Network Working Group R. Stewart Internet-Draft Cisco Systems, Inc. Expires: May 13, 2004 I. Arias-Rodriguez Nokia Research Center K. Poon Consultant A. Caro University of Delaware M. Tuexen Univ. of Applied Sciences Muenster November 13, 2003 Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) Implementer's Guide draft-ietf-tsvwg-sctpimpguide-10.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http:// www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt. The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. This Internet-Draft will expire on May 13, 2004. Copyright Notice Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. Abstract This document contains a compilation of all defects found up until the publishing of this document for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) RFC2960 [5]. These defects may be of an editorial or technical nature. This document may be thought of as a companion document to be used in the implementation of SCTP to clarify errors Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 1] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 in the original SCTP document. This document updates RFC2960 [5] and text within this document supersedes the text found in RFC2960 [5]. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.1 Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2. Corrections to RFC2960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1 Incorrect error type during chunk processing. . . . . . . 7 2.1.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.1.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2 Parameter processing issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2.2.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3 Padding issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 2.3.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4 Parameter types across all chunk types . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 2.4.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 2.5 Stream parameter clarification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.5.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.5.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.5.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2.6 Restarting association security issue . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.6.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.6.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2.6.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.7 Implicit ability to exceed cwnd by PMTU-1 bytes . . . . . 17 2.7.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.7.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.7.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.8 Issues with Fast Retransmit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.8.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.8.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.8.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.9 Missing statement about partial_bytes_acked update . . . . 21 2.9.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.9.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 2.9.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.10 Issues with Heartbeating and failure detection . . . . . . 23 2.10.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 2] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.10.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.10.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.11 Security interactions with firewalls . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.11.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.11.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 2.11.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.12 Shutdown ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.12.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.12.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 2.12.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.13 Inconsistency in ABORT processing . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.13.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.13.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.13.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2.14 Cwnd gated by its full use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.14.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.14.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2.14.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.15 Window probes in SCTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.15.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.15.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 2.15.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.16 Fragmentation and Path MTU issues . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.16.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.16.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 2.16.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.17 Initial value of the cumulative TSN Ack . . . . . . . . . 37 2.17.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.17.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 2.17.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.18 Handling of address parameters within the INIT or INIT-ACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.18.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.18.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 2.18.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2.19 Handling of stream shortages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2.19.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2.19.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 2.19.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.20 Indefinite postponement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.20.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.20.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 2.20.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.21 User initiated abort of an association . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.21.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.21.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 2.21.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.22 Handling of invalid Initiate Tag of INIT-ACK . . . . . . . 47 Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 3] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.22.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.22.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2.22.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.23 ABORT sending in response to an INIT . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.23.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.23.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.23.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 2.24 Stream Sequence Number (SSN) Initialization . . . . . . . 49 2.24.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.24.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.24.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.25 SACK packet format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.25.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.25.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2.25.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.26 Protocol Violation Error Cause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.26.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.26.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.26.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.27 Reporting of Unrecognized Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.27.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.27.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 2.27.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 2.28 Handling of IP Address Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 2.28.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 2.28.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 2.28.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 2.29 Handling of COOKIE ECHO chunks when a TCB exists . . . . 55 2.29.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 2.29.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 2.29.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.30 The Initial Congestion Window Size . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.30.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.30.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.30.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 2.31 Stream Sequence Numbers in Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2.31.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2.31.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 2.31.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 2.32 Unrecognized Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 2.32.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 2.32.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 2.32.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 2.33 Handling of unrecognized parameters . . . . . . . . . . . 63 2.33.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 2.33.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 2.33.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 2.34 Tie Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 4] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.34.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 2.34.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 2.34.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 2.35 Port number verification in the COOKIE-ECHO . . . . . . . 66 2.35.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 2.35.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 2.35.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.36 Path Initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.36.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.36.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 2.36.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 2.37 ICMP handling procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.37.1 Description of the problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.37.2 Text changes to the document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 2.37.3 Solution description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 3. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements . . . . . . 75 Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 5] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 1. Introduction This document contains a compilation of all defects found up until the publishing of this document for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) RFC2960 [5]. These defects may be of an editorial or technical nature. This document may be thought of as a companion document to be used in the implementation of SCTP to clarify errors in the original SCTP document. This document updates RFC2960 and text within this document, where noted, supersedes the text found in RFC2960 [5]. Each error will be detailed within this document in the form of: o The problem description, o The text quoted from RFC2960 [5], o The replacement text, o A description of the solution. 1.1 Conventions The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD, SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, NOT RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [2]. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 6] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2. Corrections to RFC2960 2.1 Incorrect error type during chunk processing. 2.1.1 Description of the problem A typo was discovered in RFC2960 [5] that incorrectly specifies an action to be taken when processing chunks of unknown identity. 2.1.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.2) --------- 01 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). --------- New text: (Section 3.2) --------- 01 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it, and report the unrecognized chunk in an 'Unrecognized Chunk Type'. 2.1.3 Solution description The receiver of an unrecognized Chunk should not send a 'parameter' error but instead the appropriate chunk error as described above. 2.2 Parameter processing issue 2.2.1 Description of the problem A typographical error was introduced through an improper cut and paste in the use of the upper two bits to describe proper handling of unknown parameters. 2.2.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 7] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 00 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it. 01 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). --------- New text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- 00 - Stop processing this SCTP chunk and discard it, do not process any further parameters within this chunk. 01 - Stop processing this SCTP chunk and discard it, do not process any further parameters within this chunk, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). 2.2.3 Solution description It was always the intent to stop processing at the level one was at in an unknown chunk or parameter with the upper bit set to 0. Thus if you are processing a chunk, you should drop the packet. If you are processing a parameter, you should drop the chunk. 2.3 Padding issues 2.3.1 Description of the problem A problem was found in that when a Chunk terminated in a TLV parameter. If this last TLV was not on a 32 bit boundary (as required), there was confusion as to if the last padding was included in the chunk length. 2.3.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.2) --------- Chunk Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) This value represents the size of the chunk in bytes including the Chunk Type, Chunk Flags, Chunk Length, and Chunk Value fields. Therefore, if the Chunk Value field is zero-length, the Length Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 8] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 field will be set to 4. The Chunk Length field does not count any padding. Chunk Value: variable length The Chunk Value field contains the actual information to be transferred in the chunk. The usage and format of this field is dependent on the Chunk Type. The total length of a chunk (including Type, Length and Value fields) MUST be a multiple of 4 bytes. If the length of the chunk is not a multiple of 4 bytes, the sender MUST pad the chunk with all zero bytes and this padding is not included in the chunk length field. The sender should never pad with more than 3 bytes. The receiver MUST ignore the padding bytes. --------- New text: (Section 3.2) --------- Chunk Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) This value represents the size of the chunk in bytes including the Chunk Type, Chunk Flags, Chunk Length, and Chunk Value fields. Therefore, if the Chunk Value field is zero-length, the Length field will be set to 4. The Chunk Length field does not count any chunk padding. Chunks (including Type, Length and Value fields) are padded out by the sender with all zero bytes to be a multiple of 4 bytes long. This padding MUST NOT be more than 3 bytes in total. The Chunk Length value does not include terminating padding of the Chunk. However, it does include padding of any variable length parameter except the last parameter in the Chunk. The receiver MUST ignore the padding. Note: A robust implementation should accept the Chunk whether or not the final padding has been included in the Chunk Length. Chunk Value: variable length The Chunk Value field contains the actual information to be transferred in the chunk. The usage and format of this field is dependent on the Chunk Type. