DNS Stateful Operations
draft-ietf-dnsop-session-signal-04
The information below is for an old version of the document.
| Document | Type |
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8490.
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Authors | Ray Bellis , Stuart Cheshire , John Dickinson , Sara Dickinson , Allison Mankin , Tom Pusateri | ||
| Last updated | 2017-09-13 | ||
| Replaces | draft-bellis-dnsop-session-signal | ||
| RFC stream | Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) | ||
| Formats | |||
| Reviews |
GENART Telechat review
(of
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by Joel Halpern
Ready w/nits
GENART Last Call review
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by Joel Halpern
Ready w/issues
|
||
| Additional resources | Mailing list discussion | ||
| Stream | WG state | WG Document | |
| Document shepherd | Tim Wicinski | ||
| IESG | IESG state | Became RFC 8490 (Proposed Standard) | |
| Consensus boilerplate | Yes | ||
| Telechat date | (None) | ||
| Responsible AD | (None) | ||
| Send notices to | "Tim Wicinski" <tjw.ietf@gmail.com> |
draft-ietf-dnsop-session-signal-04
DNSOP Working Group R. Bellis
Internet-Draft ISC
Updates: RFC 7766, RFC 1035 (if S. Cheshire
approved) Apple Inc.
Intended status: Standards Track J. Dickinson
Expires: March 17, 2018 S. Dickinson
Sinodun
A. Mankin
Salesforce
T. Pusateri
Unaffiliated
September 13, 2017
DNS Stateful Operations
draft-ietf-dnsop-session-signal-04
Abstract
This document defines a new DNS Stateful Operation OPCODE used to
communicate operations within persistent stateful sessions, expressed
using type-length-value (TLV) syntax, and defines an initial set of
TLVs used to manage session timeouts and termination. This mechanism
is intended to reduce the overhead of existing "per-packet" signaling
mechanisms with "per-message" semantics as well as defining new
stateful operations not defined in EDNS(0).
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on March 17, 2018.
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2017 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
(http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
publication of this document. Please review these documents
carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must
include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
described in the Simplified BSD License.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. Protocol Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4.1. DSO Session Establishment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
4.1.1. Middle-box Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2. Message Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2.1. Header . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2.2. DSO Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.2.3. EDNS(0) and TSIG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3. Message Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
5. Keepalive Operation TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.1. Client handling of received Session Timeout values . . . 16
5.2. Relation to EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive Option . . . . . . . . 17
6. Retry Delay TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
6.1. Use as an Operation TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6.2. Use as a Modifier TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
7. Encryption Padding TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
8. DSO Session Lifecycle and Timers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.1. DSO Session Initiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.2. DSO Session Timeouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.3. Inactive DSO Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
8.4. The Inactivity Timeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.4.1. Closing Inactive DSO Sessions . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8.4.2. Values for the Inactivity Timeout . . . . . . . . . . 22
8.5. The Keepalive Interval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.5.1. Keepalive Interval Expiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.5.2. Values for the Keepalive Interval . . . . . . . . . . 23
8.6. Server-Initiated Termination on Error . . . . . . . . . . 24
8.7. Client Behaviour in Receiving an Error . . . . . . . . . 25
8.8. Server-Initiated Termination on Overload . . . . . . . . 25
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8.9. Retry Delay Operation TLV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8.9.1. Outstanding Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
8.9.2. Client Reconnection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9. Connection Sharing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
10.1. DSO OPCODE Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
10.2. DSO RCODE Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
10.3. DSO Type Codes Registry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
12. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
13. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
13.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
13.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1. Introduction
The use of transports for DNS other than UDP is being increasingly
specified, for example, DNS over TCP [RFC1035][RFC7766] and DNS over
TLS [RFC7858]. Such transports can offer persistent, long-lived
sessions and therefore when using them for transporting DNS messages
it is of benefit to have a mechanism that can establish parameters
associated with those sessions, such as timeouts. In such situations
it is also advantageous to support server initiated messages.
The existing EDNS(0) Extension Mechanism for DNS [RFC6891] is
explicitly defined to only have "per-message" semantics. Whilst
EDNS(0) has been used to signal at least one session related
parameter (the EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive option [RFC7828]) the result is
less than optimal due to the restrictions imposed by the EDNS(0)
semantics and the lack of server-initiated signalling. For example,
a server cannot arbitrarily instruct a client to close a connection
because the server can only send EDNS(0) options in responses to
queries that contained EDNS(0) options.
This document defines a new DNS Stateful Operation OPCODE used to
carry operations within persistent stateful connections, expressed
using type-length-value (TLV) syntax, and defines an initial set of
TLVs including ones used to manage session timeouts and termination.
This new format has distinct advantages over an RR based format
because it is more explicit and more compact. Each TLV definition is
specific to the use case, and as a result contains no redundant or
overloaded fields. Importantly, it completely avoids conflating DNS
Stateful Operations in anyway with normal DNS operations or with
existing EDNS(0) based functionality. A goal of this approach is to
avoid the operational issues that have befallen EDNS(0), particularly
relating to middle-box behaviour.
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With EDNS(0), multiple options may be packed into a single OPT
pseudo-RR, and there is no generalized mechanism for a client to be
able to tell whether a server has processed or otherwise acted upon
each individual option within the combined OPT RR. The
specifications for each individual option need to define how each
different option is to be acknowledged, if necessary.
With DNS Stateful Operations, in contrast, there is no compelling
motivation to pack multiple operations into a single message for
efficiency reasons. Each Stateful operation is communicated in its
own separate DNS message, and the transport protocol can take care of
packing separate DNS messages into a single IP packet if appropriate.
For example, TCP can pack multiple small DNS messages into a single
TCP segment. The RCODE in each response message indicates the
success or failure of the operation in question.
It should be noted that the message format for DNS Stateful
Operations (see Section 4.2) differs from the traditional DNS packet
format used for standard queries and responses. The standard twelve-
octet header is used, but the four count fields (QDCOUNT, ANCOUNT,
NSCOUNT, ARCOUNT) are set to zero and their corresponding sections
are not present. The actual data pertaining to DNS Stateful
Operations is appended to the end of the DNS message header. When
displayed using today's packet analyzer tools that have not been
updated to recognize the DNS Stateful Operations format, this will
result in the Stateful Operations data being displayed as unknown
additional data after the end of the DNS message. It is likely that
future updates to these tools will add the ability to recognize,
decode, and display the Stateful Operations data.
2. Terminology
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
"Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels" [RFC2119].
"DSO" is used to mean DNS Stateful Operation.
The term "connection" means a bidirectional byte stream of reliable,
in-order messages, such as provided by using DNS over TCP
[RFC1035][RFC7766] or DNS over TLS [RFC7858].
