increases if fragment
       size is small (512 bytes, or other empirical value), which makes
       the mechanism less efficient.  If the size can changed
       dynamically according to negotiation or some detection, it will
       introduce more cost and round trip time.



   3.  We might set specific upper limits for number of fragments.



   4.  OPT-RR

       Some OPT-RR seem to be oriented at the entire message, others
       make more sense per packet.  This needs to be sorted out.  It
       looks like only cookies need to be included per fragment.



7.  Security Considerations

   To avoid DNS amplification or reflection attacks, DNS cookies
   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-cookies] must be used.  The DNS cookie EDNS option is
   identical in all fragments that make up a DNS message.  The
   duplication of the same cookie values in all fragments that make up
   the message is not expected to introduce a security weakness in the
   case of off-path attacks.

8.  IANA Considerations

   The ALLOW-FRAGMENTS and FRAGMENT EDNS(0) options require option codes
   to be assigned for them.

9.  Acknowledgements

   Thanks to Stephen Morris, JINMEI Tatuya, Paul Vixie, Mark Andrews,
   and David Dragon for reviewing a pre-draft proposal and providing
   support, comments and suggestions.







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10.  References

10.1.  Normative references

   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-cookies]
              Eastlake, D. and M. Andrews, "Domain Name System (DNS)
              Cookies", draft-ietf-dnsop-cookies-09 (work in progress),
              January 2016.

   [RFC1035]  Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
              specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
              November 1987, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [RFC2845]  Vixie, P., Gudmundsson, O., Eastlake 3rd, D., and B.
              Wellington, "Secret Key Transaction Authentication for DNS
              (TSIG)", RFC 2845, DOI 10.17487/RFC2845, May 2000,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2845>.

   [RFC3542]  Stevens, W., Thomas, M., Nordmark, E., and T. Jinmei,
              "Advanced Sockets Application Program Interface (API) for
              IPv6", RFC 3542, DOI 10.17487/RFC3542, May 2003,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3542>.

   [RFC5452]  Hubert, A. and R. van Mook, "Measures for Making DNS More
              Resilient against Forged Answers", RFC 5452,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5452, January 2009,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5452>.

   [RFC5681]  Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion
              Control", RFC 5681, DOI 10.17487/RFC5681, September 2009,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5681>.

   [RFC6891]  Damas, J., Graff, M., and P. Vixie, "Extension Mechanisms
              for DNS (EDNS(0))", STD 75, RFC 6891,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC6891, April 2013,
              <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6891>.

10.2.  Informative references

   [Fragment-Poisonous]
              Herzberg, A. and H. Shulman, "Fragmentation Considered
              Poisonous", 2012.




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   [I-D.ietf-dnsop-respsize]
              Vixie, P., Kato, A., and J. Abley, "DNS Referral Response
              Size Issues", draft-ietf-dnsop-respsize-15 (work in
              progress), February 2014.

   [SAC016]   ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, "Testing
              Firewalls for IPv6 and EDNS0 Support", 2007.

   [SAC035]   ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, "DNSSEC
              Impact on Broadband Routers and Firewalls", 2008.

   [T-DNS]    Zhu, L., Hu, Z., and J. Heidemann, "T-DNS: Connection-
              Oriented DNS to Improve Privacy and Security (extended)",
              2007, <http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Zhu14b.pdf>.

Appendix A.  Change History (to be removed before publication)

   o  draft-muks-dns-message-fragments-00
      Initial draft.

   o  draft-muks-dnsop-dns-message-fragments-00


      *  Renamed to include dnsop in the name.

      *  Removed the increasing packet size approach.  All packets are
         now limited to the same size in a given fragmented message.

      *  Added a brief note about network congestion and packet loss if
         sending too many fragments at once.

      *  TSIG behavior documented.

      *  Documented that RRSET may be split, and RRSIG sent separately
         from RRSET.

      *  Documented behavior if a packet cannot be split, and gave some
         text about how this can happen.

      *  Clarified name compression is per fragment.

Authors' Addresses









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   Mukund Sivaraman
   Internet Systems Consortium
   950 Charter Street
   Redwood City, CA  94063
   US

   Email: muks@mukund.org
   URI:   http://www.isc.org/


   Shane Kerr
   Beijing Internet Institute
   2/F, Building 5, No.58 Jinghai Road, BDA
   Beijing  100176
   CN

   Email: shane@biigroup.cn
   URI:   http://www.biigroup.com/


   Linjian Song
   Beijing Internet Institute
   2/F, Building 5, No.58 Jinghai Road, BDA
   Beijing  100176
   CN

   Email: songlinjian@gmail.com
   URI:   http://www.biigroup.com/























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