Internet DRAFT - draft-roca-tsvwg-rlc-fec-scheme
draft-roca-tsvwg-rlc-fec-scheme
TSVWG V. Roca
Internet-Draft INRIA
Intended status: Standards Track June 27, 2017
Expires: December 29, 2017
The Sliding Window Random Linear Code (RLC) Forward Erasure Correction
(FEC) Scheme for FECFRAME
draft-roca-tsvwg-rlc-fec-scheme-01
Abstract
This document describes a fully-specified FEC scheme for the Sliding
Window Random Linear Codes (RLC) over GF(2^^m), where m equals 1
(binary case), 4 or 8, that can be used to protect arbitrary media
streams along the lines defined by FECFRAME extended to sliding
window codes. These sliding window FEC codes rely on an encoding
window that slides over the source symbols, generating new repair
symbols whenever needed. Compared to block FEC codes, these sliding
window FEC codes offer key advantages with real-time flows in terms
of reduced FEC-related latency while often providing improved erasure
recovery capabilities.
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 December 29, 2017.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 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
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Limits of Block Codes with Real-Time Flows . . . . . . . 3
1.2. Lower Latency and Better Protection of Real-Time Flows
with the Sliding Window RLC Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Small Transmission Overheads with the Sliding Window RLC
FEC Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Document Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Definitions and Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.1. Parameters Derivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.2. ADU, ADUI and Source Symbols Mappings . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Encoding Window Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.4. Pseudo-Random Number Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.5. Coding Coefficients Generation Function . . . . . . . . . 10
4. Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme for Arbitrary ADU Flows . . . . 12
4.1. Formats and Codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.1. FEC Framework Configuration Information . . . . . . . 12
4.1.2. Explicit Source FEC Payload ID . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1.3. Repair FEC Payload ID . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.1.4. Additional Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5. FEC Code Specification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.1. Encoding Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.2. Decoding Side . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
6. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.1. Attacks Against the Data Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.1.1. Access to Confidential Content . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.1.2. Content Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.2. Attacks Against the FEC Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.3. When Several Source Flows are to be Protected Together . 18
7.4. Baseline Secure FEC Framework Operation . . . . . . . . . 18
8. Operations and Management Considerations . . . . . . . . . . 18
8.1. Operational Recommendations: Finite Field Element Size (m
Parameter) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
9. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
10. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
11.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
Appendix A. Decoding Beyond Maximum Latency Optimization . . . . 22
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
1. Introduction
Application-Level Forward Erasure Correction (AL-FEC) codes are a key
element of communication systems. They are used to recover from
packet losses (or erasures) during content delivery sessions to a
large number of receivers (multicast/broadcast transmissions). This
is the case with the FLUTE/ALC protocol [RFC6726] in case of reliable
file transfers over lossy networks, and the FECFRAME protocol for
reliable continuous media transfers over lossy networks.
The present document only focusses on the FECFRAME protocol, used in
multicast/broadcast delivery mode, with contents that feature
stringent real-time constraints: each source packet has a maximum
validity period after which it will not be considered by the
destination application.
1.1. Limits of Block Codes with Real-Time Flows
With FECFRAME, there is a single FEC encoding point (either a end-
host/server (source) or a middlebox) and a single FEC decoding point
(either a end-host (receiver) or middlebox). In this context,
currently standardized AL-FEC codes for FECFRAME like Reed-Solomon
[RFC6865], LDPC-Staircase [RFC6816], or Raptor/RaptorQ, are all
linear block codes: they require the data flow to be segmented into
blocks of a predefined maximum size. The block size is a balance
between robustness (in particular in front of long erasure bursts for
which there is an incentive to increase the block size) and maximum
decoding latency (for which there is an incentive to decrease the
block size). Therefore, with a multicast/broadcast session, the
block code is dimensioned by considering the worst communication
channel one wants to support, and this choice impacts all receivers,
no matter their individual channel quality.
1.2. Lower Latency and Better Protection of Real-Time Flows with the
Sliding Window RLC Codes
This document introduces a fully-specified FEC scheme that follows a
totally different approach: the Sliding Window Random Linear Codes
(RLC) over GF(2^^m), where m equals 1, 4 or 8. This FEC scheme is
used to protect arbitrary media streams along the lines defined by
FECFRAME extended to sliding window codes [fecframe-ext]. This FEC
scheme is extremely efficient for instance with media that feature
real-time constraints sent within a multicast/broadcast session.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
The RLC codes belong to the broad class of sliding window AL-FEC
codes (A.K.A. convolutional codes). The encoding process is based on
an encoding window that slides over the set of source packets (in
fact source symbols as we will see in Section 3.2), and which is
either of fixed or variable size (elastic window). Repair packets
(symbols) are generated and sent on-the-fly, after computing a random
linear combination of the source symbols present in the current
encoding window.
