Network Working Group J. Jena Internet-Draft Intended status: Standards Track S. Dalal Expires: May 21, 2021 November 17, 2020 The Idempotency HTTP Header Field draft-idempotency-header-00 Abstract The "HTTP" Idempotency request header field can be used to carry idempotency key in order to make non-idempotent "HTTP" methods such as "POST" or "PATCH" fault-tolerant. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on May 21, 2021. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2020 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 1] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. The Idempotency HTTP Request Header Field . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.1. Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2.2. Uniqueness of Idempotency Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.3. Idempotency Key Validity and Expiry . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.4. Idempotency Fingerprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.5. Idempotency Enforcement Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2.6. Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2.7. Error Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 3. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3.1. The Idempotency-Key HTTP Request Header Field . . . . . . 6 4. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 4.1. Implementing the Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 6. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Appendix A. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Appendix B. Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 B.1. Appendix A. Imported ABNF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 1. Introduction Idempotence is the property of certain operations in mathematics and computer science whereby they can be applied multiple times without changing the result beyond the initial application. It does not matter if the operation is called only once, or 10s of times over. The result "SHOULD" be the same. Idempotency is important in building a fault-tolerant "HTTP API". An "HTTP" request method is considered "idempotent" if the intended effect on the server of multiple identical requests with that method is the same as the effect for a single such request. [RFC7231] defines methods "OPTIONS", "HEAD", "GET", "PUT" and "DELETE" as idempotent. However, "POST" and "PATCH" methods are "NOT" idempotent. Suppose a client on "HTTP API" wants to create or update a resource using "POST" method. Since "POST" is "NOT" an idempotent method, calling it multiple times can result in duplication or wrong updates. What would happen if you sent out the POST request to the server, but you get a timeout? Is the resource actually created or updated? Does the timeout happened during sending of the request to the Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 2] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 server, or while receiving the response on the client? Can we safely retry again, or do we need to figure out first what has happened with the resource? If "POST" was an idempotent method, we would not have to answer such questions. We could safely resend a request until we actually get a response back from the server. For many use cases in "HTTP API", creation of duplicate records is a severe problem from business perspective. For example, in Fintech industry, duplicate records for requests involving any kind of payment transaction on a financial account "MUST NOT" be allowed. In other cases, processing of duplicate webhooks due to retries is not warranted. 1.1. Notational Conventions The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. This specification uses the Augmented Backus-Naur Form (ABNF) notation of [RFC5234] and includes, by reference, the IMF-fixdate rule as defined in Section 7.1.1.1 of [RFC7231]. The term "resource" is to be interpreted as defined in Section 2 of [RFC7231], that is identified by an URI. 2. The Idempotency HTTP Request Header Field An idempotency key is a unique value generated by the client which the resource server uses to recognize subsequent retries of the same request. The "Idempotency-Key" HTTP request header field carries this key. 2.1. Syntax The "Idempotency-Key" request header field describes Idempotency-Key = idempotency-key-value idempotency-key-value = opaque-value opaque-value = DQUOTE *idempotencyvalue DQUOTE idempotencyvalue = %x21 / %x23-7E / obs-text ; VCHAR except double quotes, plus obs-text Clients MUST NOT include more than one "Idempotency-Key" header field in the same request. Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 3] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 The following example shows an idempotency key using UUID version 4 scheme: Idempotency-Key: "8e03978e-40d5-43e8-bc93-6894a57f9324" 2.2. Uniqueness of Idempotency Key The idempotency key that is supplied as part of every "POST" request MUST be unique and can not be reused with another request with a different request payload. How to make the key unique is up to the client and it's agreed protocol with the resource owner. It is "RECOMMENDED" that "UUID" or a similar random identifier be used as the idempotency key. 2.3. Idempotency Key Validity and Expiry The resource MAY enforce a time based idempotency keys, thus, be able to purge or delete a key upon its expiry. The resource server SHOULD publish expiration policy related documentation. 2.4. Idempotency Fingerprint An idempotency fingerprint MAY be used in conjunction with with an idempotency key to determine the uniqueness of a request and is generated from request payload data. An idempotency fingerprint is generated by the resource implementation. Idempotency Fingerprint generation algorithm MAY use one of the following or similar approaches to generate a fingerprint. o Checksum of the entire request payload. o Checksum of selected elements in the request payload. o Field value match for each field in the request payload. o Field value match for selected elements in the request payload. o Request digest/signature. 