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Trickle ICE: Incremental Provisioning of Candidates for the Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) Protocol
draft-ietf-ice-trickle-19

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Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 8838.
Authors Emil Ivov , Eric Rescorla , Justin Uberti , Peter Saint-Andre
Last updated 2018-04-05
Replaces draft-ietf-mmusic-trickle-ice
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
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Stream WG state Submitted to IESG for Publication
Document shepherd Nils Ohlmeier
Shepherd write-up Show Last changed 2018-01-24
IESG IESG state Became RFC 8838 (Proposed Standard)
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Responsible AD Ben Campbell
Send notices to Nils Ohlmeier <nohlmeier@mozilla.com>
IANA IANA review state Version Changed - Review Needed
draft-ietf-ice-trickle-19
Network Working Group                                            E. Ivov
Internet-Draft                                                 Atlassian
Intended status: Standards Track                             E. Rescorla
Expires: October 7, 2018                                      RTFM, Inc.
                                                               J. Uberti
                                                                  Google
                                                          P. Saint-Andre
                                                                 Mozilla
                                                           April 5, 2018

Trickle ICE: Incremental Provisioning of Candidates for the Interactive
               Connectivity Establishment (ICE) Protocol
                       draft-ietf-ice-trickle-19

Abstract

   This document describes "Trickle ICE", an extension to the
   Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol that enables
   ICE agents to begin connectivity checks while they are still
   gathering candidates, by incrementally "trickling" candidates over
   time.  This method can considerably accelerate the process of
   establishing a communication session.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on October 7, 2018.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2018 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

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   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  Determining Support for Trickle ICE . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   4.  Conveying the Initial ICE Description . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   5.  Responder Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     5.1.  Conveying the Initial Response  . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
   6.  Initiator Procedures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   7.  Performing Connectivity Checks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.1.  Forming Check Lists and Beginning Connectivity
           Checks  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.2.  Scheduling Checks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     7.3.  Empty Check Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     7.4.  Setting Check List State to Failed  . . . . . . . . . . .   9
   8.  Discovering and Conveying Additional Local Candidates . . . .   9
     8.1.  Pairing Newly Learned Candidates and Updating
           Check Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
       8.1.1.  Inserting a New Pair in a Check List  . . . . . . . .  11
     8.2.  Announcing End of Candidates  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   9.  Receiving Additional Remote Candidates  . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   10. Receiving an End-Of-Candidates Indication . . . . . . . . . .  17
   11. Subsequent Exchanges and ICE Restarts . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   12. Half Trickle  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
   13. Trickle ICE and Peer Reflexive Candidates . . . . . . . . . .  19
   14. Requirements for Using Protocols  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
   15. Preserving Candidate Order while Trickling  . . . . . . . . .  19
   16. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
   17. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   18. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
   19. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     19.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     19.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
   Appendix A.  Interaction with Regular ICE . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
   Appendix B.  Interaction with ICE Lite  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   Appendix C.  Changes from Earlier Versions  . . . . . . . . . . .  25
     C.1.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-18  . . . . . . . . .  26
     C.2.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-17  . . . . . . . . .  26
     C.3.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-16  . . . . . . . . .  26
     C.4.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-15  . . . . . . . . .  26

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     C.5.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-14  . . . . . . . . .  26
     C.6.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-13  . . . . . . . . .  26
     C.7.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-12  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.8.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-11  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.9.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-10  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.10. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-09  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.11. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-08  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.12. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-07  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.13. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-06  . . . . . . . . .  27
     C.14. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-05  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.15. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-04  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.16. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-03  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.17. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-02  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.18. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-01  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.19. Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-00  . . . . . . . . .  28
     C.20. Changes from draft-mmusic-trickle-ice-02  . . . . . . . .  29
     C.21. Changes from draft-ivov-01 and draft-mmusic-00  . . . . .  29
     C.22. Changes from draft-ivov-00  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     C.23. Changes from draft-rescorla-01  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
     C.24. Changes from draft-rescorla-00  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31

1.  Introduction

   The Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) protocol
   [rfc5245bis] describes how an ICE agent gathers candidates, exchanges
   candidates with a peer ICE agent, and creates candidate pairs.  Once
   the pairs have been created, the ICE agent will perform connectivity
   checks, and eventually nominate and select pairs that will be used
   for sending and receiving data within a communication session.

   Following the procedures in [rfc5245bis] can lead to somewhat lengthy
   session establishment times, because candidate gathering often
   involves querying STUN servers [RFC5389] and allocating relayed
   candidates using TURN servers [RFC5766].  Although many ICE
   procedures can be completed in parallel, the pacing requirements from
   [rfc5245bis] still need to be followed.

   This document defines a supplementary mode of ICE operation, "Trickle
   ICE", in which candidates can be exchanged incrementally as soon as
   they become available (and simultaneously with the gathering of other
   candidates).  Connectivity checks can also start as soon as candidate
   pairs have been created.  Because Trickle ICE enables candidate
   gathering and connectivity checks to be done in parallel, the method
   can considerably accelerate the process of establishing a
   communication session.

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   This document also defines how to discover support for Trickle ICE,
   how the procedures in [rfc5245bis] are modified or supplemented when
   using Trickle ICE, and how a Trickle ICE agent can interoperate with
   an ICE agent compliant to [rfc5245bis].

   This document does not define any protocol-specific usage of Trickle
   ICE.  Instead, protocol-specific details for Trickle ICE are defined
   in separate usage documents.  Examples of such documents are
   [I-D.ietf-mmusic-trickle-ice-sip] (which defines usage with the
   Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) [RFC3261] and the Session
   Description Protocol [RFC3261]) and [XEP-0176] (which defines usage
   with XMPP [RFC6120]).  However, some of the examples in the document
   use SDP and the offer/answer model [RFC3264] to explain the
   underlying concepts.

   The following diagram illustrates a successful Trickle ICE exchange
   with a using protocol that follows the offer/answer model:

           Alice                                            Bob
             |                     Offer                     |
             |---------------------------------------------->|
             |            Additional Candidates              |
             |---------------------------------------------->|
             |                     Answer                    |
             |<----------------------------------------------|
             |            Additional Candidates              |
             |<----------------------------------------------|
             | Additional Candidates and Connectivity Checks |
             |<--------------------------------------------->|
             |<========== CONNECTION ESTABLISHED ===========>|

                              Figure 1: Flow

   There is quite a bit of operational experience with the technique
   behind Trickle ICE, going back as far as 2005 (when the XMPP Jingle
   extension defined a "dribble mode" as specified in [XEP-0176]); this
   document incorporates feedback from those who have implemented and
   deployed the technique over the years.