At the receiver, a linear system is managed from the set of received
source and repair packets. New variables (representing source
symbols) and equations (representing the linear combination of each
repair symbol received) are added upon receiving new packets.
Variables are removed when they are too old with respect to their
validity period (real-time constraints), as well as the associated
equations they are involved in (Appendix A introduces an optimisation
that extends the time a variable is considered in the system).
Erased source symbols are then recovered thanks this linear system
whenever its rank permits it.
With RLC codes (more generally with sliding window codes), the
protection of a multicast/broadcast session also needs to be
dimensioned by considering the worst communication channel one wants
to support. However the receivers experiencing a good to medium
channel quality observe a FEC-related latency close to zero [Roca16]
since an isolated erased source packet is quickly recovered by the
following repair packet. On the opposite, with a block code,
recovering an isolated erased source packet always requires waiting
the end of the block for the first repair packet to arrive.
Additionally, under certain situations (e.g., with a limited FEC-
related latency budget and with constant bit rate transmissions after
FECFRAME encoding), sliding window codes achieve more easily a target
transmission quality (e.g., measured by the residual loss after FEC
decoding) by sending fewer repair packets (i.e., higher code rate)
than block codes.
1.3. Small Transmission Overheads with the Sliding Window RLC FEC
Scheme
The Sliding Window RLC FEC scheme is designed so as to reduce the
transmission overhead. The main requirement is that each repair
packet header must enable a receiver to reconstruct the list of
source symbols and the associated random coefficients used during the
encoding process. In order to minimize packet overhead, the set of
symbols in the encoding window as well as the set of coefficients
over GF(2^^m) used in the linear combination are not individually
listed in the repair packet header. Instead, each FEC repair packet
header contains:
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
o the Encoding Symbol Identifier (ESI) of the first source symbol in
the encoding window as well as the number of symbols (since this
number may vary with a variable size, elastic window). These two
pieces of information enable each receiver to easily reconstruct
the set of source symbols considered during encoding, the only
constraint being that there cannot be any gap;
o the seed used by a coding coefficients generation function
(Section 3.5). This information enables each receiver to generate
the same set of coding coefficients over GF(2^^m) as the sender;
Therefore, no matter the number of source symbols present in the
encoding window, each FEC repair packet features a fixed 64-bit long
header, called Repair FEC Payload ID (Figure 7). Similarly, each FEC
source packet features a fixed 32-bit long trailer, called Explicit
Source FEC Payload ID (Figure 5), that contains the ESI of the first
source symbol (see the ADUI and source symbol mapping, Section 3.2).
1.4. Document Organization
This fully-specified FEC scheme follows the structure required by
[RFC6363], section 5.6. "FEC Scheme Requirements", namely:
3. Procedures: This section describes procedures specific to this
FEC scheme, namely: RLC parameters derivation, ADUI and source
symbols mapping, pseudo-random number generator, and coding
coefficients generation function;
4. Formats and Codes: This section defines the Source FEC Payload
ID and Repair FEC Payload ID formats, carrying the signalling
information associated to each source or repair symbol. It also
defines the FEC Framework Configuration Information (FFCI)
carrying signalling information for the session;
5. FEC Code Specification: Finally this section provides the code
specification.
2. Definitions and Abbreviations
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
This document uses the following definitions and abbreviations:
GF(q) denotes a finite field (also known as the Galois Field) with q
elements. We assume that q = 2^^m in this document
m defines the length of the elements in the finite field, in bits.
In this document, m is equal to 1, 4 or 8
ADU: Application Data Unit
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
ADUI: Application Data Unit Information (includes the F, L and
padding fields in addition to the ADU)
E: encoding symbol size (i.e., source or repair symbol), assumed
fixed (in bytes)
br_out: transmission bitrate at the output of the FECFRAME sender,
assumed fixed (in bits/s)
max_lat: maximum FEC-related latency within FECFRAME (in seconds)
cr: AL-FEC coding rate
plr: packet loss rate on the erasure channel
ew_size: encoding window current size at a sender (in symbols)
ew_max_size: encoding window maximum size at a sender (in symbols)
dw_size: decoding window current size at a receiver (in symbols)
dw_max_size: decoding window maximum size at a receiver (in symbols)
ls_max_size: linear system maximum size (or width) at a receiver (in
symbols)
ls_size: linear system current size (or width) at a receiver (in
symbols)
PRNG: pseudo-random number generator
pmms_rand(maxv): PRNG defined in Section 3.4 and used in this
specification, that returns a new random integer in [0; maxv-1]
3. Procedures
This section introduces the procedures that are used by this FEC
scheme.
