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IETF RFC 7829
Last modified on Wednesday, April 20th, 2016
 Permanent link to RFC 7829
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Y. Nishida
Request for Comments: 7829 GE Global Research
Category: Standards Track P. Natarajan
ISSN: 2070-1721 Cisco Systems
A. Caro
BBN Technologies
P. Amer
University of Delaware
K. Nielsen
Ericsson
April 2016
SCTP-PF: A Quick Failover Algorithm for the
Stream Control Transmission Protocol
 Abstract
The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) supports multihoming.
However, when the failover operation specified in RFC 4960 is
followed, there can be significant delay and performance degradation
in the data transfer path failover. This document specifies a quick
failover algorithm and introduces the SCTP Potentially Failed
(SCTP-PF) destination state in SCTP Path Management.
This document also specifies a dormant state operation of SCTP that
is required to be followed by an SCTP-PF implementation, but it may
equally well be applied by a standard SCTP implementation, as
described in RFC 4960.
Additionally, this document introduces an alternative switchback
operation mode called "Primary Path Switchover" that will be
beneficial in certain situations. This mode of operation applies to
both a standard SCTP implementation and an SCTP-PF implementation.
The procedures defined in the document require only minimal
modifications to the specification in RFC 4960. The procedures are
sender-side only and do not impact the SCTP receiver.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7829.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2016 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
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.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 2
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. SCTP with Potentially Failed (SCTP-PF) Destination State . . 5
3.1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Specification of the SCTP-PF Procedures . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Dormant State Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.1. SCTP Dormant State Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
5. Primary Path Switchover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6. Suggested SCTP Protocol Parameter Values . . . . . . . . . . 13
7. Socket API Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
7.1. Support for the Potentially Failed Path State . . . . . . 14
7.2. Peer Address Thresholds (SCTP_PEER_ADDR_THLDS) Socket
Option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
7.3. Exposing the Potentially Failed Path State
(SCTP_EXPOSE_POTENTIALLY_FAILED_STATE) Socket Option . . 16
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
9. MIB Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
10.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Appendix A. Discussion of Alternative Approaches . . . . . . . . 20
A.1. Reduce PMR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
A.2. Adjust RTO-Related Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Appendix B. Discussion of the Path-Bouncing Effect . . . . . . . 21
Appendix C. SCTP-PF for SCTP Single-Homed Operation . . . . . . 22
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1. Introduction
The Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) specified in
[RFC 4960] supports multihoming at the transport layer. SCTP's
multihoming features include failure detection and failover
procedures to provide network interface redundancy and improved end-
to-end fault tolerance. In SCTP's current failure detection
procedure, the sender must experience Path.Max.Retrans (PMR) number
of consecutive failed timer-based retransmissions on a destination
address before detecting a path failure. Until detecting the path
failure, the sender continues to transmit data on the failed path.
The prolonged time in which SCTP as described in [RFC 4960] continues
to use a failed path severely degrades the performance of the
protocol. To address this problem, this document specifies a quick
failover algorithm called "SCTP-PF" based on the introduction of a
new Potentially Failed (PF) path state in SCTP path management. The
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 3
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
performance deficiencies of the failover operation described in RFC
4960, and the improvements obtainable from the introduction of a PF
state in SCTP, were proposed and documented in [NATARAJAN09] for
Concurrent Multipath Transfer SCTP [IYENGAR06].
While SCTP-PF can accelerate the failover process and improve
performance, the risk that an SCTP endpoint might enter the dormant
state where all destination addresses are inactive can be increased.
[RFC 4960] leaves the protocol operation during dormant state to
implementations and encourages avoiding entering the state as much as
possible by careful tuning of the PMR and Association.Max.Retrans
(AMR) parameters. We specify a dormant state operation for SCTP-PF,
which makes SCTP-PF provide the same disruption tolerance as
[RFC 4960] despite the fact that the dormant state may be entered more
quickly. The dormant state operation may equally well be applied by
an implementation of [RFC 4960] and will serve here to provide added
fault tolerance for situations where the tuning of the PMR and AMR
parameters fail to provide adequate prevention of the entering of the
dormant state.
The operation after the recovery of a failed path also impacts the
performance of the protocol. With the procedures specified in
[RFC 4960], SCTP will (after a failover from the primary path) switch
back to use the primary path for data transfer as soon as this path
becomes available again. From a performance perspective, such a
forced switchback of the data transmission path can be suboptimal as
the Congestion Window (CWND) towards the original primary destination
address has to be rebuilt once data transfer resumes, [CARO02]. As
an optional alternative to the switchback operation of [RFC 4960],
this document specifies an alternative Primary Path Switchover
procedure that avoids such forced switchbacks of the data transfer
path. The Primary Path Switchover operation was originally proposed
in [CARO02].