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 9] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.3.3 Solution description The above text makes clear that the padding of the last parameter is not included in the Chunk Length field. It also clarifies that the padding of parameters that are not the last one must be counted in the Chunk Length field. 2.4 Parameter types across all chunk types 2.4.1 Description of the problem A problem was noted when multiple errors are needed to be sent regarding unknown or unrecognized parameters. Since often times the error type does not hold the chunk type field, it may become difficult to tell which error was associated with which chunk. 2.4.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- The actual SCTP parameters are defined in the specific SCTP chunk sections. The rules for IETF-defined parameter extensions are defined in Section 13.2. --------- New text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- The actual SCTP parameters are defined in the specific SCTP chunk sections. The rules for IETF-defined parameter extensions are defined in Section 13.2. Note that a parameter type MUST be unique across all chunks. For example, the parameter type '5' is used to represent an IPv4 address (see section 3.3.2). The value '5' then is reserved across all chunks to represent an IPv4 address and MUST NOT be reused with a different meaning in any other chunk. --------- Old text: (Section 13.2) --------- 13.2 IETF-defined Chunk Parameter Extension The assignment of new chunk parameter type codes is done through an IETF Consensus action as defined in [RFC2434]. Documentation of the chunk parameter MUST contain the following information: Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 10] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 a) Name of the parameter type. b) Detailed description of the structure of the parameter field. This structure MUST conform to the general type-length-value format described in Section 3.2.1. c) Detailed definition of each component of the parameter type. d) Detailed description of the intended use of this parameter type, and an indication of whether and under what circumstances multiple instances of this parameter type may be found within the same chunk. --------- New text: (Section 13.2) --------- 13.2 IETF-defined Chunk Parameter Extension The assignment of new chunk parameter type codes is done through an IETF Consensus action as defined in [RFC2434]. Documentation of the chunk parameter MUST contain the following information: a) Name of the parameter type. b) Detailed description of the structure of the parameter field. This structure MUST conform to the general type-length-value format described in Section 3.2.1. c) Detailed definition of each component of the parameter type. d) Detailed description of the intended use of this parameter type, and an indication of whether and under what circumstances multiple instances of this parameter type may be found within the same chunk. e) Each parameter type MUST be unique across all chunks. 2.4.3 Solution description By having all parameters unique across all chunk assignments (the current assignment policy) no ambiguity exists as to what a parameter means based on context. The trade off for this is a smaller parameter space i.e. 65,536 parameters versus 65,536 * Number-of-chunks. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 11] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.5 Stream parameter clarification 2.5.1 Description of the problem A problem was found where the specification is unclear on the legality of an endpoint asking for more stream resources than were allowed in the MIS value of the INIT. In particular the value in the INIT ACK requested in its OS value was larger than the MIS value received in the INIT chunk. This behavior is illegal yet it was unspecified in RFC2960 [5] 2.5.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Number of Outbound Streams (OS): 16 bits (unsigned integer) Defines the number of outbound streams the sender of this INIT ACK chunk wishes to create in this association. The value of 0 MUST NOT be used. Note: A receiver of an INIT ACK with the OS value set to 0 SHOULD destroy the association discarding its TCB. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Number of Outbound Streams (OS): 16 bits (unsigned integer) Defines the number of outbound streams the sender of this INIT ACK chunk wishes to create in this association. The value of 0 MUST NOT be used and the value MUST NOT be greater than the MIS value sent in the INIT chunk. Note: A receiver of an INIT ACK with the OS value set to 0 SHOULD destroy the association discarding its TCB. 2.5.3 Solution description The change in wording, above, changes it so that a responder to an INIT chunk does not specify more streams in its OS value than was represented to it in the MIS value i.e. its maximum. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 12] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.6 Restarting association security issue 2.6.1 Description of the problem A security problem was found when a restart occurs. It is possible for an intruder to send an INIT to an endpoint of an existing association. In the INIT the intruder would list one or more of the current addresses of an association and its own. The normal restart procedures would then occur and the intruder would have hi-jacked an association. 2.6.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.10 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 13] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down 11 Restart of an association with new addresses Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.11 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Note no old text, new error cause added in section 3.3.10) --------- 3.3.10.11 Restart of an association with new addresses (11) Cause of error -------------- Restart of an association with new addresses: An INIT was received on an existing association. But the INIT added addresses to the association that were previously NOT part of the association. The New addresses are listed in the error code. This ERROR is normally sent as part of an ABORT refusing the INIT (see section 5.2). +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Cause Code=11 | Cause Length=Variable | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / New Address TLVs / \\ \\ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 14] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.1) --------- Upon receipt of an INIT in the COOKIE-WAIT or COOKIE-ECHOED state, an endpoint MUST respond with an INIT ACK using the same parameters it sent in its original INIT chunk (including its Initiation Tag, unchanged). These original parameters are combined with those from the newly received INIT chunk. The endpoint shall also generate a State Cookie with the INIT ACK. The endpoint uses the parameters sent in its INIT to calculate the State Cookie. --------- New text: (Section 5.2.1) --------- Upon receipt of an INIT in the COOKIE-WAIT state, an endpoint MUST respond with an INIT ACK using the same parameters it sent in its original INIT chunk (including its Initiation Tag, unchanged). When responding the endpoint MUST send the INIT ACK back to the same address that the original INIT (sent by this endpoint) was sent to. Upon receipt of an INIT in the COOKIE-ECHOED state, an endpoint MUST respond with an INIT ACK using the same parameters it sent in its original INIT chunk (including its Initiation Tag, unchanged) provided that no NEW address have been added to the forming association. If the INIT message indicates that a new address(es) have been added to the association, then the entire INIT MUST be discarded and NO changes should be made to the existing association. An ABORT MUST be sent in response that SHOULD include the error 'Restart of an association with new addresses'. The error SHOULD list the addresses that were added to the restarting association. When responding in either state (COOKIE-WAIT or COOKIE-ECHOED) with an INIT ACK the original parameters are combined with those from the newly received INIT chunk. The endpoint shall also generate a State Cookie with the INIT ACK. The endpoint uses the parameters sent in its INIT to calculate the State Cookie. --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.2) --------- 5.2.2 Unexpected INIT in States Other than CLOSED, COOKIE-ECHOED, COOKIE-WAIT and SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT Unless otherwise stated, upon reception of an unexpected INIT for this association, the endpoint shall generate an INIT ACK with a Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 15] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 State Cookie. In the outbound INIT ACK the endpoint MUST copy its current Verification Tag and peer's Verification Tag into a reserved place within the state cookie. We shall refer to these locations as the Peer's-Tie-Tag and the Local-Tie-Tag. The outbound SCTP packet containing this INIT ACK MUST carry a Verification Tag value equal to the Initiation Tag found in the unexpected INIT. And the INIT ACK MUST contain a new Initiation Tag (randomly generated see Section 5.3.1). Other parameters for the endpoint SHOULD be copied from the existing parameters of the association (e.g. number of outbound streams) into the INIT ACK and cookie. After sending out the INIT ACK, the endpoint shall take no further actions, i.e., the existing association, including its current state, and the corresponding TCB MUST NOT be changed. Note: Only when a TCB exists and the association is not in a COOKIE- WAIT state are the Tie-Tags populated. For a normal association INIT (i.e. the endpoint is in a COOKIE-WAIT state), the Tie-Tags MUST be set to 0 (indicating that no previous TCB existed). The INIT ACK and State Cookie are populated as specified in section 5.2.1. --------- New text: (Section 5.2.2) --------- 5.2.2 Unexpected INIT in States Other than CLOSED, COOKIE-ECHOED, COOKIE-WAIT and SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT Unless otherwise stated, upon reception of an unexpected INIT for this association, the endpoint shall generate an INIT ACK with a State Cookie. Before responding the endpoint MUST check to see if the unexpected INIT adds new addresses to the association. If new addresses are added to the association, the endpoint MUST respond with an ABORT copying the 'Initiation Tag' of the unexpected INIT into the 'Verification Tag' of the outbound packet carrying the ABORT. In the ABORT response the cause of error SHOULD be set to 'restart of an association with new addresses'. The error SHOULD list the addresses that were added to the restarting association. If no new addresses are added, when responding to the INIT in the outbound INIT ACK the endpoint MUST copy its current Verification Tag and peer's Verification Tag into a reserved place within the state cookie. We shall refer to these locations as the Peer's-Tie-Tag and the Local-Tie-Tag. The outbound SCTP packet containing this INIT ACK MUST carry a Verification Tag value equal to the Initiation Tag found in the unexpected INIT. And the INIT ACK MUST contain a new Initiation Tag (randomly generated see Section 5.3.1). Other parameters for the endpoint SHOULD be copied from the existing Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 16] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 parameters of the association (e.g. number of outbound streams) into the INIT ACK and cookie. After sending out the INIT ACK or ABORT, the endpoint shall take no further actions, i.e., the existing association, including its current state, and the corresponding TCB MUST NOT be changed. Note: Only when a TCB exists and the association is not in a COOKIE- WAIT or SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT state are the Tie-Tags populated with a value other than 0. For a normal association INIT (i.e. the endpoint is in the CLOSED state), the Tie-Tags MUST be set to 0 (indicating that no previous TCB existed). 2.6.3 Solution description A new error code is being added and specific instructions to send back an ABORT to a new association in a restart case or collision case, where new addresses have been added. The error code can be used by a legitimate restart to inform the endpoint that it has made a software error in adding a new address. The endpoint then can choose to wait until the OOTB ABORT tears down the old association, or restart without the new address. Also the Note at the end of section 5.2.2 explaining the use of the Tie-Tags was modified to properly explain the states in which the Tie-Tags should be set to a value different than 0. 2.7 Implicit ability to exceed cwnd by PMTU-1 bytes 2.7.1 Description of the problem Some implementations were having difficulty growing their cwnd. This was due to an improper enforcement of the congestion control rules. The rules, as written, provided for a slop over of the cwnd value. Without this slop over the sender would appear to NOT be using its full cwnd value and thus never increase it. 2.7.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.1) --------- B) At any given time, the sender MUST NOT transmit new data to a given transport address if it has cwnd or more bytes of data outstanding to that transport address. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 17] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- New text: (Section 6.1) --------- B) At any given time, the sender MUST NOT transmit new data to a given transport address if it has cwnd or more bytes of data outstanding to that transport address. The sender may exceed cwnd by up to (PMTU-1) bytes on a new transmission if the cwnd is not currently exceeded. 2.7.3 Solution description The text changes make clear the ability to go over the cwnd value by no more than (PMTU-1) bytes. 