2.8.8 Middlebox Communication (midcom)

NOTE: This charter is a snapshot of the 60th IETF Meeting in San Diego, CA USA. It may now be out-of-date.

Last Modified: 2004-06-17

Chair(s):
Melinda Shore <mshore@cisco.com>
Transport Area Director(s):
Allison Mankin <mankin@psg.com>
Jon Peterson <jon.peterson@neustar.biz>
Transport Area Advisor:
Jon Peterson <jon.peterson@neustar.biz>
Mailing Lists:
General Discussion: midcom@ietf.org
To Subscribe: midcom-request@ietf.org
In Body: subscribe your_email_address
Archive: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/midcom/index.html
Description of Working Group:
As trusted third parties are increasingly being asked to make policy decisions on behalf of the various entities participating in an application's operation, a need has developed for applications to be able to communicate their needs to the devices in the network that provide transport policy enforcement. Examples of these devices include firewalls, network address translators (both within and between address families), signature management for intrusion detection systems, and multimedia buffer management. These devices are a subset of what can be referred to as 'middleboxes.'

This working group will focus its attention on communication with firewalls and network address translators (including translation between IPv6 and IPv4). Work will not preclude extensibility to other categories of middle box.

Decomposing applications requiring policy decisions by removing application logic from the middle box and instead providing a generalized communications interface provides a number of benefits, including improved performance, lower software development and maintenance costs, improved ability to support traversal of packet filters by complex protocols, easier deployment of new applications, and the ability to consolidate management functions. For example, by moving stateful inspection of protocols such as H.323 and SIP out of firewalls, it is possible to improve performance and scalability and reduce development and costs.

This working group will concern itself with an environment that consists of:

- one or more middle boxes in the data path

- an external requesting entity

- a policy entity for consultation purposes when the requesting entity is untrusted.

The requesting entity may be trusted or untrusted. In the case where it is trusted, the middle box will treat the request from the entity as authoritative. In the case where it is not trusted, the intermediate device will have to verify that it is authorized to complete the request. That authorization could come from a separate or a built in policy server.

The primary focus of the working group will be the application of this architecture to communicating requests between applications and firewalls or NATs. This will not preclude other uses, and care will be taken to ensure that the protocol is extensible.

The working group will evaluate existing IETF protocols for their applicability to this problem, using the framework and requirements documents developed during the working group's first phase as criteria for the evaluation. If a protocol is found to be suitable it will be used as the basis for the development of a middlebox communication protocol. In the unlikely case that one is not found to be suitable, the working group will undertake development of a new protocol.

Discovery of middle boxes is out of scope.

The deliverables will be

o a document evaluating existing IETF protocols for their suitability

o a document specifying a middlebox communication protocol or profile based on the results of the protocol evaluation.

This working group will only deal with firewalls and network address translators.

Ubiquitous deployment of midcom in all middleboxes could take many years. In the interim, a solution is needed that allows applications to operate in the presence of midcom-unaware middleboxes. To support this, the midcom group will develop or document a protocol or approach that allows clients to indirectly obtain address bindings from midcom- unaware middleboxes, through communications with server elements on the public side of the middlebox. The key goals for this effort are rapid delivery of a simple solution (since it is an interim solution), consistency with the midcom framework, and security. In particular, any proposed interim approaches will address (and document) the architectural and pragmatic concerns described in [UNSAF].

Goals and Milestones:
Done  submit Internet-Drafts of framework, architecture and interfaces documents to IESG for publication as Informational RFCs
Done  Submission of STUN document for standards-track publication
Done  Submission of pre-midcom document describing protocol for NAT traversal using relay for standards-track publication
Done  Submission of document evaluating existing IETF protocols against midcom framework and requirements for an Informational RFC.
Done  An analysis of the existing mibs and initial list of mibs (or portions of mibs) that need to be developed submitted to WG
Done  Semantics document submitted to IESG for publication as informational RFC
Done  Initial mibs ID submitted
Jun 04  Mib documents submitted to IESG
Internet-Drafts:
  • - draft-ietf-midcom-protocol-eval-06.txt
  • - draft-ietf-midcom-semantics-08.txt
  • - draft-ietf-midcom-mib-02.txt
  • Request For Comments:
    RFCStatusTitle
    RFC3304 I Middlebox Communications (MIDCOM) Protocol Requirements
    RFC3303 I Middlebox Communication Architecture and framework
    RFC3489 PS STUN - Simple Traversal of UDP Through Network Address Translators

    Current Meeting Report

    Minutes of the midcom session at IETF60
    ---------------------------------------


    San Diego, California, USA, Thursday August 5 2004, 15:30-17:30


    midcom minutes 4 August 2004


    Eric Burger, scribe


    AGENDA ITEM: Document Status


    Protocol evaluation is in RFC Editor's queue.
    The semantics document has been accepted by the IESG and will shortly enter the RFC Editor's queue.