While SCTP-PF is primarily motivated by a desire to improve the
multihomed operation, the feature also applies to SCTP single-homed
operation. Here the algorithm serves to provide increased failure
detection on idle associations, whereas the failover or switchback
aspects of the algorithm will not be activated. This is discussed in
more detail in Appendix C.
A brief description of the motivation for the introduction of the PF
state, including a discussion of alternative approaches to mitigate
the deficiencies of the failover operation in [RFC 4960], are given in
the appendices. Discussion of path-bouncing effects that might be
caused by frequent switchovers are also provided there.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 4
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
2. Conventions and Terminology
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC 2119].
3. SCTP with Potentially Failed (SCTP-PF) Destination State
3.1. Overview
To minimize the performance impact during failover, the sender should
avoid transmitting data to a failed destination address as early as
possible. In the SCTP path management scheme described in [RFC 4960],
the sender stops transmitting data to a destination address only
after the destination address is marked inactive. This process takes
a significant amount of time as it requires the error counter of the
destination address to exceed the PMR threshold. The issue cannot
simply be mitigated by lowering the PMR threshold because this may
result in spurious failure detection and unnecessary prevention of
the usage of a preferred primary path. Also, due to the coupled
tuning of the PMR and the AMR parameter values in [RFC 4960], lowering
the PMR threshold may result in lowering the AMR threshold, which
would result in a decrease of the fault tolerance of SCTP.
The solution provided in this document is to extend the SCTP path
management scheme of [RFC 4960] by the addition of the PF state as an
intermediate state in between the active and inactive state of a
destination address in the path management scheme of [RFC 4960], and
let the failover of data transfer away from a destination address be
driven by the entering of the PF state instead of by the entering of
the inactive state. Thereby, SCTP may perform quick failover without
negatively impacting the overall fault tolerance of SCTP as described
in [RFC 4960]. At the same time, HEARTBEAT probing based on
Retransmission Timeout (RTO) is initiated towards a destination
address once it enters PF state. Thereby, SCTP may quickly ascertain
whether network connectivity towards the destination address is
broken or whether the failover was spurious. In the case where the
failover was spurious, data transfer may quickly resume towards the
original destination address.
The new failure detection algorithm assumes that loss detected by a
timeout implies either severe congestion or network connectivity
failure. It recommends that, by default, a destination address be
classified as PF at the occurrence of the first timeout.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 5
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
3.2. Specification of the SCTP-PF Procedures
The SCTP-PF operation is specified as follows:
1. The sender maintains a new tunable SCTP Protocol Parameter
called PotentiallyFailed.Max.Retrans (PFMR). The PFMR defines
the new intermediate PF threshold on the destination address
error counter. When this threshold is exceeded, the destination
address is classified as PF. The RECOMMENDED value of PFMR is
0. If PFMR is set to be greater than or equal to PMR, the
resulting PF threshold will be so high that the destination
address will reach the inactive state before it can be
classified as PF.
2. The error counter of an active destination address is
incremented or cleared as specified in [RFC 4960]. This means
that the error counter of the destination address in active
state will be incremented each time the Timer T3 retransmission
(T3-rtx) timer expires, or each time a HEARTBEAT chunk is sent
when idle and not acknowledged within an RTO. When the value in
the destination address error counter exceeds PFMR, the endpoint
MUST mark the destination address as in the PF state.
3. An SCTP-PF sender SHOULD NOT send data to destination addresses
in PF state when alternative destination addresses in active
state are available. Specifically, this means that:
i. When there is outbound data to send and the destination
address presently used for data transmission is in PF
state, the sender SHOULD choose a destination address in
active state, if one exists, and use this destination
address for data transmission.
ii. As specified in Section 6.4.1 of [RFC 4960], when the
sender retransmits data that has timed out, they should
attempt to pick a new destination address for data
retransmission. In this case, the sender SHOULD choose
an alternate destination transport address in active
state, if one exists.
iii. When there is outbound data to send and the SCTP user
explicitly requests to send data to a destination address
in PF state, the sender SHOULD send the data to an
alternate destination address in active state if one
exists.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 6
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
When choosing among multiple destination addresses in active
state, an SCTP sender will follow the guiding principles of
Section 6.4.1 of [RFC 4960] by choosing the most divergent
source-destination pairs compared with, for (the aforementioned
points i and ii):
i. the destination address in PF state that it performs a
failover from, and
ii. the destination address towards which the data timed out.
Rules for picking the most divergent source-destination pair are
an implementation decision and are not specified within this
document.
In all cases, the sender MUST NOT change the state of the chosen
destination address, whether this state be active or PF, and it
MUST NOT clear the error counter of the destination address as a
result of choosing the destination address for data
transmission.