3.1. Parameters Derivation
The Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme relies on several key internal
parameters:
Maximum FEC-related latency budget, max_lat (in seconds) A source
ADU flow can have real-time constraints, and therefore any
FECFRAME related operation must take place within the validity
period of each ADU. When there are multiple flows with different
real-time constraints, we consider the most stringent constraints
(see [RFC6363], Section 10.2, item 6, for recommendations when
several flows are globally protected). This maximum FEC-related
latency accounts for all sources of latency added by FEC encoding
(sender) and FEC decoding (receiver). Other sources of latency
(e.g., added by network communications) are out of scope and must
be considered separately (e.g., they have already been deducted).
It can be regarded as the latency budget permitted for all FEC-
related operations. This is also an input parameter that enables
to derive other internal parameters;
Encoding window current (resp. maximum) size, ew_size (resp.
ew_max_size) (in symbols):
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
these parameters are used by a sender during FEC encoding. More
precisely, each repair symbol is a linear combination of the
ew_size source symbols present in the encoding window when RLC
encoding took place. In all situations, we MUST have ew_size <=
ew_max_size;
Decoding window current (resp. maximum) size, dw_size (resp.
dw_max_size) (in symbols):
these parameters are used by a receiver when managing the linear
system used for decoding. dw_size is the current size of the
decoding window, i.e., the set of received or erased source
symbols that are currently part of the linear system. In all
situations, we MUST have dw_size <= dw_max_size;
In order to comply with the maximum FEC-related latency budget,
assuming a constant transmission bitrate at the output of the
FECFRAME sender (br_out), encoding symbol size (E), and code rate
(cr), we have:
dw_max_size = (max_lat * br_out * cr) / (8 * E)
This dw_max_size defines the maximum delay after which an old source
symbol may be recovered: after this delay, this old source symbol
symbol will be removed from the decoding window.
It is often good practice to choose:
ew_max_size = dw_max_size / 2
However any value ew_max_size < dw_max_size can be used without
impact on the FEC-related latency budget. Finding the optimal value
can depend on the erasure channel one wants to support and should be
determined after simulations or field trials.
Note that the decoding beyond maximum latency optimisation
(Appendix A) enables an old source symbol to be kept in the linear
system beyond the FEC-related latency budget, but not delivered to
the receiving application. Here we have: ls_size >= dw_max_size
3.2. ADU, ADUI and Source Symbols Mappings
An ADU, coming from the application, cannot be mapped to source
symbols directly. Indeed, an erased ADU recovered at a receiver must
contain enough information to be assigned to the right application
flow (UDP port numbers and IP addresses cannot be used to that
purpose as they are not protected by FEC encoding). This requires
adding the flow identifier to each ADU before doing FEC encoding.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
Additionally, since ADUs are of variable size, padding is needed so
that each ADU (with its flow identifier) contribute to an integral
number of source symbols. This requires adding the original ADU
length to each ADU before doing FEC encoding. Because of these
requirements, an intermediate format, the ADUI, or ADU Information,
is considered [RFC6363].
For each incoming ADU, an ADUI is created as follows. First of all,
3 bytes are prepended: (Figure 1):
Flow ID (F) (8-bit field): this unsigned byte contains the integer
identifier associated to the source ADU flow to which this ADU
belongs. It is assumed that a single byte is sufficient, which
implies that no more than 256 flows will be protected by a single
FECFRAME instance.
Length (L) (16-bit field): this unsigned integer contains the length
of this ADU, in network byte order (i.e., big endian). This
length is for the ADU itself and does not include the F, L, or Pad
fields.
Then, zero padding is added to the ADU if needed:
Padding (Pad) (variable size field): this field contains zero
padding to align the F, L, ADU and padding up to a size that is
multiple of E bytes (i.e., the source and repair symbol length).
Each ADUI contributes to an integral number of source symbols. The
data unit resulting from the ADU and the F, L, and Pad fields is
called ADU Information (or ADUI). Since ADUs can be of different
size, this is also the case for ADUIs.
symbol length, E E E
< ------------------ >< ------------------ >< ------------------ >
+-+--+---------------------------------------------+-------------+
|F| L| ADU | Pad |
+-+--+---------------------------------------------+-------------+
Figure 1: ADUI Creation example (here 3 source symbols are created
for this ADUI).