The unqualified term "session" in the context of this document means
the exchange of DNS messages over a connection where:
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o The connection between client and server is persistent and
relatively long-lived (i.e., minutes or hours, rather than
seconds).
o Either end of the connection may initiate messages to the other.
A "DSO session" is established between two endpoints that acknowledge
persistent DNS state via the exchange of DSO messages over the
connection. This is distinct from, for example a DNS-over-TCP
session as described in RC7766.
A "DSO session" is terminated when the underlying connection is
closed.
The term "server" means the software with a listening socket,
awaiting incoming connection requests.
The term "client" means the software which initiates a connection to
the server's listening socket.
The terms "initiator" and "responder" correspond respectively to the
initial sender and subsequent receiver of a DSO request message,
regardless of which was the "client" and "server" in the usual DNS
sense.
The term "sender" may apply to either an initiator (when sending a
DNS Stateful Operation request message) or a responder (when sending
a DNS Stateful Operation response message).
Likewise, the term "receiver" may apply to either a responder (when
receiving a DNS Stateful Operation request message) or an initiator
(when receiving a DNS Stateful Operation response message).
DNS Stateful Operations are expressed using type-length-value (TLV)
syntax.
Two timers (elapsed time since an event) are defined in this
document:
o an inactivity timer (see Section 5 and Section 8.3)
o a keepalive timer (see Section 5 and Section 8.5)
The timeouts associated with these timers are called the inactivity
timeout and the keepalive interval respectively. The term "Session
Timeouts" is used to refer to this pair of timeout values.
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Reseting a timer means resetting the timer value to zero and starting
the timer again. Clearing a timer means resetting the timer value to
zero but NOT starting the time again.
3. Discussion
There are several use cases for DNS Stateful operations that can be
described here.
Firstly, establishing session parameters such as server defined
timeouts is of great use in the general management of persistent
connections. For example, using DSO sessions for stub to recursive
DNS-over-TLS [RFC7858] is more flexible for both the client and the
server than attempting to manage sessions using just the EDNS(0) TCP
Keepalive option [RFC7828]. The simple set of TLVs defined in this
document is sufficient to greatly enhance connection management for
this use case.
Secondly, DNS-SD has evolved into a naturally session based mechanism
where, for example, long-lived subscriptions lend themselves to
'push' mechanisms as opposed to polling. Long-lived stateful
connections and server initiated messages align with this use case as
described in [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push].
A general use case is that DNS traffic is often bursty but session
establishment can be expensive. One challenge with long-lived
connections is to maintain sufficient traffic to maintain NAT and
firewall state. To mitigate this issue this document introduces a
new concept for the DNS, that is DSO "Keepalive traffic". This
traffic carries no DNS data and is not considered 'activity' in the
classic DNS sense but serves to reset a keepalive timer in order to
avoid re-cycling a DSO session.
There are a myriad of other potential use cases for DSO given the
versatility and extensibility of this specification.
Section 4 of this document first describes the protocol details of
DNS Stateful Operations including definitions of three TLVs for
session management and encryption padding. Section 8 then presents a
detailed discussion of the DSO Session lifecycle including an in-
depth discussion of keepalive traffic and session termination.
4. Protocol Details
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4.1. DSO Session Establishment
DSO messages MUST only be carried in protocols and in environments
where a session may be established according to the definition above.
Standard DNS over TCP [RFC1035][RFC7766], and DNS over TLS [RFC7858]
are suitable protocols.
DNS over plain UDP [RFC0768] is not appropriate since it fails on the
requirement for in-order message delivery, and, in the presence of
NAT gateways and firewalls with short UDP timeouts, it fails to
provide a persistent bi-directional communication channel unless an
excessive amount of keepalive traffic is used.
DSO messages relate only to the specific "DSO session" in which they
are being carried. A "DSO session" is established over a connection
when either side of the connection sends the first DSO TLV and it is
acknowledged by the other side. The DSO message format Section 4.2.2
includes an option to specify that a DSO request does not require a
response acknowledgement. Session establishment can only be
performed using a DSO message that requires a response
acknowledgement.
While this specification defines an initial set of three TLVs,
additional TLVs may be defined in additional specifications. All
three of the TLVs defined here are mandatory to implement.
A client MAY attempt to initiate DSO messages at any time on a
connection; receiving a NOTIMP response in reply indicates that the
server does not implement DSO, and the client SHOULD NOT issue
further DSO messages on that connection.
A server SHOULD NOT initiate DSO messages until a client-initiated
DSO message is received first, unless in an environment where it is
known in advance by other means that the client supports DSO. This
requirement is to ensure that the clients that do not support DSO do
not receive unsolicited inbound DSO messages that they would not know
how to handle.
On a session between a client and server that support DSO, once the
client has sent at least one DSO message (or it is known in advance
by other means that the client supports DSO) either end may
unilaterally send DSO messages at any time, and therefore either
client or server may be the initiator of a message.
From this point on it is considered that a "DSO session" is in
progress. Clients and servers should behave as described in this
specification with regard to inactivity timeouts and connection
close, not as prescribed in [RFC7766].
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4.1.1. Middle-box Considerations
Where an application-layer middle box (e.g., a DNS proxy, forwarder,
or session multiplexer) is in the path the middle box MUST NOT
blindly forward DSO messages in either direction, and MUST treat the
inbound and outbound connections as separate sessions. This does not
preclude the use of DSO messages in the presence of an IP-layer
middle box such as a NAT that rewrites IP-layer and/or transport-
layer headers, but otherwise preserves the effect of a single session
between the client and the server.
To illustrate the above, consider a network where a middle box
terminates one or more TCP connections from clients and multiplexes
the queries therein over a single TCP connection to an upstream
server. The DSO messages and any associated state are specific to
the individual TCP connections. A DSO-aware middle box MAY in some
circumstances be able to retain associated state and pass it between
the client and server (or vice versa) but this would be highly TLV-
specific. For example, the middle box may be able to maintain a list
of which clients have made Push Notification subscriptions
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push] and make its own subscription(s) on their
behalf, relaying any subsequent notifications to the client (or
clients) that have subscribed to that particular notification.
4.2. Message Format
A DSO message begins with the standard twelve-octet DNS message
header [RFC1035] with the OPCODE field set to the DSO OPCODE
(tentatively 6). However, unlike standard DNS messages, the question
section, answer section, authority records section and additional
records sections are not present. The corresponding count fields
(QDCOUNT, ANCOUNT, NSCOUNT, ARCOUNT) MUST be set to zero on
transmission.
If a DSO message is received where any of the count fields are not
zero, then a FORMERR MUST be returned.