2.8 Issues with Fast Retransmit 2.8.1 Description of the problem Several problems were found in the current specification of fast retransmit. The current wording did not require GAP ACK blocks to be sent, even though they are essential to the workings of SCTP's congestion control. The specification left unclear how to handle the fast retransmit cycle, having the implementation to wait on the cwnd to retransmit a TSN that was marked for fast retransmit. No limit was placed on how many times a TSN could be fast retransmitted. Fast Recovery was not specified, causing the congestion window to be reduced drastically when there are multiple losses in a single RTT. 2.8.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.2) --------- Acknowledgments MUST be sent in SACK chunks unless shutdown was requested by the ULP in which case an endpoint MAY send an acknowledgment in the SHUTDOWN chunk. A SACK chunk can acknowledge the reception of multiple DATA chunks. See Section 3.3.4 for SACK chunk format. In particular, the SCTP endpoint MUST fill in the Cumulative TSN Ack field to indicate the latest sequential TSN (of a valid DATA chunk) it has received. Any received DATA chunks with TSN greater than the value in the Cumulative TSN Ack field SHOULD also be reported in the Gap Ack Block fields. --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 18] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 New text: (Section 6.2) --------- Acknowledgments MUST be sent in SACK chunks unless shutdown was requested by the ULP in which case an endpoint MAY send an acknowledgment in the SHUTDOWN chunk. A SACK chunk can acknowledge the reception of multiple DATA chunks. See Section 3.3.4 for SACK chunk format. In particular, the SCTP endpoint MUST fill in the Cumulative TSN Ack field to indicate the latest sequential TSN (of a valid DATA chunk) it has received. Any received DATA chunks with TSN greater than the value in the Cumulative TSN Ack field are reported in the Gap Ack Block fields. The SCTP endpoint MUST report as many Gap Ack Blocks that can fit in a single SACK chunk limited by the current path MTU. --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.4) --------- Whenever an endpoint receives a SACK that indicates some TSN(s) missing, it SHOULD wait for 3 further miss indications (via subsequent SACK's) on the same TSN(s) before taking action with regard to Fast Retransmit. When the TSN(s) is reported as missing in the fourth consecutive SACK, the data sender shall: 1) Mark the missing DATA chunk(s) for retransmission, 2) Adjust the ssthresh and cwnd of the destination address(es) to which the missing DATA chunks were last sent, according to the formula described in Section 7.2.3. 3) Determine how many of the earliest (i.e., lowest TSN) DATA chunks marked for retransmission will fit into a single packet, subject to constraint of the path MTU of the destination transport address to which the packet is being sent. Call this value K. Retransmit those K DATA chunks in a single packet. 4) Restart T3-rtx timer only if the last SACK acknowledged the lowest outstanding TSN number sent to that address, or the endpoint is retransmitting the first outstanding DATA chunk sent to that address. Note: Before the above adjustments, if the received SACK also acknowledges new DATA chunks and advances the Cumulative TSN Ack Point, the cwnd adjustment rules defined in Sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 must be applied first. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 19] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 A straightforward implementation of the above keeps a counter for each TSN hole reported by a SACK. The counter increments for each consecutive SACK reporting the TSN hole. After reaching 4 and starting the fast retransmit procedure, the counter resets to 0. Because cwnd in SCTP indirectly bounds the number of outstanding TSN's, the effect of TCP fast-recovery is achieved automatically with no adjustment to the congestion control window size. --------- New text: (Section 7.2.4) --------- Whenever an endpoint receives a SACK that indicates some TSN(s) missing, it SHOULD wait for 3 further miss indications (via subsequent SACK's) on the same TSN(s) before taking action with regard to Fast Retransmit. Miss indications SHOULD follow the HTNA (Highest TSN Newly Acknowledged) algorithm. For each incoming SACK, miss indications are incremented only for missing TSNs prior to the highest TSN newly acknowledged in the SACK. A newly acknowledged DATA chunk is one not previously acknowledged in a SACK. If an endpoint is in Fast Recovery and a SACK arrives that advances the Cumulative TSN Ack Point, the miss indications are incremented for all TSNs reported missing in the SACK. When the fourth consecutive miss indication is recieved for a TSN(s), the data sender shall: 1) Mark the DATA chunk(s) with four miss indications for retransmission. 2) If not in Fast Recovery, adjust the ssthresh and cwnd of the destination address(es) to which the missing DATA chunks were last sent, according to the formula described in Section 7.2.3. 3) Determine how many of the earliest (i.e., lowest TSN) DATA chunks marked for retransmission will fit into a single packet, subject to constraint of the path MTU of the destination transport address to which the packet is being sent. Call this value K. Retransmit those K DATA chunks in a single packet. When a Fast Retransmit is being performed the sender SHOULD ignore the value of cwnd and SHOULD NOT delay retransmission for this single packet. 4) Restart T3-rtx timer only if the last SACK acknowledged the lowest outstanding TSN number sent to that address, or the endpoint is retransmitting the first outstanding DATA chunk sent to that address. 5) Mark the DATA chunk(s) as being fast retransmitted and thus Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 20] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 ineligible for a subsequent fast retransmit. Those TSNs marked for retransmission due to the Fast Retransmit algorithm that did not fit in the sent datagram carrying K other TSNs are also marked as ineligible for a subsequent fast retransmit. However, as they are marked for retransmission they will be retransmitted later on as soon as cwnd allows. 6) If not in Fast Recovery, enter Fast Recovery and mark the highest outstanding TSN as the Fast Recovery exit point. When a SACK acknowledges all TSNs up to and including this exit point, Fast Recovery is exited. While in Fast Recovery, the ssthresh and cwnd SHOULD NOT change for any destinations. Note: Before the above adjustments, if the received SACK also acknowledges new DATA chunks and advances the Cumulative TSN Ack Point, the cwnd adjustment rules defined in Sections 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 must be applied first. 2.8.3 Solution description The effect of the above wording changes are as follows: o It requires with a MUST the sending of GAP Ack blocks instead of the current RFC2960 [5] SHOULD. o It allows a TSN being Fast Retransmitted (FR) to be sent only once via FR. o It ends the delay in awaiting for the flight size to drop when a TSN is identified ready to FR. o It changes the way chunks are marked during fast retransmit, so that only new reports are counted. o It introduces a Fast Recovery period to avoid multiple congestion window reductions when there are multiple losses in a single RTT (as shown by Caro et al. [3]). These changes will effectively allow SCTP to follow a similar model as TCP+SACK in the handling of Fast Retransmit. 2.9 Missing statement about partial_bytes_acked update 2.9.1 Description of the problem SCTP uses four control variables to regulate its transmission rate: Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 21] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 rwnd, cwnd, ssthresh and partial_bytes_acked. Upon detection of packet losses from SACK or when the T3-rtx timer expires on an address cwnd and ssthresh should be updated as stated in section 7.2.3. However, that section should also clarify that partial_bytes_acked must be updated as well, having to be reset to 0. 2.9.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.3) --------- 7.2.3 Congestion Control Upon detection of packet losses from SACK (see Section 7.2.4), An endpoint should do the following: ssthresh = max(cwnd/2, 2*MTU) cwnd = ssthresh Basically, a packet loss causes cwnd to be cut in half. When the T3-rtx timer expires on an address, SCTP should perform slow start by: ssthresh = max(cwnd/2, 2*MTU) cwnd = 1*MTU --------- New text: (Section 7.2.3) --------- 7.2.3 Congestion Control Upon detection of packet losses from SACK (see Section 7.2.4), an endpoint should do the following if not in Fast Recovery: ssthresh = max(cwnd/2, 2*MTU) cwnd = ssthresh partial_bytes_acked = 0 Basically, a packet loss causes cwnd to be cut in half. When the T3-rtx timer expires on an address, SCTP should perform slow start by: ssthresh = max(cwnd/2, 2*MTU) cwnd = 1*MTU Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 22] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 partial_bytes_acked = 0 2.9.3 Solution description The missing text added solves the doubts about what to do with partial_bytes_acked in the situations stated in section 7.2.3, making clear that along with ssthresh and cwnd, partial_bytes_acked should also be updated, having to be reset to 0. 2.10 Issues with Heartbeating and failure detection 2.10.1 Description of the problem Five basic problems have been discovered with the current heartbeat procedures: o The current specification does not specify that you should count a failed heartbeat as an error against the overall association. o The current specification is un-specific as to when you start sending heartbeats and when you should stop. o The current specification is un-specific as to when you should respond to heartbeats. o When responding to a Heartbeat it is unclear what to do if more than a single TLV is present. o The jitter applied to a heartbeat was meant to be a small variance of the RTO and is currently a wide variance due to the default delay time and incorrect wording within the RFC. 2.10.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 8.1) --------- 8.1 Endpoint Failure Detection An endpoint shall keep a counter on the total number of consecutive retransmissions to its peer (including retransmissions to all the destination transport addresses of the peer if it is multi-homed). If the value of this counter exceeds the limit indicated in the protocol parameter 'Association.Max.Retrans', the endpoint shall consider the peer endpoint unreachable and shall stop transmitting Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 23] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 any more data to it (and thus the association enters the CLOSED state). In addition, the endpoint shall report the failure to the upper layer, and optionally report back all outstanding user data remaining in its outbound queue. The association is automatically closed when the peer endpoint becomes unreachable. The counter shall be reset each time a DATA chunk sent to that peer endpoint is acknowledged (by the reception of a SACK), or a HEARTBEAT-ACK is received from the peer endpoint. --------- New text: (Section 8.1) --------- 8.1 Endpoint Failure Detection An endpoint shall keep a counter on the total number of consecutive retransmissions to its peer (this includes retransmissions to all the destination transport addresses of the peer if it is multi-homed), including unacknowledged HEARTBEAT Chunks. If the value of this counter exceeds the limit indicated in the protocol parameter 'Association.Max.Retrans', the endpoint shall consider the peer endpoint unreachable and shall stop transmitting any more data to it (and thus the association enters the CLOSED state). In addition, the endpoint shall report the failure to the upper layer, and optionally report back all outstanding user data remaining in its outbound queue. The association is automatically closed when the peer endpoint becomes unreachable. The counter shall be reset each time a DATA chunk sent to that peer endpoint is acknowledged (by the reception of a SACK), or a HEARTBEAT-ACK is received from the peer endpoint. --------- Old text: (Section 8.3) --------- 8.3 Path Heartbeat By default, an SCTP endpoint shall monitor the reachability of the idle destination transport address(es) of its peer by sending a HEARTBEAT chunk periodically to the destination transport address(es). --------- New text: (Section 8.3) --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 24] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 8.3 Path Heartbeat By default, an SCTP endpoint shall monitor the reachability of the idle destination transport address(es) of its peer by sending a HEARTBEAT chunk periodically to the destination transport address(es). HEARTBEAT sending MAY begin upon reaching the ESTABLISHED state, and is discontinued after sending either SHUTDOWN or SHUTDOWN-ACK. A receiver of a HEARTBEAT MUST respond to a HEARTBEAT with a HEARTBEAT-ACK after entering the COOKIE-ECHOED state (INIT sender) or the ESTABLISHED state (INIT receiver), up until reaching the SHUTDOWN-SENT state (SHUTDOWN sender) or the SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT state (SHUTDOWN receiver). --------- Old text: (Section 8.3) --------- The receiver of the HEARTBEAT should immediately respond with a HEARTBEAT ACK that contains the Heartbeat Information field copied from the received HEARTBEAT chunk. --------- New text: (Section 8.3) --------- The receiver of the HEARTBEAT should immediately respond with a HEARTBEAT ACK that contains the Heartbeat Information TLV, together with any other received TLVs, copied unchanged from the received HEARTBEAT chunk. --------- Old text: (Section 8.3) --------- On an idle destination address that is allowed to heartbeat, a HEARTBEAT chunk is RECOMMENDED to be sent once per RTO of that destination address plus the protocol parameter 'HB.interval' , with jittering of +/- 50%, and exponential back-off of the RTO if the previous HEARTBEAT is unanswered. --------- New text: (Section 8.3) --------- On an idle destination address that is allowed to heartbeat, a HEARTBEAT chunk is RECOMMENDED to be sent once per RTO of that destination address plus the protocol parameter 'HB.interval' , with Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 25] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 jittering of +/- 50% of the RTO value, and exponential back-off of the RTO if the previous HEARTBEAT is unanswered. 2.10.3 Solution description The above text provides guidance as to how to respond to the five issues mentioned in Section 2.10.1 In particular the wording changes provide guidance as to when to start and stop heartbeating, how to respond to a heartbeat with extra parameters, and clarifies the error counting procedures for the association. 2.11 Security interactions with firewalls 2.11.1 Description of the problem When dealing with firewalls it is advantageous to the firewall to be able to properly determine the initial startup sequence of a reliable transport protocol. With this in mind the following text is to be added to SCTP's security section. 