4. When the destination addresses are all in PF state, or some are
in PF state and some in inactive state, the sender MUST choose
one destination address in PF state and SHOULD transmit or
retransmit data to this destination address using the following
rules:
i. The sender SHOULD choose the destination in PF state with
the lowest error count (fewest consecutive timeouts) for
data transmission and transmit or retransmit data to this
destination.
ii. When there are multiple destination addresses in PF state
with same error count, the sender should let the choice
among the multiple destination addresses in PF state with
equal error count be based on the principles of choosing
the most divergent source-destination pairs when executing
(potentially consecutive) retransmission outlined in
Section 6.4.1 of [RFC 4960]. Rules for picking the most
divergent source-destination pairs are an implementation
decision and are not specified within this document.
The sender MUST NOT change the state and the error counter of
any destination addresses as the result of the selection.
5. The HB.Interval of the Path Heartbeat function of [RFC 4960] MUST
be ignored for destination addresses in PF state. Instead,
HEARTBEAT chunks are sent to destination addresses in PF state
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 7
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
once per RTO. HEARTBEAT chunks SHOULD be sent to destination
addresses in PF state, but the sending of HEARTBEATs MUST honor
whether or not the Path Heartbeat function (Section 8.3 of
[RFC 4960]) is enabled for the destination address. That is, if
the Path Heartbeat function is disabled for the destination
address in question, HEARTBEATs MUST NOT be sent. Note that
when the Path Heartbeat function is disabled, it may take longer
to transition a destination address in PF state back to active
state.
6. HEARTBEATs are sent when a destination address reaches the PF
state. When a HEARTBEAT chunk is not acknowledged within the
RTO, the sender increments the error counter and exponentially
backs off the RTO value. If the error counter is less than PMR,
the sender transmits another packet containing the HEARTBEAT
chunk immediately after timeout expiration on the previous
HEARTBEAT. When data is being transmitted to a destination
address in the PF state, the transmission of a HEARTBEAT chunk
MAY be omitted in the case where the receipt of a Selective
Acknowledgment (SACK) of the data or a T3-rtx timer expiration
on the data can provide equivalent information, such as the case
where the data chunk has been transmitted to a single
destination address only. Likewise, the timeout of a HEARTBEAT
chunk MAY be ignored if data is outstanding towards the
destination address.
7. When the sender receives a HEARTBEAT ACK from a HEARTBEAT sent
to a destination address in PF state, the sender SHOULD clear
the error counter of the destination address and transition the
destination address back to active state. However, there may be
a situation where HEARTBEAT chunks can go through while DATA
chunks cannot. Hence, in a situation where a HEARTBEAT ACK
arrives while there is data outstanding towards the destination
address to which the HEARTBEAT was sent, then an implementation
MAY choose to not have the HEARTBEAT ACK reset the error
counter, but have the error counter reset await the fate of the
outstanding data transmission. This situation can happen when
data is sent to a destination address in PF state. When the
sender resumes data transmission on a destination address after
a transition of the destination address from PF to active state,
it MUST do this following the prescriptions of Section 7.2 of
[RFC 4960].
8. Additional PMR - PFMR consecutive timeouts on a destination
address in PF state confirm the path failure, upon which the
destination address transitions to the inactive state. As
described in [RFC 4960], the sender SHOULD (i) notify the Upper
Layer Protocol (ULP) about this state transition, and (ii)
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 8
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
transmit HEARTBEAT chunks to the inactive destination address at
a lower HB.Interval frequency as described in Section 8.3 of
[RFC 4960] (when the Path Heartbeat function is enabled for the
destination address).
9. Acknowledgments for chunks that have been transmitted to
multiple destinations (i.e., a chunk that has been retransmitted
to a different destination address than the destination address
to which the chunk was first transmitted) SHOULD NOT clear the
error count for an inactive destination address and SHOULD NOT
move a destination address in PF state back to active state,
since a sender cannot disambiguate whether the ACK was for the
original transmission or the retransmission(s). An SCTP sender
MAY clear the error counter and move a destination address back
to active state by information other than acknowledgments, when
it can uniquely determine which destination, among multiple
destination addresses, the chunk reached. This document makes
no reference to what such information could consist of, nor how
such information could be obtained.
10. Acknowledgments for data chunks that have been transmitted to
one destination address only MUST clear the error counter for
the destination address and MUST transition a destination
address in PF state back to active state. This situation can
happen when new data is sent to a destination address in the PF
state. It can also happen in situations where the destination
address is in the PF state due to the occurrence of a spurious
T3-rtx timer and acknowledgments start to arrive for data sent
prior to occurrence of the spurious T3-rtx and data has not yet
been retransmitted towards other destinations. This document
does not specify special handling for detection of, or reaction
to, spurious T3-rtx timeouts, e.g., for special operation vis-
a-vis the congestion control handling or data retransmission
operation towards a destination address that undergoes a
transition from active to PF to active state due to a spurious
T3-rtx timeout. But it is noted that this is an area that would
benefit from additional attention, experimentation, and
specification for single-homed SCTP as well as for multihomed
SCTP protocol operation.
11. When all destination addresses are in inactive state, and SCTP
protocol operation thus is said to be in dormant state, the
prescriptions given in Section 4 shall be followed.