2.  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 [RFC2119].

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   This specification makes use of all terminology defined for
   Interactive Connectivity Establishment in [rfc5245bis].  In addition,
   it defines the following terms:

   Full Trickle:  The typical mode of operation for Trickle ICE agents,
      in which the initial ICE description can include any number of
      candidates (even zero candidates) and does not need to include a
      full generation of candidates as in half trickle.

   Generation:  All of the candidates conveyed within an ICE session.

   Half Trickle:  A Trickle ICE mode of operation in which the initiator
      gathers a full generation of candidates strictly before creating
      and conveying the initial ICE description.  Once conveyed, this
      candidate information can be processed by regular ICE agents,
      which do not require support for Trickle ICE.  It also allows
      Trickle ICE capable responders to still gather candidates and
      perform connectivity checks in a non-blocking way, thus providing
      roughly "half" the advantages of Trickle ICE.  The half trickle
      mechanism is mostly meant for use when the responder's support for
      Trickle ICE cannot be confirmed prior to conveying the initial ICE
      description.

   ICE Description:  Any attributes related to the ICE session (not
      candidates) required to configure an ICE agent.  These include but
      are not limited to the username fragment, password, and other
      attributes.

   Trickled Candidates:  Candidates that a Trickle ICE agent conveys
      after conveying the initial ICE description or responding to the
      initial ICE description, but within the same ICE session.
      Trickled candidates can be conveyed in parallel with candidate
      gathering and connectivity checks.

   Trickling:  The act of incrementally conveying trickled candidates.

   Empty Check List:  A check list that initially does not contain any
      candidate pairs because they will be incrementally added as they
      are trickled.  (This scenario does not arise with a regular ICE
      agent, because all candidate pairs are known when the agent
      creates the check list set).

3.  Determining Support for Trickle ICE

   To fully support Trickle ICE, using protocols SHOULD incorporate one
   of the following mechanisms so that implementations can determine
   whether Trickle ICE is supported:

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   1.  Provide a capabilities discovery method so that agents can verify
       support of Trickle ICE prior to initiating a session (XMPP's
       Service Discovery [XEP-0030] is one such mechanism).

   2.  Make support for Trickle ICE mandatory so that user agents can
       assume support.

   If a using protocol does not provide a method of determining ahead of
   time whether Trickle ICE is supported, agents can make use of the
   half trickle procedure described in Section 12.

   Prior to conveying the initial ICE description, agents that implement
   using protocols that support capabilities discovery can attempt to
   verify whether or not the remote party supports Trickle ICE.  If an
   agent determines that the remote party does not support Trickle ICE,
   it MUST fall back to using regular ICE or abandon the entire session.

   Even if a using protocol does not include a capabilities discovery
   method, a user agent can provide an indication within the ICE
   description that it supports Trickle ICE by communicating an ICE
   option of 'trickle'.  This token MUST be provided either at the
   session level or, if at the data stream level, for every data stream
   (an agent MUST NOT specify Trickle ICE support for some data streams
   but not others).  Note: The encoding of the 'trickle' ICE option, and
   the message(s) used to carry it to the peer, are protocol specific;
   for instance, the encoding for the Session Description Protocol (SDP)
   [RFC4566] is defined in [I-D.ietf-mmusic-trickle-ice-sip].

   Dedicated discovery semantics and half trickle are needed only prior
   to session initiation.  After a session is established and Trickle
   ICE support is confirmed for both parties, either agent can use full
   trickle for subsequent exchanges.

4.  Conveying the Initial ICE Description

   An initiator can start gathering candidates as soon as it has an
   indication that communication is imminent (e.g., a user interface cue
   or an explicit request to initiate a session).  Unlike in regular
   ICE, in Trickle ICE implementations do not need to gather candidates
   in a blocking manner.  Therefore, unless half trickle is being used,
   the user experience is improved if the initiator generates and
   transmits their initial ICE description as early as possible (thus
   enabling the remote party to start gathering and trickling
   candidates).

   An initiator MAY include any mix of candidates when conveying the
   initial ICE description.  This includes the possibility of conveying
   all the candidates the initiator plans to use (as in half trickle),

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   conveying only a publicly-reachable IP address (e.g., a candidate at
   a data relay that is known to not be behind a firewall), or conveying
   no candidates at all (in which case the initiator can obtain the
   responder's initial candidate list sooner and the responder can begin
   candidate gathering more quickly).

   Methods for calculating priorities and foundations, as well as
   determining redundancy of candidates, work just as in regular ICE
   [rfc5245bis] (with the exception of pruning of duplicate peer
   reflexive candidates as described under Section 7.1).

5.  Responder Procedures

   When a responder receives the initial ICE description, it will first
   check if the ICE description or initiator indicates support for
   Trickle ICE as explained in Section 3.  If not, the responder MUST
   process the initial ICE description according to regular ICE
   procedures [rfc5245bis] (or, if no ICE support is detected at all,
   according to relevant processing rules for the using protocol, such
   as offer/answer processing rules [RFC3264]).  However, if support for
   Trickle ICE is confirmed, a responder will automatically assume
   support for regular ICE as well.

   If the initial ICE description indicates support for Trickle ICE, the
   responder will determine its role and start gathering and
   prioritizing candidates; while doing so, it will also respond by
   conveying its own ICE description, so that both the initiator and the
   responder can start forming check lists and begin connectivity
   checks.

5.1.  Conveying the Initial Response

   A responder can respond to the initial ICE description at any point
   while gathering candidates.  The ICE description in the response MAY
   contain any set of candidates, including all candidates or no
   candidates.  (The benefit of including no candidates is to convey the
   ICE description as quickly as possible, so that both parties can
   consider the overall session to be under active negotiation as soon
   as possible.)

   As noted in Section 3, in using protocols that use SDP the
   responder's ICE description can indicate support for Trickle ICE by
   including a token of "trickle" in the ice-options attribute.

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6.  Initiator Procedures

   When processing the initial ICE description from a responder, the
   initiator follows regular ICE procedures to determine its role, after
   which it forms check lists (as described in Section 7.1) and begins
   connectivity checks.

7.  Performing Connectivity Checks

   For the most part, Trickle ICE agents perform connectivity checks
   following regular ICE procedures.  However, the fact that gathering
   and communicating candidates is asynchronous in Trickle ICE results
   in several differences.