2.11.2 Text changes to the document --------- New text: (no old text, new section added) --------- 11.4 SCTP interactions with firewalls It is helpful for some firewalls if they can inspect just the first fragment of a fragmented SCTP packet and unambiguously determine whether it corresponds to an INIT chunk (for further information please refer to RFC1858). Accordingly, we stress the requirements stated in 3.1 that (1) an INIT chunk MUST NOT be bundled with any other chunk in a packet, and (2) a packet containing an INIT chunk MUST have a zero Verification Tag. Furthermore, we require that the receiver of an INIT chunk MUST enforce these rules by silently discarding an arriving packet with an INIT chunk that is bundled with other chunks. --------- Old text: (Section 18) --------- 18. Bibliography [ALLMAN99] Allman, M. and Paxson, V., "On Estimating End-to-End Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 26] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 Network Path Properties", Proc. SIGCOMM'99, 1999. [FALL96] Fall, K. and Floyd, S., Simulation-based Comparisons of Tahoe, Reno, and SACK TCP, Computer Communications Review, V. 26 N. 3, July 1996, pp. 5-21. [RFC1750] Eastlake, D. (ed.), "Randomness Recommendations for Security", RFC 1750, December 1994. [RFC1950] Deutsch P. and J. Gailly, "ZLIB Compressed Data Format Specification version 3.3", RFC 1950, May 1996. [RFC2104] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M. and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed- Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104, March 1997. [RFC2196] Fraser, B., "Site Security Handbook", FYI 8, RFC 2196, September 1997. [RFC2522] Karn, P. and W. Simpson, "Photuris: Session-Key Management Protocol", RFC 2522, March 1999. [SAVAGE99] Savage, S., Cardwell, N., Wetherall, D., and Anderson, T., "TCP Congestion Control with a Misbehaving Receiver", ACM Computer Communication Review, 29(5), October 1999. --------- New text: (Section 18) --------- 18. References [ALLMAN99] Allman, M. and Paxson, V., "On Estimating End-to-End Network Path Properties", Proc. SIGCOMM'99, 1999. [FALL96] Fall, K. and Floyd, S., Simulation-based Comparisons of Tahoe, Reno, and SACK TCP, Computer Communications Review, V. 26 N. 3, July 1996, pp. 5-21. [RFC1750] Eastlake, D. (ed.), "Randomness Recommendations for Security", RFC 1750, December 1994. [RFC1858] Ziemba, G., Reed, D. and Traina P., "Security Considerations for IP Fragment Filtering", RFC 1858, October 1995. [RFC1950] Deutsch P. and J. Gailly, "ZLIB Compressed Data Format Specification version 3.3", RFC 1950, May 1996. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 27] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 [RFC2104] Krawczyk, H., Bellare, M. and R. Canetti, "HMAC: Keyed- Hashing for Message Authentication", RFC 2104, March 1997. [RFC2196] Fraser, B., "Site Security Handbook", FYI 8, RFC 2196, September 1997. [RFC2522] Karn, P. and W. Simpson, "Photuris: Session-Key Management Protocol", RFC 2522, March 1999. [SAVAGE99] Savage, S., Cardwell, N., Wetherall, D., and Anderson, T., "TCP Congestion Control with a Misbehaving Receiver", ACM Computer Communication Review, 29(5), October 1999. 2.11.3 Solution description The above text adding a new subsection to the Security Considerations section of RFC2960 [5] makes clear that, to make easier the interaction with firewalls, an INIT chunk must not be bundled in any case with any other chunk, being this rule enforced by the packet receiver, that will silently discard the packets that do not follow this rule. 2.12 Shutdown ambiguity 2.12.1 Description of the problem Currently there is an ambiguity between the statements in section 6.2 and section 9.2. Section 6.2 allows the sending of a SHUTDOWN chunk in place of a SACK when the sender is in the process of shutting down, while section 9.2 requires both a SHUTDOWN chunk and a SACK chunk to be sent. Along with this ambiguity there is a problem where in an errant SHUTDOWN receiver may fail to stop accepting user data. 2.12.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 9.2) --------- If there are still outstanding DATA chunks left, the SHUTDOWN receiver shall continue to follow normal data transmission procedures defined in Section 6 until all outstanding DATA chunks are acknowledged; however, the SHUTDOWN receiver MUST NOT accept new data from its SCTP user. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 28] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 While in SHUTDOWN-SENT state, the SHUTDOWN sender MUST immediately respond to each received packet containing one or more DATA chunk(s) with a SACK, a SHUTDOWN chunk, and restart the T2-shutdown timer. If it has no more outstanding DATA chunks, the SHUTDOWN receiver shall send a SHUTDOWN ACK and start a T2-shutdown timer of its own, entering the SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT state. If the timer expires, the endpoint must re-send the SHUTDOWN ACK. --------- New text: (Section 9.2) --------- If there are still outstanding DATA chunks left, the SHUTDOWN receiver shall continue to follow normal data transmission procedures defined in Section 6 until all outstanding DATA chunks are acknowledged; however, the SHUTDOWN receiver MUST NOT accept new data from its SCTP user. While in SHUTDOWN-SENT state, the SHUTDOWN sender MUST immediately respond to each received packet containing one or more DATA chunk(s) with a SHUTDOWN chunk, and restart the T2-shutdown timer. If a SHUTDOWN chunk by itself cannot acknowledge all of the received DATA chunks (i.e. there are TSN's that can be acknowledged that are larger than the cumulative TSN and thus gaps exist in the TSN sequence) or if duplicate TSN's have been recieved then a SACK chunk MUST also be sent. The sender of the SHUTDOWN MAY also start an overall guard timer 'T5-shutdown-guard' to bound the overall time for shutdown sequence. At the expiration of this timer the sender SHOULD abort the association by sending an ABORT chunk. If the 'T5-shutdown-guard' timer is used, it SHOULD be set to the recommended value of 5 times 'RTO.Max'. If the receiver of the SHUTDOWN has no more outstanding DATA chunks, the SHUTDOWN receiver shall send a SHUTDOWN ACK and start a T2-shutdown timer of its own, entering the SHUTDOWN-ACK-SENT state. If the timer expires, the endpoint must re-send the SHUTDOWN ACK. 2.12.3 Solution description The above text clarifies the use of a SACK in conjunction with a SHUTDOWN chunk. It also adds a guard timer to the SCTP shutdown sequence to protect against errant receivers of SHUTDOWN chunks. 2.13 Inconsistency in ABORT processing Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 29] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.13.1 Description of the problem It was noted that the wording in section 8.5.1 did not give proper directions in the use of the 'T bit' with the verification tags. 2.13.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 8.5.1) --------- B) Rules for packet carrying ABORT: - The endpoint shall always fill in the Verification Tag field of the outbound packet with the destination endpoint's tag value if it is known. - If the ABORT is sent in response to an OOTB packet, the endpoint MUST follow the procedure described in Section 8.4. - The receiver MUST accept the packet if the Verification Tag matches either its own tag, OR the tag of its peer. Otherwise, the receiver MUST silently discard the packet and take no further action. --------- New text: (Section 8.5.1) --------- B) Rules for packet carrying ABORT: - The endpoint shall always fill in the Verification Tag field of the outbound packet with the destination endpoint's tag value if it is known. - If the ABORT is sent in response to an OOTB packet, the endpoint MUST follow the procedure described in Section 8.4. - The receiver of a ABORT shall accept the packet if the Verification Tag field of the packet matches its own tag OR it is set to its peer's tag and the T bit is set in the Chunk Flags. Otherwise, the receiver MUST silently discard the packet and take no further action. 2.13.3 Solution description The above text change clarifies that the T bit must be set before an Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 30] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 implementation looks for the peers tag. 2.14 Cwnd gated by its full use 2.14.1 Description of the problem A problem was found with the current specification of the growth and decay of cwnd. The cwnd should only be increased if it is being fully utilized, and after periods of under utilization, the cwnd should be decreased. In some sections, the current wording is weak and is not clearly defined. Also, the current specification unnecessarily introduces the need for special case code to ensure cwnd degradation. Plus, the cwnd should not be increased during Fast Recovery since a full cwnd during Fast Recovery does not qualify the cwnd as being fully utilized. Additionally, multiple loss scenarios in a single window may cause the cwnd to grow more rapidly as the number of losses in a window increases [3]. 2.14.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.1) --------- D) Then, the sender can send out as many new DATA chunks as Rule A and Rule B above allow. --------- New text: (Section 6.1) --------- D) When the time comes for the sender to transmit new DATA chunks, the protocol parameter Max.Burst MUST first be applied to limit how many new DATA chunks may be sent. The limit is applied by adjusting cwnd as follows: if((flightsize + Max.Burst*MTU) < cwnd) cwnd = flightsize + Max.Burst*MTU E) Then, the sender can send out as many new DATA chunks as Rule A and Rule B above allow. --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o When cwnd is less than or equal to ssthresh an SCTP endpoint MUST Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 31] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 use the slow start algorithm to increase cwnd (assuming the current congestion window is being fully utilized). If an incoming SACK advances the Cumulative TSN Ack Point, cwnd MUST be increased by at most the lesser of 1) the total size of the previously outstanding DATA chunk(s) acknowledged, and 2) the destination's path MTU. This protects against the ACK-Splitting attack outlined in [SAVAGE99]. --------- New text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o When cwnd is less than or equal to ssthresh an SCTP endpoint MUST use the slow start algorithm to increase cwnd only if the current congestion window is being fully utilized, an incoming SACK advances the Cumulative TSN Ack Point, and the data sender is not in Fast Recovery. Only when these three conditions are met can the cwnd be increased otherwise the cwnd MUST not be increased. If these conditions are met then cwnd MUST be increased by at most the lesser of 1) the total size of the previously outstanding DATA chunk(s) acknowledged, and 2) the destination's path MTU. This protects against the ACK-Splitting attack outlined in [SAVAGE99]. --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o When the endpoint does not transmit data on a given transport address, the cwnd of the transport address should be adjusted to max(cwnd/2, 2*MTU) per RTO. --------- New text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o When the association does not transmit data on a given transport address within an RTO, the cwnd of the transport address SHOULD be adjusted to 2*MTU. --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.2) --------- o Same as in the slow start, when the sender does not transmit DATA on a given transport address, the cwnd of the transport address should be adjusted to max(cwnd / 2, 2*MTU) per RTO. --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 32] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 New text: (Section 7.2.2) --------- o Same as in the slow start, when the sender does not transmit DATA on a given transport address within an RTO, the cwnd of the transport address should be adjusted to 2*MTU. --------- Old text: (Section 14) --------- 14. Suggested SCTP Protocol Parameter Values The following protocol parameters are RECOMMENDED: RTO.Initial - 3 seconds RTO.Min - 1 second RTO.Max - 60 seconds RTO.Alpha - 1/8 RTO.Beta - 1/4 Valid.Cookie.Life - 60 seconds Association.Max.Retrans - 10 attempts Path.Max.Retrans - 5 attempts (per destination address) Max.Init.Retransmits - 8 attempts HB.interval - 30 seconds --------- New text: (Section 14) --------- 14. Suggested SCTP Protocol Parameter Values The following protocol parameters are RECOMMENDED: RTO.Initial - 3 seconds RTO.Min - 1 second RTO.Max - 60 seconds Max.Burst - 4 RTO.Alpha - 1/8 RTO.Beta - 1/4 Valid.Cookie.Life - 60 seconds Association.Max.Retrans - 10 attempts Path.Max.Retrans - 5 attempts (per destination address) Max.Init.Retransmits - 8 attempts HB.Interval - 30 seconds Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 33] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.14.3 Solution description The above changes strengthens the rules and makes it much more apparent as to the need to block cwnd growth when the full cwnd is not being utilized. The changes also applies cwnd degradation without introducing the need for complex special case code. 2.15 Window probes in SCTP 2.15.1 Description of the problem When a receiver clamps its rwnd to 0 to flow control the peer, the specification implies that one must continue to accept data from the remote peer. This is incorrect and needs clarification. 2.15.