Note that neither the initial 3 bytes nor the optional padding are
sent over the network. However, they are considered during FEC
encoding. It means that a receiver who lost a certain FEC source
packet (e.g., the UDP datagram containing this FEC source packet)
will be able to recover the ADUI if FEC decoding succeeds. Thanks to
the initial 3 bytes, this receiver will get rid of the padding (if
any) and identify the corresponding ADU flow.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
3.3. Encoding Window Management
Source symbols and the corresponding ADUs are removed from the
encoding window:
o when the sliding encoding window has reached its maximum size,
ew_max_size. In that case the oldest symbol MUST be removed
before adding a new symbol, so that the current encoding window
size always remains inferior or equal to the maximum size: ew_size
<= ew_max_size;
o when an ADU has reached its maximum validity duration in case of a
real-time flow. When this happens, all source symbols
corresponding to the ADUI that expired SHOULD be removed from the
encoding window;
Source symbols are added to the sliding encoding window each time a
new ADU arrives, once the ADU to ADUI and then to source symbols
mapping has been performed (Section 3.2). The current size of the
encoding window, ew_size, is updated after adding new source symbols.
This process may require to remove old source symbols so that:
ew_size <= ew_max_size.
Note that a FEC codec may feature practical limits in the number of
source symbols in the encoding window (e.g., for computational
complexity reasons). This factor may further limit the ew_max_lat
value, in addition to the maximum FEC-related latency budget
(Section 3.1).
3.4. Pseudo-Random Number Generator
The RLC codes rely on the following Pseudo-Random Number Generator
(PRNG), identical to the PRNG used with LDPC-Staircase codes
([RFC5170], section 5.7).
The Park-Miler "minimal standard" PRNG [PM88] MUST be used. It
defines a simple multiplicative congruential algorithm: Ij+1 = A * Ij
(modulo M), with the following choices: A = 7^^5 = 16807 and M =
2^^31 - 1 = 2147483647. A validation criteria of such a PRNG is the
following: if seed = 1, then the 10,000th value returned MUST be
equal to 1043618065.
Several implementations of this PRNG are known and discussed in the
literature. An optimized implementation of this algorithm, using
only 32-bit mathematics, and which does not require any division, can
be found in [rand31pmc]. It uses the Park and Miller algorithm
[PM88] with the optimization suggested by D. Carta in [CA90]. The
history behind this algorithm is detailed in [WI08]. Yet, any other
implementation of the PRNG algorithm that matches the above
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
validation criteria, like the ones detailed in [PM88], is
appropriate.
This PRNG produces, natively, a 31-bit value between 1 and 0x7FFFFFFE
(2^^31-2) inclusive. Since it is desired to scale the pseudo-random
number between 0 and maxv-1 inclusive, one must keep the most
significant bits of the value returned by the PRNG (the least
significant bits are known to be less random, and modulo-based
solutions should be avoided [PTVF92]). The following algorithm MUST
be used:
Input:
raw_value: random integer generated by the inner PRNG algorithm,
between 1 and 0x7FFFFFFE (2^^31-2) inclusive.
maxv: upper bound used during the scaling operation.
Output:
scaled_value: random integer between 0 and maxv-1 inclusive.
Algorithm:
scaled_value = (unsigned long) ((double)maxv * (double)raw_value /
(double)0x7FFFFFFF);
(NB: the above C type casting to unsigned long is equivalent to
using floor() with positive floating point values.)
In this document, pmms_rand(maxv) denotes the PRNG function that
implements the Park-Miller "minimal standard" algorithm, defined
above, and that scales the raw value between 0 and maxv-1 inclusive,
using the above scaling algorithm.
Additionally, the pmms_srand(seed) function must be provided to
enable the initialization of the PRNG with a seed before calling
pmms_rand(maxv) the first time. The seed is a 31-bit integer between
1 and 0x7FFFFFFE inclusive. In this specification, the seed is
restricted to a value between 1 and 0xFFFF inclusive, as this is the
Repair_Key 16-bit field value of the Repair FEC Payload ID
(Section 4.1.3).
3.5. Coding Coefficients Generation Function
The coding coefficients, used during the encoding process, are
generated at the RLC encoder by the following function each time a
new repair symbol needs to be produced:
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 10]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
<CODE BEGINS>
/*
* Fills in the table of coding coefficients (of the right size)
* provided with the appropriate number of coding coefficients to
* use for the repair symbol key provided.
*
* (in) repair_key key associated to this repair symbol
* (in) cc_tab[] pointer to a table of the right size to store
* coding coefficients. All coefficients are
* stored as bytes, regardless of the m parameter,
* upon return of this function.
* (in) cc_nb[] number of entries in the table. This value is
* equal to the current encoding window size.