7.1.  Forming Check Lists and Beginning Connectivity Checks

   According to regular ICE procedures [rfc5245bis], in order for
   candidate pairing to be possible and for duplicate candidates to be
   pruned, the candidates would need to be provided in the relevant ICE
   descriptions.  By contrast, under Trickle ICE check lists can be
   empty until candidates are conveyed or received.  Therefore Trickle
   ICE agents handle check list formation and candidate pairing in a
   slightly different way than regular ICE agents: the agents still form
   the check lists, but they populate a given check list only after they
   actually have candidate pairs for that check list.  Every check list
   is initially placed in the Running state, even if the check list is
   empty.  An agent then begins connectivity checks (which includes
   changing the state of some candidate pairs from Frozen to Waiting) as
   defined in Section 6.1.2.6 of [rfc5245bis].

   With regard to pruning of duplicate candidate pairs, a Trickle ICE
   agent SHOULD follow a policy of keeping the higher priority candidate
   unless it is peer reflexive.

7.2.  Scheduling Checks

   As specified in [rfc5245bis], whenever timer Ta fires, only check
   lists in the Running state will be picked when scheduling
   connectivity checks for candidate pairs.

   Therefore, a Trickle ICE agent MUST keep each check list in the
   Running state as long as it expects candidate pairs to be
   incrementally added to the check list.  After that, the check list
   state is set according to the procedures in [rfc5245bis].

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7.3.  Empty Check Lists

   The state of an empty check list is initially set to Running, in
   accordance with Section 6.1.2.1 of [rfc5245bis].

   Whenever timer Ta fires, and an empty check list is picked, no action
   is performed for the list.  Without waiting for timer Ta to expire
   again, the agent selects the next check list in the Running state, in
   accordance with Section 6.1.4.2 of [rfc5245bis].

   In accordance with the rules defined in Section 8.1.1, when inserting
   a new candidate pair into an empty check list, the agent sets the
   pair to a state of Waiting or Frozen as appropriate.

7.4.  Setting Check List State to Failed

   Section 7.2.5.3.3 of [rfc5245bis] requires that agents update check
   lists and timer states upon completing a connectivity check
   transaction.  During such an update, regular ICE agents would set the
   state of a check list to Failed if both of the following two
   conditions are satisfied:

   o  all of the pairs in the check list are either in the Failed state
      or Succeeded state; and

   o  there is not a pair in the valid list for each component of the
      data stream.

   With Trickle ICE, the above situation would often occur when
   candidate gathering and trickling are still in progress, even though
   it is quite possible that future checks will succeed.  For this
   reason, Trickle ICE agents add the following conditions to the above
   list:

   o  all candidate gathering has completed and the agent is not
      expecting to discover any new local candidates; and

   o  the remote agent has conveyed an end-of-candidates indication for
      that check list as described in Section 8.2.

8.  Discovering and Conveying Additional Local Candidates

   After candidate information has been conveyed, agents will most
   likely continue discovering new local candidates as STUN, TURN, and
   other non-host candidate gathering mechanisms begin to yield results.
   Whenever an agent discovers such a new candidate it will compute its
   priority, type, foundation, and component ID according to regular ICE
   procedures.

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   The new candidate is then checked for redundancy against the existing
   list of local candidates.  If its transport address and base match
   those of an existing candidate, it will be considered redundant and
   will be ignored.  This would often happen for server reflexive
   candidates that match the host addresses they were obtained from
   (e.g., when the latter are public IPv4 addresses).  Contrary to
   regular ICE, Trickle ICE agents will consider the new candidate
   redundant regardless of its priority.

   Next the agent "trickles" the newly discovered candidate(s) to the
   remote agent.  The actual delivery of the new candidates is handled
   by a using protocol such as SIP or XMPP.  Trickle ICE imposes no
   restrictions on the way this is done (e.g., some using protocols
   might choose not to trickle updates for server reflexive candidates
   and instead rely on the discovery of peer reflexive ones).

   When candidates are trickled, the using protocol MUST deliver each
   candidate (and any end-of-candidates indication as described in
   Section 8.2) to the receiving Trickle ICE implementation exactly once
   and in the same order it was conveyed.  If the using protocol
   provides any candidate retransmissions, they need to be hidden from
   the ICE implementation.

   Also, candidate trickling needs to be correlated to a specific ICE
   session, so that if there is an ICE restart, any delayed updates for
   a previous session can be recognized as such and ignored by the
   receiving party.  For example, using protocols that signal candidates
   via SDP might include a Username Fragment value in the corresponding
   a=candidate line, such as:

     a=candidate:1 1 UDP 2130706431 2001:db8::1 5000 typ host ufrag 8hhY

   Or as another example, WebRTC implementations might include a
   Username Fragment in the JavaScript objects that represent
   candidates.

   Note: The using protocol needs to provide a mechanism for both
   parties to indicate and agree on the ICE session in force (as
   identified by the Username Fragment and Password combination) so that
   they have a consistent view of which candidates are to be paired.
   This is especially important in the case of ICE restarts (see
   Section 11).

   Once the candidate has been conveyed to the remote party, the agent
   checks if any remote candidates are currently known for this same

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   stream and component.  If not, the new candidate will simply be added
   to the list of local candidates.

   Otherwise, if the agent has already learned of one or more remote
   candidates for this stream and component, it will begin pairing the
   new local candidates with them and adding the pairs to the existing
   check lists according to their priority.

   Note: A Trickle ICE agent MUST NOT pair a local candidate until it
   has been trickled to the remote agent.

8.1.  Pairing Newly Learned Candidates and Updating Check Lists

   Forming candidate pairs works as described in the ICE specification
   [rfc5245bis].  However, adding the new pair to a check list happens
   according to the following rules:

   1.  If the new pair's local candidate is server reflexive, the agent
       MUST replace the candidate with its base before completing the
       redundancy check in step 2.

   2.  The agent eliminates redundant pairs by following the rules in
       Section 5.1.3 of [rfc5245bis], but only if the old pair has a
       state of Waiting or Frozen (thus avoiding removal of pairs for
       which connectivity checks are in flight or for which connectivity
       checks have already yielded a definitive result).

   3.  If after the foregoing redundancy test the check list where the
       pair is to be added already contains the maximum number of
       candidate pairs (100 by default as per [rfc5245bis]), the agent
       SHOULD discard any pairs in the Failed state to make room for the
       new pair.  If there are no such pairs, the agent SHOULD discard
       the new pair.