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.2) --------- The SCTP endpoint MUST always acknowledge the reception of each valid DATA chunk. --------- New text: (Section 6.2) --------- The SCTP endpoint MUST always acknowledge the reception of each valid DATA chunk when the DATA chunk received is inside its receive window. When the receiver's advertised window is 0, the receiver MUST drop all new incoming DATA chunk and immediately send back a SACK with the current receive window showing only DATA chunks received and accepted so far. The dropped DATA chunk MUST NOT be included in the SACK as they were not accepted. The receiver MUST also have an algorithm for advertising its receive window to avoid receiver silly window syndrome (SWS) as described in RFC 813. The algorithm can be similar to the one described in Section 4.2.3.3 of RFC 1122. Because of receiver SWS avoidance, even when the receiver's internal buffer is not full anymore, as long as the advertised window is still 0, the receiver MUST still drop all new incoming DATA chunk. --------- Old text: (Section 6.1) --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 34] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 A) At any given time, the data sender MUST NOT transmit new data to any destination transport address if its peer's rwnd indicates that the peer has no buffer space (i.e. rwnd is 0, see Section 6.2.1). However, regardless of the value of rwnd (including if it is 0), the data sender can always have one DATA chunk in flight to the receiver if allowed by cwnd (see rule B below). This rule allows the sender to probe for a change in rwnd that the sender missed due to the SACK having been lost in transit from the data receiver to the data sender. --------- New text: (Section 6.1) --------- A) At any given time, the data sender MUST NOT transmit new data to any destination transport address if its peer's rwnd indicates that the peer has no buffer space (i.e. rwnd is 0, see Section 6.2.1). However, regardless of the value of rwnd (including if it is 0), the data sender can always have one DATA chunk in flight to the receiver if allowed by cwnd (see rule B below). This rule allows the sender to probe for a change in rwnd that the sender missed due to the SACK having been lost in transit from the data receiver to the data sender. When the receiver's advertised window is zero, this probe is called a zero window probe. Note that zero window probe SHOULD only be sent when all outstanding DATA chunks have been cumulatively acknowledged and no DATA chunk(s) are in flight. Zero window probing MUST be supported. When a sender is doing zero window probing, it should not time out the association if it continues to receive new packets from the receiver. The reason is that the receiver MAY keep its window closed for an indefinite time. Refer to Section 6.2 on the receiver behavior when it advertises a zero window. The sender SHOULD send the first zero window probe after 1 RTO when it detects that the receiver has closed its window, and SHOULD increase the probe interval exponentially afterwards. Also note that the cwnd SHOULD be adjusted according to Section 7.2.1. Zero window probing does not affect the calculation of cwnd. The sender MUST also have algorithm in sending new DATA chunks to avoid silly window syndrome (SWS) as described in RFC 813. The algorithm can be similar to the one described in Section 4.2.3.4 of RFC 1122. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 35] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.15.3 Solution description The above allows a receiver to drop new data that arrives and yet still requires the receiver to send a SACK showing the conditions unchanged (with the possible exception of a new a_rwnd) and the dropped chunk as missing. This will allow the association to continue until the rwnd condition clears. 2.16 Fragmentation and Path MTU issues 2.16.1 Description of the problem The current wording of the Fragmentation and Reassembly forces an implementation that supports fragmentation to always fragment. This prohibits an implementation from offering its users an option to disable sends that exceed the SCTP fragmentation point. The restriction in RFC2960 [5] section 6.9 was never meant to restrict an implementations API from this behavior. 2.16.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.1) --------- 6.9 Fragmentation and Reassembly An endpoint MAY support fragmentation when sending DATA chunks, but MUST support reassembly when receiving DATA chunks. If an endpoint supports fragmentation, it MUST fragment a user message if the size of the user message to be sent causes the outbound SCTP packet size to exceed the current MTU. If an implementation does not support fragmentation of outbound user messages, the endpoint must return an error to its upper layer and not attempt to send the user message. IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: In this error case, the Send primitive discussed in Section 10.1 would need to return an error to the upper layer. --------- New text: (Section 6.1) --------- 6.9 Fragmentation and Reassembly An endpoint MAY support fragmentation when sending DATA chunks, but Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 36] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 MUST support reassembly when receiving DATA chunks. If an endpoint supports fragmentation, it MUST fragment a user message if the size of the user message to be sent causes the outbound SCTP packet size to exceed the current MTU. If an implementation does not support fragmentation of outbound user messages, the endpoint must return an error to its upper layer and not attempt to send the user message. Note: If an implementation that supports fragmentation makes available to its upper layer a mechanism to turn off fragmentation it may do so. However in so doing, it MUST react just like an implementation that does NOT support fragmentation i.e. it MUST reject sends that exceed the current P-MTU. IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: In this error case, the Send primitive discussed in Section 10.1 would need to return an error to the upper layer. 2.16.3 Solution description The above wording will allow an implementation to offer the option of rejecting sends that exceed the P-MTU size even when the implementation supports fragmentation. 2.17 Initial value of the cumulative TSN Ack 2.17.1 Description of the problem The current description of the SACK chunk within the RFC does not clearly state the value that would be put within a SACK when no DATA chunk has been received. 2.17.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.4) --------- Cumulative TSN Ack: 32 bits (unsigned integer) This parameter contains the TSN of the last DATA chunk received in sequence before a gap. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.4) --------- Cumulative TSN Ack: 32 bits (unsigned integer) Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 37] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 This parameter contains the TSN of the last DATA chunk received in sequence before a gap. In the case where no DATA chunk has been received, this value is set to the peers Initial TSN minus one. 2.17.3 Solution description This change clearly states what the initial value will be for a SACK sender. 2.18 Handling of address parameters within the INIT or INIT-ACK 2.18.1 Description of the problem The current description on handling address parameters contained within the INIT and INIT-ACK do not fully describe a requirement for their handling. 2.18.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 5.1.2) --------- C) If there are only IPv4/IPv6 addresses present in the received INIT or INIT ACK chunk, the receiver shall derive and record all the transport address(es) from the received chunk AND the source IP address that sent the INIT or INIT ACK. The transport address(es) are derived by the combination of SCTP source port (from the common header) and the IP address parameter(s) carried in the INIT or INIT ACK chunk and the source IP address of the IP datagram. The receiver should use only these transport addresses as destination transport addresses when sending subsequent packets to its peer. --------- New text: (Section 5.1.2) --------- C) If there are only IPv4/IPv6 addresses present in the received INIT or INIT ACK chunk, the receiver shall derive and record all the transport address(es) from the received chunk AND the source IP address that sent the INIT or INIT ACK. The transport address(es) are derived by the combination of SCTP source port (from the common header) and the IP address parameter(s) carried in the INIT or INIT ACK chunk and the source IP address of the IP datagram. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 38] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 The receiver should use only these transport addresses as destination transport addresses when sending subsequent packets to its peer. D) An INIT or INIT ACK chunk MUST be treated as belonging to an already established association (or one in the process of being established) if the use of any of the valid address parameters contained within the chunk would identify an existing TCB. 2.18.3 Solution description This new text clearly specifies to an implementor the need to look within the INIT or INIT ACK. Any implementation that does not do this, may for example not be able to recognize an INIT chunk coming from an already established association that adds new addresses (see section 2.6), or an incoming INIT ACK chunk sent from a source address different to the destination address used to send the INIT chunk. 2.19 Handling of stream shortages 2.19.1 Description of the problem The current wording in the RFC places the choice of sending an ABORT upon the SCTP stack when a stream shortage occurs. This decision should really be made by the upper layer not the SCTP stack. 2.19.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: --------- 5.1.1 Handle Stream Parameters In the INIT and INIT ACK chunks, the sender of the chunk shall indicate the number of outbound streams (OS) it wishes to have in the association, as well as the maximum inbound streams (MIS) it will accept from the other endpoint. After receiving the stream configuration information from the other side, each endpoint shall perform the following check: If the peer's MIS is less than the endpoint's OS, meaning that the peer is incapable of supporting all the outbound streams the endpoint wants Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 39] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 to configure, the endpoint MUST either use MIS outbound streams, or abort the association and report to its upper layer the resources shortage at its peer. --------- New text: (Section 5.1.2) --------- 5.1.1 Handle Stream Parameters In the INIT and INIT ACK chunks, the sender of the chunk shall indicate the number of outbound streams (OS) it wishes to have in the association, as well as the maximum inbound streams (MIS) it will accept from the other endpoint. After receiving the stream configuration information from the other side, each endpoint shall perform the following check: If the peer's MIS is less than the endpoint's OS, meaning that the peer is incapable of supporting all the outbound streams the endpoint wants to configure, the endpoint MUST use MIS outbound streams and MAY report any shortage to the upper layer. The upper layer can then choose to abort the association if the resource shortage is unacceptable. 2.19.3 Solution description The above changes take the decision to ABORT out of the realm of the SCTP stack and places it into the users hands. 2.20 Indefinite postponement 2.20.1 Description of the problem The current RFC does not provide any guidance on the assignment of TSN sequence numbers to outbound message nor reception of these message. This could lead to a possible indefinite postponement. 2.20.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.1) --------- Note: The data sender SHOULD NOT use a TSN that is more than 2**31 - 1 above the beginning TSN of the current send window. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 40] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 6.2 Acknowledgment on Reception of DATA Chunks --------- New text: (Section 6.1) --------- Note: The data sender SHOULD NOT use a TSN that is more than 2**31 - 1 above the beginning TSN of the current send window. The algorithm by which an implementation assigns sequential TSNs to messages on a particular association MUST ensure that no user message that has been accepted by SCTP is indefinitely postponed from being assigned a TSN. Acceptable algorithms for assigning TSNs include (a) assigning TSNs in round-robin order over all streams with pending data (b) preserving the linear order in which the user messages were submitted to the SCTP association. When an upper layer requests to read data on an SCTP association, the SCTP receiver SHOULD choose the message with the lowest TSN from among all deliverable messages. In SCTP implementations that allow a user to request data on a specific stream, this operation SHOULD NOT block if data is not available, since this can lead to a deadlock under certain conditions. 6.2 Acknowledgment on Reception of DATA Chunks 2.20.3 Solution description The above wording clarifies how TSNs SHOULD be assigned by the sender. 2.21 User initiated abort of an association 2.21.1 Description of the problem It is not possible for an upper layer to abort the association and provide the peer with an indication why the association is aborted. 2.21.2 Text changes to the document Some of the changes given here already include changes suggested in section Section 2.6 of this document. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 41] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.10 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 42] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 11 Restart of an association with new addresses 12 User Initiated Abort Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.12 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Note no old text, new error added in section 3.3.10) --------- 3.3.10.12 User Initiated Abort (12) Cause of error -------------- This error cause MAY be included in ABORT chunks which are send because of an upper layer request. The upper layer can specify an Upper Layer Abort Reason which is transported by SCTP transparently and MAY be delivered to the upper layer protocol at the peer. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Cause Code=12 | Cause Length=Variable | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / Upper Layer Abort Reason / \\ \\ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ --------- Old text: (Section 9.1) --------- 9.1 Abort of an Association When an endpoint decides to abort an existing association, it shall send an ABORT chunk to its peer endpoint. The sender MUST fill in the peer's Verification Tag in the outbound packet and MUST NOT bundle any DATA chunk with the ABORT. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 43] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 An endpoint MUST NOT respond to any received packet that contains an ABORT chunk (also see Section 8.4). An endpoint receiving an ABORT shall apply the special Verification Tag check rules described in Section 8.5.1. After checking the Verification Tag, the receiving endpoint shall remove the association from its record, and shall report the termination to its upper layer. --------- New text: (Section 9.1) --------- 9.1 Abort of an Association When an endpoint decides to abort an existing association, it shall send an ABORT chunk to its peer endpoint. The sender MUST fill in the peer's Verification Tag in the outbound packet and MUST NOT bundle any DATA chunk with the ABORT. If the association is aborted on request of the upper layer an User Initiated Abort error cause (see 3.3.10.12) SHOULD be present in the ABORT chunk. An endpoint MUST NOT respond to any received packet that contains an ABORT chunk (also see Section 8.4). An endpoint receiving an ABORT shall apply the special Verification Tag check rules described in Section 8.5.1. After checking the Verification Tag, the receiving endpoint shall remove the association from its record, and shall report the termination to its upper layer. If an User Initiated Abort error cause is present in the ABORT chunk the Upper Layer Abort Reason shall be made available to the upper layer. --------- Old text: (Section 10.1) --------- D) Abort Format: ABORT(association id [, cause code]) -> result Ungracefully closes an association. Any locally queued user data will be discarded and an ABORT chunk is sent to the peer. A success code will be returned on successful abortion of the association. If attempting to abort the association results in a failure, an error Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 44] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 code shall be returned. Mandatory attributes: o association id - local handle to the SCTP association Optional attributes: o cause code - reason of the abort to be passed to the peer. --------- New text: (Section 10.1) --------- D) Abort Format: ABORT(association id [, Upper Layer Abort Reason]) -> result Ungracefully closes an association. Any locally queued user data will be discarded and an ABORT chunk is sent to the peer. A success code will be returned on successful abortion of the association. If attempting to abort the association results in a failure, an error code shall be returned. Mandatory attributes: o association id - local handle to the SCTP association Optional attributes: o Upper Layer Abort Reason - reason of the abort to be passed to the peer. None. --------- Old text: (Section 10.2) --------- E) COMMUNICATION LOST notification When SCTP loses communication to an endpoint completely (e.g., via Heartbeats) or detects that the endpoint has performed an abort operation, it shall invoke this notification on the ULP. The following shall be passed with the notification: Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 45] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 o association id - local handle to the SCTP association o status - This indicates what type of event has occurred; The status may indicate a failure OR a normal termination event occurred in response to a shutdown or abort request. The following may be passed with the notification: o data retrieval id - an identification used to retrieve unsent and unacknowledged data. o last-acked - the TSN last acked by that peer endpoint; o last-sent - the TSN last sent to that peer endpoint; --------- New text: (Section 10.2) --------- E) COMMUNICATION LOST notification When SCTP loses communication to an endpoint completely (e.g., via Heartbeats) or detects that the endpoint has performed an abort operation, it shall invoke this notification on the ULP. The following shall be passed with the notification: o association id - local handle to the SCTP association o status - This indicates what type of event has occurred; The status may indicate a failure OR a normal termination event occurred in response to a shutdown or abort request. The following may be passed with the notification: o data retrieval id - an identification used to retrieve unsent and unacknowledged data. o last-acked - the TSN last acked by that peer endpoint; o last-sent - the TSN last sent to that peer endpoint; o Upper Layer Abort Reason - the abort reason specified if case of an user initiated abort. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 46] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.21.3 Solution description The above allows an upper layer to provide its peer with an indication why the association was aborted. Therefore an addition error cause was introduced. 2.22 Handling of invalid Initiate Tag of INIT-ACK 2.22.1 Description of the problem RFC 2960 requires that the receiver of an INIT-ACK with the Initiate Tag set to zero handles this as an error and sends back an ABORT. But the sender of the INIT-ACK normally has no TCB and so the ABORT is useless. 2.22.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Initiate Tag: 32 bits (unsigned integer) The receiver of the INIT ACK records the value of the Initiate Tag parameter. This value MUST be placed into the Verification Tag field of every SCTP packet that the INIT ACK receiver transmits within this association. The Initiate Tag MUST NOT take the value 0. See Section 5.3.1 for more on the selection of the Initiate Tag value. If the value of the Initiate Tag in a received INIT ACK chunk is found to be 0, the receiver MUST treat it as an error and close the association by transmitting an ABORT. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Initiate Tag: 32 bits (unsigned integer) The receiver of the INIT ACK records the value of the Initiate Tag parameter. This value MUST be placed into the Verification Tag field of every SCTP packet that the INIT ACK receiver transmits within this association. The Initiate Tag MUST NOT take the value 0. See Section 5.3.1 for more on the selection of the Initiate Tag value. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 47] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 If the value of the Initiate Tag in a received INIT ACK chunk is found to be 0, the receiver MUST destroy the association discarding its TCB. The receiver MAY send an ABORT for debugging purpose. 2.22.3 Solution description The new text does not require the receiver of the invalid INIT-ACK to send the ABORT. This behavior is in tune with the error case of invalid stream numbers in the INIT-ACK. However it is allowed to send an ABORT for debugging purposes. 2.23 ABORT sending in response to an INIT 2.23.1 Description of the problem Whenever the receiver of an INIT chunk has to send an ABORT chunk in response for whatever reason it is not stated clearly which Verification Tag and value of the T-bit should be used. 2.23.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 8.4) --------- 3) If the packet contains an INIT chunk with a Verification Tag set to '0', process it as described in Section 5.1. Otherwise, --------- New text: (Section 8.4) --------- 3) If the packet contains an INIT chunk with a Verification Tag set to '0', process it as described in Section 5.1. If, for whatever reason, the INIT can not be processed normally and an ABORT has to be sent in response, the Verification Tag of the packet containing the ABORT chunk MUST be the Initiate tag of the received INIT chunk and the T-Bit of the ABORT chunk has to be set to 0 indicating that a TCB was destroyed. Otherwise, 2.23.3 Solution description The new text stated clearly which value of the Verification Tag and Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 48] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 T-bit have to be used. 2.24 Stream Sequence Number (SSN) Initialization 2.24.1 Description of the problem RFC 2960 does not describe the fact that the SSN have to be initialized to 0 in the way it is required by RFC2119. 2.24.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 6.5) --------- The stream sequence number in all the streams shall start from 0 when the association is established. Also, when the stream sequence number reaches the value 65535 the next stream sequence number shall be set to 0. --------- New text: (Section 6.5) --------- The stream sequence number in all the streams MUST start from 0 when the association is established. Also, when the stream sequence number reaches the value 65535 the next stream sequence number MUST be set to 0. 2.24.3 Solution description The 'shall' in the text is replaced by a 'MUST' to clearly state the required behavior. 2.25 SACK packet format 2.25.1 Description of the problem It is not clear in RFC 2960 whether a SACK must contain the fields Number of Gap Ack Blocks and Number of Duplicate TSNs or not. 2.25.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.4) Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 49] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- The SACK MUST contain the Cumulative TSN Ack and Advertised Receiver Window Credit (a_rwnd) parameters. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.4) --------- The SACK MUST contain the Cumulative TSN Ack, Advertised Receiver Window Credit (a_rwnd), Number of Gap Ack Blocks, and Number of Duplicate TSNs fields. 2.25.3 Solution description The text has been modified. It is now clear that a SACK always contains the fields Number of Gap Ack Blocks and Number of Duplicate TSNs. 2.26 Protocol Violation Error Cause 2.26.1 Description of the problem There are many situations a SCTP endpoints detects that the peer violates the protocol. Therefore the association has to be aborted. Currently there are only some error causes which could be used to indicate the reason of the abort but these do not cover all cases. 2.26.2 Text changes to the document Some of the changes given here already include changes suggested in section Section 2.6 and Section 2.21 of this document. --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 50] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.10 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.10) --------- Cause Code Value Cause Code --------- ---------------- 1 Invalid Stream Identifier 2 Missing Mandatory Parameter 3 Stale Cookie Error 4 Out of Resource 5 Unresolvable Address 6 Unrecognized Chunk Type 7 Invalid Mandatory Parameter 8 Unrecognized Parameters 9 No User Data 10 Cookie Received While Shutting Down 11 Restart of an association with new addresses 12 User Initiated Abort 13 Protocol Violation Cause Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Set to the size of the parameter in bytes, including the Cause Code, Cause Length, and Cause-Specific Information fields Cause-specific Information: variable length Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 51] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 This field carries the details of the error condition. Sections 3.3.10.1 - 3.3.10.13 define error causes for SCTP. Guidelines for the IETF to define new error cause values are discussed in Section 13.3. --------- New text: (Note no old text, new error added in section 3.3.10) --------- 3.3.10.13 Protocol Violation (13) Cause of error -------------- This error cause MAY be included in ABORT chunks which are send because a SCTP endpoint detects a protocol violation of the peer which is not covered by the error causes described in 3.3.10.1 to 3.3.10.12. An implementation MAY provide Additional Information specifying what kind of protocol violation has been detected. +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Cause Code=13 | Cause Length=Variable | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / Additional Information / \\ \\ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 2.26.3 Solution description An additional error cause which can be used by an endpoint to indicate a protocol violation of the peer has been defined. 2.27 Reporting of Unrecognized Parameters 2.27.1 Description of the problem It is not stated clearly in RFC2960 [5] how unrecognized parameters should be reported. Unrecognized parameters in an INIT chunk could be reported in the INIT-ACK chunk or in a separate ERROR chunk which can get lost. Unrecognized parameters in an INIT-ACK chunk have to be reported in an ERROR-chunk. This can be bundled with the COOKIE-ERROR chunk or sent separately. If it is sent separately and received before the COOKIE-ECHO it will be handled as an OOTB packet resulting in sending out an ABORT chunk. Therefore the association would not be Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 52] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 established. 2.27.2 Text changes to the document Some of the changes given here already include changes suggested in section Section 2.2 of this document. --------- Old text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- 00 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it. 01 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). 10 - Skip this parameter and continue processing. 11 - Skip this parameter and continue processing but report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). --------- New text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- 00 - Stop processing this SCTP chunk and discard it, do not process any further parameters within this chunk. 01 - Stop processing this SCTP chunk and discard it, do not process any further parameters within this chunk, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' as described in 3.2.2. 10 - Skip this parameter and continue processing. 11 - Skip this parameter and continue processing but report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' as described in 3.2.2. --------- New text: (Note no old text, clarification added in section 3.2) --------- Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 53] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 3.2.2 Reporting of Unrecognized Parameters If the receiver of an INIT chunk detects unrecognized parameters and has to report them according to section 3.2.1 it MUST put the 'Unrecognized Parameter' parameter(s) in the INIT-ACK chunk sent in response to the INIT-chunk. Note that if the receiver of the INIT chunk is NOT going to establish an association (e.g. due to lack of resources) then no report would be sent back. If the receiver of an INIT-ACK chunk detects unrecognized parameters and has to report them according to section 3.2.1 it SHOULD bundle the ERROR chunk containing the 'Unrecognized Parameters' error cause with the COOKIE-ECHO chunk sent in response to the INIT-ACK chunk. If the receiver of the INIT-ACK can not bundle the COOKIE-ECHO chunk with the ERROR chunk the ERROR chunk MAY be sent separately but not before the COOKIE-ACK has been received. Note: Any time a COOKIE-ECHO is sent in a packet it MUST be the first chunk. 2.27.3 Solution description The procedure of reporting unrecognized parameters has been described clearly. 2.28 Handling of IP Address Parameters 2.28.1 Description of the problem It is not stated clearly in RFC2960 [5] how a SCTP endpoint which supports either IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses should respond if IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are presented by the peer in the INIT or INIT-ACK chunk. 2.28.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 5.1.2) --------- IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: In the case that the receiver of an INIT ACK fails to resolve the address parameter due to an unsupported type, it can abort the initiation process and then attempt a re-initiation by using a 'Supported Address Types' parameter in the new INIT to indicate what types of address it prefers. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 54] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- New text: (Section 5.1.2) --------- IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: In the case that the receiver of an INIT ACK fails to resolve the address parameter due to an unsupported type, it can abort the initiation process and then attempt a re-initiation by using a 'Supported Address Types' parameter in the new INIT to indicate what types of address it prefers. IMPLEMENTATION NOTE: If a SCTP endpoint only supporting either IPv4 or IPv6 receives IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in an INIT or INIT-ACK chunk from its peer it MUST use all of the addresses belonging to the supported address family. The other addresses MAY be ignored. The endpoint SHOULD NOT respond with any kind of error indication. 