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1 1 1 1 1 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| MESSAGE ID |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
|QR | OPCODE | Z | RCODE |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| QDCOUNT (MUST be zero) |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| ANCOUNT (MUST be zero) |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| NSCOUNT (MUST be zero) |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| ARCOUNT (MUST be zero) |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| |
/ DSO Data /
/ /
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
4.2.1. Header
In a request the MESSAGE ID field MUST be set to a unique value, that
the initiator is not currently using for any other active operation
on this connection. For the purposes here, a MESSAGE ID is in use in
this DSO session if the initiator has used it in a request for which
it has not yet received a response, or if the client has used it to
setup state that it has not yet ready to delete. For example, state
could be a subscription as defined in [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push].
In a response the MESSAGE ID field MUST contain a copy of the value
of the MESSAGE ID field in the request being responded to.
In a request the DNS Header QR bit MUST be zero (QR=0). If the QR
bit is not zero the message is not a request.
In a response the DNS Header QR bit MUST be one (QR=1). If the QR
bit is not one the message is not a response.
The DNS Header OPCODE field holds the DSO OPCODE value (tentatively
6).
The Z bits are currently unused, and in both requests and responses
the Z bits MUST be set to zero (0) on transmission and MUST be
silently ignored on reception, unless a future document specifies
otherwise.
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In a request message (QR=0) the RCODE is generally set to zero on
transmission, and silently ignored on reception, except where
specified otherwise (for example, the Retry Delay operation (see
Section 6), where the RCODE indicates the reason for termination).
The RCODE value in a response may be one of the following values:
+------+-----------+------------------------------------------------+
| Code | Mnemonic | Description |
+------+-----------+------------------------------------------------+
| 0 | NOERROR | Operation processed successfully |
| | | |
| 1 | FORMERR | Format error |
| | | |
| 2 | SERVFAIL | Server failed to process request due to a |
| | | problem with the server |
| | | |
| 3 | NXDOMAIN | TLV dependent |
| | | |
| 4 | NOTIMP | DSO not supported |
| | | |
| 5 | REFUSED | Operation declined for policy reasons |
| | | |
| 9 | NOTAUTH | Not Authoritative (TLV dependent) |
| | | |
| 11 | DSONOTIMP | DSO type code not supported |
+------+-----------+------------------------------------------------+
Use of the above RCODE's is likely to be common in DSO but does not
preclude the definition and use of other codes in future documents
that make use of DSO.
If a document describing a DSO makes use of either NXDOMAIN or
NOTAUTH then that document MUST explain the meaning.
4.2.2. DSO Data
The standard twelve-octet DNS message header is followed by the DSO
Data.
The first TLV in a DSO request message is called the Operation TLV.
Any subsequent TLVs after this initial Operation TLV are called
Modifier TLVs.
Depending on the operation a DSO response can contain:
o No TLVs
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o Only an Operation TLV
o An Operation TLV followed by one or more Modifier TLVs
o Only Modifier TLVs
4.2.2.1. TLV Format
Operation and modifier TLVs both use the same encoding format.
Operation TLVs SHOULD normally require a response and, therefore, set
the TLV Acknowledgement bit in a request. However, for some
Operation TLVs, this may be undesirable and the TLV Acknowledgement
bit MAY be cleared in the request. Each Operation TLV definition
should stipulate whether an acknowledgement is REQUIRED. If the TLV
Acknowledgement bit is cleared in a request, a response MUST NOT be
sent. Modifier TLVs MUST NEVER set the Acknowledgement bit. The
Acknowledgement bit is NEVER set in the response to an Operation TLV.
1 1 1 1 1 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| A | DSO-TYPE |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| DSO DATA LENGTH |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| |
/ TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA /
/ /
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
A: A 1 bit TLV Response flag indicating whether or not an Operation
TLV requires a response Acknowledgement. DSO-TYPE:
A 15 bit field in network order giving the type of the current DSO
TLV per the IANA DSO Type Codes Registry.
DSO DATA LENGTH: A 16 bit field in network order giving the size in
octets of the TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA.
TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA: Type-code specific format.
Where domain names appear within TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA, they MAY be
compressed using standard DNS name compression. However, the
compression MUST NOT point outside of the TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA section
and offsets MUST be from the start of the TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA.
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4.2.2.2. Operation TLVs
An "Operation TLV" specifies the operation to be performed.
A DSO message MUST contain at most one Operation TLV.
In all cases a DSO request message MUST contain exactly one Operation
TLV, indicating the operation to be performed.
Depending on the operation, a DSO response message MAY contain no
Operation TLV, because it is simply a response to a previous request
message, and the MESSAGE ID in the header is sufficient to identify
the request in question. Or it may contain a single corresponding
response Operation TLV, with the same DSO-TYPE as in the request
message. The specification for each DSO type determines whether a
response for that operation type is required to carry the Operation
TLV.
If a DSO response is received for an operation which requires that
the response carry an Operation TLV, and the required Operation TLV
is not the first DSO TLV in the response message, then this is a
fatal error and the recipient of the defective response message MUST
immediately terminate the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent
for other protocols).
4.2.2.3. Modifier TLVs
A "Modifier TLV" specifies additional parameters relating to the
operation. Immediately following the Operation TLV, if present, a
DSO message MAY contain one or more Modifier TLVs.
4.2.2.4. Unrecognized TLVs
If a DSO request is received containing an unrecognized Operation
TLV, the receiver MUST send a response with matching MESSAGE ID, and
RCODE DSONOTIMP (tentatively 11). The response MUST NOT contain an
Operation TLV.
If a DSO message (request or response) is received containing one or
more unrecognized Modifier TLVs, the unrecognized Modifier TLVs MUST
be silently ignored, and the remainder of the message is interpreted
and handled as if the unrecognized parts were not present.
4.2.3. EDNS(0) and TSIG
Since the ARCOUNT field MUST be zero, a DSO message MUST NOT contain
an EDNS(0) option in the additional records section. If
functionality provided by current or future EDNS(0) options is
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desired for DSO messages, an Operation TLV or Modifier TLV needs to
be defined to carry the necessary information.
For example, the EDNS(0) Padding Option [RFC7830] used for security
purposes is not permitted in a DSO message, so if message padding is
desired for DSO messages then the Encryption Padding TLV described in
Section 7 MUST be used.
Similarly, a DSO message MUST NOT contain a TSIG record. A TSIG
record in a conventional DNS message is added as the last record in
the additional records section, and carries a signature computed over
the preceding message content. Since DSO data appears after the
additional records section, it would not be included in the signature
calculation. If use of signatures with DSO messages becomes
necessary in the future, an explicit Modifier TLV needs to be defined
to perform this function.