12. The SCTP stack SHOULD expose the PF state of its destination
addresses to the ULP as well as provide the means to notify the
ULP of state transitions of its destination addresses from
active to PF, and vice versa. However, it is recommended that
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 9
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
an SCTP stack implementing SCTP-PF also allows for the ULP to be
kept ignorant of the PF state of its destinations and the
associated state transitions, thus allowing for retention of the
simpler state transition model of [RFC 4960] in the ULP. For
this reason, it is recommended that an SCTP stack implementing
SCTP-PF also provide the ULP with the means to suppress exposure
of the PF state and the associated state transitions.
4. Dormant State Operation
In a situation with complete disruption of the communication in
between the SCTP endpoints, the aggressive HEARTBEAT transmissions of
SCTP-PF on destination addresses in PF state may make the association
enter dormant state faster than a standard SCTP implementation of
[RFC 4960] given the same setting of PMR and AMR. For example, an
SCTP association with two destination addresses would typically reach
dormant state in half the time of an SCTP implementation of [RFC 4960]
in such situations. This is because an SCTP PF sender will send
HEARTBEATs and data retransmissions in parallel with RTO intervals
when there are multiple destinations addresses in PF state. This
argument presumes that RTO << HB.Interval of [RFC 4960]. With the
design goal that SCTP-PF shall provide the same level of disruption
tolerance as a standard SCTP implementation with the same PMR and AMR
setting, we prescribe that an SCTP-PF implementation SHOULD operate
as described in Section 4.1 during dormant state.
An SCTP-PF implementation MAY choose a different dormant state
operation than the one described in Section 4.1 provided that the
solution chosen does not decrease the fault tolerance of the SCTP-PF
operation.
The prescription below for SCTP-PF dormant state handling MUST NOT be
coupled to the value of the PFMR, but solely to the activation of
SCTP-PF logic in an SCTP implementation.
It is noted that the below dormant state operation can also provide
enhanced disruption tolerance to a standard SCTP implementation that
doesn't support SCTP-PF. Thus, it can be sensible for a standard
SCTP implementation to follow this mode of operation. For a standard
SCTP implementation, the continuation of data transmission during
dormant state makes the fault tolerance of SCTP be more robust
towards situations where some, or all, alternative paths of an SCTP
association approach, or reach, inactive state before the primary
path used for data transmission observes trouble.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 10
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
4.1. SCTP Dormant State Procedure
1. When the destination addresses are all in inactive state and data
is available for transfer, the sender MUST choose one destination
and transmit data to this destination address.
2. The sender MUST NOT change the state of the chosen destination
address (it remains in inactive state) and MUST NOT clear the
error counter of the destination address as a result of choosing
the destination address for data transmission.
3. The sender SHOULD choose the destination in inactive state with
the lowest error count (fewest consecutive timeouts) for data
transmission. When there are multiple destinations with the same
error count in inactive state, the sender SHOULD attempt to pick
the most divergent source -- destination pair from the last
source -- destination pair where failure was observed. Rules for
picking the most divergent source-destination pair are an
implementation decision and are not specified within this
document. To support differentiation of inactive destination
addresses based on their error count, SCTP will need to allow for
incrementing of the destination address error counters up to some
reasonable limit above PMR+1, thus changing the prescriptions of
Section 8.3 of [RFC 4960] in this respect. The exact limit to
apply is not specified in this document, but it is considered
reasonable enough to require that the limit be an order of
magnitude higher than the PMR value. A sender MAY choose to
deploy other strategies than the strategy defined here. The
strategy to prioritize the last active destination address, i.e.,
the destination address with the fewest error counts is optimal
when some paths are permanently inactive, but suboptimal when
path instability is transient.
5. Primary Path Switchover
The objective of the Primary Path Switchover operation is to allow
the SCTP sender to continue data transmission on a new working path
even when the old primary destination address becomes active again.
This is achieved by having SCTP perform a switchover of the primary
path to the new working path if the error counter of the primary path
exceeds a certain threshold. This mode of operation can be applied
not only to SCTP-PF implementations, but also to implementations of
[RFC 4960].
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 11
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
The Primary Path Switchover operation requires only sender-side
changes. The details are:
1. The sender maintains a new tunable parameter, called
Primary.Switchover.Max.Retrans (PSMR). For SCTP-PF
implementations, the PSMR MUST be set greater than or equal to
the PFMR value. For implementations of [RFC 4960], the PSMR MUST
be set greater than or equal to the PMR value. Implementations
MUST reject any other values of PSMR.
2. When the path error counter on a set primary path exceeds PSMR,
the SCTP implementation MUST autonomously select and set a new
primary path.
3. The primary path selected by the SCTP implementation MUST be the
path that, at the given time, would be chosen for data transfer.
A previously failed primary path can be used as a data transfer
path as per normal path selection when the present data transfer
path fails.