    AGENDA ITEM: Midcom MIB - Juergen Quittek


    The document is draft-ietf-midcom-mib-02


    Issue #1: MIB Structure Changes
    Have a semantics table + add on tables


    One thought: merge Firewall Configuration table and Capabilities table.


    Should we remove Session Table?
    . Session table is a hack to implement session model in SNMP, which has no concept of session.
    . Two existing MIBs can do what Session Table does (Target MIB and/or Notification MIB)
    General consensus from floor to remove Session Table



    Issue #2: How to integrate MIDCOM MIB into Firewall Configuraiton
    . All MIDCOM rules have same precedence
    . MIDCOM rules only have "allow" rules, overlapping rules result in opening of all requested ports, which satisfies all clients
    . Firewall people do not see world this way, but can live with it


    Q: So if I have rule, "open for source address *" and "open for source address foo", is there any conflict?
    A: No: both clients' requests satisfied


    Consistent behavior with IPSP MIB



    Issue #3: Notification Subscription
    Lots of hacks to make Session Table work, like BITS object
    Resolution: Target MIB / Notification MIB just works



    Issue #4: Idempotency
    Losing SNMP message means policies can remain active longer than requested lifetime.
    Currently using remaining lifetime to support failover (surviving controller sees how much time is left).
    But SNMP stack semantics imposes problems, based on long timeouts for retransmissions.
    Need to store total lifetime.
    So, should we store total lifetime at client and server?


    No preference from room.


    Also have other Idempoency problems with Session Table, but they would go away if use Notification MIB.



    Issue #5: MaxIdleTime
    For default value, should we use native NAT value (presumably provisioned at NAT) or impose one? If we use native NAT value, we will need a way for the midcom client to determine value of timer


    Tom T: Midcom has adequate provision for limiting lifetime of sessions. Thus MaxIdleTime is a nuisance for implementers and client applications


    Bob P: Wants to have MaxIdleTime, and have the default be native NAT value. "midcom is a guest of the NAT." Clients will expect NAT to behave like NAT in "default" situations.


    Suresh: Agrees with Bob


    Melinda: Applications tend to only set value in special cases


    Vote:
    Use box native MaxIdleTime: 4
    No MaxIdleTime: 2
    Do not care: everyone


    Will take to the list.



    Issue #6: MaxIdleTime for PRR
    Should we have MaxIdleTime for Policy Reserve Rule?


    Suresh: This is important because PRR allocates bindings
    Melinda: Why is it important to have parameter in addition to normal lifetime parameter?
    Suresh: Because it is a property
    Bob: Can have multiple PRR/PER updates, e.g., do PRR with minimum set, then set MaxLifeTime later


    Vote:
    Mandatory to be in PRR: 0
    Optional to be in PRR: 3
    Not in PRR: 3


    Will take to the list.



    Issue #7: Naming Conflict
    MIDCOM: "internal/inside" & "external/outside"
    NAT: "privateSource/privateDestination" & "publicSource/publicDestination"


    Melinda: NAT MIB will be published first. Its terminology wins.
    Jon P: Does not really matter what we call objects




    Other issues:


    Any use for midcomRuleNatService? No discussion
    Missing midcomInsideInterface and midcomOutsideInterface. No discussion


    RuleLifetime & RuleMaxIdletim: What happens if different rules for policy rules use the same resource?


    Suresh: Several clients send policy requests that map to overlapping resources. Do we take maximum of MaxIdleTimes? If so, the clients will not know what the actual value is. Thus we need some reporting.



    August is holiday season. Thus next revision will be in September. Because of that, August is a good time to review the documents.


    Plea from Melinda to review the documents in August!

    Slides

    Agenda
    MIDCOM MIB