Note however that, while DSO _messages_ cannot include EDNS(0) or
TSIG records, a DSO _session_ is typically used to carry a whole
series of DNS messages of different kinds, including DSO messages,
and other DNS message types like Query [RFC1034] [RFC1035] and Update
[RFC2136], and those messages can carry EDNS(0) and TSIG records.
This specification explicitly prohibits use of the EDNS(0) TCP
Keepalive Option [RFC7828] in _any_ messages sent on a DSO session
(because it duplicates the functionality provided by the DSO
Keepalive operation), but messages may contain other EDNS(0) options
as appropriate.
4.3. Message Handling
The initiator MUST set the value of the QR bit in the DNS header to
zero (0), and the responder MUST set it to one (1). Every DSO
request message (QR=0) MUST elicit a response (QR=1), which MUST have
the same MESSAGE ID in the DNS message header as in the corresponding
request. DSO request messages sent by the client elicit a response
from the server, and DSO request messages sent the server elicit a
response from the client.
With most TCP implementations, the TCP data acknowledgement
(generated because data has been received by TCP), the TCP window
update (generated because TCP has delivered that data to the
receiving software) and the DSO response (generated by the receiving
software itself) are all combined into a single packet, so in
practice the requirement that every DSO request message MUST elicit a
DSO response incurs minimal extra cost on the network. Requiring
that every request elicit a corresponding response also avoids
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performance problems caused by interaction between Nagle's Algorithm
and Delayed Ack [NagleDA].
The namespaces of 16-bit MESSAGE IDs are disjoint in each direction.
For example, it is _not_ an error for both client and server to send
a request message with the same ID. In effect, the 16-bit MESSAGE ID
combined with the identity of the initiator (client or server) serves
as a 17-bit unique identifier for a particular operation on a DSO
session.
As described in Section 4.2.1 An initiator MUST NOT reuse a MESSAGE
ID that is already in use for an outstanding request, unless
specified otherwise by the relevant specification for the DSO in
question. At the very least, this means that a MESSAGE ID MUST NOT
be reused in a particular direction on a particular DSO session while
the initiator is waiting for a response to a previous request on that
DSO session, unless specified otherwise by the relevant specification
for the DSO in question. (For a long-lived state the MESSAGE ID for
the operation MUST NOT be reused whilst that state remains active.)
If a client or server receives a response (QR=1) where the MESSAGE ID
does not match any of its outstanding operations, this is a fatal
error and it MUST immediately terminate the connection with a TCP RST
(or equivalent for other protocols).
5. Keepalive Operation TLV
The Keepalive Operation TLV (DSO-TYPE=1) performs two functions: to
reset the keepalive timer for the DSO session and to establish the
values for the Session Timeouts.
The Keepalive Operation TLV resets only the keepalive timer, not the
inactivity timer. The reason for this is that periodic Keepalive
Operation TLVs are sent for the sole purpose of keeping a DSO session
alive because that DSO session has current or recent activity that
warrants keeping the DSO session alive. If sending keepalive traffic
itself were to reset the inactivity timer, then that would create a
circular livelock where keepalive traffic would be sent indefinitely
to keep a DSO session alive, where the only activity on that DSO
session would be keepalive traffic keeping the DSO session alive so
that further keepalive traffic can be sent.
Sending keepalive traffic is considered a maintenance activity that
is performed in service of other client activities. Sending
keepalive traffic itself is not considered a client activity. For a
DSO session to be considered active, it must be carrying something
more than just keepalive traffic. This is why merely sending a
Keepalive Operation TLV does not reset the inactivity timer.
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When sent by a client, the Keepalive Operation TLV resets a DSO
session's keepalive timer, and at the same time requests what the
Session Timeout values should be from this point forward in the DSO
session.
An acknowledgement is always required for a Keepalive Operation TLV
and the TLV Acknowledgement bit MUST be set in the request when
originated by either the client or the server.
Once a DSO session is in progress (see Section 4) the Keepalive TLV
also MAY be initiated by a server. When sent by a server, it resets
a DSO session's keepalive timer, and unilaterally informs the client
of the new Session Timeout values to use from this point forward in
this DSO session.
It is not required that the Keepalive TLV be used in every DSO
session. While many DNS Stateful operations will be used in
conjunction with a long-lived session state, not all DNS Stateful
operations require long-lived session state, and in some cases the
default 15-second value for both the inactivity timeout and keepalive
interval may be perfectly appropriate. However, it can be noted that
for clients that implement only the TLVs defined in this document it
is the only way for a client to initiate a DSO session.
The TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA for the the Keepalive TLV is as follows:
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| INACTIVITY TIMEOUT (32 bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| KEEPALIVE INTERVAL (32 bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
INACTIVITY TIMEOUT: the inactivity timeout for the current DSO
session, specified as a 32 bit word in network (big endian) order
in units of milliseconds. This is the timeout at which the client
MUST close an inactive DSO session. If the client does not
gracefully close an inactive DSO session then after twice this
interval the server will forcibly terminate the connection with a
TCP RST (or equivalent for other protocols).
KEEPALIVE INTERVAL: the keepalive interval for the current DSO
session, specified as a 32-bit word, in network (big endian)
order, in units of milliseconds. This is the interval at which a
client MUST generate keepalive traffic to maintain connection
state. If the client does not generate the necessary keepalive
traffic then after twice this interval the server will forcibly
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terminate the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other
protocols).
In a client-initiated DSO Keepalive message, the Session Timeouts
contain the client's requested values. In a server response to a
client-initiated message, the Session Timeouts contain the server's
chosen values, which the client MUST respect. This is modeled after
the DHCP protocol, where the client requests a certain lease lifetime
using DHCP option 51 [RFC2132], but the server is the ultimate
authority for deciding what lease lifetime is actually granted.
In a server-initiated DSO Keepalive message, the Session Timeouts
unilaterally inform the client of the new values from this point
forward in this DSO session. The client MUST generate a response to
the server-initiated DSO Keepalive message. The MESSAGE ID in the
response message MUST match the ID from the server-initiated DSO
Keepalive message, and the response message MUST NOT contain any
Operation TLV.
When a client is sending its second and subsequent Keepalive DSO
requests to the server, the client SHOULD continue to request its
preferred values each time. This allows flexibility, so that if
conditions change during the lifetime of a DSO session, the server
can adapt its responses to better fit the client's needs.
5.1. Client handling of received Session Timeout values
When a client receives a response to its client-initiated DSO
Keepalive message, or receives a server-initiated DSO Keepalive
message, the client has then received Session Timeout values dictated
by the server. The two timeout values contained in the DSO Keepalive
TLV from the server may each be higher, lower, or the same as the
respective Session Timeout values the client previously had for this
DSO session.