   4.  Otherwise, add the new pair to the check list.

8.1.1.  Inserting a New Pair in a Check List

   Consider the following tabular representation of all check lists in
   an agent (note that initially for one of the foundations, i.e., f5,
   there are no candidate pairs):

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   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  F   |  F   |  F   |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  F   |  F   |  F   |  F   |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  F   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  F   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

                   Figure 2: Example of Check List State

   Each row in the table represents a component for a given data stream
   (e.g., s1 and s2 might be the RTP and RTCP components for audio) and
   thus a single check list in the check list set.  Each column
   represents one foundation.  Each cell represents one candidate pair.
   In the tables shown in this section, "F" stands for "frozen", "W"
   stands for "waiting", and "S" stands for "succeeded"; in addition,
   "^^" is used to notate newly-added candidate pairs.

   When an agent commences ICE processing, in accordance with
   Section 6.1.2.6 of [rfc5245bis], for each foundation it will unfreeze
   the pair with the lowest component ID and, if the component IDs are
   equal, with the highest priority (this is the topmost candidate pair
   in every column).  This initial state is shown in the following
   table.

   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  W   |  W   |  W   |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  F   |  F   |  F   |  W   |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  F   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  F   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

                    Figure 3: Initial Check List State

   Then, as the checks proceed (see Section 7.2.5.4 of [rfc5245bis]),
   for each pair that enters the Succeeded state (denoted here by "S"),

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   the agent will unfreeze all pairs for all data streams with the same
   foundation (e.g., if the pair in column 1, row 1 succeeds then the
   agent will unfreeze the pair in column 1, rows 2, 3, and 4).

   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  S   |  W   |  W   |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  W   |  F   |  F   |  W   |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

         Figure 4: Check List State with Succeeded Candidate Pair

   Trickle ICE preserves all of these rules as they apply to "static"
   check list sets.  This implies that if a Trickle ICE agent were to
   begin connectivity checks with all of its pairs already present, the
   way that pair states change is indistinguishable from that of a
   regular ICE agent.

   Of course, the major difference with Trickle ICE is that check list
   sets can be dynamically updated because candidates can arrive after
   connectivity checks have started.  When this happens, an agent sets
   the state of the newly formed pair as described below.

   Rule 1: If the newly formed pair has the lowest component ID and, if
   the component IDs are equal, the highest priority of any candidate
   pair for this foundation (i.e., if it is the topmost pair in the
   column), set the state to Waiting.  For example, this would be the
   case if the newly formed pair were placed in column 5, row 1.  This
   rule is consistent with Section 6.1.2.6 of [rfc5245bis].

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   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  S   |  W   |  W   |      | ^W^  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  W   |  F   |  F   |  W   |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

         Figure 5: Check List State with Newly Formed Pair, Rule 1

   Rule 2: If there is at least one pair in the Succeeded state for this
   foundation, set the state to Waiting.  For example, this would be the
   case if the pair in column 5, row 1 succeeded and the newly formed
   pair were placed in column 5, row 2.  This rule is consistent with
   Section 7.2.5.3.3 of [rfc5245bis].

   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  S   |  W   |  W   |      |  S   |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  W   |  F   |  F   |  W   | ^W^  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

         Figure 6: Check List State with Newly Formed Pair, Rule 2

   Rule 3: In all other cases, set the state to Frozen.  For example,
   this would be the case if the newly formed pair were placed in column
   3, row 3.

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   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   |                 |  f1  |  f2  |  f3  |  f4  |  f5  |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s1 (Audio.RTP)  |  S   |  W   |  W   |      |  S   |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s2 (Audio.RTCP) |  W   |  F   |  F   |  W   |  W   |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s3 (Video.RTP)  |  W   |      | ^F^  |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+
   | s4 (Video.RTCP) |  W   |      |      |      |      |
   +-----------------+------+------+------+------+------+

         Figure 7: Check List State with Newly Formed Pair, Rule 3

8.2.  Announcing End of Candidates

   Once all candidate gathering is completed or expires for an ICE
   session associated with a specific data stream, the agent will
   generate an "end-of-candidates" indication for that session and
   convey it to the remote agent via the signaling channel.  Although
   the exact form of the indication depends on the using protocol, the
   indication MUST specify the generation (Username Fragment and
   Password combination) so that an agent can correlate the end-of-
   candidates indication with a particular ICE session.  The indication
   can be conveyed in the following ways:

   o  As part of an initiation request (which would typically be the
      case with the initial ICE description for half trickle)

   o  Along with the last candidate an agent can send for a stream

   o  As a standalone notification (e.g., after STUN Binding requests or
      TURN Allocate requests to a server time out and the agent is no
      longer actively gathering candidates)

   Conveying an end-of-candidates indication in a timely manner is
   important in order to avoid ambiguities and speed up the conclusion
   of ICE processing.  In particular:

   o  A controlled Trickle ICE agent SHOULD convey an end-of-candidates
      indication after it has completed gathering for a data stream,
      unless ICE processing terminates before the agent has had a chance
      to complete gathering.

   o  A controlling agent MAY conclude ICE processing prior to conveying
      end-of-candidates indications for all streams.  However, it is
      RECOMMENDED for a controlling agent to convey end-of-candidates

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      indications whenever possible for the sake of consistency and to
      keep middleboxes and controlled agents up-to-date on the state of
      ICE processing.

   When conveying an end-of-candidates indication during trickling
   (rather than as a part of the initial ICE description or a response
   thereto), it is the responsibility of the using protocol to define
   methods for associating the indication with one or more specific data
   streams.

   Receiving an end-of-candidates indication enables an agent to update
   check list states and, in case valid pairs do not exist for every
   component in every data stream, determine that ICE processing has
   failed.  It also enables an agent to speed up the conclusion of ICE
   processing when a candidate pair has been validated but it involves
   the use of lower-preference transports such as TURN.  In such
   situations, an implementation MAY choose to wait and see if higher-
   priority candidates are received; in this case the end-of-candidates
   indication provides a notification that such candidates are not
   forthcoming.

   An agent MAY also choose to generate an end-of-candidates indication
   before candidate gathering has actually completed, if the agent
   determines that gathering has continued for more than an acceptable
   period of time.  However, an agent MUST NOT convey any more
   candidates after it has conveyed an end-of-candidates indication.