2.28.3 Solution description The procedure of handling IP address parameters has been described clearly. 2.29 Handling of COOKIE ECHO chunks when a TCB exists 2.29.1 Description of the problem The description of be behavior in RFC2960 [5] when a COOKIE ECHO chunk and a TCB exists could be misunderstood. When a COOKIE ECHO is received, a TCB exist and the local and peer's tag match it is stated that the endpoint should enter the ESTABLISHED state if it has not already done so and send a COOKIE ACK. It was not clear that in case the endpoint has already left again the ESTABLISHED state then it should not go back to established. In case D the endpoint can only enter state ESTABLISHED from COOKIE-ECHOED because in state CLOSED it has no TCB and in state COOKIE-WAIT it has a TCB but knows nothing about the peer's tag which is requested to match in this case. 2.29.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.4) --------- D) When both local and remote tags match the endpoint should always enter the ESTABLISHED state, if it has not already done so. It should stop any init or cookie timers that may be running and send a COOKIE ACK. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 55] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- New text: (Section 5.2.4) --------- D) When both local and remote tags match the endpoint should enter the ESTABLISHED state, if it is in the COOKIE-ECHOED state. It should stop any cookie timer that may be running and send a COOKIE ACK. 2.29.3 Solution description The procedure of handling of COOKIE-ECHO chunks when a TCB exists has been described clearly. 2.30 The Initial Congestion Window Size 2.30.1 Description of the problem RFC2960 was published with the intention of having the same congestion control properties as TCP. Since the publication of RFC2960, TCP's initial congestion window size as been increased via RFC3390. This same update will be needed for SCTP to keep SCTP's congestion control properties equivilant to that of TCP. 2.30.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o The initial cwnd before DATA transmission or after a sufficiently long idle period MUST be <= 2*MTU. --------- New text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- o The initial cwnd before DATA transmission or after a sufficiently long idle period MUST be set to min (4*MTU, max (2*MTU, 4380 bytes)). 2.30.3 Solution description The change to SCTP's initial congestion window will allow it to Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 56] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 continue to maintain the same congestion control properties as TCP. 2.31 Stream Sequence Numbers in Figures 2.31.1 Description of the problem In Section 2.24 of this document it is clarified that the SSN are initialized with 0. Two figures in RFC2960 [5] illustrate that they start with 1. 2.31.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- Endpoint A Endpoint Z {app sets association with Z} (build TCB) INIT [I-Tag=Tag_A & other info] --------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-WAIT state) \---> (compose temp TCB and Cookie_Z) /--- INIT ACK [Veri Tag=Tag_A, / I-Tag=Tag_Z, (Cancel T1-init timer) <------/ Cookie_Z, & other info] (destroy temp TCB) COOKIE ECHO [Cookie_Z] ------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-ECHOED state) \---> (build TCB enter ESTABLISHED state) /---- COOKIE-ACK / (Cancel T1-init timer, <-----/ Enter ESTABLISHED state) {app sends 1st user data; strm 0} DATA [TSN=initial TSN_A Strm=0,Seq=1 & user data]--\ (Start T3-rtx timer) \ \-> /----- SACK [TSN Ack=init TSN_A,Block=0] (Cancel T3-rtx timer) <------/ Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 57] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 ... {app sends 2 messages;strm 0} /---- DATA / [TSN=init TSN_Z <--/ Strm=0,Seq=1 & user data 1] SACK [TSN Ack=init TSN_Z, /---- DATA Block=0] --------\ / [TSN=init TSN_Z +1, \/ Strm=0,Seq=2 & user data 2] <------/\ \ \------> Figure 4: INITiation Example --------- New text: (Section 7.2.1) --------- Endpoint A Endpoint Z {app sets association with Z} (build TCB) INIT [I-Tag=Tag_A & other info] --------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-WAIT state) \---> (compose temp TCB and Cookie_Z) /--- INIT ACK [Veri Tag=Tag_A, / I-Tag=Tag_Z, (Cancel T1-init timer) <------/ Cookie_Z, & other info] (destroy temp TCB) COOKIE ECHO [Cookie_Z] ------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-ECHOED state) \---> (build TCB enter ESTABLISHED state) /---- COOKIE-ACK / (Cancel T1-init timer, <-----/ Enter ESTABLISHED state) {app sends 1st user data; strm 0} DATA [TSN=initial TSN_A Strm=0,Seq=0 & user data]--\ (Start T3-rtx timer) \ \-> /----- SACK [TSN Ack=init Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 58] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 TSN_A,Block=0] (Cancel T3-rtx timer) <------/ ... {app sends 2 messages;strm 0} /---- DATA / [TSN=init TSN_Z <--/ Strm=0,Seq=0 & user data 1] SACK [TSN Ack=init TSN_Z, /---- DATA Block=0] --------\ / [TSN=init TSN_Z +1, \/ Strm=0,Seq=1 & user data 2] <------/\ \ \------> Figure 4: INITiation Example --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.4.1) --------- Endpoint A Endpoint Z <-------------- Association is established----------------------> Tag=Tag_A Tag=Tag_Z <---------------------------------------------------------------> {A crashes and restarts} {app sets up a association with Z} (build TCB) INIT [I-Tag=Tag_A' & other info] --------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-WAIT state) \---> (find a existing TCB compose temp TCB and Cookie_Z with Tie-Tags to previous association) /--- INIT ACK [Veri Tag=Tag_A', / I-Tag=Tag_Z', (Cancel T1-init timer) <------/ Cookie_Z[TieTags= Tag_A,Tag_Z & other info] (destroy temp TCB,leave original in place) COOKIE ECHO [Veri=Tag_Z', Cookie_Z Tie=Tag_A, Tag_Z]----------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 59] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 (Enter COOKIE-ECHOED state) \---> (Find existing association, Tie-Tags match old tags, Tags do not match i.e. case X X M M above, Announce Restart to ULP and reset association). /---- COOKIE-ACK / (Cancel T1-init timer, <-----/ Enter ESTABLISHED state) {app sends 1st user data; strm 0} DATA [TSN=initial TSN_A Strm=0,Seq=1 & user data]--\ (Start T3-rtx timer) \ \-> /----- SACK [TSN Ack=init TSN_A,Block=0] (Cancel T3-rtx timer) <------/ Figure 5: A Restart Example --------- New text: (Section 5.2.4.1) --------- Endpoint A Endpoint Z <-------------- Association is established----------------------> Tag=Tag_A Tag=Tag_Z <---------------------------------------------------------------> {A crashes and restarts} {app sets up a association with Z} (build TCB) INIT [I-Tag=Tag_A' & other info] --------\ (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-WAIT state) \---> (find a existing TCB compose temp TCB and Cookie_Z with Tie-Tags to previous association) /--- INIT ACK [Veri Tag=Tag_A', / I-Tag=Tag_Z', (Cancel T1-init timer) <------/ Cookie_Z[TieTags= Tag_A,Tag_Z & other info] (destroy temp TCB,leave original in place) COOKIE ECHO [Veri=Tag_Z', Cookie_Z Tie=Tag_A, Tag_Z]----------\ Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 60] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 (Start T1-init timer) \ (Enter COOKIE-ECHOED state) \---> (Find existing association, Tie-Tags match old tags, Tags do not match i.e. case X X M M above, Announce Restart to ULP and reset association). /---- COOKIE-ACK / (Cancel T1-init timer, <-----/ Enter ESTABLISHED state) {app sends 1st user data; strm 0} DATA [TSN=initial TSN_A Strm=0,Seq=0 & user data]--\ (Start T3-rtx timer) \ \-> /----- SACK [TSN Ack=init TSN_A,Block=0] (Cancel T3-rtx timer) <------/ Figure 5: A Restart Example 2.31.3 Solution description Figure 4 and figure 5 were changed such that the SSN start with 0 instead of 1. 2.32 Unrecognized Parameters 2.32.1 Description of the problem The RFC does not state clearly in section 3.3.3.1 if one or multiple unrecognized parameters are included in the 'Unrecognized Parameter' parameter. 2.32.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Variable Parameters Status Type Value ------------------------------------------------------------- State Cookie Mandatory 7 IPv4 Address (Note 1) Optional 5 IPv6 Address (Note 1) Optional 6 Unrecognized Parameters Optional 8 Reserved for ECN Capable (Note 2) Optional 32768 (0x8000) Host Name Address (Note 3) Optional 11 Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 61] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 --------- New text: (Section 3.3.3) --------- Variable Parameters Status Type Value ------------------------------------------------------------- State Cookie Mandatory 7 IPv4 Address (Note 1) Optional 5 IPv6 Address (Note 1) Optional 6 Unrecognized Parameter Optional 8 Reserved for ECN Capable (Note 2) Optional 32768 (0x8000) Host Name Address (Note 3) Optional 11 --------- Old text: (Section 3.3.3.1) --------- Unrecognized Parameters: Parameter Type Value: 8 Parameter Length: Variable Size. Parameter Value: This parameter is returned to the originator of the INIT chunk when the INIT contains an unrecognized parameter which has a value that indicates that it should be reported to the sender. This parameter value field will contain unrecognized parameters copied from the INIT chunk complete with Parameter Type, Length and Value fields. --------- New text: (Section 3.3.3.1) --------- Unrecognized Parameter: Parameter Type Value: 8 Parameter Length: Variable Size. Parameter Value: This parameter is returned to the originator of the INIT chunk when the INIT contains an unrecognized parameter which has a value that indicates that it should be reported to the sender. This parameter value field will contain the unrecognized parameter copied from the INIT chunk complete with Parameter Type, Length and Value fields. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 62] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.32.3 Solution description The new text states clearly that only one unrecognized parameter is reported per parameter. 2.33 Handling of unrecognized parameters 2.33.1 Description of the problem It is not stated clearly in RFC2960 [5] how unrecognized parameters should be handled. The problem came up when an INIT contains an unrecognized parameter with highest bits 00. It was not clear if an INIT-ACK should be sent or not. 2.33.2 Text changes to the document Some of the changes given here already include changes suggested in section Section 2.27 of this document. --------- Old text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- 00 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it. 01 - Stop processing this SCTP packet and discard it, do not process any further chunks within it, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). 10 - Skip this parameter and continue processing. 11 - Skip this parameter and continue processing but report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' (in either an ERROR or in the INIT ACK). --------- New text: (Section 3.2.1) --------- 00 - Stop processing this parameter, do not process any further parameters within this chunk. 01 - Stop processing this parameter, do not process any further parameters within this chunk, and report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' as Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 63] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 described in 3.2.2. 10 - Skip this parameter and continue processing. 11 - Skip this parameter and continue processing but report the unrecognized parameter in an 'Unrecognized Parameter Type' as described in 3.2.2. --------- New text: (Note no old text, clarification added in section 3.2) --------- 3.2.2 Reporting of Unrecognized Parameters If the receiver of an INIT chunk detects unrecognized parameters and has to report them according to section 3.2.1 it MUST put the 'Unrecognized Parameter' parameter(s) in the INIT-ACK chunk sent in response to the INIT-chunk. Note that if the receiver of the INIT chunk is NOT going to establish an association (e.g. due to lack of resources) an 'Unrecognized Parameters' would NOT be included with any ABORT being sent to the sender of the INIT. If the receiver of an INIT-ACK chunk detects unrecognized parameters and has to report them according to section 3.2.1 it SHOULD bundle the ERROR chunk containing the 'Unrecognized Parameters' error cause with the COOKIE-ECHO chunk sent in response to the INIT-ACK chunk. If the receiver of the INIT-ACK can not bundle the COOKIE-ECHO chunk with the ERROR chunk the ERROR chunk MAY be sent separately but not before the COOKIE-ACK has been received. Note: Any time a COOKIE-ECHO is sent in a packet it MUST be the first chunk. 2.33.3 Solution description The procedure of handling unrecognized parameters has been described clearly. 2.34 Tie Tags 2.34.1 Description of the problem RFC2960 requires Tie-Tags to be included in the COOKIE. The cookie may not be encrypted. An attacker could discover the value of the verification tags by analyzing cookies received after sending an INIT. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 64] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.34.