In the case of the keepalive timer, the handling of the received
value is straightforward. The act of receiving the message
containing the DSO Keepalive TLV itself resets the keepalive timer
and updates the keepalive interval for the DSO session. The new
keepalive interval indicates the maximum time that may elapse before
another message must be sent or received on this DSO session, if the
DSO session is to remain alive.
In the case of the inactivity timeout, the handling of the received
value superficially appears a little more subtle, though the meaning
of the inactivity timeout is unchanged - it still indicates the
maximum permissible time allowed without activity on a DSO session.
The act of receiving the message containing the DSO Keepalive TLV
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does not itself reset the inactivity timer. The time elapsed since
the last useful activity on this DSO session is unaffected by
exchange of DSO Keepalive messages. The act of receiving the message
containing the DSO Keepalive TLV does update the timeout associated
with the running inactivity timer; that becomes the new maximum
permissible time without activity on a DSO session.
o If the inactivity timer value is not greater than the new
inactivity timeout, then the DSO session may remain open for now.
When the inactivity timer value exceeds the new inactivity
timeout, the client MUST then close the DSO session, as described
above.
o If the inactivity timer value is already greater than the new
inactivity timeout, then this DSO session has already been
inactive for longer than the server permits, and the client MUST
immediately close this DSO session.
o If the inactivity timer value is more than twice the new
inactivity timeout, then this DSO session is eligible to be
forcibly terminated by the server and and the client MUST
immediately close this DSO session. However if a server abruptly
reduces the inactivity timeout in this way the server SHOULD give
the client a grace period of one quarter of the new inactivity
timeout, to give the client time to close the connection
gracefully before the server resorts to terminating it forcibly.
5.2. Relation to EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive Option
The inactivity timeout value in the Keepalive TLV (DSO-TYPE=1) has
similar intent to the EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive Option [RFC7828]. A
client/server pair that supports DSO MUST NOT use the EDNS(0) TCP
KeepAlive option within any message after a DSO session has been
established. Once a DSO session has been established, if either
client or server receives a DNS message over the DSO session that
contains an EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive option, this is an error and the
receiver of the EDNS(0) TCP Keepalive option MUST immediately
terminate the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other
protocols).
6. Retry Delay TLV
The Retry Delay TLV (DSO-TYPE=0) can be used as an Operation TLV or
as a Modifier TLV.
The TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA for the the Retry Delay TLV is as follows:
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1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| RETRY DELAY (32 bits) |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
RETRY DELAY: a time value, specified as a 32 bit word in network
order in units of milliseconds, within which the client MUST NOT
retry this operation, or retry connecting to this server.
The RECOMMENDED value is 10 seconds.
6.1. Use as an Operation TLV
When sent in a DSO request message, from server to client, the Retry
Delay TLV (0) is considered an Operation TLV. It is used by a server
to request that a client close the DSO session and underlying
connection, and not to reconnect for the indicated time interval.
In this case it applies to the DSO session as a whole, and the client
MUST close the DSO session, as described in section Section 8.9. The
RCODE in the message header MUST indicate the reason for the
termination:
o NOERROR indicates a routine shutdown.
o SERVFAIL indicates that the server is overloaded due to resource
exhaustion.
o REFUSED indicates that the server has been reconfigured and is no
longer able to perform one or more of the functions currently
being performed on this DSO session (for example, a DNS Push
Notification server could be reconfigured such that is is no
longer accepting DNS Push Notification requests for one or more of
the currently subscribed names).
This document specifies only these three RCODE values for Retry Delay
request. Servers sending Retry Delay requests SHOULD use one of
these three values. However, future circumstances may create
situations where other RCODE values are appropriate in Retry Delay
requests, so clients MUST be prepared to accept Retry Delay requests
with any RCODE value.
An acknowledgement is not desired for a Retry Delay Operation TLV and
the TLV Acknowledgement bit MUST be cleared in the request.
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6.2. Use as a Modifier TLV
When appended to a DSO response message for some client request, the
Retry Delay TLV (0) is considered a Modifier TLV. The indicated time
interval during which the client SHOULD NOT retry applies only to the
failed operation, not to the DSO session as a whole.
In the case of a client request that returns a nonzero RCODE value,
the server MAY append a Retry Delay TLV (0) to the response,
indicating the time interval during which the client SHOULD NOT
attempt this operation again.
7. Encryption Padding TLV
The Encryption Padding TLV (DSO-TYPE=2) can only be used as a
Modifier TLV. It is only applicable when the DSO Transport layer
uses encryption such as TLS.
The TYPE-DEPENDENT DATA for the the Padding TLV is optional and is a
variable length field containing non-specified values. A DATA LENGTH
of 0 essentially provides for 4 octets of padding (the minimum
amount).
1 1 1 1 1 1
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
/ /
/ VARIABLE NUMBER OF OCTETS /
/ /
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
As in [RFC7830] the PADDING octets SHOULD be set to 0x00. Other
values MAY be used, for example, in cases where there is a concern
that the padded message could be subject to compression before
encryption. PADDING octets of any value MUST be accepted in the
messages received.
The Encryption Padding TLV may be included in either a DSO request,
response, or both. As in [RFC7830] if a request is received with a
Encryption Padding TLV, then the response MUST also include an
Encryption Padding TLV.
The length of padding is intentionally not specified in this document
and is a function of current best practices with respect to the type
and length of data in the preceding TLVs. See
[I-D.ietf-dprive-padding-policy]
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8. DSO Session Lifecycle and Timers
8.1. DSO Session Initiation
A session begins when a client makes a new connection to a server.
A DSO session begin as described in Section 4.1.
The client may perform as many DNS operations as it wishes using the
newly created DSO session. Operations SHOULD be pipelined (i.e., the
client doesn't need wait for a response before sending the next
message). The server MUST act on messages in the order they are
transmitted, but responses to those messages MAY be sent out of
order, if appropriate.
8.2. DSO Session Timeouts
Two timeout values are associated with a DSO session: the inactivity
timeout, and the keepalive interval.
The first timeout value, the inactivity timeout, is the maximum time
for which a client may speculatively keep a DSO session open in the
expectation that it may have future requests to send to that server.
The second timeout value, the keepalive interval, is the maximum
permitted interval between client messages to the server if the
client wishes to keep the DSO session alive.
The two timeout values are independent. The inactivity timeout may
be lower, the same, or higher than the keepalive interval, though in
most cases the inactivity timeout is expected to be shorter than the
keepalive interval.