   When performing half trickle, an agent SHOULD convey an end-of-
   candidates indication together with its initial ICE description
   unless it is planning to potentially trickle additional candidates
   (e.g., in case the remote party turns out to support Trickle ICE).

   After an agent conveys the end-of-candidates indication, it will
   update the state of the corresponding check list as explained in
   Section 7.  Past that point, an agent MUST NOT trickle any new
   candidates within this ICE session.  Therefore, adding new candidates
   to the negotiation is possible only through an ICE restart (see
   Section 11).

   This specification does not override regular ICE semantics for
   concluding ICE processing.  Therefore, even if end-of-candidates
   indications are conveyed, an agent will still need to go through pair
   nomination.  Also, if pairs have been nominated for components and
   data streams, ICE processing MAY still conclude even if end-of-
   candidates indications have not been received for all streams.  In
   all cases, an agent MUST NOT trickle any new candidates within an ICE
   session after nomination of a candidate pair as described in
   Section 8.1.1 of [rfc5245bis].

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9.  Receiving Additional Remote Candidates

   At any time during ICE processing, a Trickle ICE agent might receive
   new candidates from the remote agent.  When this happens and no local
   candidates are currently known for this same stream, the new remote
   candidates are added to the list of remote candidates.

   Otherwise, the new candidates are used for forming candidate pairs
   with the pool of local candidates and they are added to the local
   check lists as described in Section 8.1.

   Once the remote agent has completed candidate gathering, it will
   convey an end-of-candidates indication.  Upon receiving such an
   indication, the local agent MUST update check list states as per
   Section 7.  This might lead to some check lists being marked as
   Failed.

10.  Receiving an End-Of-Candidates Indication

   When an agent receives an end-of-candidates indication for a specific
   data stream, it will update the state of the relevant check list as
   per Section 7.  If the check list is still in the Running state after
   the update, the agent will persist the fact that an end-of-candidates
   indication has been received and take it into account in future
   updates to the check list.  After an agent has received an end-of-
   candidates indication, it MUST ignore any newly received candidates
   for that data stream or data session.

11.  Subsequent Exchanges and ICE Restarts

   Before conveying an end-of-candidates indication, either agent MAY
   convey subsequent candidate information at any time allowed by the
   using protocol.  When this happens, agents will use [rfc5245bis]
   semantics (e.g., checking of the Username Fragment and Password
   combination to determine whether or not the new candidate information
   requires an ICE restart.  If an ICE restart occurs, the agents can
   assume that Trickle ICE is still supported if support was determined
   previously, and thus can engage in Trickle ICE behavior as they would
   in an initial exchange of ICE descriptions where support was
   determined through a capabilities discovery method.

12.  Half Trickle

   In half trickle, the initiator conveys the initial ICE description
   with a usable but not necessarily full generation of candidates.
   This ensures that the ICE description can be processed by a regular
   ICE responder and is mostly meant for use in cases where support for
   Trickle ICE cannot be confirmed prior to conveying the initial ICE

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   description.  The initial ICE description indicates support for
   Trickle ICE, so that the responder can respond with something less
   than a full generation of candidates and then trickle the rest.  The
   initial ICE description for half trickle can contain an end-of-
   candidates indication, although this is not mandatory because if
   trickle support is confirmed then the initiator can choose to trickle
   additional candidates before it conveys an end-of-candidates
   indication.

   The half trickle mechanism can be used in cases where there is no way
   for an agent to verify in advance whether a remote party supports
   Trickle ICE.  Because the initial ICE description contain a full
   generation of candidates, it can thus be handled by a regular ICE
   agent, while still allowing a Trickle ICE agent to use the
   optimization defined in this specification.  This prevents
   negotiation from failing in the former case while still giving
   roughly half the Trickle ICE benefits in the latter.

   Use of half trickle is only necessary during an initial exchange of
   ICE descriptions.  After both parties have received an ICE
   description from their peer, they can each reliably determine Trickle
   ICE support and use it for all subsequent exchanges.

   In some instances, using half trickle might bring more than just half
   the improvement in terms of user experience.  This can happen when an
   agent starts gathering candidates upon user interface cues that the
   user will soon be initiating an interaction, such as activity on a
   keypad or the phone going off hook.  This would mean that some or all
   of the candidate gathering could be completed before the agent
   actually needs to convey the candidate information.  Because the
   responder will be able to trickle candidates, both agents will be
   able to start connectivity checks and complete ICE processing earlier
   than with regular ICE and potentially even as early as with full
   trickle.

   However, such anticipation is not always possible.  For example, a
   multipurpose user agent or a WebRTC web page where communication is a
   non-central feature (e.g., calling a support line in case of a
   problem with the main features) would not necessarily have a way of
   distinguishing between call intentions and other user activity.  In
   such cases, using full trickle is most likely to result in an ideal
   user experience.  Even so, using half trickle would be an improvement
   over regular ICE because it would result in a better experience for
   responders.

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13.  Trickle ICE and Peer Reflexive Candidates

   Even though Trickle ICE does not explicitly modify the procedures for
   handling peer-reflexive candidates, use of Trickle ICE can have an
   impact on how they are processed.  With Trickle ICE, it is possible
   that server reflexive candidates can be discovered as peer reflexive
   in cases where incoming connectivity checks are received from these
   candidates before the trickle updates that carry them.

   While this would certainly increase the number of cases where ICE
   processing nominates and selects candidates discovered as peer-
   reflexive, it does not require any change in processing.

   It is also likely that some using protocols would prefer not to
   trickle server reflexive candidates to entities that are known to be
   publicly accessible and where sending a direct STUN binding request
   is likely to reach the destination faster than the trickle update
   that travels through the signaling path.

14.  Requirements for Using Protocols

   In order to fully enable the use of Trickle ICE, this specification
   defines the following requirements for using protocols.

   o  A using protocol SHOULD provide a way for parties to advertise and
      discover support for Trickle ICE before an ICE session begins (see
      Section 3).

   o  A using protocol MUST provide methods for incrementally conveying
      (i.e., "trickling") additional candidates after conveying the
      initial ICE description (see Section 8).

   o  A using protocol MUST deliver each trickled candidate or end-of-
      candidates indication exactly once and in the same order it was
      conveyed (see Section 8).

   o  A using protocol MUST provide a mechanism for both parties to
      indicate and agree on the ICE session in force (see Section 8).

   o  A using protocol MUST provide a way for parties to communicate the
      end-of-candidates indication, which MUST specify the particular
      ICE session to which the indication applies (see Section 8.2).