4. For SCTP-PF, the recommended value of PSMR is PFMR when Primary
Path Switchover operation mode is used. This means that no
forced switchback to a previously failed primary path is
performed. An SCTP-PF implementation of Primary Path Switchover
MUST support the setting of PSMR = PFMR. An SCTP-PF
implementation of Primary Path Switchover MAY support setting of
PSMR > PFMR.
5. For standard SCTP, the recommended value of PSMR is PMR when
Primary Path Switchover is used. This means that no forced
switchback to a previously failed primary path is performed. A
standard SCTP implementation of Primary Path Switchover MUST
support the setting of PSMR = PMR. A standard SCTP
implementation of Primary Path Switchover MAY support larger
settings of PSMR > PMR.
6. It MUST be possible to disable the Primary Path Switchover
operation and obtain the standard switchback operation of
[RFC 4960].
The manner of switchover operation that is most optimal in a given
scenario depends on the relative quality of a set primary path versus
the quality of alternative paths available as well as on the extent
to which it is desired for the mode of operation to enforce traffic
distribution over a number of network paths. That is, load
distribution of traffic from multiple SCTP associations may be
enforced by distribution of the set primary paths with the switchback
operation of [RFC 4960]. However, as switchback behavior of [RFC 4960]
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 12
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
is suboptimal in certain situations, especially in scenarios where a
number of equally good paths are available, an SCTP implementation
MAY support also, as alternative behavior, the Primary Path
Switchover mode of operation and MAY enable it based on applications'
requests.
For an SCTP implementation that implements the Primary Path
Switchover operation, this specification RECOMMENDS that the standard
switchback operation of [RFC 4960] be retained as the default
operation.
6. Suggested SCTP Protocol Parameter Values
This document does not alter the value recommendation for the SCTP
Protocol Parameters defined in [RFC 4960].
The following protocol parameter is RECOMMENDED:
PotentiallyFailed.Max.Retrans (PFMR) - 0
7. Socket API Considerations
This section describes how the socket API defined in [RFC 6458] is
extended to provide a way for the application to control and observe
the SCTP-PF behavior as well as the Primary Path Switchover function.
Please note that this section is informational only.
A socket API implementation based on [RFC 6458] is, by means of the
existing SCTP_PEER_ADDR_CHANGE event, extended to provide the event
notification when a peer address enters or leaves the PF state as
well as the socket API implementation is extended to expose the PF
state of a peer address in the existing SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDR_INFO
structure.
Furthermore, two new read/write socket options for the level
IPPROTO_SCTP and the name SCTP_PEER_ADDR_THLDS and
SCTP_EXPOSE_POTENTIALLY_FAILED_STATE are defined as described below.
The first socket option is used to control the values of the PFMR and
PSMR parameters described in Sections 3 and 5. The second one
controls the exposition of the PF path state.
Support for the SCTP_PEER_ADDR_THLDS and
SCTP_EXPOSE_POTENTIALLY_FAILED_STATE socket options also needs to be
added to the function sctp_opt_info().
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 13
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
7.1. Support for the Potentially Failed Path State
As defined in [RFC 6458], the SCTP_PEER_ADDR_CHANGE event is provided
if the status of a peer address changes. In addition to the state
changes described in [RFC 6458], this event is also provided if a peer
address enters or leaves the PF state. The notification as defined
in [RFC 6458] uses the following structure:
struct sctp_paddr_change {
uint16_t spc_type;
uint16_t spc_flags;
uint32_t spc_length;
struct sockaddr_storage spc_aaddr;
uint32_t spc_state;
uint32_t spc_error;
sctp_assoc_t spc_assoc_id;
}
[RFC 6458] defines the constants SCTP_ADDR_AVAILABLE,
SCTP_ADDR_UNREACHABLE, SCTP_ADDR_REMOVED, SCTP_ADDR_ADDED, and
SCTP_ADDR_MADE_PRIM to be provided in the spc_state field. This
document defines the new additional constant
SCTP_ADDR_POTENTIALLY_FAILED, which is reported if the affected
address becomes PF.
The SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDR_INFO socket option defined in [RFC 6458] can be
used to query the state of a peer address. It uses the following
structure:
struct sctp_paddrinfo {
sctp_assoc_t spinfo_assoc_id;
struct sockaddr_storage spinfo_address;
int32_t spinfo_state;
uint32_t spinfo_cwnd;
uint32_t spinfo_srtt;
uint32_t spinfo_rto;
uint32_t spinfo_mtu;
};
[RFC 6458] defines the constants SCTP_UNCONFIRMED, SCTP_ACTIVE, and
SCTP_INACTIVE to be provided in the spinfo_state field. This
document defines the new additional constant SCTP_POTENTIALLY_FAILED,
which is reported if the peer address is PF.