Only when the client has a very long-lived low-traffic state does the
keepalive interval come into play, to ensure that a sufficient
residual amount of traffic is generated to maintain NAT and firewall
state.
On a new DSO session, if no explicit DSO Keepalive message exchange
has taken place, the default value for both timeouts is 15 seconds.
For both timeouts, lower values of the timeout result in higher
network traffic and higher CPU load on the server.
8.3. Inactive DSO Sessions
At both servers and clients, the generation or reception of any
complete DNS message, including DNS requests, responses, updates, or
DSO messages, resets both timers for that DSO session, with the
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exception that a DSO Keepalive message resets only the keepalive
timer, not the inactivity timeout timer.
In addition, for as long as the client has an outstanding operation
in progress, the inactivity timer remains cleared, and an inactivity
timeout cannot occur.
For short-lived DNS operations like traditional queries and updates,
an operation is considered in progress for the time between request
and response, typically a period of a few hundred milliseconds at
most. At the client, the inactivity timer is cleared upon
transmission of a request and remains cleared until reception of the
corresponding response. At the server, the inactivity timer is
cleared upon reception of a request and remains cleared until
transmission of the corresponding response.
For long-lived DNS Stateful operations, an operation is considered in
progress for as long as the state is active, until it is cancelled.
This means that a DSO session can exist, with a state active, with no
messages flowing in either direction, for far longer than the
inactivity timeout, and this is not an error. This is why there are
two separate timers: the inactivity timeout, and the keepalive
interval. Just because a DSO session has no traffic for an extended
period of time does not automatically make that DSO session
"inactive", if it has an active state that is awaiting for events.
8.4. The Inactivity Timeout
The purpose of the inactivity timeout is for the server to balance
its trade off between the costs of setting up new DSO sessions and
the costs of maintaining inactive DSO sessions. A server with
abundant DSO session capacity can offer a high inactivity timeout, to
permit clients to keep a speculative DSO session open for a long
time, to save the cost of establishing a new DSO session for future
communications with that server. A server with scarce memory
resources can offer a low inactivity timeout, to cause clients to
promptly close DSO sessions whenever they have no outstanding
operations with that server, and then create a new DSO session later
when needed.
8.4.1. Closing Inactive DSO Sessions
A client is NOT required to wait until the inactivity timeout expires
before closing a DSO session. A client MAY close a DSO session at
any time, at the client's discretion. If a client determines that it
has no current or reasonably anticipated future need for an inactive
DSO session, then the client SHOULD close that connection.
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If, at any time during the life of the DSO session, the inactivity
timeout value (i.e., 15 seconds by default) elapses without there
being any operation active on the DSO session, the client MUST
gracefully close the connection with a TCP FIN (or equivalent for
other protocols).
If, at any time during the life of the DSO session, twice the
inactivity timeout value (i.e., 30 seconds by default) elapses
without there being any operation active on the DSO session, the
server SHOULD consider the client delinquent, and forcibly abort the
DSO session. For DSO sessions over TCP (or over TLS over TCP), to
avoid the burden of having a connection in TIME-WAIT state, instead
of closing the connection gracefully with a TCP FIN the server SHOULD
abort the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other
protocols). (In the BSD Sockets API this is achieved by setting the
SO_LINGER option to zero before closing the socket.)
In this context, an operation being active on a DSO session includes
a query waiting for a response, an update waiting for a response, or
active state, but not a DSO Keepalive message exchange itself. A DSO
Keepalive message exchange resets only the keepalive interval timer,
not the inactivity timeout timer.
If the client wishes to keep an inactive DSO session open for longer
than the default duration without having to send traffic every 15
seconds, then it uses the DSO Keepalive message to request longer
timeout values, as described in Section 5.
8.4.2. Values for the Inactivity Timeout
For the inactivity timeout value, lower values result in more
frequent DSO session teardown and re-establishment. Higher values
result in lower traffic and CPU load on the server, but a larger
memory burden to maintain state for inactive DSO sessions.
A shorter inactivity timeout with a longer keepalive interval signals
to the client that it should not speculatively keep inactive DSO
sessions open for very long for no reason, but when it does have an
active reason to keep a DSO session open, it doesn't need to be
sending an aggressive level of keepalive traffic.
A longer inactivity timeout with a shorter keepalive interval signals
to the client that it may speculatively keep inactive DSO sessions
open for a long time, but it should be sending a lot of keepalive
traffic on those inactive DSO sessions. This configuration is
expected to be less common.
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To avoid excessive traffic the server MUST NOT send a Keepalive
message (either a response to a client-initiated request, or a
server-initiated message) with an inactivity timeout value less than
ten seconds. If a client receives a Keepalive message specifying an
inactivity timeout value less than ten seconds this is an error and
the client MUST immediately terminate the connection with a TCP RST
(or equivalent for other protocols).
8.5. The Keepalive Interval
The purpose of the keepalive interval is to manage the generation of
sufficient messages to maintain state in middle-boxes (such at NAT
gateways or firewalls) and for the client and server to periodically
verify that they still have connectivity to each other. This allows
them to clean up state when connectivity is lost, and attempt re-
connection if appropriate.
8.5.1. Keepalive Interval Expiry
If, at any time during the life of the DSO session, the keepalive
interval value (i.e., 15 seconds by default) elapses without any DNS
messages being sent or received on a DSO session, the client MUST
take action to keep the DSO session alive. To keep the DSO session
alive the client MUST send a DSO Keepalive message (see Section 5).
A DSO Keepalive message exchange resets only the keepalive timer, not
the inactivity timer.
If a client disconnects from the network abruptly, without cleanly
closing its DSO session, leaving long-lived state uncanceled, the
server learns of this after failing to receive the required keepalive
traffic from that client. If, at any time during the life of the DSO
session, twice the keepalive interval value (i.e., 30 seconds by
default) elapses without any DNS messages being sent or received on a
DSO session, the server SHOULD consider the client delinquent, and
forcibly abort the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other
protocols).
8.5.2. Values for the Keepalive Interval
For the keepalive interval value, lower values result in higher
volume keepalive traffic. Higher values of the keepalive interval
reduce traffic and CPU load, but have minimal effect on the memory
burden at the server, because clients keep a DSO session open for the
same length of time (determined by the inactivity timeout) regardless
of the level of keepalive traffic required.
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It may be appropriate for clients and servers to select different
keepalive interval values depending on the nature of the network they
are on.
A corporate DNS server that knows it is serving only clients on the
internal network, with no intervening NAT gateways or firewalls, can
impose a higher keepalive interval, because frequent keepalive
traffic is not required.
A public DNS server that is serving primarily residential consumer
clients, where it is likely there will be a NAT gateway on the path,
may impose a lower keepalive interval, to generate more frequent
keepalive traffic.