15.  Preserving Candidate Order while Trickling

   One important aspect of regular ICE is that connectivity checks for a
   specific foundation and component are attempted simultaneously by
   both agents, so that any firewalls or NATs fronting the agents would

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   whitelist both endpoints and allow all except for the first
   ("suicide") packets to go through.  This is also important to
   unfreezing candidates at the right time.  While not crucial,
   preserving this behavior in Trickle ICE is likely to improve ICE
   performance.

   To achieve this, when trickling candidates, agents SHOULD respect the
   order of components as reflected by their component IDs; that is,
   candidates for a given component SHOULD NOT be conveyed prior to
   candidates for a component with a lower ID number within the same
   foundation.  In addition, candidates SHOULD be paired, following the
   procedures in Section 8.1.1, in the same order they are conveyed.

   For example, the following SDP description contains two components
   (RTP and RTCP) and two foundations (host and server reflexive):

     v=0
     o=jdoe 2890844526 2890842807 IN IP4 10.0.1.1
     s=
     c=IN IP4 10.0.1.1
     t=0 0
     a=ice-pwd:asd88fgpdd777uzjYhagZg
     a=ice-ufrag:8hhY
     m=audio 5000 RTP/AVP 0
     a=rtpmap:0 PCMU/8000
     a=candidate:1 1 UDP 2130706431 10.0.1.1 5000 typ host
     a=candidate:1 2 UDP 2130706431 10.0.1.1 5001 typ host
     a=candidate:2 1 UDP 1694498815 192.0.2.3 5000 typ srflx
         raddr 10.0.1.1 rport 8998
     a=candidate:2 2 UDP 1694498815 192.0.2.3 5001 typ srflx
         raddr 10.0.1.1 rport 8998

   For this candidate information the RTCP host candidate would not be
   conveyed prior to the RTP host candidate.  Similarly the RTP server
   reflexive candidate would be conveyed together with or prior to the
   RTCP server reflexive candidate.

16.  IANA Considerations

   IANA is requested to register the following ICE option in the "ICE
   Options" sub-registry of the "Interactive Connectivity Establishment
   (ICE) registry", following the procedures defined in [RFC6336].

   ICE Option:  trickle

   Contact:  IESG, iesg@ietf.org

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   Change control:  IESG

   Description:  An ICE option of "trickle" indicates support for
      incremental communication of ICE candidates.

   Reference:  RFC XXXX

17.  Security Considerations

   This specification inherits most of its semantics from [rfc5245bis]
   and as a result all security considerations described there apply to
   Trickle ICE.

   If the privacy implications of revealing host addresses on an
   endpoint device are a concern (see for example the discussion in
   [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-ip-handling] and in Section 19 of [rfc5245bis]),
   agents can generate ICE descriptions that contain no candidates and
   then only trickle candidates that do not reveal host addresses (e.g.,
   relayed candidates).

18.  Acknowledgements

   The authors would like to thank Bernard Aboba, Flemming Andreasen,
   Rajmohan Banavi, Taylor Brandstetter, Philipp Hancke, Christer
   Holmberg, Ari Keranen, Paul Kyzivat, Jonathan Lennox, Enrico Marocco,
   Pal Martinsen, Nils Ohlmeier, Thomas Stach, Peter Thatcher, Martin
   Thomson, Dale R.  Worley, and Brandon Williams for their reviews and
   suggestions on improving this document.  Thanks also to Ari Keranen
   and Peter Thatcher in their role as chairs, and Ben Campbell in his
   role as responsible Area Director.

19.  References

19.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

   [rfc5245bis]
              Keranen, A., Holmberg, C., and J. Rosenberg, "Interactive
              Connectivity Establishment (ICE): A Protocol for Network
              Address Translator (NAT) Traversal", draft-ietf-ice-
              rfc5245bis-20 (work in progress), March 2018.

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19.2.  Informative References

   [I-D.ietf-mmusic-trickle-ice-sip]
              Ivov, E., Stach, T., Marocco, E., and C. Holmberg, "A
              Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) usage for Trickle ICE",
              draft-ietf-mmusic-trickle-ice-sip-14 (work in progress),
              February 2018.

   [I-D.ietf-rtcweb-ip-handling]
              Uberti, J. and G. Shieh, "WebRTC IP Address Handling
              Requirements", draft-ietf-rtcweb-ip-handling-06 (work in
              progress), March 2018.

   [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>.

   [RFC3261]  Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston,
              A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., Handley, M., and E.
              Schooler, "SIP: Session Initiation Protocol", RFC 3261,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3261, June 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3261>.

   [RFC3264]  Rosenberg, J. and H. Schulzrinne, "An Offer/Answer Model
              with Session Description Protocol (SDP)", RFC 3264,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC3264, June 2002,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3264>.

   [RFC4566]  Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and C. Perkins, "SDP: Session
              Description Protocol", RFC 4566, DOI 10.17487/RFC4566,
              July 2006, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4566>.

   [RFC4787]  Audet, F., Ed. and C. Jennings, "Network Address
              Translation (NAT) Behavioral Requirements for Unicast
              UDP", BCP 127, RFC 4787, DOI 10.17487/RFC4787, January
              2007, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4787>.

   [RFC5389]  Rosenberg, J., Mahy, R., Matthews, P., and D. Wing,
              "Session Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN)", RFC 5389,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5389, October 2008,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5389>.

   [RFC5766]  Mahy, R., Matthews, P., and J. Rosenberg, "Traversal Using
              Relays around NAT (TURN): Relay Extensions to Session
              Traversal Utilities for NAT (STUN)", RFC 5766,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC5766, April 2010,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5766>.

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   [RFC6120]  Saint-Andre, P., "Extensible Messaging and Presence
              Protocol (XMPP): Core", RFC 6120, DOI 10.17487/RFC6120,
              March 2011, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6120>.

   [RFC6336]  Westerlund, M. and C. Perkins, "IANA Registry for
              Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE) Options",
              RFC 6336, DOI 10.17487/RFC6336, July 2011,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6336>.

   [XEP-0030]
              Hildebrand, J., Millard, P., Eatmon, R., and P. Saint-
              Andre, "XEP-0030: Service Discovery", XEP XEP-0030, June
              2008.