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 1.4) --------- o Tie-Tags: Verification Tags from a previous association. These Tags are used within a State Cookie so that the newly restarting association can be linked to the original association within the endpoint that did not restart. --------- New text: (Section 1.4) --------- o Tie-Tags: Two 32 bit random numbers which together make a 64 bit nonce. These Tags are used within a State Cookie and TCB so that a newly restarting association can be linked to the original association within the endpoint that did not restart and yet not reveal the true verification tags of an existing association. --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.1) --------- For an endpoint that is in the COOKIE-ECHOED state it MUST populate its Tie-Tags with the Tag information of itself and its peer (see section 5.2.2 for a description of the Tie-Tags). --------- New text: (Section 5.2.1) --------- For an endpoint that is in the COOKIE-ECHOED state it MUST populate its Tie-Tags within both the association TCB and populated inside the State Cookie (see section 5.2.2 for a description of the Tie-Tags). --------- Old text: (Section 5.2.2) --------- Unless otherwise stated, upon reception of an unexpected INIT for this association, the endpoint shall generate an INIT ACK with a State Cookie. In the outbound INIT ACK the endpoint MUST copy its current Verification Tag and peer's Verification Tag into a reserved place within the state cookie. We shall refer to these locations as Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 65] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 the Peer's-Tie-Tag and the Local-Tie-Tag. The outbound SCTP packet containing this INIT ACK MUST carry a Verification Tag value equal to the Initiation Tag found in the unexpected INIT. And the INIT ACK MUST contain a new Initiation Tag (randomly generated see Section 5.3.1). Other parameters for the endpoint SHOULD be copied from the existing parameters of the association (e.g. number of outbound streams) into the INIT ACK and cookie. --------- New text: (Section 5.2.2) --------- Unless otherwise stated, upon reception of an unexpected INIT for this association, the endpoint shall generate an INIT ACK with a State Cookie. In the outbound INIT ACK the endpoint MUST copy its current Tie-Tags to a reserved place within the State Cookie and the association's TCB. We shall refer to these locations inside the cookie as the Peer's-Tie-Tag and the Local-Tie-Tag. We will refer to the copy within an association's TCB as the Local Tag and Peer's Tag. The outbound SCTP packet containing this INIT ACK MUST carry a Verification Tag value equal to the Initiation Tag found in the unexpected INIT. And the INIT ACK MUST contain a new Initiation Tag (randomly generated see Section 5.3.1). Other parameters for the endpoint SHOULD be copied from the existing parameters of the association (e.g. number of outbound streams) into the INIT ACK and cookie. 2.34.3 Solution description The solution to this problem is not to use the real verification tags within the State Cookie as tie-tags. Instead two 32 bit random numbers are created to form one 64 bit nonces and stored both in the State Cookie and the existing association TCB. This prevents exposing the verification tags inadvertently. 2.35 Port number verification in the COOKIE-ECHO 2.35.1 Description of the problem The State Cookie sent by a listening SCTP endpoint may not contain the original port numbers or the local verification tag. It is then possible that the endpoint on reception of the COOKIE-ECHO will not be able to verify that these values match the original values found in the INIT and INIT-ACK that began the association setup. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 66] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 2.35.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: (Section 5.1.5) --------- 3) Compare the creation timestamp in the State Cookie to the current local time. If the elapsed time is longer than the lifespan carried in the State Cookie, then the packet, including the COOKIE ECHO and any attached DATA chunks, SHOULD be discarded and the endpoint MUST transmit an ERROR chunk with a "Stale Cookie" error cause to the peer endpoint, 4) If the State Cookie is valid, create an association to the sender of the COOKIE ECHO chunk with the information in the TCB data carried in the COOKIE ECHO, and enter the ESTABLISHED state, 5) Send a COOKIE ACK chunk to the peer acknowledging reception of the COOKIE ECHO. The COOKIE ACK MAY be bundled with an outbound DATA chunk or SACK chunk; however, the COOKIE ACK MUST be the first chunk in the SCTP packet. 6) Immediately acknowledge any DATA chunk bundled with the COOKIE ECHO with a SACK (subsequent DATA chunk acknowledgement should follow the rules defined in Section 6.2). As mentioned in step 5), if the SACK is bundled with the COOKIE ACK, the COOKIE ACK MUST appear first in the SCTP packet. --------- New text: (Section 5.1.5) --------- 3) Compare the port numbers and the verification tag contained within the COOKIE ECHO chunk to the actual port numbers and the verification tag within the SCTP common header of the received packet. If these values do not match the packet MUST be silently discarded, 4) Compare the creation timestamp in the State Cookie to the current local time. If the elapsed time is longer than the lifespan carried in the State Cookie, then the packet, including the COOKIE ECHO and any attached DATA chunks, SHOULD be discarded and the endpoint MUST transmit an ERROR chunk with a "Stale Cookie" error cause to the peer endpoint, 5) If the State Cookie is valid, create an association to the sender of the COOKIE ECHO chunk with the information in the TCB data Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 67] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 carried in the COOKIE ECHO, and enter the ESTABLISHED state, 6) Send a COOKIE ACK chunk to the peer acknowledging reception of the COOKIE ECHO. The COOKIE ACK MAY be bundled with an outbound DATA chunk or SACK chunk; however, the COOKIE ACK MUST be the first chunk in the SCTP packet. 7) Immediately acknowledge any DATA chunk bundled with the COOKIE ECHO with a SACK (subsequent DATA chunk acknowledgement should follow the rules defined in Section 6.2). As mentioned in step 5), if the SACK is bundled with the COOKIE ACK, the COOKIE ACK MUST appear first in the SCTP packet. 2.35.3 Solution description By including both port numbers and the local verification tag within the State Cookie and verifying these during COOKIE-ECHO processing this issue is resolved. 2.36 Path Initialization 2.36.1 Description of the problem When an association enters the ESTABLISHED state the endpoint has no verification that all of the addresses presented by the peer are in fact belonging to the peer. This could cause various forms of denial of service attacks. 2.36.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: None --------- --------- New text: (Section 5.4) --------- 5.4 Path Verification During association estabilishment the two peers exchange a list of addresses. In the predominant case these lists accurately represent the addresses owned by each peer. However there exists the possibility that a mis-behaving peer may supply addresses that it does not own. To prevent this the following rules are applied to all addresses of the new association: Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 68] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 1) Any address passed to the sender of the INIT by its upper layer is automatically considered to be CONFIRMED. 2) For the receiver of the COOKIE-ECHO the only CONFIRMED address is the one that the INIT-ACK was sent to. 3) All other addresses not covered by rules 1 and 2 are considered UNCONFIRMED and are subject to probing for verification. To probe an address for verification, an endpoint will send HEARTBEAT's including a new 64 bit random nonce and a path indicator (to identify the address that the HEARTBEAT is sent to) within the HEARTBEAT parameter. Upon reception of the HEARTBEAT-ACK a verification is made that the nonce included in the HEARTBEAT parameter is the one sent to the address indicated inside the HEARTBEAT parameter. When this match occurs, the address that the original HEARTBEAT was sent to is now considered CONFIRMED and available for normal data transfer. These probing proceedures are started when an association moves to the ESTABLISHED state and are ended when all paths are confirmed. Each RTO a probe may be sent on an active UNCONFIRMED path in an attempt to move it to to the CONFIRMED state. If during this probing the path becomes inactive this rate is lowered to the normal HEARTBEAT rate. At the expiration of the RTO timer the error counter of any path that was probed but not CONFIRMED is incremented by one and subjected to path failure detection defined in section 8.2. The number of HEARTBEATS sent at each RTO MUST be limted by the Max.Burst parameter. Whenever a path is confirmed an indication is given to to the upper layer. An UNCONFIRMED path MUST NOT be used as the primary path for the association. 2.36.3 Solution description By properly setting up initial path state and accelerated probing via HEARTBEAT's an new association can verify that all addresses Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 69] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 presented by a peer belong to that peer. 2.37 ICMP handling procedures 2.37.1 Description of the problem RFC2960 does not describe how ICMP messages should be processed by an SCTP endpoint. 2.37.2 Text changes to the document --------- Old text: None --------- --------- New text: (Appendix C) --------- Appendix C ICMP Handling Whenever an ICMP message is received by an SCTP endpoint the following procedures should be followed to assure proper utilization of the information being provided by layer 3. ICMP1) Ignore all ICMPv4 messages where the type field is not set to "Destination Unreachable". ICMP2) Ignore all ICMPv6 messages where the type filed is not "Parameter Problem" or "Packet Too Big". ICMP3) Ignore any ICMPv4 messages where the code does not indicate "Protocol Unreachable" or "Fragmentation Needed". ICMP4) Ignore all ICMPv6 messages of type "Parameter Problem" if the code is not "Unrecognized next header type encountered". ICMP5) Use the payload of the ICMP message (V4 or V6) to locate the association which sent the message that ICMP is responding to. If the association cannot be found, ignore the ICMP message. ICMP6) Validate that the verification tag contained in the ICMP message matches the verification tag of the peer. ICMP7) If the ICMP message is either a V6 "Packet Too Big" or a V4 "Fragmentation Needed" process this information as defined for PATH MTU discovery. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 70] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 ICMP8) If the ICMP code is a "Unrecognized next header type encountered" or a "Protocol Unreachable" treat this message as an abort with the T bit set. 2.37.3 Solution description The new appendix now describes proper handling of ICMP messages in conjunction with SCTP. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 71] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 3. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the following people that have provided comments and input for this document: Heinz Prantner, Jan Rovins, Renee Revis, Steven Furniss, Manoj Solanki, Mike Turner, Jonathan Lee, Peter Butler, Laurent Glaude, Jon Berger, Jon Grim, Dan Harrison, Sabina Torrente, Tomas Orti Martin, Jeff Waskow, Robby Benedyk, Steve Dimig, Joe Keller, Ben Robinson, David Lehmann, John Hebert, Sanjay Rao, Kausar Hassan, Melissa Campbell, Sujith Radhakrishnan, Andreas Jungmaier, Mitch Miers, Fred Hasle, Oliver Mayor, Cliff Thomas, Jonathan Wood, Kacheong Poon, Sverre Slotte, Wang Xiaopeng, John Townsend, Harsh Bhondwe, Sandeep Mahajan, RCMonee, Ken FUJITA, Yuji SUZUKI, Mutsuya IRIE, Sandeep Balani, Biren Patel, Qiaobing Xie, Karl Knutson, La Monte Yarroll, Gareth Keily, Ian Periam, Nathalie Mouellic, Atsushi Fukumoto, David Lehmann, Rob Brennan, Thomas Curran, Stan McClellan, Keyur Shah, Janardhan Iyengar, Serkan Cil and Caitlin Bestler. A special thanks to Mark Allman, who should actually be a co-author for his work on the max-burst, but managed to wiggle out due to a technicality. Also we would like to acknowledge Lyndon Ong and Phil Conrad for their valuable input and many contributions. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 72] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 References [1] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", BCP 9, RFC 2026, October 1996. [2] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [3] Caro, A., Shah, K., Iyengar, J., Amer, P. and R. Stewart, "SCTP and TCP Variants: Congestion Control Under Multiple Losses", Technical Report TR2003-04, Computer and Information Sciences Department, University of Delaware, February 2003, . [4] Handley, M., Padhye, J. and S. Floyd, "TCP Congestion Window Validation", RFC 2861, June 2000. [5] Stewart, R., Xie, Q., Morneault, K., Sharp, C., Schwarzbauer, H., Taylor, T., Rytina, I., Kalla, M., Zhang, L. and V. Paxson, "Stream Control Transmission Protocol", RFC 2960, October 2000. Authors' Addresses Randall R. Stewart Cisco Systems, Inc. 8725 West Higgins Road Suite 300 Chicago, IL 60631 USA Phone: EMail: rrs@cisco.com Ivan Arias-Rodriguez Nokia Research Center PO Box 407 FIN-00045 Nokia Group Finland Phone: EMail: ivan.arias-rodriguez@nokia.com Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 73] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 Kacheong Poon Consultant Milpitas, CA Phone: EMail: kcpoon@yahoo.com Armando L. Caro Jr. University of Delaware Department of Computer & Information Sciences 103 Smith Hall Newark, DE 19716 USA Phone: EMail: acaro@cis.udel.edu URI: http://www.cis.udel.edu/~acaro Michael Tuexen Univ. of Applied Sciences Muenster Stegerwaldstr. 39 48565 Steinfurt Germany EMail: tuexen@fh-muenster.de Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 74] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 Intellectual Property Statement The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any intellectual property or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; neither does it represent that it has made any effort to identify any such rights. Information on the IETF's procedures with respect to rights in standards-track and standards-related documentation can be found in BCP-11. Copies of claims of rights made available for publication and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementors or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF Secretariat. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights which may cover technology that may be required to practice this standard. Please address the information to the IETF Executive Director. Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003). All Rights Reserved. This document and translations of it may be copied and furnished to others, and derivative works that comment on or otherwise explain it or assist in its implementation may be prepared, copied, published and distributed, in whole or in part, without restriction of any kind, provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are included on all such copies and derivative works. However, this document itself may not be modified in any way, such as by removing the copyright notice or references to the Internet Society or other Internet organizations, except as needed for the purpose of developing Internet standards in which case the procedures for copyrights defined in the Internet Standards process must be followed, or as required to translate it into languages other than English. The limited permissions granted above are perpetual and will not be revoked by the Internet Society or its successors or assignees. This document and the information contained herein is provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 75] Internet-Draft SCTP Implementer's Guide November 2003 HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Acknowledgement Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the Internet Society. Stewart, et al. Expires May 13, 2004 [Page 76]