A smart client may be adaptive to its environment. A client using a
private IPv4 address [RFC1918] to communicate with a DNS server at an
address that is not in the same IPv4 private address block, may
conclude that there is likely to be a NAT gateway on the path, and
accordingly request a lower keepalive interval.
For environments where there is a NAT gateway or firewalls on the
path, it is RECOMMENDED that clients request, and servers grant, a
keepalive interval of 15 minutes. In other environments it is
RECOMMENDED that clients request, and servers grant, a keepalive
interval of 60 minutes.
Note that the lower the keepalive interval value, the higher the load
on client and server. For example, an keepalive interval value of
100ms would result in a continuous stream of at least ten messages
per second, in both directions, to keep the DSO session alive. And,
in this extreme example, a single packet loss and retransmission over
a long path could introduce a momentary pause in the stream of
messages, long enough to cause the server to overzealously abort the
connection.
Because of this concern, the server MUST NOT send a Keepalive message
(either a response to a client-initiated request, or a server-
initiated message) with an keepalive interval value less than ten
seconds. If a client receives an Keepalive message specifying an
keepalive interval value less than ten seconds this is an error and
the client MUST immediately terminate the connection with a TCP RST
(or equivalent for other protocols).
8.6. Server-Initiated Termination on Error
After sending an error response to a client, the server MAY close the
DSO session, or may allow the DSO session to remain open. For error
conditions that only affect the single operation in question, the
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server SHOULD return an error response to the client and leave the
DSO session open for further operations. For error conditions that
are likely to make all operations unsuccessful in the immediate
future, the server SHOULD return an error response to the client and
then close the DSO session by sending a Retry Delay request message,
as described in Section 6.
8.7. Client Behaviour in Receiving an Error
Upon receiving an error response from the server, a client SHOULD NOT
automatically close the DSO session. An error relating to one
particular operation on a DSO session does not necessarily imply that
all other operations on that DSO session have also failed, or that
future operations will fail. The client should assume that the
server will make its own decision about whether or not to close the
DSO session, based on the server's determination of whether the error
condition pertains to this particular operation, or would also apply
to any subsequent operations. If the server does not close the DSO
session then the client SHOULD continue to use that DSO session for
subsequent operations.
8.8. Server-Initiated Termination on Overload
Apart from the cases where:
o Session Timeouts expire (see Section 8.2)
o On error (see {Section Section 8.7)
o When under load (see below)
a server MUST NOT close a DSO session with a client, except in
extraordinary error conditions. Closing the DSO session is the
client's responsibility, to be done at the client's discretion, when
it so chooses. A server only closes a DSO session under exceptional
circumstances, such as when the server application software or
underlying operating system is restarting, the server application
terminated unexpectedly (perhaps due to a bug that makes it crash),
or the server is undergoing maintenance procedures. When possible, a
server SHOULD send a Retry Delay message informing the client of the
reason for the DSO session being closed, and allow the client five
seconds to receive it before the server resorts to forcibly aborting
the connection.
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8.9. Retry Delay Operation TLV
There may be rare cases where a server is overloaded and wishes to
shed load. If a server is low on resources it MAY simply terminate a
client connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other protocols).
However, the likely behavior of the client may be simply to to treat
this as a network failure and connect immediately, putting more
burden on the server.
Therefore to avoid this reconnection implosion, a server SHOULD
instead choose to shed client load by sending a Retry Delay request
message, with an RCODE of SERVFAIL, to inform the client of the
overload situation. After sending a Retry Delay request message, the
server MUST NOT send any further messages on that DSO session.
After sending the Retry Delay request the server SHOULD allow the
client five seconds to close the connection, and if the client has
not closed the connection after five seconds then the server SHOULD
abort the connection with a TCP RST (or equivalent for other
protocols).
Upon receipt of a Retry Delay request from the server, the client
MUST make note of the reconnect delay for this server, and then
immediately close the connection. This is to place the burden of
TCP's TIME-WAIT state on the client.
A Retry Delay request message MUST NOT be initiated by a client. If
a server receives a Retry Delay request message this is an error and
the server MUST immediately terminate the connection with a TCP RST
(or equivalent for other protocols).
8.9.1. Outstanding Operations
At the moment a server chooses to initiate a Retry Delay request
message there may be DNS requests already in flight from client to
server on this DSO session, which will arrive at the server after its
Retry Delay request message has been sent. The server MUST silently
ignore such incoming requests, and MUST NOT generate any response
messages for them. When the Retry Delay request message from the
server arrives at the client, the client will determine that any DNS
requests it previously sent on this DSO session, that have not yet
received a response, now will certainly not be receiving any
response. Such requests should be considered failed, and should be
retried at a later time, as appropriate.
In the case where some, but not all, of the existing operations on a
DSO session have become invalid (perhaps because the server has been
reconfigured and is no longer authoritative for some of the names),
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but the server is terminating all DSO sessions en masse with a
REFUSED (5) RCODE, the RECONNECT DELAY MAY be zero, indicating that
the clients SHOULD immediately attempt to re-establish operations.
It is likely that some of the attempts will be successful and some
will not.
In the case where a server is terminating a large number of DSO
sessions at once (e.g., if the system is restarting) and the server
doesn't want to be inundated with a flood of simultaneous retries, it
SHOULD send different RECONNECT delay values to each client. These
adjustments MAY be selected randomly, pseudorandomly, or
deterministically (e.g., incrementing the time value by one tenth of
a second for each successive client, yielding a post-restart
reconnection rate of ten clients per second).
8.9.2. Client Reconnection
After a DSO session is closed by the server, the client SHOULD try to
reconnect, to that server, or to another suitable server, if more
than one is available. If reconnecting to the same server, the
client MUST respect the indicated delay before attempting to
reconnect.
If a particular server does not want a client to reconnect (it is
being de-commissioned), it SHOULD set the retry delay to the maximum
value (which is approximately 497 days). If the server will only be
out of service for a maintenance period, it should use a value closer
to the expected maintenance window and not default to a very large
delay value or clients may not attempt to reconnect after it resumes
service.
9. Connection Sharing
As in [RFC7766], to mitigate the risk of unintentional server
overload, DNS clients MUST take care to minimize the number of
concurrent TCP connections made to any individual server. It is
RECOMMENDED that for any given client/server interaction there SHOULD
be no more than one connection for regular queries, one for zone
transfers, and one for each protocol that is being used on top of TCP
(for example, if the resolver was using TLS). However, it is noted
that certain primary/ secondary configurations with many busy zones
might need to use more than one TCP connection for zone transfers for
operational reasons (for example, to support concurrent transfers of
multiple zones).