   [XEP-0176]
              Beda, J., Ludwig, S., Saint-Andre, P., Hildebrand, J.,
              Egan, S., and R. McQueen, "XEP-0176: Jingle ICE-UDP
              Transport Method", XEP XEP-0176, June 2009.

Appendix A.  Interaction with Regular ICE

   The ICE protocol was designed to be flexible enough to work in and
   adapt to as many network environments as possible.  Despite that
   flexibility, ICE as specified in [rfc5245bis] does not by itself
   support trickle ICE.  This section describes how trickling of
   candidates interacts with ICE.

   [rfc5245bis] describes the conditions required to update check lists
   and timer states while an ICE agent is in the Running state.  These
   conditions are verified upon transaction completion and one of them
   stipulates that:

      If there is not a pair in the valid list for each component of the
      data stream, the state of the check list is set to Failed.

   This could be a problem and cause ICE processing to fail prematurely
   in a number of scenarios.  Consider the following case:

   1.  Alice and Bob are both located in different networks with Network
       Address Translation (NAT).  Alice and Bob themselves have
       different address but both networks use the same private internet
       block (e.g., the "20-bit block" 172.16/12 specified in
       [RFC1918]).

   2.  Alice conveys to Bob the candidate 172.16.0.1 which also happens
       to correspond to an existing host on Bob's network.

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   3.  Bob creates a check list consisting solely of 172.16.0.1 and
       starts checks.

   4.  These checks reach the host at 172.16.0.1 in Bob's network, which
       responds with an ICMP "port unreachable" error; per [rfc5245bis]
       Bob marks the transaction as Failed.

   At this point the check list only contains Failed candidates and the
   valid list is empty.  This causes the data stream and potentially all
   ICE processing to fail, even though if Trickle ICE agents could
   subsequently convey candidates that would cause previously empty
   check lists to become non-empty.

   A similar race condition would occur if the initial ICE description
   from Alice contain only candidates that can be determined as
   unreachable from any of the candidates that Bob has gathered (e.g.,
   this would be the case if Bob's candidates only contain IPv4
   addresses and the first candidate that he receives from Alice is an
   IPv6 one).

   Another potential problem could arise when a non-trickle ICE
   implementation initiates an interaction with a Trickle ICE
   implementation.  Consider the following case:

   1.  Alice's client has a non-Trickle ICE implementation.

   2.  Bob's client has support for Trickle ICE.

   3.  Alice and Bob are behind NATs with address-dependent filtering
       [RFC4787].

   4.  Bob has two STUN servers but one of them is currently
       unreachable.

   After Bob's agent receives Alice's initial ICE description it would
   immediately start connectivity checks.  It would also start gathering
   candidates, which would take a long time because of the unreachable
   STUN server.  By the time Bob's answer is ready and conveyed to
   Alice, Bob's connectivity checks might have failed: until Alice gets
   Bob's answer, she won't be able to start connectivity checks and
   punch holes in her NAT.  The NAT would hence be filtering Bob's
   checks as originating from an unknown endpoint.

Appendix B.  Interaction with ICE Lite

   The behavior of ICE lite agents that are capable of Trickle ICE does
   not require any particular rules other than those already defined in

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   this specification and [rfc5245bis].  This section is hence provided
   only for informational purposes.

   An ICE lite agent would generate candidate information as per
   [rfc5245bis] and would indicate support for Trickle ICE.  Given that
   the candidate information will contain a full generation of
   candidates, it would also be accompanied by an end-of-candidates
   indication.

   When performing full trickle, a full ICE implementation could convey
   the initial ICE description or response thereto with no candidates.
   After receiving a response that identifies the remote agent as an ICE
   lite implementation, the initiator can choose to not trickle any
   additional candidates.  The same is also true in the case when the
   ICE lite agent initiates the interaction and the full ICE agent is
   the responder.  In these cases the connectivity checks would be
   enough for the ICE lite implementation to discover all potentially
   useful candidates as peer reflexive.  The following example
   illustrates one such ICE session using SDP syntax:

           ICE Lite                                          Bob
            Agent
              |   Offer (a=ice-lite a=ice-options:trickle)    |
              |---------------------------------------------->|
              |                                               |no cand
              |         Answer (a=ice-options:trickle)        |trickling
              |<----------------------------------------------|
              |              Connectivity Checks              |
              |<--------------------------------------------->|
     peer rflx|                                               |
    cand disco|                                               |
              |<========== CONNECTION ESTABLISHED ===========>|

                             Figure 8: Example

   In addition to reducing signaling traffic this approach also removes
   the need to discover STUN bindings or make TURN allocations, which
   can considerably lighten ICE processing.

Appendix C.  Changes from Earlier Versions

   Note to the RFC Editor: please remove this section prior to
   publication as an RFC.

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C.1.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-18

   o  Cleaned up pairing and redundancy checking rules for newly
      discovered candidates per IESG feedback and WG discussion.

   o  Improved wording in half trickle section.

   o  Changed "not more than once" to "exactly once".

   o  Changed NAT examples back to IPv4.

C.2.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-17

   o  Simplified the rules for inserting a new pair in a check list.

   o  Clarified it is not allowed to nominate a candidate pair after a
      pair has already been nominated (a.k.a.  renomination or
      continuous nomination).

   o  Removed some text that referenced older versions of rfc5245bis.

   o  Removed some text that duplicated concepts and procedures
      specified in rfc5245bis.

   o  Removed the ill-defined concept of stream order.

   o  Shortened the introduction.

C.3.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-16

   o  Made "ufrag" terminology consistent with 5245bis.

   o  Applied in-order delivery rule to end-of-candidates indication.

C.4.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-15

   o  Adjustments to address AD review feedback.

C.5.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-14

   o  Minor modifications to track changes to ICE core.

C.6.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-13

   o  Removed independent monitoring of check list "states" of frozen or
      active, since this is handled by placing a check list in the
      Running state defined in ICE core.

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C.7.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-12

   o  Specified that the end-of-candidates indication must include the
      generation (ufrag/pwd) to enable association with a particular ICE
      session.

   o  Further editorial fixes to address WGLC feedback.

C.8.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-11

   o  Editorial and terminological fixes to address WGLC feedback.

C.9.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-10

   o  Minor editorial fixes.

C.10.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-09

   o  Removed immediate unfreeze upon Fail.

   o  Specified MUST NOT regarding ice-options.

   o  Changed terminology regarding initial ICE parameters to avoid
      implementer confusion.