* (in) m Finite Field GF(2^^m) parameter.
* (out) returns an error code
*/
int generate_coding_coefficients (UINT16 repair_key,
UINT8 cc_tab[],
UINT16 cc_nb,
UINT8 m)
{
UINT32 i;
if (repair_key == 0) {
return SOMETHING_WENT_WRONG;
}
pmms_srand(repair_key);
if (m == 1) {
/* 0 is a valid coefficient value in binary GF */
for (i = 0 ; i < cc_nb ; i ++) {
cc_tab[i] = (UINT8) pmms_rand(2);
}
} else {
/* coefficient 0 is avoided in non-binary GF to consider each
* source symbol */
UINT32 maxv;
maxv = get_gf_size(); /* i.e., 16 if m=4 or 256 if m=8 */
for (i = 0 ; i < cc_nb ; i ++) {
do {
cc_tab[i] = (UINT8) pmms_rand(maxv);
} while (cc_tab[i] == 0)
}
}
return EVERYTHING_IS_OKAY;
}
<CODE ENDS>
Figure 2: Coding Coefficients Generation Function pseudo-code
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 11]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
4. Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme for Arbitrary ADU Flows
4.1. Formats and Codes
4.1.1. FEC Framework Configuration Information
The FEC Framework Configuration Information (or FFCI) includes
information that MUST be communicated between the sender and
receiver(s). More specifically, it enables the synchronization of
the FECFRAME sender and receiver instances. It includes both
mandatory elements and scheme-specific elements, as detailed below.
4.1.1.1. Mandatory Information
o FEC Encoding ID: the value assigned to this fully specified FEC
scheme MUST be XXXX, as assigned by IANA (Section 9).
When SDP is used to communicate the FFCI, this FEC Encoding ID is
carried in the 'encoding-id' parameter.
4.1.1.2. FEC Scheme-Specific Information
The FEC Scheme-Specific Information (FSSI) includes elements that are
specific to the present FEC scheme. More precisely:
Encoding symbol size (E): a non-negative integer that indicates the
size of each encoding symbol in bytes;
m parameter (m): the length of the elements in the finite field, in
bits, where m is equal to 1, 4 or 8;
These elements are required both by the sender (RLC encoder) and the
receiver(s) (RLC decoder).
When SDP is used to communicate the FFCI, this FEC scheme-specific
information is carried in the 'fssi' parameter in textual
representation as specified in [RFC6364]. For instance:
fssi=E:1400,m:8
If another mechanism requires the FSSI to be carried as an opaque
octet string (for instance, after a Base64 encoding), the encoding
format consists of the following 2 octets:
Encoding symbol length (E): 16-bit field.
m parameter (m): 8-bit field.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 12]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
0 1 2
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Encoding Symbol Length (E) | m |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 3: FSSI Encoding Format
4.1.2. Explicit Source FEC Payload ID
A FEC source packet MUST contain an Explicit Source FEC Payload ID
that is appended to the end of the packet as illustrated in Figure 4.
+--------------------------------+
| IP Header |
+--------------------------------+
| Transport Header |
+--------------------------------+
| ADU |
+--------------------------------+
| Explicit Source FEC Payload ID |
+--------------------------------+
Figure 4: Structure of an FEC Source Packet with the Explicit Source
FEC Payload ID
More precisely, the Explicit Source FEC Payload ID is composed of the
following field (Figure 5):
Encoding Symbol ID (ESI) (32-bit field): this unsigned integer
identifies the first source symbol of the ADUI corresponding to
this FEC source packet. The ESI is incremented for each new
source symbol, and after reaching the maximum value (2^32-1),
wrapping to zero occurs.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Encoding Symbol ID (ESI) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 5: Source FEC Payload ID Encoding Format
4.1.3. Repair FEC Payload ID
A FEC repair packet MUST contain a Repair FEC Payload ID that is
prepended to the repair symbol as illustrated in Figure 6. There can
be one or more repair symbol per FEC repair packet. When this is the
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 13]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
case, the number of repair symbols within this FEC repair packet is
easily deduced by comparing the known received FEC repair packet size
(equal to the UDP payload size when UDP is the underlying transport
protocol) and the symbol size, E, communicated in the FFCI.
+--------------------------------+
| IP Header |
+--------------------------------+
| Transport Header |
+--------------------------------+
| Repair FEC Payload ID |
+--------------------------------+
| Repair Symbol |
+--------------------------------+
Figure 6: Structure of an FEC Repair Packet with the Repair FEC
Payload ID
More precisely, the Repair FEC Payload ID is composed of the
following fields (Figure 7):
Repair_Key (16-bit field): this unsigned integer is used as a seed
by the coefficient generation function (Section 3.5) in order to
generate the desired number of coding coefficients. Value 0 MUST
NOT be used. When a FEC repair packet contains several repair
packets, this repair key value is that of the first repair symbol.