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7.2. Peer Address Thresholds (SCTP_PEER_ADDR_THLDS) Socket Option
Applications can control the SCTP-PF behavior by getting or setting
the number of consecutive timeouts before a peer address is
considered PF or unreachable. The same socket option is used by
applications to set and get the number of timeouts before the primary
path is changed automatically by the Primary Path Switchover
function. This socket option uses the level IPPROTO_SCTP and the
name SCTP_PEER_ADDR_THLDS.
The following structure is used to access and modify the thresholds:
struct sctp_paddrthlds {
sctp_assoc_t spt_assoc_id;
struct sockaddr_storage spt_address;
uint16_t spt_pathmaxrxt;
uint16_t spt_pathpfthld;
uint16_t spt_pathcpthld;
};
spt_assoc_id: This parameter is ignored for one-to-one style
sockets. For one-to-many style sockets, the application may fill
in an association identifier or SCTP_FUTURE_ASSOC. It is an error
to use SCTP_{CURRENT|ALL}_ASSOC in spt_assoc_id.
spt_address: This specifies which peer address is of interest. If a
wildcard address is provided, this socket option applies to all
current and future peer addresses.
spt_pathmaxrxt: Each peer address of interest is considered
unreachable, if its path error counter exceeds spt_pathmaxrxt.
spt_pathpfthld: Each peer address of interest is considered PF, if
its path error counter exceeds spt_pathpfthld.
spt_pathcpthld: Each peer address of interest is not considered the
primary remote address anymore, if its path error counter exceeds
spt_pathcpthld. Using a value of 0xffff disables the selection of
a new primary peer address. If an implementation does not support
the automatic selection of a new primary address, it should
indicate an error with errno set to EINVAL if a value different
from 0xffff is used in spt_pathcpthld. For SCTP-PF, the setting
of spt_pathcpthld < spt_pathpfthld should be rejected with errno
set to EINVAL. For standard SCTP, the setting of spt_pathcpthld <
spt_pathmaxrxt should be rejected with errno set to EINVAL. An
SCTP-PF implementation may support only setting of spt_pathcpthld
= spt_pathpfthld and spt_pathcpthld = 0xffff and a standard SCTP
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RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
implementation may support only setting of spt_pathcpthld =
spt_pathmaxrxt and spt_pathcpthld = 0xffff. In these cases, SCTP
shall reject setting of other values with errno set to EINVAL.
7.3. Exposing the Potentially Failed Path State
(SCTP_EXPOSE_POTENTIALLY_FAILED_STATE) Socket Option
Applications can control the exposure of the PF path state in the
SCTP_PEER_ADDR_CHANGE event and the SCTP_GET_PEER_ADDR_INFO as
described in Section 7.1. The default value is implementation
specific.
This socket option uses the level IPPROTO_SCTP and the name
SCTP_EXPOSE_POTENTIALLY_FAILED_STATE.
The following structure is used to control the exposition of the PF
path state:
struct sctp_assoc_value {
sctp_assoc_t assoc_id;
uint32_t assoc_value;
};
assoc_id: This parameter is ignored for one-to-one style sockets.
For one-to-many style sockets, the application may fill in an
association identifier or SCTP_FUTURE_ASSOC. It is an error to
use SCTP_{CURRENT|ALL}_ASSOC in assoc_id.
assoc_value: The PF path state is exposed if, and only if, this
parameter is non-zero.
8. Security Considerations
Security considerations for the use of SCTP and its APIs are
discussed in [RFC 4960] and [RFC 6458].
The logic introduced by this document does not impact existing SCTP
messages on the wire. Also, this document does not introduce any new
SCTP messages on the wire that require new security considerations.
SCTP-PF makes SCTP not only more robust during primary path failure/
congestion, but also more vulnerable to network connectivity/
congestion attacks on the primary path. SCTP-PF makes it easier for
an attacker to trick SCTP into changing the data transfer path, since
the duration of time that an attacker needs to negatively influence
the network connectivity is much shorter than used in [RFC 4960].
However, SCTP-PF does not constitute a significant change in the
duration of time and effort an attacker needs to keep SCTP away from
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RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
the primary path. With the standard switchback operation in
[RFC 4960], SCTP resumes data transfer on its primary path as soon as
the next HEARTBEAT succeeds.
On the other hand, usage of the Primary Path Switchover mechanism,
does change the threat analysis. This is because on-path attackers
can force a permanent change of the data transfer path by blocking
the primary path until the switchover of the primary path is
triggered by the Primary Path Switchover algorithm. This will
especially be the case when the Primary Path Switchover is used
together with SCTP-PF with the particular setting of PSMR = PFMR = 0,
as Primary Path Switchover here happens already at the first RTO
timeout experienced. Users of the Primary Path Switchover mechanism
should be aware of this fact.
The event notification of path state transfer from active to PF state
and vice versa gives attackers an increased possibility to generate
more local events. However, it is assumed that event notifications
are rate-limited in the implementation to address this threat.