C.11.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-08

   o  Reinstated text about in-order processing of messages as a
      requirement for signaling protocols.

   o  Added IANA registration template for ICE option.

   o  Corrected Case 3 rule in Section 8.1.1 to ensure consistency with
      regular ICE rules.

   o  Added tabular representations to Section 8.1.1 in order to
      illustrate the new pair rules.

C.12.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-07

   o  Changed "ICE description" to "candidate information" for
      consistency with 5245bis.

C.13.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-06

   o  Addressed editorial feedback from chairs' review.

   o  Clarified terminology regarding generations.

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C.14.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-05

   o  Rewrote the text on inserting a new pair into a check list.

C.15.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-04

   o  Removed dependency on SDP and offer/answer model.

   o  Removed mentions of aggressive nomination, since it is deprecated
      in 5245bis.

   o  Added section on requirements for signaling protocols.

   o  Clarified terminology.

   o  Addressed various WG feedback.

C.16.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-03

   o  Provided more detailed description of unfreezing behavior,
      specifically how to replace pre-existing peer-reflexive candidates
      with higher-priority ones received via trickling.

C.17.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-02

   o  Adjusted unfreezing behavior when there are disparate foundations.

C.18.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-01

   o  Changed examples to use IPv6.

C.19.  Changes from draft-ietf-ice-trickle-00

   o  Removed dependency on SDP (which is to be provided in a separate
      specification).

   o  Clarified text about the fact that a check list can be empty if no
      candidates have been sent or received yet.

   o  Clarified wording about check list states so as not to define new
      states for "Active" and "Frozen" because those states are not
      defined for check lists (only for candidate pairs) in ICE core.

   o  Removed open issues list because it was out of date.

   o  Completed a thorough copy edit.

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C.20.  Changes from draft-mmusic-trickle-ice-02

   o  Addressed feedback from Rajmohan Banavi and Brandon Williams.

   o  Clarified text about determining support and about how to proceed
      if it can be determined that the answering agent does not support
      Trickle ICE.

   o  Clarified text about check list and timer updates.

   o  Clarified when it is appropriate to use half trickle or to send no
      candidates in an offer or answer.

   o  Updated the list of open issues.

C.21.  Changes from draft-ivov-01 and draft-mmusic-00

   o  Added a requirement to trickle candidates by order of components
      to avoid deadlocks in the unfreezing algorithm.

   o  Added an informative note on peer-reflexive candidates explaining
      that nothing changes for them semantically but they do become a
      more likely occurrence for Trickle ICE.

   o  Limit the number of pairs to 100 to comply with 5245.

   o  Added clarifications on the non-importance of how newly discovered
      candidates are trickled/sent to the remote party or if this is
      done at all.

   o  Added transport expectations for trickled candidates as per Dale
      Worley's recommendation.

C.22.  Changes from draft-ivov-00

   o  Specified that end-of-candidates is a media level attribute which
      can of course appear as session level, which is equivalent to
      having it appear in all m-lines.  Also made end-of-candidates
      optional for cases such as aggressive nomination for controlled
      agents.

   o  Added an example for ICE lite and Trickle ICE to illustrate how,
      when talking to an ICE lite agent doesn't need to send or even
      discover any candidates.

   o  Added an example for ICE lite and Trickle ICE to illustrate how,
      when talking to an ICE lite agent doesn't need to send or even
      discover any candidates.

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   o  Added wording that explicitly states ICE lite agents have to be
      prepared to receive no candidates over signaling and that they
      should not freak out if this happens.  (Closed the corresponding
      open issue).

   o  It is now mandatory to use MID when trickling candidates and using
      m-line indexes is no longer allowed.

   o  Replaced use of 0.0.0.0 to IP6 :: in order to avoid potential
      issues with RFC2543 SDP libraries that interpret 0.0.0.0 as an on-
      hold operation.  Also changed the port number here from 1 to 9
      since it already has a more appropriate meaning.  (Port change
      suggested by Jonathan Lennox).

   o  Closed the Open Issue about use about what to do with cands
      received after end-of-cands.  Solution: ignore, do an ICE restart
      if you want to add something.

   o  Added more terminology, including trickling, trickled candidates,
      half trickle, full trickle,

   o  Added a reference to the SIP usage for Trickle ICE as requested at
      the Boston interim.

C.23.  Changes from draft-rescorla-01

   o  Brought back explicit use of Offer/Answer.  There are no more
      attempts to try to do this in an O/A independent way.  Also
      removed the use of ICE Descriptions.

   o  Added SDP specification for trickled candidates, the trickle
      option and 0.0.0.0 addresses in m-lines, and end-of-candidates.

   o  Support and Discovery.  Changed that section to be less abstract.
      As discussed in IETF85, the draft now says implementations and
      usages need to either determine support in advance and directly
      use trickle, or do half trickle.  Removed suggestion about use of
      discovery in SIP or about letting implementing protocols do what
      they want.

   o  Defined Half Trickle.  Added a section that says how it works.
      Mentioned that it only needs to happen in the first o/a (not
      necessary in updates), and added Jonathan's comment about how it
      could, in some cases, offer more than half the improvement if you
      can pre-gather part or all of your candidates before the user
      actually presses the call button.

   o  Added a short section about subsequent offer/answer exchanges.

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   o  Added a short section about interactions with ICE Lite
      implementations.

   o  Added two new entries to the open issues section.

C.24.  Changes from draft-rescorla-00

   o  Relaxed requirements about verifying support following a
      discussion on MMUSIC.

   o  Introduced ICE descriptions in order to remove ambiguous use of
      3264 language and inappropriate references to offers and answers.

   o  Removed inappropriate assumption of adoption by RTCWEB pointed out
      by Martin Thomson.

Authors' Addresses

   Emil Ivov
   Atlassian
   303 Colorado Street, #1600
   Austin, TX  78701
   USA

   Phone: +1-512-640-3000
   Email: eivov@atlassian.com

   Eric Rescorla
   RTFM, Inc.
   2064 Edgewood Drive
   Palo Alto, CA  94303
   USA

   Phone: +1 650 678 2350
   Email: ekr@rtfm.com

   Justin Uberti
   Google
   747 6th St S
   Kirkland, WA  98033
   USA

   Phone: +1 857 288 8888
   Email: justin@uberti.name

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   Peter Saint-Andre
   Mozilla
   P.O. Box 787
   Parker, CO  80134
   USA

   Phone: +1 720 256 6756
   Email: stpeter@mozilla.com
   URI:   https://www.mozilla.com/

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