The remaining repair keys can be deduced by incrementing by 1 this
value, up to a maximum value of 65535 after which it loops back to
1.
Number of Source Symbols in the Encoding Window, NSS (16-bit field):
this unsigned integer indicates the number of source symbols in
the encoding window when this repair symbol was generated.
ESI of first source symbol in encoding window, FSS_ESI (32-bit
field):
this unsigned integer indicates the ESI of the first source symbol
in the encoding window when this repair symbol was generated.
0 1 2 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Repair_Key | NSS (# source symbols in ew) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| FSS_ESI |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Figure 7: Repair FEC Payload ID Encoding Format
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 14]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
4.1.4. Additional Procedures
The following procedure applies:
o The ESI of source symbols MUST start with value 0 for the first
source symbol and MUST be managed sequentially. Wrapping to zero
will happen after reaching the maximum 32-bit value.
5. FEC Code Specification
5.1. Encoding Side
This section provides a high level description of a Sliding Window
RLC encoder.
Whenever a new FEC repair packet is needed, the RLC encoder instance
first gathers the ew_size source symbols currently in the sliding
encoding window. Then it chooses a repair key, which can be a non
zero monotonically increasing integer value, incremented for each
repair symbol up to a maximum value of 65535 (as it is carried within
a 16-bit field) after which it loops back to 1 (indeed, being used as
a PRNG seed, value 0 is prohibited). This repair key is communicated
to the coefficient generation function (Section Section 3.5) in order
to generate ew_size coding coefficients. Finally, the FECFRAME
sender computes the repair symbol as a linear combination of the
ew_size source symbols using the ew_size coding coefficients. When E
is small and when there is an incentive to pack several repair
symbols within the same FEC Repair Packet, the appropriate number of
repair symbols are computed. The only constraint is to increment by
1 the repair key for each of them, keeping the same ew_size source
symbols, since only the first repair key will be carried in the
Repair FEC Payload ID. The FEC repair packet can then be sent. The
source versus repair FEC packet transmission order is out of scope of
this document and several approaches exist that are implementation
specific.
5.2. Decoding Side
This section provides a high level description of a Sliding Window
RLC decoder.
A FECFRAME receiver needs to maintain a linear system whose variables
are the received and lost source symbols. Upon receiving a FEC
repair packet, a receiver first extracts all the repair symbols it
contains (in case several repair symbols are packed together). For
each repair symbol, when at least one of the corresponding source
symbols it protects has been lost, the receiver adds an equation to
the linear system (or no equation if this repair packet does not
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 15]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
change the linear system rank). This equation of course re-uses the
ew_size coding coefficients that are computed by the same coefficient
generation function (Section Section 3.5), using the repair key and
encoding window descriptions carried in the Repair FEC Payload ID.
Whenever possible (i.e., when a sub-system covering one or more lost
source symbols is of full rank), decoding is performed in order to
recover lost source symbols. Each time an ADUI can be totally
recovered, it is assigned to the corresponding application flow
(thanks to the Flow ID (F) field of the ADUI) and padding (if any)
removed (thanks to the Length (L) field of the ADUI). This ADU is
finally passed to the corresponding upper application. Received FEC
source packets, containing an ADU, can be passed to the application
either immediately or after some time to guaranty an ordered delivery
to the application(s). This document does not mandate any approach
as this is an operational and management decision.
With real-time flows, a lost ADU that is decoded after the maximum
latency (or an ADU received far too late) should not be considered by
the application. Instead the associated source symbols should be
removed from the linear system maintained by the receiver(s).
Appendix A discusses a backward compatible optimization whereby those
late source symbols may still be useful to improve the global loss
recovery performance.
6. Implementation Status
Editor's notes: RFC Editor, please remove this section motivated by
RFC 6982 before publishing the RFC. Thanks.
An implementation of the Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme for FECFRAME
exists:
o Organisation: Inria
o Description: This is an implementation of the Sliding Window RLC
FEC Scheme. It relies on a modified version of our OpenFEC
(http://openfec.org) FEC code library. It is integrated in our
FECFRAME software (see [fecframe-ext]).
o Maturity: prototype.
o Coverage: this software complies with the Sliding Window RLC FEC
Scheme (limited to m=8 as of June, 2017).
o Lincensing: proprietary.
o Contact: vincent.roca@inria.fr
7. Security Considerations
The FEC Framework document [RFC6363] provides a comprehensive
analysis of security considerations applicable to FEC schemes.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 16]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
Therefore, the present section follows the security considerations
section of [RFC6363] and only discusses specific topics.