A single server may support multiple services, including DNS Updates
[RFC2136], DNS Push Notifications [I-D.ietf-dnssd-push], and other
services, for one or more DNS zones. When a client discovers that
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the target server for several different operations is the same target
hostname and port, the client SHOULD use a single shared DSO session
for all those operations. A client SHOULD NOT open multiple
connections to the same target host and port just because the names
being operated on are different or happen to fall within different
zones. This is to reduce unnecessary connection load on the DNS
server.
However, server implementers and operators should be aware that
connection sharing may not be possible in all cases. A single client
device may be home to multiple independent client software instances
that don't coordinate with each other. Similarly, multiple
independent client devices behind the same NAT gateway will also
typically appear to the DNS server as different source ports on the
same client IP address. Because of these constraints, a DNS server
MUST be prepared to accept multiple connections from different source
ports on the same client IP address.
10. IANA Considerations
10.1. DSO OPCODE Registration
IANA are directed to assign a value (tentatively 6) in the DNS
OPCODEs Registry for the DSO OPCODE.
10.2. DSO RCODE Registration
IANA are directed to assign a value (tentatively 11) in the DNS RCODE
Registry for the DSONOTIMP error code.
10.3. DSO Type Codes Registry
IANA are directed to create the DSO Type Codes Registry, with initial
values as follows:
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+-----------+--------------------------------+----------+-----------+
| Type | Name | Status | Reference |
+-----------+--------------------------------+----------+-----------+
| 0x0000 | RetryDelay | Standard | RFC-TBD |
| | | | |
| 0x0001 | KeepAlive | Standard | RFC-TBD |
| | | | |
| 0x0002 | Encryption Padding | Standard | RFC-TBD |
| | | | |
| 0x0003 - | Unassigned, reserved for DSO | | |
| 0x003F | session management TLVs | | |
| | | | |
| 0x0040 - | Unassigned | | |
| 0xF7FF | | | |
| | | | |
| 0xF800 - | Reserved for local / | | |
| 0xFBFF | experimental use | | |
| | | | |
| 0xFC00 - | Reserved for future expansion | | |
| 0xFFFF | | | |
+-----------+--------------------------------+----------+-----------+
Registration of additional DSO Type Codes requires publication of an
appropriate IETF "Standards Action" or "IESG Approval" document
[RFC5226].
11. Security Considerations
If this mechanism is to be used with DNS over TLS, then these
messages are subject to the same constraints as any other DNS over
TLS messages and MUST NOT be sent in the clear before the TLS session
is established.
The data field of the "Encryption Padding" TLV could be used as a
covert channel.
12. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tim Chown, Ralph Droms, Jan Komissar, and Manju Shankar Rao
for their helpful contributions to this document.
13. References
13.1. Normative References
[RFC1034] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - concepts and facilities",
STD 13, RFC 1034, DOI 10.17487/RFC1034, November 1987,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1034>.
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[RFC1035] Mockapetris, P., "Domain names - implementation and
specification", STD 13, RFC 1035, DOI 10.17487/RFC1035,
November 1987, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1035>.
[RFC1918] Rekhter, Y., Moskowitz, B., Karrenberg, D., de Groot, G.,
and E. Lear, "Address Allocation for Private Internets",
BCP 5, RFC 1918, DOI 10.17487/RFC1918, February 1996,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1918>.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc2119>.
[RFC2132] Alexander, S. and R. Droms, "DHCP Options and BOOTP Vendor
Extensions", RFC 2132, DOI 10.17487/RFC2132, March 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2132>.
[RFC2136] Vixie, P., Ed., Thomson, S., Rekhter, Y., and J. Bound,
"Dynamic Updates in the Domain Name System (DNS UPDATE)",
RFC 2136, DOI 10.17487/RFC2136, April 1997,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2136>.
[RFC5226] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", RFC 5226,
DOI 10.17487/RFC5226, May 2008, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc5226>.
[RFC6891] Damas, J., Graff, M., and P. Vixie, "Extension Mechanisms
for DNS (EDNS(0))", STD 75, RFC 6891,
DOI 10.17487/RFC6891, April 2013, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc6891>.
[RFC7766] Dickinson, J., Dickinson, S., Bellis, R., Mankin, A., and
D. Wessels, "DNS Transport over TCP - Implementation
Requirements", RFC 7766, DOI 10.17487/RFC7766, March 2016,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7766>.
[RFC7828] Wouters, P., Abley, J., Dickinson, S., and R. Bellis, "The
edns-tcp-keepalive EDNS0 Option", RFC 7828,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7828, April 2016, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7828>.
[RFC7830] Mayrhofer, A., "The EDNS(0) Padding Option", RFC 7830,
DOI 10.17487/RFC7830, May 2016, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc7830>.
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13.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-dnssd-push]
Pusateri, T. and S. Cheshire, "DNS Push Notifications",
draft-ietf-dnssd-push-12 (work in progress), July 2017.
[I-D.ietf-dprive-padding-policy]
Mayrhofer, A., "Padding Policy for EDNS(0)", draft-ietf-
dprive-padding-policy-01 (work in progress), July 2017.
[NagleDA] Cheshire, S., "TCP Performance problems caused by
interaction between Nagle's Algorithm and Delayed ACK",
May 2005,
<http://www.stuartcheshire.org/papers/nagledelayedack/>.
[RFC0768] Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
DOI 10.17487/RFC0768, August 1980, <https://www.rfc-
editor.org/info/rfc768>.
[RFC7858] Hu, Z., Zhu, L., Heidemann, J., Mankin, A., Wessels, D.,
and P. Hoffman, "Specification for DNS over Transport
Layer Security (TLS)", RFC 7858, DOI 10.17487/RFC7858, May
2016, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7858>.
Authors' Addresses
Ray Bellis
Internet Systems Consortium, Inc.
950 Charter Street
Redwood City CA 94063
USA
Phone: +1 650 423 1200
Email: ray@isc.org
Stuart Cheshire
Apple Inc.
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino CA 95014
USA
Phone: +1 408 974 3207
Email: cheshire@apple.com
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John Dickinson
Sinodun Internet Technologies
Magadalen Centre
Oxford Science Park
Oxford OX4 4GA
United Kingdom
Email: jad@sinodun.com
Sara Dickinson
Sinodun Internet Technologies
Magadalen Centre
Oxford Science Park
Oxford OX4 4GA
United Kingdom
Email: sara@sinodun.com
Allison Mankin
Salesforce
Email: allison.mankin@gmail.com
Tom Pusateri
Unaffiliated
Phone: +1 919 867 1330
Email: pusateri@bangj.com
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