9. MIB Considerations
SCTP-PF introduces new SCTP algorithms for failover and switchback
with associated new state parameters. It is recommended that the
SCTP-MIB defined in [RFC 3873] is updated to support the management of
the SCTP-PF implementation. This can be done by extending the
sctpAssocRemAddrActive field of the SCTPAssocRemAddrTable to include
information of the PF state of the destination address and by adding
new fields to the SCTPAssocRemAddrTable supporting
PotentiallyFailed.Max.Retrans (PFMR) and
Primary.Switchover.Max.Retrans (PSMR) parameters.
10. References
10.1. Normative References
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 4960] Stewart, R., Ed., "Stream Control Transmission Protocol",
RFC 4960, DOI 10.17487/RFC 4960, September 2007,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 4960>.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 17
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
10.2. Informative References
[CARO02] Caro, A., Iyengar, J., Amer, P., Heinz, G., and R.
Stewart, "A Two-level Threshold Recovery Mechanism for
SCTP", Tech report, CIS Dept., University of Delaware,
July 2002.
[CARO04] Caro, A., Amer, P., and R. Stewart, "End-to-End Failover
Thresholds for Transport Layer Multihoming", MILCOM 2004,
DOI 10.1109/MILCOM.2004.1493253, November 2004.
[CARO05] Caro, A., "End-to-End Fault Tolerance using Transport
Layer Multihoming", Ph.D. Thesis, University of Delaware,
DOI 10.1007/BF03219970, January 2005.
[FALLON08]
Fallon, S., Jacob, P., Qiao, Y., Murphy, L., Fallon, E.,
and A. Hanley, "SCTP Switchover Performance Issues in WLAN
Environments", IEEE CCNC, DOI 10.1109/ccnc08.2007.131,
January 2008.
[GRINNEMO04]
Grinnemo, K-J. and A. Brunstrom, "Performance of SCTP-
controlled failovers in M3UA-based SIGTRAN networks",
Advanced Simulation Technologies Conference, April 2004.
[IYENGAR06]
Iyengar, J., Amer, P., and R. Stewart, "Concurrent
Multipath Transfer using SCTP Multihoming over Independent
End-to-end Paths", IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking,
DOI 10.1109/TNET.2006.882843, October 2006.
[JUNGMAIER02]
Jungmaier, A., Rathgeb, E., and M. Tuexen, "On the use of
SCTP in failover scenarios", World Multiconference on
Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, July 2002.
[NATARAJAN09]
Natarajan, P., Ekiz, N., Amer, P., and R. Stewart,
"Concurrent Multipath Transfer during Path Failure",
Computer Communications, DOI 10.1016/j.comcom.2009.05.001,
May 2009.
[RFC 3873] Pastor, J. and M. Belinchon, "Stream Control Transmission
Protocol (SCTP) Management Information Base (MIB)",
RFC 3873, DOI 10.17487/RFC 3873, September 2004,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3873>.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 18
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
[RFC 6458] Stewart, R., Tuexen, M., Poon, K., Lei, P., and V.
Yasevich, "Sockets API Extensions for the Stream Control
Transmission Protocol (SCTP)", RFC 6458,
DOI 10.17487/RFC 6458, December 2011,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 6458>.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 19
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
Appendix A. Discussion of Alternative Approaches
This section lists alternative approaches for the issues described in
this document. Although these approaches do not require updating RFC
4960, we do not recommend them for the reasons described below.
A.1. Reduce PMR
Smaller values for Path.Max.Retrans shorten the failover duration and
in fact, this is recommended in some research results [JUNGMAIER02],
[GRINNEMO04], and [FALLON08]. However, to significantly reduce the
failover time, it is required to go down (as with PFMR) to
Path.Max.Retrans=0 and, with this setting, SCTP switches to another
destination address already on a single timeout that may result in
spurious failover. Spurious failover is a problem in standard SCTP
as the transmission of HEARTBEATs on the left primary path, unlike in
SCTP-PF, is governed by HB.Interval also during the failover process.
HB.Interval is usually set in the order of seconds (recommended value
is 30 seconds) and when the primary path becomes inactive, the next
HEARTBEAT may be transmitted only many seconds later: as recommended,
only 30 seconds later. Meanwhile, the primary path may have long
since recovered, if it needed recovery at all (indeed the failover
could be truly spurious). In such situations, post failover, an
endpoint is forced to wait in the order of many seconds before the
endpoint can resume transmission on the primary path and furthermore,
once it returns on the primary path, the CWND needs to be rebuilt
anew -- a process that the throughput already had to suffer from on
the alternate path. Using a smaller value for HB.Interval might help
this situation, but it would result in a general waste of bandwidth
as such more frequent HEARTBEATING would take place also when there
are no observed troubles. The bandwidth overhead may be diminished
by having the ULP use a smaller HB.Interval only on the path that, at
any given time, is set to be the primary path; however, this adds
complication in the ULP.