7.1. Attacks Against the Data Flow
7.1.1. Access to Confidential Content
The Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme specified in this document does not
change the recommendations of [RFC6363]. To summarize, if
confidentiality is a concern, it is RECOMMENDED that one of the
solutions mentioned in [RFC6363] is used with special considerations
to the way this solution is applied (e.g., is encryption applied
before or after FEC protection, within the end-system or in a
middlebox) to the operational constraints (e.g., performing FEC
decoding in a protected environment may be complicated or even
impossible) and to the threat model.
7.1.2. Content Corruption
The Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme specified in this document does not
change the recommendations of [RFC6363]. To summarize, it is
RECOMMENDED that one of the solutions mentioned in [RFC6363] is used
on both the FEC Source and Repair Packets.
7.2. Attacks Against the FEC Parameters
The FEC Scheme specified in this document defines parameters that can
be the basis of attacks. More specifically, the following parameters
of the FFCI may be modified by an attacker who only targets receivers
(Section 4.1.1.2):
o FEC Encoding ID: changing this parameter leads the receivers to
consider a different FEC Scheme, which enables an attacker to
create a Denial of Service (DoS);
o Encoding symbol length (E): setting this E parameter to a
different value will confuse the receivers and create a DoS. More
precisely, the FEC Repair Packets received will probably no longer
be multiple of E, leading receivers to reject them;
o m parameter: changing this parameter triggers a DoS since the
receivers will generate a different set of coding coefficients.
The recovered source symbols (and thereafter ADUs) will be
corrupted.
An attacker who only targets a sender will achieve the same results.
However if the attacker targets both sender and receivers at the same
time (the same wrong piece of information is communicated to
everybody), the results will be suboptimal but less severe.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 17]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
It is therefore RECOMMENDED that security measures are taken to
guarantee the FFCI integrity, as specified in [RFC6363]. How to
achieve this depends on the way the FFCI is communicated from the
sender to the receiver, which is not specified in this document.
Similarly, attacks are possible against the Explicit Source FEC
Payload ID and Repair FEC Payload ID: by modifying the Encoding
Symbol ID (ESI), or the repair key, NSS or FSS_ESI. It is therefore
RECOMMENDED that security measures are taken to guarantee the FEC
Source and Repair Packets as stated in [RFC6363].
7.3. When Several Source Flows are to be Protected Together
The Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme specified in this document does not
change the recommendations of [RFC6363].
7.4. Baseline Secure FEC Framework Operation
The Sliding Window RLC FEC Scheme specified in this document does not
change the recommendations of [RFC6363] concerning the use of the
IPsec/ESP security protocol as a mandatory to implement (but not
mandatory to use) security scheme. This is well suited to situations
where the only insecure domain is the one over which the FEC
Framework operates.
8. Operations and Management Considerations
The FEC Framework document [RFC6363] provides a comprehensive
analysis of operations and management considerations applicable to
FEC schemes. Therefore, the present section only discusses specific
topics.
8.1. Operational Recommendations: Finite Field Element Size (m
Parameter)
The present document requires that m equals 1 (binary case), 4 or 8.
It is expected that m = 8 will be mostly used since it warrants a
high loss protection. Additionally, elements in the finite field are
8 bits long, which makes read/write memory operations aligned on
bytes during encoding and decoding.
An alternative when one can accommodate a lower loss protection is
m = 4. Elements in the finite field are 4 bits long, so if 2
elements are accessed at a time, read/write memory operations are
aligned on bytes during encoding and decoding.
Finally, in particular when dealing with large encoding windows, an
alternative is m = 1. In that case operations symbols can be
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 18]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
directly XORed together which warrants high bitrate encoding and
decoding operations.
Since several values for the m parameter are possible, the use case
SHOULD define which value or values need to be supported. In any
case, any compliant implementation MUST support at least the default
m = 8 value.
9. IANA Considerations
This document registers one value in the "FEC Framework (FECFRAME)
FEC Encoding IDs" registry [RFC6363] as follows:
o XXX refers to the Sliding Window Random Linear Codes (RLC) FEC
Scheme for Arbitrary Packet Flows, as defined in Section XXX of
this document.
10. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Belkacem Teibi (Inria) who in
particular implemented the RLC codec. The author would also like to
thank Marie-Jose Montpetit for her valuable feedbacks on this
document.