2.5. Idempotency Enforcement Scenarios o First time request (Idempotency Key and Idempotency Fingerprint scenarios has not been seen) The resource server SHOULD process the request normally and respond with an appropriate response and status code. Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 4] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 o Duplicate request (Idempotency Key and Idempotency Fingerprint scenarios has been seen) Replay The request was replayed after the original request completed. The resource server MUST respond with the result of the previously completed operation, success or an error. Concurrent Request The request was replayed before the original request completed. The resource server MUST respond with a resource conflict error. See ## Error Scenarios for details. 2.6. Responsibilities Client For the idempotent resource operations, the client MUST present a unique idempotency key in Idempotency-Key request header field. Resource Server o Generate Idempotency Fingerprint when required. o Check for idempotency under various scenarios including the ones described earlier. o Manage the lifecycle of the Idempotency Key. o Publish idempotency related specification in relevant documentation. 2.7. Error Scenarios If the "Idempotency-Key" request header is missing for a documented idempotent operation requiring this header, the resource server MUST reply with an "HTTP" "400" status code with body containing a link pointing to the relevant documentation. Alternately, using the "HTTP" header "Link", client could be informed about the error too as shown below. HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request Link: ; rel="describedby"; type="text/html" Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 5] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 If there is an attempt to reuse an idempotency key with a different request payload, the resource server MUST reply with an "HTTP" "422" status code with body containing a link pointing to the relevant documentation. Using the "HTTP" header "Link", client could be informed about the error as following. HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity Link: ; rel="describedby"; type="text/html" If there is an attempt to reuse an idempotency key that is expired, the resource server MUST reply with an "HTTP" "422" status code with body containing a link pointing to the relevant documentation. Using the "HTTP" header "Link", client could be informed about the error as following. HTTP/1.1 422 Unprocessable Entity Link: ; rel="describedby"; type="text/html" If the request is replayed, while the original request is still processing, the resource server MUST reply with an "HTTP" "409" status code with body containing a link pointing to the relevant documentation. Using the "HTTP" header "Link", client could be informed about the error as following. HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict Link: ; rel="describedby"; type="text/html" For other errors, the resource MUST return the appropriate status code and error message. 3. IANA Considerations 3.1. The Idempotency-Key HTTP Request Header Field The "Idempotency-Key" request header should be added to the permanent registry of message header fields (see [RFC3864]), taking into account the guidelines given by HTTP/1.1 [RFC7231]. Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 6] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 Header Field Name: Idempotency-Key Applicable Protocol: Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Status: Standard Author: Jayadeba Jena, Sanjay Dalal Change controller: IETF Specification document: this specification, Section 2 "The Idempotency HTTP Request Header Field" 4. Implementation Status Note to RFC Editor: Please remove this section before publication. This section records the status of known implementations of the protocol defined by this specification at the time of posting of this Internet-Draft, and is based on a proposal described in [RFC7942]. The description of implementations in this section is intended to assist the IETF in its decision processes in progressing drafts to RFCs. Please note that the listing of any individual implementation here does not imply endorsement by the IETF. Furthermore, no effort has been spent to verify the information presented here that was supplied by IETF contributors. This is not intended as, and must not be construed to be, a catalog of available implementations or their features. Readers are advised to note that other implementations may exist. According to RFC 7942, "this will allow reviewers and working groups to assign due consideration to documents that have the benefit of running code, which may serve as evidence of valuable experimentation and feedback that have made the implemented protocols more mature. It is up to the individual working groups to use this information as they see fit". Organization: Stripe o Description: Stripe uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency- Key" o Reference: https://stripe.com/docs/idempotency Organization: Adyen o Description: Adyen uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency-Key" Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 7] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 o Reference: https://docs.adyen.com/development-resources/api- idempotency/ Organization: Dwolla o Description: Dwolla uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency- Key" o Reference: https://docs.dwolla.com/ Organization: Interledger o Description: Interledger uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency-Key" o Reference: https://github.com/interledger/ Organization: WorldPay o Description: WorldPay uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency- Key" o Reference: https://developer.worldpay.com/docs/wpg/idempotency