In addition, smaller Path.Max.Retrans values also affect the
Association.Max.Retrans value. When the SCTP association's error
count exceeds Association.Max.Retrans threshold, the SCTP sender
considers the peer endpoint unreachable and terminates the
association. Section 8.2 in [RFC 4960] recommends that the
Association.Max.Retrans value should not be larger than the summation
of the Path.Max.Retrans of each of the destination addresses.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 20
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
Otherwise, the SCTP sender considers its peer reachable even when all
destinations are INACTIVE. To avoid this dormant state operation,
standard SCTP implementation SHOULD reduce Association.Max.Retrans
accordingly whenever it reduces Path.Max.Retrans. However, smaller
Association.Max.Retrans value decreases the fault tolerance of SCTP
as it increases the chances of association termination during minor
congestion events.
A.2. Adjust RTO-Related Parameters
As several research results indicate, we can also shorten the
duration of the failover process by adjusting the RTO-related
parameters [JUNGMAIER02] and [FALLON08]. During the failover
process, RTO keeps being doubled. However, if we can choose a
smaller value for RTO.max, we can stop the exponential growth of RTO
at some point. Also, choosing smaller values for RTO.initial or
RTO.min can contribute to keeping the RTO value small.
Similar to reducing Path.Max.Retrans, the advantage of this approach
is that it requires no modification to the current specification,
although it needs to ignore several recommendations described in
Section 15 of [RFC 4960]. However, this approach requires having
enough knowledge about the network characteristics between endpoints.
Otherwise, it can introduce adverse side effects such as spurious
timeouts.
The significant issue with this approach, however, is that even if
the RTO.max is lowered to an optimal low value, as long as the
Path.Max.Retrans is kept at the recommended value from [RFC 4960], the
reduction of the RTO.max doesn't reduce the failover time
sufficiently enough to prevent severe performance degradation during
failover.
Appendix B. Discussion of the Path-Bouncing Effect
The methods described in the document can accelerate the failover
process. Hence, they might introduce a path-bouncing effect in which
the sender keeps changing the data transmission path frequently.
This sounds harmful to the data transfer; however, several research
results indicate that there is no serious problem with SCTP in terms
of the path-bouncing effect (see [CARO04] and [CARO05]).
There are two main reasons for this. First, SCTP is basically
designed for multipath communication, which means SCTP maintains all
path-related parameters (CWND, ssthresh, RTT, error count, etc.) per
each destination address. These parameters cannot be affected by
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 21
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
path bouncing. In addition, when SCTP migrates the data transfer to
another path, it starts with the minimal or the initial CWND. Hence,
there is little chance for packet reordering or duplicating.
Second, even if all communication paths between the end nodes share
the same bottleneck, the SCTP-PF results in a behavior already
allowed by [RFC 4960].
Appendix C. SCTP-PF for SCTP Single-Homed Operation
For a single-homed SCTP association, the only tangible effect of the
activation of SCTP-PF operation is enhanced failure detection in
terms of potential notification of the PF state of the sole
destination address as well as, for idle associations, more rapid
entering, and notification, of inactive state of the destination
address and more rapid endpoint failure detection. It is believed
that neither of these effects are harmful, provided adequate dormant
state operation is implemented. Furthermore, it is believed that
they may be particularly useful for applications that deploy multiple
SCTP associations for load-balancing purposes. The early
notification of the PF state may be used for preventive measures as
the entering of the PF state can be used as a warning of potential
congestion. Depending on the PMR value, the aggressive HEARTBEAT
transmission in PF state may speed up the endpoint failure detection
(exceed of AMR threshold on the sole path error counter) on idle
associations in the case with a relatively large HB.Interval value
compared to RTO (e.g., 30 seconds) is used.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge members of the IETF Transport
Area Working Group (tsvwg) for continuing discussions on this
document and insightful feedback, and we appreciate continuous
encouragement and suggestions from the Chairs of the tsvwg. We
especially wish to thank Michael Tuexen for his many invaluable
comments and for his substantial supports with the making of the
document.
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 22
RFC 7829 SCTP-PF April 2016
Authors' Addresses
Yoshifumi Nishida
GE Global Research
2623 Camino Ramon
San Ramon, CA 94583
United States
Email: nishida@wide.ad.jp
Preethi Natarajan
Cisco Systems
510 McCarthy Blvd.
Milpitas, CA 95035
United States
Email: prenatar@cisco.com
Armando Caro
BBN Technologies
10 Moulton St.
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
Email: acaro@bbn.com
Paul D. Amer
University of Delaware
Computer Science Department - 434 Smith Hall
Newark, DE 19716-2586
United States
Email: amer@udel.edu
Karen E. E. Nielsen
Ericsson
Kistavaegen 25
Stockholm 164 80
Sweden
Email: karen.nielsen@tieto.com
Nishida, et al. Standards Track PAGE 23
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 53922 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, April 20th, 2016
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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