11. References
11.1. Normative References
[fecframe-ext]
Roca, V. and A. Begen, "Forward Error Correction (FEC)
Framework Extension to Sliding Window Codes", Transport
Area Working Group (TSVWG) draft-roca-tsvwg-fecframev2
(Work in Progress), June 2017,
<https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-roca-tsvwg-fecframev2>.
[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>.
[RFC6363] Watson, M., Begen, A., and V. Roca, "Forward Error
Correction (FEC) Framework", RFC 6363,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6363, October 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6363>.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 19]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
[RFC6364] Begen, A., "Session Description Protocol Elements for the
Forward Error Correction (FEC) Framework", RFC 6364,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6364, October 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6364>.
11.2. Informative References
[CA90] Carta, D., "Two Fast Implementations of the Minimal
Standard Random Number Generator", Communications of the
ACM, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp.87-88, January 1990.
[PM88] Park, S. and K. Miller, "Random Number Generators: Good
Ones are Hard to Find", Communications of the ACM, Vol.
31, No. 10, pp.1192-1201, 1988.
[PTVF92] Press, W., Teukolsky, S., Vetterling, W., and B. Flannery,
"Numerical Recipies in C; Second Edition", Cambridge
University Press, ISBN: 0-521-43108-5, 1992.
[rand31pmc]
Whittle, R., "31 bit pseudo-random number generator",
September 2005, <http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/rand31/
rand31-park-miller-carta.cc.txt>.
[RFC5170] Roca, V., Neumann, C., and D. Furodet, "Low Density Parity
Check (LDPC) Staircase and Triangle Forward Error
Correction (FEC) Schemes", RFC 5170, DOI 10.17487/RFC5170,
June 2008, <http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5170>.
[RFC6726] Paila, T., Walsh, R., Luby, M., Roca, V., and R. Lehtonen,
"FLUTE - File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport",
RFC 6726, DOI 10.17487/RFC6726, November 2012,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6726>.
[RFC6816] Roca, V., Cunche, M., and J. Lacan, "Simple Low-Density
Parity Check (LDPC) Staircase Forward Error Correction
(FEC) Scheme for FECFRAME", RFC 6816,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6816, December 2012,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6816>.
[RFC6865] Roca, V., Cunche, M., Lacan, J., Bouabdallah, A., and K.
Matsuzono, "Simple Reed-Solomon Forward Error Correction
(FEC) Scheme for FECFRAME", RFC 6865,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6865, February 2013,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6865>.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 20]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
[Roca16] Roca, V., Teibi, B., Burdinat, C., Tran, T., and C.
Thienot, "Block or Convolutional AL-FEC Codes? A
Performance Comparison for Robust Low-Latency
Communications", Submitted for publication
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01395937/en/, November 2016, <
https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01395937/en/>.
[WI08] Whittle, R., "Park-Miller-Carta Pseudo-Random Number
Generator", http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/rand31/,
January 2008, <http://www.firstpr.com.au/dsp/rand31/>.
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 21]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
Appendix A. Decoding Beyond Maximum Latency Optimization
This annex introduces non normative considerations. They are
provided as suggestions, without any impact on interoperability. For
more information see [Roca16].
It is possible to improve the decoding performance of sliding window
codes without impacting maximum latency, at the cost of extra CPU
overhead. The optimization consists, for a receiver, to extend the
linear system beyond the decoding window:
ls_max_size > dw_max_size
Usually the following choice is a good trade-off between decoding
performance and extra CPU overhead:
ls_max_size = 2 * dw_max_size
ls_max_size
/---------------------------------^-------------------------------\
late source symbols
(pot. decoded but not delivered) dw_max_size
/--------------^-----------------\ /--------------^---------------\
src0 src1 src2 src3 src4 src5 src6 src7 src8 src9 src10 src11 src12
Figure 8: Relationship between parameters to decode beyond maximum
latency.
It means that source symbols (and therefore ADUs) may be decoded even
if their transport protocol added latency exceeds the maximum value
permitted by the application. It follows that these source symbols
SHOULD NOT be delivered to the application and SHOULD be dropped once
they are no longer needed. However, decoding these late symbols
significantly improves the global robustness in bad reception
conditions and is therefore recommended for receivers experiencing
bad channels[Roca16]. In any case whether or not to use this
facility and what exact value to use for the ls_max_size parameter
are decisions made by each receiver independently, without any impact
on others, neither the other receivers nor the source.
Author's Address
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 22]
Internet-Draft RLC FEC Scheme June 2017
Vincent Roca
INRIA
Grenoble
France
EMail: vincent.roca@inria.fr
Roca Expires December 29, 2017 [Page 23]