Organization: Yandex o Description: Yandex uses custom HTTP header named "Idempotency- Key" o Reference: https://cloud.yandex.com/docs/api-design- guide/concepts/idempotency 4.1. Implementing the Concept This is a list of implementations that implement the general concept, but do so using different mechanisms: Organization: Django o Description: Django uses custom HTTP header named "HTTP_IDEMPOTENCY_KEY" o Reference: https://pypi.org/project/django-idempotency-key Organization: Twilio o Description: Twilio uses custom HTTP header named "I-Twilio- Idempotency-Token" in webhooks Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 8] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 o Reference: https://www.twilio.com/docs/usage/webhooks/webhooks- connection-overrides Organization: PayPal o Description: PayPal uses custom HTTP header named "PayPal-Request- Id" o Reference: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/business/develop/ idempotency Organization: RazorPay o Description: RazorPay uses custom HTTP header named "X-Payout- Idempotency" o Reference: https://razorpay.com/docs/razorpayx/api/idempotency/ Organization: OpenBanking o Description: OpenBanking uses custom HTTP header called "x- idempotency-key" o Reference: https://openbankinguk.github.io/read-write-api- site3/v3.1.6/profiles/read-write-data-api-profile.html#request- headers Organization: Square o Description: To make an idempotent API call, Square recommends adding a property named "idempotency_key" with a unique value in the request body. o Reference: https://developer.squareup.com/docs/build-basics/using- rest-api Organization: Google Standard Payments o Description: Google Standard Payments API uses a property named "requestId" in request body in order to provider idempotency in various use cases. o Reference: https://developers.google.com/standard-payments/ payment-processor-service-api/rest/v1/TopLevel/capture Organization: BBVA Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 9] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 o Description: BBVA Open Platform uses custom HTTP header called "X- Unique-Transaction-ID" o Reference: https://bbvaopenplatform.com/apiReference/APIbasics/content/x- unique-transaction-id Organization: WebEngage o Description: WebEngage uses custom HTTP header called "x-request- id" to identify webhook POST requests uniquely to achieve events idempotency. o Reference: https://docs.webengage.com/docs/webhooks 5. Security Considerations This section is meant to inform developers, information providers, and users of known security concerns specific to the idempotency keys. For idempotent request handling, the resources MAY make use of the value in the idempotency key to look up the idempotent request cache such as a persistent store, for duplicate requests, matching the key. If the resource does not validate the value of the idempotency key, prior to performing the lookup, it MAY lead to various forms of security attacks, compromising itself. To avoid such situations, the resource SHOULD publish the expected format of the idempotency key and always validate the value as per the published specification for the key, before processing the request. 6. Examples The first example shows an idempotency-key header field with key value using UUID version 4 scheme: Idempotency-Key: "8e03978e-40d5-43e8-bc93-6894a57f9324" Second example shows an idempotency-key header field with key value using some random string generator: Idempotency-Key: "clkyoesmbgybucifusbbtdsbohtyuuwz" 7. References Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 10] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 7.1. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC3864] Klyne, G., Nottingham, M., and J. Mogul, "Registration Procedures for Message Header Fields", BCP 90, RFC 3864, DOI 10.17487/RFC3864, September 2004, . [RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, DOI 10.17487/RFC5234, January 2008, . [RFC7230] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Message Syntax and Routing", RFC 7230, DOI 10.17487/RFC7230, June 2014, . [RFC7231] Fielding, R., Ed. and J. Reschke, Ed., "Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content", RFC 7231, DOI 10.17487/RFC7231, June 2014, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . 7.2. Informative References [RFC7942] Sheffer, Y. and A. Farrel, "Improving Awareness of Running Code: The Implementation Status Section", BCP 205, RFC 7942, DOI 10.17487/RFC7942, July 2016, . 7.3. URIs [1] https://github.com/paypal/api-standards/blob/master/ patterns.md#idempotency [2] https://stripe.com/docs/idempotency [3] https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nottingham-http-poe-00 Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 11] Internet-Draft The Idempotency HTTP Header Field November 2020 Appendix A. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Mark Nottingham for his support for this Internet Draft. We would like to acknowledge that this draft is inspired by Idempotency related patterns described in API documentation of PayPal [1] and Stripe [2] as well as Internet Draft on POST Once Exactly [3] authored by Mark Nottingham. The authors take all responsibility for errors and omissions. Appendix B. Appendix B.1. Appendix A. Imported ABNF The following core rules are included by reference, as defined in Appendix B.1 of [RFC5234]: ALPHA (letters), CR (carriage return), CRLF (CR LF), CTL (controls), DIGIT (decimal 0-9), DQUOTE (double quote), HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f), LF (line feed), OCTET (any 8-bit sequence of data), SP (space), and VCHAR (any visible US-ASCII character). The rules below are defined in [RFC7230]: obs-text = Authors' Addresses Jayadeba Jena Email: jjena@paypal.com URI: https://github.com/jayadeba Sanjay Dalal Email: sanjay.dalal@cal.berkeley.edu URI: https://github.com/sdatspun2 Jena & Dalal Expires May 21, 2021 [Page 12]